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GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXV.      December, 1849.      No. 6.

Table of Contents

Fiction, Literature and Other Articles

Poetry, Music, and Fashion

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

THE DEPARTURE.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXV.     PHILADELPHIA, December, 1849.     No. 6.

OR THE FOUNDATION OF MORALS.

———

BY JOSEPH R. CHANDLER.

———

[SEE ENGRAVING.]

The family of the Widow Berien had risen from their evening devotions, and were preparing to hasten to bed that they might rest from the toils of the day past, and to prepare for the fatigues of that which was to come. One by one they had taken leave of the mistress of the house, and had withdrawn, and Louise advanced to give her mother the evening kiss and receive the evening benediction—when the mother pointed to a chair and requested her daughter to sit down. The movements of the girl evinced an understanding of the object of her mother, and her countenance showed that she had drawn herself up to sustain the rebuke which had been prepared for her, for when both were seated Louise turned her face to her mother to discover, if possible, by the appearance of severity there, how the storm was to commence.

“You have seen Adolph again, to-day,” said Madam Berien, in a mild tone, and with a glance which conveyed nothing like anger.

“I met him returning from the field.”

“And what did he say?”

“It is scarcely necessary for me to repeat what he said or what I replied—it was probably not much different from what others in similar circumstances say. Not greatly different from what passed between you and my father at our ages, and in our situation.”

“And that, Louise, shows me that you still persist in the resolution to marry Adolph.”

“I have changed neither my inclinations nor my wishes so far as I may resolve on such matters.”

“And my opinions are to go for nothing?”

“Can you say that, dear mother? Can you say that your opinion, your command, and your wishes go for nothing, when for two years I have postponed our union solely in deference to your wishes, and here renew my promise, that while I will marry no one but Adolph, in my present state of feeling, I will assuredly not marry him until you shall have given your consent, or at least, withdrawn your opposition.”

“My consent will not easily be obtained under existing circumstances. I do not object to the condition, appearance, or general conduct⁠—”

“On what then, dear mother, have you founded your hostility to Adolph?”

“On nothing. I have no hostility to Adolph—I wish him well—I love him as the son of my cousin, on his father’s side, and his mother was the friend and companion of my childhood, and both of them were my long continued neighbors—but⁠—”

“But what, mother? Tell me, is there any secret reason for your dislike to the connection with the family? Has he or have his parents committed crimes which would bring disgrace upon us if known? Tell me; I would not do aught that might be construed into discredit; nor would I have my happiness destroyed by vague insinuations—speak to me, mother, plainly. I can bear the truth. I have too much of your own character to shrink from what I ought to know or ought to do, and I have also too much of your firmness to relinquish a settled object on account of imaginary or only great difficulties. I can bear disappointment if it is in the way of duty, or I can meet and conquer obstacles. Let me know on what ground I stand. If Adolph has committed aught against the laws, or if there is aught against his condition which should operate with the most delicate and fastidious, I can and will relinquish all association with him. I know how necessary his presence is to my happiness, but I know also how cherished is the good name of the family.”

“Louise, you know how amid all the tumults of the revolutions with which the country has been visited; revolutions that shook the throne and altar—revolutions that in attempting to purify the political condition of the nation destroyed its religion; you know, how amid all these tumults and disorganizations, when religion had been driven by the sword from her temples, and by ridicule from our dwellings, I have sought to cherish her in our domestic circle. Morning and evening have I gathered you around our family altar, and sought to keep alive in you the faith which has been the salvation of man, and which must be the guardian of woman’s position and woman’s purity.”

“I know, dear mother,” said Louise, as she recalled all the cares and labor which had been used to keep her feet in the ways of truth. “I know, dear mother, how great has been your devotion; how constant your vigilance in our behalf, and how your service has been that of the priest at well as the mother.”

“And thus, my dear child, while the wickedness and folly of our people have done more against religion than heresy itself would attempt, while the services of the altar have been performed to such a meagre audience, that the voice of the priest has been echoed along the vacant aisles of the church, and no impressions of religion on the Sabbath have sanctified a thought on the other days of the week; nay, when as in some of the neighboring cities and villages, the priest himself has poured ridicule on his office, and made the mysteries of religion a theme for mirth and laughter, till children have done mockery to their God and his service, by mimicking in their plays the solemnities of the sanctuary, and have been encouraged and rewarded by the laughter and applause of men and women; have I not sought to save you from the contamination, and to keep alive in your heart the love of God and a conformity to the will of his Church?”

“You have, you have, dear mother, and I sometimes have thought when I have kneeled with you in morning and evening devotion, that you had gathered up the fragments of the consecrated yet broken altar, to erect a place of sacrifice in your own heart, and I have loved religion more that you have pleaded its cause, strengthened its sentiment in my bosom, and stood forward for all the duties and services which may be performed by one of our sex. And I know, dear mother, that the will for the sacraments, the pure intentions which you excite are better, more profitable to us than the sacraments themselves without such intentions. But why, dear mother, do you now with such solemnity recall these things; why, when alluding to my relations with Adolph, do you refer to your religious zeal and effective exertions? Poor as have been the fruits from your cultivation of my religious sentiments, have I ever denied or derided what you taught? has my conduct ever done injustice to the lessons of love and purity you have imparted? or have I ever said aught that intimated a doubt of, or disrelish for, the doctrine and service of our holy church? I ask not in anger; I ask not, indeed, in unsanctified confidence, but I ask in sincerity—if I have offended against God and the church, let me know my errors; nay, while sensible of my want of zeal and efforts toward perfection, I avow myself ready and willing to improve by any advice or corrective which you may impart.”

“I have not, my dear child, had reason to doubt of the exactness and purity of your faith—no observation which I have been able to make, and I have carefully watched—oh! how vigilant must a widowed mother be over the purity of faith and conduct of her orphan daughter—I have, I repeat to you, found nothing in your faith to reprove, nothing in your religion and stated exercises unworthy of a Christian. But⁠—”

“But, mother—but—what can you mean? You talk to me earnestly of my association with, and my affection for Adolph—you allude to my faith and my conduct, and say that you find nothing in my faith to censure, and nothing in my religious exercises unworthy a Christian, but you omit to approve of my conduct. You avoid reference to that, unless you were approaching it with the terrible—‘But.’ ”

“I was approaching it—and—”

“Does my mother mean that there is aught in my conduct, my conduct with Adolph, because it is evident that the remarks all tend thitherward—does my mother suspect impropriety of conduct in me—mother, mother, for Heaven’s sake, spare me that imputation. For me and my thoughts, my inmost thoughts, your chamber has been as much the seat of the confessional as the place of the altar, and not a feeling of my heart, not an impulse of passion, not a motive or a wish has been withheld from you that would have been uttered in explanation or confession to the priest. I know there is wrong, dear mother, in the world. I am human, with human passions and human weaknesses, but not a thought of impurity has ever been uttered to me by Adolph, or been suggested by our relations with each other. Blessed queen of purity! in this thing I am innocent, in word and thought. Dear mother, let me not suffer—let not Adolph suffer in your estimation upon such a suspicion, he is above such weakness and wickedness, and I should need no further monition from Heaven to avoid his society, than the discovery that his words, nay, that our meeting suggested thoughts unsanctioned by my religion, unworthy of your approval.”

Louise paused in her vehement appeal. She had gone to the very verge of propriety in her asseverations, and she saw nothing in her mother’s countenance which indicated any change of sentiment. The girl felt for a moment indignant. The language of her mother implied a charge of the most painful character, and though it might not reach to the extent which, at first, she seemed to suppose, yet she felt that maidenly propriety is scarcely less outraged by an imputation of habitual association with the dangerous and the impure, than by a charge of crime committed—and she started at the bare hint of the wrong, and was stung to the soul when her vehement disclaimer seemed to work no change in the mind of her accusing mother.

The warmth of Louise’s feelings betrayed no disrespect to her mother, and perhaps the good woman felt pleased at the sensitiveness of her daughter on such a subject. Still there was no removal of the objection which was felt against Adolph, and she replied:

“Your justification of your conduct, and your sensitiveness on the subject to which you supposed I referred, show how important you and all deem the fame of a young woman; how essential to her is not only a pure mind, but an unsuspected character; and that to which I have referred is so intimately connected with what you suspect, that I shall take your virtuous indignation at what you imagined my allusion, as almost as applicable to my meaning as to your suspicions.”

“What is it you mean, mother?”

“I mean, that with all the kindness of Adolph’s manners—with all the respect he has shown for me, and his affection to you, he is tainted with the infidelity of the times, and not merely neglects the offices of the church, but ridicules the Christian religion.”

“Never, mother, never; depend on it, some one has slandered Adolph to you.”

“Does Adolph frequent, I will not say the sacraments of his church, but the church itself?”

“I see him frequently there.”

“You see him there, my daughter, when he expects you are ready to return—but never does he assist in the services of the church?”

“I am not able to assert how often he attends the church, mother; but I think as frequently as most of the young men of this department, at least, of our village.”

“That may be, my child, but it is of the general prevalence of irreligion in which it seems that Adolph shares, that I complain—and you know, my daughter, that following your father’s advice, on his death-bed, I have said in the language of the King of Israel, ‘as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’ ”

“And God forbid, my dear mother, that I should hinder the fulfillment of your pious resolution, or be an exception in your religious family.”

“And yet you will be, if you yoke yourself unequally with one who, if not a heretic, is only not that from his indifference to any religion.”

“I will not, of course, assume that yoke without your approval.”

“That is in a spirit of obedience; but, my daughter, it would be better if instead of limiting yourself not to marry any one without my approval, you would consent to advise with me as to some proper person among your acquaintance whom you would marry.”

“My dear mother, the only equality in such a yoke of convenience would be the perfect indifference with which each would regard the other.”

Louise was not a little shocked at the remarks made by her mother. She loved Adolph, and she knew well enough that he did not frequent the church, though she had never heard him ridicule religion, his respect for her and her religious habits would have prevented that outrage. But she could not shut her eyes to the fact that Adolph lived out of the influences of her church, and she knew well that her mother would never consent to her union with such a man. She mingled the subject in her prayers before she sought her bed, and gave the whole night to the anxiety which it caused.

Next day Louise opened her heart to Adolph, by expressing her fears that he had neglected the duties of his religion.

Adolph sought to evade the matter by some playful remarks, but he discovered that Louise was more than usually in earnest.

“Your mother is in this,” said he.

“She is—and she adds, that I shall never marry a man who neglects the requirements of religion.”

“Why, is she going to make a priest of me?”

“I hope not,” said Louise; “for in that case we should be further from our marriage than we now are.”

“What does she require?”

“She requires that you forbear, in the first place, any remarks against religion; and secondly, that you frequent the church, at least.”

“I will do that to please her and you, at any rate,” said he.

“You will do it from a higher motive, I hope,” said she.

The result of the conference between Louise and Adolph was the promise on his part to be constant at church on all holydays, and to forbear any remarks which could be construed into a disrespect for religion and its ministers.

Louise retired gratified at what she had gained, but not without some sense of the unworthiness of the motives of her lover, and with many doubts whether she ought to depend on such a shallow change.

Adolph loved Louise—he promised readily—but he smiled in his heart at her seeming confidence. The truth was Adolph had ridiculed religion; not so much from any doubts of its truth, or any conclusions to which he had been led by argument, as by the necessity of improper association, the power of that state of mind that builds up skepticism as a sort of retreat from the stings of conscience. The moral principal of Adolph had suffered much from his associations.

It was a source of much gratification to Louise that Adolph kept his word—and Madam Berien could not deny that he was punctual in his attendance at the church, if not exceedingly edifying in his deportment. This brought Adolph more within the influence of Madam Berien’s family, and that influence could not fail of being beneficial; he certainly was saved from much wrong if he was not influenced to do a great deal of what was right.

Such however was the force of example, that Adolph’s habit of going to church seemed to be growing into a principle. And influenced by the delicate persuasion of Louise he even commenced a preparation for the sacraments. The progress in the work of piety was most gratifying to his betrothed, and even received some applause from her mother. The good woman was at length persuaded to give her consent to the union of her daughter with him, and the marriage was to take place immediately after Easter.

We need not speak of the happiness, and the bustle which such a consent produced in the family. With Louise it was a calm joy. It was to be the fulfillment of her heart’s dearest wish. She had as she believed prepared herself for it by humble prayer and careful watching, and she had aided in fitting her lover to be her husband, by a gentle forbearance with his peculiarities, and delicate suggestions as it regarded his errors. He was a better man, more worthy of being the son-in-law of her mother.

Adolph felt that he had enough in Louise to make him forget the follies of his previous life, and though he had not the most entire confidence in himself, yet he knew that with her vigilance and her delicacy he should be in little danger of being less worthy of her than he then was.

It is due to truth to say, that while Louise put confidence in the resolution of her lover, she did not feel that he was out of danger when out of her influence—danger not yet of open vice and profligacy, but of a neglect of religious duties and a resumption of those habits which had so nearly made shipwreck of him before. But he was not to be out of her influence—he was not to be removed from beneath her watchful eye. The marriage which was to take place in a few weeks would make him an inmate of her mother’s house, where, indeed, already the sweetness of his disposition and his manly bearing had made him a favorite. So that Madam Berien, while she thanked God for the earnestness with which she had dealt with her daughter and his regard, confessed that his conduct now was irreproachable, and that even the religious sentiment seemed to be fully re-established in him.

It was near the close of a day early in April, that the family of Madam Berien was gathered around a table which seemed supplied with almost every thing but eatables. It was the finishing up of the wedding-dresses, and they had been about so long that there was no more pretence at concealing their uses, or hesitancy in referring to the ceremony and the time when they were to be used.

Madam Berien had just finished, for the twentieth time, a detail of the arrangements, when the curé arrived. He was always a welcome visiter at the house. His labors were lightened by the beautiful example of the family, and his wants in some measure supplied by their charitable piety. He was at home, for he felt that he might indulge there in any little sallies of wit and pleasantry, without the danger of having his language quoted to sustain irreverence; and he could speak of religion and its offices, with a certainty that those with whom he conversed sympathized with all his feelings.

In the midst of the appropriate merriment, in which real happiness rather than boisterous mirth seemed to predominate, a knocking at the door announced the approach of a stranger. He was ushered into the humble apartment, and presented the appearance of a veteran soldier of some consideration in the service.

“I have been directed,” said the military visiter, “by persons in the village, to call at this house for citizen Adolph Lefevre. As my business is of an important kind, madam will, I hope, excuse my intrusion upon her domestic privacy.”

Adolph rose, and announced himself as the person inquired for.

“In that case,” said the visiter, “I have reason to be gratified with my call; the nation cannot fail to derive service from so finely proportioned a soldier. I bear, sir, to you a notice that you have been honored with a call to be mustered immediately into the service—as a conscript.”

“A conscript! I am, sir, a conscript for 18—, but not of the present, nor even of the next year.”

“I am aware, citizen conscript,” said the military gentleman, growing more and more civil as he meant to be more and more imperative, “I am aware of the year of your conscription, but the necessities of the grand army have compelled the emperor to anticipate a year or two; and you, who would otherwise have been no candidate for the cross of the legion of honor for two years at least, are now presented with the opportunity, which, of course, every Frenchman desires, of serving your country, without any such delay.”

The officer presented Adolph with a paper which contained the order for his departure, fixed the day, and named the place of rendezvous; and then, with military grace, took leave of the family.

It is not possible to describe the misery which this order had brought into the family. Six months before, Adolph would have thought less of the dangers of the camp, and Madam Berien would have felt relieved by his departure; now, the thought of separation was terrible. The certainty seemed for a time to have paralyzed the family. The marriage was, of course, to be postponed.

“I could,” said Louise, to the curé, “I could have sustained the blow better, had I perfect confidence in the strength of Adolph’s power of resistance. It is not my disappointment that makes me weep; if I know my heart, dear father, it is the apprehension for Adolph’s moral safety. He must be exposed to all the debasing influences of a great army, and to all the dangers of association with men who make a mockery of all that is holy in religion, and all that is decent in morals; and he must stand the taunts and jibes of some of those from whom he has recently been attracted. He will fall, assuredly.”

“Let us pray for his endurance of the trial,” said the curé.

“Let us find some one,” said Louise, “that will assist to sustain his resolution of good, that will watch over him, and admonish him of his dangers.”

“Who shall do that,” said Father Rudolph, “but who e’er it may be, he turneth a sinner from his ways, and hideth a multitude of sins. It is a blessed office.”

“Father,” said Madam Berien, “are there now no chaplains in the army?”

“Alas, my child!” said the venerable curé, “war is not carried on now with that formality and parade which once distinguished it. The rapid movements of the troops give but little chance for religious impressions, and the morals of a camp seem to preclude the hope of any demand for clerical aid.”

“How few of our army escape death or incurable wounds!” said madam.

“Alas!” said Louise, “it is the camp more than the field that I dread; death or wounds are less injurious than the decayed morals.”

There was trouble in the family of Madam Berien, trouble in the heart of Adolph. He was too young, too much a Frenchman of the time, to express an open regret at joining the army, and so he mourned his separation from Louise, and the disappointment of his marriage hopes, secretly. He dreaded the dangers of the association. He had really improved; he had begun to love virtue as he loved Louise; and he feared the consequence of the want of her influence in the cause of his improvement.

The night before the departure of the few conscripts which were to leave the village, was spent by Adolph at Madam Berien’s; the curé was present most of the time.

In the morning the busy movement in the place denoted that all were ready.

Louise had only one word of farewell, one kiss to give, and her part was accomplished—and her heart sunk within her as she placed upon Adolph’s neck a little medal, which she carefully hid beneath his dress.

The ferry-boat that crosses the river some distance above the village, received the conscripts, and many of their friends, who would accompany them to the rendezvous beyond the river.

The neat uniform of the regiment sat well upon Adolph’s manly form; and as he stood on the boat and took his parting glass with one of the principal dignitaries of the village, he looked as if he deserved golden instead of worsted epaulets. One friend only accompanied the youth—it was his faithful dog, Ponto, who shared in

The Conscript’s Departure.

The regiment was mustered—it joined others—and in a few days was on its march to be united with an attachment of the grand army.

The army of the French, in those days to which we refer, was not of a kind to be overlooked, whereever it encamped, or whithersoever it marched; but just in proportion to the obtrusiveness of the whole was the indistinctness of its parts; and though each man in the ranks was made to feel something of personal identity, yet few out of the ranks looked upon the marshaled host as any thing less than one vast machine which a master-mind had formed, and a master-hand was directing; and to have supposed that a single soldier could have found distinction, or acquired note, unless by some excessive crime, or excessive courage, would be like identifying a drop in the ocean, or expecting some particle of matter to assert and confirm its indisputable right to distinction.

All heard of the progress and the victories of the army, but none knew exactly who were included in that little sentence, “one thousand killed and wounded;” and the heart of Louise sunk within her as occasional bulletins of battles reached the village, with statements of daring courage, of admirable conduct, and of numerous deaths. Letters were then not common from the army, at least from private soldiers.

Time passed, and Louise obtained permission of her mother to visit a relative at a distance; it was deemed a good opportunity to repair her health and spirits by a change of scenery and of company; and so she left her mother with more than usual evidence of grief at departure, for Louise, though affectionate, was not timid, and she rarely anticipated danger in any undertaking of her own; and such was her self-possession, that she never suffered from any of those incidents of travel which so often disturb the nerves of more delicate persons.

A battle had been fought, and a German city yielded to the arms of the French. The wounded were disposed of in the hospitals, churches, and hotels of the conquered city.

Adolph lay stretched out upon a well prepared bed in a small chamber, quite apart from some of his wounded brethren. A musket-ball had passed through his body, escaping the vital parts, but producing a wound which it was feared would, from the lack of regular attendants, and the warmth of the weather, prove mortal. He had suffered much, and his system was not in a condition to aid nature; still he rather improved. One morning, while he lay ruminating on the change in his affairs, he saw the surgeon of the regiment entering the room, followed by a young, slightly-built person, who seemed to have very little of the military in his movements or his dress; his face, for a moment, sent back the thoughts of Adolph to the home of his boyhood and youth; he started, as if some sudden pain had seized him, but looking again, he heard the name of the stranger announced. It was Klemm; he was the secretary to the general commanding the city.

“I have come,” said Klemm, sitting down beside the bed of Adolph, “to assist in taking care of some of our wounded.”

“Of our wounded,” said Adolph.

“Yes, our wounded; for, though my pronunciation is rather German than French, I am a native and a citizen of France, educated in Germany, and bearing in my speech pretty strong proofs of my master’s powers of instruction, and my own of imitation. I have left some of the volunteer nurses with others, and have come to do my best by you. I have some acquaintance with the art. Is this your dog?”

“Yes, this is Ponto the second; his predecessor, whom I brought from the village with me, perished in the same action in which his master received his present wound; and long used to the company of a faithful dog, I procured this, the nearest resemblance to old Ponto that I could find, and have christened him after his predecessor.”

“And transferred your affections from the old to the new companion?”

“Not entirely yet, but nearly, I think; he is likely to inherit the love as well as the name of the deceased.”

“Love is a quality easily transferred, then?” said Klemm.

“Why, yes; we soldiers, who are quartered in favorable positions, do certainly find it a convertible commodity.”

“I will dress your wound,” said Klemm.

When the office had been performed, and Adolph was settled quietly down upon his well beaten pillow, Klemm said, “It is now time for me to repair to my duties at head-quarters, and you would better compose yourself to sleep. Do you need the assistance of a chaplain as well as a nurse?”

“To confess the truth,” said Adolph, “I believe I could about as well dress my wound myself, as to go over some of those troublesome prayers with which my boyhood was unutterably bored. I think, however, that a little sleep would be about as refreshing as prayers.”

Just as Klemm was withdrawing, Adolph called to him.

“Do I understand that you are to act as assistant surgeon or nurse in this building?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think I shall recover, for I have felt no dressing like this since I was shot; and probably in a few weeks we may have a frolic together, for I perceived as they brought me hither that the place is not wholly destitute of females.”

Considerable familiarity grew up between the wounded man and his nurse. The exceeding delicacy of the attentions of Klemm, his soothing care, his skillful application of all the prescriptions of the surgeon, created in Adolph a spirit of gratitude which then found expression in words, but which he hoped would have other exponents at a future time.

“I see you wear a token,” said Klemm, as he took hold of the medal which had been placed round the neck of the soldier. “I should think that one who wore this would not fail in his daily devotions. Or is this a love token?”

“Well, rather more of love than religion, I imagine.”

“Oh, then your heart has suffered as much as your body?”

“Why that might be the token of another’s love for me, rather than of mine for her.”

“That is true, indeed; the medal itself might have been bestowed as a token of love for you; but surely, if worn by you, it was worn as a token of love for another.”

“Why, to say the truth, it has been worn without much thought any way; but if you will look at it, you will see that it has saved my life by breaking the force of a ball.”

“It has certainly suffered considerably,” said Klemm, as he gazed at the crushed medal.

“It is strange,” said Klemm, some days afterward, when dressing the wounds of Adolph, “that you should wear a religious medal on your neck, and appear to be inattentive to services for which such things are worn, and even indifferent to the motives for which this particular one was given.”

“Do you know the motive?” said Adolph.

“You told me some days since, that it was rather a token of love than religion.”

“In which I think it proper to say I was wrong.”

“You awaken in me a curiosity by your remarks which I certainly have no right to expect will be gratified.”

Adolph, whose fault of character it was to yield to immediate influences, professed himself willing to explain, desiring it to be understood, however, that the names he should use with regard to the absent, should be fictitious. “My own follies are justly visited on me, but I have no right to connect respectable names with mine in this situation.”

Adolph, changing the name of the village and that of Madam Berien’s family, related to Klemm the circumstances of his life—his love for Louise, his irreligious habits, his restoration to propriety, his call to the army, and added that the evil associations of the camp had obliterated not only the sense of respect which he had begun to feel for religion, but it had really led him back to skepticism; and his life in the army had of late been in accordance with his want of belief.

“Of course,” said Klemm, “you retain your affection for things and persons of this world, notwithstanding your loss of belief in the doctrines that relate to that which is to come?”

“Not entirely.”

“Have you ceased to love Louise—do you love another?”

“Neither; but I confess to you that as I released myself from the trammels which the religious opinions of Louise placed upon my mind and conduct, I felt less respect, and consequently less love for her.”

“Does your respect and love go together?”

“My love for her was almost entirely dependent on respect. She was my superior in education, my teacher in religion.”

“And so she put on airs, did she—played the school-mistress?”

“I should certainly do injustice to her were I to admit the force of your query. She led me back into religious observances less by any thing masculine in her character than by the evident disinterestedness of her conduct, and the conviction that however little I might respect the requirements of religion, I certainly found the results of the outward observances of the rules the best for myself.”

“Do you still love Louise?”

“Can I love her, and live as I have lived for these last six months? I ask seriously.”

“I will answer that when I can ascertain how intimately your self-respect is connected with that respect which you say was the fount of your love for Louise.”

“It is certain that for some months after I entered the army, my resolutions for good were well maintained, and I thought that my affections for Louise were augmented by absence. But I fell into the habits of those with whom I associated, and I soon found that they shared the opinions which my earlier companions professed; and I confess to you that my old skepticism returned, and though my sufferings here have certainly prevented me from the indulgence of dissipation into which I had fallen, yet I do not find that my religious belief has returned with my change of conduct.”

“Probably not, your change of conduct, as you call it, is only the necessity of your position, and you have perhaps sinned as heartily here, within sight of death, as when you were in the full flush of health.”

“And, by the way, Mr. Klemm, that is the unkindest remark you have made to me yet, and smacking the least of German accent of any sentence you have uttered. How much your voice resembles Louise’s!”

“Do I resemble her much in other respects?”

“You are not as tall, and you are darker; beside, your shock of hair resembles her splendid head about as much as your guttural German does her pure French.”

“Adolph,” said Klemm, in accents far more Germanic than those recently used, “would you seek to renew your relations with Louise if you were now permitted to return?”

“The only weakness which I ever knew in Louise was her love for me, and that, I have occasion to know, would not allow her to marry me with my present vices.”

“Could you not conform to the customs of her family without a change of opinion?”

“Would you advise me to do it?”

“Would you do it?”

“Klemm, you have seen too much of my character for me to affect to conceal much from you. I repeat it, I do not find myself disposed to any sanctimonious display of piety; I cannot and will not submit myself to the mortifying sacraments of the church. But if I could play the hypocrite, I would not deceive Louise if I could; and I suppose it is an evidence of my want of love for her now, that I will not do this to secure her as my wife. What say you?”

“I will answer you to-morrow,” said Klemm, as he hastily left the room.

“All gone! all impressions of piety erased, all holy resolutions abandoned, all faith shipwrecked, all progress given up, all religion relinquished; yet what is that last sentiment he utters, ‘I would not deceive her even to make her my wife.’ Surely while the sentiments of religion are clouded, while their effect is denied, they are lying deep in the heart, buried, but not lost—silent, unseen, but surely not dead.”

Adolph was recovering slowly, and his nurse sought to comfort him with the assurance that he would soon be allowed to return home upon a furlough.

“Why should I desire to return home,” said Adolph, “a wreck of what I have been—a wreck in mind and body, my health ruined and my faith destroyed? I take back nothing which caused my departure to be regretted.”

“You have heard, then, that Louise, apprised of your situation, has resolved to discard you?”

“No, I have not heard it, but I feel it; and, moreover, I cannot and will not impose upon her faith in me.”

“I think if you could resolve to resume your religious duties there, notwithstanding all that has passed here, though she should know it all, she would receive you. But shall I invite a priest into your room?”

“To have me laughed at by the whole regiment. I have little to confess that I have not told you—nothing, indeed, that you may not fully understand by what I have said.”

“But I have no functions to grant absolution, whatever you may confess.”

“Has any one more than you have? Is not the whole system one of priestcraft? What do priests know more than I do, and for what are they seeking to bring me under their care, unless to augment their power, and increase their comforts?”

“Perhaps you have an inclination to listen to teachers of another creed? They are in the next town.”

“Oh no, they are all alike in one thing, however they may differ in other matters, to rule others and help themselves.”

“Was Father Rudolph of that class?”

“No, apparently not—but how do you know Father Rudolph? Or how did you know that I was acquainted with him?”

Klemm bit his lip—“It is not difficult to ascertain who have been your friends, as in your delirium you were very free with their names.”

“Did I repeat her name.”

“Only as Louise. But you are apparently set against the clergy.”

“Yes.”

“Have you thought really of their influence on your life? Have you considered that much of all that you call morals is indeed the effect of their religious teaching?”

“That is religion not the priest.”

“I speak for the instrument, I confess; but a clergyman is to religion what an army is to a war—and you might as well think of conducting a national contest without officer and soldier, as a moral, religious contest without a clergy. And I doubt whether you have any idea of religion, unless it be a sort of restraint upon certain actions and passions. You mean morals when you say religion, and as you have seen morals exist where there was no profession of religion or observance of prescribed devotion, you think that such a morality is an independent system. Let me correct that idea. I agree that we find morals without religion, but I do not agree that morals would exist without it, and thousands of our young officers (I heard some of them last evening,) assert with philosophic gravity, that they are moral (they mean good) without religion. How vain—how short-sighted. They overlook the great fact that their morals are good habits founded on the religious teachings and practice of their mothers or priests, and that all the credit which they claim for their philosophy is due to Christianity, and that less settled in habits, or less reflective than they now are, they would fall with the first temptation that presented. What do you say to that Adolph?”

“I say nothing now—proceed.”

“I will proceed to make a personal application. To whom was the virtue of your childhood and youth due? Certainly to your virtuous, religious mother.”

“Did you know my mother?”

“What a question!”

“If not, how did you know that she was religious?”

“Because you said that in your childhood you were religious and had a mother. You gave me a knowledge of the cause when you stated the effect.”

“But my mother was neither a priest nor a religeuse.”

“No, but she frequented the sacrament of the church, and attended to the instruction of a priest, and thus became religious. But you admit that falling into bad company your morals became, if not depraved, at least vitiated, and that you began to despise religion when you neglected morals.”

“But when I began to reform, certainly I did not owe my change of purpose to a priest, and I only intended the reformation in my morals.”

“To whom then were you indebted for moral improvement?”

“To Louise.”

“And did not Louise owe her instruction to the same priest whom you had neglected? Nay, is it not probable that she applied to Father Rudolph for advice in the very matter of your reformation, and that he prescribed the condition on which she was to indulge her affections and encourage yours?”

“I cannot say that it was not so. But Louise was pretty independent in her manners, and would scarcely have asked the priest’s advice with regard to a lover.”

“Do you know any thing temporal of greater consequence than matrimonial engagements, or any relation more likely to have effect upon what you seem to think the priest has a legitimate right to meddle with?”

“I do not believe the priest interfered.”

“I know he did.”

“You know?”

“It is most natural that he should have done it. And now permit me to suggest still further, that while you owe the lessons which Louise gave you to the good father, you owe the reformation which you commenced to the remains of religious instruction in your heart. Undoubtedly it was your love to Louise that gave her influence over you, but it was religion that made her efforts successful.”

“You confuse me—I do not assent, but I cannot now contend.”

“I will leave you—leave you with this single remark, that not only did you owe your former reformation to religion, but there is religion now dealing with your heart, and your affection for Louise will return with the ready admission of religious instruction and the performance of religious duties.”

“I think I love her now as well as ever.”

“Then I shall hear more to-morrow of your experience.”

The night was one of nervous irritability, and poor Adolph presented to the surgeon the next morning, one of the worst cases of relapse in the hospital, and Klemm was early summoned to the room of his patient. The day was passed in painful aberration of mind, and short unrefreshing sleep.

The evening found the sufferer somewhat relieved.

“What can I do for you more?” said Klemm, as he smoothed down the pillow after assisting Adolph to acquire a comfortable position.

“That voice again!” said Adolph, “and no German.”

“I have got clear of my German accent by conversing with you.”

“Only at times,” said Adolph.

“Can I do nothing more for you?”

“Nothing, I believe.—Did you prepare for the priesthood?”

“No. I had neither inclination nor vocation.”

“I am sorry.”

“Adolph you are very sick—sick, less from the pain of your wound than from the tumult of your mind. I am unable to assist you. Let me invite in a clergyman, who is in the hospital.”

“Are there any here?”

“One. The terrible state of the wounded in some of the wards has compelled the officer to admit a priest.”

“Is there contagious disease?”

“Yes.”

“Do you not fear for yourself?”

“Die vollige Liebe treibet die Furcht aus.”

“What’s that?”

“Remember the words. I will call in the clergyman.”

And before Adolph could either consent or refuse Klemm had left the room.

In a short time a priest entered the chamber of Adolph, and proceeded to make himself acquainted with the state of his penitent’s mind, and then to attend to the duties of his sick call.

Adolph was calm and settled when Klemm returned, but not communicative.

Klemm then announced his departure a duty, and the fact that Adolph would, as soon as his strength would permit, be allowed to return home.

The parting of the friends that evening was truly affecting. Klemm was made to promise a visit to the village—“Though,” said he, “I may make an impression on Louise unfavorably to you.”

“I do not fear that,” said Adolph.

“Die vollige Liebe treibet die Furcht aus,” said Klemm. “A German quotation which I will show you in the original, or at least explain to you when we meet in your village.”

Klemm took leave of Adolph and Ponto, the faithful dog, and proceeded on his journey.

Men gather to see a regiment, a single company, or even a little squad depart for the camp—but few look out for the returning wounded—they come back singly and sorrowful. The wagon that was passing the ferry house nearly opposite the village in which resided Madam Berien, stopped for a moment, and a soldier, war-worn and wounded, stepped slowly from the vehicle, followed by his dog. He entered the house, and as he closed the door upon a small parlor, he found himself confronted by a female.

“Adolph!”

“Louise!”

“And your mother?”

“Well—all well.”

“And Ponto,” too, said Louise, as the affectionate dog, after reconnoitering round her, sprang up to receive his share of the caresses—“Ponto, too, come back.”

“Yes. But this is not Ponto that left the village with me. How comes he to be so familiar with you?”

“Your wounds are better?”

“I am well nearly. I need only rest—only your kindness, and I shall be ready for another campaign,” said he with a melancholy smile.

The boat awaited the passengers, and a few on the opposite shore were waiting for the

Conscript’s Return.

Adolph was received by the villagers on the shore with hearty welcome, and was conducted toward his former residence. As he entered the little hamlet, he turned slowly into the church, and at the foot of the humble altar poured out to Heaven the thanks which swelled up in his heart for his return. And near him one heart gushing with love and gratitude was breathing out its thanksgiving that the wanderer had first sought the house of God.

THE RETURN.

The post-office the next day supplied a letter, without post-mark, giving Adolph an officer’s commission for the gallantry that saved his colonel’s life at the imminent risk of his own, and extending his furlough for a year.

“But Louise,” said Adolph, “how your complexion has suffered since I saw you.”

“I have been absent for some weeks.”

“Yes, and these mountain relatives of yours always look of about the same color as one of their ripe grapes.”

Adolph having now some position, and a source of reliance upon his good resolution, presented himself before Madam Berien to solicit formally the hand of her daughter.

The matter had evidently occupied the worthy lady’s attention, as she consented at once, referred to an early day for the marriage, and desired that her own house might be the residence of her son-in-law and his wife.

“Surely, Providence is too good to me,” said Adolph, when he announced to Louise the result of his negotiation.

“Has it ever failed you when you really relied upon it?”

“Did it not allow me to be sent to the army, and to suffer horribly? I do believe I should have died without Klemm.”

“Has not your campaign resulted in the adoption of a sounder code of morals, a restoration to religious exercises, and the acquisition of rank, and in our almost immediate marriage? And will not Klemm be here at our wedding?”

“I hope so, but faith Klemm is such a well-made handsome little fellow, that I might wish him to tarry until after our marriage. I should not like to find him and you chatting German sentiment together in the German language.”

“And why not, Adolph?”

“I might fear that the sleek little secretary would outshine the wounded lieutenant.”

“Fear, Adolph! You would not fear.”

“Why not?” asked he, with a smile.

“Die vollige Liebe treibet die Furcht aus,” said Louise, with a strong German accent.

“Good Heaven, Louise! where did you find that quotation, and where that accent and look?”

“Why, the quotation is from the Bible, and the accent is as true German as my grape-raising relatives know how to give.”

No Klemm arrived as Adolph hoped, and so the bridal party set forward to the church where Father Rudolph was awaiting their arrival. The simple but interesting ceremony was concluded, and as the party rose from their last genuflection toward the altar, Louise whispered into her husband’s ear:

“Klemm has come!”

“Where—where is he? Oh! how I long to have him share in the happiness which I enjoy, and he will share in it, for it is of his own producing. Oh! Louise, could you but know—but I have told you all I can tell; yet I cannot express what I feel for that young man’s beautiful devotion to my good—to him alone, next to God, am I indebted for this day’s unspeakable delight.”

“I thought you owed it to me,” said Louise.

“To you—to you indeed, that you are mine—but to him that I was made worthy of your acceptance. Dear Louise, I am afraid you must share—”

“Afraid, Adolph—‘Die vollige Liebe treibet die Furcht aus.’ ”

“Louise, you confound me—whose is that tone of voice—whose that arch look? Surely you are not yourself now?”

“Not this moment, Adolph. Just now I am Klemm!”

The sacrifices of Louise had been accepted in Heaven—of course they were appreciated on earth, and “perfect love which casteth out fear,” had lured the wanderer back to religion, and had been rewarded in its good performed and the power of doing good.

———

BY S. D. ANDERSON.

———

OR THE COURSE OF PASSION.

———

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT.

———

(Concluded from page 262.)

CHAPTER II.

The Sacrifice.

Ask any thing but that.

An hour had not quite passed, when, as she sat alone in her little gayly-decorated study, with its walls hung with water-color drawings of her own execution, its tables strewn with poetry and music of her own composition, and her favorite books, and her own lute—her little study in which the happiest hours of her life had been spent, the first hours of her married life, while Jasper was all that her fancy painted him—his step came along the corridor, but with a slow and hesitating sound, most unlike to the quick, firm, decided tread, for which he was remarkable.

She noticed the difference, it is true, at the moment, but forgot it again instantly. It was enough! It was he! and he was coming once again to seek her in her own apartment; he had a boon to ask of her—he had promised to love her—he had called her “his dear Theresa.”

And now she sprung up, with her soul beaming from her eyes, and ran to meet him. The door was opened ere he reached it, and as he entered, she fell upon his neck, and wound her snowy arms about his waist, and kissed him fifty times, and wept silent tears in the fullness of her joy.

And did not his heart respond in the least to her innocent and girlish rapture; did he not bend at all from his bad purpose; was there no melting, no relenting in that callous, selfish nature; was, indeed, all within him hard as the nether millstone?

He clasped her, he caressed her, he spoke to her fondly, lovingly, he kissed, like Judas, to betray. He suffered her to lead him to his favorite seat of old, the deep, softly-cushioned, low arm-chair, and to place her footstool by his side, and nestle herself down upon it as she used to do, with her arms folded negligently across his knee, and her beautiful rounded chin propped upon them, with her great earnest eyes looking up in his face, like unfathomable wells of tenderness.

And he returned her gaze of fondness, unabashed, unembarrassed; and yet it was sometime before he spoke; and when he did speak at length, his voice was altered and almost husky. But it was from doubt how best he might play his part, not that he shrunk from the task he had imposed upon himself, either for shame or for pity.

“Well, my Theresa,” he said, at last, “have you thought whether you will make this sacrifice?”

“No, Jasper, I have not thought about it; but if you wish me to make it, I will make it, and it will be no sacrifice.”

“But I tell you, Theresa, that it is a sacrifice, a mighty and most painful sacrifice; a sacrifice so great and so terrible, that I almost fear, almost feel that it would be selfish in me to ask it of you.”

“Ask it, then; ask it quickly, that you may see how readily it shall be granted.”

“Can you conceive no sacrifice that you would not make to please me?”

“None, that you would ask of me.”

“Theresa, no one can say what another might ask of them. Husbands, lovers, brothers, have asked strange sacrifices—fearful sacrifices, at woman’s hands; and—they have been made.”

“Ask me, then, ask me,” she repeated, smiling, although her face had grown somewhat pale as she listened to his words, and marked his strangely excited manner. “I repeat, there is no sacrifice which you would ask of me, which I will not make. Nay more, there is none which I should think a sacrifice if it is to preserve your love to me, when I feared that I had lost it forever, though how, indeed, I knew not.”

“We shall see,” he said, affecting to muse with himself, and ponder deeply. “We shall see; you are a great historian, and have read of all the celebrated women of times past and present. You have heard of the beautiful Mademoiselle Desvieux, she who⁠—”

“She who was the promised wife of the great, the immortal Bossuet; and who sacrificed her own happiness, freeing her lover from the claims she held on him, lest a wife should be a clog upon his pure yet soaring ambition, lest an earthly affection should wean him from a higher love, and weaken the cords that were drawing him toward heaven! I have—I have heard of her! Who has not—who does not revere her name—who does not love her?”

“And what think you of her sacrifice, Theresa?”

“That it was her duty. A difficult duty to perform, you will say, but still her duty. Her praise is, that she performed it gloriously. And yet I doubt not that her sacrifice bore her its own exceeding great reward. Loving as she loved, all her sorrows must have been changed into exultation, when she saw him in after days the saint he became, the saint she helped to make him.”

“And could you have made such a sacrifice, Theresa?”

“I hope so, and I think so,” she replied, with a little hesitation. “But it avails not now to think of that, seeing that I cannot make such. She was a maiden, I am a wedded wife.”

“True, dearest, true. I only named her, to judge by your opinion, of what I wish to learn, ere I will ask you. There was another sacrifice, Theresa, a very terrible sacrifice, made of late, and made to no purpose, too, as it fell out—a sacrifice of far more doubtful nature; yet there be some who have not failed to praise it.”

“What was it—do you praise it?”

“At least I pity it, Theresa.”

“What was it—tell me?”

“After the late rebellion at Sedgemoor. Have you not heard, Theresa?”

“No, I think not—go on, I want to hear it; go on, Jasper.”

“There was a young man, a cavalier, very young, very brave, very nobly born, and, it is said, very handsome. He was taken after the route of that coward, Gray of Werk’s horse—cast into prison, and, when his turn came, tried by the butcher, Kirke—you know what that means, Theresa?”

“Condemned,” she said, sadly. “Of course he was condemned—what next?”

“To be hung by the neck upon the shameful gibbet, and then cut down, while yet alive, and subjected to all the barbarous tortures which are inflicted as the penalty of high treason.”

“Horrible! horrible! and—what more, Jasper?”

“Have you not, indeed, heard the tale?”

“Indeed, no. I pray you tell me, for you have moved me very deeply.”

“It is very moving. The boy had a sister—the loveliest creature, it is said, that trod the soil of England, scarce seventeen years of age, a very paragon of grace and purity and beauty. They two were alone in the world—parents, kinsfolk, friends, they had none. They had none to love but one another, even as we, my Theresa; and they did love—how, you may judge. The girl threw herself at the butcher’s feet, and implored her brother’s pardon.”

“Go on, go on, Jasper!” cried the young wife, excited almost beyond the power of restraining her emotions by the dreadful interest of his tale, “and, for once, he granted it?”

“And, for once, as you say, he granted it. But upon one condition.”

“And that was—?”

“And that was, that the young girl should make a sacrifice—an awful sacrifice—should submit, in a word, to be a martyr for her brother’s sake.”

“To die for him—and she died! Of course, she died to save him; that were no sacrifice, none, Jasper—I say none! Why any woman would have done that!”

“It was not to die for him—it was to sacrifice herself—herself—for she was lovely, as I told you—to the butcher.”

“Ah!” sighed Theresa, with a terrible sensation at her heart, which she could not explain, even to herself; “and what—what did she?”

“She asked permission to consult her brother.”

“And he told her that he had rather die ten thousand deaths than that she should lose one hair’s breadth of her honor!” cried Theresa, enthusiastically clasping her hands together.

“And he told her that life was very sweet, and death on a gallows very shameful!”

“The catiff! the miserable, loathsome slave! the filthy dastard! I trust that Kirke drew him with wild horses! The gallows were too good for such a slave.”

“Then you would not have made such a sacrifice?”

“I—I!” she exclaimed, her soft blue eyes actually flashing fire; “I sacrifice my honor! but lo!” she interrupted herself, smiling at her own vehemence, “am not I a little fool, to fancy that you are in earnest. No, dearest Jasper, I would no more make that sacrifice, than you would suffer me to do so. Did not I make that reservation, did I not say any sacrifice, which you would ask of me?”

“Ay, dearest!” he replied gently, laying his hand on her head, “you do me no more than justice there. I would die as many deaths as I have hairs on my head, before you should so save me.” And for the first time that night Jasper St. Aubyn spoke in earnest.

“I know you would, Jasper. But go on, I pray you, with this fearful tale. I would you had not begun it; but now you have, I must hear it to the end. What did she?”

“She did, Theresa, as her brother bade her. She sacrificed herself to the butcher.”

“Poor wretch! poor wretch! and so her brother lived with the world’s scorn and curses on his head—and she—did she die, Jasper?”

“No, my Theresa. She is alive yet. It was the brother died.”

“How so? how could that be? Did Kirke then relent?”

“Kirke never relented! When the girl awoke in the butcher’s chamber, with fame and honor—all that she loved in life—lost to her for ever—he bade her look out of the window—what think you she saw there, Theresa?”

“What?”

“The thing, that an hour before was her brother, dangling in the accursed noose from the gibbet.”

“And God did not speak in thunder.”

“To the girl’s mind, He spoke—for that went astray at once, jangled and jarred, and out of tune forever! There was a sacrifice, Theresa.”

“A wicked one, and so it ended, wickedly. We’ll none of such sacrifices, Jasper. If we should ever have to die, which God avert in his mercy, any death of violence or horror, we will die tranquilly and together. Will we not, dearest?”

“As you said but now, may the good God guard us from such a fate, Theresa; and yet,” he added, looking at her fixedly, and with a strange expression, “we may be nearer to it than we think for, even now.”

“Nearer to what, Jasper? speak,” she cried, eagerly, as if she had missed the meaning of the words he last uttered.

“Nearer to the perils of the law, for high treason,” answered her husband, in a low, dejected voice. “It is of that I have been anxious to speak with you all the time.”

“Then speak at once, for God’s sake, dearest Jasper! speak at once, and fully, that we may know the worst;” and she showed more composure now, in what she naturally deemed the extremity of peril, than he had looked for, judging from the excitement she had manifested at the mere listening to the story of another’s perils. “Say on,” she added, seeing that he hesitated, “let me know the worst.”

“It must be so, though it is hard to tell, Theresa; we—myself, I mean, and a band of the first and noblest youths of England—have been engaged for these three months past in a conspiracy to banish from the throne of England this last and basest son of a weak, bigoted, unlucky race of kings—this cowardly, blood-thirsty, persecuting bigot—this Papist monarch of a Protestant land, this James the Second, as men call him; and to set in his place the brave, wise, virtuous William of Nassau, now Stadtholder of the United Provinces. It is this business which has obliged me to be absent so often of late, in London. It is the failure of this business which has rendered me morose, unkind, irritable—need I say more, you have pardoned me, Theresa.”

“The failure of this business!” she exclaimed, gazing at him with a face from which dismay had banished every hue of color—“the failure!”

“Ay, Theresa, it is even so. Had we succeeded in liberating England from the cold tyrant’s bloody yoke, we had been patriots, saviors, fathers of our country—Brutuses, for what I know, and Timoleons! We have failed—therefore, we are rebels, traitors and, I suppose, ere long shall be victims.”

“The plot, then, is discovered?”

“Even so, Theresa.”

“And how long, Jasper, have you known this dreadful termination?”

“I have foreseen it these six weeks or more. I knew it, for the first time, to-day.”

“And is it absolutely known, divulged, proclaimed? Have arrests been made?” she asked, with a degree of coolness that amazed him, while he felt that it augured ill for the success of his iniquitous scheme; but he had, in some sort, foreseen her questions, and his answers were prepared already. He answered, therefore, as unhesitatingly as if there had been one word of truth in all that he was uttering.

“It is all known to one of the leading ministers of the government; it is not divulged; and no arrests have been made yet. But the breathing space will be brief.”

“All, then, is easy! Let us fly! Let us take horse at once—this very night! By noon to-morrow, we shall be in Plymouth, and thence we can gain France, and be safe there until this tyranny shall be o’erpast.”

“Brave girl!” he replied, with the affectation of a melancholy smile. “Brave Theresa, you would bear exile, ruin, poverty with the outlawed traitor; and we might still be happy. But, alas, girl! it is too late to fly. The ports are all closed throughout England. It is too late to fly, and to fight is impossible.”

“Then it remains only that we die!” she exclaimed, casting herself into his arms, “and that is not so difficult, now that I know you love me, Jasper.” But, even as she uttered the words, his previous conversation recurred to her mind, and she started from his arms, crying out, “but you spoke of a sacrifice!—a sacrifice which I could make! Is it possible that I can save you?”

“Not me alone, Theresa, but all the band of brothers who are sworn to this emprise; nor them alone, but England, which may, by your deed, still be liberated from the tyrant.”

She turned her beautiful eyes upward, and her lips moved rapidly, although she spoke not. She was praying for aid from on high—for strength to do her duty.

He watched her with calm, expectant, unmoved eyes, and muttered to himself, “I have gained. She will yield.”

“Now,” she said, “now,” as her prayer was ended, “I am strong now to bear. Tell me, Jasper, what must I do to save you?”

“I cannot tell you, dearest. I cannot—it is too much—you could not make it; nor if you would, could I. Let it pass. We will die—all die together.”

“And England!” exclaimed the girl, with her face kindling gloriously; “and our mother England, must she perish by inches in the tyrant’s clutch, because we are cowards? No, Jasper, no. Be of more constant mind. Tell me, what is it I must do? and, though it wring my heart and rack my brain, if I can save you and your gallant friends, and our dear native land, I will save them, though it kill me.”

“Could you endure to part from me, Theresa—to part from me forever?”

“To part from you, Jasper!” No written phrase can express the agony, the anguish, the despair, which were made manifest in every sound of those few simple words. A breaking heart spoke out in every accent.

“Ay, to part from me, never to see me more—never to hear my voice; only to know that I exist, and that I love you—love you beyond my own soul! Could you do this, Theresa, in the hope of a meeting hereafter, where no tyranny should ever part us any more?”

“I know not—I know not!” she exclaimed, in a shrill, piercing tone, most unlike her usual soft, slow utterance. “Is this the sacrifice you spoke of? Would this be called for at my hands?”

“To part from me so utterly that it should not be known or suspected that we had ever met—ever been wedded?”

“Why, Jasper,” she cried, starting, and gazing at him wildly, “that were impossible; all the world knows that we have met—that we have lived together here—that I am your wife. What do you mean? Are you jesting with me? No, no! God help me! that resolute, stern, dark expression! No, no, no, no! Do not frown on me, Jasper; but keep me not in this suspense—only tell me, Jasper.”

“The whole world—that is to say, the whole world of villagers and peasants here, do know that we have met—that we have lived together; but they do not know—nay, more, they do not believe, that you are my wife, Theresa.”

“Not your wife—not your wife! What, in God’s name, then, do they believe me to be? But I am—I am—yes, before God and man, I am your wife, Jasper St. Aubyn! That shame will I never bear. The parish register will prove it.”

“Before God, dearest, most assuredly you are my wife; but before man, I grieve to say, it is not so; nor will the register, to which you appeal—as I did, when I first heard the scandal—prove any thing, but against you. It seems the rascal sexton cut out the record of our marriage from the register, so soon as the old rector died. He is gone, so that he can witness nothing. Alderly and the sexton will not speak, for to do so would implicate themselves in the guilt of having mutilated the church-register. Alderly’s mother is an idiot. We can prove nothing.”

“And when did you learn all this, Jasper?” she asked, calmly; for a light, a fearful yet most clear illumination began to dawn upon her mind.

“Last night. And I rode down this morning to the church, to inspect the register. It is as I was told; there is no trace of the record which we signed, and saw witnessed, on its pages.”

“And to what end should Verity and Alderly have done this great crime needlessly?”

“Villains themselves, they fancied that I too was a villain; and that, if not then, at some after time, I should desire to profit by their villainy, and should then be in their power.”

“Ha!” she said, still maintaining perfect self-possession. “It seems, at least, that their villainy was wise, was prophetical.”

“Theresa!” his voice was stern, and harsh, and threatening—his brow as black as midnight.

“Pardon me!” she said. “Pardon me, Jasper; but you should make allowance for some feeling in a woman. I am, then, looked upon as a lost, fallen wretch, as a disgrace to my name and my sex, a concubine, a harlot—is it not so, Jasper?”

“Alas! alas! Theresa!”

“And you would have me?—speak!”

“I would not have you do it; God knows! it goes nigh to break my heart to think of it—I only tell you what alone can save us—”

“I understand—it needs not to mince the matter; what is it, then, that can save us—save you, I should say rather, and your friends?”

“That you should leave me, Theresa, and go where you would, so it were not within a hundred miles of this place—but better to France or Italy; all that wealth could procure you, you should have; and my love would be yours above all things, even although we never meet, until we meet in heaven.”

“Heaven, sir, is for the innocent and faithful, not for the liar and the traitor! But how shall this avail any thing to save you, if I consent to do it? I must know all; I must see all clearly, before I act.”

“Are you strong enough to bear what I shall say to you, my poor Theresa?”

“Else had I not borne to hear what you have said to me.”

“It is the secretary of state, then, who has discovered our plot. He is himself half inclined to join us; but he is a weak, interested, selfish being, although of vast wealth, great influence, and birth most noble. Now, he has a daughter⁠—”

“Ah!” the wretched girl started as if an ice-bolt had shot to her very heart, “and you—you would wed her!”

“That is to say, he would have me wed her; and on that condition joins our party. And so our lives, and England’s liberties, should be preserved by your glorious sacrifice.”

“I must think, then—I must think,” she answered, burying her head in her hands, in truth, to conceal the agony of her emotions, and to gain time, not for deliberation, but to compose her mind and clear her voice for speech.

And he stood gazing on her, with the cold, cutting eye, the calm, sarcastic sneer, of a very Mephistopheles, believing that she was about to yield, and inwardly mocking the very weakness, on which he had played, to his own base and cruel purposes.

But in a moment she arose and confronted him, pale, calm, majestical, most lovely in her extremity of sorrow, but firm as a hero or a martyr.

“And so,” she said, in a clear, cold, ringing voice, “this is the sacrifice you ask of me?—to sever myself from you forever—to go forth into the great, cruel, cold world alone, with a bleeding, broken heart, a blighted reputation, and a blasted name? All this I might endure, perhaps I would—but you have asked more of me, Jasper. You have asked me to confess myself a thing infamous and vile—a polluted wretch—not a wife, but a wanton! You have asked me, your own wedded wife, to write myself down, with my own hand, a harlot, and to stand by and look on at your marriage with another—as if I were the filthy thing you would name me. Than be that thing, Jasper, I would rather die a hundred fold; than call myself that thing, being innocent of deed or thought of shame, I had rather be it! Now, sir, are you answered? What, heap the name of harlot on my mother’s ashes! What, blacken my dead father’s stainless ’scutcheon! What—lie, before my God, to brand myself, the first of an honest line, with the strumpet’s stain of blackness! Never! never! though thou and I, and all the youth of England, were to die in tortures inconceivable; never! though England were to perish unredeemed! Now, sir, I ask you, are you answered?”

“I am,” he replied, perfectly unmoved, “I am answered, Theresa, as I hoped, as I expected to be.”

“What do you mean?—did you not ask me to do this thing?”

“I did not, Theresa. I told you what sacrifice might save us all. I did not ask you to make it. Nay, did I not tell you that I would not even suffer you to make it?”

“But you told me—you told me—God help me, for I think I shall go mad! Oh! tempt me no further, Jasper; try me no further. Is—is this true, that you have told me?”

“Every word—every word of it, my own best love,” answered the arch deceiver, “save only that I would not for my life, nay, for my soul, have suffered you to make the sacrifice I spoke of. Perish myself, my friends! perish England! nay, perish the whole earth, rather!”

“Then why so tempt me? Why so sorely, so cruelly try this poor heart, Jasper?”

“To learn if you were strong enough to share in my secrets—and you shall share them. We must fly, Theresa; not from Plymouth; not from any seaport, but from the wildest gorge in the wild coast of Devon. I have hired a fishing-boat to await us. We must ride forth alone, as if for a pleasure party, across the hills, to-morrow, and so make our way to the place appointed. If we escape, all shall be well—come the worst, as you said, my own Theresa, at least we shall die together.”

“Are you in earnest, Jasper?”

“On my soul! by the God who hears me!”

“And you will take me with you; you will not cast me from you; you will uphold me ever to be your own, your wedded wife?”

“I will—I will. Not for the universe! not for my own soul! would I lose you, my own, own Theresa!”

And he clasped her to his bosom, in the fondest, closest embrace, and kissed her beautiful lips eagerly, passionately. And she, half fainting in his arms, could only murmur, in the revulsion of her feelings, “Oh, happy! happy! too, too happy!”

Then he released her from his arms, and bade her go to bed, for it was waxing late, and she would need a good night’s rest to strengthen her for the toils of to-morrow’s journey.

And she smiled on him, and prayed him not to tarry long ere he joined her; and retired, still agitated and nervous from the long continuance of the dreadful mental conflict to which he had subjected her.

But he, when she had left the room, turned almost instantly as pale as ashes—brow, cheeks, nay, his very lips were white and cold. The actor was exhausted by his own exertions. The man shrunk from the task which was before him.

“The worse for her!” he muttered, through his hard-set teeth, “the worse for her! the obstinate, vain, willful fool! I would, by heaven! I would have saved her!”

Then he clasped his burning brow with the fingers of his left hand, as if to compress its fierce, rapid beating, and strode to and fro, through the narrow room, working the muscles of his clinched right hand, as if he grasped the hilt of sword or dagger.

“There is no other way,” he said at length; “there is no other way, and I must do it—must do it with my own hand. But—can I—can I—?—” he paused a moment, and resumed his troubled walk. Then halted, and muttered in a deep voice, “By hell! there is naught that a man cannot do; and I—am I not a man, and a right resolute, and stout one? It shall be so—it is her fate! her fate! Did not her father speak of it that night, as I lay weak and wounded on the bed? did I not dream it thrice thereafter, in that same bed? though then I understood it not. It shall be there—even there—where I saw it happen; so shall it pass for accident. It is fate!—who can strive against their fate?”

Again he was silent, and during that momentary pause, a deep, low, muttering roar was heard in the far distance—a breathless hush—and again, that long, hollow, crashing roll, that tells of elemental warfare.

Jasper’s eye flashed, and his whole face glared with a fearful and half frenzied illumination.

“It is,” he cried, “it is thunder! From point to point it is true! It is her fate—her fate!”

And with the words, he rushed from the room; and within ten minutes, was folded in the rapturous embrace of the snowy arms of her, whose doom of death he had decreed already in the secrets of his guilty soul.

——

CHAPTER III.

The Deed of Blood.

Throughout that livelong night, the thunder roared and rolled incessantly, and from moment to moment the whole firmament seemed to yawn asunder, showing its inner vaults, sheeted with living and coruscant fire, while ever and anon long, arrowy, forked tongues, of incandescent brightness, darted down from the zenith, cleaving the massive storm-clouds with a crash that made the whole earth reel and shudder.

Never, within the memory of man, had such a storm been known at that season of the year. Huge branches, larger than trees of ordinary size, were rent from the gigantic oaks by the mere force of the hurricane, and whirled away like straws before its fury. The rain fell not in drops or showers, but in vast sheeted columns. The rills were swollen into rivers, the rivers covered the lowland meadows, expanded into very seas. Houses were unroofed, steeples and chimneys hurled in ruin to the earth, cattle were killed in the open fields, unscathed by lightning, by the mere weight of the storm.

Yet through that awful turmoil of the elements, which kept men waking, and bold hearts trembling from the Land’s End to Cape Wrath, Jasper St. Aubyn slept as calmly as an infant, with his head pillowed on the soft bosom of his innocent and lovely wife. And she, though the tempest roared around, and the thunder crashed above her, so that she could not close an eye in sleep; though she believed that to-morrow she was about to fly from her native land, her home, never, perhaps, to see them more; though she looked forward to a life of toil and wandering, of hardship, and of peril as an exile’s wife, perhaps to a death of horror, as a traitor’s confederate, she blessed God with a grateful heart, that he had restored to her her husband’s love, and watched that dear sleeper, dreaming a waking dream of perfect happiness.

But him no dreams, either sleeping or waking, disturbed from his heavy stupor, or diverted from his hellish purpose. So resolute, so iron-like in its unbending pertinacity was that young, boyish mind, that having once resolved upon his action, not all the terrors of heaven or of hell could have turned him from it.

There lay beneath one roof, on one marriage bed, ay, clasped in one embrace, the resolved murderer, and his unconscious victim. And he had tasted the honey of her lips, had fondled, had caressed her to the last, had sunk to sleep, lulled by the sweet, low voice of her who, if his power should mate his will, would never look upon a second morrow.

And here, let no one say such things cannot be, save in the fancy of the rhapsodist or the romancer; such things are impossible—for not only is there nothing under the sun impossible to human power, or beyond the aim of human wickedness, but such things are and have been, and will be again, so long as human passion exists uncontrolled by principle.

Such things have been among ourselves, and in our own day, as he who writes has seen, and many of those who read must needs remember—and such things were that night at Widecomb.

With the first dappling of the dawn, the rage of the elements sunk into rest, the winds sighed themselves to sleep, the pelting torrents melted into a soft, gray mist; only the roar of the distant waters, mellowed into a strange fitful murmur, was heard in the general tranquillity which followed the loud uproar.

Wearied with her involuntary watching, Theresa fell asleep also, still clasping in her fond arms the miserable, guilty thing which she had sworn so fatally, and kept her vow so faithfully, to love, honor, and obey.

When the sun rose, the wretched man awoke from his deep and dreamless deep; and as his eye fell on that innocent, sweet face, calm as an infant’s, and serene, though full of deep thoughts and pure affections, he did start, he did shudder, for one second’s space—perhaps for that fleeting point of time, he doubted. But if it were so, he nerved himself again almost without an effort, disengaged himself gently from the embrace of her entwined arms, with something that sounded like a smothered curse, and stalked away in sullen gloom, leaving her buried in her last natural slumber.

Two hours had, perhaps, gone over, and the morning had come out bright and glorious after the midnight storm, the atmosphere was clear and breezy, the skies pure as crystal, and the glad sunshine glanced and twinkled with ten thousand gay reflections in the diamond rain-drops which still gemmed every blade of grass, and glistened in every flowret’s cup, when Theresa’s light step was heard coming down the stairs, and her sweet voice inquiring where she should find Master St. Aubyn.

“I am here,” answered his deep voice, which for the moment he made an effort to inflect graciously, and with the word he made his appearance from the door of his study, booted to the mid-thigh, and spurred; with a long, heavy rapier at his side, and a stout dagger counterbalancing it in the other side of his girdle. He was dressed in a full suit of plain black velvet, without any ornament or embroidery; and whether it was that the contrast made him look paler, or that the horror of what he was about to do, though insufficient to turn his hard heart, had sufficed to blanch his cheek and lips, I know not, but, as she saw his face, Theresa started as if she had seen a ghost.

“How pale you look, Jasper,” she said earnestly; “are you ill at ease, dearest, or anxious about me? If it be the last, vex not yourself, I pray you; for I am not in the least afraid, either of the fatigue or of the voyage. For the rest,” she added, with a bright smile, intended to reassure him, “I have long wished to see la belle France, as they call it; and to me the change of scene, so long as you are with me, dearest Jasper, will be but a change of pleasure. I hope I have not kept you waiting. But I could not sleep during the night for the thunder, and about daybreak I was overpowered by a heavy slumber. I did not even hear you leave me.”

“I saw that you slept heavily, my own love,” he made answer, “and was careful not to wake you, knowing what you would have to undergo to-day, and wishing to let you get all the rest you could before starting. But come, let us go to breakfast. We have little time to lose, the horses will be at the door in half an hour.”

“Come, then,” she answered, “I am ready;” and she took his arm as she spoke, and passed, leaning on him, through the long suit of rooms, which now, for above a year had been her home in mingled happiness and sorrow. “Heigho!” she murmured, with a half sigh, “dear Widecomb! dear, dear Widecomb, many a happy hour have I spent within your walls, and it goes hard with me to leave you. I wonder, shall I ever see you more.”

“Never,” replied the deep voice of her husband, in so strange a tone, that it made her turn her head and look at him quickly. A strange, dark spasm had convulsed his face, and was not yet passed from it, when her eye met his. She thought it was the effect of natural grief at leaving his fine place—the place of his birth—as an outlaw and an exile; and half repenting that she had so spoken as to excite his feelings, she hastened to soothe them, as she thought, by a gayer and more hopeful word.

“Never heed, dearest Jasper,” she said, pressing his arm, on which she hung, “if we do love old Widecomb, there are as fair places elsewhere, on the world’s green face, and if there were not, happy minds will aye find, or make happy places. And we, why spite of time and tide, wind and weather, we will be happy, Jasper. And I doubt not a moment, that we shall yet live to spend happy days once more in Widecomb.”

“I fear, never,” replied the young man, solemnly. It was a singular feeling—he did not repent, he did not falter or shrink in the least from his murderous purpose; but, for his life, he could not give her a hope, he could not say a word to cheer her, or deceive her, further than he was compelled to do in order to carry out his end.

The morning meal passed silently and sadly; for, in spite of all her efforts to be gay, and to make him lighter-hearted, his brow was clouded, and he would not converse; and she, fearing to vex him, or to trespass on what she believed to be his deep regret at leaving home, ceased to intrude upon his sorrow.

At length he asked her, “Are you ready?” and as he spoke, arose from the table.

“Oh yes,” she answered, “I am always ready when you want me. And see, Jasper,” she added, “here are my jewels,” handing him a small ebony casket “I thought they might be of use to us, in case of our wanting money; and yet I should grieve to part with them, for they are the diamonds you gave me that night we were wedded.”

He took it with a steady hand, and thrust it into the bosom of his dress, saying, with a forced smile, “You are ever careful, Theresa. But you have said nothing, I trust, to your maidens, of our going.”

“Surely not, Jasper, they believe I am going but for a morning’s ride. Do you not see that I have got on my new habit? You have not paid me one compliment on it, sir. I think you might at least have told me that I looked pretty in it. I know the day when you would have done so, without my begging it.”

“Is that meant for a reproach, Theresa?” he said, gloomily, “because—”

“A reproach, Jasper,” she interrupted him quickly, “how little you understand poor me! I hoped, by my silly prattle, to win you from your sorrow at leaving all that you love so dearly. But I will be silent⁠—”

“Do so, I pray you, for the moment.”

And without further words, he led her down the steps of the terrace, and helped her to mount her palfrey, a beautiful, slight, high-bred thing, admirably fitted to carry a lady round the trim rides of a park, but so entirely deficient in bone, strength, and sinew, that no animal could have been conceived less capable of enduring any continuous fatigue, or even of making any one strong and sustained exertion. Then he sprung to the back of his own noble horse, a tall, powerful, thorough-bred hunter, of about sixteen hands in height, with bone and muscle to match, capable, as it would appear, of carrying a man-at-arms in full harness through a long march or a pitched battle.

Just as he was on the point of starting, he observed that one of his dogs, a favorite greyhound, was loose, and about to follow him, when he commanded him to be taken up instantly, rating the man who had held the horses very harshly, and cursing him soundly for disobeying his orders.

Then, when he saw that he was secure against the animal’s following him, he turned his horse’s head to the right hand, toward the great hills to the westward, saying aloud, so that all the bystanders could hear him,

“Well, lady fair, since we are only going for a pleasure ride, suppose we go up toward the great deer-park in the forest. By the way,” he added, turning in his saddle to the old steward, who was standing on the terrace, “I desired Haggerston, the horse-dealer, to meet me here at noon, about a hunter he wants to sell me. If I should not be back, give him some dinner, and detain him till I return. I shall not be late, for I fancy my lady will not care to ride very far.”

“Don’t be too sure of that, Jasper,” she replied, with an arch smile, thinking to aid him in his project. “It is so long since I have ridden out with you, that I may wish to make a day of it. Come, let us start.”

And she gave her jennet its head, and cantered lightly away over the green, her husband following at a trot of his powerful hunter; and in a few minutes they were both hidden from the eyes of the servants, among the clumps of forest-trees and the dense thickets of the chase.

At something more than three miles’ distance from Widecomb House, to the westward, there is a pass in the hills, where a bridle-road crosses the channel of the large brook, which I have named so often, and which, at a point far lower down, was the scene of Jasper’s ill-omened introduction to Theresa Allan.

This bridle-road, leading from the sparse settlements on Dartmoor to the nearest point of the seacoast, was a rough, dangerous track, little frequented except by the smugglers and poachers of that region, and lay for the most part considerably below the level of the surrounding country, between wooded hills, or walk of dark gray rock.

The point at which it crosses the stream is singularly wild and romantic, for the road and the river both are walled by sheer precipices of gray, shattered, limestone rock, nearly two hundred feet in height, perfectly barren, bare, and treeless, except on the summits, which are covered with heather and low, stunted shrubbery.

The river itself, immediately above the ford, by which the road passes it, descends by a flight of rocky steps, or irregular shelvy rapids, above a hundred feet within three times as many yards, and then spreads out into a broad, open pool, where its waters, not ordinarily above three feet deep, glance rapidly, but still and unbroken, over a level pavement of smooth stone, almost as slippery as ice. Scarce twenty yards below this, there is an abrupt pitch of sixty feet in perpendicular height, over which the river rushes at all times in a loud foaming waterfall, but after storms among the hills, in a tremendous roaring cataract.

The ford is never a safe one, owing to the insecure foothold afforded by the slippery limestone, but when the river is in flood, no one in his senses would dream of crossing it.

Yet it was by this road that Jasper had persuaded his young wife that they could alone hope to escape with any chance of safety, and to this point he was leading her. And she, though she knew the pass, and all its perils, resolute to accompany him through life, and, if need should be, to death itself, rode onward with him, cheerful and apparently fearless.

They reached its brink, and the spectacle it afforded was, indeed, fearful. The river swollen by the rains of the past night, though, like all mountain torrents, rising and falling rapidly, it was already subsiding, came down from the moors with an arrowy rush, clear and transparent as glass, yet deep in color as the rich brown cairn-gorm. The shelvy rapids above the ford were one sheet of snow-white foam, and in the ford itself the foam-flakes wheeled round and round, as in a huge boiling caldron, while below it the roar of the cataract was louder than the loudest thunder, and the spray rolling upward from the whirlpool beneath, clung to the crags above in mist-wreaths so dense that their summits were invisible.

“Good God!” cried Theresa, turning deadly pale, as she looked on the fearful pool. “We are lost. It is impossible.”

“By heaven!” he answered, impetuously, “I must pass it, or stay and be hanged. You can do as you will, Theresa.”

“But is it possible?”

“Certainly it is. Do you think I would lead you into certain death? But see, I will ride across and return, that you may see how easy it is, to a brave heart and a cool hand.”

And, confident in the strength of his horse and in his own splendid horsemanship, he plunged in dauntlessly, and keeping up stream near to the foot of the upper rapids, struggled through it, and returned to her without much difficulty, though the water rose above the belly of his horse.

He heard, however, that a fresh storm was rattling and roaring, even now, among the hills above, and he knew by that sign that a fresh torrent was even now speeding its way down the chasm.

There was no time to be lost—it was now or never. He cast an eager glance around—a glance that read and marked every thing—as he came to land; save only Theresa, there was not a human being within sight.

“You see,” he said, with a smile, “there is no danger.”

“I see,” she answered, merrily. “Forgive me for being such a little coward. But you will lead Rosabella, wont you, Jasper?”

“Surely,” he answered. “Come.”

And catching the curb-rein of the pony with his left hand, and guiding his own horse with his right, holding his heavy loaded hunting-whip between his teeth, he led her down into the foaming waters, so that her palfrey was between himself and the cataract.

It was hard work, and a fearful struggle for that slender, light-limbed palfrey to stem that swollen river; and the long skirt of Theresa’s dress, holding the water, dragged the struggling animal down toward the waterfall. Still, despite every disadvantage, it would have battled to the other side, had fair play been given it.

But when they reached the very deepest and most turbulent part of the pool, under pretence of aiding it, Jasper lifted the jennet’s fore-legs, by dint of the strong, sharp curb, clear off the bottom. The swollen stream came down with a heavier swirl, its hind legs were swept from under it, in an instant, and with a piercing scream of agony and terror, the palfrey was whirled over the brink of the fall.

But, as it fell, unsuspicious of her husband’s horrible intent, the wretched girl freed her foot from the stirrup, and throwing herself over to the right hand, with a wild cry, “Save me! save me, my God! save me, Jasper!” caught hold of his velvet doublet with both hands, and clung to him with the tenacious grasp of the death-struggle.

Even then—even then, had he relented, one touch of the spur would have carried his noble horse clear through the peril.

But no! the instant her horse fell, he shifted his reins to the left hand, and grasped his whip firmly in the right; and now, with a face of more than fiendish horror, pale, comprest, ghastly, yet grim and resolute as death, he reared his hand on high, and poised the deadly weapon.

Then, even then, her soft blue eyes met his, full, in that moment of unutterable terror, of hope and love, even then overpowering agony. She met his eyes, glaring with wolfish fury; she saw his lifted hand, and even then would have saved his soul that guilt.

“Oh no!” she cried, “oh no! I will let go—I will drown, if you wish it; I will—I will, indeed! Oh God! do not you—do not you—kill me, Jasper.”

And even as she spoke, she relaxed her hold, and suffered herself to glide down into the torrent; but it was all too late—the furious blow was dealt—with that appalling sound, that soft, dead, crushing plash, it smote her full between those lovely eyes.

“Oh God!—my God!—forgive—Jasper! Jasper!”—and she plunged deep into the pool; but as the waters swept her over the cataract’s verge, they raised her corpse erect; and its dead face met his, with the eyes glaring on his own yet wide open, and the dread, gory spot between them, as he had seen it in his vision years before.

He stood, motionless, reigning his charger in the middle of the raging current, unmindful of his peril, gazing, horror-stricken, on the spot where he had seen her last—his brain reeled, he was sick at heart.

A wild, piercing shout, almost too shrill to be human, aroused him from his trance of terror. He looked upward almost unconsciously, and it seemed to him that the mist had been drawn up like a curtain, and that a man in dark garb stood gazing on him from the summit of the rocks.

If it were so, it was but for a second’s space. The fog closed in thicker again than before, the torrent came roaring down in fiercer, madder flood, and wheeling his horse round, and spurring him furiously, it was all that Jasper St. Aubyn could do, by dint of hand and foot, and as iron a heart as ever man possessed, to avoid following his victim to her watery grave.

Once safe, he cast one last glance to the rocks, to the river, but he saw, heard nothing. He whirled the bloody whip over the falls, plunged his spurs, rowel-deep, into the horse’s sides, and with hell in his heart, he galloped, like one pursued by the furies of the slain, back, alone, to Widecomb.

——

CHAPTER IV.

The Vengeance.

It was not yet high noon, when, wet from spur to shoulder with mud and spray, bloody with spurring, spotted from head to heel with gory foam-flakes from his jaded horse’s wide-distended jaws, and quivering nostrils, bareheaded, pale as death, and hoarse with shouting, Jasper St. Aubyn galloped frantically up to the terrace-steps of Widecomb House; and springing to the ground, reeled, and would have fallen headlong had he not been caught in the arms of one of the serving men, who came running down the stone stairs to assist him.

As soon as he could collect breath to speak, “Call all!” he cried, “call all! Ring the great bell, call all—get ladders, ropes—run—ride—she is gone—she is lost—swept over the black falls at Hawkshurt! Oh God! oh God!” and he fell, as it seemed, senseless to the earth.

Acting—sheer acting, all!

They raised him and carried him up stairs, and laid him on the bed—on her bed—the bed whereon he had kissed her lips last night, and clasped her lovely form which was now haply entwined in the loathsome coils of the slimy mud-eels.

He shuddered. He could not endure it. He opened his eyes again, and feigning to recover his senses, chid the men from his presence, and again commanded, so peremptorily, that none dare disobey him, that every servant—man, woman, maid or boy—should begone to the place he had named, nor return till they brought back his lost angel’s body.

They believed that he was mad; but mad or sane, his anger was so terrible at all times, and now so fierce, so frantic and appalling, that none dared to gainsay him.

Within half an hour after his return, save himself, there was not a human being left within the walls of Widecomb Manor.

Then he arose and descended slowly, but with a firm foot and unchanged brow, into the great library of the Hall. It was a vast, gloomy, oblong chamber, nearly a hundred feet in length, wainscoted and shelved with old black-oak, and dimly lighted by a range of narrow windows, with dark-stained glass and heavily wrought stone mullions.

There was a dull wood-fire smouldering under the yawning arch of the chimney-piece, and in front of the fire stood an old oaken table, and a huge leathern arm-chair.

Into this Jasper cast himself, with his back to the door, which he had left open, in the absence of his mind. For nearly an hour he sat there without moving hand or foot, gazing gloomily at the fire. But, at the end of that time, he started, and seemed to recollect himself, opened the drawer of the writing-table, and took out of it the record of his wretched victim’s marriage.

He read it carefully, over and over again, and then crushed it in his hand, saying, “Well, all is safe now, THANK GOD!” Yes, he thanked God for the success of the murder he had done! “But here goes to make assurance doubly sure.”

And with the word he was about to cast the paper which he held into the ashes, when the hand of a man, who had entered the room and walked up to him with no very silent or stealthy step, while he was engrossed too deeply by his own guilty thoughts to mark very certainly any thing that might occur without, was laid with a grip like that of an iron vice upon his shoulder.

He started and turned round; but as he did so, the other hand of the stranger seized his right hand which held the marriage record, grasping it right across the knuckles, and crushed it together by an action so powerful and irresistible, that the fingers involuntarily opened, and the fatal document fell to the ground.

Instantly the man cast Jasper off with a violent jerk which sent him to a distance of three or four yards, stooped, gathered up the paper, thrust it into his bosom, and then folding his arms across his stalwort breast, stood quietly confronting the murderer, but with the quietude of the expectant gladiator.

Jasper stared at the swarthy, sun-burned face, the coal-black hair clipped short upon the brow, the flashing eyes, that pierced him like a sword. He knew the face—he almost shuddered at the knowledge—yet, for his life, he could not call to mind where or when he met him.

But he stared only for an instant; insulted—outraged—he, in his own house! His ready sword was in his hand forthwith—the stranger was armed likewise with a long broadsword and a two-edged dagger, and heavy pistols at his girdle; yet he moved not, nor made the slightest movement to put himself on the defensive.

“Draw, dog!” cried Jasper, furiously. “Draw and defend yourself, or I will slay you where you stand.”

“Hold!” replied the other steadily. “There is time enough—I will not baulk you. Look at me!—do you not know me?”

“Know you?—not I; by heaven! some rascal smuggler, I trow—come to rob while the house is in confusion! but you have reckoned without your host this time. You leave not this room alive.”

“That as it may be,” said the other, coolly. “I have looked death in the face too often to dread much the meeting; but ere I die, I have some work to do. So you do not know me?”

“Not a whit I, I tell you.”

“Then is the luck mine, for I know you right well, young sir!”

“And for whom do you know me?”

“For a d—d villain always!” the man answered, “two hours since, for Theresa Allan’s murderer! and now, thanks to this paper, which, please God, I shall keep, for Theresa Allan’s—husband!”

He spoke the last words in a voice of thunder, and at the same time drew and cocked, at a single motion, a pistol with each hand.

“You know too much—you know too much!” cried Jasper, furious but undaunted. “One of us two must die, ere either leaves this room.”

“It was for that end I came hither! Look at me now, and know Durzil Bras-de-fer—Theresa Allan’s cousin! your wife’s rejected lover once, and now—your wife’s avenger!”

“Away! I will not fight you!”

“Then, coward, with my own hands will I hang you on the oak tree before your own door; and on your breast I will pin this paper, and under it will write, ‘Her Murderer, taken in the fact, tried, condemned, executed by me,

“ ‘Durzil Bras-de-fer.’ ”

“Never!”

“Take up your pistols, then—they lie there on the table. We will turn, back to back, and walk each to his own end of the room, then turn and fire—if that do not the work, let the sword finish it.”

“Amen!” said St. Aubyn, “and the Lord have mercy on your soul, for I will send it to your cousin in five minutes.”

“And may the Fiend of Hell have yours—as he will, if there be either Fiend or God. Are you ready?”

“Ay.”

“Then off with you, and when you reach the wall, turn and fire.”

And as he spoke, he turned away, and walked slowly and deliberately with measured strides toward the door by which he had entered.

Before he had taken six steps, however, a bullet whistled past his ear, cutting a lock off his hair in its passage, and rebounded from the wall, flattened at his feet. Jasper had turned at once, and fired at him with deliberate aim.

“Ha! double murderer! die in your treason!” and the sailor leveled his pistol in turn, and pulled the trigger; had it gone off, Jasper St. Aubyn’s days were ended then and there; but no flash followed the sparks from the flint—and he cast the useless weapon from him.

At once they both raised their second pistol, and again Jasper’s was discharged with a quick, sharp report; and almost simultaneously with the crack, a dull sound, as of a blow, followed it; and he knew that his ball had taken effect on his enemy.

Again Durzil’s pistol failed him; and then, for the first time, Jasper observed that the seaman’s clothes were soaked with water. He had swam that rapid stream, and followed his beloved Theresa’s murderer, almost with the speed of the stout horse that bore him home.

Not a muscle of Durzil’s face moved, not a sinew of his frame quivered, yet he was shot through the body, mortally—and he knew it.

“Swords!” he cried, “swords!”

And bounding forward, he met the youth midway, and at the first collision, sparks flew from the well-tempered blades.

It was no even conflict, no trial of skill—three deadly passes of the sailor, as straight and almost as swift as lightning, with a blade so strong, and a wrist so adamantine, that no slight of Jasper’s could divert them, were sent home in tierce—one in his throat, “That for your lie!” shouted Durzil; a second in the sword arm, “That for your coward blow!” a third, which clove the very cavity of his heart asunder, “That for your life!”

Ten seconds did not pass, from the first crossing of their blades until Jasper lay dead upon the floor, flooding his own hearth-stone with his life-blood.

Durzil leaned on his avenging blade, and looked down upon the dead.

“It is done! it is done just in time! But just! for I am sped likewise. May the Great God have mercy on me, and pardon me my sins, as I did this thing not in hatred, but in justice and in honor! Ah—I am sick—sick!”

And he dropped down into the arm-chair in which Jasper was sitting as he entered; and though he could hardly hold his head up for the deadly faintness, and the reeling of his eyes and brain, by a great effort he drew out the marriage record from his breast—Jasper’s ball had pierced it, and it was dappled with his own life-blood—and smoothed it out fairly, and spread it on the board before him.

Then he fell back, and closed his eyes, and lay for a long time motionless; but the slow, sick throbbing of his heart showed that he was yet alive, though passing rapidly away.

Once he raised his dim eyes, and murmured, “They tarry—they tarry very long. I fear me, they will come too late.”

But within ten minutes after he had spoken, the sound of a multitude might be heard approaching, and a quick, strong, decided step of one man coming on before all the rest.

Within the last few minutes, Durzil had seemed to lose all consciousness and power. He was, indeed, all but dead.

But at these sounds he roused like a dying war-horse to the trumpet; and as the quick step crossed the threshold, he staggered to his feet, drew his hand across his eyes, and cried, with his old sonorous voice,—it was his last effort—

“Is that you, lieutenant?”

“Ay, ay, captain.”

“Have you found her?”

“She is here,” said the young seaman, pointing with his hand to the corpse, which they were just bearing into the room.

“And he—ha! ha! ha! ha!—he is—there!” and he pointed, with a triumphant wafture of his gory sword, toward Jasper’s carcass, and then, with the blood spouting from his mouth and nostrils, fell headlong.

His officer raised him instantly, and as the flow of blood ceased, he recovered his speech for a moment. He pointed to the gaping crowd,

“Have—have you—told them—lieu—lieutenant?”

“No, sir.”

“Tell—tell them—l-let me hear you.”

“You see that wound in her forehead—you saw it all, from the first,” he said, to the crowd, who were gazing in mute horror at the scene. “I told you, when I took you to the body, that I saw her die, and would tell you how she died, when the time should come. The time has come. He—that man, whose body lies there bleeding, and whose soul is now burning in Tophet, murdered her in cold blood—beat her brains out with his loaded hunting-whip. I—I, Hubert Manvers, saw him do it.”

There was a low, dull murmur in the crowd, not of dissent or disbelief, but of doubt.

“And who slew master?” exclaimed black Jem Alderly, coming doggedly forward; “this has got to be answered for.”

“It is answered for, Alderly,” said Durzil, in a faint but audible voice. “I did it—I slew him, as he has slain me. I am Durzil Olifaunt, whom men call Bras-de-fer. Do any of you chance to know me?”

“Ay, ay, all on us! all on us!” shouted half the room; for the frank, gallant, bold young seaman had ever been a general favorite. “Huzza! for Master Durzil!”

And in spite of the horrors of the scene, in spite of the presence of the dead, a loud cheer followed.

“Hush!” he cried, “hush! this is no time for that, and no place. I am a dying man. There is not five minutes’ life in me. Listen to me. Did any of you ever hear me tell a lie?”

“Never! never!”

“I should scarce, therefore, begin to do so now, with heaven and hell close before my eyes. Hubert Manvers spoke truly. I also saw him murder her—murder his own wife—for such she was; therefore I killed him!” He gasped for a moment, gathered his breath again, and pointing to the table, “that paper, Hubert—quick—that paper—read it—I—am going—quick!”

The young man understood his superior’s meaning in an instant, caught the paper from the table, beckoned two or three of the older men about him, among others, Geoffrey, the old steward, and read aloud the record of the unhappy girl’s marriage.

At this moment the young vicar of Widecomb entered the room, and his eyes falling on the paper, “That is my father’s hand-writing,” he cried; “this is the missing leaf of my church register!”

“Was she not—was she not—his—wife?” cried Bras-de-fer, raising himself feebly on his elbow, and gazing with his whole soul in his dying eyes at the youthful vicar, and at the horror-stricken circle.

“She was—she was assuredly, his lawful wife, and such I will uphold her,” said the young man, solemnly. “Her fame shall suffer no wrong any longer—her soul, I trust, is with her God already—for she was innocent, and good, and humble, as she was lovely and loving. Peace be with her.”

“Poor, poor lady!” cried several of the girls who were present, heart-stricken, at the thought of their own past conduct, and of her unvarying sweetness. “Poor, poor lady!”

“Hubert—Hubert—I—I have cleared her—char—her character, I have avenged her death; lay me beside her. In ten—ten minutes I shall be—God—bless—bless you, Hubert—with Theresa! A—amen!”

He was dead. He had died in his duty—which was justice—truth—vengeance!

———

BY SAM. C. REID, JR. AUTHOR OF “SCOUTING EXPEDITIONS OF THE TEXAS RANGERS,” ETC.

———

THE DEATH OF THE YEAR.
Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine by W. E. Tucker

———

BY HENRY B. HIRST.

———

[SEE ENGRAVING.]

———

BY J. HUNT, JR.

———

SUNRISE—NOONDAY—NIGHT.

———

BY CAROLINE C——.

———

An artist was passing slowly through the thorough-fare of a great city, where for a few days he was sojourning.

He was a young man, and the few years of his life, if they had proved heavy and sorrowful in experience, had at least left no dark impress on his forehead. His figure was strikingly elegant, and the face manly, and very beautiful; it might well have been taken to represent the Genius of Thought, so calm, elevated, and ennobled by spiritual excellence was it.

The artist was a poor man; you could guess that by the worn garments in which he was attired, for from the figure, bearing, and whole appearance of the youth, it was evident that he was not of that class of geniuses who affect shabbiness in personal appearance, in the name of eccentricity.

And he was an ambitious young man, too. A glance into his studio, where constantly and diligently he toiled in his vocation, had told you that. It would seem by the constant emendations he would make, and by the finished style he labored to impart to all he did, that nothing short of superior excellence or perfection in his art, would satisfy him.

He has come into the open air this morning, not because he is wearied with his work, for it is a source of continual delight to him—neither in search of amusement, but to ponder on a thought which has long harbored in his mind—three pictures should be his fame. From his quiet studio he would send into the world a moral lesson that should delight and instruct, and leave in the world an abiding moral influence. Not only did Martin Gray long to win for himself a proud name on the earth, but with the poets and the preachers he would fain lift up his voice and teach—he also would be a priest and a reformer, and by his works he would testify to the infinite beauty of holiness and virtue.

The artist’s heart beat joyfully as he revolved this idea in his mind—his hope was high—his hand was skillful.

“If my name only ranks with the masters’ some day—if I can do some real and substantial good in my generation! I cannot labor too hard to secure these ends,” he said to himself as he passed, unconscious of the noise and confusion about him, along the street.

Mechanically turning at the first corner, Martin moved on to quarters of the city where the strife and confusion of life were more subdued.

At once he stood silent, as though changed suddenly to marble, then a heart-cheering cry of joy and surprise burst from him, and “I have found it! I have found it!” he cried—“here is sunrise at last!”

There were children playing in the street, poor little children, boys and girls, whose only play-ground was that hot and dusty place. But in the person of one, the quick eye of the artist detected extraordinary beauty, though decked in rags almost as extraordinary.

The unconscious child was a girl, six or seven years of age, faultless in form and feature, the very embodiment of one of Martin Gray’s ideals.

It was not solely the exquisite loveliness of the child’s face, though the shape and coloring were perfect—but beside the dark rich hair, which fell in such unheeded profusion on the shoulders of its little mistress—and beside the deep, sapphire-blue of the large languid eyes, and the classic regularity of every feature, there was an expression, a soul look, which intensified her natural beauty, and stamped her as the owner of an intellect whose range was far higher than that reached by any of her playmates.

“Tell me your name, little angel,” said the artist, in the excitement of his delighted surprise.

“My name is Alice Flynn,” was the prompt answer, accompanied by a smile and frank look of inquiry, which read very plainly “what is your name—and what do you want of me?”

“Have you a mother? Where does she live? Go with me to your home—I must speak with her.”

The child answered these queries by at once leaving her playmates—the artist followed her quickly, and in a few moments they entered a narrow byway. Passing a short distance through it, little Alice paused before a shabby old frame house, which seemed every day on the point of bidding an eternal farewell to all things terrestrial.

“This is the place where we live, sir,” she said, with the sweetest voice in the world; “will you come in?”

“The little girl is yours, ma’am, I believe,” said Martin, as he stood in the presence of what seemed to him an ogress—a gigantic woman who certainly could lay but little claim to beauty, when compared with the “child-angel” who called her mother.

“Yes—she wasn’t lost was she? Or was she up to mischief in the street, just tell me that?”

“No, no—nothing of the kind,” said the artist quickly—but not in the least daunted by the washer-woman’s unamiable greeting—“I was struck with her appearance—and now that I have at last an opportunity of accomplishing an object I have long contemplated, I trust you will not object.”

“Lord, sir, what is it ye want—speak it out quick can’t ye—my work is waiting for me, don’t ye see? Do you want the child’s front teeth, or her hair? I’ve sold her hair twice to a barber, but her teeth—”

“You mistake me,” exclaimed Martin Gray, sharply, for he was disgusted with the cruel words of the old beldam. “I am an artist—I would like to take her likeness—will you permit me to do so?”

“No! what would you do with it? The girl’s about spoiled now with people’s telling her how beautiful she is. To be sure the child is well enough”—this with a sort of brutish pride—“in looks, but beauty don’t give us bread, and her good looks only spiles her—she’s getting proud and hateful since people have told her so much about it, the little fool!”

“If that is so, I fear it is not the wisest course to let her play so much in the street with other little folks,” said Martin.

This approach to advice aroused the woman’s ire. “Where’s she to be kept, I’d like to know that? A poor woman like me as arns her bread by the sweat of her face has little time to be looking about after the young ones. People like me can’t keep their children to home like other folks, who have plenty of room indoor and out. So you see, young man, your advice aint worth much any how.”

“Of course, madam, you know your own business best; but, seriously, you cannot mean to refuse my earnest request. I assure you it will be the greatest favor to me if you will suffer me to take the child’s picture. I am willing to pay you for the privilege.”

“Then it shall be done,” said the woman, brightening up. “How much will you offer?”

“Two dollars,” answered the young man, “and I will pay you more at some future day—but I also am poor.”

Poor fellow, he spoke the truth indeed, for the two dollars were just half the contents of his old faded purse at that moment.

“Well, she may go for that. Here Alice, you’re gwine to have your face painted—let me brush you up a little.”

“No—no, I pray madam, leave her to me. I will take her to my studio as she is; I would not have her appearance changed in the least—the drapery of the child does not need any alteration, I will bring her to you again in an hour.”

“Well, she’ll be safe enough, I ’spose, go on.”

“Are you going to paint my face, sir? What for? Will it hurt me?” asked Alice Flynn as she, with Martin, passed along the streets hand in hand.

“Not your face, child,” answered the artist, “I’m going to paint a face like yours—that is all.”

“What for?”

“To hang up in my room, and then perhaps to sell it some day for a great deal of money.”

“Sell me! sell my face!” and the little innocent laughed, and wondered why any body should want to buy a face like hers!

Martin, too busy with his own thoughts, made no answer to her many exclamations of astonishment and wonder. Two steps at a time, with the girl in his arms, did the delighted youth ascend the three steep and narrow flights of stairs which led to the poor little attic room he dignified with the “name, style, and title” of studio.

A barren place it seemed to little Alice Flynn, for such a nice gentleman to live in—indeed scarce a whit better than her own poor home was it.

“Are you poor, too?” she asked, with childlike confidence—and a most unchildish and unnatural sadness was in her voice as she spoke.

“Yes, I am poor—I paint pictures for a living, Alice. I shall not grow rich in a day,” said the artist, and his words were uttered with not quite the usual, light-hearted happy tone.

Probably my reader will not soon, if ever, see the original painting executed on that day which ever after remained a date so memorable in the recollections of Martin Gray. Let me, therefore, here state that the Sunrise was a portrait quite dissimilar to those we usually see of young children.

“Now lie quietly, Alice, for a moment,” said Martin. He had placed her on the ancient lounge, the only reasonable piece of furniture in the room. “Now close your eyes—ah! not so close, let them be half open, as though you were just waking up—now I will paint a picture the world shall wonder at! Yes, I also will make a Sunrise!”

Quietly and motionless, as though bereft of life, the child lay and watched the artist’s movements; in him she forgot herself, consequently had none of that intense consciousness of expression so often perceivable in the portraits of people who become immortalized, and perpetuated on—canvas!

What a sight to see! the lonely desolate places where the impoverished children of Genius, the painters, sculptors, and poets, have with patient but almost hopeless toil wrought out their wonder-works!

Oh! eyes whose range of vision was circumscribed by four contracted walls, have looked on scenes of rarer and richer beauty than travelers in many climes have seen; and voices, husky, tuneless with want and grief, have breathed, even when tortured with the death-agony, songs, that the world has hushed its mighty voice, and its tumultuous heart to hear; warriors have conquered on battle-fields, whose inspiration was the song that burst from the dying son of poverty, while pain and fever prostrated him, who kept back by force of mind the advance of death, until the strain of glory should be fully and perfectly conceived!

An hour passed, and not for one moment had the hand of the artist paused—it is enough to say that even he was satisfied with the progress he had made in those swift-winged sixty minutes.

Upon the easy couch Alice had fallen asleep, unperceived by the young painter—he awakened her with some regret, but the time he had promised to keep her with him was passed, and Martin had little inclination to brave the wrath of the mother’s tongue. Thoughtfully he led the child to her home, and when he parted with her there, it was with a heart full of sorrow, for he knew that a life of hardship, and want, and temptation, was in store for the beautiful girl.

“Poor and handsome,” thought he—“God protect her! To be sure it would be a sad sight were the innumerable host of poor people all hideously ugly—and as to the necessity of the thing, such folks would seem to require the simple pleasure of being admired, inasmuch as they are debarred from participating in all amusements and enjoyments that cost money, and beauty costs nothing. And yet Heaven have mercy on the poor family that boasts of a beauty! as surely as the sunshine, pride will creep in under the door-sill or by the window, and certainly in a covert manner. The pretty daughter must be prettily dressed, even at the expense, and by the self-denial of the more plainly gifted remainder of the family. Then come struggles, heart-bitterness and envy—God be thanked if hatred and malice do not also come! Now there’s that little Alice Flynn—if she were only my sister, or one over whom I had the shadow of control! Oh! that I were only rich! She ought to be educated! Heavens! what a smile—and what a mind she has—she thinks! God defend her!”

Indulging in such thoughts as these Martin had passed again through the crowded streets, quite unmindful of all things save that one high project he had conceived, which now, he for the first time felt convinced might be really performed. Once more we find him before his easel, and how he labored there! Six days, morning and evening, he worked on his creation, and Saturday night saw him looking upon it with such intensity of satisfaction, as betokened a very happy heart—for it was finished, and his heart and his mind had declared it “very good!”

The following week there was to be an exhibition of the paintings of native artists in New York, and to the rooms prepared for this purpose Martin conveyed his work, and it was not perhaps without a thrill of pride that he placed it among the multitudinous proofs of genius there.

The Sunrise was unframed, and having been among the last brought in, it occupied an obscure and unfavorable position. But Martin surveyed it with the eyes of a lover—he knew its superior merit, and he fancied that others would behold it in just such a light. But Martin was destined to be disappointed not a little; during the first days of the exhibition, while the rooms were filled to overflowing, but little attention was attracted toward his portrait. Sometimes it was so fortunate as to attract an exclamation of surprise, and a momentary glance of admiration—and once or twice a group of young people stopped a moment to honor it with examination, but there were works of well known artists which must be criticised and applauded—there were “first attempts” of rich and fashionable men which must be praised—and besides, it was on the whole taken for granted by universal consent, that the best pictures occupied the most prominent stations, and that those condemned to the back-ground must necessarily be only passably good or mediocre.

By degrees Martin began to take these facts into consideration—and then it was only by great effort he managed to keep his hopes alive, that some good fate was yet in store for his darling.

An early hour on the morning of the fifth day found him once more attracted to the rooms, he would endeavor to secure for his child a position more prominent, for some of the paintings had been already removed by their masters.

But two persons were there when he entered. They were a lady and gentleman in deep mourning, and they were standing before his Sunrise! Passing up the long hall slowly, with his eyes directed to the thickly covered wall, where he saw what only an artist could, the outwritten, burning hopes of a multitude of men, he contrived to keep watch of the two who remained so long motionless and speechless before the pictured child.

“Do you know the author of this work, sir; and if it is for sale?” asked the stranger as Martin drew near.

“I have an acquaintance with the artist,” answered he, “but the painting, I think, is not for sale.”

“Why should it be placed here then?” asked the gentleman quickly, and with great evident disappointment.

“Because, sir, there is something dear to the heart of the author of a work, beside the money which the sale of it would bring. I feel at liberty to answer you frankly as you have asked—the artist hoped that by this work attention might be attracted to his skill, for he is a young man necessitated to labor, and, as yet, altogether unknown in his profession.”

“I admire the genius of the young man, he will succeed in making himself known beyond all doubt. But perhaps I might offer for this picture a sum great enough to satisfy even him.”

There was a silence, and there was in the lady’s eyes such a beseeching look as she glanced from the picture toward Martin, that his determination was almost vanquished, but he looked down and said:

“The painting is my work—I cannot part with it at any price.”

“It is yours! and you will not sell it! Mr. Artist, you do not, cannot know how much you refuse us! We had a child, a darling little girl, she was an angel to us—she is lost to us, is dead, young man!—and this portrait! it is so like her, at any cost I would secure it. Name your price, high as you value your beautiful work, consider that to us it is infinitely more valuable! the hours of labor you have spent upon it have endeared it to you—it is more to us though than even that, it is life to us, for it brings her back again!”

The lady trembled as her companion pleaded with the artist so earnestly. It was not in Martin Gray to deny a plea so sad and so heartfelt. “It shall be yours,” he exclaimed, “permit me to retain the work but a few days, and it shall then be returned to you.”

A thankful glance of the tearful eyes of the bereaved mother was what Martin thought at that moment a full reward.

“God bless you, sir! you have made us happy! If five thousand dollars is any compensation, they are yours!”

That was another kind of reward! The young artist thought both invaluable; and it was with a light heart that with the picture in its case, he carried it once more to the attic studio.

——

CHAPTER II.

Martin Gray’s fortune was made, and ever after was he a firm believer in presentiments, for the Sunrise had in very truth been the making of him. In the midst of his good fortune, the generous heart did not forget the poor child whose beauty had so materially aided his genius. Previous to his departure for the old world, he placed a well-filled purse in the hands of the mother, saying, “Your child is an extraordinary girl. This money will be sufficient to secure her a good education—pray do not neglect it, for she will be an honor and a great help to you some day. Promise me that you will keep her out of the street as much as is possible, and that you will send her to school. I am going abroad, when I come home again she will be many years older than now, nearly a woman. Give me your promise she shall be sent to school.”

“Yes, she shall go, and as to keeping her out of the street, I s’pose I might as well undertake to—Well, yes, I’ll try my hand at it.”

“Be kind to her!”

Martin traveled abroad; he studied in Italy—he studied in Germany—he journeyed through nearly all Europe. Among artists, and artist-patronizers, the success of his first exhibited picture was well-known, the Sunrise was every where commented upon, and the papers liked to talk of the young artist Martin Gray, of his skillful hand, and generous heart!

But during the years of labor and study spent abroad, his one great idea remained unaccomplished. The second picture which he had designed as a continuation of the Sunrise, was untouched. The imagination was not to be suffered to do the work in this instance either—but the second work, even as the first had been, should be a portrait.

Still his hands had not been idle. In Paris his studio (it was not there an attic!) became a point of interest and fashionable attraction, and in Hamburg the American artist dwelt neither in poverty nor obscurity. The walls of his rooms were adorned with evidences of his capabilities, and beside the honors heaped upon him, in a pecuniary point of view, his labors had made his fortune.

Years passed on, and Martin was at home again; at home and among a multitude of friends, though when seven years ago he sailed from the great city he might easily have counted the voices that came to bid adieu and God-speed. But fame and fortune wonderfully enhance the feeble interest felt in the once poor son of Genius—so Martin Gray proved it. His friendship was sought for as most honorable, his words were quoted, his dress and style imitated—fair ladies trilled his songs, (for he was something of a poet, too,) and as a “lion” the young exquisite was pronounced by fathers, mothers, and daughters, as perfect, charming, and altogether unexceptionable.

“Well, what in the way of amusements, Frank?” asked the artist, as arm-in-arm with a city gallant, he strolled along Broadway a few days after his arrival in New York.

“What! not heard yet that Alice gives a musical entertainment to-night? My good fellow you ‘argue yourself unknown’ by such unseemly ignorance,” gayly said his companion, the Hon. Francis Dundas.

“Indeed, I must confess to ignorance; who is this great singer, Alice—some newly risen star, is she not?”

“Yes—but the few who have heard, say a star that bids fair to prove on closer examination of the first magnitude, and that even an artist’s eyes can detect no defect in her matchless beauty.”

“And which point of the compass does she hail from?”

“Oh! she is a native of our city. Her rare beauty some time since attracted the attention of old H——, the millionaire—he does something toward educating her; she turns out a woman, or girl of uncommon talents, and has determined to become a public singer. I am told her history is a complete romance, wanting nothing of tragedy or comedy to make it irresistibly interesting.”

“A singer—a genius—and a beauty! we will hear her by all means!” exclaimed Martin enthusiastically.

And they did hear her.

It was not a “grand entertainment.” The singer Alice was the sole performer. She had preferred that it should be so, that her merits and powers, whatever they were, might be estimated at their worth.

Small and select was the audience before which she appeared; it was composed of people of refined taste, who could fully appreciate all the excellencies of style and manner, and whose approbation a young debutante might rejoice to win. How young she was! how truly and perfectly beautiful! There was a slight flush on her cheek which was else pale as marble, that told how strongly the chords of her brave heart were struck. She sang—oh! the voice whose tones filled the high hall was like that we hear in dreams, when angels come to keep watch over us, chanting through the long hours of the night! During the whole first part of the concert there was intense silence, for there was an intense gratification felt by the audience that was deeper than could be uttered, and the smiles, and tears, and breathless interest evinced, were to the maiden tributes more acceptable than tumultuous applause had been.

“She is a wonder!” “a miracle!” “what a voice!” “what a style!” “and then to think she is only seventeen or eighteen!” Such and like exclamations escaped from every heart as “Alice” withdrew at the close of the first part from the saloon.

Frank Dundas turned to his companion—

“Well, Gray, what do you think of her? Your wits seem wandering.”

“I am lost! it is divine! I have never seen or heard her equal. Tell me, what did you say is her name; the face haunts me; I could swear I have seen it before.”

“Tut! swear not at all. It’s not likely you have ever seen her before to-night. Perhaps she corresponds with some fairy-queen or lady-love born of your own prolific fancy. Is it not so? I can well conceive such a thing possible, though I’m neither poet nor artist.”

Martin bowed to save himself from the necessity of a reply, for he was deep in thought, and through the obscurity of the distant Past his memory was striving to grope her way.

After a few moments the singer appeared again in the saloon.

“Did you say her name is Alice?” asked Martin Gray, as his eyes for the second time rested upon her. “Alice—Alice what?”

“I have never heard—she is only known by that name. She does not need so many cognomens as we less gifted individuals, and I suppose intends that the world shall know without being told further, who is meant when the singer Alice is spoken of.”

“Dundas, I have seen that face before, you may depend upon it—will you believe it? during all my residence in Europe I have sought with desperate earnestness, but in vain, for a face just such as hers.”

“Pray wherefore? Are you not the sworn foe of all lady-loves save the sweet goddess of painting?”

“Hush! love has had nothing to do with my search—pretty faces are to be found every where; and though an artist, I am free to say the man who marries a woman for her beauty is a poor fool. Did you ever see my picture called Sunrise, painted seven or eight years ago?”

“Remember it? Why, my dear fellow, to be sure I do, and what a grand lift it gave you before the ‘darling public;’ I would be stupid indeed to forget that picture or its author. A copy of it has been the best ornament of my room for years!”

“Well, perhaps you know—though of course you could not, for I never spoke of my intention to another—but ever since that picture was finished, I have determined to make it one of a series, by painting two others, one of such innocent loveliness arrived at womanly perfection, and the third was to be the image of crime, or beauty ruined; and the three I hoped to offer a moral lesson to the world. Never till to-night have I seen one worthy to take the second place in the series. I see her now, and I have an impression that amounts almost to a conviction, that this woman is that child.”

“She lives on Tenth street. If it is your wish we will visit her to-night when the concert is finished, or to-morrow—perhaps, however, you would prefer calling upon her alone?” said Frank Dundas with a hearty co-operating look of voice and manner.

“By all means accompany me—we will go in the morning, and I will lay my life on it, that singer’s name, when a child, was Alice Flynn!”

At eleven the following morning the lady was alone in her simply furnished apartment, in a boarding-house on Tenth street. The beauty which had dazzled all who beheld her on the previous night, did not owe any thing to dress or to lamp-light, it bore the inquisitive glance of the sunshine well.

Alice received her guests, the Hon. Frank Dundas, and the artist Martin Gray, with a grace and ease of manner which delighted them. She spoke with the enthusiasm of youth of the art in which she was so great a proficient, and every word she uttered revealed a mind well cultivated, refined, and innately noble.

A half hour passed speedily by, but the Honorable gave no sign of an intention to depart. The artist, who had surveyed her as he would an exquisite production of art, first rising to take his leave, said—“I have a favor to urge, madam, it is a very great one; I am painting a series of portraits, will you permit me to take yours as a representation of Noonday?”

“It would be a very poor representative of the glory and majesty of the theme you have chosen. Pardon me, I must decline an honor so unmerited.”

“Permit me to judge that,” said Martin Gray earnestly. “It is an idea I have long desired to carry out; I wished to make the picture an exact likeness, and therefore sought a beauty that was perfect, so there should be no work left for my imagination—now that the object of my long search is found, do not deny me this great privilege. If you will only accompany some of your friends to my studio, by showing to you the Sunrise, I can better explain what it is I wish; or perhaps you will suffer me either now or to-morrow to escort you thither.”

“To-morrow,” she answered, “I will come. Ere then you may, I trust, find one elsewhere to represent your ideal.”

“That is utterly impossible. To-morrow, then, before the rooms are filled with visiters, I shall look for you,” said Martin, with a decidedly grateful accent and look, and the young men walked slowly away.

——

CHAPTER III.

The Noonday was nearly finished. The city was ringing with the surpassing beauty and the matchless voice of the young singer Alice. And Martin Gray’s numerous and powerful friends every where declared that the picture on which he worked so diligently, would add the greenest leaf to his glory-wreath.

The artist loved his picture—loved he the original? No! he could have worshiped the canvas on which that matchless face was impressed, but when he looked on Alice, and listened to her beautiful words and the so musical, delicious pronunciation, though he saw and heard with the most enthusiastic admiration, it was still only that of the artist—the man’s heart was untouched.

He had never shown to her the “child-angel.” After his call upon “Alice,” so strengthened was become Martin Gray’s persuasion that it was the Alice of bygone recollections, that he feared to hazard the display of the portrait to her.

Let us see if his precaution was a wise one.

It was the last sitting. On the following day the lady was to depart with a distinguished company of singers, on a long professional tour through the Western and Southern cities. She had risen, for the hour was passed, and stood looking for the last time on the beautiful works of the artist, which adorned the room.

“Do you remember,” said Martin, approaching her, “I promised to show you the portrait which I called the Sunrise, pardon me that I have not done so before, this is the one.”

He raised his hand and turned to the light a small picture, which for the few past days had looked upon the wall.

A broken exclamation of surprise, rather than the usual tribute of warm praise, escaped the young creature.

“Did you paint this?” she asked. “Pray tell me when and how?” she added, recovering her self-possession immediately.

“I was a youth, very poor and needy, having some talent, and a great deal of taste for sketching and painting. Very unfortunately, as I thought, I was forced either to altogether resign this employment so delightful to me, or to pursue it in order to supply myself with food and clothes. To me it must not be a pastime—I could not hesitate long—it became my profession. But I had, what to you may seem an inconceivable dislike to painting faces merely as a workman paints letters on a sign. I imagined that it was just as easy to win the smiles of dame Fortune by picturing only the exceedingly beautiful, and giving them emblematic names, and I was not altogether wrong. Passing one day through the streets of this very city, I came upon a group of children playing—one of that little band struck me as being nothing short of perfection, I could think of nothing as I looked on her, but how beautiful a sunrise!—how splendid will be the day that ensues! At my request the child guided me to her home, it was a poor one, and therein bore a great resemblance to my own. The mother consented that I should take the child’s likeness, and—this is it, I never saw the little one again. Afterward, as I have told you, for many years I traveled in Europe, but though constantly on the look out, I never found a Noonday worthy to follow a Sunrise like this child’s. I thank you, madam, that I have in you, and in my own city, at last found what Europe could not show me.”

“May I ask,” said the lady, with face slightly averted from the gaze of Martin Gray, “may I ask the name of the girl?”

It was the question which of all others the artist most wished her to propose, and he watched her closely, as in a careless tone that belied his glance, he said—

“I remember it very well—it was Alice Flynn!”

“Thank you—it is indeed a lovely picture! You have amply deserved, sir, all the honors that are, or can be awarded to you.”

Martin Gray attended her to the carriage that stood in waiting, but Alice the songstress did not look upon him till she gave him her hand in parting, when he saw her face, then, the artist knew he had not been deceived; she was pale as death.

A few months afterward, came from a city far to the South, a letter to our hero, its contents were a five hundred dollar note, and these words:

“The child for whose education you so generously provided when both she and yourself were poor and unknown, would fain convince you that with increase of years, and fortune, and happiness, she has not forgotten—that she is not ungrateful. All the good that has fallen to her in this life she is glad and proud to trace directly to you, to that one act of well-timed charity. May the God of Heaven for ever bless you. The ‘Sunrise’ and the ‘Noonday’ of your life you have made unspeakably glorious, may the night be without a cloud, and complete in its magnificence!”

It required no shrewd guesser to determine for Martin Gray the author of this brief note. The cities of the South were at that very moment vieing with each other in lauding the Northern songsters, and the queen of beauty and of song, the lady “Alice”—and the artist rejoiced in her brilliant success, and waited with impatience till he should see and speak with her again.

In the years when honors thickly clustered around his brow, when Fortune had laid many of her choicest gifts at his feet, there was yet one thing wanting to complete his happiness.

There were few homes on earth so beautiful as his, and his wife and children (for Martin in course of time became an old man,) were all that the heart of man could desire. There were no lines betokening care, or a fierce strife with the world, on the artist’s handsome face. He had labored, and that constantly, it is true, but his had not been a wearying toil, rather such as had been intensely satisfying. The visions of beauty with which he mentally surrounded himself; had never been frightened away by rough and harsh experience—to him even as in his youth, “all things beautiful were what they seemed!”

Many enchanting, perfect works had gone forth from the rooms of Martin Gray into the world, but there were two original ones for which he rejected every offer, however extravagant. Copies and engravings of them had been given to the public, but the canvas on which his fingers worked while his eyes were gazing on the loveliest and most perfect specimens of beauty to his mind conceivable, were precious beyond all price to him.

The series had not been completed, for Martin Gray had never seen a human being fearfully beautiful, and irrevocably fallen, whereby to represent the “Night.” And as years passed on, his heart more earnestly and continually hoped that he never might.

The great artist is dead. The passing visions of a beautiful fancy have forever flitted away—“he sleeps the last sleep”—but his works live after him. They live to speak to us of their creator—to tell us of his goodness, of the deep unfathomed spring of human love within his heart. He sleeps, but he has left a name that is cherished by his country, and his genius is a source of national pride. How well is he remembered and loved by those who knew him! And the students in his own glorious art, with what enthusiasm and reverence do they cherish a memory of him!

During his widow’s life his studio remained as he had left it—it was a Mecca to which for years pilgrims most devout resorted. To many that artist’s rooms were sacred places; standing in them they breathed the air of inspiration, and held sweet communings with the spirit of the Beautiful.

Of the sublime lessons, and they were many, which spoke forth from those walls, there was one that made the gazer shudder and turn pale. No one gazing on the three faces which were separated from all other paintings wrought by the same hand, could have resisted the conviction that the artist had meant, ay, and that he had succeeded in conveying to the mind of the gazer, a deep and awful moral lesson, for the “Night” was with the “Sunrise” and the “Noonday!”

It was marvellous, it was dreadful to trace the great resemblance between the likeness of the angelic little child, the incomparably beautiful maiden, and the splendid, but fallen woman!

The same bright curling hair, the same deep, sapphire eyes, the fresh bloom on the fair cheek, the graceful form—they were unmistakeable. But oh! there was an expression on those features of the eldest woman, that the innocent child and the guileless maiden could not have interpreted—it was a bold, defiant look, that told it was a sorrowful and an ever-to-be-lamented day that saw her come before the world to wrestle for its honors—a very siren, but ah! how weak to strive against its sinful allurements, its awful temptations.

They are one and the same, said every heart that gazed upon them. Reader, they were! For the “Night” was also a portrait, and the last work of Martin Gray!

Alas! alas! sweet Alice! splendid and courted Alice! wretched and ruined Alice!

———

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

———

                          Speak no more!

Thou canst not comfort me. I’d rather hear

The serpent’s hiss than speech from a false heart.

There was a time thy voice had power to calm,

And lay the fiend within me: Let me rest

Lonely and cursed amid my wretchedness;

I have ventured all and lost—’twas Destiny!

There are dark spirits moving through the world,

Casting a saddening influence over all

Within their vortex: Such perchance is mine;

With its wild, fitful struggles, and its gleams

Now good, now evil, stronger with my strength

The eclipse of Heaven’s brightness. Who can read

The unknown language of the human heart,

Though writ in fiery characters? Where the power

To judge an erring creature, when the thoughts,

Hidden even to himself, cannot be fathomed

Save by Omniscience? In thy hollow hand

Measure the waters of the depthless sea,

Or with far-seeing vision through the expanse

Of yonder firmament of Heaven, speak

Of that which is to be, though yet unseen

In its bright pages: Easier task for man

Than judge his brother justly. To myself

I am a mystery, why not to thee?

The waters of my heart are deeper far

Than plummet ever sounded. Oh, dark Future!

Thy veil once lifted, will the power be given

To note their secret depths. Why have I trusted

But to be deceived? and not by man alone!

Why have I ever loved, if but to love

Has been to bind myself upon the wheel

Of wretchedness? The punishment of gods!

Why should I ask for sunshine on my heart,

If with it, it must wither? ask thyself.

Reading thine own heart’s secret, thou may’st learn

How much I needed sympathy. My path,

Now filled with rankest weeds, might have been pure

Under thy smile and teaching. Now, too late!

To wrestle with the world for an existence,

Bowed, but not crushed by Fate, is of itself

Enough to turn the heart to bitter gall,

And make it curse, where, in its sunnier hours,

It might have shed a blessing. Fortune’s smile,

Unto the favored, clothes the earth with flowers;

Its frown, alas! will make the brightest spot

Black as a demon’s glance—its fruit as bitter

As the Dead Sea’s—and like it naught but ashes!

                        The meanest thing,

Infuriated in the hunter’s toils,

Turns at the last with fierce and vengeful cry

To battle with its foe; and some there are,

Lost to all hope, in their own quiv’ring flesh

Implant their poisonous venom, choosing thus

To be themselves their executioners,

Than fall upon the spear of might and wrong.

Such do I fear myself: That I have been,

In happier days, a lover of my kind⁠—

Heart as capacious, hand as firm and true,

As ever graced the proudest in the land.

I have been thus—Answer! what am I now?

I have found coldness where I looked for love⁠—

Ingrates ’mid friends—the half averted head,

With the neglectful glance, that seemed to say,

Thou art not of us now! Half-way to meet

And pay back scorn by scorn, keener than that

The eye of man e’er threw upon me—thus

Was I ever—thus will ever be:

Though it heap coals of fire upon my head,

And writhe me with its tortures, still my soul,

Strong in its desperate fury, asks no boon

But hate, to be repaid by darker hate⁠—

Failing in that, to die unwept, unsung.

Madness is not my portion—I shall live!

And from the chaplet round the brow of Fame

Yet seize, perchance, a leaf. Love in my heart

Is not yet all extinct: what it has been,

Brighter and purer than the present hour,

Has fled forever! Yet I cannot live

Unloving and unloved. But hand in hand

With my ambition, upward must it rise,

Subordinate, yet true unto the truthful.

Into the channels where deceit has crept⁠—

Into the hearts unfaithful—o’er the paths

Of those who have repaid my love with guile,

The blast of my sirocco hate shall sweep,

Sudden to rise and swift to overthrow.

                Such are my thoughts.

Would they were written on my brow, that all

Might read the tale untold. My story’s brief.

’Tis the twin passions—they have mastery,

And sway my pulse of life.

                There are brief moments

When passion lieth sleeping, and my mind

Reveling in its dominion, far removed

From petty cares and struggles, soars aloft

(Smiling amid its tortures, then forgotten,)

Through the dark Future; with untiring wing,

Restless as the young eaglet, seeks the sun

Of light, and truth, and wisdom: or retiring

Back to the brilliant, unforgotten past,

Where every foot of earth contains a portion

Of immortality, seeks out its mate,

That may have wrestled with the storms of Time

And won the victor’s crown: or, from the page

Of mighty spirits, who have left a deep

And never-failing well of giant thought,

Feeding my flickering lamp of life, nor dream

There is a world elsewhere, but in the visions

The arch-enchanters have raised up for Time!

God’s blessings on ye, noble-hearted men!

How often to this saddened soul of mine

Have ye brought strength and hope! Earth has not

Jewels so rare, as those ye thickly scatter

Upon the wind for your posterity.

                    To me your voices,

In the still midnight, in the garish day,

Have ever gently come: I trust in you⁠—

And ye are faithful: Rest forever with me.

The prophet lore of Israel—the sound

Of swelling harps by Grecian wizards strung⁠—

Promethean echoes!—the ever-burning page

Of England’s brighter days—the undying song

Of richest Shakspeare—and the noble strains

Of master-minds drinking their inspiration

From his pure fountain—all the mighty line⁠—

Sweeps by this distant shallow generation,

The monody of Time!

                    Sweet friends!

My heart henceforth must nestle in your loves,

Or be forever lost. When forgotten,

For a brief period, ’mid the worldly strife

And emptiness of things, how sinks my spirit,

Imprisoned ’mid the iron bars of forms.

I have no hope of happiness in life,

That is not bound up with the mighty past.

The present is a Hell—the future, dark.

Earth’s comforters are for the happy few.

No denizen am I. I stand alone.

                  Alone, for judgment?

Stormy and wild my passions—full of sins,

Grievous and bitter. Who shall succor me?

I looked to love—I found it hollowness.

I looked to hate—I found it bitterness.

Unto ambition—and it smiled upon me

But to elude my grasp:—unto a future,

My stubborn heart refuses its belief.

I have not learned deceit, nor schooled myself

To be a hypocrite. What I am, I am!

The secret sin of man—Hypocrisy⁠—

Can never mate with me: Would that it could.

Wer’t so, I would not suffer as I must.

Could I but veil myself thus from men’s eyes,

And seem the thing I am not, I might live

Happier in this world’s love. But let that pass.

I will not bend my knee, or lose one spark

Of Heaven’s heritage—my manhood’s truth⁠—

But trample on the vampires of the world,

Who fatten on the blood of noble things.

What though the strife’s unequal? Let me fall,

Strong in my ruined hopes; the shrine profaned

Within the inner temple, is to me

Dearer than all now opened to my soul;

So let me die with prayer upon my lips,

And like old Israel’s stricken one, pull down

A glorious desolation in my fall!

            Wild are my thoughts, oh God!

And wilder still the passionate heart that beats

With a fallen angel’s power. There liveth not

Among earth’s myriads, a more restless spirit,

So formed for good or ill!

                      I have been gentle,

Loving and kind to all. My curse has been

To feel the unkind thought—to doubt all truth⁠—

Of woman and of man. Naught’s left me now

But shaken confidence and cheated hopes,

A long and drear account to be repaid

With interest manifold. The restless fire

That has preyed upon my brain, and blasted life⁠—

Destroyed my peace, and made me stern and strong

As the avenging fury, must recoil

Upon the heads of those whose path has been

In triumph o’er my heart.

                      Shall I then spare?

Who spared me where I trusted most? Whose hand

Clasped firmly mine? Speak! whose kind word,

When sorrow was upon me, came unto me,

As it should come, in peace, and bid me hope?

The butterflies that thronged around my steps,

But to fly from me when the sun went down?

I think of them, not to give blow for blow,

But to tramp out their false hearts ’neath my heel.

They left a sting behind—but yet I live!

Ay! they shall feel I live.

                        Their loss was naught.

The serpent’s tooth was nearer to my heart

That tortured me to madness. I had loved;

Thou knowest it. Call it love—idolatry!

For it was my religion. All but that⁠—

Power, wealth and friends—I could have lost,

Hadst thou but trustfully still kept thy vow,

Calming the raging fever of my brain!

Well! when these painted lizards crawled aside,

And I clung, like the wretched mariner,

Unto a straw, I deemed a plank, for life.

Whose voice came o’er the deep and angry sea,

Bidding me be of faith and hope? Speak, now!

What! art thou voiceless? Nearer, bend thine ear!

Nay, shudder not—there’s “method in my madness!”

I would not shriek it out aloud, for fear

The sound might create revelry in Hell!

              Not the one I loved.

Not hers, whose every thought was mine—not hers,

Who should have searched my deep, unquiet heart,

And soothed it in its agony. Oh no!

Too hard a task to ask this boon of her,

Whose dearest thought seemed but to learn the way

To help to crush—not save.

                      Oh God! forgive me!

How much of sorrow, sin and shame, my life

Would have been guiltless of, had but the one⁠—

The only one of earth—reached forth her hand,

And with that hand, her heart, to lift me up

And keep my manhood pure.

                          It was a dream!

I only deemed it but her duty here;

I may have asked too much! ’Tis over now.

The sharpest strife is o’er, and I must be

Sufficient to myself. The past can ne’er

Recall itself to me, but with my tears,

That have been tears of blood. Would that the fate

Of the Olympus-stricken Niobe

Had been mine also—that I had been marble.

Oh charity! oh love! how much we need

Thy softening power. Ye, whose hearts are bowed

Before a great Creator; ye, whose thoughts

Should be all purity—cannot ye feel

The power given you to soothe and calm

The troubled souls of weary-hearted men,

Who wrestle, like the Titan, ’gainst the power

Of the Omnipotent! Hurling ever back

Against the thunderer’s bolts, an avalanche,

Cleft from the cloud-topped hills of human pride,

The settlings of a world of hate and scorn.

                        So fades my life,

And with it, all the poetry of youth,

The summer of existence—lost forever.

As fleeting as the bubble, Reputation⁠—

As false as social ties—delusive all⁠—

The mirage of the world.

In this, my deep communing with myself,

New strength has come upon me. Oh, my soul!

Gird on thy armor of Indifference,

And forth into the world to toil and strive,

Bearing thy secret ever present to thee,

Lest weak Humanity should tamely yield

Unto its earlier promptings: Up and work!

There is a pathway left for Lucifer;

All portals are not closed. Up, up, the time

Is present now; fearless and bold press on;

Stay not for counsel or impediment,

But, like the Roman matron’s chariot,

Pass recklessly upon thy destined course,

Though Nature’s holiest ruin stops the way.

———

BY E. CURTISS HINE, U. S. N.

———

ON THE WIDE WORLD I AM SAILING.

———

FROM THE FRENCH OF MARC FOURNIER.

———

(Concluded from page 286)

CHAPTER IV.

We should be seriously grieved if the expression sage of which we made use at the end of the preceding chapter should lead the too credulous reader into a dangerous error.

The tendency of this edifying history is to prove, on the contrary, in the most simple and incontrovertible manner, that however man may subdue his passions and limit his enjoyments to the rigorous circle traced by fortune, it is sufficient that these passions exist, and that he is their slave, to disturb the most philosophical mind, and to excite tempests that are the more violent because concentrated in a narrow space. Of what import are the dimensions of the scene? A perturbation in a glass of water is a tempest full of horror to the fly who ventures to brave its dangers. Well, the worthy Major Anspach was this imprudent insect.

One fine day in April, when the air was soft and balmy, the descendant by the female line of the last Dukes of Lorraine, having brushed with the greatest care his long brown overcoat and his black plush pantaloons, sought, at his usual stately pace, his favorite resting-place, and its perfumes. The frequenters of “Provence in Miniature,” as that end of the garden is called. Children, nurses, young men and girls, were so well acquainted with the “man of the bench,” that no one was permitted to usurp the seat which so long possession had consecrated to his use; what, then, was the painful surprise of the major on approaching his domain to find it occupied!

His first impulse was to take the affair in the simplest form of view, to go up and explain to the audacious invader of his privileges by what a continuous occupation he, Major Anspach, Baron of Phalsbourg, descended in the female line from the last Dukes of Lorraine, had acquired the exclusive right to sit in that angle of the wall, between the jasmine and the flowering roses.

But the necessity he would be under of divulging his birth was repugnant to his pride; and as the individual occupying the bench—his bench—was an old man like himself; long like himself, thin and unhappy like himself, and who appeared, like himself, not to enjoy many of the luxuries of life, and whose face, like his own, bore traces of long suffering, and painful struggles with adversity; our worthy major contented himself by throwing upon the unknown the glance of an old lion—who on returning to his den and finding it occupied by another old lion dying, passes on—so our major. “It assuredly is only a temporary occupant,” said he mentally—“a walk to the end of the avenue and he will have departed.”

But he deceived himself—he wandered from walk to walk, from avenue to avenue, passing and repassing his “Paradise Lost,” shooting fiery glances from his eyes upon the indiscreet possessor of the coveted seat; but this last, took no notice of the menacing looks of our unhappy and irritated old friend, and continued peacefully to sun himself whilst gazing with melancholy eye upon the joyous circle of young girls who danced up almost to his feet.

The sun neared the horizon—the shadows began to lengthen—and, at last, twilight overspread the landscape; then the unknown arose, and making a turn or two to relieve his limbs, slowly disappeared by the Rue St. Honoré.

M. Anspach returned home in feverish exasperation.

On the following morning the sun again shone out beautifully, and our friend the major proceeded to finish elaborately his toilet. He had grown calm, and reason suggested that yesterday’s intruder could have no motive, for two days in succession, to make him miserable; nevertheless the old gentleman was unhappy—for at his age a day lost is something!

On arriving at the Tuileries, the first object to which he directed his longing eyes was his bench, and there again was seated his perverse old substitute. The major was astounded! He made a move as if to go and tear the invader from a place of happiness of which he was so unjustly deprived; but old age controls impulse, and the major felt that he could not depart from those rules of politeness which belonged to his rank and former position in society. It was a flagrant imposition it was true: there was even a kind of impertinence in the conduct of the intruder, who must have observed how much the major was chagrined by his adverse possession the day before.

All this was plausible, but it would not justify a quarrel: and, whatever the right of the major to the estate shaded with roses and jasmine, its assertion at first view offered something so absurd, and even ridiculous, that it hardly consorted with the dignity of the descendant by the female side of the last Dukes of Lorraine.

These reflections, which presented themselves confusedly to the mind of the major, as he wended his tedious way among the walks, did not however calm his irritation. He wandered without object among the cross-alleys of the garden, running against passengers, and even the trees and benches, and chairs, like a dismasted ship at the mercy of winds and waves.

It was really painful to see that long overcoat trotting about, going, turning, and returning, its owner given up to a thousand diverse emotions, in which were intermixed chagrin, unhappiness and regret.

As often as this changeful temper brought the old man opposite to his lost Eden—that is to say, the bench and bower of roses where imperturbably sat his rival, the major raised his eyes upward and heaved so lamentable a sigh that the passers by, not knowing the cause, were struck with wonder.

The next day Major Anspach returned, timid, nervous, breathless, and filled with inquietude—there again was the executioner of his happiness!

Once again in the morning M. Anspach dragged himself to the spot, without strength and without hope—he could scarcely raise his longing eyes from afar toward his terrestrial paradise, where, as usual, sat his tormentor, like the implacable angel of destruction; that impassive face, that form, as long, as thin, as venerable as the major’s own, but infinitely more enduring in its cruelty—than the patience of its victim!

This excitement could not last without seriously affecting the major’s health; he took to his bed; a burning fever raged in his blood; weeks of unconsciousness passed by, and a long convalescence only permitted him to walk slowly along the Boulevard, with cane, and umbrella to shade him from the influence of the raging Dog Star; he sighed deeply and constantly. When his thoughts rested upon his past happiness, the wounds opened afresh, and he would stand for a long time plunged in melancholy reverie, interrupted only by nervous tremblings and audible groans.

When, at last, he was entirely able to resume his walks, instead of revisiting the Tuileries, he studiously avoided them, and turning his course by the Rue du Bac, passed on to the Luxembourg; he wished to cheat his heart. But the effort was unsuccessful notwithstanding his heroism—the habits of old age are tenacious because they are egotistic. The Luxembourg presented no object that he loved, neither the people he was accustomed to see, nor the palace of his kings, which at times he had worshiped with stolen glances; neither the kindly memories of the past, suggested by the sight of objects on the other side of the river.

At the end of some days, the major felt that he would infallibly return to his bed if he continued to quarrel with his inclinations; but in the apprehension of again meeting his adversary—whom he had come to regard with a mixture of hatred and fear—he conceived a most extravagant project. It is necessary, in order to admit for a moment that such an idea could enter the mind of one with head as gray as that of the major, to reflect that the infatuation of the old man, instead of relaxing during the paroxysms of fever, and passing away with its weakness, only became concentrated and fixed as an incurable mania.

Whatever it was, he resolved to put it in execution the very day of its conception, if necessity forced him.

——

CHAPTER V.

“Palsambleu!” the old major exclaimed to himself, as he crossed the Pont Royal; “I have an idea that things have changed a little in three months in ‘Little Provence,’ and that my gentleman, tired of waiting to see my chagrin, has vacated his place—or at least some new rascal has taken it into his head to finish the other’s work; that is, to disgust me with existence. Bah! that’s all nonsense, I shall find my little bench smaller than ever—if however Fortune is still against me—then, mille diables, I will show him that I am a Phalsbourg—morbleu!—a descendant of the Lorraines, corbleu!—a gray musqueteer!—bombs and cannon!—and we will see whether this fellow will keep his ground. It is indifferent to me whether I die by the stroke of a sabre, or of a little bench usurped. By the bye! how long is it since my last duel? Let me see! forty two years! Humph! that’s rather a long interval for the honor of Phalsbourg. But that duel had great results, and cost me dear—one hundred thousand crowns! I would like to know whether my money went to the bottom of the sea with that Palissandre—whom may Heaven confound! When I think that we endeavored to cut each other’s throats for that little sinner Guimard!—a little fool! who had no other merit, on my conscience, but that she was her mother’s daughter—another adventuress who so completely turned inside out the pockets of the infatuated and unfortunate Soubise.”

Major Anspach hummed a tune as he lounged along with a most gallant air in the long brown scabbard which he called his overcoat, and which gave something so extravagant to his appearance, that the gate-keeper at the Tuileries had some remorse for letting him pass: nevertheless, the major, when he had entered the orangery, resumed his gravity and dignified deportment; besides, he stretched out his neck and held his head so proudly, that his length was increased beyond all conception, giving one an idea of the sword of a Swiss guard perambulating the garden.

The promenade offered that day every imaginable splendor—the sunlight danced upon the liquid surface of the fountains, and its red rays piercing the interstices of the foliage, bathed the atmosphere in glittering vapor—the rays of warm light striking upon the marble statues, started them as it were into being, while Reverie, with bended head, seemed to throw its somniferous influence over flowery meads and shaded walks—and Zephyr, escorted by voluptuous Idleness, sought each wooded recess like a nymph of Délos under the sacred laurel.

We dare not affirm that our ex-musqueteer sensibly enjoyed the delights of the garden, thus illumined by the morning sun as we have described them, for it is the opinion of philosophers that a less pleasure is swallowed up in a greater one—the little bench, its roses and jasmine, alone entered his thoughts, and at that moment for it alone he lived. His eyes on approaching it were directed timidly toward the little seat, and who can describe the bounding pulsation of his heart on perceiving it vacant! And besides, how much was it embellished since he last beheld it! the roses had climbed up and mingled with the jasmine, and formed a delicious bower of perfume and beauty, almost concealing the little bench in its deep recesses.

A hundred thousand pounds weight, and something more, slid from the heart of the dear old major, and enabled him for the first time in three months to breathe freely. His emotion was so great that his limbs tottered, and he was obliged to cling to an orange tree for support—tears sprang to his eyes—he tried to utter some words to himself that he might hear his own voice, as if he doubted the evidence of his senses—but he could only bring forth inarticulate sounds whilst his chest heaved convulsively. He fell into a reverie. “The storm that lowered on his house” was about to be dissipated, and he had now only to combat the unhappy daughter of Memory—talon-fingered Regret!

In celebrating thus in thought his returning happiness Major Anspach resumed his march, and walked along with eyes cast down, as if overcome with his own pleasant thoughts, when he raised them he was within two feet of his Mecca. He suddenly bounded backward as if an adder had stung him, and then stood breathing wildly and with glassy stare—his rival was there!

The reader would be wrong to conclude that the ill opinion formed in the mind of Major Anspach regarding the unknown was a just one. The face of the old man was wrinkled like that of an old soldier of Italy, as painted by M. Charlet, giving evidence of years of hardship spent in the service of his country—and if his countenance was somewhat austere, that severity in his looks was softened by something of amiability and sweetness.

It was easy to perceive that he had suffered much and long. His person partook of the military rigidity of his countenance, the blue coat he wore over a white waistcoat buttoning to the throat, with nankeen pantaloons, and buckled shoes, indicated a fashion long gone by, and its well-brushed surface, though worn, presented to the eye a tout ensemble which claimed the respect of the stranger. In a word, there existed between the unknown and the major so many points of resemblance, that it required the blind aversion which had taken possession of the latter to prevent a feeling of the warmest sympathy springing up between him and his antagonist: but far from perceiving these symptoms of a poverty noble and proud in his rival, and which should have inclined him to stretch out the arms of a brother rather than those of an enemy, the descendant of the Phalsbourgs, blinded with rage, could scarce recover himself sufficiently to salute the stranger with a touch of his beaver of very sinister augury.

The unknown returned the salutation with much urbanity and self-possession.

M. Anspach, this duty to politeness performed, mechanically as it were, drew his hat down over his eyes and made a step forward.

At this gesture his rival smiled, and looked around him as if to make his visiter comprehend that it was impossible from the narrowness of his quarters to offer him hospitality.

M. Anspach observing this pantomime, smiled also, but it was a bitter smile. He made increditable efforts to recover his voice.

“I believe I see in you a lover of the Tuileries,” observed he of the blue coat, bowing gracefully, “and that you have come, like myself, to enjoy here the fine weather?”

“It is three months since I have enjoyed it, sir,” the choking major answered, rolling his eyes.

“True—I have remarked your absence.”

“Ah!” growled M. Anspach de Phalsbourg.

That “ah!” was a little fiendish.

“You appear to suffer,” rejoined he of the blue coat, “and are fatigued,” he added, without offering, however, to yield his seat.

“You are right,” replied the major, all at once recovering the use of his epiglottis. “Yes, sir! I am fatigued—no one was ever more fatigued.”

The major made a pause as if gathering himself up for an encounter—then stepping up boldly under the very nose of his adversary, continued:

“Hear me, my very dear sir. I have not the honor to know you, but I take you to be an honorable man; besides, your exterior pleases me; you suit me well, and I should be pleased if you will permit me the honor of cutting your throat.”

The blue coat drew back in astonishment, mingled with fright; he began to think he had to deal with an insane person, but the major, interpreting the movement, continued⁠—

“Do not judge the horse by his harness”—assuming at the same time a port full of dignity and well-bred self-possession. “You will have in me an antagonist not unworthy of the sword of a man of honor—and if reasons altogether personal did not at present oblige me to ask as a favor the permission to conceal my name, you would learn that I was of a blood which has never dishonored the veins through which it ran.”

“Then, sir,” replied the unknown, in a tone almost serious, “I am delighted by the accident, whatsoever it may be, that brings us together; for the name I bear, though I boast not of it, is one of the most esteemed in Angoumois.”

“This meeting is delightful!” chimed in the major.

“Nevertheless,” resumed our blue coat, rising as he spoke—“perhaps you will do me the pleasure to explain to me to what unexpected cause I owe the honor of your challenge?”

“You shall have it in few words. You have not formally insulted me, I acknowledge, but you have nearly killed me—and I plainly perceive from the course you have taken that you will eventually accomplish it. I prefer to anticipate my end.”

The unknown reseated himself; for the idea returned that he was conversing with a lunatic. But this time the major, appearing to comprehend most perfectly the suspicions of his enemy, shrugged his shoulders and smiled in disdain, as he said⁠—

“I hoped that your age, sir, would have prevented any precipitate judgment concerning my motives; but I see that I was mistaken, for you appear to partake of that vulgar prejudice which puts beyond the pale of a just opinion all that apparently outrages the conventionalities of social life. Be pleased, then, to excuse the strangeness of my address, and I dare hope that you will reconsider your opinion, when you know the just grounds I have to seek the honor of a meeting with you.”

The composed and self-possessed manner with which these last words were spoken, struck the unknown, and he again stood up, while the major, throwing a rapid glance over the blue coat, continued—

“I believe, sir, you are in a condition to feel some sympathy for those whom fortune has not deigned to favor. I can, then, without a blush acknowledge to you that I am one of her victims. Happily, I have not received in the New World, where I passed many years, severe lessons of wisdom and moderation without profiting somewhat by them. I have been twice entirely ruined, and yet am consoled by my philosophy. Returning from America, I saw myself neglected—even repulsed—by my royal masters, to whom I had consecrated the best years of my life—a king—princes who have not deigned to extend the hand of friendship to an old and faithful servant, and who let him grow old in indigence and want. Well, I am still resigned, and for more than ten years have lived without complaint, in a state bordering on the extremest misery. But you know, sir, that man’s strength is not inexhaustible—there is a point beyond endurance—it is to that point you, sir, have brought me⁠—”

“I, sir? I?”

“You will see, sir. The necessity I was under to contract my desires has conducted me, little by little, to a modesty of enjoyment which will astonish you. Our desires increase with fortune; but a wise man has strength of mind enough to diminish them in inverse ratio to his misfortunes. Mine, sir, are concentrated upon an object so humble that I might well believe it beyond the caprice of destiny. The object of which I speak is the little bench where you are seated—where, since the 17th of April, you, sir, have come to seat yourself each day, a little earlier than it was my custom to come out to rest myself. For two years I have taken a fancy to this spot in the garden. I love that bench—that shade—those flowers. In summer I come here in the sweet morning hour, peacefully to enjoy the perfume of these honeysuckles. In autumn—in winter—the smallest ray of sunshine upon the corner of the garden wall reflects its heat upon that narrow bench, making it a delightful resting-place for the worn out frame of an old man. What shall I say? This sweet resort obtained soon such an empire over me, that I had but one end—but one desire to gratify—the least sunshine upon the roofs which my garret overlooks—the least smile of heaven had for me, a poor old man, more intoxicating charms than ever glance of a mistress to the most devoted lover. It was a real passion—a love with all its joys and delicious griefs—a cloudy or a rainy day threw me in despair, and I felt all the torments of absence from the thing I loved—but was the morrow beautiful, I made the most brilliant toilet I could imagine, and ran to my little bench, convinced that I should find its pleasures increased.

“Is it necessary to tell you now, sir, that since the 17th of April you have driven me from my paradise, and that you have become my executioner!

“I have but little more to say but that when I was a gray musqueteer I would have killed any one who raised his eyes toward my mistress; you, sir, have done more than raise your eyes toward her—you have robbed me of her—you have taken my little bench. It is more than an insult. It is, believe me, a murder—an assassination. Then, sir, give me again that seat; assure me on your honor that you will respect my right in future, or name your place and weapons.”

The unknown listened to the major with increasing interest; the impress of a thousand contrary feelings flitted by turns across his countenance, and an observer might have remarked at times that lively combats were going on within.

When M. Anspach ceased to speak, waiting the answer of our blue coat, the latter walked backward and forward for some time in silence, a prey to a visible sorrow, which the major could not but respect.

At length he stopped, and fixing upon the major a grave and melancholy look, replied⁠—

“I am an old soldier, and the alternative you offer is not repugnant to me. I, too, for three months have had the habit of resorting to this sweet spot, and to it I have consecrated the last enjoyments of a life without happiness.

“You speak of your misfortunes,” added he, with a serious smile; “mine do not cede to them in number or severity: I was noble and wealthy before the Revolution, but on my return, after a long absence, I found France republican, and I too became a republican from love to her. My nobility was opposed to public opinion—I renounced it. My wealth appeared to insult the public poverty—I offered my entire fortune upon the altar of my country. The enemy menaced our frontiers—I hastened to join the phalanx under Moreau. I gave my all to France—my name, my blood, my fortune. But Bonaparte appeared, and nothing remained for me to offer to the expiring Republic but my tears and my despair. Advances were made to me—I rejected them. They would have restored my fortune and my rank—I preferred my honor and my misery—and it was only in 1815, when France made a last effort, that I prepared to die at Waterloo. Alas! much better would it have been to have died there! Prisoner, and designedly overlooked in the exchanges, (for you are aware that it could not be forgiven to a count to have fought for France,) I was banished to the end of Russia, dragged to Tobolsk, and abandoned there without resources to all the horrors of nakedness and hunger.

“How I escaped from those deserts would not interest you. Heaven has permitted me to revisit France, and here I am a mark for the resentments of the throne; regarded as a traitor to the monarchy, and contemned by those who to-day might aid me.”

The old man on concluding these words slowly crossed his arms upon his breast, his head drooped, as if memory remounted the lapse of years of misfortune, and without apparent consciousness of the presence of his interlocutor.

The major, let us say it to his praise, had equally lost sight of the subject of their quarrel. Touched by this recital, which awakened in his heart sensibilities somewhat moss-grown by age, he approached the unknown, and placing his hand upon his arm, said in a voice filled with emotion⁠—

“Providence has had its secret designs, my dear count, (for I perceive you bear that title,) in permitting two unfortunates such as we are to cross each other’s path; and if I experience something soothing to my pain in listening to the recital of your sorrows, it is in thinking that you have met the only person in the world capable of sympathizing with you as you deserve.”

“You forget, my dear sir,” replied the blue coat, smiling blandly, “that we have to cut each other’s throats to-morrow.”

The major hung his head in confusion.

“Hear me,” said the old soldier of the Republic. “I do not really think that this affair is important enough to fight about. Confess, besides, that such pastime does not become our age. Ah! there was a time I did not say so! In coming from the theatre, I as willingly went to fight at the Porte Maillôt as to laugh at the Café Procope. Sir, would you believe it, he who speaks to you has fought and been wounded, and afterward voyaged six thousand miles to seek his antagonist, and all because one evening Mademoiselle Guimard, the younger, let her handkerchief fall!”

“What do I hear!” exclaimed Major Anspach, making a start of surprise, “you said—you—ah! mon Dieu!”

“What do I see! you tremble—you become pale—do you know any thing of that unhappy affair? Ah! sir, if it is true that you do, render me a service that I will never forget—tell me what has become of Major Anspach?—but now I think of it, you said you had been a gray musqueteer under the Comte D’Artois—perhaps you have known the major—you certainly must have been acquainted with him—ah! speak. I only possess six hundred francs of revenue, but I would give it all only to see the major once more before I die.”

“You are then the Chevalier De Palissandre?” murmured the grand-nephew of the Guises by the female line, who had fallen upon the little bench from a faintness he in vain endeavored to overcome.

“I inherited the title of count on the death of my two brothers, but you, sir—may I believe—my eyes do not deceive me!—those features! Oh, speak once more—you are⁠—”

“Yes, count. I am—I am your ancient rival—”

“Oh, joy! Heaven is just—it would not let me perish without seeing him once more. Oh! if you knew, my dear baron, how often since your departure from France—your flight I may call it—I have cursed the ill-fortune which did not allow me to arrive in London in time to join you—I was acquainted with the rascality of your banker, and not wishing to entrust to his hands the fortune which you had left in your carriage, I hastened after you to inform you of it—to advise you of your danger of loss through him in time to remedy it. Missing you there, I did not feel myself relieved of the obligation to seek you. I followed you to the Havana—I pursued your traces, but meeting contrary winds and tempests, the vessel in which I embarked failed to overtake you, and I was obliged to renounce the dearest object of my life.”

“Well, chevalier—that is to say, sir count—pardon me the neglect. Take the hand I offer you, and let us bless the good fortune which permits us to meet in our unhappy circumstances, in which we both have need of the friendly offices of the other.”

“What the devil do you say, D’Anspach?” cried the count, crushing in his own the offered hand of the major. “What do you say about unhappy circumstances? There are none hereafter for you, my friend—you are rich, devilish rich—I believe, devil take me! that you are a monstrous millionaire!”

The old major fixed his eye on De Palissandre in stupid astonishment.

“Notwithstanding your surprise, it is nevertheless true,” continued the count, “for despairing of ever seeing you again, I took the only course which remained, which was to wait until you should yourself return to seek your 300,000 francs. But not wishing to resemble the bad servant in the parable who buried his talent in the earth, and not believing your money safe in France, I returned to London, placed your little fortune in the hands of one of my friends connected with the East Company—and remember, major, that forty years have passed away since that! May I go to the devil, if I can pretend to tell you what the honorable baronet has done to multiply your francs; but his son, who succeeded him in business fifteen years ago, and with whom I have corresponded since my return from Russia, wrote me the other day that the funds invested in the house of Ashburton & Co. amounted to nearly eight hundred thousand pounds sterling—twenty millions of francs! It seems like a fairy tale!”

We will not attempt to paint the expression upon the face of Major Anspach. He remained for a long time without speech or color—his eyes shut—like a man half-killed by some overwhelming blow, and who seems bewildered in his mind—at length his features regained their natural appearance, his cheeks their color; he drew a long sigh, opened his eyes, and saw before him M. de Palissandre anxiously watching the effect of the crisis—stretched out his arms and threw them around the neck of his old friend; shedding torrents of tears.

When the first effervescence of feeling was a little subdued, the major seized the hand of the count anew. “Hear me, Palissandre—if you do not promise me to submit yourself without the slightest remark to my wishes, I take to witness my great grand-aunt, who was cousin in the eighth degree removed of Monsieur de Guise le Balafré, that I will go to London, receive my millions, and on my return will throw them into the sea. Ma foi! it will only be the second fortune old ocean owes to me.”

“Sarpejeu! speak then!”

“Well, then, we will live together—be happy—be rich together—and both shall have new suits of clothes!—and when we have lived long enough, I hope Heaven will put an end to us both at the same time. I shall give immediate orders for the purchase, at whatever cost, of the lands of De Phalbourg and our Castle de Palissandre. Then we shall have two fine estates, and you will see what lots of nephews and nieces, who do not know us to-day, will spring out of the earth as it were, expressly to continue the rank and blood of the two noble houses. We shall not want for heirs, depend upon it!”

The two friends again embraced each other—the treaty was concluded.

Then the count and baron, with arms interlaced, marched from the Tuileries with a step which would have done honor to two voltigeurs of Louis Quinze—

And the little seat?

We feel ashamed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yes, dear lady reader, Major Anspach in departing forgot to salute even with a parting glance that little embowered seat, perfumed with jasmine and rose—the object of so much tender regard, and for which a single hour ago he was willing to risk cutting throats with a stranger. Alas! Mademoiselle, love will not last forever even at sixty years! Nevertheless, it must be confessed the little bench, like your sex, soon obtained consolation.

———

BY S. S. HORNOR.

———

———

BY GIFTIE.

———

Upon the margin of a blue stream that ran singing through a lonely valley among the green hills of New England, there stood in the olden time, a low cottage, built of logs, and half covered with woodbine and wild honeysuckle. The small patch of Indian corn near it hardly deserved the name of a garden, and the dense forests that surrounded it, showed that as yet civilization had penetrated but little way into the wilds of the new world. Yet the variety of wild flowers which, transplanted from their native glades, blossomed around the low doorway, and the air of neatness that pervaded the rude establishment, proved a degree of refinement greater than was usual among the Indian tribes.

It was now the hour of twilight, and not a sound was heard save the low murmuring of the wind as it swept through the dark recesses, and swayed the tangled branches of the mighty forest-trees. In one of the two small rooms into which the cottage was divided, an aged Indian and his squaw were seated beside a rude couch, where lay the form of a dying woman. Her delicate complexion and light hair betrayed her English origin, and she was still young, and had once been beautiful, though her face bore the traces of a wo more heavy than the weight of years. Yet peace was there, and the smile of calm resignation which rested upon her features, told that not in vain had been the sorrow which had bowed her to the grave. At the foot of the couch stood a missionary—one of those holy men whose lives of toil and suffering were passed in the vain endeavor to counteract the effects of the vices introduced among the Indians by their foreign oppressors.

The chieftain lifted his head from his breast and said, in a low tone, “She is passing away. The fair flower we would have cherished upon our hearts is withered.”

At these words the dying woman opened her eyes, and a smile broke over her pale face as she said, “Mourn not for me, kind father; and thou, tender mother, weep no more. Ye would not keep a bird from its native sky, that its song might cheer you. Even like a bird my spirit would spread its wings that it may fly away and be at rest.”

The Indian mother raised her eyes wildly and wrung her hands as she gazed on her adopted child. Then swaying her body to and fro, she murmured in the half singing half wailing tones of an Indian lament, “Will not our hut be very desolate, my bird, when thy song is hushed; and who will bring us light like the light of thy starry eyes? Shall we not miss thy voice at eventide when we kneel to the God thou hast taught us to worship? Leave us not—leave us not, for our life goes with thee to the grave!”

The missionary raised his hands to heaven, and a lofty faith spoke in his voice, as he said, “Mourn ye not, nor weep. The exile departeth for her native land, the wanderer for her father’s house. A light is fading from your path, but another star shall soon be added to the Redeemer’s crown. The flower ye would have cherished hath drooped amid these alien skies, but it shall bloom in fresher beauty in the Paradise above.”

As he finished speaking, the dying lady placed in his hands a manuscript, bidding him read it when she was dead; and then, with one farewell look of love on the kind faces that surrounded her, she closed her eyes wearily, and crossing her small white hands upon her breast, she composed herself as if to sleep. There was a long silence, broken only by the low wailing of the Indian woman, as she murmured in an under tone, “The way is long, the way is dark; oh, bird of the bright eye, thou soarest out of sight! who shall tell us the path to the spirit-land when thy singing voice is hushed? Wo for us! wo, wo—for the way is dark!” Gradually these low moans seemed to reach the ear that was fast closing to earthly sounds. The lips of the dying moved, as if in a vain effort to speak, and at length, in faint tones, she whispered, “They shall be gathered out of every kindred and tribe and nation, and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd. I know—I know that my Redeemer liveth.” A brilliant smile lighted her whole face with an expression of triumph, as she uttered these words of hope, and even in speaking them, the spirit fled.

That evening the missionary opened the manuscript. It read as follows:

“You have been kind to me, and have respected the sacred silence of the sorrow which has worn out my life. There are moments when every heart yearns for sympathy, and the long closed fountains of the soul flow again. Such a mood is on me now, and therefore I open to you this long-sealed heart.

“Of my childhood I will say little, save that it passed like a fairy revel. Heiress of unbounded wealth, and last of a long-descended and honorable family, I was loved with a lavish and doating fondness, until a sudden and terrible disease, that cut down my parents in the pride and glory of their days, left me an orphan. From that grief, which, for a time, was so violent as to threaten the destruction of life and reason, I never fully recovered. Even when change of scene, the progress of time, and the natural elasticity of youth had so far changed me, that I appeared to have forgotten my sorrow, there lay ever upon my heart the shadow of the tomb. After a time I was sent to reside with my aunt, at the north of England. She was waiting in the castle gate to receive me when I arrived there, and beside her rode her only son—my Cousin Gerald.

“How slight a thing may seal the whole future of our lives. We greet with a careless word and a momentary glance those whose fate is to color our own forever, and then pass on unthinking that henceforth our destiny is fixed. And yet the first time I saw him his image was stamped on my heart. Sorrow, change, wrong, despair have passed over it—but that image is there still. As I write, the curtain of the past seems drawn back, and again I greet thee, Gerald Bellamont. Again I meet the gaze of those flashing eyes—I hear the low, rich music of thy voice, and I feel the floods of deep, unquenchable love, rising in my soul for thee—thou loved so vainly.

“Days, weeks and months passed on, and we spoke not of love, perchance knew not that the fatal spell was upon us. But at last the dream was broken—the hours of peaceful affection passed away. Gerald left us for a tour on the Continent, and with the struggle of that first parting came the knowledge of all that we were to each other—came the tumult, the trembling, the fearfulness of love.

“At first the tedious hours were relieved by frequent letters from him, so full of tender affection, and withal so overflowing with youthful enjoyment of the new scenes around him, that even my fond heart was content to have him absent. Then letters came more seldom—then ceased altogether—and then, in the midst of our wonder and anxiety, he appeared suddenly in his old home; but so changed from the merry-hearted boy to the reserved, thought-stricken man, that my timid nature was abashed, and I dared not question him concerning the change which I felt had come over his inmost being.

“We were wedded; and if I detected, even amid the bridal festivities, a shade of sadness on my husband’s brow, I strove to console myself with the hope that now he was mine—mine forever; the love so deep, so self-sacrificing, which I would every moment lavish upon him, could not but chase away the bitter memories which oppressed him. Residing on my own estate near London, our house was the resort of the noble and the gay; and amid the exciting whirl of this new life, little time was left for anxious thought. I entered into the pleasures which surrounded me with the zest of a young and joyous heart; and for a few months life was filled with sunshine—and the hours flew swiftly away; ah! why came so soon that night of agony on which there dawned no morrow.

“I was dressed at last—ready for the fancy ball. My costume, which had been selected by Lord Bellamont, had been pronounced perfect by my maids, and even my fastidious taste could suggest no improvement. After one parting glance of satisfaction at the mirror which reflected my brilliant figure, I descended to the library, where I knew Gerald waited for me, expecting to be welcomed with that smile of admiration which woman so highly prizes from the lips of love. To my surprise, Gerald did not turn at my entrance; and as I approached the window where he sat, I found him gazing at a small picture, with which he was so intently occupied as to be unconscious of my presence. It was a full-length female figure. She stood with one arm thrown across a lyre, and one raised to heaven. A long, dark curl had strayed from her bandeau of pearls and rested on her neck, and the hair was parted back smoothly from her high brow. The face was passing beautiful, with a fire in the dark eyes, and on the small mouth, an air of lofty determination which might have become a priestess at the altar of sacrifice. Beneath was written—Leonore St. Clair.

“As I stood behind him, hesitating how to break his revery, Gerald started up suddenly, and tearing the picture to pieces, threw the fragments out of the window, where the night wind scattered them far and wide. He watched them with a look made up of scorn and grief, and was turning away with a sigh, when he first saw me standing near him. A deep flush passed over his face, and he looked earnestly, almost sternly at me for a few moments. I was as much confused as himself, though I scarce knew why, but I had sufficient command of myself to ask some question about the picture—I know not what. Folding me in his arms, he kissed me again and again before he answered. ‘I will tell you about it some time—do not ask me now. I thought it destroyed long ago, until by accident I found it to-night. It is a relic of something I must forget—I would gladly forget;’ and he pressed me passionately to his heart, with words of deep tenderness. Was I mad, was I blind, that even then no foreboding whisper told my heart its doom? Yet at that moment I thought only that he was unhappy; and when I saw him smile again, the suspicion fled, that for a moment had disturbed me, and, gayest of the gay, proudest of the proud, I mingled with the throng which filled the saloons of Lady Gordon.

“Late in the evening, as leaning on the arm of Lord ——, I wandered from room to room, seeking refuge from the crowd and the oppressive heat, we found our way into the library, where but few had collected. As we entered, we were greeted by a strain of music so sweet and thrilling, that I involuntarily pressed forward to listen. On a sofa near us the musician was seated. One arm, exquisitely moulded, and white as snow, was thrown across a harp, as she drew from the strings a few simple notes. She was dressed in white satin, which was not more purely beautiful than her complexion, and was without ornament, save a few pearls that gleamed among the braids of her raven hair, and on her bosom she wore a single white rose—its leaves were withered. The instant I saw her, I had a dim recollection of having seen that face before, and while I was striving to recall the time and place, she commenced singing. Never heard I music like the melody she uttered. It might have been thought the voice of an angel chanting the songs of heaven; but, alas! though the voice was of heaven, the song was earthly. She sang of love—not the happy love of that better land, but sad, broken-hearted, such as woman’s hath too often been—utterly vain and hopeless.

“At this moment I was startled by a deep sigh near me, and looking up, saw Gerald standing in the deep shadow of the window recess. He was gazing on the singer, who sat directly before him. The lady heard the sigh—their eyes met, and the glance which flashed from them, spoke volumes. For a moment she seemed confused and agitated, then with a look of proud anguish, and a voice that faltered not in its clear, low tones, she finished the song.

“Her lips quivered, and her pale cheek became crimson as she concluded, and I fancied tears trembled in the depths of her dark, radiant eyes. She turned her face toward Gerald, and for a moment they continued gazing on each other with a look full of sorrowful love, of agony and despair. It was not till she had left the room that I found strength to speak. ‘Who is she?’ I asked. The answer told me the whole story. It was Leonore St. Clair.

“When and how he had met her I knew and thought not. It was enough to know that she loved him—that his whole soul was given to her, and that I—oh God! I was unbeloved. My brain seemed to burn, and my heart ceased to beat—and yet I did not faint. There is a fearful strength in woman’s heart, of which she is unconscious till the hour of her uttermost agony. Turning from the brilliant scene, I passed through the window into the garden. There was one walk which had been left unlighted, and thither my steps were bent. It led to a small temple, which had been erected to Cupid, and a lamp that hung over the altar, showed the figure of the sleeping boy; but the recesses of the temple were in deep shadow. I entered, and threw myself on a seat in the darkest corner. Was it chance, or was it ordered by the mysterious Providence which revealed to me the fearful secret that was to blight my happiness forever?

“As I lay there striving to still the tumult of my thoughts, footsteps approached, and Leonore St. Clair entered, followed by my husband. She cast a hurried glance around, but saw me not, and then turning to him, said, haughtily, ‘Leave me, rash man. Is it not enough that you once cold and cruelly deceived me, but must you thus force yourself into my presence, and revive the memory of feelings I deemed long since dead. Leave me—I command you!’ and she motioned him away with an impatient gesture. I leaned forward to hear the reply. ‘Say not so, Leonore. Hear me—nay, turn not away, for you must hear me. Long ere I knew you I was betrothed to another. She was gentle and beautiful; oh, dearest, can you blame me that I shrunk from breaking her kind and faithful heart. Would you have taken my hand if it were stained with her tears? Would you have accepted a dishonored name? Too well I knew you, too deeply had I read your noble nature to dream of doing aught but to bow in silence to my sad destiny. Nay, more, deeply, wildly as I loved you, until that last day we spent together on the Rhine, I knew not that I was beloved in return; I had been told you were the promised bride of another. Then, when I first knew that you were free, and I—I bound to another; I cannot speak of this—I cannot think of it; sometimes I fear I am going mad.’

“I did not hear her answer, for as he spoke he drew her to the steps of the altar, and they sat down together. They conversed some time in a low tone, and I heard the sound of weeping. At last they rose, and as the light fell full on their faces, I saw they were both fearfully agitated. She drew her hands from his with a look of passionate despair. ‘Go, now,’ she said, ‘go, while I have power to bid you leave me. God knows I shall never forget you; but from this moment we must never, never meet again.’

“ ‘I go,’ he replied, sadly; ‘yet ere we part, Leonore, I ask one kiss—the first, the last. Let me press you once to this heart, and it will be nerved to endure all things.’

“She fell into his arms—he clasped her to his bosom, and I saw their lips meet. Another moment and he had turned from her. ‘Farewell!’ he said, in a low, hoarse tone. ‘Farewell, forever!’ was the response.

“She remained standing until the sound of his steps had died away, and then flung herself down heavily on the marble floor. Even in that first hour of misery I felt no hatred of her. I longed to creep to her bosom, and mingle my tears with hers, and echo the sobs that came thick and gaspingly from her lips. After a while she rose slowly, and leaned against the altar, while words came from her lips, faint at first, and broken, but growing louder, till I could distinguish them. ‘To die—to die! It would be but a moment of agony, and then all is peace. Why should I tremble? What can the world be to me henceforth but a living tomb? And he—the vainly loved; ah! Gerald, were I gone forever—couldst thou not soon learn to forget me? For thy sake, beloved, I dare die.’ As she spoke she took from her bosom a small phial, and as it passed before the light, I saw it was full of a red liquid. Almost involuntarily I sprung forward and dashed it to the ground as she raised it to her lips. ‘Do not—do not commit murder!’ I whispered breathlessly. She gazed at me wildly for a few moments, pressed her hands to her brow, and sunk fainting to the floor.

“I supported her till she revived, and with her first breath of consciousness she asked my name. I did not reply. Just then we heard voices calling her. She sprung up hastily, and I was astonished at her self-possession—for I was new in the school of misery, she poor thing, knew what it was to smile, while her heart was breaking. For a while she buried her face in her hands, and when she looked up, save a slight trace of tears round her eyes, all trace of emotion had vanished from her features. Seizing my arm as I stood leaning for support against a pillar, she drew me forward to the light, saying, in a tone too proudly bitter ever to be forgotten, ‘You have seen and heard much—more than could have been wrung by years of torture from the proud heart of Leonore St. Clair. Yet when you see me, you shall know how bravely a strong soul can sustain itself when all its hopes are crushed, and life is a burden. You shall see how my calm, haughty mien shall fling defiance at you if you choose to publish my secret. Tell me, girl—who are you?’

“ ‘I am the wife of Gerald Bellamont.’

“With a start of horror and a faint cry, she dropped my arm and fled from the spot.

“Do you wonder that I can think and write of this with calmness? I tell you there have been moments when, as the flood-gates of memory were opened, and the buried past came rushing back over my soul, I have cried out in my agony, and prayed to drink of the blessed fountain of Lethe, and forget forever. But this is past now. A higher faith hath taught me the meaning of this fearful lesson, a higher hope sustains me than was ever born of human love. Truly earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot cure.

“The night was far spent ere I reached my home. My husband came soon after. I heard him enter his chamber, and for a long time I listened to the sound of his heavy steps as he paced the floor. At last he threw himself on the bed, and then all was still. Nature could endure no more, and I fell asleep. Wild and terrible were the visions that flitted around my couch. I was in a vast banqueting-hall, and with me the companions of the last night’s revel. Again I saw the flowers, the lights, the bright, happy faces, and again the dancers whirled by me. The night waned, the stars went out one by one, and daylight shone in on the dying lamps; yet still those wild revelers flew by me. The sun rose up and shed his fervent beams upon us. The flowers faded, and the faces of the dancers grew wan, and one by one they dropped down and died. The twilight crept over the hills, and night came on—not radiant with stars, and redolent with the breath of flowers, but horribly dark—the realization of impenetrable gloom. And slowly from out of that blackness came forth the form of a woman, clothed in white, and grasping a lyre, from the strings of which she drew forth no sound. Over her head a veil was thrown, hiding her face, and descending in wavy folds to her feet. She moved not, breathed not—all was still as the silence of the tomb.

“Light rose no more upon me, but I saw all things in that deep darkness more distinctly than ever. Years passed over me. I saw the finger of Time smite the walls of my prison-house, and they crumbled to dust. The grass grew up from the decaying floor, and became longer and longer, till its dull rustling answered to the moaning wind. From the dust of those beings, once so full of life and loveliness, the ivy weed sprung and wound itself round the roofless pillars till the vast charnel-house was green and beautiful as a garden.

“Then there came around me, as I stood there in my awful solitude, faces and forms that looked out fitfully from the darkness, and then disappeared. They wandered around, they stood beside me, some gazing on me with pale, spiritual faces, bright, yet mournful in their loveliness, and some with the countenances of fiends, that laughed horribly at my desolation. And there was one form that took its place beside that marble figure, and fixed upon me the glance of its dark eyes, reaching forth its hands as if in vain efforts to approach me. Amid a thousand phantoms I should have known him—it was Gerald.

“I had borne all things else in my dreadful destiny, but I could not bear the mournful expression of that dear face. Tears, blessed tears came to my relief. I sprung forward, the fetters that had bound me seemed broken, and I would have flung myself into his arms, when suddenly that long, motionless figure interposed itself between us, and as her hand swept the lyre-strings, there came from them a strain of unearthly melody. It was repeated from the distance, and on its pealing echoes there came the sound of voices mingled with the tramping of many feet, and forth from the darkness there came, two by two, a band, clothed in garments of sable blackness, and girdled each with a girdle of living fire; and on the girdle, and on the forehead of each were written, in letters of blood, these words, ‘forever and forever.’ They passed slowly by, and in passing each turned and looked at me. I shuddered at the sight, for it was like the faces of the damned.

“Suddenly I felt myself seized and borne onward by an invisible force. Then there rose on the air a low, wailing anthem, that might have been the dirge of a lost soul, and as it grew louder and nearer, directly before me there seemed as it were a great curtain rolled up, and I was in a vast cathedral. We stood before the altar; around me were ranged that band of fearful ones, with their burning girdles, and before me the priest, dressed in his pontifical robes, and wearing still that cincture of living fire. The marriage ceremony proceeded—it was finished, and I turned to receive the bridal kiss. The person at my side turned also, and I saw his face—it was Gerald. With a cry of joy I sprung forward to his embrace, when suddenly there came that marble form between me and my beloved. She fell into his arms, she was pressed to his heart, she received the kiss which should have been mine alone. Then rose again that strain of dirge-like music—then pealed the shouts of fiendish, mocking laughter; the whole scene vanished from my sight; I felt the ground pass from under my feet, and from the immense distance I heard a voice cry, ‘Come, come, come—come to the judgment of the deceived and the deceiver.’ With these words I felt myself borne swiftly through the air. A giant’s strength would have been vain against the force which held me—I was powerless as an infant.

“We passed with the speed of a whirlwind through the region of clouds and storm, and left star after star behind us, till we reached the bounds of the visible universe. Still there appeared system after system of worlds, each with its suns and stars, and still our flight was onward—onward, while ever and anon there came through the blue ether, the echo of that awful summons, ‘Come, come, come!’ At length we reached the bounds of inhabited space, and entered the lone fields of chaos. And now faintly there came upon my vision another star, which seemed flying on its way as if pursued by the spirit of wrath. We approached it rapidly—it was a world on fire. I saw forms that wandered to and fro, striving in vain to fly from their torments—‘hateful, miserable, and hating one another.’ They ran to and fro, they plunged into rivers that rolled in sullen billows through that world of despair, and shrunk back howling, for the waves were of liquid fire. They glared horribly on one another with their fiery eyes, and raised their hands with deep curses to where, in the lurid sky above them, burned in blood-red letters, the curse of their awful sentence, ‘forever and forever!’

“Upon the verge of this fiery world we paused, and for a few moments there was a deep and fearful silence. Then the band of dark spirits opened their ranks and led forth the form of a man. It was Gerald. I saw them hover with him over the fiery abyss. I saw his impotent struggles to escape; and breaking from the power that held me, I cried, ‘I am thine, beloved—take me with thee—in the midst of guilt and anguish, thine, still thine!’ An instant more and I should have reached him, when, with a wild laugh, that form came again between us. Slowly she raised from her features the shadowy veil—it was the face of Leonore. With a sharp cry, I started from her. The spell which had bound me was broken. In mercy I awoke.

“Trembling, scarcely daring to think it all a dream, I drew aside the curtains to look around, and beheld my husband standing before me. He was frightfully pale and haggard, his eyes were dim and bloodshot, and startled at his appearance, and for a moment half forgetting the dreadful secret I had learned, I threw my arms around him, and drew his face down to mine. A deeper shade passed over his brow, and he sighed heavily as he pressed his lips to my cheek. I could not return the kiss. I could not speak. Perhaps he did not notice my silence, for in a few moments he told me that he had received letters requiring his immediate presence in France, and had made preparations to leave in a few hours. Some more words he spoke, but I knew not what they were, and then clasping me convulsively to his heart, he bade me try to sleep again, and left me.

“Sleep—oh mockery! What had I to do with sleep or rest, while I bore within me the blight of a sleepless wo! How may I tell of the weary days that succeeded? At first there were hours of frantic misery—tears of wild and passionate despair. Then came the silent sorrow—the dull heart-aching that so slowly and surely wears out the life. Had I loved Gerald less, I might have called pride to my aid—I should have felt resentment or jealousy, but judging him from the fullness of my forgiving heart, I had none of these emotions, which might have nerved me to forget my wrongs. Once after that fatal night I saw Leonore at the Opera, where I had been carried by the solicitations of my friends. She was fearfully changed. The rich fullness of her form was gone, the bloom had faded from her cheek, and her eyes were dim, as if she too had wept tears of vain sorrow. She sat among her gay and splendid companions, silent, motionless, abstracted.

“That night I returned home to find a new affliction. Lights were flitting to and fro, and the servants avoided me as I entered—for none cared to tell me the sad tidings. Lord Bellamont had returned home violently ill, and when I entered his bed-chamber, I found the physician already there, striving to rouse him from the stupor into which he had fallen. Sorrow and sickness had written deep lines on that dear face, and even amid the weakness of delirium he seemed to battle with the strong heart’s agony. Seven days I sat beside his pillow. I faltered not—I wearied not. Seven nights I saw the twilight steal over the hills, and the moon fade from the sky, and I slept not. Naught but a love like mine could have endured these torturing vigils. My whole being resolved itself into one intense thought of him—one fervent prayer that he might not go down in the noonday of his life and beauty to be a dweller with the dead. For myself—my resolution was taken. I would no longer be the living mildew on his brightest hopes—the fetter that bound him from all he loved best. Ah, woman’s heart is strong, and He who formed it for love and sorrow, alone knows how much it will endure ere it break.

“Religion forbade that I should for his sake give up this mortal life, else I would willingly have died, but I could give up the life of life—sacrifice all that made earth joyous or beautiful—break the tie that bound him to misery and to me. I could leave him. Poorly as he had requited my love, he was still the chief pleasure and glory of my existence. Even then to hear his voice, to watch the return of health to his enfeebled frame, to gaze upon his face in silence and unheeded, was the sole happiness left me, and that, even that I gave up for his sake. Ah, Gerald, could I know that when free thy heart turned back once, only once, after the lost one, I would not regret the sacrifice. Alas! it was vain—all in vain. Let me hasten on, lest my brain grow wild again with these fearful memories.

“My preparations were soon made. Fortunately for my purpose, one of the servants had some relatives who were to emigrate to America, and I had at his request, supplied them with the requisite means. I sent for him, and with a calmness at which I even then wondered, I told him I wished to send under his care a young friend, whom I requested him to treat with respect and attention, as grief for the loss of a friend had made him slightly insane. He promised to take the charge, and appointed the place where I should meet him, suspecting nothing of my design. Why should he? Too well had that fatal secret been kept; my nearest friends knew nothing of what had passed.

“The parting hour came too quickly. I was calm, for there was neither hope nor fear in my heart. I only knew that I must leave Gerald, and what else remained to me in life. I stained my face till I was dark as a gipsy, and cut off the long, silken tresses of which I was once so proud. Then clothing myself in the garments of my page, I secreted about my person a small amount of money, and taking a bundle of clothes in order to sustain my assumed character, I was ready to depart. At the threshold of the door I paused, and unable to go without seeing him once more, I stole softly to the room where my husband lay sleeping; I knelt by his couch, over which the moonlight fell brightly, and gazed into his face with that earnest look which a drowning man might give of earth and sky ere the blue waters closed over him forever. As I gazed, the sleeper stirred, a smile passed over his face, and he spoke my name. That one word unnerved me. Tears rose to my eyes, and hope, which I had deemed long since dead, sent her low, thrilling whisper through my heart. For a few moments I was swayed with conflicting emotions, as visions of past days rose before me. It was not long. Again came the thought of the last few months of sorrow, and I could no longer doubt. Rising with a new resolution, I went to the table that stood near and wrote a few lines—the transcript of my heart’s despair.

“ ‘Farewell, Gerald—I know all; I can no longer endure to be the cause of wo to you, whom I love far more than life. Ere you read this I shall be gone from you forever. Be happy, for I shall never return from that last resting-place to cast a shadow over your soul. God knows I blame you not. It was sufficient of blessedness for me that I was worn a little while on your heart, though I be now cast aside like a withered weed to perish.’

“Folding the letter, I laid it on the pillow. Still he slept, but the smile had faded from his face, and I bent over him and pressed on his lips one last kiss—the seal of my sacrifice. The touch disturbed him, and I paused to catch the words that he spoke, as he turned restlessly on his pillow—the last words I might hear from him. It came—the word was ‘Leonore.’

“Silently, as if that word had been a curse to cling to me through life, I turned and left him. Without a pause I tracked the mazes of the garden and the park—heedless, tearless, miserable. As I came near to the Park Lodge, lights were glancing in the cottage, and a carriage stood at the door. The children were already seated in it, and soon the parents came to the door, and as I leaned exhausted against a tree, I saw the parting, and heard the sound of low sobbings, of blessings, and of prayers. Alas! I had departed, unblest, unwept. I know not what spell was in the sound, but in a moment I was collected and firm, and entering the carriage I wrapped myself in my cloak, and as they asked me no questions, we rode in silence from the spot which contained all that was dear to me on earth. Morning was breaking before we reached the vessel, whose sails were spread, and her deck crowded with passengers. A short time sufficed to place us among them, and in a few moments the anchor was weighed, and the vessel dropped down the river.

“After this there is a long, long period of which I remember nothing. The various incidents of our voyage and our arrival in the new world, passed before me like the vague and changing scenes of a dream. The necessity for action taken away, my whole being sunk into a sort of apathy, and heart and mind seemed palsied. From this state I was roused by finding that preparations were being made to send me back to England, and a vague horror seized me at the thought, though I had no recollection of the past. With the cunning of insanity, I made no objection to the plan, but one day, unnoticed, I rambled away from the village, and for many days wandered on through the woods without aim or motive, save the vague fear of something behind. I remember reaching at last the top of a high hill, amid a violent storm of thunder and lightning, and there night closed around me, dark and mirky, and beneath the pouring rain I lay down on a bare rock and slept. There I was found next morning by the Indian chief whose wigwam has from that time been my home. A long sickness which ensued reduced me to the brink of the grave, and for many weeks I was insensible to the care of my kind nurses, but their simple skill and constant attention at last triumphed over the violence of disease, and I awoke to reason and—wo is me—to a recollection of the long hidden past.

“It was Gerald—it was my husband! Merciful heaven! after so many years of painful separation did we meet again!

“I had been sick and weak for some days, and my Indian father had led me forth one sunny morning into the green old woods, where I reclined, concealed by flowering shrubs, upon the mossy trunk of an old tree. Suddenly we heard the tramp of horses, and winding along the narrow path came a band of armed men, and their leader was Lord Bellamont. His face was stern and pale, and there lay the weight of years which were not his, in the thin, gray locks which floated over his brow; yet at the first glance I knew him, and rising almost unconsciously, I followed after him. Mile after mile I went on unheeding, and my kind protector accompanied me without a question, for he saw that a great purpose nerved my feeble frame. When the noontide heat had passed, we reached the top of a small hill, and in an open level plain below, we saw hostile armies arrayed for battle. One long hour I watched the waving of that snow-white plume, hither and thither among the soldiers, till at last it was struck down. Horribly distinct even now is the agony of that moment, when my straining eye was fixed on that spot with an intensity which through the confused mêlée of the fight never for one instant wavered. When the course of the conflict swept the armies further down the plain, I rose and went to the spot. I knew him—ghastly and bleeding as he was, and God gave me strength to know that he was dying, and yet to endure.

“A few hours after he opened his eyes, and the pain of his wounds seemed relieved. I had laid him on my own bed, and was kneeling beside him. ‘Pray for me,’ he said, faintly, ‘for I must die, and there is guilt on my soul.’ I bowed my head lower, and tears fell from my hot and aching eyes. As I listened to that well-remembered voice, all the wild joy of our first love came rushing back over my soul, and over-powered by the recollection, I fainted.

“When I recovered, they told me that the missionary we had sent for had arrived and was with Gerald. I crept silently into the room, and stood concealed behind a screen, which had been arranged to protect the sufferer from the draught of air. He was speaking in a low, mournful tone, but I heard every word distinctly. ‘It was a wild, and sad, but not a guilty love,’ he said. ‘My own heart would have scorned me, had I brought shame on the young head I have bowed even to the grave with a weight of sorrow too heavy to be borne. I looked upon Ella in her young beauty, and strove to forget the dark, spiritual eyes of Leonore. We were wedded—Ella and I—and when I spoke the bridal vows, it was with a heart as pure as if she whose destiny had been so fatally linked with mine, was what she now is, an angel in heaven, I loved her; but that hopeless and ideal passion was only part of my remembrance of the beautiful scenes of sunny Italy; and while those sad thoughts chastened all present joy, they interfered not with the love I bore for Ella. Perhaps, had I understood better the deep, thoughtful nature of my gentle and joyous bride, I had after a while forgotten Leonore. But, wrapped in painful musings, I heeded not the manifestations of her sensitive nature, and regarded her only as the play-fellow of my thoughtless youth—too airy and brilliant to understand my saddened heart.’ He paused for a few moments, and then continued, in an agitated tone, ‘We met once more—Leonore and myself—oh, that I had died ere that evening. I knew not of her presence until I heard her singing a plaintive melody, and before it ended, she met my impassioned gaze. I saw the thrill of agony that shook her frame, and when she left the room, I followed; for the sight of her suffering maddened me. Then were wild words spoken—words which left lightning traces on more than one heart and brain. There were tears which seared as they fell—there was one long kiss, when our two souls rushed into one, and fell back, crushed and bleeding, from that fearful embrace. There was one wild, despairing farewell, and we were parted forever. The next morning I left England, and for months wandered over the Continent like a spirit of unrest, till at length wearied and sick with that heart-sickness which no art can cure, I returned home to die. Ella was absent when I reached my home. I remember being seized with a sudden fainting as I entered the room, and then all is a vague dream, till I awoke one morning as from sleep, and found myself weak as an infant. Then, as I slowly recovered, I first became aware of the exceeding strength of woman’s love. My wife, who, like an angel of mercy, had watched over my sick bed, whose gentle and patient tenderness had endured all things without a complaining word; oh, my father, spare me the recital of what followed—she knew all—she left me, that I might once more be free; she hoped I might be happy.’

“For a long time he was silent, and when he spoke again, his voice was feeble and broken, and he wiped the large drops from his brow.

“ ‘There is but one scene more. I sat alone in my deserted house, and prayed to die, for my grief was too heavy to be borne. Suddenly a carriage drove to the door, and a letter was handed me. It contained but few words, but those few I can never forget. ‘The time is come when without guilt thou mayest look upon me. The love which men give the dead, even the living may forgive. Now, when passed away from thee forever—now only may I say—I love thee!’ ’

“ ‘I descended to the carriage, and they drove me to the door of a large mansion, where I was met by General St. Clair. His face was sad but stern, as he seized my arm, and simply saying it had been the last request of Leonore, he led me to a darkened room, and left me. On a couch near the window lay a form covered with a heavy pall. I raised it, and saw Leonore reclining there in the perfect beauty of repose. I knelt beside her, and pressing her cold hand to my aching heart, spoke her name. But the dark lashes moved not on her cheek—never more might those glorious eyes flash forth their welcome at my coming—never more would those pale lips open with words of greeting. She was dead, and the guilt of a double murder lay upon my soul.’

“Again there was a deep silence, and I heard the slow, labored breathing of the dying man. The priest bent over him, saying ‘Son, there is mercy for the guiltiest—despair not.’

“ ‘I do not despair,’ replied he, fervently speaking with effort. ‘The time for that passed away with the hour when calmed and humbled I knelt at the altar of my God, whose dealings with me even then I understood not, and consecrated my life to his service.’

“ ‘Thine hour is come. Son, art thou ready to depart?’

“ ‘There was one hope,’ he replied, faintly, ‘one last hope that my fatal life might end in peace. But God hath ordered otherwise, and it is well.’

“ ‘What was that hope?’ asked the priest.

“ ‘I heard not long since that Ella was not dead. That she escaped to this new world. I hoped to find her, and solace her for years of suffering by my deep devotion. Oh, my God!’ he added, suddenly clasping his hands together, ‘why couldst thou not grant this last prayer of a broken heart. To see her, to hear her say that I am forgiven—to die upon her breast⁠—’

“I could restrain myself no longer, and rushed forward, exclaiming, ‘Gerald, my love, my husband! behold me here, loving thee, forgiving thee, even as when for thy sake, I left thy country and thy home!’ I sunk, half kneeling, on the floor beside the bed. He gazed on me a moment in speechless wonder, and then, with the supernatural strength of life’s last effort, lifted himself from the pillows, and clasping his arms around me, drew me close, close to his heart. Oh, the blissful repose, the unmingled ecstasy of that moment. Forgotten were my wrongs and my sorrow—the agony behind, and the desolation before—the coming and the bygone despair.

“Closer and closer grew his embrace, and his face touched mine. ‘My wife, my bride—receive the last kiss of him who is now wholly thine!’ I raised my head, and his cold lips pressed mine. I felt his form sink slowly beneath me, and the clinging arms relax their hold. I knew that the spirit had fled, and thanked God for that one hour of bliss which left me alone again on earth.”

Here the manuscript ceased suddenly, and though some words had been added, apparently at a later date, the hand of the writer must have been weak indeed, for they were illegible.

———

BY JOHN JONES.

———

[SEE ENGRAVING.]

Mr. Edwards Perley was not a man of wealth, although, at different periods of his life, he had been the owner of property valued at from one hundred thousand dollars to half a million. But this property being either in Texas land scrip, South Carolina gold mines, Western town lots, Mulberry trees, Maine wild lands, or other people’s promises to pay, Mr. Perley had never been able to realize what was so nearly a splendid fortune within his grasp. The revolution in Texas destroyed the value of Mexican grants, in which he had become largely interested, and the sale of square leagues of the “best cotton land in the world,” not only ceased suddenly, but the bills received for previous sales came back upon him dishonored. This was a sad damper on the golden hopes of the enthusiastic Mr. Edwards Perley. For a couple of years he had been selling land scrip from Bangor to New Orleans; and had been out on the Red River twice, during the time, with a surveying company, whose business it was to locate the little league-square lots. On these expeditions, he had become rather intimately acquainted with alligators and ague, and, on his return, deemed it no more than prudent to keep himself quiet until he regained his complexion, and the healthy roundness of his limbs and features. Mr. Perley worked hard in this matter; but it suited his temperament. He was no plodding genius, content to count sixpences first, then shillings, and so on until dollars began to appear. Not he. In that slow way to wealth he could not walk.

Just as Mr. Perley, who valued his property at hundreds of thousands of dollars in the present, and looked upon it as possessing an annually duplicating quality—just as Mr. Perley had selected a beautiful site for building a palace in New York, and had decided upon the plans submitted by a distinguished architect, the troubles in Texas destroyed the value of his scrip, and down he went to ruin like a collapsed balloon; and dozens of his confiding friends went with him.

But Mr. Edwards Perley had too much native buoyancy of character, too much hope in life, to be put down by ill-natured fortune after this summary manner. In the wreck and ruin in which he was involved, he managed to get hold of a plank on which to float ashore. With a few hundred dollars, which he had contrived to save, under a self-enacted “homestead exemption” law, he opened an exchange office in Wall street, on a very small scale. Though his business operations scarcely reached, for a time, the aggregate of hundreds per day, there were not a few of his acquaintances who believed his transactions to be limited only by thousands; and they were indebted to him for their ideas on the subject. Give a man the reputation of doing a large business, and business will be sure to come. So it was in the case of Edwards Perley. Talking and boasting were of great use to him. In a few years he was getting along, as the saying is, “swimmingly.” But, like the man who, after creeping along for a week in a stage-coach, grows impatient if the cars do not make thirty miles an hour instead of twenty, Mr. Perley, as soon as affairs became prosperous with him again, grew dissatisfied with what appeared a slow accumulation, and began to look around him for some good speculation. He was not long in finding what he sought.

But it is not our purpose to follow Mr. Perley through the various stages of his Carolina gold and Morus Multicaulis fevers; nor to minutely detail his operations in Western lands and town lots. As it had been in Texas land scrip, so it proved in all these. The visionary speculator, who sought wealth for its own sake, and was too eager for its possession to be willing to give back to society an equivalent of useful acts, after running a wild course for a few years, again tripped and fell. This time he found it much more difficult to recover himself. But with an elasticity of feeling that few possess, he went hopefully to work, and by dint of magnifying his own peculiar abilities, and his knowledge of business, induced a shrewd, calculating Yankee, who had a few thousand dollars, to join him in business.

For a year or two, Perley was content to move on slowly. After that, he grew ambitious and restless again. The fire had not burned out; it was only covered for a while. Of Jenkins, his partner, he had no very high opinion. He considered him a mere plodding genius, whose mind was in no way suggestive. He would do for a well beaten track, but for enterprise he was nobody. So he thought. But Jenkins had rather more shrewdness than his partner gave him credit for. He belonged to the class of men who think a great deal before they act, and who, therefore, rarely make mistakes in business matters. He understood Perley “like a book,” and was, therefore, prepared to counteract, judiciously, all his efforts that were not wisely directed. Reactions of this kind becoming, as business grew into importance, more and more frequent, Mr. Perley felt restless under them, and often lamented that affairs were not entirely under his own control.

This was the aspect of things when the golden news from California startled the most sober-minded with its tale of wonder. Perley believed every word of the first account, while Jenkins coolly took the liberty of doubting the whole story.

“It’s preposterous,” said he.

“But look at the official nature of the intelligence,” urged Perley.

Engraved Expressly for Graham’s Magazine.
A CASE OF GOLD FEVER.

“Officials can lie as well as other people. It’s all a speculation to get settlers out there. Don’t tell me of gold scattered about as thick as jack-stones.”

Perley maintained the other side of the question, and soon had the satisfaction of pushing most abundant confirmations into the face of his partner.

“Well,” said Jenkins, “what of it? Suppose there is gold there? It doesn’t make me any better off.”

“But it will make you better off, if you seize the advantage now offered to every energetic and truly enterprising man.”

Mr. Jenkins opened his eyes rather wider than usual; then shrugging his shoulders, he answered:

“My business creed is—‘Let well enough alone.’ ”

“And mine,” replied Perley, “is to seize upon every advantage that offers.”

At this point the conversation was interrupted, and as neither party, for good reasons, thought it advisable to renew it, the subject did not come up between them for several days. During this time Perley could think of little else but California, and the golden harvest it presented; and the more he thought of it, the more fully satisfied was he that an immense fortune might speedily be realized by trading in that region. What was in the way, when blankets sold for ten dollars each, a pair of boots for double that sum, flour for sixty dollars a barrel, and every thing else in proportion?

“The fact is, Jenkins,” said he, renewing the subject not many days after the first conversation, “we must make some of this hay while the sun is shining.”

“The golden hay, you mean.”

“I do.”

“How are we to make it?”

“By going sickle in hand to the field, and reaping with the rest.”

“Suppose the field should be reaped before we get there?”

“That cannot be. The gold region is a thousand miles in length and several hundreds in breadth. There is enough for all who will go for the next ten years.”

“I must beg leave to doubt that,” coolly replied Jenkins. “It’s all a feverish imagination. Gold dazzles the eyes and keeps men from seeing in a clear light.”

“But, my dear man,” said Perley, “look at the facts and judge for yourself. Take Governor Mason’s statement.”

“Very well. Suppose we believe all the governor says, what then? Why, the man who finds an ounce of gold a day has to pay about sixteen prices for the necessaries of life, and, so is no better off than the man here who earns a dollar in the same time. The only way in which he can accumulate gold is to live like a savage.”

“But, I wouldn’t go to dig gold!”

“Go! Surely you do not think seriously of going?”

“I certainly do.”

“I’m sorry to hear you say that, Mr. Perley. We are doing exceedingly well and our business is growing. Last year it doubled, and is in a fair way of doubling itself again this year.”

“But what is such a rate of increase to the golden gains that are now offered? Nothing—nothing.”

Mr. Jenkins could not talk as fluently as his partner, and was in this instance, as he had been once or twice before, silenced but not convinced.

Daily there came some fresh intelligence touching the gold deposits in our new possessions, and the note of preparation for a speedy flight was sounded in all directions. The newspapers teemed with exciting statements, and every man you met in the street, on ’change, or in the social circle, had something to say about California. Daily the fever increased, and particularly with Mr. Edwards Perley, until he began to be slightly delirious. But, though the epidemic raged all around him, Mr. Jenkins remained calm and cool. If any one talked to him about California, he shook his head with an emphasis that left no doubt as to the state of his mind.

“My California is here,” he sometimes replied. “Wait for ten years, and see then who is best off. If gold is so abundant as they say it is, and obtained so easily, I shall benefit as well as those who dig for it. ‘Come easy, go easy,’ you know. The man who picks up a pound of gold wont value it as much as he who earns it by the sweat of his brow, and will part with it far more easily. So, after all, the gold will flow from the hands of those who gather it freely, through all the channels of trade, and we who continue in the pursuit of useful employments, will be likely to reap the most abundant harvest.”

“All this,” Perley said, “was little better than nonsense. ‘Give me a bird in the hand, and you may have two in the bush.’ ”

“Just my own sentiment,” returned Jenkins. “I have the bird in the hand here, I can’t let it go for two in the bush away out on the Pacific.”

Still the fever went on increasing.

“Mr. Jenkins,” said Perley, as he was about leaving the store one afternoon, “I wish you would drop down to my house this evening, I want to have some talk with you.”

“Very well,” replied the partner. So about eight o’clock he called down.

“I want to see you in order to have a more serious talk about California,” said Perley. “I am satisfied that the subject has not had in your mind the consideration it demands, and that if you saw it as I do, you would not be so insensible to the extraordinary advantages that are now offered.”

Jenkins felt in no mood for argument or controversy, though his mind was as clear as a bell, and his purpose as immovable as ever. So he bent his head in a listening attitude, and looked up from under his drooping eyelashes, willing to listen, but firmly resolved not to be started from the rock upon which he had fixed himself.

The first proposition made by Perley, after eloquently setting forth the advantage of turning all their capital and energy into this new field, was to charter a vessel, put their whole stock of goods on board, and take a flight to San Francisco. But the wonderful profit to be made did not in the least tempt his phlegmatic, long-headed partner, who was beginning to calculate the amount of advantage he might gain in the approaching dissolution of co-partnership—for to that he saw it would come.

“You will not go,” said Perley, on receiving a positive negative to this proposal.

“No, not for twice the inducement. I am not going to risk my life, nor abridge my comfort, in a wild enterprise like this, when I am doing well at home.”

Perley leaned back, looked to the ceiling, and mused for some moments.

“Very well,” said he, “if you are unwilling to assume so great a risk, let me go out with an adventure, and you remain at home.”

But Jenkins was growing wider awake every moment. Having once entertained the idea of getting rid of his partner, and coming into the undivided advantage of his business, he had no notion of agreeing to any thing short of that. So he affirmed, in his quiet way, that he would have nothing to do with the gold bubble in any form.

“Then we must dissolve,” said Perley, half fretfully. He was restive under the check-rein of his cool-tempered partner.

“As you like about that,” was imperturbably answered. It would have taken an eye well skilled in the signs of human emotions to have detected, in the immovable face of the calculating Yankee, the smallest indication of pleasure. Yet his pleasure was great.

The proposition thus made and agreed to, was forthwith carried out. As Perley was determined upon a dissolution at all hazards, and, as his partner affected entire indifference, the odds were altogether against him, and he was compelled to accept of any arrangement that suited the other. So excited was he about California, and so eager to get off, that he accepted, as his half of the business, a portion of old, and, to a great extent, unsaleable stock, and shipped it by the first vessel that sailed for Monterey and San Francisco. Its real value in the New York market was about five thousand dollars; its estimated value in the settlement ten thousand, and its prospective value as an adventure at the gold diggings fifty thousand. Above this, three thousand dollars in cash were paid to Mr. Perley. Two thousand were left for the support of his family, and one thousand he took with him.

Three weeks after the vessel in which he had shipped his goods sailed, the impatient Mr. Perley, who neither thought nor dreamed of any thing else but gold, and who already saw himself surrounded with heaps of the precious lumps and scales from Feather River, left New York in a steamer for Chagres. As to what Chagres was really like, and as to the real nature of the journey across the Isthmus, Mr. Perley had no correct notion. He had thought of a town with comfortable accommodations, and when those around him talked of canoes and mules as the means of transportation to Panama, something elegant, like a Venetian gondola, or a richly caparisoned animal, was present to his imagination. A few mud huts, with their naked inhabitants, was all he found, upon being disgorged, with some two hundred others, in the rain, to join a congregation of nearly a hundred others, who had arrived on the day before, and who were awaiting the return of canoes from Cruces.

Mr. Perley, like most men of his class, never gave as much attention to little things as prudence required. The man who couldn’t waste time and precious thought on so insignificant an article as a linchpin, was about as wise as Mr. Perley in many of the affairs of life. His friends had nearly all asked him in regard to his outfit.

“Oh, that is all right!” or, “I’ve taken good care of that,” he would unhesitatingly answer. Yet, on reaching Chagres, he had neither tea, coffee, sugar, bread nor meat in his possession. He had money, and this he knew to be all powerful in procuring supplies of any kind; at least, such had been his experience in life. But he was about coming into some new experiences. Neither food nor lodgings were to be had from the natives at Chagres, for “love or money.” Such a sudden influx of Yankee gold diggers was a thing altogether unanticipated and unprovided for, and those who came had, therefore, to provide for themselves.

A week was spent at Chagres before Mr. Perley was lucky enough to procure passage up the river in a canoe, with one of the five trunks of merchandise he had brought with him in the steamer—the remaining four were left behind, with instructions to have them sent over to Panama as quickly as possible. He never saw or heard of them afterward! During this week the poor man nearly starved, for all he could get to eat was an occasional hard biscuit from some fellow passenger. It rained nearly the whole time, and night and day he was in the open air. Wet to the skin, when affirmed of Mr. Perley, was about as literally true as ever the saying was or will be. In this plight, with a fever of rather a more serious character than the gold fever, our adventurer embarked in a canoe, for the privilege of sitting in one end of which, or lying flat on the bottom, for three or four days, he paid the moderate price of fifty dollars, and then thought himself lucky. For a hundred dollars more he was to share the scanty food of his traveling companion, who, wiser than he, had more accurately counted the cost, and prepared himself for the contingencies of the journey.

On the day after leaving Chagres, the sun came out from beneath a veil of clouds, and poured its hot rays upon the head of Mr. Perley. Under this he wilted down like a leaf before the fire. On the second day he was so ill that he could not hold up his head; and by the time he reached Cruces, instead of being in a condition to take his place on a mule’s back, he was utterly prostrate in body, and delirious with fever. Seeing this, and considering him as good as dead, his companion, after possessing himself of his money and trunk, gave the natives who had brought them up twenty dollars to take him back to Chagres in their canoe.

When distinctly conscious once more, Mr. Perley found himself on shipboard, with the rush of waters around him. He was as weak as an infant in body, and almost as weak as an infant in mind. Ideas came confusedly, and faded ere he was able to separate the tangled mass. In a few days he was enough recovered to connect his thoughts, and to call up events to the period of his embarking from Chagres. Beyond that, his memory did not serve him. He soon after became apprized of the fact that he was on his way to New York, and might expect to be there in less than a week.

On arriving at home, Mr. Perley was as one who had risen from the grave. News of his illness, with a prophecy of his certain death, had reached New York by a previous arrival. Slowly recovered the disappointed man, and as health came flowing once more along his veins, his thoughts were again turned toward El Dorado, whither he had sent an adventure, and from which, he yet hoped to realize a splendid fortune. Of his five trunks and the money he had taken with him no traces remained. Even he had some pretty well grounded doubts of ever seeing them again; and in this matter his doubts only foreshadowed the truth.

A month after Mr. Perley’s return to New York, he was preparing to start again, although thousands and thousands had gone before, and were choking up all the avenues of communication to the Pacific and along the coast. His friends urged him not to risk his life again; but his goods were on the way to San Francisco, and here was his only chance to realize a fortune. So he got himself ready for another flight. But just as he was on the point of starting, the vessel in which he had shipped his goods returned to port, so much damaged by a storm as to be unfit to weather the Cape. When she put to sea she was scarcely equal to the voyage, and insurance could only be effected at very high rates. A heavy leak had damaged, more or less, a great portion of the cargo, among which were the goods of Mr. Perley. This damage, so far as Mr. Perley was concerned, was assessed at one thousand dollars, and paid. The balance of his goods were sold off at auction, in a spirit of recklessness engendered by a temporary despondency, for two thousand dollars more. And thus ended Mr. Perley’s California expedition!

Disappointed, disheartened and almost beside himself, the unfortunate man wandered about the city in a state of irresolution for a month or two; while his old partner, the cool, shrewd Yankee, was rejoicing over the fine business which had come exclusively into his hands, and saying to himself—“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.” At last Mr. Perley’s organ of Hope became again active; and, as intelligence from the gold region came with so many drawbacks, he concluded to try his fortune once more at home, and so, with the three thousand dollars that remained, started his old exchange business in Wall street, where he may now be seen counting his uncurrent money, and sighing over the smallness of his gains.

———

BY HENRY MORFORD.

———

OPERA EXTRAVAGANCE.

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.

OR THE NIGHT-KEY.^[1]

———

BY MRS. E. F. ELLET.

———

Although a stricken bachelor, I cannot speak without emotion of my first love. An eastern philosopher says—it is with first love as with a first cigar; one precipitates himself upon it, luxuriates to the utmost in the draught, and when it is over, is sensible of a melancholy unlike that induced by any other loss. I suppose I may consider myself particularly fortunate, having felt no reaction after my first cigar, and finding equally harmless consequences from my first love. I do not mean to say that I was so happy as to find the passion returned; ah, no! for then—I should have been a Benedict. I mean that I imbibed all of bliss which belongs to the feeling, without hazarding the loss of my peace; I enjoyed it while it was permitted to last, with but a few trifling drawbacks, and that without stirring a fountain of remorse or regret to sprinkle with bitterness my future years.

In the winter of 18— I chanced to lodge in —— Place, in the establishment then kept by Mrs. ——. My apartment was on the third floor, and overlooked the street; the room immediately back of it, which I used for my books and papers, looked into a small court, and commanded a view through the windows opposite, of the parlor on the second floor in the rear, which was occupied by the young lady to whom my attention was devoted. She and her mother had been inmates of the house but a short time, when the sight of her, seated at her embroidery-frame near the window, took my heart captive at once. She had long, fair ringlets, that seemed touched with gold when the light fell on them; her complexion was beautifully fair, with a rose-like tint in her cheeks; the bright line of her lips disclosed pearly teeth, and she had the finest turned neck and shoulders nature ever fashioned to put art to shame. But her hand—that small, white, dimpled hand, which she often held up in my view, while selecting a shade of worsted, threading her needle, counting the stitches, or practicing any of the little coquetries of her work! No sculptor could have rivaled the perfection of that hand. Those taper fingers drew the string which sped Cupid’s arrow to my heart. I often tried to draw that hand, and as often gave up the task in despair, for it never was still long enough. Sometimes I saw it wandering over the strings of her guitar; for almost always, of an evening, she played and sang, and then, after having watched her tuning it, how I hated the envious curtains that were so closely drawn to shut out paradise from my longing eyes. For hours I would stand at my window, having no other occupation than feeding the pigeons that gathered about the frame, observing her by stealth as she worked or watered the flowers that lived under her care, or petted a delicate canary-bird, whose cage hung on the wall outside. I had no pleasure so great as that of gazing upon her; yet I could plainly see that my devotion was unmarked, for she was near-sighted, and could not, at even a short distance, perceive that she was so earnestly regarded. To that circumstance, in all probability, I owed the liberty I enjoyed.

I always retreated from the window when her mother approached, for she had eyes that rivaled those of a lynx. She was tall, moreover, with black eyes and hair; rather robust in person, and with an unmistakable air of hauteur, which proved quite as effectual as she could have wished in keeping people at a distance. Her voice was naturally harsh and imperious, though usually subdued in its tones, except on occasions when sudden irritation caused the speaker to forget her dignity. Even in her gentlest moods it had a latent sharpness that twanged uneasily on my ears, especially when I remembered how necessary it was to secure the favor of this haughty lady, in order to advance a step toward the accomplishment of my hopes with the lovely daughter.

Thus, then, stood the case; I was desperately, irremediably in love with this young girl; ready for any venture to win her, but uncertain how to commence an acquaintance, for I was not even among the privileged number of her visiters. We lodged under the same roof; we sat at the same table, though at different ends of it; but I knew no one of whom I could ask an introduction to her; and I felt, alas! that my position in life did not quite entitle me to enter the list of her suitors without such formalities as might smooth over a surprise. I was a painter; rising in my profession, it is true, and numbering many friends, but as yet, having fortune only in prospect. Mrs. Elwyn, for that was the name of the mother of my charmer, was independent, though not rich; and having in early life moved much in fashionable society, and been much admired, was very proud, and would scarcely have owned among her acquaintances one who depended on the labor of hands or head for a maintenance. Neither she nor her daughter ever entered the common drawing-room; and those of the lodgers who knew her slightly, spoke of her as distant and unsocial, except to the favored few whom she thought worth cultivating, on account of their possession of worldly advantages. She was precisely the sort of woman on whom I would never have wasted an act of courtesy, had she been the mother of any other daughter. But in the fair Gertrude there was such a bewitching unconsciousness of her own superiority, such an appealing eloquence in silence, to the sympathy of those around her—such an air of child-like humility, mingled with just enough of the graceful pride of woman, as completed the fascination her beauty had begun, and inspired one with a wish to please even her repulsive parent. I saw her not only at meals, but occasionally out of the house, at concerts or the Opera. To me she was the soul of the music, and the finest symphony of Beethoven would have been lifeless without her. At church I met her now and then, and sometimes walking; but Mrs. Elwyn never vouchsafed me the most distant bow of recognition. She seemed by intuition to guess my bold wishes and frown upon them. Gertrude was always modestly looking down; but at intervals the fringe of her blue eyes would be suddenly lifted, disclosing a world of witchery beneath, to be quickly veiled again, as if she knew she was transgressing. It was the evidence of this consciousness on her part that fanned my love continually into a brighter flame, and caused me to revolve various expedients to secure to myself the enjoyment of her society.

I thought of painting her picture as she sat embroidering at the window, and sending it as a present to the mother; but I lacked as yet, sufficient confidence in my talent for the art, in which I was but a student, and the terror of her condemnation, both of the artist and the lover, was too formidable to be encountered. A dread of her cold penetration prevented me also from putting in execution a cherished project; that of offering my services to teach the beautiful Gertrude Italian, which I knew she wished to acquire. The very day I had mustered up courage to resolve on the experiment, I heard that Mrs. Elwyn had hired a teacher—a dark-visaged, whiskered fellow, whom, from that moment, I wished in the dungeons of Spielberg.

Was there ever a more hopeless case of love; yet I was not unhappy, for I had the privilege of seeing her, unawed by fear of interruption; and my passion was not yet so encrusted with selfishness that it demanded more. I lived in the present, and hope colored the future with rosy light; even the feeling of disappointment was but momentary. I almost dreaded a change, though I knew this could not satisfy me long, and that a wilder, more impetuous, and less amiable stage was to follow. Already the first sweet, sparkling foam of the cup had been quaffed; beneath was that which bewilders the brain and steals away the senses.

I had been reading one night till past midnight—for strangely enough, I had a taste for novels after the beginning of the romance of my life—when my attention was arrested by hearing a carriage stop in the street before the door. Presently the bell rang, not very gently. A short pause, and it was again rung; while I was conscious of a twinge of sympathy for the late comer; for the night was piercing cold, and the wind came in hoarse blasts, rattling the window-panes, and sending a chill through the bones. The contrast offered by my snug apartment, with its crimson curtains and chintz-covered sofa, and the dying glow of the embers thrown on the Venetian rug, was peculiarly suggestive of ideas of comfort. I thought how hard it must be for the porter to be summoned out of his warm bed in the little chamber at the back of the court, and judged the applicant for admission at such an hour justly punished by delay.

Again, and again, and yet again sounded the bell, each time with a more prolonged and angry pull, as if the person at the door, with patience exhausted, was resolved to take the house by storm. A thought darted like lightning through my brain. I had seen Miss Elwyn that evening, in full dress, passing with her mother through the hall. They had gone to a party—they had returned late. I sprung to the window—threw it open; and sure enough, though it was too dark to distinguish any object, I heard with sufficient distinctness the shrill, complaining tones of the mother.

By good luck I was still dressed, and I lost not an instant. Snatching up the light, I hastened down two flights of stairs, to the front door. My heart beat; my breath came quickly; I felt as if the crisis of my life were at hand. I should meet her face to face; I should speak to her—should render a service that demanded acknowledgment, and might open for me a vista of happiness; I grasped the handle of the door, and with trembling hands unlocked and opened it; there was a rush of wind, and—my light was extinguished.

“You sleep like a night-watcher, sir!” screamed the angry voice of Mrs. Elwyn, as she pushed her way in. “To keep us standing half an hour in the cold! We might have caught our death! You deserve to lose your place; I shall make complaint of you in the morning, depend upon it.”

While she spoke, the daughter’s silken mantle brushed past me, and her gloved fingers pressed something into my hand. I had no time to explain; I could not have uttered a word; my breath seemed to forsake me, and my silly bashfulness held me motionless, as if chained to the spot. I stood there till the ladies had ascended the first flight of stairs—the mamma grumbling as she went—still grasping mechanically in my hand what the fair Gertrude had placed therein. Ere long, however, my self-possession returned; I ascended to my room, lighted the candle, and examined the gift. My beloved had presented me with half a dollar.

It was quite evident that both had mistaken me for the unlucky porter, at that time snoring in his dormitory; and that the gentle girl had bestowed the coin by way of consolation for her mother’s chiding. I kissed the piece of silver which had come from her hand, and was a token of the benevolence of her heart. A ray of hope gleamed from its polished face. The matter must necessarily be explained; the mistake must be rectified. This would lead to an interview; and I would trust fortune for the rest.

After due deliberation, I came to the conclusion that as the affair in some points wore a comical aspect, it would be best to present it in that light. I took my pencil and hammered out some poetry, which was to be sent with the half dollar to the fair donor. Under the veil of a sprightly and facetious effusion, I thought, more could be said, than in a grave note; and no offence could be taken at verses meant for a jeu d’esprit, describing the feeling experienced when the coin touched my palm, as “shocking”—which word terminated the line—imperative necessity called for a rhyme—it ran as follows:

I was not much used to writing poetry; but on reading over the missive, it struck me as combining humor and sentiment in a manner peculiarly felicitous. The lines could not fail to make an impression; she would, perhaps, reply; all would fall out as I wished, and I should look upon that night as the most fortunate of my life. I mended a crow-quill, and copied the verses neatly on rose-colored paper, resolving to send them the first thing in the morning. She would then see they had been written impromptu. It was late when I threw myself on the bed, and late when I awoke. No benevolent genius warned me in the visions of slumber.

The next day I folded the money and verses together, and dispatched the package to my charmer by the maid. I was frequently at my post of observation; but not once did I catch a glimpse of her at the window. The guitar was silent—the embroidery-frame untouched. Toward evening I waylaid the chamber-maid, and having crossed her hand with a piece of silver, inquired particularly how my dispatch had been received.

“Why, sir,” was the answer, “the young lady only laughed, and showed the paper to her mother; and Mrs. Elwyn threw it into the fire, and said as how she wondered how you could have had the impudence; but she expected you did not know any better.”

A blight fell upon my hopes; I had evidently committed an error. That unlucky “stocking!”, it was that which had played me false—which had offended the lady’s sense of propriety—which had suddenly let down a partition-wall between me and the accomplishment of my hopes. But through the chinks of that now impassable barrier, Gertrude appeared lovelier than ever. A thousand wild projects floated through my brain. I would hire bandits to assail her; would rush in time to the rescue, and be wounded in her defense. I would play the incendiary, and bear her in triumph through the flames; I would get up a quarrel, and fight a duel for her sake. But these were only feverish fantasies—castles built in the air—which melted in the cold current of reality. I could perceive plainly that at table, when I stole a glance at her, Mrs. Elwyn had grown colder and statelier than ever. She never honored me by a look, and, worse than all, Gertrude did not appear. It was not till after two days I learned, by mere accident, that she had taken cold on that eventful night, and was indisposed.

But ill luck cannot last always. The beautiful girl soon reappeared at meals as blooming and radiant as usual; and, oh joy! again I was so happy as to behold her seated at the window, and watch the movements of her delicate fingers over the strings of her guitar. Here was a bliss of which no frowning matron could deprive me. One day, too, as in my eagerness to drink in the tones of her music, I had softly opened my window, and was imprudently leaning forward, rapt in a trance of bliss, I saw an unmistakable smile on her lips. Yes, she smiled; and though at the same moment she drew back, and let the guitar slide from her lap, my heart was thrilled by the knowledge that she was at last aware of my secret. What woman could be insensible to homage so delicate and unobtrusive. Hope once more stirred within me. The next morning I bribed the maid to leave on her table, as if by mistake, a just published number of the “Home Journal,” in which was a poem of rare beauty, which aptly expressed my admiration and my love. I had ventured to draw a light pencil line around the verses, which I hoped she might perceive and understand. My little ruse succeeded. A servant brought me the paper in the evening, saying it had been left by mistake in Mrs. Elwyn’s apartment; but it bore evidence of having been carefully read.

It was not safe to venture often on such expedients; but the fourteenth of February was at hand; and the most timid lover might avail himself of its privileges. Valentines of all descriptions, for all stages of the tender passion, were to be had at the fancy stores; and a little alteration made them original. On the morning of the festival, one, delicately painted on embossed paper, and glowing with sentiment, was dispatched to the fair Gertrude, and was followed by one for each day of the week succeeding. I received none in return—but I was not discouraged; it was enough that mine were read.

I was now at the height of my content; for there was a charm in the sort of mystery that enveloped our intercourse, the more delightful to me, because I had the authority of all the romances I had ever read, for believing that it was the best nourisher of affection. Fancy would invest with a thousand gifts and graces, the lover whom she knew not, yet whose devotion was breathed into the air around her. Flowers would succeed verses as the messengers of the heart; I should grow bolder in time, till every obstacle was triumphed over. Such would have been the natural course of things but for the awkward interruption which brings me to the conclusion of my story.

I had gone one evening to a supper given by a bachelor friend, and returned late from the scene of mirth and revelry. As I walked rapidly down —— Place, for the night was chilly, and the street covered with snow, I saw two ladies alight from a carriage in front of Mrs. ——’s house. I hastened my pace; a thrill of joy penetrated my breast; it was she—my beloved, with her mother; and both were, by a happy chance, destined to be obliged to me. I sprung up the steps, murmured a “good evening,” and drew out my night-key. I was surprised to find how much courage, nay, even pride, I derived from the possession of this little instrument. Briefly apologizing to the ladies for thus venturing to save them the trouble of summoning a servant, I thrust the key in the lock, and turned it with all my force. It snapped violently; I drew out the fragment, and, to my horror, discovered that in my haste, I had not used the night-key, but the key of my chamber.

“I really—beg ten thousand pardons,” I faltered—“it was the wrong key⁠—”

“The key is broken!” cried the shrill voice of Mrs. Elwyn. “It is dreadful to be kept standing here!” She pulled the bell furiously.

In affright I pulled it also; the porter’s hurried steps were presently heard in the hall, and he was rattling at the lock.

“Open the door!” cried the lady, impatiently.

“I cannot unlock it!” said the man within; “there must be something in the key-hole.”

“The broken key!” screamed Mrs. Elwyn, with an angry glance at me; “so officious, to insist—”

“Mother!” pleaded the soft, low voice of Gertrude; for she saw that the dame was forgetting herself.

“It must—it can—I will run for a locksmith!” I exclaimed. I saw that the carriage had driven off.

“And we are to stand here alone, perhaps to be insulted by any drunken vagabond!” cried Mrs. Elwyn. “But go—nothing else can be done. Make haste—why do you wait?”

A locksmith lived in the next street; I flew thither; by chance he was still up, and as soon as his tools could be collected, he hastened to the spot. There stood the angry lady, her teeth chattering with cold, her mantle covered with the snow-flakes that had begun to fall, murmuring at the delay; her daughter was leaning in silence against the side of the door; and within could be heard the grumbling of the porter. I could not see Gertrude’s face, even if I had been calm enough to read its expression.

The skillful locksmith, with the ready tact of his profession, soon comprehended the difficulty, and having tried to pick the lock, decided that it must be done from the inside. A ladder was in requisition, to enter by the window above. Mrs. Elwyn was in despair at this intelligence, and broke out into complaints and reproaches, intended for me, which I heard but imperfectly, as I ran to borrow a ladder of some firemen in the neighborhood. It was brought by two of the company, who were followed by several others eager to learn what was going on. These were joined by some late idlers, while the windows of the adjoining and opposite houses, as well as those of our own, were thrown open, and a multitude of heads thrust out to see what was the matter. A pretty scene for the crowd-hating, aristocratic, haughty Mrs. Elwyn! For once, unmindful of her dignity, she stood giving voluble directions to the locksmith, already at the window, calling to him with flurried emphasis, to be careful not to throw down the flower-stand, or break the vase full of goldfish—which articles belonged to her. As for me, my only feeling was one of absolute despair, for I knew that my transgression, with its consequences, was unpardonable. We obtained entrance at last, and I heard the farewell of my love in the indignant rustle of Mrs. Elwyn’s mantle, as she swept up stairs. A day or two after she and her daughter departed on a visit to Washington, and when they returned, took lodgings elsewhere. I heard in a few months of Gertrude’s marriage, but felt no sorrow, for the spell was broken. That midnight scene, with the mortification it caused me, was a harmless termination to my First Love.

———

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS, AUTHOR OF “GUY RIVERS,” “THE YEMASSEE,” “RICHARD HURDIS,” &c.

———

Augustus Cæsar. Dolabella.

    Augustus. Dead! say’st thou? Cleopatra?

    Dolabella.             She sleeps fast—

Will answer nothing more—hath no more lusts

For passion to persuade—nor art to breed

Any more combats. I have seen her laid⁠—

As for a bridal—in a pomp of charms,

That mocked the flashing jewels in her crown

With beauty never theirs. Her bridegroom one

Who conquers more than Cæsar—a grim lord

Now in the fullest possession of his prize,

Who riots on her sweets; seals with close kiss

The precious caskets of her eyes, that late

Held—baiting fond desire with hope of spoil⁠—

Most glorious gems of life; and, on her cheek,

Soft still with downy ripeness—not so pale,

As sudden gush of fancy in the heart

Might bring to virgin consciousness—he lays

His icy lip, that fails to cause her shrink

From the unknown soliciting. Her sleep

Dreams nothing of the embrace, the very last

Her eager and luxurious form may know,

Of that dread ravisher.

    Augustus.             If it be true,

She still hath baffled me. My conquest sure⁠—

My triumph incomplete! I had borne her else,

The proudest trophy of a myriad spoil,

In royal state to Rome. Give me to know

The manner of her death.

    Dolabella.             By her own hands,

That conscious still, commended to her breast

The fatal kiss of Nile’s envenomed asp;

That subtle adder, that from slime and heat

Receives a gift of poison, whose least touch

Is a sure stoppage of the living tides.

    Augustus. Her death commends her more than all her life!

’Twas like a queen—fit finish to a state,

That, in its worst excess, passionate and wild,

Had still a pomp of majesty, too proud

For mortal subjugation! She had lusts

Most profligate of harm—but with a will,

That, under laws of more restraint, had raised

Her passions into powers, which might have borne

Best fruits for the possessor. They have wrought

Much evil to her nature; but her heart

Cherished within a yearning sense of love

That did not always fail; and where she set

The eye of her affections, her fast faith

Kept the close bond of obligation sure.

This still should serve, when censure grows most free,

To sanctify her fault. In common things

Majestic, as in matters of more state,

She had besides the feminine arts to make

Her very lusts seem grateful; and with charms

That mocked all mortal rivalry, she knew

To dress the profligate graces in her gift⁠—

Generous to very wantonness, and free

Of bounty, where Desert might nothing claim⁠—

That Virtue’s self might doubt of her own shape,

So lovely grew her counterfeit. O’er all,

Her splendor, and her soul’s magnificence.

The pomp that crowned her state—luxurious shows

Where Beauty, grown subservient to a sway

That made Art her first vassal—these, so twinned

With her voluptuous weakness, did become

Her well, and took from her the hideous hues

That else had made men loathe!

That else had made men loathe!I would have seen

This princess ere she died! How looks she now?

    Dol. As one who lives but sleeps; no change to move

The doubts of him who sees, yet nothing knows,

Of that sly, subtle enemy, which still

Keeps harbor round her heart. Charmian, her maid,

Had, ere I entered, lidded up the eyes,

That had no longer office; and she lay,

With each sweet feature harmonizing still

As truly with the nature as at first,

When Beauty’s wide-world wonder she went forth

Spelling both art and worship! Never did sleep

More slumberous, more infant-like, give forth

Its delicate breathings. You might see the hair

Wave in stray ringlets as the downy breath

Lapsed through the parted lips, and dream the leaf

Torn from the rose and laid upon her mouth

Was lifted by that zephyr of the soul

That still kept watch within—waiting on life

In ever anxious ministry. Lips and brow⁠—

The one most sweetly parted as for song⁠—

The other smooth and bright, even as the pearls

That, woven in fruit-like clusters, hung above,

Starring the raven curtains of her hair⁠—

Declared such calm of happiness, as never

Her passionate life had known. No show of pain⁠—

No writhed muscle—no distorted cheek,

Deformed the beautiful picture of repose,

Or spoke th’ unequal struggle, when fond life

Strives with its dread antipathy. Her limbs

Lay pliant, with composure, on the couch,

Whose draperies loosely fell about her form,

With gentle flow, and natural fold on fold,

Proof of no difficult conflict. There had been,

Perchance, one pang of terror, when she gave

Free access to her terrible enemy;

Or in the moment when the venomous chill

Went sudden to her heart; for from her neck

The silken robes had parted. The white breast

Lay half revealed, save where the affluent hair

Streamed over it in thick disheveled folds,

That asked no further care. Oh! to behold,

With eye still piercing to the sweet recess,

Where rose each gentle slope, that seemed to swell

Beneath mine eye, as conscious of my gaze,

And throbbing with emotion soft as strange,

Of love akin to fear. Thus dwelling still,

Like little billows on some happy sea,

They sudden seemed to freeze, as if the life

Grew cold when all was loveliest. One blue vein

Skirted the white curl of each heaving wave,

A tint from some sweet sunbow, such as life

Flings ever on the cold domain of death;

And, at their equal heights, two ruby crests⁠—

Two yet unopened buds from the same flower⁠—

Borne upward by the billows, rising yet,

Grew into petrified gems, with each an eye

Eloquent pleading to the passionate heart

For all of love it knows! Alas! the mock!

That Death should mask himself with loveliness,

And Beauty have no voice, in such an hour,

To warn its eager worshiper. I saw⁠—

And straight forgot, in joy of what I saw,

What still I knew—that Death was in my sight,

And what was seeming beautiful, was but

The twilight—the brief interval—betwixt

The glorious day and darkness. I had kissed

The wooing bliss before me, but that then

Crawled forth the venomous reptile from the folds

Where still it harbored—crawled across that shrine

Of Beauty’s best perfections, which, meseemed,

To shrink and shudder ’neath its loathly march,

Instinct with all the horrors at my heart.

    Augustus. Thus Guilt and Shame deform the Beautiful!

———

BY HEINRICH.

———

A MAS-SA-SANGA LEGEND OF WESTERN CANADA.

———

BY G. COPWAY, OR KAH-GE-GA-GAH-BOWH.

———

There lived among the hills of the North two most intimate friends, who appeared to have loved each other from the hour of their earliest childhood. In summer they lived by a beautiful lake, in autumn on the banks of a noble river. In appearance they were nearly similar, apparently of the same age as they were of the same size. In their early days a good old Indian woman attended to their wants, and cared for their wigwam. Together they strolled among the green woods and shared the results of their ramblings. Years passed by, and manhood came. They used larger bows and arrows. One day the old lady took them by her side and said—“The nation to which we belong fasts, and now I want you to fast, that you may become great hunters.” So they fasted.

As spring advanced they killed a great many wild ducks, and kept the old woman of the wigwam busy. In the latter part of the year they killed large numbers of beavers, with the furs of which they clothed their grandmother and themselves. In their journey one day they made an agreement, to the effect, that if when they fasted the gods were kindly disposed toward one, he would inform the other.

In the fall they were far from the rivers, but yet moved toward the north, where, as they knew, the bears most resorted.

During that winter they killed a great many, as also during the month of March ensuing.

At the close of one of their hunting expeditions, they turned their feet toward their home, at which they arrived at a late hour. As they approached, they heard the sound of several voices besides that of their grandmother. They listened. They knew that strangers were in the wigwam, and entering beheld two young and beautiful damsels, seated in that part of the room in which they generally rested during the night. To the young hunters the young women appeared very strange and modest. At length the old lady said to the young men⁠—

“Nosesetook—my children—I have called these two young women from the south, that they may aid me in taking care of all the meat and venison you bring home, for I am getting old and weak, and cannot do as much as I used to. I have put them by your sides that they may be your companions.”

When the last words were spoken they looked upon each other, and soon left to wander by themselves in the forest around. They consulted together as to whether they should comply with her request. One said he should leave the wigwam. The other said that if they left there would be no one to supply their aged grandmother. And they finally agreed to remain in the wigwam and pay no regard to the new-comers.

They slept side by side every night, and agreed that if either should begin to love one of the young strangers they would inform the other, and would then separate forever. In February they obtained a vast amount of game, as the bears having retired to their winter-quarters were easily found and captured.

It was observed one evening that one of the young men gazed very intently at one of the strangers, and the next morning as they went out he asked the other whether he did not begin to love the young damsel who sat on his side of the birchen fire. He replied negatively.

It was observed that one of the cousins appeared to be deeply absorbed in thought every evening, and that his manners were very reserved. After a fortunate hunting-day, as they were wending their way home with their heavy burden of bear and deer, one accused the other of loving the young woman. Tell me, said he, and if you do, I will leave you to yourselves. If you have a wife I cannot take the same delight with you as I did when we followed the chase.

His cousin sighed and said, “I will tell you to-night as we lie side by side.” At night they reasoned together and agreed to hunt. If they did not meet with success, they must separate.

The next morning they went to the woods. They were not far distant from each other. The one who was in love shot only five, while the other returned with the tongues of twenty bears. The former was all the time thinking of the damsel at home, while the latter sought out his game with nothing else to divert his mind.

On their return home the lucky man informed his grandmother that he should leave the next day, and that what he should kill on the morrow must be searched after, as he should not return to tell them where he had killed the game. His cousin was grieved to find that his mind was made up to leave, and began to expostulate with him to change his determination, but he would not be persuaded to do so.

The next day, the young man who was to leave bound a rabbit-skin about his neck, to keep it warm, and having painted himself with red and yellow paints he left; his cousin following just behind, entreating him not to go. “I will go,” said he, “and live in the north, where I shall see but four persons, and when you look that way you will see me.”

They walked side by side until he began to ascend, and as he did so, the other wept the more bitterly, and entreated him more perseveringly not to leave him. The cousin ascended to the skies, and is now seen in the north, Ke-wa-din Ah-nung (North Star,) still hunting the polar bear; while the other wept himself to naught before he could arrive home, and now he answers and mocks everywhere everybody. He lives in craggy rocks, and his name is Bah-swa-nay (Echo.)

The young maidens lived for a long time in the south under ambrosial bowers, awaiting the return of their lovers, until one fell in love with mankind, and the other yet lives in that country, awaiting the return of her lover, where

———

BY T. S. ARTHUR.

———

Thirty years ago, a small, barefooted boy, paused to admire the flowers in a well cultivated garden. The child was an orphan, and had already felt how hard the orphan’s lot. The owner of the garden, who was trimming a border, noticed the lad, and spoke to him kindly.

“Do you love flowers?” said he.

The boy replied, “Oh yes. We used to have beautiful flowers in our garden.”

The man laid down his knife, and gathering a few flowers, took them to the fence, through the panels of which the boy was looking, and handing them to him, said as he did so,

“Here’s a nice little bunch for you.”

A flush went over the child’s face as he took the flowers. He did not make any reply, but in his large eyes, as he lifted them to the face of the man, was an expression of thankfulness, to be read as plainly as words in a book.

The act, on the part of the man, was one of spontaneous kindness, and scarcely thought of again; but, by the child, it was never forgotten.

Years went by, and through toil, privation and suffering, both in body and mind, the boy grew up to manhood. From ordeals like this, come forth our most effective men. If kept free from vicious associates, the lad of feeling and mental activity becomes ambitious, and rises in society above the common level. So it proved in the case of this orphan boy. He had few advantages of education, but such as offered were well improved. It happened that his lot was cast in a printing office; and the young compositor soon became interested in his work. He did not set the types as a mere mechanic, but went beyond the duties of his calling, entering into the ideas to which he was giving verbal expression, and making them his own. At twenty-one he was a young man of more than ordinary intelligence and force of character. At thirty-five he was the conductor of a widely-circulated and profitable newspaper, and as a man, respected and esteemed by all who knew him.

During the earnest struggle that all men enter into who are ambitious to rise in the world, the thoughts do not often go back and rest, meditatively, upon the earlier time of life. But after success has crowned each well-directed effort, and the gaining of a desired position, no longer remains a subject of doubt, the mind often brings up from the far-off past most vivid recollections of incidents and impressions that were painful or pleasurable at the time, and which are now seen to have had an influence, more or less decided, upon the whole after life. In this state of reflection sat one day the man we have here introduced. After musing for a long time, deeply abstracted, he took up his pen and wrote hastily—and these were the sentences he traced upon the paper that lay before him.

“How indelibly does a little act of kindness, performed at the right moment, impress itself upon the mind. We meet, as we pass through the world, so much of rude selfishness, that we guard ourselves against it, and scarcely feel its effects. But spontaneous kindness comes so rarely, that we are surprised when it appears, and delighted and refreshed as by the perfume of flowers in the dreary winter. When we were a small boy, an orphan, and with the memory of a home forever lost too vivid in our young heart, a man, into whose beautiful garden we stood looking, pulled a few flowers, and handed them through the fence, speaking a kind word as he did so. He did not know, and perhaps never will know, how deeply we were touched by his act. From a little boy we loved the flowers, and ere that heaviest affliction a child ever knows—the loss of parents—fell upon us, we almost lived among them. But death separated between us and all those tender associations and affections that, to the hearts of children, are like dew to the tender grass. We entered the dwelling of a stranger, and were treated thenceforth as if we had, or ought to have, no feelings, no hopes, no weaknesses. The harsh command came daily and almost hourly to our ears; and not even for work well done, or faithful service, were we cheered by words of commendation.

“One day—we were not more than eleven years old—something turned our thoughts back upon the earlier and happier time when we had a true home, and were loved and cared for. We were once more in the garden and among the sweet blossoms, as of old, and the mother, on whose bosom we had slept, sat under the grape arbor while we filled her lap with flowers. There was a smile of love on her dear face, and her lips were parting with some word of affection, when, to scatter into nothing these dear images of the lonely boy, came the sharp command of a master, and in obedience we started forth to perform some needed service. Our way was by the garden of which we have spoken; and it was on this occasion, and while the suddenly dissipated image of our mother among the flowers was re-forming itself in our young imagination, that the incident to which we have alluded occurred. We can never forget the grateful perfume of those flowers, nor the strength and comfort which the kind words and manner of the giver imparted to our fainting spirit. We took them home, and kept them fresh as long as water would preserve their life and beauty; and when they faded, and the leaves fell, pale and withered, upon the ground, we grieved for their loss as if a real friend had been taken away.

“It is a long, long time since that incident occurred; but the flowers which there sprung up in our bosom, are fresh and beautiful still. They have neither faded nor withered—they cannot, for they are unfading flowers. We never looked upon the man who gave them to us that our heart did not grow warm toward him. We know not now whether he be living or dead. Twenty years ago we lost sight of him; but, if still among the dwellers of earth, and in need of a friend, we would divide with him our last morsel.”

An old man, with hair whitened by the snows of many winters, was sitting in a room that was poorly supplied with furniture, his head bowed down, and gaze cast dreamily upon the floor. A pale young girl came in while he thus sat musing. Lifting his eyes to her face, he said, while he tried to look cheerful,

“Ellen, dear, you must not go out to-day.”

“I feel a great deal better, grandpa,” returned the girl, forcing a smile. “I am able to go to work again.”

“No, child, you are not,” said the old man, firmly; “and you must not think of such a thing.”

“Don’t be so positive, grandpa.” And as she uttered this little sentence, in a half playful voice, she laid her hand among the thin gray locks on the old man’s head, and smoothed them caressingly. “You know that I must not be idle.”

“Wait, child, until your strength returns.”

“Our wants will not wait, grandpa.” As the girl said this, her face became sober. The old man’s eyes again fell to the floor, and a heavy sigh came forth from his bosom.

“I will be very careful and not overwork myself again,” resumed Ellen, after a pause.

“You must not go to-day,” said the old man, arousing himself. “It is murder. Wait at least until to-morrow. You will be stronger then.”

“If I do not go back to-day, I may lose my place. You know I have been home for three days.”

“You were sick.”

“Work will not wait. The last time I was kept away by sickness, a customer was disappointed; and there was a good deal of trouble about it.”

Another sigh came heavily from the old man’s heart.

“I will go,” said the girl. “Perhaps they will let me off for a day longer. If so, I will come back. But I must not lose the place.”

No further resistance was made by the old man. In a little while he was alone. Hours went by, but Ellen did not return. She had gone to work. Her employer would not let her go away, feeble as she was, without a forfeiture of her place.

About mid-day, finding that Ellen did not come back, the old man, after taking some food, went out. The pressure of seventy years was upon him, and his steps were slow and carefully taken.

“I must get something to do. I can work still,” he muttered to himself, as he moved along the streets. “The dear child is killing herself, and all for me.”

But what could he do? Who wanted the services of an old man like him, whose mind had lost its clearness, whose step faltered, and whose hand was no longer steady? In vain he made application for employment. Younger and more vigorous men filled all the places, and he was pushed aside. Discouraged and drooping in spirit, he went back to his home, and there awaited the fall of evening, which was to bring the return of the only being left on earth to love him. At night-fall Ellen came in. Her face, so pale in the morning, was now slightly flushed; and her eyes were brighter than when she went out. The grandfather was not deceived by this; he knew it as the sign of disease. He took her hand—it was hot; and when he bent to kiss her gentle lips, he found them burning with fever.

“Ellen, my child, why did you go to work to-day? I knew it would make you sick,” the old man said, in a voice of anguish.

Ellen tried to smile and to appear not so very ill; but nature was too much oppressed.

“I brought home some work, and will not go out to-morrow,” she remarked. “I think the walk fatigued me more than any thing else. I will feel better in the morning, after a good night’s sleep.”

But the girl’s hope failed in this. The morning found her so weak that she could not rise from bed; and when her grandfather came into her room to learn how she had passed the night, he found her weeping on her pillow. She had endeavored to get up, but her head, which was aching terribly, grew dizzy, and she fell back under a despairing consciousness that her strength was gone.

The day passed, but Ellen did not grow better. The fever still kept her body prostrate. Once or twice, when her grandfather was out of the room, she took the work she had brought home, and tried to do some of it while sitting up in bed. But ere a minute had passed, she became faint, while all grew dark around her. She was no better when night came. If her mind could have rested—if she had been free from anxious and distressing thoughts, nature would have had some power to react, but as it was, the pressure upon her was too great. She could not forget that they had scarcely so much money as a dollar left, and that her old grandfather was too feeble to work. Upon her rested all the burden of their support, and she was now helpless.

On the next morning Ellen was better. She could sit up without feeling dizzy, though her head still ached, and the fever had only slightly abated. But the old man would not permit her to leave the bed, though she begged him earnestly to let her do so.

The bundle of work that Ellen had brought home, was wrapped in a newspaper, and this her grandfather took up to read some time during the day.

“This is Mr. T——’s newspaper,” said he, as he opened it, and saw the title. “I knew T—— when he was a poor little orphan boy. But, of course, he don’t remember me. He’s prospered wonderfully.”

And then his eyes went along the columns of the paper, and he read aloud to Ellen such things as he thought would interest her. Among others was a reminiscence by the editor—the same that we have just given. The old man’s voice faltered as he read. The little incident, so feelingly described, had long since been hidden in his memory under the gathering dust of time. But now the dust was swept away, and he saw his own beautiful garden. He was in it and among the flowers; and wishfully looking through the fence stood the orphan boy. He remembered having felt pity for him, and he remembered now as distinctly as if it were but yesterday, though thirty years had intervened, the light that went over the child’s face as he handed him a few flowers that were to fade and wither in a day.

Yes, the old man’s voice faltered while he read; and when he came to the last sentence, the paper dropped upon the floor, and clasping his hands together, he lifted his dim eyes upward, while his lips moved in whispered words of thankfulness.

“What ails you, grandpa?” asked Ellen, in surprise.

But the old man did not seem to hear her voice.

“Dear grandpa,” repeated the girl, “why do you look so strangely?” She had risen in bed, and was bending toward him.

“Ellen, child,” said the old man, a light breaking over his countenance, as though a sunbeam had suddenly come into the room, “it was your old grandfather who gave the flowers to that poor little boy. Did you hear what he said?—he would divide his last morsel.”

The old man moved about the room with his unsteady steps, talking in a wandering way, so overjoyed at the prospect of relief for his child, that he was nearly beside himself. But there yet lingered some embers of pride in his heart; and from these the ashes were blown away, and they became bright and glowing. The thought of asking a favor as a return for that little act, which was to him, at the time, a pleasure, came with a feeling of reluctance. But when he looked at the pale young girl who lay with her eyes closed and her face half buried in the pillow, he murmured to himself, “It is for you—for you!” And taking up his staff, he went tottering forth into the open air.

The editor was sitting in his office, writing, when he heard the door open, and turning, he saw before him an old man with bent form and snowy head. Something in the visiter’s countenance struck him as familiar; but he did not recognize him as one whom he had seen before.

“Is Mr. T—— in?” inquired the old man.

“My name is T——,” replied the editor.

“You?” There was a slight expression of surprise in the old man’s voice.

“Yes, I am T——, my friend,” was kindly said. “Can I do any thing for you? Take this chair.”

The offered seat was accepted; and as the old man sunk into it, his countenance and manner betrayed his emotion.

“I have come,” said he, and his voice was unsteady, “to do what I could not do for myself alone. But I cannot see my poor, sick grandchild wear out and die under the weight of burdens that are too heavy to be borne. For her sake I have conquered my own pride.”

There was a pause.

“Go on,” said T——, who was looking at the old man earnestly, and endeavoring to fix his identity in his mind.

“You don’t know me?”

“Your face is not entirely strange,” said T——. “It must have been a long time since we met.”

“Long? Oh yes! It is a long, long time. You were a boy, and I unbent by age.”

“Markland!” exclaimed T——, with sudden energy, springing to his feet as the truth flashed upon him. “Say—is it so?”

“My name is Markland.”

“And do we meet again thus!” said T——, with emotion, as he grasped the old man’s hand. “Ah, sir, I have never forgotten you. When a sad-hearted boy, you spoke to me kindly, and the words comforted me when I had no other comfort. The bunch of flowers you gave me—you remember it, no doubt—are still fresh in my heart. Not a leaf has faded. They are as bright and green, and full of perfume as when I first hid them there; and there they will bloom forever—the unfading flowers of gratitude. I am glad you have come, though grieved that your declining years are made heavier by misfortune. Heaven has smiled on my efforts in the world. I have enough, and to spare.”

“I have not come for charity,” returned Markland. “I have hands, and they would not be idle, though it is not much that they can accomplish.”

“Be not troubled on that account, my friend,” was kindly answered. “I will find something for you to do. But first tell me all about yourself.”

Thus encouraged, the old man told his story. It was the common history of loss of property and friends, and the approach of want with declining years. T—— saw that pride and native independence were still strong in Markland’s bosom, feeble as he was, and really unable to enter upon any serious employment; and his first impulse was to save his feelings at the same time that he extended to him entire and permanent relief. This he found no difficulty in doing, and the old man was soon after placed in a situation where but little application was necessary, while the income was all-sufficient for the comfortable support of himself and grandchild.

The flowers offered with a purely humane feeling, proved to be fadeless flowers; and their beauty and perfume came back to the senses of the giver when all other flowers were dead or dying on his dark and dreary way.

———

BY PROFESSOR FROST.

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LABRADOR AUK, OR PUFFIN. (Fratercula Arctica.)

We have already remarked that there are but two species of the true Auk. The Puffin belongs to the sub-genus Fratercula. Of the singular figure of this bird our engraving gives a true representation; of its habits, Selby gives the following account, which is corroborated by other writers who have described it.

“Although the Puffin is found in very high latitudes, and its distribution through the Arctic Circle is extensive, it is only known to us as a summer visitant, and that from the south, making its first appearance in the vicinity of its breeding stations, about the middle of April, and regularly departing between the 10th and the 20th of August. Many resort to the islands, selecting such as are covered with a stratum of vegetable mould; and here they dig their own burrows, from there not being any rabbits to dispossess upon the particular islets they frequent. They commence this operation about the first week in May, and the hole is generally excavated to the depth of three feet, often in a curving direction, and occasionally with two entrances. When engaged in digging, which is principally performed by the males, they are sometimes so intent on their work as to admit of being taken by hand, and the same may also be done during incubation. At this period I have frequently obtained specimens, by thrusting my arm into the burrow, though at the risk of receiving a severe bite from the powerful and sharp edged bill of the old bird. At the farther end of this hole the single egg is deposited, which in size nearly equals that of a pullet, and, as Pennant observes, varies in form; in some instances one end being acute, and in others equally obtuse. Its color when first laid is white, but it becomes soiled and dirty from its immediate contact with the earth: no materials being collected for a nest at the end of the burrow. The young are hatched after a month’s incubation, and are then covered with a long blackish down above, which gradually gives place to the feathered plumage, so that at the end of a month or five weeks they are able to quit the burrow, and follow their parents to the open sea. Soon after this time, or about the second week in August, the whole leave our coasts, commencing their equatorial migration. At an early age the bill of this bird is small and narrow, scarcely exceeding that of the young Razor-bill at the same period of life; and not till after the second year does this member acquire its full development, both as to depth, color, and its transverse furrows.

“In rocky places, they deposit their single egg in the holes and crevices. The length of the bird is about twelve inches. The half of the bill nearest the head is bluish; the rest red. The corners of the mouth are puckered into a kind of star. The legs and feet are orange. The plumage is black and white, with the exception of the cheeks and chin, which are sometimes gray. The young, pickled with spices, are sometimes considered dainties.”

THE LITTLE AUK. (Mergulus Melano Leukos.)

The Little Auk, or Sea Dove, is an example of the genus Mergulus. It braves the inclemency of very high latitudes, and is found in immense flocks on the inhospitable coasts of Greenland, Spitsbergen, and Melville Island. Here they watch the motion of the ice, and when it is broken up by storms, “they come down in legions, crowding into every fissure, to banquet on the crustaceous and other marine animals which lie there at their mercy.

“The Little Auk is between nine and ten inches in length; the bill is black and the legs inclining to brown; the plumage is black and white; and in winter the front of the neck, which is black in summer, becomes whitish. It lays but one egg, of a pale, bluish green, on the most inaccessible ledges of the precipices which overhang the ocean.” Such are the accounts of the naturalists and voyagers who have visited the arctic regions. With its name of Sea Dove, its apparently delicate structure, and its daring and heroic habits of life, it affords a most inviting theme to the poet.

———

BY CAROLINE MAY.

———

ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY.

———

BY RICHARD PENN SMITH.

———

———

BY ANNIE GREY.

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AFTER THE MANNER OF AN EARLY ENGLISH POET.

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BY MYRRHA.

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THE PARTING YEAR.

The waning year is, to most minds, a season of reflection. And it is good to pause and think, occasionally; to glance along the receding vista of months, and review our actions ere too great a distance makes their memory indistinct. Time seems to linger on his journey, to pause by the crumbling ruins of earthly things, and point us to the past, that we may gather therefrom lessons of wisdom for the future.

And now, as we stand on the verge of the parting year—as the last line in its record of events is about being written, it is but to obey the dictate of reason to let our thoughts run back. Time we cannot recall, nor change the past. What we have done is done forever. Then, why, it may be asked, turn our thoughts thitherward? Why not look in hope to the future? It is that we may look to the future with brighter hopes, made more certain through repentance and good resolutions.

What we are is of more, far more importance to us than what we seem to others, or what we have gained in worldly goods. Our thoughts, then, as we review the days and weeks in the closing circle of months, should linger rather upon the purposes and acts of our moral life, than upon the impression we have made upon others, or the amount of earthly treasure we have gathered in from the harvest-fields of the world. A good reputation may be lost through slander; riches may take to themselves wings and fly away; but of the heart’s conscious rectitude no event external to ourselves can rob us. It is true gold, which neither moth nor rust can corrupt, and of which not even death itself can rob us.

In turning back our thoughts upon the past, then, let us examine all our acts in the light of their prompting ends. There is no act without a purpose, and the purpose gives quality to the act. A selfish and bad end makes an act evil, which might be innocent if done with a good end. A man may pursue his worldly business with the same energy and success that marks the course of his neighbor, and be all the while laying up treasure above, while the latter gains nothing but the treasure on earth, which, in a few years, passes into the coffers of another, while he, naked and poor as he came into the world, recrosses the mortal bourne, and is seen no more among his fellows. The great difference lies in the end with which each prosecutes his daily calling. A good end keeps in view what is just to the neighbor, while a selfish end causes a man to disregard and even trample upon others’ rights.

As time points his trembling finger to the past, let each one, then, carefully review the history of the year, so far as himself is concerned, and, in reviewing it, look earnestly at the purposes which have governed his various actions. These, in their accumulations, are to make the future happy or miserable. Gold gained in a total disregard of others’ rights or feelings, never has nor never will bring happiness; for, in the acquisition, the mind takes an evil form in accordance with its purpose, and such a form precludes the possibility of happiness. Honor and fame acquired in like manner, will as certainly bring pain and disappointment.

The great question then is—How far have I advanced in the year toward that true humanity which is built up into a beautiful form, through good purposes coming forth into good deeds? Just so far as this true humanity has been attained, and no further, has the waning year been a well spent and profitable year.

Is your mind not satisfied with the review measured by this standard? Let the fact be wisely improved by a better life in the future. Begin the next year with this higher standard in your mind, and resolve to live up to it as far as is in your power.

There is one reflection connected with this theme that should produce a strong impression. It is our present that makes our future. What we purpose and do to-day throws forward its effect upon our coming years. And this is the result of every day’s life. What would not some of us give if we could change the rebuking past? But, alas! what is done is done forever. The present with its deeds flits by and becomes the unchangeable past. We may repent of our wrong doings, but repentance cannot extract the sting from memory. With this thought, which should alone prompt to right living in the future, we close our brief sermon; commending its teachings to the wise and simple, the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the learned and the unlearned, with the hope that it may be like a nail in a sure place, or, like apples of gold on pictures of silver.

——

THE POLITICAL WORLD FOR 1849.

BY J. R. CHANDLER.

It seems meet that we should take some note of the times in which we live, and not allow a whole year to pass without a record of some of those startling incidents by which it has been distinguished. We do not pretend to publish “the news”—we do not mean to make commentaries upon the political changes which are constantly occurring. There are papers specially devoted to such matters, and they do their duty with fidelity and satisfaction. We, however, think it proper (useful we mean, and therefore proper,) to give a simple abstract of great political changes and convulsions that have occurred in 1849. It may instruct some; it will probably send many more to the records of the times to gain minute information of such startling affairs. Some it may lead to reflect upon the mutability of human productions, and the causes which have wrought out such remarkable effects. Others will probably be ready, while they mourn over the suffering and kindle at the bold steps and courageous conduct of the uprising oppressed, abroad, to rejoice at the peace and happiness secured to our own beloved country by the institutions of republicanism which we enjoy, and to inquire whether such signal advantages are not worth a vigilance that shall detect the first movement, or the dangerous neglect that may jeopard the liberties of the people and the peace and prosperity of the country.

We desire to sit down and make a small daguerreotype view of the nations abroad, that our Magazine may close the year 1849 with such a picture as would make ordinary readers, even the ladies, who are only ordinary as they are the general readers of our book, understand the changes which are yet to take place. But we are compelled to write nearly a month before we nominally publish, so that much may transpire between the inkstand and the reading-desk; much that may change the whole complexion, the features even of European politics, and cast either a shade or a light across the Atlantic. Again, while we sit down to adjust our instrument to catch the manners living as they rise, to receive and fix the forms of nations upon our plates, they, instead of awaiting their little moment, to give a perfect image, start into some revolution and thus mar the picture which we would have strong, clear and distinct. The troubles which beset the whole of Italy a year ago are, if not settled, at least becoming less. The affairs of the various independent governments seem to be so directed as to insure a return to something like the position they held more than two years since.

In Rome, whence the Pope had been driven by the revolutionary power, the French army in Italy established itself, after a free use of its heavy batteries. For a moment it seemed that nothing more was intended than the restoration of the Pope to his temporal power. But either the President of France had a concealed motive in sending Oudinot with an army into Italy, or the uplifted voice of the liberal portion of Europe caused him to declare that he wished to prevent Austria and Spain from gaining influence in Rome, and he desired with the return of the Pope, to see the government (under his holiness) secularized.

Meantime the Pope, at Gaeta, apparently enjoying all the distinction which his elevated position as spiritual and temporal chief could claim, has been far from happy. He has seen into the motives of France, and cannot be ignorant now of the spirit, the interested spirit, likely to influence other nations which may undertake to restore him to Rome with all his former power. Nay, it is evident that he is now weighing the consideration whether it is best for his spiritual mission, and his temporal comforts and honors to receive back such rule—he sees that the times have changed, and he is evidently pausing to see how he may change with them without exposing himself to the outrages to which his former liberal movements exposed him.

Venice that held out against the Austrian forces was compelled to capitulate. She loses the distinction which she had retained, and her condition as a free port is lost. Austria has even desired to build up Trieste at the expense of Venice. It should be remarked, however, that the political offences of the Venetians have been more leniently dealt with than had been anticipated. The leaders of the revolt were removed to Corfu by the French before the Austrians entered the city. Venice and Venetian Lombardy are again the appanages of the Austrian crown.

There was an attempt at a revolt in the Ionian Islands, a quasi republic under the protection of Great Britain. The disturbance took place in Cephalonia, and the political outbreak was the occasion for a band of ruffians to undertake to plunder and assassinate. A leading citizen of Argistile was, with his family, burnt to death. Vigorous measures were adopted by Mr. Ward, the high commissioner of the British government for the Ionian Islands, and finally order was restored.

France—The year 1849 opened upon France in the enjoyment of the fierce youth of Republicanism, with a President elected almost unanimously by the people, and with a National Assembly almost ready to expire by its own peculiar organization. A new Assembly was elected and was organized in May, and early in June the President, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, sent to that body his message, which, for the first time in European history, contained a statement of the situation of the country minutely set forth, and was thus far republican. Unfortunately the President took occasion to set forth his own views and determinations in a tone far more in accordance with those of his uncle, the Emperor Napoleon, than like that of those who should supply his model—the Presidents of the United States.

It may be noted that the revolutions of France have been very costly, and her debt has been fearfully augmented by the convulsion that drove Louis Philippe from the kingly throne and placed Louis Napoleon in the presidential chair.

The election of Louis Napoleon to the presidency did by no means secure the tranquillity of France; so many men leading various sections, that united only against one portion, were unprovided with power when the union was to be in favor of one man, that no sooner was the president installed than those who had done most to make a place for him were willing to do more to get him out of a place. And it cannot be denied that the movements of France, or rather of Louis Napoleon, for really he seems to be France, upon Rome, were not at first calculated to conciliate the Red Republicans, and are now as little likely to satisfy the opposite party; each will remember its peculiar cause of dislike, but neither will keep in mind its occasion for approval. The truth is, France is not yet essentially republican in its system. The people of France would, by a large majority, vote to fight for a republican form of government for their country, but they do not seem to comprehend the true policy of a republic, and it may be doubted whether the tendency of a single legislature, and the weight of Paris is not toward centralization—most anti or at least unrepublican. France must look to the federation of her departments. The president of France has made various tours in his republic, and has been received with various degrees of respect and courtesy, as his principles were more or less approved, or, perhaps, as the people were more or less republican or monarchical in their views. And it may be remarked, that every where he has taken occasion to say that “order, system, and conservatism,” were necessary to the prosperity of France; an idea well enough in the abstract, but evidently, considering the speaker and the hearers, intended to intimate that France needed less revolution among the people, and more permanency in her executive. When he visited the neighborhood of Ham, where he had been for a long time a prisoner, on account of a rebellion against the established government, he was reminded by some obsequious citizens of his sufferings and his deliverance. But instead of launching out into a tirade against tyranny in general, and especially that which confined him there, he took occasion to preach a homily in favor of established power, and confessed his error in being one of those who rose against it. Fenelon, when he ascended the pulpit to denounce his own book, did not assume a more self-condemnatory air, nor did he more regret his offences against ecclesiastical rule, than did Louis Napoleon his outrage upon the kingly government; and this, too, in presence of a people that had assisted within two years to put down a king, and had, by their votes, elected him to office, in the place of that king.

France has placed herself, or was placed by her president, in a very delicate position, with regard to other European powers, by her interference in the Italian contest. She now complains that the Pope does not acknowledge the services which she has rendered, (he certainty seems to be very ignorant of any advantage which France has wrought for him,) while the president declares that Rome must be secularized, and must grant a full amnesty to political offenders. France has her attention now drawn toward the peculiar situation of affairs between the Porte and the Emperor of Russia, in which England and France seem to understand each other.

While the continent of Europe has been embroiled for the last year in all kinds of contests, Great Britain seems to have enjoyed unusual tranquillity at home. The imperial parliament repealed the old navigation laws which had been operative for two centuries. By the new enactments greater freedom is given to vessels of other countries to trade between the several ports of Great Britain; and in other countries where reciprocal commercial treaties are established, the ships of Great Britain will have similar advantages.

Peace is not productive of historical interest, and we have only to say, that Great Britain has settled her troubles in the East by defeating the Indian forces raised against her power; and she has commenced her troubles in the West, by sanctioning certain laws passed by the parliament of the Canadas to remunerate those who lost property in a former rebellion. The truth is, there has grown up a strong and violent hostility between the English residents in Canada and the French; and the latter, with some of their allies, having a majority, passed the law for indemnity, which the governor, Lord Elgin, signed; and this brought against him the English party. The Home Government sanctioned the action of his lordship, and this has led some of the English party to talk of throwing off the English yoke, and uniting Canada with the United States. It is probable that Great Britain has held Canada about as long as is possible—and perhaps quite as long as is profitable.

The Queen of Great Britain has, with her husband and children, attended by a numerous court, been visiting to Ireland and Scotland, and has been eminently successful in conciliating the people of these parts of her empire, and has done more to restore kind feelings and establish herself, than all the arms which she could have sent against the disaffected. She is at once popular and powerful, and sustains a bad system by her gentleness and her sterling worth.

It is to the glory of Great Britain that in all the disturbances in Europe of late, she has sought, by her intervention, to save the people from the consequences of a bloody war, and in all cases she has appeared as the friend of the weakest side, her mediation was not often accepted. In the case of the unhappy war between Prussia and Denmark, about the miserable affair of Schleswick Holstein, her offer was accepted, and peace was restored.

Denmark. We have little to say of this kingdom excepting that by her superior naval force she redeemed her credit, somewhat impaired by the success of the Prussians on the land; and the effective blockade induced her enemy to listen to the proposition of Great Britain to mediate. The result was the settlement of the difficulties about Schleswick Holstein.

Prussia. The attempt to create a federative government in Germany has not yet proved successful. Various plans have been proposed, and a constitution, not unlike that of the United States, was nearly adopted. But when the states which are to compose the federation have been so long entirely independent, and have exercised the privileges of complete sovereignty, they do not readily yield up their independence, and hence, after moving toward a union, they start off, alarmed at the chance of being lost sight of in the shadow of the larger states. The intention of forming a confederacy is still cherished, and may be realized. Prussia must, of course, have a leading voice in such a movement. But the power of the continental monarchs rests, and must continue to rest, upon the army, and consequently war, that weakens the nation, must, for a time, give strength to kings. But as the strength which is imparted to the human system by the use of opium, it will destroy in time what it was intended to support.

Austria has had a sort of triumph; her arms have been successful in Italy, and, with the aid of Russia, she has put down the rebellion in Hungary. Yet Austria is weaker now than before her triumphs, and is regarded with less favor, more hatred, more contempt than formerly. The necessity of changes in her government; the necessity of destroying her own rebellious cities; the necessity of applying to Russia for help, have taught that power to feel that it is not only vulnerable, but that it is perishable. And a few more such convulsions, even though Russia interfere, will dismember the Germans, and set free her injured dependencies.

Hungary. The brilliant effort of Hungary to cast off the yoke of Austria promised for a time to be gloriously successful. The character of Kossuth was so beautiful, his manners so conciliatory, his plans so wise, and his power with the army so complete, that the world was prepared to hail and welcome the old kingdom back to independence. Austria was defeated. Her armies were beaten, and the rickety old tyranny appealed to Russia for help—to Russia, the last refuge of tyranny that exists. And Russia poured her rubles down upon the plains of Hungary, and corrupted one of the generals that had been entrusted with power; and then she sent her herds of serfs and generals to receive the concessions which she had purchased. And so Hungary sinks back into a dependence upon Austria, liable at all times to be claimed and fleeced by Russia.

We had wished, we confess, that Hungary would have freed herself—but she must abide her time. Bem, Kossuth, and many other generals, with numerous companies of soldiery, escaped into the Turkish dominions, under a pledge of safety from the Sultan. But Russia, true to her principle of pursuing her offenders, demanded these unfortunate fugitives. The Sultan became alarmed, and asked the Hungarians to renounce their faith, and adopt Mohamedism, and then they would become citizens, and might not be claimed. Some assumed the turban, others refused. But it is probable that Russia will find occasion in these and other matters to make war on Turkey; if so, France and England must look to what they have called the balance of power in Europe.

It is worthy of remark, that while Russia is settling the disturbance in Hungary, the western principalities of Turkey seem to be uniting with Greece to assert some of the rights of man. We know not what will result—but it appears as if there was going forth a voice which is crying “war—war to tyranny and oppression!” Its denunciation may indeed serve to make the hand of power clutch more closely the neck of its victim, but the grasp must be spasmodic—strong, perhaps stronger than formerly, at least, the neck is growing more sensitive—but the grasp will be loosed, and the people will be allowed to go and form their own government and enjoy their own rights.

There have been few changes on this side of the Atlantic. The most important movements have been in California, where the tide of immigration attracted by gold and retained by a new feeling of civicism, has swollen into the materials for a new government. The opinion entertained at one time that the attempt to form a territorial government for California would embarrass the National Administration by giving rise to the question of the extent of slavery, by the application of what is called the “Wilmot proviso,” seems to have subsided by the project of inducing California to make application at once for admission into the Union as a State, of course the Wilmot proviso would have no operation on such an appeal.

No changes of consequence have occurred in South America. Improvement in the sciences, peace, and order will strengthen republican institutions, and republican feelings, and we may hope that prosperity and happiness will ere long be the lot of those whom Providence has placed in a Heavenly climate and on a most productive soil, but whose stimulated passions have made a hell of their country, and denied to the soil the produce which it might have brought forth.

Excepting the fearful prevalence of cholera in various parts of the country, the United States have continued in the enjoyment of political, moral, and social blessings; and we may hope that Providence will continue to smile on the efforts of its patriots to sustain the institutions with which their country is blessed, and to make each citizen sensible of the vast advantages he enjoys over the subjects of foreign powers. And if God, who hitherto has poured out his choicest favors on our beloved land, should vouchsafe his blessings hereafter, we may see her wielding power for the good of mankind, and teaching other nations the true use of government. Not doubting but this will be the case, we think we see down the vista of time our country becoming the mild dictator to the world, and her peaceful government sheltering the injured from other lands and correcting the injurer. And while such a prospect is held out we may look, as the cause and consequence thereof, for peace and moral worth, and

——

PROSPECTIVE!—1850.

My dear Jeremy,—Have you ever taken a long-bill on the wing of a July morning? Not a note at eight months, flying in the market at a heavy discount—but a genuine long-bill, an old woodcock, springing up at your feet with whistling and whirring wings, and doing his uttermost to get out of the way, without waiting for the formality of invitation expended upon a certain Mr. Tucker? “You have not.” Well, I shall not attempt the task of teacher after Herbert, but you can have no conception of the cool head and steady nerve required to do it well. To an old hand, with dog and gun, with a constitution inured by exercise, it is the glory of the world’s excitements, and as far above the lust of money-getting, as poetry is above note-shaving.

I took my tramp this summer, of three months, among the hills and marshes where this bird—which is a bore in one way only—loves most to congregate, and saw our old friend, “the iron pump” of copper notoriety looking as dry as his purchasers and quite as rusty. I could not resist the impulse to take a crack at him, at forty yards, with my double-barrel, as at an imaginary copper-head. The excavations looked like the ready-made graves of speculators, who somehow or other had not come there to be buried. The very faces of the rocks had been twisted into grimaces, and seemed with their yellow eyes to be grinning at one; so shouldering my gun, and whistling to give strength to an imaginary band playing

I went down into the valley, and took vengeance for bills long dishonored, upon bills that I honor long.

But, Jeremy, we cannot submit to the “vagabond propensity,” as the old farmers call it, of roaming with dog and gun over mountain and meadow, though the morning dew has made the air redolent of sweets, and from every bush and blade of grass nature has hung her pearls invitingly, and lit up, as with the blaze of a torch, the gum and maple trees; though the pure air and fresh water have given health to eye and cheek and vigor to the frame, we must away to the turbulent city, and within its pent up streets and among its crowded artisans and tradesmen wrestle for bread, and shutting out from the heart its glimpses of heaven and repose in the country, grapple with toil, work on, and hope on! Yet with a sure and an abiding trust and faith.

With the opening of the New Year the periodical campaign brings thought and labor. What a world within itself is this business in Philadelphia alone—how stirring the competition—how diverse the interests—how various the success. The unparalleled rise in the business within one short year has been the result of diligent application. The publishers have most gloriously bought their own success, and have raised their works to such a point of beauty and excellence that money can go no further. The spirit of a just competition has urged each man to do his very uttermost to give his readers all that can by possibility be crowded, in the way of beauty and excellence, into his work. Every dollar received goes back in renewed outlay, in costly embellishments and articles. Nothing in Europe at twice their price can at all approach the illustrated American Monthlies in the beauty and costliness of their appointments. At the head of all stands “Graham”—Proud—Imperious—Supreme. He has no long line of broken promises to come up in judgment against him, but for ten long years has steadily gone on increasing in the face of all opposition, until he now stands unapproachable and alone, among the highest class of literary monthlies in the land. There are others of a lighter class—successful—highly successful—but his is the proud honor of having lifted the tone of his literature, and the quality of his engravings, up to the highest European standard of excellence in all respects. There is yet another class, who deal in promises—and promises only—whose best numbers come up to the meanest promise only of their printed circulars, but who go on crowding promise upon failure to redeem, until the virtues of their acts are lost in the fog they raise—fortunately their works also. More than a score of such have we seen entombed—some we have helped to bury—but they come again, like the locust, annually, and swindling a few dupes out of their money, annually die. This is the class which does business altogether by

THE SUCTION AND PUMPING PROCESS.

From this party, we shall no doubt be favored, with very extravagant-looking show-bills, and plenty of them—long bills drawn upon the credulity of people who fill an imaginary subscription list, and are very liberal in remittances, and whose wonderful sagacity in waiting until 1850, will be duly heralded, and in type announced. The existence of any periodical of the slightest pretension to elegance or ability, not having been heard of before, and only known among that benighted class, whose urgent literary tastes would not allow them to suffer and to wait.

Having seen our friends of “The Suction and Pumping Process” fairly in the field, let us survey the ground. On the whole, things look rather brilliant; a number of “new volumes with superb inducements,” are already announced, and with the usual cheering before starting, the entertainments for 1850 promise to be rich and various beyond parallel. Ingenuity, it seems, is not exhausted, nor are novelties entirely run out. What have we here?

One of the ladies’ magazines actually promises to “outstrip” all its cotemporaries! A novel sort of assertion, truly, for a genteel ladies’ magazine; yet a proceeding, one would think, that cannot be carried very far with any sort of propriety. The grace of modesty and the delicacy of its position alike forbid it. Such things, if really attempted, will drive the meeker and weaker brethren entirely from the contest. We may—but scarcely can—tolerate the pretty large liberties which have been taken with the dresses of ladies elsewhere in engravings and fashion plates. Let it stop here. Give us models of art, even if they are a little nude; we can stand that—but this is touching on the province of the model artists; and as the elder magazine, we cannot allow it—positively. Jeremy, if you have any influence with these people, stop this thing, I pray you.

Phew!—but what is this?

It appears that under cover of fire-works, with sky-rockets, blue-lights, shooting-stars, or something of that sort, we are to have a grand conflagration, perhaps immolation of fashionable and pretty women; for another ladies’ magazine, audaciously—in order to offset the other, we suppose—promises, “a blaze of beauty throughout the year!”

And this is actually put out in the bills, before a Christian country, in the nineteenth century, and the police look on, and are silent!

Ah! this comes home to “our hearts and our bussums.” What do we read? “All the distinguished writers and authors of this country and Europe are engaged.” The deuce they are? Oh Lord!—Our office then may be closed, during business hours hereafter, we suppose.

Overlooked, by George!—News! news! “The acknowledged Blackwood of America, 1850.” Now is that old vagabond coming back again, after having enjoyed our hospitalities for two seasons—’42 and ’43?

If Blackwood were to come in spirit shape, this I think would be his story, Jeremy:

“You see I was coming along, when a tall fellow, our old friend, cries, ‘How are you, Mr. Blackwood?’

“ ‘Come in here,’ says he, seizing my elbow, and in an instant I found myself deceived, swindled, jostled in among the wrong set. A parcel of puritanical looking dogs, sitting cheek by jowl, with long gowns, play actors, medical students, penny-a-liners, seedy old boys and silly school girls. I suppose they took me for a Mormon or a Shaker, or perhaps a clown, and dragged me in, to add to the novelty of the collection. But Scotch manners wouldn’t allow me to be rude, so I said, very politely, to the tall gentleman, if that is whisky-punch you have on the stove, I’ll take a tumbler of it. Heavens! you should have heard the yell that went up, and seen the horrible faces; so seeing the way the wind set, I gave one or two of them a knock over the skull with ebony—bestowed my parting benediction upon the whole company—ladies excepted—and came at once to head-quarters.”

Now, Jeremy, I don’t know what you may think of this business, but I say I have been silent long enough under various aggressions, and hereafter, I take the cudgel and trounce any son of a gun who poaches on my manor. Why do you know that people have the audacity to say that theirs is the oldest magazine, when the Casket, which we bought, and on which Graham was based, started in 1826, and had its colored fashions and wood engravings printed on tinted paper long before any of them opened their eyes. The mezzotints I was the first to put to magazine use on a large scale; and Burton’s Magazine, which was incorporated with this, gave the first that Sartain ever did for a magazine of large circulation; and yet these young fellows, with the down yet upon their chins, affect the experience of years, and learnedly talk about teaching their grandfather how to snuff. I care nothing about this, but that it has gone far enough; and they will after a while begin to believe their own stories—a bit of self-deception that it is a pity they should be subjected to.

But, Jeremy, we live in a funny world, and even with our criminal code, and prison discipline, I fear me, the moral reformer has a vast work to do. The shades of right and wrong, as worked up in the woof of practical life, are not of colors which contrast very strongly. They form rather the figures of a kaleidoscope. Is there not a little gambling done, in the way of “specimens” in literature, as well as in “specimens” in copper? Do the samples shown as “inducements” always honestly represent the real article afterward put upon the purchaser? Oh! very nice, rigid and self-complacent moralist, “with good fat capon lined,” why are thy hands held up in such affected holy horror at thy brother, who has stumbled and fallen, “because he has done this thing;” when printed records of thy falsified pledges and assertions, fill the post-towns of the country, the Union over! The lie in type and upon record, is it less venal, because multiplied by thousands, than that by word, which palms upon the unsuspecting a sinking fancy stock! Let the canting, praying hypocrite, of all trades, go down into his own heart, and clear it of its “dead men’s bones, and all uncleanness,” before, with bastard honesty, he casts a stone at his most desperate brother.

Ah, Jeremy, is there not a thriving business done, by men professing to be respectable, by “The Suction and Pumping Process,” in most of the trades of life—even in the very honorable business of manufacturing and selling goods? Ay! in the thousand well dressed, painted living lies, that stare at you in the streets, and from behind counters, and impose upon the ignorant—is there no rascality? When goods are put upon the poor and ignorant hired girls at high prices—the remnants of shabby gentility—are the shopkeepers honest do you suppose? In the poisoned rum, that is sold for good (God defend us!) and which sends destitution, misery, and crime into the hovels of the poor—is there no weight of damnation, past finding out? Is every marble palace, with steeds prancing at the door, the monument of a good man’s well spent life; has every stone and carved niche been paid for by money honestly earned? Are the laces, and feathers, and gold and jewels, that flash upon us and glitter in the sun, all, always the well-earned rewards of honest and praiseworthy toil? Much of the money thus lavishly displayed, and on which an insolent pride fattens and corrupts, may it not be the legitimate reward of a sin that would taint the fingers of a thief? Hold up thy head, young brother, and keep thy heart pure; all is not lost! the courage to dare, the power and will to do are thine! Up! and against wrong and oppression of every shade, set thy face as a flint, and with conscious might and truth, press on! The world is before thee where to choose—it is thy battle-ground! Do nobly, and thou art man—meanly, a more creeping thing than a worm a upon whom every coward braggart will set his heel. Aye on! there is yet to come—thank God—a reckoning-day, of motives and of actions, when assumption shall be stript—deceit exposed—the hollow heart laid bare, and when the secret sin of pride and self-complacency, dragged from its hiding-place, shall be thrust, blazing into its face.

My dear Jeremy, there is a consolation in this—we shall see one of these times, every man’s motive for the acts he has committed revealed—whether it is only the poor devils cast down, forsaken, down-trodden and despised, that die in the ditch, who are damned; or whether he only is on his way to heaven—the sleek and lucky moralist who dozes over his wine—who thinks he can pave his way to heaven with ingots, however got, that shall be saved. That will be a sight worth seeing, Jeremy, for it will open the eyes of the Universe, and make all things even. We can afford to wait for even this, can we not? It will not be long.

G. R. G.

This edition of Browning is almost a facsimile of the beautiful London edition, published by Chapman & Hall, the only real difference between the two being that the American reprint costs less than half as much as the London original.

Browning, for the last four or five years, has been steadily advancing to fame; and having overcome by the pure strength of his genius all outward and some inward obstacles, is now widely recognized as a new force in English letters. Next to Tennyson, we know of hardly another English poet of the day who can be compared with him. He possesses striking excellences both of thought and diction, but he is so indisputably an originality, that he is compelled to create the taste which appreciates him. Like almost all the poets of the new school, he is “high contemplative,” scorns rather than courts the means of popularity, and is more pleased by conquering one reader than by enticing many. In his distaste for the stereotyped diction and ideas of English poetry, he is apt to go to the opposite extreme of obscurity. There is a beautiful willfulness, a delicious bit of the devil, in him; accordingly many of his verses seem thrown off in an imaginary boxing match with professors of square-toed rhetoric and critics of the old school. This independence and pugnacity are sometimes carried to that extreme of recklessness, which indicates self-conceit and supercilious arrogance, rather than a wrestling with the difficulties of expression. “Sordello,” a poem which the author has now suppressed, was a tangled mass of half-formed thoughts and half-clutched sentiments, tottering dizzily on the vanishing points of meaning; and the publication of such a piece of elaborate worthlessness was an insult to public intelligence which would have consigned to deserved damnation, any poet who did not possess sufficient genius to retrieve his reputation.

In his best works, Browning appears as a poet gifted with a large reason and a wide-wandering imagination; but his reason and imagination do not seem to work genially together—are sometimes in each other’s way—and in their operation they sometimes strangle each other. He thinks broadly and deeply, and he shapes finely; but the thought does not commonly seem born in music, but rather born with music; and he often gives the idea and the illustrative image, instead of the idea in the illustrative image. Sometimes, in reading him, we wish he would abandon poetry for metaphysics, so sure and clear is his analysis and statement of mental phenomena; and then again some magnificent comparison, metaphor or image, or some exquisite touch of characterization, makes us wish that he would abjure metaphysics, and cling to poetry. Compared with Tennyson, his nature would be called hard, and be said to lack mellowness and melody. That sensuous element in poetry, which proceeds from fusing thought, sensation, and imagination—the spiritual and physical—into one sweet product, “felt in the blood,” and felt along the brain, he does not appear to have reached; but then the burning words, struck off like sparks from the conflict of flint and steel, which come from him in his periods of real excitement, seem to the reader sufficient compensations for his comparative absence of softness and harmony. He may not delight so much as Tennyson, but he gives the mind a wider field to range in, inspires a manlier feeling, and indicates a greater capacity. The very fact that all his works are cast in a dramatic form, even though the dramatic element is often more formal than real, shows that his mind has a healthy affection for objects, and steadily resists its own subjective tendencies.

The first poem in the collection is “Paracelsus.” This is an attempt to exhibit the influence on character of knowledge disjoined from love, by a delineation of an aspiring and noble nature, smitten by a restless thirst to know, and ruined by “the lust of his brain.” The poem is not poetically conceived; its central idea is not organic, not the germinating principle of the whole, but rather an abstract proposition logically developed; and, accordingly, the mechanical understanding not the vital imagination is predominant throughout. Besides, though it exercises the brain not unpleasantly, it hardly gives poetic pleasure; and so far from comfortable is the general impression it leaves, that the reader recurs to it only for deep or delicate thoughts and imaginations which are separately beautiful. As a whole, it is not philosophical enough for a treatise, nor beautiful enough for a poem.

“King Victor and King Charles” is a drama containing four characters moderately well conceived and discriminated, but evincing dramatic genius not much above Bulwer’s, though profounder in sentiment, and richer in imagination. The most dramatic passage is where Polyxena seizes her husband’s hand, when he is on the point of yielding to a weak amiability of nature, and conjures him to sacrifice her happiness and his to duty. It is the passage commencing⁠—

“Colombe’s Birth Day” is a sweet and beautiful dramatic poem, abounding in intellectual wealth. The characters of Colombe and Valence are vigorously drawn. The scene between them in the fourth act, where he confesses his love, is grand and exhilarating as an exhibition of character and passion. But the idea of the play, that of representing the triumph of love over wealth and rank in a woman fully susceptible of the charms of the latter, is the animating life of the piece. We hardly know, out of Fletcher and Shakspeare, a play where fidelity to a sentiment is represented with such ethereal grace.

In “Luria” and “The Return of the Druses,” an intimate acquaintance is shown with the best and worst parts of human nature, and the development of the characters indicates that the author’s dramatic skill grows with exercise. Luria is a noble character, original in conception, and finely developed from “within outwards.” “A Soul’s Tragedy” has many marked excellences of thought, and diction, and exhibits one of the most hateful qualities in human nature, with a blended dramatic coolness and individual abhorrence, singularly felicitous.

The “Dramatic Lyrics” are very striking, and are full of matter. “Count Gismond,” “Porphyria’s Lover,” “The Confessional,” “The Lost Leader,” and “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” we should select as, on the whole, the best. The latter, written for little William Macready, exhibits the peculiar vein of humor in which Browning excels, and of which we have indications all over his works. The commencement we will venture to extract:

But the grandest pieces in the volume are “Pippa Passes,” and “A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.” The latter, in the opinion of Dickens, is the finest poem of the century. We think there can be detected in it that hardness of touch which characterizes the other dramas, but the depth and pathos of the matter, and the approach to something like impassioned action in the events, make it wonderfully impressive. Once read it must haunt the imagination forever, for its power strikes deep into the very substance and core of the soul. Thorold’s adamantine pride, and Guendolen’s sweet woman’s sympathy, and Mildred’s awful sorrow, can never be forgotten. Mildred’s repetition, in moments of agony or half-consciousness, of the lines⁠—

exceeds in pathetic effect any thing in English dramatic literature since the Elizabethan era.

We hardly know how to express our admiration of “Pippa Passes,” making as it does the “sense of satisfaction ache,” with its abounding beauty. In this piece the author’s nature seems for once to have become fluid, and gushes out in melodious thought and passion. Pippa herself is one of poetry’s most exquisite creations, and, among her many “passes,” those she makes into the hearts and imaginations of a thousand readers, ought not to be overlooked. The design of the play is new, and it would be difficult to state in an intellectual form the source of its charm. Its completeness is in its seeming incompleteness. The grandest scene is that between Ottima and Sebald, the fine audacity of which carries us back to the elder period of the English drama. The greatest instance of imagination in Browning’s works is contained in this scene. We give it below:

The dedication of “Pippa Passes” is beautifully ingenious;

We trust that the elegant edition of Browning, which we have here noticed, will make him widely known in the United States. The volumes are in Ticknor & Co.’s best style, both as regards type and paper.

This is a timely production, written by a man who appears to have sterling honesty as well as sterling sense, and devoted to a subject as interesting as any which can engage the attention of the community. We hope it will attract sufficient attention to insure its extensive circulation, and bring it within the notice of all families. The author grapples with his subject thoroughly, and almost exhausts it. Owing to the various forms, genteel and vulgar, which quackery has assumed in our day, no person, intelligent or ignorant, is safe from some one mode of its operation, as it has contrivances for every age, disposition, grade of mental development, and social station. Dr. Hooker has gone elaborately over the whole matter, and has really given the philosophy as well as the facts of empiricism, both as it exists out of the profession and in it. He does not spare those physicians who follow medicine as a trade, instead of pursuing it as a profession, “and study the science of patient-getting to the neglect of the science of patient curing,” while in showing the processes of the quack in experimenting on the credulity of his victims, he has done an essential service to the health of the community. We can but reiterate the hope that the volume, full as it is of practical wisdom, will be extensively circulated, and do its part toward enlightening the most quack-ridden people on the face of the earth.

This edition of Hume is uniform with the same publishers’ edition of Macaulay. It is neatly printed in good sized type, and is placed at a price sufficiently cheap to bring it within the reach of the humblest reader. It is reprinted from the last and best London edition, and is prefaced by Hume’s delightful autobiography. It is needless to inform our readers that the work is a classic, and ranks with the greatest historical works ever written in this world. But though its fame is wide, we doubt if the generality of the reading public give it their attention. This is really abstinence from pleasure as well as instruction, for Hume is among the most fascinating of narrators. His style is simple, clear, racy, and flowing, beyond that of almost any English historian, and being but a translucent mirror of events and reflections, it attracts no attention to itself, and therefore never tires. The wonder of the book is its happy union of narration and reflections and the skill with which every thing is brought home to the humblest capacity. It belongs to that class of works in which power is not paraded, but unobtrusively insinuated in thoughts carelessly dropped, as it were, in the course of a familiar narration of interesting incidents. “Easy writing,” said Sheridan, “is cursed hard writing.” The easy style of Hume is an illustration. The reader, at the end, feels that he has been keeping company with a great man, gifted with an extraordinary grasp and subtlety of mind, but during the journey he thought he was but chatting with an agreeable and intelligent familiar companion.

The present volume is the first of a series of six, in which the authoress intends to indicate the rationale of the successful merchant, lawyer, mechanic, artist, physician and farmer, illustrating each department by biographical anecdotes. We have here, as the leader of the series, a volume on The Merchant. The style is gossiping, without much pretension to beauty or correctness, but the matter indicates a shrewd mind and extensive miscellaneous reading. There is one chapter devoted almost wholly to Robert Morris, a man whose amplitude of mind comprehended both statesmanship and commerce, and whom Burke might have adduced in proof of his assertion, that he had known merchants with the large conceptions of statesmen, and statesmen with the little notions of pedlars. Mrs. Tuthill chats very agreeably of Morris, and among other anecdotes of him, gives a laconic letter he wrote to some French officers in the American army, on their insolently demanding an immediate settlement of their arrears of pay. Here it is, and it is a good example of cutting knots which cannot be untied: “Gentlemen,—I have received this morning your application. I make the earliest answer to it. You demand immediate payment, I have no money to pay you with.” We extract this letter as a model to those of our readers who are often puzzled, under similar circumstances, to hit upon the right mode of announcing such uncomfortable demands to perform the impossible.

Mr. Arthur’s name, as a delineator of American character and manners, and an earnest and sincere advocate of sound, uncompromising morality, is already familiar to the reading public, not only in the United States but in Europe. His object, in every production of his able pen, is well understood to be utility—utility in the highest sense of the word, that which has reference to man’s eternal wellbeing. In his lighter as well as in his graver effusions, the same exalted object is always kept steadily in view. He writes to improve the characters and exalt the aim of his readers. This is the secret of his wide-spread popularity. Men love and respect those who exhibit a steady, consistent, and persevering adherence to principle. In the princely mansions of the Atlantic merchants, and in the rude log-cabins of the backwoodsmen, the name of Arthur is equally known and cherished as the friend of virtue, and the eloquent advocate of temperance.

The work before us is a judicious selection made by the author himself, from his most popular tales. His numerous admirers will rejoice in an opportunity to possess themselves of so considerable a number of his best performances, not in the fugitive shape of articles for the journals, but in an elegant volume of over four hundred octavo pages, richly illustrated with engravings, and handsomely got up in every respect. We predict for this volume a very extensive sale, and particularly recommend it as a highly appropriate gift-book in the present holyday season. As it is a subscription book, it will be sold only by agents. Mr. J. W. Bradley, 48 North Fourth street, Philadelphia, is the publisher, and persons at a distance can order it from him.

This is an admirable translation of a work requiring something more than a knowledge of French to be well translated. The spirit is rendered as well as the letter. The book itself, will outlive all of Lamartine’s other productions, from its connection with a great historical event, even if it were not invaluable as a psychological curiosity. No reader who penetrates into its animating spirit, curious to discover in Lamartine’s individual character the source of its miraculous self-content can resist the impression that the author considers himself so much a god, that he would not be in the least surprised if a band of fanatics should erect a temple for his worship. No man, whose nature was not in his own estimation raised above human nature, could possibly have the face to present such a work as the present to the public eye. It is a sentimental apotheosis of the writer. The reader finds the narrative of the events of the revolution altogether inferior in interest to the exhibition of Lamartine, and he is lost in wonder as he thinks what must be the character of a nation in which such a man could be lifted into power. The author, beyond any man we have ever known through history, fiction, or actual life, can fasten his gaze on himself as mirrored in his self-esteem, and exclaim, “thou art beautiful and good.” Old John Bunyan, in descending one day from the pulpit, where he had preached with tremendous power, was accosted by an old lady with the compliment, “Oh! what a refreshing sermon!” “Yes,” replied Bunyan, “the Devil whispered in my ear to that effect as I came down.” Now this devil is at Lamartine’s ear all the time, but Lamartine mistakes him for an angel.

We are glad to welcome Mr. Paulding back again to the land of romance, even though he enters it with a somewhat jaunty air, and a somewhat scornful toss of his head. There is a bitter, if we may not call it saucy, brilliancy about our author, which we think is rather a recommendation than otherwise, and in the present volumes he has exhibited it to his heart’s and gall’s content. The work is dedicated, in a humorously reckless and critic-defying preface, to the “most high and mighty sovereign of sovereigns, King People,” and scattered through the novel are abundant pleasant impertinences, sufficiently marked by individual whim and crotchet, to stimulate the reader to go on reading, even should the interest of the story flag. We have only had time to dip into the work, here and there, but have read enough to know that it “means mischief,” and that it has more than Mr. Paulding’s common raciness and plain speaking.

The approach of the holydays is, as usual, marked by the advent of new publications.

Among the most beautiful that have been laid upon our table are The Life of Christ, by the Rev. H. Hastings Weld, and a new edition of Dr. Johnson’s admirable Rasselas. These works are published by Messrs. Hogan & Thompson, in the most finished and approved manner, conforming in style to Paul and Virginia, and the Vicar of Wakefield, issued by the same gentlemen last year. We cannot speak too highly of the typographical execution of the volumes before us, or the magnificent binding in which they are enclosed. Both are superb, and reflect credit alike on the publishers, and the artists who have invested with new charms, two volumes which deservedly merit a place in every library.

The Poet’s Offering, is the title of a splendid volume of nearly six hundred pages, edited by Mrs. Hale, and published by Messrs. Gregg & Elliott. It is beautifully illustrated, and will, we think, prove one of the most popular gift books of the season—for it is a gift book—as the fair editor justly remarks, on a new plan, the contents of which are of more value than the cover, and she does not assume too much, when she declares that in this volume will be found the most perfect gems of genius the English language has preserved since the days of Spenser. More than four hundred authors are quoted, and in the arrangement of the book, great care has been taken to exhibit the peculiar excellencies of each writer. That Mrs. Hale has acquitted herself admirably in the execution of an arduous undertaking, is an unquestionable fact, and her efforts have been nobly seconded by the liberality of the publishers, in sparing neither labor nor expense to prepare for the public taste a most beautiful, valuable, and acceptable volume.

Anaïs Toudouze

Presented by Edward L. Walker, 160 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Punctuation has been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals available for preparation of the eBook.

[The end of Graham's Magazine Vol. 35 No. 6 December 1849 edited by George Rex Graham]