mB UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES k> , . ST*>,i,L , : j. ./,_.! .'-'I j-4i t,. .* ',: L-J SiJi.v if .{. ,,;,,;., i ''."' 3 FEMALE PROSE WRITERS. FEMALE PROSE WRITERS or AMERICA, WITH PORTRAITS, BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, AND SPECIMENS OF THEIR WRITINGS. BY JOHN S. HART, LL.D FIFTH EDITION. , PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED BY E. H. BUTLER & CO. 1866. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by E. H. BUTLER & CO., in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PS PREFACE. s THE unwonted favour extended to " Read's Female Poets of ,_ America," led to the belief that a work on the Female Prose 3 Writers, constructed on a similar plan, would be not unacceptable 2 to the public. In the preparation of "the biographies, much difficulty has been experienced. Few things are more intangible and elusive, than 2! the biography of persons still living, and yet, in the case of those who jq have pleased us by their writings, few things are more interesting. It seems to be an instinctive desire of the human heart, on becom- ing acquainted with any work of genius, to know something of its author. Nor is this mere idle curiosity. It is a part of that homage, which every mind rightly constituted, spontaneously offers to whatever is great or good. This feeling of personal interest in an author who has moved us, is greatly increased where, as in the case of most female writers, the subjects of which they write, are chiefly of an emotional nature, carrying with them on every page the unmistakeable impress of personal sympathy, if not experience. Women, far more than men, write from the heart. Their own likes and dislikes, their feelings, opinions, tastes, and sympathies are so mixed up with those of their subject, that the interest of the L'*\ 397165 v ; PREFACE. reader is often enlisted quite as much for the writer, as for the hero, of a tale. Knowing, therefore, how general is this desire to become ac- quainted with the personal history of authors, I have taken special pains, in preparing a work on the Female Prose Writers of the country, to make the biographical sketches as full and minute as circumstances would justify, or the writers themselves would allow. The work contains two charming pieces of autobiography, now appearing for the first time, from two long-established favourites with the public, Miss Leslie and Mrs. Gilman. In almost all cases the information has been obtained directly by correspondence with the authors, or their friends. Where this has failed, recourse has been had to the best printed authorities. The work, it is believed, will be found to contain an unusual amount of authentic informa- tion, and on subjects where authentic information is equally desir- able and difficult to obtain. The task of making selections has not been easy. I have studied, as far as possible, to select passages characteristic of the different styles of each writer, and at the same time to present the reader with an agreeable variety. Those who have not been led professionally, or otherwise, to exa- mine the subject particularly, will probably be surprised at the evidences of the rapid growth of literature, among American women, during the present generation. When Hannah Adams first published her " View of all Religions," so rare was the example of a woman who could write a book, that she was looked upon as one of the wonders of the Western world. Learned men of Europe sought her acquaintance, and entered into correspondence with her. Yet now, less than twenty years since the death of Hannah Adams, a pon- derous volume of nearly five hundred pages is hardly sufficient to enrol the names of those of our female writers, who have already adorned . the annals of literature by their prose writings, to say PREFACE. vii nothing of the numerous and not less distinguished sisterhood, wko have limited themselves to poetry. A word in regard to the portraits. These have been made, wher- ever it was practicable from original paintings or drawings. NOTE TO THE REVISED EDITION. IN preparing this work for a new edition the biographies, in the case of authors still living, have been carefully revised and brought up to the present time, and a considerable number of new names has been introduced,, increasing materially the size of the work. SEPTEMBER, 1864. CONTENTS. CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK: PAGE BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 17 THE 8ABDATH IN NEW ENGLAND 24 ELIZA LESLIE : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . * . 26 AUTOBIOGRAPHY .... 27 MRS. DEHRINGTON'S RECEPTION DAY . 32 CAROLINE GILMAN: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . . .49 AUTOBIOGRAPHY .... 49 SARAH HALL: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 58 ON FASHION ..... ,60 MARIA J. McINTOSH: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 63 TWO PORTRAITS .... 69 LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .....*. w THE LOST CHILDREN . . ... 84 I HAVE SEEN AN END OF ALL PERFECTION . .-.;... . . . , SARAH J. HALE : * BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .... . . . . 93 96 EMMA 0. WILLARD : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 100 HOW TO TEACH .... 103 WHAT TO TEACH .... 108 CARE OF HEALTH .... 104 ON THE FORCE THAT MOVES THE BLOOD 105 ALMIRA HART LINCOLN PHELPS : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .... 107 EDUCATION ..... 108 ENERGY OF MIND 108 EFFECTS OF EXCITEMENTS . 109 THE CHILD AND NATURE 110 2 (9) x CONTENT S. LOUISA C. TUTHILL: M BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... U* DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES ....... 114 CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ........... 116 THE MYSTERY OF VISITING ........ -117 LYDIA M. CHILD : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ...... ... 127 OLEBUL .............. 129 THE UMBRELLA GIRL ............ 13o EMMA C. EMBURY : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 139 TWO FACES UNDER ONE HOOD ........ 140 MARY S. B. SHINDLER : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . ' . ...... 153 A DAY IN NEW YORK .......... 158 CAROLINE LEE HENTZ: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . .... 162 AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP BAG . . . 16& HANNAH ADAMS: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . . ... ... . . . 1"2 THE GNOSTICS . ..... ..... . . 173 ELIZABETH F. ELLET: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . . . .. . . . . . 177 MARY SLOCUMB ........... 17H E OAKES SMITH : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . . . . . . ... . 1S9 THE MYSTERY OF THE MOUNTAIN ......... 190 THE ANOEL AND THE MAIDEN 194 LOUISA S. McCORD: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . ... . . . . . . 198 THE RIGHT TO LABOUR ......... 199 ANN S. STEPHENS: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 204 THE QUILTING PARTY .......... 205 EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 211 THE NEGLECTED CHILDREN IN THE ATTIC . . .... 216 THERESE LOUISE ALBERTINE ROBINSON (Talvj): BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .....'.. . . 224 SLAVIC SUPERSTITIONS ......... 225 FRANCES S. OSGOOD : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 229 THE MAGIC LUTE 230 ELIZABETH C. KINNEY: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 237 OLD MAIDS ........... 238 THE SONNET 240 HARRIET FARLEY : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ..... .... 244 ABBY'S YEAR IN LOWELL ..... .... 246 MARY H. EASTMAN : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ......... 255 SHAH-CO-PEE; THE ORATOR OF THE sioux . ... 256 C N T E N T S. xi S. MARGARET FULLER: PAGE BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 26 A SHORT ESSAY ON CRITICS ........ 268 CATHERINE E. BEECHER : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ...... ... 275 HABIT 277 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . . . . . . . . . 286 THE TEA ROSE ... .. ..,..'. 288 SARA H. BROWNE : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . ^ . , , . . . 296 A SALUTATION TO FREDRIKA BREMER . .. . . . . . . 299 MARIA J. B. BROWNE : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . ........... 302 LOOKING UP IN THE WORM) ... ... . . . . . 304 ELIZABETH BOGART : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . . . . . ...... . 316 ARTHUR MOWBRAY . . .. . .'. . .. ., , , ,,, ... ., . 318 RECOLLECTIONS OF CHII.IHI fin . , . . . . . . . 321 JANE ELIZABETH LARCOMBE : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . ..' -'. ... -.. . - 322 THOUGHTS BY THE WAYSIDE .-....-.- 322 EMILY C. JUDSON: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . .. . . . . .._.. 325 LfCY DUTTON . ?. .. -. . . . . S26 MY FIRST GRIEF . . . . . . '*"' . . 832 SARA J. LIPPINCOTT: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . . ~ ...... . . 334 A DREAM OF DEATH ... - .. . .. . , . . 336 EXTRACT FROM A LETTni: . . , - _ -, .. . . . . 339 ANNE C. LYNCH: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ........... 343 FREDRIKA BREMER . . . -. .. . . 346 MARY E. HEWITT: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . . . . . , .. -. . 354 A LEGEND OF IRELAND . ....... 355 ALICE B. NEAL : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . 363 THE CHILD LOVE . ... . . . . . . . . 365 CLARA MOORE: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . . . . . . . 377 THE TOUNC. MINISTER'S CHOICE . . . . . . . . . 378 ANN E. PORTER: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......-., 387 COUSIN HELEN'S BABT . ... . . . . . . 388 E. W. BARNES: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 395 THE YOUNG RECTOR 395 ANNE T. WILBUR- BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 402 ALICE TERNON ... .... . 403 ELIZA L. SPROAT: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 409 THE ENCHANTED LUTE . .... 406 jdi CONTENTS. SUSAN FENIMORE COOPER : PAOK BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 413 . . 413 HUMMING-BIRDS ..... WEEDS 418 ELIZABETH WETHERELL: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ..... 421 LITTLE ELLEN AND THE SHOPMAN 424 AMY LOTHROP : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 432 THE STORY OF THE PINE COSTS . . ... 433 SPRING WEATHER ..... .... 435 CAROLINE ORNE : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ....... 436 DR. PLUMLEY .......... . 43S CAROLINE MAY: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 441 HANDEL 441 LUCRETIA AND MARGARET DAVIDSON ........ 442 JULIA 0. R. DORR : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 447 HILLSIDE COTTAGE ........... 448 MARY ELIZABETH MORAGNE : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ......... 453 THE HUGUENOT TOWN .......... 455 MARY ELIZABETH LEE : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ......... 458 EXTRACT FROM A LETTER .......... 460 MARY J. WINDLE : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . ... . , . . . 463 ALICE HEATH'S INTERVIEW WITH CROMWELL .464 FANNY FERN: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 4(0 THE AGED MINISTER VOTED A DISMISSION ........ 476 THE FASHIONABLE PREACHER ......... 477 FATHER TAYLOR, THE SAILOR'S PREACHER ....... 478 THE BABY'S COMPLAINT ......... 481 " MILK FOR BABES" .......... 4S2 UNCLE JOLLY ........... 483 THANKSGIVING STORY . . . . . . . . . 4S7 ALICE CAREY: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 489 MRS. HILL AND MRS. TR008T .491 FRANCES MIRIAM BERRY: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 498 MRS. MUDLAW'S RECIPE FOR POTATO PUDDING ....... 502 ESTELLE ANNA LEWIS: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE ... ...... 507 IMAGINATION ........... 509 ART . 510 CAROLINE CHESEBRO' : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 512 THE PAUPER CHILD AXD THE DEAD WOMAN 514 ELIZA FARRAR : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 517 BROTHERS AND SISTERS . 51$ CONTENTS. xiii HANNAH F. LEE PASE BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 521 BEGINNING LIFB .......... 522 LIVING BEYOND THE MEANS ......... 523 CAROLINE THOMAS: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 525 TRIALS 526 ELLEN LOOTSE CHANDLER: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE .......... 532 " I C A-VN-OT MAKE HIM DEAD" . ... ... 536 PORTRAITS EXECUTED IN THE FIRST ^TYLE OF ART. SUBJECT. BAI.NTER. PAG FANNY FORRESTER . ROTItERMEL FRONTISPIECE MISS SEDGWICK INGHAM 17 MRS KIRKLAND MARTIN . 116 MRS. HENTZ HENTZ .... 162 MRS. ELLET . READ . . . . .177 MRS. STEPHENS CROOME .... 204 MARGARET FULLER . HICKS . 286 MRS. NEAL FURNESS 363 (15) CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK. Miss SEDGWICK holds about the same position among our female prose writers that Cooper holds among American novelists. She was the first of her class whose writings became generally known, and the eminence universally conceded to her on account of priority, has been almost as generally granted on other grounds. Amid the throng of new competitors for public favour, who have entered the arena within the last few years, there is not one, probably, whose admirers would care to disturb the well- earned laurels of the author of " Redwood" and " Hope Leslie." Miss Sedgwick is a native, and has been much of her life, a resident of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Her father was the lion. Theodore Sedgwick, of Stockbridge, who served his country with distinguished reputation in various stations, and particularly in the Congress of the United States, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and afterwards as Senator, and who, at the time of his death, was one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of his own State. Her brothers, Henry and Theodore, have both been distinguished as lawyers and as political writers. On the mother's side, she is connected with the Dwight family, of whom her grandfather, Joseph Dwight, was a Brigadier-General in the Massachusetts Provincial forces, and actively engaged in the old French war of 1756. Judge Sedgwick died in 1813, before his daughter had given any public demonstration of her abilities as a writer. Her talents seem to have been from the first justly appreciated by her brothers, whose judicious encou- ragement is very gracefully acknowledged in the preface to the new edition of her works, commenced by Mr. Putnam, in 1849. Miss Sedgwick's first publication was " The New England Tale." The author informs us in the preface, that the story was commenced as a religious tract, and that it gradually grew in her hands, beyond the proper limits of such a work. Finding this to be the case, she abandoned all design of publication, but finished the tale for her own amusement. Once (17) 18 CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK. finished, however, the opinions and solicitations of her friends prevailed over her own earnest wishes, and the volume was given to the world in 1822. The original intention of this book led the author to give special prominence to topics of a questionable character for a professed novel, and the unfavourable portraiture which she gives, both here and elsewhere, of New England Puritanism, has naturally brought upon her some censure. The limited plan of the story did not give opportunity for the display of that extent and variety of power which appear in some of her later pro- ductions. Still it contains passages of stirring eloquence, as well as of deep tenderness, that will compare favourably with anything she has written. Perhaps the chief value of " The New England Tale" was its effect upon the author herself. Its publication broke the ice of diffidence and indifference, and launched her, under a strong wind, upon the broad sea of letters. * "Redwood" accordingly followed in 1824. It was received at once with a degree of favour that caused the author's name to be associated, and on equal terms, with that of Cooper, who was then at the height of his popularity ; and, indeed, in a French translation of the book, which then appeared, Cooper is given on the title-page as the author. " Redwood" was also translated into the Italian, besides being reprinted in England. The reputation of the author was confirmed and extended by the appearance, in 1827, of "Hope Leslie." the most decided favourite of all her novels. She has written other things since, that in the opinion of some of the critics are superior to either " Redwood" or " Hope Leslie." But, these later writings have had to jostle their way among a crowd of competitors, both domestic and foreign. Her earlier works stood alone, and " Hope Leslie," especially, became firmly associated in the public mind with the rising glories of a native literature. It was not only read with lively satisfaction, but familiarly quoted and applauded as a source of national pride. Her subsequent novels followed at about uniform intervals ; Sf Clarence, a Tale of our Own Times," in 1830 ; " Le Bossu," one of the Tales of the " Glauber Spa," in 1832 ; and The Linwoods, or Sixty Years Since in America," in 1835. In 1836, she commenced writing in quite a new vein, giving a series of illustrations of common life, called " The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man." These were followed, in 1837, by " Live and Let Live," and afterwards by " Means and Ends," a " Love Token for Children," and " Stories for Young Persons." In 1839, Miss Sedgwick went to Europe, and while there, wrote " Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home." These were collected after her return, and published in two volumes. She has written also a "Life of Lucretia M. Davidson," and has con- tributed numerous articles to the Annuals and the Magazines. Some of CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK. 19 her recent publications have been prepared expressly for children and young persons. " The Boy of Mount Rhigi," published in 1848, is one of a series of tales projected for the purpose of diffusing sentiments of goodness among the young. The titles of some of her other small vo- lumes are " Facts and Fancies," " Beatitudes and Pleasant Sundays," "Morals of Manners," "Wilton Harvey," "Home," "Louisa and her Cousins," " Lessons without Books," &c. The quality of mind which is most apparent in Miss Sedgwick's writ- ings is that of strength. The reader feels at every step that he has to do with a vigorous and active intellect. Another quality, resulting from this possession of power, is the entire absence of affectation of every kind. There is no straining for effect, no mere verbal prettinesses. The discourse proceeds with the utmost simplicity and directness, as though the author were more intent upon what she is" saying than how she says it. And yet, the mountain springs of her own Housatonick do not send up a more limpid stream, than is the apparently spontaneous flow of her pure English. As a novelist, Miss Sedgwick has for the most part wisely cho- sen American subjects. The local traditions, scenery, manners, and costume, being thus entirely familiar, she has had greater freedom in the exercise of the creative faculty, on which, after all, real eminence in the art mainly depends. Her characters are conceived with distinctness, and are minutely individual and consistent, while her plot always shows a mind fertile in resources and a happy adaptation of means to ends. MAGNETISM AMONG THE SHAKERS. ONE of the brethren from a Shaker settlement in our neighbour- hood, called on us the other day. I was staying with a friend, in whose atmosphere there is a moral power, analogous to some chemical test, which elicits from every form of humanity whatever of sweet and genial is in it. Our visiter was an old acquaintance, and an old member of his order, having joined it more than forty years ago with his wife and two children. I have known marked individuals among these people, and yet it surprises me when I see an original stamp of character, surviving the extinguishing mono- tony of life, or rather suspended animation among them. What God has impressed man cannot efface. To a child's eye, each leaf of a tree is like the other ; to a philosopher's each has its distinc- tive mark. Our friend W.'s individuality might have struck a careless observer. He has nothing of the angular, crusty, silent 20 CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK. aspect of most of his yea and nay brethren, who have a perfect conviction that they have dived to the bottom of the well and found the pearl truth, while all the rest of the world look upon them a8 at the bottom of a well indeed ; but without the pearl, and with only so much light as may come in through the little aperture that communicates with the outward world. Neither are quite right ; the Shaker has no monopoly of truth or holiness, but we believe he has enough of both to light a dusky path to heaven. Friend Wilcox is a man of no pretension whatever ; but content in conscious mediocrity. We were at dinner when he came in ; but friend Wilcox is too childlike or too simple, to be disturbed by any observances of conventional politeness. He declined an invitation to dine, saying he had eaten and was not hungry, and seated him- self in the corner, after depositing some apples on the table, of rare size and beauty. "I have brought some notions, too," he aaid, "for you, B ," and he took from his ample pocket his handkerchief, in which he had tied up a parcel of sugar plums arid peppermints. B accepted them most affably, and without any apparent recoiling, shifted them from the old man's handkerchief to an empty plate beside her. " Half of them," he said, " remem- ber, B , are for . You both played and sung to me last summer I don't forget it. She is a likely woman, and makes the music sound almost as good as when I was young !" This was enthusiasm in the old Shaker ; but to us it sounded strangely, who knew that she who had so kindly condescended to call back brother Wilcox's youth, had held crowds entranced by her genius. Brother Wilcox is a genial old man, and fifty years of abstinence from the world's pleasures has not made bim forget or contemn them. He resembles the jolly friars in conventual life, who never resist, and are therefore allowed to go without bits or reins, and in a very easy harness. There is no galling in restraint where there is no desire for freedom. It is the " immortal long- ings" that make the friction in life. After dinner, B , at brother Wilcox's request, sate down to the piano, and played for him the various tunes that were the favourites in rustic inland life forty years ago. First the Highland reel, then "Money Musk." CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK. 21 "I remember who I danced that with," he said, " Sophy Drury. The ball was held in the school room at Feeding fields. She is tight built, and cheeks as red as a rose (past and present were con- founded in brother Wilcox's imagination). I went home with Sophy it was as light as day, and near upon day them was pleasant times !" concluded the old man, but without one sigh of regret, and with a gleam of light from his twinkling gray eye. " There have been no such pleasant times since, brother Wilcox, has there ?" asked B , with assumed or real sympathy. " I can't say that, it has been all along pleasant. I have had what others' call crosses, but I don't look at them that way what's the use?" The old man's philosophy struck me. There was no record of a cross in his round jolly face. "Were you married," I asked, "when you joined the Shakers?" " Oh, yes ; I married at twenty it's never too soon nor too late to do right, you know, and it was right for me to marry according to the light I had then. May be you think it was a cross to part from my wife all men don't take it so but I own I should ; I liked Eunice. She is a peaceable woman, and we lived in unity, but it was rather hard times, and we felt a call to join the brethren, and so we walked out of the world together, and took our two children with us. In the society she was the first woman handy in all cases." "And she is still with you?" " No. Our girl took a notion and went off, and got married, and my wife went after her that's natural for mothers, you know. I went after Eunice, and tried to persuade her to come back, and she felt so ; but it's hard rooting out mother-love ; it's planted deep, and spreads wide ; so I left her to nature, and troubled myself no more about it, for what was the use ? My son, too, took a liking to a young English girl that was one of our sisters may be you have seen her ?" We had all seen her and admired her fresh English beauty, and deplored her fate. " Well, she was a picture, and speaking after the manner of men, as good as she was hand- some. They went off together ; I could not much blame them, 22 CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK. and I took no steps after them for what was the use ? But come, strike up again ; play ' Haste to the wedding.' " B obeyed, and our old friend sang or chanted a low accom- paniment ; in which the dancing tune and the Shaker nasal chant were ludicrously mingled. B played all his favourite airs, and then said, " You do love dancing, brother Wilcox ?" " Yes, to be sure ' praise him in the cymbals and dances !' " " Oh, but I mean such dances as we have here. Would not you like, brother Wilcox, to come over and see us dance ?" " Why, may be I should." " And would not you like to dance with one of our pretty young ladies, brother Wilcox?" ' " May be I should ;" the old man's face lit up joyously but he smiled and shook his head, " they would not let me, they would not let me." Perhaps the old Shaker's imagination wandered for a moment from the very straight path of the brotherhood, but it was but a moment. His face reverted to its placid passiveness, and he said, " I am perfectly content. I have enough to eat and drink everything good after its kind, too good clothes to wear, a warm bed to sleep in, and just as much work as I like, and no more." "All this, and heaven too," of which the old man felt perfectly sure was quite enough to fill the measure of a Shaker's desires. "Now," said he, "you think so much of your dances, I wish you could see one of our young sisters dance, when we go up to Mount Holy. She has the whirling gift ; she will spin round like a top, on one foot, for half an hour, all the while seeing visions, and receiving revelations." This whirling is a recent gift of the Shakers. The few "world's folk" who have been permitted to see its exhibition, compare its subjects to the whirling Dervishes. " Have you any other new inspiration ?" I asked. " Gifts, you mean ? Oh, yes ; we have visionists. It's a wonder- ful mystery to me. I never was much for looking into mysteries they rather scare me !" Naturally enough, poor childlike old man ! "What, brother Wilcox," I asked, "do you mean by a visionist ?" CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK. 23 " I can't exactly explain," he replied. " They see things that the natural eye can't see, and hear, and touch, and taste, with inward senses. As for me, I never had any kind of gifts, but a contented mind, and submission to those in authority, and I don't see at all into this new mystery. It makes me of a tremble when I think of it. I'll tell you how it acts. Last summer I was among our brethren in York State, and when I was coming away; I went down into the garden to take leave of a young brother there. He asked me if I would carry something for him to Vesta. Vesta is a young sister, famous for her spiritual gifts, whirling, &c." I could have added, for I had seen Vesta for other less questionable gifts in the world's estimation a light graceful figure, graceful even in the Shaker straight jacket, and a face like a young Sibyl's. " Well," continued brother Wilcox, " he put his hand in his pocket, as if to take out something, and then stretching it to me, he said, ' I want you to give this white pear to Vesta.' I felt to take some- thing, though I saw nothing, and a sort of trickling heat ran through me ; and even now, when I think of it, I have the same feeling, fainter, but the same. When I got home, I asked Vesta if she knew that young brother. ' Yea,' she said. I put my hand in my pocket and took it out again, to all earthly seeming as empty as it went in, and stretched it out to her. ' Oh, a white pear !' she said. As I hope for salvation, every word that I tell you is true," concluded the old man. It was evident he believed every word of it to be true. The incredulous may imagine that there was some clandestine inter- course between the "young brother" and "young sister," and that simple old brother Wilcox was merely made the medium of a fact or sentiment, symbolized by the white pear. However that may be, it is certain that animal magnetism has penetrated into the cold and dark recesses of the Shakers. 24 CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK. THE SABBATH IN NEW ENGLAND. THE observance of the Sabbath began with the Puritans, as it still does with a great portion of their descendants, on Saturday night. At the going down of the sun on Saturday, all temporal affairs were suspended ; and so zealously did our fathers maintain the letter, as well as the spirit of the law, that, according to a vulgar tradition in Connecticut, no beer was brewed in the latter part of the week, lest it should presume to work on Sunday. It must be confessed, that the tendency of the age is to laxity ; and so rapidly is the wholesome strictness of primitive times abating, that, should some antiquary, fifty years hence, in explor- ing his garret rubbish, chance to cast his eye on our humble pages, he may be surprised to learn, that, even now, the Sabbath is observed, in the interior of New England, with an almost Judaical severity. On Saturday afternoon an uncommon bustle is apparent. The great class of procrastinators are hurrying to and fro to complete the lagging business of the week. The good mothers, like Burns's matron, are plying their needles, making " auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ;" while the domestics, or help (we prefer the national descriptive term), are wielding, with might and main, their brooms and mops, to make all tidy for the Sabbath. As the day declines, the hum of labour dies away, and, after the sun is set, perfect stillness reigns in every well-ordered house- hold, and not a foot-fall is heard in the village street. It cannot be denied, that even the most scriptural, missing the excitement of their ordinary occupations, anticipate their usual bed-time. The obvious inference from this fact is skilfully avoided by certain ingenious reasoners, who allege, that the constitution was origi- nally so organized as to require an extra quantity of sleep on every seventh night. We recommend it to the curious to inquire, how this peculiarity was adjusted, when the first day of the week was changed from Saturday to Sunday. CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK. 25 The Sabbath morning is as peaceful as the first hallowed day. Not a human sound is heard without the dwellings, and, but for the lowing of the herds, the crowing of the cocks, and the gossipping of the birds, animal life would seem to be extinct, till, at the bid- ding of the church-going bell, the old and young issue from their habitations, and, with solemn demeanour, bend their measured steps to the meeting-house ; the families of the minister, the squire, the doctor, the merchant, the modest gentry of the village, and the mechanic and labourer, all arrayed in their best, all meeting on even ground, and all with that consciousness of independence and equality, which breaks down the pride of the rich, and rescues the poor from servility, envy, and discontent. If a morning salutation is reciprocated, it is in a suppressed voice; and if, perchance, nature, in some reckless urchin, burst forth in laughter "My dear, you forget it's Sunday," is the ever ready reproof. Though every face wears a solemn aspect, yet we once chanced to see even a deacon's muscles relaxed by the wit of a neighbour, and heard him allege, in a half-deprecating, half-laughing voice, " The squire is so droll, that a body must laugh, though it be Sabbath-day." Towards the close of the day (or to borrow a phrase descriptive of his feelings, who first used it), " when the Sabbath begins to abate," the children cluster about the windows. Their eyes wan- der from their catechism to the western sky, and, though it seems to them as if the sun would never disappear, his broad disk does slowly sink behind the mountain ; and, while his last ray still lingers on the eastern summits, merry voices break forth, and the ground resounds with bounding footsteps. The village belle arrays herself for her twilight walk ; the boys gather on " the green ;" the lads and girls throng to the " singing-school ;" while some coy maiden lingers at home, awaiting her expected suitor; and all enter upon the pleasures of the evening with as keen a relish as if the day had been a preparatory penance. ELIZA LESLIE. WE have room but for a brief preface to the charming autobiography of Miss Leslie, furnished to our pages by her friend Mrs. Neal, for whom it was recently written. All that is of interest in the personal history of this gifted lady, she has herself supplied. It only remains for us to point out the characteristics of her style, and the great popularity of her writings, to which she so modestly alludes. Her tales are perfect daguerreotypes of real life ; their actors think, act, and speak for themselves ; with a keen eye for the ludicrous, the failings of human nature are never portrayed but to warn the young and the thoughtless. Her writings are distinguished for vivacity and ease of expression, strong common sense, and right principle. In her juvenile tales the children are neither " good little girls, or bad little boys" but real little boys and girls, who act and speak with all the genuineness and naivett of childhood. No writer of fiction in our coun- try has ever had a wider, or more interested circle of readers ; and this is clearly proved by the increased circulation of all those publications in which her name has appeared as a regular contributor. It will be noticed that the autobiography is dated from the United States Hotel, of this city, where Miss Leslie then resided a charm to its social circle, and sought out by distinguished travellers of many nations, as well as those of our own land. Her conversation is quite equal to her writings, a circumstance by no means common with authors; her remarkable memory furnishing an inexhaustible store of anecdote, mingled with sprightly and original opinions. Her early life will be learned from the following sketch. (26) ELIZA LESLIE. 27 LETTER TO MRS. ALICE B. NEAL. My Dear Friend : I was born in Philadelphia, at the corner of Market and Second streets^ on the 15th of November, 1787, and was baptized in Christ Church by Bishop White. Both my parents were natives of Cecil county, Maryland, also the birth-place of my grandfathers and grandmothers on each side. My great-grandfather, Robert Leslie, was a Scotchman. He came to settle in America about the year 1745 or '46, and bought a farm on North-East River, nearly 'Opposite to the insulated hill called Maiden's Mountain. I have been at the place. My maternal great-grandfather was a Swede named Jansen. So I have no English blood in me. My father was a man of considerable natural genius, and much self-taught knowledge ; particularly in Natural Philosophy and in mechanics. He was also a good draughtsman, and a ready writer on scientific subjects ; and in his familiar letters, and in his con- versation, there was evidence of a most entertaining vein of hu- mour, with extraordinary powers of description. He had an ex- cellent ear for music ; and, without any regular instruction, he played well on the flute and violin. I remember, at this day, many fine Scottish airs that I have never seen in print, and which my father had learned in his boyhood from his Scottish grandsire, who was a good singer. My mother was a handsome woman, of excel- lent sense, very amusing, and a first-rate housewife. Soon after their marriage, my parents removed from Elkton to Philadelphia, where my father commenced business as a watch- maker. He had great success. Philadelphia was then the seat of the Federal Government ; and he soon obtained the custom of the principal people in the place, including that of Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, the two last becoming his warm personal friends. There is a free-masonry in men of genius which makes them find out each other immediately. It was by Mr. Jefferson's recommendation that my father was elected a member of the Ameri- can Philosophical Society. To Dr. Franklin he suggested an ELIZA LESLIE. improvement in lightning rods-gilding the points to prevent their rutting, that was immediately, and afterwards universally adopted. Among my father's familiar visiters were Robert Patterson, long Professor of Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, and afterwards President of the Mint; Charles Wilson Peale, who painted the men of the revolution, and founded the noble museum called by his name ; John Vaughan, and Matthew Carey. When I was about five years old, my father went to England with the intention of engaging in the exportation of clocks and watches to Philadelphia, having recently taken into partnership Isaac Price, of this city. We arrived in London in June, 1793, after an old-fashioned voyage of six weeks. We lived in England about six years and a half, when the death of my father's partner in Philadelphia, obliged us to return home. An extraordinary circumstance compelled our ship to go into Lisbon, and detained us there from November till March ; and we did not finish our voyage and arrive in Philadelphia till May. The winter we spent in our Lisbon lodgings was very uncomfortable, but very amusing. After we came home, my father's health, which had long been precarious, declined rapidly ; but he lived till 1803. My mother and her five children (of whom I was the eldest) were left in cir- cumstances which rendered it necessary that she and myself should make immediate exertions for the support of those who were yet too young to assist themselves,, as they did afterwards. Our diffi- culties we kept uncomplainingly to ourselves. We asked no assist- ance of our friends, we incurred no debts, and we lived on cheer- fully, and with such moderate enjoyments as our means afforded ; believing in the proverb, that " All work and no play make Jack a dull boy." My two brothers were then, and still are, sources of happiness to the family. But they both left home at the age of sixteen. Charles, with an extraordinary genius for painting, went to London to cultivate it. He rapidly rose to the front rank of his profession, and maintains a high place among the great artists of Europe. He married in England, and still lives there. My youngest brother, Thomas Jefferson Leslie, having passed ELIZA LESLIE. 29 through the usual course of military education, in the West Point Academy, was commissioned in the Engineers, and, with the rank of Major, is still attached to the army. My sister, Anna Leslie, resides in New York. She has several times visited London, where she was instructed in painting by her brother Charles, and has been very successful in copying pictures. My youngest sister, Patty, became the wife of Henry C. Carey, and never in married life was happiness more perfect than theirs. To return now to myself. Fortunate in being gifted with an extraordinary memory, I was never in childhood much troubled with long lessons to learn, or long exercises to write. My father thought I could acquire sufficient knowledge for a child by simply reading " in book," without making any great effort to learn things by heart. And as this is not the plan usually pursued at schools, I got nearly all my education at home. I had a French master, and a music master (both coming to give lessons at the house) ; my father himself taught me to write, and overlooked my drawing ; and my mother was fully competent to instruct me in every sort of useful sewing. I went three months to school, merely to learn ornamental needle-work. All this was in London. We had a governess in the house for the younger children. My chief delight was in reading and drawing. My first attempts at the latter were on my slate, and I was very happy when my father brought me one day a box of colours and a drawing-book, and showed me how to use them. There was no restriction on my reading, except to prevent me from "reading my eyes out." And indeed they have never been very strong. At that time there were very few books written pur- posely for children. I believe I obtained all that were then to be found. But this catalogue being soon exhausted, and my appetite for reading being continually on the increase, I was fain to supply it with works that were considered beyond the capacity of early youth a capacity which is too generally underrated. Children are often kept on bread and milk long after they are able to eat meat and potatoes. I could read at four years old, and before twelve I was familiar, among a multitude of other books, with Goldsmith's 30 ELIZA LESLIE. admirable Letters on England, and his histories of Rome and Greece (Robinson Crusoe and the Arabian Nights, of course), and I had gone through the six octavo volumes of the first edition of Cook's Voyages. I talked much of Tupia and Omiah, and Otoo and Terreoboo Captain Cook I almost adored. Among our visiters in London, was a naval officer who had sailed with Cook on his last voyage, and had seen him killed at Owhyhee I am sorry the name of that island has been changed to the unspellable and unpronounceable Hawaii. I was delighted when my father took me to the British Museum, to see the numerous curiosities brought from the South Sea by the great circumnavigator. The "Elegant Extracts" made me acquainted with the best passages in the works of all the British writers who had flourished before the present century. From this book I first learned the beauties of Shakspeare. My chief novels were Miss Burney's, Mrs. Radcliffe's, and the Children of the Abbey. Like most authors, I made my first attempts in verse. They were always songs, adapted to the popular airs of that time, the close of the last century. The subjects were chiefly soldiers, sailors, hunters, and nuns. I scribbled two or three in the pas- toral line, but my father once pointing out to me a real shepherd, in a field somewhere in Kent, I made no farther attempt at Damons and Strephons, playing on lutes and wreathing their brows with roses. My songs were, of course, foolish enough ; but in justice to myself I will say, that having a good ear, I was never guilty of a false quantity in any of my poetry my lines never had a syllable too much or too little, and my rhymes always did rhyme. At thirteen or fourteen, I began to despise my own poetry, and destroyed all I had. I then, for many years, abandoned the dream of my childhood, the hope of one day seeing my name in print. It was not till 1827 that I first ventured " to put out a book," and a most unparnassian one it was " Seventy-five receipts for pastry, cakes, and sweetmeats." Truth was, I had a tolerable collection of receipts, taken by myself while a pupil of Mrs. Good- fellow's cooking school, in Philadelphia. I had so many applica- tions from my friends for copies of these directions, that my brother ELIZA LESLIE. 31 suggested my getting rid of the inconvenience by giving them to the public in print. An offer was immediately made to me by Munroe & Francis, of Boston, to publish them on fair terms. The little volume had much success, and has gone through many editions. Mr. Francis being urgent that I should try my hand at a work of imagination, I wrote a series of juvenile stories, which I called the Mirror. It was well received, and was followed by several other story-books for youth "The Young Americans," " Stories for Emma," " Stories for Adelaide," " Atlantic Tales," "Stories for Helen," "Birth-day Stories." Also, I compiled a little book called "The Wonderful Traveller," being an abridg- ment (with essential alterations) of Munchausen, Gulliver, and Sindbad. In 1831 Munroe and Francis published my " American Girls' Book," of which an edition is still printed every year. Many juvenile tales, written by me, are to be found in the annuals called the Pearl and the Violet. I had but recently summoned courage to write fictions for grown people, when my story of Mrs. Washington Potts obtained a prize from Mr. Godey, of the Lady's Book. Subsequently I was allotted three other prizes successively, from different periodicals. I then withdrew from this sort of competition. For several years I wrote an article every month for the Lady's Book, and for a short time I was a contributor to Graham's Maga- zine ; and occasionally, I sent, by invitation, a contribution to the weekly papers. I was also editor of the Gift, an annual published by Carey & Hart ; and of the Violet, a juvenile souvenir. My only attempt at anything in the form of a novel, was " Ame- lia, or a Young Lady's Vicissitudes," first printed in the Lady's Book, and then in a small volume by itself. Could I begin anew my literary career, I would always write novels instead of short stories. Three volumes of my tales were published by Carey & Lea, under the title of Pencil Sketches. Of these, there will soon be a new edition. In 1838 Lea & Blanchard printed a volume con- taining " Althea Vernon, or the Embroidered Handkerchief," and "Henrietta Harrison, or the Blue Cotton Umbrella." Several 32 ELIZA LESLIE. books of my fugitive stories have been published in pamphlet form, the titles being "Kitty's Relations," "Leonilla Lynmore," " The Maid of Canal Street." (the Maid is a refined and accom- plished young lady), and " TheDennings' and their Beaux." All my stories are of familiar life, and I have endeavoured to render their illustrations of character and manners, as entertaining and instructive as I could; trying always "to point a moral," as well as to " adorn a tale." The works from which I have, as yet, derived the greatest pecu- niary advantage, are my three books on domestic economy. The "Domestic Cookery Book," published in 1837, is now in the forty- first edition, no edition having been less than a thousand copies ; and the sale increases every year. " The House Book" came out in 1840, and the " Lady's Receipt Book" in 1846. All have been successful, and profitable. My two last stories are " Jernigan's Pa," published in the Satur- day Gazette, and " The Baymounts," in the Saturday Evening Post. I am now engaged on a life of John Fitch, for which I have been several years collecting information, from authentic sources. I hope soon to finish a work (undertaken by particular desire) for the benefit of young ladies, and to which I purpose giving the plain, simple title of " The Behaviour Book."* U. S. Hotel, Phila., Aug. 1, 1851. ELIZA LESLIE. MRS. DERRINGTON'S RECEPTION DAY. MAJOR FAYLAND had departed on his return home, and Sophia's tears had flowed fast and long on taking leave of her father. Mrs. Derrington reminded her, by way of consolation, that to-morrow was "reception day," and that she would then most probably see many of the ladies, who, having heard of Miss Fayland's arrival, had already left cards for her. " And what, dear aunt, is exactly meant by a reception day ?" inquired Sophia. * The "Behaviour Book" has since been published. ELIZA LESLIE. 33 " It is a convenient way of getting through our morning visit- ers," replied Mrs. Derrington. "We send round cards at the beginning of the season to notify our friends that we are at home on a certain morning, once a week. My day is Thursday. I sit in the drawing-room during several hours in a handsome demi- toilette. Full dress is not admissible, of course, at morning recep- tions. Any of my friends that wish to see me, take this opportunity ; understanding that I receive calls at no other time. They are served with chocolate and other refreshments, brought in and handed to them soon after their arrival. They talk awhile, and then depart. There are some coming in, and some going out all the time, and no one staying long. The guests are chiefly ladies ; few gentlemen of this city having leisure for morning visits. Still every gentleman manages to honour a lady's reception day with at least one call during the season. I suppose you had no such things as morning receptions at the fort ?" "No, indeed," replied Sophia; "our mornings were always fully occupied in attending to household affairs, and doing the sew- ing of the family. Afternoon was the time for walking or reading. But in the evening we all visited our neighbours, very much according to the fashion of Spanish tertulias." Next morning, when dressed for the reception, and seated in the drawing-room to wait for the first arrivals, Mrs. Derrington said to Sophia " We shall now hear all about Mrs. Cotterell's great party which came off last night. I have some curiosity to know what it was like, being her first since she came to live in this part of the town." " Do you visit her?" asked Sophia. " Oh, no not yet and probably I never may. I am waiting to see if the Cotterells succeed in getting into society." "What society, dear aunt?" inquired Sophia. " I see, Sophy, that I shall be much amused with your simpli- city," replied Mrs. Derrington; "or rather with your extreme newness. In using the word society, we allude only to one class, and that of course is the very best." " By that I understand a select circle of intellectual, refined, oi ELIZA LESLIE; o-i agreeable, and every way excellent people," said Sophia ; " men on whose integrity, and women on whose propriety there is not the slightest blemish, and who are admired for their talents, loved for their goodness, and esteemed for the truth and honour of their whole conduct." "Stop stop," interrupted Mrs. Derrington, "you are going quite too far. Can you suppose all this is required to get people into society, or to keep them there ? The upper circles would be very small if nothing short of perfection could be admitted." "What then, dear aunt, are, the requisites?" asked Sophia. " Is genius one?" " Genius ? Oh, no, indeed. It is not that sort of thing that brings people into society. It is mostly considered rather a draw- back. Mrs. Goldsworth actually shuns people of genius. Indeed, most of my friends rather avoid them. I have no acquaintance whatever with any man or woman of genius." "I am sorry to hear it," said Sophia. " I had hoped while in New York to meet many of those gifted persons whose fame has spread throughout our country, whom I already know by reputa- tion, and whom I have long been desirous of seeing or hearing." " Oh, I suppose you mean lions," said Mrs. Derrington. " I can assure you that / patronize none of them ; neither do any of my friends." "I thought the lions were the patronizers," said Sophia, "and that their position gave them the exclusive power of selecting their associates, and deciding on whom to confer the benour of their acquaintance." " Sophy Sophy, you really make me laugh !" exclaimed her aunt. " What strange notions you have picked up, with your gar- rison education. Do not you know that people of genius seldom live in any sort of style, or keep carriages, or give balls ? And they never make fortunes; unless they are foreign musicians or dancers, and I am not sure that the singing and dancing people are classed as geniuses. They are regarded as something much better." "Is society composed entirely of people of fortune?" ELIZA LESLIE. ;i5 " Oh, no ; there are persons in the first circle who are not half so rich as many in the second, or even in the third, or fourth." " Then, if society is not distinguished for pre-eminence in talent or wealth, the distinction must depend upon the transcendent good- ness, and perfect respectability of those that belong to it." "Why, not exactly. I confess that some of the persons in soci- ety have done very bad things ; which after the first few days it is best to hush up, for the honour of our class. But then in certain respects society is most exemplary. We always subscribe to public charities. Charity is very fashionable, and so is church." "And now," continued Sophia, " to return to the lady who gave the party last night. Is not she a good and respectable woman ?" " I never heard anything against her goodness, or her respect- ability." " She must surely be a woman of education." " Oh, yes ; I went to school with her myself. But at all schools there is somewhat of a mixture. To give you Mrs. Cotterell's his- tory her father kept a large store in Broadway, and afterwards he got into the wholesale line, and went into Pearl street. Now, my father was a shipping merchant, and owned vessels, and my dear late husband was his junior partner. Mr. Cotterell made his money in some sort of manufacturing business, across the river. He died two years ago, and is said to have left his family very rich. Her daughter being now grown, Mrs. Cotterell has bought a house up here, in the best part of the town, and has come out quite in style, and been tolerably called on. Some went to see her out of curiosity- , and some because they have an insatiable desire for en- larging their circle ; some because they have a passion for new people ; and some because they like to go to houses where every- thing is profuse and costly, as is generally the case with parvenus" "And some, I hope," said Sophia, "because they really like Mrs. Cotterell for herself." " She certainly is visited by a few very genteel people," con- tinued Mrs. Derrington, " and that has encouraged her to attempt a party last night. But the Goldsworths, the Highburys, the Featherstones, and myself, are waiting to hear if she is well taken 36 ELIZA LESLIE. up ; and, above all, if the Pelham Prideauxs have called on her. And besides, it may be well for us not to begin till she has gradu- ally gotten rid of the people with whom she associated in her hus- band's time." " Surely," said Sophia, " she cannot be expected to throw off her old friends?" " Then she need not expect to gain new ones up here. We can- not mix with people from the unfashionable districts. Mrs. Cotte- rell may do as she pleases but she must be select in her circle, if she wants the countenance of the Pelham Prideauxs." " And who, dear aunt, are the Pelham Prideauxs ?" inquired Sophia. "Is it possible you never heard of them?" ejaculated Mrs. Der- rington. "To know Mrs. Pelham Prideaux, to be seen at her house, or to have her seen at yours, is sufficient. It gives the stamp of high fashion at once." " And for what reason ?" persisted Sophia. "Because she is Mrs. Pelham Prideaux," was the reply. "What is her husband?" said Sophia. " He is a gentleman who has always lived upon the fortune left him by his father, who inherited property from his father, and he from his. None of the Prideauxs have done anything for a hun- dred years. The great-grandfather was from England, and came over a gentleman." " Surprising !" said Sophia, mischievously. " And whom have they to inherit all this glory ?" "An oilly daughter," replied Mrs. Derrington, "Maria Matilda Pelham Prideaux." At this moment a carriage stopped at the door, and presently Mrs. Middleby was announced ; and immediately after, two young ladies came in who were presented to Sophia as Miss Telford and Miss Ellen Telford. The conversation soon turned on Mrs. Cotte- rell's party. Mrs. Middleby had been there the Miss Telfords had not, and were therefore anxious to " hear all about it." " Really," said Mrs. Middleby, " it was just like all other par- ties , and like all others, it went v ff tolerably well. The company ELIZA LESLIE. 37 was such as one meets everywhere. The rooms were decorated in the usual style. Some of the people looked better than others, and some worse than others. The dressing was just as it always is at parties. The hostess and her daughter behaved as people generally do in their own houses ; the company as guests usually behave in other people's houses. There was some conversation and some music. The supper was like all other suppers, and everybody went away about the usual hour." Mrs. Derrington was dubious about taking up the Cotterells. " I knew we should not get much information out of Mrs. Mid- dleby," said Miss Telford to Sophia, after the lady had departed. tl She always deals in generals, whatever may be the topic of con- versation." " Because her capacity of observation is so shallow that it cannot take in particulars," said Ellen Telford. " But here comes Mrs. Honey wood we will stay to hear what she says." Mrs. Honeywood was introduced, and on being applied to for her account of Mrs. Cotterell's party, she pronounced it every way charming; and told of some delightful people that were there. "Among them," said Mrs. Honeywood, "was the dashing widow, Mrs. Crandon, as elegant and as much admired as ever. She was certainly the belle of the room, and looked even more captivating than usual, with her blooming cheeks, and her magnificent dark eyes, and her rich and graceful ringlets, and her fine tall figure set off by her superb dress, giving her the air of a duchess, or a count- ess at least." " What was her dress ?" inquired Sophia. " Oh, a beautiful glossy cherry-coloured velvet, trimmed with a profusion of rich black lace. On her head was an exquisite dress- hat of white satin and blond, with a splendid ostrich plume. She was surrounded by beaux all the evening. The gentlemen almost neglected the young ladies to crowd round the enchanting widow, particularly when she played on the harp and sung. They wouh' scarcely allow her to quit the instrument ; and, indeed, her music was truly divine. There was quite a scramble as to who should have the honour of leading Mrs. Crandon to the supper-table." 397165 38 ELIZA LESLIE. After some further encomiums on the widow Crandon, and on everything connected with, the party, Mrs. Honeywood took her leave, first offering seats in her carriage to the Miss Telfords, which offer they accepted. Mrs. Derrington rather thought she would take up the Cotterells. The next of the guests who had been at Mrs. Cotterell's party was Miss Rodwell ; and she also gave an account of it. " Mrs. Cotterell and her daughter are rather presentable, and they are visited to a certain degree," said Miss Rodwell; "and I understand that Mrs. Pelham Prideaux does think of calling on them. I knew that I should meet many of my friends, or of course, I could not have risked being there myself. But, under any cir- cumstances, the company was too large to be select. A party can- not be perfectly comme il faut, if it numbers more than fifty. Mrs. De Manchester says, that to have the very cream and flower of New York society, you must not go beyond thirty. And, though an Englishwoman, I think, in this respect, she is right." " The Yanbombels, to be completely select, invite none but their own relations," observed Mrs. Derrington. "And for the same reason," rejoined Miss Rodwell, "the Jenkses invite none of their relations at all. But who do you think I saw last evening ? Poor Crandon, absolutely ! I wonder where Mrs. Cotterell found her ? She must have been invited out of compassion ; it certainly could not have been for the purpose of ornamenting the rooms. Most likely Mrs. Cotterell did not know that poor Crandon is so entirely passe, nobody minds cutting her in the least. There she was rigged out in that old dingy red velvet that everybody was long ago tired of seeing. It is now quite too narrow for the fashion, and looks faded and threadbare. She had taken off the white satin trimming that graced it in its high and palmy days, and decorated it scantily with some coarse brownish, blackish lace. And then her head, with its forlorn ringlets, stream- ing down with the curl all out, and a queer yellowish-white hat, and a meagre old feather to match ! Such an object ! I wish you could have seen her ! But, poor thing, I could not help pitying her, for she looked forlorn, and sat neglected, and was left to her- ELIZA LESLIE. 39 self nearly all the time ; except when the Cotterells talked to her from a sense of duty. She played something on the harp, but nobody seemed to listen. I know that /was talking and laughing all the time, and so was every one else. People that are ill-dressed should never play on harps. It shows them too plainly." "And they should never go to parties either," said Mrs. Der- rington. " Poor Mrs. Crandon, has she no friend to tell her so ? But I never heard before that she had fallen off in her costume. The report may be true that her husband's executors have defrauded her of a considerable portion of her property. However, I have lost sight of her for some years." "And then," said Miss Rodwell, "it was not to be expected that Crandon could sustain herself permanently in society, con- sidering how she first got into it." "I own," resumed Mrs. Derrington, "I was rather surprised when I first saw Mrs. Crandon among us. It was, I believe, at Mrs. Ilautonberg's famous thousand dollar party, the winter that it was fashionable to report the cost of those things ; so that, before the end of the season, parties had mounted up to twice that sum. How did she happen to get there, for it was certainly the cause of her having a run all that season ? I never exactly understood the circumstances." " Oh, I can tell you all about it," replied Miss Rodwell ; " for I was in the secret. Mr. Crandon was a jobber, and had realized a great deal of money, and they lived in a fine house, and made a show, but nobody in society ever thought of noticing them. After a while he took her to Europe, and they spent several months in Paris, and Mrs. Crandon (who, to do her justice, was then a very handsome woman) fitted herself out with a variety of elegant French dresses, made by an exquisite artiste, and with millinery equally recherchS. When she came home, the fame of all these beautiful things spread beyond the limits of her own circle, and we were all dying to see them (particularly the evening costumes), and to borrow them as patterns for our own mantuamakers and milli- ners. But while she continued meandering about among her own set, we had no chance of seeing much more than the divine bonnet 40 ELIZA LESLIE. and pelisse she wore in Broadway, and they only whetted our appe< tite for the rest. So at one of Mrs. Hautonberg's soirees, a coterie of us got together and settled the plan. Mrs. Hautonberg at first made some difficulty, but finally came into it, and agreed to com- mence operations by calling on Mrs. Crandon next day, and after- wards sending her a note for her great thousand dollar party, which was then in agitation. So she called, and Mr. Hautonberg was prevailed on to leave his card for Mr. Crandon. They came to the party, thinking themselves highly honoured, and we all made a point of being introduced to the lady, and of showing her all possible civility, and of being delighted with her harp-playing. You may be sure, we took especial note of all the minutiae of her dress, which I must say far excelled in taste and elegance every other in the room. And no wonder, when it was fresh from France. Well, to be brief, she was visited and invited, and well treated, and her beautiful things were borrowed for patterns ; and by the time she had shown them all round at different parties, imitations of them were to be seen everywhere throughout our circle. The cherry-coloured velvet and the white hat and feathers were among them. She gave a grand party herself, and as it was at the close of the season, we all honoured her with our presence. Poor woman, she really thought all this was to last. Next winter we let her gently down ; some dropping her entirely, and a few compas- sionately dragging on with her a while longer. Indeed, I still meet her at two or three houses." " I am very sure she was never seen at Mrs. Pelham Prideaux," observed Mrs. Derrington, " even in the winter of her glory. Her French costumes would have been no inducement to Mrs. Prideaux, whose station has placed her far above dress." "Mrs. Prideaux is rather too exclusive," said Miss Rodwell, somewhat piqued. " What an enviable station !" remarked Sophia, " to be above dress." " Well," continued Mrs. Derrington, to Miss Rodwell, "what did you think of Mrs. Cotterell's party arrangements ? How were the decorations, the supper, and all things thereunto belonging?" ELIZA LESLIE. 41 " Oh ! just such as we always see in the best houses. All in scrupulous accordance with the usual routine. Yet somehow it seemed to me there was a sort of parvenu air throughout." " What were the deficiencies ?" asked Mrs. Derrington. " Oh ! no particular deficiencies, except a want of that inde- scribable something which can only be found in the mansions of people of birth." Sophia could not forbear asking what in republican America could be meant by people of birth. To this Miss Kodwell vouchsafed no reply, but looking at her watch, said it was time to call for Mrs. De Manchester, whom she had promised to accompany to Stewart's. She then departed, leaving Mrs. Derrington impressed with a determination not to take up the Cotterells. The stopping of a carriage was followed by the entrance of Mrs. and Miss Brockendale. The mother was a lady with an ever-varying countenance, and a restless eye. She was expensively dressed, but with her hair disordered, her bonnet crushed, her collar crooked, her gown rumpled, one end of her shawl trailing on the ground, and the other end scarcely reaching to her elbow. Her daughter's .very handsome habiliments were arranged with the most scrupulous nicety ; and the young lady had a steadfast eye, and a resolute and determined expression of face. All her features were regular, but the tout ensemble was not agreeable. After some very desultory conversation, Mrs. Derrington recur- red to the subject that was uppermost in her mind, Mrs. Cotterell's party ; and on finding that the Brockendale ladies had been there, she again inquired about it ; observing that much as she had heard of it in the course of the morning, she had still obtained no satis- factory account. " How did it really go off?" said she, addressing Miss Brockendale ; but the mother eagerly answered, and the daughter finding herself anticipated, closed her lips firmly, and drew back her head. " Oh ! delightfully," exclaimed Mrs. Brockendale. " Everything was so elegant, and in such good taste, and on such a liberal scale." "How were the rooms decorated?" asked Mrs. Derrington. 6 42 ELIZA LESLIE. " Oh ! superbly, with flowers wreathed around the columns." " Mrs. Cotterell's rooms have no pillars," said Miss Brockendale, speaking very audibly and distinctly, and addressing herself to Sophia, near whom she was seated. " Well, then," continued Mrs. Brockendale, " there were wreaths festooned along the walls. You cannot say there were no walls." " There were no wreaths except those that ornamented the lamps and chandeliers," said Miss Brockendale, always addressing Sophia. " Oh ! yes, the flowers were all about the lights. That was what made them look so pretty. One thing I am certain of, the rooms were as light as day. There must have been five hundred candles." " There was not one," said Miss Brockendale to Sophia. " The rooms were lighted entirely with gas." " Well, it might have been a sort of gas. I declare my head is always so filled with things of importance, that I have no memory for trifles. This I know, that the furniture was all crimson velvet trimmed with gold-colour." " It was blue satin damask trimmed with a rich dark brown," said her daughter to Miss Fayland. " Well, the crimson might have had a bluish cast. I have cer- tainly seen crimson velvet somewhere. The truth is, almost as soon as we entered, I saw my friend Mr. Weston, the member of Congress (either from Greenbay or Georgetown, I forget which), and so we got to talking about Texas and things ; and that may be the reason I did not particularly notice the rooms. I almost got into a quarrel with this same Congress-man about the President, who, in spite of all I could say, Mr. Weston persisted in declaring has never threatened to go to war with Germany." "Neither he has," said Miss Brockendale, this time directing her looks to her mother. " Then he has set himself against railroads, or injured the crops, or invited over five hundred thousand millions of Irish." " He has done none of these things." " He has done something, I am very sure. Or, if he has not, some other President has. I never can remember how the Presi- ELIZA LESLIE. 43 dents go, and perhaps I am apt to mix them up, my head being always full of more important objects." " I hear there was a very elegant supper," said Mrs. Derring- ton. " I believe there was. But all supper-time I was talking about the tariff, and the theatre, and the army and navy, and I did not notice the things on the table. I rather think there was ice-cream, and I am almost positive there was jelly." " Had you fine music?" inquired Mrs. Derrington. " It seems to me that I heard music. But I was talking then to Mr. Van Valkenburgh, who has travelled over half the world ; mostly pedestrian, poor fellow !" "He is not a poor fellow," explained her daughter to Sophia. " He is a rich bachelor, and a great botanist, and entomologist ; an'd when he rambles on foot, it is always from his own choice." "Augustina," said her mother, "do not you recollect we met Mr. Van Valkenburgh somewhere in Europe, when we were travel- ling with the Tirealls ?" " I never was in Europe," said Augustina to Sophia. " When mamma went over, she took my sister Isabella, but left me a little girl at boarding-school." " So you were a little girl at boarding-school ; I remember all about it," continued Mrs. Brockendale, " and I did take Isabella, because she was grown up. She is married now, poor thing, to a man that never crossed the Atlantic, and never will, and so her going to Europe was of no manner of use. What a strange girl she was. When we were at Venice she would make me go every- where in a boat even to church." "You could not well go in anything else," remarked Augustina. "And then at Venice, she highly offended the showman by ring- ing the great bell of St. Mark's." " She could not get at it." " Then it must have been at St. Peter's, or St. Paul's, or else Notre Dame. Any how, she rung a bell." "My sister has told me," said Augustina, turning to Sophia, " that coming out of a village church in England, she took a fancy 44 ELIZA LESLIE. to pull the bell-rope, as it hung invitingly down just within the entrance ; and she greatly scandalized the beadle by doing so, still she pacified him with a shilling." "But now about Mr. Van Valkenburgh," proceeded Mrs. Brock- endale, " this I am certain of, that we met him on the Alps, and we were joined up there by old General Oflenham and his son, who was much taken with Isabella. It might have been a match, for the young man will be a half-millionaire one of these days ; but he has fits, and rolls down mountains. So that rather discouraged us, and we thought that nobody would ever marry him. Yet, after- wards, at Pai'is, or Portsmouth, or some of those places, the widow Sweeting snapped up young Offenham, for her third husband. So Isabella might as well have taken him." "My sister," said Augustina, turning to Sophia, "is happily married to a man of sense, as well as of large fortune, and high respectability." " Mr. Van Valkenburgh," pursued Mrs. Brockendale, " was telling how delightful he found the literary society of England. I wish I had been in it, when I was there. He became acquainted with them all. He even knew Shakspeare." "His plays, of course," said Sophia. " Oh ! no, the man himself. Shakspeare called on him at the hotel, and left his card for Mr. Van Valkenburgh." " Excuse me," said Sophia, " Shakspeare has been dead consi- derably more than two hundred years." "Ah! my dear young lady," observed Mrs. Brockendale, "you know we must not believe all we hear." " Mamma, we had best go home," said her daughter, who had sat for some moments looking as if too angry to speak, leaving to Sophia the explanation concerning Shakspeare. Mrs. Brockendale rose to depart. " If it was not Shakspeare that called on him, it must have been Dr. Johnson," said she. "Any how, it was some great author." They then took their leave, Miss Brockendale expressing a desire to be intimately acquainted with Miss Fayland. "Poor Mrs. Brockendale," said Sophia, "her head reminds me ELIZA LESLIE. 45 of a lumber room, where all sorts of things are stowed away in confusion. My father thinks that a defective memory is generally the result of careless or inattentive observation. But perhaps this lady was never gifted with the capacity of seeing or hearing things understandingly." " I do not wonder that the daughter has no patience with the mother," said Mrs. Derrington. " However, they are persons of birth, and live handsomely, and are visited. We cannot expect everybody in society to be alike. Unfortunately, Mr. Brocken- dale, who was a most excellent man, and doated on his queer wife, and tried hard to improve her, died ten years ago, and since losing his guidance, she has talked more like a fool than ever. And worse than all, every article of her dress seems to be continually getting into disorder. As soon as her things are put right, they somehow get wrong again." The next visiters were two rather insipid ladies, and soon after came in a remarkably handsome young man, dressed in the most perfect taste, but without the slightest approach to what is called dandyism. He had the air distingue which foreigners say is so rarely to be found among the citizens of America. He was intro- duced to Sophia as Mr. Percival Grafton, and she thought he looked exactly like a young nobleman, or rather as a young nobleman ought to look ; and she was still more delighted with his conversation. After some very pleasant interchange of ideas with Miss Fayland, he inquired of Mrs. Derrington if she had yet become acquainted with Mrs. Cotterell and her charming daughter. "Not yet," was the reply. " Then let me advise you by all means not to delay what I am sure will afford much pleasure to yourself and Miss Fayland. The Cotterells are delightful people ; polished, intelligent, natural, and having I' air comme ilfaut, as if it had been born with them. Mis& Cotterell is one of the loveliest girls I have ever seen ; and does infinite honour to the system on which her mother has educated her." "Does she dress well?" inquired Mrs. Derrington. "Charmingly," replied Grafton, "and she could not do other- 46 ELIZA LESLIE. wise, her good taste is so apparent in everything. She dresses well, talks well, moves well, and plays and sings delightfully. I heard her speaking French to Madame St. Ange, with the utmost fluency and elegance. She is really a most enchanting girl." "You seem to be quite smitten!" remarked Miss Waterly, one of the insipid young ladies. " Not to admire such a woman as Amelia Cotterell would evince the most pitiable insensibility to the united attractions of beauty, grace, and talent. But in the usual acceptation of the phrase, I am yet heart-whole. How long I may remain so is another question." Mr. Grafton then turned the conversation to another subject, and he soon after took his leave. "Do you know, Mrs. Derrington," said Miss Milkby, the other insipid young lady, "it's all over town already, that Percival Grafton is dying in love with Amelia Cotterell. So you must not believe exactly all he says about her and her mother." "He" really seems delirious," said Miss Waterly. Mrs. Derrington became again dubious about taking up the Cot- terells. But her doubts grew fainter as she reflected that Percival Grafton was a young gentleman of acknowledged taste in all that was refined and elegant ; being himself a person of birth, and " to the manner born" of the best society. Even his grandfather was an eminent lawyer, and Percival himself had been inducted into that high profession. While Mrs. Derrington sat, "pondering in her mind," Sophia was endeavouring to entertain the Misses Waterly and Milkby, when her aunt suddenly started from her reverie, and, her face beaming with ecstatic joy, advanced in eager empressement to receive a lady, whom the servant, throwing wide the door, an- nounced as Mrs. Pelham Prideaux. When Mrs. Derrington had a little recovered the first excitement of this supreme felicity, and placed her high and mighty guest in the easiest fauteuil, and seen her well served with refreshments, she recollected to introduce her niece, Miss Sophia Fayland. The two other misses had long been within the pale of Mrs. Prideaux's notice, and they timidly hoped she was well. ELIZA LESLIE. 47 This arbitress of fashion, this dictatress to society, was a woman of no particular face, no particular figure, no particular dress, and no particular conversation. But she was well aware of her position, and made use of it accordingly. Mrs. Derrington, whose whole morning had been one long thought of the Cotterells (whenever she had a new thought she always pur- sued it d Voutrance\ said something about the party of last night. "Were you there?" asked Mrs. Prideaux. " Oh ! no. Mrs. Cotterell has come among us so lately, I know not exactly in what circle she will be." "You might have gone," said Mrs. Prideaux, "I intend calling on her." "Do you, indeed?" exclaimed Mrs. Derrington, with glad sur- prise. And Sophia's face brightened also ; for she longed to know the Cotterells, and she saw that all doubt was now over. Miss Waterly and Miss Milkby now acknowledged that they had both been at the party, and that they had liked it. " When do you make this call, my dear Mrs. Prideaux?" asked Mrs. Derrington. "I have not exactly determined on the day," was the reply. " I hope Sophia and I may* have the pleasure of meeting you there," said Mrs. Derrington. "When you have fixed on the exact time, will you let us know ?* " Gertainly, I can have no objection," answered Mrs. Prideaux, graciously, " provided I know it myself. " How kind you always are ! It will be so delightful for us to be at Mrs. Cotterell's together. Will it not, Sophy?" " On consideration, I cannot make this call before next week," said Mrs. Prideaux. " Oh ! never mind. Consult your own convenience. We will wait for you." "Where does Mrs. Cotterell live?" inquired the great lady. Miss Waterly and Miss Milkby now both spoke together, and designated the place. Mrs. Prideaux condescendingly thanked them for the information. "Then," said she to Mrs. Derrington, "as I must pass your 4Q ELIZA LESLIE. door in going there, I may as well call for you in my carnage, whenever I do go." Mrs. Derrington was too happy at this unexpected glory ; and Miss Waterly and Miss Milkby too envious. All these young ladies could do was to accompany Mrs. Prideaux when she departed, and be seen leaving the door at the same time with her. She hon- oured them with a how as they lingered on the door-step, when her no-particular-sort-of-carriage drove away. Unluckily, there chanced to be no spectators but a small party of German emigrants, and two schoolboys. Perhaps some of the neighbours might have been at their windows. The following Monday and Tuesday, Mrs. Derrington and Miss Fayland stayed at home all the morning ready-dressed, waiting in vain for Mrs. Prideaux to call for them in her carriage. " Surely," said Sophia, " she will apprise us in time ?" " She may probably not think of doing so," replied Mrs. Derrington. At last on Wednesday the joyful moment arrived when the vehi- cle of Mrs. Pelham Prideaux, with that lady in it, drew up to the door of Mrs. Derrington, who ran down stairs, followed by her niece ; and in a very short time they arrived at the mansion of the Cotterells. CAROLINE GILMAN. OF our living authoresses, no one has been so long before the public, and at the same time retained her place so entirely in its affections, as Mrs. Caroline Oilman. Her first publications, which were poems, commenced as early as 1810. Among these, " Jephthah's Hash Vow," and " Jairus' Daughter," attracted particular attention. Her importance as a prose writer begins with the " Southern Rose Bud," a weekly juvenile paper, which she began in 1832, and continued for seven years. This miscellany contains a large amount of valuable literature, and is especially rich in contributions from Mrs. Oilman's own pen. Her other publications have been as follows : " Re- collections of a New England Housekeeper," " Recollections of a Southern Matron" (both running through a large number of editions), " Ruth Ray- mond; or Love's Progress," " Poetry of Travelling," " Tales and Ballads," "Letters of Eliza Wilkinson" (written during the invasion of Charles- ton by the British), " Verses of a Lifetime," "The Oracles from the Poets," " The Sibyl," and several juvenile books now collected under the general title of " Mrs. Oilman's Gift." The following graceful piece of autobiography will serve the double purpose of a specimen of her style, and a narrative of her life. MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY. I AM asked for some " particulars of my literary and domestic life." It seems to me, and I suppose at first thought, it seems to all, a vain and awkward egotism to sit down and inform the world who you are. But if I, like the Petrarchs, and Byrons, and Hemanses, greater or less, have opened my heart to the public for M CAROLINE GIL MAN. a series of years, with all the pulses of love and hatred and sor- row so transparently unveiled, that the throbs may be almost counted, why should I or they feel embarrassed in responding to this request? Is there not some inconsistency in this shyness about autobiography? I find myself, then, at nearly sixty years of age, somewhat of a patriarch in the line of American female authors a kind of Past Master in the order. The only interesting point connected with my birth, which took place October 8th, 1794, in Boston, Mass., is that I first saw the light where the Mariners' Church now stands, in the North Square. My father, Samuel Howard, was a shipwright, and to my fancy it seems fitting, that seamen should assemble on the former homestead of one who spent his manhood in planning and perfecting the noble fabrics which bear them over the waves. All the record I have of him is, that on every State thanksgiving day he spread a liberal table for the poor, and for this I honour his memory. My mother descended from the family of the Brecks, a branch of which is located in Philadelphia as well as in Boston, and which, by those who love to look into such matters, is traced, as far as I have heard, to 1703 in America. The families of 1794 in the North Square, have changed their abode. Our pastor, the good Dr. Lathrop, minister of the " Old North," then resided at the head of the Square the Mays, Reveres, and others, being his neighbours. It appears to me, that I remember my baptism on a cold Novem- ber morning, in the aisle of the old North, and how my minister bent over me with one of the last bush-wigs of that century, and touched his finger to my befrilled little forehead : but being only five weeks old, and not a very precocious babe, I suppose I must have learned it from oral tradition. I presume, also, I am under the same hallucination, when I see myself, at two years of age, sitting on a little elevated triangular seat, in the corner of the pew, with red morocco shoes, clasped with silver buckles, turning the movable balusters, which modern archi- tects have so unkindly taken away from children in churches. CAROLINE GILMAN. 51 My father died before I was three years old, and was buried at Copp's Hill. A few years since, I made a pilgrimage to that most ancient and interesting cemetery, but its grass-covered vaults revealed to me nothing of him. My mother, who was an enthusiastic lover of nature, retired into the country with her six children, and placing her boys at an aca- demy at Woburn, resided with her girls in turn at Concord, Ded- ham, Watertown, and Cambridge, changing her residence, almost annually, until I was nearly ten years old, when she passed away, and I followed her to her resting-place, in the burial-ground at North Andrews. Either childhood is not the thoughtless period for which it is famed, or my susceptibility to suffering was peculiar. I remember much physical pain. I recollect, and I think Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, describes the same, a deep horror at dark- ness, a suffocation, a despair, a sense of injury when left alone at night, that has since made me tender to this mysterious trial of youth. I recollect also my indignation after a chastisement for breaking some china, and in consequence I have always been careful never to express anger at children or servants for a similar misfortune. In contrast to this, come the memories of chasing butterflies, launching chips for boats on sunny rills, dressing dolls, embroider- ing the glowing sampler, and the soft maternal mesmerism of my mother's hand, when, with my head reclined on her knee, she smoothed my hair, and t sang the fine old song " In the downhill of life." As Wordsworth says in his almost garrulous .enthusiasm, " Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear ; Much favoured in my birth-place." I say birth-place, for true life is not stamped on the spot where our eyes first open, but our mind-birth comes from the varied asso- ciations of childhood, and therefore may I trace to the wild influ- ences of nature, particularly to those of sweet Auburn, now the Cambridge Cemetery, the formation of whatever I may possess of 52 CAROLINE OILMAN. the poetical temperament. Residing just at its entrance, I passed long summer mornings making thrones and couches of moss, and listening to the robins and blackbirds. The love of the beautiful then was quite undeveloped in social life ; the dead reposed by roadside burial-grounds, the broken stone walls of which scarcely sheltered the sod which covered them. Now all is changed in those haunts of my childhood, and perchance costly monuments in Mount Auburn have risen on the sites of my moss-covered thrones. Our residence was nearly opposite Governor Gerry's, and we were frequent visiters there. One evening I saw a small book on the recessed window-seat of their parlour. It was Gesner's Death of Abel ; I opened it, spelt out its contents, and soon tears began to flow. Eager to finish it, and ashamed of emotions so novel, I screened my little self so as to allow the light to fall only on the book, and, while forgotten by the group, I also forgetting the music and mirth that surrounded me, I shed, at eight years, the first pre- luding tears over fictitious sorrow. It was formerly the custom for countrypeople in Massachusetts to visit Boston in throngs on election day, and see the Governor sit in his' chair on the Common. This pleasure Avas promised me, and a neighbouring farmer was good enough to offer to take me to my uncle Phillips's. Therefore, soon after sunrise, I was dressed in my best frock, and red shoes, and with a large peony called a 'lection posey, in one hand, and a quarter of a dollar in the other, I sprang with a merry heart into the chaise, my imagination teeming with soldiers, and sights, and sugar-plums, and a vague thought of something like a huge giant sitting in a big chair, overtopping everybody. I was an incessant talker when travelling, therefore the time seemed short when I was landed, as I supposed, at my uncle Phillips's door, and the farmer drove away. But what was my distress at finding myself among strangers ! Entirely ignorant of my uncle's direction, I knew not what to say. In vain a cluster of kind ladies tried to soothe and amuse me with promises of playmates and toys ; a sense of utter loneliness and intrusion kept me in tears. At CAROLINE OILMAN. 53 sunset, the good farmer returned for me, and I burst into a new agony of grief. I have never forgotten that long, long day -with the kind and hospitable, but wrong Pliillipses. If this statement should chance to be read and remembered by them, at this far interval, I beg them to receive the thanks which the timid child neglected to give to her stranger-friends. I had seen scarcely any children's books except the Primer, and at the age of ten, no poetry adapted to my age ; therefore, without presumption, I may claim some originality for an attempt at an acrostic on an infant, by the name of Howard, beginning How sweet is the half opened rose ! Oh, how sweet is the violet to view! Who receives more pleasure from them, Here it seems I broke down in the acrostic department, and went on Than the one who thinks them like you? Yes, yes, you're a sweet little rose, That will bloom like one awhile ; And then you will be like one still, For I hope you will die without guile. The Davidsons, at the same age, would, I suppose, have smiled at this poor rhyming, but in vindication of my ten-year-old-ship I must remark, that they were surrounded by the educational light of the present era, while I was in the dark age of 1805. My education was exceedingly irregular, a perpetual passing from school to school, from my earliest memory. I drew a very little, and worked the "Babes in the Woods" on white satin, in floss silk ; my teacher and my grandmother being the only persons who recognised in the remarkable individuals that issued from my hands a likeness to those innocent sufferers. I taught myself the English guitar at the age of fifteen from hearing a schoolmate take lessons, and ambitiously made a tune. which I doubt if posterity will care to hear. By depriving myself of some luxuries, I purchased an instrument, over which my whole soul was poured in joy and sorrow for many years. A dear friend, who shared my desk at school, was kind enough to work out all my r>4 CAROLINE OILMAN. sums for me (there were no black-boards then), while I wrote a novel in a series of letters, under the euphonious name of Eugenia Fitz Allen. The consequence is that, so far as arithmetic is con- cerned, I have been subject to perpetual mortifications ever since, and shudder to this day when any one asks me how much is seven times nine. I never could remember the multiplication table, and, to heap coals of fire on its head in revenge, set it to rhyme. I wrote my school themes in rhyme, and instead of following "Beauty soon decays," and " Cherish no ill designs," in B and C, I surprised my teacher with " Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll, Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul." My teacher, who at that period was more ambitious for me than I was for myself, initiated me into Latin, a great step for that period. The desire to gratify a friend induced me to study "Watts's Logic. I did commit it to memory conscientiously, but on what an unge- nial soil it fell ! I think, to this day, that science is the dryest of intellectual chips, and for sorry quibblings, and self-evident propo- sitions, syllogisms are only equalled by legal instruments, for which, by the way, I have lately seen a call for reform. Spirits of Locke, and Brown, and Whewell, forgive me ! About this period I walked four miles a week to Boston to join a private class in French. The religious feeling was always powerful within me. I remem- ber, in girlhood, a passionate joy in lonely prayer, and a delicious elevation, when with upraised look, I trod my chamber floor, recit- ing or singing Watts's Sacred Lyrics. At sixteen I joined the Communion at the Episcopal Church in Cambridge. At the age of eighteen I made another sacrifice in dress to pur- chase a Bible with a margin sufficiently large to enable me to insert a commentary. To this object I devoted several months of study, transferring to its pages my deliberate convictions. T am glad to class myself with the few who first established the CAROLINE OILMAN. 55 Sabbath School and Benevolent Society at Watertown, and to say that I have endeavoured, under all circumstances, wherever niy lot has fallen, to carry on the work of social love. * * * * At the age of sixteen I wrote " Jephthah's Rash Vow." I was gratified by the request of an introduction from Miss Hannah Adams, the erudite, the simple-minded, and gentle-mannered author of the History of Religions. After her warm expressions of praise for my verses, I said to her, " Oh, Miss Adams, how strange to hear a lady, who knows so much, admire me !" "My dear," replied she, with her little lisp, "my writings are merely compilations, Jephthah is your own." This incident is a specimen of her habitual humility. To show the change from that period, I will remark, that when I learned that my verses had been surreptitiously printed in a news- paper, I wept bitterly, and was as alarmed as if I had been detected in man's apparel. The next effusion of mine was "Jairus's Daughter," which I inserted, by request, in the North American Review, then a miscellany. A few years later I passed four winters at Savannah, and remember still vividly, the love and sympathy of that genial community. In 1819 I married Samuel Gilman, and came to Charleston, S. C., where he was ordained pastor of the Unitarian Church In 1832, I commenced editing the "Rose Bud," a hebdomadal, the first juvenile newspaper, if I mistake not, in the Union. Mrs. Child had led the way in her monthly miscellany, to my apprehen- sion the most perfect work that has ever appeared for youth. The " Rose Bud" gradually unfolded through seven volumes, taking the title of the " Southern Rose," and being the vehicle of some rich literature and valuable criticism. From this periodical I have reprinted, at various times, the following volumes : " Recollections of a New England Housekeeper ;" " Recollections 50 CAROLINE OILMAN. of a Southern Matron;" "Ruth Raymond, or Love's Progress;" "Poetry of Travelling in the United States;" "Tales and Bal- lads;" "Verses of a Lifetime;" "Letters of Eliza Wilkinson, during the invasion of Charleston;" also, several volumes for youth, now collected in one, and recently republished, as " Mrs. Oilman's Gift Book." The "Poetry of Travelling," "Tales and Ballads," and "Eliza Wilkinson," are ou.t of print. The " Oracles from the Poets," and " The Sibyl," which occupied me two years, are of later date. On the publication of the " Recollections of a New England Housekeeper," I received thanks and congratulations from every quarter, and I attribute its popularity to the fact that it was the first attempt, in that particular mode, to enter into the recesses of American homes and hearths, the first unveiling of what I may call the altar of the Lares in our cuisine. I feel proud to say that a chapter in that work was among the first heralds of the temperance movement, a cause to which I shall cheerfully give my later as well as earlier powers. My ambition has never been to write a novel ; in the " Matron " and "Clarissa Packard" it will be seen that the story is a mere hinge for facts. After the publication of the "Poetry of Travelling," I opened to a notice in a review, and was greeted with, " This affectation will never do." It has amused me since to notice how "this affecta- tion" has spread, until we have now the "Poetry of Teaching," and the " Poetry of Science." My only pride is in my books for children. I have never thought myself a poet, only a versifier ; but I know that I have learned the way to youthful hearts, and I think I have originated several styles of writing for them. While dwelling on the above sketch, I have discovered the diffi- culty of autobiography, in the impossibility of referring to one's faults. Perchance were I to detail the personal mistakes and defi- ciencies of this long era, I might lose the sympathy which may have followed me thus far. I have purposely confined myself to my earlier recollections, CAROLINE GILMAN. 57 believing that my writings will be the best exponents of my views and experience. It would be wrong, however, for me not to allude, in passing, to one subject which has had a potent influence on my life, I refer to mesmerism or magnetic psychology. This seemingly mysterious agency, has given me relief when other human aid was hopeless, and I believe it is destined, when calmly investigated, to be, under Providence, a great remedial agent for mankind. My Heavenly Father has called me to varied trials of joy and sorrow. I trust they have all drawn me nearer to him. I have resided in Charleston thirty-one years, and shall pr6bably make my final resting-place in the beautiful cemetery adjoining my husband's church the church of my faith and my love. SARAH HALL. . MRS. SARAH HALL was born at Philadelphia, on the 30th of October, 1761. She was the daughter of the Rev. John Ewing, D. D., who was, for many years, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, and Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church at Philadelphia. At the close of the revolutionary war, in the year 1782, she was mar- ried to Mr. John Hall, the son of a wealthy planter in Maryland, to which State they removed. Here she spent about eight years, upon a beautiful farm on the shores of the Susquehanna. After their residence in Maryland, they settled in Philadelphia, where Mr. Hall filled successively the offices of Secretary of the Land Office, and Marshal of the United States, for the district of Pennsylvania. Endowed by nature with an ardent and lively imagination, she early imbibed a keen relish for the beauties of polite literature, and devoted much time to such pursuits. When the Port Folio was established by Mr. Dennie in 1800, she was one of the literary circle with which he associated, and to whose pens that work was indebted for its celebrity. Elegant litera- ture was at that time more successfully cultivated in Philadelphia than in any other part of the Union. To write for the Port Folio was considered no small honour; and to be among the favoured correspondents of Mr. Denrie was a distinction of some value, where the competitors were so numerous, and so highly gifted; for among the writers for that work were a number of gentlemen, who have since filled the most exalted stations in the Federal government, both in the cabinet and on the bench, and who have, in various ways, reaped the highest rewards of patriotism and genius. Some of the most sprightly essays and pointed criticisms which appeared in this paper, at the time of its greatest popu- larity, were from the pen of Mrs. Hall. When the Port Folio came under the direction of her son, the late (58) SARAH HALL. 5T John E. Hall, who was its editor for more than ten years, she con- tinually aided him in his labours; and her contributions may readily be distinguished, as well by their vivacity as the classic purity of their diction. She survived but a few months that son, her eldest, whom she had encouraged and assisted in his various literary labours for about twenty years. She studied the Scriptures with diligence, and with prayer with all the humility of Christian zeal, and with all the scholar's thirst for acqui- sition. By such means, and with the aid of the best libraries of Phila- delphia, Mrs. Hall became as eminent for scholarship in this department of learning, as she was for wit, vivacity, and genius. Her " Conversa- tions on the Bible," a practical and useful book, which is now extensively known, affords ample testimony that her memory is entitled to this praise. This work is written with that ease and simplicity which belongs to true genius ; and contains a fund of information which could only have been collected by diligent research and mature thought. While engaged in this undertaking, she began the study of the Hebrew language, to enable herself to make the necessary critical researches, and is supposed to have made a considerable proficiency in the attainment of that dialect. When it is stated that she commenced the authorship of this work after she had passed the age of fifty, she being then the mother of eleven children, and that during her whole life she was eminently distinguished for her industry, economy, and exact attention to all the duties belonging to her station, as the head of a numerous family, it will be seen that she was no ordinary woman. In a letter to a literary lady in Scotland, written in 1821, Mrs. Hall makes the following remarks, which will be read with interest, as show- ing the change that has taken place in the last thirty years : " Your flattering inquiry about my ' literary career' may be answered in a word literature has no career in America. It is like wine, which, we are told, must cross the ocean to make it good. We are a business- doing, money-making people. And as for us poor females, the blessed tree of liberty has produced such an exuberant crop of bad servants, that we have no eye nor ear for anything but work. We are the most devoted wives, and mothers, and housekeepers, but every moment given to a book is stolen. The first edition of the ' Conversations' astonished me by its rapid sale j for I declare to you, truly, that I promised myself nothing. Should the second do tolerably, I may perhaps be tempted to accede to the intimations of good-natured people, by continuing the history to the end of the Acts of the Apostles. Yet I found so much difficulty in the performance of the first part, having never written one hour without the interruption of company, or business, that I sent off my last sheet as peevishly as Johnson sent the Finis of his Dictionary to Miller, almost (10 SARAH HALL. vowing that I would never again touch a pen. In fact it is, as your friend says, ' She that would be a notable housewife, must be that thing only.'" Mrs. Hall died at Philadelphia, on the 8th of April, 1830, aged 69. A small volume containing selections from her miscellaneous writings, was published in Philadelphia, in 1833. This volume contains also an inter- esting sketch of her life, from which the present notice has been compiled. ON FASHION.* MOST of you writers have leaped into the censor's throne without leave or license ; where you were no sooner seated, than, with the impudence one might expect from such conduct, you have railed, with all the severity of satire and indecency of invective, against our folly, frivolity, forwardness, fondness of dress, and so forth. You can't conceive what a latitude is assumed by the witlings of the day, from the encouragement of such pens as yours. Those well dressed young gentlemen who will lay awake whole nights in carving the fashion of a new doublet, and who will criticise Cooper without knowing whether Shakspeare wrote dramas or epic poems, these wiseacres, I say, saunter along Chestnut street, when the sun shines, and amuse themselves with sneers against our sex : and in nothing are we so much the object of their ridicule as in our devotion to fashion, on whose shrine, according to these modern peripatetics, we sacrifice our time, our understanding, and our health. We have freedom of the press, and freedom of religion, and why should we net enjoy a freedom of fashions ? What do these sapient gentlemen wish? Would they have a dress for females established by an act of the Assembly, as doctors of medicine have been created in Maryland ? " Which dress afore- said of the aforegoing figure, colour, materials, fashion, cut, make, &c., &c., all Che good spinsters of Pennsylvania shall wear on all highdays and holydays, under pain,, &c., &c." Horrible idea ! What ! tie us down to the dull routine of the same looks, the same bonnets, the same cloaks ? take from us that charming diversity, that delightful variety, which blooms in endless succession from * Addressed to the editor of the Port Folio. SARAH HALL. 31 week to week, with the changes of the season make us tedious to ourselves, and as unalterable and unattractable as an old family picture or, what is equally out of the way and insipid, an old bachelor ? But some of you talk of simplicity of nature ; of the gewgaw display of artificial charms ; of deforming nature's works by the cumbrous and fantastical embellishments of art, and so forth. Now, sir, if you will pin the argument to this point, I shall have you in my power. Pray, is nature simple, barren, tedious, dull, uniform, and unadorned, as you old bachelors would have us to be, so that we might resemble your comfortless selves ? Look at the trees are they all of the same colour ? Are they not so infinitely diversified in their shades and figures, that, to an observing eye, no two are alike ? Observe the flowers of the garden : do- they exhibit the same sombre or pale hue ? Do they present that dull simplicity which you recommend to us, whom your gravest philoso- phers allow to be the handsomest beings in creation ? Do you prefer the dull uniformity of a trench of upright celery to the variegated bed of tulips ? What would you say of a project to reform nature by robbing the rose of its blushing red, the lily of its silver lustre, the tulip of its gorgeous streaks, the violet of its regal purple, and allowing the vale to be no longer embroidered with their various beauties ? or, of blotting from the clouds their golden streaks and dazzling silver, and banishing the gay rainbow from the heavens, because they are not of a uniform colour, but for ever present more varieties and combinations of beauties than our imagination can paint ? And shall not we, who, at least, pre- tended to have the use of reason, imitate nature ? Nature has given for our use the varied dyes of the mineral and vegetable world, which enables us almost to vie with her own splendid gild ing. Nature made us to be various, changeable, inconstant, many- coloured, whimsical, fickle, and fond of show, if you please, and we follow nature with the greatest fidelity when, like her, we use her beauties to delight the eye, gratify the taste, and employ the mind in the harmonious varieties of colour and figure to which fashion resorts, and to which we devote so much time and thought. 62 SARAH HALL. Attend to these hints, and if you properly digest them, I have no doubt so sensible a head as you possess must nod assent to my doctrine, that to study fashion and be in the fashion is the most delightful and harmless employment upon earth, and the most con- formable to our nature. But if you should be so perverse as to think erroneously on this subject, I advise you to keep your obser- vations to yourselves, or to have your heads well wigged the next time you come amongst us. MARIA J. McINTOSH. THE Clan Mclntosh is noted in the earliest Scottish history, as the leader in that powerful confederation known as the " Clan Chattan." This family sided with the House of Stuart in hs last bold struggle for power, and the whole Highland force fought under its chief, Brigadier-General Mclntosh. With the defeat of the Koyal family came the fall of their faithful adhe- rents and the confiscation of their property, and with one hundred and thirty Highlanders John Moore Mclntosh accompanied Oglethorpe's party, and settled on the Altamaha, in the district now called Georgia. The refugees carried with them their love for the fatherland, even to the names of its hills. They styled their frontier settlement New Inver- ness (since changed to Darien), and the county received, and still bears, the family title of Mclntosh. Colonel William Mclutosh, the son of the first settler of tbe new colony, fought as an officer in the French and Indian wars, and died leaving a son, Major Lachlan Mclntosh, who was the father of Miss Maria J. Mclntosh, the subject of the present sketch. By profession Major Mclntosh was a lawyer, but with the readiness that warlike times engender, at the first summons of danger he stepped from the legal arena to the higher joust of arms, and fought, with the enthusiastic bravery of a Georgian, through all our revolutionary war. After the establishment of peace, he married a lady of the name of Maxwell, and settled in the practice of his original profession at Sunbury, Liberty county, in Georgia, where our author was born, and where she has spent the greater portion of her life. This place is a small village, beautifully situated at the head of a bay or long arm of the sea. The house of Major Mclntosh, a stately old mansion, commanded a full view of the water, and was, for years, a general gathering place for the gentry of the State. The remembrance of the (63) 61 MARIA J. McINTOSH. gonerous hospitality, the faithful adherents, the graceful society, and the luxuriant beauty of nature, that displayed itself in and around the family mansion, is still vivid in the mind of our author, and shows itself in the fervour and enthusiasm of her language whenever she writes of the land of her childhood. But the day-dreams of youth were doomed to a sad awakening. Miss Mclntosh, in 1835, after the death of both her parents, left her native place, to reside in New York, with her brother, James M. Mclntosh, of the U. S. Navy. With the change of residence came a change in the investment of her property. The whole of her ample fortune was vested in New York securities just previous to the commercial crisis of 1837, and the lady awoke from her life-dream of prosperity, in a strange city, totally bankrupt. By an almost universal dispensation of Providence, which ordains means of defence and support to the frailest formations of animal life, with the new station was granted a power of protection, of pleasure, and mainte- nance, unknown to the old. New feelings and powers came into life. Thoughts that before were scarcely formed, emotions that had never shaped themselves into expression, and ideas of the high and holy in life that had been hitherto unshapen dreams, suddenly attained a new growth. Hundreds of seeds that hung to the tree when all was sunshine, were shaken to the earth by the blast, watered by the storm, and sprung to a vigorous life, until, at length, the very subject of misfortune blessed the evil that had been changed to a good. Two years after the loss of her property, Miss Mclntosh had completed her first work. It was a small volume, bearing the marks of a feeling, religious mind, and written in a pleasant, easy style, suitable for children, and bore the name of " Blind Alice." Few understand how sensitive is the anxiety of an author for his first work ; how he watches and criticises his dearest feelings when they are about to be made public property, and issued to the world. But how much greater must be this sensitive dread when the author is a woman, and a woman whose whole life and support are cast upon that one venture ? Miss Mclntosh had all these feelings to struggle with in their fullest strength, and, in addition, the delays and difficulty of obtaining the publication of a work by a new writer. For two years the manuscript of this little volume lay alternately on the table of the author and the desk of the publishers. At last, in Janu- ary, 1841, it was issued anonymously. Its success was complete; and with renewed energy the author resumed her pen, and finished and pub- lished in the summer of the same year "Jessie Graham," a work of similar size and character. " Florence Arnott," " Grace and Clara," and " Ellen Leslie," all of the same class and style, appeared successively, and at short intervals, the last being published in 1843. These works are generally known as "Aunt Kitty's Tales." They MARIAJ. McINTOSH. l>3 were received with constantly increasing favour, as the series proceeded, and, after its completion, were republished in England with equal suc- cess. They are simple tales of American life, told in graceful and easy language, and conveying a moral of beauty and truthfulness that wins love at once for the fictitious character and the earnest writer. And many a girl, as she read of the charities of Harriet Armand, of Florence Arnott, and O'Donnel's cabin, and the nameless Aunt Kitty, who wove a moral with every pleasure, a lesson with every pain, and yet so secretly that the moral could never be discerned until the tale was finished, has laid down the book and wondered involuntarily who Aunt Kitty was. In the year 1844, she published " Conquest and Self-Conquest." This work is a fiction of a more ambitious character than any of the pre- ceding. The hero of the tale is a midshipman. One portion of the plot is laid in the city of Washington, another at sea. It is then changed to New Orleans, and again to the piratical island of Barrataria, on the Mexican coast. Frederick Stanley, the hero of the story, is made to feel that constant self-restraint will win -self-command, and that self-command will rule his own happiness and the minds of others. In the same year appeared another work, entitled "Woman an Enigma." It is an attempt to delineate, not moral principles that are well defined not religious duties, that are more easily depicted, but the ideal, impalpable, varied substance of woman's love. This seems to be a natural ground for a woman to walk upon, when she has passed the days of girlhood, and arrived at such a distance from the scenes of passion as to look back with a calm eye on the rush of early thoughts. The first scene in the book opens in a convent in France, where young Louise waits upon a dying friend, and the friend leaves her ward as an affianced bride to her brother the Marquis de Montrevel. The vow is duly made between the noble courtier and the trusting girl. Louise is then taken to Paris by her parents and introduced to fashionable life, with its gayeties and seductions, while the Marquis is absent on his estate. The new world of pleasure has no effect on the novice, save so far as it stimulates her to excel, that she may the more be worthy of her hus- band's love. She mingles in the dance to acquire grace, in the soire'e to learn the styles of fashionable life, and all for the sole purpose of being the better fitted to be the companion and wife of the high-born noble. But the absent lover hears of the brilliant life of his so lately timid girl, and, ignorant of the mighty power that impels her to the exertion, scorns the supposed fickleness that will give to the many that regard which he had hoped to have won exclusively for himself. Then follows the portion of the work which most perfectly pictures the author's ideas of womanly love. The earnest toil of the poor girl for the pittance of a smile that is rewarded by jealousy with a sneer; the pap 9 C6 MARIA J. McINTOSH. sionate pride of the wounded woman ; the stern sorrow of the man ; and the final separation, are all true to the instincts of that master feeling. In 1845 appeared " Praise and Principle," a fiction of the same size as the others just named. The hero of the story, Frank Derwent, is an American boy, and is intro- duced to the reader while at school. Having opposed the only relative from whom he could hope for assistance, he is thrown wholly on his own re- sources, yet by the practice of great self-denial, by energy and a steadfast adherence to truth and principle, he attains a high position as a lawyer, and wins the hand of a fair client. The foil to this character is Charles Ellersby, a school companion of Frank, and a competitor in the world for the praise that Frank discards for the love of the dearer right. Frank wins an hon- ourable name and a happy home, while Charles receives, as a bitter punish- ment, that curse of manhood, a fashionable wife, and in a year is ruined. The whole work illustrates the character of the author, and her constant endeavour to write not so much for the entertaining powers of the tale, which is for a day, but for the inner life of the story, that is for all time. " The Cousins, a Tale for Children," appeared in the latter part of the same year. This is a small volume, originally written for the series of Aunt Kitty's Tales, and is the last work she has published anonymously. In 1847 was published " Two Lives, or To Seem and To Be," and with it the name of the author, who had heretofore been unknown. The suc- cess that it won may be estimated by the fact that it reached a seventh edition in less than four years from its publication. In 1848 appeared " Charms and Counter Charms," a work of greater size and power, and on the most complex plan of any yet written by our author, and received with so great favour that it is already in its sixth edition. Miss Mclntosh here treats of a subject that woman seldom attempts, and the bearing of the tale is mainly on this one point; namely, the neces- sity of the marriage rite not only for the morality of the world, but for the morality, happiness, fidelity, and religion of any individual couple. Euston Hastings, the hero of the story, a man somewhat on the Byronic order, whom having seen you turn to watch, scarcely knowing why, wins and marries a young girl, Evelyn Beresford. But before the marriage, and after the engagement, he declares to the lady of his choice his so-called liberal views on the subject of religion. Not long after, Evelyn asks his views in regard to marriage. The man of the world replies " I answer you with confidence, because I know such is your affinity with purity and truth that you will discover them though they appear in forms which conventionalism condemns ; and I tell you, without disguise, that I think marriage unnecessary to secure fidelity where there is love, and insufficient where there is not." The revelation of these foreign views does not, however, alienate the MARIA J. McINTOSH. 67 woman's heart, and Evelyn is soon bound to her husband by the same holy tie that he considers a conventional form. But Evelyn loves with an engrossing passion. With a strength of feel- ing that demands a constant return, and forgetting the hundred busy things that are calling a man's attention, she desires the whole time and the whole regard of her husband. This selfish, exclusive love, that engrosses the object when it submits, and is thrown into tears when it does not, produces the natural consequence on a man to whom perfect liberty is an accustomed right. He seeks for the regard from other per- sons, that he cannot receive from his wife without a corresponding degree of personal restraint. This course produces another result on Evelyn, She feels wounded and becomes reproachful. Instead of winning him by her charms, she calls him to her society by her rights, until at last Hastings leaves secretly for Europe, and is supposed to have fled with another lady. The blow falls fearfully heavy on one who had centred all her hopes on the dearly loved husband. Everything is forgotten but her mighty love, and she follows him abroad. A valet accompanying leads her to Rome, and she meets her husband. He is struck by her devotion and the wrongs he has inflicted. He provides her a house and every attention, and they reside together happy in the love which is at last acknowledged above every consideration. But it is on this express agreement, that Evelyn is not to be known as his wife, and that they are free to part whenever either of them may choose Hastings has the liberty that he so dearly prizes, and Evelyn the lover that she regards more than all the world besides. It is in this curious relation that the power of the writer is shown. The most ultra case is taken upon which to build the argument for the holiness of the marriage vow. A couple are duly married, and the marriage is made public to all the world. They live together for a time as man and wife. They are then separated, and again come together, not on the strength of the marriage rite, but only on their mutual love. But does this new connexion produce the happinessto Evelyn that she desired? On the contrary, there is a sense of wrong in every pleasure. She looks at her own servants with shame ; and between her and every flower she touches, every kiss she receives, there seems springing up a consciousness of guilt. At length Hastings is taken ill, and lies unconscious and near to death. Evelyn watches by his side with tearful fidelity, and in agony unutterable attends him through the dark valley, and at length sees him recovering with feelings of joy and childlike happiness But during the course of this weary illness she is made to see the right way, even amid the darkness by which she had been surrounded ; and, when Euston has entirely recovered his health, the young wife ((hough yg MARIA J. McINTOSH. not bearing the name) flees from the land of beauty and the arms of her lover, in an agony of grief, leaving behind her a letter explaining her change of views and the cause of her departure. At last, in the heart of the sensualist, the crust of worldliness is broken up, and Euston Hastings, roused from the guilty selfishness of his life, leaves Rome to seek the wife who has become his all in the world. He finds her in Paris, and they are again united, not by any wavering passion, but by holy love and marriage, which gains a higher beauty from the bright faith and exquisite description of its able defender. This work, though a high-wrought tale of fiction, is really an exposition of a theory, and the reader frequently finds himself laying aside the book to think, Is that theory really so? and finds that, after the work is read, there is within the fabric of the tale, an inner temple of right and wrong; where are engraven principles that are pervading his memory equally, if not more constantly than the plot of the fiction. " Woman in America; Her Work, and Her Reward," the next succeed- ing work in the order of publication, was issued in 1850. In this work, the author, apparently tired of teaching only through the medium of fiction, addresses herself to reasoning and argument. We read here the ideas of a religious woman, well acquainted with all grades of American society, in an earnest tone denouncing the servility of her sex to the rules of fashion and opinion, modelled not by the good and virtuous, but by the dissolute societies of Europe, and forms and customs made not after the model of a naturally honest, or even commonly virtuous ideal, but copied after the ever-changing, never true, leader of some dissolute or fastidious circle it may be, of Paris, it may be of Saratoga. The only rule that seems never to have changed among this class of people until it is embodied in their social confession of faith, is " Money makes the man." Mahogany doors are closed to the gentleman-labourer, that are flung wide open to him when he becomes a millionaire. White arms are outstretched to the banker, that are folded in scorn to his approach when a bankrupt. " Evenings at Donaldson Manor," was published as a Christmas Guest, for the year 1850. It was a collection of tales that had appeared at dif- ferent times in periodicals. " The Lofty and the Lowly" is a work depicting the peculiar social characteristics of the North and South. It has had a large sale both in this country and in England. It will be obvious to every one familiar with Miss Mcln tosh's writings, that she is a delineator entirely of mental life. The physical in man, in animals, and nature, is never used, except so far as is necessary to bring forward the mind and its virtues, desires, and principles. She has appa- rently excluded from her attention everything that did not absolutely belong to the moral life. MARIA J. McINTOSH. 39 Evelyn and Euston live for a summer on the Tiber, but not the faintest tinge of the golden light, or the lowest breath of Roman air enters within their villa. Hubert Falconer builds a frontier cottage, but he never listens to the sighing pines, or treads the forest aisles. Mind, with its wayward creeds, can alone be seen in the Imperial City. Feelings right and wrong, and promises faithfully performed are more to Hubert than earth, air, and water, and the glorious gifts of Nature. Miss Mclntosh still further restricts herself in the characters of her story, and selects only the common ones of practical life, as though anx- ious for the principle alone, and the fiction that would draw the reader off from the moral is discarded. In her quiet pages there never occurs the extreme either of character or passion. It is only the system of con- science the rule of right the law of God that is portrayed, and the more marked characters, or the more easily delineated beauties and feel- ings of life and nature are left with a rigid indifference to those whose design is to please more than to instruct. Yet the reader, when the book is closed, and he has gone to his daily labour, or mingles in social life, finds lingering in his brain, and warming in his heart, a true principle of honour and love that is constantly con- trasting itself with the hollow forms by which he is surrounded, and if he fails to bear himself up to that high ideal of principle which he feels to be true, he still walks a little nearer to his conscience and his God, and long after the volume is returned to the shelf and forgotten, a kindly benediction is given to the noble influence it incited. And thus will it be with the author that lives in the hearts and not in the fancy of her readers. And long after she is returned to the great library of the unforgotten dead, a blessing wide as her language, and fer- vent as devotion, will descend on the delineator of those lofty principles that showed the nobleness of simplicity, and the holiness of truth. The extract which follows is from "Woman in America." TWO PORTRAITS. PERMIT us, in illustration of our subject, to place before you a sketch of an American woman of fashion as she is and as she might be as she must he to accomplish the task we would appoint her. Examine with a careful eye " the counterfeit presentment" of these two widely differing characters, and choose the model on which you will form yourselves. And first, by a few strokes of this magic wand the pen we will conjure within the charmed circle of your vision, the woman of fashion as she is. 70 MARIA J. McINTOSH. FLIRTILLA, for so noted a character must not want a name, may well be pronounced a favourite of nature and of fortune. To the first she owed a pleasing person and a mind which offered no unapt soil for cultivation ; by favour of the last, she was born the heiress to wealth and to those advantages which wealth unquestionably confers. Her childhood was carefully sequestered from all vulgar influences, and she was early taught, that to be a little lady was her highest possible attainment. At six years old she astonished the elite assembled in her father's halls, and even dazzled the larger assemblages of Saratoga by her grace in dancing and by the ease with which she conversed in French, which, ^as it was the language of her nursery attendants, had been a second mother-tongue to her. At the fashionable boarding-school, at which her education was, in common parlance, completed, she distanced all competitors for the prizes in modern languages, dancing, and music ; and acquired so much acquaintance with geography and history as would secure her from mistaking Prussia for Persia, or imagining that Lord Wellington had conquered Julius Caesar in other words, so much knowledge of them as would guard her from betraying her igno- rance. To these acquirements she added a slight smattering of various natural sciences. All these accomplishments had nearly been lost to the world, by her forming an attachment for one of fine qualities, personal and mental, who was entirely destitute of fortune. From the fatal mistake of yielding to such an attachment she was preserved by a judicious mother, who placed before her in vivid contrast the commanding position in which she would be placed as the wife of Mr. A , with his houses and lands, his bank stock and magnificent equipage ; and the mSdiocre station she would occupy as Mrs. B , a station to which one of her aspiring mind could not readily succumb, even though she found herself there in company with one of the most interesting and agreeable of men. Relinquishing with a sigh the gratification of the last sentiment that bound her to nature and to rational life, she magnanimously sacrificed her inclinations to her sense of duty, and became Mrs. A . From this time her course has been undisturbed by one faltering feeling, one wavering thought. She has visited London MARIAJ. McINTOSH. 71 and Paris, only that she might assure herself that her house pos- sessed all which was considered essential to a genteel establishment m the first, and that her toilette was the most recherchg that could be obtained in the last. She laughs at the very idea of wearing anything made in America, and is exceedingly merry over the por- traitures of Yankee character and Yankee life occasionally to' be met in the pages of foreign tourists, or to be seen personated in foreign theatres. She complains much of the promiscuous charac- ter of American society, dances in no set but her own, and, in order to secure her exclusiveness from contact with the common herd, moves about from one point of fashionable life to another, attended by the same satellites, to whom she is the great centre of attraction. Her manners, like her dresses, are imported from Paris. She talks and laughs very loudly at all public places, lec- tures, concerts, and the like ; and has sometimes, even in the house of God, expressed audibly her assent with or dissent from the preacher, that she may prove herself entirely free from that shock- ingly American mauvaise honte, which she supposes to be all that keeps other women silent. Any gentleman desiring admission to her circle must produce authentic credentials that he has been abroad, must wear his mustaches after the latest Parisian cut, must interlard his bad English with worse French, and must be familiar with the names and histories of the latest ballet-dancers and opera- singers who have created a fever of excitement abroad. To foreign- ers she is particularly gracious, and nothing throws her into such a fervour of activity as the arrival in the country of an English Lord, a German Baron, or a French or Italian Count. To draw such a character within her circle she thinks no effort too great, no sacri- fice of feeling too humiliating. It may be objected that all our descriptions of the fashionable woman as she is, relates to externals ; that of the essential charac- ter, the inner life, we have, in truth, said nothing. But what can we do ? So far as we have yet been able to discover, this class is destitute of any inner life. Those who compose it live for the world and in the world. Home is with them only the place in which thej receive visits. We acknowledge that few in our country 7 . 2 MARIA J. McINTOSH. have yet attained to so perfect a development of fashionable cha- racter as we have here described; but to some it is already an attainment ; to many we fear to most, young women of what are called the higher classes in our large cities it is an aim. Nobler spirits there are, indeed, among us, of every age and every class, and from these we must choose our example of a woman of fashion as she should be. On her, too, we will bestow a name a name associated with all gentle and benignant influences the name of her who in her shaded retreats received of old the ruler of earth's proudest empire, that she might " breathe off with the holy air" of her pure affection, "that dust o' the heart" caught from contact with coarser spirits. So have we dreamed of EGERIA, and Egeria shall be the name of our heroine. Heroine indeed, for heroic must be her life. With eyes uplifted to a protecting Heaven, she must walk the narrow path of right, a precipice on either hand, never submitting, in her lowliness of soul, to the encroachments of the selfish, and eager, and clamorous crowd, never bowing her own native nobility to the dictation of those whom the world styles great. "Resisting the proud, but giving grace unto the humble," if we may without irreverence appropriate to a mortal, words descriptive of Him whose unapproachable and glorious holiness we are exhorted to imitate. In society, Egeria is more desirous to please than to shine. Her associates are selected mainly for their personal qualities, and if she is peculiarly attentive and deferential to any class, it is to those unfortunates whom poverty, the accidents of birth, or the false arrangements of society, have divorced from a sphere for which their refinement of taste and manner and their intellectual cultivation had fitted them. Admission to her society is sought as a distinction, because it is known that it must be purchased by something more than a graceful address, a well-curled mustache, or the reputation of a travelled man. At her entertainments, you will often meet some whom you will meet nowhere else ; some promis- ing young artist, yet unknown to fame, some who, once standing in the sunshine of fortune, were well known to many whose vision is too imperfect for the recognition of features over which adversity MARIA J. McINTOSH. 73 has thrown its shadow. The influence of Egeria is felt through the whole circle of her' acquaintance; she encourages the young to high aims and persevering efforts, she brightens the fading light of the aged, but above all is she a blessing and a glory within her own home. Her husband cannot look on her to borrow Longfel- low's beautiful thought without "reading in the serene expression of her face, the Divine beatitude, 'Blessed are the pure in heart.' " Her children revere her as the earthly type of perfect love. They learn, even more from her example than her precept, that they are to live not to themselves, but to their fellow-creatures, and to God in them. She has so cultivated their taste for all which is beautiful and noble, that they cannot but desire to conform themselves to such models. She has taught them to love their country and devote themselves to its advancement not because it excels all others, but because it is that to which God in his providence united them, and whose advancement and true interest they are bound to seek by all just and Christian methods. In a word, she has never forgotten that they are immortal and responsible beings, and this thought has reappeared in every impression she has stamped upon their minds. But it is her conduct towards those in a social position inferior to her own, which individualizes most strongly the character of Egeria. Remembering that there are none who may not, under our free institutions, attain to positions of influence and responsi- bility, she endeavours, in all her intercourse with them, to awaken their self-respect and desire for improvement, and she is ever ready to aid them in the attainment of that desire, and thus to fit them for the performance of those duties that may devolve on them. "Are you not afraid that Bridget will leave you, if, by your lessons, you fit her for some higher position?" asked a lady, on finding her teaching embroidery to a servant who had shown much aptitude for it. " If Bridget can advance her interest by leaving me, she shall have my cheerful consent to go. God forbid that I should stand in the way of good to any fellow-creature above'all, to one whom, 7t MARIA J. Me IN TOSH. by placing her under my temporary protection, he has made it especially my duty to serve," was her reply. In the general ignorance and vice of the population daily pour- ing into our country from foreign lands, Egeria finds new reason for activity, in the moral and intellectual advancement of all who are brought within her sphere of influence. Egeria has been accused of being ambitious for her children. "I am ambitious for them," she replies; "ambitious that they should occupy stations that may be as a vantage-ground from which to act for the public good." Notwithstanding this ambition, she has, to the astonishment of many in her own circle, consented that one of her sons should devote himself to mechanical pursuits. She was at first pitied for this, as a mortification to which she must certainly have been com- pelled, by her husband's singular notions, to submit. "You mistake," said Egeria, to one who delicately expressed this pity to her ; " my son's choice of a tratle had my hearty con- currence. I was prepared for it by the whole bias of his mind from childhood. He will excel in the career he has chosen, I have no doubt ; for he has abilities equal to either of his brothers, and he loves the object to which he has devoted them. As a lawyer or physician he would, probably, have but added one to the number of mediocre practitioners who lounge through life with no higher aim than their own maintenance." "But then," it was objected, "he would not have sacrificed his position in society." Egeria is human, and the sudden flush of indignation must have crimsoned the mother's brow at this ; and somewhat of scorn, we doubt not, was in the smile that curled her lip as she replied, " My son ca-n afford to lose the acquaintance of those who cannot appre- ciate the true nobility arid independence of spirit which have made him choose a position offering, as he believes, the highest means of development for his own peculiar powers, and the greatest probabi- lity, therefore, of his becoming useful to others." Our sketches are finished imperfect sketches we acknowledge them. It would have been a labour of love to have rendered the MARIA J. McINTOSH. 75 last complete to have followed the steps of Egeria the Christian gentlewoman through at least one day of her life ; to have shown her embellishing her social circle by her graces of manner and charms of conversation, and to have accompanied her from the saloons which she thus adorned, to more humble abodes. In these abodes she was ever a welcome as well as an honoured guest, for she bore thither a respectful consideration for their inmates, which is a rarer and more coveted gift to the poor than any wealth can purchase. Having done this, we would have liked to glance at her in the tranquil evening of a life well spent, and to contrast her then with Flirtilla old beyond the power "of rouge, false teeth, and false hair, to disguise still running through a round of pleasures that have ceased to charm, regretting the past, dissatisfied with the present, and dreading the future, alternately courting and abusing the world, which has grown weary of her. LYDIJC H. SIGOURNEY. JUSTICE has hardly been done to Mrs. Sigourney as a prose writer. She has been so long, and is so familiarly, quoted as a poet, that the public has in a measure forgotten that her indefatigable pen has sent forth almost a volume of prose yearly for more than a quarter of a century that her prose works already issued number, in fact, twenty-five volumes, averaging more than two hundred pages each, and some of them having gone through not less than twenty editions. She has indeed produced no one work of a thrilling or startling character, wherewith to electrify the public mind. Her writings have been more like the dew than the light- ning. Yet the dew, it is well to remember, is not only one of the most beneficent, but one of the" most powerful of nature's agents far more potential in grand results than its brilliant rival. When account shall be made of the various agencies, moral and intellectual, that have moulded the American mind and heart during the first half of the nineteenth cen- tury, few names will be honoured with a larger credit than that of Lydia H. Sigourney. The maiden name of this most excellent woman was Lydia Howard Huntley. She was born in Norwich, Connecticut, September 1st, 1791, of Ezekiel and Sophia Huntley. Being an only child, she was nurtured with special care and tenderness. But, besides the ordinary parental influences, there was in her early history one circumstance of a peculiar character, which, according to the testimony of those who have known her best, contributed largely and most happily to the moulding of her mind and heart. I refer to the remarkable intimacy that existed between the gifted and brilliant young girl and an aged lady that lived for many years in the same house. Madam Jerusha Lathrop, the lady referred to, was the relict of Dr. Daniel Lathrop, and daughter of Joseph Talcot, one of the Provincial Governors of Connecticut. Madam Lathrop is reported to have been gifted by nature with strong (76) LYDI1 H. SIGOURNEY. 77 powers of mind, and a dignity of person and manners that commanded universal respect. Her character had been matured by intercourse with men of powerful intellect, and by participation in great and trying scenes. The parents of Mrs. Sigourney resided under the roof of Madam Lathrop, who had been bereft of her husband and children, and though the house- holds were separate, the latter manifested from the first a tender solicitude for their infant daughter. As the mind of the child began to unfold itself, and to give promise of future richness and depth, the attachment became mutual, and in a few years an enduring confidence, an almost inseparable companion- ship, was established between the little maiden of six and the venerable woman of eighty. The following glimpse into the chamber of Madam Lathrop is from one entirely conversant with the subject. For its substantial correctness as to fact, we are permitted to quote the authority of Mrs. Sigourney her- self. It is quoted, not only as a beautiful episode in human life, but also as affording a key to some of the most charming peculiarities of Mrs. Sigourney' s writings. " Methinks we stand upon that ancient threshold ; we enter those low- browed, but ample rooms ; we mark the wood-fire gleaming upon crimson moreen curtains, gilded clock, ebony-framed mirror, and polished wainscot; but what most engages our attention, is the venerable occupant and her youthful companion. There sits the lady in her large arm-chair, and the young friend beside her, with face upturned, and loving eyes fixed on that beaming countenance. We can imagine that we hear, in alternate notes, the quick, gushing voice of childhood, and the tremulous tones of age, as question and reply are freely interchanged. And now we are startled, as the tremulous voice unexpectedly recovers strength and fulness, and breaks forth into some wild or pathetic melody the ballad or patriotic stanza of former days. The young auditor listens with rapt delight, and now, as the scene changes, with light breath and glowing aspect, she sits attentive to the minute and lively details of some domestic tale of truth, or striking episode of our national history treasuring up the diamond- dust, to be fused hereafter, by her genius, into pellucid gems. As night closes round, and the light from the two stately candlesticks glimmers through the room, the lady takes the cushioned seat in the corner, and the young inmate spreads out upon the table some well-kept, ancient book, often perused, yet never found wearisome ; and beguiles, with inces- sant reading, all too mature for her years, the long and lonely knitting hours of her aged friend." This glimpse into the parlour of Madam Lathrop is no fancy sketch. The evening was usually closed .by the singing of devotional hymns, and the repetition, from memory, of favourite psalms, or choice specimens of serious verse. The readings were mostly of devotional works. Young's Night Thoughts stood highest upon the list, and had severaj ~ 3 LYDIA H. SIGOUHNEY. times been read aloud, from beginning to end, by the young student, at an age in which most children can scarcely read, intelligibly, the simplest verse. Other tomes, and some heavy and sombrous, were also made fami- liar to her young mind, by repeated perusal ; but as the upper shelves of the lady's library contained some volumes of a lighter character, the curi- osity of childhood would render it pardonable, if now and then those shelves were furtively explored, or some old play or romance withdrawn, to be read by stealth in the solitary chamber. The chamber, to the young student, is a sacred precinct. There, not only is the evening problem and the morning recitation faithfully pre- pared for the school, and the borrowed book pored over in delightful secrecy, with.no intrusive eye to note the smiles and tears and unconscious gesticulation, that respond to the moving incidents of the tale but there, too, in silent and solitary hours, the light-footed muse slips in, and makes her earliest visits, leaving behind those first faintly dotted notes of music, which are for a long time bashfully kept concealed from every eye. Madam Lathrop watched with entire complacency the dawning genius of her young favourite. The simple, poetic effusion occasionally brought from that solitary chamber and timidly submitted to her inspection, was sure to be received with encouraging praise, and to kindle in the face of her aged friend that glow of approbation which was the highest reward that the imagination of the young aspirant had then conceived. The death of her venerable benefactress, which took place when she was fourteen years of age, was the first deep sorrow which her young heart had known. It was a disruption of very tender ties the breaking up of a peculiar intimacy between youth and age, and she could not be easily solaced for the bereavement. Nor has her mind ever lost the influence of this early association. It has kept with her through life, and runs like a fine vein through all her writings. The memory, the image, the teachings of this sainted friend, seem to accompany her like an invisible presence, and wherever the scene may be, she turns aside to commune with her spirit, or to cast a fresh flower upon her grave. Mrs. Sigourney has been remarkable through life for the steadfastness of her friendships. Besides the venerable companion already commemo- rated, she became early in life very tenderly attached to one of her own age, whose history has become identified with her own. This was Anna Maria Hyde ; a young lady whose sterling worth and fine mental powers were graced and rendered winning by uncommon vivacity and sweetness of disposition, unaffected modesty, and varied acquirements. The friend- ship of these two young persons for each other was intimate and endearing. They were companions in long rural walks, they sat side by side at their studies, visited at each other's dwellings, read together, wrought the same needle-work pattern, or, with paint and pencil, shaded the same flower. The neighbours regarded them as inseparable; the names of Hyde and LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. 79 Huntley were wreathed together, and one was seldom mentioned without the other. Youthful friendships are, however, so common, and usually so transient, that this would scarcely demand notice, but for the strength of its foundation. It appeared to be based upon a mutual, strong desire to do good to others ; a fixed purpose to employ the talents which God had given them, for the benefit of the world upon which they had entered. In pursuance of this object, they not only addressed themselves to the assi- duous cultivation of their mental powers, but they engaged with alacrity in domestic affairs and household duties ; and they found time, also, to make garments for the poor, to instruct indigent children, to visit the old and infirm, read with them, and administer to their temporal comfort, and to watch with the sick and dying. Among the plans for future usefulness which these young friends revolved, none seemed so feasible, or so congenial to their tastes, as that of devoting themselves to the office of instruction. This, therefore, they adopted as their province, their chosen sphere of action, and they reso- lutely kept this object in view, through the course of their education. The books they read, the studies they pursued, the accomplishments they sought, all had a reference to this main design. After qualifying them- selves to teach those English sciences which were considered necessary to the education of young females, together with the elements of the Latin tongue, they went to Hartford and spent the winter of 1810-11 princi- pally in attention to the ornamental branches, which were then in vogue. Returning from thence, they entered at once, at the age of nineteen, upon their grand pursuit. A class of young ladies in their native town gathered joyfully around them, and into this circle they cast not only the affluence of their well stored minds, and the cheering inspiration of youthful zeal, but all the strength of their best and holiest principles. Animated, blooming, happy, linked affectionately arm in arm, they daily came in among their pupils, diffusing love and cheerfulness, as well as knowledge, and commanding the most grateful attention and respect. The cordial affection between these interesting young teachers was itself a most important lesson to their pupils. One of the privileged few, wri- ting after a lapse of forty years, thus testifies to the lasting impression it produced upon their young hearts. " Pleasant it is to review those dove- like days to recall the lineaments of that diligent, earnest, mind-expand- ing group; and to note again the dissimilarity so beautifully harmonious, between those whom we delighted to call our sweet sister-teachers the two inseparables, inimitables. It was a matter of admiration to the pupils, that such oneness of sentiment, opinion, and affection, should co-exist with such a diversity in feature, voice, eyes, expression, manner, and movement, as the two friends exhibited." After a pleasing association of two years, the young teachers parted, each to pursue the same line of occupation in a different sphere. But 86 LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. another separation, fatal and afflictive, soon took place. The interesting and accomplished Miss Hyde was taken away in the midst of usefulness and promise mowed down like a rose-tree in bloom, March 26th, 1816, at the age of twenty-four. Of this beloved companion of her youth, Mrs. Sigourney wrote an interesting memoir, soon after her decease ; and she again recurs to her with gushing tenderness, in the piece entitled " Home of an early friend/' written nearly thirty years after the scene of bereave- ment. In flowing verse, and prose almost as harmonious as music, she has twined a lasting memorial of the worth of the departed, and of that tender friendship which was a marked incident in her own young life. Before the death of her friend, she had transferred her residence to Hartford, and again entered, with fresh enthusiasm, upon the task of instruction. In this path she was happy and successful j it was regarded as a privilege to be received into her circle, and many of her pupils became life-long friends, strewing her subsequent pathway with flowers. In Hartford, she was at once received as a welcome and cherished inmate of the family of Madam Wadsworth, relict of Col. Jeremiah Wads- worth, whose mother was a Talcot, and nearly connected with the revered Madam Lathrop. The mansion-house in which Madam Wadsworth and the aged sisters of her husband dwelt, stood upon the spot now occupied by the Wadsworth Athenaeum. It was a spacious structure ; unadorned, but deeply interesting in its historic associations. To the young guest it seemed a consecrated roof, whose every room was peopled with images of the past; nor was her ear ever inattentive to those descriptive sketches of the heroic age of our country, with which its venerable inhabitants enli- vened the evening hours. The poem, "On the Removal of an Ancient Mansion," is a graphic delineation of the impressions made on her mind by her acquaintance with the threshold and hearth-stone of this fine old house, and her communion with its excellent inmates. Another member of the same family, Daniel Wadsworth, Esq., had always manifested a lively interest in her mental cultivation. He had known her in childhood, under the roof of Madam Lathrop, and had there seen some of her early effusions, both in prose and verse. At his earnest solicitation, she made a collection of her fugitive pieces, and under his patronage, and with- his influence and liberality cast around her as a shield, she first ventured to appear before the public as an author. Mr. Wads- worth's regard for her suffered no diminution till his death, which took place in 1848. Few authors have found a friend so kind and so true. Of her affection for him and his amiable wife, her writings contain many proofs. Her Monody on the death of Mr. Wadsworth has the following noble stanza : 'Oh, friend! thou didst o'ermaster well The pride of wealth, and multiply LYDiA H. SIGOURNEY. 81 Good deeds not done for the good word of men, But for Heaven's judging ken, And clear, omniscient Eye ; And surely where ' the just made perfect' dwell, Earth's voice of highest eulogy Is like the bubble of the far-off sea, A sigh upon the grave Scarce moving the frail flowers that o'er its surface wave." We have thus far glanced at the principal scenes and circumstances, which appear to have had an influence in forming the character of Mrs. Sigourney, and preparing her genius for flight. As Miss Huntley, she gave no works to the press except those to which allusion has been made, viz : " Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse," and a memoir of her friend, Miss Hyde. The " Sketch of Connecticut, forty years since," was, how- ever, one of her earliest productions, though not published until 1824. It is honourable to her sensibilities, that so large a portion of these works was prompted by the grateful feelings of the heart. Her later emanations are enriched with deeper trains of thought, and melodies of higher and more varied power, but these are the genuine outpourings of affection the first fruits of mind, bathed in the dew of life's morning, and laid upon the altar of gratitude. The marriage of Miss Huntley with Charles Sigourney, Esq., merchant of Hartford, took place at Norwich, June 16th, 1819. Mrs. Sigourney's domestic life has Been varied with frequent excur- sions and tours, which have rendered her familiar with the scenery and society of most parts of her own country, and in 1840, she went to Europe, and remained there nearly a year, visiting England, Scotland, and France. "Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands," published in 1843, and "Scenes in my Native Land," published in 1845, afford sufficient evidence that tra- velling has had a conspicuous agency in giving richness and variety to her productions. A personal stranger to Mrs. Sigourney, acquainted only with her varied literary pursuits and numerous writings, might be disposed to think that they occupied her whole time, and that she had accomplished little else in life. Such an assumption would be entirely at variance with the truth. The popular, but now somewhat stale notion, that female writers are, of course, negligent in personal costume, domestic thrift, and all those social offices which are woman's appropriate and beautiful sphere of action, can never prop its baseless and falling fabric with her example. She has sacrificed no womanly or household duty, no office of friendship or bene- volence for the society of the muses. That she is able to perform so much in so many varied departments of literature and social obligation, is owing to her diligence. She acquired in early life that lesson simple, homely, but invaluable to make the most of passing time. Hours are seeds of gold ; she has not sown them on the wind, but planted them in good ground, and the harvest is consequently a hundred fold. 11 P2 LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. Authentic report informs us that no one better fills the arduous station of a New England housekeeper, in all its various and complicated depart- ments. Nor are the calls of benevolence unheeded. Like that distin- guished philanthropist, from whom she derives her intermediate name, she is said to go about doing good. Much of her time is devoted to the practi- cal, silent, unambitious duties of charity. Nor must we omit the crowning praise of all the report of her humble, unceasing, unpretending, untiring devotion. We may not conclude this brief review of the life of Mrs. Sigournev. without allusion to a recent afflictive stroke of Providence, which has over- shadowed her path with a dark cloud, and almost bowed her spirit to the earth with its weight. She was the mother of two children ; the young- est, an only son, had just arrived at the verge of manhood, when he was selected by the Destroying Angel as his own, and veiled from her sight.* A sorrow like this, she had never before known. Such a bereave- ment cannot take place and not leave desolation behind. Around this early-smitten one, the fond hopes of a mother's heart had clustered ; all those hopes are extinguished; innumerable, tender sympathies are cut away; the glowing expectations, nurtured for many years, are destroyed, and the cold urn left in their place. But the Divine Hand knows how to remove branches from the tree without blighting it ; and though crushed and wounded, the faith of the Christian sustains the bereaved parent. Her reply to a friend who sympathized in her affliction, will show both the depth of her sorrow, and the source of her consolation " G-od's time and will are beautiful, and through bursts of blinding tears I give him thanks." The amount of Mrs. Sigourney's literary labours may be estimated from the following list of her publications, which is believed to be nearly complete. The works are all prose, and all 12mo., unless otherwise expressly stated : " Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse," 267 pages, 1815; '^Biography and Writings of A. M. Hyde," 241 pp., 1816; "Traits of the Aborigines," a poem, 284 pp., 1822 ; " Sketch of Connecticut, forty years since," 280 pp., 1824; "Poems," 228 pp., 1827; "Biography of Females," 112 pp., small size, 1829 ; " Biography of Pious Persons," 338 pp., 1832, two editions the first year, now out of print, as are all the preceding volumes; " Evening Readings in History," 128 pp., 1833 ; " Let- ters to Young Ladies," 295 pp., 1833, twenty editions; "Memoirs of Phebe Hammond," 30 pp., 1833 ; " How to be Happy," 126 pp., 1833, two editions the first year, and several in London; "Sketches," 216 pp., 1834; "Poetry for Children," 102 pp., small size, 1834; "Select Poems," 338 pp., 1834, eleven editions; "Tales and Essays for Children," 128 pp., 1834; "Zinzendorff and other Poems," 300 pp., 1834; "His- tory of Marcus Aurelius," 122 pp., 1835 ; " Olive Buds," 136 pp., 1836 ; * Andrew M. Sigourney died in Hartford, June, 1850, aged nineteen years. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. 83 "Girls' Heading Book," prose and poetry, 243 pp., 1838, between twenty and thirty editions ; " Boys' Reading Book," prose and poetry, 247 pp., 1839, many editions; "Letters to Mothers," 296 pp., 1838, eight editions; "Pocahoutas and other Poems," 283 pp., 1841, reprinted in London ; " Poems," 255 pp., small size, 1842 ; " Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands," 368 pp., prose and poetry, 1842 ; " Child's Book," prose and poetry, 150 pp., small size, 1844; " Scenes in my Native Land," pro?e and poetry, 319 pp., 1844; "Poems for the Sea," 152 pp., 1845; "Voice of Flowers," prose and poetry, 123 pp., small size, 1845, eight editions in five years; "The Lovely Sisters," 100 pp., small size, 1845; " Myrtis and other Etchings," 292 pp., 1846; "Weeping Willow," poetry, 128 pp., small size, 1846, six editions in four years; "Water Drops," prose and poetry, 275 pp., 1847 ; " Illustrated Poems," 408 pp., 8vo., 1848 ; "Whis- per to_a Bride," prose and poetry, 80 pp., small size, 1849; "Letters to my Pupils," 320 pp., 1851 ; " Olive Leaves," 308 pp., 1851 ; " Examples of Life and Death," 348 pp., 1851; "The Faded Hope," 264 pp., 1852; " Memoir of Mrs. Harriet Newell Cook," 252 pp., 1852 ; another about to go to press, &c. Besides these volumes, forty in number, she has produced several pamph- lets, and almost innumerable contributions to current periodical literature. She has moreover maintained a very extensive literary correspondence, amounting in some years to an exchange of sixteen or seventeen hundred letters. Perhaps no one, who has written so much as Mrs. Sigourney, has writ- ten so little to cause self-regret in the review. The secret of this lies in that paramount sense of duty which is the obvious spring of her writings, as of all her conduct. If it has not led her to the highest regions of fancy, it has saved her from all those disgraceful falls that too often mark the track of genius. Along the calm, sequestered vale of duty and usefulness, her writings, like a gentle river fresh from its mountain springs, have gladdened many a quiet home, have stimulated into fertility many a gene- rous heart. Some of her small volumes, like the " Whisper to a Bride," are unpretending in character as they are diminutive in appearance, but they contain a wealth of beauty and goodness that few would believe that have not examined them. Of her larger volumes, none are more widely known than the " Letters to Young Ladies," and " Letters to Mothers." " Letters to my Pupils," just published, will probably be equally popular, as they are equally beautiful. The scraps of autobiography, so gracefully mixed up with her reminiscences of others, will add a special charm to this volume for the thousands who have felt the genial influence of her teachings and writings. The first of the extracts which follow is from "Myrtis and other Etchings." LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. THE LOST CHILDREN. " I ask the moon, so sadly fair, The night's cold breath through shadows drawn, Where are they who were mine ? and where ?' A void but answers, 'All are gone.' " Miss H. F. GOULD. THERE was sickness in the dwelling of the emigrant. Stretched upon his humble bed, he depended on that nursing care which a wife, scarcely less enfeebled than himself, was able to bestow. A child, in its third summer, had been recently laid to its last rest beneath a turf mound under their window. Its image was 'in the heart of the mother, as she tenderly ministered to her husband. " Wife, I am afraid I think too much about poor little Thomas. He was so well and rosy when we left our old home, scarcely a year since. Sometimes I feel, if 'we had but continued there, our darling would not have died." The tear which had long trembled, and been repressed by the varieties of conjugal solicitude, burst forth at these words. It freely overflowed the brimming eyes, and relieved the suffocating emotions which had striven for the mastery. " Do not reproach yourself, dear husband. His time had come. He is happier there than here. Let us be thankful for those that are spared." " It seems to me that the little girls are growing pale. I am afraid you confine them too closely to this narrow house, and to the sight of sickness. The weather is growing settled. You had better send them out to change the air, and run about at their will. Mary, lay the baby on the bed by me, and ask mother to let little sister and you go out for a ramble." The mother assented, and the children, who were four and six years old, departed, full of delight. A clearing had been made in front of their habitation, and, by ascending a knoll in its vicinity, another dwelling might be seen environed with the dark spruce and hemlock. In the rear of these houses was a wide expanse of ground, interspersed with thickets, rocky acclivities, and patches of forest LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. 85 trees, while far away, one or two lakelets peered up, with their blue eyes deeply fringed. The spirits of the children, as they entered this unenclosed region, were like those of the birds that surrounded them. They playfully pursued each other with merry laughter, and such a joyous sense of liberty, as makes the blood course light- somely through the veins. " Little Jane, let us go farther than ever we have before. We will see what lies beyond those high hills, for it is but just past noon, and we can get back long before supper-time." " Oh ! yes, let us follow that bright blue-bird, and see what he is flying after. But don't go in among those briers that tear the clothes so, for mother has no time to mend them." " Sister, sweet sister, here are some snowdrops in this green hollow, exactly like those in my old, dear garden, so far away. How pure they are, and cool, just like the baby's face, when the wind blows on it ! Father and mother will like us to bring them some." Fijling their little aprons with the spoil, and still searching for something new or beautiful, they prolonged their ramble, uncon- scious of the flight of time, or the extent of space they were tra- versing. At length, admonished by the chilliness, which often marks the declining hours of the early days of spring, they turned their course homeward. But the returning clue was lost, and they walked rapidly, only to plunge more inextricably in the mazes of the wilderness. " Sister Mary, are these pretty snow-drops good to eat ? I am so hungry, and my feet ache, and will not go !" " Let me lift you over this brook, little Jane ; and hold tighter by my hand, and walk as bravely as you can, that we may get home, and help mother set the table." " We won't go so far next time, will we ? What is the reason that I cannot see any better ?" "Is not that the roof of our house, dear Jane, and the thin smoke curling up among the trees ? Many times before, have I thought so, and found it only a rock or a mist." As evening drew its veil, the hapless wanderers, bewildered. P ^ LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. hurried to and fro, calling for their parents, or shouting for help, until their strength was exhausted. Torn by brambles, and their poor feet bleeding from the rocks which strewed their path, they sunk down, moaning bitterly. The fears that overpower the heart of a timid child, who, for the first time finds night approaching, without shelter or protection, wrought on the youngest to insup- portable anguish. The elder, filled with the sacred warmth of sisterly'affection, after the first paroxysms of grief, seemed to forget herself, and sitting upon the damp ground, and folding the little one in her arms, rocked her with a gentle movement, soothing and hushing her like a nursling. " Don't cry ! oh ! don't cry so, dearest ; say your prayers, and fear will fly away." " How can I kneel down here in the dark woods, or say my prayers, when mother is not by to hear me ? I think I see a large wolf, with sharp ears, and a mouth wide open, and hear noises as of many fierce lions growling." "Dear little Jane, do say, 'Our Father, who art in Heaven.' Be a good girl, and, when we have rested here a while, perhaps He may be pleased to send some one to find us, and to fetch us home." Harrowing was the anxiety in the lowly hut of the emigrant when day drew towards its close, and the children came not. A boy, their whole assistant in the toils of agriculture, at his return from labour, was sent in search of them, but in vain. As evening drew on, the inmates of the neighbouring house, and those of a small hamlet, at considerable distance, were alarmed, and associated in the pursuit. The agony of the invalid parents, through that night, was uncontrollable ; starting at every footstep, shaping out of every breeze the accents of the lost ones returning, or their cries of misery. "While the morning was yet gray, the father, no longer to be restrained, and armed with supernatural strength, went forth, amid the ravings of his fever, to take part in the pursuit. With fiery cheeks, his throbbing head bound with a handkerchief, he was seen in the most dangerous and inaccessible spots caverns ravines beetling cliffs leading the way to every point of peril, in the phrensy of grief and disease. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. 67 The second night drew on, with one of those sudden storms of sleet and snow, which sometimes chill the hopes of the young spring. Then was a sadder sight a woman with attenuated form, flying she knew not whither, and continually exclaiming, "My children ! my children !" It was fearful to see a creature so deadly pale, with the darkness of midnight about her. She heeded no advice to take care of herself, nor persuasion to return to her home. "They call me! Let me go ! I will lay them in their hed myself. How cold their feet are ! What ! is Jane singing her nightly hymn without me ? No ! no ! She cries ! Some evil serpent has stung her!" and, shrieking wildly, the poor mother disappeared, like a hunted deer, in the depths of the forest. Oh ! might she but have wrapped them m her arms, as they shivered in their dismal recess, under the roots of a tree, uptorn by some wintry tempest ! .Yet how could she imagine the spot where they lay, or believe that those little wearied limbs had borne them, through bog and bramble, more than six miles from the parental door ? In the niche which we have mentioned, a faint moaning sound might till be heard. " Sister, do not tell me that we shall never see the baby any more. I see it now, and Thomas, too ! dear Thomas ! Why do they say he died and was buried ? He is close by me, just above my head. There are many more babies with him a host. They glide by me as if they had wings. They look warm and happy. I should be glad to be with them, and join their beautiful plays. But 0, how cold I am ! Cover me close, Mary. Take my head into your bosom." " Pray do not go to sleep quite yet, dear Jane. I want to hear your voice, and talk with you. It is so very sad to be waking here alone. If I could but see your face when you are asleep, it would be a comfort. But it is so dark, so dark /" Rousing herself with difficulty, she unties her apron, and spreads it over the head of the child, to protect it from the driving snow ; she pillows the cold cheek on her breast, and grasps more firmly the benumbed hand by which she had so faithfully led her, through gg LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. all their terrible pilgrimage. There they are ! The one moves not. The other keeps vigil, feebly giving utterance, at intervals, to a low suffocating spasm from a throat dried with hunger. Once more she leans upon her elbow, to look on the face of the little one, for whom as a mother she has cared. With love strong as death, she comforts herself that her sister slumbers calmly, because the stroke of the destroyer has silenced her sobbings, Ah ! why come ye not hither, torches that gleam through the wilderness, and men who shout to each other ? why come ye not this way ? See ! they plunge into morasses, they cut their path through tangled thickets, they ford waters, they ascend mountains, they explore forests but the lost are not found ! The third and fourth nights come and depart. Still the woods are filled with eager searchers. Sympathy has gathered them from remote settlements. Every log-cabin sends forth what it can spare for this work of pity and of sorrow. They cross each other's track. Incessantly they interrogate and reply, but in vain. The lost are not found ! In her mournful dwelling, the mother sat motionless. Her infant was upon her lap. The strong duty to succor its helplessness, grap- pled with the might of grief, and prevailed. Her eyes were riveted upon its brow. No sound passed her white lips. Pitying women, from distant habitations, gathered around and wept for her. They even essayed some words of consolation. But she answered nothing. She looked not toward them. She had no ear for human voices. In her soul was the perpetual cry of the lost. Nothing overpowered it, but the wail of her living babe. She ministered to its necessities, and that Heaven-inspired impulse saved her. She had no longer any hope for those who had wandered away. Horrid images were in her fancy the ravening beast black pits of stagnant water birds of fierce beak venomous, coiling snakes. She bowed herself down to them, and travailed as in the birth-hour, fearfully, and in silence. But the hapless babe on her bosom, touched an electric chord, and saved her from despair. Maternal love, with its pillar of cloud and of flame, guided her through the desert, that she perished not. Sunday came, and the search was unabated. It seemed only LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. 89 marked by a deeper tinge of melancholy. The most serious felt it fitting to go forth at that sacred season to seek the lost, though not, like their Master, girded with the power to save. Parents remem- ' bered that it might have been their own little ones who had thus strayed from the fold, and with their gratitude, took a portion of the mourner's spirit into their hearts. Even the sad hope of gathering the dead for the sepulchre, the sole hope that now sustained their toil, began to fade into doubt. As they climbed over huge trees, which the winds of winter had prostrated, or forced their way among rending brambles, sharp rocks, and close-woven branches, they marvelled how such fragile forms could have endured hard- ships by which the vigour of manhood was impeded and perplexed. The echo of a gun rang suddenly through the forest. It was repeated. Hill to hill bore the thrilling message. It was the con- certed signal that their anxieties were ended. The hurrying seekers followed its sound. From a commanding cliff, a white flag was seen to float. It was the herald that the lost was found. There they were near the base of a wooded hillock, half cradled among the roots of an uptorn chestnut. There they lay, cheek to cheek, hand clasped in hand. The blasts had mingled in one mesh their dishevelled locks, for they had left home with their poor heads uncovered. The youngest had passed away in sleep. There was no contortion on her brow, though her features were sunk and sharpened by famine. The elder had borne a deeper and longer anguish. Her eyes were open, as though she had watched till death came ; watched over that little one, for whom, through those days and nights of terror, she had cared and sorrowed like a mother. Strong and rugged men shed tears when they saw she had wrapped her in her own scanty apron, and striven with her embracing arms to preserve the warmth of vitality, even after the cherished spirit had fled away. The glazed eyeballs were strained, as if, to the last, they had been gazing for her father's roof, or the wreath of smoke that should guide her there. Sweet sisterly love ! so patient in all adversity, so faithful unto the end, found it not a Father's house, where it might enter with 9Q LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. the little one, and be sundered no more ? Found it not a fold whence no lamb can wander and be lost ? a mansion where there * is no death, neither sorrow nor crying? Forgot it not all its sufferings for joy at that dear Redeemer's welcome, which, in its cradle, it had been taught to lisp " Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." "I HAVE SEEN AN END OF ALL PERFECTION." I HAVE seen a man in the glory of his days, and in the pride of his strength. He was built like the strong oak, that strikes its root deep in the earth like the tall cedar, that lifts its head above the trees of the forest. He feared no danger he felt no sickness he wondered why any should groan or sigh at pain. His mind was vigorous like his body ; he was perplexed at no intricacy, he was daunted at no obstacle. Into hidden things he searched, and what was crooked he made plain. He went forth boldly upon the face of the mighty deep. He surveyed the nations of the earth. He measured the distances of the stars, and called them by their names. He gloried in the extent of his knowledge, in the vigour of his understanding, and strove to search even into what the Almighty had concealed. And when I looked upon him, I said with the poet, " what a piece of work is man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties ! in form and moving, how express and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a god !" I returned but his look was no more lofty, nor his step proud. His broken frame was like some ruined tower. His hairs were white and scattered, and his eye gazed vacantly upon the passers by. The vigour of his intellect was wasted, and of all that he had gained by study, nothing remained. He feared when there was no danger, aid where was no sorrow he wept. His decaying memory had become treacherous. It showed him only broken images of the glory that had departed. His house was to him like a strange LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. 91 land, and his friends were counted as enemies. He thought him- self strong and healthful, while his feet tottered on the verge of the grave. He said of his son, "he is my brother;" of his daughter, " I know her not." He even inquired what was his own name. And as I gazed mournfully upon him, one who supported his feeble frame, and ministered to his many wants, said to me, " Let thine heart receive instruction, for thou hast seen an end of all perfec- tion !" I have seen a beautiful female, treading the first stages of youth, and entering joyfully into the pleasures of life. The glance of her eye was variable and sweet, and on her cheek trembled something like the first blush of the morning. Her lips moved, and there was melody, and when she floated in the dance, her light form, like the aspen, seemed to move with every breeze. I returned she was not in the dance. I sought her among her gay companions, but I found her not. Her eye sparkled not there the music of her voice was silent. She rejoiced on earth no more. I saw a train sable and slow-paced. Sadly they bore towards an open grave what once was animated and beautiful. As they drew near, they paused, and a voice broke the solemn silence : " Man that is born of a woman, is of few days and full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower, he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay." Then they let down into the deep, dark pit, that maiden whose lips but a few days since were like the half-blown rosebud. I shuddered at the sound of clods falling upon the hollow coffin. Then I heard a voice saying, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." They covered her with the damp soil, and the uprooted turf of the valley, and turned again to their own homes. But one mourner lingered to cast him- self upon the tomb. And as he wept he said, " There is no beauty, nor grace, nor loveliness, but what vanisheth like the morning dew. I have seen an end of all perfection !" I saw an infant, with a ruddy brow, and a form like polished ivory. Its motions were graceful, and its merry laughter made other hearts glad. Sometimes it wept, and again it rejoiced, when none knew why. But whether its cheek dimpled with smiles, 92 LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. or its blue eyes shone more brilliant through tears, it was beautiful. Et was beautiful because it was innocent. And care-worn and sin- ful men admired, when they beheld it. It was like the first blos- som which some cherished plant has put forth, whose cup sparkles with a dew-drop, and whose head reclines upon the parent stem. Again I looked. It had become a child. The lamp of reason had beamed into its mind. It was simple, and single-hearted, and a follower of the truth. It loved every little bird that sang in the trees, and every fresh blossom. Its heart danced with joy as it looked around on this good and pleasant world. It stood like a lamb before its teachers it bowed its ear to instruction it walked in the way of knowledge. It was not proud, nor stubborn, nor envious, and it had never heard of the vices and vanities of the world. And when I looked upon it, I remembered our Saviour's words, "Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven." I saw a man, whom the world calls honourable. Many waited for his smile. They pointed to the fields that were his, and talked of the silver and gold which he had gathered. They praised the stateliness of his domes, and extolled the honour of his family. But the secret language of his heart was, " By my wisdom have I gotten all this." So he returned no thanks to God, neither did he fear or serve him. As I passed along, I heard the complaints of the labourers, who had reaped his fields and the cries of the poor, whose covering he had taken away. The sound of feasting and revelry was in his mansion, and the unfed beggar came tottering from his door. But he considered not that the cries of the oppressed were continually entering into the ears of the Most High. And when I knew that this man was the docile child whom I had loved, the beautiful infant on whom I had gazed with delight, I said in my bitterness, " Now, have I seen an end of all perfection !" And I laid my mouth in the dusk SARAH J. HALE. MRS. HALE, so widely known by her efforts to promote the intellectual condition of her sex, is a native of Newport, New Hampshire. Her maiden name was Sarah Josepha Buell. Her husband, David Hale, was a lawyer. By his death, she was left the sole protector of five children, the eldest then but seven years old. It was in the hope of gaining for them the means of support and education, that she engaged in authorship as a profession. Her first attempt was a small volume of poems, printed for her benefit by the Freemasons, of which fraternity her husband had been a member. This was followed by "Northwood," a novel in two volumes, published in 1827. Early in the following year, Mrs. Hale was invited from her native State to Boston, to take charge of the editorial department of " The Ladies' Magazine," the first American periodical devoted exclusively to her sex. She removed to Boston, accordingly, in 1828, and continued to edit the magazine until 1837, when it was united with the " Lady's Book" of Philadelphia. The literary department of the " Lady's Book" was then placed in her charge, and has so remained ever since. She continued, however, for several years to reside in Boston, to superintend the educa- tion of her sons, then students at Harvard. In 1841, she removed to Philadelphia, where she still lives. While living in Boston, Mrs. Hale originated the noble idea of the " Seaman's Aid Society," over which she was called to preside, and of which she continued to be the president until her removal to Philadelphia. This institution, or rather Mrs. Hale as its animating spirit, first suggested the plan of a " Home for Sailors," and showed its practicability by esta- blishing one in Boston, which became completely successful. The many establishments of this kind, now existing in various ports, all took their origin in that of the Boston " Seaman's Aid Society," and in the ideas and reasonings of their first seven annual reports, all of which were from the (93) 94 SARAH J. HALE. pen of Mrs. Hale. Nothing that she has ever written, probably, has been more productive of good than this series of annual reports ; and though they may be, from their official character, such as to add nothing to her literary laurels, they certainly form an important addition to her general claims to honour as one of the wise and good of the land. Besides " Northwood," which was republished in London under the title of " A New England Tale," her published works are : " Sketches of American Character;" " Traits of American Life;" " Flora's Interpreter," of which more than forty thousand copies have been sold, besides English reprints; "The Ladies' Wreath/' a selection from the female poets of England and America;" "The Good Housekeeper, the way to live well, aud to be well while we live," a manual of cookery, of which large and very numerous editions have been printed ; " Grosvenor, a Tragedy ;" " Alice Ray, a' Romance in Rhyme ;" " Harry Guy, the Widow's Son, a Romance of the Sea" (the last two written for charitable purposes, and the proceeds given away accordingly) ; " Three Hours, or the Vigil of Love, and other Poems," in 1848; "A Complete Dictionary of Poetical Quotations," a work of nearly six hundred pages, large octavo, printed in double columns, and containing selections, on subjects alphabetically arranged, from the poets of England and America; "The Judge, a Drama of American Life," published, in numbers, in the Lady's Book, and about to be given to the world in book form. Mrs. Hale has also edited several annuals "The Opal," "The Crocus," &c., and prepared quite a number of books for the young. A large number of essays, tales, and poems lie scattered among the periodicals of the day, sufficient to fill several volumes. These she proposes to collect and publish, in book form, after concluding her editorial career. * By far the most important and honourable monument of her labour is the volume now passing through the press, entitled " Woman's Record." This is a general biographical dictionary of distinguished women of all nations and ages, filling about nine hundred pages, of the largest octavo size, closely printed in double columns. Mrs. Hale has been engaged for several years upon this undertaking, the labour of which was enough to appal any but a woman of heroic spirit. It needs no prophetic vision to predict that this great work will be an enduring " Record," not only of woman in general, but of the high aims, the indefatigable industry, the varied reading, and just discrimination of its ever to be honoured author. The first extract from the writings of Mrs. Hale is taken from the work last named, and is in some measure a continuation of the present bio- graphical notice.. SARAH J. HALE. 95 FROM "WOMAN'S RECORD." A FEW words respecting the influences which have, probably, caused me to become the Chronicler of my own sex, may not be considered egotistical. I was mainly educated by my mother, and strictly taught to make the Bible the guide of my life. The books to which I had access were few, very few, in comparison with the number given children now-a-days ; but they were such as required to be studied and I did study them. Next to the Bible and The Pilgrim's Progress, my earliest reading was Milton, Addison, Pope, Johnson, Cowper, Burns, and a portion of Shakspeare. I did not obtain all his works till I was nearly fifteen. The first regular novel I read was " The Mysteries of Udolpho," when I was quite a child. I name it on account of the influence it exercised over my mind. I had remarked that of all the books I saw, few were written by Americans, and none by women. Here was a work, the most fascinating I had ever read, always excepting " The Pilgrim's Progress," written by a woman ! How happy it made me ! The wish to promote the reputation of my own sex, and do something for my own country, were among the earliest mental emotions I can recollect. These feelings have had a salutary influence by direct- ing my thoughts to a definite object ; my literary pursuits have had an aim beyond self-seeking of any kind. The mental influence of woman over her own sex, which was so important in my case, has been strongly operative in inclining me to undertake this my latest work, " Woman's Record." I have sought to make it an assistant in home education ; hoping the examples shown and characters por- trayed, might have an inspiration and a power in advancing the moral progress of society. Yet I cannot close without adverting to the ready and kind aid I have always met with from those men with whom I have been most nearly connected. To my brother* I owe what knowledge I possess of the Latin, of the higher branches of mathematics, and of mental philosophy. He oftoi> lamented that I could not, like himself, have the privilege of a * The late Judge Buell, of Glen's Falls, New York. 96 SARAH J. HALE. college education. To my husband I was yet more deeply indebted. He was a number of years my senior, and far more my superior in learning. We commenced, soon after our marriage, a system of study and reading wbich we pursued while he lived. The hours allowed were from eight o'clock in the evening till ten ; two hours in the twenty-four : how I enjoyed those hours ! In all our mental pursuits, it seemed the aim of my husband to enlighten my reason, strengthen my judgment, and give me confidence in my own powers of mind, which he estimated much higher than I. But this appro- bation which he bestowed on my talents has been of great encou- ragement to me in attempting the duties that have since become my portion. And if there is any just praise due to the works I have prepared, the sweetest thought is that his name bears the celebrity. THE MODE. WHAT a variety of changes there has been in the costumes of men and women since the fig-leaf garments were in vogue ! And these millions of changes have, each and all, had their admirers, and every fashion has been, in its day, called beautiful. It is evi- dent, therefore, that the reigning fashion, whatever it be, com- prehends the essence of the agreeable, and that to continue one particular mode or costume, beautiful for successive ages, it would only be necessary to keep it fashionable. Some nations have taken advantage of this principle in the philosophy of dress, and have, by that means, retained a particular mode for centuries ; and there is no doubt the belles of these unfading fashions were, and are, quite as ardently admired, as though they had changed the form of their apparel at every revolution of the moon. In some important particulars these fixed planets of fashion cer- tainly have the advantage over those who are continually displaying a new phasis. They present fewer data for observation, and con- sequently, the alterations which time will bring to the fairest oerson are less perceptible, or, as they always seem the same, less SARAH J. HALE. 97 noted. There are few trials more critical to a waning beauty, than the appearing in a new and brilliant fashion. If it becomes her, the whisper instantly runs round the circle, " how young she looks !" a most invidious way of hinting she is as old as the hills ; if it does not become her, which is usually the case, then you will hear the remark, "what an odious dress!" meaning, the wearer looks as ugly as the Fates. The contrast between a new fashion and an old familiar face instantly strikes the beholder, and makes him run over all the changes in appearance he has seen the individual assume ; and then, there is danger that the antiquated fashions may be revived and how provoking it is to be questioned whether one remembers when long waists and hoops, and ruffled-cuffs were worn ! A refer- ence to the parish-register, or the family-record, would not disclose the age more effectually. Nor are the youthful exempted from their share in the evils of change. It draws the attention of the beholder to the dress, rather than the wearers ; and it reminds bachelors, palpably and alarm- ingly, of the expense of supporting a wife who must thus appear in a new costume every change of the mode. Now, as it is fashion which makes the pleasing in dress, were one particular form retained ever so long, it would always please, and thus the unnecessary expense of time and money be avoided ; and the charges of fickleness and frivolousness entirely repelled. We have facts to support this opinion. Is not the Spanish costume quite as becoming as our own mode ? and that costume has been unchanged, or nearly so, for centuries ; while the French and English, from whom we borrow our fashions, (poor souls that we are, to be thus destitute of invention and taste !) have ransacked nature, and exhausted art, for Comparisons and terms by which to express the new inventions they have displayed in dress. We are aware that a certain class of political economists affect to believe that luxury is beneficial to a nation but it is not so. The same reasoning which would make extravagance in .dress com- mendable, because it employed manufacturers and artists, would 13 ,$ SARAH J. HALE. also make intemperance a virtue in those who could afford to be drunk, because the preparation of the alcohol employs labourers, and the consumption would encourage trade. All these views of the expediency of tolerating evil are a part of that Machiavellian system of selfishness which has been imposed on the world for wis- dom, but which has proved its origin by the corrupting crimes and miseries men have endured in consequence of yielding themselves dupes or slaves of fashion and vice. We do hope, indeed believe, that a more just appreciation of the true interests and real happiness of mankind will yet prevail. The improvements, now so rapidly progressing, in the intellectual and civil condition of nations must, we think, be followed by a corres- ponding improvement in the tastes and pursuits of those who are the Slite of society. Etiquette and the fashions cannot be the en- grossing objects of pursuit, if people become reasonable. The excel- lencies of mind and heart will be of more consequence to a lady than the colour of a riband or the shape of a bonnet. We would not have ladies despise or neglect dress. They should be always fit to be seen ; personal neatness is indispensable to agreeableness almost to virtue. A proper portion of time and attention must scrupulously be given to external appearance, but not the whole of our days and energies. Is it worthy of Christians, pretending to revere the precepts of HIM who commanded them not to " take thought what they should put on," to spend their best years in stu- dying the form of their apparel ? Trifles should not thus engross us, and they need not, if our citizens would only shake off this tyranny of fashion, imposed by the tailors of Paris and London, and establish a national costume, which would, wherever an American appeared, announce him as a republican, and the countryman of Washington. The men would probably do this, if our ladies would first show that they have sufficient sense and taste to invent and arrange their own costume (without the inspiration of foreign mil- liners) in accordance with those national principles of comfort, pro- priety, economy, and becomingness, which are the only true found- ation of the elegant in apparel. It is not necessary to elegance of appearance, nor to the pros- SARAH J. HALE. 99 perity of trade, that changes in fashion should so frequently occur. Take, for instance, the article of shoes. What good consequence results from a change in the fashion of shoes ? If we have a becoming and convenient mod, why not retain it for centuries, and save all the discussions about square-toed, round or peaked and all the other ad infinitum changes in cut and trim- mings ? And if the hours thus saved were devoted to reading or exercise, would not the mind and health be more improved than if we were employed in deciding the rival claims of the old and new fashion of shoes to admiration ? Such portions of time may seem very trifling, but the. aggregate of wasted hours, drivelled away thus by minutes, makes a large part of the life allotted us. We by no means advocate an idle and stupid state of society. Excitement is necessary ; emulation is necessary ; and we must be active if we would be happy. But there are objects more worthy to call forth the energies of rational beings than the tie of a cravat, or the trimming of a bonnet. And when the moral and intel- lectual beauty of character is more cultivated and displayed, we hope that the "foreign aid of ornament" will be found less neces- sary ; and when all our ladies are possessed of " inward greatness, unaffected wisdom, and sanctity of manners," they will not find a continual flutter of fashion adds anything to the respect and affec- tion their virtues and simple graces will inspire. EMMA C. WILLARD. MRS. WILLARD is more known as a woman of action than as an author. She has devoted the greater part of a long and most useful life to the cause of female education, in which her efforts, both as a theorist and a practical teacher, have been crowned with signal success. Her prominence as a writer, however, does not by any means correspond to that assigned to her by common consent as an educator. Still, she has found time in the midst of other duties of a most urgent character, to make several valuable contributions to the cause of letters. Mrs. Willard is the daughter of the late Samuel Hart, of Berlin, Con- necticut, where she was born in February, 1787. Her father was descended on the maternal side, from Thomas Hooker, minister, and on the paternal side, from Stephen Hart, deacon of the original church in Hartford, Connecticut. Minister Hooker and deacon Hart were among that large company of emigrants who came over in 1630, and settled the town of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Five years after its settlement in 1635, a fresh colony swarmed from the parent hive at Cambridge, including the " minister" and the " deacon" just named, and settled the town of Hartford. The love of teaching appears to have been a ruling passion in Miss Hart's mind, and was developed in her early years. At the age of sixteen she took charge of a district school in. her native town. The following year she opened a select school, and in the summer of the next year was placed at the head of the Berlin Academy. During this period, being engaged at home throughout the summer and winter in the capacity of instructress, she managed in the spring and autumn to attend one or other of the two boarding schools at Hartford. During the spring of 1807, Miss Hart received invitations to take charge of academies in three different states, and accepted that from Westfield, Massachusetts. She remained there but a few weeks, when, upon a second (100) EMMA C. WIL LARD. 101 and more pressing invitation, she went to Middlebury, in Vermont. Here she assumed the charge of a female academy, which she retained for two years. The school was liberally patronized, and general satisfaction re- warded the efforts of its preceptress. In 1809, she resigned her academy, and was united in marriage with Dr. John Willard. In 1814, Mrs. Willard was induced to establish a boarding school at Middlebury, when she formed the determination to effect an important change in female education, by the institution of a class of schools of a higher character than had been established in the country before. She applied herself assiduously to increase her own personal abilities as a teacher, by the diligent study of branches with which she had before been unacquainted. She introduced new studies into her school, and invented new methods of teaching. She also prepared " An Address to the Public," in which she proposed " A Plan for Improving Female Education." A copy of this plan was sent to Governor De Witt Clinton, who imme- diately wrote to Mrs. Willard, expressing a most cordial desire that she would remove her institution to the state of New York. He also recom- mended the subject of her " Plan" in his message to the legislature. The result was the passage of an act to incorporate the proposed institute at Waterford ; and another to give to female academies a share of the literary fund 5 being, it is believed, the first law ever passed by any legislature with the direct object of improving female education. During the spring of 1819, Mrs. Willard accordingly removed to Water- ford, and opened her school. The higher mathematics were introduced, and the course of study was made sufficiently complete to qualify the pupils for any station in life. In the spring of 1821, difficulties attending the securing of a proper building for the school in Waterford, Mrs. Willard again determined upon a removal. The public-spirited citizens of Troy offered liberal induce- ments ; and in May, 1821, the Troy Female Seminary was opened under flattering auspices ; and abundant success crowned her indefatigable exer- tions. Since that period, the institute has been well known to the public, and the name of Mrs. Willard, for more than a quarter of a century, has been identified with her favourite academy. Dr. Willard died in 1825; Mrs. Willard continued her school till her health was impaired, and in 1830 she visited France. She resided in Paris for several months, and from thence went to England and Scotland, returning in the following year. After her return she published a volume of travels, the avails of which, amounting to twelve hundred dollars, were devoted to the cause of female education in Greece. It "may be proper to add, that she gave the avails of one or two other publications to the same object. In 1838, Mrs. Willard resigned the charge of the Troy Seminary, and returned to Hartford, where she revised her Manual of American History, for the use of schools The merits of this work, of her smaller United 102 EMMA 0. WILLARD. States History, and of her Universal History, have been attested by their very general use in seminaries of education. Since 1843, she has completed the revision of her historical works, revised her Ancient Geography, and, in compliance with invitations, has written numerous addresses on different occasions, being mostly on educa- tional subjects. In the winter of 1846, Mrs. Willard prepared for the press a work which has given her more fame abroad, and perhaps at home, than any of her other writings. This work, which was published in the ensuing spring, both in New York and London, developed the result of a study which had intensely occupied her at times for fourteen years. Its title is " A Treatise on the Motive Powers which produce the Circulation of the Blood ;" and its object is nothing less than to introduce and to establish the fact, that the principal motive power which produces circulation of the blood is not, as has been heretofore supposed, the heart's action, that being only secon- dary ; but that the principal motive power is respiration, operating by animal heat, and producing an effective force at the lungs. Of this work, the London Critic thus speaks : "We have here an instance of a woman undertaking to discuss a subject that has perplexed and baffled the ingenuity of the most distinguished anatomists and physiologists who have considered it, from Hervey down to Paxton ; and what is more remarkable, so acquitting herself as to show that she apprehended, as well as the best of them, the difficulties which beset the inquiry ; perceived as quickly as they did, the errors and incon- gruities of the theories of previous writers ; and lastly, herself propounded an hypothesis to account for the circulation of the blood and the heart's action, eminently entitled to the serious attention and examination of all who take an interest in physiological science." In addition to the compends of history which she has written, she has invented, for the purpose of teaching and impressing chronology on the mind by the eye, two charts of an entirely original character; one called " The American Chronographic," for American History, and the other for universal history, called the " Temple of Time." In the latter, the course of time from the creation of the world is thrown into perspective, and the parts of this subject wrought into unity, and the more distinguished cha- racters which have appeared in the world are set down, each in his own time. This, in the chart, is better arranged for the memory, than would be that of the place of a city on a map of the world. In 1849, she published "Last Leaves from American History," contain- ing an interesting account of our Mexican War, and of California. The poetical compositions of Mrs. Willard are few, and are chiefly com- prised in a small volume printed in 1830. The details in the foregoing sketch are taken chiefly from Mrs. Hale's " Woman's Record." EMMA C. WILLARD. 103 HOW TO TEACH. IN searching for the fundamental principles of the science of teaching, I find a few axioms as indisputable as the first principles of mathematics. One of these is this : He is the best teacher who makes the best use of his own time and that of his pupils : for TIME is all that is given by God in which to do the work of Improvement. What is the first rule to guide us in making the best use of Time ? It is to seek first and most to improve in the best things. He is not necessarily the best teacher who performs the most labour ; makes his pupils work the hardest, and bustle the most. A hundred cents of copper, though they make more clatter and fill more space, have only a tenth of the value of one eagle of gold. WHAT TO TEACH. WHAT is the best of all possible things to be taught ? Moral Goodness. That respects God and Man : God first, and man second. To infuse into the mind of a child, therefore, love and fear towards God the perfect in wisdom, justice, goodness, and power the Creator, Benefactor, and Saviour the secret Witness and the Judge this is of all teaching the very best. But it cannot be ac- complished merely in set times and by set phrases : it should mingle in all the teacher's desires and actions. The child imbibes it when he sees that the instructor feels and acts on it himself. When the youth is untruthful, when he wounds his companion in body, in mind, in character, or in property, then show him that his offence is against God ; that you are God's ministers to enforce his laws, and must do your duty. Be thus mindful in all sincerity ; judge correctly, adopt no subterfuge ; pretend not to think that he is bet- ter than he really is ; deal plainly and truly, though lovingly, with him : then his moral approbation will go with you, though it should 104 EMMA C. WILL A RD. be against himself, and even if circumstances require you to punish him. The voice of conscience residing in his heart is as the voice of God ; and if you invariably interpret that voice with correctness and truth, the child will submit and obey you naturally and affec- tionately. But if your government is unjust or capricious if you punish one day what you pass over or approve another, the dissatis- fied child will naturally rebel. Next to moral goodness is Health and Strength, soundness of body and of mind. This, like the former, is not what can be taught at set times and in set phrases ; but it must never be lost sight of. It must regulate the measure and the kind of exercise required by the child, both bodily and mental, as well as his diet, air, and accommo- dations. The regular routine of school duties consists in teaching acts for the practice of future life ; or sciences in which the useful or ornamental arts find their first principles ; and great skill is re- quired of the teacher in assigning to each pupil an order of studies suitable to his age, and then selecting such books and modes of teaching as shall make a little time go far. CARE OF HEALTH. WHEN I am speaking to Young Girls (the Lord bless and keep them), I am in my proper element. Why should it be otherwise ? I have had five thousand under my charge, and spent thirty years of my life devoted to their service ; and the general reader will ex- cuse me if I add some further advice to them, which the light of this theory will show to be good. If it is so, others may have its benefit as well as they ; but it is most natural to me to address myself to them. Would you, my dear young ladies, do the will of God on earth by being useful to your fellow beings ? Take care of health. Would you enjoy life ? Take care of health ; for without it existence is, for every purpose of enjoyment, worse than a blank. No matter how EMMA C. WILLARD. 105 mueli wealth, gr how many luxuries you can command, there is no enjoyment without health. To an aching head what is a downy pillow with silken curtains floating above ? What is the cushioned landau, and the gardened landscape to her whose disordered lungs can no longer receive the inspirations of an ordinary atmosphere ? And what are hooks, music, and paintings to her whose nervous suf- ferings give disease to her senses, and agony to her frame ? Would you smooth for your tender parents the pillow of declining life ? Take care of health. And does the " prophetic pencil" some- times trace the form of one whose name perhaps is now unknown, who shall hereafter devote to you a manly and generous heart, and mar- riage sanction the bond ? Would you be a blessing to such a one ? then now take care of your health ; or, if you hesitate, let imagina- tion go still further. Fancy yourself feeble, as with untimely age, clad in vestments of sorrow, and leaving a childless home to walk forth with him to the churchyard, there to weep over your buried offspring. Study, then, to know your frame, that you may, before it is too late, pursue such a course as will secure to you a sound and vigor- ous constitution. OF THE FORCE THAT MOVES THE BLOOD. WHEN circulation is our life, it behoves us to consider well its causes, that we may add reason to instinct in its healthful preserva- tion. That the blood travels through the system by its own volition, none believe ; but that it is an inert mass, which will only move as it is moved. What then are the forces which move inert bodies ? Are there any which may not be resolved into one of these three : im- pulse, gravitation, and heat ; of which the latter has the greater range in point of degree, being in the expansion of a fluid from warm to warmer, the most gentle of all imaginable forces, while in other states it is the most powerful of any known to man. 106 EMMA C. WILLARD. It is, then, to one or more of these forces that we. must look for the motive powers which produce the circulation ; and the human circulation has peculiar difficulties to encounter. Man does not enjoy his. noble erect position without some countervailing disadvantages. The long upright column of his blood, spreading at its base, presents no trifling force to be moved. And this force is to be overcome by means so gentle, that the mind, the dweller in this house of clay, shall not be disturbed by its operations. Again : the parts of the body are to be used by the mind as instruments, and ten thousand different motions are to be performed at its bidding. What but Al- mighty Wisdom could have effected these several objects ! And is it not most reasonable to suppose that this wisdom would assign for these purposes, not any one of the forces which move matter, but combine them all? Gravitation by itself cannot produce a circulation by any ma- chinery. Impulse alone could not carry on a circulation without existing in such an excessive degree that it must disturb the mind and endanger the body. But heat, the antagonist force of gravita- tion, by the lessening or increasing of the maximum and minimum dif- ferences, can operate more or less forcibly as occasion requires, and at the same time so gently and so quietly, that the mind shall take no cognisance of its operation as a moving force. It can be so placed, that by its expansive force it shall lift gravitation when that obstructs the way ; and by its transmission, leave to it the course when its presence as a force would become hurtful. Why, then, should we hesitate to conclude that this is the principal force employed, since we know it exists in the human system ? And if it is the prin- cipal agent which does actually perform this great work, then if the quantity afforded be small, so much the more perfect the machine ; for so much the less will it be likely either to endanger the body or disturb the mind, and so much the more praise is due to the Mighty Artificer. ALMIRA HART LINCOLN PHELPS. MRS. PHELPS is the daughter of Samuel Hart, already mentioned, and the sister of Mrs. Emma Willard. Like her elder sister, Mrs. Phelps has been engaged most of her life in the business of education, and in the pre- paration of scientific and educational text books. These, and her miscel- laneous writings, entitle her to a place in the present collection. Mrs. Phelps was born in 1793, at Berlin, Connecticut. She was edu- cated chiefly by her sister, Emma. At the age of eighteen, she spent a year at. the Seminary of Miss Hinsdale, at Pittsfield, Massachusetts; and soon after was married to Simeon Lincoln, the editor of the " Connecticut Mirror," Hartford. Mrs. Lincoln was left a widow at the age of thirty. Being thrown by this event upon her own resources, she commenced preparing herself in the most thorough manner for what was henceforth to be her chosen office, the education of the young. For this purpose she studied the Latin and Greek languages, and the natural sciences, applying herself at the same time to the cultivation of her talents for drawing and painting, and spent seven years in the Troy Seminary, engaged alternately in teaching and study. In 1831, Mrs. Lincoln was married to the Hon. John Phelps, of Ver- mont, and the next six years of her life were spent in that State. In 1839, she became Principal of a Female Seminary at Westchester, Pennsylvania. She subsequently removed to Ellicott's Mills, in Maryland, to establish, with the aid of her husband, the Patapsco Female Institute. Mr. Phelps died in 1849. Mrs. Phelps's first publication was a work known as "Lincoln's Botany." It appeared in 1829, and had a large circulation. The next work, a " Dictionary of Chemistry," though maiuly a translation from the French, contained much original matter. After her second marriage, she published " Botany" and " Chemistry" for beginners, and also a course of lectures on education. These lectures were afterwards published as a volume in (107) 108 ALMIRA HART LINCOLN PHELPS. Harp ars' School Library, under the title of the " Female Student." Some of her other works have been " Natural Philosophy for Schools," " Geology for Beginners," a translation of Madame Necker de Saussure's " Progres- sive Education," " Caroline Westerly, or the Young Traveller," and " Ida Norman, or Trials and their Uses." EDUCATION. THE true end of education is to prepare the young for the active duties of life, and to enable them to fill with propriety those stations to which, in the providence of God, they may be called. This includes, also, a preparation for eternity ; for we cannot live well without those dispositions of heart which are necessary to fit us for heaven. To discharge aright the duties of life requires not only that the intellect shall be enlightened, but that the heart shall be purified. A mother does not perform her whole duty, even when, in addition to providing for the wants of her children and improving their understanding, she sets before them an example of justice and benevolence, of moderation in her own desires, and a command over her own passions : this may be all that is required of a heathen mother ; but the Christian female must go with her little ones to Jesus of Nazareth, to seek his blessing ; she must strive to elevate the minds of her offspring by frequent reference to a future state ; she must teach them to hold the world and its pursuits in subser- viency to more important interests, and to prize above all things that peace which, as the world giveth not, neither can it take away. ENERGY OF MIND. CAN we find no cause why the children of the rich, setting out in life under the most favourable circumstances, often sink into insig- nificance, while their more humble competitors, struggling against obstacles, rise higher and higher, till they become elevated in propor- tion to their former depression ? Have we never beheld a plant grow A L MIR A HART LINCOLN PHELPS. 109 weak and sickly from excess of care, while the mountain pine, neglected and exposed to fierce winds and raging tempests, took strong root and grew into a lofty tree, delighting the eye by its strength and beauty ? If we look into our State Legislatures, our National Congress, and the highest executive and judicial offices in the country, we do not find these places chiefly occupied by those who were born to wealth, or early taught the pride of aristocratic distinctions. Most of the distinguished men of our country have made their own fortunes ; most of them began life knowing that they could hope for no aid or patronage, but must rely solely upon the energies of their own minds and the blessing of God. EFFECT OF EXCITEMENTS. STRONG excitements have an unfavourable effect upon the nerves of young children. We know this to be the case with ourselves, bat are apt to forget that things which are common to us may be new and striking to them. My child was, on a certain evening, carried into a large room brilliantly lighted and filled with company. He gazed around with an expression of admiration and delight, not unmixed with perplexity ; the latter, however, soon vanished, and he laughed and shouted with great glee ; and as he saw that he was observed, exerted himself still farther to be amusing. He was then carried into a room where was music and dancing ; this was entirely new, and he was agitated with a variety of emotions ; fear, wonder, admiration, ' and joy seemed to prevail by turns. As the scene became familiar, he again enjoyed it without any mixture of unplea- sant feelings. But the effect of these excitements was apparent when he was taken to his bed-room ; his face was flushed, as in a fever, his ner- vous system disturbed, and his sleep was interrupted by screams. 110 ALMIRA HART LINCOLN P H E L P S. THE CHILD AND NATURE. THE expression of the emotions of young children, when first viewing the grand scenery of nature, affords a rich treat to the penetrating observer. At eight months old, my child, on being carried to the door during a fall of snow, contemplated the scene with an appearance of deep attention. He had learned enough of the use of his eyes to form some conception of the expanse before him, and to perceive how different it was from the narrow confines of the apartments of the house. The falling snow, with its brilliant whiteness and easy downward motion, was strange and beautiful ; and when he felt it lighting upon his face and hands, he held up his open inouth, as if he would test its nature by a third sense. A few weeks after this he was taken, on a bright winter's day, to ride in a sleigh (tnis scene was in Vermont). The sleighbells, the horses, the companions of his ride, the trees and shrubs loaded with their brilliant icy gems, the houses, and the people whom we passed, all by turns received his attention. If he could have described what he saw as it appeared to him, and the various emo- tions caused by these objects, the description would have added a new page in the philosophy of mind. How often are the beauties of nature unheeded by man, who, musing on past ills, brooding over the possible calamities of the future, building castles in the air, or wrapped up in his own self-love and self-importance, forgets to look abroad, or looks with a vacant stare ! His outward senses are sealed, while a fermenting process may be going on in the passions within. But if, with a clear conscience, a love of nature, and a quick sense of the beautiful and sublime, we do contemplate the glorious objects so profusely scattered around us by a bountiful Creator, with the interesting changes which are constantly varying the aspect of these objects, still our emotions have become deadened by habit. We do not admire what is familiar to us, and therefore it is that we must be ever ignorant of the true native sympathy between our own hearts and the external world. LOUISA C. TUTHILL. AMERICANS have excelled in the preparation of books for the young One of the most successful writers in this line, and a writer of more than ordinary success in other departments of prose composition, is Mrs. Louisa C. Tuthill. Mrs. Tuthill is descended, on both sides, from the early colonists of New Haven, Connecticut, one of her ancestors, on the father's side, being Theophilus Eaton, the first Governor of the colony. Her maiden name was Louisa Caroline Huggins. She was born, just at the close of the last century, at New Haven, and educated partly at New Haven and partly at Litchfield. The schools for young ladies in both of those towns at that time were celebrated for their excellence, and that in New Haven parti- cularly comprehended a course of study equal in range, with the exception of Greek and the higher Mathematics, to the course pursued at the same time in Yale College. Being the youngest child of a wealthy and retired merchant, she enjoyed to the fullest extent the opportunities of education which these seminaries afforded, as well as that more general, but not less important element of education, the constant intercourse with people of refined taste and cultivated minds. In 1817, she was married to Cornelius Tuthill, Esq., a lawyer, of New- burgh, New York, who, after his marriage, settled in New Haven. Mr. Tuthill himself, as well as his wife, being of a literary turn, their hospi- table mansion became the resort for quite an extensive literary circle, some of whom have since become known to fame. Mr. Tuthill, with two of his friends, the lamented Henry E. Dwight, youngest son of President Dwight of Yale College, and Nathaniel Chauncey, Esq., now of Philadelphia, pro- jected a literary paper, for local distribution, called " The Microscope." It was published at New Haven, and edited by Mr. Tuthill, with the aid of the two friends just named. Through the pages of the Microscope, the poet Percival first became known to the public. Among the con- (111) 112 LOUISA C. TUTHILL. tributors were J. C. Brainerd,* Professors Fisher and Fowler, Mrs. Sigourney, and others. Mrs. Tuthill wrote rhymes from childhood, and as far back as she can remember was devoted to books. One of her amusements during girl- hood was to write, stealthily, essays, plays, tales, and verses, all of which, however, with the exception of two or three school compositions, were committed to the flames previous to her marriage. She had imbibed a strong prejudice against literary women, and firmly resolved never to become one. Mr. Tuthill took a different view of the matter, and urged her to a further pursuit of liberal studies and the continued exercise of her pen. At his solicitation, she wrote regularly for the " Microscope" during its continuance, which, however, was only for a couple of years. Mr. Tuthill died in 1825, at the age of twenty-nine, leaving a widow and four children, one son and three daughters. As a solace under affliction; Mrs. Tuthill employed her pen in contributing frequently to literary periodicals, but always anonymously, and with so little 'regard to fame of authorship as to keep neither record nor copy of her pieces, though some of them now occasionally float by as waifs on the tide of current literature. Several little books, too, were written by her between 1827 and 1839, for the pleasure of mental occupation, and published anony- mously. Some of these still hold their place in Sunday school libraries. Mrs. Tuthill's name first came before the public in 1839. It was on the title-page of a reading book for young ladies, prepared on a new plan. The plan was to make the selections a series of illustrations of the rules of rhetoric, the examples selected being taken from the best English and American authors. The " Young Ladies' Header," -the title of this col- lection, has been popular, and has gone through many editions. The ice being once broken, she began to publish more freely, and during the same year gave to the world the work entitled " The Young Lady's Home." It is an octavo volume of tales and essays, having in view the completion of a young lady's education after her leaving school. It shows at once a fertile imagination and varied reading, sound judgment, and a familiar acquaintance with social life. It has ben frequently reprinted. Her next publication was an admirable series of small volumes for boys and girls, which have been, of all her writings, the most widely and the most favourably known. They are IGmo.'s, of about 150 pages each. "I will be a Gentleman," 1844, twenty-nine editions; "I will be a Lady," 1844, twenty-nine editions; "Onward, right Onward," 1845, fourteen editions; " Boarding School Girl," 1845, eight editions; " Anything for Sport," 1846, eight editions; "A Strike for Freedom, or Law and Order," 1850, three editions in the first year. In 1852 Mrs. Tuthill commenced a new series, intended for girls and boys in their teens. "Braggadocio," 1852; "Queer Bonnets," 1853; * See Whittier's Life of J. C. Brainerd. LOUISA 0. TUT HILL. 113 "Tip Top," 1854; "Beautiful Bertha," 1854. These have passed through several editions, and have been even more popular than the former series. Had Mrs. Tuthill written nothing but these attractive and useful volumes, she would have entitled herself to an honourable place in any work which professed to treat of the prose literature of the country. They haye the graces of style and- thought which would commend them to the favourable consideration of the general reader, with superadded charms that make them the delight of children. During the composition of these juvenile works, she continued her occupation of catering for " children of a larger growth," and gave to the world, in 1846, a work of fiction, entitled " My Wife," a tale of fashionable life of the present day, conveying, under the garb of an agreeable story, wholesome counsels for the young of both sexes on the all-engrossing subject of marriage. A love for the fine arts has been with Mrs. Tuthill one of the ruling passions of her life. At different times, ample means have been within her reach for the cultivation of this class of studies. Partly for her own amusement, and partly for the instruction of her children, she paid special attention to the study of Architecture in its aesthetical character, enjoying^ while thus engaged, the free use of the princely library of Ithiel Town, the architect. The result of these studies was -the publication, in 1848, of a splendid octavo volume on the " History of Architecture," from which an extract is given. She edited, during the same year, a very elegant octavo annual, " The Mirror of Life," in which several of the contributions were by herself. "The Nursery Book" appeared in 1849. 'It is not a collection of nursery rhymes for children, as the title has led many to suppose, but a collection of counsels for young mothers respecting the duties of the nursery. These counsels are conveyed under the fiction of an imaginary correspondence between a young mother, just beginning to dress her first baby, and an experienced aunt. There are few topics in the whole history of the- management and the mismanagement of a child, during the first and most important stages of its existence, that are not discussed, with alternate reason and ridicule, in this clever volume. Mrs. Tuthill is at present engaged upon a series of works, of an unam- bitious but very useful character, grouped together under the general title of " Success in Life." They are six volumes, ISmo.'s, of about 200 pages each, and each illustrating the method of success in some particular walk in life, by numerous biographical examples. The titles of the several volumes are: "The Merchant," 1849; "The Lawyer," 1850; "The Mechanic," 1850; "The Artist," 1854; "The .Farmer," and "The Physician," not yet published. In 1838, Mrs. Tuthill left her much-loved native city, where until this time she had continually resided, and passed four years in Hartford, Con- necticut ; from thence she removed to Roxbury near Boston. The health of her family requiring a change of climate, she went, in 1846, to Phila- delphia. Since 1848 Mrs. Tuthill has resided at Princeton, New Jersey 15 114 LOUISA C. TUTH1LL. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. DOMESTIC architecture in this country must be adapted to the circumstances and condition of the people. As it is an art origi- nating from necessity, the progress of society must change the .architecture of every country, from age to age. As wealth and refinement increase, taste and elegance must be consulted, without destroying convenience and appropriateness. We can no more adopt the style of architecture than the dress of a foreign people. We acknowledge the flowing robes of the Persian to be graceful and becoming ; they suit the habits and climate of the country. The fur-clad Russian of the north has conformed his dress to his climate, and made it rich and elegant ; yet, as he approaches his neighbours of Turkey, his dress becomes somewhat assimilated to theirs. France is said to give the law of fashion in dress to the civilized world ; and the absurdities that have resulted from following her dictates, have produced ridiculous anomalies in other countries. In adopting the domestic architecture of foreign countries, we may be equally ridiculous. England, our fatherland, from some resemblance in habits and institutions, might furnish more suitable models for imitation than any other country ; yet they would not be perfectly in accordance with our wants. Our architecture must, therefore, be partly indigenous. Our associations of convenience, home-comfort, and respectability are connected with a certain style of building, which has. been evolved by the wants, manners, and customs of the people. Any great deviations from a style that has been thus fixed, cannot be perfectly agreeable. We must improve upon this style, so that domestic architecture may in time be perfectly American. Man in his hours of relaxation, when he is engaged in the pur- suit of mere pleasure, is less national than he is under the influence of any of the more violent feelings that agitate every-day life. Hence it is that in our country there is danger that our villas will be anything rather than national. The retired professional man, the wealthy merchant and mechanic, wish to build in the country. Instead of consulting home-comfort and pleasurable asso- LOUISA C. TFTHILL. 115 ciation, they select some Italian villa, Elizabethan house, or Swiss cottage, as their model. Ten chances to one the Italian villa, designed for the border of a lake, will be placed near a dusty high- road ; the Elizabethan house, instead of being surrounded by vene- rable trees, will raise its high gables on the top of a bare hill ; and the Swiss cottage, instead of hanging upon the mountain-side, will be placed upon a level plain, surrounded with a flower-garden, divided into all manner of fantastic parterres, with box edgings. Our country, containing as it does, in its wide extent, hills and mountains, sheltered dells and far-spreading valleys, lake-sides and river-sides, affords every possible situation for picturesque villas ; and great care should be taken that appropriate sites be chosen for appropriate and comfortable buildings ; comfortable, we say, for after the novelty of the exterior has pleased the eye of the owner for a few weeks, if his house wants that half-homely, but wholly indispensable attribute, comfort, he had better leave it to ornameirt his grounds, like an artificial ruin, and build himself another to live in. Cottages are at present quite " the rage" in many parts of the United States. Some outre" enormities are styled Swiss cottages. The larger and better kind of Swiss cottages are built with roofs projecting from five to seven feet over the sides ; these projections are strengthened by strong wooden supports, that the heavy snow which falls upon the roofs need not crush them. Utility and beauty are thus combined ; but there is no beauty in such a cottage in a sunny vale, where the snow falls seldom or lightly. On the Green Mountains, or among the White Hills, it might stand as gracefully as it does among its native Alps. Walnut and chestnut trees are always beautiful accompaniments to the Swiss cottage. The same care should be taken to render the cottage comfortable, as the villa ; and in this point, unfortunately, there is often a com- plete failure. There is no absolute need that this should be the case. A cottage or a farm-house may be picturesque without sacri- ficing one tittle of its convenience. The great and leading object should be utility, and where that is absolutely sacrificed in archi- tecture, whatever may be substituted in its place, it cannot be con- sidered beautiful. CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. MRS. KIRKLAND, formerly Miss Caroline M. Stansbury, was born and bred in the city of New York. After the death of her father, Mr. Samuel Stansbury, the family removed to the western part of the State, where she was married to Mr. William Kirkland, an accomplished scholar, and at one time Professor in Hamilton College. After her marriage she resided several years in Geneva, and in 1835 removed to Michigan; lived two years in Detroit, and six months in the woods sixty miles west of Detroit. In 1843 she returned to New York, where she has lived ever since, with the exception of a visit abroad in 1849, and another in 1850. Mr. Kirkland died in 1846. She was first prompted to authorship by the strange things which she saw and heard while living in the backwoods. These things always pre- sented themselves to her under a humorous aspect, and suggested an attempt at description. The descriptions, given at first in private letters to her friends, proved to be so very amusing that she was tempted to enlarge the circle of her readers by publication. " A New Home Who'll Follow?" appeared in 1839; "Forest Life," in 1842; and "Western Clearings," in 1846. These all appeared under the assumed name of " Mrs. Mary Clavers," and attracted very general attention. For racy wit, keen observation of life and manners, and a certain air of refinement which never forsakes her, even in the roughest scenes, these sketches of western life were entirely without a parallel in American literature. Their success determined in a great measure Mrs. Kirkland's course of life, and she has since become an author by profession. An " Essay on the Life and Writings of Spenser," prefixed to an edi- tion of the first book of the " Fairy Queen," in 1846, formed her next contribution to the world of letters. The accomplished author appears in this volume quite as shrewd in her observations, and as much at home, (116) CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. 117 among the dreamy fantasies of the great idealist, as she had been among the log cabins of the far west. In July, 1847, the " Union Magazine" was commenced in New York under her auspices as sole editor. After a period of eighteen months, the proprietorship of the Magazine changed hands, its place of publication was transferred to Philadelphia, and its name changed to "Sartain's Union Magazine." Under the new arrangement, Mrs. Kirkland remained as associate editor, her duties being limited, however, almost entirely to a monthly contribution. This arrangement continued until July, 1851. Her whole connexion with the Magazine runs through a course of four years, and much of the marked success of that periodical is due to the character of her articles. Having been myself the resident editor of the Magazine during the last two" and a half years of that time, and conducted it's entire literary correspondence, I suppose I have the means of speaking with some confidence on this point, and I have no hesitation in saying, that of all its brilliant array of contributors, there was not one whose arti- cles gave such entire and uniform satisfaction as those of Mrs. Kirkland. During her first visit to Europe, she wrote incidents and observations of travel, which were published, first in the Magazine, and afterwards in book form, under the title of " Holidays Abroad ; or, Europe from the West," in two volumes, 1849. Excepting these, and one or two stories, her con- tributions have been in the shape of essays, and they form, in my opinion, her strongest claim to distinction as a writer. THE MYSTERY OF VISITING. THERE is something wonderfully primitive and simple in the fundamental idea of visiting. You leave your own place and your chosen employments, your slipshod ease and privileged plainness, and sally forth, in special trim, with your mind emptied, as far as possible, of whatever has been engrossing it, to make a descent upon the domicile of another, under the idea that your presence will give him pleasure, and, remotely, yourself. Can anything denote more amiable simplicity ? or, according to a certain favourite vocabulary, can anything be more intensely green ? What a confession of the need of human sympathy ! What bonhommie in the conviction that you will be welcome ! What reckless self-committal in the whole affair ! Let no one say this is not a good-natured world, since it still keeps up a reverence for the fossil remains of what was once the heart of its oyster. H$ CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. Not to go back to the creation (some proof of self-denial, in these days of research), what occasioned the first visit, probably ? Was it the birth of a baby, or a wish to borrow somewhat for the simple householdry, or a cause of complaint about some rural trespass ; a desire to share superabundant grapes with a neighbour who abounded more in pomegranates; a twilight fancy for gossip about a stray kid, or a wound from "the blind boy's butt-shaft ?" Was the delight of visiting, like the succulence of roast pig, discovered by chance ; or was it, like the talk which is its essence, an instinct ? This last we particularly doubt, from present manifestations. In- stincts do not wear out ; they are as fresh as in the days when visiting began but where is visiting ? A curious semblance of the old rite now serves us, a mere Duessa a form of snow, impudently pretending to vitality. We are put off with this congelation, a compound of formality, dissimu- lation, weariness, and vanity, which it is not easy to subject to any test without resolving it at once into its unwholesome elements. Yet why must it be so ? Would it require daring equal to that which dashed into the enchanted wood of Ismena, or that which exterminated the Mamelukes, to fall back upon first principles, and let inclination have something to do with offering and returning visits ? A coat of mail is, strangely enough, the first requisite when we have a round of calls to make; not the "silver arms" of fair Clo- rinda, but the unlovely, -oyster-like coat of Pride, the helmet of Indifference, the breastplate of Distrust, the barred visor of Self- Esteem, the shield of "gentle Dulness;" while over all floats the gaudy, tinsel scarf of Fashion. Whatever else be present or lack- ing, Pride, defensive, if not offensive, must clothe us all over. The eyes must be guarded, lest they mete out too much consideration to those who bear no stamp. The neck must be stiffened, lest it bend beyond the haughty angle of self-reservation in the acknow- ledgment of civilities. The mouth is bound to keep its portcullis ever ready to fall on a word which implies unaffected pleasure or surprise. Each motion must have its motive ; every civility its well-weighed return in prospect. Subjects of conversation must CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. liy be any but those which naturally present themselves to the mind. If a certain round is not prescribed, we feel that all beyond it is proscribed. 0, the unutterable weariness of this worse than dumb- show ! No wonder we groan in spirit when there are visits to be made ! But some fair, innocent face looks up at us, out of a forest home, perhaps, or in a wide, unneighboured prairie, and asks what all this means ? " Is not a visit always a delightful thing full of good feeling the cheerer of solitude the lightener of labour the healer of differences the antidote of life's bitterness ?" Ah, primitive child ! it is so, indeed, to you. The thought of a visit makes your dear little heart beat. If one is offered, or expected at your father's, with what cheerful readiness do you lend your aid to the preparations ! How your winged feet skim along the floor, or sur- mount the stairs ; your brain full of ingenious devices and substi- tutes, your slender fingers loaded with plates and glasses, and a tidy apron depending from your taper waist ! Thoughts of dress give you but little trouble, for your choice is limited to the pink ribbon and the blue, one ; what the company will wear is of still less moment, so they only come ! It would be hard to make you believe that we invite people and then hope they will not come ! If you omit anybody, it will be the friend who possesses too many acres, or he who has been sent to the legislature from your district, lest dignity should interfere with pleasure ; we, on the contrary, think first of the magnates, even though we know that the gloom of their grandeur will overshadow the mirth of everybody else, and prove a wet blanket to the social fire. You will, perhaps, be surprised to learn that we keep a debtor and creditor account of visits, and talk of owing a call, or owing an invitation, as your father does of owing a hundred dollars at the store, for value received. When we have made a visit and are about departing, we invite a return, in the choicest terms of affectionate, or, at least, cordial interest ; but if our friend is new enough to take us at our word, and pay the debt too soon, we complain, and say, " Oh dear ! there's another call to make !" A hint has already been dropt as to the grudging spirit of the 1-20 CAROLINE M. K I RKL AND. thing, how we give as little as we can, and get all possible credit for it ; and this is the way we do it. Having let the accounts against us become as numerous as is prudent, we draw up a list of our creditors, carefully districted as to residences, so as not to make more cross-journeys than are necessary in going the rounds. Then we array ourselves with all suitable splendour (this is a main point, and we often defer a call upon dear friends for weeks, wait- ing till the arrivals from Paris shall allow us to endue a new bon- net or mantilla), and, getting into a carriage, card-case in hand, give our list, corrected more anxiously than a price-current, into the keeping of the coachman, with directions to drive as fast as dignity will allow,' in order that we may do as much execution as possible with the stone thus carefully smoothed. Arrived at the first house (which is always the one farthest off, for economy of time), we stop the servant inquires for the lady for whom our civility is intended, while we take out a card and hold it prominent on the carriage door, that not a moment may be lost in case a card is needed. " Not at home ?" Ah then, with what pleased alacrity we commit the scrap of pasteboard to John> after having turned down a corner for each lady, if there are several, in this kind and propitious house. But if the answer is " At home," all wears a different aspect. The card slips sadly back again into its silver citadel; we sigh, and say " Oh dear !", if nothing worse and then, alighting with measured -step, enter the drawing-room all smiles, and with polite words ready on our lips. Ten minutes of the weather the walking the opera family illnesses on-dits, and a little spice of scandal, or at least a shrug and a meaning look or two and the duty is done. We enter the carriage again urge the coachman to new speed, and go through the same ceremonies, hopes, regrets,' and tittle-tattle, till dinner time, and then bless our stars that we have been able to make twenty calls " so many peo- ple were out." But this is only one side of the question. How is it with us when we receive visits ? 'We enter here upon a deep mystery. Dear simple child of the woods and fields, did you ever hear of reception-days ? If not, let us enlighten you a little. CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. 121 The original idea of a reception-day is a charmingly social and friendly one. It is that the many engagements of city life, and the distances which must be traversed in order to visit several friends in one day, make it peculiarly desirable to know when we are sure to find each at home. It may seem strange that this idea should have occurred to people who are confessedly glad of the opportunity to leave a card, because it allows them time to despatch a greater number of visits at one round ; but so it is. The very enormity of our practice sometimes leads to spasmodic efforts at reform. Appointing a reception-day is, therefore, or, rather, we should say, was intended to make morning-calls something besides a mere form. To say you will always be at home on such a day, is to insure to your friends the pleasure of seeing you ; and what a charming conversational circle might thus be gathered, without ceremony or restraint ! No wonder the fashion took at once. But what has fashion made of this plan, so simple, so rational, so in accordance with -the best uses of visiting ? Something as vapid and senseless as a court drawing-room, or the eternal bowings and compliments of the Chinese ! You, artless blossom of the prairies, or belle of some rural city a thousand miles inland, should thank us for put- ting you on your guard against Utopian constructions of our social canons. When you come to town with your good father, and find that the lady of one of his city correspondents sets apart one morn- ing of every week for the reception of her friends, do not imagine her to be necessarily a "good soul," who hates to disappoint those who call on her, and therefore simply omits going out on that day lest she should miss them. You will find her enshrined in all that is grand and costly ; her door guarded by servants, whose formal ushering will kill within you all hope of unaffected and kindly inter- course ; her parlours glittering with all she can possibly accumu- late that is recherche (that is a favourite word of hers), and her own person arrayed with all the solicitude of splendour that morning dress allows, and sometimes something more. She. will receive you with practised grace, and beg you to be seated, perhaps seat her- self by you and inquire after your health. Then a tall, grave ser- 16 12-2 CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. vant will hand you, on a silver salver, a cup of chocolate, or some other permissible refreshment, while your hostess glides over the carpet to show to a new guest or group the identical civilities of which you have just had the benefit. A lady sits at your right hand, as silent as yourself ; but you must neither hope for an intro- duction, nor dare to address her without one, since both these things are forbidden by our code. Another sits at your left, looking wist- fully at the fire, or at the stand of greenhouse plants, or, still more likely, at the splendid French clock, but not speaking a word ; for she, too, has not the happiness of knowing anybody who chances to sit near her. Presently she rises ; the hostess hastens towards her, presses her hand with great aifection, and begs to see her often. She falls into the custody of the footman at the parlour door, is by him committed to his double at the hall door, and then trips lightly down the steps to her carriage, to enact the same farce at the next house where there may be a reception on the same day. You look at the clock, too, rise are smiled upon, and begged to come again ; and, passing through the same tunnel of footmen, reach the door and the street, with time and opportunity to muse on the mystery of visiting. Now you are not to go away with the idea that those who reduce visiting to this frigid system, are, of necessity, heartless people. That would be very unjust. They are often people of very good hearts indeed ; but they have somehow allowed their notions of social intercourse to become sophisticated, so that visiting has ceased with them to be even a symbol of friendly feeling, and they look upon it as merely a mode of exhibiting wealth, style, and desirable acquaintances ; an assertion, as it were, of social position. Then they will tell you of the great " waste of time" incurred by the old system of receiving morning calls, and how much better it is to give up one day to it than every day ; though, by the way, they never did scruple to be " engaged" or " out" when visits were not desirable. Another thing is but. this, perhaps, they will not tell you, that the present is an excellent way of refining one's circle ; for, as the footman has strict orders not to admit any one, or even receive a card, on other than the regular days, all those CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. 123 who are enough behind the age not to be aware of this, arc gradu- ally dropt, their visits passing for nothing, and remaining unre- turned. So fades away the momentary dream of sociability with which some simple-hearted people pleased themselves when they heard of reception-days. But morning calls are not the only form of our social intercourse. We do not forget the claims of "peaceful evening." You have read Cowper, my dear young friend ? " Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn Throws up a steaming column, and the cups That cheer, but not inebriate," etc., etc. And you have been at tea-parties, too, where, besides the excel- lent tea and coifee and cake and warm biscuits and sliced tongue, there was wealth of good-humoured chat, an*d, if not wit, plenty of laughter, as the hours wore on towards ten o'clock, when cloaks and hoods were brought, and the gentlemen asked to be allowed to see the ladies home, and, after a brisk walk, everybody was in bed at eleven o'clock, and felt not the worse but the better next morning. Well ! we have evening parties, too ! A little different, however. The simple people among whom you have been living really enjoyed these parties. Those who gave them, and those who went to them, had social pleasure as their object. The little bustle, or, perhaps, labour of preparation was just enough to mark the occa- sion pleasantly. People came together in good humour with them- selves and with each other. There may have been some little scandal talked over the tea when it was too strong but, on the whole, there was a friendly result, and everybody concerned would have felt it a loss to be deprived of such meetings. The very bor- rowings of certain articles of which no ordinary, moderate house- hold is expected to have enough for extraordinary occasions, pro- moted good neighbourhood and sociability, and the deficiencies sometimes observable, were in some sense an antidote to pride. Now all this sounds like a sentimental, Utopian, if not shabby 12 4 CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. romance to us, so far have we departed from such primitiveness. To begin, we all say we hate parties. When we go to them we groan and declare them stupid, and when we give them we say still worse things. When we are about to give, there is a close calculation either as to the cheapest way, or as to the most recherch, without regard to expense. Of course these two views apply to different extent of means, and the former is the more frequent. Where money is no object, the anxiety is to do something that nobody else can do ; whether in splendour of decorations or costliness of supper. If Mrs. A. had a thousand dollars' worth of flowers in her rooms, Mrs. B. will strain every nerve to have twice or three times as many, though all the greenhouses within ten miles of the city must be stripped to obtain them. If Mrs. C. bought all the game in market for her supper, Mrs. D.'s anxiety is to send to the prairies for hers, and so in other matters. Mrs. E. had the prima donna to sing at her soiree, and Mrs. F. at once engages the whole opera troupe. This is the principle, and its manifestations are infinite. But, perhaps, these freaks are characteristic of circles into which wondering eyes like yours are never likely to penetrate. So we will say something of the other classes of party-givers, those who feel themselves under a sort of necessity to invite a great many people for whom they care nothing, merely because these people have before invited them. Obligations of this sort are of so exceedingly complicated a character, that none but a metaphysician could be expected fully to unravel them. The idea of paying one invitation by another is the main one, and whether the invited choose to come or not, is very little to the purpose. The invitation discharges the debt, and places the party-giver in the position of creditor, necessi- tating, of course, another party, and so on, in endless series. It is to be observed in passing, that both debtor and creditor in this shifting-scale believe themselves " discharging a duty they owe society." This is another opportunity of getting rid of undesirable acquaintances, since to leave one to whom we " owe" an invitation out of a general party, is equivalent to a final dismissal. This being the case, it is, of course, highly necessary to see that every- body is asked that ought to be asked, and only those omitted whom CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. 125 it is desirable to ignore, and for this purpose, every lady must keep a "visiting list." It is on these occasions that we take care to invite our country friends, especially if we have stayed a few weeks at their houses during the preceding summer. The next question is as to the entertainment ; and this would be a still more anxious affair than it is, if its form and extent were not in good measure prescribed by fashion. There are certainly must- haves, and may-haves, here as elsewhere ; but the liberty of choice is not very extensive. If you. do not provide the must-haves you are "mean," of course; but it is only by adding the may-haves that you can hope to be elegant. The cost may seem formidable, perhaps; but it has been made matter of accurate computation, that one large party, even though it be a handsome one, costs less in the end than the habit of hospitality for which it is the substi- tute, so it is not worth while to flinch. We must do our " duty to society," and this is the cheapest way. Do you ask me if there are among us no old-fashioned people, who continue to invite their friends because they love them and wish to see them, offering only such moderate entertainment as may serve to promote social feeling ? Yes, indeed ! there are even some who will ask you to dine, for the mere pleasure of your com- pany, and with no intention to astonish you or excite your envy ! We boast that it was a lady of our city, who declined giving a large party to "return invitations," saying she did not wish "to exhaust, in the prodigality of a night, the hospitality of a year." Ten such could be found among us, we may hope ; leaven enough, perhaps, to work out, in time, a change for the better in our social plan. Conversation is by no means despised, in some circles, eve*i though it turn on subjects of moral or literary interest, and parlour music, which aims at no eclat, is to be heard sometimes among people who could afford to hire opera singers. It must be confessed that the wholesale method of "doing up" our social obligations is a convenient one on some accounts. It prevents jealousy by placing all alike on a footing of perfect indif- ference. The apportionment of civilities is a very delicate matter. Really, in some cases, it is walking among eggs to invite only a 126 CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. few of your friends at a time. If you choose them as being acquainted with each other, somebody will be offended at being included or excluded. If intellectual sympathy be your touch- stone, for every one gratified there will be two miffed, and so on with all other classifications. Attempts have been made to obviate this difficulty. One lady proposed to consider as congenial all those who keep carriages, but the circle proved so very dull, that she was obliged to exert her ingenuity for another common quality by which to arrange her soire'es. Another tried the expedient of inviting her fashionable friends at one time, her husband's political friends at another, and the religious friends, whom both were desirous to propitiate, at another ; but her task was as perplexing as that of the man who had the fox, the goose, and the bag of oats to ferry over the river in a boat that would hold but one of them at a time. So large parties have it ; and in the murky shadow of this simulacrum of sociability we are likely to freeze for some time to come ; certainly until all purely mercantile calculation is banished from our civilities. It is with visiting as with travelling ; those who would make the most of either must begin by learning to renounce. We cannot do everything ; and to enjoy our friends we must curtail our acquaint- ances. When we would kindle a fire, we 'do not begin by scatter- ing the coals in every direction ; so neither should we attempt to promote social feeling by making formal calls once or twice a year. If we give offence, so be it ; it shows that there was nothing to lose. If we find ourselves left out of what is called fashionable society, let us bless our stars, and devote the time thus saved to something that we really like. What a gain there would be if anything drove us to living for ourselves and not for other people ; for our friends, rather than for a world, which, after all our sacrifices, cares not a pin about us ! LYDIA M. CHILD. THE maiden name of this accomplished writer was Lydia Maria Francis. She is a native of Massachusetts, and a sister of the Rev. Conyers Francis, D. D., of Harvard University. Mrs. Child commenced authorship as early as 1824. Her first produc- tion was " Hobomok." It was a novel based upon New England colonial traditions, and was suggested to her mind by an article in the North American Review, in which that class of subjects was urgently recom- mended as furnishing excellent materials for American works of fiction. Probably, the example of Cooper, who was then in the height of his popularity, and still more, that of Miss Sedgwick, whose " Redwood" was then fresh from the press, had also some influence upon the new author. Her work was well received, and was followed in 1825 by " The Rebels," a tale of the Revolution, very similar in character to the former. Botb of these works are now out of print. A new edition of them would be- very acceptable. Her next publication, I believe, was " The Frugal Housewife," con- taining directions for household economy, and numerous receipts. For this she had some difficulty in finding a publisher, in consequence of the great variety of cookery books already in the market. But it proved a very profitable speculation, more than six thousand copies having been sold in a single year. Mrs. Child's versatility of talent, and the entire success with which she could pass from the regions of fancy and sentiment to those of fact and duty, still further appeared in her next work, which was on the sub- ject of education. It was addressed to mothers, and was called "The Mother's Book." It contains plain, practical directions for that most important part of education which falls more immediately under the mother's jurisdiction. It has gone through very numerous editions, both in this country and in England, and continues to hold its ground, notwith- (127) log L YD I A M. CHILD. standing the number of excellent books that have since appeared on the same subject. It was published in 1831. The " Girl's Book," in two volumes, followed in 1832, and met with a similar success. Its object was not so much the amusement of children, as their instruction, setting forth the duties of parent and child, but in a manner to attract youthful readers. She wrote about the same time " Lives of Madame de Stae'l and Madame Roland/' in one volume ; " Lives of Lady Russell and Madame Guyon," in one volume ; " Biographies of Good Wives," in one volume ; and the " History of the Condition of Women in all Ages," in two volumes. All these were prepared for the " Ladies' Family Library," of which she was the editor. They are of the nature of compilations, and therefore do not show much opportunity for the display of originality. But they do show, what is a remarkable trait in all of Mrs. Child's writings, an earnest love of truth. The most original work of the series is the " History of the Condition of Women." They are all very useful and valuable volumes. In 1833, Mrs. Child published an " Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans." It is said to be the first work that appeared in this country in favour of immediate emancipation. It made a profound impreS' sion at the time. In the same year, Mrs. Child published " The Coronal." It was a col- lection of small pieces in prose and verse, most of which had appeared before in periodicals of various kinds. One of the most finished and original of Mrs. Child's works, though it has not been the most popular, appeared in 1835. It was a romance of Greece in the days of Pericles, entitled " Philothea." Like the " Prophet of Ionia," and some of her other classical tales, the " Philothea" shows a surprising familiarity with the manners, places, and ideas of the ancients. It seems, indeed, more like a translation of a veritable Grecian legend, than an original work of the nineteenth century. While all the externals of scenery, manners, and so forth, are almost faultlessly perfect, perhaps not inferior in this respect to the u Travels of Anacharsis," the story itself has all the freedom of the wildest romance. It is, however, romance of a purely ideal or philosophical cast, such as one would suppose it hardly possible to have come from the same pen that had produced a marketable book on cookery, or that was yet to produce such heart-histories as " The Umbrella Girl," or " The Neighbour-in-law." Indeed, the most remarka- ble thing in the mental constitution of Mrs. Child, is this harmonious combination of apparently opposite qualities a rapt and lofty idealism, transcending equally the conventional and the real, united with a plain common sense that can tell in homely phrase the best way to make a soup or lay a cradle an extremely sensitive organization, that is carried into the third heavens at the sound of Ole Bull's violin, and yet does not shrink from going down Lispenard street to see old Charity Bowery. LYDIAM. CHILD. 129 Mrs. Child conducted for several years a "Juvenile Miscellany," for which she composed many tales for the amusement and instruction of children. These have since been corrected and re-written, and otters added to them, making three small -volumes, called " Flowers for Child- ren." One of these volumes is for children from four to six years of age ; one, for those from eight to nine ; and one, for those from eleven to twelve. In 1841, Mr. and Mrs. Child went to New York, where they conducted for some time the " Anti-Slavery Standard." Mrs. Child wrote much for this paper, not only upon the topic suggested by the title, but on miscel- laneous subjects. In the same year, 1841, she commenced a series of Letters to the Boston Courier, which contain some of the finest things she has ever written. They were very extensively copied, and were afterwards collected into a volume, under the title of " Letters from New York." This was followed by a second series in 1845. These Letters are exceedingly various. They contain tales, speculations, descriptions of passing events, biographies, and essays, and bring alter- nately tears and laughter, according to the varying moods of the writer. In 1846, she published a volume called " Fact and Fiction," consisting of tales that had previously appeared in the Magazines and Annuals. These are of a miscellaneous character, somewhat like the " Letters," only longer. OLE BULL. I HAVE twice heard Ole Bull. I scarcely dare to tell the impres- sion his music made upon me. But casting aside all fear of ridi- cule for excessive enthusiasm, I will say that it expressed to me more of the infinite, than I ever saw, or heard, or dreamed of, in the realms of Nature, Art, or Imagination. They tell me his performance is wonderfully skilful ; but I have not enough of scientific knowledge to judge of the difficulties he overcomes. I can readily believe of him, what Bettina says of Beethoven, that " his spirit creates the inconceivable, and his fingers perform the impossible." He played on four strings at once, and produced the rich harmony of four instruments. His bow touched the strings as if in sport, and brought forth light leaps of sound, with electric rapidity, yet clear in their distinctness. He made his violin sing with flute-like voice, and accompany itself with a guitar, 130 LYDIA M. CHILD. which came in ever and anon like big drops of musical rain. All this I felt as well as heard, without the slightest knowledge of quartetto or staccato. How he did it, I know as little as I know how the sun shines, or the spring brings forth its blossoms. I only know that music came from his soul into mine, and carried it upward to worship with the angels. Oh, the exquisite delicacy of those notes ! Now tripping and fairy-like, as the song of Ariel ; now soft and low, as the breath of a sleeping babe, yet clear as a fine-toned bell ; now high, as a lark soaring upward, till lost among the stars ! Noble families sometimes double their names, to distinguish them- selves from collateral branches of inferior rank. . I have doubled his, and in memory of the Persian nightingale have named him Ole Bulbul. Immediately after a deep, impassioned, plaintive melody, an adagio of his own composing, which uttered the soft, low breathing of a mother's prayer, rising to the very agony of supplication, a voice in the crowd called for Yankee Doodle. It shocked me like harlequin tumbling on the altar of a temple. I had no idea that he would comply with what seemed to me the absurd request. But, smiling, he drew the bow across his violin, and our national tune rose on the air, transfigured, in a veil of glorious variations. It was Yankee Doodle in a state of clairvoyance a wonderful proof of how the most common and trivial may be exalted by the influx of the infinite. When urged to join the throng who are following this star of the north, I coolly replied, " I never like lions ; moreover, I am too ignorant of musical science to appreciate his skill." But when I heard this man, I at once recognised a power that transcends science, and which mere skill may toil after in vain. I had no need of knowledge to feel this subtle influence, any more than I needed to study optics to perceive the beauty of the rainbow. It overcame me like a miracle. I felt that my soul was, for the first time, baptized in music ; that my spiritual relations were somehow changed by it, and that I should henceforth be otherwise than I had been. I was so oppressed with "the exceeding weight of LYDIA M. PHILD. 131 glory," that I drew my breath with difficulty. As I came out of the building, the street sounds hurt me with their harshness. The sight of ragged boys and importunate coachmen jarred more than ever on my feelings. I wanted that the angete that had ministered to my spirit should attune theirs also. It seemed to me as if such music should bring all the world into the harmonious beauty of divine order. I passed by my earthly home, and knew it not. My spirit seemed to be floating through infinite space. The next day I felt like a person who had been in a trance, seen heaven opened, and then returned to earth again. This doubtless appears very excessive in one who has passed the enthusiasm of youth, with a frame too healthy and substantial to be conscious of nerves, and with a mind instinctively opposed to lion-worship. In truth, it seems wonderful to myself; but so it was. Like a romantic girl of sixteen, I would pick up the broken string of his violin, and wear it as a relic, with a half superstitious feeling that some mysterious magic of melody lay hidden therein. I know not whether others were as powerfully wrought upon as myself; for my whole being passed into my ear, and the faces around me were invisible. But the exceeding stillness showed that the spirits of the multitude bowed down before the magician. While he was playing, the rustling of a leaf might have been heard ; and when he closed, the tremendous bursts of applause told how the hearts of thousands leaped up like one. His personal appearance increases the charm. He looks pure, natural, and vigorous, as I imagine Adam in Paradise. His inspired soul dwells in a strong frame, of admirable proportions, ai^d looks out intensely from his earnest eyes. Whatever may be his theological opinions, the religious sentiment must be strong in his nature ; for Teutonic reverence, mingled with impassioned aspi- ration, shines through his honest northern face, and runs through all his music. I speak of him as he appears while he and his violin converse together. When not playing, there is nothing observable in his appearance, except genuine he'alth, the unconscious calmness of strength in repose, and the most unaffected simplicity of dress and manner. But when he takes his violin, and holds it so caress- !32 LTDIA M. CHILD. ingly to his ear, to catch the faint vibration of its strings, it seems as if "the angels were whispering to him." As his fingers sweep across the strings, the angels pass into his soul, give him their tones, and look out from his eyes, with the wondrous beauty of inspiration. His motions sway to the music, like a tree in the winds; for soul and body accord. In fact, "his soul is but a harp, which an infinite breath modulates ; his senses are but strings, which weave the passing air into rhythm and cadence." If it be true, as has been said, that a person ignorant of the rules of music, who gives himself up to its influence, without know- ing whence it comes, or whither it goes, experiences, more than the scientific, the passionate joy of the composer himself, in his moments of inspiration, then was I blest in my ignorance. While I listened, music was to my soul what the atmosphere is to my body; it was the breath of my inward life. I felt, more deeply than ever, that music is the highest symbol of the infinite and holy. I heard it moan plaintively over the discords of society, and the dimmed .beauty of humanity. It filled me with inexpressible long- ing to see man at one with Nature and with God ; and it thrilled me with joyful prophecy .that the hope would pass into glorious fulfilment. With renewed force I felt what I have often said, that the secret of creation lay in music. "A voice to light gave being." Sound led the stars into their places, and taught chemical affinities to waltz into each other's arms. "By one pervading spirit Of tones and numbers all things are controlled ; As sages taught, where faith was found, to merit Initiation in that mystery old." Music is the soprano, the feminine principle, the heart of the universe. . Because it is the voice of Love, because it is the high- est type, and aggregate expression of passional attraction, therefore it is infinite ; therefore it pervades all space, and transcends all being, like a divine influx. What the tone is to the word, what expression is to the form, what affection is to thought, what the LYDIA M. CHILD. 133 heart is to the head, -what intuition is to argument, what insight is to policy, what religion is to philosophy, what holiness is to hero- ism, what moral influence is to power, what woman is to man is music to the universe. Flexile, graceful, and free, it pervades all things, and is limited hy none. It is. not poetry, but the soul of poetry ; it is not mathematics, but it is in numbers, like harmonious proportions in cast iron ; it is not painting, but it shines tJtrough colours, and gives them their tone ; it is not dancing, but it makes all gracefulness of motion ; it is not architecture, but the stones take their places in harmony with its voice, and stand in " petrified music." In the words of Bettina "Every art is the body of music, which is the soul of every art ; and so is music, too, the soul of love, which also answers not for its working ; for it is the contact of divine with human." But I must return from this flight among the stars, to Ole Bul- bul's violin ; and the distance between the two is not so great as it appears. Some, who never like to admit that the greatest stands before them, say that Paganini played the Carnival of Venice better than his Norwegian rival. I know not. But if ever laughter ran along the chords of a musical instrument with a wilder joy, if ever tones quarrelled with more delightful dissonance, if ever violin frolicked with more capricious grace, than Ole Bulbul's, in that fantastic whirl of melody, I envy the ears that heard it. THE UMBRELLA GIRL. Ix a city, which shall be nameless, there lived, long ago, a young girl, the only daughter of a widow. She came from the country, and was as ignorant of the dangers of a city, as the squirrels of her native fields. She had glossy black hair, gentle, beaming eyes, and "lips like wet coral." Of course, she knew that she was beau- tiful ; for when she was a child, strangers often stopped as she passed, and exclaimed, " How handsome she is !" And as she 134 LYDIA M. CHILD. grew older, the young men gazed on her with admiration. She was poor, and removed to the city to earn her living by covering umbrellas. She was just at that susceptible age, when youth is passing into womanhood ; when the soul begins to be pervaded by " that restless principle, which impels poor humans to seek perfec- tion in union." At the hotel opposite, Lord Henry Stuart, an English nobleman, had at that time taken lodgings. His visit to this country is doubt- less well remembered by many, for it made a great sensation at the time. He was a peer of the realm, descended from the royal line, and was, moreover, a strikingly handsome man, of right princely carriage. He was subsequently a member of the British Parlia- ment, and is now dead. As this distinguished stranger passed to and from his hotel, he encountered the umbrella-girl, and was impressed by her uncommon beauty. He easily traced her to the opposite store, where he soon after went to purchase an umbrella. This was followed up by pre- sents of flowers, chats by the way-side, and invitations to walk or ride ; all of which were gratefully accepted by the unsuspecting rustic. He was playing a game for temporary excitement ; she. with a head full of romance, and a heart melting under the influ- ence of love, was unconsciously endangering the happiness of her whole life. Lord Henry invited her to visit the public gardens on the fourth of July. In the simplicity of her heart, she believed all his flatter- ing professions, and considered herself his bride elect ; she therefore accepted the invitation with innocent frankness. But she had no dress fit to appear on such a public occasion, with a gentleman of high rank, whom she verily supposed to be her destined husband. While these thoughts revolved in her mind, her eye was unfortu- nately attracted by a beautiful piece of silk belonging to her employer. Ah, could she not take it without being seen, and pay for it secretly, when she had earned money enough ? The tempta- tion conquered her in a moment of weakness. She concealed the silk, and conveyed it to her lodgings. It was the first thing she had ever stolen, and her remorse was painful. She would have LYDIA M. CHILD. 135 carried it back, but she dreaded discovery. She was not sure that her repentance would be met in a spirit of forgiveness. On the eventful fourth of July she came out in her new dress. Lord Henry complimented her upon her elegant appearance ; but she was not happy. On their way to the gardens, he talked to her in a manner which she did not comprehend. Perceiving this, he spoke more explicitly. The guileless young creature stopped, looked in his face with mournful reproach, and burst into tears. The nobleman took her hand kindly, and said, "My dear, are you an innocent girl?" "I am, I am," replied she, with convulsive sobs. " Oh, what have I ever done, or said, that you should ask me that?" Her words stirred the deep fountains of his better nature. "If you are innocent," said he, "God forbid that I should make you otherwise. But you accepted my invitations and presents so readily, that I supposed you understood me." "What could I understand," said she, " except that you intended to make me your wife?" Though reared amid the proudest distinctions of rank, he felt no inclination to smile. He blushed and was silent. The heartless conventionalities of life stood rebuked in the presence of affectionate simplicity. He conveyed her to her humble home, and bade her farewell, with a thankful consciousness that he had done no irretrievable injury to her future prospects. The remem- brance of her would soon be to him as the recollection of last year's butterflies. With her, the wound was deeper. In her solitary chamber, she wept in bitterness of heart over her ruined air-castles. And that dress, which she had stolen to make an appearance befit- ting his bride ! Oh, what if she should be discovered ? And would not the heart of her poor widowed mother break, if she should ever know that her child was a thief? Alas, her wretched forebodings were too true. The silk was traced to her ; she was arrested on her way to the store, and dragged to prison. There she refused all nourishment, and wept incessantly. On the fourth day, the keeper called upon Isaac T. Hopper, and informed him that there was a young girl in prison, who appeared to, be utterly friendless, and determined to die by starvation. The kind-hearted Friend immediately went to her assistance. He found 136 LYDIA M. CHILD. her lying on the floor of her cell, with her face buried in her hands, sobbing as if her heart would break. He tried to comfort her, but could obtain no answer. "Leave us alone," said he to the keeper. "Perhaps she will speak to me, if. there is no one to hear." When they were alone together, he put back the hair from her temples, laid his hand kindly on her beautiful head, and said in soothing tones, " My child, consider me as thy father. Tell me all thou hast done. If thou hast taken this silk, let me know all about it. I will do for thee as I would for a daughter ; and I doubt not that I can help thee out of this difficulty." After a long time spent in affectionate entreaty, she leaned her young head on his friendly shoulder, and sobbed out, " Oh, I wish I was dead. What will my poor mother say, when she knows of my disgrace?" "Perhaps we can manage that she never shall know it," replied he ; and alluring her by this hope, he gradually obtained from her the whole story of her acquaintance with the nobleman. He bade her be comforted, and take nourishment ; for he would see that the silk was paid for, and the prosecution withdrawn. He went imme- diately to her employer, and told him the story. " This is her first offence," said he ; " the girl is young, and the only child of a poor widow. Give her a chance to retrieve this one false step, and she may be restored to society, a useful and honoured woman. I will see that thou art paid for the silk." The man readily agreed to withdraw the prosecution, and said he would have dealt otherwise by the girl, had he known all the circumstances. " Thou shouldst have inquired into the merits of the case, my friend," replied Isaac. " By this kind of thoughtlessness, many a young creature is driven into the downward path, who might easily have been saved." The kind-hearted man then went to the hotel and inquired for Henry Stuart. The servant said his lordship had not yet risen. " Tell him my. business is of importance," said Friend Hopper. The servant soon returned and conducted him to the chamber. The nobleman appeared surprised that a plain Quaker should thus intrude upon his luxurious privacy ; but when he heard his errand, LYDIA M. CHILD. 137 he blushed deeply, and frankly admitted the truth of the girl's statement. His benevolent visiter took the opportunity to "bear a testimony," as the Friends say, against the sin and selfishness of profligacy. He did it in such a kind and fatherly manner, that the young man's heart was touched. He excused himself, by say- ing that he would not have tampered with the girl, if he had known her to be virtuous. " I have done many wrong things," said he, " but, thank God, no betrayal of confiding innocence rests on my conscience. I have always esteemed it the basest act of which man is capable." The imprisonment of the poor girl, and the forlorn situation in which she had been found, distressed him greatly. And when Isaac represented that the silk had been stolen for his sake, that the girl had thereby lost profitable employment, ancl was obliged to return to her distant home, to avoid the danger of expo- sure, he took out a fifty dollar note, and offered it to pay her expenses. "Nay," said Isaac, "thou art a very rich man ; I see in thy hand a large roll of such notes. She is the daughter of ^a poor widow, and thou hast been the means of doing her great injury. Give me another." Lord Henry handed him another fifty dollar note, and smiled as he said, " You understand your business well. But you have acted nobly, and I reverence you for it. If you ever visit England, come to see me. I will give you a cordial welcome, and treat you like a nobleman." " Farewell, friend," replied Isaac : " Though much to blame in this affair, thou too hast behaved nobly. Mayst thou be blessed in domestic life, and trifle no more with the feelings of poor girls ; not even with those whom others have betrayed and deserted." Luckily, the girl had sufficient presence of mind to assume a false name, when arrested ; by which means her true name was kept out of the newspapers. "I did this," said she, "for my poor mother's sake." With the money given by Lord Henry, the silk was paid for, and she was sent home to her mother, well provided with clothing. Her name and place of residence remain to this clay a secret in the breast of her benefactor. Several years after the incidents I have related, a lady called ]3 g L^DiA M. CHILD. at Friend Hopper's house, and asked to see him. When he entered the room, he found a handsomely dressed young matron with a blooming boy of five or six years old. She rose to meet him and her voice choked, as she said, " Friend Hopper, do you know me ?" He replied that he did not. She fixed her tearful eyes earnestly upon him, and said, "You once helped me, when in great distress." But the good missionary of humanity had helped too many in distress, to be able to recollect her without more precise informa- tion. With a tremulous voice, she bade her son go into the next room, for a few minutes ; then dropping on her knees, she hid her face in his lap, and sobbed out, " I am the girl that stole the silk. Oh, where should I now be, if it had not been for you !" When her emotion was somewhat calmed, she told him that she had married a highly respectable man, a Senator of his native State. Having a call to visit the city, she had again and again passed Friend Hopper's house, looking wistfully at the windows to catch a sight of him ; but when she attempted to enter, her courage failed. "But I go away to-morrow," said she, "and I could not leave the city, without once more seeing and thanking him who saved me from ruin." She recalled her little boy, and said to him, "Look at that gentleman, and remember him well ; for he was the best friend your mother ever had." With an earnest invitation that he would visit her happy home, and a fervent " God bless you," she bade her benefactor farewell. EMMA C. EMBURY. MRS. EMBURY is a native of New York, and a daughter of an eminent physician of that city, James R. Manley, M. D. She was married on the 10th of May, 1828, to Mr. Daniel Embury of Brooklyn, where she has since resided. Mrs. Embury has written much, both in prose and verse, and with equal success in both kinds of writing. Her earlier effusions were published under the signature of " lanthe." A volume of them was col- lected under the title of " Guido, and other Poems." Her tales, like her poems, have all been published originally in magazines and other perio- dicals. Were these all collected, they would fill many volumes. The only volumes formed in this way, thus far, have been, " Blind Girl, and other Tales," " Glimpses of Home Life," and " Pictures of Early Life." In 1845 she edited a very elegant gift book, called "Nature's Gems, or American Wild Flowers," with numerous coloured plates, and articles, both in prose and verse, by herself. In 1846, she published another col- lection of poems, called " Love's Token Flowers." In 1848, " The Wal- dorf Family" appeared. It is a fairy tale of Brittany, adapted to the meridian of the United States and the present age of the world, being partly a translation and partly original. If Mrs. Embury never rises so high as some of our female writers some- times do, no one, on the other hand, who has written so much, approaches her in the ability of writing uniformly well. She seems to have the faculty of never being dull. There is, too, a certain gentle amenity of thought and diction that never forsakes her, taking from the edge of what might otherwise be harsh, and giving a charm to what might be common- place. If her stories are not deeply tragical or thrilling, they are always beautiful, they always please, they always leave the mind instructed and the heart better. (139) 140 , EMMA C. EMBURY. TWO FACES UNDER ONE HOOD. " The land hath bubbles as the water hath, And these are of them." WHO is she?" " Ay, that is precisely the question which everybody asks, and nobody can answer." " She is a splendid-looking creature, be she who she may." " And her manners are as lovely as her person. Come- and dine with me to-morrow ; I sit directly opposite her at table, so you can have a fair opportunity of gazing at this new star in our dingy firmament." "Agreed; I am about changing my lodgings, and if I like the company at your house, I may take a room there. The speakers were two gay and fashionable men : one a student of law, the other a confidential clerk in a large commercial house. They belonged to that class of youths, so numerous in New York, who, while in reality labouring most industriously for a livelihood, yet take infinite pains to seem idle and useless members of society ; fellows who at their outset in life try hard to repress a certain respectability of character, which after a while comes up in spite of them,- and makes them very good sort of men in the end. The lady who attracted so much of their attention at that moment, had recently arrived in the city ; and, as she wore the weeds of widowhood, her solitary position seemed sufficiently ex- plained. But there was an attractiveness in her appearance and manners which excited a more than usual interest in the stranger's history. She had that peculiar fascination which gentlemen regard as the most exquisite refinement of frank simplicity, but which ladies, better versed in the intricacies of female nature, always recognise as the perfection of art. None but an impulsive, warm- hearted woman, can retain her freshness of feeling and ready responsive sympathy after five-and-twenty ; and such a woman never obtains sufficient command over her own sensitiveness to EMMA C. EMBURY. I exhibit the perfect adaptability and uniform amiableness of deport- ment which are characteristics of the skilful fascinator. Harry Maurice, the young lawyerling, failed not to fulfil his appointment with his friend ; and at four o'clock on the following day, he found himself the vis-d-vis of the bewitching Mrs. Howard, gazing on her loveliness through the somewhat hazy atmosphere of a steaming dinner-table. If he was struck with her appearance when he saw her only stepping from a carriage, he was now com- pletely bewildered by the whole battery of charms which were directed against him. A well-rounded and graceful figure, whose symmetry was set off by a close-fitting dress of black bombazine ; superb arms gleaming through sleeves of the thinnest crape ; a neck of dazzling whiteness, only half concealed beneath the folds of a fichu a la grand' mere ; features not regularly beautiful, some- what sharp in outline, but full of expression, and enlivened by the brightest of eyes and pearliest of teeth, were the most obvious of her attractions. The ordinary civilities of the table, proffered with profound respect by Maurice, and accepted with quiet dignity by the lady, opened the way to conversation. Before the dessert came on, the first barriers to acquaintance had been removed, and, somewhat to his own surprise, Harry Maurice found himself perpetrating bad puns and uttering gay Ion-mots in the full hearing, and evidently to the genuine amusement, of the lovely widow. When dinner was over, the trio found themselves in the midst of an animated discussion respecting the relative capacity for sentiment in men and women. The subject was too interesting to be speedily dropped, and the party adjourned to a convenient corner of the drawing-room. As usual, the peculiar character of the topic upon which they had fallen, led to the unguarded expression of individual opinions, and of course to the development of much implied experience. Nothing could have been better calculated to display Mrs. Howard as one of the most sensitive, as well as sensible of her sex. She had evi- dently been one of the victims to the false notions of society. A premature marriage, an uncongenial partner, and all the thousand- 142 EMMA C. EMBURY. and-one ills attendant upon baffled sentiment, had probably entered largely into the lady's bygone knowledge of life. Not that she deigned to confide any of her personal experience to her new friends, but they possessed active imaginations, and it was easy to make large inferences from small premises. Midnight sounded ere the young men remembered that some- thing was due to the ordinary forms of society, and that they had been virtually " talking love," for seven hours, to a perfect stranger. The sudden reaction of feeling, the dread lest they had been expos- ing their peculiar habits of thought to the eye of ridicule, the frightful suspicion that thy must have seemed most particularly " fresh" to the lady, struck both the gentlemen at the same moment. They attempted to apologize, but the womanly tact of Mrs. Howard spared them all the discomfort of such an awkward explanation. She reproached herself so sweetly for having suffered her impulsive nature to beguile her with such unwonted confidence, she thanked them so gently for their momentary interest in her "melancholy recollections of blighted feelings," she so earnestly implored them to forget her indiscreet communings with persons " whose singular congeniality of soul had made her forget that they were strangers," that she succeeded in restoring them to a comfortable sense of their own powers of attraction. Instead of thinking they had acted like men "afflicted with an extraordinary quantity of youngness" they came to the conclusion that Mrs. Howard was one of the most dis- criminating of her sex ; and the tear which swam in her soft eyes as she gave them her hand in parting, added the one irresistible charm to their previous bewilderment. The acquaintance so auspiciously begun was not allowed to languish. Harry Maurice took lodgings in the same house ; and thus, without exposing the fair widow to invidious remark, he was enabled to enjoy her society with less restraint. Unlike most of his sudden fancies, he found his liking for this lady " to grow by what it fed on." She looked so very lovely in her simple white morning dress and pretty French cap, and her manners partook so agreeably of the simplicity and easy negligence of her breakfast attire, that she seemed more charming than ever. Indeed, almost EMMA C. EMBURY. 143 every one in the house took a fancy to her. She won the hearts of the ladies by her unbounded fondness for their children, and her consummate tact in inventing new games for them; while her entire unconsciousness of her own attractions, and apparent indifference to admiration, silenced for a time all incipient jealousy. The gentlemen could not but be pleased with a pretty woman who was so sweet-tempered and so little exacting ; while her peculiar talent for putting every one in good humour with themselves, a talent, which in less skilful hands would have been merely an adroit power of flattery, sufficiently accounted for her general influence. There was only one person who seemed proof against Mrs. Howard's spell. This was an old bank clerk, who for forty years had occupied the same post, and stood at the same desk, encounter- ing no other changes than that of a new ledger for an old one, and hating every innovation in morals and manners with an intensity singularly at variance with his usual quietude, or rather stagnation of feeling. For nearly half his life he had occupied the same apartment, and nothing but a fire or an earthquake would have been sufficient to dislodge him. Many of the transient residents in the house knew him only by the sobriquet of " the Captain ;" and the half-dictatorial, half-whimsical manner in which, with the usual privilege of a humourist, he ordered trifling matters about the house, was probably the origin of the title. When the ladies who presided at the head of the establishment first opened their house for the reception of boarders, he had taken up his quarters there, and they had all grown old together ; so it was not to be wondered at if he had somewhat the manner of a master. The Captain had looked with an evil eye upon Mrs. Howard from the morning after her arrival, when he had detected her French dressing-maid in the act of peeping into his boots, as they stood^ outside of the chamber-door. This instance of curiosity, which he could only attribute to an unjustifiable anxiety to be acquainted with the name of the owner of the said boots, was such a flagrant impropriety, besides being such a gross violation of his privilege of privacy, that he could not forgive it. He made a formal complaint of the matter to Mrs. Howard, and earnestly advised her to dismiss !44 EMMA C. EMBURY, BO prying a servant. The lady pleaded her attachment to a faith- ful attendant, who had left her native France for pure love of her, and besought him to forgive a first and venial error. The Captain had no faith in this being a first fault, and as for its veniality, if she had put out an "I," and called it a venal affair, it would have better suited his ideas of her. He evidently suspected both the mistress and the maid; and a prejudice in his mind was like a thistle-seed, it might wing its way on gossamer pinions, but once planted, it was sure to produce its crop of thorns. In vain the lady attempted to conciliate him ; in vain she tried to humour his whims, and pat and fondle his hobbies. He was proof against all her allurements, and whenever by some new or peculiar grace she won unequivocal expressions of admiration from the more susceptible persons around her, a peevish "Fudge!" would resound most emphatically from the Captain's lips. " Pray, sir, will you be so good as to inform me what you meant by the offensive monosyllable you chose to utter this morning, when I addressed a remark to Mrs. Howard?" said Harry Maurice to him, upon a certain occasion, when the old gentleman had seemed more than usually caustic and observing. The Captain looked slowly up from his newspaper : " I am old enough, young man, to be allowed to talk to myself, if I please." " I suppose you meant to imply that I was ' green,' and stood a fair chance of being ' done brown,' " said Harry, mischievously, well knowing his horror of all modern slang. " I am no judge of colours," said he, drily, " but I can tell a fool from a knave when I see them contrasted. In old times it was the woman's privilege to play the fool, but the order of things is re- versed now-a-days." So saying, he drew on his gloves, and walked ^out with his usual clock-like regularity. Three months passed away, and Harry Maurice was " full five fathoms deep" in love with the beautiful stranger. Yet he knew no more of her personal history than on the day when they first met, and the old question of "Who is she?" was often in his mind, though the respect growing out of a genuine attachment checked it ere the words rose to his lips. He heard her speak of plantations EMMA C. EMBURY. 145 at the South, and on more than one occasion he had been favoured with a commission to transact banking business for her. He had made several deposits in her name, and had drawn out several small sums for her use. He knew therefore that she had moneys at com- mand, but of her family and connexions he was profoundly ignorant. He was too much in love, however, to hesitate long on this point. Young, ardent, and possessed of that pseudo-rom&nce, which, like French gilding, so much resembles the real thing that many prefer it, as being cheaper and more durable, he was particularly pleased with the apparent disinterestedness of his affection. Too poor to marry unless he found a bride possessed of fortune, he was now pre- cisely in the situation where alone he could feel himself on the same footing with a wealthy wife. He had an established position in society, his family were among the oldest and most respectable residents of the State, and the offer of his hand under such circum- stances to a lone, unfriended stranger, took away all appearance of cupidity from the suitor, while it constituted a claim upon the lady's gratitude as well as affection. With all his assumed self- confidence, Maurice was in reality a very modest fellow, and he had many a secret misgiving as to her opinion of his merits ; for he was one of those youths who use puppyism as a cloak for their diffidence. He wanted to assure himself of her preference before committing himself by a declaration, and to do this required a degree of skill in womancraft that far exceeded his powers. In the mean time Ahe prejudices of the Captain gained greater strength, and although there was no open war between him and the fair widow, there was perpetual skirmishing between them. Indeed it could not well be otherwise, considering the decided contrast be- tween the two parties. The Captain was prejudiced, dogmatic, and ' full of old-fashioned notions. A steady adherent of ruffled shirts, well-starched collars, and shaven chins, he regarded with contempt the paltry subterfuges of modern fashion. At five-and-twenty he had formed his habits of thinking and acting, and at sixty he was only the same man grown older. A certain indolence of temper prevented him from investigating anything new, and he was therefore 10 U6 EMMA C. EMBURY. content to deny all that did not conform to his early notions. He hated fashionable slang, despised a new-modelled costume, scorned modern morality, and ranked the crime of wearing a moustache and imperial next to the seven deadly sins. His standard of female perfection was a certain "ladye-love" of his youth, who might have served as a second Harriet Byron to some new Sir Charles Gran- dison. After a courtship of ten years (during which time he never ventured upon a greater familiarity than that of pressing the tips of her fingers to his lips on a New Year's day), the lady died, and the memory of his early attachment, though something like a rose encased in ice, was still the one flower of his life. Of course, the freedom of modern manners was shocking to him, and in Mrs. Howard he beheld the impersonation of vanity, coquetry, and falsehood. Besides, she interfered with his privi- leges. She made suggestions about certain arrangements at table ; she pointed out improvements in several minor household comforts ; she asked for the liver-wing of the chicken, which had heretofore been his peculiar perquisite, as carver ; she played the accordeon, and kept an Eolian harp in the window of her room, which unfor- tunately adjoined his ; and, to crown all, she did not hesitate to ask him questions as coolly as if she was totally unconscious of his privileges of privacy. He certainly had a most decided grudge against the lady, and she, though apparently all gentleness and meekness, yet had so adroit a way of saying and doing disagreea- ble things to the old gentleman, that it was e|sy to infer a mutual dislike. The Captain's benevolence had been excited by seeing Harry Maurice on the highroad to being victimized, and he actually took some pains to make the young man see things in their true light. " Pray, Mr. Maurice, do you spend all your mornings Ut your office ?" said he one day. " Certainly, sir." " Then you differ from most young lawyers," was the gruff reply. " Perhaps I have better reasons than many others for my close application. While completing my studies, I am enabled to earn EMMA C. EMBURY. 147 a moderate salary by writing for Mr. , and this is of some consequence to me." The old man looked inquiringly, and Maurice answered the silent question. " You know enough of our family, sir, to be aware that my father's income died with him. A few hundred dollars per annum are all that remains for the support of my mother and an invalid sister, who reside in Connecticut. Of course, if I would not encroach upon their small means, I must do something for my own maintenance." The Captain's look grew pleasanter as he replied, " I de not mean to be guilty of any impertinent intrusion into your affairs, but it seems to me that you share the weakness of your fellows, by thus working like a slave and spending like a prince." Maurice laughed. " Perhaps my princely expenditures would scarcely bear as close a scrutiny as my slavish toil. I really work, but it often happens that I only seem to spend." " I understand you, but you are worthy of better things ; you should have courage to throw off the trammels of fashion, and live economically, like a man of sense, until fortune favours you." The young man was silent for a moment, then, as if to change the subject, asked, " What was your object in inquiring about my morning walks ?" "I merely wanted to know if you ever met Mrs. Howard in Broadway in the morning." " Never, sir ; but I am so seldom there, that it would be strange if I should encounter an acquaintance among its throngs." " I am told she goes out every morning at nine o'clock, and does not return until three." " I suppose she is fond of walking." " Humph ! I rather suspect she has some regular business." " Quite likely," said Maurice, laughing heartily, "perhaps she is a bank clerk, occupied from nine to three, you say, just bank- ing hours." The Captain looked sternly in the young man's face, then utter- ing his emphatic "Fudge!" turned upon his heel, and whistling 148 EMMA C. EMBURY. " A Frog he would a wooing go," sauntered out of the room, thoroughly disgusted with the whole race of modern young men. The old gentleman's methodical habits of business had won for him the confidence of every one, and as an almost necessary con- sequence had involved him in the responsibility of several trustee- ships. There were sundry old ladies and orphans whose pecuniary affairs he had managed for years with the punctuality of a Dutch clock. Before noon, on the days when their interest moneys were due, he always had the satisfaction of paying them into the hands of the owners. It was only for some such purpose that he ever left his post during business hours ; but the claims of the widow and the fatherless came before those of the ledger, and he some- times stole an hour from his daily duties to attend to these private trusts. Not long after he had sought to awaken his young friend's suspi- cions respecting Mrs. Howard, one of these occasions occurred. At midday he found himself seated in a pleasant drawing-room, between an old lady and a young one, both of whom regarded him as the very best of men. He had transacted his business and was about taking leave, when he was detained to partake of a lunch ; and, while he was engaged in washing down a biscuit with a glass of octogenarian Madeira, the young lady was called out of the room. She was absent about fifteen minutes, and when she returned, her eyes were full of tears. A pile of gold lay on the table (the Captain would have thought it ungentlemanlike to offer dirty paper to ladies), and taking a five-dollar piece from the heap, she again vanished. This time she did not quite close the door behind her, and it was evident she was conversing with some claimant upon her charity. Her compassionate tones were distinctly heard in the drawing-room, and when she ceased speaking, a remarkably soft, clear, liquid, voice responded to her kindness. There was some- thing in these sounds which awakened the liveliest interest in the old gentleman. He started, fidgeted in his chair, and at length, fairly mastered by his curiosity, he stole on tiptoe to the door. He saw only a drooping figure, clad in mourning, and veiled from head to foot, who, repeating her thanks to her young benefactress, EMMA C. EMBURY. 149 githered up a roll of papers from the hall table, and withdrew before he could obtain a glimpse of her face. "What impostor have you been feeing now?" he asked, as the young lady entered the room, holding in her hand several cheap French engravings. " No impostor, my dear sir, but a most interesting woman." " Oh, I dare say she was very interesting and interested too, no doubt ; but how do you know she was no swindler ?" " Because she shed tears, real tears" " Humph ! I suppose she put her handkerchief to her eyes and snivelled." " No, indeed, I saw the big drops roll down her cheeks, and I never can doubt such an evidence of genuine sorrow ; people can't force tears." " What story could she tell which was worth five dollars ?" " Her husband, who was an importer of French stationary and engravings, has recently died insolvent, leaving her burdened with the support of two children and an infirm mother. His creditors have seized everything, excepting a few unsaleable prints, by the sale of which she is now endeavouring to maintain herself inde- pendently." " Are the prints worth anything*?" "Not much." " Then she is living upon charity quite as much as if she begged from door to door ; it is only a new method of levying contribu- tions upon people with more money than brains." " The truth of her statement is easily ascertained. I have pro- mised to visit her, and if I find her what she seems, I shall supply her with employment as, a seamstress." " Will you allow me to accompany you on your visit ?" " Certainly, my dear sir, upon condition that if you find her story true, you will pay the penalty of your mistrust in the shape of a goodly donation." " Agreed ! I'll pay if she turns out to be an object of charity. But that voice of hers, I don't believe there are two such voices in this great city." 150 EMMA C. EMBURY. What notion had now got into the crotchety head of the Cap tain no one could tell ; but he certainly was in wonderful spirits that day at dinner. He was in such good humour that he was even civil to Mrs. Howard, and sent his own bottle of wine to Harry Maurice. He looked a little confounded when Mrs. Howard, taking advantage of his "melting mood," challenged him to a game at backgammon, and it was almost with his old gruffness that he refused her polite invitation. He waited long enough to see her deeply engaged in chess with her young admirer, and then hurried away to fulfil his engagement with the lady who had pro- mised to let him share her errand of mercy. He was doomed to be disappointed, however. They found the house inhabited by the unfortunate Mrs. Harley ; it was a low one- story rear building, in Street, the entrance to which was through a covered alley leading from the street. It was a neat, comfortable dwelling, and the butcher's shop in front of it screened it entirely from public view. But the person of whom they were in quest was not at home. Her mother and two rosy children, however, seemed to corroborate her story, and as the woman seemed disposed to be rather communicative, the old gentleman fancied he had now got upon a true trail. But an incautious question from him sealed the woman's lips, ahd he found himself quite astray again. Finding nothing could be gained, he hurried away, and entering his own door, found Mrs. Howard still deeply engaged in her game of chess, though she did look up with a sweet smile when she saw him. A few days afterwards his young friend informed him that she had been more successful, having found Mrs. Harley just preparing to go out on her daily round of charity-seeking. When suspicions are once aroused in the mind of a man like the Captain, it is strange how industriously he puts together the minutest links in the chain of evidence, and how curiously he searches for such links, as if the unmasking of a rogue was really a matter of the highest importance. The Captain began to grow more reserved and incommunicative than ever. He uttered oracu- lar apothegms and dogmatisms until he became positively disagreea- EMMA C. EMBURY. 151 bb, and at last, as if to show an utter aberration of mind, he determined to obtain leave of absence for a week. It was a most remarkable event in his history, and as such excited much specula- tion. But the old gentleman's lips were closely buttoned ; he quietly packed a valise, and set out upon, what he called, a country excursion. It was curious to notice how much he was missed in the house. Some missed his kindliness ; some his quaint humorousness ; some his punctuality, by which they set their watches ; and Mrs. Howard seemed actually to feel the want of that sarcastic tone which made the sauce piquante of her dainty food. Where he actually went no one knew, but in four days he returned, looking more bilious and acting more crotchety than ever ; but with an exhilaration of spirits that showed the marvellous effect of country air. The day after his return, two men, wrapped in cloaks and wear- ing slouched hats, entered the butcher's shop in Street. Giv- ing a nod in passing to the man at the counter, the two proceeded up stairs, and took a seat at one of the back windows. The blinds were carefully drawn down, and they seated themselves as if to note all that passed in the low, one-story building, which opened upon a narrow paved alley directly beneath the window. " Do you know that we shall have a fearful settlement to make if this turns out to be all humbug?" said the younger man, as they took their station. "Any satisfaction which you are willing to claim, I am ready to make, in case I am mistaken; but look there." As he spoke, a female wearing a large black cloak and thick veil entered the opposite house. Instantly a shout of joy burst from the children, and as the old woman rose to drop the blind at the window, they caught sight of the two merry little ones pulling at the veil and cloak of the mysterious lady. " Did you see he? face?" asked the old man. "No, it was turned away from the window." " Then have patience for a while." Nearly an hour elapsed, and then the door again opened to admit the egress of a person, apparently less of stature than the woman 15 o EMMA C. EMBURY. who had so recently entered, more drooping in figure, and clad in rusty and shabby mourning. " One more kiss, mamma, and don't forget the sugar-plums when you come back," cried one of the children. The woman stooped to give the required kiss, lifting her veil as she did so, and revealing the whole of her countenance. A groan burst from the lips of one of the watchers, which was answered by a low chuckle from his companion ; for both the Captain and Harry Maurice had recognised in the mysterious lady the features of the bewitching Mrs. Howard. There is little more to tell. The question of "Who is she?" now needed no reply. Mrs. Howard, Mrs. Harley, and some dozen other aliases, were the names of an exceedingly genteel adventu- ress, who is yet vividly remembered by the charitable whom she victimized a few years since. She had resided in several large cities, and was drawing a very handsome income from her ingenu- ity. Her love of pleasure being as great as her taste for money- making, she devised a plan for living two lives at once, and her extreme mobility of featune, and exquisite adroitness, enabled her to carry out her schemes. How far she would have carried the affair with her young lover it is impossible to say, but the probabi- lity is that the "love affair" was only an agreeable episode "pour passer le terns," and that whatever might have been the gentle- man's intentions, the lady was guiltless of ulterior views. The Captain managed the affair his own way. He did not wish to injure the credit of the house, which he designed to call his home for the rest of his life, and therefore Mrs. Howard received a quiet intimation to quit, which she obeyed with her usual unruffled sweet- ness. Harry Maurice paid a visit to his mother and sister in the country, and on his return found it desirable to change his lodgings. The Captain kept the story to himself for several years, but after Maurice was married, and settled in his domestic habitudes, he felt himself privileged to use it as a warning to all gullible young men, against bewitching widows, and mysterious fellow-boarders. MARY S. B. SHINDLER. (LATE MRS. MAKY s. B. DANA.) THE Southern muse has had few harps that have awakened a warmer echo than that of Mrs. Mary S. B. Dana, now Mrs. Shindler. Born and nurtured upon Southern soil, her fame has been cherished with peculiar affection in the region of her birth, while her name has been no unfami- liar or unwelcome guest in Northern hearts and homes. Mrs. Shindler was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, February 15, 1810. Her maiden name was Mary Stanley Bunce .Palmer. She was the daugh- ter of the Rev. Benjamin M. Palmer, D. D., who at the time of her birth was pastor of the Independent or Congregational church in Beaufort. In 1814 her parents removed to Charleston, her father having been called to the charge of the Independent church in that city. Her father's congre- gation consisted principally of planters of the neighbourhood, who spent their summers in the city, and their winters upon their plantations. In reference to this period of her life, Mrs. Shindler remarks, " I well remember the delight with which we children used to anticipate our spring and Christmas holidays, which we were sure to spend upon some neigh- bouring plantation, released from all our city trammels, running perfectly wild, as all city children were expected to do, contracting sudden and vio- lent intimacies in all the negro houses about Easter and Christmas times, that we might have a store of eggs for sundry purposes, for which we gave in exchange the most gaudy cotton handkerchiefs that could be bought in Charleston. It was during these delightful rural visits that what little poetry I have in my nature was fostered and developed, and at an early age I became sensible of a something within me which often brought tears into my eyes when I could not, for the life of me, express my feelings. The darkness and loneliness of our vast forests filled me with indescribable emotions, and above all other sounds, the music of the thousand Eolian (153) 154 MARY S. B. SHINDLER. harps sighing and wailing through a forest of pines, was most affecting to my youthful heart." Besides the advantage of the best Southern society, she had also the opportunity of most extensive acquaintance with clergymen and others from various Northern States the hospitality of her parents being unbounded. She was educated by the Misses Ramsay, the daughters of Dr. David Ramsay, the historian, and grand-daughters, on the maternal side, of Mr. Laurens, who figured so conspicuously in the early history of our Inde- pendence. The summer of 1825 her parents spent in Hartford, Conn., and she was placed for six months at the seminary of the Rev. Mr. Emerson, in the neighbouring town of Wethersfield. In 1826 she was placed at a young ladies' seminary in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, with the expecta- tion of remaining eighteen months, in the hope that so long a residence in the North would invigorate her constitution, which was rather delicate; but she pined for her Southern home, and at the expiration of six months was allowed to return to the arms of her parents. She subsequently spent several months at the seminary of the Rev. Claudius Herrick, in New Haven. On the 19th of June, 1835, she became the wife of Mr. Charles E. Dana, and accompanied him to the city of New York, where they resided for two or three years. During this time she occasionally wrote little pieces of poetry, but did not publish them. Before her marriage, how- ever, she had written considerably for the " Rose-Bud," a juvenile period- ical published in Charleston by Mrs. Oilman. The tone of subdued melancholy that pervades her first publications is explained by the sad story of her afflictions, which can be told in no way so well as in her own simple and affecting language. "In the fall of the year 1838," says she, in a letter now before me, " accompanied by my parents, we removed to the West. I was then the mother of a beautiful boy, who was born in May, 1837. We spent the winter in Cincinnati, and, as soon as the river rose in the spring, we all went to New Orleans. While in that city, a letter was received from Alabama, acquainting my parents with the fact that my only brother, who was a physician, and was on a tour of inspection for the purpose of finding a pleasant location for the practice of his profession, was in Greene county, sick, and failing rapidly. A favourite sister had died of consumption at my house in New York, just a week after the birth of our little boy, and the news of my brother's illness filled us with the saddest apprehensions. The letter, too, bore rather an old date, having first being mailed to Cin- cinnati, 'and forwarded from thence to New Orleans. My afflicted parents immediately hastened to the spot, but they arrived too late even to take a last fond look upon their only son. He had been buried several days MARY S. B. SHINDLER. 155 when they arrived. Almost heart-broken, yet submissive to the dreadful stroke, they returned to New Orleans, but instead of accompanying us in our western journey, they decided to return to Charleston. " In a short time we also embarked in a steamer for St. Louis, where we remained for a month or six weeks. We then ascended the Mississippi as far as Bloomington, Iowa ; at which place we landed, and we were so much pleased with the appearance of the place, that we decided on spending the summer there. The place had been settled about three years, and con- tained nearly or quite three hundred inhabitants, and had, so far, proved quite healthy. But the summer of 1839 was a very sickly one. There was a long-continued drought; the Mississippi river was unusually low, and the consequence was the prevalence of congestive fevers in all that region. Indeed, throughout the whole West and South, it was a summer long to be remembered. " I was the first to take the fever, and had scarcely recovered, when our little Charlie, our only child, became alarmingly ill. The only experienced physician in the village was likewise ill, so that we laboured under a serious disadvantage. After lingering for a fortnight the dear little fellow died. Two days before his death, my husband was taken with the same fever, and also died, after an illness of only four days. Nothing but the consolations of religion could have supported me under this double bereave- ment. Left entirely alone, thousands of miles away from every relative I had on earth, there was no human arm on which I could lean, and I was to rely on God alone. It was well, perhaps, for me, that I was just so situated. It has taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten, that our heavenly Father will never lay upon us a heavier burthen than he will give us strength to bear. And here I must record my warm and grateful tribute to the genuine kindness and sympathy of Western hearts. If I had been among my own kindred, I could not have received more earnest and affectionate attention. " As soon as I could settle my affairs, and find suitable protection, I started for my distant home, longing to lay my aching head on the bosom of my own dear mother, and to be encircled in my father's arms. " I was received in St. Louis with the greatest kindness, and remained .there for a week. Placed under the charge of a kind physician, we took ' a steamer for Cincinnati, but found the river so low, it would be next to impossible to reach there. After sticking fast upon every sand-bar we encountered for a day or two, the captain all the while assuring us that we should soon arrive at Cincinnati, we determined to take advantage of the first boat that passed us, and return to the Mississippi. Nor was it long before we were enabled to put this design into execution. " In New Orleans the fever was raging to an alarming degree. My kind protector had now reached his home, and could accompany me no 156 MARY S. B. SHINDLER. further, and I could hear of no one who was going in my direction at that season of the year the human tide was all setting the other way. At length a friend called to inform me that a schooner was about to sail for Pensacola. Knowing my intense anxiety to reach home, he had called to let me know of the opportunity, thinking that from Pensacola I would be able to reach Charleston without difficulty, though, for his own part, he strongly advised me not to attempt going in the schooner. But I had grown desperate, and caught eagerly at the proposal. Accordingly, that very afternoon, I was conducted to the schooner by my friend, and intro- duced to the captain, who kindly promised to take good care of me. I must confess my heart almost failed me when, after crossing the deck on the tops of barrels, with which the vessel was loaded, I dived into a cabin, dark, low, and musty, and found that I was the only female on board. " But the case was a desperate one, and I submitted to necessity, but bade my friend ' farewell ' with a heavy heart. We were towed down the canal by horses to the entrance of Lake Ponchartrain, where we were quietly to lie till the next morning. Never shall I forget the sufferings of that dreadful night. The cabin was infested with roaches, of an enor- mous size, and as soon as candles were lighted, they came out of their hiding-places by hundreds and thousands, and literally covered the bed where I was to sleep. Mosquitos also were swarming around ; but thia was not all. 1 was taken so ill that it seemed as if I could not live till morning. I shudder even now when I think of it. " By daylight I called the captain to my side and begged him to get me back to the city. He said there was a schooner which had just come in from the lake, and was going up to the city, and offered to put me aboard of her. I joyfully consented, and he took me in his arms like an infant, carried me on board of the newly-arrived schooner, and seated me in a chair on a pile of wet boards, of which her cargo appeared to consist. After two or three hours of intense suffering, for I was really very sick, I once more reached my friends in New Orleans, who were overjoyed to see me, and who fully determined to prevent me, by force, if necessary, from making any more such travelling experiments. In a few days the steamer between New Orleans and Pascagoula commenced running, and finding company, I at length reached home in safety." To give herself mental occupation, she now began to indulge in literary pursuits. She had always been very fond of music, and finding very little piano music that was suitable for Sunday playing, she had for several years been in the habit of adapting sacred words to any song which par- ticularly pleased her. To wean her from her sorrows, her parents encou- raged her to continue the practice, and this was the origin of the first work she published, " The Southern Harp." At first she had no idea of publishing these little effusions, but having written quite a number of them, she was advised to print a few for the use of herself and friends. MARY S. B. SHINDLER. 157 The work, however grew under her hands, till finally, becoming much interested in the design, she decided to publish, not only the words, but the music. She visited New York for this purpose in 1840, and the work appeared early in 1841. She now used her pen almost incessantly. It is not wonderful that her thoughts ran principally upon the subject of affliction, nor that the scenes through which she had passed during her short sojourn at the West, should have formed the theme of her muse. In the summer of 1841 she again visited New York for the purpose of publishing a volume of poems. This appeared under the title of " The Parted Family, and other Poems." She undertook, also, at the request of her publishers, to prepare another volume similar in design to the "Southern Harp," to be published under the title of the "Northern Harp." Both of these publications succeeded well. They passed through several large editions, and in a pecuniary way were very profitable, more than twenty-five thousand copies having been sold. Her next publication was a prose work, entitled " Charles Morton ; or, the Young Patriot;" a tale of the American Revolution. This, also, was very successful. It was issued in the early part of the year 1843. She next published two tales for seamen. The title of the first was "The Young Sailor," and of the other, " Forecastle Tom." About this time she experienced a change in her religious views, which attracted ^considerable attention, and led to her next publication. She had been bred a Calvinist, but during the year 1844 she began to enter- tain doubts about the doctrine of the Trinity, and finally, to the grief of her revered parents, and numerous friends, early in flie year 1845, she avowed herself a Unitarian. The matter having become one of some notoriety, she felt called upon to publish a volume of " Letters to Relatives and Friends," stating the process through which her mind had passed. This, by far the largest of her prose volumes, appeared in Boston, in the fall of 1845, and was re- published in London. It went through several editions, and was finally stereotyped. In 1847 she wrote several " Southern Sketches," the first of which appeared in the " Union Magazine" for October of that year. At this time another severe affliction befell her. This was the sudden death, within two or three weeks of each other, of both her parents, at Orangeburg, South Carolina. On the 18th of May, 1848, she became united in marriage to her pre- sent husband, the Rev. Robert D. Shindler, a clergyman of the Episcopal Church. Her views on the subject of the Trinity have also experienced a change, or rather have reverted to their original condition, and she is uow in communion with the church of her husband. 153 MARY S. B. SHINDLER. In April, 1850, Mr. and Mrs. Shindler removed to Upper Marlboro', Maryland, near to his native place, which was Shephardstown, Virginia. In August, 1851, they removed to Sbelbyville, Kentucky, Mr. Shindler having accepted a Professorship in Shelby College. A DAY IN NEW YORK. HERB I am in New York the great, busy, bustling world of New York ; and after my year's rustication in a quiet Southern village, you may be sure that my poor little head is almost turned ! Even now, while I am writing, there is a diabolical hand-organ, grinding under the window its mechanical music, with a disgusting little monkey a caricature upon poor humanity playing its "fan- tastic tricks before high heaven !" Do not, I entreat you, suppose me in a pet, for after all, I acknowledge that hand-organs, and even monkeys, have their uses, as well as their abuses, and may, by a serious philosophizing mind, be turned to very good account ; hut, just at this moment, I may perhaps be pardoned for wishing them somewhere else. Ah ! now comes a band of music real music ! breathed*through various instruments by the breath of human beings, playing in accordance, keeping mutual time, obeying the same harmonious impulses, now delighting the ear and affecting the heart by a soft and plaintive strain, and now stirring the spirit by a burst of mar- tial melody ; yes, that is music ; there is mind, there is soul, there is impulse, there is character in what I now hear, and you must excuse me while I hasten to the open window, and linger there till I catch the faintest echo of the rapidly-retreating harmony. There ! It is gone like so many of life's pleasures only to linger in the memory. Well ! God be praised for that I Day before yesterday I visited Greenwood, your beautiful ceme- tery. Oh, I wish I could reveal to you all the secret and varied workings of the mind within, as I wandered with a chosen friend a kindred spirit through that beautiful and consecrated ground. Thoughts too bigJbr utterance too spiritual and mysterious to be clothed in words came crowding thick and fast upon me, till at length I could contain myself no longer, and the tide of softened MARY S. B. SHINDXER. 159 feeling overflowed its barriers ; for tears, not bitter tears, came trickling down each cheek. To add to the solemn interest of the occasion, the bell was tolling for a funeral. It was the funeral of a little Southern boy, who had died while pursuing his studies in one of the city schools. His young school companions, all in uni- form, and each with a badge of mourning hanging from the left elbow, marched solemnly and silently to deposit the mortal remains of the youthful stranger in his Northern grave ! My busy mind instantly wandered to Ms home and mine, in the land of the sunny South ! Had he a father ? Had he a mother ? Had he brothers and sisters who were yet to learn the mournful tidings that the dear little fellow who had left them, recently perhaps, in all the healthful buoyancy of his young existence, had closed his eyes in a land of strangers, and was sleeping his last sleep so far away from his Southern home ? Or, was he an orphan, whose young days had been shaded by sorrow ? Then, perhaps, he had gone to join the sainted dead ! Then, perhaps, he had gone to complete a family in heaven ! Glorious, delightful, soothing thought ! At any rate, I knew that his young spirit was in the keeping of an infinitely-merciful Father, and there, well cared for, I was content to leave the little Southern boy. Near the entrance, sat a lady clad in the habiliments of the deepest mourning. She had been, probably, or was going, to the grave of some loved one, "to weep there," as Jesus did ! She had been mitigating or increasing the pangs of separation by the views and feelings she had been indulging at that loved one's grave ! Perhaps her sorrow was a sanctified sorrow, and she had meekly yielded up the chosen one of her heart, at the summons of her Heavenly Father, resolved to wait patiently for the period of a blissful reunion. If so, she ^had experienced the truth of the Saviour's words "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted !" But if not, if, in the insanity of grief, she had been dwelling on the past, disregarding the injunction of the apostle to forget the things which are behind, and press forward to those which are before, how doubly was she to be pitied ! *Ah, mourning heart ! didst thou but know that when we view the matter rightly, 160 MARY S. B. SHINDLER. the dead are with us, more potently and beneficially than they were in life, thy sorrow would be turned into a pensive joy, creating within thee and around thee precious and purifying influences ! I pass by the splendid monuments which attract the attention of every stranger, to mention one which arrested my footsteps by its exceeding simplicity and beauty. It was a plain white marble shaft, upon which was inscribed one single word, and that was "MARY." I always loved the name, but was never before so struck with its unpretending beauty. It was the name of the virgin-mother of our Lord, it was the name of her whom Jesus loved, and of the erring one whose pardon he pronounced so gra- ciously. And here it was, to designate the resting-place of a youthful wife who had but recently departed to her eternal home. What a world of meaning must that one word convey to the bereaved husband, when, solitary as he must be now, his lonely footsteps seek that sacred spot ! Let me tell thee, sorrowing hus- band, thy Mary is not lost to thee, she has but "gone before;" and if thou hearest and heedest well the voice which issues from that marble tablet, it shall be well with thee ! They never can be lost to us, whose memories we love ! Here lie thine ashes, dearest Mary ! While thy spirit shines above ; And this earth so fresh and verdant, But reminds us of thy love. Those who knew thy heart, sweet Mary ! Knew how pure its throbbings were ; O'er that heart, which throbs no longer, Memory sheds her purest tear. Yes, the tender mourning, Mary ! And the blank felt in thy home, Live as freshly in our bosoms As the rose-leaves o'er thy tomb. Thou wert ever gentle, Mary ! All our comfort and our pride ; Now that thou art gone to heaven, Oh! to heaven our spirits guide 1 MARY S. B. S HIND LER. 161 Be our guardian angel, Mary! Be our brilliant polar star ! From earth's storms, and clouds, and darkness, Lead us to bright realms afar. And when from earth's loud turmoil, Mary ! To this holy spot we turn, Let the mem'ry of thy meekness Teach us, loved one, how to mourn ! I saw, too, the monument which has been recently erected over the grave of Dr. Abeel, the Chinese missionary. I knew and loved him well, and yet my feelings, when I stood beside his grave, had not a tinge of sadness ! Indeed, why should they have ? He had fought the good fight, he- had finished his course, he had kept the faith, and I knew that he was in actual possession of his crown of glory ! It was, then, a time and a place for joy and for triumph, and not for mourning and despondency. The Christian hero had gone to his reward, was that a cause for sadness ? I have not emptied my heart of half its tide of feeling, but I must forbear ; time would fail me, and perhaps your patience also, were I to attempt it. Have you ever noticed,, in your Greenwood ram- bles, a deeply-shaded spot, most appropriately labelled " Twilight Dell?" 'Tis there I would like to lay my weary head, when the toils and cares of life are over ! Next to a grave in the far-distant West, \$here some of my loved ones sleep, or in my own Southern home, where my kindred lie, would I prefer one in the beautifully- shaded Twilight Dell of Greenwood. 11 CAROLINE LEE HENTZ. Miss CAROLINE LEE WHITING (the maiden name of Mrs. Hentz) was born in the romantic village of Lancaster, Massachusetts. She is the daughter of General John Whiting, and the sister of the brave General Whiting, distinguished alike for his literary attainments, and for his ser vices in the army of the United States. She was married in 1825, tc Mr. N. M. Hentz, a French gentleman, of rich and varied talents, who then conducted a seminary of education at Northampton, in conjunction with Mr. Bancroft, the historian. In the early days of their married life, Mr. Hentz was appointed Professor in the College at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He accepted the honourable post, and remained there several years. Thence they removed to Covington, Kentucky, where she wrote the tragedy of " De Lara, or the Moorish Bride." This play was offered as a competitor for a prize of five hundred dollars, and was successful. It was performed at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia, and I believe elsewhere, with much applause, and for several successive nights. The copy- right having reverted to Mrs. Hentz, it was subsequently published in book form. The family, after living awhile at Covington, removed to Cincinnati, and thence to Florence, Alabama. At this latter place they had for nine years a flourishing Female Academy, which in 1843 they transferred to Tuscaloosa, and again in 1845 to Tuskegee, and once more, in 1848, to Columbus, Georgia, where they now reside. The exhausting labours of their school, much of which fell upon Mrs. Hentz, caused her for several years almost to suspend the exercise of her pen. It is understood that she has recently made arrangements which will give her leisure for the more free exercise of her extraordinary gifts as a writer. Besides the tragedy already named, Mrs. Hentz has written two others, " Lamorah, or the Western Wilds," published in a Columbus newspaper, and " Constance of Wirtemberg," which has not yet seen the light. She has published many fugitive pieces of poetry, which have been widely copied. (162) CAROLINE LEE RENT Z. 163 Her prose writings have been chiefly in the form of novelettes for the weekly papers and the monthly magazines. After a wide circulation in this form, they have been generally reprinted as books, and enjoyed tue eclat of numerous editions. They are " Aunt Patty's Scrap Bag," 1846 j " The Mob Cap," 1848 ; " Linda, or the Young Pilot of the Belle Creole," 1850 ; " Rena, or the Snowbird," 1851 ; " Marcus Warland, or The Long Moss Spring," and "Eoline, or Magnolia Vale," in 1852; "Wild Jack," and " Helen and Arthur, or Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel," in 1853 j and "The Planter's Northern Bride," in 1854. The last work, but' recently published, is the longest and most elaborate which has yet issued from her pen, and critics from various parts of the country have united to place it in the first rank of American novels. Every one practically conversant with the art of composition, knows that those works which, to the uninitiated, seem to have been written currente calamo dashed off at full speed are ordinarily the fruit of slow and patient labour. Mrs. Hentz appears to be an exception to this rule. The spontaneousness and freedom so apparent in her style are a true ex- ponent of her habit of composition. Her happy facility in this respect reminds us of that most remarkable poetical improvisatrice, Mrs. Osgood. Mrs. Hentz, if we may credit authentic information, writes in the midst of her domestic circle, and subject to constant interruptions, yet with the greatest rapidity, and with a degree of accuracy that seldom requires, as it never receives revision. One long an inmate of the household, writes to me on this subject as follows : " What has often struck me with wonder in regard to Mrs. Hentz, is the remarkable ease with which she writes. When a leisure moment presents itself, she takes up her pen, as others do their knitting, and it dances swiftly over the paper, as if in vain trying to keep up with the current of her thoughts. ' Aunt Patty's Scrap Bag' was written while I was living in the family, and as at evening I sat at her table, I read it sheet by sheet, ere the ink was dry from her pen, -and on every page I saw, in the record of the affectionate family of the Worths, and particu- larly in the tender relations between Mrs. Worth and her daughters, a faithful transcript of the author's own heart. " Pardon me if I introduce a few lines which she dashed off hastily for me, while I stood waiting for the coach, the day I left her at Tuskegee. Though simple, they are in many respects a comment upon her heart, and the chief object of her pen. I give them from memory. ' May this ring, when it circles thy finger, remind Thy heart of the friends thou art leaving behind I have breathed on its gold a magical spell That, in long after years, of this moment shall tell 164 CAROLINE LEE HENTZ. "Should snares and temptations around thee entwine, May the gem on thy finger with warning rays shine And whisper of one whose spirit would mourn If thou from the pathway of virtue shouldst turn. " Like the eaglet, that fixes its gaze on the sun, Press upward and on till the bright goal is won Let the wings of thy soul never pause in their flight, Till they bear thee to regions of glory and light." I am indebted to an accomplished lady of Mobile* for the following additional particulars in relation to Mrs. Hentz. " Some writer has said, ' Authors should be read not known.' Mrs. Hentz forms a bright exception to this remark. She is one of those rare magnetic women who attracted my entire admiration at our first interview. The spell she wove around me was like the invisible beauty of music. I yielded willingly and delightfully to its magic influence. " Never have I met a more fascinating person. Mind is enthroned on her noble brow, and beams in the flashing glances of her radiant eyes She is tall, graceful, and dignified, with that high-bred manner which ever betokens gentle blood. "She has infinite tact and talent in conversation, and never speaks without awakening interest. As I listened to her eloquent language, I felt she was indeed worthy of the wreath of immortality, which fame has given in other days, and other lands, to a De Genlis, or to a De Sevigne. " She possesses great enthusiasm of character the enthusiasm described by Madame De Stael, as ' God within us,' the love of the good, the holy, the beautiful. She has neither pretension nor pedantry, and, although admirably accomplished, and a perfect classic and belles lettres scholar, she has all the sweet simplicity of an elegant woman. "Like the charming Swedish authoress, Fredrika Bremer, her works ill tend to elevate the^tone of moral feeling. There is a refinement, deli- cacy, and poetic imagery in all her historiettes, touchingly delightful. A * Madame Octavia Walton Le Vert. " This accomplished lady has for many years dispensed the refined and elegant hospitalities of Mobile , and is the centre of a circle unsurpassed for its wit, worth, and intelligence. She is the daughter of the no less celebrated Colonel George Walton, formerly Governor of Florida, who now is, we believe, the only surviving son of a signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence. (Editor of the Spirit of the Times.) Though Madame Le Vert has not appeared before the world as an authoress, no lady in the Southern States has been more admired for her fascinating powers of conversation, and for those brilliant accomplishments which adorn the social circle. She converses with ease and elegance in several of the modern languages, and excels in all the graces of her sex; foreigners of distinction, who visit Mobile, generally bear letters of introduction to her elegant and hospitable home. CAROLINE LEEHENTZ. 165 calm and holy religion is mirrored in every page. The sorrow-stricken mourner finds therein the sweet and healing balm of consolation, and the bitter tears cease to flow when she points to that 'better land' where the loved and the lost are waiting for us. " Many of her works are gay and spirituel, full of delicate wit, ' bright as the flight of a shining arrow.' Often have the smiles long exiled from the lips, returned at the bidding of her merry muse. Home, especially, she describes with a truthfulness which is enchanting. She seems to have dipped the pen in her own soul, and written of its emotions. She exalts all that is good, noble, or generous in the human heart, and gives to even the clouds of existence a sunny softness, like the dreamy light of a Claude Lorraine picture." Mrs. Hentz died February llth, 1856. AUNT PATTY'S SCKAP BAG. IT was a rainy day, a real, old-fashioned, orthodox rainy day. It rained the first thing in the morning, it rained harder and harder at midday. The afternoon was drawing to a close, and still the rain came down in steady and persevering drops, every drop falling in a decided and obstinate way, as if conscious, though it might be ever so unwelcome, no one had a right to oppose its coming. A rainy day in midsummer is a glorious thing. The grass looks up so green and grateful under the life-giving moisture ; the flowers send forth such a delicious aroma ; the tall forest-trees bend down their branches so gracefully in salutation to the messengers of heaven. There are beauty, grace, and glory in a midsummer rain, and the spirit of man becomes gay and buoyant under its influence. But a March rain in New England, when the vane of the weather- cock points inveterately to the north-east, when the brightness, and purity, and positiveness of winter is gone, and not one promise of spring breaks cheeringly on the eye, is a dismal concern. Little Estelle stood looking out at the window, with her nose pressed against a pane of glass, wishing it would clear up, it was so pretty to see the sun break out just as he was setting. The prospect abroad was not very inviting. It was a patch of mud and a patch of snow, the dirtiest mixture in nature's olio. A little boy went slumping by, sinking at every step almost to his knees ; then a carriage slowly and majestically came plashing along, its wheels 166 CAROLINE LEE HENTZ. buried in mud, the horses labouring and straining, and every now and then shaking the slime indignantly from their fetlocks, and probably thinking none but amphibious animals should be abroad in such weather. " Oh ! it is such an ugly, ugly day !" said Estelle, " I do wish it were over." " You should not find fault with the weather," replied Emma ; " mother says it is wicked, for God sends us what weather seemeth good to him. For my part, I have had a very happy day reading and sewing." "And I too," said Bessy, "but I begin to be tired now, and I wish I could see some of those beautiful crimson clouds, tinged with gold, that wait upon sunset." " Bessy has such a romantic mode of expression," cried Edmund, laughing and laying down his book ; " I think she will make a poet one of these days. Even now, I see upon her lips ' a prophetess's fire.' " Bessy's blue eyes peeped at her brother through her golden curls, and something in them seemed to say, " that is not such a ridiculous prophecy as you imagine." " This is a dreadful day for a traveller," said Mrs. Worth, with a sigh, and the children all thought of their father, exposed to the inclemency of the atmosphere, and they echoed their mother's sigh. They all looked very sad, till the entrance of another member of the family turned their thoughts into a new channel. This was no other than Estelle's kitten, which had been perambulating in the mire and rain, till she looked the most forlorn object in the world. Her sides were hollow and dripping, and her tail clung to her back in a most abject manner. There was a simultaneous exclamation at her dishevelled appearance, but Miss Kitty walked on as de- murely as if nothing particular had happened to her, and jumping on her little mistress's shoulder, curled her wet tail round her ears, and began to mew and purr, opening and shutting her green eyes between every purr. Much as Estelle loved her favourite, she was not at all pleased at her present proximity, and called out ener- getically for deliverance. All laughed long and heartily at the CAROLINE LEE HENTZ. 167 muddy streaks on her white neck, and the muddy tracks on her white apron, and she looked as if she had not made up her mind whether to laugh or cry, when a fresh burst of laughter produced a complete reaction, and a sudden shower of tears fell precipitately on Aunt Patty's lap. " Take care, Estelle," said Edmund, " Aunt Patty has got on her thunder and lightning calico. She does not like to have it rained on." Aunt Patty had a favourite frock, the ground-work of which was a deep brown, with zigzag streaks of scarlet darting over it. Es- telle called it thunder and lightning, and certainly it was a very appropriate similitude for a child. It always was designated by that name, and Edmund declared, that whenever Aunt Patty wore that dress, it was sure to bring a storm. She was now solicited by many voices to bring out one of her scrap-bags for their amusement. And she, who never wearied of recalling the bright images of her youthful fancy, or the impressions of later years, produced a gi- gantic satchel, and undrawing the strings, Estelle's little hand was plunged in, and grasping a piece by chance, smiles played like sun- beams on her tears, when she found it was a relic of old Parson Broomfield's banian. It consisted of broad shaded stripes, of an iron-gray colour, a very sober and ministerial-looking calico. "Ah!" said Aunt Patty the chords of memory wakened to music at the sight " I remember the time when I first saw Par- son Broomfield wear that banian. I was a little girl then, and my mother used to send me on errands here and there, in a little car- riage, made purposely for me on account of my lameness. A boy used to draw me, in the same way that they do infants, and every- body stopped and said something to the poor lame girl. I was going by the parsonage, one warm summer morning, and the par- son was sitting reading under a large elm tree, that grew directly in front of his door. He had a bench put all round the trunk, so that weary travellers could stop and rest under its shade. He was a blessed man, Parson Broomfield of such great piety, that some thought if they could touch the hem of his garment they would have a passport to heaven. I always think of him when I read | 6S CAROLINE LEE HENTZ. that beautiful verse in Job : The young men saw him and trem bled, the aged arose and stood up.' Well, there he sat, that warm summer morning, in his new striped banian, turned back from his neck, and turned carelessly over one knee, to keep it from sweep- ing on the grass. He had on black satin lasting pantaloons, and a black velvet waistcoat, that made his shirt collar look as white aa snow. He lifted his eyes, when he heard the wheels of my car- riage rolling along, and made a sort of motion for me to stop. ' Good morning, little Patty,' said he, ' I hope you are very well this beautiful morning.' We always thought it an honour to get a word from his lips, and I felt as if I could walk without a crutch the whole day. He was very kind to little children, though he looked so grand and holy in the pulpit, you would think he was an angel of light, just come down there from the skies." "Did he preach in that calico frock?" asked Emma, anxious for the dignity of the ministerial office. " Oh ! no, child all in solemn black, except his white linen bands. He always looked like a saint on Sunday, walking in the church so slow and stately, yet bowing on the right and left, to the old, white-headed men, that waited for him as for the consolation of Israel. Oh ! he was a blessed man, and he is in glory now. Here," added she, taking a piece of spotless linen from a white folded paper, " is a remnant of the good man's shroud. I saw him when he was laid out, with his hands folded on his breast, and his Bible resting above them." " Don't they have any Bibles in Heaven ?" asked little Estelle, shrinking from contact with the funereal sample. " No, child ; they will read there without books, and see without eyes, and know everything without learning. But they put his Bible on his heart, because he loved it so in life, and it seemed to be company for him in the dark coffin and lonely grave." The children looked serious, and Emma's wistful eyes, lifted towards heaven, seemed to long for that region of glorious intui- tion, whither the beloved pastor of Aunt Patty's youth was gone. Then the youngest begged her to tell them something more lively, CAROLINE LEE HENTZ. 169 as talking about death, and the coffin, and grave, made them melancholy such a rainy day. "Here," said Bessy, "is a beautiful pink and white muslin. The figure is a half open rosebud, with a delicate cluster of leaves. Who had a dress like this, Aunt Patty?" " That was the dress your mother wore the first time she saw your father," answered the chronicler, with a significant smile. Bessy clasped her hands with delight, and they all gathered close, to gaze upon an object associated with such an interesting era. "Didn't she look sweet?" said Bessy, looking admiringly at her handsome and now blushing mother. " Yes ! her cheeks were the colour of her dress, and that day she had a wreath of roses in her hair ; for Emma's father loved flowers, and made her ornament herself with them to please his eye. It was about sunset. It had been very sultry, and the roads were so dusty we could scarcely see after a horse or carriage passed by. Emma was in the front yard watering some plants, when a gentleman on horseback rode slowly along, as if he tried to make as little dust as possible. He rode by the house at first, then turn- ing back, he came right up to the gate, and, lifting up his hat, bowed down to the saddle. He was a tall, dark-complexioned young man, who sat nobly on his horse, just as if he belonged to it. Emma, your mother that is, set down her watering-pot, and made a sort of courtesy, a little frightened at a stranger coming so close to her, before she knew anything about it. ' May I trou- ble you for a glass of water ?' said he, with another bow. ' I have travelled long, and am oppressed with thirst.' Emma courtesied again, and blushed too, I dare say, and away she went for a glass of water, .which she brought him with her own hands. Your grand- father had come to the door by this time, and he said he never saw a man so long drinking a glass of water in his life. As I told you before, it had been a terribly sultry day, and there were large thunder pillars leaning down black in the west a sure sign there was going to be a heavy shower. Your grandfather came out, and being ah hospitable man, he asked the stranger to stop and rest till the rain that was coming was over. He didn't wait to be asked 22 170 CAROLINE LEE HENTZ. twice, but jumped from his horse and walked in, making a bow at the door, and waiting for your mother to walk in first. Well, sure enough, it did rain in a short time, and thunder, and lighten, and blow, as if the house would come down ; and the strange gentleman sat down close by Emma, and tried to keep her from being fright- ened, for she looked as pale as death ; and when the lightning flashed bright, she covered up her face with her hands. It kept on thundering and raining till bed-time, when your grandfather offered him a bed, and told him he must stay till morning. Everybody was taken with him, for he talked like a book, and looked as if he knew more than all the books in the world. He told his name, and all about himself that he was a young lawyer just commencing business in a town near by (the very town we are now living in) ; that he had been on a journey, and was on his way home, which he had expected to reach that night. He seemed to hate to go away so the next morning, that your grandfather asked him to come and see him again and he took him at his word, and came back the very next week. This time he didn't hide from anybody what he came for, for he courted your mother in good earnest, and never left her, or gave her any peace, till she had promised to be his wife, which I believe she was very willing to be, from the first night she saw him." "Nay, Aunt Patty," said Mrs. Worth, "I must correct you in some of your items; your imagination is a little too vivid." Edmund went behind his mother's chair, and putting his hands playfully over her ears, begged Aunt Patty to go on, and give her imagination full scope. "And show us the wedding-dress, and tell us all about it," said Bessy. " It is pleasanter to hear of mother's wedding, than Par- son Broomfield's funeral." " But that's the way, darling a funeral and a wedding, a birth and a death, all mixed up, the world over. We must take things as they come, and be thankful for all. Do you see this white sprigged satin, and this bit of white lace ? The wedding-dress was made of the satin, and trimmed round the neck and sleeves with the lace, and the money it cost would have clothed a poor family CAROLINE LEE HENTZ. 171 for a long time. But your grandfather said he had but one daugh- ter, and she should be well fitted out, if it cost him all he had in the world. And, moreover, he had a son-in-law, whom he would not exchange for any other man in the universe. When Emma, your mother that is, was dressed in her bridal finery, with white blossoms in her hair, which hung in ringlets down her rosy cheeks, you might search the country round for a prettier and fairer bride and your father looked like a prince. Parson Broomfield said they were the handsomest couple he ever married and, bless his soul, they were the last. He was taken sick a week after the wed- ding, and never lifted his head afterwards. It is a blessed thing Emma was married when she was, for I wouldn't want to be mar- ried by any other minister in the world than Parson Broomfield." " Where's your husband, Aunt Patty ?" said Estelle, suddenly. Edmund and Bessy laughed outright. Emma only smiled she feared Aunt Patty's feelings might be wounded. " I never had any, child," replied she, after taking a large pinch of snuff. " What's the reason ?" persevered Estelle. "Hush Estelle," said her mother, "little girls must not ask so many questions." "I'll tell you the reason," cried Aunt Patty, "for I'm never ashamed to speak the truth. No one ever thought of marrying me, for I was a lame, helpless, and homely girl, without a cent of money to make folks think one pretty, whether I was or not. I never dreamed of having sweethearts, but was thankful for friends, who were willing to bear with my infirmities, and provide for my comfort. I don't care if they do call me an old maid. I'm satis- fied with the place Providence has assigned me, knowing it's a thou- sand times better than I deserve. The tree that stands alone by the wayside offers shelter and shade to the weary traveller. It was not created in vain, though no blossom nor fruit may hang upon its boughs. It gets its portion of the sunshine and dew, and the little birds come and nestle in its branches." HANNAH ADAMS. MRS. GILMAN, in her autobiography, page 55 of the present volume, makes a very pleasant allusion to Hannah Adams, the venerated author of the " History of Religions," the pioneer, almost, of American female authorship. The account of her which follows is taken, with very slight verbal alterations, from "Woman's Record," by Mrs. Hale, and may be considered as an additional extract from that valuable work. " Hannah Adams was born in Medfield, Massachusetts, in 1755. Her father was a respectable farmer in that place, rather better educated than persons of his class usually were at that time ; and his daughter, who was a very delicate child, profited by his fondness for books. So great was her love for reading and study, that when very young she had committed to memory nearly all of Milton, Pope, Thomson, Young, and several other poets. " When she was about seventeen her father failed in business, and Miss Adams was obliged to exert herself for her own maintenance. This she did at first by making lace, a very profitable employment during the revo- lutionary war, as very little lace was then imported. But after the termi- nation of the conflict she was obliged to resort to some other means of support ; and having acquired from the students who had boarded with her father, a competent knowledge of Latin and Greek, she undertook to pre- pare young men for college ; and succeeded so well, that her reputation was spread throughout the State. " Her first work, entitled " The View of Religions," which she com- menced when she was about thirty, is a history of the different sects in religion. It caused her so much hard study and close reflection, that she was attacked before the close of her labours by a severe fit of illness, and threatened with derangement. Her next work was a carefully written " History of New England ;" and her third was on " The Evidences of the Christian Religion." (172) HANNAH ADAMS. 173 11 Though all these works showed great candour And liberality of mind and profound research, and though they were popular, yet they brought her but little besides fame ; which, however, had extended to Europe, and she reckoned among her correspondents many of the learned men of all countries. Among these was the celebrated abbe" Gregoire, who was then struggling for the emancipation of the Jews in France. He sent Miss Adams several volumes, which she acknowledged were of much use to her in preparing her own work, a " History of the Jews/' now considered one of the most valuable of her productions. Still, as far as pecuniary matters went, she was singularly unsuccessful, probably from her want of knowledge of business, and ignorance in worldly matters; and, to relieve her from her embarrassments, three wealthy gentlemen of Boston, with great liberality, settled an annuity upon her, of which she was kept in entire ignorance till the whole affair was completed. t " The latter part of her life passed in Boston, in the midst of a large circle of friends, by whom she was warmly cherished and esteemed for the singular excellence, purity, and 'simplicity of her character. She died, November 15th, 1832, at the age of seventy-six, and was buried at Mount Auburn ; the first one whose body was placed in that cemetery. Through life, the gentleness of her manners and the sweetness of her temper were childlike ; she trusted all her cares to the control of her heavenly Father; and she did not trust in vain." THE GNOSTICS. THIS denomination sprang up in the first century. Several of the disciples of Simon Magus held the principles of his philosophy, together with the profession of Christianity, and were distinguished by the appellation of Gnostics, from their boasting of being able to restore mankind to the knowledge, yvof seeing the mistress of this house and plantation !" " It belongs to my husband." " Is he at home ?" " He is not." "Is he a rebel?" "No, sir. He is in the army of his country, and fighting against our invaders ; therefore not a rebel." It is not a little singular, that although the people of that day gloried in their rebellion, they always took offence at being called rebels. ELIZABETH F. ELLET. 179 "I fear, madam," said the officer, "we differ in opinion. A friend to his country will be the friend of the king, our master." " Slaves only acknowledge a master in this country," replied the lady. A deep flush crossed the florid cheeks of Tarleton, for he was the speaker ; and turning to one of his aids, he ordered him to pitch the tents and form the encampment in the orchard and field on their right. To the other aid his orders were to detach a quarter guard and station piquets on each road. Then bowing very low, he added : " Madam, the service of his Majesty requires the tem- porary occupation of your property ; and if it would not be too great an inconvenience, I will take up my quarters in your house." The tone admitted no controversy. Mrs. Slocumb answered: " My family consists of only myself, my sister and child, and a few negroes. We are your prisoners." While the men were busied, different officers came up at inter- vals, making their reports and receiving orders. Among others, a tory captain, whom Mrs. Slocumb immediately recognised for before joining the royal army, he had lived fifteen or twenty miles below received orders in her hearing to take his troop and scour the country for two or three miles round. In an hour everything was quiet, and the plantation presented the romantic spectacle of a regular encampment of some ten or eleven hundred of the choicest cavalry of the British monarch. Mrs. Slocumb now addressed herself to the duty of preparing for her uninvited guests. The dinner set before the king's officers was, in her own words to her friend, " as good a dinner as you have now before you, and of much the same materials." A description of what then constituted a good dinner in that region may not be inappropriate. " The first dish was, of course, the boiled ham, flanked with the plate of greens. Opposite was the turkey, sup- ported by the laughing baked sweet potatoes ; a plate of boiled beef, another of sausages, and a third with a pair of baked fowls, formed a line across the centre of the table ; half a dozen dishes of different pickles, stewed fruit, and other condiments, filled up the interstices of the board." The dessert, too, was abundant and 180 ELIZABETH F. ELLET. various. Such a dinner, it may well be supposed, met the parti- cular approbation of the royal officers, especially as the fashion of that day introduced stimulating drinks to the table, and the peach brandy, prepared under Lieutenant Slocumb's own> supervision, was of the most excellent sort. It received the unqualified praise of the party ; and its merits were freely discussed. A Scotch officer, praising it by the name of whiskey, protested that he had never drunk as good out of Scotland. An officer speaking with a slight brogue, insisted it was not whiskey, and that no Scotch drink ever equalled it. " To my mind," said he, "it tastes as yonder orchard smells." "Allow me, madam," said Colonel Tarleton, "to inquire where the spirits we are drinking is procured." "From the orchard where your tents stand," answered Mrs. Slocumb. " Colonel," said the Irish captain, "when we conquer this coun- try, is it not to be divided out among us ?" "The officers of this army," replied the colonel, "will undoubt- edly receive large possessions of the conquered American provinces." Mrs. Slocumb here interposed. " Allow me to observe and prophesy," said she, "the only land in these United States which will ever remain in possession of a British officer, will measure but six feet by two." "Excuse me, madam," remarked Tarleton. "For your sake I regret to say this beautiful plantation will be the ducal seat of some of us." " Don't trouble yourself about me," retorted the spirited lady. " My husband is not a man who would allow a duke, or even a king, to have a quiet seat upon his ground." At this point the conversation was interrupted by rapid volleys of fire-arms, appearing to proceed from the wood a short distance to the eastward. One of the aids pronounced it some straggling scout, running from the picket-guard ; but the experience of Colo- nel Tarleton could not be easily deceived. " There are rifles and muskets," said he, " as well as pistols ; and ELIZABETH F. ELLET. 181 too many to pass unnoticed. Order boots and saddles, and you, captain, take your troop in the direction of the firing." The officer rushed out to execute his orders, while the colonel walked into the piazza, whither he was immediately followed by the anxious ladies. Mrs. Slocumb's agitation and alarm may be imagined ; for she guessed but too well the cause of the interrup- tion. On the first arrival of the officers she had been importuned, even with harsh threats not, however, by Tarleton to tell where her husband, when absent on duty, was likely to be found ; but after her repeated and peremptory refusals, had escaped further molestation on the subject. She feared now that he had returned unexpectedly, and might fall into the enemy's hands before he was aware of their presence. Her sole hope was in a precaution she had adopted soon after the coming of her unwelcome guests. Having heard Tarleton give the order to the tory captain as before mentioned, to patrol the country, she immediately sent for an old negro, and gave him directions to take a bag of corn to the mill, about four miles distant, on the road she knew her husband must travel if he returned that day. " Big George" was instructed to warn his master of the danger of approaching his home. With the indolence and curiosity natural to his race, however, the old fellow remained loitering about the premises, and was at this time lurking under the hedge-row, admiring the red coats, dashing plumes, and shining helmets of the British troopers. The colonel and the ladies continued on the look-out from the piazza. " May I be allowed, madam," at length said Tarleton, " without offence, to inquire if any part of Washington's army is in this neighbourhood?" " I presume it is known to you," replied Mrs. Slocumb, "that the Marquis and Greene are in this State. And you would not of course," she added, after a slight pause, "be surprised at a call from Lee, or your old friend Colonel Washington, who, although a perfect gentleman, it is said shook your hand (pointing to the scar left by Washington's sabre) very rudely, when you last met." This spirited answer inspired Tarleton with apprehensions that 182 ELIZABETH F. ELLET. the skirmish in the woods was only the prelude to a concerted attack on his camp. His only reply was a loud order to form the troops on the right ; and springing on his charger, he dashed down the avenue a few hundred feet, to a breach in the hedge-row, leaped the fence, and in a moment was at the head of his regiment, which was already in line. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Slocumb, with John Howell, a private in his band, Henry Williams, and the brother of Mrs. Slocumb, Charles Hooks, a boy of about thirteen years of age, was leading a hot pursuit of the tory captain who had been sent to reconnoitre the country, and some of his routed troop. These were first dis- cerned in the open grounds east and north-east of the plantation, closely pursued by a bodyof American mounted militia; while a running fight was kept up with different weapons, in which four or five broadswords gleamed conspicuous. The foremost of the pur- suing party appeared too busy with the tories to see anything else ; and they entered the avenue at the same moment with the party pursued. With .what horror and consternation did Mrs. Slocumb recognise her husband, her brother, and two of her neighbours, in chase of the tory captain and four of his band, already half-way down the avenue, and unconscious that they were rushing into the enemy's midst ! About the middle of the avenue one of the tories fell ; and the course of the brave and imprudent young ofiicers was suddenly arrested by "Big George," who sprang directly in front of their horses, crying, " Hold on, massa ! de debbil here ! Look yon !"* A glance to the left showed the young men their danger : they were within pistol shot of a thousand men drawn up in order of battle. Wheeling their horses, they discovered a troop already leaping the fence into the avenue in their rear. Quick as thought they again wheeled their horses, and dashed down the avenue directly towards the house, where stood the quarter-guard to receive them. On reaching the garden fence a rude structure formed of a kind of lath, and called a wattled fence they leaped that and the next, amid a shower of balls from the guard, cleared * Yon, for yonder. ELIZABETH F. ELLET. 183 the canal at one tremendous leap, and scouring across the open field to the north-west, were in the shelter of the wood before their pursuers could clear the fences of the enclosure. The whole ground of this adventure may be seen as the traveller passes over the Wil- mington railroad, a mile and a half south of Dudley dep6t. A platoon had commenced the pursuit ; but the trumpets sounded the recall before the flying Americans had crossed the canal. The presence of mind an$ lofty language of the heroic wife, had con- vinced the British colonel that the daring men who so fearlessly dashed into his camp were supported by a formidable force at hand. Had the truth been known, and the fugitives pursued, nothing could have prevented the destruction not only of the four who fled, but of the rest of the company on the east side of the plantation. Tarleton had ridden back to the front of the house, where he remained eagerly looking after the fugitives till they disappeared in the wood. He called for the tory captain, who presently came forward, questioned him about the attack in the woods, asked the names of the American officers, and dismissed him to have hie wounds dressed, and see after his men. The last part of the order was needless; for nearly one-half of his troop had fallen. The ground is known to this day as the Dead Men's Field. Another anecdote, communicated by the same friend of Mrs. Slocumb, is strikingly illustrative of her resolution and strength of will. The occurrence took place at a time when the whole country was roused by the march of the British and loyalists fron? the Cape Fear country, to join the royal standard at Wilmington. The veteran Donald McDonald issued his proclamation at CrosF Creek, in February, 1776, and having assembled his Highlanders, marched across rivers and through forests, in haste to join Governor Martin and Sir Henry Clinton, who were already at Cape Fear. But while he had eluded the pursuit of Moore, the patriots of New- bern and Wilmington Districts were not idle. It was a time of noble enterprise, and gloriously did leaders and people come for- ward to meet the emergency. The gallant Richard Caswell called his neighbours hastily together ; and they came at his call as rea- dily as the clans of the Scotch mountains mustered at the signal 184 ELIZABETH F. ELLET. of the burning cross. The whole country rose in mass ; scarce * man able to walk was left in the Neuse region. The united regi- ments of Colonels Lillington and Caswell encountered McDonald at Moore's Creek ;* where, on the twenty-seventh, was fought one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolution. Colonel Slocumb's recollections of this I >ravely-contested field were too vivid to be dimmed by the lapse of years. He was accustomed to dwell but lightly on the gallant part borne by himself in that memorable action ; but he gave abundant praise to his associates ; and well did they deserve the tribute. "And," he would say "my wife was there !" She was indeed ; but the story is best told in her own words : " The men all left on Sunday morning. More than eighty went from this house with my husband ; I looked at them well, and I could see that every man had mischief in him. I know a coward as soon as I set my eyes upon him. The tories more than once tried to frighten me, but they always showed coward at the bare insinuation that our troops were about. " Well, they got off in high spirits ; every man stepping high and light. And I slept soundly and quietly that night, and worked hard all the next day ; but I kept thinking where they had got to how far ; where and how many of the regulars and tories they would meet ; and I could not keep myself from the study. I went to bed at the usual time, but still continued to study. As I lay whether waking or sleeping I know not I had a dream ; yet it was not all a dream. (She used the words, unconsciously, of the poet who was not then in being.) I saw distinctly a body wrapped in my husband's guard-cloak bloody dead ; and others dead and wounded on the ground about him. I saw them plainly and dis- tinctly. I uttered a cry, and sprang to my feet on the floor ; and so strong was the impression on my mind, that I rushed in the direction the vision appeared, and came up against the side of the house. The fire in the room gave little light, and I gazed in every direction to catch another glimpse of the scene. I raised the light ; * Moore's Creek, running from north to south, empties into the South River, about twenty miles above Wilmington. ELIZABETH F. ELLET. 185 everything was still and quiet. My child was sleeping, but my woman was awakened by my crying out or jumping on the floor. If ever I felt fear it was at that moment. Seated on the bed, I reflected a few moments and said aloud : ' I must go to him.' I told the woman I could not sleep, and would ride down the road. She appeared in great alarm ; but I merely told her to lock the door after me, and look after the child. I went to the stable, sad- dled my mare as fleet and easy a nag as ever travelled ; and in one minute we were tearing down the road at full speed. The cool night seemed after a mile or two's gallop to bring reflection with it ; and I asked myself where I was going, and for what purpose. Again and again I was tempted to turn back ; but I was soon ten miles from home, and my mind became stronger every mile I rode. I should find my husband dead or dying was as firmly my pre- sentiment and conviction as any fact of my life. When day broke, I was some thirty miles from home. I knew the general route our little army expected to take, and had followed them without hesita- tion. About sunrise I came upon a group of women and children, standing and sitting by the roadside, each one of them showing the same anxiety of mind I felt. Stopping a few minutes, I inquired if the battle had been fought. They knew nothing, but were assembled on the road to catch intelligence. They thought Caswell had taken the right of the Wilmington road, and gone towards the north-west (Cape Fear). Again was I skimming over the ground through a country thinly settled, and very poor and swampy ; but neither my own spirits nor my beautiful nag's failed in the least. We followed the well-marked trail of the troops. " The sun must have been well up, say eight or nine o'clock,' when I heard a sound like thunder, which I knew must be cannon. It was the first time I ever heard a cannon. I stopped still ; when presently the cannon thundered again. The battle was then fight- ing. What a fool ! my husband could not be dead last night, and the battle only fighting now ! Still, as I am so near, I will go on and see how they come out. So away we went again, faster than ever ; and I soon found by the noise of guns that I was near the fight. Again I stopped. I could hear muskets, I could hear rifles, J86 ELIZA BETH F. ELLET. and I could hear shouting. I spoke to my mare and dashed on in the direction of the firing and the shouts, now louder than ever. The hlind path I had been following brought me into the Wilming- ton road leading to Moore's Creek Bridge, a few hundred yards below the bridge. A few yards from the road, under a cluster of trees were lying perhaps twenty men. They were the wounded. I knew the spot ; the very trees ; and the position of the men I knew as if I had seen it a thousand times. I had seen it all night ! I saw all at once ; but in an instant my whole soul was centred in one spot ; for there, wrapped in his bloody guard-cloak, was my husband's body ! How I passed the few yards from my saddle to the place I never knew. I remember uncovering his head and seeing a face clothed with gore from a dreadful wound across the temple. I put my hand on the bloody face ; 'twas warm ; and an unknown voice begged for water. A small camp-kettle was lying near, and a stream of water was close by. I brought it ; poured some in his mouth ; washed his face ; and behold it was Frank Cogdell. He soon revived and could speak. I was washing the wound in his head. Said he, ' It is not that ; it is that hole in my leg that is killing me.' A puddle of blood was standing on the ground about his feet. I took his knife, cut away his trousers and stocking, and found the blood came from a shot-hole through and through the fleshy part of his leg. I looked about and could see nothing that looked as if it would do for dressing wounds but some heart-leaves. I gathered a handful and bound them tight to the holes ; and the bleeding stopped. I then went to the others ; and Doctor ! I dressed the wounds of many a brave fellow who did good fighting long after that day ! I had not inquired for my husband ; but while I was busy Caswell came up. He appeared very much surprised to see me ; and was with his hat in hand about to pay some compliment : but I interrupted him by asking ' Where is my husband ?' " ' Where he ought to be, madam ; in pursuit of the enemy. But pray,' said he, 'how came you here?" " 'Oh, I thought,' replied I, 'you would need nurses as well as soldiers. See ! I have already dressed many of these good fellows ; ELIZABETH F. ELLET. 17 and here is one' going to Frank and lifting him up with my arm under his head so that he could drink some more water ' would have died before any of you men could have helped him.' " ' I believe you,' said Frank. Just then I looked up, and my husband, as bloody as a butcher, and as muddy as a ditcher,* stood before me. "'Why, Mary!' he exclaimed, 'What are you doing there? Hugging Frank Cogdell, the greatest reprobate in the army ?' " ' I don't care,' I cried. ' Frank is a brave fellow, a good sol- dier, and a true friend to Congress.' " ' True, true ! every word of it !' said Caswell. ' You are right, madam !' with the lowest possible bow. "I would not tell my husband what brought me there. I was so happy ; and so were all ! It was a glorious victory ; I came just at the height of the enjoyment. I knew my husband was sur- prised, but I could see he was not displeased with me. It was night again before our excitement had at all subsided. Many prisoners were brought in, and among them some very obnoxious : but the worst of the tories were not taken prisoners. They were, for the most part, left in the woods and swamps wherever they were over- taken. I begged for some of the poor prisoners, and Caswell readily told me none should be hurt but such as had been guilty of murder and house-burning. In the middle of the night I again mounted my mare and started for home. Caswell and my husband wanted me to stay till next morning and they would send a party with me ; but no ! I wanted to see my child, and I told them they could send no party who could keep up with me. What a happy ride I had back ! and with what joy did I embrace rny child as he ran to meet me !" What fiction could be stranger than such truth ! And would not a plain unvarnished narrative of the sayings and doings of the actors in Revolutionary times, unknown by name, save in the neigh- bourhood where they lived, and now almost forgotten even by their descendants, surpass in thrilling interest any romance ever written ! * It was his company that forded the creek, and penetrating the swamp, made the furious charge on the British left and rear, which decided the fate of the day. 188 ELIZABETH F. ELLET. In these days of railroads and steam, it can scarcely be credited that a woman actually rode alone, in the night, through a wild unsettled country, a distance going and returning of a hundred and twenty-five miles ; and that in less than forty hours, and with- out any interval of rest ! Yet even this fair equestrian, whose feats would astonish the modern world, admitted that one of her acquaintances was a better horsewoman than herself. This was Miss Esther Wake, the beautiful sister-in-law of Governor Tryon, after whom Wake County was named. She is said to have ridden eighty miles the distance between Raleigh and the Governor's head-quarters in the neighbourhood of Colonel Slocumb's residence to pay a visit; returning the next day. What would these women have said to the delicacy of modern refinement, fatigued with a modern drive in a close carriage, and looking out on woods and fields from the windows ! E. OAKES SMITH. ABOUT twelve miles from the city of Portland, in Maine, a pretty cot- tage just on the edge of a thick wood is pointed out by the neighbours with a feeling of pride, as the birth-place of Mrs. E. Oakes Smith. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Oakes Prince. One of the earliest of the settlers of Maine was an ancestor of hers by the name of Prince, and there is a tract of land in Maine, called " Prince's Point," where her ancestors settled in 1630, having gone there from Massachusetts. Her grandfather died in the year 1849, at the age of ninety-seven. He is described as having been a tall, handsome, patriarchal man, in appearance. Her mother, too, is described as an imperious, intellectual woman, with strong characteristics, and exceedingly beautiful. Her name was Blanch- ard, and she is of Huguenot descent. On the father's side Mrs. Smith is of a puritan family. She gave early indications of genius. The only circumstance of her childhood, however, that seems particularly noticeable, is her habit while a mere girl, of dramatizing little extempore plays, when as yet she had never seen or heard of such a thing, and in a family where Shakspeare was regarded as an abomination, and his readers as no better than they should be ! She was married at the early age of sixteen to Mr. Seba Smith, so widely known as the original "Jack Downing." Mr. Smith at the time of his marriage was the editor of the leading political journal of Maine. They are at present living in New York. Mrs. Smith's poems have never been fully collected. One small volume has been published, and has run through seven or eight editions. "