initial commit of ebook 17872HEADmain

1 files changed, 6323 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/17872-8.txt b/17872-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4290da1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17872-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6323 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gifts of Genius, 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: Gifts of Genius
+       A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: February 27, 2006 [EBook #17872]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIFTS OF GENIUS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Curtis Weyant, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images produced by the Wright
+American Fiction Project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           GIFTS OF GENIUS:
+
+                             A Miscellany
+
+                                  OF
+
+                          PROSE AND POETRY,
+
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                          AMERICAN AUTHORS.
+
+
+
+
+                              NEW YORK:
+                     PRINTED FOR C.A. DAVENPORT.
+
+
+
+
+      Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1859, by
+                           C.A. DAVENPORT,
+in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
+                    Southern District of New York.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY,
+
+OUT AT ELBOWS.--THE STORY OF ST. GEORGE CLEAVE. BY JOHN ESTEN COOKE,
+
+MY SECRET. (_From the French._) BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,
+
+A LEAF FROM MY PARIS NOTE-BOOK. BY H.T. TUCKERMAN,
+
+ON POPULAR KNOWLEDGE. BY GEORGE S. HILLARD,
+
+ON RECEIVING A PRIVATELY PRINTED VOLUME OF POEMS FROM A FRIEND.
+BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ,
+
+THE PRINCE AT LAND'S END. BY CAROLINE CHESEBRO,
+
+SEA-WEED. BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL,
+
+TREFOIL. BY EVERT A. DUYCKINCK,
+
+MISERERE DOMINE. BY WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH,
+
+THE KINGDOMS OF NATURE PRAISING GOD.--A SHORT ESSAY ON THE 148th
+PSALM. BY C.A. BARTOL,
+
+TRANSLATIONS. BY THE REV. CHARLES T. BROOKS,
+
+RECOLLECTIONS OF NEANDER, THE CHURCH HISTORIAN.
+BY THE REV. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D.D.,
+
+POEMS. BY JULIA WARD HOWE,
+
+EARTH'S WITNESS. BY ALICE B. HAVEN,
+
+THE NEW ENGLAND THANKSGIVING. BY THE REV. HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D.,
+
+SONG OF THE ARCHANGELS. (_From Goethe's Faust._) BY GEORGE P. MARSH,
+
+A NIGHT AND DAY AT VALPARAISO. BY ROBERT TOMES,
+
+TRANSLATIONS. BY THE REV. THEODORE PARKER,
+
+PAID FOR BY THE PAGE. BY EDWARD S. GOULD,
+
+WORDS FOR MUSIC. BY GEORGE P. MORRIS,
+
+"THE CHRISTIAN GREATNESS." (_Passages from a Manuscript Sermon._)
+BY THE REV. ORVILLE DEWEY, D.D.,
+
+THE BABY AND THE BOY MUSICIAN. BY LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY,
+
+THE ERL-KING. (_From the German of Goethe._) BY MRS. E.F. ELLET,
+
+THOUGHTS UPON FENELON. BY THE REV. SAMUEL OSGOOD, D.D.,
+
+POEMS. BY MRS. GEORGE P. MARSH,
+
+A STORY OF VENICE. BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS,
+
+THE TORTURE CHAMBER. BY WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER,
+
+THE HOME OF CHARLOTTE BRONTĖ. BY FRANCIS WILLIAMS,
+
+THORWALDSEN'S CHRIST. BY REV. E.A. WASHBURN,
+
+JUNE TWENTY-NINTH, EIGHTEEN FIFTY-NINE. BY CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND,
+
+NO SONGS IN WINTER. BY T.B. ALDRICH,
+
+BENI-ISRAEL. BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES,
+
+BOCAGE'S PENITENTIAL SONNET. BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT,
+
+
+
+
+TO THE PUBLIC.
+
+
+At the desire of MISS DAVENPORT, for whose benefit this collection of
+original Miscellanies by American authors has been made, I write this
+brief Preface, without having had time to read the contributions which it
+is designed to introduce. The names of the writers, however, many of which
+are among the most distinguished in our literature, and are honored
+wherever our language is spoken, will suffice to recommend the volume to
+the attention of the reading world.
+
+If this were not enough, an inducement of another kind is to be found in
+the circumstances of the lady in whose behalf the contents of this volume
+have been so freely contributed. A few years since, she was a teacher in
+our schools, active, useful, and esteemed for her skillful communication
+of knowledge. At that time it was one of her favorite occupations to make
+sketches and drawings from nature, an art in which she instructed her
+pupils. A severe illness interrupted her duties, during which her sight
+became impaired, and finally lost. A kind of twilight came over it, which
+gradually darkened into utter night, shutting out the face of nature in
+which she had so much delighted, and leaving her, without occupation, in
+ill health. In this condition she has already remained for five years.
+
+To this statement of her misfortunes, which I trust will commend her to
+the sympathies of all who are made acquainted with them, as one who was
+useful to society while Providence permitted, I have only to add the
+expression of her warmest thanks to those who have generously furnished
+the contents of the volume she now lays before the public.
+
+W.C. BRYANT.
+
+NEW YORK, _June, 1859_.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+This volume speaks so well for itself that it does not need many words of
+preface to commend it to a wide circle of readers. Its rich and varied
+contents, however, become far more interesting when interpreted by the
+motive that won them from their authors; and when the kindly feeling that
+offered them so freely is known, these gifts, like the pearls of a rosary,
+will be prized not only severally but collectively, because strung
+together by a sacred thread.
+
+The story of this undertaking is a very short and simple one. Miss
+Davenport, who had been for many years an active and successful teacher in
+our schools and families, especially in the beautiful arts of drawing and
+painting, was prostrated by a severe illness, which impaired her sight and
+finally terminated in blindness.
+
+The late Benjamin F. Butler, in a letter dated October 13, 1858, which
+will have peculiar interest to the many readers who knew and honored that
+excellent man, writes thus:
+
+"Miss Davenport has for several years been personally known to me. She is
+now blind and unable to follow the calling by which, before this calamity
+befell her, she obtained her living. Having lost her parents in early
+life, and having few relatives, and none able to assist her, she is
+dependent for her support on such efforts as she is still capable of
+making. These, were she a person of common fortitude, energy and
+hopefulness, would be very small, for to her great privation is added very
+imperfect general health. Yet she has struggled on in the hope of gaining
+such a competency as should ultimately secure 'a home that she may call
+her own.' I commend Miss Davenport to all who feel for the afflicted and
+who wish to do good."
+
+The Rev. Dr. S. Storrs writes: "Miss Davenport is a Christian woman, of
+great excellence of character, and of many accomplishments, whom God in
+his providence has made totally blind within a few years past."
+
+We need add but two remarks to these statements--one in reference to the
+volume itself, and the other in reference to her for whose welfare it is
+contributed.
+
+The volume is one of the many proofs which have been gathering for years,
+of the alliance between literature and humanity. Every good and true word
+that has been written from the beginning has been a minister of mercy to
+every human heart which it has reached, whilst the mercy has been twice
+blessed when the word so benign in its result has been charitable in its
+intention, and the author at once yields his profits to a friend's need,
+and his production to the public eye. Thackeray has written well upon
+humor and charity, but should he undertake to carry out his idea and
+treat of literature and humanity in their vital relations, he would have
+his hands and heart full of work for more than a lifetime. Princes who
+give their gold to generous uses are worthy of honor; but there is a
+coinage of the brain that costs more and weighs more than gold. The
+authors of these papers would of course be little disposed to claim any
+high merit for their offerings, yet any reader who runs his eye over the
+list of contributors will see at once that they are generally writers
+whose compositions are eagerly sought for by the public, and among them
+are some names whose pens can coin gold whenever they choose to move. All
+these articles are original, and nothing is inserted in this book that has
+been before published. We are confident that it deserves, and will command
+wide and choice circulation.
+
+A word as to the lady for whose benefit these gifts are brought together.
+The preface of Mr. Bryant and the letter of Mr. Butler, tell her story
+with sufficient distinctness, and the readiness with which our men and
+women of letters have so generally complied with her request, shows what
+eloquence she bears in her presence and statement. Some certificates from
+her pupils in drawing, who testify to her love of nature and her delight
+in sketching directly from nature, so greatly to their improvement in this
+beautiful art, give peculiar pathos to her case. The organ that was the
+source of her highest satisfaction is closed up by this dark sorrow, and
+the gate called Beautiful, to this earthly temple no longer is open to
+scenes and faces of loveliness. What a fearful loss is this loss of
+sight--on the whole the noblest of the senses, and certainly the sense of
+all others most serviceable, alike to the working hand and the creative
+imagination. The eye may not be so near the fountains of sensibility as
+the ear, and no impression reaches the sympathy so profoundly as the
+pathos of living speech, but the eye has a far wider range than the ear
+and fathoms the heavens and sweeps the earth and sea, whilst the ear hears
+distinctly but within a very narrow limit, hardly a stone's throw. When
+the eye, then, loses its marvellous faculty and sees no longer the light
+of day and the countenances of friends, let the ear do what it can to make
+up for the loss by every cheering word of sympathy and hope. In God's
+Providence there is a principle of compensation that aims to balance every
+privation by some new privilege, as for instance by giving new acuteness
+to the senses which are called to do the work of the senses lost. But
+genial humanity is the great principle of compensation, and by this God's
+children glorify the Father in Heaven. May this volume serve his merciful
+will, and may the light shed from the stars of our literary firmament do
+something to lessen the night upon every dark path.
+
+S.O.
+
+
+
+
+GIFTS OF GENIUS.
+
+OUT AT ELBOWS.
+
+THE STORY OF ST. GEORGE CLEAVE.
+
+BY JOHN ESTEN COOKE, OF VIRGINIA.
+
+I.
+
+
+How good a thing it is to live! The morn is full of music; and Annie is
+singing in the hall!
+
+The sun falls with a tranquil glory on the fields and forests, burning
+with the golden splendors of the autumn--the variegated leaves of the
+mighty oaks are draped about the ancient gables, like a trophy of banners.
+The landscape sleeps; all the world smiles--shall not I?
+
+I sat up late last night at my accounts; to-day I will take a holiday. The
+squire has bidden me good morning in his courteous, good-humored way, and
+gone in his carriage to attend a meeting of his brother magistrates:--I am
+away for the time from my noisy courts--the domain is mine--all the world
+is still!
+
+No;--Annie is singing in the hall.
+
+She sings to herself, I think, this autumn morning, and would not like to
+be interrupted. I will therefore take a ramble--and you shall accompany
+me, O friend of my youth, far away in distant lands, but beside me still!
+Whither shall we go? It is hard to decide, for all the world is lovely.
+Shall we go to my favorite woodland? It skirts the river, and I love the
+river; so we pass into the forest.
+
+How regal is the time of the fall of the leaves! A thousand brilliant
+colors charm the eyes--the eyes of their faithful lovers. How the mighty
+oaks reach out their knotty, muscular arms to welcome us!--how their
+ponderous shoulders bear aloft the imperial trappings--trappings of silk
+and velvet, all orange, blue, and purple! The haughty pines stand up like
+warriors--or call them spears of nordland heroes, holding on their summits
+emerald banners! The tulip-trees are lovely queens with flowers in their
+hair, who bend and welcome you with gracious murmurs; the slender elms
+sway to and fro, like fairest maidens of the royal blood; and sigh, and
+smile, and whisper, full of the charming grace of youth, and tenderness,
+and beauty.
+
+I salute my noblemen, and queens, and princesses; they bow in return to
+me, their king. Let us wander on.
+
+--Ah! that is well; my river view! Of all my broad domain, I think I like
+this part the best. Is it not beautiful? That clump of dogwood, however,
+obstructs the view somewhat; I must cut it down. Let us move a little to
+the right. Ah! there it is! See my lovely river; surely you must admire my
+swan-like ships, flying, with snowy canvass spread, before the fresh
+breeze. And see that schooner breaking the little waves into foam. Is that
+a telescope which the captain of my vessel points toward us? He salutes
+me, does he not? But I fear the distance is too great; he could hardly
+recognize me. Still I shall bow--let us not neglect the laws of courtesy.
+
+My ship is sailing onward. In earlier days I had many barks which sailed
+from shore; they were freighted with the richest goods, and made me very
+anxious. So my argosies went sailing, but they never came again. One bore
+my poem, which I thought would make me very celebrated, but the ship was
+lost. Another was to bring me back a cargo of such beautiful
+things--things which make life delightful to so many!--pearls, and silks,
+and wines, and gold-laced suits--garters, rosettes, and slips of ribbon
+to be worn at the button-hole. This, too, was lost, and yet it did not
+grieve me much. The third caused me more regret; I do not think I have yet
+wholly recovered from its loss. It bore a maiden with sunny hair, and the
+tenderest, sweetest eyes! She said she loved me--yes a thousand times! and
+I--I loved her long and dearly. But the ship in which she sailed went
+down--the strong, good ship, as I regarded it. She died thus,--did she
+not?--or is it true that she was married to a richer suitor far away from
+me in foreign lands?... These are foolish tears--let me not think of her
+with want of charity; she was only a woman, and we men are often very
+weak. ONE over all, is alone great and good. So, beautiful
+ship!--I say--that sailed across my path in youth, sail on in peace and
+happiness! A lonely bark, lonely but not unhappy, sees you, on the
+distant, happy seas, and the pennon floats from the peak in amicable
+greeting and salute. Hail and farewell! Heaven send the ship a happy
+voyage, and a welcome home!
+
+This little soliloquy perhaps wearies you; it is ended. Let us sail for an
+hour or so on the silver wave; my new pleasure-boat is rocking here
+beneath in the shadow of the oak. She is built for speed. See how
+gracefully she falls and rises, like a variegated leaf upon the
+waves--how the slender prow curves upward--how the gaily-colored sides are
+mirrored in the limpid surface of the joyous stream! Come, let us step
+into the little craft, and unfurl the snowy sail.... How provoking! I have
+left my boat key at the hall; another day we will sail. Let us stroll back
+to the good old house again.
+
+Are not my fields pleasant to behold? They are bringing in my wheat, which
+stretches, you perceive, throughout the low-grounds there, in neatly
+arranged shocks. My crops this year are excellent--my servants enjoy this
+season, and its occupations. They will soon sing their echoing "harvest
+home"--and over them at their joyous labor will shine the "harvest-moon,"
+lighting up field and forest, hill and dale--the whole "broad domain and
+the hall." The affection of my servants is grateful to me. Here comes
+Cato, with his team of patient oxen, and there goes Cęsar, leading my
+favorite racehorse down to water. Cato, Cęsar, and I, respectively salute
+each other in the kindest way. I think they are attached to me. Faithful
+fellows! I shall never part with them. I think I will give this coat to
+Cęsar; but, looking again, I perceive that his own is better. Besides, I
+must not be extravagant. The little money I make is required by another,
+and it would not be generous to buy a new coat for myself. This one which
+I wear will do well enough, will it not? I ask you with some diffidence,
+for 'tis sadly out at elbows, and the idea has occurred to me that the
+coolness and neglect of certain visitors to the hall, has been caused by
+my coat being shabby. Even Annie----, but I'll not speak of that this
+morning. 'Twas the hasty word which we all utter at times--'tis forgotten.
+Still, I think, I will give you the incident some day, when we ramble, as
+now, in the fields.
+
+From the fields we approach the honest old mansion, across the
+emerald-carpeted lawn. The birds are singing, around the sleepy-looking
+gables, and the toothless old hound comes wagging his tail, in sign of
+welcome.
+
+'Tis plain that Milo has an honest heart. I think he's smiling.
+
+
+II
+
+
+My ancestors were gentlemen of considerable taste. I am glad they built me
+that wing for my books; my numerous children cannot disturb me when I am
+composing, either my speech to be delivered in the Senate, or my work
+which is destined to refute Sir William Hamilton.
+
+Let us stroll in. A strain of tender music comes from the sitting-room,
+and I recognize the exquisite air of "Katharine Ogie" which Annie is
+singing. Let us look, nevertheless, at the pictures as we pass.
+
+What a stately head my old grandfather had! He was president of the King's
+Council, a hundred years ago--a man of decided mark. He wears a long
+peruke descending in curls upon his shoulders--a gold-laced waistcoat--and
+snowy ruffles. His white hand is nearly covered with lace, and rests on a
+scroll of parchment. It looks like a Vandyke. He must have been a resolute
+old gentleman. How serene and calm is his look!--how firm are the finely
+chiselled lips! How proud and full of collected intelligence the erect
+head, and the broad white brow! He was a famous "macaroni," as they called
+it, in his youth--and cultivated an enormous crop of wild oats. But this
+all disappeared, and he became one of the sturdiest patriots of the
+Revolution, and fought clear through the contest. Is it wrong to feel
+satisfaction at being descended from a worthy race of men--from a family
+of brave, truthful gentlemen? I think not. I trust I'm no absurd
+aristocrat--but I would rather be the grandson of a faithful common
+soldier than of General Benedict Arnold, the traitor. I would rather
+trace my lineage to the Chevalier Bayąrd, simple knight though he was,
+than to France's great Constable de Bourbon, the renegade.
+
+So I am glad my stout grandfather was a brave and truthful gentleman--that
+grandma yonder, smiling opposite, was worthy to be his wife. I do not
+remember her, but she must have been a beauty. Her head is bent over one
+shoulder, and she has an exquisitely coquettish air. Her eyes are
+blue--her arms round, and as white as snow--and what lips! They are like
+carnations, and pout with a pretty smiling air, which must have made her
+dangerous. She rejected many wealthy offers to marry grandpa, who was then
+poor. As I gaze, it seems scarcely courteous to remain thus covered in
+presence of a lady so lovely. I take off my hat, and make my best bow,
+saluting my little grandmamma of "sweet seventeen," who smiles and seems
+graciously to bow in return.
+
+All around me I see my family. There is my uncle, the captain in Colonel
+Washington's troop. I do not now mean the Colonel Washington of the French
+wars, who afterward became General Washington of the American
+Revolution--though my uncle, the captain, knew him very well, I am told,
+and often visited him at _Mount Vernon_, the colonel's estate, where they
+hunted foxes together, along the Potomac. I mean the brave Colonel
+Washington who fought so nobly in North Carolina. My uncle died there. His
+company was much thinned at every step by the horrible hail-storm of
+balls. He was riding in front with his drawn sword, shouting as the column
+fell, man by man, "Steady, boys, steady!--close up!"--when a ball struck
+him. His last words were "A good death, boys! a good death! Close up!" So,
+you see, he ended nobly.
+
+Beside my uncle and the rest of his kith and kin of the wars, you see,
+yonder, a row of beauties, all smiling and gay, or pensive and
+tender--interspersed with bright-faced children, blooming like so many
+flowers along the old walls of the hall. How they please and interest me!
+True, there are other portraits in our little house at home--not my hall
+here--which, perhaps, I should love with a warmer regard; but let me not
+cramp my sympathies, or indulge any early preferences. I must not be
+partial. So I admire these here before me--and bow to them, one and all. I
+fancy that they bow in return--that the stalwart warriors stretch vigorous
+hands toward me--that the delicate beauties bend down their little heads,
+all covered with powder, and return my homage with a smile.
+
+Why not? Can my shabby coat make the lovely or proud faces ashamed of me?
+Do they turn from me coldly because I'm the last of a ruined line? Do they
+sneer at my napless hat, and laugh at my tattered elbows? I do not think
+of them so poorly and unkindly. My coat is very shabby, but I think, at
+least I hope, that it covers an honest heart.
+
+So I bow to the noble and beautiful faces, and again they smile in return.
+I seem to have wandered away into the past and dreamed in a realm of
+silence. And yet--it is strange I did not hear her--Annie is still singing
+through the hall.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+I promised to tell you of the incident of the coat, the unfortunate coat
+which I sometimes think makes the rich folks visiting the hall look
+sidewise at me. It is strange! Am I not _myself_, whether clad in velvet
+or in fustian--in homespun fabric, or in cloth of gold? People say I am
+simple--wholly ignorant of the world; I must be so in truth.
+
+But about the coat. I hinted that Annie even saw, and alluded to it; it
+was not long after my arrival at the hall, and a young lady from the
+neighborhood was paying a visit to Annie.
+
+They were standing on the portico, and I was leaning against the trunk of
+the old oak beneath, admiring the sunset which was magnificent that
+evening. All at once I heard whispers, and turning round toward the young
+ladies, saw them laughing. Annie's finger was extended toward the hole in
+my elbow, and I could not fail to understand that she was laughing at my
+miserable coat.
+
+I was not offended, though perhaps I may have been slightly wounded; but
+Annie was a young girl and I could not get angry; I was not at all
+ashamed--why should I have been?
+
+"I am sorry, but I cannot help the hole in my elbow," I said, calmly and
+quietly, with a bow and a smile; "I tore it by accident, yesterday."
+
+Annie blushed, and looked very proud and offended, and it pained me to see
+that she suffered for her harmless and, careless speech. I begged her not
+to think that my feelings were wounded, and bowing again, went up to my
+room. I looked at my coat, it _was_ terribly shabby, and I revolved the
+propriety of purchasing another, but I gave up the idea with a sigh. She
+needs all my money, and my mind is made up; she _shall_ have the black
+silk, and very soon.
+
+I very nearly forgot to relate what followed the little scene on the
+portico. During all that evening, and the whole of the next day, Annie
+scarcely looked at me, and retained her angry and offended expression. I
+was pained, but could add nothing more to my former assurance that I was
+not offended.
+
+Toward evening, I was sitting with a book upon the portico, when Annie
+came out of the parlor. She paused on the threshold, evidently hesitated,
+but seemed to resolve all at once, what to do. She came quickly to my
+side, and holding out her hand said frankly and kindly, with a little
+tremor in her voice, and a faint rose-tint in the delicate cheeks:
+
+"I did not mean to hurt your feelings, Mr. Cleave, indeed I did not, sir;
+my speech was the thoughtless rudeness of a child. I am sorry, very sorry
+that I was ever so ill-bred and unkind; will you pardon me, sir?"
+
+I rose from my seat, and bowed low above the white little hand which lay
+in my own, slightly agitated,--
+
+"I have nothing to pardon, Miss Annie," I said, "if you will let me call
+you by your household name. I think it very fortunate that my coat was
+shabby; had it been a new one, you would never have observed it, and I
+should have lost these sweet and friendly accents."
+
+And that is the "incident of the coat."
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+The week that has just passed has been a pleasant one. I have thought, a
+hundred times, "how good a thing it is to live!"
+
+I must have been a good deal cramped and confined in the city; but I enjoy
+the fair landscapes here all the more. The family are very friendly and
+kind--except Mrs. Barrington, who does not seem to like me. She scarcely
+treats me with anything more than scrupulous courtesy. The squire and
+Annie, however, make up for this coldness. They are both extremely
+cordial. It was friendly in the squire to give me this mass of executorial
+accounts to arrange. So far it has been done to his entire satisfaction;
+and the payment for my services is very liberal. How I long for money!
+
+There was a splendid party at the hall on Tuesday. It reminded me of old
+times, when we, too,--but that is idle to remember. I do not sigh for the
+past. I know all is for the best. Still, I could not help thinking, as I
+looked on the brilliant spectacle, that the world was full of changes and
+vicissitudes. Well, the party was a gay and delightful one; the dancing
+quite extravagant. Annie was the beauty of the assemblage--the belle of
+the ball--and she gave me a new proof of the regret which she felt for the
+speech about my coat. At the end of a cotillon she refused the arms of
+half a dozen eager gallants to take mine, and promenade out on the
+portico.
+
+"Do you ever dance?" she said.
+
+"Oh, yes," I replied; "that is, I did dance once; but of late years I have
+been too much occupied. We live quietly."
+
+"You say 'we.'"
+
+"I mean my mother and I; I should have said 'poorly,' perhaps, instead of
+'quietly,' And I am busy."
+
+She bowed her head kindly, and said, smiling:
+
+"But you are not busy to-night; and if you'll not think me forward, I will
+reverse the etiquette, and ask you to dance with me."
+
+"Indeed I will do so with very great pleasure."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Could you doubt it?"
+
+"I was so _very_ rude to you!"
+
+And she hung her head. That, then, was the secret of her choice of my arm.
+I could only assure her that I did not think her rude, and I hoped she
+would forget the whole incident. I was pleased in spite of all--for I like
+to think well of women. The cynical writers say they are all mean, and
+mercenary, and cowardly. Was Annie? She had left many finely-dressed
+gentlemen, faultlessly appointed, to dance with a poor stranger, quite out
+at elbows.
+
+I saw many cold looks directed at myself; and when Annie took my arm to go
+into supper, the gloom in the faces of some gentlemen who had been
+refused, made me smile. When the party was over, Annie gave me her hand at
+the foot of the staircase. I saw a triumphant light in her mischievous
+eyes, as she glanced at the departing gallants; her rosy cheeks dimpled,
+and she flitted up, humming a gay tune.
+
+It is singular how beautiful she is when she laughs--as when she sighs. Am
+I falling in love with her? I shall be guilty of no such folly. I think
+that my pride and self-respect will keep me rational. Pshaw! why did I
+dream of such nonsense!
+
+
+V.
+
+
+So--a month has passed.
+
+My coat, it seems, is to be the constant topic of attention.
+
+A day or two since, I was sitting in my chamber, reflecting upon a
+variety of things. My thoughts, at last, centred on the deficiencies of my
+wardrobe, and I muttered, "I must certainly have my coat mended soon;" and
+I looked down, sighing, at the hole in my elbow.... It had disappeared!
+There was no longer any rent. The torn cloth had been mended in the
+neatest manner; so neatly, indeed, that the orifice was almost invisible.
+Who could have done it, and how? I have one coat only, and--yes! it must
+have been! I saw, in a moment, the whole secret: that noise, and the voice
+of Sarah, the old chambermaid.
+
+I rose and went out on the staircase; I met the good crone.
+
+"How did you find my coat in the dark?" I said, smiling; "and now you must
+let me make you a present for mending it, Sarah."
+
+Sarah hesitated, plainly; but honesty conquered. She refused the money,
+which, nevertheless, I gave her; and, from her careless replies, I soon
+discovered the real truth.
+
+The coat had been mended by Annie!
+
+I descended to the drawing-room, and finding her alone, thanked her with
+simplicity and sincerity. She blushed and pouted.
+
+"Who told you?" she asked.
+
+"No one; but I discovered it from Sarah; she was unguarded."
+
+"Well, sir," said Annie, blushing still, but laughing, "there is no reason
+for your being so grateful, I thought I would mend it, as I formerly
+laughed at it--and I hope it is neatly done."
+
+"It is scarcely visible," I said, with a smile and a bow; "I shall keep
+this coat always to remind me of your delicate kindness."
+
+"Pshaw! 'twas nothing."
+
+And running to the piano, the young girl commenced a merry song, which
+rang through the old hall like the carol of a bird. Her voice was so
+inexpressibly sweet that it made my pulses throb and my heart ache. I
+did not know the expression of my countenance, as I looked at her, until
+turning toward me, I saw her suddenly color to the roots of her hair.
+
+I felt, all at once, that I had fixed upon her one of those looks which
+say as plainly as words could utter: "I love you with all the powers of my
+nature, all the faculties of my being--you are dearer to me than the whole
+wide world beside!"
+
+Upon my word of honor as a gentleman, I did not know that I loved Annie--I
+was not conscious that I was gazing at her with that look of inexpressible
+tenderness. Her sudden blush cleared up everything like a flash of
+lightning--I rose, set my lips together, and bowed. I could scarcely
+speak--I muttered "pray excuse me," and left the apartment.
+
+On the next morning I begged the squire to release me from the completion
+of my task--I had a friend who could perform the duties as well as myself,
+and who would come to the hall for that purpose, inasmuch as the account
+books could not be removed--I must go.
+
+The formal and ceremonious old gentleman did not ask my reasons for this
+sudden act--he simply inclined his head--and said that he would always be
+glad to serve me. With a momentary pressure of Annie's cold hand, and a
+low bow to the frigid Mrs. Barrington, I departed.
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+Five years have passed away. They have been eventful ones to me--not for
+the unhoped for success which I have had in my profession, so much as for
+the long suffering which drove me, violently as it were, to seek relief in
+unceasing toil.
+
+The thought of Annie has been ever with me--my pain, though such a term is
+slight, was caused by my leaving her. I never knew how much I loved her
+until all those weary miles were thrown between us. My days have been most
+unhappy, my nights drearier still; for a long time now, I have not thought
+or said "how good a thing it is to live!"
+
+But I acted wisely, and honorably; did I not? I did my duty, when the
+temptation to neglect it was exceeding hard to resist. I went away from
+the woman whom I loved, because I loved her, and respected my own name and
+honor, too much to remain. It was better to break my heart, I said, than
+take advantage of my position at the hall, to engage a young girl's heart,
+and drag her down, in case she loved me, to the poor low sphere in which I
+moved. If her father had said to me, "You have abused the trust I placed
+in you, and acted with duplicity," I think it would have ruined me,
+forever, in my own esteem. And would he not have had the right to say it?
+
+So I came away from the temptation while I could, and plunged into my
+proper work on earth, and found relief; but I loved her still.
+
+Shall I speak of the correspondence which ensued between the squire and
+myself? 'Twas a somewhat singular one, and revealed to me something which
+I was before quite ignorant of. It is here beneath my hand; let us look at
+it. It passed soon after my departure:
+
+    "Barrington Hall, Nov. 20, 18--.
+
+    "MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND:
+
+    "Since your somewhat abrupt departure, I have considered that
+    event with some attention, and fear that it was occasioned by
+    a want of kindness in myself, or some member of my family. I
+    saw with regret that Mrs. Barrington did not seem to look
+    upon you with as much favor as I hoped. If any word or action
+    of mine has wounded you, I pray you to forget and pardon it.
+
+    "Your friend,
+
+    "C. BARRINGTON.
+
+    "P.S. Pray present my best regards to your mother, who was
+    many long years ago, a very dear friend of mine."
+
+My reply was in the following words:
+
+    "MY DEAR MR. BARRINGTON:
+
+    "Pray set your mind at rest upon the subject of my somewhat
+    hasty departure: 'twas caused by no want of courtesy in any
+    member of the household at the hall, but by unavoidable
+    circumstances. You will not think me wanting in candor or
+    sincerity when I add that I think these circumstances were
+    better not alluded to at present.
+
+    "Truly and faithfully,
+
+    "ST. GEORGE CLEAVE."
+
+Thus ended then our correspondence. Three years afterward I received
+another letter, in a handwriting somewhat tremulous and broken. It
+contained simply the words:
+
+    "I am very ill; if your convenience will permit, may I ask
+    you to come and see me, my young friend?
+
+    "C. BARRINGTON."
+
+I need not say that I went at once. As I approached the old manor house a
+thousand memories knocked at the door of my heart. There were the fields
+over which I had rambled; there was the emerald lawn where so often I had
+wandered in the long-gone days of earlier years. The great oak against
+which I had leaned on that evening to watch the sun in his setting, and
+where Annie had whispered and pointed to my torn elbow, still raised its
+head proudly, and embowered the old gables in the bright-tinted foliage of
+autumn.
+
+I entered. The old portraits I had loved seemed to smile; they saluted me
+sweetly, as in other hours; the old mansion appeared to welcome me--I saw
+no change, but Annie was not singing in the hall.
+
+All at once I heard a light tinkling footstep; my heart beat violently,
+and I felt a blush rise to my cheeks. Was the queenly woman who came to
+meet and greet me, indeed the Annie of old days? I held the small hand,
+and looked into the deep eyes for some moments without uttering a word.
+She was taller, more slender, but her carriage possessed a grace and
+elegance a thousand times finer than before. Her eyes were filled with the
+strangest sweetness, and swam with tears as she gazed at me.
+
+"Papa has been waiting impatiently for you, Mr. Cleave," she said, in a
+low, sad voice; "will you come up and see him at once? he is very ill."
+
+And turning away her head, the fair girl burst into uncontrollable sobs,
+every one of which went to my heart. I begged her earnestly not to yield
+to her distress, and she soon dried her eyes, and led the way into the
+parlor, where I was received by Mrs. Barrington, still cold and stiff, but
+much more subdued and courteous. Annie went to announce my arrival to her
+father, and soon I was alone with the old man.
+
+I was grieved and shocked at his appearance. He seemed twenty years older.
+I scarcely recognized in the pale, thin, invalid, the portly country
+gentleman whom I had known.
+
+The motive for his letter was soon explained. The executorial accounts,
+whose terrible disarrangement I had aided, five years before, in
+remedying, still hung over the dying man's head, like a nightmare. He
+could not die, he said, with the thought in his mind, that any one might
+attribute this disorder to intentional maladministration--"to fraud, it
+might be."
+
+And at the word "fraud," his wan cheek became crimson.
+
+"My own affairs, Mr. Cleave," he continued, "are, I find, in a most
+unhappy condition. I have been far too negligent; and now, on my
+death-bed, for such it will prove, I discover, for the first time, that I
+am well-nigh a ruined man!"
+
+He spoke with wild energy as he went on. I, in vain, attempted to impress
+upon him, the danger of exciting himself.
+
+"I must explain everything, and in my own way," he said, with burning
+cheeks, "for I look to you to extricate me. I have appointed you, Mr.
+Cleave, my chief executor; but, above all, I rely upon you, I adjure you,
+to protect my good name in those horrible accounts, which you once helped
+to arrange, but which haunt me day and night like the ghost of a murdered
+man!"
+
+The insane agitation of the speaker increased, in spite of all which I
+could say. It led him to make me a singular revelation--to speak upon a
+subject which I had never even dreamed of. His pride and caution seemed
+wholly to have deserted him; and he continued as follows:
+
+"You are surprised, Sir, that I should thus call upon you. You are young.
+But I know very well what I am doing. Your rank in your profession is
+sufficient guaranty that you are competent to perform the trust--my
+knowledge of your character is correct enough to induce me not to
+hesitate. There is another tie between us. Do you suspect its nature? I
+loved and would have married your mother. She was poor--I was equally
+poor--I was dazzled by wealth, and was miserably happy when your mother's
+pride made her refuse my suit. I married--I have not been happy. But
+enough. I should never have spoken of this--never--but I am dying! As you
+are faithful and true, St. George Cleave, let my good name and Annie's be
+untarnished!"
+
+There the interview ended. The doctor came in, and I retired to reflect
+upon the singular communication which had been made to me. On the same
+evening, I accepted all the trusts confided to me. In a week the sick
+gentleman was sleeping with his fathers. I held his hand when he died.
+
+I shall not describe the grief and suffering of every one. I shall not
+trust myself, especially, to speak of Annie. Her agony was almost
+destructive to her health--and every throb which shook her frame, shook
+mine as well. The sight of her face had revived, in an instant, all the
+love of the past, if indeed it had ever slept. I loved her now,
+passionately, profoundly. As I thought that I might win her love in
+return, I thrilled with a vague delight.
+
+Well, let me not spin out my story. The result of my examination of Mr.
+Barrington's affairs, was saddening in the extreme. He was quite ruined.
+Neglect and extravagant living, with security debts, had mortgaged his
+entire property. When it was settled, and the hall was sold, his widow and
+daughter had just enough to live upon comfortably--scarcely so much. They
+gladly embraced my suggestion to remove to a small cottage near our own,
+in town, and there they now live--you may see the low roof through the
+window.
+
+I am glad to say that my reėxamination of the executorial accounts, which
+had so troubled the poor dying gentleman, proved his fears quite
+unfounded. There was mere disorder--no grounds for "exception." I told as
+much to Annie, who alone knew all; and her smile, inexpressibly sweet and
+filled with thanks, was my sole executorial "commission."
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+I have just been discarded by Annie.
+
+Let me endeavor to collect my thoughts and recall what she said to me. My
+head is troubled to-day--it is strange what a want of self-control I have!
+I thought I was strong--and I am weaker than a child.
+
+I told her that I loved her--had loved her for years--that she was
+dearer, far, to me than all on earth beside my mother. And she answered
+me--agitated, but perfectly resolved:
+
+"I cannot marry you, Mr. Cleave."
+
+A long pause followed, in which she evidently labored with great
+distress--then she continued:
+
+"I will frankly and faithfully say _why_ I cannot. I know all--I know your
+feelings for me once. You went away because you were poor, and you thought
+I was rich. Shall I be less strong than yourself? I am poor now; I do not
+regret it, except--pardon me, sir, I am confused--I meant to say, that
+_you_ are now the richer. It humbles me to speak of this--why did you
+not"--
+
+There she stopped, blushing and trembling.
+
+"Why did I not? Oh! do not stop there, I pray you."
+
+She replied to my words in a broken and agitated voice:
+
+"I cannot finish. I was thinking of--of--the day when I mended your coat!"
+
+And a smile broke through the tears in her eyes, as she gazed timidly at
+me. I shall not prolong the account of our interview. She soon left me,
+resolute to the last; and I came away, perfectly miserable.
+
+What shall I do? I cannot live without her. My life would be a miserable
+mockery. To see her there near me, at the window, in the street; to see
+her tresses in the sunlight, her little slipper as it flits through the
+flower-enveloped gate; to feel that she is near me, but lost to me! Never
+could I endure it! But what can I do? Is there anything that can move her?
+
+--Ah! that may! Let me try it. Oh, fortunate accident. To-morrow, or very
+soon--very soon!
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+A week after my rejection, I went up to my chamber, and drew from the
+depths of my wardrobe, the old coat which Annie had mended. I had promised
+her to preserve it. I had kept my promise. Yes, there it was, just as I
+had worn it at the hall--my shabby old coat of five years ago! I put it
+on, smiling, and surveyed myself in a mirror. It was strangely
+old-fashioned; but I did not think of that. I seemed to have returned, all
+at once, to the past; its atmosphere embraced me; all its flowers bloomed
+gaily before my eyes.
+
+I looked at the hole in the elbow. There were Annie's stitches--her
+fingers had clasped the worn, decayed cloth--the old garment had rested on
+her arm!
+
+I think I must have gazed at the coat for an hour, motionless in the
+sunlight, and thinking of old days. Then I aroused myself, suddenly, put
+on my hat, and, with a beating heart, went to ask if Annie remembered.
+
+I shall not relate the details of our interview. She remembered! Oh, word
+so sweet or so filled with sadness! with a world of sorrow or delight in
+its sound! She remembered--and her heart could resist no longer. She
+remembered the poor youth who had loved her so dearly--whom she, too, had
+loved in the far away past. She remembered the days when her father was
+well and happy--when his kind voice greeted me, and his smile gave me
+friendly welcome. She remembered the old days, with their flowers and
+sunshine--the old hall, and the lawn, and the singing birds. Can you
+wonder that her soft, tender bosom throbbed, that her heart was "melted in
+her breast?"
+
+So she plighted me her troth--the dream and joy of my youth. We shall very
+soon be married. The ship which I sent from the shore long ago has come
+again to port, with a grander treasure than the earth holds beside--it is
+the precious, young head which reclined upon my heart!
+
+--And again I can say, as I said long ago: "how good a thing it is to
+live!"
+
+
+
+
+MY SECRET.
+
+(FROM THE FRENCH.)
+
+BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+    My soul its secret has, my life too has its mystery,
+    A love eternal in a moment's space conceived;
+    Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its history,
+    And she who was the cause, nor knew it, nor believed.
+    Alas! I shall have passed close by her unperceived,
+    Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely,
+    I shall unto the end have made life's journey, only
+    Daring to ask for naught, and having naught received.
+    For her, though God has made her gentle and endearing,
+    She will go on her way distraught and without hearing
+    These murmurings of love that round her steps ascend,
+    Piously faithful still unto her austere duty,
+    Will say, when she shall read these lines full of her beauty,
+    "Who can this woman be?" and will not comprehend.
+
+
+
+
+A LEAF
+
+FROM MY PARIS NOTE-BOOK.
+
+BY H.T. TUCKERMAN.
+
+
+Fresh from Italy, we enter the gallery of the Louvre with a feeling that
+it is but a grand prolongation of the glorious array of pictured and
+sculptured trophies, scattered in such memorable luxuriance, through that
+chosen land of art; but the sensation is that of delightful surprise when
+we have but recently explored the dim chambers of the National Gallery, or
+obtained formal access to a private British collection. To cross the now
+magnificent hall of Apollo, with its grand proportions flooded by a
+cloudless sun, expands the mind and brightens the vision for their feast
+of beauty. Here too, a magic improvement has been recently wrought, and
+the architectural renovation lends new effect to the ancient treasures, so
+admirably preserved and arranged. I stood long at one of the windows and
+looked down upon the Seine; it was thence that the people were fired upon
+at the massacre of St. Bartholomew; there rose, dark and fretted, the
+antique tower of Notre Dame, here was the site of the Tour de Nesle, that
+legend of crime wrought in stone; gracefully looked the bridges as they
+spanned the swollen current of the river; cheerfully lay the sunshine on
+quay and parapet; it was a scene where the glow of nature and the shadows
+of history unite to lend a charm to the panorama of modern civilization.
+And turning the gaze within, how calm and refreshing seemed the long and
+high vistas of the gallery; how happy the artists at their easels;--girls
+with their frugal dinners in a basket on the pavement, copying a Flemish
+scene; youths drawing intently some head of an old master; veterans of the
+palette reproducing the tints born under Venetian skies; and groups
+standing in silent admiration before some exquisite gem or wonderful
+conception. It is like an audience with the peers of art to range the
+Louvre; in radiant state and majestic silence they receive their reverend
+guests; first smiles down upon him the celestial meekness of Raphael's
+holy women, then the rustic truth of Murillo's peasant mothers, and the
+most costly, though, to our mind, not the most expressive, of all his
+pictures--the late acquisition for which kings competed at Marshal Soult's
+sale; now we are warmed by the rosy flush of Rubens--like a mellow sunset
+beaming from the walls; and now startled at the life-like individuality of
+Vandyke's portraits, as they gaze down with such placid dignity and keen
+intelligence; at one point, we examine with mere curiosity the stiff
+outlines of early religious limning; and, at another, smile at the homely
+nature of the Dutch school; Philip de Champagne's portraits, Wouverman's
+white horses, Cuyp's meadows and kine, Steen's rural _fźtes_, Claude's
+sunsets, Pannini's architecture and Sneyder's animals; David's
+melodramatic pieces, Isabey's miniatures, Oudny's dogs, Robert's "Harvest
+Home," all hint a chapter, not only in the history of art, but in the
+philosophy of life and the secrets of the beautiful--enshrined there for
+the world's enjoyment, with a liberal policy yet more aptly illustrated by
+the vast and lofty colonnades, the courteous custodes, and the provisions
+for students in the drawings of successive schools.
+
+In order to exchange the fascinations of the moment for the lessons of the
+past, one cloudy morning we drove through the avenue of the Champs
+Elysées, by the triumphal arch of Napoleon, to the palace of St. Cloud,
+and from the esplanade gazed back upon the city, over the plain below, to
+the dense mass of buildings surmounted by the domes of the Invalids, and
+the Pantheon and the towers of Notre Dame. To the eye of contemplation it
+is one of the most memorable of landscapes; a stand-point for historical
+reverie, which attunes the mind for subsequent and less discursive
+retrospection. Enter the apartment where Bonaparte dispersed the assembly
+of five hundred--the initatory act of his rule; it is now a conservatory,
+whence rising terrace walks, statues and fountains only are visible; in
+the fresh silence of morning, they offered a striking contrast to that
+eventful scene. In an adjacent room a picture representing Maria de
+Medici's interview with Sully after the death of Henry IV., carries us
+back to an earlier era. Here Blucher had his headquarters, and here was
+settled the convention by which Paris was yielded to the allies. The
+saloon of Vernet, the well-trimmed vine-trees of the garden, the vivid
+hues of the tapestry, the newly waxed floors, the hangings and couches of
+Lyons silk, the elegant Sčvres vases, and Florentine tables of _pietra
+dura_, the velvet cushions of the chapel, and late publications on the
+library desks--all free of speck or stain--proclaim this summer palace as
+great a favorite now as when resorted to by the princes of Orleans. In
+this hall the two Napoleons were proclaimed; and the brilliant memory of
+those summer festivals that lately made St. Cloud dazzling with light and
+beauty, was reflected from mirror, cornice, and tinted fabric; from this
+gilt on the iron chain of usurped dominion, a glance through the window
+revealed its origin: a throng of people were on their way to mass and a
+regiment was on parade--the one illustrating the blind exaction of bigoted
+authority, the other the machinery of brute force--the church and the
+army, the mitre, and the sword, superstition and violence; with these, in
+all ages, have the multitude been subdued; and between these two
+representations of elemental despotism, clustered on a high wall, stood a
+crowd to watch the meek procession of worshippers, and the exactitude of
+the manual, or admire the spirited, yet controlled, evolutions of the
+officer on his noble charger. The whole scene typified France as she is;
+uneducated devotees, a military organization at the beck of its chief, and
+a surplus of curious, intimidated or acquiescent spectators.
+
+To pass from St. Cloud to Versailles is like turning from the last to the
+first chapters of French history. The vast court of the palace is lined
+with colossal statues; and thus we enter the vestibule through a file of
+pale and majestic sentinels, summoned, as it were, from the tomb to guard
+the trophies of nationality. Our pilgrimage through such a world of
+effigies begins with Clovis and Charlemagne, and ends with Louis Philippe:
+the place itself is the ancient home of royalty; the gardens, visible
+from every window, have been trod by generations of monarchs and
+courtiers; the ceilings bear the arms of the noble families of the
+kingdom; while around are the faces and figures of the men of valor and of
+genius that consecrate her history. Through this panorama move peasants,
+workmen, citizens, and foreigners, gazing unrestricted, as upon a
+procession evoked from the inexorable past, in which are all those of whom
+they have heard or read as illustrious in France; they see the battles,
+the leaders, the kings, the poets, the human material of history. This
+grand conception, which has of late years been mainly realized by the last
+king, is certainly one of the most grand and significant of modern times.
+Even in this, our one day's observation, how many ideas are revived, how
+many characters brought into view; what events, associations and people
+throng upon our consciousness, as slowly gazing, we tread the interminable
+halls and scan the countless memorials of Versailles!
+
+Taking up the thread of reminiscence when looking at the old moldy mortar
+that belonged to the knights of St. John when at Rhodes, the expiring
+chivalry of Europe gleams fitfully upon us, once more, to provoke a
+mortifying comparison with the not yet completed pictures of the capture
+of Abd-el-Kader and the last siege of Rome; thence turn to the "Jeu de
+Paume," where the ardent figure of Mirabeau represents the genius of the
+Revolution, and from it to "Louis XVIII. and the Charter," emblematic of
+the Restoration; how shines on this canvas the "helmet of Navarre" in the
+"Battle of Ivry," as in Macaulay's spirited lyric, and chastely beautiful
+in its stainless marble, stands the heroic Maid of Orleans; while,
+appropriately in the midst of these historic characters, we find the bust
+of that ideal of picturesque narrators, Froissart. The modern rule of
+France is abruptly and almost grotesquely suggested amid such
+associations, by the figure of De Joinville on the deck of a man-of-war,
+well described by Talfourd, as "the type of dandified, melodramatic
+seamanship." The cycles of kingly sway is abruptly broken by the meteoric
+episode of Bonaparte: first he appears dispersing the Assembly, and then
+in his early victories, wounded at Ratisbon, at the tomb of Frederick the
+Great, distributing the Legion of Honor at the Invalides, quelling an
+insurrection at Cairo, engaged in his unparalleled succession of battles,
+and at the altar with Maria Louisa. The divorce from Josephine and the
+murder of the Duc D'Enghien, are events that only recur more impressively
+to the mind of the spectator because uncommemorated. From the career of
+military genius which transformed the destinies of France, we pass to
+apartments where still breathes the vestiges of legitimacy as in the hour
+of its prime. The equestrian statue of Louis XIV. in the court-yard, his
+bed and crown, his clock and chair in the long suite of rooms kept sacred
+to his memory, typify the age when genius and beauty mingled their charms
+in the corrupt atmosphere of intrigue and profligacy. The noble expanse of
+wood, water, and meadow; the paths lined with stately myrtles and ancient
+box, spread as invitingly to the eye from this embayed window, as when the
+_grand monarque_ stood there to watch the graceful walk of La Valličre, or
+the staid carriage of Maintenon. The abandonment and quietude of these
+chambers, mirrored, tapestried, and solitary, owe not a little of the
+spell they exercise over the imagination, to the vicinity of the galleries
+devoted to the men of the Revolution and the campaigns of '92; amid the
+smoke of conflict ever appears that resolute, olive face with the dark eye
+fixed and the thin lip curved in decision or expectancy. We mechanically
+repeat Campbell's elegy as we mark "Hohenlinden," and linger with
+patriotic gratitude over "Yorktown," notwithstanding the absurd
+prominence given to the French officers; Condé, Turenne, Moreau, Lannes,
+Massena, and Lafayette fight over again before us the wars of the Fronde,
+the Empire, or the Republic. The monotony of these scenes of destruction
+is only relieved by the individual memories of the chiefs; they link a
+certain individuality with the flame and shroud of war, the fragmentary
+conquests, and the struggles that make up so large a portion of external
+history; and we emerge from the crowd of warriors into the company of
+statesmen, wits, and poets, with a sensation of refreshment. Each single
+triumph of thought, each victory of imagination and memorial of character,
+has an absolute worth and charm that the exploits of armies can never
+emulate.
+
+Racine's portrait revives the long controversy between the classic and
+romantic schools; that of La Bruy re the art of character-painting now one
+of the highest functions of popular literature; that of Bossuet the pulpit
+eloquence of France and the persecution of Fenelon, and that of Saint Cyr
+the Jansenist discussion. A blank like that which designates the place of
+Marino Faliero in the Ducal palace at Venice, is left here for Le Sage, as
+the nativity of the author of Gil Blas is yet disputed. We look at
+Rousseau to revert to the social reforms, of which he was the pioneer; at
+La Place to realize the achievements of the exact sciences, and at St.
+Pierre to remember the poetry of nature. Voltaire's likeness is not
+labelled for the same reason that there is no name on the tomb of Ney;
+both are too well known to require announcement. How incongruous become
+the associations as we proceed; old Pčre la Chaise cheek by jowl with the
+American Presidents; Cagliostro, who died before the word his career
+incarnated had become indispensable to the English tongue--the apotheosis
+of humbug; Marmontel, dear to our novitiate as royal leaders; and near to
+the original Pamela; Chateaubriand's ancestor the Marshal; Bisson going
+below to ignite the magazine, rather than "give up the ship;" and the
+battered war dog, with a single eye and leg, beneath whose fragmentary
+portrait is inscribed that Mars left him only a heart.
+
+It is with singular interest that we look upon the authentic resemblance
+of persons with whose minds and career literature has made us familiar,
+and compare what we have imagined of their appearance with the reality. Of
+such characters as Gluck, Klopstock and Madame Le Brun, whose ministry of
+art has excited a vague delight, we may have formed no very distinct
+image; but associated as is the name of Madame Roland with courage,
+suffering and affliction, we naturally expect a more dignified and less
+vivacious expression than here meets us, until we remember the earlier
+development of her rare and sympathetic intelligence. Count Mirabeau has a
+look of mildness and _sang froid_ instead of the earnestness we fancied.
+Who would have supposed the fair assassin of Marat such a thin, delicate
+and spirituelle blonde? The sensuous face of George IV. and the tragic one
+of Charles I., in the ever recurring Vandyke, with Sheridan's confident,
+handsome and genial physiognomy, seem grouped to make more elevated, by
+comparison, the noble abstraction of Flaxman. Talleyrand resembles a keen,
+selfish, humorous and gentlemanly man of the world, in an unexceptionable
+white wig. Richelieu is piquant and Madame de Staėl impassioned and
+Amazonian. What decadence even in the warlike notabilities is hinted by
+glancing from Soult to Oudinot! I thought of the French fleet in the
+memorable storm off Newport, as I recognized the portrait of the Count
+d'Estaing; and realized anew the military instinct of the nation in the
+preponderance of battle-scenes and heroes, and marked the interest with
+which groups of soldiers lingered and talked before them.
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN OF THE GODDESS.
+
+BY BAYARD TAYLOR.
+
+
+    Not as in youth, with steps outspeeding morn,
+      And cheeks all bright from rapture of the way,
+    But in strange mood, half cheerful, half forlorn,
+               She comes to me to-day.
+
+    Does she forget the trysts we used to keep,
+      When dead leaves rustled on autumnal ground?
+    Or the lone garret, whence she banished sleep
+               With threats of silver sound?
+
+    Does she forget how shone the happy eyes
+      When they beheld her?--how the eager tongue
+    Plied its swift oar through wave-like harmonies,
+               To reach her where she sung?
+
+    How at her sacred feet I cast me down?
+      How she upraised me to her bosom fair,
+    And from her garland shred the first light crown
+               That ever pressed my hair?
+
+    Though dust is on the leaves, her breath will bring
+      Their freshness back: why lingers she so long?
+    The pulseless air is waiting for her wing,
+               Dumb with unuttered song.
+
+    If tender doubt delay her on the road,
+      Oh let her haste, to find that doubt belied!
+    If shame for love unworthily bestowed,
+               That shame shall melt in pride.
+
+    If she but smile, the crystal calm will break
+      In music, sweeter than it ever gave,
+    As when a breeze breathes o'er some sleeping lake
+               And laughs in every wave.
+
+    The ripples of awakened song shall die
+      Kissing her feet, and woo her not in vain,
+    Until, as once, upon her breast I lie,
+               Pardoned and loved again.
+
+
+
+
+ON POPULAR KNOWLEDGE.
+
+BY GEORGE S. HILLARD.
+
+
+Against all institutions for the diffusion of knowledge among the
+community, an objection is often urged that they can teach nothing
+thoroughly, but only superficially, and that modest ignorance is better
+than presumptuous half-knowledge. How frequently is it said that "a little
+learning is a dangerous thing." This celebrated line is a striking
+instance of the vitality which may be given to what is at least a very
+doubtful proposition by throwing it into a pointed form. If anything be a
+good at all, it is a good precisely in proportion to the extent in which
+it is possessed or enjoyed. A great deal of it is better than a little,
+but a little is better than none. No one says or thinks that a little
+conscience, or a little wisdom, or a little faith, or a little charity is
+a dangerous thing. Why then is a little learning dangerous? Alas, it is
+not the little learning, but the much ignorance which it supposes, that is
+dangerous!
+
+We also frequently hear it said, that the general diffusion of popular
+knowledge is unfavorable to great acquisitions in any one individual. This
+is a favorite dogma with those persons whose views are all retrospective,
+who are ever magnifying past ages at the expense of the present, and who
+will insist upon riding through life with their faces turned toward the
+horse's tail instead of his head. "We have smatterers and sciolists in
+abundance," say they, "but where are the giant scholars of other days?"
+Dr. Johnson once said, in reply to a remark upon the general intelligence
+of the people of Scotland, that learning in Scotland was like bread in a
+besieged city, where every man gets a mouthful, but none a full meal. He
+also observed in a conversation held with Lord Monboddo, that learning had
+much decreased in England, since his remembrance; to which his lordship
+remarked, "you have lived to see its decrease in England; I, its
+extinction in Scotland." The fallacy of views like these consists in
+taking it for granted that there is always just about the same aggregate
+amount of knowledge in the world, and that only the ratio of distribution
+is changed. But there is no such analogy between learning and material
+substances. The wealth of the mind is not like gold, which must be beaten
+out the finer, as the surface to be covered by it is more extensive. As
+to the alleged superiority of past ages, in anything essential, I am more
+than skeptical. I hold rather that of all good things, learning included,
+there is as much in the world now as there ever was--not to say more. The
+great scholars of Europe in our time are not inferior to the greatest of
+their predecessors. Even in classical literature and antiquities, the
+searching, analyzing and investigating spirit of our age has poured new
+light upon the remote past, and rendered the labors of former generations
+useless. By elevating the general standard, it is true that there is less
+distance between the common mind and the deeply learned. The scholars of
+the middle ages seem the higher, from the low level of ignorance from
+which they rise. They are like mountains shooting abruptly from the plain.
+Our scholars seem to have reached an inferior point of elevation, because
+the level of the general mind has come nearer to them, as mountain peaks
+lose somewhat of their apparent height when they spring from a raised
+table land.
+
+
+
+
+ON RECEIVING A
+
+PRIVATELY PRINTED VOLUME OF POEMS
+
+FROM A FRIEND.
+
+BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
+
+
+    A modest bud matured mid secret dews,
+      May yield its bloom beside some hidden path,
+    Full of sweet perfumes and of rarest hues
+      While few may note the beauty which it hath--
+
+    And yet perchance some maiden, wandering there,
+      May bend beside it with a loving look,
+    Or by the streamlet place it in her hair;
+      And smile above her image in the brook.
+
+    A bird with pinions beautiful, and shy,
+      May sing scarce noted mid the noisier throng;
+    Or 'scaping earth, take refuge in the sky
+      And though concealed still charm the air with song.
+
+    Yet haply some enamored ear may hark,
+      And deem it sweetest of the birds that sing;
+    Or in his heart still praise the unseen lark
+      That leads his fancies toward its heavenward wing.
+
+    A star in some sequestered nook on high,
+      In its deep niche of blue may calmly shine,
+    While careless eyes that wander o'er the sky,
+      May only deem the brightest orbs divine.
+
+    But there are those who love to sit and trace
+      Between all these some shy retiring light,
+    For such, they know, shed through the veil of space
+      The general halo that adorns the night.
+
+    Thus many a poet's volume unproclaimed
+      By all the myriad tongues of Fame afar,
+    The few may deem as worthy to be named,
+      (As I do this) a Flower, a Bird, a Star!
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINCE AT LAND'S END.
+
+BY CAROLINE CHESEBRO.
+
+
+Last from the church came the organist, Daniel Summerman. He was less
+hurried than others; to him it was not, as to people in general, a day of
+increased social responsibility. His great duty was now performed. Done,
+whether well or ill. He descended the stairs slowly, but with a step so
+light you might have taken it for a child's. No need for him to haste; the
+precious moments would go fast enough--he wished not to lose one.
+
+In the porch he paused a moment, to draw on his woollen gloves, and button
+his great coat, and for something besides. Perhaps the person who laid the
+wreath of cedar leaves on his organ stool was somewhere about, and had
+some criticism to offer in respect to the choir's performance.
+
+But he descended the church steps without having met even the sexton;
+somewhat disappointed, it was not with indifference that he saw a stranger
+standing in the churchyard among the graves; by the grave, it chanced, of
+a child who died in October, five years old. When the organist perceived
+this, a purpose which he would have formed later in the day, anticipated
+itself, and led him to the little mound. He would leave the cedar wreath
+on Mary's grave.
+
+He was not ashamed of his gracious purpose when he had drawn near. His
+gentle heart was glad to do this homage to the dead, in the presence of a
+stranger who had never seen the living child. Stooping down, he smoothed
+the frozen grass, and laid the wreath upon it; and when he saw the
+stranger watching him, he said:
+
+"She was the prettiest child in the village; if she had lived, we should
+have had one singer in the choir. I would have taught her. She loved music
+so much."
+
+Here was an introduction sufficient for an ordinary man. At least the
+organist thought so. But when he looked at the stranger he was sorry that
+he had spoken, for no genial sympathy was in that face, and still less in
+the voice that asked,
+
+"Will you leave the wreath here? Where did it come from?"
+
+The organist replied as though he did not perceive the indifference with
+which the questions were asked:
+
+"I found it in the choir," said he. "One of the children left it, may be.
+Any way this is the best place for it. Dear little girl! I should hate to
+think that she was really down there."
+
+"Where, then?" asked the stranger.
+
+"Up above, as sure as there's a heaven." As Summerman spoke, he stepped
+from the frozen ground to the gravel walk, and turning his back on the
+stranger he brushed a tear from his cheek.
+
+The gentleman, whose name was Redman Rush, followed him. He was a
+well-dressed person; indeed, his attire was splendid, in comparison with
+the rough garments of the little organist. His fine broadcloth cloak was
+trimmed profusely with rare fur, and he wore a fur cap that must have cost
+half as much as the church paid Summerman for playing the organ a
+twelvemonth. He was a noticeable person, not merely on account of his
+dress. His bearing was elegant, that of a well-bred man, not indifferent
+to the eyes of others; that of a man somewhat cautious of the reflection
+he should cast in a region of shadows and appearances. But, moreover, the
+face of this Redman Rush was the face of misery. If ever a wreck came to
+shore, here was the torn and battered fragment of a gallant craft.
+
+"Were you in the church this morning?" asked the organist, struggling
+with himself, speaking with effort; for, to his gaze, the aspect of the
+stranger was forbidding and awful; and yet it was beyond his power to walk
+by the side of any man cautious, cold, and dumb. This person was at least
+a gentleman, and perhaps understood music.
+
+"Yes," was the brief answer.
+
+"How did the singing go?"
+
+"Tolerably."
+
+"That's a comfort," said the organist, looking more pleased than the
+occasion seemed to warrant. But he was not a vain man; he merely supposed
+that the gentleman's reply promised criticism worth hearing.
+
+"Didn't you hear it yourself?"
+
+"Oh, yes, after a fashion. I play the organ. It isn't the best situation
+for hearing. I thought it decent. Particularly the _Gloria in Excelsis_. I
+was most anxious about that. How did it sound to you, sir?"
+
+"Well."
+
+"But, after all, they didn't understand it."
+
+"Understand what?"
+
+"The meaning. It opens with the song of the angels, you know. 'Glory be to
+God on high; on earth, peace, good will toward men.' They couldn't tell,
+coherently, what the Peace and Good Will meant. That's the worst of it.
+How can they sing what they don't understand?"
+
+"Surely. Why don't you teach them?"
+
+"Why don't I teach them!" exclaimed the organist. "I'm not a brain-maker;
+that's the reason, I suppose."
+
+"Then, you've tried it?"
+
+For a minute Summerman seemed vexed by this question; but for no longer
+than a minute.
+
+"What's the use? what's the use?" he said to himself, and his answer to
+the question was a laugh.
+
+The laugh, though neither loud nor boisterous, but merely a mild evidence
+of good-nature that was not to be clouded by vexations, had a disagreeable
+sound to Redman Rush. He looked contemptuous, and felt more than he
+looked, so that it was really surprising to see him linger for such
+conversation as this of the organist, and to hear him ask,
+
+"How do you teach your choir? Whose fault is it that they cannot learn?"
+
+"Their own fault," answered Summerman. "They've got to learn more than the
+notes. So they complain. You can't make a singer out of a note-book. I've
+tried that enough. Now I try to show them that peace means a riddance of
+selfishness, and that selfishness is the devil's device for holding the
+world together. Not God's; for his idea is love, and was in the beginning.
+Wasn't the world given to understand, that the life which was born was the
+love, truth, and beauty of the world, and that by Him all truth and beauty
+must live? They can't see it. I can't make a man or woman understand that
+an idea must be the centre around which the life will revolve. They come
+to practise, not to hear preaching, they say."
+
+It seemed as if at this, and because of this announcement, Redman Rush
+drew himself apart and up, loftily, and with a gloomy defiance looked
+around him. When Summerman's eyes turned toward him, he seemed gazing into
+distance, and gave no indication that he had heard a word of what had been
+said. The organist was disappointed. He had hoped again for criticism; but
+he went on, perhaps with some suspicion of the correctness of his
+convictions--at least he had not said all he wished to say.
+
+"We must have a centre--an idea," said he. "And if that be self, then the
+devil's to pay. Christ is the only absolute idea--the only possible giver
+of peace, therefore. I mean by Him, His doctrine. He stands for that,
+_being_ Truth, as he said, you know. They came out better on the 'good
+will to men,' if you noticed. It was easier for them to believe in the
+eternal good will of God, this morning. But they failed in the next line,
+'We bless Thee, we give thanks to Thee, for Thy great glory!' If they knew
+more they would sing better. You know what was said, sir, 'Milton himself
+could not teach a boy more than he could learn.' That's the amount of it."
+
+Now and then, during these last words, spoken so evidently by a man who
+liked to talk because he looked for sympathy, and hoped for it, the face
+of the stranger had changed in its expression; there seemed to be less
+fierceness, more sadness in his gloom. But the change was so slight as to
+be hardly perceptible, even to the eyes of Summerman. When he paused in
+speaking he had still no answer.
+
+They walked on a few paces in silence, when suddenly the organist stepped
+up to the door of a house that opened on the sidewalk, and unlocked it.
+
+"This is my shop," said he; "won't you come in, and warm yourself? it is
+so cold in spite of the sun."
+
+Redman Rush hesitated, with his foot upon the doorstep. He looked up and
+down the street. It was beautiful and bright without, but, oh, how bare
+and cold! homely enough within, but the glare of a hot coal fire
+suggested comfort, as the skylight did cheerfulness. Did he really wish
+for warmth and comfort, for cheerfulness and company? That was the point.
+
+"Come in, I will show you something," said Summerman.
+
+"He invites me as if I were another boy like himself," thought the man.
+Perhaps for the sake of that unimaginable boyhood he crossed the
+threshold, and allowed Summerman to close the door behind him.
+
+This room was the organist's home. His household goods were all around him
+when he stepped into the shop. It was a little place, but so well
+arranged, that there seemed room, and to spare. Summerman was hospitable
+as a prince--the shade of Voltaire reminds me of the great Frederick's
+hospitality! yet, let the word stand.
+
+This shop gave outward and visible signs of the versatility of its owner's
+mind. The front part was devoted to the clock and watch making business;
+before the large window stood a table, where the requisite tools were kept
+for conduct of that business. A few clocks, and frames of clocks, gathered
+probably from auction rooms, were ranged upon a shelf, and dust was never
+allowed to accumulate around or upon them. Never was housemaid more exact
+and scrupulous than the proprietor of this Gallery.
+
+In the back part of the shop, which was lighted by the skylight, stood the
+instrument for daguerreo-typing, possession of which would have made the
+organist a proud man, if anything could have done so.
+
+When he had invited Mr. Rush to sit down, and the invitation was accepted,
+it was by a device of Summerman's that the gentleman found himself
+directly facing the machine, and now, if he took an interest in any
+earthly thing, or was capable of curiosity, some good would come of it,
+thought the organist.
+
+He had promised to show his visitor somewhat, and accordingly approached
+him with a miniature case in his hand.
+
+Mr. Rush had removed his fur cap, and Summerman approaching him, was so
+struck by his appearance, the dignity, and pride, and trouble his
+countenance expressed, that he nearly exclaimed in his surprise, and quite
+forgot the intention he had, till Mr. Rush reminded him by extending his
+hand for the picture.
+
+"This is little Mary," exclaimed he, presenting the miniature. "I took it
+last summer. She died in October. Maybe you will understand now why I
+said that we should have had a singer, if she had lived."
+
+But Summerman was in doubt about this, as, from the point to which he
+immediately retired, he cast a glance at the face of the stranger, who
+took the picture, and surveyed it, with such a look.
+
+At first, it appeared as if a glance would suffice him. But he did not
+return it with a glance. Was it the brightness and innocence of the young
+face that won upon him, or did it for the moment take its place as the
+type of all beauty and innocence, and hold him to contemplation, as for
+the last time. Was it really into the face of _that_ little child, dead
+and buried since October, that he looked? or was _he_ really _here_, under
+the roof of this poor organist, shut up with the warmth of his coal stove
+this bright Christmas day, locked safe his secret thoughts, himself secure
+with them?
+
+At last some word or sound escaped the organist. He had gazed at Mr. Rush
+till he seemed possessed of nightmare. So wild, so haggard, so awful, the
+man's face appeared to him, that the cry, an involuntary one, expressed
+better than any inquiry could have done, how much disturbed he was. The
+stranger heard, and seemed to understand, for at the sound he rose
+quickly, and laid the picture on the counter; not gently; at the same time
+he looked at Summerman and laughed; but without merriment.
+
+"Come," said Summerman quickly, "let me take your portrait. I have quite a
+collection here, you see." And as he spoke he did not remove his eyes from
+the stranger--he had come to the conclusion that he was mad, or in some
+direful strait that made him almost irresponsible, and his first purpose
+was one of helpful commiseration.
+
+Instead of quitting the shop straightway, as Summerman expected he would
+do when he made this proposition (and if he did depart he meant to
+follow), the stranger walked toward the instrument, and on his way picked
+up the picture he had thrown down with so little ceremony. He seemed to
+think he owed this courtesy:
+
+"Do you find much patronage here?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, considerable," replied Summerman. "Just now more than common. Your
+likeness is such a good present to make your friend!"
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Certainly," was the emphatic response.
+
+"You ask to take my likeness--what for?"
+
+"I want it myself."
+
+"Oh--for a sign. Well, young man, you don't know what it's the sign of,
+after all," and here Mr. Rush evidently set himself against the world.
+
+"I hope it's the sign of a friend," answered Summerman, who was keeping up
+his spirits by an effort, for the mere presence of this man weighed on
+them with an almost intolerable weight. Yet he was sparing no effort to
+retain that presence.
+
+"Why do you hope that?" asked Mr. Rush with a disagreeable show of
+authority.
+
+"Because we met at the church door on Christmas day." Simple answer--yet
+it was spoken so gently, so truthfully, it seemed to make an impression.
+
+"Christmas day. So it is. But it's getting late. How high is the sun yet?"
+
+"Three hours, maybe."
+
+Hearing this, the gentleman turned away, and walked to the further
+extremity of the shop. Summerman's eyes followed him with anxiety. But he
+went on polishing a plate, and seemed beyond all things intent on that.
+
+Presently Mr. Rush came back.
+
+"You may take my likeness," said he. "You are a good fellow. And it will
+help pass time."
+
+So the artist stepped quickly about, and looked pleased, but not too much
+so. The work was soon done. While Summerman was putting it through the
+process of perfection, the gentleman stood and watched him.
+
+"How did you want your choir to sing 'good will to men?'" he asked.
+
+Summerman did not look up to answer--did not express any surprise, but the
+whole man was in the reply given:
+
+"From the heart, sir. Full, confident, assuring. They owe that to God and
+man, or they've no business in a choir."
+
+"Do you suppose they could do it?" asked Mr. Rush, not immediately, but,
+as it seemed, when he had controlled the unpleasant influence the
+speaker's enthusiastic mode of address had upon him. It seemed as if he
+were not merely speaking, and engaging the organist in speech for
+pastime--but rather because he could not help it. His questions, when he
+asked them, had a more surprising sound to himself than to the person who
+answered. And they vexed him--but not Summerman. When Mr. Rush asked him
+if he supposed it possible for them to sing in the way signified, he
+replied quite confidently:
+
+"Yes, if they only knew what they were about."
+
+"But you explained that to them?"
+
+"Well, then, yes, if they believed it; for after all, belief is of the
+heart."
+
+"You don't think they believe it?"
+
+"It's a hard thing to say. But if they did, they would do better. They
+are not a happy set altogether. They whine--they talk one thing, and live
+another. One of them lost a little money the other day--pretty nearly all
+he had, I suppose--but what of that?"
+
+"What of that!" exclaimed Mr. Rush, and he looked at the organist amazed.
+
+"Yes, what of it? The man has his health and his faculties. What's money?"
+
+"What's money!"
+
+"Yes, sir, when you come to the point--what is it? Eyes, hands,
+feet--blood, brain, heart, soul? You would think so to hear him talk. It's
+dust! I've seen that proved, sir, and I know 'tis true!"
+
+"You don't allow for circumstances," said the stranger, sharply.
+
+"Circumstances!" repeated Summerman, incredulous.
+
+"Yes, the difference between your affairs and those of your neighbors. You
+seem to judge others by yourself?"
+
+"My affairs! I haven't any to speak of," said the organist, with a grave
+sort of wonder.
+
+"I suppose," replied the stranger, almost angrily, "you are a human
+creature; things happen to you, and they do not. If you have any feeling
+at all you are affected by what happens." He ceased speaking with the
+manner of a man who is annoyed that he should have been so far beguiled
+into speech.
+
+"Some things have happened to me," answered Summerman quietly, seeing
+everything, pretending to see nothing. "I lived ten years among the
+Gipsies. I belonged to them. That's where I had my schooling. I worked in
+the tin ware; and clock mending I took up of myself. I left my people on
+account of a church-organ. My father and mother were dead. I had no
+brother or sister; nor any relation. But I had friends, and they would
+have kept me; but I had to choose between them and the rest. I couldn't
+learn the organ in the woods and meadows; I was caught by the music as
+easily as a pink by a pin. But I kept to the clock mending. I used to
+travel about on my business once in a while, for a man can't settle down
+to four walls and a tread-mill in a minute, when he's been used to all
+creation. Then I learned to take pictures, and I travelled about for a
+time, carrying the machine with me. But for the last year I've lived in
+this shop and had the church organ. So you see how it is. I have all these
+things to look after, and I try to keep in tune, and up to pitch.
+
+"You are a happy man," said Mr. Rush, who had listened with attention to
+this humble story. "But," he added, "you could not understand--for you
+have had no cares, no one dependent on you--how necessary to some persons
+money is for happiness. What ruin follows the loss of it. How many a man
+would prefer death to such a loss."
+
+"I guess not," said Summerman, in a low tone. "I believe in the Good Will
+doctrine."
+
+"What has that to do with it?" asked the stranger, impatiently.
+
+To this Summerman replied, speaking slowly--humblest acquiescence sounding
+through his speech.
+
+"When I settled down, and got the situation in the church, I was about to
+bring her here.... You understand.... She died about that time. I have not
+seen her picture. Her brother had died before. I was to be the son of the
+old people. We were sure that after awhile they would be attracted by our
+happy home, and by our fireside all their wanderings would end. They
+should be free as in the forests.... It is all changed now--but I am still
+their son, and I wish nothing better than to work for them. The old man is
+failing, and I think that I shall yet persuade them to come and live with
+me--we might be one family still--and it would please her. If I succeed,
+there are two or three rooms close by where we can be tolerably happy,
+all together. God is not indifferent. He sees all. And sure I am that He
+bears me no ill will. So it must be for the best. She used to wear this
+ribbon around her splendid hair. She was so young and gay! It would have
+done you good to look at such a face. Sometimes I catch myself thinking
+what a long, gay life we ought to have lived together--and I know there's
+no wickedness in that. It's more pleasant than bitter."
+
+"So you support the old people," was the listener's sole comment. Not
+loss, but fidelity--not grief, but constancy, impressed him while he
+hearkened to this story.
+
+"I have adopted them," answered the organist. "Yes, they are mine now.
+Just as they were to have been. Just as she and I used to talk it over.
+Only she is not here."
+
+"So you support them," repeated Mr. Rush. And he seemed to ponder that
+point, as if it involved somewhat beyond his comprehension.
+
+The organist replied, wondering. And he looked at the questioner--but the
+questioner looked not at him.
+
+"Yes, certainly," he said.
+
+"I suppose they are moderate in their wants. They don't require suites of
+chambers with frescoed ceilings, and walls hung with white satin, rose
+color, lavender--and the rest. They don't need a four-story palace, with
+carpets of velvet to cover the floors from attic to basement. Do they?"
+All the scorn and bitterness expressed in these words the organist happily
+could never perceive. But he discerned enough to make him shudder, and he
+believed that the speaker was mad.
+
+"I don't think I understand you," he answered, perplexed and cautious. He
+feared the effect of his words. But anything that he might say would
+produce now one sole result.
+
+"Very likely you don't understand," said Mr. Rush.
+
+"But," said the organist, "I wish I did."
+
+"Why, man?"
+
+"You look so troubled, sir."
+
+"Troubled?"
+
+"As if you--hadn't--tried out the Good Will doctrine. I mean--yes, I do!
+that I shouldn't suppose you believed in it," said Summerman, bravely.
+
+Mr. Rush laughed bitterly. "I'll tell you a story," said he.
+
+"No--no--I mean not yet--don't," exclaimed Summerman, quickly.
+
+"Why, it's a short tale. I'm not going to trouble you much longer. A fine
+holiday you're having! But you'll never have another like it, I believe.
+I--I want your advice before I go. Besides, you have kept to your green,
+sunny love so long, I would like to give you a notion of what's going on
+the other side of the fence."
+
+"Then we will walk," said Summerman, "if it's agreeable to you, sir, I
+mean, of course. I always walk around the lake at this hour." The little
+man had put on his overcoat while he spoke, and now stood waiting the
+stranger's pleasure, cap in hand.
+
+"Dare you leave that face of mine among the other faces?" asked Mr. Rush,
+with all seriousness.
+
+The organist looked nervously around as if he expected something to
+justify the trouble this question occasioned him.
+
+"Yes--yes--I'll take the risk," he answered, but he spoke without a smile.
+One thought alone prevented him from heartily wishing himself rid of this
+companion, who, in spite of him, had cast such a gloom over his Christmas
+day. The man seemed to have more need of him than Summerman had of his
+dinner deferred.
+
+They set out together to walk through the frosty air under the cloudless
+sky. The sun was near to setting. In half an hour a deep orange belt
+would unroll round the east, flaming signs would mark the heavens, and a
+great star hang in the midst of an amethyst hemicycle.
+
+They noticed that the sun was near to setting, and one of them saw the
+glory.
+
+"I want you to tell me honestly," said the other. "You have taken my
+picture; what do you think it looks like? That is a fair question."
+
+"Like misery," replied Summerman, promptly enough.
+
+"Is that all? I thought worse. I thought it looked like a very devil's
+face. When I go back, I'll destroy it. But, then, it looks like me! Now, I
+can't afford to live a scarecrow. I believe I wasn't made to frighten
+others to death. I'd choose to die myself first." He dropped his voice to
+a whisper. "I've been trying to do that. Tried twice. Is there any
+particular luck in a third time, that you know of?"
+
+Summerman did not answer, though Rush was looking full upon him; neither
+did he avoid the long and piercing gaze the stranger fixed upon him. He
+met that like a man.
+
+"You think I'm mad," at last said Mr. Rush.
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"Thank you. But you are a gipsy. Read my fortune."
+
+Gravely Summerman looked at the fair, smooth palm that was suddenly
+stretched before him.
+
+"You have been unfortunate," said he.
+
+"Oh, no; you mustn't admit that. Only a little money lost, that's all."
+
+"Is it all, indeed?" asked Summerman, and he dropped the palm. Then he
+shook his head. "I do not think it could have served you so. A little
+loss!" said he.
+
+"That is because fortune never made a fool of you. Let me alone; I want to
+think." He spoke in the quick, peremptory manner of a man who is
+accustomed to command; but he came very near to smiling the next moment,
+as he looked down at the little person whom he had ordered into silence.
+
+Then he broke the silence he had enjoined.
+
+"Suppose you were in my case," said he, "how would you act?"
+
+"I am not. How can I tell?" was Summerman's prudent answer.
+
+These words, as indeed any words that he could have spoken, were the best
+that Redman Rush could hear; for now he was leaning with the whole weight
+of his moral nature on the life of this strong-hearted, true-hearted
+organist. He liked the unpresuming, modest, generous word.
+
+"I'll tell you what you would be," said he, quickly. "A month ago worth
+half a million--to-day not a cent. Brought up like a fool, you would
+probably be one. Turned out of house, helpless as a baby. You have
+yourself--master of your wits and your hands. Look at these hands! And all
+my wits can advise me is, this life isn't worth the keeping."
+
+"Oh, no; not to-day! They don't say that to-day!" exclaimed Summerman,
+speaking as if he knew. And he ventured further, boldly: "They advise you,
+go home to your wife and your child; live for them and yourself, and God's
+honor."
+
+"Wife--child!" repeated Rush; and he blushed when he added; "you read
+fortunes. Your pardon."
+
+"I saw it in your face," said the organist, quietly. "When you looked at
+our little Mary, I believed you were thinking of some other little child.
+And it reminded you of some other young lady, when I told you what I
+expected once. If it hadn't been for them, you would never have thought of
+destroying yourself; and I'm sure, on their account, what you ought to ask
+and hope is, that your life may be spared."
+
+It is said that drowning men will grasp at straws. This elegant stranger,
+who had emerged from mystery to disturb the Christmas day of a humble
+organist, now leaned on the friendly arm of the little man, walking along
+with him, _not_ as he once sauntered through the promenade, a butterfly
+disdaining all but the brightest of sunbeams, the sweetest of flowers.
+Poor worm! he was half frozen in this wintry brightness, this exhilarating
+atmosphere, in which Summerman throve so well.
+
+"Are all the men that are born in woods and meadows, and brought up
+tinkers, like you?" he asked.
+
+"No," answered Summerman. "Some turn out fools, and some knaves, and some
+ten times better men and wiser men, than I shall ever be."
+
+"Like the rest of the world. Are men, men everywhere?"
+
+"Pretty much. You talk about your wits. You were made to do a bigger
+business than I shall ever do. Go home and begin it. I've a mind to go
+with you, so you shan't lose your way."
+
+"You know the way so well," said Rush. He had not before spoken as he now
+spoke, almost cheerfully, almost hopefully. Here was this fellow that told
+fortunes, daring to prophesy good days for him! But then, was he not a
+bankrupt? And if he lived--a beggar still?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sun had set, and the faces of the two men were again turned to the
+village. They had walked quite round the lake, and Summerman had concluded
+that he would invite the gentleman to dine with him when they came back to
+the inn; would he accept the courtesy? Summerman looked at Mr. Rush, that
+he might ascertain the probabilities, and thought that he could see a
+breaking of the black clouds which held this man a prisoner. He wanted to
+preach to him. He wanted exceedingly to launch out again on the Good Will
+doctrine; and at length he did, but not exactly in the manner he would
+have chosen, had he been left to himself.
+
+As they walked along in silence, suddenly came and met them the sound of a
+quick clanging church bell; then rose a mighty cry, and a still more
+potent flame ascending heavenward.
+
+"It's a fire!" cried Summerman. And, true to his living impulse and
+instinct, which was forever--first and last, and ever--the good of the
+public, the little man set off on a run. His companion, the gentleman who
+had never, in his thirty years, run to a fire, with generous intent,
+followed on as fleetly. So they came together to the village street, when,
+lo! the shop of Daniel Summerman, was making all this stir! drawing such
+crowds about it as never before the artist's varied powers had done.
+
+There was neither door nor roof, wall or window, visible, but a pit of
+flame, and within, as everybody knew, the entire stock, sum total of the
+organist's worldly goods.
+
+"Well! well!" said he, as, panting, he came to a stand-still in the middle
+of the street, his companion close beside him.
+
+"Curse God, and die!" was all that the wife of Job could think to say to
+him, in his extremity.
+
+"Well! well!" was the comment Redman Rush could make on this disaster,
+repeating Summerman's words with an emphasis not all his own. It was
+evident that, for a moment at least, he had forgotten himself; his face
+was no longer dark with misery, but full of consternation, alive with
+sympathy. And still he said:
+
+"Where's your Good Will doctrine, though?"
+
+"Safe!" cried the organist, and he crossed his arms on his breast with a
+look of perfect triumph.
+
+"You eat your words with a vengeance. You preach the best sermon I ever
+heard, _I_ swear," said Mr. Rush, looking at him with amazement.
+
+"Humph!" ejaculated Summerman.
+
+"I believe, after all, 'twas my cursed picture that did it," continued
+Rush. He was not able to stand there in silence listening to the roaring
+of the fire, by the side of the man whose property was being destroyed in
+this relentless manner. He must talk; and no one hindered him, for the
+most of the working force of the village was busy trying to draw water
+from the frozen pumps of the neighborhood.
+
+"I might have known such a face would raise the devil," muttered he.
+
+"Then, they are both done for!" was Summerman's quick answer. "If you are
+burnt to death, it's clear you can't be drowned. So, it seems you're a new
+man altogether. Sir, your wife calls you! But, before you go, pray, take
+the Good Will doctrine in. A present from me, if you please."
+
+Having said these words, the organist wiped his eyes, and laughed.
+
+"If this is a dream," said Redman Rush, astonished into doubt of all he
+saw and heard, "let me get home before I wake up, for God's sake." And he
+turned away from the organist, and was hid in the crowd from the eyes that
+followed him.
+
+He turned away, but would he ever lose the memory of a soft voice, saying:
+
+"Mr. Summerman, my boys and I insist on your coming to spend the holidays
+with us."
+
+Or, of a grey-haired gentleman's aspect, who came hurrying through the
+crowd till he stood face to face with the little organist, whose hands he
+grasped as he said:
+
+"Never mind, lad; never mind. You'll be a richer man before night than you
+ever were before. Here is a year's salary in advance, from the church,
+sir. You understand. And we all want our daguerreotypes; so order an
+instrument."
+
+Or, of an agitated voice, that followed him like the voice of a spirit,
+mysterious and persuasive:
+
+"Oh, believe in the Good Will Doctrine!"
+
+
+
+
+SEA-WEED.
+
+BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
+
+
+    Not always unimpeded can I pray,
+    Nor, pitying saint, thine intercession claim:
+    Too closely clings the burden of the day,
+    And all the mint and anise that I pay
+    But swells my debt and deepens my self-blame.
+
+    Shall I less patience have than Thou, who know
+    That Thou revisit'st all who wait for Thee,
+    Nor only fill'st the unsounded depths below
+    But dost refresh with measured overflow
+    The rifts where unregarded mosses be?
+
+    The drooping sea-weed hears, in night abyssed,
+    Far and more far the waves' receding shocks,
+    Nor doubts, through all the darkness and the mist
+    That the pale shepherdess will keep her tryst,
+    And shoreward lead once more her foam-fleeced flocks.
+
+    For the same wave that laps the Carib shore
+    With momentary curves of pearl and gold,
+    Goes hurrying thence to gladden with its roar
+    The lorn shells camped on rocks of Labrador,
+    By love divine on that glad errand rolled.
+
+    And, though Thy healing waters far withdraw,
+    I, too, can wait and feed on hopes of Thee,
+    And of the dear recurrence of thy Law,
+    Sure that the parting grace which morning saw,
+    Abides its time to come in search of me.
+
+
+
+
+TREFOIL.
+
+BY EVERT A. DUYCKINCK.
+
+     "Hope, by the ancients, was drawn in the form of a sweet and
+     beautiful child, standing upon tiptoes, and a trefoil or
+     three-leaved grass in her hand."
+
+         _Citation from old Peacham in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary._
+
+
+Three names, clustered together in more than one marked association, have
+a pleasant fragrance in English literature. A triple-leaved clover in a
+field thickly studded with floral beauties, the modest merits of
+HERBERT, VAUGHAN and CRASHAW
+
+    "Smell sweet and blossom in the dust"--
+
+endeared to us not merely by the claim of intellect, but by the warmer
+appeal to the heart, of kindred sympathy and suffering. True poets, they
+have placed in their spiritual alembic the common woes and sorrows of
+life, and extracted from them "by force of their so potent art," a cordial
+for the race.
+
+Has it ever occurred to the reader to reflect how much the world owes to
+the poets in the alleviation of sorrow? It is much to hear the simple
+voice of sympathy in its plainest utterances from the companions around
+us; it is something to listen to the same burden from the good of former
+generations, as the universal experience of humanity; but we owe the
+greatest debt to those who by the graces of intellect and the pains of a
+profounder passion, have triumphed over affliction, and given eloquence to
+sorrow.
+
+There is a common phrase, which some poet must first have invented--"the
+luxury of woe." Poets certainly have found their most constant themes in
+suffering. When the late Edgar Poe, who prided himself on reducing
+literature to an art, sat down to write a poem which should attain the
+height of popularity, he said sorrow must be its theme, and wrote "The
+Raven." Tragedy will always have a deeper hold upon the public than
+comedy; it appeals to deeper principles, stirs more powerful emotions,
+imparts an assured sense of strength, is more intimate with our nature, or
+certainly it would not be tolerated. There is no delight in the exhibition
+of misery as such, it is only painful and repulsive; we discard all vulgar
+horrors utterly, and keep no place for them in the mind. Let, however, a
+poet touch the string, and there is another response when he brings before
+us pictures of regal grief, and gives grandeur to humiliation and penalty.
+Nor is it only in the higher walks of tragedy, with its pomp and
+circumstances of action, that the poet here serves us. His humbler
+minstrelsy has soothed many an English heart from the tale of "Lycidas" to
+the elegiac verse of Tennyson. George Herbert still speaks to this
+generation as two centuries ago he spoke to his own. His quaint verses
+gather new beauties from time as they come to us redolent with the prayers
+and aspirations of many successions of the wives, mothers and daughters of
+England and America; bedewed with the tears of orphans and parents; an
+incitement to youth, a solace to age, a consolation for humanity to all
+time.
+
+These have been costly gifts to our benefactors. "I honor," says Vaughan,
+"that temper which can lay by the garland when he might keep it on; which
+can pass by a rosebud and bid it grow when he is invited to crop it." This
+is the spirit of self-devotion in every worthy action, and especially of
+the pains and penalties by which poets have enriched our daily life. We
+are indebted to the poets, too, for something more than the alleviation of
+sorrow. Perhaps it is, upon the whole, a rarer gift to improve
+prosperity. Joy, commonly, is less of a positive feeling than grief, and
+is more apt to slip by us unconsciously. Few people, says the proverb,
+know when they are well off. It is the poet's vocation to teach the world
+this--
+
+            --"to be possess'd with double pomp,
+    To guard a title that was rich before,
+    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
+    To throw a perfume on the violet."
+
+The poet lifts our eyes to the beauties of external nature, educates us to
+a keener participation in the sweet joys of affection, to the loveliness
+and grace of woman, to the honor and strength of manhood. His ideal world
+thus becomes an actual one, as the creations of imagination first borrowed
+from sense, alight from the book, the picture or the statue once again to
+live and walk among us.
+
+The resemblances which have induced us to bring together our sacred
+triumvirate of poets, are the common period in which they lived, their
+similar training in youth, a congenial bond of learning, a certain
+generous family condition, the inspiration of the old mother church out of
+which they sprung, the familiar discipline of sorrow, the early years in
+which they severally wrote.
+
+A brief glance at their respective lives may indicate still further these
+similarities and point a moral which needs not many words to
+express--which seems to us almost too sacred to be loudly or long dwelt
+upon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Herbert was the oldest of the band, having been born near the close of the
+sixteenth century, in the days of James, who was an intelligent patron of
+the family. The poet's brother, the learned Lord Herbert of Cherbury,
+whose "Autobiography" breathes the fresh manly spirit of the best days of
+chivalry, was the king's ambassador to France. George Herbert, too, was in
+a fair way to this court patronage, when his hopes were checked by the
+death of the monarch. It is a circumstance, this court favor, worth
+considering in the poet's life, as the antecedent to his manifold spirit
+of piety. Nothing is more noticeable than the wide, liberal culture of the
+old English poets; they were first, men, often skilled in affairs, with
+ample experience in life, and then--poets.
+
+Herbert's education was all that care and affection could devise. "He
+spent," says his amiable biographer, Izaak Walton, "much of his childhood
+in a sweet content under the eye and care of his prudent mother, and the
+tuition of a chaplain or tutor to him and two of his brothers in her own
+family." At Cambridge he became orator to the University, gained the
+applause of the court by his Latin orations, and what is more, secured the
+friendship of such men as Bishop Andrews, Dr. Donne, and the model
+diplomatist of his age, Sir Henry Wotton. The completion of his studies
+and the failure of court expectations were followed by a passage of rural
+retirement--a first pause of the soul previous to the deeper conflicts of
+life. His solitariness was increased by sickness, a period of meditation
+and devotional feeling, assisted by the intimations of a keen spirit in a
+feeble body--and out of the furnace came forth Herbert the priest and
+saint. All that knowledge can inspire, all that tenderness can endear,
+centres about that picture of the beauty of holiness, his brief pastoral
+career--as we read it in his prose writings and his poems, and the pages
+of Walton--at the little village of Bemerton. He died at the age of
+thirty-nine--his gentle spirit spared the approaching conflicts of his
+country, which pressed so heavily upon the Church which he loved.
+
+The poems of Herbert are now read throughout the world; no longer confined
+to that Church which inspired them. They are echoed at times in the
+pulpits of all denominations, while their practical lines are, if we
+remember rightly, scattered among the sage aphorisms of Poor Richard, and
+their wide philosophy commends itself to the genius of Emerson.
+
+It is pleasant in these old poets to admire what has been admired by
+others--to read the old verses with the indorsement of genius. The name
+adds value to the bond. Coleridge, for instance, whose "paper," in a
+mercantile sense, would have been, on "change," the worst in England, has
+given us many of these notable "securities." They live in his still
+echoing "Table-Talk," and are sprinkled generously over his
+writings--while what record is there of the "good," the best financial
+names of the day? One sonnet of Herbert was an especial favorite with
+Coleridge. It was that heart-searching, sympathizing epitome of spiritual
+life, entitled
+
+
+SIN.
+
+
+    "Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round!
+      Parents first season us; then school-masters
+      Deliver us to laws; they send us bound
+    To rules of reason, holy messengers.
+
+    "Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin,
+      Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,
+      Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in,
+    Bibles laid open, millions of surprises.
+
+    "Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness.
+      The sound of Glory ringing in our ears:
+      Without, our shame; within, our consciences:
+    Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears.
+
+    "Yet all these fences and their whole array,
+    One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away."
+
+These poems, it should be remembered, are private devotional
+heart-confessions, not written for sale, for pay or reputation; they were
+not printed at all during the author's life, but were brought forth by
+faithful friends from the sacred coffer of his dying-room, in order that
+posterity might know the secret of that honorable life and its cheerful
+end. Izaak Walton has given a beautiful setting to one stanza from the
+eloquent ode "Sunday." "The Sunday before his death," his biographer tells
+us, "he rose suddenly from his bed or couch, called for one of his
+instruments, took it into his hand, and said:
+
+    "'My God, my God
+    My music shall find thee,
+      And every string
+    Shall have his attribute to sing.
+
+And having tuned it, he played and sung:
+
+         "'The Sundays of man's life,
+    Threaded together on time's string,
+    Make bracelets to adorn the wife
+    Of the eternal glorious King.
+    On Sundays, heaven's door stands ope;
+    Blessings are plentiful and rife;
+           More plentiful than hope.'
+
+"Thus he sung on earth such hymns and anthems as the angels and he, and
+Mr. Farrer, now sing in heaven."
+
+As we have fallen upon this personal, biographical vein, and as the best
+key to a man's poetry is to know the man and what he may have encountered,
+we may cite the poem entitled "The Pearl." It is compact of life and
+experience: we see the courtier and the scholar ripening into the saint;
+the world not forgotten or ignored, but its best pursuits calmly weighed,
+fondly enumerated and left behind, as steps of the celestial ladder.
+
+
+THE PEARL.
+
+
+    "I know the ways of learning; both the head
+    And pipes that feed the press, and make it run;
+    What reason hath from nature borrowed,
+    Or of itself, like a good housewife, spun
+    In laws and policy; what the stars conspire;
+    What willing nature speaks, what forc'd by fire;
+    Both th' old discoveries, and the new-found seas;
+    The stock and surplus, cause and history:
+    All these stand open, or I have the keys:
+                  Yet I love thee.
+
+    "I know the ways of honor, what maintains
+    The quick returns of courtesy and wit:
+    In vies of favor whether party gains,
+    When glory swells the heart and mouldeth it
+    To all expressions both of hand and eye,
+    Which on the world a true-love knot may tie,
+    And bear the bundle, wheresoe'er it goes:
+    How many drams of spirits there must be
+    To sell my life unto my friends or foes:
+                  Yet I love thee.
+
+    "I know the ways of pleasure, the sweet strains,
+    The lullings and the relishes of it;
+    The propositions of hot blood and brains;
+    What mirth and music mean; what love and wit
+    Have done these twenty hundred years, and more;
+    I know the projects of unbridled store:
+    My stuff is flesh, not grass; my senses live,
+    And grumble oft, that they have more in me
+    Than he that curbs them, being but one to five:
+                  Yet I love thee.
+
+    "I know all these, and have them in my hand;
+    Therefore not sealed, but with open eyes
+    I fly to thee, and fully understand
+    Both the main sale, and the commodities;
+    And at what rate and price I have thy love;
+    With all the circumstances that may move:
+    Yet through the labyrinths, not my grovelling wit,
+    But thy silk-twist let down from heav'n to me,
+    Did both conduct and teach me, how, by it,
+                  To climb to thee."
+
+A splendid retrospect this of a short life: and with what accurate
+knowledge of art, science, policy, literature, of powers of body and mind.
+Herbert's poems are full of this sterling sense and philosophical
+reflection--the mintage of a master mind.
+
+Addison's version of the twenty-third Psalm has entered into every
+household and penetrated every heart by its sweetness and pathos. There is
+equal gentleness and sincerity in Herbert's:
+
+    "The God of love my shepherd is,
+      And he that doth me feed.
+    While he is mine, and I am his,
+      What can I want or need?
+
+    "He leads me to the tender grass,
+      Where I both feed and rest;
+    Then to the streams that gently pass:
+      In both I have the best.
+
+    "Or if I stray, he doth convert,
+      And bring my mind in frame
+    And all this not for my desert,
+      But for his holy name.
+
+    "Yea, in death's shady, black abode
+      Well may I walk, not fear:
+    For thou art with me, and thy rod
+      To guide, thy staff to bear.
+
+    "Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,
+      E'en in my en'mies' sight;
+    My head with oil, my cup with wine,
+      Runs over day and night.
+
+    "Surely thy sweet and wond'rous love
+      Shall measure all my days:
+    And as it never shall remove,
+      So neither shall my praise."
+
+We might linger long with Herbert, gathering the fruits of wisdom and
+piety from the abundant orchard of his poems, where many a fruit "hangs
+amiable;" but we must listen to his brethren.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Henry Vaughan was the literary offspring of George Herbert. His life, too,
+might have been written by good Izaak Walton, so gentle was it, full of
+all pleasant associations and quiet nobleness, decorated by the love of
+nature and letters, intimacies with poets, and with that especial touch of
+nature which always went to the heart of the Complete Angler, a love of
+fishing--for Vaughan was wont, at times, to skim the waters of his native
+rivers.
+
+He was born in Wales; the old Roman name of the country conferring upon
+him the appellation "Silurist"--for in those days local pride and
+affection claimed the honor of the bard, as the poet himself first
+gathered strength from the home, earth and sky which concentrated rather
+than circumscribed his genius. His family was of good old lineage,
+breathing freely for generations in the upper atmosphere of life, warmed
+and cheered in a genial sunlight of prosperity. It could stir, too, at the
+call of patriotism, and send soldiers, as it did, to bite the heroic dust
+at Agincourt. Another time brought other duties. The poet came into the
+world in the early part of the seventeenth century, when the great
+awakening of thought and English intellect was to be followed by stirring
+action. He was not, indeed, to bear any great part in the senate or the
+field; but all noble spirits were moved by the issues of the time. To some
+the voice of the age brought hope and energy; to others, a not ignoble
+submission. It was perhaps as great a thing to suffer with the Royal
+Martyr, with all the burning life and traditions of England in the
+throbbing heart, as to rise from the ruins into the cold ether where the
+stern soul of Milton could wing its way in self-reliant calmness. Honor is
+due, as in all great struggles, to both parties. Vaughan's lot was cast
+with the conquered cause.
+
+His youth was happy, as all poets' should be, and as the genius of all
+true poets, coupled with that period of life, will go far to make it.
+There must be early sunshine far the first nurture of that delicate plant:
+the storm comes afterward to perfect its life. Vaughan first saw the
+light in a rural district of great beauty. His songs bear witness to it.
+Indeed he is known by his own designation, a fragrant title in the sweet
+fields of English poesy, as the Swan of the Usk, though he veiled the
+title in the thin garb of the Latin, "Olor Iscanus." Another fortunate
+circumstance was the personal character of his education, at the hands of
+a rural Welsh rector, with whom, his twin brother for a companion, he
+passed the years of youth in what, we have no doubt, were pleasant paths
+of classical literature. How inexhaustible are those old wells of Greek
+and Roman Letters! The world cannot afford to spare them long. They may be
+less in fashion at one time than another, but their beauty and life-giving
+powers are perennial. The Muse of English poesy has always been baptized
+in their waters.
+
+The brothers left for Oxford at the mature age--not a whit too late for
+any minds--of seventeen or eighteen. At the University there were other
+words than the songs of Apollo. The Great Revolution was already on the
+carpet, and it was to be fought out with weapons not found in the logical
+armory of Aristotle. The brothers were royalists, of course; and Henry,
+before the drama was played out, like many good men and true, tasted the
+inside of a prison--doubtless, like Lovelace and Wither, singing his
+heartfelt minstrelsy behind the wires of his cage. He was not a fighting
+man. Poets rarely are. More than one lyrist--as Archilochus and Horace may
+bear witness--has thrown away his shield on the field of battle. Vaughan
+wisely retired to his native Wales. Jeremy Taylor, too, it may be
+remembered, was locking up the treasures of his richly-furnished mind and
+passionate feeling within the walls of those same Welsh hills. Nature,
+alone, however, is inadequate to the production of a true poet. Even
+Wordsworth, the most patient, absorbed of recluses, had his share of
+education in London and travel in foreign cities. Vaughan, too, early
+found his way, in visits, to the metropolis, where he heard at the Globe
+Tavern the last echoes of that burst of wit and knowledge which had spoken
+from the tongue and kindled in the eye of Shakspeare, Spenser and Raleigh.
+Ben Jonson was still alive, and the young poets who flocked to him, as a
+later age worshipped Dryden, were all "sealed of the tribe of Ben."
+Randolph and Cartwright were his friends.
+
+Under these early inspirations of youth, nature, learning, witty
+companionship, Vaughan published his first verses--breathing a love of his
+art and its pleasures of imagination, paying his tribute to his paternal
+books in "Englishing," the "Tenth Satyre of Juvenal," and not forgetting,
+of course, the lovely "Amoret." A young poet without a lady in his verse
+is a solecism which nature abhors. All this, however, as his biographer
+remarks, "though fine in the way of poetic speculation, would not do for
+every-day practice." Of course not; and the young "swan" turned his wary
+feet from the glittering stream to the solid land. The poet became a
+physician. It was a noble art for such a spirit to practise, and not a
+very rude progress from youthful poesy if he felt and thought aright.
+There was a sterner change in store, however, and it came to him with the
+monition, "Physician, heal thyself!" He was prostrated by severe bodily
+disease, and thenceforth his spirit was bowed to the claims of the unseen
+world. The "light amorist" found a higher inspiration. He turned his
+footsteps to the Temple and worshipped at the holy altar of Herbert. His
+poetry becomes religious. "Sparks from the Flint" is the title which he
+gives his new verses, "Silex Scintillans." After that pledge to holiness
+given to the world, he survived nearly half a century, dying at the mature
+age of seventy-three--a happy subject of contemplation in the bosom of his
+Welsh retirement, passing quietly down the vale of life, feeding his
+spirit on the early-gathered harvest of wit, learning, taste, feeling,
+fancy, benevolence and piety.
+
+Of such threads was the life of our poet spun.
+
+His verse is light, airy, flying with the lark to heaven. Hear him with
+"his singing robes" about him:
+
+    "I would I were some bird or star,
+    Flutt'ring in woods, or lifted far
+          Above this inn
+          And road of sin!
+    Then either star or bird should be
+    Shining or singing still to thee."
+
+In this song of "Peace"--
+
+    "My soul, there is a country
+      Afar beyond the stars,
+    Where stands a winged sentry
+      All skillful in the wars.
+    There, above noise and danger,
+      Sweet peace sits crown'd with smiles,
+    And one born in a manger
+      Commands the beauteous files.
+    He is thy gracious friend,
+      And (oh, my soul awake!)
+    Did in pure love descend,
+      To die here for thy sake.
+    If thou canst get but thither,
+      There grows the flower of peace,
+    The rose that cannot wither,
+      Thy fortress and thy ease.
+    Leave, then, thy foolish ranges;
+      For none can thee secure,
+    But one, who never changes--
+      Thy God, thy Life, thy Cure."
+
+Or in that kindred ode, full of "intimations of immortality received in
+childhood," entitled, "The Retreat:"
+
+    "Happy those early days, when I
+    Shin'd in my angel infancy!
+    Before I understood this place,
+    Appointed for my second race,
+    Or taught my soul to fancy aught
+    But a white, celestial thought;
+    When yet I had not walkt above
+    A mile or two from my first love,
+    And looking back, at that short space,
+    Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
+    When on some gilded cloud or flower
+    My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
+    And in those weaker glories spy
+    Some shadows of eternity;
+    Before I taught my tongue to wound
+    My conscience with a sinful sound,
+    Or had the black art to dispense
+    A sev'ral sin to ev'ry sense,
+    But felt through all this fleshly dress
+    Bright shoots of everlastingness.
+      Oh how I long to travel back,
+    And tread again that ancient track!
+    That I might once more reach that plain
+    Where first I left my glorious train;
+    From whence th' enlight'ned spirit sees
+    That shady city of palm-trees.
+    But, ah! my soul with too much stay
+    Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
+    Some men a forward motion love,
+    But I by backward steps would move;
+    And when this dust falls to the urn,
+    In that state I came, return."
+
+Here is a picture of the angel-visited world of Eden, not altogether
+destroyed by the Fall, when
+
+                          "Each day
+      The valley or the mountain
+    Afforded visits, and still Paradise lay
+      In some green shade or fountain.
+    Angels lay lieger here: each bush and cell,
+      Each oak and highway knew them;
+    Walk but the fields, or sit down at some well,
+      And he was sure to view them."
+
+Vaughan's birds and flowers gleam with light from the spirit land. This is
+the opening of a little piece entitled "The Bird:"
+
+    "Hither thou com'st. The busy wind all night
+    Blew through thy lodging, where thy own warm wing
+    Thy pillow was. Many a sullen storm,
+    For which coarse man seems much the fitter born,
+            Rain'd on thy bed
+            And harmless head;
+    And now, as fresh and cheerful as the light,
+    Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing
+    Unto that Providence, whose unseen arm
+    Curb'd them, and cloth'd thee well and warm."
+
+How softly the image of the little bird again tempers the thought of death
+in his ode to the memory of the departed:
+
+    "He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know
+      At first sight if the bird be flown;
+    But what fair dell or grove he sings in now,
+      That is to him unknown."
+
+But we must leave this fair garden of the poet's fancies. The reader will
+find there many a flower yet untouched.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Richard Crashaw was the contemporary of the early years of Vaughan; for,
+alas! he died young--though not till he had transcribed for the world the
+hopes, the aspirations, the sorrows of his troubled life. He lived but
+thirty-four years--the volume of his verses is not less nor more than the
+kindred books of the brother poets with whom we are now associating his
+memory. A small body of verse will hold much life; for the poet gives us a
+concentrated essence, an elixir, a skillful confection of humanity, which,
+diluted with the commonplaces of every-day thought and living, may cover
+whole shelves of libraries. The secret of the whole of one life may be
+expressed in a song or a sonnet. The little books of the world are not the
+least.
+
+Crashaw, also, was a scholar. The son of a clergy-man, he was educated at
+the famed Charter-house and afterward at Cambridge. The Revolution, too,
+overtook him. He refused the oath of the covenant, was ejected from his
+fellowship, became a Roman Catholic, and took refuge in Paris, where he
+ate the bread of exile with Cowley and others, cheered by the noble
+sympathy--it could not be much more--of Queen Henrietta Maria. She
+recommended him to Rome, and the sensitive poet carried his joys and
+sorrows to the bosom of the church. He lived a few years, and died canon
+of Loretto, at the age of thirty-four.
+
+Though the son of a zealous opponent of the Roman church, Crashaw was born
+with an instinct and heart for its service. There runs through all his
+poetry that sensuousness of feeling which seeks the repose and luxury of
+faith which Rome always offers to her ardent votaries. It is profitable to
+compare the sentiment of Crashaw with the more intellectual development of
+Herbert. What in the former is the paramount, constant exhibition, in the
+latter is accepted, and holds its place subordinate to other claims.
+Without a portion of it there could be no deep religious life--with it,
+in excess, we fear for the weakness of a partial development. There is so
+much gain, however, to the poet, that we have no disposition to take
+exception to the single string of Crashaw. The beauty of the Venus was
+made up from the charms of many models. So, in our libraries, as in life,
+we must be content with parcel-work, and take one man's wisdom and
+another's sentiment, looking out that we get something of each to enrich
+our multifarious life.
+
+Crashaw's poetry is one musical echo and aspiration. He finds his theme
+and illustration constantly in music. His amorous descant never fails him:
+his lute is always by his side. Following the "Steps of the Temple," a
+graceful tribute to Herbert, we have the congenial title, "The Delights of
+the Muses," opening with that exquisite composition:
+
+    "Untwisting all the chains that tie
+    The hidden soul of harmony,"
+
+"Music's Duel." It is the story--a favorite one to the ears of our
+forefathers two centuries ago--of the nightingale and the musician
+contending with voice and instrument in alternate melodies, till the sweet
+songstress of the grove falls and dies upon the lute of her rapt rival. It
+is something more than a pretty tale. Ford, the dramatist, introduced it
+briefly in happy lines in "The Lover's Melancholy," but Crashaw's verses
+inspire the very sweetness and lingering pleasure of the contest. It is
+high noon when the "sweet lute's master" seeks retirement from the heat,
+"on the scene of a green plat, under protection of an oak," by the bank of
+the Tiber. The "light-foot lady,"
+
+    "The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree,"
+
+"entertains the music's soft report," which begins with a flying prelude,
+to which the lady of the tree "carves out her dainty voice" with "quick
+volumes of wild notes."
+
+    "His nimble hand's instinct then taught each string,
+    A cap'ring cheerfulness; and made them sing
+    To their own dance."
+
+She
+
+    "Trails her plain ditty in one long-spun note
+    Through the sleek passage of her open throat:
+    A clear, unwrinkled song."
+
+The contention invites every art of expression. The highest powers of the
+lute are evoked in rapid succession closing with a martial strain:
+
+                              "this lesson, too,
+    She gives him back, her supple breast thrills out
+    Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt
+    Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill,
+    And folds in waved notes, with a trembling bill,
+    The pliant series of her slippery song;
+    Then starts she suddenly into a throng
+    Of short thick sobs, whose thund'ring vollies float,
+    And roll themselves over her lubric throat
+    In panting murmurs, 'still'd out of her breast,
+    That ever-bubbling spring, the sugar'd nest
+    Of her delicious soul, that there does lie
+    Bathing in streams of liquid melody,
+    Music's best seed-plot; when in ripen'd airs
+    A golden-headed harvest fairly rears
+    His honey-dropping tops, ploughed by her breath,
+    Which there reciprocally laboreth.
+    In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire,
+    Founded to th' name of great Apollo's lyre;
+    Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes
+    Of sweet-lipp'd angel imps, that swill their throats
+    In cream of morning Helicon; and then
+    Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men,
+    To woo them from their beds, still murmuring
+    That men can sleep while they their matins sing."
+
+What wealth of imagery and proud association of ideas--the bubbling
+spring, the golden, waving harvest, "ploughed by her breath"--the fane of
+Apollo suggesting in a word images of Greek maidens in chorus by the white
+temple of the God, the dew of Helicon, the soft waking of men from
+beneficent repose. It is all very well to talk of a bird doing all this:
+we admire nightingales, but Philomela never enchanted us in this way; it
+is the sex with which we are charmed. The poet's "light-foot lady" tells
+us the secret. We are subdued by the loveliest of prima-donnas.
+
+There is more of this, and as good. The little poem is a poet's dictionary
+of musical expression. Its lines, less than two hundred, deserve to be
+committed to memory, to rise at times in the mind--the soft assuagement of
+cares and sorrows.
+
+A famous poem of Crashaw is "On a Prayer-Book sent to Mrs. M.R." It
+breathes a divine ecstasy of the sacred ode:
+
+    "Delicious deaths, soft exhalations
+    Of soul; dear and divine annihilations;
+        A thousand unknown rites
+        Of joys, and rarefied delights."
+
+It is human passion sublimated and refined to the uses of heaven, but
+human passion still--the very luxury of religion--the rapture of
+earth-born seraphs, as he sings with venturous exultation:
+
+    "The rich and roseal spring of those rare sweets,
+    Which with a swelling bosom there she meets,
+    Boundless and infinite, bottomless treasures
+                      Of pure inebriating pleasures:
+    Happy proof she shall discover,
+        What joy, what bliss,
+        How many heavens at once it is,
+    To have a God become her lover!"
+
+Mrs. M.R., whether maid or widow we know not--in Crashaw's day virgins
+were called Mistress--has another poem addressed to her--"Counsel
+concerning her choice." It alludes to some check or hindrance in love, and
+asks:
+
+    "Dear, heav'n-designed soul!
+          Amongst the rest
+          Of suitors that besiege your maiden breast,
+          Why may not I
+          My fortune try,
+    And venture to speak one good word,
+    Not for myself, alas! but for my dearer Lord?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Your first choice fails; oh, when you choose again,
+    May it not be among the sons of men!"
+
+This is the language of devotional rapture common to the extremes of the
+religious world--Methodism and Roman Catholicism. Every one has heard the
+ardent hymn by Newton--"The Name of Jesus," and that stirring anthem, "The
+Coronation of Christ"--few have read the eloquent production of the canon
+of Loretto, a canticle from the flaming heart of Rome, addressed "To the
+name above every name, the name of Jesus."
+
+        "Pow'rs of my soul, be proud!
+        And speak loud
+    To all the dear-bought nations this redeeming name;
+    And in the wealth of one rich word proclaim
+    New smiles to nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Sweet name, in thy each syllable
+    A thousand blest Arabias dwell;
+    A thousand hills of frankincense,
+    Mountains of myrrh, and beds of spices,
+    And ten thousand paradises,
+    The soul that tastes thee takes from thence,
+    How many unknown worlds there are
+    Of comforts, which thou hast in keeping!
+    How many thousand mercies there
+    In Pity's soft lap lie asleeping!"
+
+Crashaw's invitations to holiness breathe the very gallantry of piety. He
+addresses "the noblest and best of ladies, the Countess of Denbigh," who
+had been his patroness in exile, "persuading her to resolution in
+religion."
+
+    "What heaven-entreated heart is this
+    Stands trembling at the gate of bliss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    What magic bolts, what mystic bars
+    Maintain the will in these strange wars!
+    What fatal, what fantastic bands
+    Keep the free heart from its own hands!
+    So, when the year takes cold, we see
+    Poor waters their own prisoners be;
+
+    Fetter'd and lock'd up fast, they lie
+    In a sad self-captivity;
+    Th' astonish'd nymphs their floods' strange fate deplore,
+    To see themselves their own severer shore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Disband dull fears; give Faith the day;
+    To save your life, kill your delay;
+    It is Love's siege, and sure to be
+    Your triumph, though his victory."
+
+His poem, "The Weeper," shoots the prismatic hues of the rainbow athwart
+the veil of fast-falling tears:
+
+        "Hail sister springs,
+      Parents of silver-footed rills!
+        Ever bubbling things!
+      Thawing crystal! snowy hills!
+    Still spending, never spent; I mean
+    Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+        "Every morn from hence,
+      A brisk cherub something sips,
+        Whose soft influence
+      Adds sweetness to his sweetest lips;
+    Then to his music, and his song
+    Tastes of this breakfast all day long.
+
+        "Not in the evening's eyes,
+      When they red with weeping are
+        For the sun that dies,
+      Sits sorrow with a face so fair.
+    Nowhere but here did ever meet
+    Sweetness so sad, sadness so sweet.
+
+        "When Sorrow would be seen
+      In her brightest majesty,
+        For she is a queen,
+      Then is she drest by none but thee.
+    Then, and only then, she wears
+    Her richest pearls, I mean thy tears.
+
+        "The dew no more will weep,
+      The primrose's pale cheek to deck;
+        The dew no more will sleep,
+      Nuzzled in the lily's neck.
+    Much rather would it tremble here,
+    And leave them both to be thy tear."
+
+These are some of Crashaw's "Steps to the Temple"--verily he walked
+thither on velvet.
+
+"Wishes to his supposed Mistress," is more than a pretty enumeration of
+the good qualities of woman as they rise in the heart of a noble, gallant
+lover:
+
+    "Whoe'er she be,
+    That not impossible she,
+    That shall command my heart and me:
+
+    "Where'er she lie,
+    Locked up from mortal eye,
+    In shady leaves of destiny:
+
+    "Till that ripe birth
+    Of studied fate, stand forth,
+    And teach her fair steps to our earth:
+
+    "Till that divine
+    Idea take a shrine
+    Of crystal flesh, through which to shine:
+
+    "Meet you her, my wishes,
+    Bespeak her to my blisses,
+    And be ye call'd my absent kisses."
+
+We are not reprinting Crashaw, and must forbear further quotation. It is
+enough if we have presented to the reader a lily or a rose from his pages,
+and have given a clue to that treasure-house--
+
+    "A box where sweets compacted lie."
+
+A generation nurtured in poetic susceptibility by the genius of Keats and
+Tennyson, should not forget the early muse of Crashaw. His verse is the
+very soul of tenderness and imaginative luxury: less intellectual, less
+severe in the formation of a broad, manly character than Herbert; catching
+up the brighter inspirations of Vaughan, and excelling him in richness--it
+has a warm, graceful garb of its own. It is tinged with the glowing hues
+of Spenser's fancy; baptized in the fountains of sacred love, it draws an
+earthly inspiration from the beautiful in nature and life, as in the
+devout paintings of the great Italian masters, we find the models of their
+angels and seraphs on earth.
+
+
+
+
+MISERERE DOMINE.
+
+BY WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH.
+
+
+    Thou who look'st with pitying eye
+    From Thy radiant home on high,
+    On the spirit tempest-tost,
+    Wretched, weary, wandering, lost--
+    Ever ready help to give,
+    And entreating, "_Look and live!_"
+    By that love, exceeding thought,
+    Which from Heaven the Saviour brought,
+    By that mercy which could dare
+    Death to save us from despair,
+    Lowly bending at Thy feet,
+    We adore, implore, entreat,
+    Lifting heart and voice to Thee--
+    _Miserere Domine_!
+
+    With the vain and giddy throng,
+    FATHER! we have wandered long;
+    Eager from Thy paths to stray,
+    Chosen the forbidden way;
+    Heedless of the light within,
+    Hurried on from sin to sin,
+    And with scoffers madly trod
+    On the mercy of our God!
+    Now to where Thine altars burn,
+    FATHER! sorrowing we return.
+    Though forgotten, Thou hast not
+    To be merciful forgot;
+    Hear us! for we cry to Thee--
+    _Miserere Domine_!
+
+    From the burden of our grief
+    Who, but Thou, can give relief?
+    Who can pour Salvation's light
+    On the darkness of our night?
+    Bowed our load of sin beneath,
+    Who can snatch our souls from death?
+    Vain the help of man!--in dust
+    Vainly do we put our trust!
+    Smitten by Thy chastening rod,
+    Hear us, save us, SON OF GOD!
+    From the perils of our path,
+    From the terrors of thy wrath,
+    Save us, when we look to thee--
+    _Miserere Domine_!
+
+    Where the pastures greenly grow,
+    Where the waters gently flow,
+    And beneath the sheltering ROCK
+    With the shepherd rests the flock.
+    Oh, let us be gathered there
+    Richly of Thy love to share;
+    With the people of Thy choice
+    Live and labor and rejoice,
+    Till the toils of life are done,
+    Till the fight is fought and won,
+    And the crown, with heavenly glow,
+    Sparkles on the victor's brow!
+    Hear the prayer we lift to Thee--
+    _Miserere Domine_!
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+KINGDOMS OF NATURE PRAISING GOD:
+
+A SHORT ESSAY ON THE 148TH PSALM.
+
+BY REV. C.A. BARTOL.
+
+
+Surrounded as we are with the art and handicraft of man--almost everything
+we see bearing the mark of his finger, the house and the street, the
+market and exchange, every instrument and utensil--it is well,
+occasionally, to look forth from this little world of custom and
+convenience we ourselves have constructed, into that which bears the
+impress of the Almighty's hand--is still as it was left from His forming
+strength, and brings us into immediate communion with His Infinite mind.
+Let us, at least, listen to the notes of David's lyre on the creative
+Majesty.
+
+After an invocation to the heavenly host, the Psalmist calls first on the
+forms of inanimate and inorganic existence. These things, of which he
+enumerates a few, praise the power of God. The crags and headlands, jarred
+and worn by the billows they breast; the granite peaks, bald and grey,
+under light and tempest, with the silent host of rocky boulders, swept, we
+know not by what convulsions, from their native seat, stand up as the
+first rank in the choir of the Maker's worship; and infidelity and atheism
+are hushed and abashed by their lofty praise.
+
+Organized, but still unconscious existence takes the next station in this
+universal chorus. The solemn grove lifting its green top into the heavens,
+beside that motionless army of ancient stones, adds a sweeter note than
+they can give to the great harmony. It is a note, speaking not alone of
+the Creator's power, but of His wisdom too. Here is life and growth. Here
+are adaptations and stages of progress. From the minutest germination,
+from the slenderest stem, from the smallest trembling leaf to the hugest
+trunks and the highest overshadowing branches, this vegetable
+organization, verdant, pale, crimson, in changeable colors, runs; stopping
+short only with Alpine summits or polar posts, swiftly and softly clothing
+again the rents and gashes in the ground made by the stroke of labor or
+the wheels of war--blooming into the golden and ruddy harvest on the stalk
+and the bough, even overpassing the salt shore, to line the dismal and
+unvisited caves of the deep with peculiar varieties of growth; and forth
+into our hands from the foaming brine delicate and strangely beautiful
+leaves and slight ramifications of matchless tints and proportions.
+
+But the Psalmist summons a third order of beings to contribute its
+melodious share to this hallelujah; and that is the living and conscious,
+though irrational tribes. This sings not of power and wisdom alone, but
+more complex and rich in adoration, sings of goodness also. God has not
+made the world for a dead spectacle and mere picture for His own eye. How
+full and crowded with life, and happy life, His creation is! Go forth from
+inclosing city walls, and, in the summer noontide, stop in solitude and
+apparent silence and listen; and soon the sounds of this joyous life shall
+come to your ear: the chirp of the insects--the rustle of wings--the
+crackling of the leaves, as the blithesome airy creatures pass--the short,
+thick warble of the bird by your side, or its varied tune, clearer than
+viol or organ, from the thicket beyond--while, from time to time, the deep
+low of cattle reverberates from afar. Or if you are where the still and
+speechless creatures inhabit, open your eye to gaze and examine, and it
+shall be filled with the visible, as the ear with the vocal signs of
+living enjoyment. Walking at the edge of the ebbing tide, you tread on
+life at every step--shelly tribe on tribe of fish pressing together, while
+in the clear water, other tribes noiselessly swim and glide away. Every
+vital motion speaks of pleasure, whether in that restless current below,
+or in the air above, as the feathered songster passes, darting up and down
+his element, delight gushing from his throat at every buoyant
+spring--silence and sound, with double demonstration, declaring to the
+Creator's praise the great and limitless boon of life.
+
+But there is one accent more, that of love, without which the hymn is not
+complete; and there is another human order of Being to speak that accent.
+Man includes in himself all the preceding orders of Being, with all the
+notes of their praise: the material clod, for is he not made of dust; the
+plant, for he has an outward growth and circulation--the animal, for he
+has instinct and feeling; while reason and conscience and spiritual
+affection he has peculiarly and alone; so that Power, Wisdom, Goodness and
+Love, all concentrated in him, complete the ground of his praise.
+
+Yet, as we look out upon this mighty sum of things in the external
+universe, the level earth stretching off to some ascending ridge in the
+horizon's blue distance--the boundless deep spread afar, till, at the
+misty edge of vision it bends, in mingling threefold circles, to embrace
+the globe, the impenetrable below and the infinite above him, how slight
+and insignificant a creature he seems! like a fly that clings to the
+ceiling, or a mote that swims in the sunbeam, one of the mere mites of
+nature, easily lost by the way or a frail figure ready to be crushed by
+any stroke of the ponderous machinery mid which he moves. When he reflects
+on his condition--his brief date, his speedy doom--how inconsiderable his
+existence appears! Or when he regards himself as not a compound of matter
+merely, but as a living soul, how easy it seems, as his contemplation runs
+out absorbed into the wondrous glory of the world, for all the vital
+energy which is for a moment insulated in his frame, when his frame
+dissolves, to pass into the general substance from which it came, the
+thinking creature ending as it began! But a voice from heaven cries to him
+and says, "Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver
+him. I will set him on high because he hath known my name; with long life
+will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."
+
+This love of God makes the society of all human affection. "God made the
+country, and man made the town," is an oft quoted line; and not seldom it
+is implied that the open or thinly-peopled landscape is somehow a better
+and holier place for the soul than the thronged city. But let it not be
+forgotten that man himself is God's work and His highest work on earth.
+Would we sing our psalm now or hereafter with the sweetest relish, we must
+go forth from any little circle we may have drawn around us, of private
+ease and personal comfort, in friendly intercourse to hear the cry of the
+unfortunate, the sighing of the prisoner, the sob of the mourner, the
+groan of the sick, the appeal of the injured and oppressed. By our aid,
+consolation and succor, we must gather their voices into the chorus,
+before, with perfect satisfaction, we can mingle in it our own.
+
+Upon a Sabbath day, I walked amid all those charms and fascinations, in
+which nature can bind us as in a spell. I passed through green aisles of
+woods, that were ever-shadowed and made fragrant with every various
+vegetable growth of this temperate northern clime; while the morning beam
+of the sun in heaven fell brightly aslant the leaves and branches; and the
+birds, that my lonely step startled from their perch or nest, flew from
+glen to glen, making with their song, save the murmur of the breeze in the
+boughs, the only sound I could hear. At length, the high-arched avenues of
+this immense forest-cathedral let me out upon the broad, open shore,
+where I saw and heard wave after wave break on the rocks, with shifting
+splendor and that mellow thundering music which so saddens while it
+delights. Solitude, verily, was stretched out asleep in the sun upon the
+length of sandy beach and beetling promontory; and I sat and gazed now
+over the boundless waters, now into the devouring abysses opened by the
+bending crests of the billows, and anon into the gloomy depths of the
+forest or the serene and measureless openings of the sky. What grandeur in
+every line transcendent! Yet what impenetrable mystery too, what menacing
+ruin to the small remnant of human life still spared from the generations
+in ages past, already swallowed up! Peering around in this pensive mood,
+in which the joy of being mixed with the uneasy doubt of its tenure, my
+eye fell at last on the spire of a little church, rising like a pencil of
+light to heaven, out of the fathomless waste. And there my soul alighted
+and found rest. Like some sea mark to the voyager, that slender shaft,
+reared by the social religion of the world, stood to tell me where in the
+universe I was; the common Christian consciousness reinforced my own, and
+dark queries and agitating uncertainties subsided from my spirit, as the
+deluge from the dove that Noah sent out to pluck the green branch of
+promise. From the illimitable reaches of the huge, but dimly responding
+creation around, the slight, frail temple for God's praise drew me to its
+welcome and peaceful embrace. As I approached it, the tolling of the bell
+struck on my ear in a touch of gladder tidings than I had received from
+all the melody of the great wind-harp of the trees, with all the soft
+accord of the tossing billows. Stroke after stroke, distinctly falling,
+seemed to bring to me the echoes of a million holy telegraphic towers all
+over the surface of the globe; and when I came to stand under the eaves of
+the small sanctuary, the measured turning, in the belfry, of the wheel, by
+revolutions such as I had seen long years ago in my childhood, filled my
+eyes with gracious tokens, that were not drawn from me by the sublime
+circling of the sun and moon, then moving east and west in their spheres.
+The final tone of praise in the great ascription to God is, in its
+fullness, supplied by a revelation greater than blessed the times of
+David. A new and sweeter string is strung upon the lyre his royal fingers
+so nobly swept, and the voice of thanksgiving is more highly raised for an
+"unspeakable gift." The kingdoms of nature are the chords on the harp we
+may sound to the Creator of all. There has been of late much discussion as
+to the place nature should hold among religious influences and appeals,
+some super-eminently exalting her, and others putting her in contrast and
+almost opposition with all spirit, beauty and truth. This is no place, nor
+has the present writer inclination, here, to take part in the grand
+debate, infinitely interesting as it is, on either side. He would only
+catch, or repeat and prolong the strain of an old and sacred ode--he would
+contribute a meditation. He would run the matchless ancient verse into a
+few particulars of fresh and modern illustration, content if he can make
+no melody of his own, to recall for some, perhaps not enough heeding it,
+the Hebrew music that has lingered so long on the ear of the world.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATIONS.
+
+BY THE REV. CHARLES T. BROOKS
+
+I.
+
+TO GOD'S CARE I COMMIT MYSELF!
+
+(FROM THE GERMAN OF ARNDT.)
+
+
+    Again is hushed the busy day,
+    And all to sleep is gone away;
+    The deer hath sought his mossy bed,
+    The bird hath hid his little head.
+    And man to his still chamber goes
+    To rest from all his cares and woes.
+
+    Yet steps he first before his door,
+    To look into the night once more,
+    With love-thanks and love-greeting, there,
+    For rest his spirit to prepare,
+    To see the high stars shine abroad
+    And drink once more the breath of God.
+
+    Mild Father of the world, whose love
+    Keeps watch o'er all things from above,
+    To Thee my stammering prayer would rise;
+    Bend down from yonder starry skies;
+    And from Thy sparkling, sun-strewed way,
+    Oh teach thy feeble child to pray!
+
+    All day Thou hadst me in Thy sight;
+    So guard me, Father, through this night;
+    And by thy dear benignity
+    From Satan's malice shelter me;
+    For what of evil may befall
+    The body, is the least of all.
+
+    Oh send from realms of purity
+    The dearest angel in to me,
+    As a peace-herald let him come,
+    And watchman, to my house and home,
+    That all desires and thoughts of mine,
+    Around thy heaven may climb and twine.
+
+    Then day shall part exultingly,
+    Then night a word of love shall be,
+    Then morn an angel-smile shall wear
+    Whose brightness no base thing can bear,
+    And we, earth's children, walk abroad,
+    Children of light and sons of God.
+
+    And when the last red evening-glow
+    Shall greet these failing eyes below,
+    When yearns my soul to wing its way
+    To the high track of endless day,
+    Then all the shining ones shall come
+    To bear me to the spirit's home.
+
+
+II.
+
+THE UNKNOWN.
+
+(FROM THE GERMAN OF AUERSPERG.)
+
+
+    Through the city's narrow gateway
+      Forth an aged beggar fares,
+    None is there to give him escort,
+      And no farewell word he bears.
+
+    Heaven's grey cloud to no one whispers
+      Of God's message in its fold;
+    Earth's grey rock to no one whispers
+      That it hides the shaft of gold.
+
+    And the naked tree in winter
+      Tells not straightway to the eye
+    That it once so greenly glistened,
+      Bloomed and bore so bounteously.
+
+    None would dream that yon old beggar,
+      Tottering, bending toward the ground,
+    Once was clothed in royal purple,
+      And his silver locks gold-crowned!
+
+    Foul conspirators discrowned him,
+      Tore the radiant purple off,
+    Placing in his hands, for sceptre,
+      Yonder wormy pilgrim-staff.
+
+    Thus, for years, now, has he wandered,
+      All ungreeted and unknown,
+    Through so many a foreign country,
+      Bowed and broken and alone.
+
+    Weary unto death, he lays him
+      'Neath a tree, in evening's beam,
+    Music in the twigs and blossoms
+      Sings him to an endless dream.
+
+    Men that to and fro pass by him,
+      Speak in softened tones of grief;
+    Who may be the poor old beggar,
+      That has found this sad relief?
+
+    But mild Nature, soft-eyed Nature,
+      Knows the aged sleeper there,
+    Obsequies of solemn splendor,
+      Meet for king, will she prepare.
+
+    From the tree fall wreaths of blossoms,
+      Floating down to crown his head,
+    And a sceptre's golden lustre
+      Sunset on his staff hath shed.
+
+    For a canopy above him
+      Rustling twigs a green arch throw,
+    And he wears a royal purple
+      In the evening's mantling glow.
+
+
+
+
+RECOLLECTIONS OF NEANDER,
+
+THE CHURCH HISTORIAN.
+
+BY THE REV. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D.D.
+
+
+In the spring of 1848, during the progress of the European revolutions,
+which promised so much and performed so little, I spent several weeks in
+Berlin, the capital of Prussia, and saw much, both in public and in
+private, of "the father of modern church history," whose name I had long
+revered, and whose image now is one of the choicest treasures of memory.
+Of all the Christian scholars I have ever known, he stands in my thoughts
+without a rival; a child in simplicity, a sage in learning, and in broad,
+catholic and fervent piety, a noble saint. In common with hundreds of my
+countrymen, I owe him a debt of gratitude, of which this humble tribute to
+his memory will be but a faint acknowledgment.
+
+Of Neander's outward history there is but little to be reported; his life
+was the retired and uneventful one of a peculiarly intense and abstracted
+student. It is hardly a figure of speech, but almost exactly the literal
+truth to say that he was born, and lived, and died, beneath the shadow of
+the Universities. He was not, indeed, quite so much of a recluse as his
+fellow-countryman Kant, the renowned Königsberg philosopher, who, though
+he reached the age of eighty, and had a reputation which filled all
+Europe, was never more than thirty-two miles away from the spot where his
+mother rocked him in his cradle. But considering the ampler means at his
+command, and the greatly increased facilities for travelling, Neander's
+neglect of locomotion is nearly as much to be wondered at as Kant's; I
+doubt if he was ever beyond the boundaries of Germany.
+
+He was born January 16th, 1789, in Göttingen, a city of some eleven
+thousand inhabitants in the kingdom of Hanover, the seat of a famous
+University, which, though now less prominent than formerly, has numbered
+amongst its professors such men as Blumenbach, Eichhorn, and Michaelis.
+His parents were of Jewish blood and the Jewish religion, and he inherited
+from them, in a strong degree, both the peculiar physiognomy and the
+distinguishing faith of that despised but most remarkable race. Nor was he
+a Jew only outwardly; from the beginning he was marked as an Israelite
+indeed, a true Nathanael soul.
+
+At an early period in his life, his father having suffered reverses and
+been reduced to poverty, he removed with his parents to Hamburg, a
+commercial city on the Elbe, and one of the four free municipalities of
+Germany. In the Hamburg gymnasium, corresponding in rank with our American
+academies, though prescribing a wider range of studies, he received his
+first public instruction. It is related of him, that he used frequently to
+steal into one of the book-stores, and for hours together sit buried in
+some rare and erudite volume. And here the original bent of his genius was
+early developed; subtlety, profoundness, and intense subjectivity of
+thought were noticed as the distinguishing characteristics of his mind. In
+a letter from Neumann to Chamisso, bearing date February 11th, 1806, when,
+of course, he was only seventeen years old, it is said of him: "Plato is
+his idol, and his perpetual watchword. He pores over that author night and
+day; and there are probably few who receive him so completely into the
+sanctuary of the soul. It is surprising to see how all this has been
+accomplished without any influence from abroad. It proceeds simply from
+his own reflection and his innate love of study. He has learned to look
+with indifference upon the outward world." Such was the beginning of his
+illustrious career. He was thoroughly a Platonist. And it happened to him,
+as to so many of the early fathers of the church before him; he was led
+from Plato to Christ. The honored walks of the Academy were exchanged for
+the manger and the cross; and so he passed from Judaism to philosophy, and
+from philosophy to faith. "Pray and labor," writes he in one of his
+letters, "let that be the bass-note, or rather praying merely; for what
+else should a human, or even a superhuman do than pray?" This was the
+dawning of the light. Of his progress in the Christian experience, we have
+no means as yet of tracing the steps. We only know, in general, from what
+he started, and to what he came.
+
+In the April of 1806, he joined the University at Halle, where he came
+under the influence of Schleiermacher, whose learned and thrilling voice
+was the first to sound the return of infidel Germany to the truth as it is
+in Jesus. Schleiermacher was then thirty-eight years old, in the first
+bloom and vigor of his faculties, and made, of necessity, a very profound
+and durable impression upon the young and ardent Hebrew Platonist, who was
+already, in obedience to his own impulses, seeking the way of life.
+
+He had been in Halle about six months, when the city was captured by the
+French under Bernadotte. The University was immediately suspended by
+Napoleon, and the students ordered to disperse. Neander fled, with one of
+his friends, to Göttingen, the place of his birth, where, joining the
+University, he came under the instruction of Gesenius, afterward the great
+Hebrew lexicographer, then but twenty years of age, and just commencing
+his distinguished career. The manner of their introduction to each other
+is a curious bit of literary history worth preserving. Gesenius was
+returning to Göttingen from his native place, Nordhausen, which was then
+in flames, having been set fire to by the French. The soldiers of the
+broken Prussian army were hurrying to their homes. In the general flight
+and confusion, Gesenius saw two young men on their way from Halle to
+Göttingen, one of whom had broken down, unable to go any further, and was
+entirely out of money. He procured a carriage for the unknown young
+student and conveyed him to Göttingen. That young student was Neander; and
+this little adventure led to a friendship which lasted for life, the gulf
+which subsequently yawned between them, in respect to matters of faith,
+abating nothing of their mutual respect and kindliness. "At first it was
+painful to me," said Neander, writing from Göttingen, "to be thrown into
+this place of icy coldness for the heart. But now I find it was well, and
+thank God for it. In no other way could I have made such progress. From
+every human mediator, and even every agreeable association, must one be
+torn away, in order that he may place his sole reliance on the only
+Mediator."
+
+In 1809 he returned to Hamburg to become a pastor. But the city had a
+small fund to support one of its theologians as a lecturer at Heidelberg.
+This was wisely appropriated to Neander, who promised more as a scholar
+than as a preacher. Accordingly, in 1811, we find him established at
+Heidelberg as a teacher in the University, he having previously, on his
+public profession of Christianity, assumed the name of _Neander_ deriving
+it from the Greek, [Greek: nheos hanźr], "a new man," to signify
+the entire change which had come over him. The family name was Mendel. The
+year following he was appointed Professor Extraordinary, which, in plain
+English, means a professor without a regular salary from government, and
+shortly issued his work on "The Emperor Julian and his Time," the first of
+those monographs which awakened the admiration of his learned countrymen,
+and paved the way for the great undertaking of his life, "A General
+History of the Christian Religion and Church."
+
+In 1813, when but twenty-four years of age, he was called to a
+professorship in the then recently established University of Berlin, and
+signalized his removal thither by a work on "St. Bernard and his Age."
+Five years later, he published a work on Gnosticism, and in 1821, his
+"Life of Chrysostom;" besides some treatises of minor note, which we need
+not pause to enumerate. At length, in 1825, when of course he was
+thirty-six years old, the first volume of his General History of the
+Church appeared. And to say that this work put him directly at the very
+head of Christendom as the expounder of its inward life, is saying only
+what we all know to be true. After that, he turned aside occasionally in
+obedience to other calls of duty, at one time to write a history of the
+Apostolic Age, and at another the Life of Christ, but always returning to
+his General History, as the one great task appointed him of God to do. As
+I parted with him in the spring of 1848, my heart drawn out toward him
+with an admiring tenderness and reverence, such as I had never experienced
+toward any other living scholar, I could not forbear assuring him, that
+many prayers would go up for him in America as well as in Europe, that he
+might be spared to complete his work. "I hope it," he replied, "but that
+must be as God wills." But this wish of his heart was denied him. He died
+in Berlin on Sunday, July 14th, 1850, in the midst of his unfinished
+labors. He had published what brings us down to the year 1294, and was
+then at work upon the centuries which lie between that and the
+Reformation. The posthumous volume, edited by Schneider, still falls
+short, by nearly a hundred years, of that important epoch. Had he been
+spared to proceed thus far, we had been the better reconciled to his
+dying; although his countrymen were anxious to have him turn his peculiar
+powers upon the Reformation itself, and the world-wide movements which
+have grown out of it. But this was not to be. He died, leaving no one to
+take his mantle; died, too, somewhat prematurely, for he was only
+sixty-one years old.
+
+Of his personal appearance, which was altogether unique, descriptions have
+frequently been given. He was small of stature, his height not exceeding
+five feet and four or five inches. He had studied so hard, exercised so
+little, eaten so sparingly and suffered so much from imperfect health,
+that his muscles seemed entirely relaxed and flabby. His hand, when he
+gave it in salutation or in parting, was like that of a sick child. But
+his hair remained as black as a raven. His brows were shaggy and
+overhanging, and his black eyes, when ever and anon the drooping lids were
+lifted away from them, shot forth a very deep and searching light. As one
+sat over against him, watching his words, he might easily imagine himself
+gazing through those glowing orbs back into the ages. His study, up two
+flights of stairs, overlooking one of the public squares of the city, was
+a place to be remembered. Its furniture was a plain round table, a
+standing-desk, an old sofa and two or three chairs. High up on the walls
+between the book-shelves and the ceiling, nearly all round the room, hung
+engraved portraits of distinguished men; and he showed his noble
+catholicity of spirit, in having the great men of his native land all
+there, without regard to their peculiar schools and sentiments. His
+library contained about 4,000 volumes. They filled the room; table, chairs
+and sofa were loaded with them; they lay in stacks upon the floor; and, in
+some cases, were piled, two or three tiers deep, into the shelves against
+the walls. To anybody else the library would have been a chaos; but he
+could lay his hand at once upon any book he wished for. It was in this
+room, thus crammed with books, that he used to entertain the little
+parties he invited to sup with him. The repast was always frugal; the
+conversation, on his part, such as might have gone into print. A
+man-servant brought in the refreshments on a tray; or, sometimes, one of
+his pupils officiated. His only sister, who kept house for him during the
+greater part of his life, never made her appearance at these exclusively
+masculine entertainments. He himself rarely paid any attention to the
+progress of the meal, but seemed to be as much a visitor as any of his
+guests. The little he needed was soon dispatched, and his thoughts were
+again afloat, sounding along from theme to theme.
+
+He never married, and, at the time I speak of, was almost alone in the
+world. Neither father, nor mother, nor any other near relative remained to
+him, save his sister, Johanna, whose care of him had need to be almost
+maternal. Well-nigh every day in the year these two might be seen walking
+out together to take the air. They went always arm in arm, a beautiful
+embodiment of the tenderest affection. Hardly the king himself attracted
+more attention in the street. Scarcely a person he met failed to raise his
+hat and salute the venerable scholar with the heartiest good will. As he
+was both short-sighted and suffering from diseased vision, he had to
+depend upon his sister to know who bowed to him; and it was amusing to see
+his returning salutation bestowed, in almost every instance, a little too
+late. Many anecdotes were afloat in Berlin, and indeed all over Germany,
+going to illustrate his habits of abstraction and absent-mindedness, some
+of which no doubt were true, and all of which were likely enough to have
+been so.
+
+An exact description of his manners in the lecture-room would, by any one
+who never saw him, be thought a caricature. He entered the room with his
+eyes upon the floor, as if feeling his way; a student stood ready to take
+his hat and overcoat and hang them up in their places; while he went
+directly to his stand--a high pine desk; threw his left elbow upon it;
+dropped his head so low that his eyes could not be seen; tilted the desk
+over on its front legs, so that you expected every moment to see it
+pitching forward into the lecture-room, with the lecturer after it; and,
+seizing a quill, always provided for the purpose, began at once to speak,
+and to twist and twirl and tear in pieces the quill. Sometimes, in the
+heat of his discourse, he would suddenly jerk up his head, whirl entirely
+round with his face to the wall and his back to the audience, and then as
+suddenly whirl back again, his words all the while pouring along in a
+perfect torrent of involved and fervent thought. Add to this a constant
+writhing and swinging of his legs, with a frequent slight spitting,
+produced by a chronic weakness of the salivary glands, and you have a
+picture of the outward man known in Berlin as John William Augustus
+Neander; to be known in history as one of the most learned, revered and
+beloved teachers of our century.
+
+While it is indispensable to our full and lively appreciation of Neander
+that these little things be known of him, no one will be so foolish as to
+let such accidents and eccentricities of the outward life divert his
+attention from the grand and rarely equalled manhood which lay behind and
+beneath them. To give anything like a just estimate of this manhood would
+be no easy task, however. His native endowments, the attainments he had
+made in the learning pertaining to his department, and the part he was
+called to play in the regeneration of German science and German faith,
+were all remarkable. From the first glimpse we catch of him, when, at 17
+years of age, he had given his head and heart to Plato, he strikes us as
+no ordinary character; and our wonder deepens at every step, till at last
+we behold him sinking exhausted amidst his labors, and all Christendom
+gathered in sorrow around his grave.
+
+His native instincts, tastes and sympathies were all singularly pure and
+generous. His family attachments were strong. In the latest periods of his
+life, when she had long been dead, the name of his mother could not be
+mentioned by him without a visible gush of deep and tender emotion. The
+loss of his favorite sister, some years before his own departure, almost
+shattered him. For days he drooped and mourned amongst his books, and
+could do no work. Only the thought that God had taken her to Himself, and
+that He doeth all things well, finally availed to quiet him. So of all his
+friends; he never forgot and was never false to them. But his special care
+was bestowed upon the young men of the University, who had gathered about
+him, in the spirit of a most enthusiastic discipleship, out of all
+Germany, and indeed out of nearly all Christendom. To the last he
+continued to be a young man himself, as fresh, impulsive and eager, and
+with as entire a freedom from all appearance of assumption and authority,
+as though his pupils and he were merely peers. There was at once a warmth,
+a blandness and a child-like simplicity of manners, which made him the
+idol of every heart. And he carried the same amenity of temper into all
+the theological controversies of his life. He never stooped to ungracious
+personalities, and never seemed to be in pursuit of victory at the
+expense of truth and fairness. The result was that he was never assailed
+with personalities in return. Through all the bitterest contentions which
+raged around him, he was uniformly treated with respect and deference. Not
+that men were ignorant of his opinions, or thought him neutral, but
+because he was felt to be an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile.
+He committed himself to no clique, and allowed no clique to be committed
+to him.
+
+In his personal habits he was temperate and frugal in the extreme; though
+not for the sake of accumulation. His income from his books and lectures
+must have been considerable; but he gave it nearly all away. Hundreds of
+indigent students could testify to his generosity, while amongst the poor
+of the city, there were many pensioners upon his bounty.
+
+In regard to his intellectual gifts and powers, their peculiar cast has
+already been intimated. The dominant feature of his genius was its deeply
+subjective and spiritual character. The accidents of a subject never
+detained him for a moment from his search after the essential and the
+abiding. Outward circumstances were of little interest to him. And in this
+direction lay the main defect of his mind; it was too exclusively
+Platonic, subjective and spiritual. Had his profound Germanic
+intuitiveness of vision been tempered with a little more of our homely
+Anglo-Saxon common sense, the combination would have been well-nigh
+perfect.
+
+What has just been said of his intellectual peculiarities will help us to
+understand also his religious life. It was preėminently an inward life; a
+fire in the very marrow of his being. As it was his own solitary and
+independent reflection which first turned his feet toward Nazareth and
+Calvary, so was it by deep and steady communion with his own heart that he
+advanced in sanctity. The natural and unchanging atmosphere of his life
+was that of faith and prayer. His religious experience was rooted in
+peculiarly deep and pungent views of sin. Not that he had gross outward
+offences to be ashamed of; but he felt the law of evil working within him,
+disturbing his peace; and he longed for the serenity of a child of God.
+Thus did he learn his need of Christ. His pupils relate with much interest
+how, on the evening of one of his birth-day festivals, when they were
+gathered at his house, he spoke to them of his own spiritual infirmities,
+and with trembling voice confessed himself a poor sinner seeking
+forgiveness through atoning blood. Theologically, he was comparatively
+indifferent in regard to minor points; but he clung with the tenacity of a
+martyr's faith to the great essentials of the Gospel. His religious life
+was therefore at once very fervent and very catholic. Loving Christ with
+all the ardor of a passion, he loved with a generous latitude of heart all
+those of every name in whom he discerned Christ's image. The motto adopted
+by him as best describing his own aim and method, was that of St.
+Augustine: "Pectus est quod facit theologum." _It is the heart which makes
+the theologian._ It was a Divine Form, for which he was ever seeking,
+while he walked about amongst men, as he walked up and down the centuries
+of our Christian faith, murmuring to himself: "It is the Lord."
+
+As a writer of church history, his first great claim to gratitude is on
+account of the living pulse of faith and love which beats through all his
+pages. He traces the golden thread of Christian life through the darkest
+centuries. He does much to save the church of God from reproach, and God's
+own gracious promise from contempt, by showing how much there has been of
+Christian grace and truth under the worst forms and in the worst ages. He
+has thus made his History what he said it should be, "a speaking proof of
+the Divine power of Christianity, a school of Christian experience, and a
+voice of edification and warning sounding through all ages for all who are
+willing to believe." Of the original sources of history, particularly for
+the earlier centuries, his knowledge was profound, and his use of them
+masterly. How thorough and how fair he is, can be fully appreciated only
+by those who explore for themselves the fountains from which he drew his
+materials. His chief defect is in the matter of form. He had but little
+dramatic power. He gives us the inward life, but not the outward stir and
+shock of history. Nor is he remarkable for analytical sharpness in his
+delineation of the growth of Christian doctrine. It is in the sphere of
+experience and life that he succeeds the best. His own doctrinal views
+were not, at all points, quite up to our English and American standards of
+orthodoxy. But these points were of minor importance. All that is cardinal
+was precious to him. With peculiar fidelity did he cling to the Head,
+which is Christ, and was full of that faith which conquers the world and
+saves the soul.
+
+His last days, as described by his friends and pupils, were in marked
+keeping with his whole career. On Monday, the 8th of July, at 11 o'clock,
+he lectured at the University. But he had been for some time back much
+feebler than usual, the weather was sultry and debilitating, and his
+system was out of tune. His voice failed him two or three times in the
+course of the lecture, and it was only by a desperate struggle that he got
+to the end; his strength barely sufficing to bring him home. The
+impression upon his class was such, that one of the students, turning to
+his neighbor, said: "This is the last lecture of our Neander." Immediately
+after dinner, which he scarcely tasted, his reader came. He dictated on
+his Church History three hours in succession, repressing by force of will
+the rising groans, his debility all the while increasing. At 5 o'clock the
+symptoms of a dangerous illness appeared; but he would not abandon his
+work. His sister, who came to expostulate with him and warn him against
+further effort, was sent impatiently away. "Let me alone," he said; "every
+laborer, I hope, may work if he wishes; wilt thou not grant me this?" At
+seven he was compelled to pause. His reader gone, his first thought was to
+call back his much loved sister, and say to her: "Be not anxious, dear
+Jenny, it is passing away; I know my constitution." But his physicians
+were agreed in the opinion that the very worst was to be feared. They
+succeeded, however, in subduing the symptoms of the disease, which was a
+violent cholera, and began to hope. The next morning, having hardly got
+breath from this first furious attack, he inquired with touching sadness,
+"shall I not be able to lecture to-day?" When answered in the negative, he
+distinctly demanded that the suspension should be only for that one day.
+In the afternoon of Tuesday, he called out vehemently for his reader,
+desired him to go on with Ritter's Palestine, with which he had been
+occupied, and impatiently blamed the anxiety of his friends who had
+dismissed his assistant too hastily. He then, according to his daily
+custom, had another of his pupils read to him the newspaper. He followed
+the reading with lively attention, making his remarks now of agreement and
+now of dissent, till at length he fell asleep, and so ended the day's
+work. Later in the afternoon, while racked with pain, it occurred to him
+that his sister might think of foregoing sleep on his account, which he
+begged her not to do. Wednesday he had the newspaper read to him, and made
+his comments, as usual. Thursday night brought with it a convulsive
+hiccough. Friday, his spirit was clear, peaceful and full of love. But
+Friday night extinguished the last hopes of his friends. The pains he
+endured were excruciating. With an indescribably affecting and deeply
+tender voice, before which no eye remained tearless, he exclaimed, "Would
+to God I could sleep." Saturday he was clamorous for the servant to bring
+him his clothes, that he might dress and go about his work. His sister
+came: "Think, dear August, what thou hast said to me when I have rebelled
+against the directions of the physician, 'It comes from God, therefore
+must we acquiesce in it.'" "That is true," answered quickly the softened
+voice, "it all comes from God, and we must thank him for it." During the
+day he asked to be taken into the study. The sweet sunlight, streaming on
+his nearly blinded eyes, refreshed and gladdened him. After this, a bath
+of wine and strengthening herbs was administered, which seemed to do him
+good. Finding himself amongst his books again, he rose upon the cushions
+which supported him, and, to the astonishment of all, began a lecture upon
+the New Testament, and announced for the coming term a course of lectures
+upon the Gospel of John. At half-past nine, having inquired the hour, he
+fell asleep. When he awoke, it was Sunday. There came back a gush of
+bodily strength, the last leaping of the light before it flickered in the
+socket. Taking up the thread of his history where he had dropped it two
+days before, he began to dictate for some one to write. The passage was
+about the mystics of the 14th and 15th centuries. The concluding sentence
+was: "So it was in general; the further development is to follow." Then
+turning to his sister, he said: "I am tired; let us make ready to go
+home;" as though they were somewhere on a long and wearisome journey. And
+then rallying his last energies in one parting word of tenderness to her
+who was bending over him with a breaking heart, he murmured, "Good night,"
+and died.
+
+Thus he died with his harness on, not aware, probably, that he was so near
+his end; else he might have uttered some dying testimony, which would have
+passed into the literature of the church to be the comfort of other saints
+in their mortal agony. But, on his own account, no such dying testimony
+was required. For thirty-seven years he had stood his ground gallantly in
+Berlin, witnessing for Christ in the face of a learned skepticism, and he
+could well afford to pass directly, without an interlude, from the toils
+and conflicts of earth to the joys and triumphs of the redeemed in heaven.
+
+His labors had been prodigious. He usually lectured not less than fifteen
+times a week, published twenty-five volumes, and left behind him several
+other volumes nearly ready for the press. His health was never firm. A
+rheumatic disease lurked in his system from the time of his illness at
+Göttingen. Three years before he died, this disease settled in his eyes,
+and made him nearly blind. But against all impediments, he struggled on,
+fighting the good fight of faith, patient and resolute, till suddenly his
+course was finished, and he took his crown.
+
+
+
+
+POEMS.
+
+BY JULIA WARD HOWE.
+
+I.
+
+THE BEE'S SONG
+
+
+    Do not tie my wings,
+    Says the honey-bee;
+    Do not bind my wings,
+    Leave them glad and free.
+    If I fly abroad,
+    If I keep afar,
+    Humming all the day,
+    Where wild blossoms are,
+    'Tis to bring you sweets,
+    Rich as summer joy,
+    Clear--as gold and glass;
+    The divinest toy
+    That the god's have left,
+    Is the pretty hive,
+    Where a maiden reigns,
+    And the busy thrive.
+
+    If you bar my way,
+    Your delight is gone,
+    No more honey-gems;
+    From the heather borne;
+    No more tiny thefts,
+    From your neighbor's rose,
+    Who were glad to guess
+    Where its sweetness goes.
+
+    Let the man of arts
+    Ply his plane and glass;
+    Let the vapors rise,
+    Let the liquor pass;
+    Let the dusky slave
+    Till the southern fields;
+    Not the task of both
+    Such a treasure yields;
+    Honey, Pan ordained,
+    Food for gods and men,
+    Only in my way
+    Shall you store again.
+
+    Leave me to my will
+    While the bright days glow,
+    While the sleepy flowers
+    Quicken as I go.
+    When the pretty ones
+    Look to me no more,
+    Dead, beneath your feet,
+    Crushed and dabbled o'er;
+    In my narrow cell
+    I will fold my wing;
+    Sink in dark and chill,
+    A forgotten thing.
+
+    Can you read the song
+    Of the suppliant bee?
+    'Tis a poet's soul,
+    Asking liberty.
+
+
+II.
+
+LIMITATIONS OF BENEVOLENCE.
+
+
+    "The beggar boy is none of mine,"
+      The reverend doctor strangely said;
+    "I do not walk the streets to pour
+      Chance benedictions on his head.
+
+    "And heaven I thank who made me so.
+      That toying with my own dear child,
+    I think not on _his_ shivering limbs,
+      _His_ manners vagabond and wild."
+
+    Good friend, unsay that graceless word!
+      I am a mother crowned with joy,
+    And yet I feel a bosom pang
+      To pass the little starveling boy.
+
+    His aching flesh, his fevered eyes
+      His piteous stomach, craving meat;
+    His features, nipt of tenderness,
+      And most, his little frozen feet.
+
+    Oft, by my fireside's ruddy glow,
+      I think, how in some noisome den,
+    Bred up with curses and with blows,
+      He lives unblest of gods or men.
+
+    I cannot snatch him from his fate,
+      The tribute of my doubting mind
+    Drops, torch-like, in the abyss of ill,
+      That skirts the ways of humankind.
+
+    But, as my heart's desire would leap
+      To help him, recognized of none,
+    I thank the God who left him this,
+      For many a precious right foregone.
+
+    My mother, whom I scarcely knew,
+      Bequeathed this bond of love to me;
+    The heart parental thrills for all
+      The children of humanity.
+
+
+
+
+EARTH'S WITNESS.
+
+BY ALICE B. HAVEN.
+
+
+    That Poet wrongs his soul, whose dreary cry
+      Calls "winds" and "waves," and "burning stars of night"
+      To bring our darkness nature's clearer light
+    On that just sentence, "Thou shalt surely die;"
+    To track the spirit as it leaves its clay
+      To bring back surety of its future home,
+      Or echo of the voice that calleth "come,"
+    To prove that it is borne to perfect day.
+    Say rather, "winds," who heard the Master speak,
+      And "waves," who by His voice transfixed were stayed,
+      And stars that lighted Christ's deep shade--
+    Your confirmation of our trust we seek.
+      Ye know how shadowy Death's dreary prison,
+      Because ye witnessed Christ our life, up risen.
+
+THE WILLOWS, 1858.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW ENGLAND THANKSGIVING.
+
+BY THE REV. HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D.
+
+
+When cellar and barn and storehouse were filled with food for the coming
+winter, our pious New England forefathers used their first common leisure
+to make public and joyful acknowledgment of their blessings to the God of
+sunshine and of rain; to Him, who clothes the valleys with corn, and the
+hills with flocks. Almost universally, they placed the meeting-houses,
+where these thanks were rendered, on the hill-top commanding the widest
+view of the fields from which their prosperity sprung, and nearest to the
+sky, whence their blessings came. Their modest homes were sheltered from
+the winds by the barns that held their wealth and overshadowed their low
+dwellings. The earth was precious in their eyes, as the source of their
+living. They could spare no fertile or sheltered spot, even for the
+burial-ground, but economically laid it out in the sand, or on the bleak
+hill-side; while they threw away no fencing on the house of God, but
+jealously preserved that costly distinction for their arable lands and
+orchards. They were farmers; and it was no unmeaning thing for them to
+keep the harvest feast. They had prayed in drought, with all faith and
+fervor, for the blessing of rain; in seed-time, for the favoring sunshine
+and soft showers; and in harvest, that blight and frost might spare their
+corn; and when in the late autumn, all their prayers had been heard, and
+their hands and homes were crowned with plenty, their thanksgiving anthem
+was an incense of the heart, and their honored pastors knew not how to
+pour out a flood of gratitude too copious for the thankful people's
+"Amen." A full hour's prayer wearied not their patient knees; and the
+sermon, with its sixteenthly, finally, and to conclude (before the
+_improvement_, itself a modern sermon in length), did not outmeasure the
+people's honest sense of their grounds of thankfulness to God.
+
+The landscape appropriate to thanksgiving is not furnished by brick walls
+and stone pavements. It is a rural festival. The smoke from scattered
+cottages should be slowly curling its way through frosty air. As we look
+forth from the low porch of the homestead, the ground lightly covered with
+snow, stretches off to a not distant horizon, broken irregularly with
+hills, clothed in spots with evergreens, but oftener with bare woods. The
+distant and infrequent sleigh-bells, with the smart crack of the rifle
+from the shooting match in the hollow, strike percussively upon the ear.
+Vast piles of fuel, part neatly corded, part lying in huge logs, with
+heaps of brush, barricade the brown, paintless farmhouses. Swine, hanging
+by the ham-strings in the neighboring shed; the barn-yard speckled with
+the ruffled poultry, some sedate with recent bereavement, others cackling
+with a dim sense of temporary reprieve; the rough-coated steer butting in
+the fold, where the timid sheep huddle together in the corner; little boys
+on a single skate improving the newly frozen horse-pond--these furnish the
+foreground of the picture during the earlier hours of the morning. Later
+in the day, without, the sound of church bells, the farmers' pungs, or the
+double sleighs, with incredible numbers stowed in their strawed bottoms,
+drive up to the meeting-house door. An occasional wagon from the hills,
+from which the snow has blown, with the crunching, whistling sound of
+wheels upon snow, sets the teeth of the crowd in the porch on edge, as it
+grinds its way to the stone steps to deposit its load. Great white coats,
+with seven or eight capes apiece, dismount, and muffs and moccasins--each
+a whole bearskin--follow. Long stoves, with live coals got at the
+neighboring houses, occasionally join the procession. Few come afoot; for
+our pious ancestors seemed to think it as much a part of their religion to
+fill the family horse-shed as the family pew; and in good weather would
+send a mile to pasture for the horses to drive a half mile to meeting.
+But, meeting out, the parson's prayer and sermon said, the choir's
+ambitious anthem lustily sung, the politics of the prayer, and the
+politics of the sermon, both summarily criticised, approved, condemned,
+partly with looks and winks, and partly with loud words in the porch,
+there is now a little space for kind inquiries after the absent, the sick,
+and the poor; a few solitary spinsters, and one old soldier, lame and
+indigent, are seized on and carried off to homes, where certain blessed
+Mothers in Israel, are wont to keep a vacant chair for a poor soul that
+might feel desolate if left alone on this sociable day. Some full-handed
+visits are paid on the way home to scattered and rickety houses; but by
+one o'clock, all the people are beneath their own roofs, never so
+attractive as on this glorious day. The married children from the
+neighboring towns have come home, and the old house is full.
+
+The great event of the day is at hand. It is dinner-time. The table of
+unnatural length, narrower at one end, where it has been eked out for the
+occasion, groans with the choicest gifts of the year. There is but one
+course, but that possesses infinite variety and reckless profusion. For
+one day, at least, the doctrine of an apostle is in full honor. "For every
+creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with
+thanksgiving." The long grace sanctifies the feast with the word of God
+and with prayer. The elders and males are distributed to front the
+substantial of the board--the round of _a-la-mode_, the brown crisp pig
+with an apple in his mouth, the great turkey who has frightened the little
+red-cloaked girls and saucy pugs for months past, the chicken-pie with
+infinite crimping and stars and knobs, decorating its snowy face. The
+mothers and daughters are placed over against the puddings and pies, which
+have exercised their ambition for weeks--vying with rival housekeepers in
+the number and variety of sorts--and which, after the faint impression
+made on them to-day, shall be found for a month, filling the shelves of
+spare-closets and lending a delicious though slightly musty odor to the
+best wardrobe of the family. Children of all ages--to the toddling
+darling, the last babe of the youngest daughter--fill up the interstices,
+while the few books in the house are barely sufficient to bring the
+little ones in their low chairs to an effective level with the table.
+Incredible stowage having been effected, the sleepy after-dinner hours are
+somewhat heavily passed; but with the lamps and the tea-board, sociability
+revives. The evening passes among the old people, with chequers and
+back-gammon. Puss-in-the-corner, the game of forfeits--blind-man's-buff
+entertain the young folks. Apples, nuts and cider come in at nine o'clock,
+and perhaps a mug of flip--but it is rather for form's sake than for
+appetite. At ten o'clock the fire is raked up, and the household is a-bed.
+Excepting some bad-dreams, Thanksgiving day is over.
+
+
+
+
+SONG OF THE ARCHANGELS
+
+(FROM GOETHE'S FAUST.)
+
+BY GEORGE P. MARSH.
+
+RAPHAEL.
+
+
+    E'en as at first, in rival song
+      Of brother orbs, still chimes the SUN,
+    And his appointed path along
+      Rolls with harmonious thundertone;
+    With strength the sight doth Angels fill,
+      Though none can solve its law divine;
+    Creation's wonders glorious still,
+      As erst they shone, eternal shine.
+
+
+GABRIEL.
+
+
+    The gorgeous EARTH doth whirl for aye
+      In swift, sublime, mysterious flight,
+    And alternates elysian day
+      With deep, chaotic, shuddering night;
+    With swelling billows foams the sea.
+      Chafing the cliff's deep-rooted base,
+    While sea and cliff both hurrying flee
+      In swift, eternal, circling race.
+
+
+MICHAEL.
+
+
+    And howling TEMPESTS scour amain
+      From sea to land, from land to sea,
+    And, raging, weave around a chain
+      Of deepest, wildest energy;
+    The scathing bolt with flashing glare
+      Precedes the pealing thunder's way;
+    And yet Thine Angels, LORD, revere
+      The gentle movement of Thy day.
+
+
+TRIO.
+
+
+    With strength the sight doth Angels fill,
+      For power to fathom THEE hath none.
+    The works of Thy supernal will
+      Still glorious shine, as erst they shone.
+
+
+
+
+A NIGHT AND DAY AT VALPARAISO.
+
+BY ROBERT TOMES.
+
+
+As night came on, the steamer doubled the rocky cape, and, steaming with
+all its engine force, stood right for Valparaiso. Her speed soon
+slackened, and she began to feel her way cautiously, going ahead, backing,
+turning, and coming to a full stop. "Let go the anchor," was now the word,
+followed by a hoarse rumble of the chains and a noisy burst of steam. A
+fleet of shadowy ships and small craft surrounded us, and ahead glimmered
+the lights of the city, which, irregularly scattered about the dark
+hill-sides, appeared in the night like so many stars dimly twinkling
+through a broken rain cloud. With the quick instinct of the presence of a
+stranger, the dogs became at once conscious of our arrival, and began a
+noisy welcome of barks and yelps, which continued throughout the night.
+The port officials in tarnished gilt came alongside the steamer, had their
+talk with the captain and pushed off again. Two or three gusty-looking
+sea-captains boarded us, gave their rough grasps of welcome, drank off
+their stiff supplies of grog, and pulled back to their ships. Some few of
+the more impatient of our comrades turned out from the bottom of their
+trunks their "best," and went ashore in glossy coats and shining boots.
+Most of us, however, awaited the coming of the morning.
+
+I was up on deck at the earliest dawn of day. The steamer was at anchor
+close before the city, and I looked with no admiring eyes upon its flimsy
+white-washed houses and wooden spires, scattered about the base and sides
+of the cindery, earth-quaky hills upon which it is built. There was hardly
+a blade of grass or tree to be seen anywhere, except where the thriving
+European and American residents had perched themselves on one of the
+acclivities. The dwarfed trees here, moreover, all in a row before the
+little painted bird-cage-looking houses, appeared to have no more life of
+growth and color in them than so many painted semblances in a toy village.
+Familiar looking shanties, of the tumble-down sort, built of pine wood and
+shingles, crowded the ground by the water side, and indeed the low land
+seemed better suited to their staggering aspect than the steep
+acclivities. Painted signs with English names and English words, stared
+familiarly from every building. The universal "John Smith" there
+conspicuously posted his name and his "Bakery." Mine host of the "Hole in
+the Wall" invited the thirsty in good round Saxon to drink of his "Best
+Beer on Tap," or his "Bottled Porter," as "you pays your money and take
+your choice."
+
+The steamer was enlivened from the earliest hour by the native fishermen,
+who, with their fleet of canoes, had sought the shades of our dark hull,
+to protect them from the hot sun, which seemed to be fairly simmering the
+waters of the bay. They were making most miraculous draughts of fishes. I
+watched one little fellow. He was hardly a dozen years of age, but he
+plied his trade with such skill and enterprise, that he nearly filled his
+canoe during the half hour I was watching him. It was terrible to see with
+what intense energy and cruelty the little yellow devil, with bared arms
+blooded to the shoulders, pounced upon his prey. With a quick jerk he
+pulled his fish in, then clutching it with one hand and thrusting the
+fingers of the other with the prompt ferocity of a young tiger into the
+panting gills, he tore off with a single wrench the head, and threw the
+body, yet quivering with life, among the lifeless heap of his victims
+lying at the bottom of his boat. The sea gulls, hovering about shrieking
+shrilly and pouncing upon the heads and entrails as they were thrown into
+the water, fighting over them and gulping them down with hungry voracity,
+seemed to heighten this picture of the "Gentle art of angling."
+
+The return of the steward and chaplain with a boat load of "marketing" was
+a welcome surprise. The parson, whose unquestionable taste in the
+ęsthetics of eating had been wisely secured by the steward, dilated with
+great gusto upon the juicy beefsteaks, the freshness of the fish, and the
+richness of the fruit. When, at breakfast, we enjoyed as salt-sea voyagers
+only could, the stores of fresh meat, fresh eggs, fresh butter, fresh
+milk, juicy grapes, white and purple, with the morning's bloom still upon
+them, the peaches, the apples, the pears, the tumas (prickly pear fruit),
+the melons, musk and water, we acknowledged his reverence's judgment, and
+gratefully thanked him for his services.
+
+On landing to take a look at the town, I made my way through a throng of
+boatmen, of picturesque native fruitsellers and loitering sailors, to the
+chief business street, which ran along the shore. The stores, which were
+mainly under the proprietorship of the foreign merchants, had a rich,
+thriving look, being crammed full of miscellaneous goods, while the
+sidewalks were heaped with bales and boxes. Odd-looking carts moved slowly
+along with their drivers in picturesque costume lying in full length upon
+their loads, smoking their cigarettes, and looking wondrously lazy and
+happy. Stately Chilians from the interior, dressed in genuine Fra Diavolo
+style, rode by on their prancing horses, all glistening and jingling with
+silver. There were abundant loungers about, in the cool shade of every
+corner and projecting roof. The listless men with the universal poncho--an
+oblong mantle of variegated cotton or woollen, through a hole in the
+centre of which the head is thrust, allowing the garment to hang in folds
+about the person--looked as if they had been roused suddenly from their
+beds, and not finding their coats at hand, had walked out with their
+coverlets over their shoulders. The women, too, in their loose dresses and
+with shawls thrown carelessly over their heads, had a very bed-chamber
+look. They were mostly pretty brunettes, with large, slumbering black
+eyes, which, however, were sufficiently awake to ogle effectively.
+
+Having a letter of introduction to present, I entered the counting-house
+of the merchant whose acquaintance I sought. I found him boxed off at the
+further end of his long, heaped-up warehouse. He had closed his ledger,
+lighted his cigar, and had just filled his glass from a bottle of wine
+which stood on the window-sill, when I entered. I was not surprised,
+under such provocation to good fellowship, to receive a warm welcome. My
+mercantile friend was in the best possible humor, for times, he said, were
+very good. Every one at Valparaiso was making his fortune. It was the
+epoch of the gold excitement. Large fortunes had already been made. The
+contents of the shops and warehouses had, as soon as the gold discovery
+became known, been emptied into every vessel in the harbor, and sent to
+San Francisco. The lucky speculators had gained five or six hundred per
+cent. profit for their ventures of preserved and dried fruits, champagne,
+other wines and liquors, Madeira nuts and the most paltry stuff
+imaginable. In five months some of the Valparaiso merchants had cleared
+five hundred thousand dollars. The excitement was still unabated. Shippers
+were still loading and dispatching their goods daily for San Francisco.
+Many were going there themselves, and hardly a clerk could be kept at
+Valparaiso at any salary, however large.
+
+The day was brilliantly bright, and the air so pure and bracing that it
+did the lungs good to breathe. So I made my way out of counting-house and
+street for a walk. I ascended the dry, crumbling hills which with long,
+deep gullies and breaks in them, and friable soil, looked as if they were
+ready to tumble into pieces at the first shake of one of those earthquakes
+so frequent in the country. On the road, chained gangs of surly convicts
+were at work, and some smart-looking soldiers, in blue and white, came
+marching along! Caravans of mules, laden with goods, produce and water
+casks, trotted on, and here and there rode a dashing Chilian cavalier on
+his prancing steed, or a dapper citizen on his steady cob. In a ravine
+between the dry hills there trickled the smallest possible stream. Above,
+some water carriers were slowly filling their casks, while the mules
+patiently waited for their burdens; below, was a throng of washerwomen,
+beating their clothes upon the stones, just moistened by the scant water
+which flowed over them, and interchanging Spanish Billingsgate with each
+other and a gang of man-of-war sailors.
+
+Frightened away by the stony stare of the English occupant from an
+imposing-looking residence on the top of the hill, I crossed the road and
+entered the private hospital. Around a quadrangle, laid out in gardens
+beds there was a range of low two story buildings. Some bleached sailors,
+in duck trowsers and blue jackets, were about; one was reading a
+song-book, another his Bible, and a third was busily making a marine swab
+out of ropes' ends. Among the convalescents, out on the balconies to
+catch a breath of the pure air, was a naval officer in a gilt cap, reading
+a novel; and all looked snug and encouraging. On entering, I asked the
+attendant, a gaunt-looking Englishman, who in his musty black suit, was
+not unlike a carrion crow or a turkey buzzard, whether there was any
+serious case of illness in the hospital. "There are two consumptives,"
+said he, "who've been a deceiving us for the last two weeks." He seemed to
+think it a very base fraud that these two consumptives had not died when
+he and the doctor thought it was their duty to do so, some fortnight
+before.
+
+Coming from the one hill to another, I reached a miserable quarter of the
+town, called by the sailors the "foretop." It was composed of rude mud
+hovels, stuffed with a population of half-breeds, a half-naked
+gipsy-looking people, grovelling in the dirt, and breathing an atmosphere
+reeking with the stench of filth, garlic and frying fat. I was glad to
+escape, and get to the "Star Hotel," where, refreshing myself with a chop
+and brown stout, I could fancy myself, with hardly an effort of the
+imagination, taking my dinner at an ordinary in the Strand.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATIONS.
+
+BY THE REV. THEODORE PARKER.
+
+I.
+
+TWO LOVERS.
+
+(FROM THE GERMAN OF MOHRIKE.)
+
+
+    A light skiff swam on Danube's tide,
+    Where sat a bridegroom and his bride,
+      He this side and she that side.
+
+    Quoth she, "Heart's dearest, tell to me,
+    What wedding-gift shall I give thee?"
+
+    Upward her little sleeve she strips,
+    And in the water briskly dips.
+
+    The young man did the same straightway,
+    And played with her and laughed so gay.
+
+    "Ah, give to me, Dame Danube fair,
+    Some pretty toy for my love to wear!"
+
+    She drew therefrom a shining blade,
+    For which the youth so long had prayed.
+
+    The bridegroom, what holds he in hand?
+    Of milk-white pearls a precious band.
+
+    He twines it round her raven hair;
+    She looked how like a princess there!
+
+    "Oh, give to me, Dame Danube fair,
+    Some pretty toy for my love to wear!"
+
+    A second time her arm dips in,
+    A glittering helm of steel to win.
+
+    The youth, o'erjoyed the prize to view,
+    Brings her a golden comb thereto.
+
+    A third time she in the water dips.
+    Ah woe! from out the skiff she slips.
+
+    He leaps for her and grasps straightway--
+    Dame Danube tears them both away.
+
+    The dame began her gifts to rue--
+    The youth must die, the maiden too!
+
+    The little skiff floats down alone,
+    Behind the hills soon sinks the sun.
+
+    And when the moon was overhead,
+    To land the lovers floated dead,
+      He this side and she that side!
+
+
+II.
+
+THE FISHER-MAIDEN.
+
+(FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE.)
+
+
+    Thou handsome fisher-maiden,
+      Push thy canoe to land;
+    Come and sit down beside me--
+      We'll talk, love, hand in hand.
+
+    Thy head lay on my bosom,
+      Be not afraid of me,
+    For careless thou confidest
+      Each day in the wild sea.
+
+    My heart is like the ocean,
+      Has storm, and ebb, and flow;
+    And many pearls so handsome
+      Rest in its deeps below.
+
+
+III.
+
+MY CHILD WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN.
+
+(FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE.)
+
+
+    My child when we were children,
+      Two children small and gay,
+    We crept into the hen-house
+      And hid us under the hay.
+
+    We crowed, as do the cockerels,
+      When people passed the road,
+    "_Kikeriki!_" and they fancied
+      It was the cock that crowed.
+
+    The chests which lay in the court-yard,
+      We papered them so fair,
+    Making a house right famous,
+      And dwelt together there.
+
+    The old cat of our neighbor,
+      Came oft to make a call;
+    We made her bows and courtesies,
+      And compliments and all.
+
+    We asked with friendly question,
+      How her health was getting on:
+    To many an ancient pussy
+      The same we since have done.
+
+    In sensible discoursing
+      We sat like aged men,
+    And told how in our young days
+      All things had better been.
+
+    That Truth, Love and Religion
+      From the earth are vanished quite--
+    And now so dear is coffee,
+      And money is so tight!
+
+    But gone are childish gambols,
+      And all things fleeting prove--
+    Money, the world, our young days,
+      Religion, Truth and Love.
+
+
+
+
+PAID FOR BY THE PAGE.
+
+BY EDWARD S. GOULD.
+
+
+The labourer is worthy of his hire. A man who produces an available
+"article" for a newspaper or a periodical, is as properly entitled to a
+pecuniary recompense, as a doctor, or a lawyer, or a clergy-man, for
+professional services; or, as a merchant or a mechanic for his
+transferable property. This is a simple proposition, which nobody
+disputes. The rate of such compensation must be a matter of agreement. As
+between author and publisher, custom seems to have fixed on what an
+arithmetician would call "square measure," as the basis of the bargain;
+and the question of adjustment is simplified down to "how much by the
+column, or the page?"
+
+This system has its advantages in a business point of view; because, when
+the price, or rate, is agreed on, nothing remains but to count the pages.
+Whether the publisher or the writer is benefited by this plan of
+computation, in a literary point of view, may, however, be doubted.
+
+A man who is paid _by the page_ for his literary labour, has every
+inducement but one to expand lines into sentences, sentences into
+paragraphs, and paragraphs into extravagant dimensions. An idea, to him,
+is a thing to be manufactured into words, each of which has a money value;
+and if he can, by that simplest of all processes--a verbal dilution--give
+to one idea the expansive power of twelve; if he can manage to spread over
+six pages what would be much better said in half a page, he gains twelve
+prices for his commodity, instead of one; and he sacrifices nothing but
+the quality of his commodity--and _that_ is no sacrifice, so long as his
+publisher and his readers do not detect it.
+
+When a man writes for reputation, he has a very different task before him;
+for no one will gain high and permanent rank as an author, unless his
+ideas bear some tolerable proportion to his words. He who aims to write
+_well_, will avoid diffuseness. _Multum in parvo_ will be his first
+consideration; and if he achieves that, he will have secured one of the
+prime requisites of literary fame.
+
+In the earlier days of our republic, a discussion was held by several of
+the prominent statesmen of the period, on the expediency of extending the
+right of suffrage to others than freeholders. Some of the debaters made
+long speeches; others made short ones. At length, Mr. JAY was
+called on for his views of the matter. His brief response was: "Gentlemen,
+in my opinion, _those who own the country ought to rule it."_ If that
+distinguished patriot had been writing for the bleeding Kansas Quarterly,
+at the rate of a dollar a page, he would probably have expanded this
+remark. He might have written thus:
+
+"Every man is born free and independent; or, if he is not, he ought to be.
+_E pluribus unum._ He is, moreover, the natural proprietor of the soil;
+for the soil, without him, is nothing worth. He came from the soil; he
+lives on the soil; and he must return to the soil. _De gustibus, non est
+disputandum._ So much for man in his natural state, breathing his natural
+air, surrounded by his natural horizon, and luxuriating in his natural
+prerogatives. But this is a very limited view of the question. Man is
+expansive, aggressive, acquisitive. _Vox populi, vox Dei._ Having
+acquired, he wills to acquire. Acquisition suggests acquisition. Conquest
+promotes conquest. And, speaking of conquests, the greatest of all
+conquests is that which a man obtains over himself--provided always that
+he does obtain it. This secured, he may consider himself up to anything.
+_Arma virumque cano._ Owning the soil by right of possession; owning
+himself by right of conquest; and, being about to establish a form of
+government conformable to his own views of right and wrong; let him
+protect the right, confound the wrong, and make his own selection of
+subordinate officers. _Mus cucurrit plenum sed._"
+
+This, by way of illustration. The Jay style sounds the best: the
+dollar-a-page style pays the best. But the dollar-a-page system is a very
+bad one for the well-being of our newspaper and periodical literature,
+simply because the chief inducement is on the wrong side. If an author
+receives twice as much pay for a page as for half a page, he will write a
+page as a matter of course; and, as a matter of course, the quality of
+what he writes will be depreciated in geometrical proportion. For the same
+thing, said in few words, is ten times more effectual than when said in
+many words.
+
+No doubt, different subjects require different handling, and more space is
+needed for some than for others. An essay is not necessarily too long
+because it fills five columns, or fifty pages; but periodical and
+newspaper writing demands compactness, conciseness, concentration; and the
+fact of being paid by measurement, is a writer's ever-present temptation
+to disregard this demand.
+
+The conceit of estimating the value of an article by its length and rating
+the longest at the highest price, is about as wise as to estimate a man
+by his inches instead of his intellect.
+
+Certain names there are in the literary world, which carry great weight in
+a reader's regard, independently of the quality of the contributions. If a
+Sir Walter Scott were to write for the _North American Review_, he would
+temporarily elevate the reputation of the Review, however carelessly he
+might throw his sentences together. But, theoretically, the articles in
+our periodical literature are anonymous; and, practically, they stand on
+their intrinsic merits. And it is out of the question that a system which
+offers a money premium for the worst fault in periodical writing--to wit,
+prolixity--should not deteriorate the character of such writing.
+
+Much more might be said on this subject; but, to the wise, a word is
+sufficient. And it would ill become one who is endeavouring to recommend
+conciseness, to disfigure that very endeavour by diffuseness.
+
+
+
+
+WORDS FOR MUSIC.
+
+BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.
+
+I.
+
+
+    I knew a sweet girl, with a bonny blue eye,
+          Who was born in the shade
+          The witch-hazel-tree made,
+          Where the brook sang a song
+          All the summer-day long,
+    And the moments, like birdlings went by,--
+          Like the birdlings the moments flew by.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+    I knew a fair maid, soul enchanting in grace,
+          Who replied to my vow,
+          Neath the hazel-tree bough:
+          "Like the brook to the sea,
+          Oh, I yearn, love, for thee."
+    And she hid in my bosom her face--
+          In my bosom her beautiful face.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+    I have a dear wife, who is ever my guide;
+        Wooed and won in the shade
+        The witch-hazel tree made,
+        Where the brook sings its song
+        All the summer day long,
+    And the moments in harmony glide,
+        Like our lives they in harmony glide.
+
+
+
+
+"THE CHRISTIAN GREATNESS."
+
+(PASSAGES FROM A MANUSCRIPT SERMON.)
+
+BY THE REV. ORVILLE DEWEY, D.D.
+
+THE OFFERING OF CONTRITION.
+
+
+That deepest lowliness of all--the prostration before God, the prostration
+in penitence--is the highest honor that humanity can achieve. It is the
+first great cardinal requisition in the Gospel; and it is not meant to
+degrade, but to exalt us. Self-condemnation is the loftiest testimony that
+can be given to virtue. It is a testimony paid at the expense of all our
+pride. It is no ordinary offering. A man may sacrifice his life to what he
+calls honor, or conceives to be patriotism, who never paid the homage of
+an honest tear for his own faults. That was a beautiful idea of the poet,
+who made the boon that was to restore a wandering shade to the bliss of
+humanity--a boon sought through all the realm of nature and existence--to
+consist, not in wealth or splendor, not in regal mercy or canonized
+glory, but in a tear of penitence. Temple and altar, charity and pity, and
+martyrdom, sunk before that.
+
+I have seen the magnificence of all ceremonial in worship; and this was
+the thought that struck me then. Permit me to describe the scene, and to
+express the thought that rose in my mind, as I gazed upon it. It was in
+the great cathedral church of the world; and it brings a kind of religious
+impression over my mind to recall its awfulness and majesty. Above, far
+above me, rose a dome, gilded and covered with mosaic pictures, and vast
+as the pantheon of old Rome; the four pillars which supported it, each of
+them as large as many of our churches; and the entire mass, lifted to five
+times the height of this building--its own height swelling far beyond; no
+dome so sublime but that of heaven was ever spread above mortal eye. And
+beyond this dome, beneath which I stood, stretched away into dimness and
+obscurity the mighty roofing of this stupendous temple--arches behind
+arches, fretted with gold, and touched with the rays of the morning sun.
+Around me, a wilderness of marble; with colors, as variegated and rich as
+our autumnal woods; columns, pillars, altars, tombs, statues, pictures set
+in ever-during stone; objects to strike the beholder with neverceasing
+wonder. And on this mighty pavement, stood a multitude of many thousands;
+and through bright lines of soldiery, stretching far down the majestic
+nave, slowly advanced a solemn and stately procession, clothed with
+purple, and crimson, and white, and blazing with rubies and diamonds;
+slowly it advanced amidst kneeling crowds and strains of heavenly music;
+and so it compassed about the altar of God, to perform the great
+commemorative rite of Christ's resurrection. Expect from me no sectarian
+deprecation; it was a goodly rite, and fitly performed. But, amidst solemn
+utterances, and lowly prostrations, and pealing anthems, and rising
+incense, and all the surrounding magnificence of the scene, shall I tell
+you what was my thought? One sigh of contrition, one tear of repentance,
+one humble prayer to God, though breathed in a crypt of the darkest
+catacomb, is worth all the splendors of this gorgeous ceremonial and this
+glorious temple.
+
+
+VIRTUE IN OBSCURITY.
+
+
+And let me add, that upon many a lowly bosom, the gem of virtue shines
+more bright and beautiful than it is ever likely to shine in any court of
+royalty or crown of empire: and this, for the very reason that it shines
+in loneliness and obscurity, and is surrounded with no circlet of gazing
+and flattering eyes. There _are_ positions in life, in society, where all
+loveliness is seen and noted; chronicled in men's admiring comments, and
+perhaps celebrated in adulatory sonnets and songs. And well, perhaps, that
+it is so. I would not repress the admiration of society toward the lovely
+and good. But there is many a lowly cottage, many a lowly bedside of
+sickness and pain, to which genius brings no offering; to which the
+footsteps of the enthusiastic and admiring never come; to which there is
+_no_ cheering visitation--but the visitation of angels! _There_ is humble
+toil--_there_ is patient assiduity--_there_ is noble
+disinterestedness--_there_ is heroic sacrifice and unshaken truth. The
+great world passes by, and it toils on in silence; to its gentle footstep,
+there are no echoing praises; around its modest beauty, gathers no circle
+of admirers. It never thought of honor; it never asked to be known.
+Unsung, unrecorded, is the labor of its life, and shall be, till the
+heavens be no more; till the great day of revelation comes; till the great
+promise of Jesus is fulfilled; till the last shall be first, and the
+lowliest shall be loftiest; and the poverty of the world shall be the
+riches and glory of heaven.
+
+
+
+
+THE BABY AND THE BOY MUSICIAN.
+
+BY LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY.
+
+
+    A cherub in its mother's arms,
+      Look'd from a casement high--
+    And pleasure o'er the features stray'd,
+    As on his simple organ play'd
+      A boy of Italy.
+
+    So, day by day, his skill he plied,
+      With still increasing zeal,
+    For well the glittering coin he knew,
+    Those fairy fingers gladly threw,
+      Would buy his frugal meal.
+
+    But then! alas, there came a change
+      Unheeded was his song,
+    And in his upraised, earnest eye
+    There dwelt a silent wonder, why
+      The baby slept so long.
+
+    That polished brow, those lips of Rose
+      Beneath the flowers were laid--
+    But where the music never tires,
+    Amid the white-robed angel choir
+      The happy spirit stray'd.
+
+    Yet lingering at the accustom'd place
+      That minstrel ply'd his art,
+    Though its soft symphony of words
+    Convulsed with pain the broken chords
+      Within a mother's heart.
+
+    They told him that the babe was dead
+      And could return no more,
+    _Dead! Dead!_--to his bewildered ear,
+    A foreign language train'd to hear--
+      The sound no import bore.
+
+    At length, by slow degrees, the truth
+      O'er his young being stole,
+    And with sad step he went his way
+    No more for that blest babe to play,
+      The tear-drop in his soul.
+
+City of Washington, May 24, 1858.
+
+
+
+
+THE ERL-KING.
+
+(FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE.)
+
+BY MRS. E.F. ELLET.
+
+
+    By night through the forest who rideth so fast,
+    While the chill sleet is driving, and fierce roars the blast?
+    'Tis the father, who beareth his child through the storm,
+    And safe in his mantle has wrapped him from harm.
+
+    "My son, why hid'st thy face, as in fear?"
+    "Oh, father! see, father! the Erl-king is near!
+    The Erl-king it is, with his crown and his shroud!"
+    "My boy! it is naught but a wreath of the cloud."
+
+    "Oh, pretty child! come--wilt thou go with me!
+    With many gay sports will I gambol with thee;
+    There are flowers of all hues on our fairy strand--
+    My mother shall weave thee robes golden and grand."
+
+    "Oh, father! my father! and dost thou not hear
+    What the Erl-king is whispering low in mine ear?"
+    "Be quiet, my darling! thy hearing deceives;
+    'Tis but the wind whistling among the crisp leaves."
+
+    "Oh, beautiful boy! wilt thou come with me!--say!
+    My daughters are waiting to join thee at play!
+    In their arms they shall bear thee through all the dark night--
+    They shall dance, they shall sing thee to slumber so light?"
+
+    "My father! oh, father! and dost thou not see
+    Where the Erl-king's daughters are waiting for me?"
+    "My child! 'tis no phantom! I see it now plain;
+    'Tis but the grey willow that waves in the rain."
+
+    "Thy sweet face hath charmed me! I love thee, my joy!
+    And com'st thou not willing, I'll seize thee, fair boy!"
+    "Oh, father! dear father! his touch is so cold!
+    He grasps me! I cannot escape from his hold!"
+
+    Sore trembled the father, he spurs through the wild,
+    And folds yet more closely his terrified child;
+    He reaches his own gate in darkness and dread--
+    Alas! in his arms lay the fair child--dead!
+
+
+
+
+THOUGHTS UPON FENELON.
+
+BY THE REV. SAMUEL OSGOOD, D.D.
+
+
+Fenelon died at Cambray, January 7, 1715, aged 64, some years after the
+death of Bossuet, his antagonist, and shortly before the death of his
+royal patron and persecutor, Louis XIV. The conscience of Christendom has
+already judged between the two parties. Never was the spirit of the good
+archbishop more powerful than now. Whilst ambitious ecclesiastics may
+honor more the name of Bossuet, the heart of France has embalmed in its
+affections the name of his victim, and our common humanity has
+incorporated him into its body. When Fenelon's remains were discovered in
+1804, the French people shouted with joy that Jacobinism had not scattered
+his ashes, and a monument to his memory was forthwith decreed by Napoleon.
+In 1826, his statue was erected in Cambray, and three years after, a
+memorial more eloquent than any statue, a selection from his works,
+exhibiting the leading features of his mind, bore witness of his power
+and goodness to this western world. The graceful monument which the wife
+of Follen thus reared to his memory was crowned by the hand of Channing
+with a garland that as yet has shown no trace of decay.
+
+To any conversant with that little work, or with the larger productions of
+Fenelon's mind, need I say a single word of tribute to his character or
+gifts? Yet something must be said to show the compass of his character,
+for common eulogium is too indiscriminate in praise, exaggerating certain
+amiable graces at the expense of more commanding virtues.
+
+He was remarkable for the harmony of his various qualities. In his
+intellect, reason, understanding, fancy, imagination, were balanced in an
+almost unexampled degree. The equilibrium of his character showed itself
+alike in the exquisite propriety of his writings and the careful and
+generous economy of his substance. He died without property and without
+debt. Some critics have denied him the praise of philosophical depth. They
+should rather say, that his love of prying analytically into the secret
+principles of things was counterbalanced by the desire to exhibit
+principles in practical combination, and by his preference of truth and
+virtue in its living portraiture to moral anatomizing or metaphysical
+dissection. He could grapple wisely with the fatalism of Malebranche and
+the pantheism of Spinosa, as his controversial works show; he could hold
+an even argument with the terrible Bossuet on the essence of Christianity.
+He preferred, however, to exhibit under forms far more winning than
+controversy, his views of human agency, divine power, and Christian love.
+The beautiful structure of his narratives, dialogues, and letters, is not
+the graceful cloak that hides a poverty of philosophical ideas. It is like
+the covering which the Creator has thrown around the human frame, not to
+disguise its emptiness, but to incase its energies, and to ease and
+beautify its action. With this reservation, we will allow it to be said
+that his mind was more graceful than strong.
+
+His heart was equally balanced with his intellect. Piety and humanity,
+dignity and humility, justice and mercy, blended in the happiest
+equilibrium. His gentleness never led him to forget due self-respect, or
+forego any opportunity of speaking unwelcome truths. Bossuet and Louis, in
+their pride, as well as young Burgundy, in his confiding attachment, had
+more than one occasion to recognize the singular truthfulness of this
+gentle spirit. Measured by prevalent standards, his character may be said
+to lack one element--fear. His life was love. The text that the beloved
+disciple drew from his Master's bosom was the constant lesson of his
+soul: "He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love."
+
+His active powers were great, for he filled with efficiency posts of duty
+so various as to call for different orders of ability. Priest, preceptor,
+prelate, as well as statesman, poet, orator, theologian, he was eminent in
+every capacity, and in each sphere took something from his distinction by
+being rival of himself in other spheres. Take him for all in all--allowing
+to other men superior excellence in single departments--where can we find
+a man on the whole so perfect as he was?
+
+I am well aware that he has not escaped disparagement, and that the
+animadversions of his contemporary, St. Simon, have been more than
+repeated in the suspicions of the over-skeptical historian Michelet. True,
+that the courtesy that won the hearts alike of master and servant, the
+high-born lady who sought his society and the broken-spirited widow who
+asked his Christian counsel, has been ascribed to a love of praise that
+rejoiced in every person's homage, or a far-sighted policy that desired
+every person's suffrage. True, that his self-denial has been called a deep
+self-interest that would win high honors by refusing to accept the less
+rewards. True, that his piety has sometimes been called sentimentalism,
+and an alloy of baser emotion has been hinted at as running through some
+of his letters to enthusiastic devotees. True, that he has been called
+very politic and ambitious. We claim for him no superhuman perfection. Nor
+do we deny that he was a Frenchman, whilst we maintain that he was every
+inch a man.
+
+But let him be judged not by a skeptical suspicion that doubts from the
+habit of doubting of virtue, but by the spirit of his whole life. That
+life, from beginning to end, was an example of the virtue commended by our
+Lord in his charge to his apostles. Sent forth like a lamb in the midst of
+wolves, he blended the wisdom of the serpent with the gentleness of the
+dove. Whatever failings he may have had he conquered. His course was ever
+onward to the mark whither he deemed himself called of God.
+
+We probably have often felt, on reading Fenelon, as if his sweetness of
+temper were sometimes at the expense of his manliness, and we could easily
+spare some of his honeyed words for an occasional flow of hearty, even if
+bitter, indignation. To his credit, however, be it said, that with him
+gentle speech was often but the smooth edge of faithful counsel most
+resolutely pointed and sharpened at the consciences of the great whom
+rudeness would offend and inelegance disgust. Recent discoveries have
+given ample proof of his unflinching boldness to the French Court. During
+his banishment (1694-97) he wrote that masterly and fearless letter to
+Louis XIV., which was not discovered until 1825, and which the most
+earnest of his eulogists, not even Channing, we believe, seems to have
+noted. Than these intrepid words, Christian heroism cannot further go.
+
+Would that there were time to speak of his works in their various
+departments, especially those in the departments of education, social
+morals, and religion.
+
+No name stands above his among the leaders in the great cause of
+education. None surpass him in the power with which he defended the mind
+of woman from the impoverishing and distorting systems prevalent in his
+day, and by his example and pen taught parents to educate their daughters
+in a manner that should rebuke vanity and deceit, and blend grace with
+utility. None went before him in knowledge of the art of taming obstinate
+boyhood into tenderness, and with all modern improvements our best
+teachers may find in his works a mine of knowledge and incentive both in
+their tasks of instruction and discipline.
+
+In social morals he was a great reformer; not, indeed, so remarkable for
+being engrossed with some favorite innovation, as for urging the constant
+need of applying Christian truth and duty to every social institution. He
+rebuked the passion for war, by his own demeanor disarmed the hostility of
+combatants, and by his instructions struck at the root of warfare in the
+councils of princes. We may well be amazed at his political wisdom, and
+taught more emphatically than ever that we are to look for this not to the
+hack-politicians who think only of the cabals of the moment, but to the
+sage men who interpret the future from the high ground of reason and
+right. His political papers embody the lessons that France has since
+learned by a baptism of blood. Hardly a single principle now deemed
+necessary for the peace and prosperity of nations, can be named, that
+cannot be found expressed or implied in Fenelon's various advice to the
+royal youth under his charge. Well may the better minds of France and
+Christendom honor his name for the noble liberality with which he
+qualified the mild conservatism so congenial with his temperament, creed
+and position.
+
+As a theologian, he constantly breathes one engrossing sentiment. With
+him, Christianity was the love of God and its morality was the love of the
+neighbor. Judged by occasional expressions, his piety might seem too
+ascetic and mystical--too urgent of penance and self-crucifixion--too
+enthusiastic in emotion, perilling the sobriety of reason in the
+impassioned fervors of devotion--sometimes bordering upon that
+overstrained spiritualism, which, in its impulsive flights, is so apt to
+lose its just balance and sink to the earth and the empire of the senses.
+He has written some things that prudence, nay, wisdom, might wish to
+erase. But, qualified by other statements, and above all, interpreted by
+his own life, his religion appears in its true proportion--without gloom,
+without extravagance. To his honor be it spoken, that in an age when
+priests and prelates eminent for saintly piety sanctioned the scourging
+and death of heretics, and enforced the Gospel chiefly by the fears of
+perdition, Fenelon was censured for dwelling too much on the power of
+love, that perfect charity that casteth out fear. It may, perhaps, be a
+failing with him that he had too little sympathy with the fears and
+passions of men, and appreciated too little the more sublime and terrible
+aspects of Divine Providence. His mind was tuned too gently to answer to
+all of the grandest music of our humanity, and we must abate something of
+our admiration of him for his want of loyalty to the new ages of Christian
+thought and heroism. He evidently loved Virgil more than Dante, Cicero
+more than Chrysostom, and thought the Greek Parthenon, in its horizontal
+lines and sensuous beauty, a grander and more perfect structure, alike in
+plan and execution, than Notre Dame or Strasbourg Cathedral, with its
+uplifting points and spiritual sublimity. He was a Christianized Greek,
+who had exchanged the philosopher's robe for the archbishop's surplice.
+
+Viewing him now on the whole, considering at once his gifts and graces of
+mind, and heart, and will; his offerings upon the altar of learning,
+humanity and religion, we sum up our judgment in a single saying. He
+worshipped God in the _beauty_ of holiness. His whole being, with all its
+graces and powers so harmoniously combined, was an offering to God that
+men cannot but admire and the Most High will not despise.
+
+We may not take leave of Fenelon without applying to our times the
+teachings of his spirit, the lesson of his life. However rich the topic in
+occasion for controversial argument, we defer all strife to the
+inspiration of his gentle and loving wisdom. Let an incident connected
+with the tomb of Fenelon furnish us an emblem of the spirit in which we
+shall look upon his name. His remains were deposited in the vault beneath
+the main altar at which he had so often ministered. It would seem as if
+some guardian-angel shielded them from desecration. Eighty years passed
+and the Reign of Terror came upon France in retribution for her falsity to
+her best advisers. The allied armies were marshalling their hosts against
+the new republic. Every means must be used to add to the public resources,
+and the decree went forth that even the tombs should be robbed of their
+coffins. The republican administrator of the District of Cambray, Bernard
+Cannonne, in company with a butcher and two artillery-men, entered the
+cathedral and went down into the vault which held the ashes of so many
+prelates. The leaden coffins with their contents were carried away and
+placed upon the cars; but when they came to the inclosure whose tablet
+bore the name of Fenelon, and lifted it from its bed, it appeared that the
+lead had become unsoldered and they could take away the coffin and leave
+the sacred dust it had contained. Years passed, and the reign of Napoleon
+bringing a better day, rebuked the Vandalism that would dishonor all
+greatness and spoil even its grave. The facts regarding the acts of
+desecration were legally ascertained and the bones of the good archbishop
+triumphantly reserved for a nobler than the ancient sepulchre. There was a
+poetical justice in the preservation of them from violence. It was well
+that the bloody revolutionists who went to the tombs for metal to furnish
+their arsenals, were made, in spite of themselves, to respect the ashes of
+one whose counsels of duty heeded would have averted that revolution by a
+system of timely concessions and benignant legislation.
+
+Now that we virtually draw near the resting-place of this good man, let it
+not be to furnish material for bullets of lead or paper to hurl against
+theological antagonists. Appreciating the beauty of his spirit, let us
+learn and apply the rebuke and encouragement it affords. A genius so rare
+we may not hope to approach or imitate. Graces still more precious and
+imitable are associated with that genius and create its highest charm. Our
+time has been worse than thrown away, and our study of his works and his
+biographies has been in vain, if we are not better, more wise, and
+earnest, and gentle for the page of history, the illustration of divine
+providence that has now come before us. Placed in the most perplexing
+relations, he never lost hold of the calm wisdom that was his chosen
+guide. Exposed to the most irritating provocations, he never gave up the
+gentle peacefulness of his spirit.
+
+Our age is not peculiarly ecclesiastical, yet we have not done with the
+church and its teachers. Many a time of late we have had cause to think
+with regret of the persuasive eloquence of the Archbishop of Cambray, of
+the sacred Art that could make truth lovely to wayward youth, and religion
+beautiful to hard and skeptical manhood. Has it not sometimes seemed as if
+ambitious prelacy had forgotten the purer example for the baser, and
+copied Bossuet's pride instead of Fenelon's charity? Nay, has not priestly
+assumption coveted the talons and forgotten the wings of the Eagle of
+Meaux and lost sight wholly of the Dove of Cambray? What government or
+ruler in Christendom would not be the better for a counsellor as eloquent
+and fearless as he who dared rebuke without reserve the great Louis of
+France in words like these:
+
+"You do not love God; you do not even fear him but with a slave's fear; it
+is hell and not God whom you fear. Your religion consists but in
+superstitions, in petty superficialities. You are like the Jews, of whom
+God said: _'Whilst they honor me with their lips, their hearts are far
+from me.'_ You are scrupulous upon trifles and hardened upon terrible
+evils. You love only your own glory and comfort. You refer everything to
+yourself as if you were the God of the earth, and everything else here
+created only to be sacrificed to you. It is you, on the contrary, whom God
+has put into the world only for your people."
+
+
+
+
+POEMS.
+
+BY MRS. GEORGE P. MARSH.
+
+I.
+
+EXCELSIOR.
+
+
+    The earnest traveller, who would feed his eye
+    To fullness of content on Nature's charms,
+    Must not forever pace the easy plain.
+    No! he must climb the rugged mountain's side,
+    Scale its steep rocks, cling to its crumbling crags,
+    Nor fear to plunge in it's eternal snows.
+    And yet, if he be wise, he will not choose
+    To find the doubtful way alone, lest night
+    O'ertake him wandering, and her icy breath
+    Chill him to marble; not alone will risk
+    His foot unwonted on the glassy bed
+    Of rifted glacier, lest a step amiss
+    Should hurl him headlong down some fissure dark,
+    That yawns unseen--thence to arise no more.
+    But, furnished with a trusty guide, he mounts
+    From peak to peak in safety, though with toil.
+    Once on the lofty summit, he beholds
+    A glory in earth's kingdom all undreamed
+    Till now. The heavy curtains are withdrawn,
+    That shut the old horizon down so close;
+    And, lo! a world is lying at his feet!
+    A world without a flaw! What late he held
+    But as discordant fragments, now show forth,
+    From this high vantage ground, the perfect parts
+    Of a harmonious whole! He would not dare
+    To change one line in all that picture marvellous
+    Of hill and vale, bright stream and rolling sea,
+    O'erhung by the great sun that gildeth all.
+
+    And thou! If thou would'st truly feast thy soul
+    Upon the things invisible of Him
+    Who made the visible, fear not to tread
+    The awful heights of Thought! not to thyself
+    Sole trusting, lest thou perish in thy pride;
+    But following where Faith enlightened leads,
+    Thou shalt not miss or fall. The way is rough,
+    But never toil did win reward so rich
+    As that she findeth here. At every step
+    New prospects open, and new wonders shine!
+    Mount higher still, and whatsoe'er thy pains,
+    Thou'lt envy not the sleeper at thy feet!
+    Visions of truth and beauty shall arise
+    So multiplied, so glorified, so vast,
+    That thy enraptured soul amazed shall cry,
+    "No longer Earth, but the new Heavens I see
+    Lighted forever by the throne of God."
+
+
+II.
+
+FABLE.
+
+
+    A widow, feeble, old and lonely,
+      Whose flock once numbered many a score,
+    Had now remaining to her only
+      One little lamb, and nothing more.
+
+    And every morning forced to send it
+      To scanty pastures far away,
+    With prayers and tears did she commend it
+      To the good saint that named the day.
+
+    Nor so in vain; each kindly patron,
+      George, Agnes, Nicolas, Genevieve,
+    Still mindful of the helpless matron,
+      Brought home her lambkin safe at eve.
+
+    All-Saints' day dawned; with faith yet stronger,
+      On the whole hallowed choir the dame
+    Doth call--to one she prays no longer,--
+      That day the wolf devoured the lamb!
+
+
+
+
+A STORY OF VENICE.
+
+BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
+
+I.
+
+
+When I was in Venice I knew the Marchesa Negropontini. Many strangers knew
+her twenty and thirty years ago. In my time she was old and somewhat
+withdrawn from society; but as I had been a fellow-student and friend of
+her grand-nephew in Vienna, I was admitted into her house familiarly,
+until the old lady felt as kindly toward me, as if I, too, had been a
+nephew.
+
+Italian life and character are different enough from ours. They are
+traditionally romantic. But we are apt to disbelieve in the romance which
+we hear from those concerned. I cannot disbelieve, since I knew this sad,
+stern Italian woman. Can you disbelieve, who have seen Titian's, and
+Tintoretto's, and Paolo Veronese's portraits of Venetian women? You, who
+have floated about the canals of Venice?
+
+I was an American boy; and my very utter strangeness probably made it
+easier for the Marchesa Negropontini to tell me the story, which I now
+relate. She told it to me as we sat one evening in the balcony of her
+house, the palazzo Orfeo, on the Grand Canal.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The Marchesa sat for a long time silent, and we watched the phantom life
+of the city around us. Presently she sighed deeply and said:
+
+"Ah, me! it is the eve of the Purification. My son, seventy years ago
+to-day the woman was born whose connection with the house of Negropontini
+has shrouded it in gloom, like the portrait you have seen in the saloon.
+Seventy years ago to-day my father's neighbor, the Count Balbo, saw for
+the first time the face of the first daughter his wife had given him. The
+countess lay motionless--the flame of existence flickered between life and
+death.
+
+"'Adorable Mother of God!' said the count, as he knelt by her bedside, 'if
+thou restorest my wife, my daughter shall be consecrated to thy service.'
+
+"The slow hours dragged heavily by. The mother lived.
+
+"My brother Camillo and I were but two and four years older than our
+little neighbor. We were children together, and each other's playmates.
+When the little neighbor, Sulpizia Balbo, was fourteen, Camillo was
+eighteen. My son, the sky of Venice never shone on a more beautiful girl,
+on a youth more grave and tender. He loved her with his whole soul. Gran'
+Dio! 'tis the old, old story!
+
+"She was proud, wayward, passionate, with a splendor of wit and unusual
+intelligence. He was calm, sweet, wise; with a depthless tenderness of
+passion. But Sulpizia inherited her will from her father, and at fourteen
+she was sacrificed to the vow he had made. She was buried alive in the
+convent of our Lady of the Isle, and my brother's heart with her.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+"Sulpizia's powerful nature chafed in the narrow bounds of the convent
+discipline. But her religious education assured her that that discipline
+was so much the more necessary, and she struggled with the sirens of
+worldly desire. The other sisters were shocked and surprised, at one
+moment by her surpassing fervor, at another by her bold and startling
+protests against their miserable bondage.
+
+"Often, at vespers, in the dim twilight of the chapel, she flung back her
+cape and hood, with the tears raining from her eyes and her voice gushing
+and throbbing with the melancholy music, while the nuns paused in their
+singing, appalled by the religious ecstasy of Sulpizia. She was so sweet
+and gentle in her daily intercourse that all of them loved her, bending to
+her caresses like grain to the breeze; but they trembled in the power of
+her denunciation, which shook their faith to the centre, for it seemed to
+be the voice of a faith so much profounder.
+
+"While she was yet young she was elected abbess of the convent. It was a
+day of triumph for her powerful family. Perhaps the Count Balbo may have
+sometimes regretted that solemn vow, but he never betrayed repentance.
+Perhaps he would have been more secretly satisfied by the triumphant
+worldly career of a woman like his daughter, but he never said so.
+
+"Sulpizia knew that my brother loved her. I think she loved him--at least
+I thought so.
+
+"The nuns were not jealous of her rule, for the superior genius which
+commanded them also consoled and counselled; and her protests becoming
+less frequent, her persuasive affection won all their hearts. They saw
+that the first fire of youth slowly saddened in her eyes. Her mien became
+even more lofty; her voice less salient; and a shadow fell gently over
+her life. The sisters thought it was age; but Sulpizia was young. Others
+thought it was care; but her duties could not harass such a spirit. Others
+thought it was repentance; but natures like hers do not early repent.
+
+"It was resolved that the portrait of the abbess should be painted, and
+the nuns applied to her parents to select the artist. They, in turn,
+consulted my brother Camillo, who was the friend of the family, and for
+whom the Count Balbo would, I believe, have willingly unvowed his vow.
+Camillo had left Venice as the great door of the convent closed behind his
+life and love. He fled over the globe. He lost himself in new scenes, in
+new employments. He took the wings of the morning, and flew to the
+uttermost parts of the earth,[A] and there he found--himself. So he
+returned an older and a colder man. His love, which had been a passion,
+seemed to settle into a principle. His life was consecrated to one
+remembrance. It did not dare to have a hope.
+
+[Footnote A: I use, here, words corresponding to the Marchesa's.]
+
+"He brought with him a friend whom he had met in the East. Together upon
+the summit of the great pyramid they had seen the day break over Cairo,
+and on the plain of Thebes had listened for Memnon to gush with music as
+the sun struck him with his rod of light. Together they had travelled over
+the sea-like desert, breaking the awful silence only with words that did
+not profane it. My brother conversing with wise sadness--his friend Luigi
+with hope and enthusiasm.
+
+"Luigi was a poor man, and an artist. My brother was proud, but real grief
+prunes the foolish side of pride, while it fosters the nobler. It was a
+rare and noble friendship. Rare, because pride often interferes with
+friendships among men, where all conditions are not equal. Noble, because
+the two men were so, although only one had the name and the means of a
+nobleman. But he shared these with his friend, as naturally as his friend
+shared his thoughts with him. Neither spoke much of the past. My brother
+had rolled a stone over the mouth of that tomb, and his friend was
+occupied with the suggestions and the richness of the life around him. If
+some stray leaf or blossom fell forward upon their path from the past, it
+served to Luigi only as a stimulating mystery.
+
+"'This is my memory,' he would say, touching his portfolio, which was full
+of eastern sketches. 'These are the hieroglyphics Egypt has herself
+written, and we can decipher them at leisure upon your languid lagunes.'
+
+"It was not difficult for my brother to persuade Luigi to return with him
+to Venice. I shall not forget the night they came, as long as I remember
+anything."
+
+The Marchesa paused a moment, dreamily.
+
+"It was the eve of the Purification," she said, at length, pausing again.
+After a little, she resumed:
+
+"We were ignorant of the probable time of Camillo's return; and about
+sunset my mother, my younger sister Fiora, and I, were rowing along the
+Guidecca, when I saw a gondola approaching, containing two persons only
+beside the rowers, followed by another with trunks and servants. I have
+always watched curiously new arrivals in Venice, for no other city in the
+world can be entered with such peculiar emotion. I had scarcely looked at
+the new comers before I recognized my brother, and was fascinated by the
+appearance of his companion, who lay in a trance of delight with the
+beauty of the place and the hour.
+
+"His long hair flowed from under his slouched hat, hanging about a face
+that I cannot describe; and his negligent travelling dress did not conceal
+the springing grace of his figure. But to me, educated in Venice,
+associated only with its silent, stately nobles; a child, early solemnized
+by the society of decay and of elders whose hearts were never young, to
+me the magnetic charm of the young man was his youth, and I gazed at him
+with the same admiring earnestness with which he looked at the city and
+the scene.
+
+"The gondolas constantly approached. My brother lay lost in thoughts which
+were visible in the shadow they cast upon his features. His head rested
+upon his hand, and he looked fixedly toward the island on which the
+convent stands. A light summer cloak was drawn around him, and hid his
+figure entirely, except his arm and hand. His cap was drawn down over his
+eyes. He was not conscious of any being in the world but Sulpizia.
+
+"Suddenly from the convent tower the sound of the vesper bell trembled in
+throbbing music over the water. It seemed to ring every soul to prayer. My
+brother did not move. He still gazed intently at the island, and the tears
+stole from his eyes. Luigi crossed himself. We did the same, and murmured
+an Ave Maria.
+
+"'Heavens! Camillo!' cried my mother, suddenly. He started, and was so
+near that there was a mutual recognition. In a moment the gondolas were
+side by side, and the greetings of a brother and sisters and mother long
+parted, followed. Meanwhile, Camillo's companion remained silent, having
+respectfully removed his hat, and looking as if he felt his presence to
+be profane at such a moment. But my brother turned, and taking him by the
+hand, said:
+
+"'Dear mother, I might well have stayed away from you twice as long, could
+I have hoped to find a friend like this.'
+
+"His companion smiled at the generosity of his introduction. He greeted us
+all cordially and cheerfully, and the light fading rapidly, we rowed on in
+the early starlight. The gondolas slid side by side, and there was a
+constant hum of talk.
+
+"I alone was silent. I felt a sympathy with Camillo which I had never
+known before. The tears came into my eyes as I watched him gently
+conversing with my mother, turning now and then in some conversation with
+Luigi and my younger sister. How I watched Luigi! How I caught the words
+that were not addressed to me! How my heart throbbed at his sweet,
+humorous laugh, in which my sister joined, while his eyes wandered
+wonderingly toward mine, as if to ask why I was so silent. I tried to see
+that they fastened upon me with special interest. I could not do it.
+Gracious and gentle to all, I could not perceive that his manner toward me
+was different, and I felt a new sorrow.
+
+"So we glided over the Lagune into the canal, and beneath the balconied
+palaces, until we reached our own. The gondolas stopped. Luigi leaped out
+instantly upon the broad marble pavement, and assisted my mother to
+alight, then my sister. Then I placed my hand in his, and my heart stood
+still. It was a moment, but it was also an age. The next instant I stood
+free upon the step. Free--but bound forever.
+
+"We were passing up the staircase into the palace, Luigi plucked an orange
+bud and handed it to me. I was infinitely happy!
+
+"A few steps further, and he broke an acacia for my sister: ah! I was
+miserable!
+
+"We ascended into the great saloon, and a cheerful evening followed.
+Fascinated by these first impressions of Venice, Luigi abandoned himself
+to his abundant genius, and left us at midnight, mutually enchanted. Youth
+and sympathy had overcome all other considerations. We had planned endless
+days of enjoyment. He had promised to show us his sketches. It was not
+until our mother asked of my brother who he was, that all the human facts
+appeared.
+
+"'Heavens!' shouted my younger sister, Fiora, laughing with delight,
+'think of the _noble_ Marchese Cicada, who simpers, _per Bacco_, that the
+day is warm, and, _per dieci_, that I am lovelier than ever. Viva Luigi!
+Viva O il pittore.'
+
+"'My daughter,' said my grave, cautious mother, 'you are very young
+yet--you do not understand these things. Good night, my child!'
+
+"Fiora kissed her on the brow, and darted out of the room as if she were
+really alive.
+
+"When she had gone, Camillo smiled in his cold, calm way, and turning to
+me, asked how I liked Luigi. I answered calmly, for I was of the same
+blood as my brother. I did not disguise how much superior I thought him to
+the youth I knew. I was very glad he had found such a friend, and hoped
+the young man would come often to see us, and be very successful in his
+profession.
+
+"Then I was silent. I did not say that I had never lived until that
+evening. I did not say how my heart was chilled, because, in leaving the
+room, Luigi's last glance had not been for me, but for Fiora.
+
+"Camillo did not praise him much. It was not his way; but I felt how
+deeply he honored and loved him, and was rejoiced to think that necessity
+would often bring us together; only my mother seemed serious, and I knew
+what her gravity meant.
+
+"'Do not be alarmed, dear mother,' I said to her, as I was leaving the
+room.
+
+"'My daughter,' she answered, with infinite pride, 'it is not possible. I
+do not understand you. And you, my daughter, you do not understand
+yourself nor the world."
+
+"She was mistaken. Myself I did understand; the world I did not."
+
+Again the Marchesa was silent and tears stood in her eyes. She was seventy
+years old. Yes, but in love's calendar there is no December.
+
+"The days passed, and we saw Luigi constantly. He was very busy, but found
+plenty of time to be with us. His paintings were full of the same kind of
+power I felt in his character. He never wearied of the gorgeous
+atmospheric effects of which Titian and Paul, Giorgione and Tintoretto
+were the old worshippers. They touched him sometimes with a voluptuous
+melancholy in which he found a deeper inspiration.
+
+"Every day I loved him more and more, and nobody suspected it. He did not,
+because he was only glad to be in my society when he wanted criticism. He
+liked me as an intelligent woman. He loved Fiora as a bewitching child.
+
+"My mother watched us all, and soon saw there was nothing to fear. I
+sought to be lively--to frequent society; for I knew if my health failed I
+should be sent away from Venice and Luigi. He had given me a drawing--a
+scene composed from our first meeting upon the Lagune. The very soul of
+evening repose brooded upon the picture. It had even an indefinable tone
+of sadness, as if he had incorporated into it the sound of the vesper
+bell. It had been simply a melancholy sound to him. To the rest of us, who
+loved Camillo, it was something more than that. In his heart the mere
+remembrance of the island rang melancholy vespers forever.
+
+"This drawing I kept in a private drawer. At night, when I went to my
+chamber, I opened the drawer and looked at it. It lay so that I did not
+need to touch it; and as I gazed at it, I saw all his own character, and
+all that I had felt and lived since that evening.
+
+"At length the day came, on which the parents of Sulpizia came to my
+brother to speak of her portrait. Camillo listened to them quietly, and
+mentioned his friend Luigi as a man who could understand Sulpizia, and
+therefore paint her portrait. The parents were satisfied. It was an
+unusual thing; but at that time, as at all times, a great many unusual
+things could be done in convents, especially if one had a brother, who was
+Cardinal Balbo.
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+"It was a bright morning that Camillo carried Luigi in his gondola to the
+convent. He had merely said to him that there was a beautiful abbess to
+paint, an old friend of his; and Luigi replied that he would always
+willingly desert beautiful waters and skies for beautiful eyes. They
+reached the island"--
+
+The Marchesa beat the floor slowly with her foot, and controlled herself,
+as if a spasm of mortal agony had seized her.
+
+"They reached the island, and stepped ashore into the convent garden. They
+went into the little parlor, and presently the abbess entered veiled. My
+brother, who had not seen her since she was his playmate, could not pierce
+the veil; and as calmly as ever told her briefly the name of his friend,
+said a few generous words of him, and, rising, promised to call at sunset
+for Luigi, and departed."
+
+The Marchesa now spoke very rapidly.
+
+"I do not well know--nobody knows--but Sulpizia raised her veil, and Luigi
+adjusted his easel. He painted--they conversed--the day fled away. Sunset
+came. Camillo arrived in his gondola, and Luigi came out without smiling.
+The gondoliers pulled toward the city.
+
+"'Is she beautiful?' asked Camillo.
+
+"'Wonderful,' responded his friend, and said no more. He trailed his hands
+in the water, and then wiped them across his brow. He took off his hat and
+faced the evening breeze from the sea. He cried to the gondoliers that
+they were lazy--that the gondola did not move. It was darting like a wind
+over the water.
+
+"The next day they returned to the island--and the next. But at sunset,
+Luigi did not come to the gondola. Camillo waited, and sat until it was
+quite dark. Then he went through the garden of the convent, and inquired
+for the painter. They sought him in the parlor. He was not there. The
+abbess was not there. Upon the easel stood her portrait partly
+finished--strangely beautiful. Camillo had followed into the room, and
+stood suddenly before the picture. He had not seen Sulpizia since she was
+a child. Even his fancy had scarcely dreamed of a face so beautiful. His
+knees trembled as he stood, and he fell before it in the attitude of
+prayer. The last red flash of daylight fell upon the picture. The eyes
+smiled--the lips were slightly parted--a glow of awakening life trembled
+all through the features.
+
+"The strong man's heart was melted, and the nuns beheld him kneeling and
+weeping before the portrait of their abbess.
+
+"But where was she?
+
+"Nobody knew. There was no clue--except that the gondola of the convent
+was gone.
+
+"Camillo took the portrait and stepped into his gondola. He returned to
+the city, to the palace of Sulpizia's parents. Slowly he went up the great
+staircase, dark and silent, up which his eager steps had followed the
+flying feet of Sulpizia. He entered the saloon slowly, like a man who
+carries a heavy burden--but rather in his heart than in his hands.
+
+"'It is all that remains to you of your daughter,' said he in a low voice,
+throwing back his cloak, and revealing the marvellous beauty of their
+child's portrait to the amazed parents. Then came the agony--a child
+lost--a friend false.
+
+"Camillo returned to us and told the tale. I felt my heart wither and grow
+old. My mother was grieved in her heart for her son's sorrow--in her pride
+for its kind and method. Fiora did not smile any more. Her step was no
+longer bounding upon the floor and the stairs, and the year afterward she
+married the Marchese Cicada.
+
+"The next day, Camillo returned to the island. The abbess had not
+returned, nor had any tidings been received. Only the gondola had been
+found in the morning in its usual place. The days passed. A new abbess was
+chosen. The church did not dare to curse the fugitive, for there was no
+proof that she had willingly gone away. It might be supposed--it could not
+be proved. Camillo hung in his chamber the unfinished portrait, and a
+black veil shrouded it from chance and curious eyes. He did not seem
+altered. He was still calm and grave--still cold and sweet in his general
+intercourse.
+
+"My friendship with him became more intimate. He saw that I was much
+changed--for although pride can do much, the heart is stronger than the
+head. But he had no suspicion of the truth. People who suffer intensely
+often forget that there are other sufferers in the world, you know.
+Camillo was very tender toward me, for he thought that I was paying the
+penalty of too warm a sympathy with him, and often begged me not to wear
+away my health and youth in commiseration for what was past and hopeless.
+I cultivated my consciousness of his suffering as a defence against my
+own. We never mentioned the names of either of those of whom we were
+always thinking; but once in many months he would call me into his
+chamber and remove the veil from the portrait, while we stood before it as
+silent as devotees in a church before the picture of the Madonna. Camillo
+pursued his affairs--the cares of his estate--the duties of society. He
+assembled all the strangers of distinction at his table. Yes, it was a
+rare and great triumph.
+
+"For myself, I was mistress of my secret, and I reveal it to you for the
+first time. Why not? I am seventy years old. You know none of the
+persons--you hear it as you would read a romance. My heart was broken--my
+faith was lost--and I have never met since any one who could restore it. I
+distrust the sweetest smile if it move me deeply, and although men may
+sometimes be sincere, yet sorrow is so sure that we must steer by memory,
+not by hope. In this world we must not play that we are happy. That play
+has a frightful forfeit. Society is wise. It eats its own children, whose
+consolation is that after this world there is another--and a better, say
+the priests. Of course--for it could not be a worse.
+
+
+V.
+
+
+"Suddenly Sulpizia returned. My brother was in his library when a
+messenger came for him from her parents. He ran breathless and pale to
+his gondola. The man was conquered in that moment and the wild passion of
+the boy flamed up again. When he reached the Balbo palace he paused a
+moment, despite himself, upon the stairs, and the calmness of the man
+returned to him. Nature is kind in that to her noble children. Their
+regrets, their despairs, their lightning flashes of hope, she does not
+reveal to those who cause them. Every man is weak, but the weakness of the
+strong man is hidden. He entered the saloon. There stood Sulpizia with her
+parents.
+
+"Death and victory were in her eyes. They were fearfully hollow; and the
+strongly-carved features, from which the flesh had fallen during the long
+struggles of the soul, were pure and pale as marble. It seemed as if she
+must fall from weakness, but not a muscle moved.
+
+"Nothing was said. Camillo stood before the woman who had always ruled his
+soul, to whom it was still loyal. The parents stood appalled behind their
+daughter. It was a wintry noon in Venice--cold and still.
+
+"'Camillo,' said Sulpizia at length, in a tone not to be described, but
+seemingly destitute of emotion--as the ocean might seem when a gale calmed
+it--'he has left me.'
+
+"Child, I have not fathomed the human heart; but after a long, long
+silence my brother answered only, I know not from what feeling of duty and
+of sacrifice:
+
+"'Sulpizia, will you marry me?'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Cardinal Balbo arranged the matter at Rome, and after a short time they
+were married. I was the only one present with the parents of Sulpizia, who
+were glad enough so to cover what they called their daughter's shame. My
+mother would not come, but left Venice that very day and died abroad. The
+circumstances of the marriage were not comprehended; but the old friends
+of the family came occasionally to make solemn, stately visits, which my
+brother scrupulously returned.
+
+"You may believe that we enjoyed a kind of mournful peace after the dark
+days of the last few years. I loved Sulpizia, but her cheerfulness without
+smiling was the awful serenity of wintry sunlight. She faded day by day.
+It was clear to us that the end was not far away.
+
+"Two years after the marriage, Sulpizia was lying upon a couch in the room
+behind us, where you have seen the veiled portrait which hung in my
+brother's chamber. All the long windows and doors were open and we sat by
+her side, talking gently in whispers. I knew that death was at hand, but
+I rejoiced to think that much as he had suffered, there was one bitter
+drop that had been spared him.
+
+"Sulpizia's voice was scarcely audible, and the deadly pallor deepened
+every moment upon her face. Camillo bent over her without speaking, and
+bowed his head. I stood apart. In a little while she seemed to be
+unconscious of our presence. Her eyes were open and her glance was toward
+the window, but her few words showed her mind to be wandering. Still a few
+moments, and her lips moved inaudibly, she lifted her hands to Camillo's
+face and drew it toward her own with infinite tenderness. His listening
+soul heard one word only--the glimmering phantom of sound--it was 'Luigi.'
+
+"His head bowed more profoundly. Sulpizia's eyes were closed. I crossed
+her hands upon her breast. I touched my brother--he started a
+moment--looked at me, at his wife, and sunk slowly, senseless by the
+couch."
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+Think of it! The birds sing--the sun shines--the leaves rustle--the
+flowers bud and bloom--children shout--young hearts are happy--the world
+wheels on--and such tragedies are, and always have been!
+
+I sat with the old Marchesa upon her balcony, and listened to this
+terrible tale. She tells it no more, for she is gone now. The Marchesa
+tells it no more, but Venice tells it still; and as you glide in your
+black gondola along the canal, under the balconies, in the full moonlight
+of summer nights, listen and listen; and vaguely in your heart or in your
+fancy you will hear the tragic strain.
+
+
+
+
+THE TORTURE CHAMBER.
+
+BY WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER.
+
+
+    Down the broad, imperial Danube,
+      As its wandering waters guide,
+    Past the mountains and the meadows,
+      Winding with the stream, we glide.
+
+    RATISBON we leave behind us,
+      Where the spires and gables throng,
+    And the huge cathedral rises,
+      Like a fortress, vast and strong.
+
+    Close beside it, stands the Town-Hall,
+      With its massive tower, alone,
+    Brooding o'er the dismal secret,
+      Hidden in its heart of stone.
+
+    There, beneath the old foundations,
+      Lay the prisons of the State,
+    Like the last abodes of vengeance,
+      In the fabled realms of Fate.
+
+    And the tides of life above them,
+      Drifted ever, near and wide,
+    As at Venice, round the prisons,
+      Sweeps the sea's incessant tide.
+
+    Never, like the far-off dashing,
+      Or the nearer rush of waves,
+    Came the tread or murmur downward,
+      To those dim, unechoing caves.
+
+    There the dungeon clasped its victim,
+      And a stupor chained his breath.
+    Till the torture woke his senses,
+      With a sharper touch than death.
+
+    Now, through all the vacant silence,
+      Reign the darkness and the damp,
+    Broken only when the traveller
+      Comes to gaze, with guide and lamp.
+
+    All about him, black and shattered,
+      Eaten with the rust of Time,
+    Lie the fearful signs and tokens
+      Of an age when Law was Crime.
+
+    And the guide, with grim precision,
+      Tells the dismal tale once more,
+    Tells to living men the tortures
+      Living men have borne before.
+
+    Well that speechless things, unconscious,
+      Furnish forth that place of dread,
+    Guiltless of the crimes they witnessed,
+      Guiltless of the blood they shed;
+
+    Else what direful lamentations,
+      And what revelations dire,
+    Ceaseless from their lips would echo,
+      Tossed in memory's penal fire.
+
+    Even as we gaze, the fancy
+      With a sudden life-gush warms,
+    And, once more, the Torture Chamber,
+      With its murderous tenants swarms.
+
+    Yonder, through the narrow archway,
+      Comes the culprit in the gloom,
+    Falters on the fatal threshold--
+      Totters to the bloody doom.
+
+    Here the executioner, lurking,
+      Waits, with brutal thirst, his hour,
+    Tool of bloodier men and bolder,
+      Drunken with the dregs of power.
+
+    There the careful leech sits patient,
+      Watching pulse, and hue, and breath,
+    Weighing life's remaining scruples
+      With the heavier chance of death.
+
+    Eking out the little remnant,
+      Lest the victim die too soon,
+    And the torture of the morning
+      Spare the torture of the noon.
+
+    Here, behind the heavy grating,
+      Sits the scribe, with pen and scroll,
+    Waiting till the giant terror
+      Bursts the secrets of the soul;
+
+    Till the fearful tale of treason
+      From the shrinking lips is wrung,
+    Or the final, false confession
+      Quivers from the trembling tongue;
+
+    When the spirit, torn and tempted,
+      Tried beyond its utmost scope,
+    By an anguish past endurance,
+      Madly cancels all its hope;
+
+    From the pointed cliffs of torture,
+      With its shrieks upon the air,
+    Suicidal, plunging blindly,
+      In the frenzy of despair!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    But the grey old tower is fading,
+      Fades, in sunshine, from the eye,
+    Like some evil bird whose pinion
+      Dimly blots the distant sky.
+
+    So the ancient gloom and terror
+      Of the ages fade away,
+    In the sunlight of the present,
+      Of our better, purer day!
+
+
+
+
+THE HOME OF CHARLOTTE BRONTĖ.
+
+A PASSAGE FROM A DIARY.
+
+BY W. FRANCIS WILLIAMS.
+
+    "Such shrines as these are pilgrim shrines--
+      Shrines to no code or creed confined;
+    The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
+      The Meccas of the mind."
+
+HALLECK.
+
+
+The date is September 5, 1857. I am at Haworth, whither I had walked from
+the Bradford Station, some ten or twelve miles distant. This Haworth--a
+place but a few years since quite unknown to any but the few residing in
+its immediate vicinity--is built upon the side of a hill, and, with its
+long line of grey houses creeping up the slope, seems like a huge saurian
+monster, sprawling along the hill-side, his head near the top and his tail
+reaching nearly to the vale below. At the summit, in the very head of our
+saurian, stands Haworth Parsonage, and the church near by, with the square
+old tower rising above the houses that cluster about it. I well remember
+my first view of this place. It was an autumn afternoon, and near sunset.
+The sky had been cloudy, but as I stopped to take my first long look at
+the little village, so hallowed by the memory of the Brontė sisters, the
+declining sun sent through a breach in the clouds a few spears of dazzling
+light, that played about the old church and parsonage with an ineffable
+glory. It lasted but a few moments, the sun went down, and darkness and
+night gradually settled over the scene. The little incident seemed almost
+like a type of the life of the gifted woman chiefly to whom Haworth owes
+its fame; for her life, like this very day, had been dark and wearisome,
+overshadowed by clouds of cares, tears falling like rain-drops upon
+new-made graves, until near its close, when there came a sweet season of
+bright domestic happiness, that lasted too shortly, and then gave place to
+the darkness and night of death.
+
+Strolling through the village, after my quiet meal at the Black Bull Inn,
+which poor Branwell Brontė had so often frequented, I stopped to make some
+trifling purchases at a stationery store, and casually asked the
+proprietor--a small, delicate-looking man, with a bright eye and a highly
+intellectual countenance--if he remembered the Brontė sisters. It was a
+fortunate question, for he knew them well, and was a personal friend of
+the authoress of Jane Eyre, to whose handsomely-framed portrait he
+proudly pointed. He had provided her, as he said, with joyful delight,
+with the paper on which she wrote the manuscripts of most of her novels;
+he is referred to in one of Miss Brontė's letters to Mrs. Gaskell, as her
+"one friend in Haworth," and is the "working-man" mentioned in her
+memoirs, who wrote a little _critique_ on Jane Eyre, that came to the
+notice of the authoress and afforded her great pleasure. To talk of the
+Brontė girls--to express his admiration of them to one who had come from
+America to visit their home and grave, was to him a great gratification.
+He told me how he used to meet them on the moors--how they were accustomed
+to stroll all three together, and talk and gather flowers; then how Emily
+died, and Anne and Charlotte were left to pace the familiar path
+arm-in-arm; then how they took Anne away to the sea-side, whence she never
+returned, while Charlotte would take her lonely moorland walk, rapt in sad
+contemplation. Sometimes he would meet her on these occasions, and if he
+passed by without attracting her attention, she would chide him when told
+of it afterward. She was always so kind, so good-hearted, and with those
+she knew, so really sociable.
+
+Sunday, with my new friend, I attended the church. The storm of the day
+before had cleared away, and even the place of graves looked bright and
+cheerful. The churchyard was crowded with country people from miles
+around, who sat carelessly on the long, flat stones that so thickly
+covered the ground, waiting for the opening services, while the parish
+bell kept up a merry peal. Everything seemed simple and happy, and I do
+not wonder that the Brontės loved their home, with its little garden of
+lilac bushes, the old church in front, and the sweeping moors stretching
+far behind. On many a Sunday morning like this they had trodden the very
+path I then was treading, and had entered the church-door; but how few of
+these simple villagers knew the treasures of genius showered on these
+quiet, reserved sisters!
+
+The church inside is old, and quaint, and simple; it can neither be called
+elegant, comfortable, spacious nor antique. Old Mr. Brontė was to preach,
+and the Rev. Mr. Nicholls read the service. As a compliment to a stranger,
+I had been invited by the organist of the church to play the organ--a neat
+little instrument of some eight or ten stops; and it was while "giving
+out" the familiar tune of Antioch that I noticed, in the reflection of a
+little mirror placed above the keyboard, that Mr. Brontė had entered the
+church, and was passing up the aisle. He wore the customary black gown,
+and the lower part of his face was quite buried in an enormous white
+neckcloth--the most monstrous article of the kind I had ever beheld. The
+reflection in that little mirror I shall never forget. The old man,
+walking feebly up the aisle, shading his eyes with his right hand, and
+supporting himself with a cane, the quiet congregation, and the singular
+dress and venerable bald head of the old preacher, all formed a
+character-picture, that is not often seen. His sermon was extempore, and
+consisted of a series of running paraphrases and simple and touching
+explanations upon a few verses selected from the Lamentations of Jeremiah.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After church, my friend the stationer walked with me on the moors.
+Charlotte Brontė's experience of the world was so very limited, that in
+drawing the characters in her novels, she had to select the real, living
+people in the vicinity. Thus, my friend pointed out one house and another
+to me as being the residence of many of the originals of many of the
+characters in her works, especially in "Shirley." Soon, however, our path
+across the moors took us out of human habitations, and among the moorland
+solitudes the Brontė sisters so fondly loved. Cold and desolate as they
+appear from a distance, a nearer examination proves them to be replete
+with exquisite beauty. Delicate heather-blooms carpet the immense slope,
+and bend like nodding plumes, in graceful waves, to the breezes that play
+heedlessly down the hill-side. Gay yellow buttercups, bright purple
+heath-flowers, and dark bilberries, vary the general violet tint, while
+the tiny stems of these gentle plants spring from rich tufts of emerald
+moss, and are pushed aside by the spray-like leaves of the wild fern. The
+hum of bees imparts a half busy, half drowsy sound to the scene, while far
+down the long easy slopes are little valleys, through which trickle
+talkative brooks, that sometimes peep between the low foliage on their
+margins, and are the next moment lost to sight behind the crowding bushes.
+It is no wonder that Charlotte and her sisters loved their quiet walks
+along the moors.
+
+The next day I bade farewell to Haworth. It is now frequently included in
+the route of American tourists, by many of whom the memory of Charlotte
+Brontė is as fondly cherished as by her own countrymen and women; and
+Haworth is no longer the quiet, unknown Yorkshire hamlet that it was a few
+years ago.
+
+
+
+
+THORWALDSEN'S CHRIST.
+
+BY THE REV. E.A. WASHBURN.
+
+
+    Silent stood the youthful sculptor
+    Gazing on the breathing stone
+    From the chaos of the marble
+    Into godlike being grown.
+    But a gloom was on his forehead,
+    In his eye a drooping glance,
+    And at length the heavy sorrow
+    From the lip found utterance:
+
+    "Holy Art! thy shapes of beauty
+    Have I carved, but ne'er before
+    Reached my thought a faultless image,
+    Still unbodied would it soar;
+    Still the pure unfound Ideal
+    Would ensoul a fairer shrine;
+    In my victory I perish,
+    And no loftier aim is mine."
+
+    Noble artist! thine the yearning,
+    Thine the great inspiring word,
+    By the sleepless mind forever
+    In its silent watches heard;
+    For the earthly it is pleasure
+    Only earthly ends to gain;
+    For the seeker of the perfect,
+    To be satisfied is pain.
+
+    Visions of an untold glory
+    Milton saw in his eclipse,
+    Paradise to outward gazers
+    Lost, with no apocalypse;
+    Holier Christ and veiled Madonnas,
+    Painted were on Raphael's soul;
+    Melodies he could not utter
+    O'er Bethoven's ear would roll.
+
+    Ever floats the dim Ideal
+    Far before the longing eyes;
+    Ever, as we travel onward,
+    Boundless the horizon flies;
+    Not the brimming cups of wisdom
+    Can the thirsty spirit slake,
+    And the molten gold in pouring
+    Will the mould in pieces break.
+
+    Voice within our inmost being,
+    Calling deep to answering deep,
+    Midst the life of weary labor
+    Thou shalt waken us from sleep!
+    All our joy is in our Future
+    And our motion is our rest,
+    Still the True reveals the Truer,
+    Still the good foretells the Best.
+
+
+
+
+JUNE TWENTY-NINTH, EIGHTEEN FIFTY-NINE.
+
+BY CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND.
+
+
+To talk about the weather is the natural English and American mode of
+beginning an acquaintance.
+
+This day--the one that glares upon us at our present writing--is eminently
+able to melt away what is called the frost of ceremony, and to induce the
+primmest of us to throw off all disguises that can possibly be dispensed
+with. It is a day to bring the most sophisticated back to first
+principles. The very thought of wrapping anything up in mystery, to-day,
+brings a thrill like the involuntary protest of the soul against cruelty.
+We are not even as anxious as usual to cover up our faults. We hesitate at
+enveloping a letter.
+
+The shimmer that lives and moves over yonder dry fallow, as if ten
+thousand million fairies were fanning themselves with midges' wings,
+fatigues the eye with a notion of unnecessary exertion. Wiser seems yon
+glassy pool, moveless, under heavy, not melancholy, boughs. That is
+reflecting--keeping one pleasant thought all the time--satisfying itself
+with one picture for a whole morning, as we all did while the "Heart of
+the Andes" was laid open to our longing gaze. The pool has the advantage
+of us, too; for it receives into its waveless bosom the loveliness of sky
+and tree without emotion, while we, gazing on the wondrous transcript made
+by mortal man of these measureless glories, felt our souls stirred, even
+to pain, with a sense of the artist's power, and of the amount of his
+precious life that must have gone into such a creation.
+
+By the way, if we had energy enough to-day to wish anything, it would be
+to find ourselves far away amid flashing seas and wild winds, hunting
+icebergs, with Church for our Columbus, his banner of _Excelsior_
+streaming over us, his wondrous eye piercing the distant wreaths of spray,
+in search of domes and pinnacles of opal and lapis lazuli, turned, now to
+diamonds, now to marble, by sun and shade. One whose good fortune it was
+to be with the young discoverer at Niagara, came away with the feeling of
+having acquired a new sense, by the potent magic of genius.
+
+But to-day, Art is nothing--genius is nothing--but no! that is
+blasphemous. It is we that are nothing--if not stupid. Dullness is the
+universe. The grasshoppers are too faint to sing, the birds sit still on
+the boughs, waiting for the leaves to fan them. Children are wilted into
+silence and slumberous nonentity; boys do not bathe to-day--they welter,
+hour after hour, in the dark water near the shaded rock. Even they and the
+tadpoles can hardly be seen to wriggle. The cow has found a shade, and,
+preferring repose to munching, lies contented under the one great elm
+mercifully left in the middle of her pasture.
+
+A hot day in June is hotter than any other hot day. It finds us cruelly
+unguarded. After we have been gently baked awhile, the crust thus acquired
+makes us somewhat tortoise-like and quiescent. If we were condemned to
+suffer thirty-nine stripes, or even only as many as belong to our flag,
+would it or would it not be a privilege to take them by degrees, say one
+on the first day, two on the second, four on the third, etc., in the
+celebrated progression style, until the whole were accomplished? Or were
+it better to have the whole at once, and so be done with it? In either
+case, or in present case, what a blessing to be made pachydermatous! (a
+learned word lately acquired by ladies, though doubtless long familiar to
+lords).
+
+But words beginning with the sound of _ice_, are more agreeable for
+to-day--such as icicle, isolation, Islip.
+
+Some unhappy critic has said that the "icicle that hangs on Diana's
+temple" is not colder than other icicles. We pity him, and would like to
+try the comparison to-day. We have already tried "thinking on the frosty
+Caucasus," and quite agree with Claudio--was it, or Romeo, or who?--that
+this is of no service in case of fire.
+
+Delicious music for to-day--the tinkling of ice in the pitcher, as Susan,
+slowly and carefully, brings up-stairs the water we wait for. It were
+really a loss to have the way shorter, or the servant a harum-scarum thing
+who would dash in with her precious burden before one knew it was coming.
+
+We might try, to-day, the latest novelty in cookery, a ball of solid ice
+wrapped in puff-paste, and baked so adroitly that the paste shall be brown
+while the ice remains unmelted.
+
+Akin to this, is an antique achievement culinary, as old as Mrs. Glasse,
+at least--the roasting of a pound of butter, an operation not unlike the
+very work we are engaged in at this moment--indeed so like it, that the
+remembrance has occurred several times. Your pound of butter is to be
+thoroughly crusted in bread-crumbs to begin with, and then put upon the
+spit and turned before a very hot fire; the unhappy cook standing by to
+dredge on crumbs continually, to prevent the slippery article from running
+away. When the crumbs (and cook) are quite roasted, the thing is done.
+
+And so should we be, but that here comes a thunder storm, fit conclusion
+for an intense day, and very like the sudden and terrific blowings up
+which terminate the most ferocious kind of friendships. Thick clouds,
+shaped like piles of cannon balls, have slowly peered up from behind the
+horizon, and rolled themselves hither and thither, spreading and gathering
+as they went. Now and then a thunder-whisper is heard, so faint, that if
+we were conversing, we should not notice it; and an occasional flash of
+lightning seems, in the sun's glare, like the waving of a curtain by the
+fitful breeze that begins to touch the pool here and there. The cloud
+masses gather fresh and fresh accession as they move on, like
+revolutionary armies marching up to battle. Looking overhead, there seems
+a field-day in heaven; great bodies of artillery in motion, forming
+themselves into solid phalanx, and giving more and more dreadful notes of
+preparation. Volleys tell when divisions join, and the light that
+announces them is as if the adamantine arch were riven, disclosing dread
+splendors unspeakable Most grand, most beautiful storm! New music--that
+of the delicious rain, and in such abundance that it washes away the very
+memory of the parched and burning day. No wild commotion, no terror!
+Sublime order and an awe which is like peace. One more proof of the
+unfailing, tender love of our heavenly Father.
+
+
+
+
+NO SONGS IN WINTER.
+
+BY T. B. ALDRICH.
+
+I
+
+
+    The robin and the oriole,
+      The linnet and the wren--
+    When shall I see their fairyships,
+      And hear their songs again?
+
+
+II.
+
+
+    The wind among the poplar trees,
+      At midnight, makes its moan;
+    The slim red cardinal flowers are dead,
+      And all sweet things are flown!
+
+
+III.
+
+
+    A great white face looks down from heaven,
+      The great white face of Snow;
+    I cannot sing or morn or even,
+      The demon haunts me so!
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+    It strikes me dumb, it freezes me,
+      I sing a broken strain--
+    Wait till the robins and the wrens
+      And the linnets come again!
+
+
+
+
+THE BENI-ISRAEL.
+
+BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
+
+
+    Crammed--lobbies, galleries, boxes, floor;
+    Heads piled on heads at every door.
+    The actors were a painted group,
+    Of statue shapes, a "model" troupe,
+    With figures not severely Greek,
+    And drapery more or less antique;
+    The play, if one might call it so,
+    A Hebrew tale, in silent show.
+
+    And with the throng the pageant drew
+    There mingled Hebrews, not a few,
+    Coarse, swarthy, bearded--at their side
+    Dark, jewelled women, orient-eyed.
+    If scarce a Christian hope for grace,
+    That crowds one in his narrow place,
+    What will the savage victim do,
+    Whose ribs are kneaded by a JEW?
+
+    Close on my left, a breathing form
+    Sat wedged against me, soft and warm;
+    The vulture-beaked and dark-browned face
+    Betrays the mould of Abraham's race;
+    That coal-black hair--and bistred hue--
+    Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew!
+    I started, shuddering to the right,
+    And squeezed--a second Israelite!
+
+    Then rose the nameless words that slip
+    From darkening soul to whitening lip.
+    The snaky usurer,--him that crawls,
+    And cheats beneath the golden balls,
+    The hook-nosed kite of carrion clothes--
+    I stabbed them deep with muttered oaths:
+    Spawn of the rebel wandering horde
+    That stoned the saints, and slew their Lord!
+
+    Up came their murderous deeds of old--
+    The grisly story Chaucer told,
+    And many an ugly tale beside,
+    Of children caught and crucified.
+    I heard the ducat-sweating thieves
+    Beneath the Ghetto's slouching eaves,
+    And thrust beyond the tented green,
+    The leper's cry, "Unclean, unclean!"
+
+    The show went on, but, ill at ease,
+    My sullen eye it could not please;
+    In vain the haggard outcast knelt,
+    The white-haired patriarch's heart to melt;
+    I thought of Judas and his bribe,
+    And steeled my soul against his tribe.
+    My neighbors stirred; I looked again,
+    Full on the younger of the twain.
+
+    A soft young cheek of olive brown,
+    A lip just flushed with youthful down,
+    Locks dark as midnight, that divide
+    And shade the neck on either side;
+    An eye that wears a moistened gleam,
+    Like starlight in a hidden stream;
+    So looked that other child of Shem,
+    The maiden's Boy of Bethlehem!
+
+    And thou couldst scorn the peerless blood
+    That flows untainted from the Flood!
+    Thy scutcheon spotted with the stains
+    Of Norman thieves and pirate Danes!
+    Scum of the nations! In thy pride
+    Scowl on the Hebrew at thy side,
+    And, lo! the very semblance there
+    The Lord of Glory deigned to wear!
+
+    I see that radiant image rise,--
+    The midnight hair, the starlit eyes;
+    The faintly-crimsoned cheek that shows
+    The stain of Judah's dusky rose.
+    Thy hands would clasp His hallowed feet
+    Whose brethren soil thy Christian seat;
+    Thy lips would press His garment's hem,
+    That curl in scornful wrath for them!
+
+    A sudden mist, a watery screen,
+    Dropped like a veil before the scene;
+    I strove the glistening film to stay,
+    The wilful tear would have its way.
+    The shadow floated from my soul,
+    And to my lips a whisper stole,
+    Soft murmuring, as the curtain fell,
+    "Peace to the Beni-Israel!"
+
+
+
+
+BOCAGE'S PENITENTIAL SONNET.
+
+_From the Portuguese of Manoel de Barbosa do Bocage._
+
+BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
+
+
+    I've seen my life, without a noble aim,
+      In the mad strife of passions waste away.
+    Fool that I was! to live as if decay
+      Would spare the vital essence in my frame!
+    And Hope, whose flattering dreams are now my shame,
+      Showed years to come, a long and bright array,
+    Yet all too soon my nature sinks a prey
+      To the great evil that with being came.
+    Pleasures, my tyrants! now your reign is past:
+      My soul, recoiling, casts you off to lie
+    In that abyss where all deceits are cast.
+      Oh God! may life's last moments, as they fly,
+    Win back what years have lost, that he, at last,
+      Who knew not how to live, may learn to die.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Gifts of Genius, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIFTS OF GENIUS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 17872-8.txt or 17872-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/8/7/17872/
+
+Produced by Curtis Weyant, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images produced by the Wright
+American Fiction Project.)
+
+
+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.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.