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diff --git a/15092.txt b/15092.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0616847 --- /dev/null +++ b/15092.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4275 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 + A Typographic Art Journal + +Author: Various + +Release Date: February 17, 2005 [EBook #15092] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ALDINE, VOL. 5, NO. 1., *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: A VENETIAN FESTIVAL.--C. HULK.] + +THE ALDINE, + +A + +TYPOGRAPHIC ART JOURNAL + +[Illustration] + +"_Il ne faut pas tant regarder ce qu'on doit faire que ce qu'on +peut faire_." + +VOLUME V. + +NEW YORK: +JAMES SUTTON & COMPANY. +1873. + +[Illustration] + +"_THE ALDINE PRESS_."--JAMES SUTTON & Co., Printers, 58 Maiden +Lane, New York. + + +[Illustration] + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by +JAMES SUTTON, JR., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress +at Washington, D. C. + + + + +CONTENTS + +Abyssinia, A Peep at _Editorial_ 186 +Adirondacks, The Heart of the _Editorial_ 194 +After the Comet _W.L. Alden_ 136 +A Great Master and His Greatest Work _Editorial_ 83 +Aldine Chromos for 1873 _Editorial_ 228 +Alpine World, The _Editorial_ 134 +America, Home Life in _Editorial_ 76 +American Robin, The _Gilbert Darling_ 327 +Angling, A Few Words on _Henry Richards_ 155 +Architecture _W. Von Humboldt_ 43 +Art 28 +Artistic Evening, An _Editorial_ 248 +Art-Musee in America, An _Erastus South_ 127 +Art, Roman _Ottfreid Mueller_ 32 +At Rest. (Poem) _Julia C.R. Dorr_ 234 +August in the Woods _W.W. Bailey_ 161 +Ausable, Morning on the _Editorial_ 40 +Authorship, Style in _Stewart_ 75 +Autumn Rambles _W.W. Bailey_ 212 +A Yarn _Uncle Bluejacket_ 216 + +Babes in the Wood, The _Editorial_ 223 +Badger Hunting _Editorial_ 225 +Barry Cornwall, To. (Poem) _A.C. Swinburne_ 50 +Beauty, Of _Bacon_. 107 +Beside the Sea. (Poem) _Mary E. Bradley_ 161 +Biography _Henry Richards_ 65 +Bishop's Oak _Caroline Cheesebro_' 172 +Black Gnat, The _A.R.M._ 34 +Blood Money _Editorial_ 207 +Blue-Birds _Gilbert Burling_ 163 +Books, Borrowing _Leigh Hunt_ 36 +"Bridge of Sighs," Hood's _Editorial_ 50 +Bronte's (Charlotte) Brother and Father _January Searle_ 111 +Building of the Ship, The. (Poem) _Longfellow_ 89 + +Cedar Bird, The _Gilbert Burling_ 85 +Celebration of the Passover, The _Editorial_ 64 +Chase, After the _Editorial_ 227 +Chet's, Miss, Club _Caroline Cheesbro'_ 59 +Children, Loss of Little _Leigh Hunt_ 104 +Chinese Stories _Henry Richards_ 215 +Christmas Trees _W.W. Bailey_ 234 +Coleridge as a Plagiarist 23 +Coming Out of School _Editorial_ 12 +Cosas de Espana _Editorial_ 86 +Crown Diamonds and other Gems _S.F. Corkran_ 181 + +Daisies, Among The _A.S. Isaacs_ 23 +December and May _Editorial_ 147 +Death Chase, The _Editorial_ 236 +Dogs, About _Henry Richards_ 175 +Dogs, Education of _Henry Richards_ 234 + +Englishmen, Religion of _H. Taine_ 183 +English Rhymes and Stories _Henry Richards_ 96 +En Miniature. (From the German) _M.A.P. Humphreys_ 132 +Exquisite Moment, An _Editorial_ 93 + +Fancie's Dream _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 34 +Fancie's Farewell _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 114 +Fawn Family, A Day with a _Editorial_ 107 +Feast of the Tabernacles, The _Editorial_ 64 +Fra Bartolomeo _Editorial_ 106 +Forester's Happy Family, The _Editorial_ 167 +Forester's Last Coming Home, The _Editorial_ 56 +Fortune of The Hassans, The _C.F. Guernsey_ 123 +Friendship of Poets, The _Editorial_ 50 +Frosty Day, A. (Poem) _J.L. Warren_ 11 + +Garden, In the _Betsy Drew_ 138 +Gems, Colored _W.S. Ward_ 39 +Going to the Volcano _T.M. Coan_ 245 +Green River. (Poem) _W.C. Bryant_ 72 +Gypsies, The _Editorial_ 166 + +Heart of Kosciusko, The _Editorial_ 113 +Heartsease. (Poem) _Mary E. Bradley_ 43 +Hello! _Editorial_ 193 +Home and Exile _Editorial_ 237 +House with the Hollyhocks, The _A.L. Noble_ 177 +House Wrens _Gilbert Burling_ 105 +How to Tame Pet Birds _January Searle_ 146 +Hunt (Leigh), A Last Visit to _January Searle_ 192 +Hunting Snails _T.M. Coan_ 156 + +Ideal, The _Theodore Parker_ 133 +Il Beato. (From the German) _M.A.P. Humphrey_ 183 +Ill Wind, An _Leslie Malbone_ 112 +Inside the Door _Caroline Cheesebro'_ 30 +Ireland, A Glimpse at _T.M. Coan_ 119 +Island, On an _Caroline Cheesebro'_ 114 + +Jack and Gill _Editorial_ 223 + +King Baby. (Poem) _George Cooper_ 224 +Kingfisher, The _Editorial_ 125 +King's Rosebud, The. (Poem) _Julia C.R. Porr_ 107 +Knowledge _Ethics of the Fathers_ 135 + +"Lais Corinthaica," Holbein's _Editorial_ 182 +Lalalo--A Legend of Galicia. (From the Spanish) _H.S. Conant_ 164 +Lamp-Light _Julian Hawthorne_ 165 +Lisbon, Loiterings around _Editorial_ 44 +Literature 28, 47, 67, 88, 108, 128, 148, 168, 188, 208 +Little Emily _Editorial_ 178 +Liverworts. (Poem) _W.W. Bailey_ 70 +Longfellow's House and Library _Geo. W. Greene_ 100 +Love Aloft _Editorial_ 116 +Love's Humility. (Poem) _B.G. Hosmer_ 141 + +Mandarin, A _From the French_ 19 +Manifest Destiny. (Poem) _R.H. Stoddard_ 47 +Man in Blue, The _R.B. Davey_ 50 +Man in the Moon, The _Yule-tide Stories_ 120 +Man's Unselfish Friend _Editorial_ 60 +Married in a Snow-Storm. (From the Russian) _Wm. Percival_ 152 +Marsh and Pond Flowers _W.W. Bailey_ 126 +Martinmas Goose, The _Editorial_ 243 +Maximilian Morningdew's Advice, Mr. _Julian Hawthorne_ 74 +Millerism _Editorial_ 10 +Minster at Ulm, The _Editorial_ 158 +Misers, About _Betsy Drew_ 99 +Mother is Here! 20 +Morning Dew _Editorial_ 76 +Morning and Evening _Editorial_ 242 +Mountain Land of Western North Carolina _J.A. Oertel_ 52 +Mountain Land of Western North Carolina _J.A. Oertel_ 214 +Mountains, In the _Editorial_ 16 +Mouse Shoes _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 197 +Music in the Alps _Editorial_ 33 + +Necessity of Believing Something _Jean Paul_ 31 +Neighbor Over the Way, My. (Poem) _G.W. Scars_ 110 +Newport, At. (Poem) _Geo. H. Boker_ 10 +Niagara _Editorial_ 213 +Noble Savage, The 110 +Nooning, The 16 + +Oblivion _Browne_ 120 +October _W.W. Bailey_ 192 +Old Maid's Village, The _Kate F. Hill_ 26 +Old Oaken Bucket, The _Editorial_ 152 +Othello, How Rossini Wrote _L.C. Bullard_ 91 +Out of the Deeps _Elizabeth Stoddard_ 94 + +Painted Boats on Painted Seas _Hiram Rich_ 201 +Patriotism and Powder _Editorial_ 132 +Pavilions on the Lake, The. (From the French) _H.S. Conant_ 14 +Pepito _Lucy Ellen Guernsey_ 212 +Perkins, Granville 48 +Peruvians, Among the _Editorial_ 24 +Play for a Heart, A. (From the German) _H.S. Conant_ 54 +Pleasure-Seeking _Editorial_ 240 +Poet's Rivers _Editorial_ 70 +Portugal, Wanderings in _Editorial_ 224 +Pottery, Ancient _S.F. Corkran_ 72 +Prince and Peasant. (From the German,) _H.S. Conant_ 196 +Puddle Party, The _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 83 +Punishment after Death. (From the Danish) _James Watkins_ 218 +Puss Asleep _Henry Richards_ 143 + +Queen's Closet, The _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 27 + +Rainy Day, The. (Poem) _H.W. Longfellow_ 120 +Raymondskill, The _E.C. Stedman_ 154 +Real Romance, The _Julian Hawthorne_ 10 +Ruse de Guerre. (Poem) _H.B. Bostwick_ 63 + +School-Children _Editorial_ 198 +Scissor Family, The _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 144 +Secret, A. (Poem) _Julia C.R. Dorr_ 212 +September Reverie, A _Editorial_ 172 +Serious Case, A _Editorial_ 203 +Shadows _Julian Hawthorne_ 142 +Shakspeare Celebrations _Editorial_ 90 +Shakspeare Portraits _R.H. Stoddard_ 103 +Shameful Death. (Poem) _Wm. Morris_ 83 +Shrews _A.S. Isaacs_ 63 +Simple Suggestion, A _Mary E. Bradley_ 216 +Smallpox, Worse than _L.E. Guernsey_ 157 +Snow-Bird, The _Gilbert Burling_ 207 +Song Sparrow, The _Gilbert Burling_ 32 +Song or Wood Thrush, The _Gilbert Burling_ 66 +Sonnet _Alfred Tennyson_ 67 +Sparrows' City, The. (Poem) _George Cooper_ 165 +Stael, Baroness de, The Salon of. (From the French) 43 +Story of Coeho, The _R.B. Davey_ 71 +Street Scene in Cairo, A _Editorial_ 239 +Stuffing Birds _January Searle_ 246 +Summer Fallacies _C.D. Shanly_ 176 +Sunshine _Julian Hawthorne_ 92 +Superstition _Bacon_ 56 +Swift, Dean _Lady Mary Wortley Montague_ 53 + +Temple of Canova, The _Editorial_ 203 +Thievish Animals _Editorial_ 238 +Thistle-Down. (Poem) _W.W. Bailey_ 145 +Tired Mothers. (Poem) _Mrs. A. Smith_ 172 +Tropic Forest, A. (Poem) _Montgomery_ 20 +Trout Fishing _C.D. Shanly_ 141 +Truants, The 40 +Two _J.C.R. Dorr_ 152 +Two Gazels of Hafiz _Henry Richards_ 145 +Two Lives, The. (Poem) _S.W. Duffield_ 201 +Two Queens in Westminster. (Poem) _H. Morford_ 132 + +Uncollected Poems 50 +Uncollected Poems by Campbell. _Editorial_ 144 +Uncollected Poems by "L.E.L." _Editorial_ 94 +Uttmann, Barbara. (From the German) 66 + +Venice, A Glimpse of _Editorial_ 13 +Violins, About _J.D. Elwell_ 36 +Virginia, On the Eastern Shore of _Mary E. Bradley_ 79 + +Water Ballad _S.T. Coleridge_ 67 +Weber (Von), Karl Maria _Editorial_ 206 +Wine and Kisses. (Poem) From the Persian _Joel Benton_ 27 +Winter-Green. (Poem) _Mary E. Bradley_ 90 +Winter Pictures from the Poets _Editorial_ 14 +Winter Scenes _Editorial_ 230 +Wolf, Calf and Goat, The _AEsop, Junior_ 124 +Woman in Art _E.B. Leonard_ 145 +Woman's Eternity, A _E.B.L._ 204 +Woman's Place _Editorial_ 162 +Wood or Summer Ducks _Editorial_ 187 +Woods, In the. (Poem) _G.W. Sears_ 192 +Woods Out in the. (Poem) _Mary E. Bradley_ 126 +Wordsworth _Taine_ 33 +Wyoming Valley _Editorial_ 36 + +Young Robin Hunter, The _Editorial_ 60 + +Zekle's Courtin' _Editorial_ 30 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +Adirondack Scenery _G.H. Smillie_ 97 +Advance in Winter, The 236 +After the Storm _Schenck_ 231 +After the Storm a Calm. (I, II, III, IV,) 244 +Agnes _R.E. Piguet_ 112 +Albai, View on the River 183 +American Robin, The _Gilbert Burling_ 227 +Artistic Evening, An 248 +At Home 239 +Ausable, Morning on the _G.H. Smillie_ 41 + +Babes in the Wood, The _John S. Davis_ 222 +Badger Hunting _L. Beckmann_ 226 +Blood Money _Victor Nehlig_ 190 +Blowing Hot and Cold _John S. Davis_ 142 +Blowing Rock _R.E. Piguet_ 57 +Blue-Birds _Gilbert Burling_ 163 +Bonnie Brook, near Rahway _R.E. Piguet_ 112 +Bridal Veil _Granville Perkins_ 154 +Bridge of Sighs, The (View of) 13 +Bridge of Sighs (Hood's) _Georgie A. Davis_ 49 +Building of the Ship, The _T. Beech_ 89 + +Capella Imperfeita, Archway in the 44 +Casa do Capitulo, The 224 +Casa do Capitulo, Window in the 46 +Castle of Meran, The. (Frontispiece) _C. Heyn_. Opp. 189 +Caught At Last 238 +Cedar Birds _Gilbert Burling_ 85 +Chase, After the _David Neal_ 219 +Christmas Visitors _Guido Hammer_ 231 +Coming Out of School _Vautier_ 12 +Crossing the Moor After _F.F. Hill_ 228 + +December and May _W.H. Davenport_ 146 +Death Chase, The 236 +Deer Family, The _Guido Hammer_ 106 + +Enjoyment 241 +Evening _Paul Dixon_ 205 +Evening 243 +Evenings at Home _A.E. Emslie_ 77 +Exquisite Moment, An _John S. Davis_ 93 + +Fashionable Loungers of Lima 24 +Feast of the Passover, The _Oppenheim_ 64 +Feast of the Tabernacles, The _Oppenheim_ 65 +Fisherman's Family, The 239 +Forester's Happy Family at Dinner, The _Guido Hammer_ 167 +Forester's Last Coming Home, The 56 +For the Master _Offterdinger_ (Opp.) 236 + +Garden, In the _Arthur Lumley_ 138 +Gertrude of Wyoming _Victor Nehlig_ 117 +Glen, The _F.T. Vance_ 194 +God's Acre 232 +Gondar, Emperor's Palace at 186 +Good Bye, Sweetheart 233 +Grandfather Mountain, N.C. _R.E. Piguet_ 215 +Green River _August Will_ 69 +Green River _R.E. Piguet_ 72 +Green River _R.E. Piguet_ 73 +Guide-Board, The _Knesing_ 230 +Gypsy Girl at her Toilette _G. Dore_ 166 + +Happy Valley _R.E. Piguet_ 53 +Heart of a Hero, The. (Kosciusko's Monument) 113 +Here. Chick! Chick! 240 +Hollo! _John S. Davis_ 191 +House Wrens _Gilbert Burling_ 105 +How a Spaniard Drinks _Dore_ 86 +Hudson at Hyde Park, The _G.H. Smillie_ 81 + +In-Doors 243 +Infant Jesus, The Copied by _J.S. Davis_ 229 +"Is the solace of age." 247 +"It ofttimes happens that a child" 245 + +Jack and Gill _John S. Davis_ 223 + +Kate _R.E. Piguet_ 112 +Keeping House _John S. Davis_ (Opp.) 29 +Kingfisher, The _L. Beckmann_ 125 +King Witlaf's Drinking Horn _A. Kappes_ 131 +Kwasind, the Strong Man _T. Moran_ 109 + +Lais Corinthaica _Holbein_ 182 +Lake Henderson _F.T. Vance_ 195 +Limena, Middle-Aged 25 +Linville, On the _R.E. Piguet_ 52 +Linville River, The _R.E. Piguet_ 53 +Little Emily _John S. Davis_ 178 +Little Mother, The _John S. Davis_ 80 +Loffler Peak, Tyrol, The 135 +Longfellow's House _A.C. Warren_ 100 +Longfellow's Library _A.C. Warren_ 101 +Longing Looks _J.W. Bolles_ 96 +Love Aloft _Otto Gunther_ 116 + +Manifest Destiny _W.M. Cary_ 37 +Man's Unselfish Friend _Chas. E. Townsend_ 61 +Marston Moor, Before the Battle of 121 +Mestizo Woman, Young 25 +Mill, in Wyoming Valley, An Old _F.T. Vance_ 36 +Minster at Ulm, The 158 +Monastery de Leca do Balio, The 225 +Monk's Oak, The (After _Constantine Schmidt_) 33 +Moonlight on the Hudson _Paul Dixon_ 170 +Moose Hunting 232 +Morganton, View in _R.E. Piguet_ 53 +Morganton, View near _R.E. Piguet_ 214 +Morning 242 +Morning Dew. (Frontispiece) _Victor Nehlig_. Opp. 69 +Morning in the Meadow _R.E. Piguet_ 113 +Mother is Here! _Deiker_ 20 +Mountains, In the 16 +Mueller, Maud _Georgie A. Davis_ 9 +Music in the Alps _Dore_ 33 + +Naughty Boy, The _John S. Davis_ (Opp.) 89 +Navaja, Duel with the _Dore_ 86 +New England, Hills of _Paul Dixon_ 204 +Niagara _Jules Tavernier_ 211 +Nooning, The (After _Darley_) 17 + +Old Oaken Bucket, The _John S. Davis_ 159 +Ornamental, The _Deiker_ 234 +Out of Doors 242 + +Patriotic Education _F. Beard_ 130 +Penha Verde, Doorway and Oriel in the 45 +Perkins, Granville 48 +Peruvian Ladies, Costumes of 24 +Peruvian Priests 25 +Pets, The 241 +Picking and Choosing _Beckmann_ 238 +Pines of the Racquette, The _John A. Hows_ 121 +Playing Sick _A.H. Thayer_ 174 +Preston Ponds, From Bishop's Knoll _.F.T. Vance_ 199 +Puss Asleep _C.E. Townsend_ 143 + +Rainy Day, The _John S. Davis_ 120 +Raymondskill, Falls of The _Granville Perkins_ 150 +Raymondskill, View on the _Granville Perkins_ 155 +Raymondskill, The Main Fall _Granville Perkins_ 155 + +Scene on the Catawba River _R.E. Piguet_ 210 +School Discipline _John S. Davis_ 198 +Serious Case, A _Ernst Bosch_ 202 +Shakspeare, Ward's _J.S. Davis_ 104 +Shipwreck on the Coast of Dieppe, A _T. Weber_ 139 +Singing the War Song 187 +Snow-Birds _Gilbert Burling_ 207 +Song Sparrow, The _Gilbert Burling_ 32 +Song or Wood Thrush, The _Gilbert Burling_ 66 +South Mountain _R.E. Piguet_ 53 +Spanish Postilion _Dore_ 87 +Spanish Ladies _Dore_ 87 +Sport 240 +Squaw Pounding Cherries, Old _W.M. Cary_ 162 +Standish, Miles, Courtship of _J.W. Bolles_ 151 +Street Scene in Cairo, A Opp. 229 +Surenen Pass, Switzerland, View in the 134 + +Temple of Canova 203 +Then fare thee well, my country, lov'd and lost! 237 +"There's a Beautiful Spirit Breathing Now" 218 +Tight Place, In a _W.M. Cary_ 76 +Tropic Forest, A _Granville Perkins_ 21 +Truants, The _M.L. Stone_ 40 + +Useful, The _Deiker_ 235 +Uttmann, Barbara 68 + +Venetian Festival, A. (Frontispiece) _C. Hulk_ +Vischer's, Peter, Studio 84 +Visconti, Princess (After "_Fra Bartolomeo_") 108 +Villa de Conde, Church at 215 +Village Belle, The After _J.J. Hill_ 228 + +Waiting at the Stile 147 +Watauga Falls _R.E. Piguet_ 53 +Watering the Cattle _Peter Moran_ 171 +Wayside Inn, The (After _Hill_) 107 +Weber, Von, Last Moments of 206 +What Was That Knot Tied For? (After _I.E. Gaiser_) 92 +"Which in infancy lisped" 246 +"Who Said Rats?" _A.H. Thayer_ 175 +Winter Sketch, A. (Frontispiece) _George H. Smillie_. Opp. 149 +Wolf, Calf and Goat, The _H.L. Stephens_ 124 +Wood or Summer Ducks _Gilbert Burling_ 179 + +"Ye limpid springs and floods," 237 +Young Robin Hunter, The _John S. Davis_ 60 + +Zekle's Courtin' _Frank Beard_ 29 + + + + +THE ALDINE + +VOL. V. NEW YORK, JANUARY, 1872. No. 1. + + + + +[Illustration: MAUD MUeLLER.--DRAWN BY GEORGIE A. DAVIS.] + + + "MAUD MUeLLER looked and sighed: 'Ah, me! + That I the Judge's bride might be! + + "'He would dress me up in silks so fine, + And praise and toast me at his wine. + + "'My father should wear a broad-cloth coat: + My brother should sail a painted boat.' + + "'I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, + And the baby should have a new toy each day. + + "'And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor. + And all should bless me who left our door. + + "The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, + And saw Maud Mueller standing still. + + "'A form more fair, a face more sweet, + Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. + + "'And her modest answer and graceful air, + Show her wise and good as she is fair. + + "'Would she were mine, and I to-day, + Like her a harvester of hay.'" + + --_Whittier's Maud Mueller._ + + + + +THE ALDINE. + +_JAMES SUTTON & CO., PUBLISHERS_ + +23 LIBERTY STREET, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + +$5.00 per Annum (_with chrono._) Single Copies, 50 Cents. + + * * * * * + +_AT NEWPORT._ + + I stand beside the sea once more; + Its measured murmur comes to me; + The breeze is low upon the shore, + And low upon the purple sea. + + Across the bay the flat sand sweeps, + To where the helmed light-house stands + Upon his post, and vigil keeps, + Far seaward marshaling all the lands. + + The hollow surges rise and fall, + The ships steal up the quiet bay; + I scarcely hear or see at all, + My thoughts are flown so far away. + + They follow on yon sea-bird's track. + Beyond the beacon's crystal dome; + They will not falter, nor come back, + Until they find my darkened home. + + Ah, woe is me! 'tis scarce a year + Since, gazing o'er this moaning main, + My thoughts flew home without a fear. + And with content returned again. + + To-day, alas! the fancies dark + That from my laden bosom flew, + Returning, came into the ark, + Not with the olive, with the yew. + + The ships draw slowly towards the strand, + The watchers' hearts with hope beat high; + But ne'er again wilt thou touch land-- + Lost, lost in yonder sapphire sky! + + --_Geo. H. Boker._ + + + + +_MILLERISM._ + + +Toward the close of the last century there was born in New +England one William Miller, whose life, until he was past fifty, +was the life of the average American of his time. He drank, we +suppose, his share of New England rum, when a young man; married +a comely Yankee girl, and reared a family of chubby-cheeked +children; went about his business, whatever it was, on week +days, and when Sunday came, went to meeting with commendable +regularity. He certainly read the Old Testament, especially the +Book of Daniel, and of the New Testament at least the Book of +Revelation. Like many a wiser man before him, he was troubled at +what he read, filled as it was with mystical numbers and strange +beasts, and he sought to understand it, and to apply it to the +days in which he lived. He made the discovery that the world +was to be destroyed in 1843, and went to and fro in the land +preaching that comfortable doctrine. He had many followers--as +many as fifty thousand, it is said, who thought they were +prepared for the end of all things; some going so far as to lay +in a large stock of ascension robes. Though no writer himself, he +was the cause of a great deal of writing on the part of others, +who flooded the land with a special and curious literature--the +literature of Millerism. It is not of that, however, that we +would speak now. + +But before this Miller arose--we proceed to say, if only to show +that we are familiar with other members of the family--there was +another, and very different Miller, who was born in old England, +about one hundred years earlier than our sadly, or gladly, +mistaken Second Adventist. His Christian name was Joseph, and he +was an actor of repute, celebrated for his excellence in some of +the comedies of Congreve. The characters which he played may have +been comic ones, but he was a serious man. Indeed, his gravity +was so well known in his lifetime that it was reckoned the height +of wit, when he was dead, to father off upon him a Jest Book! +This joke, bad as it was, was better than any joke in the book. +It made him famous, so famous that for the next hundred years +every little _bon mot_ was laid at his door, metaphorically +speaking, the puniest youngest brat of them being christened "Old +Joe." + +After Joseph Miller had become what Mercutio calls "a grave man," +his descendants went into literature largely, as any one may +see by turning to Allibone's very voluminous dictionary, where +upwards of seventy of the name are immortalized, the most noted +of whom are Thomas Miller, basket-maker and poet, and Hugh +Miller, the learned stone-mason of Cromarty, whose many works, we +confess with much humility, we have not read. To the sixty-eight +Millers in Allibone (if that be the exact number), must now be +added another--Mr. Joaquin Miller, who published, two or three +months since, a collection of poems entitled "Songs of the +Sierras." From which one of the Millers mentioned above his +ancestry is derived, we are not informed; but, it would seem, +from the one first-named. For clearly the end of all things +literary cannot be far off, if Mr. Miller is the "coming poet," +for whom so many good people have been looking all their lives. +We are inclined to think that such is not the fact. We think, +on the whole, that it is to the other Miller--Joking Miller--his +genealogy is to be traced. + +But who is Mr. Miller, and what has he done? A good many besides +ourselves put that question, less than a year ago, and nobody +could answer it. Nobody, that is, in America. In England he was a +great man. He went over to England, unheralded, it is stated, +and was soon discovered to be a poet. Swinburne took him up; the +Rossettis took him up; the critics took him up; he was taken up +by everybody in England, except the police, who, as a rule, fight +shy of poets. He went to fashionable parties in a red shirt, with +trowsers tucked into his boots, and instead of being shown to the +door by the powdered footman, was received with enthusiasm. It is +incredible, but it is true. A different state of society existed, +thirty or forty years ago, when another American poet went to +England; and we advise our readers, who have leisure at their +command, to compare it with the present social lawlessness of the +upper classes among the English. To do this, they have only +to turn to the late N.P. Willis's "Pencilings by the Way," and +contrast his descriptions of the fashionable life of London then, +with almost any journalistic account of the same kind of life +now. The contrast will be all the more striking if they will +only hunt up the portraits of Disraeli, with his long, dark locks +flowing on his shoulders, and the portrait of Bulwer, behind his +"stunning" waistcoat, and his cascade of neck-cloth, and then +imagine Mr. Miller standing beside them, in his red shirt and +high-topped California boots! Like Byron, Mr. Miller "woke up one +morning and found himself famous." + +We compare the sudden famousness of Mr. Miller with the sudden +famousness of Byron, because the English critics have done so; +and because they are pleased to consider Mr. Miller as Byron's +successor! Byron, we are told, was the only poet whom he had +read, before he went to England; and is the only poet to whom he +bears a resemblance. How any of these critics could have +arrived at this conclusion, with the many glaring imitations +of Swinburne--at his worst--staring him in the face from Mr. +Miller's volume, is inconceivable. But, perhaps, they do not read +Swinburne. Do they read Byron? + +There are, however, some points of resemblance between Byron and +Mr. Miller. Byron traveled, when young, in countries not much +visited by the English; Mr. Miller claims to have traveled, when +young, in countries not visited by the English at all. This was, +and is, an advantage to both Byron and Mr. Miller. But it was, +and is, a serious disadvantage to their readers, who cannot well +ascertain the truth, or falsehood, of the poets they admire. The +accuracy of Byron's descriptions of foreign lands has long +been admitted; the accuracy of Mr. Miller's descriptions is not +admitted, we believe, by those who are familiar with the ground +he professes to have gone over. + +Another point of resemblance between Byron and Mr. Miller is, +that the underlying idea of their poetry is autobiographic. We +do not say that it was really so in Byron's case, although he, we +know, would have had us believe as much; nor do we say that it +is really so in Mr. Miller's case, although he, too, we suspect, +would have us believe as much. + +Mr. Miller resembles Byron as his "Arizonian" resembles Byron's +"Lara." _Lara_ and _Arizonian_ are birds of the same dark +feather. They have journeyed in strange lands; they have had +strange experiences; they have returned to Civilization. Each, in +his way, is a Blighted Being! "Who is she?" we inquire with the +wise old Spanish Judge, for, certainly, _Woman_ is at the bottom +of it all. If our readers wish to know _what_ woman, we refer +them to "Arizonian:" they, of course, have read "Lara." + +Byron was a great poet, but Byronism is dead. Mr. Miller is not a +great poet, and his spurious Byronism will not live. We shall all +see the end of Millerism. + + + + +_THE REAL ROMANCE._ + + +The author laid down his pen, and leaned back in his big easy +chair. The last word had been written--Finis--and there was the +complete book, quite a tall pile of manuscript, only waiting for +the printer's hands to become immortal: so the author whispered +to himself. He had worked hard upon it; great pains had been +expended upon the delineations of character, and the tone and +play of incident; the plot, too, had been worked up with much +artistic force and skill; and, above all, everything was so +strikingly original; no one, in regarding the various characters +of the tale, could say: this is intended for so-and-so! No, +nothing precisely like the persons in his romance had ever +actually existed; of that the author was certain, and in that he +was very probably correct. To be sure, there was the character +of the country girl, Mary, which he had taken from his own +little waiting-maid: but that was a very subordinate element, +and although, on the whole, he rather regretted having introduced +anything so incongruous and unimaginative, he decided to let it +go. The romance, as a whole, was too great to be injured by one +little country girl, drawn from real life. "And by the way," +murmured the author to himself, "I wish Mary would bring in my +tea." + +He settled himself still more comfortably in his easy chair, and +thought, and looked at his manuscript; and the manuscript looked +back; but all _its_ thinking had been done for it. Neither +spoke--the author, because the book already knew all he had to +say; and the book, because its time to speak and be immortal had +not yet arrived. The fire had all the talking to itself, and it +cackled, and hummed, and skipped about so cheerfully that one +would have imagined it expected to be the very first to receive +a presentation copy of the work on the table. "How I would devour +its contents!" laughed the fire. + +Perhaps the author did not comprehend the full force of the +fire's remark, but the voice was so cosy and soothing, the +fire itself so ruddy and genial, and the easy chair so softly +cushioned and hospitable, that he very soon fell into a condition +which enabled him to see, hear, and understand a great many +things which might seem remarkable, and, indeed, almost +incredible. + +The manuscript on the table which had hitherto remained perfectly +quiet, now rustled its leaves nervously, and finally flung +itself wide open. A murmur then arose, as of several voices, and +presently there appeared (though whether stepping from between +the leaves of the book itself, or growing together from the +surrounding atmosphere, the author could not well make out) +a number of peculiar-looking individuals, at the first glance +appearing to be human beings, though a clear investigation +revealed in each some odd lack or exaggeration of gesture, +feature, or manner, which might create a doubt as to whether they +actually were, after all, what they purported to be, or only some +_lusus naturae_. But the author was not slow to recognize them, +more especially as, happening to cast a glance at the manuscript, +he noticed that it was such no longer, but a collection of +unwritten sheets of paper, blank as when it lay in the drawer at +the stationer's--unwitting of the lofty destiny awaiting it. + +Here, then, were the immortal creations which were soon to +astound the world, come, in person, to pay their respects to the +author of their being. He arose and made a profound obeisance to +the august company, which they one and all returned, though in +such a queer variety of ways, that the author, albeit aware that +every individual had the best of reasons for employing, under +certain special circumstances, his or her particular manner of +salute, could scarcely forbear smiling at the effect they all +together produced in his own unpretending study. + +"Your welcome visit," said the author, addressing his guests +with all the geniality of which he was master (for they +seemed somewhat stiff and ill-at-ease), "gives me peculiar +gratification. I regret not having asked some of my friends, the +critics, up here to make your acquaintance. I am sure you would +all come to the best possible understanding directly." + +"They cannot fathom _me_," exclaimed a strikingly handsome young +man, with pale lofty brow, and dark clustering locks, who was +leaning with proud grace against the mantel-piece. "They may +take my life, but they cannot read my soul." And he laughed, +scornfully, as he always did. + +[Illustration: THE NOONING.--AFTER DARLEY.] + + +This was a passage from that famous ante-mortem soliloquy in +which the hero of the romance indulges in the last chapter but +one. The author, while, of course, he could not deny that the +elegance of the diction was only equaled by the originality of +the sentiment, yet felt a slight uneasiness that his hero should +adopt so defiant a tone with those who were indeed to be the +arbiters of his existence. + +"I'm afraid there's not enough perception of the _comme il faut_ +in him to suit the every-day world," muttered he. "To be sure, +he was not constructed for ordinary ends. Do you find yourself +at home in this life, madame?" he continued aloud, turning to a +young lady of matchless beauty, whose brief career of passionate +love and romantic misery the author had described in thrilling +chapters. She raised her luminous eyes to his, and murmured +reproachfully: "Why speak to me of Life? if it be not Love, it is +Life no longer!" + +It was very beautiful, and the author recollected having thought, +at the time he wrote it down, that it was about the most forcible +sentence in that most powerful passage of his book. But it +was rather an exaggerated tone to adopt in the face of such +common-place surroundings. Had this exquisite creature, after +all, no better sense of the appropriate? + +"No one can know better than I, my dear Constance," said the +author, in a fatherly tone, "what a beautiful, tender, and lofty +soul yours is; but would it not be well, once in a while, to +veil its lustre--to subdue it to a tint more in keeping with the +unvariegated hue of common circumstance?" + +"Heartless and cruel!" sobbed Constance, falling upon the sofa, +"hast thou not made me what I am?" + +This accusation, intended by the author to be leveled at the +traitor lover, quite took him aback when directed, with so much +aptness, too, at his respectable self. But whom but himself +could he blame, if, when common sense demanded only civility +and complaisance, she persisted in adhering to the tragic and +sentimental? He was provoked that he had not noticed this defect +in time to remedy it; yet he had once considered Constance as, +perhaps, the completest triumph of his genius! There seemed to +be something particularly disenchanting in the atmosphere of that +study. + +"I'm afraid you're a failure, ma'am, after all," sighed the +author, eyeing her disconsolately. "You're so one-sided!" + +At this heartless observation the lady gave a harrowing shriek, +thereby summoning to her side a broad-shouldered young fellow, +clad in soldier's garb, with a countenance betokening much +boldness and determination. He faced the author with an angry +frown, which the latter at once recognized as being that of +Constance's brother Sam. + +"Now then, old bloke!" sang out that young gentleman, "what new +deviltry are you up to? Down on your knees and beg her pardon, +or, by George! I'll run you through the body!" + +On this character the author had expended much thought and care. +He was the type of the hardy and bold adventurer, rough and +unpolished, perhaps, but of true and sterling metal, who, by dint +of his vigorous common sense and honest, energetic nature, should +at once clear and lighten whatever in the atmosphere of the story +was obscure and sombre; and, by the salutary contrast of his +fresh and rugged character with the delicate or morbid traits +of his fellow beings, lend a graceful symmetry to the whole. The +sentence Sam had just delivered with so much emphasis ought to +have been addressed to the traitor lover, when discovered in the +act of inconstancy, and, so given, would have been effective and +dramatic. But at a juncture like the present, the author felt it +to be simply ludicrous, and had he not been so mortified, would +have laughed outright! + +"Don't make a fool of yourself, Sam," remonstrated he. "Reflect +whom you're addressing, and in what company you are, and do try +and talk like a civilized being." + +"Come, come! no palaver," returned Sam, in a loud and boisterous +tone (to do him justice, he had never been taught any other); +"down on your marrow-bones at once, or here goes for your +gizzard!" and he drew his sword with a flourish. + +So this was the rough diamond--the epitome of common sense! Why, +he was a half-witted, impertinent, overbearing booby, and his +author longed to get him across his knee, and correct him in the +good old way. But meantime the point of the young warrior's +sword was getting unpleasantly near the left breast-pocket of +the author's dressing gown (which he wore at the time), and the +latter happened to recollect, with a nervous thrill, that this +was the sword which mortally wounded the traitor lover (for whom +Sam evidently mistook him) during the stirring combat so vividly +described in the twenty-second chapter. Could he but have +foreseen the future, what a different ending that engagement +should have had! But again it was too late, and the author sprang +behind the big easy chair with astonishing agility, and from that +vantage ground endeavored to bring on a parley. + +Yet how could he argue and expostulate against himself? How +arraign Sam of harboring murderous designs which he had himself +implanted in his bosom? How, indeed, expect him to comprehend +conversation so entirely foreign to his experience? It was an +awkward dilemma. + +It was Sam who took it by the horns. Somebody, he felt, must be +mortally wounded; and finding himself defrauded of one subject, +he took up with the next he encountered, which chanced to be none +other than the venerable and white-haired gentleman who filled +the position, in the tale, of a wealthy and benevolent uncle. The +author, having always felt a sentiment of exceptional respect and +admiration for this reverend and patriarchal personage, who +by his gentle words and sage counsels, no less than his noble +generosity, had done so much to elevate and sweeten the tone +of his book, fell into an ecstasy of terror at witnessing the +approach of his seemingly inevitable destruction; especially as +he perceived that the poor old fellow (who never in his life had +met with aught but reverence and affection, and knew nothing +of the nature of deadly weapons and impulses) was, so far, from +attempting to defend himself, or even escape, actually opening +his arms to the widest extent of avuncular hospitality, and +preparing to take his assassin, sword and all, into his fond and +forgiving heart! + +"You old fool!" shrieked the author, in the excess of his +irritation and despair; "he isn't your repentant nephew! Why +can't you keep your forgiveness until it's wanted?" + +But Uncle Dudley having been created solely to forgive and +benefit, was naturally incapable of taking care of himself, and +would certainly have been run through the ample white waistcoat, +had not an unexpected and wholly unprecedented interruption +averted so awful a catastrophe. + +A small, graceful figure, wearing a picturesque white cap, with +jaunty ribbons, and a short scarlet petticoat, from beneath which +peeped the prettiest feet and ancles ever seen, stepped suddenly +between the philanthropic victim and his would-be-murderer, +dealt the latter a vigorous blow across the face with a broom +she carried, thereby toppling him over ignominiously into the +coal-scuttle, and then, placing her plump hands saucily +akimbo, she exclaimed with enchanting _naivete_: "There! Mr. +Free-and-easy! take _that_ for your imperance." + +This little incident caused the author to fall back into his easy +chair in a condition of profound emotion. It appeared to have +corrected a certain dimness or obliquity in his vision, of the +existence of which its cure rendered him for the first time +conscious. The appearance of the little country girl (whose very +introduction into the romance the author had looked upon with +misgivings) had afforded the first gleam of natural, refreshing, +wholesome interest--in fact, the only relief to all that was +vapid, irrational, and unreal--which the combined action of the +characters in his romance had succeeded in producing. But the +enchantress who had effected this, so far from being the most +unadulterated product of his own brain and genius, was the only +one of all his _dramatis personae_ who was not in the slightest +degree indebted to him for her existence. She was nothing +more than an accurate copy of Mary the house-maid, while the +others--the mis-formed, ill-balanced, one-sided creations, who, +the moment they were placed beyond the pale of their written +instructions--put out of the regular and pre-arranged order of +their going--displayed in every word and gesture their utter +lack and want of comprehension of the simplest elements of human +nature: _these_ were the unaided offspring of the author's fancy. +And yet it was by help of such as these he had thought to push +his way to immortality! How the world would laugh at him! and, +as he thought this, a few bitter tears of shame and humiliation +trickled down the sides of the poor man's nose. + +Presently he looked up. The warlike Sam remained sitting +disconsolately in the coal-hod; his instructions suggested no +means of extrication. Forsaken Constance lay fainting on the +sofa, waiting for some one to chafe her hands and bathe her +temples. The strikingly handsome betrayer leant in sullen and +gloomy silence against the mantel-piece, ready to treat all +advances with stern and defiant obduracy. The benevolent uncle +stood with open arms and bland smile, never doubting but +that everybody was preparing for a simultaneous rush to, and +participation in, his embrace; and, finally, the pretty little +country girl, with her arms akimbo and her nose in the air, +remained mistress of the situation. Her unheard of innovation, of +having done something timely, sensible, and decisive, even +though not put down in the book, seemed to have paralyzed all the +others. Ah! she was the only one there who was not less than a +shadow. The author felt his desolate heart yearn towards her, and +the next moment found himself on his knees at her feet. + +"Mary," cried he, "you are my only reality. The others are empty +and soulless, but you have a heart. They are the children of a +conceited brain and visionary experience; you, only, have I drawn +simply and unaffectedly, as you actually existed. Except for +you, whom I slighted and despised, my whole romance had been an +unmitigated falsehood. To you I owe my preservation from worse +than folly, and my initiation into true wisdom. Mary--dear +Mary, in return I have but one thing to offer you--my heart! Can +you--_will_ you not love me?"-- + +To his intense surprise, Mary, instead of evincing a becoming +sense of her romantic situation, burst forth into a merry peal +of laughter, and, catching him by one shoulder, gave him a hearty +shake. + +"La sakes! Mr. Author, do wake up! did ever anybody hear such a +man!" + +There was his room, his fire, his chair, his table, and his +closely-written manuscript lying quietly upon it. There was +he himself on his knees on the carpet, and--there was Mary the +house-maid, one hand holding the brimming tea-pot, the other held +by the author against his lips, and laughing and blushing in a +tumult of surprise, amusement and, perhaps, something better than +either. + +"Did I say I loved you, Mary?" enquired the author, in a state of +bewilderment. "Never mind! I say now that I love you with all my +heart and soul, and ten times as much when awake, as when I was +dreaming! Will you marry me?" + +Mary only blushed rosier then ever. But she and the author always +thereafter took their tea cosily together. + +As for the romance, the author took it and threw it into the +fire, which roared a genial acknowledgment, and in five minutes +had made itself thoroughly acquainted with every page. There +remained a bunch of black flakes, and in the center one soft +glowing spark, which lingered a long while ere finally taking +its flight up the chimney. It was the description of the little +country girl. + +"The next book I write shall be all about you," the author used +to say to his wife, in after years, as they sat together before +the fire-place, and watched the bright blaze roar up the chimney. + + --_Julian Hawthorne._ + + + + +_A FROSTY DAY._ + + + Grass afield wears silver thatch, + Palings all are edged with rime, + Frost-flowers pattern round the latch, + Cloud nor breeze dissolve the clime; + + When the waves are solid floor, + And the clods are iron-bound, + And the boughs are crystall'd hoar, + And the red leaf nail'd aground. + + When the fieldfare's flight is slow, + And a rosy vapor rim, + Now the sun is small and low, + Belts along the region dim. + + When the ice-crack flies and flaws, + Shore to shore, with thunder shock, + Deeper than the evening daws, + Clearer than the village clock. + + When the rusty blackbird strips, + Bunch by bunch, the coral thorn, + And the pale day-crescent dips, + New to heaven a slender horn. + + --_John Leicester Warren._ + + * * * * * + +Those who come last seem to enter with advantage. They are +born to the wealth of antiquity. The materials for judging are +prepared, and the foundations of knowledge are laid to their +hands. Besides, if the point was tried by antiquity, antiquity +would lose it; for the present age is really the oldest, and has +the largest experience to plead.--_Jeremy Collier_. + + +[Illustration: COMING OUT OF SCHOOL.--VAUTIER.] + + + + +_COMING OUT OF SCHOOL._ + + +If there be any happier event in the life of a child than coming +out of school, few children are wise enough to discover it. We do +not refer to children who go to school unwillingly--thoughtless +wights--whose heads are full of play, and whose hands are +prone to mischief:--that these should delight in escaping the +restraints of the school-room, and the eye of its watchful +master, is a matter of course. We refer to children generally, +the good and the bad, the studious and the idle, in short, to +all who belong to the _genus_ Boy. Perhaps we should include the +_genus_ Girl, also, but of that we are not certain; for, not +to dwell upon the fact that we have never been a girl, and are, +therefore, unable to enter into the feelings of girlhood, we hold +that girls are better than boys, as women are better than men, +and that, consequently, they take more kindly to school life. +What boys are we know, unless the breed has changed very much +since we were young, which is now upwards of--but our age +does not concern the reader. We did not take kindly to school, +although we were sadly in need of what we could only obtain in +school, viz., learning. We went to school with reluctance, +and remained with discomfort; for we were not as robust as the +children of our neighbors. We hated school. We did not dare to +play truant, however, like other boys whom we knew (we were not +courageous enough for that); so we kept on going, fretting, and +pining, and--learning. + +Oh the long days (the hot days of summer, and the cold days of +winter), when we had to sit for hours on hard wooden benches, +before uncomfortable desks, bending over grimy slates and +ink-besprinkled "copy books," and poring over studies in which +we took no interest--geography, which we learned by rote; +arithmetic, which always evaded us, and grammar, which we never +could master. We could repeat the "rules," but we could not +"parse;" we could cipher, but our sums would not "prove;" we +could rattle off the productions of Italy--"corn, wine, silk and +oil"--but we could not "bound" the State in which we lived. We +were conscious of these defects, and deplored them. Our teachers +were also conscious of them, and flogged us! We had a morbid +dread of corporeal punishment, and strove to the uttermost to +avoid it; but it made no difference, it came all the same--came +as surely and swiftly to us as to the bad boys who played +"hookey," the worse boys who fought, and the worst boy who once +stoned his master in the street. With such a school record as +this, is it to be wondered at that we rejoiced when school was +out? And rejoiced still more when we were out of school? + +The feeling which we had then appears to be shared by the +children in our illustration. Not for the same reasons, however; +for we question whether the most ignorant of their number does +not know more of grammar than we do to-day, and is not better +acquainted with the boundaries of Germany than we could ever +force ourselves to be. We like these little fellows for what they +are, and what they will probably be. And we like their master, a +grave, simple-hearted man, whose proper place would appear to be +the parish-pulpit. What his scholars learn will be worth knowing, +if it be not very profound. They will learn probity and goodness, +and it will not be ferruled into them either. Clearly, they do +not fear the master, or they would not be so unconstrained in his +presence. They would not make snow balls, as one has done, and +another is doing. Soon they will begin to pelt each other, and +the passers by will not mind the snow balls, if they will only +remember how they themselves felt, and behaved, after coming out +of school. + +There is not much in a group of children coming out of school. So +one might say at first sight, but a little reflection will show +the fallacy of the remark. One would naturally suppose that in +every well-regulated State of antiquity measures would have been +taken to ensure the education of all classes of the community, +but such was not the case. The Spartans under Lycurgus were +educated, but their education was mainly a physical one, and +it did not reach the lower orders. The education of Greece +generally, even when the Greek mind had attained its highest +culture, was still largely physical--philosophers, statesmen, +and poets priding themselves as much upon their athletic feats +as upon their intellectual endowments. The schools of Rome were +private, and were confined to the patricians. There was a change +for the better when Christianity became the established religion. +Public schools were recommended by a council in the sixth +century, but rather as a means of teaching the young the +rudiments of their faith, under the direction of the clergy, than +as a means of giving them general instruction. It was not until +the close of the twelfth century that a council ordained the +establishment of grammar schools in cathedrals for the gratuitous +instruction of the poor; and not until a century later that the +ordinance was carried into effect at Lyons. Luther found time, +amid his multitudinous labors, to interest himself in popular +education; and, in 1527, he drew up, with the aid of Melanchthon, +what is known as the Saxon School System. The seed was sown, but +the Thirty Years' War prevented its coming to a speedy maturity. +In the middle of the last century several of the German States +passed laws making it compulsory upon parents to send their +children to school at a certain age; but these laws were not +really obeyed until the beginning of the present century. German +schools are now open to the poorest as well as the richest +children. The only people, except the Germans, who thought of +common schools at an early period are the Scotch. + +It cost, we see, some centuries of mental blindness to discover +the need of, and some centuries of struggling to establish +schools. + + +[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.] + + + + +_A GLIMPSE OF VENICE._ + + +The spell which Venice has cast over the English poets is as +powerful, in its way, as was the influence of Italian literature +upon the early literature of England. From Chaucer down, the +poets have turned to Italy for inspiration, and, what is still +better, have found it. It is not too much to say that the +"Canterbury Tales" could not have existed, in their present +form, if Boccaccio had not written the "Decameron;" and it is to +Boccaccio we are told that the writers of his time were indebted +for their first knowledge of Homer. Wyatt and Surrey transplanted +what they could of grace from Petrarch into the rough England of +Henry the Eighth. We know what the early dramatists owe to the +Italian storytellers. They went to their novels for the plots +of their plays, as the novelists of to-day go to the criminal +calendar for the plots of their stories. Shakspeare appears so +familiar with Italian life that Mr. Charles Armitage Brown, the +author of a very curious work on Shakspeare's Sonnets, declares +that he must have visited Italy, basing this conclusion on the +minute knowledge of certain Italian localities shown in some of +his later plays. At home in Verona, Milan, Mantua, and Padua, +Shakspeare is nowhere so much so as in Venice. + +It is impossible to think of Venice without remembering the +poets; and the poet who is first remembered is Byron. If our +thoughts are touched with gravity as they should be when we dwell +upon the sombre aspects of Venice--when we look, as here, for +example, on the Bridge of Sighs--we find ourselves repeating: + + "I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs." + +If we are in a gayer mood, as we are likely to be after looking +at the brilliant carnival-scene which greets us at the threshold +of the present number of _THE ALDINE_, we recall the opening +passages of Byron's merry poem of "Beppo:" + + "Of all the places where the Carnival + Was most facetious in the days of yore, + For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball, + And masque, and mime, and mystery, and more + Than I have time to tell now, or at all, + Venice the bell from every city bore." + + * * * * * + + "And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical, + Masks of all times, and nations, Turks and Jews, + And harlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical, + Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos + All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical, + All people, as their fancies hit, may choose, + But no one in these parts may quiz the clergy, + Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers! I charge ye." + + +The Bridge of Sighs (to return to prose) is a long covered +gallery, leading from the ducal palace to the old State prisons +of Venice. It was frequently traversed, we may be sure, in the +days of some of the Doges, to one of whom, our old friend, and +Byron's--Marino Faliero--the erection of the ducal palace is +sometimes falsely ascribed. Founded in the year 800, A.D., the +ducal palace was afterwards destroyed five times, and each time +arose from its ruins with increasing splendor until it became, +what it is now, a stately marble building of the Saracenic style +of architecture, with a grand staircase and noble halls, adorned +with pictures by Titian, Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and other +famous masters. + +It would be difficult to find gloomier dungeons, even in the +worst strongholds of despotism, than those in which the State +prisoners of Venice were confined. These "pozzi," or wells, were +sunk in the thick walls, under the flooring of the chamber at the +foot of the Bridge of Sighs. There were twelve of them formerly, +and they ran down three or four stories. The Venetian of old time +abhorred them as deeply as his descendants, who, on the first +arrival of the conquering French, attempted to block or break up +the lowest of them, but were not entirely successful; for, when +Byron was in Venice, it was not uncommon for adventurous tourists +to descend by a trap-door, and crawl through holes, half choked +by rubbish, to the depth of two stories below the first range. +So says the writer of the _Notes_ to the fourth canto of "Childe +Harolde" (Byron's friend Hobhouse, if our memory serves), who +adds, "If you are in want of consolation for the extinction of +patrician power, perhaps you may find it there. Scarcely a ray of +light glimmers into the narrow gallery which leads to the cells, +and the places of confinement themselves are totally dark. A +little hole in the wall admitted the damp air of the passages, +and served for the introduction of the prisoner's food. A +wooden pallet, about a foot or so from the ground, was the only +furniture. The conductors tell you a light was not allowed. The +cells are about five paces in length, two and a half in width, +and seven feet in height. They are directly beneath one another, +and respiration is somewhat difficult in the lower holes. Only +one prisoner was found when the Republicans descended into these +hideous recesses, and he is said to have been confined sixteen +years." When the prisoner's hour came he was taken out and +strangled in a cell upon the Bridge of Sighs! + +And this was in Venice! The grand old Republic which was once the +greatest Power of Eastern Europe; the home of great artists and +architects, renowned the world over for arts and arms; the Venice +of "blind old Dandolo," who led her galleys to victory at the +ripe old age of eighty; the Venice of Doge Foscari, whose son +she tortured, imprisoned and murdered, and whose own paternal, +patriotic, great heart she broke; the Venice of gay gallants, and +noble, beautiful ladies; the Venice of mumming, masking, and the +carnival; the bright, beautiful Venice of Shakspeare, Otway, and +Byron; joyous, loving Venice; cruel, fatal Venice! + + * * * * * + +MODERN SATIRE.--A satire on everything is a satire on nothing; +it is mere absurdity. All contempt, all disrespect, implies +something respected, as a standard to which it is referred; just +as every valley implies a hill. The _persiflage_ of the French +and of fashionable worldlings, which turns into ridicule +the exceptions and yet abjures the rules, is like Trinculo's +government--its latter end forgets its beginning. Can there be a +more mortal, poisonous consumption and asphyxy of the mind than +this decline and extinction of all reverence?--_Jean Paul_. + + + + +_WINTER PICTURES FROM THE POETS._ + + +Although English Poetry abounds with pictures of the seasons, its +Winter pictures are neither numerous, nor among its best. For +one good snow-piece we can readily find twenty delicate Spring +pictures--twinkling with morning dew, and odorous with the +perfume of early flowers. It would be easy to make a large +gallery of Summer pictures; and another gallery, equally large, +which should contain only the misty skies, the dark clouds, and +the falling leaves of Autumn. Not so with Winter scenes. Not that +the English poets have not painted the last, and painted them +finely, but that as a rule they have not taken kindly to the +work. They prefer to do what Keats did in one of his poems, viz., +make Winter a point of departure from which Fancy shall wing her +way to brighter days: + + "Fancy, high-commissioned; send her! + She has vassals to attend her, + She will bring, in spite of frost, + Beauties that the earth hath lost, + She will bring thee, all together, + All delights of summer weather." + +But we must not let Keats come between us and the few among his +fellows who have sung of Winter for us. Above all, we must not +let him keep his and our master, Shakspeare, waiting: + + "When icicles hang by the wall, + And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, + And Tom bears logs into the hall, + And milk comes frozen home in pail, + When blood is nipped, and ways be foul, + Then nightly sings the staring owl, + To-whoo; + To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note, + While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. + + "When all aloud the wind doth blow, + And coughing drowns the parson's saw, + And birds sit brooding in the snow, + And Marian's nose looks red and raw. + When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, + Then nightly sings the staring owl, + To-whoo; + To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note, + While greasy Joan doth keel the pot." + +From Shakspeare to Thomson is something of a descent, but we must +make it before we can find any Winter poetry worth quoting. +Here is a picture, ready-made, for Landseer to put into form and +color: + + "There, warm together pressed, the trooping deer + Sleep on the new-fallen snows; and scarce his head + Raised o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk + Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss. + The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils, + Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives + The fearful flying race: with ponderous clubs, + As weak against the mountain-heaps they push + Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray, + He lays them quivering on the ensanguined snows, + And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home." + +Cowper is superior to Thomson as a painter of Winter, although it +is doubtful whether he was by nature the better poet. Here is one +of his pictures: + + "The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence + Screens them, and seem half petrified with sleep + In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait + Their wonted fodder; not like hungering man, + Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek, + And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay. + He, from the stack, carves out the accustomed load, + Deep plunging, and again deep plunging oft, + The broad keen knife into the solid mass: + Smooth as a wall, the upright remnant stands, + With such undeviating and even force + He severs it away: no needless care, + Lest storms should overset the leaning pile + Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. + Forth goes the woodman, leaving, unconcerned, + The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe + And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear, + From morn to eve his solitary task. + Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears + And tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur, + His dog attends him. Close behind his heel + Now creeps he slow; and now, with many a frisk, + Wide scampering, snatches up the drifted snow + With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout; + Then shakes his powdered coat, and barks for joy. + Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl + Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught, + But now and then, with pressure of his thumb + To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube + That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud + Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. + Now from the roost, or from the neighboring pale, + Where, diligent to cast the first faint gleam + Of smiling day, they gossiped side by side, + Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call + The feathered tribes domestic. Half on wing, + And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood, + Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge. + The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves, + To seize the fair occasion; well they eye + The scattered grain, and thievishly resolved + To escape the impending famine, often scared + As oft return, a pert voracious kind. + Clean riddance quickly made, one only care + Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, + Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned + To sad necessity, the cock foregoes + His wonted strut; and, wading at their head, + With well-considered steps, seems to resent + His altered gait and stateliness retrenched." + +The American poets have excelled their English brethren in +painting the outward aspects of Winter. Here is Mr. Emerson's +description of a snow storm: + + "Announced by all the trumpets of the sky + Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, + Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air + Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, + And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. + The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet + Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit + Around the radiant fire-place, enclosed + In a tumultuous privacy of storm. + Come see the north wind's masonry. + Out of an unseen quarry evermore + Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer + Curves his white bastions with projected roof + Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. + Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work + So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he + For number or proportion. Mockingly + On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths; + A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn: + Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, + Maugre the farmer's sighs, and at the gate + A tapering turret overtops the work. + And when his hours are numbered, and the world + Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, + Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art + To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, + Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, + The frolic architecture of the snow." + +In Mr. Bryant's "Winter Piece" we have a brilliant description of +frost-work: + + "Look! the massy trunks + Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray + Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven, + Is studded with its trembling water-drops, + That glimmer with an amethystine light. + But round the parent stem the long low boughs + Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbors hide + The glassy floor. Oh! you might deem the spot + The spacious cavern of some virgin mine, + Deep in the womb of earth--where the gems grow, + And diamonds put forth radiant rods and bud + With amethyst and topaz--and the place + Lit up, most royally, with the pure beam + That dwells in them. Or haply the vast hall + Of fairy palace, that outlasts the night, + And fades not in the glory of the sun;-- + Where crystal columns send forth slender shafts + And crossing arches; and fantastic aisles + Wind from the sight in brightness, and are lost, + Among the crowded pillars. Raise thine eye; + Thou seest no cavern roof, no palace vault; + There the blue sky and the white drifting cloud + Look in. Again the wildered fancy dreams + Of spouting fountains, frozen as they rose, + And fixed, with all their branching jets, in air, + And all their sluices sealed. All, all is light; + Light without shade. But all shall pass away + With the next sun. From numberless vast trunks, + Loosened, the crashing ice shall make a sound + Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve + Shall close o'er the brown woods as it was wont." + +Winter, itself, has never been more happily impersonated than by +dear old Spenser. We meant to close with his portrait of Winter, +but, on second thoughts, we give, as more seasonable, his +description of January. The fourth line can hardly fail to +remind the reader of the second line of Shakspeare's song, and +to suggest the query--whether Shakspeare borrowed from Spenser, +Spenser from Shakspeare, or both from Nature? + + "Then came old January, wrapped well + In many weeds to keep the cold away; + Yet did he quake and quiver like to quell, + And blow his nayles to warme them if he may; + For they were numbed with holding all the day + An hatchet keene, with which he felled wood + And from the trees did lop the needlesse spray: + Upon an huge great earth-pot steane he stood, + From whose wide mouth there flowed forth the Romane floud." + + * * * * * + +As long as you are engaged in the world, you must comply with its +maxims; because nothing is more unprofitable than the wisdom of +those persons who set up for reformers of the age. 'Tis a part +a man can not act long, without offending his friends, and +rendering himself ridiculous.--_St. Gosemond_. + + + + +_THE PAVILIONS ON THE LAKE._ + +FROM THE FRENCH OF THEOPHILE GAUTIER. + + +In the province of Canton, several miles from the city, there +once lived two rich Chinese merchants, retired from business. One +of them was named Tou, the other Kouan. Both were possessed +of great riches, and were persons of much consequence in the +community. + +Tou and Kouan were distant relatives, and from early youth had +lived and worked side by side. Bound by ties of great affection, +they had built their homes near together, and every evening they +met with a few select friends to pass the hours in delightful +intercourse. Both possessed of much talent, they vied with each +other in the production of exquisite Chinese handiwork, and spent +the evenings in tracing poetry and fancy designs on rice-paper +as they drank each other's success in tiny glasses of delicate +cordial. But their characters, apparently so harmonious, as time +went on grew more and more apart; they were like an almond tree, +growing as one stem, until little by little the branches divide +so that the topmost twigs are far from each other--half sending +their bitter perfume through the whole garden, while the other +half scatter their snow-white flowers outside the garden wall. + +From year to year Tou grew more serious; his figure increased in +dignity, even his double chin wore a solemn expression, and he +spent his whole time composing moral inscriptions to hang over +the doors of his pavilion. + +Kouan, on the contrary, grew jolly as his years increased. He +sang more gaily than ever in praise of wine, flowers, and birds. +His spirit, unburdened by vulgar cares, was light like a young +man's, and he dreamed of nothing but pure enjoyment. + +Little by little an intense hatred sprang up between the friends. +They could not meet without indulging in bitter sarcasm. They +were like two hedges of brambles, bristling with sharp thorns. At +last, things came to such a pass that they could no longer endure +each other's society, and each hung a tablet by the door of his +dwelling, stating that no person from the neighboring house would +be allowed to cross the threshold on any pretext whatever. + +They would have been glad to move their houses to different parts +of the country, but, unhappily, this was not possible. Tou even +tried to sell his property but he set such an unreasonable price +that no buyer appeared, and he was, moreover, unwilling to +leave all the treasures he had accumulated there--the sculptured +wainscotting, the polished panels, like mirrors, the transparent +windows, the gilded lattice-work, the bamboo lounges, the vases +of rare porcelain, the red and black lacquered cabinets, and the +cases full of books of ancient poetry. It was hard to give up to +strangers the garden where he had planted shade and fruit trees +with his own hands, and where, each spring he had watched the +opening of the flowers; where in short, each object was bound to +his heart by ties delicate as the finest silk, but strong as iron +chains. + +In the days of their friendship, Tou and Kouan had each built a +pavilion in his garden, on the shore of a lake, common to both +estates. It had been a great delight to sit in their separate +balconies and exchange friendly salutations while they smoked +opium in pipes of delicate porcelain. But after becoming enemies +they built a wall which divided the lake into two equal portions. +The water was so deep that the wall was supported on a series of +arches, through which the water flowed freely, reflecting upon +its placid surface the rival pavilions. + +These pavilions were exquisite specimens of Chinese architecture. +The roofs, covered with tiling, round and brilliant as the scales +which glisten on the sides of a gold-fish, were supported upon +red and black pillars which rested on a solid foundation, richly +ornamented with porcelain slabs bearing all manner of artistic +designs. A railing ran all around, formed by a graceful +intermingling of branches and flowers wrought in ivory. The +interior was not less sumptuous. On the walls were inscribed +verses of celebrated Chinese poems, elegantly written in +perpendicular lines, with golden characters on a lacquered +background. Shades of delicately carved ivory, softened the +light to a faint opal tint, and all around stood pots of orchis, +peonies, and daisies, which filled the air with delicious +perfume. Curtains of rich silk were draped over the entrance, +and on the marble tables within were scattered fans, tooth-picks, +ebony pipes, and pencils with all conveniences for writing. + +All around the pavilions were picturesque grounds of rock, among +whose clefts grew clumps of willows, their long green twigs +swaying on the surface of the water. Under the crystal waves +sported myriads of gold-fish, and ducks with gay plumage floated +among the broad, shining leaves of water-lilies. Except in the +very centre of the pool, where the depth of the water prevented +the growth of aquatic plants, the whole surface was covered with +these leaves, like a carpet of soft green velvet. + +Before the unsightly wall had been placed there by the hostile +owners, it was impossible to find a more picturesque spot in the +whole empire, and even now no philosopher would have wished for a +more retired and delicious retreat in which to pass his days. + +Both Tou and Kouan felt deeply the loss of the enchanting +prospect, and gazed sadly upon the barren wall which rose before +their eyes, but each consoled himself with the idea that his +neighbor was as badly off as himself. + +Things went on in this way for several years. Grass and weeds +choked up the pathway between the two houses, and brambles and +branches of low shrubs intertwined across it, as though they +would bar all communication forever. It appeared as if the plants +understood the quarrel between the two old friends, and took +delight in perpetuating it. + +Meanwhile the wives of both Tou and Kouan were both blessed each +with a child. Madame Tou became the mother of a charming girl, +and Madame Kouan of the handsomest boy in the world. Each family +was ignorant of the happy event which had brought joy into +the home of the other, for although their houses were so near +together the families were as far apart as if they had been +separated by the great wall of the empire, or the ocean itself. +What mutual friends they still possessed, never alluded to the +affairs of one in the house of the other; even the servants had +been forbidden to exchange words with each other, under pain of +death. + +The boy was named Tchin-Sing, and the girl Ju-Kiouan, that is to +say, Jasper and Pearl. Their perfect beauty fully justified the +choice of their names. As they grew old enough to take notice of +their surroundings, the unsightly wall attracted their attention, +and each inquired of their parents why that strange barrier was +placed across the centre of such a charming sheet of water, and +to whom belonged the great trees of which they could see the +topmost boughs. + +Each was told that on the farther side of the wall was the +habitation of a strange and wicked family, and that it had been +placed there as a protection against such disagreeable neighbors. + +This explanation was sufficient for the children. They grew +accustomed to the sight and thought no more about it. + +Ju-Kiouan grew in grace and beauty. She was skilled in all +lady-like accomplishments. The butterflies which she embroidered +upon satin appeared to live and beat their wings, and one could +almost hear the song of the birds which grew under her fingers, +and smell the perfume of the flowers she wrought upon canvas. She +knew the "Book of Odes" by heart, and could repeat the five rules +of life without missing a word. Her handwriting was perfection, +and she composed in all the different styles of Chinese poetry. +Her poems were upon all those delicate themes which would attract +the mind of a pure young girl; upon the return of the swallows, +the daisies, the weeping willows and similar topics, and were +of such merit as to win much praise from the wise men of the +country. + +Tchin-Sing was not less forward in his accomplishments, and his +name stood at the head of his class. Although he was very young +he had already gained the right to wear the black cap of the wise +men, and all the mothers in the country about wished him for a +son-in-law. But Tchin-Sing had but one answer to all proposals; +it was too soon, and he desired his liberty for some time to +come. He refused the hand of Hon-Giu, of Oma, and other beautiful +young girls. Never was a young man more courted and more +overwhelmed with sweets and flowers than he, but his heart +remained insensible to all attractions. Not on account of its +coldness, for he appeared full of longing for an object to adore. +His heart seemed fixed upon some memory, some dream, perhaps, for +whose realization he was waiting and hoping. It was all in vain +to tell him of beautiful tresses, languishing eyes, and soft +hands waiting for his acceptance. He listened with a distracted +air, as if thinking of other things. + +Ju-Kiouan was not less difficult to please. She refused all +suitors for her hand. This did not salute her gracefully, that +was not dainty in his habits; one had a bad handwriting, another +composed poor verses; in short all had some defect. She drew +amusing caricatures of everyone, which made her parents laugh, +and show the door to the unlucky lover in the most polite manner +possible. + +At last the parents of both young people became alarmed at the +continued refusal of their children to marry, and the mothers +commenced to follow the subject in their dreams. One night Madame +Kouan dreamed that she saw a pearl of wonderful purity reposing +on the breast of her son. On the other hand, Madame Tou dreamed +that on her daughter's forehead sparkled a jasper of inestimable +value. Much consultation was held as to the significance of these +dreams. Madame Kouan's was thought to imply that her son would +win the highest honors of the Imperial Academy, while Madame +Tou's might signify that her daughter would find some untold +treasure in the garden. These interpretations, however, did not +satisfy the two mothers, whose whole minds were bent upon the +happy marriage of their children. Unfortunately both Tchin-Sing +and Ju-Kiouan persisted more obstinately than ever in their +refusal to listen to the subject. + +As young people are not usually so averse to marriage, the +parents suspected some secret attachment, but a few days' careful +watching sufficed to prove that Tchin-Sing was paying court to no +young girl, and that no lover was to be seen under the balcony of +Ju-Kiouan. + +At length both mothers decided to consult the bronze oracle in +the temple of Fo. After burning gilt paper and perfume before the +oracle, Madame Tou received the unsatisfactory answer that, +until the jasper appeared, the pearl would unite with no one, and +Madame Kouan was told the jasper would take nothing to his +bosom but the pearl. Both women went sadly homeward in deeper +perplexity than ever. + +One day Ju-Kiouan was leaning pensively on the balcony of her +pavilion, precisely at the same time when Tchin-Sing was standing +by his. The day was clear as crystal, and not a cloud floated in +the blue space above. There was not sufficient wind to move the +lightest twigs of the willows, and the surface of the water +was glistening and placid as a mirror, only disturbed, here and +there, when some tiny gold-fish leaped for an instant into the +sunshine. The trees and grassy banks were reflected so distinctly +that it was impossible to tell where the real world left off, and +the land of dreams began. Ju-Kiouan was amusing herself watching +the beauteous water-picture when her eyes fell upon that portion +of the lake, near the wall, where, with all the clearness of +reality, was the reflection of the pavilion on the opposite +shore. + +She had never noticed it before, and what was her surprise to +behold an exact reproduction of the one where she was standing, +the gilded roof, the red and black pillars, and all the beauteous +drapery about the doors. She would have been able to read the +inscription upon the tablets, had they not been reversed. But +what surprised her more than all was to see, leaning on the +balcony, a figure which, if it had not come from the other side +of the lake, she would have taken for her own reflection. It was +the mirrored image of Tchin-Sing. At first she took it for the +reflection of a girl, as he was dressed in robes according to the +fashion of the time. As the heat was intense, he had thrown off +his student's cap, and his hair fell about his fresh, beardless +face. But soon Ju-Kiouan recognized, from the violent beating +of her heart, that the reflection in the water was not that of a +young girl. + +Until then she had believed that the earth contained no being +created for her, and had often indulged in pensive revery over +her loneliness. Never, said she, shall I take my place as a link +between the past and future of my family, but I shall enter among +the shadows as a lonely shade. + +But when she beheld the reflection in the water, she found that +her beauty had a sister, or, more properly speaking, a brother. +Far from being displeased to discover that her beauty was not +unrivaled, she was filled with intense joy. Her heart was +beating and throbbing with love for another, and in that instant +Ju-Kiouan's whole life was changed. It was foolish in her to fall +violently in love with a reflection, of whose reality she knew +nothing, but after all she was only acting like nearly all young +girls who take a husband for his white teeth or his curly hair, +knowing nothing whatever of his real character. + +Tchin-Sing had also perceived the charming reflection of the +young girl. "I am dreaming," he cried. "That beautiful image upon +the water is the combination of sunshine and the perfume of many +flowers. I recognize it well. It is the reflection of the image +within my own heart, the divine unknown whom I have worshiped all +my life." + +Tchin-Sing was aroused from his monologue by the voice of his +father, who called him to come at once to the grand saloon. + +"My son," said he, "here is a very rich and very learned man +who seeks you as a husband for his daughter. The young girl has +imperial blood in her veins, is of a rare beauty, and possesses +all the qualities necessary to make her husband happy." + +Tchin-Sing, whose heart was bursting with love for the reflection +seen from the pavilion, refused decidedly. His father, carried +away with passion, heaped upon him the most violent imprecations. + +"Undutiful child," said he, "if you persist in your obstinacy, I +will have you confined in one of the strongest fortresses of the +empire, where you will see nothing but the sea beating against +the rocks, and the mountains covered with mist. There you will +have leisure to reflect, and repent of your wicked conduct." + +These threats did not frighten Tchin-Sing in the least. He +quickly replied that he would accept for his wife the first +maiden who touched his heart, and until then he should listen to +no one. + +The next day, at the same hour, he went to the pavilion on +the lake, and, leaning on the balcony, eagerly watched for the +beloved reflection. In a few moments he saw it glisten in the +water, beauteous as a boquet of submerged flowers. + +A radiant smile broke over the face of the reflection, which +proved to Tchin-Sing that his presence was not unpleasant to the +lovely unknown. But as it was impossible to hold communication +with a reflection whose substance is invisible, he made a sign +that he would write, and vanished into the interior of the +pavilion. He soon reappeared, bearing in his hand a silvered +paper, upon which he had written a declaration of love in +seven-syllabled stanzas. He carefully folded his verses and +placed them in the cup of a white flower, which he rolled in a +leaf of the water-lily, and placed the whole tenderly upon the +surface of the lake. + +A light breeze wafted the lover's message through the arches of +the wall, and it floated so near Ju-Kiouan that she had only to +stretch out her hand to receive it. Fearful of being seen she +returned to her private boudoir, where she read with great +delight the expressions of love written by Tchin-Sing. Her +joy was all the greater, as she recognized from the exquisite +hand-writing and choice versification that the writer was a +man of culture and talent. And when she read his signature, the +significance of which she perceived at once, remembering her +mother's dream, she felt that heaven had sent her the long +desired companion. + +The next day the breeze blew in a different direction, so that +Ju-Kiouan was able to send an answer in verse by the same subtle +messenger, by which, notwithstanding her girlish modesty, it was +easy to see that she returned the love of Tchin-Sing. + +On reading the signature, Tchin-Sing could not repress an +exclamation of surprise and delight. "The pearl," said he, "that +is the precious jewel my mother saw glittering on my bosom. I +must at once entreat this young girl's hand of her parents, for +she is the wife appointed for me by the oracle." + +As he was preparing to go, he suddenly remembered the dislike +between the two families, and the prohibitions inscribed upon +the tablet over the entrance. Determined to win his prize at any +cost, he resolved to confide the whole history to his mother. +Ju-Kiouan had also told her love to Madame Tou. The names of +Pearl and Jasper troubled the good matrons so much that, not +daring to set themselves against what appeared to be the will of +the gods, they both went again to the temple of Fo. + +The bronze oracle replied that this marriage was in reality the +true interpretation of the dreams, and that to prevent it +would be to incur the eternal anger of the gods. Touched by the +entreaties of the mothers, and also by slight mutual advances, +the two fathers gave way and consented to a reconciliation of the +families. The two old friends, on meeting each other again, were +astonished to find what frivolous causes had separated them for +so many years, and mourned sincerely over all the pleasure they +had lost in being deprived of each other's society. The marriage +of the children was celebrated with much rejoicing, and the +Jasper and the Pearl were no longer obliged to hold intercourse +by means of a reflection on the water. The wall was removed, and +the wavelets rippled placidly between the two pavilions on the +lake. + + --_H.S. Conant._ + + +[Illustration: IN THE MOUNTAINS.] + + + + +_IN THE MOUNTAINS._ + + +A line of Walter Savage Landor's, a poet for poets, was an +especial favorite with Southey, and, we believe, with Lamb. +It occurs in "Gebir," and drops from the lips of one of its +characters, who, being suddenly shown the sea, exclaims, + + "Is this the mighty ocean?--is this all?" + +The feeling which underlies this line is generally the first +emotion we have when brought face to face with the stupendous +forms of Nature. It is the feeling inspired by mountains, the +first sight of which is disappointing. They are grand, but not +quite what we were led to expect from pictures and books, and, +still more, from our own imaginations. The more we see mountains, +the more they grow upon us, until, finally, they are clothed +with a grandeur not, in all cases, belonging to them--our Mount +Washingtons over-topping the Alps, and the Alps the Himmalayas. +The poets assist us in thus magnifying them. + +The American poets have translated the mountains of their native +land into excellent verse. Everybody remembers Mr. Bryant's +"Monument Mountain," for its touching story, and its +clearly-defined descriptions of scenery. + +Mr. Stedman has a mountain of his own, though perhaps only in +Dream-land; and Mr. Bayard Taylor has a whole range of them, the +sight of which once filled him with rapture: + + "O deep, exulting freedom of the hills! + O summits vast, that to the climbing view + In naked glory stand against the blue! + O cold and buoyant air, whose crystal fills + Heaven's amethystine gaol! O speeding streams + That foam and thunder from the cliffs below! + O slippery brinks and solitudes of snow + And granite bleakness, where the vulture screams! + O stormy pines, that wrestle with the breath + Of every tempest, sharp and icy horns + And hoary glaciers, sparkling in the morns, + And broad dim wonders of the world beneath! + I summon ye, and mid the glare that fills + The noisy mart, my spirit walks the hills." + + * * * * * + +GLADNESS OF NATURE.--Midnight--when asleep so still and +silent--seems inspired with the joyous spirit of the owls in +their revelry--and answers to their mirth and merriment through +all her clouds. The moping owl, indeed!--the boding owl, +forsooth! the melancholy owl, you blockhead! why, they are the +most cheerful, joy-portending, and exulting of God's creatures. +Their flow of animal spirits is incessant--crowing cocks are +a joke to them--blue devils are to them unknown--not one +hypochondriac in a thousand barns--and the Man-in-the-Moon +acknowledges that he never heard one utter a complaint. + + + + +_THE NOONING._ + + +Mr. Darley's very characteristic picture on the opposite page +needs no description, it so thoroughly explains itself, and +realizes his intention. The following lines from Mary Howitt seem +very appropriate to the sketch: + + "O golden fields of bending corn, + How beautiful they seem! + The reaper-folk, the piled up sheaves, + To me are like a dream; + The sunshine and the very air + Seem of old time, and take me there." + + + + +_A MANDARIN._ + +FROM THE FRENCH OF AUGUSTE VITU. + + +It was Saturday night, and the pavement sparkled with frost +diamonds under flashing lights and echoing steps in the opera +quarter. Tinkling carnival bells and wild singing resounded from +all the carriages dashing towards Rue Lepelletier; the shops were +only half shut, and Paris, wide awake, reveled in a fairy-night +frolic. + +And yet, Felix d'Aubremel, one of the bright applauded heroes of +those orgies, seemed in no mood to answer their mad challenge. +Plunged in a deep armchair, hands drooping and feet on the +fender, he was sunk in sombre revery. An open book lay near him, +and a letter was flung, furiously crumpled, on the floor. + +An orphan at the age of twelve, Felix had watched his mother's +slow death through ten years of suffering. The Marquis Gratien +d'Aubremel, ruined by reckless dissipation, and driven by +necessity, rather than love, into a marriage with an English +heiress, Margaret Malden, deserted her, like the wretch he was, +as soon as the last of her dowry melted away. A common story +enough, and ending in as common a close. D'Aubremel sailed for +the Indies to retrieve his fortune, and met death there by yellow +fever. So that the sad lessons of Felix's family life stimulated +to excess his innate leaning towards misanthropy--if that name +may define a resistless urgency of belief in the appearances of +evil, linked with a doubt of the reality of good. Probably, at +heart, he believed himself incapable of a bad action, but he +would take no oath to such a conviction, since by his theory +every man must yield under certain circumstances, attacking +powerfully his personal interest, while threatening slight danger +of failure or detection. This style of thought, set off by a fair +share of witty expression and ever-ready impertinence, gave Felix +a kind of ascendancy in his circle of intimates--but naturally +it gained him no friends. Common reputation grows out of words +rather than actions, and Felix suffered the just penalty of his +sceptical fancies. They cost him more than they were worth, as he +had just learned by sad experience. + +He had chanced to make the acquaintance of a rich manufacturer, +Montmorot by name, whose daughter Ernestine was pleased with +the devotion of a charming young fellow, who mingled the rather +reckless grace of French cleverness with a reserved style and +refined pride gained from the English blood of the Maldens. +For his part, Felix really loved the girl, and had let his +impatience, that very day, carry him into a step that failed to +move the elder Montmorot's inflexibility. He refused absolutely +to give his daughter to a man without fortune or prospects. Felix +was crushed, his hopes all shattered at a blow, by this answer, +though he had a thousand reasons to expect it. And at what a +moment! A half-unfolded red ticket, stuffed with disgusting +threats, peeped out from between the wall and his sofa. The +officers of justice had paid him a little visit. He got into a +passion with himself. + +"Pshaw," he cried, "confound all scruples! If I had been less in +love I should be Ernestine's husband now. With a pretty wife, one +I am so fond of, too, I should have fortune, position, and the +luxury indispensable to my life--now, I don't know where to lay +my head to-morrow. To-morrow, at ten o'clock, the sheriff will +seize everything--everything, from that Troyou sketch to that +china monster, nodding his frightful sneering head at me. They +will carry off this casket that was my father's--this locket, +with the hair of--of--what the deuce was her name? Poor girl! how +she loved me! And now all that is left of her vanishes--even her +name! + +"What, nothing? no hope? Not even one of those silly impulses +that used to drive me out into the streets when everybody else +was abed, with the firm conviction that at some crossing, in some +gutter, some unknown deity must have dropped a fat pocket-book, +on purpose for me! I believed in something, then--even in lost +pocket-books. And now, now! I would commit no such follies as +that, but I believe I could be guilty of even worse things, +if crime, common, low, contemptible, shameful crime, were not +forbidden to the son of the Marquis d'Aubremel and Margaret +Malden. + +"Oh, great genius!" he went on, taking up the open book near him, +"great philosopher, called a sophist by the ignorant--how deep a +truth you uttered in writing these lines, that I never read +over without a shudder: 'Imagine a Chinese mandarin, living in a +fabulous country three thousand leagues away, whom you have never +seen and shall never see--imagine, moreover, that the death +of this mandarin, this man, almost a myth, would make you a +millionaire, and that you have but to lift your finger, at home, +in France, to bring about his death, without the possibility of +ever being called to account for it by any one; say, what would +you do?' + +"That fearful passage must have made many men dream--and does +not Bianchon, that great materialist, so well painted by Balzac, +confess that he has got as far as his thirty-third mandarin? What +a St. Bartholomew of mandarins, if my philosopher's supposition +could grow into a truth!" + +Felix ceased his soliloquy, and bent his head to let the storm +raised in his soul by the atheist philosopher pass over. His bad +instincts, aroused, spoke louder at that instant than reason, +louder than reality. His glance fell on the chimney-piece, where +a porcelain figure, the grotesque _chef d'oeuvre_ of some great +Chinese artist, leered at him with its everlasting grin. +The young man smiled. "Perhaps that is the likeness of a +mandarin--bulbous nose, hanging cheeks, moustaches drooping +like plumes, a peaked head, knotty hands--a regular deformity. +Reflecting on the ugliness of that idiotic race, there is much to +be urged by way of excuse for people who kill mandarins." + +Some persistent thought evidently haunted Felix's mind. Again he +drove it off, and again it beset him. + +"Pshaw!" he exclaimed, after a last brief struggle, "I am alone, +and out of sorts. I will amuse myself with a carnival freak, a +mere theoretic and philosophic piece of nonsense. I have tried +many worse ones. It wants a quarter to twelve. I give myself +fifteen minutes to study my spells. Let me see, what mandarin +shall I murder? I don't know any, and I have no peerage list of +the Flowery Empire. Let me try the newspapers." + +It was in the height of the English war with China. On the +seventh column of the paper our hero found a proclamation signed +by the imperial commissioners, Lin, Lou, Lun, and Li. + +"Here goes for Li," he said to himself. "He is likely to be the +youngest." + +The clock began to strike, announcing the hour. Felix placed +himself solemnly before the mirror, and said aloud, in a +grave tone: "If the death of Mandarin Li will make me rich +and powerful, whatever may come of it, I vote for the death of +Mandarin Li." He lifted his finger--at that instant the porcelain +figure rocked on its base, and fell in fragments at Felix's feet. +The glass reflected his startled face. He thrilled for an instant +with superstitious terror, but recollecting that his finger had +touched the fragile figure, he accounted for it as an accident, +and went to bed and to such repose as a debtor can enjoy with an +execution hanging over his head. + +Masks and dominos made the street merry under his window. The +opera ball was unusually brilliant, experts said, and nothing +made the Parisians aware that on the night of January 12th, 1840, +Felix d'Aubremel had passed sentence of death on Chinaman Li, son +of Mung, son of Tseu, a literate mandarin of the 114th class. + +Nine months later Felix d'Aubremel was living in furnished +lodgings in an alley off the Rue St. Pierre, and living by +borrowing. The gentlemanly sceptic owed his landlady a good deal +of money; his clothes were aged past wearing, and his tailor +had long ago broken off all relations with him. The Marquis +d'Aubremel was within a hairsbreadth of that utterly crushed +state that ends in madness, or in suicide--which is only a +variety of madness. + +One morning while sitting in the glass cage that leads to the +staircase of every lodging-house, waiting to beg another respite +from his landlady, he took up a newspaper, and the following +notice was lucky enough to catch his attention. + +"Chiusang, 12th January, 1840. Hostilities have broken out +between England and the Celestial Empire. The sudden and +inexplicable death of Mandarin Li, the only member of the council +who opposed the violent and warlike projects of Lin, led to +unfortunate events. At the first attack the Chinese fled, with +the basest want of pluck, but in their retreat they murdered +several English merchants, and among them an old resident, +Richard Maiden, who leaves an estate of half a million sterling. +The heirs of the deceased are requested to communicate with +William Harrison, Solicitor, Lincoln's Inn." + +"My uncle!" cried Felix. "Alas, I have killed my uncle and +Mandarin Li." + +He had not a penny to pay for his traveling expenses to London; +but, on producing his certificate of birth and the newspaper +article, his landlady easily negotiated for him with an honest +broker, who advanced him a thousand francs to arrange his +affairs, without interest, upon his note for a trifle of eighteen +hundred, payable in six weeks. + +Eight days after reaching London, Felix, established in a +fashionable hotel, was awaiting with nervous eagerness the first +instalment of a million, the proceeds of a cargo of teas, sold +under the direction of Mr. Harrison. He was too restless for +thought, burning with impatience to take possession of his +property, to handle his wealth, and, as it were, to verify his +dream. Yet the fact was indisputable. Richard Malden's death, and +his own relationship to the intestate had been legally proved and +established. Felix d'Aubremel regularly and assuredly inherited a +fortune, and he had no doubts nor scruples on that point. + +A servant interrupted his reflections, announcing his solicitor's +clerk. "Why does not Mr. Harrison come himself?" he was on the +point of asking, but amazement at the clerk's appearance took +away his breath. He was a shriveled little object, slight, bony, +crooked and hideous, with a monstrous head and round eyes, a bald +skull, a flat nose, a mouth from ear to ear, and a little jutting +paunch that looked like a sack. + +"I bring the Marquis d'Aubremel the monies he is expecting," said +the man, and his voice, shrill and silvery, like a musical box or +the bell of a clock, impressed Felix painfully. The voice grated +on the nerves. "I have drawn a receipt in regular form," said +Felix, extending his hand. But the solicitor's clerk leaned his +back against the door, without stirring a step. "Well, sir," +Felix exclaimed with a convulsive effort. The man approached +slowly, scarcely moving his feet, as if sliding across the floor. +His right hand was buried in his coat pocket; he held his head +bent down, and his lips moved inaudibly. At last he pulled from +his pocket a large bundle of banknotes, bills and papers, drew +near the window, and began to count them carefully. + +Felix was then struck by a strange phenomenon that might well +inspire undefined terror. Standing directly in front of the +window, the clerk's figure cast no shadow, though the sun's rays +fell full upon it, and through his human body, translucent as +rock crystal, Felix plainly saw the houses across the street. +Then his eyes seemed to be suddenly unsealed. The clerk's black +coat took colors, blue, green, and scarlet; it lengthened out +into the folds of a robe, and blazed with the dazzling image of +the fire-dragon, the son of Buddha; a lock of stiff grayish hair +sprouted like a short tuft out of his yellowish skull; his round +tawny eyes rolled with frightful rapidity in their sockets. + +Felix recognized Li, son of Mung, son of Tseu, the literate +mandarin of the 114th class. The murderer had never seen his +victim, but could not doubt his identity a moment, thanks to the +marvelous resemblance between the solicitor's clerk and the china +monster that dropped into bits at his feet the night of January +12th, 1840. + +Meantime the man had done counting his package, and held it out +to Felix, saying, in his grating, vibrating tones, "Monsieur le +Marquis, here are forty thousand pounds sterling; please to give +me your receipt." And Felix heard the voice say in a shriller +under-key, "Felix, here is an instalment of the million, the +price of your crime. Felix, my assassin, take this money from my +hand." + +"From my hand," echoed a thousand fine voices, quivering all +through the air of the room. + +"No, no," cried Felix, pushing the clerk away, "the money would +burn me! Begone with you!" + +He dropped exhausted into a chair, half suffocated, with drops +of sweat rolling down his convulsed face. The man bowed to the +floor, and slowly moved away backwards. With every gradual step +Felix saw his natural shape return. The rays of the autumn sun +ceased to light up that mysterious apparition, and only +his attorney's humble clerk stood before Felix. With a rush +overpowering his will, Felix dashed after the old man, already +across the threshold, and overtook him on the staircase. + +"My papers!" he shouted imperiously. "Here they are, sir," said +the old fellow quietly. + +Felix regained his room, bolted the door, and counted the immense +sum contained in the pocket-book with excitement bordering on +frenzy. Then he bathed his burning head with cold water, and +threw an anxious look around the room. + +"I must have had an attack of fever," he muttered. + +[Illustration: A TROPIC FOREST.--GRANVILLE PERKINS] + +"Mandarins don't rise from the dead, and a man can't kill another +by simply lifting his finger. So my philosopher talked like one +who knows nothing of moral experience. If the fancy of an unreal +crime almost drove me mad, what must be the remorse of an actual +criminal?" + +The same evening Felix ordered post horses and set out for +France. + +Some months later, Monsieur Montmorot, chevalier of the legion of +honor, gave a grand dinner to celebrate his daughter's betrothal +with the Marquis Felix d'Aubremel, one of the noblest names in +France, as he styled it. The contract settling a part of his +fortune on his daughter Ernestine was signed at nine in the +evening. The Monday following the pair presented themselves +before the civil officials to solemnize their marriage by due +legal ceremonies. + +Felix, a prey to the strange hallucination that incessantly +pursued him, saw a likeness between the official and the Chinese +figure he had awkwardly thrown down and broken one night long +ago. Presently his face darkened, and his eyes began to burn. +Behind the magistrate's blue spectacles he caught the gleam and +roll of the tawny eyes belonging to Mr. Harrison's clerk, to Li, +son of Mung, son of Tseu. + +When at length the magistrate put the formal question, "Felix +Etienne d'Aubremel, do you take for your wife Ernestine Juliette +Montmorot," Felix heard a shrill ringing voice say, "Felix, I +give you your wife with my hand--my hand." + +The official repeated the question more loudly. "With my hand--my +hand," whispered a thousand mocking little voices. + +"No!" Felix shouted rather than answered, and rushed away from +the spot like a lunatic. + +Once more at home, he shut out everyone and flung himself on his +bed, in a state of stupor that weighed him down till night--a +sort of dull torpor of brain, with utter exhaustion of physical +strength--a misery of formless thought. Towards evening one +persistent idea aroused him from this strange lethargy. + +"I am a cowardly murderer," he groaned. "I wished for my +fellow-being's death. God punishes me--I will execute his +sentence." He stretched out his hand in the dark, groping for a +dagger that hung from the wall. Then a mild brightness filtered +through the curtains and irradiated the bed. Felix distinctly saw +the grotesque figure of Mandarin Li standing a few steps away. +The shadow of death darkened his face, and without seeming +movement of his lips, Felix heard these words, uttered by that +shrill ringing voice so hated, now mellowed into divine music. + +"Felix d'Aubremel, God does not will that you should die, and I, +his servant, am sent to tell you his decree. You have been cruel +and covetous--you have wished an innocent man's death, and his +death caused that of a multitude of victims to the barbarous +passions of a great western nation. Man's life must be sacred +for every man. God only can take what he gave. Live, then, if you +would not add a great crime to a great error. And if forgiveness +from one dead can restore in part your strength and courage to +endure, Felix, I forgive you." + +The vision vanished. + +Felix religiously obeyed the instructions of Li, and consecrated +his life by a vow to the relief of human misery wherever he +found it. He devoted Richard Malden's vast fortune to founding +charitable establishments. Ernestine Montmorot would never +consent to see him again. + +Two years ago, yielding to an impulse easy to understand, he +requested the English consul at Chiusang to make inquiries as +to the family of Li, who might perhaps be suffering in poverty. +Nothing more could be discovered than that the gracious sovereign +of the Middle Kingdom had confiscated the property of Li's +family, that his wife had died of sorrow, in misery, and that +his son, Li, having taken the liberty to complain of the glorious +emperor's severity, suffered death by the bowstring, as is proper +and reasonable in all well-governed states. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: MOTHER IS HERE!--DEIKER.] + +MOTHER IS HERE!--A little fawn in the clutches of a fox bleats +loudly for help. The mother appears quickly on the scene, and +Renard retires, foiled and chagrined at the loss of his dinner. +He stays not upon the order of his going, but goes at once. The +artist Deiker is a well-known German painter, whose success with +these pictures of animal life ranks him with such men as Beckmann +and Hammer, whose names are familiar to the friends of _THE +ALDINE_. + + + + +_A TROPIC FOREST._ + + + Trees lifted to the skies their stately heads, + Tufted with verdure, like depending plumage, + O'er stems unknotted, waving to the wind: + Of these in graceful form, and simple beauty, + The fruitful cocoa and the fragrant palm + Excelled the wilding daughters of the wood, + That stretched unwieldly their enormous arms, + Clad with luxuriant foliage, from the trunk, + Like the old eagle feathered to the heel; + While every fibre, from the lowest root + To the last leaf upon the topmost twig, + Was held by common sympathy, diffusing + Through all the complex frame unconscious life. + + --_Montgomery's Pelican Island_. + + * * * * * + +What makes us like new acquaintances is not so much any weariness +of our old ones, or the pleasure of change, as disgust at not +being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well, and +the hope of being more so by those who do not know so much of +us.--_La Rochefoucauld_. + + + + +_AMONG THE DAISIES._ + + "Laud the first spring daisies-- + Chant aloud their praises."--_Ed. Youl._ + + "When daisies pied and violets blue, + And lady-smocks all silver white-- + And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, + Do paint the meadows with delight." + + --_Shakspeare._ + + + +"Belle et douce Marguerite, aimable soeur du roi Kingcup," +enthusiastically exclaims genial Leigh Hunt, "we would tilt for +thee with a hundred pens against the stoutest poet that did not +find perfection in thy cheek." And yet, who would have the heart +to slander the daisy, or cause a blush of shame to tint +its whiteness? Tastes vary, and poets may value the flower +differently; but a rash, deliberate condemnation of the daisy is +as likely to become realized as is a harsh condemnation of the +innocence and simplicity of childhood. So the chivalric Hunt need +not fear being invoked from the silence of the grave to take part +in a lively tournament for "belle et douce Marguerite." + +Subjectively, the daisy is a theme upon which we love to linger. +In our natural state, when flesh and spirit are both models +of meekness, two objects are wont to throw us into a kind of +ecstasy: a row of nicely painted white railings, and a bunch of +fresh daisies. These waft us back along a vista of years, peopled +with scenes the most entrancing, and fancies the most pleasing. +They call up at once the old country home: the honeysuckle +clasping the thatched cottage, contrasting so prettily with the +white fence in front: the sloping fields of green painted with +daisies, through which, unshackled, the buoyant breeze swept so +peacefully. It was an invariable rule, in those days, to +troop through the meadows at early morn and, like a young +knight-errant, bear home in triumph "Marguerite," the peerless +daisy, rescued from the clutches of unmentionable dragons, +and now to beam brightly on us for the rest of the day from a +neighboring mantel-piece. And it was with great reluctance that +we refrained from decapitating the whole field of daisies at one +fell sweep, when we were once allowed to touch their upturned +faces. A contract was then made on the spot: we were permitted to +pluck the daisies on condition that we plucked but one every day. +The field was not large, and long before the blasts of autumn had +hushed the voices of the flowers, not a single daisy remained. +Advancing spring threw lavish handfuls once more on the grass, +and on these we sported anew with all the ardor of boyhood. + +Our enthusiasm for the daisy then is only equaled by the +gratitude it now awakens. Too soon does the busy world, with +unwarrantable liberty, allure us from boyish scenes. Too soon are +the buoyant fancies of youth succeeded by the feverish anxieties +of age, happy innocence by the consciousness of evil, confidence +by doubt, faith by despair. We must chill our demonstrativeness, +restrain our affections, blunt our sensibilities. We must +cultivate conscience until we have too much of it, and become +monkish, savage and misanthropic. The asceticism of manhood is +apparent from the studied air with which everybody is on his +guard against his neighbor. In a crowded car, men instinctively +clutch their pockets, and fancy a pickpocket in a benevolent-looking +old gentleman opposite. When we see men so distrustful, we shun +them. They then call us selfish when we feel only solitary. We +protest against such manhood as would lower golden ideals of +youth to its own contemptible _Avernus_. And now as our daisy, +which is blooming before us, sagely nods its white crest as it is +swayed by the passing breeze, it seems to bring back of itself +decades gone forever. We never intend to become a man. We keep +our boy's heart ever fresh and ever warm. We don't care if the +whole human race, from the Ascidians to Darwin himself, assail us +and fiercely thrust us once more into short jackets and +knickerbockers, provided they allow an indefinite vacation in a +daisy field. The joy of childhood is said to be vague. It was all +satisfying to us once, and we do not intend to allow it to waste +in unconscious effervescence among the gaudier though less +gratifying delights of manhood. + +It is, however, of daisies among the poets we would speak at more +length. In fact, to the imaginative mind, the daisy in poetry is +as suggestive as the daisy in nature. Philosophically, they are +identical; in the absence of the one you can commune with the +other. Thus unconsciously the daisy undergoes a metempsychosis; +its soul is transferred at will from meadow to book and from book +to meadow, without losing a particle of its vitality. + +To premise with the daisy historically: Among the Romans it +was called _Bellis_, or "pretty one;" in modern Greece, it +is star-flower. In France, Spain, and Italy, it was named +"Marguerita," or pearl, a term which, being of Greek origin, +doubtless was brought from Constantinople by the Franks. From +the word "Marguerita," poems in praise of the daisy were termed +"Bargerets." Warton calls them "Bergerets," or "songs du Berger," +that is, shepherd songs. These were pastorals, lauding fair +mistresses and maidens of the day under the familiar title of +the daisy. Froissart has written a characteristic Bargeret; and +Chaucer, in his "Flower and the Leaf," sings: + + "And, at the last, there began, anone, + A lady for to sing right womanly, + A bargaret in praising the daisie; + For as methought among her notes sweet, + She said, 'Si douce est la Margarite." + +Speght supposes that Chaucer here intends to pay a compliment to +Lady Margaret, King Edward's daughter, Countess of Pembroke, one +of his patronesses. But Warton hesitates to express a decided +opinion as to the reference. Chaucer shows his love for the daisy +in other places. In his "Prologue to the Legend of Good Women," +alluding to the power with which the flowers drive him from his +books, he says that + + "all the floures in the mede, + Than love I most these floures white and rede, + Soch that men callen daisies in our toun + To hem I have so great affectioun, + As I sayd erst, whan comen is the May, + That in my bedde there daweth me no day, + That I nam up and walking in the mede, + To seen this floure agenst the Sunne sprede." + +To see it early in the morn, the poet continues: + + "That blissfull sight softeneth all my sorow, + So glad am I, whan that I have presence + Of it, to done it all reverence + As she that is of all floures the floure." + +Chaucer says that to him it is ever fresh, that he will cherish +it till his heart dies; and then he describes himself resting on +the grass, gazing on the daisy: + + "Adowne full softly I gan to sink, + And leaning on my elbow and my side, + The long day I shope me for to abide, + For nothing els, and I shall nat lie, + But for to looke upon the daisie, + That well by reason men it call may + The daisie, or els the eye of day." + +Chaucer gives us the true etymology of the word in the last line. +Ben Jonson, to confirm it, writes with more force than elegance, + + "Days-eyes, and the lippes of cows;" + +that is, cowslips; a "disentanglement of compounds,"--Leigh Hunt +says, in the style of the parodists: + + "Puddings of the plum + And fingers of the lady." + +The poets abound in allusions to the daisy. It serves both for +a moral and for an epithet. The morality is adduced more by +our later poets, who have written whole poems in its honor. The +earlier poets content themselves generally with the daisy +in description, and leave the daisy in ethics to such a +philosophico-poetical Titan as Wordsworth. Douglas (1471), in his +description of the month of May, writes: + + "The dasy did on crede (unbraid) hir crownet smale." + +And Lyndesay (1496), in the prologue to his "Dreme," describes +June + + "Weill bordowrit with dasyis of delyte." + +The eccentric Skelton, who wrote about the close of the 15th +century, in a sonnet, says: + + "Your colowre + Is lyke the daisy flowre + After the April showre." + +Thomas Westwood, in an agreeable little madrigal, pictures the +daisies: + + "All their white and pinky faces + Starring over the green places." + +Thomas Nash (1592), in another of similar quality, exclaims: + + "The fields breathe sweet, + The daisies kiss our feet." + +Suckling, in his famous "Wedding," in his description of the +bride, confesses: + + "Her cheeks so rare a white was on + No daisy makes comparison." + +Spenser, in his "Prothalamion," alludes to + + "The little dazie that at evening closes." + +George Wither speaks of the power of his imagination: + + "By a daisy, whose leaves spread + Shut when Titan goes to bed; + Or a shady bush or tree, + She could more infuse in me + Than all Nature's beauties can + In some other wiser man." + +Poor Chatterton, in his "Tragedy of Ella," refers to the daisy in +the line: + + "In daiseyed mantells is the mountayne dyghte." + +Hervey, in his "May," describes + + "The daisy singing in the grass + As thro' the cloud the star." + +And Hood, in his fanciful "Midsummer Fairies," sings of + + "Daisy stars whose firmament is green." + +Burns, whose "Ode to a Mountain Daisy" is so universally admired, +gives, besides, a few brief notices of the daisy: + + "The lowly daisy sweetly blows--" + "The daisy's for simplicity and unaffected air." + +Tennyson has made the daisy a subject of one of his most +unsatisfactory poems. In "Maud," he writes: + + "Her feet have touched the meadows + And left the daisies rosy." + +To Wordsworth, the poet of nature, the daisy seems perfectly +intelligible. Scattered throughout the lowly places, with +meekness it seems to shed beauty over its surroundings, and +compensate for gaudy vesture by cheerful contentment. Wordsworth +calls the daisy "the poet's darling," "a nun demure," "a little +Cyclops," "an unassuming commonplace of nature," and sums up its +excellences in a verse which may fitly conclude our attempt to +pluck a bouquet of fresh daisies from the poets: + + "Sweet flower! for by that name at last, + When all my reveries are past, + I call thee, and to that cleave fast; + Sweet silent creature! + That breath'st with me in sun and air, + Do thou, as thou art wont, repair + My heart with gladness, and a share + Of thy meek nature!" + + --_A.S. Isaacs_. + + + * * * * * + +_COLERIDGE AS A PLAGIARIST._ + +SOMETHING CHILDISH BUT VERY NATURAL. + +WRITTEN IN GERMANY 1798-99. + + + If I had but two little wings, + And were a little feathery bird, + To you I'd fly, my dear! + But thoughts like these are idle things, + And I stay here. + + But in my sleep to you I fly: + I'm always with you in my sleep! + The world is all one's own. + But then one wakes, and where am I? + All, all alone. + + Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids, + So I love to wake ere break of day: + For though my sleep be gone, + Yet, while tis dark, one shuts one's lids, + And still dreams on. + +Thus much for Coleridge. Now for his original: + + "Were I a little bird, + Had I two wings of mine, + I'd fly to my dear; + But that can never be, + So I stay here. + + "Though I am far from thee, + Sleeping I'm near to thee, + Talk with my dear; + When I awake again, + I am alone. + + "Scarce there's an hour in the night + When sleep does not take its flight, + And I think of thee, + How many thousand times + Thou gav'st thy heart to me." + +"This," says Mr. Bayard Taylor, in the _Notes_ to his translation +of _Faust_, "this is an old song of the people of Germany. Herder +published it in his _Volkslieder_, in 1779, but it was no doubt +familiar to Goethe in his childhood. The original melody, to +which it is still sung, is as simple and sweet as the words." + + + + +_AMONG THE PERUVIANS._ + + +The extremes of civilization and barbarism are nearer together +in those countries which the Spaniards have wrested from their +native inhabitants, than in any other portion of the globe. +Before other European races, aboriginal tribes, even the +fiercest, gradually disappear. They hold their own before the +descendants of the _conquistadores_, who conquered the New +World only to be conquered by it. Out of Spain the Spaniard +deteriorates, and nowhere so much as in South America. Of course +he is superior there to the best of the Indian tribes with which +he is thrown in contact; but we doubt whether he is superior to +the intelligent, but forgotten, races which peopled the regions +around him centuries before Pizzaro set foot therein, and which +built enormous cities whose ruins have long been overgrown by +forests. To compare the Spaniard of to-day, in Peru, with its +ancient Incas is to do him no honor. To be sure, he is a +good Catholic, which the Incas were not, but he is indolent, +enervated, and enslaved by his own passions. His religion has not +done much for him--at least in this world, whatever it may do in +the next. It has done still less, if that be possible, for the +aboriginal Peruvians. + +"In all parts of Peru," says a recent traveler, "except amongst +the savage Indian tribes, Christianity, at least nominally +prevails. The aborigines, however, converted by the sword in the +old days of Spanish persecution, do not, as a rule, seem to have +more notion of that faith in the country parts, than such as +may be obtained from stray visits of some errant, image-bearing +friar, whose principal object is to obtain sundry _reals_ in +consideration of prayers offered to his little idols. These +wandering ministers also distribute execrably colored prints of +various saints, besides having indulgences for sale. As to the +nature of the pious offerings from their disciples, they are not +at all particular. They go upon the easy principle that all is +fish that comes into their net. If the ignorant and superstitious +givers have not 'filthy lucre' wherewithal to propitiate the ugly +represented saints, wax candles, silver ore, cacao, sugar, and +any other description of property is as readily received. Thus, +it often happens that these peripatetic friars have a long convoy +of heavily-laden mules with which to gladden the members of their +monastery when they return home. + +[Illustration: FASHIONABLE LOUNGERS OF LIMA.] + +"The priests in all parts of Peru dress in a very extraordinary, +not to say outlandish manner. One of the lower grade wears a very +capacious shovel hat, projecting as much in front as behind, and +looking very like a double-ended coal-heaver's _hat_. A loose +black serge robe covers him all over, as with a funereal pall, +and being fastened together only at the neck, gives to his often +obese figure an appearance the very reverse of grave or serious: +The superior of a monastery, or the priest in charge of a parish, +wears a more stately clerical costume. His hat is of formidable +dimensions--a huge, flat, Chinese-umbrella-shaped sort of a +concern, which cannot be compared to anything else in creation. +He also affects ruffles and lace, a long cassock, and a +voluminous cloak like many of those of Geneva combined together; +black silk stockings and low shoes complete the clerical array of +the higher ecclesiastics." + +[Illustration: RIDING AND FULL-DRESS COSTUME OF THE PERUVIAN +LADIES.] + +Quite as odd, in their way, as these good padres, are the +Peruvian loungers, the "lions" of Lima--a long-haired, becloaked, +truculent-looking set of fellows, whose proper place would seem +to be among operatic banditti. A greater contrast and disparity +than exists between them and the beautiful brunettes to whom they +are fain to devote themselves, cannot well be imagined. That the +latter generally prefer European gentlemen to these ill-favored +beaux, follows as a matter of course. That the discarded "lion" +resents this preference of his fair countrywomen, we have the +testimony of the traveler already quoted from. + +"Instinctively, as it were, a feeling of dislike and rivalry +seemed to prevail between ourselves and such of these truculent +gentry as it was our fortune to come into contact with. They were +jealous, no doubt, of the wandering foreigners, whom they chose +contemptuously to term _gringos_, but who, they know well +enough, are infinitely preferred to themselves by their handsome +coquettish countrywomen. It is, indeed, notoriously the fact, +that any respectable man of European birth can marry well, and +even far above his own social position, amongst the dark-eyed +donnas of Peru. The men don't seem exactly to like it. Judging by +their appearance, we found but little difficulty in believing the +character which report had given them--namely, their proneness to +assassination, especially in love affairs, either personally, +or, more frequently, by deputy. If the brilliant creole and +half-caste women of this warm, tropical country, are some of +the most beautiful and lovable of the sex, their sallow, +sinister-looking, natural protectors are just the very opposite. +The singular difference in the moral and physical characteristics +of the two sexes is something really remarkable, and I, for one, +cannot satisfactorily explain it to my own mind. That such is the +case I venture to affirm; the why and the wherefore I must fain +leave to wiser ethnological heads." + +Not less curious, as regards costume, are the Peruvian ladies. +And, as they are _equestriennes_, we will describe their +riding-habits in the words of the same traveler: + +"To commence at the top. This riding dress consisted of a huge +felt hat, both tall and broad, and generally ornamented with a +plume of three great feathers sticking up in front. Next came an +all-round sort of a cape, of no shape in particular, with a +wide collar, several rows of fringe, much needle-work (and +corresponding waste of time upon so hideous a garment), and of +a length sufficient to reach below the waist, and so completely +hide and spoil the wearer's generally fine figure. Then came a +short overskirt, extending a little below the knees, and beneath +which appeared the fair senora or senorita's most unfeminine +pantaloons, which, being carefully tied above the ankle in a +frill, were allowed to fully display that treasure of treasures, +that most valued of charms, the beautiful little foot and ankle. +In addition to this absurd dress, which conceals the graceful +form of perhaps the handsomest race of women in the world, +the fair creatures have a style of riding which, to Europeans +accustomed to the side-saddle, certainly seems more peculiar +than elegant; that is to say, they ride a la Duchesse de +Berri--_Anglice_, like a man. + +"The full dress, or evening costume, in the provinces, seemed +simply an exaggeration upon that of the towns--the crinoline +being more extensive, the petticoats shorter, and the dressing of +the hair still more wonderful and elaborate." + +[Illustration: YOUNG MESTIZO WOMAN. MIDDLE-AGED LIMENA.] + +Among the _mestizos_, half-castes, of white and Indian origin the +women are often very beautiful, especially when the blood of the +latter prevails. They are, we are told, the best-looking of all +the Peruvian women, possessing brilliantly fair complexions, +magnificent long black tresses, lithe and graceful figures of +exquisite proportions, regular and classic features, and the most +superb great black eyes. + +"Though often glorious in youth, these dark-skinned, passionate +daughters of the sunny Pacific shore soon begin to fade. Although +their scant costume and the _manto y saya_--the dress favored at +night--serve only to expose and display the charming contour of +their youthful form, as the years roll on and rob them of +these alluring attractions, the simple array becomes ugly and +ridiculous. Often did we laugh at the absurd figure presented by +some stout, middle-aged half-caste, or a good many more caste, +lady, clad in her _manto y saya_. Especially ludicrous did these +staid females appear when viewed from behind." + +The Peruvian negress, of elderly years, compares not unfavorably +with her whiter Spanish sister of the same age. Both display +inordinate vanity, which consorts ill with the brawny calves and +large feet they cannot help showing on account of their short +though voluminous skirts, and both have a womanly love of +jewelry. + +"They manifest a very apparent weakness for all sorts of +glittering ornaments, especially in the way of numerous rings, +huge ear-rings, and mighty necklaces. Indeed, it is not at all +uncommon to see pearls (their favorite gem) of great value, +rising and falling, and gleaming with incongruous lustre, upon +their bare, black, and massive bosoms; whilst ear-rings of solid +gold hang glittering from their large ears, in singular contrast +to their common and dirty clothing. + +"Except for the occasional excitement of theatre, cock-fight, or +bull-fight, and the regular attendance at mass and vespers, the +life of the higher class Limena is a dreamy existence of languor, +amidst siestas, cigarettes, agua-rica, and jasmine perfumes, the +tinkling of guitars, and the melody of song. Alas! that I must +record it; she is, too, a terrible _intriguante_. The _manto y +saya_, the _bete noir_ of many a poor jealous husband, seems a +garment for disguise, invented on purpose to oblige her. It +is the very thing for an intriguing dame; and, by a stringent +custom, bears a sacred inviolate right, for no man dare profane +it by a touch, although he may even suspect the bright black eye, +it may alone allow to be seen, to be that of his own wife! He +can follow, if he likes, the graceful, muffled up figure that he +dreads to be so familiar, but woe to the wretch who dares to +pull aside a fair Limena's _manto_! If seen, he would surely +experience the resentment of the crowd, and become a regular +laughing-stock to all who knew him." + +But let us be just to the women of Peru, who, in the matter of +flirting and fondness for finery, are probably not worse than the +sex elsewhere. They love where they love with a fervor unknown +to the women of Europe, their Spanish sisters, perhaps, excepted, +and they are capable of profound patriotism. + +[Illustration: PERUVIAN PRIESTS.] + +There is an element of real strength in the wild, stormy nature +of these beautiful and impassioned creatures: it is their +misfortune not to know how to hide their weaknesses as well +as their more sophisticated sisters. The tide of time flows so +smoothly with them, through such level summer landscapes steeped +in tropical repose, that the desire for excitement naturally +arises, and excitement itself becomes a necessity. Lacking many +of the indoor employments of the women of colder climates, time +hangs heavy on their hands, idleness wearies, and they cast about +for a way in which to amuse, enjoy, and distract themselves. They +find it in love. If no European is near upon whom they can bestow +their smiles and the lustre of their magnificent eyes, they have +to be content with their own countrymen, who woo them after the +fashion of their Spanish ancestors, by serenades at night, in +which the strumming of guitars generally plays a more important +part than the words it accompanies. + +While we are among the Peruvians, we must not entirely overlook +their country, and the features of its varied landscapes. It is +divided by the Andes into three different lands, so to speak, _La +Costa_, the region between the coast and the Andes; _La Sierra_, +the mountain region, and _La Montana_, or the wooded region +east of the Andes. _La Costa_, in which Lima is situated, at +the distance of about six miles from the sea, may be briefly +described as a sandy desert, interspersed with fertile valleys, +and watered by several rivers of no great magnitude. It seldom +or never rains there, but there are heavy dews at night which +freshen and preserve the vegetation. The magnificence of the +mountain region baffles all attempts at word-painting, as it +baffles the art of the painter. Church, the artist, gives us what +is, perhaps, the best representation we are ever likely to +have of it, but it is only a glimpse after all. Still more +indescribable, if that be possible, are the enormous wildernesses +which stretch from the Andes to the vast pampas to the eastward. +"Here everything is on Nature's great scale. The whole country +is one continuous forest, which, beginning at very different +heights, presents an undulating aspect. One moves on his way with +trees before, above, and beneath him, in a deep abyss like the +ocean. And in these woods, as on the immensity of the waters, +the mind is bewildered; whatever way it directs the eye there it +meets the majesty of the Infinite. The marvels of Nature are in +these regions so common that one becomes accustomed to behold, +without emotion, trees whose tops exceed the height of 100 varas +(290 English feet), with a proportionate thickness, beyond the +belief of such as never saw them; and, supporting on their trunks +a hundred different plants, they, individually, present rather +the appearance of a small plantation than one great tree. It +is only after you leave the woods, and ordinary objects of +comparison present themselves to the mind, that you can realize +in thought the colossal stature of these samples of Montana +vegetation." + +Peru is a fitting theatre for the great dramas which have been +played upon its wild, mountainous stage. The dark background of +its past is haunted by the shadows of the unknown race who built +its ruined cities and temples. Then come the beneficent, heavenly +Incas, and the mild, pastoral people over whom they rule. Last, +the cruel, treacherous Spaniard, slaughtering his friendly hosts +with one hand, while the other holds the Bible to their lips! + + + + +_THE OLD MAID'S VILLAGE._ + + +I had been passing the summer on the banks of the Hudson--in +that charmed region which lies about what was once the home +of Diedrich Knickerbocker, with the enchanted ground of Sleepy +Hollow on the one hand, and the shrine of Sunnyside on the other. +In many happy morning walks and peaceful twilight rambles, I had +made the acquaintance of every winding lane, every shaded avenue, +every bosky dell and sunny glade for miles around. I had wandered +hither and thither, through all the golden season, and fairly +steeped my soul in the beauty, the languor, the poetry of the +"Irving country;" and now, filled, as it were, with rare wine, +content and happy, I was ready to return to the town, and take up +the matter-of-fact habit of life again. + +But even on the last day of my sojourn, when my trunks stood +packed and corded, and the loins of my spirit were girt for +departure on the morrow; as I stood at my window somewhat +pensively contemplating, for the last time, the peculiarly +delicious river-bit which it framed, the door opened suddenly, +and Nannette, my _fidus Achates_, and the companion of my summer, +ran in. + +"Do you know," she cried, "I have just learned that we were +about to leave the place without visiting one of its greatest +curiosities? We have narrowly escaped going without having seen +the 'Old Maid's Village!'" + +"The 'Old Maid's Village!'" I echoed, stupidly. "But what village +is _not_ the peculiar property of the race?" + +"Yes, I know; but this village is really built on an old +maid's property, and by her own hands. And there is the 'Cat's +Monument,' too. Come! don't stop to talk about it, but let us +go and see it. It will be just the thing for a last evening; in +memoriam, you know, and all that. Get on your hat, and come, and +we shall see the sunset meeting the moonrise on the river once +more, as we return." + +That, at least, was always worth seeing, I reflected; and so, +without more ado, I put on my wraps as I was bid, and reported +myself under marching orders. + +How lovely, how indescribably lovely, the world was that +September afternoon, as we strolled along the shaded sidewalk +where the maples were already laying a mosaic of gold and garnet, +and looked off toward the river and the hills beyond--the far +blue hills--all veiled in tenderest amber mist! The very air +was full of soft, warm color; the sunbeams, mild and level now, +played with the shadows across our path, and every now and then a +leaf, flecked with orange or crimson, fluttered to our feet. +The blue-birds sang in the goldening boughs, unaffrighted by the +constant roll of elegant equipages in which, at this hour, the +residents of the stately mansions on either side the road were +taking the air; and the crickets hopped about undisturbed in the +crevices of the gray stone walls. + +We walked leisurely on, past one and another lofty gateway, until +presently reaching an entrance rather less assuming than its +neighbors, but, like them, hospitably open, Nannette said, with +promptness: + +"This is the place, I am sure. Square white house; black railing; +next to the printing-press man's great gate. Come right in; all +are welcome, and not even thank you to pay, for one never sees +anyone to speak to here." + +It seemed to my modesty rather an audacious proceeding, but +trusting to my companion's superior information, I followed her +in, and we walked up a circular carriage-drive through smooth +shaven lawns dotted with brilliant clumps of salvia and +gladiolus, towards the house--a square, solid structure, white, +and with broad verandas running across its front. + +At its northern side, sloping towards the wall, was visible what +looked like an ordinary terrace, rather low, and ornamented with +small shrubs and grotto-work; but which, on nearer approach, +proved to be a veritable village in miniature, constructed with a +verisimilitude of design, and a fidelity to detail, which was at +once in the highest degree amazing and amusing. As Nannette had +been assured, no one appeared to interfere with us in any way, +and full of a curious wonder at such a manifestation of eccentric +ingenuity, we seated ourselves upon a wooden box, evidently kept +more for the purpose of protecting the odd out-of-door plaything +in bad weather, and proceeded to give it the minute inspection +which it merited; the result of which I chronicle here for the +benefit of the like curious minded. + +The terrace, which forms the site of this doll-baby city, is low +and semi-circular in shape, and separated from the graveled drive +by a close border of box. Within this protecting hedge the +ground is laid out in the most picturesque and fantastic manner +compatible with a scale of extreme minuteness. Winding roads, +shady bye-paths ending in rustic stiles, willow-bordered ponds, +streams with fairy bridges, rocky ravines and sunny meadows, +ferny dells, and steep hills clambered over with a wilderness +of tangled vines, and strewn with lichen-covered stones--all are +there, and all reproduced with the most conscientious fidelity +to nature, and with Lilliputian diminutiveness. Regular streets, +"macadamized" with a gray cement which gives very much the effect +of asphaltum, separate one demesne from another; and each meadow, +lawn, field, and barn-yard has its own proper fence or wall, +constructed in the most workmanlike manner. The streets are +bordered by trees, principally evergreens, which, though rigidly +kept down to the height of mere shrubs, appear stately by the +side of the miniature mansions they overlook; and, in every +dooryard, or more pretentious greensward, tiny larches, pines yet +in their babyhood, and dwarfed cedars, cast a mimic shade, and +bestow an air of dignity and venerableness to the place. + +The first object upon which the eye is apt to rest on approaching +this modern Lilliput is the squire's house, the residence of the +landed proprietor. This is a handsome edifice of some eight by +ten inches in breadth and height. It stands upon an eminence in +the midst of ornamented grounds, and with its white walls, its +lofty cupola, and high, square portico, presents a properly +imposing appearance. There are signs of social life about the +mansion befitting its own style of conscious superiority. In the +wide arched entrance hall stands a high-born dame attired in gay +Watteau costume--red-heeled slippers, brocaded petticoat, and +bodice and train of puce-colored satin. She is receiving the +adieux of an elegant gentleman, hatted, booted, and spurred, who, +with whip in hand and dog by his side, is about to descend the +steps and mount his horse for a ride over his estate. A bird-cage +swings by an open window, and, on the lawn, a group of children, +in charge of their nurse, are engaged in the time-honored game +of "Ring-around-a-rosy." Winding walks, bordered with shrubbery, +disappear among fantastic mounds of rock-work, moss-grown +grottoes, and tiny dells of fern; and under a ruined arch, gray +with lichen and green with vines, flows a placid streamlet, +spanned by a rustic bridge. In the meadow beyond, flocks of sheep +are cropping the grass, and an old negro is busily engaged in +repairing a breach in the stone wall. + +Hard by this stately demesne is a humbler tenement, built of +wattled logs, but showing signs of comfort and thrift all about +it. The old grandsire sits in a high-backed chair, sunning +himself in front of the door; on a bench, at the side of the +house, stand rows of washtubs filled with soiled linen, and a +woman is busy wringing out clothes; while another, with a +bucket on her head, goes to the well to supply her with a +fresh thimbleful of water; and still a third milks a handsome +dapple-gray cow in the yard where the dairy stands. There is a +well-filled barn behind, with another cow and a horse, too, +for that matter, in the stable attached, and the farmer, who is +putting the last sheaf on his wheat-stack, looks contented enough +with his lot. + +Just beyond the stream, on whose bank the fisherman sits +leisurely dropping his line, stands the village church; a +fac-simile of the old Dutch Church which has stood near the +entrance of Sleepy Hollow since long before the Revolution, and +is hallowed now not only by the pious associations of centuries, +but by the near vicinage of Irving's grave. In its little +twelve-inch counterpart, every point of the ancient structure is +preserved in exact detail. The dull red walls, the beetling roof, +the narrow pointed windows and low, arched door; the quaint Dutch +weathercock, and odd-shaped tower--aye, even the bell within, no +bigger than a doll's thimble--and upon all a sentimental traveler +in the person of a china figure perhaps three inches in height, +is gazing half pensively, half curiously, as we suppose, at this +relic of by-gone years! + +On the other side of the stream the village school, likewise an +ancient and steeple-crowned edifice, stands out in the midst of a +bare and clean swept playground. It bears its signature upon its +front: + +"DISTRICT SCHOOL, NO. 2," + +and its worshipful character is otherwise indicated by the +presence of the master, a venerable looking puppet in cocked +hat and knee-breeches, in the doorway, and sundry china children +playing rather stiffly about the stone steps. + +Ascending by a steep, rocky path, one arrives at a rather +pretentious looking wind-mill, which spreads its wide white arms +protectingly over the cottages below. Barrels of flour and sacks +of meal, well filled and plentiful in number, attest its thriving +business, and the miller himself, in a properly dusty coat, looks +about him with contented air. At the foot of the hill upon which +the mill is perched, are several dwellings--all showing signs of +more or less prosperous life, with the exception of one, +which affords the orthodox "haunted house" belonging to every +well-regulated village. The ruined walls of this old mansion, +with lichen cropping out from every crevice; the unhinged doors +and broken windows; the ladder rotting as it leans against the +moss-grown roof, the broken well-sweep and deserted barn, offer +an aspect of desolation and decay which should prove sufficient +bait to tempt any ghost of moderate demands. + +In direct contrast to the gloom which surrounds this now empty +and forsaken home, one observes, in a shady grove surmounting a +ridge of hills which rise somewhat steeply here from the roadway, +a party of "pic-nickers" gaily attired and disporting themselves +after the time-honored manner of such merry-makers; swinging, +dancing, or, better still, strolling off arm in arm, in search of +cooler shades, and of that company which is never a crowd. + +At the base of this rocky ridge, the same stream which one meets +above flowing darkly under arch and bridge, winds placidly along +in sunshine and shadow until it loses itself in a clump of alders +and willows quite at the edge of the box-bordered terrace; and +here the village ends. + +Not so my sketch: for I have purposely left it to the last to +make mention of the great central idea round which all the rest +is gathered, and which, doubtless, formed the germ of the whole +oddly-conceived, but most admirably-executed plan. This is the +"Cat's Monument" of which Nannette had made mention, and which is +a structure so original and imposing that it deserves special and +minute description. + +About midway the terrace, and conspicuous from its size and +height, rises a mound of earth shaped into the semblance of +an urn or vase, crusted thickly with bits of rock, moss, and +pebbles, and overgrown with a tangle of tiny vines. Surmounting +this picturesque pedestal is an obelisk of black-veined marble on +a granite base, the whole rising some seven feet from the ground. +On the polished surface of this memorial pillar is inscribed, in +large black capitals, the following classic and touching tribute +to the venerable departed who sleeps in peace below: + + IN MEMORIAM + TOMMY + FELINI GENERIS + OPTIMUS. + DECESSIT A VITA + MENSE NOVEMBRIS + ANNO AETATIS 19. + + * * * * * + +_Quid me ploras? Nonne decessi gravis senectute? Nonne vivo +amicorum ardentium memoria?_ + + * * * * * + +On the reverse side of the column appears an inscription even +more pathetic and poetic, to yet another departed favorite, who +seems, not like Tommy to have been gathered to his fathers ripe +in years and honors but to have been cut down in the bloom +of youth by some untimely and tragic fate. He is all the more +felin'ly lamented: + + HIC JACET + PUSSY + SUI GENERIS + PULCHERRIMUS. + OCCISUS EST + MENSE APRILIS + AETAT. 9. + + * * * * * + +"_Vixi, et quum dederat cursum fortuna, peregi. Felix! heu nimium +felix! si litora ista nunquam tetigissem!_" + + * * * * * + +Thanks to certain by no means homoeopathic doses of the Latin +grammar in my early years, I was able to gather the meaning of +these elegiac effusions, and when the last stanza embodying poor +Pussy's posthumous wail was discovered to be none other than the +despairing death-cry of the "infelix Dido" as immortalized by +Virgil--the one step from the sublime to the ridiculous seemed to +have been passed. + +I looked at Nannette, and Nannette looked at me, and we burst +into silent but irrepressible laughter. Nannette was the first to +recover herself. + +"We ought to be ashamed of ourselves," said she severely: "Honest +grief is always respectable; and a fitting tribute to departed +worth, no more than what is due from the survivors. I have no +doubt but that Tommy and Pussy were most esteemed members of +society, and that their loss has left an aching void in the +family of which they were the youngest and most petted darlings. +I have heard the history of this monument, and the village that +has grown up around it, and if you will comport yourself more as +a Christian being should in the presence of a solemn memorial, I +will relate to you the interesting facts in my possession." + +I immediately signified a due contrition and full purpose of +amendment; when Nannette continued, still speaking with the +gravity befitting the subject. + +"This estate then, this large and respectable mansion, and these +pleasant grounds in which we now sit, are the property in common +of three most estimable ladies, all past their first youth, and +all possessed of sufficient good sense and strength of mind to +remain their own mistresses, which has procured for the very +remarkable specimen of ingenuity now before us, from some +ignorant townspeople, the sobriquet of the 'Old Maid's Village.' + +"There is only one of the ladies, however, I am informed, who +interests herself in the construction of these most ingenious +toys. Possessed of ample means, and more than ample leisure, +she amuses herself in hours which might otherwise be devoted +to gossip and tea, in putting together these various models +of buildings, all differing in style, and of most singular +materials. The church, for instance, is built of fragments of +clinker, gathered from stove and grate, and held firmly together +by cement. Nothing could have reproduced so exactly the rough +reddish stone of which the old Sleepy Hollow Church is built. +The window-glass is represented by carefully framed pieces of tin +foil; the gray stone of the gate-posts is imitated by sand rubbed +on wooden pillars with a coating of cement. The streets are paved +in much the same clever fashion. The well, the pond, the stream, +are filled with water each day by the chatelaine's own careful +hands. Many of the mimic creatures, human and otherwise, are +automata, manufactured to order; the others are wooden or china +figures selected with extreme care as to their fitness for their +purpose. So rare and so exceedingly pretty are some of these +little figures, that they have become objects of unlawful desire +to certain soulless curiosity-mongers, who have rewarded an open +and confiding hospitality with base attempts at spoliation; and +now a person is employed to live in the cottage just beyond us, +and do little else than take care of these unique possessions. + +"No, you need not start. The woman is probably there at her +post, and surveying our operations from time to time. But we +have behaved like decent people. We are taking away nothing but +a remembrance of a singularly interesting hour, and an admiring +impression of the originality, the ingenuity, the industry, and +the independence of one of our own sex. + +"Is it not so, my friend? And now, by the length of those cedar +shadows, it is time for us to rise up and be gone. Else the +moonlight will have met and parted with the sunset ere we reach +home." + +There was nothing to be said; the tale had been told, and with +one last, lingering glance, one parting smile, half amused, half +touched, I rose, and together we walked home in somewhat pensive +mood. Was it not our last day in Fairyland?--_Kate J. Hill_. + + * * * * * + +_WINE AND KISSES._ + +TRANSLATED FROM THE PERSIAN OF MIRTSA SCHAFFY. + + The lover may be shy-- + His bashfulness goes by + When first he kisses. + + The bibber, though so staid, + Gets bravely unafraid + When wine his bliss is. + + Yet he who, in his youth, + No wine nor kiss hath tasted. + Will some day think, in truth, + That half his joys were wasted. + + --_Joel Benton_. + + * * * * * + +I have heard it asked why we speak of the dead with unqualified +praise: of the living, always with certain reservations. It may +be answered, because we have nothing to fear from the former, +while the latter may stand in our way: so impure is our boasted +solicitude for the memory of the dead. If it were the sacred and +earnest feeling we pretend, it would strengthen and animate our +intercourse with the living.--_Goethe_. + + + + +_THE QUEEN'S CLOSET._ + + +Did anybody ever see a fairy in the city? Was a glimpse ever +caught of Fairyland there? I say _No_. But I was in the country +this summer where a great number of mushrooms grew, and one day +when I was walking in a grassy lane I met a little, old +queen, who was fanning herself with the leaf of the +poor-man's-weather-glass; she had taken off her crown, and it was +lying on the top of a lovely red mushroom. I poked the mushroom +with my parasol, and instantly felt on my face a faint puff of +air, and heard a hum no louder than the buzz of an angry fly. + +I sat down on the grass, and then my eyes fell on the queen. + +"You have let my crown fall in the dirt," she said, tossing a +wisp of hair from her forehead; "but you great, insensible beings +are always in mischief when you are in the country. Why don't +you stay at home, in your brick cages that stand on heaps of +flat stones? You are watched there all the time by creatures with +clubs in their leather belts, so you cannot tear and crush things +to pieces as you do here." + +"Oh, I am so sorry, madam," I answered; "if you knew how unhappy +I felt this morning when I started on my last walk, you would +pity me. I must go home at once, and my home is in the city--shut +in by houses before and behind it. If I look out of the window, +I only see a strip of sky above me, where neither sun nor moon +passes on its journey round the world; and below me, only the +stone pavement over which goes an endless procession of men and +women, upon a hundred errands I never guess at." + +The queen tapped her head with a white stick like a peeled twig, +and made such a noise that I examined it, and saw an ivory knob, +which reminded me of the budding horns of a young deer. As if in +answer to my thought, she said: + +"It drops off every year. In the fairy-nature all elements are +united. We partake of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and +add our own; this makes us what we are. We do not suffer, but we +experience, without suffering, of course; our long lives glide +along like dreams. As you are in sleep, so are we awake. If +you love the country, which contains our kingdom, as the +filbert-shell contains the kernel, I will endow you with power. I +will give you something to take back with you." + +What do you think she gave me? A little closet with shelves; on +each shelf were laid away all my remembrances of the summer, for +me to unfold at leisure. When she gave me the key, which looked +exactly like a steel pen, she said: "When you turn the key you +will understand my power. All things will be alive, will know as +much, and talk as fast as you do. The closet, in short, is but +a wee corner of my kingdom, where to-day and to-morrow are the +same--past and present one. A maid-of-honor wishes to go to town. +I'll send her in the closet. My slave, the geometrical spider, +must spin her a warm cobweb--and when you open the closet, be +sure and not disturb my little Fancie." + +Some way Queen Imagin disappeared then. To any person less +knowing than myself, it would have seemed as if a dandelion ball +was floating in the air; but I knew better, and I watched her +sailing, sailing away till lost behind the trees. The crown was +gone, too; I discovered nothing in the neighborhood of the red +mushroom, except a tiny yellow blossom already wilted by the heat +of the sun. + +Well, I am at home. I sit down this misty autumn morning in my +lonely room, and wish for some work or if not that, for something +to play with. I am too old for dolls, but very young in the way +of amusement. Ah--the closet! I'll unlock that; the key is at +hand--in my writing-desk. + +Open Sesame! On the top shelf sits little Fancie, her eyes +shining like diamonds in her soft, dusky cobweb. She nods, so do +I, and we are in Greenside again--on a summer evening. How the +crickets sing; and the tree-toads harp in the trees as if they +were a picket guard entirely surrounding us. Hueston's big dog +barks in the lane at just the right distance. What security I +used to feel when I was a little child, tucked away in my bed, +and heard a dog bark a mile away; too far off ever to come up and +bite, and yet near enough to frighten prowling robbers! + +"When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bayed," I was about to +say; but Polly, who is at Greenside with me, calls, "Just hear +the mosquitoes." + +The blinds must be closed. What a delicious smell comes in! The +dew wetting all the shrubs and flowers distils sweet odors. What +a family of moths have rushed in; this big, brown one, with white +and red markings, is very enterprising. He has voyaged twice down +the lamp chimney, as if it were the funnel of a steamship. + +Get out, moth! + +"Sho," she answers in a husky voice, as if very dry, "It is my +nature to; that's all you know, turning us to moral purposes, +and making us a tiresome metaphor. We are much like you human +creatures--only we don't compare ourselves continually with +others. We just scorch ourselves as we please. My cousin, +Noctilia Glow-worm, who is out late o' nights on the grass-bank +in poor company--the Katydids, who board for the season with the +widow Poplar--a two-sided, deceitful woman--she does not care +where I go, and never shrieks out, 'A burnt moth dreads the lamp +chimney.' If she sees me wingless, she coughs, and throws out +a green light, but says nothing. Don't mind me; there's more +coming." + +It can't be moths making such a noise on the second shelf. It is +Tom, who calls out to us, from his room, to come, and help him +catch a bat. + + "Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat + With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wings." + +"Always mouthing something," somebody mutters. But we rush into +Tom's room, and behold him in the middle of the floor, flopping +north and south, east and west, with a towel. No bat is to be +seen. I hear a pretty singing, however, and declare it to be +from a young swallow fallen down the chimney; but as there is +no fire-place in the room, my opinion goes for nothing. Tom +maintains that it is a bat; that it flew in by the window; and +that it is behind the bureau. He is right, for the bat whirrs +up to the ceiling and from that height accosts us in a squeaking +voice: + +"I am weak-eyed, am I? and my wings are leathery? Catch me, +and you will find my wings are like down, my eyes as bright as +diamonds. How much you know, writing yourselves down in books as +Naturalists! My name is Vespertila; my family are from Servia, +at your service. Could you offer me a fly, or a beetle? I was +chasing Judge Blue Bottle, or I should not have been trapped. Go +to sleep, dears, and leave me to fan you. When you are asleep, +I'll bite a hole in your ear, and sup bountifully on your red +blood." + +Flop went our towels, and down went Miss Vespertila behind the +bed crying. Polly crept up to her; and caught her in a towel. +What black beads of eyes had Miss Vespertila from Servia, where +her grandfather, General Vampire, still commands a brigade of +rascals! Her teeth were sharp, and white as pearls. Polly held +her up, and she cunningly combed her furry wings with her hind +feet, and said: + +"Polly, dear, I itch dreadfully; do you mind plain speaking? I am +full of bat lice. Ariel caught them, and the folks say that Queen +Mab often buys fine combs--" + +"Slanderer!" cried Polly, "fly to your witch home!" + +She shook the towel out of the window, and the bat soared away. + +"What's coming next?" we all asked. "There are the rabbits to +hear from, the pigeons, the sparrows, the mole, and the striped +snake who lives by the garden gate?" + +Slap, Bang! Fancie has pulled the door to. The cunning Queen +Imagin placed her in the closet, perhaps for this purpose. But +I have the key. I shall unlock it to-morrow, for I must have the +picnic over again, under the beech tree, where the brown thrush +built her nest, and reared her young ones, who ate our crumbs, +and chirped merrily when we laughed.--_Lolly Dinks's Mother_. + + * * * * * + +Doth a man reproach thee for being proud or ill-natured, envious +or conceited, ignorant or detractive, consider with thyself +whether his reproaches be true. If they are not, consider that +thou art not the person whom he reproaches, but that he reviles +an imaginary being, and perhaps loves what thou really art, +although he hates what thou appearest to be. If his reproaches +are true, if thou art the envious, ill-natured man he takes +thee for, give thyself another turn, become mild, affable +and obliging, and his reproaches of thee naturally cease. His +reproaches may indeed continue, but thou art no longer the person +he reproaches.--_Epictetus_. + + + + +_LITERATURE._ + + +"Of the making of many books there is no end," said the Wise Man +of old. Of the making of good books there is frequently an end, +say we. The good books of one year may be counted on the fingers +of one hand. Among those of the present year none ranks higher +than Taine's "Art in Greece," a translation of which, by Mr. John +Durand, is published by Messrs. Holt & Williams. The French are +a nation of critics, and Taine is the critic of the French. +This could not have been said with truth during the lifetime of +Sainte-Beuve, but since his death it is true. There is nothing, +apparently, which Taine is not competent to criticise, so subtle +is his intellect, and so wide the range of his studies, but what +he is most competent to criticise is Art. We have heard great +things of a History of English Literature by him, but as it has +not yet appeared in an English dress (although Messrs. Holt & +Williams have a translation of it in press) we shall reserve our +decision until it appears. Art, it seems to us, is the specialty +to which Taine has devoted himself, with the enthusiasm peculiar +to his countrymen, and a thoroughness peculiar to himself. +Others may have accumulated greater stores of art-knowledge--the +knowledge indispensable to the historian of Art, and the +biographer of artists--but none has so saturated himself with the +spirit of Art as Taine. We may not always agree with him, but he +is always worth listening to, and what he says is worthy of +our serious consideration. We think he is _too_ philosophical +sometimes, but then the fault may be in us. It may be that we are +so accustomed to the materialism of the English critics that +we fail, at first, to apprehend the spirituality of this most +refined and refining of Frenchmen. No English critic could have +written his "Art in Greece," because no English critic could put +himself in his place. We know what the English think of Greek +Art, or may, with a little reading: what Taine thinks of it +is--that it is what it is, simply because the Greeks were what +they were. Before he tells us what Greek Art is, he tells us what +the Greeks were. Nor does he stop here, but goes on to tell us, +or rather begins by telling us, what kind of a country it was +in which they dwelt, what skies shone over them, what mountains +looked down upon them, in the shadow of what trees they walked +within sight of the wine-dark sea. He begins at the beginning, +as the children say. Whether he succeeds in convincing us that +it was Greece alone which made the Greeks what they were, depends +somewhat upon the cast of our minds, and somewhat upon our power +to resist his eloquence. We think, ourselves, that he lays too +much stress upon the mere outward environment of the Grecian +people. The influence exercised over their lives, by the +Institutions which grew up out of these lives--the influence, in +short, of their purely physical culture--is admirably described, +as is also the difference between this culture and ours: + + "Modern people are Christian, and Christianity is a + religion of second growth which opposes natural instinct. + We may liken it to a violent contraction which has + inflected the primitive attitude of the human mind. It + proclaims, in effect, that the world is sinful, and that + man is depraved--which certainly is indisputable in the + century in which it was born. According to it, man must + change his ways. Life here below is simply an exile; + let us turn our eyes upward to our celestial home. Our + natural character is vicious; let us stifle natural + desires and mortify the flesh. The experience of our + senses and the knowledge of the wise are inadequate and + delusive; let us accept the light of revelation, faith + and divine illumination. Through penitence, renunciation + and meditation let us develop within ourselves the + spiritual man; let our life be an ardent awaiting of + deliverance, a constant sacrifice of will, an undying + yearning for God, a revery of sublime love, occasionally + rewarded with ecstasy and a vision of the infinite. + For fourteen centuries the ideal of this life was the + anchorite or monk. If you would estimate the power of + such a conception and the grandeur of the transformation + it imposes on human faculties and habits, read, in turn, + the great Christian poem and the great pagan poem, one + the 'Divine Comedy' and the other the 'Odyssey' and the + 'Iliad.' Dante has a vision and is transported out of our + little ephemeral sphere into eternal regions; he beholds + its tortures, its expiations and its felicities; he is + affected by superhuman anguish and horror; all that the + infuriate and subtle imagination of the lover of justice + and the executioner can conceive of he sees, suffers and + sinks under. He then ascends into light; his body loses + its gravity; he floats involuntarily, led by the smile + of a radiant woman; he listens to souls in the shape of + voices and to passing melodies; he sees choirs of angels, + a vast rose of living brightness representing the virtues + and the celestial powers; sacred utterances and the + dogmas of truth reverberate in ethereal space. At this + fervid height, where reason melts like wax, both symbol + and apparition, one effacing the other, merge into mystic + bewilderment, the entire poem, infernal or divine, being + a dream which begins with horrors and ends in ravishment. + How much more natural and healthy is the spectacle which + Homer presents! We have the Troad, the isle of Ithica and + the coasts of Greece; still at the present day we follow + in his track; we recognize the forms of mountains, the + color of the sea; the jutting fountains, the cypress and + the alders in which the sea-birds perched; he copied a + steadfast and persistent nature: with him throughout we + plant our feet on the firm ground of truth. His book is + a historical document; the manners and customs of his + contemporaries were such as he describes; his Olympus + itself is a Greek family." + +The manifest inferiority of our mixed languages to their one +simple language is stated in the following paragraph, with which +we must leave Taine for the present: + + "Almost the whole of our philosophic and scientific + vocabulary is foreign; we are obliged to know Greek and + Latin to make use of it properly, and, most frequently, + employ it badly. Innumerable terms find their way out of + this technical vocabulary into common conversation and + literary style, and hence it is that we now speak and + think with words cumbersome and difficult to manage. + We adopt them ready made and conjoined, we repeat + them according to routine; we make use of them without + considering their scope and without a nice appreciation + of their sense; we only approximate to that which we + would like to express. Fifteen years are necessary for + an author to learn to write, not with genius, for that + is not to be acquired, but with clearness, sequence, + propriety and precision. He finds himself obliged to + weigh and investigate ten or twelve thousand words and + diverse expressions, to note their origin, filiation and + relationships, to rebuild on an original plan, his ideas + and his whole intellect. If he has not done it, and he + wishes to reason on rights, duties, the beautiful, the + State or any other of man's important interests, he + gropes about and stumbles; he gets entangled in long, + vague phrases, in sonorous common-places, in crabbed + and abstract formulas. Look at the newspapers and the + speeches of our popular orators. It is especially the + case with workmen who are intelligent but who have had no + classical education; they are not masters of words, and, + consequently, of ideas; they use a refined language which + is not natural to them; it is a perplexity to them and + consequently confuses their minds; they have had no + time to filter it drop by drop. This is an enormous + disadvantage, from which the Greeks were exempt. There + was no break with them between the language of concrete + facts and that of abstract reasoning, between the + language spoken by the people and that of the learned; + the one was a counterpart of the other; there was no term + in any of Plato's dialogues which a youth, leaving his + gymnasia, could not comprehend; there is not a phrase in + any of Demosthenes' harangues which did not readily find + a lodging-place in the brain of an Athenian peasant or + blacksmith. Attempt to translate into Greek one of Pitt's + or Mirabeau's discourses, or an extract from Addison or + Nicole, and you will be obliged to recast and transpose + the thought; you will be led to find for the same + thoughts, expressions more akin to facts and to concrete + experience; a flood of light will heighten the prominence + of all the truths and of all the errors; that which you + were wont to call natural and clear will seem to you + affected and semi-obscure, and you will perceive by force + of contrast why, among the Greeks, the instrument of + thought being more simple, it did its office better and + with less effort." + +Among the good books of the year, two belong to a special walk +of letters in which we have not hitherto excelled the English +Translation. There are periods in the history of English Poetry +when translation has played an important part. Such a period +occurred just before the Shakspearean era, and it was noted for +translations from the Latin poets. Chapman was the first English +writer to perceive the greatness of the Greek poets, and, like +the poet that he was, he attempted to translate the father of +poets, Homer. Chapman's Homer is a noble work, with all its +faults; but it is not what Homer should be in English. It was +followed by other translations mostly of the Latin poets, the +best, perhaps, being Dryden's Virgil, until, finally, the English +mind returned to Homer, or supposed it did, in the pretty, +musical numbers of Pope. Who will may read Pope's Homer. We +cannot. Nor Cowper's either, although it contains some good, +manly writing. We can read Lord Derby's Homer, or could, until +Mr. Bryant published his translation of the "Iliad," when the +necessity no longer existed. No English translation of Homer will +compare with Mr. Bryant's; and we are glad that we are soon to +have the whole of the "Odyssey," as we already have the whole of +the "Iliad." The first volume of Mr. Bryant's translation of the +"Odyssey" (J.R. Osgood & Co.) fully sustains the reputation of +the writer. It is so admirably done, that, if we did not know to +the contrary, we should think we were reading an original poem. +The stiffness which generally inheres in translations is wanting; +nowhere is there any sense of restraint, but everywhere a +delightful sense of ease--the freedom of one great poet shining +through the freedom of another great poet, as the sun shines +through the sky. It is the ideal English translation of Homer; +and we congratulate Mr. Bryant upon having finished it (for we +believe he has); and congratulate ourselves that it is the work +of an American poet. + +We offer the like congratulation to Mr. Bayard Taylor for his +translation of "Faust," which occupies the same place, as regards +German Poetry, that Mr. Bryant's translation of Homer does to +Greek Poetry. The difficulty of the task which Mr. Taylor set +himself, the task of rendering the original in the measures of +the original, was never met before by any English translator of +"Faust"--never even attempted, we believe--and, to say that he +has accomplished it, is to say that Mr. Taylor is a very skilful +poet--how skilful we never knew before, highly as we have always +valued his poetical powers. He enables us to understand the +_Intention_ of Goethe in "Faust," as no one besides himself +has done; and, among the obligations that we owe him for the +enjoyment he has given us, we must not forget the obligation we +are under to him for his _Notes_. They are scholarly, and to the +point. There is not one too many, not one which we could afford +to lose, now that we have it. What _might_ have been written, +under the pretense of _Notes_--what another translator might not +have been able to resist writing--is fearful to think of--Life is +so short, and Goethe's Art so long! + +The year has been fertile in American verse. How much Poetry it +has produced is a question into which we do not care to enter. It +has witnessed the publication of two volumes by Mr. Bret Harte; +of one volume by Mr. John Hay; and of one volume by Mr. William +Winter. The title of Mr. Winter's volume, "My Witness," (J.R. +Osgood & Co.) is a happy one. It is not every American writer who +can afford to place his verse on the stand as his witness; and it +is not every American writer whose verse will substantiate what +he is so desirous of proving, viz., that he is an American poet. + +Mr. Winter is not without faults--what American writer is?--but +he endeavors to write simply. The virtue of simplicity--always a +rare one, and never so rare as at present--he possesses. We have +Tennyson, who is not simple; we have Browning, who is not simple; +we have Swinburne, who is not simple; and we have Mr. Joaquin +Miller, who is not simple. + +Mr. Winter's book has its defects--among which we observe an +occasional lapse into Latinity--but with all its defects it is a +very _poetical_ book. Mr. Winter reminds us, more than any recent +American poet, of the English poets of the reigns of Charles the +First and Second. He has, at his best, all their graces of style, +and he has, at all times, the grace of Purity, to which they laid +no claim. With the exception of Carew (whom, we dare say, he has +never read), Mr. Winter is the daintiest and sweetest of amatory +poets. He has the fancy of Carew, without his artificiality; he +has Carew's sweetness, without his grossness of suggestion. + +There is a tinge of sadness in some of Mr. Winter's poems, and +the critics, we suppose, will censure him for it. If so, they +will be in the wrong. The poet has the right to express his +moods, sad or merry, and he is no more to be judged by his sad +moods than his merry ones. He is to be judged by both, and the +sum of both--if the critic is able to add it up--is the poet. As +far as he is revealed in his book, that is, but no further. There +is such a thing as Dramatic Poetry, as some critics are aware, +and there is such a thing as Representative Poetry, as few +critics are aware. The former deals with the passions, the +latter with those shadowy and evanescent sensations which we call +feelings. Mr. Winter is not a dramatic poet, but he is, in his +own way, a representative poet. His poem "Lethe" represents one +set of feelings; "The White Flag" another; and "Love's Queen" +another. We like the last best. For, while we believe the others +to be equally genuine, they do not impress us as being the best +expression of his genius. What we feel most after finishing his +volume, what seems to us most characteristic of his poetry, is +loveliness--the tender loveliness that lingers in the mind after +we have seen the sun-set of a quiet summer evening, or after +we have heard music on a dreamy summer night. If this poetic +melancholy be treason, the critics may make the most of it. Mr. +Winter has nothing to fear. He has the authority of the greatest +poets with which to defend himself, and confute the critics. + + + + +_ART._ + +THE PRODIGAL SON, BY EDOUARD DUBUFE. + + +The sublime lesson of forgiveness, inculcated by the story of +the Prodigal Son, is among the earliest and most familiar in the +memories of a nation of Bible readers like our own. Every one +of us, perhaps unconsciously, carries in mind a simple, +straight-forward conception of this subject, formed in early +childhood--a time when the imagination rarely goes beyond an +attempt to realize the unlooked for forgiveness of the once +deserted parent, or the captivating visions of adventure +suggested by the changing fortunes of the wanderer during his +absence in a "far country." + +With the painter the picture is his vision, and the panels are +the realities. As a man of a different order of thought would +have chosen another incident of the story for illustration, so +also would a painter of a less independent school have permitted +himself to be bound down by the historical facts of the +architectural and costume fashions of the time of narration. +Dubufe has so far discarded the unities of time and place, if +any can _really_ be said to exist--as no date was fixed in +the relation of the parable by Christ--that he has adopted the +mingled costumes of Europe and the East, which obtained in the +fifteenth century, and has placed his figures in a Corinthian +porch under the light of Italian skies. Apart from the conception +and the "telling of the story," about which there will be various +opinions, this picture may be justly regarded as a magnificent +work of art. + +The great David, a pupil of whose pupil Edouard Dubufe was, and +Horace Vernet, appear to have been the guides selected by him, +rather than the greatest of his masters--Paul Delaroche. The +influence of both is to be traced in this work, although it may +be said to take rank above any production of either of them. In +drawing, color, and composition, rendering of textures, and the +exhibition of the resources of the palette, now better known to +French painters than ever before, the picture leaves nothing to +be desired. The faces of the principal figures are full of +that "expression to the life" in which the English are justly +considered to excel, while the admirable focus of the groups, +the color, and interest, are as un-English as excellent. +Fault-finding in more than one or two unimportant details would +be hypercriticism where so much is perfect, and it becomes our +happy privilege, in this notice, to commend and to point out, to +"lay" readers about Art, the manifold beauties of its technical +execution. A critical examination will show that the composition +is on the pyramidal principle, and the arrangement of groups +principally in threes. In the central portion of the canvas, +where the marble pillars of the porch fall off in perspective, +the Profligate stands holding up a golden cup in his right +hand, as in the act of proposing a toast. His red costume and +commanding figure attract the eye, and the attention falls at +once and equally on him and on the magnificent woman whose arms +embrace his neck, and whose eyes, as her chin rests close on his +breast, gaze with dangerous fascination into his face. Her dress +is of rich white satin, and, with the delicate green and gold +sheen of her rival's robe--she with whom the Prodigal's right +hand toys in caress--makes up a wonderfully brilliant prismatic +chord, having the effect of focusing the richer, but not less +gorgeous, pigments spread everywhere on the canvas. The faces of +the women are very beautiful, and are made voluptuous by a +subtle art which, through all their beauty, tells a story of +unrestrained lives of passion and pleasure. + +The face of the magnificent creature at the Prodigal's left hand +is a wondrous piece of drawing. It is thrown back against him +and from the spectator, in order that she may look up into his +face--at the moment a dissipated, spiritless face, without even +the flush of the wine which dyes her's so rosily--a face at once +weak and weary, and yet revealing a possible intensity, indeed, +the face of a French woman who "has lived," rather than that of a +man. + +Up to this centre leads the other groups. Below, and seated on +the rich rugs which cover the marble pavement, musicians +and singers pause to listen to impassioned words from a +laurel-crowned poet, while further on a sort of orchestra +plays time for the sensuous dance of lithe-bodied Oriental +dancers--each woman of them more ravishing than the other. Minor +incidents, like dice-play and love-making, give interest to the +remaining space, and keep up the revel. + +Throughout, the drawing is true, and good, and graceful. The +hands of the figures demand especial mention. The hand of one of +the women, near the central group, grasped by her lover at the +wrist as he kisses her shoulder, is particularly exquisite +in form and color; the more remarkable, perhaps, because the +position of it is so trying in nature and so difficult to draw. + +The type of feature chosen for the women, the dancing girls +excepted, is essentially Gallic. As remarked before, the face +of the Prodigal, also, is French; but the musicians and the poet +have faces of their own which seem to belong to the university of +genius. The mere revelers, curiously enough, have a likeness to +the figures in some old Italian pictures; one of them looks like +a copy of Judas Iscariot, made younger. + +A distant city and mountains fill up the background, and, on +the extreme right of the near middle distance, flights of +marble steps ascend to a grand doorway, where servants are seen +loitering within easy call of their masters. + +It was by a sublime inspiration that Dubufe painted the accessory +panels in monotone. In that on the right, a dismal sky, filled +with rolling clouds and sad presaging ravens flying, over-shadows +the outcast, seated on a rock in an attitude of listless +dejection, with the swine feeding at his feet. In the panel on +the left he is seen in the close embrace of his merciful parent. +His head is bowed in humility, and, in an agony of remorse and +shame, while the old house-dog sniffs at him for an obtrusive +mendicant who has no business with such affectionate welcome. + +Let us congratulate ourselves that this picture has come to our +country, as yet so barren of great works, and pray that the noble +school of art of which this is so admirable an exponent, may +find favor, not only with our painters, but with those who call +themselves connoisseurs, in preference to unmeaning works of +microscopic finish, or slick examples of boudoir and millinery +painting. + + * * * * * + +"_THE ALDINE PRESS._"--JAMES SUTTON & CO., _Printers and +Publishers, 23 Liberty St., N.Y._ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, +1872, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ALDINE, VOL. 5, NO. 1., *** + +***** This file should be named 15092.txt or 15092.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/0/9/15092/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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