GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XX. May, 1842     No. 5.

Contents

Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

Drawn by John Hayter Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie

The Bride

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XX. PHILADELPHIA: MAY, 1842. No. 5.

“The earl is out, sir—and so is Lord William;” said the obsequious lacquey, as I was ushered into Fairlie Hall, “will you amuse yourself in the library until dinner, or take a stroll in the park? You will probably meet with some of the family about the grounds.”

Such was the salutation that greeted me on alighting at the princely mansion of the earl of Fairlie, whither I had come at the invitation of his only son—one of my inseparable friends at Oxford. The visit had been promised for more than two years; and I was actuated to it, not only by the desire of spending the vacation with my friend, but by a lurking wish to behold the Lady Katharine, his only sister, whose beauty I had heard extolled by a hundred lips. So I had given up a contemplated run to the continent and come down to Fairlie Hall.

After changing my dress and gazing from the windows of my chamber, I began to feel ennuied and descending the ample staircase I determined on a stroll into the magnificent park, which surrounded the hall for some miles on every hand. My walk led me by a wild woodland path into one of the most romantic recesses of the forest. Naturally of a dreamy cast of mind, I walked on in a sort of reverie, until I was suddenly recalled to my more sober senses by coming in front of a little summer house, perched airily on a rock, and overlooking a mimic waterfall. Feeling somewhat fatigued with my day’s travel, I walked in and sat down. There was little furniture in the room, but on a table in the centre, lay a copy of Spencer, as if some one had lately been there. Picking up my favorite poet I began reading, but whether the interminable allegory exercised a drowsy influence over me, or whether it was the sharp morning air in which I had been riding that affected me, I cannot say, but in a few minutes I fell into a light doze, such a one as while it gives a dreamy character to our thoughts, or lulls them altogether into repose, never assumes wholly the character of sleep, and is dissipated by the slightest noise. Mine was soon broken, by a quick light step on the greensward without, and a musical female voice singing a gay ditty. Starting up I beheld an apparition standing in the door of the summer house, whose exceeding loveliness I was doubtful, for a moment, whether to refer to earth or heaven.

This apparition bore the form of a young lady apparently about eighteen, of a tall shapely figure, attired in a light summer dress—the sleeves of which, being looped up at the shoulders, revealed a pair of exquisitely rounded arms which might have vied with those of the fabled Euphrosyne. Her dress came low down towards the bust, displaying the full charms of her unrivalled shoulders and all the graceful swelling of her snowy and swan-like neck. Her face was of the true oval shape, and on either side of it flowed down her luxuriant auburn ringlets. The features, without being regular, formed a combination of surpassing beauty. The delicately arched eye-brows; the finely chiselled nose; the small round chin; the rich lips whose luxuriance rivalled that of the full blown rose; and the smooth pearly cheek, through which the vermeil blood might be seen wandering in ten thousand tiny veins—so transparent was the hue of the skin—united to form a countenance which would have been beautiful, even without the constantly changing expression which gave animation to each feature. The appearance of this wondrously lovely being, just as I awoke from the half dreamy sleep I have described, in which the visions of the poet and the sound of the waterfall had contributed to fill my mind with fantastic images, made me doubt, for a moment, whether the heavenly Una herself or one of her attendant nymphs had not emerged on my dreaming vision. But the changing expressing of her features soon convinced me that she was no airy visitant. At first a look of surprise darted over her fine countenance, and she retreated a step backwards, while the blood mantled her cheek, brow, and bosom, and even tinged the ends of her delicate fingers. In an instant, however, she regained her composure. No so myself. I had been equally startled, but was longer in recovering my ease. A silence of a minute thus occurred, during which we stood awkwardly regarding each other, but at length the ludicrousness of the scene striking the fancy of the fair apparition, she burst into a merry laugh, in which, despite my wounded vanity, I was forced to follow her. She had now fully recovered from her momentary embarrassment and advancing said,

“Mr. Stanhope I presume, for we have been expecting you for some days.” I bowed. “I see I must introduce myself. The Lady Katharine, daughter of the Earl of Fairlie.”

This then was the Lady Katharine of whom I had heard so much! There was something in the gaiety and originality of the address that pleased me, while at the same time it increased my embarrassment. I bowed again and was about to reply, but in bowing I inadvertently made a step backwards, and trod on a pet greyhound, which accompanied this wilful creature. The animal with a cry sought shelter by its mistress’ side, who, by this time, had sunk into one of the seats.

“Poor Lama,” she said petting him, “you must be careful how you get in the way of a bashful gallant again,” and then, turning to me, she said in a tone of gay raillery. “Ah, Mr. Stanhope, you Oxford gentlemen, knowing as you are in history, Greek, and Latin, are all alike awkward at a bow—at least William is so, and his particular friend of whom I have heard so much, and of whom I really hoped otherwise, is no better.”

There was much in this galling to my vanity, but it carried with it some alleviation. I had then been the subject of conversation with this fair being, and she had thought favorably of me. This idea did much to restore me to the use of my tongue, which otherwise would have been gone forever, under the merciless raillery of the Lady Katharine. Besides I saw that I was losing ground with my fair companion, and that it was necessary to call some assurance to my aid. I rallied therefore and replied:

“Let me not be condemned without trial. Lady Katharine may yet soften her sentence—or at least in the court of fashion over which she is queen, I may have a chance of improvement.”

There was a tone of easy badinage in this, so different from what she had been led to expect from my former embarrassment, that the lady looked up in unaffected surprise.

“Very well, I declare—you improve on acquaintance. Why you have almost earned for yourself the favor of being my knight homewards—quite indeed, only that you have lamed my poor Lama. So I must even leave you to Spencer, which I see you have been reading, and depart. We will meet at dinner and I will see by that time if you have improved in your bows.”

“Not so, fair lady,” said I, “Spencer would never forgive me, and I would indeed be unworthy to be called true knight, if I permitted damsel to brave the perils of this enchanted forest alone.” And I started forward to accompany her.

She looked at me a minute dubiously, as if puzzled what to make of my character, as she said:

“I pardon you, for this once, and allow you to accompany me. We shall,” she continued, looking at her watch, “have scarcely time to reach the hall before the dinner bell will sound.” And with the words, off she tripped, with a bound as free as that of her agile greyhound. I followed, determined not to be outdone, but to maintain the gay rattling tone I had assumed, as the only one fitted to cope with this wilful creature. I had so far succeeded that when we parted at the hall to dress for dinner, I really believe she would have been puzzled to say what part of my conversation had been serious or what not. She must have been completely in the dark as to my real sentiments on any one of the many subjects we had discussed. Indeed she admitted as much to me at dinner, where I managed to secure a place beside her.

“You are a perfect puzzle—do you know it, Mr. Stanhope? At least I have not yet decided what to think of you. At first I set you down for the most bashful young man I had ever seen, and now you seem as if nothing could intimidate you. Why, when pa was introduced to you, you talked politics with him as if you had known him for years, and three minutes after you were discussing the fashions with little Miss Mowbray, as if you had been a man-milliner all your life. I scarcely know whether to think you a cameleon, or attribute your wit to the champaigne.”

“Neither, Lady Katharine, while a better reason may be found nearer home.”

“Ah! that wasn’t so badly said, although a little too plain. We ladies like flattery well enough, but then it must be disguised.”

“And it would be almost impossible to flatter you!—is that it?”

“You puzzle me to tell, I declare, whether that is a compliment or otherwise—but see, pa is waiting to drink champaigne with you.”

In such gay conversation passed the dinner and evening; and when I retired for the night it was with the consciousness that I was in a fair way to fall in love with the Lady Katharine. I lay awake for some two hours, thinking of all I had said and of her replies; and I came to the conclusion that she was, beyond measure not only the loveliest but the most fascinating of her sex.

I had been among the first of the numerous guests to arrive; but the remainder followed so close after me that in a few days the whole company had assembled. It was an unusually gay party. The morning was generally spent by the gentlemen in shooting among the preserves, leaving the ladies to their indoor recreations or a ride around the park. On these rides the gentlemen sometimes accompanied them. Lady Katharine was always the star of the party; it was around her our sex gathered. But, fascinating as I felt her to be I was, of all the beaux, the most seldom found at her bridle-rein; and perhaps this comparatively distant air was the most effectual means I could have taken to forward my suit. At least I fancied more than once that I piqued the Lady Katharine.

We still kept up the tone of badinage with which our acquaintance had commenced. There was a playful wit about the Lady Katharine which was irresistible; and I flattered myself that she was pleased with my conversation, perhaps because it was different from that of her suitors in general. But whether her liking for me extended further than to my qualities as a drawing-room companion I was unable to tell. If I strove to hide my love from her, she was equally successful in concealing her feelings whatever they might be. Yet she gave me the credit of being a keen observer.

“You take more notice of little things than any one of your sex I ever saw,” she said to me one evening. “The ladies have a way of reading one’s sentiments by trifles, which your sex generally deem beneath its notice. But you! one would almost fear your finding out all one thinks.”

“Oh! not at all,” said I. “At any rate, if your sex are such keen observers they are also apt at concealment. What lady that has not striven to hide from her lover that she returned his passion, at least until he has proposed, and that even though aware how wholly he adores her? We all alike play a part.”

“Shame, shame, Mr. Stanhope! Would you have us surrender our only protection, by betraying our sentiments too soon? And then to say that we all play a part, as if hypocrisy—in little things, it is true, but still hypocrisy —was an every-day affair. You make me ashamed of human nature. You really cannot believe what you say!”

This was spoken with a warmth that convinced me the words were from the heart. I felt that however flippant the Lady Katharine might be to the vain and empty suitors that usually thronged around her, she had a heart—a warm, true, woman’s heart—a heart that beat with noble emotions and was susceptible to all the finer feelings of love. I would have replied, but at this instant the Duke of Chovers approached and requested the honor of waltzing with her.

The Duke of Chovers was a young man of about five and twenty. The calibre of his mind was that of fashionable men in general; but then he enjoyed a splendid fortune and wore the ducal coronet. He was confessedly the best match of the season. The charms of the Lady Katharine had been the first to divert his mind from his dress and horses. It was whispered that a union was already arranged betwixt him and my fair companion. As if to confirm this rumor, he always took his place by her bridle-rein. The worldly advantages of such a connexion were unanswerable; and I had been tortured by uneasy fears ever since I heard the rumor. Now was a fair opportunity to learn the truth. I had heard the Lady Katharine jestingly say a few days before, in describing a late ball, that she refused to waltz with Lord —— because she thought him unmarried, and that when she discovered her mistake she was piqued at herself for losing the handsomest partner in the room. The remark was made jestingly and casually, and was by this time forgotten by her. But I still remembered it. Yet I know that if she was betrothed to him she would accept his offer. How my heart thrilled, therefore, when I heard her decline it! His grace walked away unable to conceal his mortification.

“You should not be so hard-hearted,” said I, “although the duke ought have known that you waltz with none of the proscribed race of bachelors.”

She looked at me in unaffected surprise.

“How did you discover that?” she said. “We have had no waltzing since you came,” and then, reflecting that these hasty words had confirmed my bold assertion, she blushed to the very brow and looked for a moment confused.

Our conversation was interrupted by her brother and one or two new acquaintances who had driven home with him. I soon sauntered away. My deductions respecting her and the duke were shaken, I confess, before the evening was over, by seeing them sitting tête-à-tête , by one of the casements, while the guests avoided them, as if by that tacit agreement under which lovers are left to themselves.

The attentions of his grace became daily more marked, and there was an evident embarrassment of manner in the Lady Katharine under them. A month slipped away meanwhile, and the time when the company was to break up drew near.

We were out on a ride one morning, and the duke, as usual, had established himself at her bridle-rein, when, in cantering along the brow of a somewhat precipitous hill, overlooking the country for miles around, the horse of the Lady Katharine took fright, from some cause, and dashed towards the edge of a precipice that sank sheer down for nearly a hundred feet. The precipice was several hundred yards to the right, but the pace at which the frighted steed went, threatened soon to bring him up with it, while the efforts of the rider to alter his course appeared to be unavailing. Our party was paralyzed, and his grace particularly so. I alone retained my presence of mind. Driving my spurs deep into the flanks of my steed, I plunged forward at full gallop, amid the shrieks of the females and the warnings of the gentlemen of the party. But I knew I could trust my gallant hunter. The Lady Katharine heard my horse’s hoofs, and turned around. Never shall I forget her pleading look. I dashed my rowels again into Arab, for only a few paces yet remained betwixt the Lady Katharine’s frightened animal and the edge of the precipice. One more leap and all would have been over; but luckily at that instant I came head and head with her furious steed, and catching him by the bridle, I swung him around with a superhuman strength. But I was only partially successful. The animal plunged and snorted, and nearly jerked me from the saddle.

“For God’s sake dismount, my dear Lady Katharine, as well as you can, or all is over.”

The daring girl hesitated no more, but seizing a favorable instant when the animal, though trembling all over, stood nearly still, she leaped to the earth. The next instant her steed plunged more wildly than ever, and seeing that she was safe I let go the bridle. He snorted, dashed forward and went headlong over the precipice. In an instant I had dismounted and was by the Lady Katharine’s side. I was just in time to catch her in my arms as she fainted away. Before she recovered, the landau, with the rest of the party, came up. I saw her in the hands of her mother, and then giving reins to Arab, under pretence of sending medical aid, but in reality to escape the gratulations of the company, I dashed off.

When I entered the drawing-room before dinner, there was no one in the apartment but the Lady Katharine. She looked pale, but on recognizing me, a deep blush suffused her cheek and brow, while her eye lit up for the instant, with an expression of dewy tenderness that made every vein in my body thrill. But these traces of emotion passed as rapidly as they came, leaving her manner as it usually was, only that there was an unnatural restraint about it, as if her feelings of gratitude were struggling with others of a different character. She rose, however, and extended her hand. There was nothing of its usual light tone in her voice, but an expression of deep seriousness, perhaps emotion, as she said,

“How shall I ever thank you sufficiently, Mr. Stanhope, for saving my life?” and that same dewy tenderness again shone from her eyes.

“By never alluding, my dear Lady Katharine, to this day’s occurrence. I have only done what every other gentleman would have done.”

She sighed. Was she thinking of the tardiness of the duke? I thought so, and sighed too. She looked up suddenly, with her large full eyes fixed on me, as if she would read my very soul; while a deep roseate blush suffused her face and crimsoned even her shoulders and bosom. There was something in that look that changed the whole current of my convictions, and bid me hope. In the impulse of the moment, I took her hand. Again that conscious blush rushed over her cheek and bosom; but this time her eyes sought the ground. My brain reeled. At length I found words, and, in burning language poured forth my hopes and fears, and told the tale of my love. I ceased; her bosom heaved wildly, but she did not answer. I still knelt at her feet. At length she said,

“Rise.”

There was something in the tone, rather than in the word, which assured me I was beloved. If I needed further confirmation of this it was given in the look of confiding tenderness with which she gazed an instant on me, and then averted her eyes tremblingly. I stole my arm around her, and drew her gently toward me. In a moment she looked up again half reproachfully, and gently disengaged herself from my embrace.

“We have been playing a part, dear Lady Katharine!” said I, still retaining her hand.

A gay smile, for the instant, shot over her face, but was lost as quickly in the tenderness which was now its prevailing expression, as she said,

“I’m afraid we have! But now, Henry, dear Henry, let me steal away, for one moment, before they descend to dinner.”

I restrained her only to press my first kiss on her odorous lips, and then she darted from the room, leaving me in a tumult of feelings I cannot attempt to describe.

The duke had never been the Lady Katharine’s choice, and she had only waited for him to propose in form to herself personally, to give him a decided refusal. Although I was but the heir of a commoner—of a wealthy and ancient family it is true; and he was the possessor of a dukedom, she had loved me, as I had loved her, from the first moment we had met. The duke had been backed by her parents, but when we both waited on them, and told them that our happiness depended on their consent, they sacrificed rank to the peace of their daughter, and gave it without reluctance. Before winter came the Lady Katharine was my Bride .

J. H. D.

W. H. Bartlett.        A. J. Dick.

CENTRE HARBOUR.

(Lake Winnipisseogee)

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine

This town is situated on one of the three bays jutting out at the north-western extremity of Lake Winnipiseogee—a sheet of water situated near the centre of New Hampshire, and celebrated for its picturesque beauty. The lake is diversified with innumerable islands and promontories. It is seen, perhaps, to the best advantage from Red Hill, whence a magic landscape of hill, island and water stretches far away beneath the beholder’s feet. The name of Winnipiseogee signifies in the Indian language “the beautiful lake.”

The view from Centre Harbor has always won the admiration of tourists, there being a quiet beauty about it which few can resist. The best view is from the highlands back of the town. The place itself is small, and lies immediately beneath the gazer’s feet; but the lake, diversified with its green islands, and shut in by its rolling hills, instantly arrests the eye. In the quiet of a summer noon, or under a clear moonlit sky, there is a depth of repose brooding over the scene which seems akin to magic.

The lake is, in some places, unfathomable, but abounds with fish. At present it boasts little navigation, for the comparatively thinly scattered population on its borders has not yet ruffled its quiet waters with the keels of commerce. It is yet protected from the ravages of utilitarianism; and the lover of the picturesque will pray that it may long continue so.

A FANTASY.

———

BY EDGAR A. POE.

———

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had been ever so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleedings at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest-ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease were the incidents of half an hour.

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless, and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair from without or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballêt-dancers, there were musicians, there were cards, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.”

It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence. It was a voluptuous scene that masquerade.

But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven—an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke’s love of the bizarre . The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue—and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and litten with orange—the fifth with white—the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But, in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brasier of fire that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when its minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came forth from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians in the orchestra were constrained to pause, momently, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and that the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then there were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fête , and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the costumes of the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since seen in “Hernani.” There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre , something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these, the dreams—writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, momently, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away—they have endured but an instant—and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length was sounded the twelfth hour upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus, again, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive at first of disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be properly made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood —and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of the Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its rôle , stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment, with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

“Who dares?” he demanded hoarsely of the group that stood around him, “who dares thus to make mockery of our woes? Uncase the varlet that we may know whom we have to hang to-morrow at sunrise from the battlements. Will no one stir at my bidding?—stop him and strip him, I say, of those reddened vestures of sacrilege!”

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly—for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince’s person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple—through the purple to the green—through the green to the orange,—through this again to the white—and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers—while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly round and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

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BY PARK BENJAMIN.

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BY MRS. M. H. PARSONS.

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“To-morrow, I will do it to-morrow,” was the curse of Lucy Clifton’s life. When a child, she always had it in view to make such charming little dresses—to-morrow. When girlhood came her lessons were never perfect,—“only excuse me this once mamma, and I will never put off my lessons again!” The pleader was lovely, and engaging, mamma was weakly indulgent; Lucy was forgiven and the fault grew apace, until she rarely did any thing to-day, that could be put off till to-morrow. She was a wife, and the mother of two children, at the period our story commences.

With a cultivated mind, most engaging manners, and great beauty of form, and features, Lucy had already lost all influence over the mind of her husband, and was fast losing her hold on his affections. She had been married when quite young, as so many American girls unfortunately are, and with a character scarcely formed, had been thrown into situations of emergency and trial she was very unprepared to encounter. Her husband was a physician, had been but a year or two in practice, at the time of their marriage. William Clifton was a young man of fine abilities, and most excellent character; of quick temper, and impatient, he was ever generous, and ready to acknowledge his fault. When he married Lucy, he thought her as near perfection as it was possible for a woman to be; proportionate was his disappointment, at finding the evil habit of procrastination, almost inherent in her nature from long indulgence, threatening to overturn the whole fabric of domestic happiness his fancy had delighted to rear. There was no order in his household, no comfort by his fireside; and oftimes when irritated to bitter anger, words escaped the husband, that fell crushingly on the warm, affectionate heart of the wife. The evil habit of procrastination had “grown with her growth” no parental hand, kind in its severity, had lopped off the excrescence, that now threatened to destroy her peace, that shadowed by its evil consequences her otherwise fair and beautiful character. In Lucy’s sphere of life there was necessity for much self-exertion, and active superintendance over the affairs of her household. They lived retired; economy and good management were essential to render the limited income Doctor Clifton derived from his practice fully adequate to their support—that income was steadily on the increase, and his friends deemed the day not far distant, when he would rise to eminence in his profession. Lucy’s father, a man of considerable wealth, but large family, had purchased a house, furnished it, and presented it to Lucy; she was quite willing to limit her visiting circle to a few friends, as best suited with their present means. Surely William Clifton was not unreasonable, when he looked forward to a life of domestic happiness, with his young and tenderly nurtured bride. He could not know that her many bright excelling virtues of character would be dimmed, by the growth of the one fault , until a shadow lay on the pathway of his daily life. If mothers could lift the dim curtain of the future, and read the destiny of their children, they would see neglected faults, piercing like sharp adders the bosoms that bore them, and reproach mingling with the agony, that she, who had moulded their young minds, had not done her work aright!

It was four years after their marriage, Doctor Clifton entered the nursery hurriedly.

“Lucy my dear, will you have my things in order by twelve o’clock? I must leave home for two days, perhaps longer, if I find the patient I am called to see very ill.”

“Yes, yes! I will see to them. What shall I do with the child, William, he is so very fretful? How I wish I had given him the medicine yesterday; he is very troublesome!”

“If you think he needs it, give it to him at once;” said her husband abruptly, “and don’t I beg Lucy forget my clothes.” He left the room, and Lucy tried to hush baby to sleep, but baby would not go, then the nurse girl who assisted her could not keep him quiet, and the mother, as she had often been before, became bewildered, and at a loss what to do first.

“If you please ma’am what am I to get for dinner?” said the cook, the only servant they kept in the kitchen, putting her head in at the door, and looking round with a half smile, on the littered room, and squalling baby.

“Directly, I shall be down directly Betty, I must first get baby to sleep.”

“Very well ma’am,” was the reply, and going down an hour afterwards, Mrs. Clifton found Betty with her feet stretched out and her arms folded one over the other, comfortably seated before an open window, intent in watching, and enjoying the movements of every passer-by.

“Betty, Betty!” said her mistress angrily, “have you nothing to do, that you sit so idly here?”

“I waited for orders, ma’am.” Dinner was an hour back, Lucy assisted for a short time herself, and then went up stairs to arrange Clifton’s clothes. Baby was screaming terribly, and Lucy half terrified did yesterday’s work, by giving him a dose of medicine. So the morning sped on. Clifton came in at the appointed time.

“Are my clothes in readiness, Lucy?”

She colored with vexation, and shame. “The baby has been very cross; I have not indeed had time. But I will go now.” Clifton went down to his solitary dinner, and when he returned found Lucy busy with her needle; it was evident even to his unskilled eye there was much to be done.

“It is impossible to wait. Give me the things as they are; I am so accustomed to wearing my shirts without buttons, and my stockings with holes in, that I shall find it nothing new—nor more annoying than I daily endure.” He threw the things carelessly into his carpet-bag, and left the room, nor did he say one kindly word in farewell, or affection. It was this giving away to violent anger, and using harsh language to his wife that had broken her spirit, almost her heart. She never even thought of reforming herself; she grieved bitterly, but hopelessly. Surely it is better when man and wife are joined together by the tie that “no man may put asunder,” to strive seriously, and in affection to correct one another’s faults? There is scarcely any defect of character, that a husband, by taking the right method may not cure; always providing his wife is not unprincipled. But he must be very patient; bear for a season; add to judicious counsel much tenderness and affection; making it clear to her mind that love for herself and solicitude for their mutual happiness are the objects in view. Hard in heart, and with little of woman’s devotion unto him to whom her faith is plighted, must the wife be who could long resist. Not such an one was Lucy Clifton; but her husband in the stormy revulsion of feeling that had attended the first breaking up of his domestic happiness, had done injustice to her mind, to the sweetness of disposition that had borne all his anger without retorting in like manner. If Clifton was conscious of his own quickness of temper, approaching to violence, he did not for one moment suppose, that he was the cause of any portion of the misery brooding over his daily path. He attributed it all to the procrastinating spirit of Lucy, and upon her head he laid the blame with no unsparing hand. He forgot that she had numbered twenty years, and was the mother of two children; that her situation was one of exertion, and toil under the most favorable circumstances; that he was much her senior, had promised to cherish her tenderly. Yet the first harsh word that dwelt on Lucy’s heart was from the lips of her husband! How tenderly in years long gone had she been nurtured! The kind arm of a father had guided and guarded her; the tender voice of a mother had lighted on her path like sunshine—and now? Oh ye, who would crush the spirit of the young and gentle, instead of leading it tenderly by a straight path in the way of wisdom—go down into the breaking heart and learn its agony; its desolation, when the fine feelings of a wasted nature go in upon the brain and consume it!

One morning Clifton entered the nursery, “Lucy,” he said; “my old classmate, and very dear friend Walter Eustace is in town. He came unexpectedly; his stay is short; I should like to ask him to spend the day with me. Could you manage, love, to have the time pass comfortably to my friend?” Lucy felt all the meaning conveyed in the emphasis on a word that from his lips sounded almost formidable in her ears.

“I will do what I can,” she answered sadly.

“Do not scruple Lucy to get assistance. Have every thing ready in time , and do not fail in having order, and good arrangement. There was a time Lucy, when Eustace heard much of you; I should be gratified to think he found the wife worthy of the praise the lover lavished so freely upon her. Sing for us to-night—it is long since the piano was opened!—and look, and smile as you once did, in the days that are gone, but not forgotten Lucy.” His voice softened unconsciously, he had gone back to that early time, when love of Lucy absorbed every feeling of his heart. He sighed; the stern, and bitter realities of his life came with their heavy weight upon him, and there was no balm in the future, for the endurance of present evils.

He turned and left the room; Lucy’s eye followed him, and as the door closed she murmured—“ not forgotten! Oh, Clifton how little reason I have to believe you!” Lucy was absorbed in her own thoughts so long as to be unconscious of the flight of time. When she roused, she thought she would go down stairs and see what was to be done, but her little boy asked her some question, which she stopped to answer; half an hour more elapsed before she got to the kitchen. She told Betty she meant to hire a cook for the morrow—thought she had better go at once and engage one—yet, no, on second thoughts, she might come with her to the parlors and assist in arranging them; it would be quite time enough to engage the cook when they were completed. To the parlors they went, and Lucy was well satisfied with the result of their labor—but mark her comment: “What a great while we have been detained here; well, I am sure I have meant this three weeks to clean the parlors, but never could find time. If I could but manage to attend them every day, they would never get so out of order.”

The next morning came, the cook not engaged yet. Betty was despatched in haste, but was unsuccessful—all engaged for the day. So Betty must be trusted, who sometimes did well, and at others signally failed. Lucy spent the morning in the kitchen assisting Betty and arranging every thing she could do, but matters above were in the mean time sadly neglected, her children dirty, and ill dressed, the nursery in confusion, and Lucy almost bewildered in deciding what had better be done, and what left undone. She concluded to keep the children in the nursery without changing their dress, and then hastened to arrange her own, and go down stairs, as her husband and his friend had by this time arrived. Her face was flushed, and her countenance anxious; she was conscious that Mr. Eustace noticed it, and her uncomfortable feelings increased. The dinner, the dinner—if it were only over! she thought a hundred times. It came at last, and all other mortifications were as nothing in comparison. There was not a dish really well cooked, and every thing was served up in a slovenly manner. Lucy’s cheeks tingled with shame. Oh, if she had only sent in time for a cook. It was her bitterest thought even then. When the dinner was over Mr. Eustace asked for the children, expressing a strong desire to see them. Lucy colored, and in evident confusion, evaded the request. Her husband was silent, having a suspicion how matters stood.

Just then a great roar came from the hall, and the oldest boy burst into the room. “Mother! mother! Hannah shut me up she did!” A word from his father silenced him, and Lucy took her dirty, ill dressed boy by the hand and left the room. She could not restrain her tears, but her keen sense of right prevented her punishing the child, as she was fully aware, had he been properly dressed, she would not have objected to his presence, and that he was only claiming an accorded privilege. Mr. Eustace very soon left, and as soon as the door closed on him Clifton thought: “I never can hope to see a friend in comfort until I can afford to keep a house-keeper. Was there ever such a curse in a man’s house as a procrastinating spirit?” With such feelings it may be supposed he could not meet his wife with any degree of cordiality. Lucy said, “There was no help for it, she had done her very best.” Clifton answered her contemptuously; wearied and exhausted with the fatigues of the day, she made no reply, but rose up and retired to rest, glad to seek in sleep forgetfulness of the weary life she led. Clifton had been unusually irritated; when the morrow came, it still manifested itself in many ways that bore hard on Lucy; she did not reply to an angry word that fell from his lips, but she felt none the less deeply. Some misconduct in the child induced him to reflect with bitterness on her maternal management. She drew her hand over her eyes to keep back the tears, her lip quivered, and her voice trembled as she uttered:

“Do not speak so harshly Clifton, if the fault is all mine, most certainly the misery is also!”

“Of what avail is it to speak otherwise?” he said sternly, “you deserve wretchedness, and it is only the sure result of your precious system.”

“Did you ever encourage me to reform, or point out the way?” urged Lucy, gently.

“I married a woman for a companion, not a child to instruct her,” he answered bitterly.

“Ay—but I was a child! happy—so happy in that olden time, with all to love, and none to chide me. A child, even in years, when you took me for a wife—too soon a mother, shrinking from my responsibilities, and without courage to meet my trials. I found no sympathy to encourage me—no forbearance that my years were few—no advice when most I needed it—no tenderness when my heart was nearly breaking. It is the first time, Clifton, I have reproached you; but the worm will turn if it is trodden upon,” and Lucy left the room. It was strange, even to herself, that she had spoken so freely, yet it seemed a sort of relief to the anguish of her heart. That he had allowed her to depart without reply did not surprise her; it may be doubted, although her heart pined for it, if ever she expected tenderness from Clifton more. It was perhaps an hour after her conversation with Clifton, Lucy sat alone in the nursery; her baby was asleep in the cradle beside her; they were alone together, and as she gazed on its happy face, she hoped with an humble hope, to rear it up, that it might be enabled to give and receive happiness. There was a slight rap at the door; she opened it, and a glad cry escaped her,—“Uncle Joshua!” she exclaimed. He took her in his arms for a moment,—that kindly and excellent old man, while a tear dimmed his eye as he witnessed her joy at seeing him. She drew a stool towards him, and sat down at his feet as she had often done before in her happy, girlish days; she was glad when his hand rested on her head, even as it had done in another time; she felt a friend had come back to her, who had her interest nearly at heart, who had loved her long and most tenderly. Mr. Tremaine was the brother of Lucy’s mother—he had arrived in town unexpectedly; indeed had come chiefly with a view of discovering the cause of Lucy’s low-spirited letters—he feared all was not right, and as she was the object of almost his sole earthly attachment, he could not rest in peace while he believed her unhappy. He was fast approaching three score years and ten; never was there a warmer heart, a more incorruptible, or sterling nature. Eccentric in many things, possessing some prejudices, which inclined to ridicule in himself, no man had sounder common sense, or a more careful judgment. His hair was white, and fell in long smooth locks over his shoulders; his eye-brows were heavy, and shaded an eye as keen and penetrating as though years had no power to dim its light. The high, open brow, and the quiet tenderness that dwelt in his smile, were the crowning charms of a countenance on which nature had stamped her seal as her “noblest work.” He spoke to Lucy of other days, of the happy home from whence he came, till her tears came down like “summer rain,” with the mingling of sweet and bitter recollections. Of her children next, and her eye lighted, and her color came bright and joyous—the warm feelings of a mother’s heart responded to every word of praise he uttered. Of her husband—and sadly “Uncle Joshua” noticed the change;—her voice was low and desponding, and a look of sorrow and care came back to the youthful face: “Clifton was succeeding in business; she was gratified and proud of his success,” and that was all she said.

“Uncle Joshua’s” visit was of some duration. He saw things as they really were, and the truth pained him deeply. “Lucy,” he said quietly, as one day they were alone together—“I have much to say, and you to hear. Can you bear the truth, my dear girl?” She was by his side in a moment.

“Anything from you, uncle. Tell me freely all you think, and if it is censure of poor Lucy, little doubt but that she will profit by it.”

“You are a good girl!” said “Uncle Joshua,” resting his hand on her head, “and you will be rewarded yet.” He paused for a moment ere he said—“Lucy, you are not a happy wife. You married with bright prospects—who is to blame?”

“I am—but not alone,” said Lucy, in a choking voice, “not alone, there are some faults on both sides.”

“Let us first consider yours; Clifton’s faults will not exonerate you from the performance of your duty. For the love I bear you, Lucy, I will speak the truth: all the misery of your wedded life proceeds from the fatal indulgence of a procrastinating spirit. One uncorrected fault has been the means of alienating your husband’s affections, and bringing discord and misrule into the very heart of your domestic Eden. This must not be. You have strong sense and feeling, and must conquer the defect of character that weighs so heavily on your peace.”

Lucy burst into tears—“I fear I never can—and if I do, Clifton will not thank me, or care.”

“Try, Lucy. You can have little knowledge of the happiness it would bring or you would make the effort. And Clifton will care. Bring order into his household and comfort to his fireside, and he will take you to his heart with a tenderer love than he ever gave to the bride of his youth.”

Lucy drew her breath gaspingly, and for a moment gazed into her uncle’s face with something of his own enthusiasm; but it passed and despondency came with its withering train of tortures to frighten her from exertion.

“You cannot think, dear uncle, how much I have to do; and my children are so troublesome, that I can never systematize time.”

“Let us see first what you can do. What is your first duty in the morning after you have dressed yourself?”

“To wash and dress my children.”

“Do you always do it? Because if you rise early you have time before breakfast. Your children are happy and comfortable, only in your regular management of every thing connected with them.”

“I cannot always do it,” said Lucy, blushing—“sometimes I get up as low-spirited and weary as after the fatigues of the day. I have no heart to go to work; Clifton is cold, and hurries off to business. After breakfast I go through the house and to the kitchen, so that it is often noon before I can manage to dress them.”

“Now instead of all this, if you were to rise early, dress your little ones before breakfast, arrange your work, and go regularly from one work to the other; never putting off one to finish another, you would get through everything, and have time to walk—that each day may have its necessary portion of exercise in the open air. That would dissipate weariness, raise your spirits, and invigorate your frame. Lucy, will you not make the trial for Clifton’s sake? Make his home a well-ordered one, and he will be glad to come into it.”

And Lucy promised to think of it. But her uncle was surprised at her apparent apathy, and not long in divining the true reason. Her heart is not in it, he thought, and if her husband don’t rouse it, never will be. Lucy felt she was an object of indifference, if not dislike to Clifton; there was no end to be accomplished by self-exertion; and as there was nothing to repay her for the wasted love of many years, she would encourage no new hopes to find them as false as the past.

“Uncle Joshua” sat together with Dr. Clifton, in the office of the latter.

“Has it ever struck you, Doctor, how much Lucy is altered of late?”

“I cannot say that I see any particular alteration. It is some time since you saw her;—matrimony is not very favorable to good looks, and may have diminished her beauty.”

“It is not of her beauty I speak. Her character is wholly changed; her spirits depressed, and her energies gone,” and “Uncle Joshua” spoke warmly.

“I never thought her particularly energetic,” said the Doctor, dryly.

“No one would suppose, my good sir, you had ever thought, or cared much about her.” “Uncle Joshua” was angry; but the red spot left his cheek as soon as it came there as he went on:—“Let us speak in kindness of this sad business. I see Lucy was in the right in thinking you had lost all affection for her.”

“Did Lucy say that? I should be sorry she thought so.”

“A man has cause for sorrow, when a wife fully believes his love for her is gone. Nothing can be more disheartening—nothing hardens the heart more fearfully, and sad indeed is the lot of that woman who bears the evils of matrimony without the happiness that often counterbalances them. We, who are of harder natures, have too little sympathy, perhaps too little thought for her peculiar trials.” Gently then, as a father to an only son, the old man related to Clifton all that had passed between Lucy and himself. More than once he saw his eyes moisten and strong emotion manifest itself in his manly countenance. A something of remorseful sorrow filled his heart, and its shadow lay on his face. “Uncle Joshua” read aright the expression, and his honest heart beat with joy at the prospects he thought it opened before them. Always wise-judging he said nothing further, but left him to his own reflections. And Clifton did indeed reflect long and anxiously: he saw indeed how much his own conduct had discouraged his wife, while it had been a source of positive unhappiness to her. He went at length to seek her;—she was alone in the parlor reading, or rather a book was before her, from which her eyes often wandered, until her head sank on the arm of the sofa, and a heavy sigh came sadly on the ear of Clifton. “Lucy, dear Lucy, grieve no more! We have both been wrong, but I have erred the most—having years on my side and experience. Shall we not forgive each other, my sweet wife?” and he lifted her tenderly in his arms, and kissed the tears as they fell on her cheek.

“I have caused you much suffering, Lucy, I greatly fear;—your faults occasioned me only inconvenience. Dry up your tears, and let me hear that you forgive me, Lucy.”

“I have nothing to forgive,” exclaimed Lucy. “Oh, I have been wrong, very wrong!—but if you had only encouraged me to reform, and sustained and aided me in my efforts to do so by your affection, so many of our married days would not have passed in sorrow and suffering.”

“I feel they would not,” said Clifton, moved almost to tears. “Now, Lucy, the self-exertion shall be mutual. I will never rest until I correct the violence of temper, that has caused you so much pain. You have but one fault, procrastination—will you strive also to overcome it?”

“I will,” said Lucy; “but you must be very patient with me, and rather encourage me to new exertions. I have depended too long on your looks not to be influenced by them still—my love, Clifton, stronger than your own, fed on the memory of our early happiness, until my heart grew sick that it would never return. Oh! if you could love me as you did then, could respect me as once you did, I feel I could make any exertion to deserve it.”

“And will you not be more worthy of esteem and love than ever you were, dear Lucy, if you succeed in reforming yourself! I believe you capable of the effort; and if success attends it, the blessing will fall on us both, Lucy, and on our own dear children. Of one thing be assured, that my love will know no further change or diminution. You shall not have cause to complain of me again, Lucy. Now smile on me, dearest, as you once did in a time we will never forget—and tell me you will be happy for my sake.”

Lucy smiled, and gave the assurance—her heart beat lightly in her bosom—the color spread over her face—her eyes sparkled with the new, glad feelings of hope and happiness, and as Clifton clasped her in his arms, he thought her more beautiful than in that early time when he had first won her love.

In that very hour Lucy began her work of reform; it seemed as though new life had been infused into her hitherto drooping frame. She warbled many a sweet note of her youth, long since forgotten, for her spirits seemed running over from very excess of happiness. “Uncle Joshua” was consulted in all her arrangements, and of great use he was:—he planned for her, encouraged her, made all easy by his method and management. She had gone to work with a strong wish to do her duty, and with a husband’s love shining steadily on her path, a husband’s affection for all success, and sympathy with every failure, there was little fear of her not succeeding. ’Tis true, the habit had been long in forming, but every link she broke in the chain that bound her, brought a new comfort to that happy household hearth. Clifton had insisted on hiring a woman to take charge of the children—this was a great relief. And somehow or other, “Uncle Joshua” looked up a good cook.

“Now,” said Lucy, “to fail would be a positive disgrace.”

“No danger of your failing, my sweet wife,” said Clifton, with a glance of affection that might have satisfied even her heart. “You are already beyond the fear of it.”

Lucy shook her head—“I must watch or my old enemy will be back again before I am fully rid of him.”

“It is right to watch ourselves, I know, Lucy; are you satisfied that I have done so, and have, in some measure, corrected myself?” said Clifton.

“I have never seen a frown on your face since you promised me to be patient. You have been, and will continue to be, I am sure,” said Lucy, fondly, as she raised his hand to her lips which had rested on her arm. They were happy both, and whatever trouble was in store for them in their future life, they had strong mutual affection to sustain them under it.

“God bless them both,” murmured “Uncle Joshua,” as he drew his hand hard across his eyes after witnessing this little scene. “I have done good here, but in many a case I might be termed a meddling old fool, and not without reason, perhaps. ’Tis a pity though, that folks, who will get their necks into this matrimonial yoke, would not try to make smooth the uneven places, instead of stumbling all the way, breaking their hearts by way of amusement, as they go.”

“What is that you say, ‘Uncle Joshua?’ ” said Lucy, turning quickly round, and walking towards him, accompanied by her husband.

“I have a bad habit of talking aloud,” said he, smiling.

“But I thought you were abusing matrimony, uncle—you surely were not?”

“Cannot say exactly what I was thinking aloud. I am an old bachelor, Lucy, and have few objects of affection in the world: you have been to me as a child, always a good child, Lucy, too—and now I think you will make a good wife, and find the happiness you so well deserve. Am I right, love?”

“I hope you are, uncle. If it had not been for your kindness though, I might never have been happy again,” and tears dimmed Lucy’s eyes at the recollection.

“We shall not forget your kindness,” said Clifton as he extended his hand, which “Uncle Joshua” grasped warmly. “I wish every married pair in trouble could find a good genius like yourself to interfere in their favor.”

“Ten to one he would be kicked out of doors!” said the old man, laughing. “This matrimony is a queer thing—those who have their necks in the noose had better make the most of it—and those out of the scrape keep so. Ah! you little reprobate!” he cried as he caught Lucy’s bright eye, and disbelieving shake of the head—“you don’t pretend to contradict me?”

“Yes I do, with my whole heart too. I would not give up my husband for the wide world, nor he his Lucy for the fairest girl in America!”

“Never!” exclaimed Clifton—“you are dearer to me than any other human being!”

“W-h-e-w!!” was “Uncle Joshua’s” reply, in a prolonged sort of whistle, while his eyes opened in the profoundest wonder, and his whole countenance was expressive of the most ludicrous astonishment—“w-h-e-w!!”

———

BY WM. WALLACE, ESQ. AUTHOR OF “BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE,” “MARCHES FOR THE DEAD,” ETC., ETC.

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BY W. W. STORY.

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During the latter part of the autumn in Berlin there are usually some fine days. The cloudless sun shines pleasantly out and evaporates the moisture from the warm air which blows through the streets. Mingling together in motley groups, you may see a long row of fashionables, citizens with their wives, little children in Sunday clothes, priests, Jewesses, young counsellors, professors, milliners, dancers, officers, &c. walking among the lindens in the Park. All the seats in Klaus & Weber’s coffee-house are soon occupied; the coffee throws off its steam. The fashionables light their cigars; everywhere persons are talking; here an argument is going on about war and peace, there about Madame Bethman’s shoes, whether the last ones she wore were green or gray, or about the state of the market and the bad money, &c., until all is hushed by an Aria from “Tanchon,” with which an untuned harp, a pair of ill-tuned violins, a wheezing flute, and a spasmodic bassoon torment themselves and their audience. Upon the balustrade which separates Weber’s place from the high-way, several little round tables and garden chairs are placed; here one can breathe in the free air and observe the comers and goers, at a distance from the monotonous noises of the accursed orchestra. There I sat down, and, abandoning myself to the light play of my fancy, conversed with the imaginary forms of friends who came around me, upon science and art, and all that is dearest to man. The mass of promenaders passing by me grows more and more motley, but nothing disturbs me, nothing can drive away my imaginary company. Now the execrable Trio of an intolerable waltz draws me out of my world of dreams. The high, squeaking tones of the violins and flutes, and the growling ground bass of the bassoon are all that I can hear; they follow each other up and down in octaves, which tear the ear, until, at last, like one who is seized with a burning pain, I cry out involuntarily,

“What mad music! Those detestable octaves!”—Near me some one mutters.

“Cursed Fate! Here is another octave-hunter!” I look up and perceive now for the first time that imperceptibly to me a man has taken a place at the same table, who is looking intently at me, and from whom I cannot take my eyes away again. Never did I see any head or figure which made so sudden and powerful an impression upon me. A slightly crooked nose was joined to a broad open brow, with remarkable prominences over the bushy, half-gray eyebrows, under which the eyes glanced forth with an almost wild, youthful fire, (the age of the man might be about fifty;) the white and well-formed chin presented a singular contrast to the compressed mouth, and a satirical smile breaking out in the curious play of muscles in the hollow cheeks, seemed to contradict the deep melancholy earnestness which rested upon the brow; a few gray locks of hair lay behind the ears, which were large and prominent; over the tall, slender figure was wrapped a large modern overcoat. As soon as I looked at the man he cast down his eyes and gave his whole attention to the occupation from which my outcry had probably aroused him. He was shaking, with apparent delight, some snuff from several little paper horns into a large box which stood before him, and moistening it with red wine from a quarter-flask. The music had ceased and I felt an irresistible desire to address him.

“I am glad that the music is over,” said I, “it was really intolerable.”

The old man threw a hasty glance at me and shook out the contents from the last paper horn.

“It would be better not to play at all,” I began again, “Don’t you think so?”

“I don’t think at all about it,” said he, “you are a musician and connoisseur by profession”⁠—

“You are wrong, I am neither. I once took lessons upon the harpsichord and in thorough-bass, because I considered it something which was necessary to a good education, and among other things I was told that nothing produced a more disagreeable effect than when the bass follows the upper notes in octaves. At first I took this upon authority, and have ever since found it to be a fact.”

“Really?” interrupted he, and stood up and strode thoughtfully towards the musicians, often casting his eyes upwards and striking upon his brow with the palm of his hand, as if he wished to awaken some particular remembrance. I saw him speak to the musicians whom he treated with a dignified air of command—He returned and scarcely had he regained his seat, before they began to play the overture to “Iphigenia in Aulis.”

With his eyes half-closed and his folded arms resting on the table he listened to the Andante; all the while slightly moving his foot to indicate the falling in of the different parts; now he reversed his head—threw a swift glance about him—the left hand, with fingers apart, resting upon the table, as though he were striking a chord upon the Piano Forte, and the right raised in the air; he was certainly the conductor who was indicating to the orchestra the entrance of the various Tempos—The right hand falls and the Allegro begins—a burning blush flew over his pale cheeks; his eyebrows were raised and drawn together; upon his wrinkled brow an inward rage flashed through his bold eyes, with a fire, which by degrees changed into a smile that gathered about his half-open mouth. Now he leaned back again, his eyebrows were drawn up, the play of muscles again swept over his face, his eyes glanced, the deep internal pain was dissolved in a delight which seized and vehemently agitated every fibre of his frame—he heaved a deep sigh, and drops stood upon his brow. He now indicated the entrance of the Tutti and the other principal parts; his right hand never ceased beating the time, and with his left he drew a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his face—Thus he animated with flesh and color the skeleton of the Overture, formed by the two violins. I heard the soft plaintive lament breathed out by the flutes, after the storm of the violins and basses died away, and the thunder of the kettle drums had ceased; I heard the lightly touched tones of the violoncello and the bassoon, which fill the heart with irrepressible yearning—again the Tutti enters treading along the unison like a towering huge giant and the hollow lamenting expires beneath his crushing footsteps.

The overture was finished; the man suffered both his arms to drop, and sat with closed eyes, like one who was exhausted by excessive exertion. This bottle was empty; I filled his glass with the Burgundy, which in the meantime I had procured. He heaved a deep sigh, and seemed to awaken out of his dream. I motioned him to drink; he did so without hesitation, and swallowing the contents of the glass at one draught, exclaimed,

“I am well pleased with the performance! The orchestra did bravely!”

“And yet,” added I, “yet it was only a feeble outline of a master-piece finished in living colors.”

“Am I right? You are not a Berliner.”

“Perfectly right; I only reside here occasionally.”

“The Burgundy is good; but it is growing cold here.”

“Let us go into the house and finish the flask.”

“A good proposal—I do not know you; neither do you know me. We will not ask each other’s names. Names are sometimes in the way. Here am I drinking Burgundy without it costing me anything. Our companionship is agreeable to both, and so far so good.”

All this he said with good-humored frankness. We entered the house together. As soon as he sat down and threw open his overcoat, I perceived with astonishment, that under it he wore an embroidered vest with long lappels, black velvet breeches, and a very small silver-hilted dagger. He again buttoned up his coat carefully.

“Why did you ask me if I was a Berliner?” I resumed.

“Because in such a case it would be necessary for me to leave you.”

“That sounds like a riddle.”

“Not in the least, when I tell you that I—that I am a composer.”

“I have no idea of your meaning.”

“Well then excuse me for my exclamation just now. I see that you understand yourself thoroughly and nothing of Berlin and Berliners.”

He rose and walked once hastily up and down; then went to the window, and in a scarcely audible voice hummed the chorus of Priestesses from the Iphigenia in Tauris, while at intervals he struck upon the window at the entrance of the Tutti. To my great astonishment I observed that he made several modifications of the melody, which struck me with their power and originality. I let him go on without interruption. He finished and returned to his seat. Surprised by the extraordinary bearing of the man, and by this fantastic expression of his singular musical talent—I remained silent. After some time he began⁠—

“Have you never composed?”

“Yes, I have made some attempts in the art; only I found that all which seemed to me to have been written at inspired moments, became afterwards flat and tedious; so that I let it alone.”

“You have done wrong: for the mere fact of your having made the attempt is no small proof of your talent. We learn music when we are children, because papa and mamma will have it so; now you go to work jingling and fiddling, but imperceptibly the mind becomes susceptible to music. Perhaps the half-forgotten theme of the little song, which you formerly sang, was the first original thought, and from this embryo, nourished laboriously by foreign powers, grows a giant, who consumes all within his reach, and changes all into his own flesh and blood! Ah, how is it possible to point out the innumerable influences which lead a man to compose. There is a broad high-way, where all are hurrying round and shouting and screaming; we are the initiated! we are at the goal! Only through the ivory door is there entrance to the land of dreams; few ever see the door and still fewer pass through it. All seems strange here. Wild forms move hither and thither and each has a certain character—one more than the others. They are never seen in the high-way; they only can be found behind the ivory door. It is difficult to come out of this kingdom. Monsters besiege the way as before the Castle of Alsinens—they twirl—they twist. Many dream their dream in the Kingdom of Dreams,—they dissolve in dreams,—they cast no more shadows—otherwise by means of their shadows they would perceive the rays which pass through this realm; only a few awakened out of this dream, walk about and stride through the Kingdom of Dreams—they come to Truth. This is the highest moment;—the union with the eternal and unspeakable! It is the triple tone, from which the accords, like stars, shoot down and spin around you with threads of fire. You lie there like a chrysalis in the fire, until the Psyche soars up to the sun.”

As he spoke these last words, he sprang up, and raised his eyes, and threw up his hand. Then he seated himself and quickly emptied the full glass. A silence ensued, which I would not break, through a fear of leading this extraordinary man out of his track. At last he continued in a calmer manner⁠—

“When I was in the kingdom of dreams a thousand pangs and sorrows tormented me. It was night, and the grinning forms of monsters rushed in upon me, now dragging me down into the abyss of the sea, and now lifting me high into the air. Rays of light streamed through the night, and these rays were tones which encircled me with delicious clearness. I awoke out of my pain and saw a large clear eye, gazing into an organ, and while it gazed, tones issued forth and sparkled and intervened in chords more glorious than I had ever imagined. Up and down streamed melodies, and as I swam in this stream, and was on the point of sinking, the eye looked down upon me and raised me out of the roaring waves. It was night again. Two colossi in glittering harnesses stepped up to me—Tonic and fifth! they lifted me up but the eye smiled; I know what fills thy breast with yearnings, the gentle tender third will step between the colossi; you will hear his sweet voice, will see me again, and my melodies shall become yours.”

He paused.

“And you saw the eye again?”

“Yes, I saw it again. Long years I sighed in the realms of dreams—there—yes, there!—I sat in a beautiful valley, and listened to the flowers as they sang together; only one sun-flower was silent and sadly bent its closed chalice towards the earth. Invisible bonds bound me to it—it raised its head. The chalice opened, and streaming out of it again the eye met mine—The tones, like rays of light, drew my head toward the flower which eagerly enclosed it. Larger and larger grew the leaves—flames streamed forth from it—they flowed around me—the eye had vanished and I was in the chalice.”

As he spoke these last words, he sprang up, and rushed out of the room with rapid youthful strides. I awaited his return in vain; I concluded at last to go down into the city.

As I approached the Brandenburg gates, I saw in the gloaming a tall figure stride by me, which I immediately recognized as my strange companion—I said to him⁠—

“Why did you leave me so abruptly?”

“It was too late and the Euphon began to sound.”

“I don’t know what you mean!”

“So much the better!”

“So much the worse: for I should like to understand you.”

“Do you hear nothing?”

“No.”

“It is past! Let us go—I do not generally like company; but—you are not a composer—you are not a Berliner?”

“I cannot conceive what so prejudices you against the Berliners. Here, where art is so highly esteemed and practised by the people in the highest degree—I should think that a man of your genius in art would like to be.”

“You are mistaken. I am condemned for my torment to wander about here in this deserted place like a departed spirit.”

“Here in Berlin—a deserted place?”

“Yes, it is deserted to me, for I can find no kindred spirit here. I am alone.”

“But the artists!—the composers!”

“Away with them. They criticise and criticise, refining away everything to find one poor little thought—but beyond their babble about art and artistical taste, and I know not what—they can shape out nothing, and as soon as they endeavor to bring out a few thoughts into daylight—their fearful coldness shows their extreme distance from the sun—it is Lapland work.”

“Your judgment seems to me too stern. At least you must allow that their theatrical representations are magnificent.”

“I once resolved to go to the theatre to hear the opera of one of my young friends—what is the name of it? The whole world is in this opera—through the confused bustle of dressed up men, wander the spirits of Orcus. All here has a voice and an almighty sound. The devil—I mean Don Juan. But I could not endure it beyond the overture, through which they blustered as fast as possible without perception or understanding. And I had prepared myself for that by a course of fasting and prayer, because I know that the Euphon is much too severely tried by this measure and gives an indistinct utterance.”

“Though I must admit that Mozart’s masterpieces are generally slighted here in a most inexplicable manner—yet Gluck’s works are very much better represented.”

“Do you think so? I once was desirous of hearing the Iphigenia in Tauris. As soon as I entered the theatre, I perceived they were playing the Iphigenia in Aulis. Then—thought I, this is a mistake. Do they call this Iphigenia? I was amazed—for now the Andante came in, with which the Iphigenia in Tauris opens, and the storm followed. There is an interval of twenty years. All the effect, all the admirably arranged exposition of the tragedy is lost. A still sea—a storm—the Greeks wrecked on the land—this is the opera. How?—has the composer written the overture at random, so that one may play it as he pleases and when he will, like a trumpet-piece?”

“I confess that is a mistake. Yet in the meantime, they are doing all they can to raise Gluck’s works in the general estimation.”

“Oh yes!” said he shortly—and then smiled more and more bitterly. Suddenly he walked off, and nothing could detain him. In a moment he disappeared, and for many successive days I sought him in vain in the park.

Several months had elapsed, when one cold, rainy evening, having been belated in a distant part of the city, I was going towards my house in Friedrich street. It was necessary to pass by the theatre. The noisy music of trumpets and kettle drums reminded me that Gluck’s Armida was to be now performed, and I was on the point of going in, when a curious soliloquy spoken from the window, where every note of the orchestra was distinctly audible, arrested my attention.

“Now comes the king—they play the march—beat, beat away on your kettle drums. That’s right, that’s lively. Yes, yes, you must do that eleven times now—or else the procession won’t be long enough. Ha, ha—Maestro—drag along, children. See there is a figurant with his shoe-string caught. That’s right for the twelfth time!—Keep beating on that dominant—Oh! ye eternal powers this will never cease. Now he presents his compliments—Armida returns thanks. Still once more? Yes, I see all’s right—there are two soldiers yet to come. What evil spirit has banished me here?”

“The ban is loosed,” cried I—“come!”

I seized my curious friend by the arm (for the soliloquist was no other than he,) and hurrying him out of the park, carried him away with me. He seemed surprised, and followed me in silence. We had already arrived in Friedrich street when he suddenly stopped.

“I know you,” said he.—“You were in the park. We talked together. I drank your wine—grew heated by it. The Euphon sounded two days afterwards—I suffered much—it is over.”

“I am rejoiced that accident has thrown you again in my way. Let us be better acquainted. I live not far from here—suppose you⁠—”

“I cannot, and dare not go with any one.”

“No, you shall not escape me thus—I will go with you.”

“Then you must go about two hundred steps. But you were just going into the theatre?”

“I was going to hear Armida, but now⁠—”

“You shall hear Armida now ⁠—come!”

In silence we went down Friedrich street. He turned quickly down a cross street, running so fast that I could with difficulty follow him—until he stopped at last before a common-looking house. After knocking for some time the door was opened.—Groping in the dark, we ascended the steps and entered a chamber in the upper story, the door of which my guide carefully locked. I heard a door open; through this he led me with a light, and the appearance of the curiously decorated apartment surprised me not a little—old-fashioned, richly adorned chairs, a clock fixed against the wall with a gilt case, and a heavy broad mirror gave to the whole the gloomy appearance of antiquated splendor. In the middle stood a little Piano Forte, upon which was placed a large inkstand; and near it lay several sheets of music. A more attentive examination of these arrangements for composition made it evident to me that for some time nothing could have been written; for the paper was perfectly yellow, and thick spider webs were woven over the inkstand—the man stepped towards a press in the corner of a chamber which I had not perceived before, and as soon as he drew aside the curtain I saw a row of beautifully bound books with golden titles. Orfeo—Armida—Alcesti—Iphigenia—&c.—in short a collection of Gluck’s master pieces standing together.

“Do you own all Gluck’s works?” I cried.

He made no answer, but a spasmodic smile played across his mouth, and the play of muscles in the hollow cheeks distorted his countenance to the appearance of a hideous mask—He fixed his dark eyes sternly upon me, seized one of the books—it was Armida—and stepped solemnly towards the piano forte.—I opened it quickly and drew up the music rack; that appeared to give him pleasure—He opened the book—I beheld ruled leaves, but not a single note written upon them.

He began; “now I will play the overture—Do you turn over the leaves at the proper time”—I promised—and now grasping the full chords, gloriously and like a master, he played the majestic Tempo di Marcia with which the overture begins, without deviating from the original; but the Allegro was only interpenetrated by Gluck’s principal thought. He brought out so many rich changes that my astonishment increased—His modulations were particularly bold, without being startling, and so great was his facility of hanging upon the principal idea of a thousand melodious lyrics, that each one seemed a reproduction of it in a new and renovated form—His countenance glowed—now he contracted his eyebrows and a long suppressed wrath broke powerfully forth, and now his eyes swam in tears of deep yearning melancholy. Sometimes with a pleasant tenor voice he sang the Thema, while both hands were employed in artist-like lyrics, and sometimes he imitated with his voice in an entirely different manner the hollow tone of the beaten kettle drums. I industriously turned over the leaves, as I followed his look. The overture was finished and he fell back exhausted with closed eyes, upon the arm chair. But soon he raised himself again and turning hastily over a few blank leaves, said to me in a hollow tone⁠—

“All this, sir, have I written when I came out of the kingdom of dreams, but I betrayed the holy to unholy, and an ice-cold hand fastened upon this glowing heart. It broke not. Yet was I condemned to wander among the unholy like a departed spirit—formless, so that no one knew me until the sun-flower again lifted me up to the eternal—Ha, now let us sing Armida’s Scena.”

Then he sang the closing scene of the Armida with an expression which penetrated my inmost heart—Here also he deviated perceptibly from the original—but the substituted music was Gluck-like music in still higher potency.—All that Hate, Love, Despair, Madness, can express in its strongest traits—he united in his tones—His voice seemed that of a young man, for from its deep hollowness swelled forth an irrepressible strength—Every fibre trembled—I was beside myself—When he had finished I threw myself into his arms, and cried with suppressed voice—“What does this mean? Who are you?”

He stood up and gazed at me with earnest, penetrating look—but as I was about to speak again he vanished with the light through a door and left me in the darkness—He was absent a quarter of an hour—I despaired of seeing him again and ascertaining my position from the situation of the piano forte sought to open the door, when suddenly in an embroidered dress coat, rich vest and with a sword at his side and a light in his hand he entered⁠—

I started—he came solemnly up to me, took me softly by the hand, and said, softly smiling⁠—

“I am the Chevalier Gluck!”

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BY FRANCES S. OSGOOD.

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BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.

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BY LOUIS FITZGERALD TASISTRO.

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Under the head of Painting, England undoubtedly at present stands considerably above any of the continental nations; but they surpass her perhaps in an equal degree, in the sister Art of Sculpture, and in Music,—Italy in both of these, and Germany in the latter. France may perhaps be said to have reached the same general point that England has in all these Arts; but she cannot claim the same exceptions in favor of individual instances, in either of them. In musical composers, on the other hand, she surpasses England, and yet reaches to only a very moderate degree of excellence.

Sir David Wilkie was one of the most distinguished Artists, in his particular line, that England, or any other country ever possessed. He has, to be sure, produced, comparatively speaking, but few pictures; but in force and richness of expression, in truth and depth of character, in subtlety of thought, and felicity of invention, I have seen none in the same class that at all equal these few. In the above particulars, and in a marvellous truth and simplicity of pencil in delineating what he sees or remembers, Wilkie as far surpasses Teniers himself, as Teniers surpasses him in freedom and felicity of touch, and freshness, transparency, and beauty of coloring. And important as these latter qualities are in a picture, those which spring from, and appeal to, the intellect chiefly, must be allowed to be still more so.

The subject of Wilkie’s pictures are confined to what may be called the higher classes of low life, where the habits and institutions of modern society have hitherto, in a great measure, failed to diffuse that artificial and conventional form of character, which, if it does not altogether preclude the action of the feelings, at least forbids all outward manifestation of them. If Sir David had unfortunately devoted his peculiar and unrivalled power of depicting what is , to scenes in high, or even in middle life, he would have produced works altogether feeble and worthless; because he could only represent what actually did exist; and, in these classes of life, this , as far as regards its outward attributes, is smoothed and polished down to a plane and colorless surface, which will not admit the passage of any thing from within, and from which every thing without slides off like water-drops from the feathers of a bird.

Only think of making a picture of a party of ladies and gentlemen , assembled to hear a piece of political news read; or of the same persons listening to a solo on the violin by an eminent professor! And yet these are the subjects of Wilkie’s Village Politicians, and his Blind Fiddler; two of the most interesting and perfect works that ever proceeded from the pencil; and which at once evince in the artist, and excite in the spectator, more activity of thought, and play of sentiment, than are called forth at all the fashionable parties of London and Paris for a whole season.

Wilkie’s power was confined, as I have said, to the representation of what he saw; but he selected and combined this with such admirable judgment, and represented it with such unrivalled truth and precision, that his pictures impress themselves on the memory with all the force and reality of facts. We remember, and recur to, the scenes he places before us, just as we should to the real scenes if we had been present at them; and can hardly think of, and refer to them as any thing but real scenes. They seem to become part of our experience—to increase the stores of our actual knowledge of life and human nature; and the actors in them take their places among the persons we have seen and known in our intercourse with the living world.

Wilkie’s pictures are, in one sense of the term, the most national that were ever painted; and will carry down to posterity the face, character, habits, costume, etc. of the period and class which they represent, in a way that nothing else ever did or could; for they are literally the things themselves—the truth, and nothing but the truth. The painter allows himself no liberty or licence in the minutest particulars. He seems to have a superstitious reverence for the truth; and he would no more paint a lie than he would tell one. I suppose he has never introduced an article of dress or furniture into any one of his pictures, that he had not actually seen worn or used under the circumstances he was representing. If he had occasion to paint a peasant who had just entered a cottage on a rainy day, he would, as a matter of conscience, leave the marks of his dirty footsteps on the threshold of the door! This scrupulous minuteness of detail, which would be the bane of some class of art, is the beauty of his, coupled, and made subservient, as it was, to the most curious, natural, and interesting development of character, sentiment and thought.

But the most extraordinary examples of this artist’s professional skill, are those in which he has depicted some peculiar expression in the face and action of some one of his characters. The quantity and degree of expression that he has, in several of these instances, thrown into the compass of a face and figure of less than the common miniature size, is not to be conceived without being seen, and has certainly never before been equalled in the Art. His most extraordinary efforts of this kind are two, in which the expressions are not very agreeable, but which become highly interesting, on account of the extreme difficulty that is felt to have been overcome in the production of them. One of these is an old man, in the act of coughing violently; and the other is a child, who has cut his fingers.

But if this is the most extraordinary part of Wilkie’s pictures, and the part most likely to attract vulgar attention and curiosity, it is far from being the most valuable and characteristic. If it were, I should not regard him as the really great artist which I now do. The mere overcoming of difficulty, for the sake of overcoming it, and without producing any other ulterior effect, would be a mere idle waste of time and skill, and quite unworthy either of praise or attention. It is in these particular instances which I have noticed above, as in numerous others in different lines of art, a mere sleight of hand, exceedingly curious, as exhibiting the possible extent of human skill, but no more.

In Wilkie’s pictures, this exhibition of mere manual skill is used very sparingly, and is almost always kept in subjection to, or brought in aid of, other infinitely more valuable ends. With the single exception of the “Cut Finger,” which is a mere gratuitous effort of this manual dexterity, all his pictures are moral tales, more or less interesting, from their perfectly true delineation of habits and manners, or impressive, from their development of character, passion, and sentiment. The “Opening of the Will” is as fine in this way, as any of Sir Walter Scott’s novels; and the “Rent Day” includes a whole series of national tales of English pastoral life in the nineteenth century.

It is a great mistake to consider Wilkie as a comic painter, in which light he is generally regarded by the public on both sides of the Atlantic. When they are standing before his pictures, they seem to feel themselves bound to be moved to laughter by them, as they would by a comedy or a farce; and without this, they do not show their taste; whereas laughter seems to me to be the very last sensation these works are adapted to call forth.

Speaking of the best and most characteristic of them, I would say, that scarcely any compositions of the art, in whatever class, are calculated to excite a greater variety of deep and serious feelings; feelings, it is true, so uniformly tempered and modified by a calm and delightful satisfaction, that they can scarcely be considered without calling up a smile to the countenance. But the smile arising from inward delight is as different from the laughter excited by strangeness and drollery as any one thing can be from another. It is, in fact, the very essence of Wilkie’s pictures, that there is literally nothing strange, and consequently nothing droll and laughter-moving about them.

From the works of no one English artist have I received so much pure and unmixed pleasure and instruction as I have from those of Sir David Wilkie. He differs from all the great old masters, inasmuch as I think he possesses more vigor of pencil, and more natural and characteristic truth of expression than any of them. His style cannot, indeed, be said to possess the airy and enchanting graces of Claude, or the classic power and beauty of the Poussins, or the delicious sweetness of Paul Potter, or the sunny brightness of Wynants, or the elegant warmth of Both, or the delightfully rural and country-fied air of Hobbima. In fact, he has no peculiar or distinguishing style of his own ; and this is his great and characteristic beauty. There is nothing in his pictures but what belongs positively and exclusively to the scene they profess to represent. When any of the above qualities are required in his pictures, they are sure to be found there; not because they are part of his style, but because they are part of Nature’s , in the circumstances under which he is representing her. The artist never obtrudes himself to share with nature the admiration of the spectator. And this is a very rare and admirable quality to possess in these days of pretence and affectation; when subject is usually but a secondary consideration, and is kept in submission to the display of style, manner, and what is called effect .

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BY L. J. CIST.

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BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

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“My dear,” said Mrs. Pemberton, drawing her needle through a very dilapidated stocking which she was darning, “my dear, do you know how much your old friend Ellis is worth?”

Mr. Pemberton looked up from his newspaper with some surprise, as he replied, “I can’t tell exactly, but I should think his property cannot fall short of one hundred thousand dollars.”

“That will be twenty thousand a piece for each of his five children,” said Mrs. Pemberton, apparently pursuing some hidden train of thought.

“I am not so sure of that,” returned her husband, with a smile, “it is difficult to calculate the fortune of a child during the life of a parent. Mr. Ellis is a hale hearty man, and may live long enough to double his fortune or perhaps to lose it all. But why are you so interested in his affairs just now, Sarah?”

“To tell you the truth, husband, I have been thinking that Edward Ellis would be a good match for Caroline.”

“Pooh! pooh! Carry is but sixteen, it will be time enough three years hence, to think of a husband for her.”

“But if a good opportunity should offer, it would be the height of folly to let it slip only on account of her youth. Edward is certainly very constant in his visits.”

“His intimacy with Charles, sufficiently accounts for his frequent visits, and his attentions, if they mean anything, are rather directed to Edith, as far as I can judge,” said Mr. Pemberton.

“Oh that is only because Edith is the eldest. I could easily manage to keep her out of the way, if she were to interfere with Caroline’s prospects.”

“But why not secure him for Edith, if you are so desirous of allying him to the family?”

“Mercy on me, husband, what should I do without Edith? I would not, upon any account, put such a notion into her head; nobody could supply her place if she were to marry just now.”

“Rotation in office, my dear, is the true and just system in family government, whatever it may be in politics; it is time that Caroline shared some of Edith’s manifold duties,” said Mr. Pemberton.

“How little men know of domestic affairs,” exclaimed Mrs. Pemberton; “do you suppose that such a giddy creature as Carry could ever be taught the patience, industry and thoughtfulness which seem so natural to Edith? No, no, I must keep Edith at home as long as possible.”

“So you have come to the conclusion that she is too useful to be allowed to seek her own happiness.”

“Oh, Mr. Pemberton how can you talk so? I am sure if Edith really loved any body I would never throw any obstacle in her way. She is quite contented now and I don’t believe marriage is necessary to the happiness of every body.”

“Why then are you so anxious to make matches for your girls? Why not wait and see whether Carry is not also content to be single?”

“Because Caroline is such a hare-brained, thoughtless girl, that nothing but domestic duties will ever give her steadiness of character, and therefore I am anxious to see her settled in life.”

“Well I don’t think you need waste any feminine manœuvres upon Edward Ellis, for whatever fortune his father may possess, he will never support his sons in idleness. He means that they shall work for themselves as he has done, and though he has given Edward a liberal education, he intends to make him a thorough merchant.”

“Edward wishes to study a profession.”

“I know old Ellis well enough to believe that he sets too high a value on time and money to consent to such a plan. He would never be willing to maintain Edward during the next ten years, as must necessarily be the case, if he adopted a profession.”

“Edward is a remarkably fine young man.”

“Yes, he possesses excellent talents and an amiable disposition, but his character is yet to be formed by time and circumstance.”

“He is two and twenty, husband; and you were married when you were not that age.”

“I know it, Sarah,” said Mr. Pemberton, drily, “and we both married five years too soon. I became burdened with the support of a family at the outset of life, and you were weighed down with domestic cares, while yet in your girlhood; the consequence to me has been, that I am now obliged to labour as hard for a living at forty-five as I did at twenty, and with as little prospect of making a fortune; while the result to you has been broken health and wearied spirits.”

“I am sure I never repented our marriage, my dear,” said Mrs. Pemberton half reproachfully.

“Nor I, my dear Sarah,” replied her husband kindly, “it would be but an ill requital for all your affection and goodness; but should we not be equally happy and less care-worn now, if we had deferred our union until we had been a little older and wiser?”

“Ah well,” sighed Mrs. Pemberton, feeling the truth of her husband’s remark, but unwilling to confess it, “there is no use in such retrospection; we have a large family around us, and there are no finer children than ours in the whole circle of our acquaintance. If I am broken down with the care of bringing them up, I can forget all my trouble, when I have so much cause to be proud of them. A better daughter than Edith, a more steady boy than Charley, and prettier girls than Caroline and Maria, are not to be found anywhere in society; and I dare say I shall be just as proud of the little ones in the nursery as they grow up.”

“I dare say you will, my dear,” said her husband, smiling good-humoredly, “it would be very strange if you were not, and quite as strange if I had not similar opinions; Edith is as good as she is handsome and I only wish young Ellis was in circumstances to marry her.”

“Don’t speak of such a thing, husband, I cannot consent to part with her for the next four or five years.”

“Yet you want to get rid of Caroline.”

“I have already told you my motives; there never were two sisters more unlike.”

“Edith has all the prudence and kindliness which befits a good wife, and therefore deserves to be well mated.”

“She does not seem to think of such a thing as marriage, and I am truly glad she is so indifferent about it, indeed I almost believe that Edith is destined to be an old maid.”

“It needs no great prophetic skill to predict that, if you keep her forever in the back-ground.”

“I am sure I do no such thing,” said Mrs. Pemberton, warmly.

“I don’t pretend to know much about these matters but I have noticed that when the girls are invited to a party it is generally Edith who is left at home.”

“It is not my fault, Mr. Pemberton, if she takes no pleasure in gay society.”

“Are you certain she always stays at home from choice?”

“I dare say she does, at least she is never controlled by me.”

“But you know as well as I do, that the slightest expression of a wish is sufficient to influence her. The truth is, Edith has made herself so useful in the family that we all depend upon her for a large portion of our comforts, and are too apt to forget that she often sacrifices her own. Do you suppose that she actually preferred staying at home to nurse little Margaret, the other night, to going to Mrs. Moore’s grand ball?”

“No, I can’t say she did, for she seemed rather anxious to attend that ball, and had trimmed a dress beautifully for the occasion.”

“The child was certainly not so ill as to require her attendance in addition to yours, and why, therefore, was she obliged to remain?”

“No, the baby was not very sick, but she cried so bitterly when she saw Edith dressed for the party, that I was afraid she would bring on a fever.”

“Therefore you disappointed Edith merely to gratify the whim of a petted infant.”

“I left her to do as she pleased; she immediately changed her dress, to pacify Margaret, and took her usual place by the cradle.”

“Yes, you left her to do as she pleased, after she had been allowed to discover exactly what you wished she should do. This is always the way, Sarah; the incident just mentioned, is only one out of hundreds, where Edith’s kind feelings have been made to interfere with her pleasures. I have long seen in the family a disposition to take advantage of her unselfish character, and it seems to me exceedingly unjust. I do not want to part with Edith, and should give her to a husband with great reluctance, but I insist that she should have a fair chance, and not be compelled to join the single sisterhood whether she will or not. You had better let match-making alone, Sarah; leave the girls to choose for themselves; only be careful that they have the right sort of admirers, from which to select their future master.”

Edith Pemberton was the eldest of a large family. Her father, immersed in business like most of our American merchants, spent the working days of every week at his counting room, only returning at evening, jaded and fatigued, to read the newspaper, and to doze upon the sofa till bed time. Governed by the erroneous ideas, which led men, in our country, to attempt the accumulation of a rapid fortune, in the vain hope of enjoying perfect leisure in their later years, Mr. Pemberton had become little more than a money-making machine. He loved his family but he had little time to devote to them. He spared no expense in the education of his children, liberally provided them with comforts, and punctually paid all the family bills, but he left all the management of household matters to his wife, who soon found it utterly useless to consult him on any domestic arrangement. His purse was always open to her demands, but his time he could not give. The consequence was that Mrs. Pemberton while endeavoring conscientiously to perform her duties, made the usual mistake, and fell into those habits which often convert our good wives into mere housekeepers and nurse maids; “household drudges” as our grumbling cousin Bull calls them. A rapidly increasing family, and her utter ignorance of her husband’s business prospects, induced her to practise the strictest economy which was consistent with comfort. Abandoning the elegant accomplishments which she had acquired with so much expense of time and labor at school, she secluded herself in her nursery, and in the care of her children and the duties of housekeeping found full employment.

In childhood, Edith was what old ladies call ‘a nice quiet little girl.’ Her delicate features, fair complexion, and blonde hair, established her claim to infantile beauty, while her bright smile, sweet voice and graceful gentleness seemed to win the love of all who knew her. Endowed with no remarkable intellect, no decided genius, she yet managed, by dint of good sense, industry and perseverance, to maintain her place at the head of her classes, and to leave school, which she did at fifteen, with the reputation of a very good scholar. A plain, but thorough English education, a little French, a few not very ill done drawings in water colors; some velvet paintings and a profound knowledge of the art of stitching in all its varieties, were the fruits of Edith’s studies. Gentle reader, do not despise the scanty list of accomplishments which she could number. It comprised the usual course of education at that time, and perhaps, in point of real usefulness, would bear a fair comparison with the more imposing “ sciences ” and “ ologies ” which are now presumed to be taught in schools of higher pretensions. Her skill in needlecraft was a most valuable acquisition to the eldest daughter of so numerous a family, and Mrs. Pemberton availed herself fully of its aid. Edith returned from school only to take her place as an assistant to her mother in the nursery. The maid whose business it was to take care of the children, was not trustworthy, and it became the duty of Edith to watch over the welfare of the little ones, while she employed her busy fingers in shaping and sewing their multifarious garments. Kindly in her feelings, affectionate in her disposition, gentle and patient in temper, she was dearly loved by the children. It was soon discovered that her influence could do more than the clamor of an impatient nursemaid, or the frown of a mother whose natural good temper had been fretted into irritability. If a child was refractory, sister Edith alone could administer medicine, or smooth the uneasy pillow,—and in short Edith became a kind of second mother to her five sisters and three brothers.

Had her nature been in the slightest degree tainted with selfishness, she might have reasonably murmured against the heavy burdens which were laid upon her at so early an age. But Edith never thought of herself. To contribute to the happiness of others was her chief pleasure, and she seemed totally unconscious of the value of her daily sacrifices. If any particularly disagreeable piece of work was to be done, it was always concluded that Edith would not refuse to undertake it; if any one was compelled to forego some anticipated pleasure, the lot was sure to fall on Edith; and in short the total absence of selfishness in her seemed to be the warrant for a double allowance of that ingredient in the characters of all around her. Have you never met, friend reader, with one of those kind, affectionate, ingenuous persons who have the knack of doing every thing well, and the tact of doing every thing kindly? and did you never observe that with this useful and willing person, every body seemed to claim the right of sharing their troubles? Such an one was Edith Pemberton.

But Edith was not proof against that passion which is usually libelled as selfish and engrossing. Edward Ellis had cultivated an intimacy with her young and studious brother, solely on her account, and the patience with which the gifted “senior,” assisted the efforts of the zealous “sophomore,” might be attributed less to friendship than to a warmer emotion. Ellis was talented, ambitious and vain, but he was also warm-hearted, and susceptible to virtuous impressions. The perfect gentleness, the feminine delicacy, the modest beauty of Edith had charmed the romantic student, and her unaffected admiration of his superior mental endowments, completed the spell of her fascination. His parents, well knowing how strong a safeguard against evil influences, is a virtuous attachment, rather encouraged his intimacy with the Pemberton family, without enquiring closely into his motives; and Edward was content to enjoy the present, leaving the future to take care of itself. In compliance with his wishes, his father had given him a liberal education, but when, upon leaving college he requested permission to study some profession, he met with a decided negative. “I wish you to be a merchant, Edward,” said his father, “I have given you an education which will enable you to be an enlightened and intelligent one, but upon yourself it depends to become a rich one. Talents and learning without money are of as little use as rough gems; they are curiosities for the cabinet of the virtuoso, not valuables to the man of sense; they must be polished and set in a golden frame before they can adorn the possessor, or seem precious in the eyes of the multitude. If you are wealthy, a little wisdom will procure you a great reputation; if you are poor your brightest talents only serve as a farthing rush-light to show you your own misery!” Such were the views of Mr. Ellis, and though his son differed widely from him in feeling, yet he dared not gainsay the assertions which he deemed the result of experience and worldly wisdom.

It was but a few days after the conversation just narrated that another of a different character took place between two of the parties interested. Edith was returning from a visit to a sick friend, just as evening was closing in, when she was met at her door, by Edward Ellis.

“Come with me, Edith,” said Edward hurriedly, “wrap your shawl about you, and walk with me on the Battery.”

“Not now, Mr. Ellis,” replied Edith, “it is quite late, and little Madge is waiting for me to sing her to sleep.”

“Psha! Edith, you are always thinking of some family matter; do you ever think of your own wishes?”

“Yes,” replied Edith, laughing, “and I confess I should prefer a pleasant walk with you to a warm and noisy nursery.”

“Then come,” said Edward, drawing her arm through his, “I have something of great consequence to say to you.”

Edith looked surprised, but the expression of Edward’s countenance was anxious and troubled, so she offered no further opposition. They entered the Battery, and walked along the river side, for some minutes in perfect silence, before Edward could summon courage to enter upon the subject nearest his thoughts. At length as they turned into a less frequented path, he abruptly exclaimed, “Do you know, Edith, that I am going away?”

Edith’s heart gave a sudden bound, and then every pulsation seemed as suddenly to cease, as with trembling voice she uttered a faint exclamation of astonishment.

“You are surprised, Edith, I knew you would be so, but have you no other feeling at this announcement of my departure? Nay, turn not your sweet face from me; I must know whether your heart responds to mine.”

Edith blushed and trembled as she thus listened, for the first time, to the voice of passionate tenderness. Feelings which had long been growing up unnoticed in her heart, and to which she had never thought of giving a name—fancies, beautiful in their vagueness,—emotions undefined and undetermined, but still pleasant in the indulgence,—all the

found in that instant their object and their aim. Edith had never thought of Edward as a lover, she had never looked into her heart to discover whether she really wished him to be such, but at the magic voice of affection, the mystery of her own heart was revealed to her, its secret recesses were unveiled to her gaze, and she knew that his image had long been there unconsciously enshrined. Her lover saw not all her emotions in her expressive countenance, but he read there no repulsive coldness, and as he clasped the little hand, which lay on his arm, he said:

“Listen to me, dear Edith; my father informed me, to-day, that he has made an arrangement with my uncle, (whom, as you know, has long resided at Smyrna,) by which I am to become the junior partner in the house, and he has directed me to be ready in three weeks, to sail in one of his ships, now lading for that port. How long I shall be absent, is uncertain, but as my uncle is desirous of returning to America, I presume that it is intended I shall take his place abroad. Years, therefore, may elapse ere I again behold my native land, and I cannot depart without telling you how dear you have long been to my heart. Yet let me not deceive you Edith: I have confessed to my father my affection for you,—he acknowledges your worth, and does not disapprove my choice, but he has positively forbidden me to form any engagement for the future. I am violating his commands in thus expressing my feelings to you.”

“What are his objections, Edward?” faltered the trembling girl.

“Oh it is the old story of over-prudent age; he says we may both change long before I return, and that it is best to be unfettered by any promise; then no harm can happen to either, and if you love me you will wait my return, without requiring any engagement to confirm your faith. Thus he argues and I can make no reply. I have no means of supporting a wife, therefore I dare not ask you of your parents, and my father’s caution deprives me of the only comfort which hope might have afforded me in my exile.”

Edith was deeply agitated, and her cheek grew pale, as she murmured: “You are right in obeying your father, Edward; happiness never yet waited on one who was deficient in filial duty.”

“And is this all you can say, Edith,” exclaimed Edward passionately. “Is this cold approval all I can hope to receive from the object of my first and only love? Have not my every look and tone told you how deeply I loved you, and can you let me depart without one word of tenderness or regret? Must I remember your gentle face but as a dream of boyhood? Shall your low, sweet voice be but as the melody of by-gone years? May I not bear with me, in my banishment, a hope, faint and cold it may be as the winter sunbeam, yet lighting up my dreary path with something like a promise of future happiness? Edith I ask no plighted faith; I wish you not to pledge me your hand till I can come forward and claim it openly; but I would fain know whether my love is but as incense flung upon the winds. If you can offer no return to my affection, dearest, let me at once know my fate, and with all the force of an over-mastering will, shall my heart be silenced, if not subdued. Say that you love me not, Edith, and though the stream of my life must forever bear your image on its surface, yet you shall never know how dark has been the shadow it has cast. Say that you love me not, and you shall never hear a murmur from my lips, nor shall your peaceful existence be saddened by the gloom which must ever pervade mine. You are silent Edith—you cannot bear to utter the words which must condemn me to despair.”

Ellis paused, and strove to read in Edith’s face, the feelings to which she could not give utterance. But her eyes were bent upon the ground, while the big tears fell like rain from beneath the drooping lids and in her flushed cheek he saw only displeasure.

“I was right, Edith,” said he, sadly, “you do not love me; forgive and forget my folly, but let us not part in coldness.” He took her hand again, as he spoke: “I perhaps deserve punishment for my selfishness in thus asking the heart when I could not claim the hand; when I am gone, some happier lover will perhaps ask both and then⁠—”

“He will be denied,” interrupted Edith, hastily, turning her agitated face towards her suitor. “This is no time for maiden coyness, Edward; your happiness and mine are both at stake, and therefore I tell you, what till this moment was unknown even to myself, that my affections are in your keeping.”

“Dearest, dearest Edith, then am I supremely happy; I ask no more; let the only bond between us be the secret one of cherished love.”

“Not so, Edward; you have promised your father not to enter into any engagement, but I am bound by no such restraints. You are, and must remain free from all other bonds than those of feeling, but if it will add to your happiness to be assured of my faith during your absence, I pledge you my word that my hand shall be yours whenever you come to claim it.”

“But your parents, Edith,—what will they say, if they find you clinging to a remembered lover, and perhaps rejecting some advantageous settlement?”

“They will suffer me to pursue my own course, Edward, and will be satisfied with any thing that binds me to my childhood’s home. I am too much the companion of my parents to be looked upon in the light of an intruder, when I prolong the period of filial dependence.”

“Then be it so, dearest; bound by no outward pledge, we will cherish our affection within our hearts, and since we must part, you will still gladden your quiet home with your sweet presence, while I will wander forth to win the fortune which can alone secure me my future happiness.”

Three weeks after this interview, Edward Ellis sailed for Smyrna, and Mrs. Pemberton, as she witnessed the ill-disguised agitation of the lovers, was compelled to acknowledge that “after all, she really believed, if Edward had staid, there would have been a match between him and Edith.”

But Edith buried within her own bosom, her newly awakened emotions. Her manner was always so quiet, that if her step did become less light, and her voice grow softer in its melancholy cadence, it was scarcely noticed by her thoughtless companions. She had learned that she was beloved, only in the moment of separation, and therefore there were few tender and blissful recollections to beguile the weary days of absence; but

She was one of those gentle beings who draw from the font of tenderness within their own bosoms, a full draught of sympathy for the sufferings and wants of others. She returned to her self-denying duties with a more thoughtful spirit and a more loving heart. Her character, always full of goodness and truth, seemed to assume an elevation of feeling, such as nothing but a pure and unselfish attachment can ever create. A desire to become in all respects, worthy of him whom she loved, gave a new tone to all her impulses, and her vivid sense of duty became blended with her earnest desire to merit her future happiness. Edward wrote very punctually to his young friend Charles Pemberton, and every letter contained some message to Edith, but she alone could detect the secret meaning of the apparently careless lines. They afforded sufficient nutriment to the love which was rapidly becoming a part of her very being; and Edith was content to abide her time!

In the mean time Mrs. Pemberton, who became an adept in match-making, busied herself in providing for her younger girls, and was fortunate enough to secure two most eligible offers. Caroline, at eighteen became the wife of a promising young lawyer, while Maria, who was nearly two years younger, married at the same time a prosperous merchant, who had lately set up his carriage and, as he had no time to use it himself, wanted a wife to ride in it. Mrs. Pemberton was in ecstasies, for she had succeeded in all her plans. Edith was still at home, as a sort of house keeper, head cook, chief nurse, etc. etc., sharing every body’s labors and lightening every body’s troubles, while the two giddy girls who had resolved not to become useful as long as they could avoid the necessity of it, were respectably settled in their own homes. She was never tired of extolling the talents of one son-in-law, and the fine fortune of the other, while she spoke of Edith as “that dear good girl, who, I am happy to say, is a confirmed old maid, and will never leave her mother while she lives.” But this manœuvre did not discourage several from seeking the hand of the gentle girl. Her father wondered when she refused two of the most unexceptionable offers, and even her mother felt almost sorry, when she declined the addresses of an elderly widower, endowed with a fortune of half a million, and a family of fine children. But a total want of congeniality of feeling in all her immediate friends, had taught Edith a degree of reserve which seemed effectually to conceal her deepest feelings. She was patient and trustful, she considered herself affianced in heart, and though conscious that not even the tie of honor, as the world would consider it, bound her lover to his troth, she felt no misgivings as to his fidelity. She trod the even tenor of her way, diffusing cheerfulness and comfort around her, thinking for every body, remembering every thing and forgetting only herself. None sought her sympathy or assistance in vain; in her own family—in the chamber of sickness or death, among her friends,—in the hovel of poverty and distress, she was alike useful and kindly. Every one loved her, and even those who tested her powers of endurance most fully, almost idolized the unselfish and affectionate daughter and sister.

Years passed on, and brought their usual chances and charges. Caroline became a mother, and fancied that her cares were quite too heavy for her to bear alone. Edith was therefore summoned to assist and soon found herself occupying a similar station in her sister’s nursery to that which she had long filled at home. The baby was often sick and always cross; nobody but Edith could manage him, and therefore Edith took the entire charge of him, while the mother paid visits and the nurse gossiped in the kitchen. Maria too began to assert claims upon her. She, poor thing, was entirely too young for the duties she had undertaken. Thoughtless, fond of dress, and profuse in household expenditure, she had no idea of systematic housekeeping, and Edith was called in to place matters on a better footing. But before Maria had attained her eighteenth year, her family was rather liberally increased by the addition of twin daughters, and again the agency of the useful sister was required. Her girlhood had been consumed amid womanly cares, and now her years of blooming womanhood were to be wasted in supplying the deficiencies of those who had incurred responsibilities which exceeded their powers. Yet Edith never thought of murmuring. She had been so long accustomed to live for others that self-sacrifice had now become habitual, and she never dreamed too much might be asked of or granted by sisterly affection.

It is a common remark that the years seem to grow shorter as we advance in life, and they who could once exclaim “ a whole year! ” in accents of unqualified alarm at its length, at last find themselves referring to the same space in the careless tone of indifference as “ only a year .” Twelve months had seemed almost an eternity to Edith when her lover first bade her farewell, and the time that intervened between his letters to her brother seemed almost endless. But as she became engrossed in new cares, and her youth began to slip by, the years seemed to revolve with greater speed, even although Charles was now in a distant part of the country and the correspondence between him and her lover if it was still continued, never met her eye. She had formed an intimacy with Edward’s mother, and, as the old lady was very fond of needle-worked pin-cushions, net purses, worsted fire screens, and all such little nick nacks if obtained without expense, Edith was soon established in her good graces. She was thus enabled to see Edward’s letters to his parents, and though they were very business-like commonplace affairs, not at all resembling a lady’s beau-ideal of a lover’s epistle, still Edith was satisfied. It was strange that so strong, so abiding, so pervading a passion should have taken possession of a creature so gentle, so almost cold in her demeanor. But the calmest exterior often conceals the strongest emotions, and, if the flow of Edith’s feelings was quiet it was only because they worked for themselves a deeper and less fathomable channel.

Seventeen years,—a long period in the annals of time, and a longer in the records of the heart;—seventeen years passed ere Edward Ellis returned to his native land. He had left it a romantic warm-hearted youth and he returned a respectable, intelligent, wealthy man. The ambition which would have led him to seek literary fame, had been expended in search of other distinctions in the world of commerce. He had become a keen observer of men and an acute student of the more sordid qualities of human nature—in a word, he had devoted his fine energies to the acquisition of wealth, and as his father predicted, he had so well availed himself of his opportunities that he was both an enlightened and rich merchant. But the romance of his early days had long since passed away. The imaginative student was concealed or rather lost in the man of the world. Thrown upon his own resources, in a foreign land, and surrounded by strangers he had learned to think and act for himself. He had acquired the worldly wisdom which enabled him to study his own interests, and it is not strange that selfishness should have mingled its alloy with his naturally amiable character. During his long sojourn abroad no claims had been made upon his affections, he had lived unloving and unloved, and the warm current of his feelings seemed gradually to have become chilled. When seen through the mist of absence, or viewed through the long vista of time, the familiar faces of his distant home, faded into vague and indistinct images. He returned to the scenes of his youth with a feeling of strangeness and the remembrances at every step of his approach were rather mournful than pleasant to his soul.

Edward Ellis had been several days at home, he had fully answered all the claims filial and fraternal duty, and received the congratulations of the friends who are always found ready to note one’s good fortune, ere he bent his steps towards the dwelling of Edith Pemberton. His feelings in this as in most other things were materially altered. His early passion, like his aspirations after fame, had become but as a dream of the past, a shadow of some unattainable felicity. The hope which once made his love a source of anticipated happiness, had long since faded from his sight, and as time passed on, a tender and melancholy interest, such as one feels when regarding the youthful dead, was the only emotion which the recollection of Edith could inspire. He had outlived the affection which he had designed to be the measure of their existence. The flower had been blighted by the cold breath of worldliness, and so many sordid interests had occupied his heart since, that every trace of its beauty was lost forever. Not with a wish to revive old feelings, but from a morbid restless unsatisfied yearning towards the past, Ellis betook himself to the abode of his once loved Edith.

As he entered the hall, and ere the servant could announce his name, a young lady emerged from the drawing-room, and met him face to face. He started in unfeigned surprise, as he exclaimed:⁠—

“Miss Pemberton!—Edith—can it be possible?”

The lady looked a little alarmed, and opening the door through which she had just passed said:⁠—

“My name is Margaret, sir; did you wish to see sister Edith?”

He answered in the affirmative, and as he took his seat while the sylph-like figure of the beautiful girl disappeared, he could not help glancing at the mirror, where a moment’s reflection soon convinced him that the years which had so changed him could scarcely have left Edith untouched. The thought that Margaret whom he had left almost an infant should have thus expanded into the lovely image of her sister, prepared him in some measure for other changes.

Edith had expected his visit with a flutter of spirits most unusual and distressing. She was conscious that he would find her sadly altered in person, and she had been trying to school herself for the interview, which she well knew must be fraught with pain even if it brought happiness. But when her young sister came to her with a ludicrous account of the strange gentleman’s droll mistake, her prophetic soul, which had acquired the gift of prescience from sorrow, saw but too plainly the cloud upon her future. She descended to the drawing-room with a determination to control her emotions, and, to one so accustomed to self command, the task though difficult was not impossible. The meeting between the long parted lovers was painful and full of constraint. In the emaciated figure, and hollow cheek of her who had long passed the spring of life, Ellis saw little to awaken the associations of early affection, for the being who now appeared before him scarcely retained a trace of her former self. Time, and care, and the wearing anxiety of hope deferred had blighted the beauty which under happier circumstances might have outlived her youthfulness. Edith was now only a placid pleasant looking woman with that indescribable air of mannerism which always characterises the single lady of a certain age, and as Ellis compared her present appearance with that of her blooming sister, who bore a most singular resemblance to her, he was tempted to feel a secret satisfaction in the belief that her heart was as much changed as her person.

And what felt Edith at this meeting? She had lived on one sweet hope, and had borne absence, and sorrow, and the wasting of weary expectancy with the patience of a loving and trusting heart. It is true that, as years sped on, she lost much of the sanguine temper which once seemed to abbreviate time and diminish space. It is true that as time stole the bloom from her cheek and the brightness from her eye, many a misgiving troubled her gentle bosom, and the shadow of a settled grief seemed gradually extending its gloom over her feelings. But still hope existed,—no longer as the brilliant sunshine of existence,—no longer as the only hope which the future could afford,—but faded and dim—its radiance lost in the mist of years, yet still retaining a spark of its early warmth. She had many doubts and fears but she still had pleasant fancies of the future, which, cherished in her secret heart, were the only fountains of delight in the dreary desert of her wasted feelings. But now all was at an end. They had met, not as strangers, but, far worse, as estranged friends. The dream of her life was rudely broken—the veil was lifted from her eyes,—the illusion which had given all she knew of happiness, was destroyed forever. In the words of him who has sounded every string of love’s sweet lyre, she might have exclaimed in the bitterness of her heart:⁠—

Mrs. Pemberton at first formed some schemes, founded on the remembrance of Edward’s former liking for Edith, but when she learned his error respecting Margaret she began to fancy that if her eldest daughter was a little too old, the younger was none too young to make a good wife for the rich merchant. She expressed her admiration of his expanded figure, extolled his fine hair, which happened to be a well made wig, was in raptures with his beautiful teeth which owed their brilliancy to the skill of a French dentist, and, in short, left no means untried to accomplish her end. But she was doomed to disappointment. It is not easy to kindle a new flame from the ashes of an extinguished passion. There was a secret consciousness, a sense of dissatisfaction with himself, that made Ellis rather shrink from Edith’s society, and threw an air of constraint over his manner towards the whole family. He was not happy in the presence of her who appeared before him as a spectre of the past, bearing reproaches in its melancholy countenance, and after a few embarrassed attempts at carelessness in his intercourse with her, he ceased entirely to visit the family.

No one ever knew what Edith suffered, for no one suspected her long-cherished attachment. Her step became languid, her cheek sunken, her eye unnaturally bright, and when at length, a hacking cough fastened itself upon her lungs, every body said that Edith Pemberton was falling into a consumption. Some attributed it to a cold taken when nursing her sister through a dangerous illness,—others thought she had worn out her health among her numerous nephews and nieces. But the worm lay at the root of the tree and though the storm and the wind might work its final overthrow, the true cause of its fall was the gnawing of the secret destroyer. Gradually and quietly and silently she faded from among the living. Friends gathered round her couch of suffering and the consolations of the Book of all truth smoothed her passage to the tomb. With a world of sorrow and care sinking from her view, and an eternal life of happiness opening upon her dying eyes, she closed her useful and blameless life.

On the very day fixed upon for his marriage with a young and fashionable heiress, Edward Ellis received a summons to attend, as pall bearer, the funeral of Edith Pemberton. Of course he could not decline, and as he beheld the earth flung upon the coffin which concealed the faded form of her whom he had once loved, the heart of the selfish and worldly man was touched with pity and remorse. But he turned from Edith’s grave to his own bridal and in the festivities of that gay scene soon forgot her who, after a life spent in the service of others, had fallen a victim to that chronic heart-break which destroys many a victim never numbered in the records of mortality.

Gentle reader, I have told you a simple story, but one so like the truth, that you will be tempted to conjecture that the real heroine has been actually known to you. Will not the circle of your own acquaintance furnish an Edith Pemberton?—a gentle, lovely and loveable woman, who leads a life of quiet benevolence, and whose obscure and peaceful existence is marked by deeds of kindness, even as the windings of a summer brook are traced by the freshness of the verdure and flowers that adorn its banks? Have you never met with one of those persons on whose gravestone might be inscribed the beautiful and touching lines of the poet Delille?

And when you have listened to the bitter jest, the keen sarcasm and the thoughtless ridicule which the young and gay are apt to utter against “ the old maid ,” has it never occurred to you that each of these solitary and useful beings may have her own true tale of young and disappointed affection?

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BY N. C. BROOKS.

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BY GEORGE LUNT.

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BY HENRY COOD WATSON.

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From whence does the Musician draw his inspiration? This question is often asked, but seldom correctly answered. Music, as a science, is but little understood. The importance of its detail is not considered, because its effects are not examined, by the appreciating eye of knowledge. To common observers, music possesses no feature worthy of consideration, beyond an accidental succession of notes, which gives a pleasing sensation to the ear, without intention or design. Most persons believe that they could write music, if they only knew their notes. To “turn” a melody is the easiest thing in life, and all the adjuncts, harmony and instrumentation, are merely mechanical parts of the art, which every one might learn. This is a popular and very gross error. Music is either a simple succession of relative intervals, which form a melody, or an aggregate of consonant or dissonant sounds, which produces a harmony. These two combined, form a vehicle for the expression of the passions of the human heart, more forcible and more truthful, than the noblest works of either the painter or the poet.

It would require too much space, and would lead me too far from my original subject, to enquire into, and to trace out, the means by which simple sounds, produced by vibration, percussion or detonation, affect the mind and imagination of the hearer. It will be sufficient to say, that the individual experience of every one, will bear witness to the existence of this most powerful agency.

The music of a low sweet voice, how it penetrates and vibrates through the whole being! The music of the small birds, though limited in its scale, how it fills up the measure of the imagination, by giving a voice of harmony to the silent beauties of nature. The pealing organ with its various tones, breathes out religious strains, and moves the heart to penitence and prayer. This instrument is suited above all others, to display the imagination of a master hand, from the vast extent of its compass, and the almost endless variety of its powers by combinations. It affects the imagination more than any individual instrument, or any combination of instruments. How deep and varied the emotions of the heart of him, whose “spirit is attentive,” while listening to one of the sublime masses of Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven. With what a thrilling and awful feeling, the dark, mysterious and wailing miserere falls upon the soul; and with what a happy contrast, does the beautiful and comforting benedictus, pour “oil upon the bruised spirit.”

The shrill fife, the hollow drum and the clangourous trumpet, speak to other and wilder passions of our hearts. They breathe an inspiration into the mind; they nerve the arm, make firm the tread, and give an animated existence to slumbering ambition, or wavering courage. The soft toned flute, the plaintive oboe, the mellow clarionette, with the other various harmonious instruments, under the influence of the creative mind, affect to smiles or tears, discourse of love, or breathe of hate, according to the shades of feeling pourtrayed by the composition.

But by what means is the imitation of these non-tangible things, transferred to a medium, which is not visible to the eye, nor distinguishable to the touch? From whence does the musician draw, to enable him to affect his hearers, by the means of sound, with the very feelings which he attempts to imitate? We will proceed to answer these inquiries.

The task of the poet is one of less difficulty, than the task of the musician, for he treats of real or imaginary subjects, with the aid of a medium that is universally understood and appreciated, according to the various degrees, and powers of the peruser’s intellect. This medium is language. Words embody and define ideas; a word can express a passion, and other words can describe its rise and progress, and follow it in all its secret channels, and through all its numerous ramifications. The power of language is unbounded. Every thing that is, has a name, which name becomes associated with it in the mind, and inseparable from it, always presenting to the mental vision the object that it represents. The most subtle emotions of the human mind, feelings which lie deep in the recesses of the heart, can be torn from their lair, and displayed before the world by means of this mighty agent. Even nature with her ten thousand hoarded secrets, is over mastered, and bares her bosom to the force of thought, and stands revealed to the world, yea, even to her innermost core, by the power of language. To aid him in the task, the poet hath a million adjuncts. He moves amidst the human world, and gathers from its denizens, unending food for thought and observation,—their joys and their sorrows; their pursuits and their ends; their passions and their vices, their virtues and their charities. The life of a single being in that living mass, would form a subject of varied and startling interest, and leave but little for the imagination to fill up, or to heighten. He looks up into the heavens, and finds a space of boundless immensity, in which his restless speculation may run riot. He looks abroad upon the face of nature, and there are endless stores of bright and beautiful things, to feed his fancy, to stimulate his imagination and refresh his thoughts.

How few of these fruitful themes, are available to the musician!

The painter in all his beautiful creations, pourtrays his subjects by the means of the actual. From the living loveliness which he daily sees, he hoards up rich stores of beauty, for some happy thought. But to aid him in his labors, he has the actual form and color, light and shade. The forms of beauty that glow and breathe upon the canvass; the quiet landscape, so full of harmony and peacefulness; the rolling ocean, the strife of the elements, the wild commingling of warring men, are but the transcripts of the actual things.

The sculptor as he hews from the rough block, some form of exquisite loveliness, whose charms shall throw a spell over men’s souls for ages, does but compress into one fair creation, the beauties of a thousand living models.

But the resources of the musician are in his own soul. From that alone can he forge the chain of melody, that shall bind the senses in a wordless ecstasy. Tangibilities to him are useless. Comparisons are of no avail. He individualises, but does not reflect. He feels but does not think. He deals with action and emotion, but form and substance are beyond his imitation. He is a metaphysician, but not a philosopher. But the depth of the music, will depend entirely upon the man. From a close study of the works of Mozart and Beethoven, a correct and metaphysical analysis of their characters can be obtained. In the early works of Mozart will be found a continuous chain of tender and impassioned sentiment; an overflowing of soul, an exuberance of love, and his early life will be found to be a counterpart of these emotions. In him the passions were developed at an age, when in ordinary children their germ would be scarcely observed. Loved almost to idolatry by his family, and loving them as fondly in return, his life was passed in one unceasing round of the tenderest endearments. All that was beautiful in his nature was brought into action, and gave that tone of exquisite tenderness, that pervades all his imperishable works. But as the passing years brought with them an increase of thought and reflection, a change is to be found equally in the character of the music and the man. This change can be traced in his later operas, Le Nozze de Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi Fan Tutti, La Clemenza di Tito, Die Zauberflöte, and Die Entführung aus dem Serail. In these works there is the evidence of deeper and more comprehensive thought; the metaphysical identity of character is as strictly maintained, and as closely developed, as it could be pourtrayed by words. His Il Don Giovanni, stands now, and will forever stand, an unapproachable model of musical perfection.

The character of Beethoven exhibits no decided change through life, excepting, that in his later years the characteristics of his youth and manhood, increased to a degree of morbid acuteness. From his earliest childhood he was of a retiring, studious, and reflective nature. The conscious possession of great genius, made him wilful and unyielding in his opinions. Too high minded to court favours, he at various times suffered the severest privations that poverty could inflict; and, taking deeply to heart the total want of public appreciation, he became morose, distrustful and dissatisfied. These feelings were rendered morbid in the highest degree, by the melancholy affliction that assailed him in his later years. He became nearly deaf, and was consequently deprived of the dearest enjoyment of a musician’s life. These feelings were developed, in a marked degree, in all his purely ideal compositions. Dark and mysterious strains of harmony would be succeeded by a burst of wild and melancholy fancy. Anon a tender, but broad and flowing melody, would melt the soul by its passionate pathos, but only of sufficient duration to render the cadence of heart-rending despair, which succeeds it, the more striking. Rapid and abrupt modulations, strange and startling combinations, bore evidence of his wild imagination, and the uncontrollable impulse of his feelings. The opera of Fidelio, the only dramatic work that he ever wrote, ranks only second to Don Giovanni. In Fidelio each person has a distinct musical character, so clearly and forcibly marked, that the aid of words is not necessary to distinguish them. It would be impossible to transpose them without losing their identity, and destroying the sense of the music. Mozart’s genius was tender yet sublime: Beethoven’s was melancholy, mysterious, yet gigantic. Each painted himself; each drew from his own bosom all the inspiration his works exhibited. They required no outward influence; they needed no adventitious circumstances to rouse their imagination, or to cause their thoughts to flow, for in their own souls was an ever gushing spring of divine melody, that could not be controlled. They thought music , and, as light flows from the sun, gladdening the creation, so their music came from them, irradiating the hearts of men, and throwing over them a delicious spell, whose charm is everlasting.

Music is so ethereal, and deals so little in realities, that its followers, partaking of its characteristics, are in most instances, impulsive, impassioned and unworldly. Careless of the excitements and mutations of the times; unambitious of place or power; indifferent to the struggles and heart-burnings of party politicians, from the utter uncongeniality of the feelings and emotions they engender, with their own, they live secluded, shut up within their own hearts, and seldom appear to the world in their true colors, from the utter impossibility of making it comprehend or sympathise with their refined and mysterious feelings. The world has no conception of the exquisite delight that music confers upon musicians. It is not mere pleasure; it is not a mere gratification that can be experienced and forgotten! Oh, no! It is a blending of the physical with the intellectual; it softens the nature; it heightens the imagination; it throws a delicious languor over the whole organization; it isolates the thoughts, concentrating them only to listen and receive; it elevates the soul to a region of its own, until it is faint with breathing the melodious atmosphere.

Music is the offspring of these feelings. The inspiration is the gift of God alone, and cannot be added to or diminished.

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BY CHARLES LANMAN, AUTHOR OF “ESSAYS FOR SUMMER HOURS.”

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At one stride came the dark, and it is now night. Cold and loud is the raging storm. Rain enow and sleet are dashing most furiously against the windows,—actually dampening the curtains within. There—there goes a shutter, torn from its hinges by the wind! Another gust,—and how desolate its moan! It is the voice of the Winter Storm Spirit, who comes from beyond the ice-plains of the North. I can interpret his cry, which is dismal as the howl of wolves.

“Mortal crouch—crouch like a worm beside thy hearth-stone and acknowledge thy insignificance. When the skies are bright, and thou art surrounded by the comforts of life, thou goest forth among thy fellows boasting of thine intellect and greatness. But when the elements arise, shaking the very earth to its foundation, thou dost tremble with fear, and thy boasting is forgotten. Approach the window, and as thou lookest upon the gloom of this stormy night, learn a lesson of humility. Thou art in thyself as frail and helpless as the icicle depending from yonder bough.

“O, this is a glorious night for me! I have broken the chains which have bound me in the Arctic Sea, and fearful elements follow in my path to execute my bidding. Listen, while I picture to your mind a few of the countless scenes I have witnessed, which are terrible to man, but to me a delight.

“An hundred miles away, there is a lonely cottage on the border of an inland lake. An hour ago I passed by there, and a mingled sound of woe came from its inmates, for they were poor and sick, and had no wood. A miserable starving dog was whining at their door. I laughed with joy and left them to their suffering.

“I came to a broad river, where two ferrymen were toiling painfully at their work. I loosened the ice that had been formed farther up, and it crushed them to death in its mad career.

“Beside a mountain, a solitary foot-traveller, of three score years and ten, was ascending a road heavily and slow. I chilled the crimson current in his veins, and the pure white snow became his winding sheet. What matter! It was his time to die.

“On yonder rock-bound coast, a fisherman was startled from his fireside by a signal of distress. He looked through the darkness and discovered a noble ship hastening toward a dangerous reef. I brought her there, regardless of the costly merchandize and freight of human life. She struck,—and three hundred hardy men went down into that black roaring element which gives not back its dead. The morrow will dawn, and the child at home will lisp its father’s name, unconscious of his fate, and the wife will smile and press her infant to her bosom, not doubting but that her husband will soon return to bless her with his love. I have no sympathy with the widow and the fatherless.

“Hark! did you not hear it?—that dismal shout! Alas! the deed is done,—the touch of the incendiary hath kindled a fire such as this city has never beheld. What rich and glowing color in those clouds of smoke rising so heavily from yonder turrets! Already they are changed into an ocean of flame, hissing and roaring. Unheard, save at intervals, is the cry of the watchman, and the ringing bells; and muffled are the hasty footsteps of the thronging multitude, for the snow is deep. Slowly do the engines rumble along, while strained to their utmost are the sinews of those hardy firemen. But useless is all this noise and labor, for the receptacles of water are blocked with ice. Fire! fire!! fire!!!”

And here endeth the song of Euroclydon, which was listened to on the 16th of December, 1835. It will be recollected, that when the sun rose in unclouded beauty on the following morning, six hundred buildings had been consumed, many lives lost and twenty millions of property destroyed.

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BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUIZING IN THE LAST WAR,” “THE REEFER OF ’76,” ETC. ETC.

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THE EXPEDITION.

It was a melancholy day when the body of the murdered Mr. Neville was deposited in the burial ground of the port of ——; and if strangers shed tears at his funeral what must have been the emotions of his orphaned daughter! All that kindness could do, however, was done to alleviate her grief; her friends crowded around her to offer consolation; and even our hardy tars showed their sympathy for her by more than one act. It was a fortunate occurrence that she had a near relative in town, and in his family accordingly she took up her residence, where she could indulge her sorrow on the bosoms of those who were united to her by natural ties, and could sympathize with her the more sincerely because they knew the worth of which she had been deprived. It is one of the wisest dispensations of Providence that our grief should be shared, and as it were soothed, by those we love.

The pirates had no sooner been committed to prison than endeavors were made, on the part of the authorities, to ascertain the haunt of the gang; for its depredations had been carried on during the past year to an extent that left no doubt that the prisoners formed only a detachment of a larger body, which, dividing into different parties, preyed on the commerce of the surrounding islands, from as many different points. Where the head-quarters of the pirates were held was however unknown; as every attempt to discover them, or even to capture any of the gang had hitherto proved abortive. The authorities were, therefore, anxious to get one or more of the prisoners to reveal the retreat of their messmates on a promise of pardon; but for some time their efforts were unavailing, as each prisoner knew, that if any of the gang escaped, the life of the traitor would not be worth a moment’s purchase. At length, however, the temptations held out to two of the prisoners proved irresistible, and they revealed the secret which the governor-general was so anxious to know. The head-quarters of the pirates proved to be on a small island, some leagues north of the spot where we captured the prisoners. The place was said to be admirably fortified by nature, and there was no doubt, from the prisoners’ confession, that art had been called in to render the retreat impregnable.

The number of the pirates usually left behind to protect their head-quarters was said to amount to a considerable force. Notwithstanding these things, the governor-general resolved on sending a secret expedition to carry the place and, if possible, make prisoners of the whole nest of freebooters. As, however, the spies of the gang were known to infest the town, it was necessary to carry on the preparations for the expedition with the utmost caution, so that no intelligence of the contemplated attack should reach the pirates to warn them of their danger. While, therefore, the authorities were apparently occupied with the approaching trial to the exclusion of everything else, they were, in fact, secretly making the most active exertions to fit out an expedition for the purpose of breaking up the haunts of the gang. Several vessels were purchased, ostensibly for private purposes; and soldiers drafted into them, under the cloud of night. The vessels then left the harbor, cleared for various ports, with the understanding, however, that they should all rendezvous on an appointed day at a cape a few leagues distant from the retreat of the pirates. So adroitly was the affair managed, that the various vessels composing the expedition left the port unsuspected—even high officers of government who were not admitted to the secret, regarding them merely as common merchant-men departing on their several voyages. Indeed, had an attack been contemplated on a hostile power the preparations could not have been more secret or comprehensive. The almost incredible strength of the piratical force rendered such preparations, however, not only desirable but necessary.

I was one among the few admitted to the secret, for the governor-general did me the honor to consult me on several important particulars respecting the expedition. Tired of the life of inactivity I was leading, and anxious to see the end of the adventure, I offered to accompany the enterprise as a volunteer—an offer which his excellency gladly accepted.

We set sail in a trim little brig, disguised as a merchantman; but as soon as morning dawned and we had gained an offing, we threw off our disguise, and presented an armament of six guns on a side, with a proportionable number of men. Our craft, indeed, was the heaviest one belonging to the expedition, and all on board acquainted with her destination were sanguine of success.

The wind proved favorable, and in less than forty-eight hours we made Capo del Istri, where the four vessels composing the expedition were to rendezvous. As we approached the promontory, we discovered one after another of the little fleet, for as we had been the last to leave port, our consorts had naturally first reached the rendezvous, and in a few minutes we hove to in the centre of the squadron hoisting a signal for the respective captains to come aboard, in order to consult respecting the attack.

The den of the pirates was situated at the head of a narrow strait, communicating with a lagoon of some extent, formed by the waters of a river collecting in the hollow of three hills, before they discharged themselves into the sea. Across the mouth of this lagoon was moored the hull of a dismasted ship, in such a position that her broadside commanded the entrance to the lake. Behind, the huts of the piratical settlement stretched along the shore, while the various vessels of the freebooters lay anchored in different positions in the lagoon. Such, at least, we were told, was the appearance of the place when the pirates were not absent on their expeditions.

Our plan of attack was soon arranged. It was determined to divide our forces into two divisions, so that while one party should attack the pirates in front the other should take a more circuitous path, and penetrating by land to the back of the settlement, take the enemy in the rear. As night was already closing in, it was determined to disembark the latter party at once, so that it might proceed, under the guidance of one of the prisoners, to the position behind the enemy, and reach there, as near as possible, at the first dawn of day. It was arranged that the attack by water should commence an hour or two before day. By this means each party could reach its point of attack almost simultaneously. The onset however was to be first made from the water side, and the ambuscade in the rear of the foe was not to show itself until the fight had made some progress on our side.

The men destined for the land service were accordingly mustered and set ashore, under the guidance of one of the prisoners. We watched their receding forms through the twilight until they were lost to view, when we sought our hammocks for a few hours repose preparatory to what might be our last conflict.

The night was yet young, however, when we entered the mouth of the strait, and with a favorable breeze sailed along up towards the lagoon. The shallowness of the water in the channel had compelled us to leave our two larger craft behind and our forces were consequently crowded into the remaining vessels. Neither of these carried a broadside of weight sufficient to cope with that of the hull moored across the mouth of the lagoon.

As we advanced up the strait a death-like stillness reigned on its shadowy shores; and we had nearly reached the mouth of the lagoon before any sign betokened that the pirates were aware of our approach. We could just catch sight of the tall rakish masts of a schooner over the low tree tops on the right, when a gun was heard in the direction of the lagoon, whether accidently fired or not we could not tell. We listened attentively for a repetition of the sound; but it came not. Could it have been a careless discharge from our own friends in the rear of the foe, or was it a warning fired by one of the pirates’ sentinels? Five or ten minutes elapsed, however, and all was silent. Meantime our vessels, with a wind free over the taffrail, were stealing almost noiselessly along the smooth surface of the strait; while the men lying close at their quarters, fully armed for the combat, breathlessly awaited the moment of attack, the intenseness of their excitement increasing as the period approached.

My own emotions I will not attempt to pourtray. We were already within a cable’s length of the end of the strait, and in rounding-to into the lagoon we would if our approach had been detected, have to run the gauntlet of the broadside of the craft guarding this approach to the pirates’ den—a broadside which if well delivered would in all probability send us to the bottom. Our peril was indeed imminent. And the uncertainty whether our approach had been detected or not created a feeling of nervous suspense which increased our sensation of our peril.

“A minute more and we shall shoot by the pirate,” said I to the captain of our craft.

“Ay!” said he, “I have just passed the word for the men to lie down under the shelter of the bulwarks, so that if they pour a fire of musketry into us, we shall escape it as much as possible. Let us follow their example.”

We sheltered ourselves just forward of the wheel-house, so that as the vessel came around on the starboard tack, no living individual was left standing on the deck, except the helmsman. The next moment, leaving the shelter of the high bank, we swept into the lagoon, and saw the dark hull of the opposing vessel moored directly across our way.

Our suspense however was soon brought to a close. We had scarcely come abreast of the enemy’s broadside when, as if by magic, her port-holes were thrown open, and as the blaze of the battle lanterns streamed across the night, her guns were run out and instantaneously her fire was poured out from stem to stern in one continuous sheet of flame. Our mainmast went at once by the board; our hull was fearfully cut up; and the shrieks of the wounded of our crew rose up in terrible discord as the roar of the broadside died away. But we still had headway. Springing to his feet the captain shouted to cut away the hamper that dragged the mainmast by our side. His orders were instantly obeyed. The schooner was once more headed for the hulk, and with a loud cheer our men sprang to their guns, while our consort behind opened her fire at the same moment. Our light armament however was almost wholly inefficient. But happily we had not relied on it.

“Lay her aboard!” shouted the captain, “boarders away!”

At the word, amid the fire of a renewed broadside we dashed up to the foe, and running her afoul just abaft of the mizzen-chains, poured our exasperated men like a torrent upon her decks. I was one of the first to mount her bulwarks. Attacked thus at their very guns the pirates rallied desperately to the defence, and a furious combat ensued. I remember striking eagerly for a moment or two in the very thickest of the fight, and then feeling a sharp pain in my side, as a pistol went off beside me. I have a faint recollection of sinking to the deck, but after that all is a void.

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BY MISS LESLIE.

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(Continued from page 209.)

PART II.

The two winters that I spent at West Point, though long and cold, were by no means tedious. Secluded as we were from the rest of the world, while the river was locked up in ice, still we contrived amusements for ourselves, and had much enjoyment in our own way. The society of the place, though not large, was excellent. And in the evening (the best time for social intercourse) almost every member of our little circle was either out visiting, or at home entertaining visiters. There were reading-parties that assembled every Thursday night at the respective houses—the ladies bringing their work, and the gentlemen their books. The gentlemen had also weekly chess-parties, of ten or twelve chess-players and five or six chess-boards. They met at an early hour, and no ladies being present, they seriously set to work at this absorbing game—the solemnities being interrupted only by a petit souper at ten o’clock,—after which they resumed their chess, and frequently took no note of time till near midnight.

On the second winter of my abode at West Point, we had a series of regular subscription-balls, held in the large up-stairs room of the mess hall—the expense being defrayed by the officers and professors. On the first of these evenings the ground was hard frozen, but as yet no snow had fallen. The managers had notified that the ladies were all to ride to the ball. We were at a loss to conjecture where they would find conveyances for us—and we were not Cinderellas with convenient fairy-godmothers to transform pumpkins into coaches. An omnibus would have been a glorious acquisition—but at that time there was nothing on West Point in the shape of a wheeled carriage, with the exception of the doctor’s gig. This vehicle was pressed into the service—and having great duty to perform, it commenced its trips at a very early hour, actually calling for the first lady at five o’clock in the afternoon—and from that time it was continually coming and going like a short stage. At last, by way of expediting the business, they thought proper to adopt, as an auxiliary to the gig, another conveyance not of the most dignified character. But then nobody saw us but ourselves—and newspaper correspondents had not yet begun to come up to West Point to forage among us in quest of food for their columns.

My sister-in-law and myself had not quite finished dressing, when we heard my brother down stairs calling to our man to know why he had thrown open the large gate?—“To let in the cart, sir, to take the ladies to the ball”—was Richard’s reply. And, true enough, we found at the door a real bonâ fide open cart, having its flooring covered with straw. In it were some rather inelegant chairs, upon which my sister and I seated ourselves, like a couple of market-women. My brother having assisted us in, seemed to think it unofficer-like conduct to ride in a cart, and therefore, preferred walking—which, however, was no great fatigue, the distance being only a few furlongs from the house in which we then lived to the mess hall. The driver perched himself on the edge of the front board—and after a few steps of the horse, each accompanied by one jolt and two creaks, we were safely transported to the ball.

Fortunately, before the next soirée de danse the ground was covered with a deep snow; and the sleighing was excellent during the remainder of the winter. As sleighs were singularly plenty on West Point, and as a sleigh has the faculty of holding ladies ad libitum , the company was conveyed very expeditiously to the subsequent balls. This mode of transportation was found so convenient, that at the close of the season, (which was not till late in March,) though the snow had all disappeared and the ground was clear, the sleighs were still kept in requisition; and we went to the last ball sleighing upon nothing.

I well remember being at a New Year’s ball given by the cadets. This also took place in the large upper room of the mess hall. The decorations (which were the best the place and the season could furnish) were planned and executed entirely by those young gentlemen. For several previous days they had devoted their leisure-time to cutting and bringing in an immense quantity of evergreens, with which they festooned the walls, and converted every one of the numerous windows into a sort of bower, by arching it from the top to the floor with an impervious mass of thickly-woven foliage. The pillars that supported the ceiling were each encircled by muskets with very bright bayonets. The orchestra for the music was constructed of the national flag that belonged to the post. This flag, which, when flying out from the top of its lofty staff, looks at that height scarcely more than a yard or two in length, is, in reality, so large, that when taken down two men are required to carry it away in its voluminous folds. On this occasion the drapery of the stars and stripes was ingeniously disposed, so as to form something like a stage-box with a canopy over it. The two elegant standards that had been presented to the corps of cadets by the hands of ladies, were fancifully and gracefully suspended between the central pillars, and waved over the heads of the dancers. Affixed to the walls were numerous lights in sconces, decorated with wreaths of the mountain-laurel whose leaves are green all winter. These sconces were merely of tin, made very bright for the occasion; but they were the same that had been used at the ball given, while our army lay at West Point, by the American to the French officers, in honor of the birth of the dauphin. For this camp-like entertainment, the soldiers erected on the plain, a sort of pavilion or arbor of immense length covered in with laurel branches, and illuminated by these simple lamps, which afterwards became valuable as revolutionary relics. They have ever since been taken care of, in the military store-house belonging to West Point.

At this memorable ball whose courtesies were emblematic of the national feeling, and which was intended to assist in strengthening the bonds of alliance between the regal government of France and the first congress of America, the ladies of many of our continental officers were present: having travelled to West Point for the purpose—and in the dance that commenced the festivities of the evening, the lady of General Knox led off as the partner of Washington. In all probability the commander-in-chief, with his fine figure and always graceful deportment, was in early life an excellent dancer, according to the fashion of those times.

Undoubtedly the intelligence of this complimentary entertainment was received with pleasure by Louis the Sixteenth and his beautiful Antoinette. Little did these unfortunate sovereigns surmise that those of their own subjects who participated in the festivities of that night, would return to France so imbued with republican principles as to lend their aid in overturning the throne;—that throne whose foundation had already been undermined by the crimes and vices of the two preceding monarchs. Few were the years that intervened between the emancipation of America, and that tremendous period when the brilliant court of Versailles was swept away by the hands of an infuriated people; its “princes and lords” either flying into exile or perishing on the scaffold. And, idolized as they had been at the commencement of their eventful reign, the son of St. Louis and the daughter of the Cæsars were relentlessly consigned to a dreary captivity terminated by a bloody death.

The dauphin, whose birth was thus honored in the far-off land which his royal father was assisting in her contest for liberty, died, happily for himself, in early childhood; thus, escaping the miseries that were heaped upon the unfortunate boy who succeeded him.

The West Point balls seem to have peculiar charms for strangers, particularly if these strangers are young ladies, and it is a pleasure to the residents of the place to see them enjoy the novelty of the scene. The fair visiters are always delighted with the decorations of the room, with the chivalric gallantry of the officers and cadets, and still more with the circumstance of all their partners being in uniform. To those who are not “to the manner born,” there is something very dazzling in the shine of a military costume.

At the New Year’s ball to which I have alluded, among other invited guests was a party that came over in an open boat from the opposite side of the Hudson, notwithstanding that the weather was intensely cold, the sky threatening a snow-storm, and the river almost impassable from the accumulating ice. The young ladies belonging to this party were certainly valuable acquisitions to the company, as they were handsome, sprightly, beautifully drest, and excellent dancers. I particularly recollect one of them—a tall, fair, fine-looking girl, attired in white satin with an upper dress of transparent pink zephyr, the skirt and sleeves looped up with small white roses. Her figure was set off to great advantage by an extremely well-fitting boddice of pale pink satin, laced in front with white silk cord and tassels—and a spray of white roses looked out among the plats that were enwreathed at the back of her finely-formed head. This young lady and her friends seemed to enter con amore into the enjoyment of the scene and the dance. But their pleasure was dearly purchased. As they had made arrangements to return home that night, after twelve o’clock, when the ball was over, they could not be persuaded to remain at West Point till the following day. They embarked with the gentlemen who belonged to their party. At daylight their boat was descried in the middle of the river. It was completely blocked up by the ice that had gathered round it, and in this manner they had passed the cold and dreary remainder of the night whose first part had afforded them so much enjoyment. A boat was immediately sent out from West Point to their rescue, and the ladies were found benumbed with cold, and indeed nearly dead. The ice was cut away with axes brought for the purpose, they were released from their perilous condition, and with much difficulty the passage to the other side of the river was finally achieved. After the ladies had recovered from the effects of so many hours severe suffering, they were said to have declared that they would willingly go through a repetition of the same for the sake of another such ball.

My compassion was much excited by a contre-tems that happened to certain fair young strangers from New York, whom I found in the dressing-room at the close of one of the summer balls annually given by the cadets about the last of August, on the eve of the day in which they break up their encampment, and return to their usual residence in the barracks. The above-mentioned young ladies had come up from the city that evening, in consequence of invitations sent down to them a week before. By some unaccountable oversight either of themselves or of the gentlemen that escorted them, the trunks or boxes containing their ball-room paraphernalia, instead of being landed on the wharf at West Point had been left on board the steam-boat, and had gone up to Albany. As it was a rainy evening, these young ladies (four or five in number) had embarked in their very worst dresses, which they considered quite good enough for the crowd and damp and heat of the ladies’ cabin, in whose uncomfortable precincts the bad weather would compel them to seclude themselves during their voyage of three or four hours. They did not discover that their baggage was missing till after their arrival at the dressing-room, supposing that the trunks were coming after them up-stairs. Here they had remained the whole evening, and all they knew of the ball and its anticipated pleasures was the sound of the music from below as it imperfectly reached them; the shaking of the windows as the floor vibrated under the feet of the dancers; and a glance at the dresses of the ladies as they came up when the ball was over, to muffle themselves in their shawls and calashes. None of the distressed damsels had sufficient courage to go down to the ball-room in their dishabille, and sit there as spectators: though much importuned to do so by their unlucky beaux. I give this little anecdote as an admonition to my youthful readers to take especial care that their baggage does not give them the slip when they are travelling to a ball.

The cadets are remarkably clever at getting up fancy-balls, and in dressing and sustaining whatever characters they then assume. The corps being composed of miscellaneous young gentlemen from every section of the Union, each is au fait to the peculiar characteristics of the common people that he has seen in his native place—and they represent them with much truth and humor. There will be, for instance, a hunter from the far west; a Yankee pedlar with his tins and other “notions;” an assortment of Tuckahoes, Buckeyes, Hooshers, Wolverines, &c.; and also a good proportion of Indians.

At one of these fancy-balls the squeak of a bad fife (or perhaps of a good fife badly played on) and the tuck of an ill-braced drum, was heard ascending the stair-case followed by an irregular tramp of feet and the chatter of many voices. The door (which had been recently closed) was now thrown open with a bang, and a militia company, personated by a number of the choicest cadets, came marching in, with a step that set all time and tune at defiance; some trudging, some ambling, and some striding. They were headed by a captain who, compared to Uncle Sam’s officers, certainly wore his regimentals “with a difference.” Having “marshalled his clan,” whom he arranged with a picturesque intermixture of tall and short, and in a line partaking of the serpentine, he put them through their exercise in a manner so laughably bad as could only have been enacted by persons who knew perfectly well what it ought to be. Their firelocks were rough sticks, cornstalks, and shut umbrellas—and when the captain was calling the muster-roll, the names to which his men answered were ludicrous in the extreme.

I have before alluded to the West Point Band, which must always be classed among the most agreeable recollections connected with that place; particularly by those who were familiar with its excellence when Willis was the instructor in military music. He was an Irishman, and had belonged to the lord lieutenant’s band at Dublin Castle. His own exquisite performance on the Kent bugle can never be forgotten by any one who has been so fortunate as to hear it; and he taught all the members of the West Point Band to play on their respective instruments in the most admirable manner. One of them, named Ford, excelled on the octave flute. Sometimes when, on a moonlight summer evening, they were playing under the beautiful elms that are clustered in front of the mess house, and delighting us with a charming composition called the Nightingale, Ford would ascend one of the trees, and seated amidst its branches, perform solo on his flute those passages that imitated the warbling of the bird.

Occasionally a distinguished vocalist came to West Point for the purpose of having a concert; and these concerts were always well attended. On one of the concert nights, Willis accompanied Keene (a celebrated singer of that time) in the fine martial air of the Last Bugle—a beautiful song beginning,

As each verse finished with, “When he hears the last bugle,” Willis sounded the bugle in a manner which seemed almost a foretaste of the muse of another world. “When he hears the last bugle”—is again repeated, and the bugle accompaniment is lower and still sweeter. But at the concluding words, “When he hears the last bugle he’ll stand to his arms”—the loud, exulting and melodious tones of the noble instrument came out in all their fullness of sound, with an effect that elicited the most rapturous applause, and which words cannot describe nor imagination conceive.

How much is the beauty of music assisted by the beauty of poetry. Shame on selfish composers and conceited performers who, “wishing all the interest to centre in themselves,” assert that the words of a song are of no consequence, and that if good, they only divert the attention of the hearers from the music—Milton thought otherwise when (himself a fine musician) he speaks of the double charms of “music married to immortal verse.” As well might we say that it was a disadvantage for a handsome woman to possess a fine figure, lest it should render the beauty of her face less conspicuous.

Music affords additional delight when, it accompanies the recollection of some interesting fact; or of some fanciful and vivid allusion connected with romance, that idol of the young and enthusiastic. Among the numerous accounts of the peninsular war which have been given to the world by English officers, I was much struck by a little incident that I once read in a description of the entrance of Wellington’s army into France while expelling the French from Spain and following them into their own land beyond the Pyrenees. The first division of the English troops had at length reached the frontier. After a day of toilsome march the regiment to which our author belonged encamped for the night in the far-famed valley of Roncevalles, where a thousand years before the army of Charlemagne in attempting the invasion of Spain, had been driven back by the Spanish Moors and defeated with great slaughter, and the loss of his best and noblest paladins, including “Roland brave, and Olivier.” The mind of our narrator was carried back to the chivalrous days of the dark ages, and he might almost have listened for

It was a clear cool evening—the sun had sunk behind the hills—the roll had been called, the sentinels posted, and the band of the regiment was playing. The English officer, imbued with the subject of his reverie, advanced to request of its leader that beautiful air

when he was unexpectedly anticipated by one of his companions in arms, another young officer whose thoughts had been running in the same channel, and who had stepped forward before him with the same request. The wild and melancholy notes of Lewis’s popular song now rose upon the still evening air, on the very same spot where ten centuries ago the battle that it lamented, had been fought.

On the West Point Band I have frequently heard music of a soft and touching character played with a taste and pathos that almost drew tears from the hearers—for instance, the sad but charming Scottish air,

I have heard Willis say, that after the publication of the Irish melodies was planned, he was engaged by Moore and Sir John Stevenson, to travel in bye roads and remote places among the peasantry, for the purpose of collecting from them all the songs and tunes peculiar to their country. He frequently passed the night in their cabins, where he was always hospitably received, and where he was liked the better for making himself at home among the people; singing new songs for them , (he was a good singer) and inducing them to sing him old ones in return. So that in this way he caught a great number of national airs, which were then new to him, and which he afterwards put in score. It was for these melodies that the minstrel of Ireland wrote those exquisite songs, on which he may rest his fairest claim to immortality.

Willis was himself an excellent composer of military music. While at West Point he produced a number of very fine marches and quicksteps, usually calling them after the officers. Those denominated General Swift’s March, and Lieutenant Blaney’s Quickstep, were perhaps the best. To some he did not even take the trouble to affix a title, but distinguished them by numbers. Sometimes when we sent out to ask the name of “that fine new march or quickstep that the band had just played,” he would reply that it was No. 12 or No. 16. The officers often suggested to him the publication of these admirable pieces as a source of profit to himself, and of pleasure to the community; but with his habitual carelessness of his own interest, he always neglected taking any steps for the purpose. There is reason to fear that few or no copies of them are now in existence: and therefore they will be lost for ever to the admirers of martial music. Willis lived about twelve years at West Point, and died there of a lingering illness in 1830.

When the manager of the Park Theatre was getting up a new musical piece or reviving an old one, he generally borrowed Willis, for a few of the first evenings, to play in the orchestra. On one of these occasions he took down with him to New York his two little boys, neither of whom had ever been in a theatre. Mr. Simpson, the manager, allotted them seats in his private box over one of the stage doors. Both the children had been instructed by their father, and sung very well. The after piece was O’Keefe’s little opera of Sprigs of Laurel. In the duett between the two rival soldiers, in which each in his turn celebrates the charms of Mary, the major’s daughter, one of the boys on hearing the symphony, exclaimed to his brother—“Why Jem! that’s our duett—the very last we’ve been practising.” “So it is,” replied Jem, “let’s join in and sing it with them.” Unconscious of such a proceeding being the least out of rule, they united their voices to those of the two actors, and went through the song with them in perfect time and tune. The soldiers were amazed at this unexpected addition to their duett, but looking up, soon found from whence the sound proceeded. Willis (who was in the orchestra) became greatly disconcerted, and in vain made signs to his children to cease. Their attention was too much engaged to perceive his displeasure. The audience were not long in discovering the young singers, and loudly applauded them, equally pleased with the naïveté of the boys and their proficiency in vocalism.

It was formerly customary for the West Point band to play sacred music every Sunday morning, in the camp, after the guard was marched off.

was performed by them delightfully.

Before the erection of the present edifice as a church, public worship was held in the large room designated as the chapel. The chaplains of the United States Military Academy, like the chaplain of congress, may be chosen from the clergy of any denomination. But as their congregation consists of persons from every part of the union, and of every religious denomination, according to the faith in which they have been educated by their parents, it is understood that the pastor will have sufficient good taste, or rather good sense, to refrain from all attempts to advance the peculiar doctrines of his own immediate sect. After the officers and professors have all come in and taken their appropriate seats, the cadets make their entrance in a body, and occupy the benches allotted to them. I was one Sunday at the chapel, when five graduates, or ex-cadets, all of whom had recently been honored with commissions in the engineers, came in together, habited in their new uniforms, (that of the engineers is the handsomest in the army,) and for the first time took their seats with the officers. I could have said with Sterne—“Oh! how I envied them their feelings!” One of these young gentlemen was a Jew; and as I looked at him that day, I hoped he was grateful to the God of Abraham for having cast his lot in a country where the Hebrew faith can be no impediment to advancement in any profession either civil or military. Are “the wanderers of Israel,” who still have so much to contend with in the old world, sufficiently aware of the advantages they would derive from changing their residence to the new?

It is a custom among the cadets, after they have completed their course of study, obtained their commissions as lieutenants, and received orders for repairing to their respective posts, to have a farewell-meeting previous to their departure from West Point. At this meeting it is understood that all offences, bickerings and animosities, which may have arisen among them during their four years intercourse as fellow-students, are to be consigned to oblivion. The hand of friendship is given all round, and before their separation they exchange rings which have been made for this express purpose, all of the same pattern. These rings they are to retain through life, as mementoes of “Auld lang syne,” and as pledges of kind feelings under whatever circumstances, and in whatever part of the world they may meet hereafter.

Among the numerous benefits which this noble institution has conferred on the community, is that of creating attachment and diffusing friendship among so many young men from different sections of our widely-extended country, and belonging to different classes in society. The military academy has made gentlemen of many intelligent youths, sprung from the humbler grades of our people. It has made men of many scions of high estate, whose talents would otherwise have been smothered under the follies of fashion and the enervations of luxury.

In that kindness and consideration for females, which is one of the brightest gems in the American character, none can exceed the cadets and officers of the American army. Were I to relate all that I know on this subject I could fill a volume. For instance, I could tell of a young gentleman from Albany who out of his pay as a cadet, (twenty-eight dollars a month,) saved enough to defray the expenses of his sister’s education, during four years of economy and self-denial to himself.

On the southern bank of the river, beyond the picturesque spot designated as Kosciusko’s garden, the shore for some miles continues woody and precipitous, down to the Kinsley farm-house, a mile or two below. The path along these rocks was narrow, rugged, dark and dangerous. In some places it was impeded by trees growing so close together, and so near the verge of the precipice that it was expedient in passing along to cling to their trunks, or to catch hold of their lower branches, as a support against the danger of falling down the rocks that impended over the river. Yet with all its perils and difficulties this was an interesting walk to any lover of nature in her rudest aspects. There were wild vines and wild roses, and the trees were so old and lofty, and their shade so solemn and impervious. And at their roots grew clusters of ephemeral plants, of the fungus tribe it is true, but glowing with the most brilliant colors, yellow, orange, scarlet and crimson, often diversified with a group that was white as snow. Sometimes we saw a lizard of the finest verditer-green, gliding among the blocks of granite; and sometimes on hearing a slight chattering above our heads, we looked up and saw the squirrel as he

In the decline of a beautiful afternoon when “the sun was hasting to the west,” and the sweet notes of the wood-thrush had already began “to hymn the fading fires of day,” I set out on a walk accompanied by two young ladies from Philadelphia, whom in our daily rambles I had already guided to some of the most popular places on West Point. Having found that my youthful friends were fearless scramblers “over bush and over brier,” I proposed that our walk to-day should be in this narrow pathway through these rocky woods, or rather along these woody rocks.

We proceeded accordingly—and our dangers and difficulties seemed to increase the enjoyment of my young companions. At length we suddenly emerged into a spot where the open sunshine denoted that, since my last walk in this direction, many of the trees had been cut away. About this little clearing we found eight or ten men busily at work with spades and pick-axes. I was struck at once with the excellent aspect of their habiliments, though their coats were off and hanging on the bushes and low rocks around them. We stopped, and I turned to one of my companions, and was about remarking to her, “what a happiness it was to live in a country where the common laboring men were enabled to make so respectable an appearance, and even while engaged at their work to wear clothes that were perfectly whole, and as clean as if put on fresh that day.” While I was making this observation in a low voice, the men perceived us; and they all ceased work, and several stood leaning on their spades, looking much disconcerted. They consulted a little together and then one of the foresters advanced, as if to speak to us. The two young ladies, seized with a sudden panic, hastily ran back into the woods. He came up and addressed me by name, and I immediately recognised an officer who visited intimately at my brother’s house. On looking at his comrades, I found that I knew them every one; and that they were all gentlemen belonging to West Point. They seemed much, though needlessly, confused at being detected by ladies in their present occupation.

The gentleman who had come forward made some remarks on the inconveniences we must have encountered during our rugged walk, and he directed us to a way of going home that, though longer and more circuitous, would be less difficult. My young friends now ventured out from their retreat; I introduced them to the officer who had been talking to me, and leaving him with his comrades to pursue their work, we found our way home by the road that he indicated.

In the evening the same gentleman made one of his accustomed visits at my brother’s, and explained to us the scene of the afternoon.

Captain H——, was the only surviving child of an aged and widowed mother, the sister of a distinguished general-officer in the revolutionary army. Her son, a graduate of the Military Academy, was afterwards stationed at West Point; and he then went to Vermont and brought his mother that they might live near each other. His own apartments being in one of the barracks, he took lodgings for Mrs. H⁠——, at a quiet farm-house in the vicinity: and devoted nearly all his leisure-time to her society. The old lady sometimes came up to visit her son in his rooms at the barracks, to see that he was comfortable there, and keep his ward-robe in order. The nearest way from her residence to the plain, was along the dark and rugged forest path on the edge of the rocks; and this was the road she always came. The captain wishing to make it more easy and less dangerous for his mother, set about doing so with his own hands. He had already made some progress in this work of filial affection, when he was discovered by several of his brother officers; they mentioned it to others, and they all immediately volunteered to assist him in his praise-worthy undertaking. They assembled of afternoons for this purpose, (which they endeavored to keep as secret as possible) and it was now about half accomplished; having been commenced at the end nearest to Mrs. H⁠——’s residence. In consequence of this explanation, by the captain’s friend, we took care not to interrupt them by walking in that direction, till after the work was completed.

They cut down trees, cleared away bushes, removed masses of stone, levelled banks, filled up hollows, and paved quagmires: leading the path to a safe distance from the ledge of rocks. A fine convenient road was soon completed, and the old lady was enabled to visit the captain without difficulty or danger.

The grave has long since closed over that mother, and the military station of her son has been changed to a place far distant from West Point. But the pathway commenced by filial affection, and finished with the assistance of friendship is still there, forming a convenient and beautiful walk through the woods to the farm-house and its vicinity.

It is known by all the inhabitants of West Point as the Officer’s Road; and long may it continue to bear that title.

———

BY G. HILL, AUTHOR OF “TITANIA’S BANQUET,” ETC., ETC.

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BALLAD.

COMPOSED BY

HENRY RUSSELL.

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Philadelphia : John F. Nunns , 184 Chesnut Street .

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We said a few hurried words about Mr. Hawthorne in our last number, with the design of speaking more fully in the present. We are still, however, pressed for room, and must necessarily discuss his volumes more briefly and more at random than their high merits deserve.

The book professes to be a collection of tales , yet is, in two respects, misnamed. These pieces are now in their third republication, and, of course, are thrice-told. Moreover, they are by no means all tales, either in the ordinary or in the legitimate understanding of the term. Many of them are pure essays, for example, “Sights from a Steeple,” “Sunday at Home,” “Little Annie’s Ramble,” “A Rill from the Town-Pump,” “The Toll-Gatherer’s Day,” “The Haunted Mind,” “The Sister Years,” “Snow-Flakes,” “Night Sketches,” and “Foot-Prints on the Sea-Shore.” We mention these matters chiefly on account of their discrepancy with that marked precision and finish by which the body of the work is distinguished.

Of the Essays just named, we must be content to speak in brief. They are each and all beautiful, without being characterised by the polish and adaptation so visible in the tales proper. A painter would at once note their leading or predominant feature, and style it repose . There is no attempt at effect. All is quiet, thoughtful, subdued. Yet this repose may exist simultaneously with high originality of thought; and Mr. Hawthorne has demonstrated the fact. At every turn we meet with novel combinations, yet these combinations never surpass the limits of the quiet. We are soothed as we read; and withal is a calm astonishment that ideas so apparently obvious have never occurred or been presented to us before. Herein our author differs materially from Lamb or Hunt or Hazlitt—who, with vivid originality of manner and expression, have less of the true novelty of thought than is generally supposed, and whose originality, at best, has an uneasy and meretricious quaintness, replete with startling effects unfounded in nature, and inducing trains of reflection which lead to no satisfactory result. The Essays of Hawthorne have much of the character of Irving, with more of originality, and less of finish; while, compared with the Spectator, they have a vast superiority at all points. The Spectator, Mr. Irving, and Mr. Hawthorne have in common that tranquil and subdued manner which we have chosen to denominate repose ; but, in the case of the two former, this repose is attained rather by the absence of novel combination, or of originality, than otherwise, and consists chiefly in the calm, quiet, unostentatious expression of commonplace thoughts, in an unambitious unadulterated Saxon. In them, by strong effort, we are made to conceive the absence of all. In the essays before us the absence of effort is too obvious to be mistaken, and a strong under-current of suggestion runs continuously beneath the upper stream of the tranquil thesis. In short, these effusions of Mr. Hawthorne are the product of a truly imaginative intellect, restrained, and in some measure repressed, by fastidiousness of taste, by constitutional melancholy and by indolence.

But it is of his tales that we desire principally to speak. The tale proper, in our opinion, affords unquestionably the fairest field for the exercise of the loftiest talent, which can be afforded by the wide domains of mere prose. Were we bidden to say how the highest genius could be most advantageously employed for the best display of its own powers, we should answer, without hesitation—in the composition of a rhymed poem, not to exceed in length what might be perused in an hour. Within this limit alone can the highest order of true poetry exist. We need only here say, upon this topic, that, in almost all classes of composition, the unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance. It is clear, moreover, that this unity cannot be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal cannot be completed at one sitting. We may continue the reading of a prose composition, from the very nature of prose itself, much longer than we can persevere, to any good purpose, in the perusal of a poem. This latter, if truly fulfilling the demands of the poetic sentiment, induces an exaltation of the soul which cannot be long sustained. All high excitements are necessarily transient. Thus a long poem is a paradox. And, without unity of impression, the deepest effects cannot be brought about. Epics were the offspring of an imperfect sense of Art, and their reign is no more. A poem too brief may produce a vivid, but never an intense or enduring impression. Without a certain continuity of effort—without a certain duration or repetition of purpose—the soul is never deeply moved. There must be the dropping of the water upon the rock. De Béranger has wrought brilliant things—pungent and spirit-stirring—but, like all immassive bodies, they lack momentum , and thus fail to satisfy the Poetic Sentiment. They sparkle and excite, but, from want of continuity, fail deeply to impress. Extreme brevity will degenerate into epigrammatism; but the sin of extreme length is even more unpardonable. In medio tutissimus ibis.

Were we called upon however to designate that class of composition which, next to such a poem as we have suggested, should best fulfil the demands of high genius—should offer it the most advantageous field of exertion—we should unhesitatingly speak of the prose tale, as Mr. Hawthorne has here exemplified it. We allude to the short prose narrative, requiring from a half-hour to one or two hours in its perusal. The ordinary novel is objectionable, from its length, for reasons already stated in substance. As it cannot be read at one sitting, it deprives itself, of course, of the immense force derivable from totality . Worldly interests intervening during the pauses of perusal, modify, annul, or counteract, in a greater or less degree, the impressions of the book. But simple cessation in reading would, of itself, be sufficient to destroy the true unity. In the brief tale, however, the author is enabled to carry out the fulness of his intention, be it what it may. During the hour of perusal the soul of the reader is at the writer’s control. There are no external or extrinsic influences—resulting from weariness or interruption.

A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents—he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished, because undisturbed; and this is an end unattainable by the novel. Undue brevity is just as exceptionable here as in the poem, but undue length is yet more to be avoided.

We have said that the tale has a point of superiority even over the poem. In fact, while the rhythm of this latter is an essential aid in the development of the poem’s highest idea—the idea of the Beautiful—the artificialities of this rhythm are an inseparable bar to the development of all points of thought or expression which have their basis in Truth . But Truth is often, and in very great degree, the aim of the tale. Some of the finest tales are tales of ratiocination. Thus the field of this species of composition, if not in so elevated a region on the mountain of Mind, is a table-land of far vaster extent than the domain of the mere poem. Its products are never so rich, but infinitely more numerous, and more appreciable by the mass of mankind. The writer of the prose tale, in short, may bring to his theme a vast variety of modes or inflections of thought and expression—(the ratiocinative, for example, the sarcastic or the humorous) which are not only antagonistical to the nature of the poem, but absolutely forbidden by one of its most peculiar and indispensable adjuncts; we allude of course, to rhythm. It may be added, here, par parenthèse , that the author who aims at the purely beautiful in a prose tale is laboring at great disadvantage. For Beauty can be better treated in the poem. Not so with terror, or passion, or horror, or a multitude of such other points. And here it will be seen how full of prejudice are the usual animadversions against those tales of effect many fine examples of which were found in the earlier numbers of Blackwood. The impressions produced were wrought in a legitimate sphere of action, and constituted a legitimate although sometimes an exaggerated interest. They were relished by every man of genius: although there were found many men of genius who condemned them without just ground. The true critic will but demand that the design intended be accomplished, to the fullest extent, by the means most advantageously applicable.

We have very few American tales of real merit—we may say, indeed, none, with the exception of “The Tales of a Traveller” of Washington Irving, and these “Twice-Told Tales” of Mr. Hawthorne. Some of the pieces of Mr. John Neal abound in vigor and originality; but in general, his compositions of this class are excessively diffuse, extravagant, and indicative of an imperfect sentiment of Art. Articles at random are, now and then, met with in our periodicals which might be advantageously compared with the best effusions of the British Magazines; but, upon the whole, we are far behind our progenitors in this department of literature.

Of Mr. Hawthorne’s Tales we would say, emphatically, that they belong to the highest region of Art—an Art subservient to genius of a very lofty order. We had supposed, with good reason for so supposing, that he had been thrust into his present position by one of the impudent cliques which beset our literature, and whose pretensions it is our full purpose to expose at the earliest opportunity; but we have been most agreeably mistaken. We know of few compositions which the critic can more honestly commend than these “Twice-Told Tales.” As Americans, we feel proud of the book.

Mr. Hawthorne’s distinctive trait is invention, creation, imagination, originality—a trait which, in the literature of fiction, is positively worth all the rest. But the nature of originality, so far as regards its manifestation in letters, is but imperfectly understood. The inventive or original mind as frequently displays itself in novelty of tone as in novelty of matter. Mr. Hawthorne is original at all points.

It would be a matter of some difficulty to designate the best of these tales, we repeat that, without exception, they are beautiful. “Wakefield” is remarkable for the skill with which an old idea—a well-known incident—is worked up or discussed. A man of whims conceives the purpose of quitting his wife and residing incognito , for twenty years, in her immediate neighborhood. Something of this kind actually happened in London. The force of Mr. Hawthorne’s tale lies in the analysis of the motives which must or might have impelled the husband to such folly, in the first instance, with the possible causes of his perseverance. Upon this thesis a sketch of singular power has been constructed.

“The Wedding Knell” is full of the boldest imagination—an imagination fully controlled by taste. The most captious critic could find no flaw in this production.

“The Minister’s Black Veil” is a masterly composition of which the sole defect is that to the rabble its exquisite skill will be caviare . The obvious meaning of this article will be found to smother its insinuated one. The moral put into the mouth of the dying minister will be supposed to convey the true import of the narrative; and that a crime of dark dye, (having reference to the “young lady”) has been committed, is a point which only minds congenial with that of the author will perceive.

“Mr. Higginbotham’s Catastrophe” is vividly original and managed most dexterously.

“Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” is exceedingly well imagined, and executed with surpassing ability. The artist breathes in every line of it.

“The White Old Maid” is objectionable, even more than the “Minister’s Black Veil,” on the score of its mysticism. Even with the thoughtful and analytic, there will be much trouble in penetrating its entire import.

“The Hollow of the Three Hills” we would quote in full, had we space;—not as evincing higher talent than any of the other pieces, but as affording an excellent example of the author’s peculiar ability. The subject is commonplace. A witch subjects the Distant and the Past to the view of a mourner. It has been the fashion to describe, in such cases, a mirror in which the images of the absent appear; or a cloud of smoke is made to arise, and thence the figures are gradually unfolded. Mr. Hawthorne has wonderfully heightened his effect by making the ear, in place of the eye, the medium by which the fantasy is conveyed. The head of the mourner is enveloped in the cloak of the witch, and within its magic folds there arise sounds which have an all-sufficient intelligence. Throughout this article also, the artist is conspicuous—not more in positive than in negative merits. Not only is all done that should be done, but (what perhaps is an end with more difficulty attained) there is nothing done which should not be. Every word tells , and there is not a word which does not tell.

In “Howe’s Masquerade” we observe something which resembles a plagiarism—but which may be a very flattering coincidence of thought. We quote the passage in question.

The idea here is, that the figure in the cloak is the phantom or reduplication of Sir William Howe; but in an article called “William Wilson,” one of the “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque,” we have not only the same idea, but the same idea similarly presented in several respects. We quote two paragraphs, which our readers may compare with what has been already given. We have italicized, above, the immediate particulars of resemblance.

Here it will be observed that, not only are the two general conceptions identical, but there are various points of similarity. In each case the figure seen is the wraith or duplication of the beholder. In each case the scene is a masquerade. In each case the figure is cloaked. In each, there is a quarrel—that is to say, angry words pass between the parties. In each the beholder is enraged. In each the cloak and sword fall upon the floor. The “villain, unmuffle yourself,” of Mr. H. is precisely paralleled by a passage at page 56 of “William Wilson.”

In the way of objection we have scarcely a word to say of these tales. There is, perhaps, a somewhat too general or prevalent tone —a tone of melancholy and mysticism. The subjects are insufficiently varied. There is not so much of versatility evinced as we might well be warranted in expecting from the high powers of Mr. Hawthorne. But beyond these trivial exceptions we have really none to make. The style is purity itself. Force abounds. High imagination gleams from every page. Mr. Hawthorne is a man of the truest genius. We only regret that the limits of our Magazine will not permit us to pay him that full tribute of commendation, which, under other circumstances, we should be so eager to pay.

Mr. Charles Fenno Hoffman is well known as the author of several popular novels, and as the quondam editor of the “American Monthly Magazine;” but his poetical abilities have not as yet attracted that attention which is indubitably their due.

“The Vigil of Faith,” a poem of fifty-two irregular stanzas, embodies a deeply interesting narrative supposed to be related by an Indian encountered by the author in a hunting excursion amid the Highlands of the Hudson. It bears the impress of the true spirit upon every line; but appears to be carelessly written.

The occasional Poems are scarcely more beautiful, but, in general, are more complete and polished. Now and then, however, we observe, even in these, an inaccurate rhythm. Here, for example, in “Moonlight on the Hudson,” page 63, we note a foot too much⁠—

This line is not used as an Alexandrine, but occurs in the body of a stanza. Mr. Hoffman is, also, somewhat too fond of a double rhyme, which, unduly employed, never fails to give a flippant air to a serious poem. It is not improbable that we shall speak more fully of this really beautiful volume hereafter. Its external or mechanical appearance excels that of any book we have seen for a long time.

The genius of Lorenzo de’ Medici has never, perhaps, been so highly estimated, as his exertions on behalf of Italian literature. Yet he was not only an author unsurpassed by any of his illustrious contemporaries, but, as a statesman, gave evidence of profound ability. A week illustrating the value of his character and discussing his vast influence upon his age, has been long wanting, and no man lives who could better supply the desideratum than Mr. Roscoe. In republishing these volumes Messieurs Carey & Hart have rendered a service of the highest importance to the reading public of America.

This is a volume of remarkable beauty externally, and of very high merit internally. It embraces selections from the poetical works of every true poet in America without exception; and these selections are prefaced, in each instance, with a brief memoir, for whose accuracy we can vouch. We know that no pains or expense have been spared in this compilation, which is, by very much indeed, the best of its class—affording, at one view, the justest idea of our poetical literature. Mr. Griswold is remarkably well qualified for the task he has undertaken. We shall speak at length of this book in our next.

The events upon which this novel is based are but too real. No more thrilling, no more romantic tragedy did ever the brain of poet conceive than was the tragedy of Sharpe and Beauchampe. We are not sure that the author of “Border Beagles” has done right in the selection of his theme. Too little has been left for invention. We are sure, however, that the theme is skilfully handled. The author of “Richard Hurdis” is one among the best of our native novelists—pure, bold, vigorous, original.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note.

A cover has been created for this eBook and is placed in the public domain.

[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 5, May 1842 , George R. Graham, Editor]