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Title: Graham's Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 1, July 1841
Author: Various
Language: English
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1, JULY 1841 ***
GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
Vol. XIX. July, 1841. No. 1.
Contents
Fiction, Literature and Articles
Jugurtha
The Fiery Death
Lovers’ Quarrels
The Mistaken Choice
A Dream of the Lonely Isle
The Head and the Heart
The Reefer of ’76 continued
A Few Words on Secret Writing
Sports and Pastimes—Angling
Review of New Books
Poetry, Music and Fashion
Latest Fashions, July 1841
The Gleaners
Hope On
Woman’s Dower
The Precipice
Lines
Stanzas
To the Mocking-Bird
The Dervish
Extract from an Unpublished Poem
Sybil and Maiden
“Away, Then, to the Mountains”
Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.
* * * * *
[Illustration: LATEST FASHIONS, JULY 1841. FOR GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE]
[Illustration: William Owen. Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie.
_Cottage Life_
Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.]
GRAHAM’S
LADY’S AND GENTLEMAN’S
MAGAZINE.
(THE CASKET AND GENTLEMAN’S UNITED.)
EMBRACING
EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE:
EMBELLISHED WITH
THE FINEST MEZZOTINTO AND STEEL ENGRAVINGS,
ELEGANT EMBOSSED WORK,
FASHIONS AND MUSIC.
VOLUME XIX.
PHILADELPHIA:
GEORGE R. GRAHAM.
1841.
* * * * *
INDEX
TO THE
NINETEENTH VOLUME.
FROM JUNE TO DECEMBER, 1841, INCLUSIVE.
Assault, the, by J. H. Dana, 56
Auzella, by Mrs. E. Van Horn Ellis, 65
Autography, a Chapter on, by Edgar A. Poe, 224, 273
Achilles, the Marriage of, by H. W. Herbert, 269
Brother and Sister, by Jeremy Short, Esq. 145
(_illustrated_,)
Cottage Life, by Jeremy Short, Esq. (_illustrated_,) 1
Colloquy of Monos and Una, the, by Edgar A. Poe, 54
Clark, Willis Gaylord, 85
Cottage Fireside, the, (_illustrated_,) 97
Cottage Piety, by Jeremy Short, Esq. (_illustrated_,) 140
Captain’s Courtship, the, by H. Printzhoff, 200
(_illustrated_,)
Fiery Death, the, by J. H. Dana, 6
Flirtation, by Emma C. Embury, 109
Fort Point, by D. M. Elwood, 240
Ghost of Chew’s Wall, the, by Oliver Oldfellow, Esq. 194
Hawkers, the (_illustrated_,) 253
Head and the Heart, the, by W. Landor, 19
Ideal, the, by G. G. Foster, 293
Interesting Stranger, the, by Emma C. Embury, 205
Indian Traditions, by D. M. Elwood, 161, 240
Jugurtha, by H. W. Herbert, 3
Kate Beverly, by Percie H. Selton, 146
King’s Bride, the, by J. H. Dana, 235
Lover’s Quarrels, by Percie H. Selton, 10
Lame for Life, or Leslie Pierpoint, by Professor J. H. 128, 149
Ingraham,
Leaves from a Lawyer’s Port-Folio, 134
Mistaken Choice, the, by Emma C. Embury, 13
Misfortunes of a Timid Gentleman, by J. Ross Browne, 120, 289
Moonlight Flitting, by Eliza Van Horn Ellis, 221
Neglected Wife, the, by Robert Morris, 58
Niagara, a Day at, by Mrs. E. C. Stedman, 82
Never Bet Your Head, by Edgar A. Poe, 123
O’Donnell’s Prize, by H. Printzhoff, 157
Penitent Son, the, (_illustrated_,) 49
Puritan Son, the, by H. W. Herbert, 61
Reefer of ’76, the, by the Author of “Cruizing in the 28, 76, 104,
Last War,” 179, 203, 257
Rowsevillers, the, by Herman Printzhoff, 157, 205
Roman Bride, the, by H. W. Herbert, 172
Review of New Books, 45, 90, 142,
188, 246, 300
Rescue at the Eleventh Hour, the, by J. Milton Sanders, 299
Sports and Pastimes, 40, 141, 186,
246
Schoolboy Recollections, by F. W. Thomas, 67
Shakspeare, by T. S. Fay, 99, 168, 210,
261
Saxon’s Bridal, the, by H. W. Herbert, 115
Step Mother, the, 134
Stolen Miniature, the, by Mrs. R. S. Nichols, 265
Vagrant, the, by L. F. Tasistro, 176
Wawhillowa, by D. M. Elwood, 161
Wiccónsat, by Mary W. Ford, 214
POETRY.
A Dream of the Lonely Isle, by Mrs. M. St. Leon Loud, 18
A Belle at a Ball, by F. W. Thomas, 119
A Forest Scene, by Mrs. R. S. Nichols, 160
Ballad, by J. R. Lowell, 171
Baptism of Pocahontas, by the Author of “The Dream of 178
the Delaware,”
Christian’s Dream of the Future, by Robert Morris, 156
Choice of Hearts, the, by Thos. G. Spear, 303
Dervish, the, by W. Falconer, 32
Dying Poet, the, by Robert Morris, 85
Death, by C. H. W. Esling, 114
Ephemera, by C. W. Thomson, 213
Fragment, by Park Benjamin, 98
First Kiss of Love, the, by G. A. Raybold, 127
Flight of the Birds, by Mrs. E. C. Stedman, 199
Gleaners, the, by A. A. Irvine, 2
Glad Retreat, the, by E. G. Squires, 260
Hope On, by Mrs. C. H. W. Esling, 5
Helen, to, by Edgar A. Poe, 123
He Woo’d me at the Fountain, by A. M‘Makin, 264
I know that Thou wilt Sorrow, by Mrs. R. S. Nichols, 57
Israfel, by Edgar A. Poe, 183
Il Serenado di Venice, 209
I never have been False to Thee, by G. P. Morris, 223
Lines, by D. Maxwell, 18
Lines, by J. Tomlin, 292
Lyre Bird, the, by N. C. Brooks, 292
Lines, by J. E. Dow, 297
Mocking Bird, to the 27
Meeting of the Lovers, the, by F. W. Thomas, 38
My Mother’s Bible, by G. P. Morris, 51
Major Dade’s Command, 84
Merry England, by J. R. Lowell, 238
Marriage, by Rufus Dawes, 239
Niagara, by Grenville Mellen, 175
O, say, do I na’ lo’e ye, Lassie, 64
Oh! a Merry Life does a Hunter lead, by G. P. Morris, 108
Precipice, by H. J. Vernon, 12
Pet Lamb, the, by A. A. Irvine, 193
Portrait, Lines to a, by A. C. Ainsworth, 297
Reproof of a Bird, by J. E. Snodgrass, 103
Stanzas, by Mrs. E. C. Stedman, 27
Sybil and Maiden, by G. G. Foster, 39
Sonnet, by Park Benjamin, 53
Sonnets, by H. B. Hirst, 220
Sweet South Wind, the, by Mrs. L. J. Pierson, 286
Thoughts in Spring, by H. B. Hirst, 67
Venice, 268
Woman’s Dower, by Mrs. L. J. Pierson, 9
Withered Rose, the, by A. A. Irvine, 78
Widow, the, by Mrs. M. S. B. Dana, 84
Wildwood Home, the, by Mrs. L. J. Pierson, 103
Widow’s Wealth, the, by Mrs. E. C. Stedman, 108
Why should I love thee? by J. S. Du Solle, 119
With Thee, by Mrs. C. H. W. Esling, 213
STEEL ENGRAVINGS.
Cottage Life.
The Gleaners.
Fashions for July, (four figures,) colored.
The Penitent Son.
Fashions for August, (four figures,) colored.
Lace Work and Flowers, colored.
The Cottage Fireside.
Cottage Piety.
Fashions for September, (four figures,) colored.
Brother and Sister.
The Valley of Wyoming.
Lace Work and Flowers, colored.
Fashions for October, (four figures,) colored.
The Pet Lamb.
Embossed View of Boston.
Fashions for November, (four figures,) colored.
Hawking.
Lace Work and Flowers, colored.
Fashions for December, (four figures,) colored.
MUSIC.
Away, then, to the Mountains, 42
Farewell! if ever Fondest Prayer, 88
My bonnie blue-eyed Lassie, O! 138
Bye-gone Hours, 184
Never shall my Heart forget Thee, 244
* * * * *
GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
Vol. XIX. PHILADELPHIA: JULY, 1841. No. 1.
* * * * *
COTTAGE LIFE.
The summer is here!—here with its fragrant mornings and its noonday
heats, its mellow twilights and its moonlight evenings, its days of
glory and its nights of starry beauty. It is summer. Let us go out into
the country, away from the stifling air and dull brick walls of the
town, into the far, pure, breezy, unsurpassable country. There we shall
breathe the fresh air of Heaven. We will lie down on some shady knoll;
or stretch ourselves beside the cooling stream; or wander off among the
breezy woods; or perchance sit in some quiet arbor of the garden,
listening to the low humming of the bees, or the far-off tinkle of the
brooklet on the stones. Ay! we will go out into the country. We will
gaze on the green grass, the growing flowers, the cloudless azure of the
skies. But we will do more. We will gaze on our fellow man such as God
made him, and not on the too often mean, grovelling and short-sighted
denizens of the town. We will go out into the country. We will go into
its stately palaces, secluded among sombre trees; into the airy,
fantastic dwellings of retired citizens; into sunny old farm-houses,
with their wide porches inviting us to enter; and—oftener than
all—into the smiling cottages, which, peeping out from amid
overspreading honeysuckles, dozing under willow trees by the brook-side,
or nestling beneath the shadow of a green and fragrant hill, are
scattered all over the land, in hill and in dell, studding it, as it
were, with loveliness. And wherever we go we shall still find beauty.
God hath left his impress on the green fields and running brooks, and
every leaf that quivers in the breeze, and every bird that carols on the
air, speak out His praise.
We are in the country; and yonder is a cottage nestled close under the
hill-side, like a dove in the bosom of a young and innocent girl. Hear
you not the brook, low pattering before its door; that brook which at
eve and morning, ay! in the still watches of the night, may be heard
murmuring mysteriously, as if it were angels’ voices conversing on the
quiet air? Let us go into that cottage. There are flowers before the
house and honeysuckles around the door, and everything, even to the
garden flags, is white-washed. There are roses under the window—how
fragrant! And yet the owner of that little tenement has a hand horny
with labor, and not a day passes, summer or winter, but that he is up
before dawn, toiling for his richer neighbor. How does he live? Would
you know what cottage life is? Come with us, then, into the fields, and
let us sit together by this brawling brook, while we recount the history
of a cottage life.
All over this land there are spots like this, of bewildering beauty;
where toil and rest, and wo and happiness, have struggled together for
years. There are thousands, ay! tens of thousands, of humble cottages,
the lives of whose inmates have never won a thought from the rich and
proud, and yet in those cottages beat as true hearts as in the most
gorgeous mansions of the realm. The rich are born, and great is the
rejoicing thereat; they live, and crowds shout triumphs wherever they
go; they die, and they are laid by obsequious hands in proud mausoleums;
but the poor come and go like the leaves of the forest, and no man
careth for their fate. Their childhood of early toil; their youth of
premature sorrow; their lives of hard, unyielding, grinding poverty,
what does the world care for these? Yet the poor are not without
comfort. They have within their own circle as kindly bosoms as the rich;
they have dear ones, loved with a fervor wealth can rarely win, to cheer
them in distress; they have a fireside, humble, indeed, but still a
fireside around which to gather with their prattlers, and smile and be
merry after the toils of the day are done.
With early dawn the cottager is up and afield. If he labors at the soil,
you will find him with the plough in hand, keeping his monotonous track
to and fro, regardless, apparently, of the stifled air, or the sultry
rays of noon-day. He may pause an hour or so at dinner, but he is soon
at his labor again. The cattle may be dozing under the trees, the birds
may be carolling gaily around, the woods, and streams, and all nature
may be full of merry play, but still he must keep up his weary toil,
until twilight at length releases him, and he hurries home to spend a
few hours of fleeting happiness among his little ones, to sleep, and
again to resume his toil.
But there is a bright side to the picture. The Cottager was not always a
man, he was once a happy child, and in gazing on the frolicks of his
little ones, his own youth appears to be renewed. And where do the
domestic affections exist with more purity than in our cottages? From
the love of a child for its little brother or its sister, up to the love
of a mother for her first-born, there is nothing purer, deeper, or more
enduring than the affections of those who inhabit our cottages.
We see now two beings at that cottage door, a mother and her boy. The
child hath fallen asleep upon her lap, and he reposes with a grace so
careless, and there is such an innocent joy upon his face, that one
cannot but feel that he is supremely happy. How he nestles on that
mother’s knee. The vine that gaily winds around the gentle sapling, or
hangs so airily over the little group, is not more beautiful than he.
And she!—is not the book held to shade his countenance, and the holy,
contemplative emotions which light up her face as with the divinity of
an angel, beyond comparison, ay! almost beyond imagination. God be
thanked that there are thousands all over this broad land as happy as
they!
Sunday is the time for cottage life. Then the new coat is taken out,
carefully brushed, and put on—the little ones are clad in their tidy,
well-kept Sabbath clothes—and the good house-wife attires herself in
her best, adding, often, some little piece of finery, which a month’s
savings have tempted her to buy. Directly the bell is heard calling them
to church. Away at the signal they go, with a quiet decorum even in the
children; and soon they meet others trooping over the hills to the
white-steepled meeting house in the glen. And when the sermon is over,
and they pass out of the house of God, there are greetings among
neighbors, inquiries after old friends, and perchance here and there
long conversations betwixt good house-wives, which seem like the fairy’s
dream, never to come to an end. And in the afternoon some one is sure to
drop in, when the best tea-cups are brought out from the corner
cupboard, and the best hot cakes, and such tempting coffee are prepared
by the good dame, that your mouth fairly waters until you have tasted
thereof. And how merry all are—not with a boisterous mirth, but with a
calm happiness, reminding you continually of the day. And all this time
the children are playing on the lawn, or gathering buttercups to hold
under each others chins, or laughing in their own innocent way so
joyously, that their mothers will pause awhile, and look on them and
smile. And by and by night will come, and the company will depart, and
so, after reading a chapter of the bible, the cottagers will go to bed.
Though the stars, on a Sabbath night, look down on many a quiet, happy
home, they smile on none where there is more happiness than there. And
such is Cottage Life.
J. S.
* * * * *
[Illustration: The Gleaners
Engraved by Eldridge expressly for Graham’s Magazine.]
THE GLEANERS.
BY ALEX. A. IRVINE.
It is the noon of summer time—
How breathless are the trees!
No more the sea of yellow corn
Is rippling in the breeze;
The kine are gasping in the stream,
Nor earth nor sky has breath,
And sickly waves the sultry air—
How like, yet unlike death!
The reapers long have ceased their toil,
And idly in the shade
They dream away the drowsy noon,
Beside each silent blade,—
While now and then a snatch of song
Some sleeper low will croon,
As in his dreams he joins the dance
Beneath the harvest moon.
The sun is at his highest point,
Yet on that burning field
Two youthful gleaners humbly toil,
God be to them a shield!
Their aged parent bed-rid lies,
And want is at their door,—
Ah! well young martyrs may you strive—
No rest is for the poor.
Their store is gleaned—they homeward hie—
How smilingly they go!
We little know how light a thing
May dry the tears of woe.
The pittance slight, the one kind word
With which we all can part,
May take the sting from poverty,
Or save a broken heart.
To view those gleaners on their way
It were a pleasant thing—
They’re talking of their mother’s joy
To see the store they bring.
How gracefully the sister moves,
As if she stepped to song;
And gaily at her statelier side
The glad boy trips along.
Smile on! smile on, ye happy pair,
God’s blessing on your way!
It fills my breast with joy to know
That ye can be so gay.
Smile on, for soon ye’ll hear _her_ voice,
And know her welcome bright,—
And happy hearts shall beat I ween
Beneath your roof to-night.
* * * * *
JUGURTHA;
A LEGEND OF THE COMMONWEALTH.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE BROTHERS,” “CROMWELL,” “RINGWOOD THE ROVER,” ETC.
It was a glorious day in Rome; the unclouded sun was blazing in the
clear azure of a deep Italian sky, filling the universal air with life
and lustre; the summer winds were all abroad, crisping the bosom of the
yellow Tiber into ten thousand tiny rivulets, tossing ten thousand dewy
odors from their wings, and bearing with them, far and near, the myriad
harmonies of nature. It was a day of revelry, of loud exulting mirth, of
gratified ambition to the one, of haughty triumph to the million.
It was in truth a day of triumph. Marius, the people’s idol, the great
plebeian conqueror, had brought the army home—the army, long foiled and
often beaten on the parched sands of the Zahara, or by the scanty
streams of the Bagradas and Mulucha—had brought the army home,
scar-seamed and wearied and war-worn, but glorious and elated and
triumphant; for with them came a chained, indignant captive, the
bravest, fiercest, wisest of all the kings who yet had dared to strive
against the unconquered majesty of the Republic: the murderer, the
fratricide Jugurtha; he who had mocked the justice, and with success
defied the brazen legions and the superb commanders of Rome’s resistless
warfare; he who had driven out from his Numidian confines, whether by
force or fraud, two several consular armies, sent one, degraded and
debased forever, beneath the ignominious yoke, and for long years
possessed his blood-bought throne in spite of all the efforts of his
tremendous rival.
Now, therefore, was the day of retribution, and all the fiery passions
of the Italian heart were at work hotly in the crowd that thronged the
thoroughfares of the great city on that auspicious morning. Well might
they throng the streets, for never, from that day to this, has aught of
pomp or pageant been invented that could sustain comparison one moment
with the unequalled splendors of a Roman triumph. The whole line of
proud streets, up from the field of Mars to the Capitoline, was strewn
with carpets of the rich Tyrian crimson; cartloads of flowers—rose,
violet, narcissus, hyacinth—were scattered everywhere, to send their
perfumes forth beneath the trampling feet of the triumphant legions. The
walls of every house and palace were hung with glowing tapestries, with
waving flags, and laurel-woven garlands. From every shrine and chapel,
hundreds of which were there sacred to one or other of Rome’s hundred
deities, sang forth the melody of sacrificial hymns, and streamed the
breath of incense. The sun had reached the summit of his ascending
course, when from the distant campus arose at once the din, piercing the
ears and thrilling as it were to the very soul, of the great sacred
trumpets, and the earth-shaking shout of Rome’s vast population; then on
they came—a long and dazzling line of splendor—three hundred
snow-white steers, unblemished and majestic, the far-famed breed of the
Clitunnus, led the van, with gilded horns, and fluttering fillets of
bright hues about their ample fronts, led by as many youths in
sacrificial tunics of pure white; then came the bands of music, trumpet
and horn and clarion, and the quick clashing cymbal blent with the deep
bass of the Phrygian drum; and then the Flamens of the gods, in the
appropriate and gorgeous dresses; the great Dialis, with his red tuft
and snow-white robes; the Salian priests of Mars, with brazen helms and
corselets and flowery tunics girded up, and on their arms the sacred
shields of Numa; the vestals, stoled and veiled and silent, and the mad
ministers of Cybele, with their strange instruments of music, leaping
and dancing with strange gestures, and waking all the echoes with their
barbaric hymnings. After these stately and revered, and almost divine
personages, trooped on—strange contrast—a band of mimics and jesters,
buffoons with scurrilous songs and obscene gestures, calling forth from
the mob of Rome many a plaudit by their licentious wit. Then, with
perfumes and steaming censers, scattering bunches of the choicest
flowers, all in their purple bordered tunics, with golden balls about
their necks, barefooted and bareheaded, the sons of the Patricians
passed, the prime of Rome’s young aristocracy. Other musicians followed,
and then, caparisoned for war, with castles on their backs and gorgeous
housings on their unwieldy carcasses, each driven by a coal-black
Ethiopian astride on his huge neck, the captured elephants—an hundred
mighty monsters, the like of which had never before gladdened the eyes
of the amazed and wonder-stricken populace. Next rolled the wains, slow
dragged by snow-white oxen, groaning beneath the weight of the rich
spoils of the Numidian empire—armor of gold and silver, weapons thick
set with emeralds and diamonds, statues and jars and vases of pure
gold—dazzling the eyes and bewildering the senses with their unequalled
splendor.
Hark! what a roar, a thunder of applause! It is—it is—Io triumphe, Io
pæan, it is the mighty Marius! Aloft he stood—aloft in more than regal
pomp, in more than mortal glory. The car was ivory and gold, embossed
and carved with rare device, drawn by six steeds abreast, white as the
driven snow, with manes and tails that literally swept the ground,
housed with rich crimson trappings, harnessed and reined with gold. But
what were ivory or gold, or what the choicest specimens of mere brute
beauty, to the sublime and glorious figure of the triumphant general?
Tall, powerful, broad shouldered and strong limbed, as he stood there
clad in the tunic and toga of fine crimson, all woven over with palm
branches of gold, wearing the laurel crown upon his coal-black locks,
and holding in his right hand the ivory sceptre, and in his left a
branch of green triumphal bay, he looked the emblem, the very
incarnation and ideal of Rome’s undaunted energy. His hair, black as the
raven’s wing, was curled in short crisp locks close to his finely formed
head and expansive temples; his nose was high, keen, aquiline; his eyes
bright as the eagle’s, and, like his, formed as it were to gaze into the
very focus of the sun’s beams, and pierce the dunnest war clouds with
all-pervading vision; his lips were thin, firm and compressed, with that
set iron curve which gives the strongest token of indomitable
resolution. Swarthy almost to negro blackness, gloomy and lowering was
his brow, and furrowed by deep lines of care and passion—yet was there
naught that savored in the least of cruelty or even of suspicion in the
bold, daring features—pride there was evident in every glance, in every
gesture, and fiery courage, and stern constancy; but nothing jealous or
tyrannical, much less bloodthirsty or vindictive. Yet this was he who in
after years let slip the dogs of Hell against the sons of his own mother
Rome, who deluged her fair streets with oceans of Patrician gore, and
made her shrines and palaces, her stateliest temples and her lowliest
dwellings, one mighty human shambles. But now he was all gratified
ambition, proud courtesy and high anticipation; yet he bowed not nor
smiled at the reiterated clamors of the mighty concourse, nor waved his
laurelled sceptre to and fro, but held his proud head high and
heavenward, and kept his dark eye fixed on vacancy, as though he would
pierce onward—onward—through space and time, far off into the secrets
of futurity, with consulships and censorships and triumphs, provinces,
armies, honors, Fame, thronging before his footsteps, and still
beckoning him forward. Behind him stood a slave, such was the order, the
immemorial order, of the triumphal rite, who ever and anon, as louder
pealed the acclamations of the mob, and wilder waxed the din of
gratulation, leaned forward, whispering in his ear, “Remember, Marius,
remember that thou art a man!” for so sublime, so godlike, was that
station deemed, that the stern fathers of the young Republic had judged
such warning needful to curb the vaultings of that pride which might
believe itself immortal.
Behind the chariot wheels stalked one, alas! how far removed from the
haught victor, the royal Moor, Rome’s deadliest foe, Jugurtha. He, as
his conqueror, was tall, and of a bearing that had been soldierly at
once and royal—yet he was not, though vigorously strong and very
active, of a frame nearly so superb or massive as the great
Roman—lithe, sinewy and muscular, he showed all the distinctive marks
characteristic of his race; his face was handsome—the features at least
eminently so—of a clear, sunny olive hue, through which the blood would
gleam at times, when passion drove its currents, boiling like molten
lava, through every vein and artery: but now it was as cold and pallid
as though he had already passed the portals of the grave. His eyes, like
those of Marius, glared forward into the vacant air; but not like his
was his mind bent forward. Back! back!—long years of retrospection—to
the bright, happy days of youth, when he and his two murdered cousins
sported together, before the fell and fiendish lust of empire had turned
their blood to gall; to the young promise of his glorious manhood, when,
side by side with Scipio, he strove before the bulwarks of Numantia:
when he was praised and honored of that great commander in the full
presence of a Roman host; and, later still, to his proud aspirations
after thrones, to his triumphant usurpation, his undoubted sway over the
glowing hearts and tameless energies of the free, wild Numidians; and,
later yet, to fields of furious warfare, to midnight marches over the
lone sands of the desert, dark ambuscades near to some long sought
river, skirmishes, onslaughts, victories—aye! victories won from the
Roman. His scarlet turban, decked with the tall tiara peculiar to the
royal race, still gleamed as if in mockery above his ashy brow; his
caftan, gleaming with fringes and embroideries of gold, girded with
costly shawls, from which still hung his gold sheathed and gold hilted
scimetar; his wide and flowing robe of fine white woollen stuff, so fine
and gauze-like in its texture that all the gorgeous hues of his
under-dress were visible, though mellowed in their tints, beneath it;
his necklace of the richest gems, armlets and bracelets, and long
pendants in his ears of the most precious rubies, all spoke the
Prince—the King! But lo! beside the bracelets upon those swarthy arms,
the galling manacles of steel, and on the sinewy ancles, clasping the
jewelled sandals with their stern circles, the fetters of the
captive—of the slave! They clanked—they clanked at every stride, those
fearful emblems, and still, as every ringing clash announced the fallen
state of their late dreaded foe, the savage mob sent forth loud yells of
mirth, mingled with groans of execration! But he felt not the fetters,
nor marked the clanging din that harbingered his footsteps, nor heard
the hootings of the rabble; he knew not that his sons, his two beloved
ones, were beside him, fettered and manacled as he, their guilty sire;
he saw not the procession nor the pomp, nor knew that they but
marshalled him to death.
Behind this lamentable group stalked, two and two, with their dread
implements (the rod-bound axes,) ready and glittering coldly in the sun,
the lictors; and behind these, on foot, and in his toga all unadorned
and simple, the consul colleague of the triumphant chief; and after him
the senate, renowned, grave and wise—stately, sublime assemblage! Then,
with the din of martial music, and the loud clash of brazen armor, their
helmets all enwreathed with branches of the bay tree, their banners and
their eagles entwined and over-canopied with laurel, on swept the
conquering army; each legion, with its horse, its skirmishers, its
engines, its legate and his tribunes on their proud chargers, and its
centurions marching at the head each of his manipule, rolled on—row
after row of brass, solid, compact, immovable—a vast machine of men,
with but one voice, one stride, one motion for ten thousand human
beings. “Io Triumphe! Io Pæan! Ho! for the godlike General! Ho! for the
conquering army!” Such was the pomp of Marius, but so closed not the
line of the procession, for every soul of Rome’s vast population swelled
it for miles in length; old tottering grandsires, men in the prime of
manhood, youths in the flush of spring-time, boys, children, infants at
the breast, matrons and brides and maidens—all ranks, all classes, all
conditions—the proud, luxurious patrician, the turbulent democracy,
mechanics from the suburbs and farmers from the colonies, and slaves and
freedmen, all thronged exultingly the via Sacra, all swelled the shout
for Marius.
And now they reached the capitol, and the great leader slowly descended
from his car, and, led by pontifex and priest, mounted the hundred steps
of brass, and stood before the temple of Jupiter Capitoline, the
guardian god of the great city. Then louder pealed the trumpets and the
hymns, and incense smoked up to the skies, veiling the very temple, in
its dense wreaths of snow, from those who gazed up thither from the
Forum. The prayers were prayed, the offerings tendered to the god, the
victims slaughtered, the supplication and thanksgiving ended. Then, in
the temple of the god, the Senate and the Consuls feasted, and the lord
of that high feast was Caius Marius. Wine flowed and golden goblets
clanged, and there was merriment and revelry and joy.
And where was he—Jugurtha?
“There is a place,”—we quote the words of his historian—“there is a
place in the prison which is called the Tullianum, when you have
ascended a little way to the left hand, sunk about twelve feet under
ground. Walls surrounded it on every side, and a vaulted roof above,
compact with stone groinings; but from its filth, its darkness, and its
fœtid smell, its appearance is alike terrible and loathsome.” Such is
the plain and unadorned description of a cell yet existing; they call it
now San Pietro in Carcere. Thither the lictors bore Jugurtha; he spoke
not at all, nor seemed to understand or to see anything. They stripped
him of his gorgeous robes and rich trappings with fierce, indecent
haste; they snatched the chains from round about his neck, the bracelets
from his arms; they tore the pendants from his ears, and—for they might
not spare the time to loose the clasps—tore the tips of his ears away
also! They stripped him to the skin, yet he resisted not, nor strove,
nor struggled; they lowered him with ropes—him, in his fetters—into
that foul and ghastly cell, and then a horrid smile flitted across his
features—“This bath of yours,” he said, “methinks is very chilly!” He
shuddered, was let down, alone—and died there, as his crimes had
merited!
* * * * *
HOPE ON.
BY MRS. C. H. W. ESLING.
Hope on—the clouds that gather thick before thee
Hide the glad light that led thy steps afar,
But beams there not, on night’s dark Heaven o’er thee,
Purely and brightly, gentle star on star?
Then let thy gaze pierce those sad clouds around thee—
See thro’ the opening, dimly tho’ at first,
Breaking the chains that to despair had bound thee:
Light out of darkness gloriously burst.
Hope on—tho’ shadows shut out present gladness,
Not far beyond, the sunlight lingers still—
Dim looks the valley, in its misty sadness,
Ere the bright day hath climbed the eastern hill.
There is a light, tho’ secretly ’tis playing
Round the dark edges of those clouds we fear:
Some mission’d spirit, in our footsteps straying,
Whispering the words of comfort and of cheer.
Wilt thou not take the counsel kindly given?
Wilt thou not turn thy gaze from present gloom?
Dost thou not see, the power, in yonder Heaven,
That sends the blight, may likewise send the bloom?
Hope on, I pray thee—Hope on in thy sorrow—
Brush from thine eye the fastly falling tear;
Thou know’st the night, tho’ dark, must have a morrow,
And, after storms, the rainbow will appear.
* * * * *
THE FIERY DEATH.
BY J. H. DANA.
“To the stake with her! Away with the sorceress! God’s curse be on her
for her evil doings!” shouted the mob.
It was early morning, yet even at that hour the judgment hall of the
little town of Bourdonnois was thronged with the populace. Men, women
and children, old and young, the noble and the burgher, priests,
soldiers and common people, crowded the spacious hall, and glared
fiercely on the prisoner, while ever and anon they muttered imprecations
on her, and cried madly for her blood.
The evening before, a female, closely veiled, and attended by two
servants, whose dark countenances bespoke them sons of Ethiopia, had
arrived at Bourdonnois, and put up at one of the principal hostelries of
the place. Strange rumors soon arose respecting her. Her garb, her mien,
her language and her complexion were said to be those of a Saracen,
against which accursed race the chivalry of Europe and the church itself
warred in vain. These rumors gained additional strength when the
landlord of the inn where she had stopped was heard to say that he had
seen her practising sorcery, a charge easily credited in that age, and
one which few, especially in a case like this, had the hardihood to
disbelieve. In less than an hour the whole population of the town was
afloat, surrounding the hostelry, and crying out for vengeance against
the sorceress. Such commotions were both frequent and sanguinary in that
superstitious age.
The soldiery, however, interfered by arresting the unsuspecting victim
of these rumors, and at this early hour the prisoner had been brought
into the judgment hall to await a mockery of trial.
“Answer me, daughter of Belial!” said the judge, as soon as the murmurs
of the mob allowed him to be heard. “Will you confess your crime? Speak,
or you die! Know you that the rack, aye! fire itself, awaits you if your
obstinacy continues?”
The prisoner was a slight girlish creature, sitting with her face buried
in her hands, directly opposite to the judge. She was apparently young,
and her figure, so far as it could be seen through the thick veil which
shrouded her form, was light and agile as that of a sylph. To the
judge’s question she made no answer. She only shook her head
despondingly, and those nigh her fancied they heard her sob.
“To the stake with the heathen sorceress! She deals with the evil one!”
shouted the mob. “What need we further than this silence? Away with
her—away!”
At these fearful words, repeated now for the second time, and growled
forth with an ominous fierceness, appalling even to the hearer, the
prisoner was observed to tremble, whether with fear or otherwise we know
not, and lifting her veil up with a sudden effort, she rose to her feet,
turned hastily around to the mob, and disclosed a countenance of such
surpassing loveliness to their gaze, that even those who had cried out
most unrelentingly for her blood now shrank abashed into silence, while
others, who had been less eager for her condemnation, audibly murmured
in her favor.
“What would ye have of me?” she said, addressing the judge, and for the
first time standing unveiled before him. “As there is a God in whom we
both believe, I have told you only the truth. I am a stranger, a
foreigner, a defenceless woman, but not the less the affianced bride of
one of your proudest nobles, the Count de Garonne.”
The tone in which she spoke was firm, but oh! how touchingly sweet; and
her words were uttered in broken French, with a perceptible Oriental
accent. Loud murmurs arose in her favor as she ceased speaking. The tide
was turning. But the judge now spoke:
“Out on thee, woman of hell! Out on thee for a base slanderer of a noble
of France, and a holy crusader! Thou the betrothed bride of Garonne! As
soon would the eagle mate with the vulture. I tell thee, woman, that thy
story of having been shipwrecked when coming to France, and of all thy
train having been lost except thy two Ethiopian myrmidons, is a foul
lie, and I am almost minded to wring the truth from thee on the rack.”
“I have said it,” said the prisoner, in a firm voice, for she felt her
life depended on her calmness, “and if you will give but one week, only
one little week, I will prove it before man as well as God. I came from
Syria in the same fleet with my lord, but under charge of his mother’s
confessor—now a saint in Heaven!—but being separated by a storm, in
which our galley was shipwrecked, I was thrown unprotected on your
shores. I am a stranger here. My servants even have deserted me. I do no
one harm. I plot no treason. All I ask is to pass on my way. Oh!” she
continued, with a burst of emotion, “if you have a daughter, think what
would be your feelings if she was to be thus set upon in a strange
land,” and she burst into tears. Again the crowd murmured in her favor.
“Woman!” sternly interposed the judge, unmoved by her emotion, “look at
the victim of your sorcery, and seek no longer to deceive us by your
lies. Stand forth, Philip the Deformed!”
At the words of the judge, an official bearing a white wand stepped into
a side room, and in a moment reappeared with a cripple hideously
deformed, whom the populace recognised as the landlord of the hostelry.
When confronted with the prisoner, he glared on her with a look of
demoniac hatred.
“Know you this woman?” asked the judge.
“Ay! to my cost,” answered the cripple. “It is through her incantations
that I am the being I am. It was but yesterday she came to my inn,
attended by two heathenish Ethiopians, whom I have heard palmers from
the holy land say are kept by the Paynims—God’s ban be theirs! I no
sooner beheld her than I recognised her to be the sorceress who, three
years ago, brought on me the disease by which I am crippled. I could
tell her among a thousand. The curse of God light on her for a child of
the evil one,” and the witness ground his teeth together, and glared
fiercely at the prisoner. A low murmur of approval, at first faint and
whispered, but gradually swelling into a confused shout, rose on the ear
as he ceased.
“He is a perjured wretch,” exclaimed the prisoner, with energy, “whom my
servants detected in an attempt to rob my poor effects; hence his malice
and this charge.”
“Silence, woman!” sternly interposed the judge, “or else confess. Will
you, a child of Belial, malign a Christian man?”
The testimony of the publican had worked a complete change in the
fluctuating feelings of the mob towards the prisoner, and the words of
the judge were answered back by a shout of approval. The prisoner was
seen to turn deathly pale. She did not reply, however, to the question,
but shook her head despondingly, as if conscious that all hope was over.
“Lead her away,” hoarsely growled the mob, while the dense mass of
people swayed to and fro in the excitement, as if they would have rushed
on the defenceless victim.
“Again I ask thee, woman, wilt thou confess?”
She shook her head despondingly, buried her face in her hands, and
murmured something; perhaps it was a prayer. The mob burst once more
into commotion.
“Where are the servants of this woman?—let them be put on the rack,”
said the judge.
“They have escaped,” answered an official.
“Escaped!” said the judge, “ha! were they living men, or the servants of
the foul fiend? Know you aught?”
“I do know,” said the maiden, suddenly rising to her feet, and speaking
with the energy of a queen, while her eye flashed and her bosom heaved
with excitement, “and thank God that they are free, although they have
left me defenceless. Yes! they are free from your tortures. Me, you may
murder with your accursed laws, but—mark me—I shall be fearfully
avenged. My story has been truly told—so help me God”—and she raised
her eyes to Heaven in adjuration, “and if I die, I die innocent. I tell
ye I am the betrothed bride of a noble. I am more; I am the daughter of
a prince. And now do your worst. I shall die worthy of my race.”
She sat down. Not a murmur was heard for the space of a minute after she
had ceased. Her daring energy awe-struck all. But what could even
bravery like hers effect against a brutal, bigot populace? As soon as
the hearers could recover from their momentary consternation, they broke
into a whirlwind of shouts and imprecations, and rushed on to the
defenceless girl; and had not the soldiery, who immediately guarded her,
interposed, she would have fallen an instant victim to the rage of the
populace. To be torn in pieces by a mob was a death too horrible! She
turned imploringly to the judge, but there was no hope in his iron face.
She closed her eyes, but the howling mob still swam before her vision;
and when she buried her face in her robe, and strove to shut out their
imprecations, their fierce, wild cries still rung in her ears. At each
moment the tumult deepened, until the excitement of the populace became
uncontrollable.
“Away with her—she is sold to the fiend—away—away!”
“Vengeance for the sufferers by her incantations!” hoarsely growled a
voice from the mob.
The judge no longer hesitated, but yielding to the popular current as
well as his own prejudices, sentenced her to be burned at high noon of
that very day. A wild shout of exultation rose from the frenzied mob as
the sentence was pronounced, but over all the din swelled the fearful
cry, “To the stake with her—away with the sorceress.” Such was justice
in that age.
It was a few hours earlier in the same day when a noble knight sat in a
hostelry of the little seaport town of ——. He was of a singularly
imposing cast of countenance. His features were of the true Norman
outline, with a lofty intellectual brow, shaded by locks of the richest
chesnut hue. His cheek was embrowned by a Syrian sun until it was of the
darkest olive color, but the clear white of his forehead, which had been
protected from exposure by his helmet, betrayed the original purity of
his complexion. He had an eye whose glance can only be likened to that
of an eagle. His form was tall and commanding. He sat apparently
absorbed in thought, but was aroused from his reverie by the entrance of
a retainer.
“Are the horses ready?”
“Yes, my lord,” said the man.
“We will mount into the saddle at once then; how far did they say it was
to Bourdonnois?”
“Six leagues.”
“We shall reach it before nightfall; lead on.”
The party which set forth from the inn was a gallant sight to behold.
Knights, squires, men-at-arms and other retainers swelled the escort of
the young Count to the number of nearly four-score, while the pennons
waving on the air, and the occasional sound of a trumpet, gave a
liveliness to the escort which attracted the attention of the passer by,
of every rank and sex, and drew many a sigh of envy from them. But who
might pretend to be the equal of the renowned Count Garonne, a crusader
of untarnished fame, a gallant still in the flower of his youth, and the
lord of half a score of castles scattered over the wide domain of
France?
At the head of the proud array rode the Count himself, conversing gaily
with a knight at his side, whom he familiarly called cousin.
“Ay, by St. Denis!” said the Count, “she is a divinity such as even our
sunny Provence doth not afford. Such eyes, such hair, and then, by my
faith, such a voice! It pained my heart to part from my sweet
Zillah—but she would have it so—and so she comes in company with
father Ambrose and a score of my best knights. Her maidenly modesty
dictated this, and I was forced to submit. We were separated, however,
by that heathenish storm, and I suppose her galley put into Genoa. You
know she will be given away by none but the Holy Father himself,” and
the glad lover reined his horse, while the animal, as if partaking of
its master’s joy, curvetted gaily.
“I long to see your princess, nor do I wonder at your love, since she
freed you from a Moslem prison; when shall I greet my future cousin?”
“We shall reach Bourdonnois to-night, and to-morrow—let me
see—to-morrow we shall keep on to Trouchet; in another day we shall
arrive at Genoa, and there we will await her, if her galley is not
already arrived.”
“I am all impatience to behold her—but look at the knave coming over
yonder hill. He rides like the fiend himself.”
“Ay! and by St. Denis he is a blackamoor, a scarcer thing here than in
Syria. Holy Father, how he dashes on!”
Even while they spoke the horseman rapidly approached, and, before many
minutes, drew in the rein of his foaming steed at the side of the Count,
whom he appeared to know. The recognition was mutual. The man instantly
spoke in a strange tongue, and with violent gestures, while, with an
agitated voice, the Count appeared to question him. But a few minutes
had elapsed, however, before the Count turned around to his cousin, and
exclaimed, in a voice trembling with emotion, but with an attempt at
composure,
“Zillah has been wrecked, and only she and two of her train, with a few
common sailors, have escaped. Her strange companions, her foreign
tongue, but, more than all, the accursed perjuries of a thieving
innkeeper, have brought on her the charge of sorcery, a tumult has been
raised, she has been arrested, and—God of my fathers!—may even now be
suffering on the rack or at the stake. Oh! why did I ever submit to
leave her? But, by the mother of God! if a hair of her head is harmed, I
will hang every knave of Bourdonnois.”
“Let us on at once, then; we may yet arrive in time.”
“Pass the word down the line,” exclaimed the Count. “On, knights and
gentlemen; we must not draw rein until we reach Bourdonnois.”
After a few minutes of hurried consultation with the servant, who stated
that he and his fellow had escaped in the height of the tumult, and
each, by different roads, sought the port where they supposed the Count
to be, the gallant array set forward at a rapid pace, and in a few
moments nothing but a cloud of dust in the valley and on the hill-side
was left to tell of their late presence.
It was already high noon in Bourdonnois. A little out of the town, in a
gentle valley, was the place chosen for the infliction of the horrid
sentence. For more than an hour—indeed ever since the condemnation of
the accused—the populace had been pouring thither in crowds, until now
a vast multitude, comprising nearly the whole population of the town,
surrounded the place of execution, and covered the encircling hills,
like spectators in an amphitheatre.
At length the procession came in sight. First marched a body of
soldiery; then followed the magistrates of the town; directly after
appeared several monks; and then, clad in white, with her pale face bent
on the ground, and her hands tightly pressed together, came the victim.
She made no answer, it was observed, to the words of the monks on either
hand, but ever and anon she would kiss a crucifix which she carried, and
raise her swimming eyes to Heaven. In that hour of bitterest agony, what
must have been her emotions? She, the daughter of an Emir, and the
affianced bride of one of the proudest nobles of France, to be hissed at
by a mob, and end her life in unheard-of torments at the stake! Oh! if
her lover, she thought, only knew of her peril! But alas! he was far
away. Well might she raise her streaming eyes to Heaven as to her only
hope, and well might she turn away from the ministers of religion who
sanctioned her sacrifice, and trust only in that cross which was her
lover’s gift, and the emblem of the sufferings of one whom that lover
had taught her was the only true God.
“Oh!” she murmured to herself, “if Henri only knew my peril, he would
yet rescue me. But there is no hope; and I must not forget that I am the
daughter of a warrior. Henri shall hear that I died as became his
affianced bride;” and her figure seemed to dilate and her walk to grow
more majestic as she thought.
At length they reached the fatal stake. But if Zillah shuddered at its
sight, the feeling was checked before it could be seen by the populace.
Calm and collected, though pale as the driven snow, she stood proudly up
while the fatal chain was affixed around her slender waist, and, with
eyes upraised to Heaven, appeared to be only an indifferent spectator,
instead of the chief person in the fatal tragedy. Not a repining word
broke from her lips. The first agony of death had passed away, and she
had steeled her heart to her fate.
At length all was prepared. Over the vast assembly gazing on her, hung
the silence of the dead. Men’s breaths came quick, and their hearts
fluttered when they felt that in another minute the awful tragedy would
be begun. Every eye was bent intently on the fatal stake as the
executioner approached with the fiery brand. For the last time, Zillah
opened her eyes to take a final look on that earth to which she was soon
to bid farewell forever. But what sent that sudden flush to her cheek?
Why that cry of thrilling joy, the first audible sound which had left
her lips since her sentence? She sees a troop of fiery horsemen, covered
with dust and foam, thundering over the brow of the hill in front of
her, and in the very van of the array she recognizes the pennon of the
Count of Garonne, waving in the noonday sun.
Onward came the rescuers. Horse on horse, knight after knight, retainer
following retainer, they swept like a whirlwind down the hill, shouting
their war-cry, “Garonne—a St. Denis and Garonne!” the panic-struck
crowd opening to the right and to the left before them. In vain the
soldiery who guarded the victim attempted to resist the rush of the
assailants. They might as well have withstood the ocean surges in their
might. The shock of the horsemen was irresistible. Foremost among them,
cleaving his way like a giant, rode the Count himself, his tall figure
and powerful charger rendering him conspicuous over all. Nothing could
resist him. He seemed like an avenging spirit come to the aid of the
suffering victim, nor were those wanting who saw in the sudden
appearance of the rescuers, and their indomitable courage, proofs of
supernatural agency. A universal panic seized on the crowd. Soldiers as
well as populace broke and fled. In a few minutes the Count had gained
the stake, when, springing from his steed, he rushed forward, and, with
one blow of his huge sword, had severed the chain which bound the victim
to the stake.
“Oh! Henri!” hysterically said the rescued girl, as she sprang forward
and fell fainting into her lover’s arms.
“Zillah! God be praised that you are safe. Curses on the villains. She
faints. Ho, there! water, you knaves, or I cleave you to the chine.”
But the maiden had only fainted from excess of joy, and when
restoratives were applied, she speedily recovered.
Our story is done. The terror of the populace; the humble apologies of
the magistracy; the merited punishment of the perjured publican; and the
speedy union of the Count and the converted princess—are they not all
written in the chronicles of the noble house of Garonne?
* * * * *
WOMAN’S DOWER.
BY L. J. PIERSON.
She sat, oppress’d with cruel care,
And bow’d with agonizing pain,
And the cold sceptre of despair
Lay where her dearest hopes had lain;
And bitter drops, from Marah’s spring,
Bedew’d the pale rose on her cheek,
And fierce disease was torturing
Her vitals with a vulture’s beak:
And taunting words were in her ears—
“Thou first in sin! Frail cause of all
The cares and toils that waste our years,
The pangs that change our joys to gall;
Thou gav’st the sceptre unto Death!
Thy hand unbarr’d the insatiate tomb,
And wak’d and arm’d the fiery wrath
That deals the sinner’s final doom!”
She rais’d her meek wet eyes to Heaven,
And all her pray’r was one long sigh;
It told how deep her heart was riven,
And won an angel from on high.
“Daughter! thy lot is hard to bear,”
The spirit said, with healing tone,
“Submission, agony, and care,
Endur’d in silence and alone:
These are thy lot, and Mercy’s power
May not reverse the just decree;
Yet have I brought a priceless dower,
A gem from God’s own crown, to thee.
Hide the rich jewel in thy breast,
Deep in thy bosom’s holiest bow’r:
Its warmth and light shall make thee blest,
E’en in thy darkest, loneliest hour.
Its light shall throw around thy form
An atmosphere of joy and peace,
And fill thy home with radiance warm—
A glowing flood of magic bliss.
When thy young heart to man is given,
And the white bride-rose wreathes thy brow,
This live coal from the fires of Heaven
Shall with ecstatic rapture glow;
And when thy new-born infant lies
In helpless beauty on thy breast,
Thy heart shall thrill with ecstacies
Sweet as the transports of the blest.
This living beam of perfect love—
Pure love, that lives without return:
This sparkle from the bliss above—
Forever in thy soul shall burn.
Not all the fiends of earth shall wrench
This treasure from thy heart away,
Nor all the waves of sorrow quench,
Within thy soul, the deathless ray.
Life’s dearest tie may prove a chain,
And gall thy heart through weary years;
Thy hopes maternal may prove vain,
And sink beneath a flood of tears;
And haggard cares may round thee crowd—
Yet this rich gift shall light thy gloom,
And throw a rainbow on the cloud
That darkens o’er thy dear one’s tomb.”
Yes, _perfect_ love is woman’s dower,
Her brightest charm, her richest gem,
Her shield from every cruel power,
Her sceptre, and her diadem.
Let her beware, lest earth-born fires
Touch the pure altar where it glows:
Dim the pure light with low desires,
And sink her soul in torturing woes.
* * * * *
LOVERS’ QUARRELS.
BY PERCIE H. SELTON.
“Mary!” said the low voice of Henry Ashton. The maiden looked up.
“Mary! I have much to tell you—will you listen to me awhile, only for a
moment!” and he spoke fast and eagerly.
“A moment only, you say—well, I suppose I must,—but what a beautiful
butterfly is that. Oh! the dear, sweet, tiny thing; do, pray, try and
catch it for me.”
Ashton was stung to the heart. He had been on the point of declaring his
long-cherished passion for Mary Derwentwater, and he felt that she knew,
not only the depth of his affection, but that the words trembling on his
lips were an avowal of his love. Her light-heartedness at once changed
the whole current of his feelings. Often had he heard others say that
his beautiful cousin was a coquette, and more than once had she trifled
with his own feelings. He had hoped that her conduct was the result only
of a momentary whim, but this last act displayed a confirmed
heartlessness of which an hour before he would not have deemed her
capable. He sighed, and was silent.
“Oh! dear, how ungallant you are,” continued his cousin, “the beautiful
creature will really escape, and I do so love butterflies.”
“It is gone.”
“So it is. I shall never forgive you. Don’t ask me to,” said Mary
affectedly.
“Then we must part without it,” said Henry carelessly. “I leave here
to-morrow, and shall visit Europe before I return. It may be years—it
may be forever that I shall be absent.”
“Why—Harry—you jest,” said his companion, struggling to appear
composed, although she felt how cold and pale her cheek had grown. “I
never heard of this before. You are not in earnest,” and she laid her
soft white hand—that hand, whose touch made every nerve of Ashton
thrill—on her lover’s arm, looking up into his face with her dark, and
now melting eye. But the chord had been stretched until it had snapped,
and her influence over Ashton was gone. He half averted his head, as he
answered coldly,—
“I do not jest, especially with a friend.”
The tone, the emphasis, the manner, all stung the pride of Mary. She
felt that his censure was just, and yet she spurned it. Her hand fell
from his arm, and emulating his own coldness, she said,—
“Then I will not ask you to stay. But as it is late, and you will have
your preparations to make, I will not intrude on your time,” and
curtesying, she withdrew.
“And this is the being in whom I had garnered up all my heart’s best
affections,” exclaimed Ashton, when he found himself alone. “This the
divinity I have adored with a fervor no mortal bosom ever yet felt, and
she could talk, heartlessly talk of the merest trifle, when she saw that
my whole heart was bound up in her. Oh! would we had never met. But my
delusion is over. I will fly. Mary! Mary! little did I dream that my
love would meet with such a return.”
Mary hurried to her chamber, and locking the door, she flung herself
upon the bed, and burst into a flood of tears. How bitterly she
reproached herself that her momentary coquetry had lost her the love of
the only being for whom she cared. She did not disguise from herself her
affection; she could scarcely tell why she had yielded to the impulse of
that fatal moment; but she felt that she had lost irretrievably the
esteem and the affections of her cousin. She would have given worlds to
have recalled the last hour. Even now she might, by seeking him, and
throwing herself at his feet, perhaps, regain his love. She rose to do
so. But when her hand was on the lock she thought that he might spurn
her. She hesitated. In another moment her pride had regained the
mastery.
“No—I cannot—I dare not. He will turn away from me. He will despise
me. Oh! that I had never, never said those idle words,” and flinging
herself again on the bed, she wept long and bitterly.
Mary appeared that evening at the supper table, but in the cold and
averted looks of Ashton, she saw only new causes for pride. The evening
passed off heavily. As the time came for retiring, Henry approached her
to bid her farewell. She thought her heart would burst her boddice, but
commanding her emotion by a violent effort, she returned his adieu as
calmly as it was given.
And they parted, both in seeming carelessness, but one at least in
agony.
Henry Ashton had known his lovely cousin scarcely two years, but during
that time, she had been to him a divinity. Never, in his wildest dreams,
had he imagined a countenance more surpassingly beautiful than hers, and
to her, accordingly, he had given his heart, with a devotion which had
become a part of his nature. But much as he adored his cousin, he was
not wholly blind to her faults. He saw that she loved admiration, and he
feared she was too much of a flirt. Yet his love had gone on increasing,
and, he fancied, not without a return. Led on by his hopes, he had,
during a temporary visit at her father’s house, seized an opportunity to
declare his passion, but how the half breathed avowal was checked, we
will not recapitulate. Need we wonder at his sudden resolution to fly
from her presence, and, by placing the ocean between them, to eradicate
a passion for one whom he now felt to be unworthy of him? Few men could
be more energetic than Ashton. In less than a week, he had sailed for
Europe.
Oh! how Mary wept his departure! A thousand times she was on the point
of writing to recall him, but her pride as often prevented the act. She
hoped he might yet return. Surely—she said—he who had once loved her
so deeply, and who must have known that his affection was returned,
would not leave her forever. Hour after hour she would sit watching the
gate for his return, and hour after hour she experienced all the
bitterness of disappointment. When, at length, she read in the newspaper
that he had really sailed, she gave one long, loud shriek, and fell
senseless to the floor. A fever, that ensued, brought her to the very
brink of the grave.
Ashton went forth upon the world an altered, almost a misanthropic man.
His hopes were withered: his first dream of love had vanished: he felt
as if there was nothing for him to live for in this world. His mind
became almost diseased. He loathed society, then he veered to the other
extreme, and craved after excitement. He sought relief in travel. He
crossed the steppes of Tartary—he traversed the deserts of Arabia—he
lived among the weird and ruined monuments of Egypt,—and for years he
wandered, a stranger to civilization, seeking only one thing—_to
forget_. He never inquired after America. His family were all dead, and
he wished never to think of Mary. Like the fabled victim, in the olden
legend, he spent years in the vain search after that Lethe whose waters
are reserved for death alone. He found it not.
And Mary, too, was changed. She rose from that bed of sickness an
altered being. Never had she known the full depth of her affection until
the moment when she found herself deserted. The shock almost destroyed
her; and though she recovered after a long and weary sickness, it was to
discard all her old habits, and to assume a quieter—yet, oh! how far
more beautiful demeanor than in her days of unmitigated joy. She felt
that Henry was lost to her forever, yet she derived a melancholy
pleasure in living as if the eye of her absent lover was upon her. She
directed her whole conduct so as to meet his approbation. Alas! he was
far away: she had not heard from him for years; perhaps, too, he might
be no more; then why this constant reference of all she did to his
standard of excellence? It was her deep abiding love which did it all.
Four years had passed when Ashton found himself again in America, and
sitting, after dinner, with one of his most intimate friends, at the
table of the —— hotel. For some time the bottle passed in silence. At
length his companion spoke.
“You have not seen Mary Derwentwater yet—have you, Harry?”
Ashton answered calmly, with a forced effort, in the negative.
“You must not positively delay it. Do you know how beautiful she has
grown?—far more beautiful than when you went away, although then you
thought her surpassingly lovely.” He paused.
“I have not heard from the family for years,” said Ashton at length,
feeling that his companion expected some reply.
“Then you know nothing of her?—push us some of the almonds—why, my
dear fellow, she is irresistible. But she is different from what she
used to be; her beauty is softer, though not so showy, and whereas she
once would flirt a little—mind, only a little, for she is a great
favorite of mine—she now goes by the name of the cold beauty. A married
man, like myself, can speak thus warmly, you know, without fear of
having his heart called in as the bribe of his head. And do you know
that my wife suspects you of having worked the reformation?”—Ashton
started, and was almost thrown off his guard—“for it began immediately
after a long illness, that happened a few weeks after you sailed.”
Ashton was completely bewildered. He had now for the first time heard of
Mary’s sickness. His eye wandered from that of his companion, and he
felt his cheek flushing in despite of himself. He covered his
embarrassment, however, by rising. His companion continued,
“And now, Harry, let us stroll down Broadway, for, to tell the truth, I
promised my wife to bring you home with me. Besides, Mary is there, and
I’ve no doubt,” he continued, jocularly, “you are dying to meet her.”
Ashton could not answer; but he followed his friend into the street,
conscious that Mary and he must meet, and feeling that the sooner it was
done the better. His companion, during their walk, ran on in his usual
gay style, but Harry scarcely heard a word that was said. His thoughts
were full of his cousin. Had she indeed become cold to all other men
from love to himself? Strange and yet delicious thoughts whirled through
his mind, and he woke only from his abstraction on finding himself in
Seacourt’s drawing-room, and in the presence of his cousin.
Mary was on a visit to Mrs. Seacourt, and did not know of Ashton’s
intended coming until a few minutes before he made his appearance.
Devotedly as she loved her cousin, she would have given worlds to escape
the interview; but retreat was impossible, without exposing the long
treasured secret of her heart. She nerved herself, accordingly, for the
meeting, and succeeded in assuming a sufficiently composed demeanor to
greet her cousin without betraying her agitation. He exchanged the
common compliments of the occasion with her, and then took a seat by
Mrs. Seacourt, who had been one of his old friends. Mary felt the
neglect; she saw he did not love her. That night she wept bitter tears
of anguish.
“And yet I cannot blame him. Oh, no!” she exclaimed, “it is all my own
fault. He once loved me, and I heartlessly flung that affection from me
which I would give worlds now to win. But I must dry these tears; I must
not betray myself. We shall meet daily, for he cannot help coming here,
and to shorten my visit would lead to suspicions. I must therefore
school myself to disguise the secret of my heart.”
And Ashton did come daily, and although his conversation was chiefly
devoted to Mrs. Seacourt, he neither seemed to seek nor to avoid his
cousin. Now and then he found himself deep in a conversation with her,
and he thought of old times. But the memory of their last interview came
across him at such moments like a blight.
“How wonderfully Ashton has improved since his travels,” said Mrs.
Seacourt one morning, as she and Mary sat _tête-à-tête_, sewing; “and do
you know,” continued she, looking archly at her companion, “that I deem
myself indebted to you for his charming visits.”
Mary felt the blood mounting to her brow, and she stooped to pick out a
stitch.
“Oh! you are always jesting, Anne; you know it is not so.”
“We shall see. I prophesy that this afternoon, when we go to the
exhibition, he will escort you, and leave Miss Thornbury to Seacourt’s
nephew.”
Mary’s heart beat so she could scarcely answer, but she managed to
reply,
“Don’t, my dear Mrs. Seacourt, don’t tease one this way. You know,
indeed you know, Ashton cares nothing for me,” and she felt how great a
relief would have been a flood of tears, could she have indulged in
them.
Mrs. Seacourt smiled archly, and said no more.
The afternoon came. The little company were assembled in the
drawing-room. Ashton entered just as the last moment had come, and when
the ladies were rising to go. Mary was almost hidden in one corner, so
fearful was she of attracting the raillery of Mrs. Seacourt, by placing
herself near the entrance, and in Ashton’s way. Her very sensitiveness
produced the effect she wished to avoid. The gentlemen naturally sought
partners nearest them, and for a moment she was left almost alone. She
thought she would have fainted when she saw her cousin cross the room
and offer to be her escort.
They proceeded to the exhibition. For the first time for years, Ashton’s
arm upheld that of Mary. At first both were embarrassed; but each made
an effort, and they soon glided into conversation on indifferent
subjects. What a relief it was to Mary that night, to think she had been
alone, as it were, with her cousin without being treated with neglect.
From that day the visits of Ashton to Mrs. Seacourt’s increased in
frequency, yet there was nothing marked in his attentions to Mary.
Indeed, he still continued to converse chiefly with his friend’s wife,
though he did not openly avoid her guest. Mary grew more and more
tremblingly alive to his presence, and at times, when she would detect
his eye bent on her, half sadly, half abstractedly, her heart would
flutter wildly, and a delicious hope would momently shoot across her
mind; but soon to fade as quickly.
One morning, Ashton entered the drawing-room, and found her alone. She
was untangling a skein of silk. She arose, and said, with some
embarrassment,
“Mrs. Seacourt is up stairs; I will ring for her.”
“Not for the world, if she is in any way engaged. I can await her
pleasure.”
There was a silence of some minutes. Mary could scarcely breathe: she
knew not what to say. Her fingers refused to perform their duty, and her
skein of silk became more and more entangled.
“Shall I help you?” said Ashton, approaching her. “My patience used to
be a proverb with you.”
Mary could not trust herself to answer, for her fingers were actually
trembling with agitation. She felt she could have sunk into the floor.
She proffered the silk without looking up. Ashton took hold of one end
while she retained the other. Neither spoke; but Mary’s bosom heaved
tumultuously, while Ashton felt his heart in his throat. At length, in
mutually untangling the skein, their hands met. The touch thrilled them
like lightning. Ashton almost unconsciously retained the hand of his
cousin in his own. She trembled violently.
“Mary!” he said.
She looked half doubtingly, half timidly up.
“Mary, we love each other—do we not?”
There was no answer, but as he pressed the fingers lying passively in
his grasp, the pressure was gently returned, and, bursting into tears,
his cousin fell upon his bosom.
And Ashton and Mary have been wedded for years, but their honey-moon
still continues, for they have not yet quarrelled.
* * * * *
THE PRECIPICE.
There is a rock whose craggy brow
Hangs beetling o’er the wave below,
Adown whose sheer descent the eye,
When twilight’s gloom is gath’ring nigh,
Will gaze, but vainly, to descry
The sullen waves that wash beneath,
As endless and as dark as death.
You see no tide—you scarcely hear—
You only feel a nameless fear;
The night-bird, sailing slowly by,
Dares not his melancholy cry:
Dares scarcely flap his lazy wing:
Dares not behold this fearful thing—
But far beneath, will upward soar,
To cross the dread abyss no more.
H. J. V.
* * * * *
THE MISTAKEN CHOICE;
OR, THREE YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE.
BY EMMA C. EMBURY.
“So you are really going to be married, Charles?”
“Yes, uncle; and I hope you will agree with me in thinking that I have
made a very prudent choice.”
“That remains to be seen yet,” said Mr. Waterton. “In the first place,
who is the lady?”
“Miss Laura Tarleton.”
“I know her _name_ well enough, for you have scarcely uttered any other
one these six weeks,” was the crusty reply; “but I want to know
something of her family.”
“Her father was a southern merchant, and died four or five years since,
leaving only two daughters to inherit his large estate; one of these
daughters married about two years since, and is now in Europe; the other
I hope to introduce to your affections as my wife.”
“Has she no mother?”
“Her mother died while she was yet very young.”
“Where was she educated?”
“At the fashionable boarding-school of Madame Finesse, and I can assure
you no expense has been spared in her education.”
“I dare say not: these new-fangled establishments for the manufacture of
man-traps, don’t usually spare expense. How old is your intended wife?”
“Just nineteen.”
“Where has she lived since she left school, for I suppose she was
‘_finished_,’ as they style it, some years since?”
“She has resided lately at the Astor House, under the protection of a
relative who boards there.”
“Then she cannot know much about housekeeping.”
“I dare say not,” replied Charles, with a slight feeling of vexation,
“but all that knowledge comes by practice, uncle.”
“If her time has been divided between a boarding school and a hotel,
where is she to learn any thing about it?”
“Oh, women seem to have an intuitive knowledge of such things.”
“You are mistaken, boy,” said the old man, “if a girl has been brought
up in a good home, and sees a regular system of housekeeping constantly
pursued, she will become unconsciously familiar with its details, even
though she may not then put such knowledge in practice; the consequence
will be that when she is the mistress of a house, her memory will assist
her judgment—a quality, by the way, not too common in girls of
nineteen. But how is a poor thing who has seen nothing but the
_skimble-skamble_ of a school-household or the clockwork regularity of a
great hotel, to know any of the machinery by which the comfort of a home
is obtained and secured?”
“Oh I am not afraid to trust to Laura,” replied Charles with animation,
“she is young, good-tempered, and, I believe, loves me; so I have every
security for the future. When there’s a will there’s always a way.”
“True, true, Charles, and I only hope your wife may have the will to
find the right way; what is her fortune?”
“Reports vary respecting the amount—some say eighty, others, one
hundred thousand dollars.”
“Don’t _you know_ any thing about it?”
“I know that her fortune is very considerable, especially for a poor
devil like me, who can barely clear two thousand a year by business,”
answered Charles, with some irritation.
“When your father married, Charles, he was master of only three hundred
dollars in the world.”
“That may be, and the consequence was that my father’s son has been
obliged to work like a dog all his life.”
“The very best thing that could have happened to you, my dear boy.”
“How do you make that out? For my part, I see nothing very desirable in
poverty.”
“Nor do I, Charles; poverty is certainly an evil, but it is an evil to
which you have never been exposed; competence was the reward of your
father’s industry and he was thus enabled to bestow a good education and
good habits upon his son. The limited range of your own experience will
convince you of the danger of great riches. Who are the persons in our
great city most notorious for vice and folly? Who are the horse-jockies,
the gamblers, the rowdies, and the fools of high life? Why, they are the
sons of our rich men, and how can we expect better things from those who
from their very childhood are pampered in idleness and luxury. I know
you will tell me there are exceptions to this sweeping censure, and this
I am willing to allow, for there are some minds which even the influence
of wealth cannot injure; but how few are they, compared with the number
of those who are ruined in their very infancy by the possession of
riches. Depend upon it, Charles, that learning, industry, and virtue
form the best inheritance which any man can derive from his ancestors.”
“It is a pity the world would not think so, uncle.”
“So it is, boy; but the fact is such as I have stated, whatever the
majority of people may think. You have not now to learn that the wise
and good are always in the _minority_ in this world. But tell me one
thing, my dear boy; if Miss Tarleton was poor and friendless, instead of
being rich and fashionable, would you have fallen in love with her?”
“Why yes—certainly—I don’t know—” stammered Charles, confusedly, “but
that is supposing so improbable a case that I cannot determine.”
“Suppose she were suddenly to be deprived of her fortune,” said the
persevering old man, “would you still be so desirous of wedding her?”
“Why, to tell you the honest truth, uncle, I do not think I should, and
for an excellent reason. Laura has been brought up as a rich man’s
daughter, and therefore can scarcely be expected to have had proper
training for a poor man’s wife. If I were compelled to support a family
on my paltry business, it would be necessary to have a more prudent and
economical companion than Laura is likely to prove; but, thank heaven,
that is not the case.”
“All are liable to reverses of fortune, Charles, and should such befal
you in future, you might chance to find that a prudent wife without
money is a better companion in misfortune than an extravagant one who
brought a rich dowry.”
“My dear uncle, do not imagine all kinds of unpleasant contingencies;
the idea of what you call a _prudent woman_ is shocking to my notions of
feminine character; it always conjures up in my mind an image of a
sharp-voiced, keen-eyed creature, scolding at servants, fretting at
children, and clattering slip-shod about the house to look after
candle-ends and cheese-parings. Before a woman can become parsimonious
she must in a measure unsex herself, since the foible most natural to
the sex is extravagance—the excess of a liberal spirit.”
“You are mistaken, Charles; that there are such women as you describe,
bustling, notable housewives, who pride themselves on their ability to
_manage_, as they term it, and who practise cunning because unable to
use force, I acknowledge; but they are chiefly to be found among those
who have been placed in an unnatural position in society,—women, who
having neither father, brother nor husband to protect them, have been
obliged to struggle with the world, and have learned to _jostle_ lest
they should _be jostled_ in the race of life. But bachelor as I am, I
have had many opportunities of studying the sex, and I can assure you
that economy, frugality and industry are by no means incompatible with
feminine delicacy, refinement of thought, and elegant accomplishments.”
“Well it may be all true, uncle,” replied Charles, utterly wearied of
the old man’s lecture, “but it is too late to reflect upon the matter
now, even if I were so disposed. I am to be married next week, and I
hope when you see Laura, you will think, with me, and give me credit for
more prudence than you seem to believe I possess.”
Charles Wharton possessed good feelings, and, as he believed, good
principles; yet, seduced by the ambition of equalling his richer
neighbors, he had persuaded himself into choosing a wife, less from
affection than from motives of interest. Had Laura Tarleton been poor,
he certainly would never have thought of her, since, pretty as she was,
she lacked the brilliancy of character which he had always admired. But
there was a sin upon his conscience, known only to himself and _one_
other, which often clouded his brow, even in the midst of his
anticipated triumph. There was a young, fair, and gifted girl, whom he
had loved with all the fervor of sincere attachment, and _he knew_ that
she loved him, although no word on the subject had been uttered by
either. He knew that his looks, and tones, and actions had been to her
those of a lover, and he had little reason to doubt the feeling with
which he had been met. He had looked forward to the time when he should
be quietly settled amid the comforts of a peaceful home, and the image
of _that fair girl_ was always the prominent object in his pictures for
the future. But a change came over the spirit of the whole nation.
Wealth poured into the country—or at least what was then considered
wealth—and with it came luxury and sloth. The golden stream came to
_some_ like a mountain torrent, and others began to repine at receiving
it only as the tiny rivulet. People “made haste to be rich,” and Charles
Waterton was infected with the same thirst after wealth. He met with
Laura Tarleton, learned that she was an orphan heiress, and instantly
determined to secure the glittering prize. Ambition conquered the
tenderness of his nature; he forsook the lady of his love, and after an
acquaintance of six weeks succeeded in becoming the husband of the
wealthy votary of fashion.
Not long after his marriage, he discovered one _slight_ error in his
calculations, and found that his wife’s hundred thousand dollars had in
reality dwindled down to thirty thousand. But even this was not to be
despised, and Charles, conscious that he had nothing but talents and
industry when he commenced life, felt that he had drawn a prize in the
lottery. Grateful to his wife for her preference of him, and conscious
that he had not bestowed on her his full affection, he determined to
make all the amends in his power, by lavishing every kindness upon her,
and submitting implicitly to her wishes. Having intimated to him that
she should prefer boarding during the first year of their married life,
he accordingly engaged a suite of apartments at the Astor House, where
they lived in a style of splendor and ease exceedingly agreeable to the
taste of both. Mrs. Waterton was extremely pretty, with an innocent,
child-like face, and a graceful figure, and Charles felt so much pride
in the admiration which she received in society, that he forgot to
notice her mental deficiency. Their time was passed in a perpetual round
of excitement and gayety. During the hours when the counting room
claimed the husband’s attention, the young wife lounged on a sofa, read
the last new novel, dawdled through a morning’s shopping, or paid
fashionable visits. The afternoon was spent over the dinner table, while
the evening soon passed in the midst of a brilliant party, or amid the
pleasures of some public amusement. But living in the bustle of a hotel,
with a large circle of acquaintances always ready to drink Mr.
Waterton’s wine and flirt with his pretty wife, they were rarely left to
each other’s society, and at the termination of the first twelvemonth,
they knew little more of each other’s tempers and feelings than when
they pledged their vows at the altar. Charles had learned that his
placid Laura was somewhat pertinacious and very fond of dress, while she
had been deeply mortified by the discovery that Charles’s deceased
mother had, during her widowhood, kept a thread and needle store; but
this was all that they had ascertained of each other. There had been no
studying of each other’s character—no opportunity of practising that
_adaptation_ so necessary to the comfort of married life. They had lived
only in a crowd, and were as yet in the position of partners in a
quadrille, associated rather for a season of gayety than for the
changeful scenes of actual life.
The commencement of the second year found the young couple busily
engaged in preparing for house-keeping. A stately house, newly built and
situated in a fashionable part of the city, was selected by Mrs.
Waterton, and purchased by her obsequious husband in obedience to her
wishes, though he did not think it necessary to inform her that _two
thirds_ of the purchase money was to remain on mortgage. They now only
awaited the arrival of the rich furniture which Mrs. Waterton had
directed her sister to select in Paris. This came at length, and with
all the glee of a child she beheld her house fitted with carpets of such
turf-like softness that the foot was almost buried in their bright
flowers; mirrors that might have served for walls to the palace of
truth; couches, divans and fauteuils, inlaid with gold and covered with
velvet most exquisitely painted; curtains, whose costly texture had been
quadrupled in value by the skill of the embroideress; tables of the
finest mosaic; lustres and girandoles of every variety, glittering with
their wealth of gold and chrystal; and all the thousand expensive toys
which serve to minister to the frivolous tastes of fashion. The
arrangement of the sleeping apartments was on a scale of equal
magnificence. French dressing tables, with all their paraphernalia of
Sevres china and chrystal; Psyche glasses, in frames of ivory and gold;
beds of rosewood, inlaid with ivory, and canopied with gold and silver,
were among the decorations. But should the reader seek to ascend still
higher—the upper rooms—the servants’ apartments, uncarpeted,
unfurnished, destitute of all the comforts which are as necessary to
domestics as to their superiors, would have been found to afford a
striking contrast to the splendors of those parts of the mansion which
were intended for display.
With all his good sense, Charles Waterton was yet weak enough to indulge
a feeling of exultation as he looked round his magnificent house, and
felt himself “master of all he surveyed.” His thoughts went back to the
time when the death of his father had plunged the family almost into
destitution—when his mother had been aided to open a little shop, of
which he was chief clerk, until the kindness of his old uncle had
procured for him a situation in a wholesale store, which had finally
enabled him to reach his present eminence. He remembered how often he
had stood behind a little counter to sell a penny ball of thread or a
piece of tape—how often he had been snubbed and scolded at when subject
to the authority of a purse-proud employer—and, in spite of his better
reason, Charles felt proud and triumphant. His self-satisfaction was
somewhat diminished, however, by the sight of a bill drawn upon him by
his brother-in-law in Paris, for the sums due on this great display of
elegance. Ten thousand dollars—one third of his wife’s fortune—just
sufficed to _furnish_ their new house. Thus seven hundred dollars was
cut off from their annual income, to be consumed in the wear and tear of
their costly gew-gaws; another thousand was devoted to the payment of
interest on the mortgage which remained on his house; so that, at the
very outset of his career, Charles found himself, notwithstanding his
wife’s estate, reduced to the “_paltry two thousand a year_,” which he
derived from his business. But he had too much false pride to confess
the truth to his wife, and at once to alter their style of living. Each
had been deceived in their estimate of the other’s wealth. Laura’s
income had been large enough, while she remained single, to allow her
indulgence in every whim, and Charles, ambitious of the reputation of a
man of fashion, after slaving all the morning in his office, had been in
the habit of driving fast trotting horses, or sporting a tilbury and
tiger in Broadway, every afternoon, spending every cent of his income,
and giving rise to the belief among the young men that he was very rich,
while the old merchants only looked upon him as very imprudent. They
were now to learn that their combined fortunes would not support the
extravagancies of a household, but Laura, accustomed to the command of
money from childhood, knew not its value, because she had never known
its want, and her husband shrunk from the duty of enlightening her on
the subject, by informing her of their real situation.
By the time the arrangements of their house were completed, and had been
admired, envied and sneered at by her “dear five thousand friends,” the
season arrived for Mrs. Waterton’s usual visit to Saratoga. Her husband
of course accompanied her, though with rather a heavy heart, for he knew
that only by close attention to business he could hope to provide the
necessary funds for all such expenditures, although he had not
sufficient moral courage to confess that he was so closely chained to
the galley of commerce. The usual round of gayety was traversed—the
summer was spent in lounging at different watering places—and the
autumn found them returning, heartily wearied, to their splendid home.
With the assistance of some kind _suggestors_, Mrs. Waterton now planned
a series of entertainments for the coming winter, and Charles listened
with ill-dissembled anxiety to the schemes for balls, parties, soirees,
musical festivals and suppers. There was but one way to support all
this. Charles determined to extend his business, and instead of
confining himself to a regular cash trade, he resolved to follow the
example of his neighbors, and engage in speculation. Accordingly, he
sold his wife’s stock in several moneyed institutions, and, investing
the proceeds in merchandise, commenced making money on a grander scale.
This was in the beginning of the year ’36, and every one knows the
excitement of that momentous season; a season not soon to be forgotten
by the bankrupt merchants, the distressed wives and the beggared
children who can date their misfortunes from the temporary inflation of
the credit system, by which that fatal year was characterized. Mr.
Waterton’s books soon showed an immense increase of business, and, upon
the most moderate calculation, his profits could scarcely be less than
from eight to ten thousand dollars within six months. This was doing
pretty well for a man who had formerly been content with a “paltry two
thousand a year,” but as avarice, like jealousy, “grows by what it feeds
on,” Charles began to think he might as well make money in more ways
than one. He therefore began to buy real estate, and _pine lands_ in
Maine, _wild tracts_ in Indiana, _town lots_ in Illinois, together with
the thousand schemes which then filled the heads of the sanguine and the
pockets of the cunning, claimed his attention and obtained his money;
while, at the same time, the fashionable society of New York were in
raptures with Mrs. Waterton’s splendid parties, her costly equipage, and
her magnificent style of dress.
“Have you counted the cost of all these things, Charles?” said his old
uncle, as he entered the house one morning, and beheld the disarray
consequent upon a large party the previous night.
“Yes, uncle, I think I have,” said Charles, smiling, as he sipped his
coffee, at the old man’s simplicity. “The fellows who manage these
affairs soon compel us to count the cost, for when I came down this
morning, I found on the breakfast table this bill for nine hundred and
fifty-four dollars.”
“Nine hundred dollars, Charles! You don’t mean to say that your party
last night cost that sum?”
“I do, my dear sir, and considering that the bill includes every thing
but the wines, I do not consider it an exorbitant one; however, the
elegant colored gentleman who takes all this trouble for me does not
charge me quite so much as he would if I employed him less frequently.”
The old man looked round and sighed. The apartments were in sad
disorder, for the servants, overcome by the fatigues of the previous
day, had followed the example of their master, and stolen from the
morning the sleep they had been denied at night. A bottle lay shivered
in one corner of the supper room, the champaigne with which it had been
filled soaking into the rich carpet—a piece of plum-cake had been
crushed by some heedless foot into the snow-white rug which lay before
the drawing-room fire—the sweeping draperies of one of the curtains was
still dripping with something which bore a marvellous resemblance to
melted ice cream, and the whole suite of apartments wore that air of
desolation which usually characterizes a “banquet hall deserted.”
“Do you calculate the destruction of furniture in counting the cost of
your parties, Charles?” asked Mr. Waterton.
“Oh no—that of course is expected; furniture, you know, becomes
old-fashioned and requires to be renewed about every three years, and
therefore one may as well have the use of it while it is new.”
“You must have a vast addition to your fortune if you expect to pay for
all these things.”
“My dear sir,” replied the nephew, with a most benignant smile at his
uncle’s superlative ignorance of his affairs, “my dear sir, you do not
seem to know that, in the course of about three years, I shall be one of
the richest men in New York.”
“Do you sell on credit?” asked the old man, significantly.
“Certainly; everybody does so now.”
“Well, then, my boy, take an old man’s advice, and don’t count your
chickens before they are hatched; don’t live on ten thousand a year when
that sum exists only in your ledger. Call in your debts, and when your
customers have _paid_, then tell me how _much_ you have _gained_.”
“My dear uncle, you are quite obsolete in your notions. I wish I could
induce you to enter with me into a new scheme; it would make your
fortune.”
“I am content with my present condition, Charles; my salary of eight
hundred a year is quite sufficient for the wants of a bachelor, and
leaves me a little for the wants of others; nor would I sacrifice my
peace of mind and quiet of conscience for all the fortunes that will
ever be made by speculation.”
“It is not necessary to sacrifice either peace or principle in making a
fortune, uncle.”
“You have not seen the end yet, my dear boy; I have lived long enough to
behold several kinds of _speculative mania_, and all terminated in a
similarly unfortunate manner. It is a spirit of gambling which is
abroad, and I am old-fashioned enough to believe that money thus
obtained never does good to any one. It is like the price of a soul: the
devil is sure to cheat the unhappy bargainer.”
“How I hate to hear people talk about business,” lisped Mrs. Waterton,
as she sat listlessly in her loose wrapping-gown at the breakfast table;
“I think no one ought to mention the word before ladies.”
The old man looked at her with ill-disguised contempt.
“It will be well for you, young lady,” said he, “if you never have to
learn the necessity of a knowledge of business.”
Laura put up her pretty lip, but was silent, for she was much too
indolent, and rather too well bred, to get angry.
Charles Waterton had given his uncle what he believed to be an accurate
view of his circumstances. Excited beyond the bounds of sober sense by
his seeming success, he was as sanguine a dupe as ever bled beneath the
leech-craft of speculation. His real estate, which he _very moderately_
estimated at _quintuple_ its cost, formed, _at such prices_, an immense
fortune. His book debts were enormous, for his money was scattered east,
west, north and south, and in consequence of giving long credits, he was
enabled to obtain exorbitant profits. But the Eldorado whose boundaries
seemed so accurately defined on paper, became exceedingly indistinct as
he fancied himself about to approach its shores. The following year
began to afford tokens of coming trouble. Credit was still good, but
money had entirely disappeared from the community, and men who had
learned to make notes in order to _acquire fortunes_, were now obliged
to continue their manufacture in order to _avoid ruin_. Rumors of
approaching distress arose in the money market; men began to look with
distrust upon their fellows, and as unlimited confidence in each other
had been the foundation of the towering edifice of unstable prosperity,
the moment that was shaken, the whole structure fell crumbling to the
earth. As soon as doubt arose, destruction was at hand, and at length
one wild crash of almost universal bankruptcy startled the dreamers from
their golden visions.
* * * * *
One fine morning in the spring of 1838, the doors of one of the most
stately houses in —— street, were thrown open to the public, and the
auctioneer’s flag waving from the window gave a general invitation to
every passer by. That ominous red flag! no less significant of evil than
the black banner of the rover of the seas; for it is ever the signal of
the disruption of household ties. That ominous red flag! sometimes
betokening the instability of fortune—sometimes the work of
death—sometimes telling of blighted fortunes—sometimes of broken
hearts, but _always_ of discomfort and disquiet. And yet few things will
so readily collect a concourse of people as that scarlet harbinger of
destruction. There may be found the regular auction-haunters, men of
idleness, bachelors, perhaps, glad to find an hour or two killed beneath
the auctioneer’s hammer—single ladies of small fortunes, who have
nothing to do for themselves, and have not yet learned the luxury of
doing something for their neighbors—notable housewives, actuated by a
sense of duty and a love of economy, who waste _nothing but time_ in
their hunt after bargains—young ladies who come to see how such persons
furnished their houses—and perhaps some would-be connoisseur in search
of old pictures, which, if they have only hung long enough over a smoky
fire-place, may be classed with the works of the old masters. On the
morning in question, however, unusual attractions were offered to the
visiters of such places, for it was the abode of wealth, and luxury, and
taste which was thus desecrated—the mansion of the Watertons! The rich
carpets were disfigured by many a dirty footstep,—the velvet couches
bore the impress of many a soiling touch, and many a rude hand was laid
upon the delicate and costly toys which had once been the admiration of
the fashionable visitants of the family. Among the crowd were two of
that _numerous tribe_ found in the very midst of fashionable life, who
have learned the trick of combining meanness and extravagance—women who
will spend hundreds upon a shawl, and at the same time beat down the
wages of a poor sempstress until she is almost compelled to purchase
with life itself the bread which ought to sustain life. Such were the
two who now seated themselves in the drawing-room of the ruined family,
in order to be in the _right place_ when certain articles were put up
for sale.
“I want nothing here,” said one, with a half scornful air, “except those
mosaic tables; the carpets and curtains are ruined by carelessness, and
no wonder, for Mrs. Waterton was a wretched house-keeper.”
“And I only mean to buy that workbox,” said the other; “Mrs. Waterton
told me it cost a thousand francs in Paris, and I am sure it will not
sell for one fourth its cost.”
“By the way, have you seen her since her husband’s failure?”
“Oh no, I shouldn’t think of calling upon her when in so much distress;
besides, I am told she has refused to see any one. Did you hear how she
behaved when she heard of Mr. Waterton’s reverses?”
“No, I know nothing about her since she gave her last grand party, which
was followed in a few days by his bankruptcy.”
“Why I was told she raved like a mad woman, reproached her husband in
the vilest terms for thus reducing her to poverty, taunted him with his
low origin, and accused him of the basest deception.”
“I can easily believe it, for these mild, placid milk-and-water women
have got the temper of demons when once aroused.”
“I have not told you all yet; she refused to give up her jewels, which
were known to be of great value, and having secretly employed a person
to dispose of them for her, she took passage for France, and actually
set sail a few days since; merely informing her husband _by letter_ that
such was her purpose. This letter she placed in such hands that she knew
he would not receive it until the vessel was underweigh, and he thus
learned that she had deserted him forever. She pretends to have gone to
join her sister; but there is a whisper of a certain black-whiskered
foreigner who is the companion of her voyage. At any rate, whether he
goes with her or not, he is a fellow passenger.”
“Where is Mr. Waterton?”
“At the house of his old uncle, who will probably be obliged to transfer
him to a lunatic asylum before long; but hush, the auctioneer is
coming.”
I have told you the _dénouement_ as related by the heartless women of
the world, but like most of their species, they were only _half right_.
Mrs. Waterton _did_ go with the intention of seeking her sister’s
protection, but ere she arrived there, she was persuaded to travel
farther under the protection of her fascinating friend. Mr. Waterton did
not enter a lunatic asylum, but recovered his senses so fully that he
obtained a divorce from his wife, and is now a fellow-clerk with his
uncle; enjoying as much tranquility as a remembrance of his former
follies, his imprudent choice, and his three years of wedded life will
allow.
Brooklyn, N. Y.
* * * * *
A DREAM OF THE LONELY ISLE.
BY MRS. M. ST. LEON LOUD.
There is an isle in the far south sea,
Sunny and bright as an isle can be;
Sweet is the sound of the ocean wave,
As its sparkling waters the green shores lave;
And from the shell that upon the strand
Lies half buried in golden sand—
A thrilling tone through the still air rings,
Like music trembling on fairy strings.
Flowers like those which the Peris find
In the bowers of their paradise, and bind
In the flowing tresses, are blooming there,
And gay birds glance through the scented air.
Gems and pearls are strew’d on the earth
Untouch’d—there are none to know their worth;
And that fair island death comes not nigh:
Why should he come?—there are none to die.
My heart had grown, like the Misanthrope’s,
Cold and dead to all human hopes;
Fame and fortune alike had proved
Baseless dreams, and the friends I loved
Vanish’d away, like the flowers that fade
In the deadly blight of the Upas shade.
I long’d upon that green isle to be,
Far away o’er the sounding sea;
Where no human voice, with its words of pain,
Could ever fall on my ear again.
Life seem’d a desert waste to me,
And I sought in slumber from care to flee.
Away, away, o’er the waters blue,
Light as a sea-bird the vessel flew.
Deep ocean furrows her timbers plow,
As the waves are parted before her prow;
And the foaming billows close o’er her path,
Hissing and roaring, as if in wrath.
But swiftly onward, through foam and spray,
To the lonely island she steers her way.
The heavens above wore their brightest smile,
As the bark was moor’d by that fairy isle;
The sails were furl’d, the voyage was o’er:
I should buffet the waves of the world no more.
I look’d to the ocean—the bark was gone,
And I stood on that beautiful isle, alone.
My wish was granted, and I was blest;
My spirit revell’d in perfect rest,—
A Dead Sea calm,—even thought repos’d
Like a weary dove with its pinions closed.
Beauty was round me: bright roses hung
Their blushing wreaths o’er my head, and flung
Fragrance abroad on the gale, to me
Sweeter than odors of Araby;
Wealth was mine, for the yellow gold
Lay before me in heaps untold.
Death to that island knew not the way,
But life was mine for ever and aye,
Till Love again made my heart its throne,
And I ceased to dwell on the isle, alone.
Long did my footsteps delighted range
My peaceful home, but there came a change;
My heart grew sad, and I looked with pain
On all I had barter’d life’s ties to gain.
A chilling weight on my spirits fell,
As the low, soft wail of the ocean shell—
Or the bee’s faint hum in the flowery wood,
Was all that broke on my solitude.
Oh! then I felt, in my loneliness,
That earth had no power the heart to bless,
Unwarm’d by affection’s holy ray;
And hope was withered, as day by day
I watch’d for the bark, but in vain, in vain;
She never sought that green isle again.
I stretch’d my arms o’er the heaving sea,
And pray’d aloud, in my agony,
That Love’s pure spirit might with me dwell—
Then rose the waves with a murmuring swell,
Higher and higher, till nought was seen
Where slept in beauty that islet green.
The waters pass’d o’er me,—the spell was broke;
From the dream of the lonely isle I woke,
With a heart redeem’d from its selfish stain,
To mingle in scenes of the world again
With cheerful spirit—and rather share
The pains and sorrows which mortals bear,
Than dwell where no shade on my path is thrown,
’Mid fadeless flowers and bright gems, alone.
Philadelphia.
* * * * *
LINES.
Why do we live? Is it to fade
From glory to the tomb,
Wrapt in its melancholy shade,
Inheritors of gloom?
Struck like the stars from Heav’n we die:
Quench’d is the spirit’s light;
Youth’s cheer and Hope’s sweet melody
Are hush’d in sorrow’s night.
Why are we here! but to depart?
’Tis anguish thus to fade.
Shall grief oppress a single heart
When we are lowly laid?
Thank God! th’ immortal soul no blight
Of earth can e’er decay;
On high, to realms of endless light
It flashes far away.
* * * * *
THE HEAD AND THE HEART.
BY W. LANDOR.
“This is certainly the most charming opera that was ever produced,” said
Mrs. Althorp, as the curtain fell after the first act of Sonnambula, and
she turned round to entertain the company in her box; “yet, after all,
what an absurdity it is! However, I must remember that I am growing
old.”
“Pardon me,” said Mr. Hartford, who sat behind her, “elegance and beauty
have no age.”
“Surely elegance has its Age, and it is that in which Mr. Hartford
lives.”
“Mrs. Althorp’s _fiat_ has, indeed, such potency that it can make even
me, in fact at least, the model of elegance.”
“My stamp,” she replied, “like that of the mint, only ascertains the
value of the metal.”
“But, in the mint of fashion which you administer, there is such a
seignorage as makes the coin far more valuable than the bullion.”
“Mr. Hartford, you talk operas,” said Mrs. Althorp, who knew she could
never beat him in the charming absurdities of compliment, and was
willing to retire from the contest.
“What do you think of the Prima Donna to-night?” said Miss Stanhope.
“I think she has miscarried in nothing but her singing, her acting and
her speaking,” replied Mr. Hartford.
“She certainly does not sing as well as she did. She has sung too much;
her voice is worn out.”
“You were speaking of the absurdity of the opera, Mrs. Althorp,” said
Hartford. “The matter has certainly not been improved since the time
when the Earl of Chesterfield settled it, that when you go to the opera,
you must take leave of your understanding and your senses with your half
guinea at the door, and give yourself up to the dominion of the ears and
eyes; in other words, you must live by sight, and not by faith. But the
repugnancy to reason is increased by the manner of performing them in
this country, where part of the dialogue is spoken. The illusion of the
opera is by that means destroyed. You may in time become accustomed to a
race of beings whose natural dialect is poetry, and whose common
cadences are music; but a set of people who let us see from time to time
that they can talk like ourselves, and who yet, whenever they are
excited, break out into modulated strains of song—who speak their
common-places, and warble their exclamations—such people shock our
credulity.”
“Yet it would seem that at Athens, where they knew something about these
things,” said Mr. Temple, “the same confusion of the natural and the
impossible prevailed on the stage. The chorus usually chanted its part,
and was accompanied by music; and as we find that the persons of the
drama, in conversing with them, frequently adopt the measure of verse
which they sung, we must suppose that the former at such times sang. The
chorus also often employs the rhythm which was used in speaking, and
thus seems to have used the double dialect of recitation and singing.
Nay, the chorus, as it circled the altar, employed a gliding step which
resembled dancing; so that the Greek drama partook of the threefold
nature of our tragedy, opera and ballet.”
“I have lost all my respect for the taste of the Greeks,” said Mrs.
Althorpe, “since I heard that they painted their temples.”
“It was savage, indeed, to paint their temples,” said Mr. Hartford; “the
more refined moderns only paint their cheeks.”
“The French are the modern Athenians,” said Miss Stanhope. “De
Bourrienne says that the soldiers who were with Napoleon in Egypt
complained bitterly of their privations, and longed especially for the
opera.”
“Do you know who that person is that is talking to the leader of the
orchestra?” said Miss Stanhope, directing the attention of Mrs. Althorpe
to a young man of very striking appearance, who stood just within the
door of the orchestra, and who seemed to be giving some directions that
were listened to with great attention.
“Oh! that is Mr. Nivernois,” said Mrs. Althorpe; “a very odd person, by
the by; I intended to have sent for him to sup with us to-night.”
After a few moments, the door of the box opened, and Mr. Nivernois came
in. There was something very remarkable in his appearance: regular,
well-chiselled features, of an Italian cast; pale complexion; large,
black, vivid eyes, and long, straight black hair; in his countenance was
an aspect of force and fire, keen intellectual action, and the power of
deep passion. He was negligently dressed, and was very careless in his
manner.
“This opera does not seem to be very popular to-night,” said Mrs.
Althorpe to him. “And yet it is a fine one.”
“Nay,” he replied, “if you were to set Austerlitz or the Angel Gabriel
to music, people would still complain.”
He turned round to Mr. Hartford, and began to put to him a variety of
questions about music, with such rapidity as gave him no time to answer
one of them. Hartford was ambitious to display his knowledge, and would
have been glad to confound his interrogator by his superior taste. But
the answer which he had begun to one question was cut off by another,
and before that could be attended to, a third had succeeded. When the
string was ended, he was so perplexed as to what he should reply to, and
so stunned by the fiery fervor of the questioning, that he remained
silent.
Nivernois fixed his keen eyes upon him, and waited an instant for the
reply, which came not. He then turned aside.
“Humph!” said he; “for my part, I know nothing of music; not I. I
thought I did, until I played three months every morning with Paganini.
I would not give up the struggle sooner. At the end of that time I broke
my fiddle, and abandoned fiddling forever. It was necessary to do that,
or throttle the old hair-scraper. I should strangle with anguish in my
chair, if I knew that there was a man living who could excel me in any
thing I undertook. But what can one do? We have but one life to live. We
are like felons, fumbling with a bunch of keys at the outer door of the
sanctuary of immortality, while the police of death are hurrying after
us round the corner; and who knows whether he has got the right key? No
lasting fame can be founded on music. No melody is immortal but that of
the drum and the cannon. That alone is eternally re-produced. How the
Corsican knew to touch that instrument!—the Handel of the iron flute!
What brave tunes they played off at Borodino and at Eylau! What a
concert was given under the pyramids—the companies in squares, the
musicians at the angles, and the shod feet of the Mameluke cavalry
marking time upon the crusted sand! For the rest, what composer is there
whom you recognise as _great_—whose name rushes on the breathless soul,
and echoes through the spirit with a sound like thunder, or the voice of
Milton? Fashions vary; tastes change. Who plays Purcell?—who sings
Arne? The musician cannot throw himself upon that broad, unchanging
instinct of popular judgment which, after the subtleties of criticism
are exhausted and the disputes of the schools are at an end, must decide
upon questions of taste, and to which literary creators may directly
appeal. The _people_ cannot get at music to judge of it. Overtures
cannot play themselves; and the professors, whose taste is corrupted by
the over-refinements of science, take good care that the world at large
shall not hear that great, universal music of a past age which would
sweep away their conspiracies against taste. Lightning itself would go
out of fashion, and thunder be pronounced exploded, if you could prevent
the people from hearing them; if the learned had the playing of them,
they would swear to us that steam-guns and rockets were more sublime.
Still it is better to compose good choruses than to write bad poetry,
like the great Frederic, or read worse, like Napoleon. We must multiply
and spin out the offices of life. We must cram full the charge of life,
if we would have a loud report. We must coin sleep into immortality, and
mould the waste of leisure into stars of glory. We have but one life to
live.”
The curtain rose, but Mr. Nivernois still went on with his harangue.
There presently occurred in the opera a passage of extraordinary beauty,
and Mrs. Althorpe began to be annoyed by the unceasing voice behind her.
Her impatience presently got the better of her courtesy.
“Tell Mr. Thingembob there to hush,” said she to Mr. Temple.
But the discourse still continued, and above the rapid din of words
could be occasionally heard, “Napoleon,” “genius,” and “We have but one
life to live.”
Mrs. Althorpe turned round.
“Mr. Nivernois, hush!”
Mr. Nivernois was silent. Mrs. Althorpe relented of her severity, and
began to fear that the unfortunate man might pine away in despair under
the infliction of her rebuke. She turned round again with one of her
most gracious smiles, and begged the favor of his company at supper
after the opera.
The passage in the play struck most of the company in the box as new;
they did not remember to have heard it at the previous representations
of the opera. The house seemed to agree with them as to its beauty. It
was called for a second and even a third time, and the applause was loud
and long.
“What do you think of that?” said Mrs. Althorpe to Nivernois.
“Read the prophecies of Isaiah to this people,” he replied; “if they
applaud that fittingly, I should think their praise of this worth
something.”
In a few moments, he left the box. Presently the leader of the orchestra
came in, between the acts.
“I thought I saw Mr. Nivernois here.”
“He has just gone. But where did you get that magnificent passage you
just played? It surely does not belong to the play.”
“You are indebted to Mr. Nivernois for it. He gave me, the other day, a
mass of musical manuscripts of his own composition. I picked this out of
them, not as being by any means the best, but the most suited for
insertion in this play. He has more genius than all the men I have ever
seen put together; but he has abandoned composition, because he says it
is impossible to beat Bellini. The violin that I played with to-night
was presented to him by Paganini, as a mark of his admiration; he gave
it to me.”
“I wonder that he would part with such a gift,” said Miss Stanhope.
“I believe that he gave it to me,” said the other, “lest he should seem
to himself to value the tribute of any man.”
“What a singular person he must be!” said Miss Stanhope, who had been
much struck with his appearance, and greatly interested by the oddness
and novelty of his character.
The company which had formed Mrs. Althorpe’s _cortège_ at the opera,
together with two or three other invited guests, were seated around her
small but elegant supper-table. A double circle of wax candles in an
_or-molu_ chandelier, which hung over the centre of it, cast their pure
white light upon the numerous silver dishes and richly cut glass which
covered it. After a little while, Mr. Nivernois strode into the room. He
was a small man, and the strides which he made were as long as himself.
He took his place in a vacant seat which had been reserved for him,
opposite to Miss Stanhope. They were talking about Napoleon. He listened
in silence, till a pause occurred.
“When nature had finished making the devils,” said he, pouring out for
himself a capacious goblet of Chambertin, “it threw together all the
rubbish that remained, and out of it formed Napoleon.”
Miss Stanhope laughed. “Do you mean that for praise or censure, Mr.
Nivernois?”
“Napoleon’s soul,” he replied, “was something larger than to be
enkernelled in the shell of any definition. Put together all the moral
epithets the lexicons furnish, of wisdom and of folly, of greatness and
of littleness, of magnanimity and meanness, force and feebleness, and
every thing else, and fling the whole mass, in a lump, at his character,
and you may have some chance of hitting the mark. It would be difficult
to say anything of him that would be wholly false; impossible to say
anything altogether true. When you have circumnavigated him, you have
sailed round the whole world. His character was somewhat like the poet’s
vision of the temple of Fame. On one side you behold the severe and
classic beauty of a Doric front, with images of antique strength and
grace: on another, the grandeur and the gloom of a Gothic structure: on
a third, the pride and splendor and magnificent exaggeration of Eastern
pomp: on the fourth, the dull, impenetrable mystery of Egypt. His spirit
was as various as the morning sky, and his chamberlain, on two
successive days, never woke up the same man. The truth is, his life was
an acted drama; not of the Æschylus kind, with some unity in it, but a
Nat Lee drama of five-and-twenty acts. If we take it that he displayed
his sincere character, and was that which he appeared to be, we must
conclude that he was a glorious fool, among greater fools; a madman,
whose frenzy was, however, the fatality of Europe. So viewed, he was
born for bombast, as a trout for rising; his sentences have not a grain
of sense to five quarts of syllables; a fortunate adventurer, who
appeared at such a conjuncture of politics that his daring served him
for talent, his selfishness for sagacity, his passion for power. But I
suppose that Bonaparte always wore the buskin; that the historical
Napoleon was but a character which the real one put on to dazzle and
delude the fancies of men, and fire their passions, till, drunk as with
wine, they might be bound and led by him. In his own more actual being,
he was a cold, calculating, shrewd and wholly interested schemer. His
performances were always for the author’s benefit. This Garrick
sometimes blundered in the assumed characters in which he spent his
life. He too frequently mistook ferocity for majesty; imagined he was
royal when he was only brutal, and thought he was playing the hero when
he was only playing the fool. He assumed the madman, generally, when he
dealt with men, and only put on the blackguard when he talked to women.
He knew the truth of Bacon’s saying that there is in human nature more
of the fool than of the wise, and that that which addresses itself to
the foolish part of men’s minds will prevail over that which speaks to
the wiser. He built a great temple of delusion, in which he, the priest,
should continually shout “Glory,” and all the people answer “Amen.” His
breast was a natural mirror and antitype of all the passions and follies
of the fools called Frenchmen. By studying his own foolishness, he knew
what ropes to pull to make their fool’s bells jingle. He is, therefore,
of the weaknesses and worser powers of men, the ablest metaphysician
that has appeared. One of his remarks opens the mind, as snuff opens the
head. He was a poet in practice. Sydney’s rule, “Fool! look into thy
heart and write,” he obeyed; and wrote empires. Of course, an
adventitious power like this cannot be measured; in fact, when supplied
by so seething a fancy and so combining an intellect as he had, it is
altogether illimitable; he had only to conceive a new idea to possess a
new power. He therefore belongs to that class of men of whom Du Quesnay
has said that one and one make a hundred and eleven. When you can define
the genius of Shakspeare, you will be able to describe the _character_
of Napoleon; the two things are cognate. As we see him, he was not an
entity, but a mere crystallization of ideas, which were continually
depositing around him like the successive layers of an oyster shell. A
philosophical Haüy might split off crystal after crystal of ideas, and
he would find the ultimate crystal still an idea. Every thing of him was
visionary, and not substance. Squeeze him in your hand, and he crushes
like a dandy’s locks. Try that process on such a man as Wellington, and
you soon feel the bone. In sooth, the Duke is all bone.”
“But you would not think of comparing Wellington and Napoleon,” said Mr.
Temple.
“No more than I would compare the frothy forms of the rock with the
granite substance of the Alps. There are some sentiments,” said he, with
a fervent, suppressed tone, “which lie so deep within us that they seem
to be a part of our souls; in me, veneration of Wellington is such.
Since the Duke of Marlborough was buried, there has not lived, nor lives
there, a man to whom I bow with an entire reverence, excepting
Wellington. When I stood face to face with him, I felt how truly Scott
had said that he was the only man in whose presence he felt himself
nothing.”
“But do you think that he has Bonaparte’s genius?”
“Perhaps not; but where you see a man who is great without genius, you
see the greatest kind of man the world knows any thing of; and where you
see a poet who prevails without passion, you see an order of poetry high
and enduring; such, on the one hand, is Wellington; on the other, Pope.
All that such men do is done by force of intellect and might of
character, and the results are true and permanent.”
“No doubt the Duke is a great man.”
“A greater there never lived. It is the misfortune of this age that it
has no guides or leaders; no profound, thinking men, who, knowing the
past and caring for the future, can judge rightly of the present, and
give laws to the opinions of the time. Now, the multitude decide on
every thing for themselves; and every thing is despised which is beyond
the taste of the vulgar. Napoleon was essentially a hero for the vulgar;
fools, who have no idea of power but in tumult, or of strength but in
struggle, cannot comprehend the calm, unapproachable grandeur of
Wellington—a grandeur too high for sympathy. I have studied him in his
despatches; I have talked with him—I have seen him all round—there is
in that man more of innate, imperturbable greatness than in all the
world beside. When Napoleon was about to strike a blow, he raised up
around him a cloud, a very tempest, of passions and fancies, through
which every thing was magnified and mistaken. Wellington goes to work
plainly, indifferently, frigidly, and it is only by the result that you
recognise _in scena Roscium_. In the deep perturbation which came over
the spirit of Napoleon when he essayed any vast work: in the mighty
effort, the tremendous strain—inevitably successful though it may have
been—you see one whose undertakings are above his nature; who must lash
his energies to make them efficient enough. In the cool, common-place,
regular, business-like proceedings of Wellington—never erring or
unprosperous—we behold one whose native, unalterable strength is so
high that the loftiest enterprise is to him not exciting; who, in
conquering glory, is doing his ordinary work. His trade was to be always
successful, and he was perfect master of it. There is the same
difference between the two that there is between the youth and manhood
of genius: in the former, more fervor and greater consciousness of
power; in the latter, far more real might. The distinction may be marked
by the names of the two demons who, in Æschylus, bind Prometheus to the
rock; one was Force, the other Strength. There is the same diversity
which exists between the calm, grey light of the sun, and the lurid,
flashing, noisy brilliance of fire-works. Wellington is the
representative of the genius of England, which, from the beginning of
history, bearing aloft the standard of integrity, good sense and solid
freedom, has stood like a rock in the sea of human passions and powers:
one while baffling the frantic tyranny of the Papacy, and at another
stamping under its iron heel the struggling fiend of Jacobinism.
Napoleon is the type of France—a nation which has no power save of
paroxysms, and cannot cease to be frivolous but by becoming ferocious.
Wellington rides through life like a Tartar horseman, with one perpetual
posture, that of the lance in rest; with one fixed gaze, that on the
object of his attack. Napoleon scoured through his existence like a
monkey on a circus horse, brandishing a flag, stooping over his nag’s
head or under his body, jumping down to jump up again, and all to gain
the wonder and applause of the spectators; going round and round, and
ending where he began. I must finish the parallel by saying that his
course was marked out for him by the whip of a base necessity. Napoleon
was the slave and courtier of opinion, which he at length flattered into
the belief that it was a master. Wellington despised and neglected
opinion, till it has come fawning about his feet. Vanity had grasped
Napoleon by the throat, and he was her garlanded victim. You never see
in Wellington that sycophancy to circumstances, that obsequiousness to
fortune. He seized Destiny by the collar, and fairly swung her round.
Consider the wonderful, sublime achievement of Assaye; study the
political skill which he displayed in the Peninsula, the miraculous
combination of ingenuity, temper, firmness and authority by which he
threw order into a chaos of difficulties, and, himself alone, sustained
a world of jarring interests; contemplate the glorious action of the
Arapeiles, of which Austerlitz was a dull and broken reflection; ponder
the campaign of Torres Vedras, the master-piece of art, the wonder of
history—a conception as felicitous as the brightest of Newton’s, and
executed with a perfection which delights the observer even to
mirthfulness—a model of _beauty_ in war, by which victory was reduced
to certainty, and war became one of the exact sciences: review these,
and tell me by what proofs of intellectual power in Napoleon’s history
they are exceeded. Remember, too, that of all Wellington’s doings we
have unvarnished and exact accounts; while of Napoleon’s actions we have
in many cases only the statements of himself, the most enormous liar
that ever breathed the upper air. Wellington was a great man; Napoleon
was a child, who, by the despair of an infinite and hopeless ambition,
had strengthened himself into a giant.”
“There is this remarkable consideration in Wellington’s case, that the
whole of his wide and free career was wholly run within the limits of
duty. In that respect, no man in history may be compared with him,
except Belisarius. What such men do is done without the inspiration of
the passions.”
“Yes: when a man flings himself free from all human ties, and is
self-hurled into the infinite abandonment of the lusts of the mind, his
soul becomes charged with the might and the magnificence of all the
fires of Hell. The infernal saints all minister their power to his
spirit:—Vanity, with its craving eyes—Pride, with its vaulting
restlessness—the steel-tipped thongs of Ambition, the fiendish vigor of
Despair. It was a dangerous thing to conquer Napoleon; he recoiled from
defeat with the spring of a demon. When you remember that Wellington had
neither this power, which was possessed by Alexander and Gustavus and
Napoleon, nor yet the religious enthusiasm of Cromwell, but did all by
the natural and native strength of his ordinary intellect, you must
yield him a respect which the others cannot share. He has considered
that, in politics as in geometry, the shortest line is the straightest.
Napoleon was made up of artifice, of which Mirabeau has said that it may
indicate intellect, but it never exists in intellect of a superior
order, unless accompanied with meanness of heart; it is a lie in action,
and it springs from fear and personal interest, and consequently from
meanness.”
“To be sure, the moral eminence of the men will bear no comparing.”
“Persons of great souls and lofty meditations recognise the dignity of
nature even in the degradation of fate. They are conscious of its great
origin, its mournful condition, its high destiny; henceforth there is
for them no scorn, but a sympathising tolerance, a respectful
compassion. Napoleon’s moral power was the power of ferocious contempt;
it was based upon a disdainful hatred of his species. Depend upon it,
that no thinking man can cherish an habitual disgust who has himself a
soul, or abhor his fellows who has any self-respect. You find in
Wellington none of these wild, these savage sentiments, these
extremenesses of counsel or of motive. He is always sane, practical,
right-hearted and right-minded. His actions illustrate that useful
wisdom which the affairs of life demand, and I know no writer from whom
so valuable precepts may be learned. In or out of Oxford, he has been
the hardest student of his times; for the saddle is, after all, the true
chair of thought. As for Napoleon being great, it seems to me that the
idea is an absurdity. Alfred, William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, these
were great men; and such men build up all that is built, and the history
of a nation from their time till you come to another great man, is only
the record of pulling down what they built up. But Napoleon pulled down
everything, and built up nothing. He built, to be sure, ideally or in
opinion; that is, he made systems and structures and constitutions, on
paper, notionally, and by name, but not in things, in substance, of the
elements of real existence; else by a word, or a reversed look, they
could not have been destroyed. What the hand creates, only the thousand
hands of Time can destroy; what the breath makes, a breath obliterates,
for the thing made was no more than a breath. Draw a line around certain
states on the map, and call it the confederation of the Rhine; give
geographical nicknames to a quantity of soldiers, and call it an
aristocracy: behold the creations of Napoleon! Alfred established
tithings, hundred courts and county courts; that principle of
self-government—for the administration of law is the most important
part of government—that little flame, shrined in those humble vestal
temples, and there kept safe against the blasts of ages of tyranny’s
turbulence, blazed up eight centuries later, and wrapt the throne of
Charles in combustion. Plantaganet kings might call their system an
absolute monarchy; the Tudors and Stuarts might diffuse the idea of
divine right; but Alfred, by establishing juries and the common law, had
made the _thing_ republic, and that was sure to beat down the _name_,
monarchy. Call you a man great whose life-work is swept away in half an
hour, without any principle of re-action or re-establishment showing
itself? Nay, his works always carried with them the germ of their own
destruction. The light that shone around his system was the
phosphorescence of decay.”
“This much,” said Mr. Temple, “may be said for Napoleon, that he raised
himself to absoluteism without degrading others to slavery.”
“Why, ’tis a monkey’s trick to mount up on people’s heads. Richelieu got
there, as a man does; not by walking up men’s backs, but by making them
stoop for him to get on. In effect, the true and bright view of
Napoleon’s empire is, to consider it a democracy. Viewed as a monarch,
rising and reigning in a constitution fashioned after the old forms, he
was a mountebank and an impostor; considered as the controlling spirit
in a democracy of powerful spirits, the head-idea in a nation—tumult of
ideas—the odd man who is pushed up in a crowd of men—he becomes a
spectacle of wonder, a riddle of infinite wisdom. The last of the old
system, he is nothing; the first of a new one, everything. Regarded as
the type of that democratic system which will overrun the world, his
empire is a splendid, infinitely-crowded rehearsal of the coming drama
of ages. He who would understand the whole nature, power and philosophy
of democracy, must study that empire. Many thoughts belong to that
subject. But I have harangued too long. Pitt was the man who said with
absolute truth, that Napoleon was “the child and champion of democracy.”
The spectacle of the force of old monarchy in the person of the stern,
iron duke, slowly advancing and destroying this young system, is the
picture of the gloomy Saturn relentlessly devouring his joyous
giant-boys. The Jupiter of that old deity nestles yet a babe near his
bosom; his begetting was in Pitt’s time, his birth at the Reform Bill.”
“Napoleon must certainly be tried by new principles of judgment. The
maxims upon which the fame of Turenne and Marlboro’ has been settled,
will not give him his true position.”
“Napoleon made glory according to a receipt of his own. But the
misfortune is, that he not only imposed this false stuff upon us, but he
revolutionized the chemistry by which its spuriousness should be
detected. He depraved the opinions, and bent backwards the consciences
of people. But upon the whole, I think we may say, that in life, the
most beautiful of the fine arts, his taste was anything but classical.
He belonged to the David school, and painted on the canvass of Time,
such pictures as that man hung up in the Louvre—bombast conceptions,
executed in the daub. But after all he was a splendid creature; he made
a glorious pastime in Europe; he showed the world a magnificent sport;
he filled the pages of history with matter which possessed an endless
interest. Strike out his career, and what blankness remains! The truth
is, this life of ours is enveloped in endless coverings, coats,
over-coats and blankets of common-place—an atmosphere of common-place,
dull, dense, unbreathable—a waking, inlaid with sleep—life overlaid
with death. Walled in, and under-buried in a mass of tedium, one cannot
get one’s breath. Sometimes, the world becomes intensely conscious of
this imprisonment, and goes mad in trying to get free from itself. What
wonder, if suffocated by being wrapped in a dun, drowsy, over-growing
thraldom of common-place—its eye sick with sameness, its ear vexed with
a cracked monotony, its soul should grow convulsive, become volcanic,
and throwing off the whole disgusting encumbrance of the social system,
it should rush forth to the free wilderness where it may once more see
the fresh, eternal stars, and breathe a living air. And we must thank
Napoleon for his battles; for war is the glory of our disgraced
existence. Struggle is the parent of all the greatness of our being. It
is only when minds wrestle in the energy of desperation with other
minds, or with things, as in war, that the last degrees of intellectual
and moral power are seen. The literary man goes half to sleep, and keeps
awake only enough to purr his satisfaction at his demi-unconsciousness.
In this world we must fight even to keep ourselves alive. The
politicians of this piping time doze away their days as if they had a
hundred existences to enjoy: as if life were a chair to loll in, a
corridor to walk, or a hall to dance in, and not a general battle-field
on which to fight for everything.”
There was that in the appearance and manner of Mr. Nivernois—his eye,
his glowing countenance, the intense life which there was about him,
rendered amiable by an entire simplicity of spirit—which was admirably
adapted to captivate the heart and fancy of a woman, especially an
enthusiastic one. What effect had been produced upon the imaginative
temperament of Miss Stanhope, we cannot say. As she was going away, Mrs.
Althorpe said to her,
“This Mr. Nivernois is certainly a man of genius, but he is mad, stark
mad—like Mazeppa’s steed—
Wild as the wild deer, and untaught,
With spur and bridle undefiled.
But he has blood and fortune. I sincerely wish you would take him in
hand and tame him: he is worthy of your attention, and if properly
brought under, would make a great addition to good society.”
The next day Nivernois was walking in the street and had his attention
attracted by a sign-board, which gave notice of a gallery of pictures.
Having nothing better to do, he went into it. The collection was a good
one, and he spent some time in looking at different productions of the
old masters. The feeling which chiefly occupied his mind was regret that
genius so exalted as many of these artists possessed should have left no
monument more durable than a perishing canvass, which would one day
cause all that marvellous skill to be nothing but a name. His eye was
presently drawn to a portrait of a young lady of singular beauty. The
picture was a fresh one, and he thought that he had seen the features
before, but where or when, he could not remember. The side of the figure
was presented, with the face turned round over the shoulder towards the
spectator. Her dress was blue; a laced veil was on her head, and in her
hand a _bouquet_ of flowers, around which was a band on which was the
word “Love.”
“Beautiful creature!” said he aloud, as he gazed upon the portrait, “and
whom do you love?”
“Thee,” faintly said a soft voice above him. He started and looked up.
There was a gallery above, and upon it a door covered by a curtain. He
saw the curtain move as if some one retreated rapidly through it, and he
thought that he had caught a glimpse of a blue dress. He ran rapidly up
to the gallery and through the curtained door, in hopes of discovering
the speaker, perhaps the original of the portrait. He searched every
apartment of the building, but in vain: no one was to be found. He
returned to the picture and sat down before it.
“Love!” said he, “what is that? I never thought of it before.” The
portrait hung near to an open door, through which the soft air of spring
was bearing the enchanting odour of a bed of violets which grew in the
garden: above was the rich softness of the blue sky. As he sat amid
influences so soothing, and gazed upon the overpowering beauty of those
splendid features, on which a hazy sunlight coming through a window in
the roof, threw a more peculiar lustre there arose within the stern,
constrained, and wholly intellectual being of this earnest, scheming
man, the slow but strong movement of a passion which he never before had
known. The rigid stress of mind, so long kept up—the high-wound force
of feeling, so necessary, yet so painful—softened and melted away in
the delicious mildness of sentiment that flowed in upon his nature. It
wrestled, did that sentiment, with the cold hardness of that logical
frame of being, as the still growing wind with the outer barriers of a
thick forest, and gradually burst in and wandered where it pleased. The
disdainful solitude of soul in which he had fortified himself against a
hostile world, was changing into a spirit which fraternized with all the
universe. It was the birth of sympathy within a bosom before entirely
and fiercely personal.
“Where has it kept so long?—this soft, this delicate emotion?” said he.
As the blue zephyr, born amidst the depths of the sky, raises and opens
out the dried, mast-bound sail of some long-locked bark, and floats away
the vessel into seas of unknown loveliness, so did this delicious
sentiment expand and quicken that spirituality which had before lain
senseless and collapsed. It diffused a joy and beauty like that of the
golden sunshine gleaming into a clouded forest, flowing and flashing
with an ever brightening splendor, rolling a yellow flowerage over the
mind, vesting the trees in airy robes of silver, and spreading through
the teeming woods a mysterious troop of shadows, the dusky-haired
daughters of light. Like the refreshing rain upon the fevered earth,
there fell upon his spirit a fragrant shower of soft hopes and immortal
dreams. The rough and hardened bough was become a branch of leaves and
fruits. He who had dwelt ever in the outwardness of thought, first
entered the portals of the inner world of feeling: he who had been ever
passionate only to DO, recognized a state in which to BE was bliss, to
move was ecstacy.
Such is the passionate constitution of genius that its mental nature,
“like a cloud, moves all together, if it move at all;” the moral being
of men of that stamp, intense and entire, never conceives an idea of
character or life, but it straightway throws forth all its energy to
realize that idea in its imaginary completeness: impelled towards evil,
they dash downwards with a frenzied force and reach a depth of
degradation at which colder sinners are astounded: when but one
aspiration dawns in their bosom, they spring up from the shores of that
gulph, and soaring above the clouds, wave in the sparkling sun their
fresh-plumed wings with not one feather moulted: they can mould all
their thinkings in the form and pressure of pure logic; and again their
feelings will be expanding in all the chastened feelings of luxurious
sentiments. These changes make genius a puzzle to its companions, but
delicious to itself.
It is not wonderful then if this man rose from that seat another being.
But the picture was still the centre and object of his thoughts. Rare
indeed, and transcendant was the beauty of that countenance: a depth of
passion, and an elevation of thought were characterized upon it, which
fired the imagination of the youth who gazed. He thought that he had
seen those features before; but where, and how? He had a faint
impression that Miss Stanhope might be the person. But in fact, so
little had he been interested in woman before, that he had scarce paid
any attention to her appearance—had no distinct remembrance of her
face. Supposing that the voice which he had heard had proceeded from the
original of the picture, and that it indicated that he was loved by her,
he was deeply anxious to discover who it was.
He pulled a bell which he discovered near the door, and there issued
forth in reply from a small door, an old gray-haired man, very tall, and
bent like a crozier.
“What picture is this?” said Nivernois.
“Why, it’s a portrait,” said the old man, with a look of great contempt
at the simplicity of the question.
From the tone in which he shouted, it seemed that he added deafness to
his other virtues.
“Of whom?”
“A lady,” roared the other, with increased scorn.
“True; but of what lady is it the portrait?”
“Oh, I don’t know;” and he began to hobble back to his cage.
“Is it for sale?”
“No: none of them are for sale; none of them; not one of them:” and he
closed the door behind him.
Nivernois walked up to the picture, took it down from the nail,
unscrewed the board behind it, and rolling up the canvass, put it under
his arm and marched out of the room.
When he reached the street he saw a woman dressed in blue passing round
the corner. From a glimpse which he had of her features he thought it
was the picture-lady. He darted forward, but the street which she had
turned into was vacant. There stood a large double house at the corner,
and beyond it there was a garden wall of some length; he concluded that
she must have gone into that house. He rushed in, and turning into the
first door he came to, found himself in an elegant drawing-room in which
there were a dozen persons paying morning visits.
“Humph! humph!” said he, as he scrutinized the face of every woman in
the circle, and found that the object of his search was not among them.
He took up a volume that lay on the table, it was lettered “Love.” He
walked towards a grand piano which stood open, with a piece of music on
the frame. The music was entitled “Love.”
“Love!” said he; “Love! wherever I go this morning, it is still love. I
will give you my ideas of love.” He took off his hat, and laying down
his roll in it, seated himself before the instrument.
He began with some sad and heavy strains which might express the
joylessness of a breast which was a stranger to sympathy. The music was
cheerless, monotonous, and full of startling discords. Presently there
struck into this painful turbulence a light strain of delicious melody,
like a sunbeam bursting into the primal chaos. It extended and gathered
strength, and the disorder of the rest gradually subsided, and melted
away to give place to it. Then there arose the most brilliant and
enchanting notes that that instrument had ever given forth; a flood of
varied rapture flowed out. It was the picture of a world of bliss; a
world whose turf was of the choicest flowers,—whose breezes were airs
from paradise,—whose sky knew not the color of a cloud.
The performer turned his head round and got a glimpse through the window
of some one passing along the street.
“There she goes!” he exclaimed, and seizing his hat and roll, rushed out
with the same vehemence that he had entered, leaving the company not a
little astonished at the oddity of his behaviour.
When he got into the street, nothing was to be seen; “I must discover
that woman,” said he; “what is life to me, if I cannot find her? All my
happiness is garnered in her being; to enjoy my own soul, I must possess
her: to live, I must live with her. By the bye, I must have done rather
an absurd thing in going into that house and playing on the piano,
without knowing any body. By Jove, I’ll go back and apologize. Ah! ha!
there is Mrs. Althorpe going in; she will present me.”
When they got into the room, the company which had been there had gone,
and the lady of the house was sitting alone. Mrs. Althorpe called her
Mrs. Stanhope.
“Madam,” said Mr. Nivernois, “I just met an eccentric friend of mine
going out of the door, who I imagine must have made a most unauthorized
entry into your house, in a fit of absence, and behaved in a very
ridiculous manner, when in it. In fact, he requested me to offer on his
behalf the fullest apology for his maniacal conduct, and to beg from
your courtesy an act of oblivion. He is a harmless madman,—one of that
numerous class who are suffered by their friends to go abroad without
strait-jackets.”
“Any friend of yours,” said Mrs. Stanhope, “is extremely welcome to come
into my house at all times; and even had the eccentricities of this
gentleman been at all objectionable, we should have been more than
compensated by the admirable display which he made upon the piano. As a
pupil of Calebrenner’s, I consider myself something of a judge; and I
never heard so rich a strain of harmony.”
“Why, as for that, I do not know that he differs materially from any one
else. Everybody carries a Marengo, a Childe Harold, and a Sonnambula in
his blood; the only difficulty is to get them out.”
“Pray, Mr. Nivernois,” said Mrs. Althorpe, with a certain look of a high
bred woman, not unmixed with something of comic, “What is it you have
under your arm.”
“Portable bliss,—the potentiality of a happiness beyond the dreams of
one who is not a lover,—ecstasy in a roll,—perfect delight on
canvass;” and he opened the picture and held it up.
Mrs. Althorpe made a sign to Mrs. Stanhope to be silent.
“Do you know whose portrait it is?” said Mrs. Althorpe.
“I cannot for my life discover.”
“Do you then so much wish to find the original?”
“A question, truly! I do.”
“Is it not beautiful?”
“Is not what beautiful?”
“The painting.”
“I cannot speak of these matters now. For the moment I am at war with
_virtû_. It _may_ be divine—perhaps it is so. One thing I feel—the
impotence of the artist. What he has succeeded in en-canvassing speaks
only to my soul of a more radiant loveliness—that of motion, of
thought, of heart—for which the pencil has no outline, the pallet no
dye.”
“You are an enigma, and my query is unanswered. I will put it in another
form. Is _she_ not beautiful?”
“She is.”
“How did you become possessed of the picture?”
“I saw it in the exhibition, and as they refused to sell it to me, I cut
it out and brought it away.”
Mrs. Althorpe fell back into her chair, overpowered by irresistible
laughter at the oddness of the incident, and the solemn gravity with
which Nivernois stood eyeing the picture. An idea occurred to her by
which she might give this matter a turn to her mind.
“I cannot imagine, of course,” said she, “whose portrait it is. But if
you will come to my house to-night, I shall have some young ladies
there, and it is possible that the fair original may be among them. We
shall have _tableaux vivants_, and I think you will find it pleasant.”
“I will come with the utmost pleasure, even if the lady be not there.”
“And when I say that the party will be pleasant, I imply thereby an
invitation to Mrs. Stanhope, who of course can make it so. But, Mr.
Nivernois, are you not afraid that the officers of justice will be after
you for abstracting that picture?”
“Oh! I am only taking it to be copied; after that I shall take it back.”
“Well! put up your roll then, and we will go.”
When they had walked some distance, Mrs. Althorpe took leave of him, and
bent her steps again towards Mrs. Stanhope’s.
In the evening, Mr. Nivernois went to Mrs. Althorpe’s. The _tableaux_
were exhibited in the hall: the company stood at one end, and a curtain
was drawn at the other, behind which was the frame. They went off with
great effect. The first was the Magdalen of Corregio, a recumbent
figure, “with loose hair and lifted eye,” the light thrown strongly upon
a volume open before her. The second and third were scenes from the
Corsair. While the fourth was preparing, Mr. Nivernois got engaged in
explaining to a person near him a new method by which _tableaux_ might
be presented in a much more striking manner, and he did not take notice
of the rising of the curtain, until he heard several of the company
exclaiming, “Beautiful!”—“how beautiful!” He turned and beheld the very
picture which he had that day been contemplating: the glorious features,
the blue dress, the veil falling over the back, the head turned round
over the shoulder. He stepped a little forward, and his keen eye caught
the glance of the performer; there was a momentary wavering, a blush,
the face was turned aside, and the curtain fell. Nivernois passed into a
room at the side, and hastened towards the place where the pictures were
shown. He found three or four persons there engaged in arranging the
next performance. A door stood open in the rear leading into a large and
very elegant garden. He looked out, and through the bright moonlight saw
among the bushes a female figure. He rushed forth; the lady fled, but
soon stopped by the limits of the ground, turned her head round, and
again presented the living portrait of the morning. It was Miss
Stanhope. He seized her hand in both of his.
“Oh! glorious being!” he exclaimed, “accept the homage of my soul. Take
all the worship of my being. I love you beyond the expression of all
words.”
She timidly extended towards him the bouquet which she had.
“Give me the motto with the flowers,” said he, “and you make me the
happiest of mankind.”
There was a soft consenting in her form and gestures, though she spoke
not. He pressed her to his bosom, and kissed her glowing cheek, I do not
know how often. He took her hand and they sat down upon a bench; a bed
of violets beneath their feet, the bright young foliage around them, and
above, the glittering moon smiling a pearly lustre on the floating
clouds.
“Thou art, within my soul, a birth of happiness and peace. I have been,
of all men, the most ambitious: not as valuing the opinions of the
world, for I am not yet sunk so low; but that I might in the interest of
action and creation find some comfort to my spirit. I have had some
applause; as much as satisfied the most craving vanity of many around
me. It wearied and fretted me unutterably, and as praise increased, I
feared to go mad with the anguish of disappointment. In this distress of
an intellect always seeking but incapable of finding, thy gentle beauty
beamed upon my heart. It awoke therein life and a fountain of light. Yet
was it not its own light, but the reflection of thy glorious lustre; as
in the blank waters on a starry night we recognise the impassioned
splendor of the heavens. I have placed thee within my heart; and
henceforth shall I find thee, forever, a source of joy and a spring of
inspiration.”
* * * * *
STANZAS.
BY E. CLEMENTINE STEDHAM.
“My harp also is turned to mourning.—Where is God my Maker, who giveth
songs in the night?”
The flush of young Hope, and the smile have departed,
That tinted my cheek—that enlivened my brow;
In sackcloth I sit, with the desolate-hearted,
And hushed is the song of my mirthfulness now.
All Nature rejoiceth to welcome gay Summer:
The out-going morn “walks in beauty” more bright;
And the streamlet replenished, forgetting its murmur,
Is dancing along in the gush of delight.
All, all save my heart, beats responsive to Nature!
In vain do _I_ hear the sweet warbling of birds,
In vain the rejoicing of each living creature—
The bleat of the lambs, or the low of the herds;
My spirit returneth no echo of gladness;
“The harp of the heart,” by affliction unstrung,
Can only reply in the numbers of sadness,
Or, silent with grief, on the willows is hung.
Great Parent of Nature! if to the bleak mountains,
The light of thy smile bringeth verdure again;
Doth gladden the desert with palm trees and fountains,
And scatter new beauties o’er valley and plain;
If the wealth of thy bounty, in showers descending,
Can make “the waste-places” bloom fresh as the rose;
And thy rainbow of promise, in loveliness bending
Upon the dark cloud, hush the storms to repose;
Oh! cannot the light of thy favor awaken
The well-springs of joy in a desolate heart,
And clothe with new verdure the bosom forsaken
Of all that could pleasure or solace impart?
And hast thou not showers for the _spirit’s_ refreshing,
And songs in the night-time of sorrow to give?
Then open thy windows and pour down a blessing—
O smile! and this wilderness heart shall revive.
Cedar Brook, Plainfield, N. J.
* * * * *
TO THE MOCKING-BIRD.
Arch imitator! ’mid thy varied tone,
That revels so acquisitively sweet,
Rivalling e’en Nature’s self, when doth thine own
Wild native air my rapt delusion greet?
Hast thou a voice to echo every note
Of liquid melody that erst hath dwelt
’Mid the greenwood, or where soft zephyrs float:
Yet of thine own hath not, in ecstacy to melt?
What modulation, what inflected grace,
Breathes through the volume of that warbling spell!
An intonation clear, that doth embrace
The woven minstrelsy from rock to dell.
The spring-tide melody, the summer lay,
The plaintiveness of darkly shadow’d night—
Who hath her choral charms, as beaming day—
These in their change are thine, to ’wilder and delight.
That rich, full swell of sweetness and of force,
That seem’d to wrap thy life-stream with the song,
In its wild strength—as struggling springs their source,
Break, and are borne in murm’ring sounds along:
Say, was it thine?—thy Parent-giving strain,
The innate warbling of thy purer soul,
That gush’d, as if it would to bowers attain
Where flowers unwith’ring bloom, and strains divine e’er roll?
But ah! again to earth that half-fled sprite
Sinks, in the beauty of some well-known air,
Less free and joyous, in its raptur’d flight,
Than the wild touching thrill that spoke thee there.
Kindred of thine own vocalizing race,
Yet of surpassing skill and strength of flow—
Illimitably varied—where we trace
The wondrous spell of mystery, we seek to know.
Gay, spry deceiver, from thy covert nigh,
Methinks I hear the myriad of thy clime
Pouring sweet incense through the southern sky,
In the free rapture of each gift divine;
Yet all successive—one continuous swell
Of silvery softness from the fount of love;
The mellow wood-notes, or the screaming yell,
Attest thy perfect art—thy imitations prove.
Oh, spirit-bird! to man thou hast been sent,
To teach Omnipotence by gush of song,
Bringing bright thoughts of goodness, that is blent
In all that gladdens—all that glides along—
And if, perchance, this teaching be not vain,
To win him upward, where he may rejoice
’Mid holy love, pure scenes, and sacred strain
Of heavenly praise, such as I hear from thee, thou voice!
A. F. H.
* * * * *
THE REEFER OF ’76.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUISING IN THE LAST WAR.”
THE WHITE SQUALL.
I was standing one sultry afternoon, by the weather railing, gazing
listlessly over the schooner’s side, and indulging in such reveries as
crowd upon the mind in our moments of idleness, when my attention was
called to the cry of the look-out that a sail was hovering to windward;
and gazing out in that direction I was soon enabled to detect a white
speck far up on the seaboard in that quarter, bearing as much
resemblance, in the eye of an unpractised observer, to the wing of a
sea-gull, as to what we knew it really to be—the royal of a man-of-war.
In an instant all was bustle on our decks. The men below poured up the
gangway: the skulkers came out from under the sides of the guns; the
officers gathered eagerly in a knot abaft the mainmast; spy-glasses were
put in requisition, shrewd guesses were made respecting the flag of the
stranger, and all the curiosity which the sight of an unknown sail
produces on board a man-of-war, was displayed in its full force amongst
us.
“I think she carries herself like a Frenchman,” said the first
lieutenant.
“Pardon me,” said the skipper, “but she lifts as if she were an
Englishman.”
“I could swear her to be a Hollander,” said a lieutenant, who had served
a while in the navy of the States.
“And were you not all so sure,” interposed a weather-beaten
quarter-master, whose boast it was that he had been at sea for more than
forty years, “I should say yon saucy braggart was a real Spaniard, such
as Kid would have given ten years of his life to be alongside of, for a
matter of a bell or so;” and having delivered himself of these remarks,
the old fellow coolly turned his quid, and squirted a stream of tobacco
juice like the jet of a force-pump, over the schooner’s side.
“At any rate, gentlemen,” said the captain, “the stranger doesn’t seem
to bring down much of a breeze with him, so that we shall have plenty of
time to form our conclusions before it becomes necessary to act. If he
should even prove to be an enemy, night may be here before he gets
within range, and under cover of the darkness we can easily escape him.
The little Fire-Fly has done too much mischief, and been too lucky
heretofore, to be lost now.”
The day had been unusually sultry. A light breeze had ruffled the ocean
in the morning, but about two bells in the afternoon watch the wind had
died away, and an almost dead calm had succeeded. The sea became as flat
as a mirror, its polished surface only heaving in long gentle
undulations, like the bosom of some sleeping monster. Not a ripple broke
upon its whole extent. The sky was cloudless: the rays of the sun,
pouring almost vertically downwards, and penetrating even through the
awning overhead, heated the deck till it became like a furnace beneath
the feet. The air was close, stifling, noisome. The men cowered under
the shade of the bulwarks, or hung panting over the schooner’s side. The
sea glowed like molten silver. Occasionally a slight gurgling sound
under the cutwater would remind us that the deep was not wholly
motionless; but excepting this, and now and then the feeble creaking of
a block, no sound broke the oppressive silence around.
At length, however, a slight breeze was seen ruffling the sea upon the
seaboard; and when the wind came up toward us, curling the ocean here
and there into mimic breakers, and when especially it swept with
refreshing coolness across our decks, we experienced sensations of the
most exquisite delight, and such as no one can imagine, who has not
felt, after a sultry calm, the first kiss of the long-wished-for breeze.
A new life was imparted into our men. The sails were set, and we once
more began to hear the sound of the wind in the hamper, and of the waves
rushing along our sides. It was, however, only a two-knot breeze. Such,
with but little variation, it had continued to be up to the discovery of
the stranger.
For half an hour and more after our look-outs had detected the sail to
windward, we managed to keep away sufficiently to maintain the distance
we had first possessed. But gradually the wind freshened; the billows
began to roll their white crests over in the sun-light; the sails
strained under the press of the breeze; and the waters, rippling loud
and fast under our bows, went plashing along our sides with a gurgling
noise, and then hissed by the rudder as they were whirled away astern.
“What a provoking breeze!” said Westbrook. “Here we are at a convenient
distance, as O’Shaughnessy would say, from yonder chap, having besides
the whole night before us to plan an escape from his clutches, and lo! a
breeze springs up just when it ought to be calm, leaving us at the mercy
of our huge friend up here, with a prospect of dangling from a yard-arm
if he turns out to be an Englishman.”
“Shure an we’ll blow ourselves out of water,” said O’Shaughnessy
himself, happening to overhear the conclusion of Westbrook’s remark,
“rayther than do that same.”
“And into it also, eh!” said Westbrook.
O’Shaughnessy made no reply, but shrugging his shoulders, the
conversation dropped.
The strange sail had by this time been made out to be a three-decker,
and so rapidly did he gain on us that we now counted upwards of forty
guns on a side. As the breeze freshened, moreover, his velocity
increased. Throwing out fold after fold of canvass, until a pyramid of
snowy duck rose towering above his decks, and the water rolled in
cataracts of foam beneath his gigantic bows, he seemed determined to
overtake us before the breeze which he brought with him could by any
possibility subside.
Meanwhile we made every effort to escape; but without success. The very
freshness of the breeze, owing to our comparatively light canvass, was
in favor of our adversary. In vain we threw out every sail; in vain the
ropes were hauled as taut as they could be drawn; in vain as a last
resort, our sails were wet down even to the trucks—every endeavor to
increase our speed only appeared to weary out our crew, without altering
the relative velocity of the two ships.
“By my faith! but yonder fellow sails well,” said the skipper, “I little
thought anything that carried canvass could come up in this style, hand
over hand, to the saucy Fire-Fly. What think you, Mr. Stevens?”
The lieutenant shook his head, and answered,
“I fear, sir, we shall have to choose betwixt a surrender or a hopeless
fight.”
“Ay, ay—that’s true,” said the skipper, abstractedly, “but he’s not
overhauled us yet, and there’s many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip,
you know.”
“Pray God it may be so now!”
By this time the man-of-war had come up within long cannon-shot of the
schooner, and just as the lieutenant finished his ejaculation, the
stranger luffed beautifully up a point or two, and the next minute a
sheet of flame streamed out from one of her bow-guns, and a shot
whistling past us aloft, plunged headlong into the sea to leeward. At
the same moment a roll of bunting shot up to the gaff of the stranger,
and slowly unrolling blew out upon the air.
“The English cross—by all that’s holy!” ejaculated the skipper.
There was a dead silence of more than a minute. Each one looked into his
neighbor’s face. The captain, with a compressed lip and a disturbed
brow, gazed, without speaking, on the man-of-war; while the discipline
of the service, as well as the sudden knowledge of our peril, were
sufficient to restrain the officers from conversation. Directly,
however, the Englishman luffed again; another sheet of fire blazed from
her bows; and a ball, sent this time with more certainty of aim, went
through our fore topsail just above the foot.
“Show him the bunting,” growled the captain through his clenched teeth,
“and get ready the long gun.”
We looked at each other in mute astonishment. I thought of Paul Jones in
a like emergency. But no one dreamed of expostulation, even if such a
thing had been allowable from inferiors. The flag was brought.
“Send the bunting aloft.”
“Ay, ay, sir!”
The huge ensign, at the word, fluttered to the gaff, and whipping out on
the breeze, disclosed the cognizance of the commonwealth, emblazoned on
its surface. No sooner did it unclose its folds than the man-of-war
luffed rapidly, and several points more than at either the preceding
times; while simultaneously a sheet of continuous fire rolled along his
side, and a shower of balls, ploughing up the sea betwixt the two
vessels, fell like hail around the schooner. At the same moment I heard
a noise like rattling thunder at my side, and looking up I saw the
mainsail coming down by the run. Quicker than thought it lay a wreck
across the schooner.
“We are sinking,” shouted a voice. It was that of the purser. The terror
of the speaker betrayed itself in every tone. “God have mercy on us, for
we are going down.”
“Silence, fool!” sternly said the skipper, and then raising his voice he
thundered, “what have they hurt?”
“They’ve cut away the throat halyards, and the peak has parted with the
strain,” answered the first lieutenant, who, with Westbrook and myself
had sprung at once to ascertain the real cause of the alarm.
“Let new ropes be reeved—all hands to your duty—let drive with the
long gun.”
The old gunner had been calmly waiting until the momentary confusion
should subside; and now, with his usual flourish, he applied the match.
“Hit him, by the Lord Harry—and cut down his topsail,” ejaculated the
old sea-dog in high glee, as the stranger’s fore-topsail fell from the
cap.
This daring bravado appeared to inflame the haughty Englishman beyond
all endurance, for, after the momentary vacillation in his course
occasioned by the loss of so important a sail, he put his helm down
again, and without losing headway to fire any more unimportant shot,
rapidly approached us. Our fate was now, to all appearance, sealed. We
gave ourselves up for lost. Dismal recollections of all we had heard
respecting the prison-ships of our enemy, or of the more summary
punishment of death sometimes inflicted on our countrymen, came crowding
on our minds. We looked into each other’s faces in silence, but, though
no word was spoken, on every countenance we read the determination of a
brave man, to die sooner than to submit. Such a resolution may seem
strange to others, but we were like men to whom defeat is worse than
death. We could not submit. To us the horrors of a prison-ship were more
appalling than those of a grave. We were resolved, if we could not
effect an escape, to die at bay.
“I would give a year’s pay,” at length ejaculated the skipper, but in a
low tone so as not to be heard by the crew, “if this breeze would but
die away here. We should then have a chance, however slight. But to be
cooped up like a rat in a hole—it is too bad!”
The sentence had scarcely been concluded, when, as if in answer to the
skipper’s aspiration, the breeze blew out in a sudden gust, and then
died rapidly away, until it had almost subsided.
“Ah!” said the captain, “my wish has had a magical effect. I’ faith,
we’re dropping the Englishman already. Oh! for two hours of calm.”
“And we shall have it soon, though not for long,” said the old
quarter-master, for the first time for nearly an hour taking a complete
survey of the sky, and shaking his head knowingly, but with something of
an ominous gesture. As he concluded his scrutiny, he said, “there’s
something brewing off here to leeward which will make us before many
hours reel like a drunken man, or my name isn’t Jack Martingale.”
“What mean you?” said the lieutenant.
“You’ve mayhap never sailed in these latitudes, or you would have seen a
hurricane afore now,” said the quarter-master. “Well, yonder tiny cloud,
down there on the sea-board in a line with that second ratlin, holds in
itself such a capful of wind as will drive the stoutest ship like a
feather before it—ay! or send Noah’s ark itself, which the parson says
was bigger than a fleet of ninety-fours, skimming away swifter than a
sea-gull over the seas.”
We all turned in the direction to which the old fellow pointed us, and
sure enough, about five or six degrees above the horizon, might be seen
a small dark insignificant looking cloud, hanging like a speck upon the
azure surface of the sky. Had we not known the quarter-master’s superior
experience, the younger portion of our group might have discredited his
prophecy. As it was, we were almost incredulous. Yet as we gazed on the
little cloud, we noticed that it slowly but steadily increased in size.
Our attention, however, was at this moment recalled from the signs to
leeward by the renewed demonstrations of an attack on the part of the
ninety-four.
The wind, during our short colloquy, I have said, had blown fiercer than
ever, and then nearly died away. This partial calm, however, had been of
short duration. In a few minutes the breeze was seen ruffling the sea
again, from a quarter of the horizon, however, several points to the
leeward of its old position. After blowing freshly for a few minutes
this gust too ceased. Meantime the enemy had gained little, if anything,
upon us, and no doubt fancying he perceived the signs of unsettled
weather in the sky, and therefore wishing to bring the chase to a speedy
termination, he luffed up once more, and opened a fire on us with his
bow guns. It now become a struggle of the most exciting character. Our
mainsail had by this time been repaired, and the time lost to the foe in
luffing nearly counterbalancing his superior sailing, we were enabled to
keep just within long cannon shot of the Englishman, and, by maintaining
this distance, to protract our surrender until a chance ball should
happen to disable us, or night should set in to favor our escape.
“He gains nothing on us now, I think,” said the skipper, “but his guns
are well served. That was truly sent,” he suddenly added, as a ball
whistled by within a few feet of his head, and then plunged into the sea
some fathoms off.
“And there comes the breeze again,” said the lieutenant, “how the
Englishman walks up toward us!”
It was even as he said. The breeze which, during the last five minutes,
had been chopping about the horizon, now blowing in fitful gusts, and
now dying away into an almost perfect calm, came out, as the lieutenant
spoke, from its old quarter, and heeling the tall ninety-four over until
his coppers glanced in the sunlight, sent him like an arrow from the
string across the deep. We could see the breeze ruffling the sea ahead
of the enemy, and keeping provokingly but a few cables’ length in his
advance for many minutes before it reached ourselves, and when at length
it bellied out our canvass, and we began to forge along, the man-of-war
had lessened by one-third the distance that had intervened betwixt us.
As if re-inspired by his advantage, the Englishman began to fire on us
with rapid and murderous velocity. Ball after ball came whizzing after
us, some tearing up the bulwark, some madly splintering the hull, and
more than one cutting its terrific passage along our decks. In vain we
made the most desperate exertions to increase our speed. The strength of
the breeze was a disadvantage against which our comparatively light
canvass could not contend. Every moment, we saw, lessened the distance
between us and the foe. It seemed madness to contend further. Already
the ninety-four was in dreadful proximity. The schooner was becoming
terribly cut up in her hull, and it seemed a miracle that her spars had
hitherto escaped. If we should be crippled, and we knew not but the next
shot might do it, how could we expect any mercy from our foe? Rebels
already in the eye of our pursuers we had nothing to hope for if
captured. Every one felt this. No one therefore dreamed of a surrender.
As the wounded men were carried below, their departing looks were
directed frowningly on the enemy,—and the last words of the dying were
to conjure their messmates never to give up.
“Never flinch, my hearties,” ejaculated the gunner, as one of his crew
was struck by a splinter; and had to be carried below. “Give it to ’em,
for villains and tyrants as they are. Hah! I have him in a line there.
Stand by all now,” and giving a last squint along his piece, he applied
the match, and gazing after the shot as it went whistling away,
exclaimed, “hit him on the quarter. I wonder who’s hurt,” he added, as a
sudden commotion was seen on the enemy’s deck; “somebody of more note
than a mere topman, I guess, or they wouldn’t be in such a flurry about
it.”
“And that’s the answer,” said Westbrook, as a ball struck us forward,
scattering the bulwark about the deck, and killing a man outright at the
gunner’s side.
“Swab her out there,” said the imperturbable old sea-dog, without
flinching in the least, “and we’ll revenge poor Harry Ratline. By the
Lord above, I’ll make them pay for this. Work faster, you lubberly
scoundrel,” he continued, cuffing the powder-boy. “There, that will do.
And now let’s see what damage you’ll do, old red-mouth!” and patting his
piece familiarly, he applied the match, and stooping on his knees after
the recoil, glanced along the gun to mark the path of his ball. It
struck the ninety-four just by the fore-chains, entering the first port
aft. It needed nothing to tell the deadly revenge of the shot. Even amid
the roar of the contest we could almost fancy we heard the shrieks of
the wounded and dying from that fatal discharge.
So intensely occupied had been every thought, during these last few
minutes, that I had not noticed the gradual subsidence in the wind; but
my attention was at this moment aroused to it by an exclamation of
O’Shaughnessy at my side, and turning my gaze to leeward, I saw at once
the cause of his wonder.
How long had elapsed since we had noticed the speck on the horizon to
which the old quarter-master had called our attention I have no means of
determining; but, owing perhaps to the rapidity with which all the
subsequent events had transpired, it seemed to be scarcely five minutes.
In that interval a radical change had come over the heavens. The whole
of the larboard horizon was covered with a dense black cloud, extending
to the very zenith, and spreading with incredible velocity around the
seaboard and over the vault of heaven. Even as I gazed, the rising
clouds began to encroach on the western firmament, until only a narrow
speck of sky, through which the declining sun shone out with a ghastly
lustre was seen in that quarter of the horizon. In a moment more the
massy curtain of cloud obscured even this opening, and nothing was seen
above or around us but the wild and ominous darkness, which, reflected
from the unruffled surface of the deep, and struggling with the few
faint gleams of light that yet remained, wrapt everything in its own
sepulchral gloom. Never shall I forget the expression of my companions’
faces in that death-like obscurity.
The wind, meanwhile, had for the twentieth time within the last hour
died away, and we now lay moving unquietly on the troubled surface of
the deep. The man-of-war was to be seen in his old position, and as he
rose and fell sluggishly in the distant gloom, his white canvass
gleaming out with sepulchral effect through the darkness, one might
almost have fancied that the shadowy foe was some gigantic spirit ship,
hanging like an evil genius upon our quarter. As if awed by the sudden
change which had come over the firmament, both vessels had
simultaneously ceased firing. The pause on the part of the Englishman,
however, was only momentary. The outlines of his shadowy form were soon
illuminated by the red glare of his guns, bringing his tall masts out in
bold relief against the gloomy back-ground, and shedding a sulphurous
hue on everything around. The sullen booming of the guns; the ghastly
light flung over the deep; the low unquiet murmurs of the sea; and the
darkness gathering more and more terrific over the firmament and
reflected back from the sea until it seemed as colorless as ink, made up
a scene whose sublimity and horror no pen can describe. The men looked
like ghosts, as they flitted to and fro across the decks; and on every
countenance was impressed the feelings of the awestruck owner.
“Cannot yonder fellow see the doom that awaits him, unless he gives over
firing, and prepares for the squall?” said the old quarter-master.
Even as he spoke a low hollow murmur was heard as if coming out of the
deep, which struck a nameless terror into our hearts. It was the sure
presage of the coming hurricane. The men were already aloft getting in
the sails, but as that murmured sound struck on the skipper’s ear, he
shouted,
“Loose and let run—in with every thing—lose not a second—cut with and
cut all.”
He had hardly commenced speaking when the dark canopy of clouds on the
starboard seaboard lifted up, as if by magic, several degrees from the
horizon, displaying a long lurid, yet sickly streak of light, against
which the surges rose and fell in bold relief. At the same instant that
low wild sound was heard again rising out of the deep; then a hoarse
murmur, the like of which I had never listened to before, issued from
the lurid seaboard; then an ominous pause of a moment, and only a
moment, succeeded; and, while we gazed in mute wonder on each other at
these extraordinary phenomena, a deep, smothered rumbling sound was
heard, growing rapidly nigher and nigher, and increasing in loudness as
it approached; the sea on the starboard horizon became a mass of foam;
and, with a rushing noise, the tempest swept down upon us, hissing,
roaring, and screaming through our rigging, as if a thousand unearthly
beings were riding by upon the blast. The men had scarcely time to see
the approaching danger, and hear the captain’s cry,
“Down, for your lives, down—cut all, and slide by the backstays,”
before we were lying almost on our beam ends, while the sea flew over us
in a dense shower of spray, almost blinding our sight.
“Hard up!” thundered the skipper.
“Ay, ay, sir!”
It was a period of fearful peril. For several moments, during the first
force of the squall, we knew not whether our little craft would right
again. The mingled roar of the wind and water meanwhile was terrific,
and sufficient of themselves to paralyze the stoutest heart. As far as
the eye could see, on every hand, the sea was as flat as a table, and
covered with foam. The pressure of the hurricane even on our bare poles
was tremendous. Every one was forced to grasp a rope, to keep himself
from being blown bodily overboard. At length, however, with a painful
effort, our gallant craft slowly righted, staggered a moment uncertainly
beneath the squall, and then catching the hurricane well aft, went off
like a thunderbolt before the gale.
“Thank God!” ejaculated the skipper, drawing a long breath.
“Amen!” was my silent response.
During these few last moments of thrilling suspense, I had forgotten the
Englishman altogether, but he now recurred to my thoughts, and I looked
eagerly ahead for him. The driving spray, however, shut out everything,
except in our immediate vicinity, from our sight. At length, however, my
attention was arrested by seeing a tall spar rising over the mist on our
lee-bow, and, rushing on to it with inconceivable velocity, we were soon
on the weather quarter of the foe. Never shall I forget that sight. The
huge ship was lying on his beam-ends, and his mizen-mast had already
been cut away in an unsuccessful attempt to right him. The sea rolled
over him, as we approached, in cataracts. For an instant we gave
ourselves up for lost, as we were driving right on to the unhappy
stranger. At that moment, however, we saw his mainmast go over his side.
He righted slowly. We were now so near that I could have pitched a
biscuit on board.
“Hard up—ha-a-rd!” thundered the Englishman.
“Luff—luff!” roared the skipper, as we drove on to the quarter of the
foe.
It was a thrilling moment. For the space of a second we seemed dashing
right into the foe, and a stifled shriek burst from every lip; but just
as we gave up all for lost, the two vessels shot apart, grazed each
other in passing, and then rushed like maddened coursers each on his own
course. In less than a quarter of an hour, the foe had vanished in the
mists upon our larboard quarter.
* * * * *
THE DERVISH.
AN EASTERN LEGEND.
BY W. FALCONER.
The following little tale was related to me by a Catholic
Missionary, (who had resided thirty years at Pondicherry,) on
board the Panurge, during a voyage to Mauritius. It is curious
to remark how the early traditions of all lands have certain
points of resemblance, as this is exactly in the Rip Van Winkle
vein, and is an Indian legend as old as the mountain.
Diary.
The Sultan revelled in the gay kiosque,
Where Ganges’ waters to the morning rolled,
Quaffing the snow-cool wine from cups of gold;
A humble Dervish prayed in the lone mosque—
“Prophet of God!” with fervor deep, he cried,
“Grant me a token that my prayer is heard!”
He raised his eye, and lo! a lovely bird
Upon a pillar’s marble crown he spied;
No fairer warbler, from the Swerga-bowers,
E’er bathed in dews of paler earthly flowers,
The light of Aden on its green wings bringing;
Still, as he gazed, its colors richer grew—
At length, through morn’s fresh glades, away it flew,
Leaving the lone mosque with its music ringing.
The Dervish followed over mount and plain,
The spirit-bird still flitting on before him,
Th’ hour-numbering sun unheeded speeding o’er him—
He was all ear to drink its gushing strain.
A vain pursuit!—scarce on the bough alighted,
On, on it glanced, to be afresh pursued,
The pilgrim’s courage glowing unsubdued,
His soul on fire—his panting heart delighted!
But where the sunset’s heav’n-unfolding flood
Streams through the columns of the Banian wood,
Alas! ’tis melting from his eager eye,
Fading away with the quick fading beams—
A lovely phantom from the Land of Dreams—
Gone, as it came, to bowers beyond the sky.
’Neath dreamy twilight’s twinkling, dew-fed lamp,
He stretched his weary limbs along the moss
Under the Banian’s shade, and mourned the loss
Of the sweet-vision on his night-couch damp,
Yet slept at length, nor waked till dewy morn
Closed the full stars and oped the infant buds,
’Rousing the warblers of the Indian woods:
But his bright bird was gone, and he is lorn!
Yet prays, and in a fountain’s cooling waves,
With large ablutions, his hot brow he laves,
Resumes his staff, and seeks his humble home—
A weary journey—days and months speed by
Ere he hath reached that mountain summit high,
The emerald pillar of the sapphire dome
Amid whose rocks his little chapel stood:
But lo! what vision bursts upon his gaze!
Domes, spires and churches, ’neath the sunset rays,
Gleaming ’mid many a green and palmy wood.
The wayward Genii, he remembered, loved
To weave such cities of the filmy light.
Begun and finished in a single night;
But still his wonder grew, as lost he roved
Through streets and squares built of substantial stone,
Where late the camel-herds were browsing lone,
And gleamed the crescent from the minaret.
Was he awake?—the crowd around him spoke
A strange, rough tongue—new wonders on him broke,
And wonder filled the eyes of all he met.
A Fakir passed. Of him he wildly asks
Who, what, and where he is? With wondering smile,
Answers the Moslem, “From a northern isle,
Whose iron-coast a frozen girdle clasps,
Came Islam’s foes, and this rich city grand
Is the creation of the Infidel—
The haughty lords of radiant Indian land—
A tale most sad for Moslem lips to tell!”
A hundred years had fled since he had chased
The spirit-bird, swift as a dream effaced;
And that sweet warbler was a sainted sprite,
Sent from its rest, to lead so good a man
To Christian light—for so the legend ran
Which cheered my vigil on the ocean bright.
* * * * *
A FEW WORDS ON SECRET WRITING.
BY EDGAR A. POE.
As we can scarcely imagine a time when there did not exist a necessity,
or at least a desire, of transmitting information from one individual to
another, in such manner as to elude general comprehension; so we may
well suppose the practice of writing in cipher to be of great antiquity.
De La Guilletiere, therefore, who, in his “Lacedæmon Ancient and
Modern,” maintains that the Spartans were the inventors of Cryptography,
is obviously in error. He speaks of the _scytala_ as being the origin of
the art; but he should only have cited it as one of its earliest
instances, so far as our records extend. The _scytala_ were two wooden
cylinders, precisely similar in all respects. The general of an army, in
going upon any expedition, received from the ephori one of these
cylinders, while the other remained in their possession. If either party
had occasion to communicate with the other, a narrow strip of parchment
was so wrapped around the _scytala_ that the edges of the skin fitted
accurately each to each. The writing was then inscribed longitudinally,
and the epistle unrolled and dispatched. If, by mischance, the messenger
was intercepted, the letter proved unintelligible to his captors. If he
reached his destination safely, however, the party addressed had only to
involve the second cylinder in the strip to decipher the inscription.
The transmission to our own times of this obvious mode of cryptography
is due, probably, to the _historical_ uses of the _scytala_, rather than
to anything else. Similar means of secret intercommunication must have
existed almost contemporaneously with the invention of letters.
It may be as well to remark, in passing, that in none of the treatises
on the subject of this paper which have fallen under our cognizance,
have we observed any suggestion of a method—other than those which
apply alike to all ciphers—for the solution of the cipher by _scytala_.
We read of instances, indeed, in which the intercepted parchments were
deciphered; but we are not informed that this was ever done except
accidentally. Yet a solution might be obtained with absolute certainty
in this manner. The strip of skin being intercepted, let there be
prepared a cone of great length comparatively—say six feet long—and
whose circumference at base shall at least equal the length of the
strip. Let this latter be rolled upon the cone near the base, edge to
edge, as above described; then, still keeping edge to edge, and
maintaining the parchment close upon the cone, let it be gradually
slipped towards the apex. In this process, some of those words,
syllables, or letters, whose connection is intended, will be sure to
come together at that point of the cone where its diameter equals that
of the _scytala_ upon which the cipher was written. And as, in passing
up the cone to its apex, all possible diameters are passed over, there
is no chance of a failure. The circumference of the _scytala_ being thus
ascertained, a similar one can be made, and the cipher applied to it.
Few persons can be made to believe that it is not quite an easy thing to
invent a method of secret writing which shall baffle investigation. Yet
it may be roundly asserted that human ingenuity cannot concoct a cipher
which human ingenuity cannot resolve. In the facility with which such
writing is deciphered, however, there exist very remarkable differences
in different intellects. Often, in the case of two individuals of
acknowledged equality as regards ordinary mental efforts, it will be
found that, while one cannot unriddle the commonest cipher, the other
will scarcely be puzzled by the most abstruse. It may be observed,
generally, that in such investigations the analytic ability is very
forcibly called into action; and, for this reason, cryptographical
solutions might with great propriety be introduced into academies, as
the means of giving tone to the most important of the powers of mind.
Were two individuals, totally unpractised in cryptography, desirous of
holding by letter a correspondence which should be unintelligible to all
but themselves, it is most probable that they would at once think of a
peculiar alphabet, to which each should have a key. At first it would,
perhaps, be arranged that _a_ should stand for _z_, _b_ for _y_, _c_ for
_x_, _d_ for _w_, &c. &c.; that is to say, the order of the letters
would be reversed. Upon second thoughts, this arrangement appearing too
obvious, a more complex mode would be adopted. The first thirteen
letters might be written beneath the last thirteen, thus:
n│o│p│q│r│s│t│u│v│w│x│y│z│
a│b│c│d│e│f│g│h│i│j│k│l│m│;
and, so placed, _a_ might stand for _n_ and _n_ for _a_, _o_ for _b_ and
_b_ for _o_, &c. &c. This, again, having an air of regularity which
might be fathomed, the key alphabet might be constructed absolutely at
random.
Thus, a might stand for p
b might stand for x
c might stand for u
d might stand for o, &c.
The correspondents, unless convinced of their error by the solution of
their cipher, would no doubt be willing to rest in this latter
arrangement, as affording full security. But if not, they would be
likely to hit upon the plan of arbitrary marks used in place of the
usual characters. For example,
( might be employed for a
. might be employed for b
: might be employed for c
; might be employed for d
) might be employed for e, &c.
A letter composed of such characters would have an intricate appearance
unquestionably. If, still, however, it did not give full satisfaction,
the idea of a perpetually shifting alphabet might be conceived, and thus
effected. Let two circular pieces of pasteboard be prepared, one about
half an inch in diameter less than the other. Let the centre of the
smaller be placed upon the centre of the larger, and secured for a
moment from slipping; while _radii_ are drawn from the common centre to
the circumference of the smaller circle, and thus extended to the
circumference of the greater. Let there be twenty-six of these _radii_,
forming on each pasteboard twenty-six spaces. In each of these spaces on
the under circle write one of the letters of the alphabet, so that the
whole alphabet be written—if at random so much the better. Do the same
with the upper circle. Now run a pin through the common centre, and let
the upper circle revolve, while the under one is held fast. Now stop the
revolution of the upper circle, and, while both lie still, write the
epistle required; using for _a_ that letter in the smaller circle which
tallies with _a_ in the larger, for _b_ that letter in the smaller
circle which tallies with _b_ in the larger, &c. &c. In order that an
epistle thus written may be read by the person for whom it is intended,
it is only necessary that he should have in his possession circles
constructed as those just described, and that he should know any two of
the characters (one in the under and one in the upper circle) which were
in juxta-position when his correspondent wrote the cipher. Upon this
latter point he is informed by looking at the two initial letters of the
document, which serve as a key. Thus, if he sees _a m_ at the beginning,
he concludes that, by turning his circles so as to put these characters
in conjunction, he will arrive at the alphabet employed.
At a cursory glance, these various modes of constructing a cipher seem
to have about them an air of inscrutable secresy. It appears almost an
impossibility to unriddle what has been put together by so complex a
method. And to some persons the difficulty might be great; but to
others—to those skilled in deciphering—such enigmas are very simple
indeed. The reader should bear in mind that the basis of the whole art
of solution, as far as regards these matters, is found in the general
principles of the formation of language itself, and thus is altogether
independent of the particular laws which govern any cipher, or the
construction of its key. The difficulty of reading a cryptographical
puzzle is by no means always in accordance with the labor or ingenuity
with which it has been constructed. The sole use of the key, indeed, is
for those _au fait_ to the cipher; in its perusal by a third party, no
reference is had to it at all. The lock of the secret is picked. In the
different methods of cryptography specified above, it will be observed
that there is a gradually increasing complexity. But this complexity is
only in shadow. It has no substance whatever. It appertains merely to
the formation, and has no bearing upon the solution, of the cipher. The
last mode mentioned is not in the least degree more difficult to be
deciphered than the first—whatever may be the difficulty of either.
In the discussion of an analogous subject, in one of the weekly papers
of this city, about eighteen months ago, the writer of this article had
occasion to speak of the application of a rigorous _method_ in all forms
of thought—of its advantages—of the extension of its use even to what
is considered the operation of pure fancy—and thus, subsequently, of
the solution of cipher. He even ventured to assert that no cipher, of
the character above specified, could be sent to the address of the
paper, which he would not be able to resolve. This challenge excited,
most unexpectedly, a very lively interest among the numerous readers of
the journal. Letters were poured in upon the editor from all parts of
the country; and many of the writers of these epistles were so convinced
of the impenetrability of their mysteries, as to be at great pains to
draw him into wagers on the subject. At the same time, they were not
always scrupulous about sticking to the point. The cryptographs were, in
numerous instances, altogether beyond the limits defined in the
beginning. Foreign languages were employed. Words and sentences were run
together without interval. Several alphabets were used in the same
cipher. One gentleman, but moderately endowed with conscientiousness,
inditing us a puzzle composed of pot-hooks and hangers to which the
wildest typography of the office could afford nothing similar, went even
so far as to jumble together no less than _seven distinct alphabets_,
without intervals between the letters, _or between the lines_. Many of
the cryptographs were dated in Philadelphia, and several of those which
urged the subject of a bet were written by gentlemen of this city. Out
of, perhaps, one hundred ciphers altogether received, there was only one
which we did not immediately succeed in resolving. This one we
_demonstrated_ to be an imposition—that is to say, we fully proved it a
jargon of random characters, having no meaning whatever. In respect to
the epistle of the seven alphabets, we had the pleasure of completely
_nonplus_-ing its inditer by a prompt and satisfactory translation.
The weekly paper mentioned, was, for a period of some months, greatly
occupied with the hieroglyphic and cabalistic-looking solutions of the
cryptographs sent us from all quarters. Yet with the exception of the
writers of the ciphers, we do not believe that any individuals could
have been found, among the readers of the journal, who regarded the
matter in any other light than in that of a desperate humbug. We mean to
say that no one really believed in the authenticity of the answers. One
party averred that the mysterious figures were only inserted to give a
_queer_ air to the paper, for the purpose of attracting attention.
Another thought it more probable that we not only solved the ciphers,
but put them together ourselves for solution. This having been the state
of affairs at the period when it was thought expedient to decline
farther dealings in necromancy, the writer of this article avails
himself of the present opportunity to maintain the truth of the journal
in question—to repel the charges of rigmarole by which it was
assailed—and to declare, in his own name, that the ciphers were all
written in good faith, and solved in the same spirit.
A very common, and somewhat too obvious mode of secret correspondence,
is the following. A card is interspersed, at irregular intervals, with
oblong spaces, about the length of ordinary words of three syllables in
a bourgeois type. Another card is made exactly coinciding. One is in
possession of each party. When a letter is to be written, the key-card
is placed upon the paper, and words conveying the true meaning inscribed
in the spaces. The card is then removed and the blanks filled up, so as
to make out a signification different from the real one. When the person
addressed receives the cipher, he has merely to apply to it his own
card, when the superfluous words are concealed, and the significant ones
alone appear. The chief objection to this cryptograph is the difficulty
of so filling the blanks as not to give a forced appearance to the
sentences. Differences, also, in the handwriting, between the words
written in the spaces, and those inscribed upon removal of the card,
will always be detected by a close observer.
A pack of cards is sometimes made the vehicle of a cipher, in this
manner. The parties determine, in the first place, upon certain
arrangements of the pack. For example: it is agreed that, when a writing
is to be commenced, a natural sequence of the spots shall be made; with
spades at top, hearts next, diamonds next, and clubs last. This order
being obtained, the writer proceeds to inscribe upon the top card the
first letter of his epistle, upon the next the second, upon the next the
third, and so on until the pack is exhausted, when, of course, he will
have written fifty-two letters. He now shuffles the pack according to a
preconcerted plan. For example: he takes three cards from the bottom and
places them at top, then one from top, placing it at bottom, and so on,
for a given number of times. This done, he again inscribes fifty-two
characters as before, proceeding thus until his epistle is written. The
pack being received by the correspondent, he has only to place the cards
in the order agreed upon for commencement, to read, letter by letter,
the first fifty-two characters as intended. He has then only to shuffle
in the manner pre-arranged for the second perusal, to decipher the
series of the next fifty-two letters—and so on to the end. The
objection to this cryptograph lies in the nature of the missive. _A pack
of cards_, sent from one party to another, would scarcely fail to excite
suspicion; and it cannot be doubted that it is far better to secure
ciphers from being considered as such, than to waste time in attempts at
rendering them scrutiny-proof, when intercepted. Experience shows that
the most cunningly constructed cryptograph, if suspected, can and will
be unriddled.
An unusually secure mode of secret intercommunication might be thus
devised. Let the parties each furnish themselves with a copy of the same
edition of a book—the rarer the edition the better—as also the rarer
the book. In the cryptograph, numbers are used altogether, and these
numbers refer to the locality of letters in the volume. For example—a
cipher is received commencing, 121-6-8. The party addressed refers to
page 121, and looks at the sixth letter from the left of the page in the
eighth line from the top. Whatever letter he there finds is the initial
letter of the epistle—and so on. This method is very secure; yet it is
_possible_ to decipher any cryptograph written by its means—and it is
greatly objectionable otherwise, on account of the time necessarily
required for its solution, even with the key-volume.
It is not to be supposed that Cryptography, as a serious thing, as the
means of imparting important information, has gone out of use at the
present day. It is still commonly practised in diplomacy; and there are
individuals, even now, holding office in the eye of various foreign
governments, whose real business is that of deciphering. We have already
said that a peculiar mental action is called into play in the solution
of cryptographical problems, at least in those of the higher order. Good
cryptographists are rare indeed; and thus their services, although
seldom required, are necessarily well requited.
An instance of the modern employment of writing in cipher is mentioned
in a work lately published by Messieurs Lea & Blanchard, of this
city—“Sketches of Conspicuous Living Characters of France.” In a notice
of Berryer, it is said that a letter being addressed by the Duchess de
Berri to the legitimists of Paris, to inform them of her arrival, it was
accompanied by a long note in cipher, the key of which she had forgotten
to give. “The penetrating mind of Berryer,” says the biographer, “soon
discovered it. It was this phrase substituted for the twenty-four
letters of the alphabet—_Le gouvernement provisoire_.”
The assertion that Berryer “soon discovered the key-phrase,” merely
proves that the writer of these memoirs is entirely innocent of
cryptographical knowledge. Monsieur B. no doubt ascertained the
key-phrase; but it was merely to satisfy his curiosity, _after the
riddle had been read_. He made no use of the key in deciphering. The
lock was picked.
In our notice of the book in question (published in the April number of
this Magazine) we alluded to this subject thus—
“The phrase ‘_Le gouvernement provisoire_’ is French, and the note in
cipher was addressed to Frenchmen. The difficulty of deciphering may
well be supposed much greater, had the key been in a foreign tongue; yet
any one who will take the trouble may address us a note, in the same
manner as here proposed; and the key-phrase may be either in French,
Italian, Spanish, German, Latin, or Greek, (or in any of the dialects of
these languages,) and we pledge ourselves for the solution of the
riddle.”
This challenge has elicited but a single response, which is embraced in
the following letter. The only quarrel we have with the epistle, is that
its writer has declined giving us his name in full. We beg that he will
take an early opportunity of doing this, and thus relieve us of the
chance of that suspicion which was attached to the cryptography of the
weekly journal above-mentioned—the suspicion of inditing ciphers to
ourselves. The postmark of the letter is _Stonington, Conn._
S——, Ct., April 21, 1841.
_To the Editor of Graham’s Magazine._
Sir:—In the April number of your magazine, while reviewing the
translation by Mr. Walsh of “Sketches of Conspicuous Living
Characters of France,” you invite your readers to address you a
note in cipher, “the key phrase to which may be either in
French, Italian, Spanish, German, Latin or Greek,” and pledge
yourself for its solution. My attention being called, by your
remarks, to this species of cipher-writing, I composed for my
own amusement the following exercises, in the first part of
which the key-phrase is in English—in the second in Latin. As I
did not see, (by the number for May,) that any of your
correspondents had availed himself of your offer, I take the
liberty to send the enclosed, on which, if you should think it
worth your while, you can exercise your ingenuity.
I am yours, respectfully,
S. D. L.
No. 1.
Cauhiif aud frd sdftirf ithot tacd wdde rdchfdr tiu fuacfshff
heo fdoudf hetmsafhie tuis ied herhchriai fi aeiftdu wn sdaef it
iuhf heo hiidohwid wn aen deodsf ths tiu itis hf iaf iuhoheaiin
rdffhedr; aer ftd auf it ftif fdoudfin oissiehoafheo
hefdiihodeod taf wdde odeduaiin fdusdr ounsfiouastn. Saen
fsdohdf it fdoudf ihufheo idud weiie fi ftd aeohdaff; fisdfhsdf,
A fiacdf tdar ief ftacdr aer ftd ouiie iuhff de isie ihft fisd
herd hwid oiiiuheo tiihr, atfdu ithot tahu wdheo sdushffdr fi
ouii aoahe, hetiusafhie oiiir wd fuaefshffdr ihft ihffid raeoeu
ft af rhfoicdun iiiir hefid iefhi ftd aswiiafiun dshffid fatdin
udaotdr hff rdffheafhil. Ounsfiouastn tiidcdu siud suisduin
dswuaodf ftifd sirdf it iuhfheo ithot aud uderdudr idohwid iein
wn sdaef it fisd desiaefiun wdn ithot sawdf weiie ftd udai
fhoehthoafhie it ftd onstduf dssiindr fi hff siffdffiu.
No. 2.
Ofoiioiiaso ortsiii sov eodisoioe afduiostifoi ft iftvi si tri
oistoiv oiniafetsorit ifeov rsri inotiiiiv ridiiot, irio rivvio
covit atrotfetsoria aioriti iitri tf oitovin tri aetifei
ioreitit sov usttoi oioittstifo dfti afdooitior trso ifeov tri
dfit otftfeov softriedi ft oistoiv oriofiforiti suitteii
viireiiitifoi ft tri iarfoisiti, iiti trir uet otiiiotiv uitfti
rid io tri eoviieciiiv rfasueostr tf rii dftrit tfoeei.
In the solution of the first of these ciphers we had little more than
ordinary trouble. The second proved to be exceedingly difficult, and it
was only by calling every faculty into play that we could read it at
all. The first runs thus.
“Various are the methods which have been devised for transmitting secret
information from one individual to another, by means of writing,
illegible to any except him for whom it was originally designed; and the
art of thus secretly communicating intelligence has been generally
termed _cryptography_. Many species of secret writing were known to the
ancients. Sometimes a slave’s head was shaved, and the crown written
upon with some indelible coloring fluid; after which the hair being
permitted to grow again, information could be transmitted with little
danger that discovery would ensue until the ambulatory epistle safely
reached its destination. Cryptography, however, pure, properly embraces
those modes of writing which are rendered legible only by means of some
explanatory key which makes known the real signification of the ciphers
employed to its possessor.”
The key-phrase of this cryptograph is—“A word to the wise is
sufficient.”
The second is thus translated—
“Nonsensical phrases and unmeaning combinations of words, as the learned
lexicographer would have confessed himself, when hidden under
cryptographic ciphers, serve to _perpdex_ the curious enquirer, and
baffle penetration more completely than would the most profound
_apothems_ of learned philosophers. Abstruse disquisitions of the
scholiasts, were they but presented before him in the undisguised
vocabulary of his mother tongue——”
The last sentence here (as will be seen) is broken off short. The
spelling we have strictly adhered to. _D_, by mistake, has been put for
_l_ in _perplex_.
The key-phrase is—“_Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re_.”
In the ordinary cryptograph, as will be seen in reference to most of
those we have specified above, the artificial alphabet agreed upon by
the correspondents, is employed, letter for letter, in place of the
usual or natural one. For example:—two parties wish to communicate
secretly. It is arranged before parting that
) shall stand for a
( ————— ” b
— ————— ” c
* ————— ” d
. ————— ” e
’ ————— ” f
; ————— ” g
: ————— ” h
? ————— ” i or j
! ————— ” k
& ————— ” l
0 ————— ” m
‘ ————— ” n
† ————— ” o
‡ ————— ” p
¶ ————— ” q
#[TN1] ————— ” r
] ————— ” s
[ ————— ” t
£ ————— ” u or v
$ ————— ” w
¿ ————— ” x
¡ ————— ” y
%[TN2] ————— ” z
-----
[TN1] Transcriber’s note: In the original publication of the magazine,
the character used was a small right pointing hand, which is visible in
the illustration of the crytograph below. Although a modern html version
of this character exists, it will not display in many modern devices,
depending on the capabilities of the device itself and the fonts
available for use in the device. It has therefore been replaced in this
list with #.
[TN2] Transcriber’s note: In the original publication of the magazine,
the character used was a small left pointing hand. No suitable html
character was found and even if available, the limitations of some
modern devices and fonts prevents its use in this ebook. It has
therefore been replaced in this list with %.
Now the following note is to be communicated—
“We must see you immediately upon a matter of great importance.
Plots have been discovered, and the conspirators are in our
hands. Hasten!”
These words would be written thus—
[Illustration: original page image of cryptograph for the transcription
below]
$.0£][]..¡†£¿00.*¿)].&¡£‡†‘)0)[[.#
†’;#.)[?0‡†#[)‘—.‡&†[]:)£.(..‘*.
]—†£.#.*)‘*—†‘]‡?#)[†#])#?
?‘†£#:)‘*]:)][.‘
[Transcriber’s Note: In a deviation from the original printed book, for
this text version of the ebook, the character # has been used to
represent letter r in this crytogram, as indicated in the above list.]
This certainly has an intricate appearance, and would prove a most
difficult cipher to any one not conversant with cryptography. But it
will be observed that _a_, for example, is never represented by any
other character than ), _b_ never by any other character than (, and so
on. Thus by the discovery, accidental or otherwise, of any one letter,
the party intercepting the epistle would gain a permanent and decided
advantage; and could apply his knowledge to all the instances in which
the character in question was employed throughout the cipher.
In the cryptographs, on the other hand, which have been sent us by our
correspondent at Stonington, and which are identical in conformation
with the cipher resolved by Berryer, no such permanent advantage is to
be obtained.
Let us refer to the second of these puzzles. Its key-phrase runs thus:
_Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re._
Let us now place the alphabet beneath this phrase, letter beneath
letter—
S│u│a│v│i│t│e│r
A│b│c│d│e│f│g│h
i│n│m│o│d│o
i│j│k│l│m│n
f│o│r│t│i│t│e│r
o│p│q│r│s│t│u│v
i│n│r│e
w│x│y│z
We here see that
a stands for ————— c
d stands for ————— m
e stands for g, n and z
f stands for ————— o
i stands for e, i, s and w
m stands for ————— k
n stands for j and x
o stands for l, n and p
r stands for h, q, v and y
s stands for ————— a
t stands for f, r and t
u stands for ————— b
v stands for ————— d
In this manner _n_ stands for two letters, and _e_, _o_, and _t_ for
three each, while _i_ and _r_ represent each as many as four. Thirteen
characters are made to perform the operations of the whole alphabet. The
result of such a key-phrase upon the cipher, is to give it the
appearance of a mere medley of the letters _e_, _o_, _t_, _r_ and
_i_—the latter character greatly predominating, through the accident of
being employed for letters which, themselves, are inordinately prevalent
in most languages—we mean _e_ and _i_.
A letter thus written being intercepted, and the key-phrase unknown, the
individual who should attempt to decipher it may be imagined _guessing_,
or otherwise attempting to convince himself, that a certain character
(_i_, for example,) represented the letter _e_. Looking throughout the
cryptograph for confirmation of this idea, he would meet with nothing
but a negation of it. He would see the character in situations where it
could not possibly represent _e_. He might, for instance, be puzzled by
four _i_’s forming of themselves a single word, without the intervention
of any other character; in which case, of course, they could not be _all
e_’s. It will be seen that the word _wise_ might be thus constructed. We
say this may be seen _now_, by us, in possession of the key-phrase; but
the question will, no doubt, occur, how, _without_ the key-phrase, and
without cognizance of any single letter in the cipher, it would be
possible for the interceptor of such a cryptograph to make any thing of
such a word as _iiii_?
But again. A key-phrase might easily be constructed, in which one
character would represent seven, eight, or ten letters. Let us then
imagine the word _iiiiiiiiii_ presenting itself in a cryptograph to an
individual _without_ the proper key-phrase; or, if this be a supposition
somewhat too perplexing, let us suppose it occurring to the person for
whom the cipher is designed, and who _has_ the key-phrase. What is he to
do with such a word as _iiiiiiiiii_? In any of the ordinary books upon
Algebra will be found a very concise _formula_ (we have not the
necessary type for its insertion here) for ascertaining the number of
arrangements in which _m_ letters may be placed, taken _n_ at a time.
But no doubt there are none of our readers ignorant of the innumerable
combinations which may be made from these ten _i_’s. Yet, unless it
occur otherwise by accident, the correspondent receiving the cipher
would have to write down all these combinations before attaining the
word intended; and even when he had written them, he would be
inexpressibly perplexed in selecting the word designed from the vast
number of other words arising in the course of the permutation.
To obviate, therefore, the exceeding difficulty of deciphering this
species of cryptograph, on the part of the possessors of the key-phrase,
and to confine the deep intricacy of the puzzle to those for whom the
cipher was not designed, it becomes necessary that some _order_ should
be agreed upon by the parties corresponding—some order in reference to
which those characters are to be read which represent more than one
letter—and this _order_ must be held in view by the writer of the
cryptograph. It may be agreed, for example, that the _first_ time an _i_
occurs in the cipher, it is to be understood as representing that
character which stands against the _first i_ in the key-phrase; that the
_second_ time an _i_ occurs it must be supposed to represent that letter
which stands opposed to the _second i_ in the key-phrase, &c. &c. Thus
the _location_ of each cipherical letter must be considered in connexion
with the character itself, in order to determine its exact
signification.
We say that some pre-concerted _order_ of this kind is necessary, lest
the cipher prove too intricate a lock to yield even to its true key. But
it will be evident, upon inspection, that our correspondent at
Stonington has inflicted upon us a cryptograph in which _no_ order has
been preserved; in which many characters, respectively, stand, at
absolute random, for many others. If, therefore, in regard to the
gauntlet we threw down in April, he should be half inclined to accuse us
of braggadocio, he will yet admit that we have _more_ than acted up to
our boast. If what we then said was not said _suaviter in modo_, what we
now do is at least done _fortiter in re_.
In these cursory observations we have by no means attempted to exhaust
the subject of Cryptography. With such object in view, a folio might be
required. We have indeed mentioned only a few of the ordinary modes of
cipher. Even two thousand years ago, Æneas Tacticus detailed twenty
distinct methods; and modern ingenuity has added much to the science.
Our design has been chiefly suggestive; and perhaps we have already
bored the readers of the Magazine. To those who desire farther
information upon this topic, we may say that there are extant treatises
by Trithemius, Cap. Porta, Vignere, and P. Niceron. The works of the two
latter may be found, we believe, in the library of the Harvard
University. If, however, there should be sought in these
disquisitions—or in any—_rules for the solution_ of cipher, the seeker
will be disappointed. Beyond some hints in regard to the general
structure of language, and some minute exercises in their practical
application, he will find nothing upon record which he does not in his
own intellect possess.
* * * * *
EXTRACT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.
BY THE AUTHOR OF HOWARD PINCKNEY, ETC.
THE MEETING OF THE LOVERS.
’Twas on the outskirts of a wood—
A wood of tall and aged trees,
That gave a charm to solitude,
A murmur to the breeze;
’Twas when frequent falls the leaf,
And we begin to say that brief
And briefer grows the day;
When, far away, the evening sky
Looks sad and sober to the eye;
When darker grows the rivulet,
Where, in some tiny eddy’s play,
The fallen leaves so fitful fret,
Like Hope, when we would hold it yet,
And it would fain be far away.
How beautiful the beechen tree!
A beechen tree of giant mould,
Whose roots did many a rock unfold.
Entwining them, as you might see:
For, branching from the parent stem,
A velvet moss just covered them;
They sought the nurture of the brook
That from its shade a deep green took,
And murmur’d like the lullaby
Of cradle-watchers, when they look
Upon the infant’s closing eye.
Forth stepping like the timid deer,
And hearing her own step with fear,
On came a gentle maid;
She crosses o’er the rivulet:
Her silken slipper is not wet—
Why should she be afraid?
She seems spell-bound, and yet seems not;
If fearful thus, why seek the spot?
Why stops she by the tree?
We have volition where to go,
And we may wander to and fro,
Yet, we may not be free—
For Love, though all unseen his chain,
Will draw us over land and main;
And though we meet as far between
As winter wild from summer green,
Yet Love, like Heaven, will be above
The hearts that truly vow to love.
With step, e’en as the maiden’s, light,
But not a step that e’er knew fright,
Comes one with love-lit look;
He clasps her with his arms around,
As is yon water lily bound
By the encircling brook,
And as it palely droops to hear
The music of the whispering water,
She listens with a charmed fear,
Bound by the spell which there has brought her
The while her fair brow bends and beams
Like that pale flower that loves the streams.
How to his heart he holds the flower!
“O! ever blessed be the hour
Which brings thee, Helen, to my side.
Our friends would frown, I know, my bird
If but our slightest word were heard;
But, oh! thou yet wilt be my bride—
For though we meet here but to part,
’Tis not with a divided heart;
Thou wert the soonest here to-day,
But no neglect kept me away;
I know this hour—I know no more—
The rest are but to tell it o’er.”
“I came the sooner, love,” said she,
With maidenly simplicity—
“Because, before the sun goes down,
Stern darkness in the woods will frown;
And though I reach my home while yet
The red clouds linger in the west,
Methinks dark forms the woods beset;
They trouble me with sad unrest;
How, yester-eve, the big trees moaned!
Methought for me they sighed and groaned:
The screech-owl screeched above my path—
It seemed to haunt me with its wrath:
And all the gentler birds have flown—
The loneliness is all my own!”
“Love, this is autumn now, you know;
To other lands the wild birds go—
They only rest in summer bower,
And only stay while lasts the flower;
But, Helen, not thus let it be
With all this love that binds us now;
In winter, bare will be the tree,
No bird will sing upon the bough—
But see where I have taught the beech,
If either here should roam alone,
Long after this blest hour has flown,
The vows of both to tell to each:
Our names I’ve circled with a heart,
As thus I hold thee to my own,
And thus, though we afar may part
As ever yet did fond ones sever,
The love that binds us holds forever.”
This beech tree was their trysting-place!
There, oft in summer’s fragrant eve,
Just when the red sun took his leave—
When the coy moon, with half hid face,
Peeped o’er the eastern hills afar,
With here and there a radiant star;
When twilight came, with sober mien,
And silence brooded o’er the scene—
Thither the maid would often stray,
Humming, may be, a laughing lay,
That told true love was all untrue,
And made of nothing great ado;
She’d have them think, if she were heard,
She scorned the very love she sought,
And that she sung like careless bird—
A maiden who was free in thought:
Who roamed, and, roaming, trolled a glee,
Because she wanted company.
Upon this eve they met to part
Till spring again should clothe the vine;
They pledged their faith with beating heart,
And made the beechen tree their shrine;
He watched her white dress, glimmering bright
Thro’ the dark woods: “Good night! good night!”
* * * * *
SYBIL AND MAIDEN.
BY G. G. FOSTER.
_Sybil._
Why art thou sad? Why droops the willowy lid
O’er the deep fountain of that passionate eye?
What monster in thy bosom’s depths is playing,
And heaving thus those delicate billows, which
The wind of thy sweet breath but dares to swell,
Most daintily, and sighs to fly away?
_Maiden._
I nothing know, but that in a dream
A spirit of light on the pale moonbeam
Flew into my chamber—and it did seem
Nought but a brighter and purer beam
That had dropped from the beautiful sky,
’Till I wakened—and lo! a lovely mouth,
Whose breath was sweet as winds of the south,
And an eye flashing soft with love and desire,
Which thrilled all my frame with quivering fire,
Peered out, as a cloud swept by;
And a soft voice whispered a thrilling tale,
And my eye grew dim and my red cheek pale.
_Sybil._
Thy guest, fair maid, was Love! Nay, do not start,
And turn thy modest eyes upon the moon—
The god within thee but betrays himself
In every graceful motion. Thou dost pant
To learn the mysteries of thy new found worship.
The secret torrent rushing through thy veins
Makes eloquent music to thy listening heart,
Which beats unconsciously the measure out.
I know thy malady—so come with me:
I’ll cure thee with indulgence.
The maiden bent her white and stately neck,
And sounds of joy flew from her parted lips,
Like birds from roses—and the sorceress flung
A dainty chain of gold and gossamer
About her, and with sound of wings and breath
Of fragrance, vanished.
Maiden, look up! behold!
A dark-haired youth, with eyes of burning light,
Kneels gracefully before her; and his words,
Scarce heard for sighs, thrill to the inmost heart
Of that fair listener. He takes her hand—
His arm is round her—kisses warm and sweet
Rain on her lips and eyes—she gasps with joy,
And melts into his arms.
St. Louis, April, 1841.
* * * * *
SPORTS AND PASTIMES.—ANGLING.
The natural history of Fishes may be greatly promoted by anglers, and
some knowledge of that history assuredly adds interest to the pursuits
of the sportsman. He ought, therefore, to be able to skin and prepare
his specimens, to observe and describe them with precision, and to
dissect them with sufficient skill to take cognizance both of their
external parts and their internal structure. Every naturalist, on the
other hand, should be an angler, and that for more reasons than one. In
the remoter and less peopled districts of the country, which so
frequently present the most interesting fields for observation, he has
no means of inspecting the finny tribes, except by capturing them
_propriâ manû_, and his doing so will greatly contribute, not only to
his scientific knowledge, but his social comfort—trouts when newly
angled and nicely fried, being worthy of admiration, as choice
productions of nature adorned by the skill of art. But this latter
branch of our subject comes so home to the “business and bosoms” of all
men, that we need not here dilate upon it.
In the hope, however, that some useful knowledge may be conveyed to the
minds of our readers through the medium of the present work, we intend
to devote a portion of our space to a brief introduction regarding the
organic structure and physiology of fishes. We know, from experience,
that time may hang heavy even on the hands of anglers, who are seldom
either feeble or faint-hearted men. We know that spring (all genial
though it be in poet’s fancy) has yet its frequent flaky snows on mead
and mountain, its spiky ice along the crystal stream;—that summer in
its sunlit splendor suffers its long-enduring droughts, its sudden
_speats_, and fearful overflows;—that melancholy autumn, in spite of
all its mild effulgence, is not seldom violent, and perturbed
“By lightning, by fierce winds, by trampling waves;”
—and that each of these conditions of time and space is adverse to the
angler’s art. Even with every sweet advantage yielded by cheerful
spring, by glorious summer, by refulgent autumn (we now seek to soothe
the seasons by more endearing terms), daylight does not last for ever,
and so the angler cannot always ply his trade. Of night-fishing we
seldom think—except in murmuring dreams of rheumatism and
water-rats—and eye-sight often fails,
“When comes still evening on, and twilight grey
Has in her sober livery all things clad.”
Moreover, it is chiefly the home-hunting angler, he whose “lines have
fallen in pleasant places,” who dwells habitually by river side, or sees
“beneath the opening eyelids of morn” some broad lake gladdening his
daily gaze—in moonlight sparkling with bright columnar fire within its
cincturing trees, or greener margins—he, or some happy friend who
shares his dwelling, alone can cast his angles in the night. No man, who
“long in populous city pent,” wanders for a time in lonesome gladness by
the side of glittering waters, can wait with patience for a summer
night, however beautiful may be the countless stars—
“That sparkle in the firmament of June.”
Whether he will or no, he must wend his way to grassy bank, or pebbly
shore, or alder-skirted brink, and if there he fishes all the live-long
day, he cannot fish at night, at least he ought not so to do. He who
spareth not the rod hateth himself, and produces a degree of fatigue and
satiety which ought never to mingle with his healthful toil.
Suppose, then, that the gentle reader does not fish at night, that he
dines heartily (_sero sed serio_), imbibes moderately, takes tea
sedately, and has still an hour to spare before a light supper—let him
read this article, and we promise to be as little prolix as we can.
[Illustration]
THE PERCH.
This gregarious fish is angled for with a worm or minnow. It is a bold
biter during the warm months of the year, though very abstemious in the
winter season. When a shoal is met with, great sport is frequently
obtained. A small cork float is used, and the bait is hung at various
depths, according to circumstances, a knowledge of which can only be
obtained by practice. In angling near the bottom, the bait should be
frequently raised nearly to the surface, and then allowed gently to sink
again. When the weather is cool and cloudy, with a ruffling breeze from
the south, perch will bite during the whole day. The best hours towards
the end of spring are from seven to eleven in the morning, and from two
to six in the afternoon. In warm and bright summer weather, excellent
times are from sunrise till six or seven in the morning, and from six in
the evening till sunset.
The Perch is one of the most beautiful of the fresh water fishes, but is
too familiarly known to need description. It inhabits both lakes and
rivers, but shuns salt water. Pallas, however, is said to have stated in
his _Zoographia Russo-Asiatica_ (a work still unpublished), that about
spawning time both Pike and Perch are found in a gulf of the Caspian
Sea, about thirty verstes from the mouth of the Terek. The female
deposits her eggs, united together by a viscid matter, in lengthened
strings—a peculiarity noticed by Aristotle. Spawning takes place in
April and May, and the number of eggs sometimes amounts to near a
million. The Perch occurs all over Europe, and in most of the northern
districts of Asia. It is easily tamed, and if kept moist will live for a
long time out of water. It sometimes attains to a great size, but the
majority are smallish fishes. Pennant alludes to one said to have been
taken in the Serpentine River, Hyde Park, which weighed nine pounds. But
even one half of that weight would be anywhere regarded as
extraordinary, and a Perch of a pound is looked upon as a fine fish. The
flesh of this species as an article of food is wholesome, though neither
rich nor high flavoured. The months of April, May, and June, are those
during which it is least esteemed.
The Basse, or Sea Perch, (_Perca labrax_, Linn. _Labrax lupus_, Cuv. and
Val.) is a fish of a chaste and pleasing aspect, though destitute of the
strongly contrasted coloring of the preceding, from which it is also
distinguished by an abundance of small teeth upon the tongue. It is
abundant in the Mediterranean. It is a very voracious fish, remarkable
for the size of its stomach, and was known to the ancients by the
appropriate name of _lupus_. It takes a bait freely (_onisci_, broken
shell-fish, etc.) when angled for during flood-tide, with strong tackle,
from projecting rock or pier. The ordinary size ranges from 12 to 18
inches, although Willoughby has stated that it sometimes attains the
weight of 15 pounds. Its flesh is excellent.
EXTERNAL FORM AND ATTRIBUTES OF FISHES.
To aid the Angler in his scientific researches, as well as to add to the
interest of the ordinary observer, we now proceed to a brief exposition
of the principal characteristics of the _class_ of fishes, and shall, at
an after period, expatiate upon the more peculiar attributes of each
particular kind, when we come to treat of the _species_ in their order.
We need scarcely say to the student of nature, that the form and
functions of fishes are as admirably adapted for easy movement through
the water, as are those of birds for that aërial motion called flight.
Suspended in a liquid element of almost equal specific gravity with
themselves, external organs resembling those of birds in size, would
have been disproportionate and unnecessary; but the air-bladder (the
functions of which, by no means entirely understood, have never been
satisfactorily explained in all their bearings) is known to possess the
power of contraction and dilatation, the exercise of which is followed
by a corresponding descent or ascent of the animal’s body. Thus a small
central and inconspicuous organ effects, in the easiest and most simple
manner, the same object which even the soaring eagle or giant condor can
only accomplish by great exertion of the wings, and after laborious and
frequently repeated gyrations. We shall ere long, however, have occasion
to remark in more detail, that the air-bladder, although essential to
the economy of such species as possess it, is by no means indispensable
as a general attribute of the class, as in many tribes it is entirely
wanting. It is not even a generic characteristic, as it does not exist
in the red mullets of the British seas, though possessed by the
corresponding species of Asia and America—while of our two kinds of
mackerel, the so called Spanish species (_Scomber colias_) is
distinguished by a swimming bladder, and the common mackerel (_Sc.
scomber_) does not possess that organ.
Fishes being without a neck, and the portion called the tail being
usually equal at its origin to the part of the body from which it
springs, the prevailing shape is somewhat uniform and continuous,
diminishing gradually towards either extremity. Of this, the most
elegant and characteristic form of fishes, the salmon and mackerel
exhibit familiar examples. Yet a vast variety of shape, as well as of
size and colour, is naturally presented by a class which now contains
some seven or eight thousand known species; and no further illustration
of the subject will be deemed necessary by him who has seen and
remembers the difference between an eel and a skate.
The mouth of fishes either opens from beneath, as in the rays, or at the
extremity of the muzzle, as in the great majority of species, or from
the upper surface, as in a small foreign group called _Uranoscopus_, or
moon-gazer—an odd name for species, some of which have been alleged to
bury themselves to the depth of twenty feet in sand—a bed not easily
obtained, and in no way fitted for astronomical observation. It also
varies much in its relative dimensions, from the minute perforation of
the genus _Centriscus_, to the vast expanded gape of the ugly
angler-fish. We mean nothing personal in the last allusion.
The teeth of fishes are frequently very numerous, and are sometimes
spread over all the bony parts of the interior cavity of the mouth and
pharynx, that is, on the maxillary, inter-maxillary and palatal bones,
on the vomer, tongue, branchial arches, and pharyngeal bones. In certain
genera they exist on all those parts; while in others they are wanting
on some, or are even entirely absent on all. The denominations of the
teeth are derived from their position, that is from the bones to which
they are attached, and are consequently as numerous as the varieties of
their situation. In the upper portion of the mouth of a trout, for
example, there are five rows of teeth. The single middle-row is placed
upon the central bone of the mouth called the _vomer_; a row on each
side of it is fixed on the right and left _palatal_ bones, while the
outer-rows or those of the upper-jaw, properly so called, are situate on
the _maxillary_ bones. In the under portion of the mouth there are four
rows, that is, one on each side of the tongue, and another external to
these on each side of the lower-jaw. As to the form of teeth in fishes,
the majority are hooked and conical, and more or less acute.
In the majority of osseous fishes, besides the lips, which, even when
fleshy, having no peculiar muscles, can exert but little strength in
retaining the aliments, there is generally in the inside of each jaw,
behind the anterior teeth, a kind of membranous fold or valvule, formed
by a replication of the interior skin, and directed backwards, of which
the effect is to hinder the alimentary substances, and especially the
water gulped during respiration, from escaping again by the mouth. This
structure does not, as formerly supposed, constitute a character
restricted to the genus _Zeus_, but exists in an infinity of fishes.
The food seized by the teeth of the maxillæ, and detained by the valve
just mentioned, is carried still further backwards by the teeth of the
palate and tongue, when these exist, and is at the same time prevented
by the dentations of the branchial arches from penetrating between the
intervals of the branchiæ, where it might injure those delicate organs
of respiration. The movements of the maxillæ and tongue can thus send
the food only in the direction of the pharynx, where it undergoes
additional action on the part of the teeth of the pharyngeal bones,
which triturate or carry it backwards into the œsophagus. The last-named
portion is clothed by a layer of strong, close set, muscular fibres,
sometimes forming various bundles, the contractions of which push the
alimentary matter into the stomach—thus completing the act of
deglutition.
* * * * *
“AWAY, THEN, TO THE MOUNTAINS:”
WRITTEN AND ADAPTED TO
A FAVORITE MELODY
FROM
Amilie,
BY JOHN H. HEWITT.
_Philadelphia_: John F. Nunns’ _Copyright, 184 Chesnut Street_.
[Illustration: musical score]
[Illustration: musical score]
Away then to the mountains,
While the morning sun is shining;
The mist has left the fountain,
And the herds in shade are reclining.
Up the rocks we’ll climb,
To the top sublime,
And we’ll
The hunter dreads no danger,
While along steep locks wending;
From youth a mountain ranger,
With the wind and snow contending.
From the peak he looks
On the valley brooks,
While his
[Illustration: musical score]
watch the light deer bounding;
While the Sun wades through the Sea of blue,
And the Alpine horn is sounding.
Away then to the mountains,
While the morning sun is shining;
The mist has left the fountains,
And the herds in shade are reclining.
heart for home is bounding;
And he marks the maid
On the valley glade,
Who lists to his wild horn sounding.
Away then to the &c. &c.
* * * * *
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
_A Grammar of the English Language, in a series of Letters,
addressed to every American Youth. By_ Hugh A. Pue.
_Philadelphia: Published by the Author._
This is the title of a queer little book, which its author regards as
“not only necessary, but urgently called for,” because not only “the
mass of the people are ignorant of English Grammar, but because those
who profess great knowledge of it, and even those who make the teaching
of it their business, will be found, upon examination, to be very far
from understanding its principles.”
Whether Mr. P. proceeds upon the safe old plan of _Probe meliora;
deteriora sequer_—whether he is one of “the mass,” and means to include
himself among the ignoramuses—or whether he is only a desperate
quiz—we shall not take it upon ourselves to say; but the fact is clear
that, in a Preface of less than two small duodecimo pages (the leading
object of which seems to be an eulogy upon one William Cobbett), he has
given us some half dozen distinct instances of bad Grammar.
“For these purposes,” says he—that is to say—the purposes of
instructing mankind and enlightening “every American youth” without
exception—“for these purposes, I have written my lessons in a series of
letters. A mode that affords more opportunity for plainness,
familiarity, instruction, and entertainment, than any other. A mode that
was adopted by Chesterfield, in his celebrated instructions on
politeness. A mode that was adopted by Smollett, in many of his novels,
which, even at this day, hold a distinguished place in the world of
fiction. A mode that was adopted by William Cobbett, not only in his
admirable treatise on English Grammar, but in nearly every work that he
wrote.” “To Mr. Cobbett,” adds the instructor of every American
youth—“to Mr. Cobbett I acknowledge myself _indebted_ for the greater
part of the grammatical knowledge which I possess.” Of the fact stated
there can be no question. Nobody but Cobbett could have been the
grammatical Mentor of Mr. Pue, whose book (which is _all_ Cobbett)
speaks plainly upon the point—nothing but the ghost of William Cobbett,
looking over the shoulder of Hugh A. Pue, could have inspired the latter
gentleman with the bright idea of stringing together four consecutive
sentences, in each of which the leading nominative noun is destitute of
a verb.
Mr. Pue may attempt to justify his phraseology here, by saying that the
several sentences, quoted above, commencing with the words, “A mode,”
are merely continuations of the one beginning “For these purposes;” but
this is no justification at all. By the use of the period, he has
rendered each sentence distinct, and each must be examined as such, in
respect to its grammar. We are only taking the liberty of condemning Mr.
P. by the words of his own mouth. Turning to page 72, where he treats of
punctuation, we read as follows:—“The full point is used at the end of
every complete sentence; and a complete sentence is a collection of
words making a complete sense, without being dependent upon another
collection of words to convey the full meaning intended.” Now, what kind
of a meaning can we give to such a sentence as “A mode that was adopted
by Chesterfield in his celebrated instructions on politeness,” if we are
to have “no dependence upon” the sentences that precede it? But, even in
the supposition that these five sentences had been run into one, as they
should have been, they would still be ungrammatical. For example—“For
these purposes I have written my lessons in a series of letters—a mode
that affords more opportunity for plainness, familiarity, instruction,
and entertainment than any other—a mode, etc.” This would have been the
proper method of punctuation. “A mode” is placed in apposition with “a
series of letters.” But it is evident that it is _not_ the “series of
letters” which is the “mode.” It is _the writing the lessons_ in a
series which is so. Yet, in order that the noun “mode” can be properly
placed in apposition with what precedes it, this latter must be either a
noun, or a sentence, which, taken collectively, can serve as one. Thus,
in any shape, all that we have quoted is bad grammar.
We say “_bad grammar_,” and say it through sheer obstinacy, because Mr.
Pue says we should not. “Why, what is grammar?” asks he indignantly.
“Nearly all grammarians tell us that grammar is the writing and speaking
of the English language correctly. What then is bad grammar? Why bad
grammar must be the bad writing and speaking of the English language
correctly!!” We give the two admiration notes and all.
In the first place, if grammar be only the writing and speaking the
_English_ language correctly, then the French, or the Dutch, or the
Kickapoos are miserable, ungrammatical races of people, and have no
hopes of being anything else, unless Mr. Pue proceeds to their
assistance:—but, let us say nothing of this for the present. What we
wish to assert is, that the usual definition of grammar, as “the writing
and speaking _correctly_,” is an error which should have been long ago
exploded. Grammar is the analysis of language, and this analysis will be
_good_ or _bad_, just as the capacity employed upon it be weak or
strong—just as the grammarian be a Horne Tooke or a Hugh A. Pue.
But perhaps, after all, we are treating this gentleman discourteously.
His book may be merely intended as a good joke. By the bye, he says in
his Preface, that “while he informs the student, he shall take
particular care to _entertain_ him.” Now, the truth is, we have been
exceedingly entertained. In such passages as the following, however,
which we find upon the second page of the Introduction, we are really at
a loss to determine whether it is the _utile_ or the _dulce_ which
prevails. We give the italics of Mr. Pue; without which, indeed, the
singular force and beauty of the paragraph cannot be duly appreciated.
“The _proper_ study of English grammar, so far from being _dry_, is one
of the most rational enjoyments known to us; one that is highly
calculated to rouse the dormant energies of the student; it requiring
continual mental effort; unceasing exercise of mind. It is, in fact, the
_spreading of a thought-producing plaster of paris upon the extensive
grounds of intellect_! It is the parent of idea, and great causation of
reflection; the mighty _instigator of insurrection in the interior_;
and, above all, the unflinching _champion of internal improvement_!”
We know nothing about plaster of Paris; but the analogy which subsists
between ipecac and grammar—at least between ipecac and the grammar of
Mr. Pue—never, certainly, struck us in so clear a point of view, as it
does now.
But, after all, whether Mr. P.’s queer little book shall or shall not
meet the views of “Every American Youth,” will depend pretty much upon
another question of high moment—whether “Every American Youth” be or be
not as great a nincompoop as Mr. Pue.
* * * * *
_Powhatan; a Metrical Romance, in Seven Cantos. By_ Seba Smith.
_New York: Harper and Brothers._
What few notices we have seen of this poem, speak of it as the
production of _Mrs._ Seba Smith. To be sure, gentlemen may be behind the
scenes, and know more about the matter than we do. They may have some
private reason for understanding that black is white—some reason into
which we, personally, are not initiated. But, to ordinary perception,
“Powhatan” is the composition of Seba Smith, _Esquire_, of Jack Downing
memory, and _not_ of his wife. _Seba Smith_ is the name upon the
title-page; and the personal pronoun which supplies the place of this
well-known prænomen and cognomen in the preface, is, we are constrained
to say, of the masculine gender. “The author of Powhatan,”—thus, for
example, runs a portion of the prolegomena—“does not presume to claim
for _his_ production the merit of good and genuine poetry, nor does _he_
pretend to assign it a place in the classes or forms into which poetry
is divided”—in all which, by the way, he is decidedly right. But can it
be that no gentleman has _read_ even so far as the Preface of the book?
Can it be that the critics have had no curiosity to creep into the
_adyta_—into the inner mysteries of this temple? If so, they are
decidedly right too.
“Powhatan” is handsomely bound. Its printing is clear beyond comparison.
Its paper is magnificent, and we undertake to say (for _we have_ read it
through with the greatest attention) that there is not a single
typographical error in it, from one end to the other. Further than this,
in the way of commendation, no man with both brains and conscience
should proceed. In truth, a more absurdly _flat_ affair—for flat is the
only epithet which applies in this case—was never before paraded to the
world, with so grotesque an air of bombast and assumption.
To give some idea of the _tout ensemble_ of the book—we have first a
Dedication to the “Young People of the United States,” in which Mr. Jack
Downing lives, in “the hope that he may do some good in his day and
generation, by adding something to the sources of rational enjoyment and
_mental culture_.” Next, we have a Preface, occupying four pages, in
which, quoting his publishers, the author tells us that poetry is a
“very great bore, and won’t sell”—a thing which cannot be denied in
certain cases, but which Mr. Downing denies in his own. “It may be
true,” he says, “of endless masses of words, that are poured forth from
the press, under the _name_ of poetry”—but it is not true “of _genuine_
poetry—of that which is worthy of the name”—in short, we presume he
means to say it is not in the least little bit true of “Powhatan;” with
regard to whose merits he wishes to be tried, not by the critics (we
fear, in fact, that here it is the critics who will be tried), “but by
the _common_ taste of _common_ readers”—all which ideas are common
enough, to say no more.
We have next, a “Sketch of the Character of Powhatan,” which is
exceedingly interesting and commendable, and which is taken from Burk’s
“History of Virginia:"—four pages more. Then comes a _Poem_—four pages
more—forty-eight lines—twelve lines to a page—in which all that we
can understand, is something about the name of “Powhatan”
“Descending to a distant age,
Embodied forth on the deathless page”
of the author—that is to say, of Jack Downing, Esquire. We have now,
one after the other, Cantos one, two, three, four, five, six, and
seven—each subdivided into Parts, by means of Roman numerals—some of
these Parts comprehending as many as six lines—upon the principle, we
presume, of packing up precious commodities in small bundles. The volume
then winds up with _Notes_, in proportion of three to one, as regards
the amount of text, and taken, the most of them, from Burk’s Virginia,
as before.
It is very difficult to keep one’s countenance when reviewing such a
_work_ as this; but we will do our best, for the truth’s sake, and put
on as serious a face as the case will admit.
The leading fault of “Powhatan,” then, is precisely what its author
supposes to be its principal merit. “It would be difficult,” he says, in
that pitiable preface, in which he has so exposed himself, “to find a
poem that embodies more truly the spirit of history, or indeed that
follows out more faithfully many of its details.” It would, indeed; and
we are very sorry to say it. The truth is, Mr. Downing has never dreamed
of any artistic _arrangement_ of his facts. He has gone straight
forward, like a blind horse, and turned neither to the one side nor to
the other, for fear of stumbling. But he gets them all in—every one of
them—the facts we mean. Powhatan never did anything in his life, we are
sure, that Mr. Downing has not got in his poem. He begins at the
beginning, and goes on steadily to the end—painting away at his story,
just as a sign-painter at a sign; beginning at the left hand side of his
board, and plastering through to the right. But he has omitted one very
ingenious trick of the sign-painter. He has forgotten to write under his
portrait—“_this is a pig_,” and thus there is some danger of mistaking
it for an opossum.
But we are growing scurrilous, in spite of our promise, and must put on
a sober visage once more. It _is_ a hard thing, however, when we have to
read and write about such doggerel as this:
“But bravely to the river’s brink
I led my warrior train,
And face to face, each glance they sent,
We sent it back again.
_Their werowance looked stern at me,_
_And I looked stern at him_,
And all my warriors clasped their bows,
And nerved each heart and limb.
I raised my heavy war-club high,
And swung it fiercely round,
And shook it towards the shallop’s side,
Then laid it on the ground.
And then the lighted calumet
I offered to their view,
And thrice I drew the sacred smoke,
And toward the shallop blew.
And as the curling vapour rose
Soft as a spirit prayer,
I saw the pale-face leader wave
A white flag in the air.
Then launching out their painted skiff
They boldly came to land,
And spoke us many a kindly word,
And took us by the hand.
Presenting rich and shining gifts,
Of copper, brass, and beads,
To show that they were men like us,
And prone to generous deeds.
We held a long and friendly talk,
Inquiring whence they came,
And who the leader of their band,
And what their country’s name.
And how their mighty shallop moved
Across the boundless sea,
And why they touched our great king’s land
Without his liber_ty_.”
It won’t do. We cannot sing to this tune any longer. We greatly prefer,
“John Gilpin was a gentleman
Of credit and renown,
A train-band captain eke was he
Of famous London town.”
Or—
“Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,
We ne’er shall see him more,
He used to wear an over-coat
All buttoned down before”—
or lines to that effect—we wish we could remember the words. The part,
however, about
“Their werowance look’d stern at me,
And I looked stern at him”—
is not quite _original_ with Mr. Downing—is it? We merely ask for
information. Have we not heard something about
“An old crow sitting on a hickory limb,
Who winked at me, and I winked at him.”
The simple truth is, that Mr. Downing never committed a greater mistake
in his life than when he fancied himself a poet, even in the ninty-ninth
degree. We doubt whether he could distinctly state the difference
between an epic and an epigram. And it will not do for him to appeal
from the critic to _common_ readers—because we assure him his book is a
very _un_common book. We never saw any one so uncommonly bad—nor one
about whose parturition so uncommon a fuss has been made, so little to
the satisfaction of common sense. Your poem is a curiosity, Mr. Jack
Downing; your “Metrical Romance” is not worth a single half sheet of the
paste-board upon which it is printed. This is our humble and honest
opinion; and, although honest opinions are not very plentiful just now,
you can have ours at what it is worth. But we wish, before parting, to
ask you one question. What _do_ you mean by that motto from sir Philip
Sidney, upon the title-page? “He cometh to you with a tale that holdeth
children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner.” What do you
mean by it, we say. Either you cannot intend to apply it to the “_tale_”
of Powhatan, or else all the “old men” in your particular neighbourhood
must be _very_ old men; and all the “little children” a set of
dunder-headed little ignoramuses.
* * * * *
_Miscellanies of Literature. By the Author of Curiosities of
Literature. 3 vols. J. & H. Langley, New York: 1841._
These volumes remind us of Coke upon Lyttleton, with which whilom we
were wont to be delighted; for they are full of the same odd conceits,
and present the same crude mass of undigested learning. Facts which no
one else would ever have hunted up from the shelves of dusty libraries;
theories which hitherto no man thought of substantiating by a reference
to biography or history; ideas, which are oddities in themselves, and
which are presented in the quaintest style; and illustrations of notions
that no one else would ever have thought of, or which, if thought of,
would not have been dressed up in so outlandish a manner, are all
marshalled together here in disorderly array, pushing, jostling, and
crowding each other until they remind one of Falstaff’s valorous
regiment, or a militia training in a midland county.
Seriously, however, these miscellanies embody a vast amount of
out-of-the-way intelligence, interesting to the general, but absolutely
necessary to the literary reader. No man but D’Israeli would ever have
had the patience to compile such a work. His ideas on the literary
character; his observations on men of genius; and his sketch of King
James the first, embody a vast body of undigested facts that must have
consumed years merely in their collection. Industry, however, is the
only merit of these volumes: in arranging this vast mass of truths,
D’Israeli has shown anything but a comprehensive mind.
The work is got up in fine style, as what work is not, when issued by
the Langleys?
* * * * *
_Carleton, A Tale of Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-Six. Two
volumes. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard._
We have heard this novel attributed to a gentleman of Philadelphia, and
also to a citizen of New York. The question appears to be a moot one
still, but, like many other moot points, is one of amazingly little
importance. The book seems to be the composition of a young man, well
educated in consonance with some of those Pharisaical literary creeds
which are all-potent in deadening the higher powers in favor of the
common-place. He has been taught _propriety_ as the chief of the
cardinal virtues, and instructed to regard _originality_ as the sum
total of the cardinal sins. His peculiar intellect, at the same time,
has been a soil precisely adapted for the seed sown. In regard to
“Carleton,” we may say in its behalf that its style is strikingly
_correct_, and that its incidents and its reflections never, even by
accident, startle us into unpleasant excitement. With this
peace-offering upon the shrine of the _decorous_, we now take the
liberty of throwing the book out of the window.
* * * * *
_Lives of the Queens of England, from the Norman Conquest; With
Anecdotes of their Courts; Now first Published from Official
Records and Other Authentic Documents, Private as well as
Public. From the Second London Edition, with Corrections and
Additions. By_ Agnes Strickland. _Vols. 1 and 2. Lea &
Blanchard. Philadelphia._
This book has been well received in England, and justly so. Its design
is obviously good, and its execution does honor to the fair author—for
in this instance it is scarcely right to call her a compiler. The work
is quite as original as any similar work can be. The task of composing
it has been an arduous one indeed; and there are few women who could
have accomplished it, as we see it accomplished. The ground upon which
Mrs. Strickland has so boldly yet judiciously ventured is one hitherto
unbroken, and, although she has trodden among flowers, she has not
escaped the delving drudgery of the pioneer. In short, a deep research
has been demanded for this labor, in quarters far out of the reach of
the ordinary investigator.
The title, although comprehensive, does not fully indicate the book. We
have not only the Lives of the Queens from the Norman Conquest, but, in
the Introduction, notices of the ancient British and Saxon ones. The
Empress Matilda is included among the former; although she has never
been so ranked by any previous historian. In this our author is fully
justified, however; for Matilda, who herself claimed no title beyond
that of “Domina of England,” was queen _de jure_, and, in a historical
view, a monarch of high importance, as the mother of the Plantagenets,
and the uniting link of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman dynasties. The
materials of which her memoir is composed are derived chiefly from
Norman and Latin chronicles, never before translated.
These volumes are sufficiently well done in a mechanical point of view.
The lithograph portrait of Matilda, however, is greasy and ineffective,
and typographical blunders obscure the meaning of many important
passages. In the very first paragraph of the Introduction, for instance,
we have Solent _fæminrum_ ductu bellare; a sentence which we are quite
sure was never put together by Tacitus, from whose Life of Agricola it
is taken.
The book, upon the whole, is one of rich interest and value, and must
find a place in every historical library.
* * * * *
_The History of a Flirt. 2 vols. Lea & Blanchard, Philadelphia:
1841._
This novel displays considerable ability, wasted on very common-place
incidents. If the author will undertake a subject worthy of her
talents—are we wrong in fancying the writer a lady?—we may yet hail
her as a novelist of no slight pretensions.
* * * * *
_Outlines of Geography and History, presenting a Concise View of
the World. By_ Frederick Emerson, _author of the North American
Arithmetic. Hogan & Thompson: Philadelphia._
The Preface of this little work greatly interested us in its favor, and
a careful examination of its contents did not lessen the interest. In
its arrangement, Geography and History are combined—the former being
the leading topic, and the latter the concomitant. The author’s
observations, in respect to this junction, are just. The two subjects
are so intimately connected in their own nature, that, however they may
be separated in books, they can never be disconnected in the mind. The
simultaneous study of both, properly connected, secures the learner from
imbibing false notions of either.
The book is concise, but accurate, and well adapted either for a
prefatory text-book, or for those whose limited school-time will not
allow them to go through with a more diffuse system. It is very neatly
and substantially gotten up.
* * * * *
_The Works of Lord Bolingbroke, with a Life, prepared expressly
for this Edition, containing additional information relative to
his Personal and Private Character: 4 vols. Carey and Hart:
Philadelphia. 1841._
An American edition of the works of Lord Bolingbroke has long been a
_desideratum_ to the scholar, and it is with no little pride we record
that to Philadelphia we are indebted for so elegant an edition of them,
as now lies before us. The typography of these volumes would do credit
to the famous London press. With the exception of a few costly works
published from time to time in our country, this edition of Lord
Bolingbroke is unrivalled as a work of art.
The volumes before us contain the various political and philosophical
writings of Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke. Of these, the
political tracts are the most valuable: in a measure, for their matter,
but chiefly for their style. Among these, the “Dissertation on Parties,”
the “Letter to Sir Wm. Wyndham,” the “Idea of a Patriot King,” and the
letters “on the study of History,” are the most celebrated. The
philosophical essays, occupying two of the volumes on our table, are
comparatively valueless, and inferior, both in style and matter, to the
political tracts. They are deeply imbued with the sceptical opinions of
the author, and we should have willingly seen them omitted in this
edition, if it were possible to get up a complete one, with nearly one
half of the author’s works left out. Little, therefore, as we value the
philosophical works of Bolingbroke, we commend the publishers for not
expunging them as too many others would have done.
The style of Bolingbroke is unrivalled. No library is perfect without
his works, and they should be studied by the public speaker, or the
author, night and day. We boldly aver that there does not exist a writer
in the language, the reading of whose works, so far as diction is
concerned, would be more beneficial to young men. Bolingbroke’s choice
of words is singularly fine. Nothing can be clearer, stronger, or more
copious than his language. Terse, nervous, epigrammatic; diffuse in
general, but condensed when necessary; at times racy, at times vehement,
at times compact as iron; rhetorical, yet easy; elegant, yet convincing;
bold, rapid and declamatory, his writings carry one away like a spoken
harangue, without betraying the carelessness of the extemporaneous
style. The very absence of method, which, in others, would be faulty,
is, in Bolingbroke, from the air of frankness it gives to his cause, and
its consistency with his essentially oratorical style, a merit: at least
not a defect. In grace he has no equal. The euphony of his sentences is
like the liquid flow of a river. No writer in the English tongue so much
resembles Cicero—to our mind—as Bolingbroke. Burke has been called his
rival here; but Burke wanted the ease, the elegance, the chastened
imagery of Tully, and in all of these St. John rivalled the friend of
Atticus. Deeply imbued with the Latin literature, Bolingbroke has
caught, as it were, the spirit of the Augustan age; and we feel, in
perusing his pages, the same chastened delight which we enjoy over no
modern, and only over Tully among the ancients.
We repeat it: no library is complete without these volumes. Hitherto,
the difficulty of obtaining a set of Bolingbroke’s Works, and the high
price at which the English editions were sold, have confined the study
of his writings comparatively to a few.
The life of Bolingbroke, affixed to these volumes, is altogether a
mongrel affair, being made up of shreds and patches, like an old
grandam’s best bed-quilt. The text is Goldsmith, interpolated with
Brougham, Cooke, and the Encyclopædia. It is true, the preface states
this at large, but it also conveys the impression that the memoir has
been re-written, and that only the _materials_ have been used. Now, if
so, a more unequal, ragged, piebald piece of composition was never
perpetrated than this same memoir, and the author—if any one but a pair
of scissors there be—ought to be condemned to the now obsolete, but not
less effective punishment, of the cutty-stool. If ever a man deserved a
horse-pond, it is the inditer of this biography.
* * * * *
_A Memoir of the Very Reverend Theobald Mathew. With an Account
of the Rise and Progress of Temperance in Ireland. By the
Reverend James Bermingham, of Borisokane. Edited by_ P. H.
Morris, M. D., _and by whom is added the Evil Effects of
Drunkenness Physiologically Explained. Alexander V. Blake: New
York._
It is scarcely too much to say that the Temperance Reformation is the
most important which the world ever knew. Yet its _great_ feature has
never yet been made a subject of comment. We mean that of adding to
man’s happiness (the ultimate object of _all_ reform), not by the
difficult and equivocal process of multiplying his pleasures, in their
external regard, but by the simple and most effectual one of exalting
his capacity for enjoyment. The temperate man carries within his own
bosom, under all circumstances, the true, the only elements of bliss.
The book before us will essentially aid the good cause. The memoir of
Mathew is deeply interesting; but, excellent as it is, we prefer the
essay of Dr. Morris on “the Effects of Drunkenness Physiologically
considered.” Through the influence of the physical, rather than of the
moral suggestions against alcohol, the permanency of the temperance
reform will be made good. Convince the world that spirituous liquors are
poison to the body, and it will be scarcely necessary to add that they
are ruin to the soul.
* * * * *
_The Life and Land of Burns: 1 vol. J. & H. Langley: New York.
1841._
This is an excellent work, got up in a style of exceeding beauty. The
Langleys, indeed, are becoming celebrated for the beauty of their
publications.
An essay by Carlyle, written in his usual barbarous style, but sparkling
with brilliant thoughts, like diamonds in a mine, forms one of the chief
features of the contents.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic
spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and
typesetting errors have been corrected without note. A cover has been
created for this ebook and is placed in the public domain.
In E.A. Poe’s article A FEW WORDS ON SECRET WRITING, a page image of a
cryptograph has been used for the ebook formats other than plain text,
rather than a transcription, due to limitations of modern fonts and
devices. It is interesting to use that illustration image as indicator
of the problems which could occur with old physical typesetting methods.
Looking at the image of the cryptograph we can see the first 6
characters of the first line are $0.£][ which according to the list of
characters above the cryptograph would be "wm eust" but were meant to
represent the words "we must". Unfortunately the typesetter made an
error and transposed the e (.) and m (0) so the first characters should
have been printed as $.0£][ to be a correct representation of the
paragraph.
[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 1, July 1841, George R. Graham,
Editor]
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Graham's Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 1, July 1841" ***
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