LOVE-LIFE.
In a forest lone, 'neath a mossy stone,
Pale flowrets grew:
No sunlight fell in the sombre dell,
Raindrop nor dew.
Bring them to light, where all is bright,
See if they grow?
Yes, stem and leaf are green,
While, hid in crimson sheen,
The petals glow.
Girl blossoms, too, love the sun and dew,
And the soft air:
Hidden from love's eye they fade and die,
In city low or cloister high,
Yes, everywhere.
Give them but love, the fire from above,
And they will grow,
The once cold children of the gloom,
Rich in their bloom, shedding perfume
On high and low.
We beg leave to remind our readers that Mr. Leland's new book, Sunshine in Thought, retail price $1, is given as a premium to all who subscribe $3 in advance to the Continental Monthly. Will the reader permit us to call attention to the following notice of the work from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin:
'A beautiful volume, entitled Sunshine in Thought, by Charles Godfrey Leland, has just been published by Charles T. Evans. No work from Mr. Leland's pen has afforded us so much pleasure, and we recommend it to all who want and relish bright, refreshing, cheering reading. It consists of a number of essays, the main idea of which is to inculcate joyousness in thought and feeling, in opposition to the sickly, sentimental seriousness which is so much affected in literature and in society. That a volume based on this one idea should be filled with reading that is never tiresome, is a proof of great cleverness. But Mr. Leland's varied learning, and his extensive acquaintance with foreign as well as English literature, combine with his native talent to qualify him for such a work. He has done nothing so well, not even his admirable translation of Heine's Reisebilder. He is thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his motto, 'Hilariter,' and in expressing his bright thoughts, he has been peculiarly felicitous in style. Nothing of his that we have read shows so much elegance and polish. Every chapter in the book is delightful, but we especially enjoyed that on 'Tannhæuser,' with the fine translation and subsequent elucidation of the famous legend.' But the boldest and most original chapter is the concluding one, with its strange speculations on 'The Musical After-Life of the Soul,' and the after-death experience of 'Dione' and 'Bel-er-oph-on,' which the author characterizes in the conclusion as 'an idle, fantastic, foolish dream.' So it may be, but it is as vividly told as any dream of the Opium-Eater or the Hasheesh-Eater. Mr. Leland is to be congratulated on his Sunshine in Thought. It is a book that will be enjoyed by every reader of culture, and its effect will be good wherever it is read.'
The aim proposed in this work is one of great interest at the present time, or, as the Philadelphia North American declares, 'is a great and noble one'—'to aid in fully developing the glorious problem of freeing labor from every drawback, and of constantly raising it and intellect in the social scale.' 'Mr. Leland believes that one of the most powerful levers for raising labor to its true position in the estimation of the world, is the encouragement of cheerfulness and joyousness in every phase of literature and of practical life.' 'The work is one long, glowing sermon, the text of which is the example of Jesus Christ.'
E. K.
BUST-HEAD WHISKEY.
For two days the quiet of the Rising Sun Tavern, in the quaint little town of Shearsville, Ohio, was disturbed by a drunken Democratic member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, who visited the town in order to address what he hoped would turn out to be the assembled multitude of copperheads, but which proved after all no great snakes!
For two days this worthless vagabond insulted travellers stopping at the tavern, until at last the landlord's wife, a woman of some intelligence, determined to have her revenge, since no man on the premises had pluck enough to give the sot the thrashing he so well merited.
On the third day, after a very severe night's carouse on bust-head whiskey, the Pennsylvanian appeared at the breakfast table, looking sadly the worse for wear, and having an awful headache. The landlady having previously removed the only looking glass in the tavern—one hanging in the barroom—said to the beast as he sat down to table:
'Poor man! oh, what is the matter with your face? It is terribly swollen, and your whole head too. Can't I do something for you? send for the doctor, or'—
The legislator, who was in a state of half-besottedness, listened with sharp ears to this remark, but believing the landlady was only making fun of him, interrupted her with—
'There ain't nothin' the matter with my head. I'm all right; only a little headache what don't 'mount to nothing.'
But a man who sat opposite to him at table, and who had his clue from the landlady, said with an alarmed look—
'I say, mister, I don't know it's any of my business, but I'll be hanged for a horse thief, if your head ain't swelled up twicet its nat'ral size. You'd better do something for it, I'm thinking.'
The drunken legislator! (Legislator, n. One who makes laws for a state: vide dictionary) believing at last that his face must in fact be swollen, since several other travellers, who were in the plot, also spoke to him of his shocking appearance, got up from the table and went out to the barroom to consult the looking glass, such luxuries not being placed in the chambers. But there was no glass there. After some time he found the landlady, and she told him that the barroom glass was broken, but she could lend him a small one; which she at once gave him.
The poor sot, with trembling hand, held it in front of his face, and looked in.
'Well,' said he, 'if that ain't a swelled head I hope I may never be a senator! or sell my vote again at Harrisburg.'
'Poor man!' exclaimed the bystanders.
'Fellers,' said the legislator, 'wot d'ye think I'd better do?' Here he gave another hard look in the glass. 'I ought to be back in Harrisburg right off, but I cant go with a head like that onto me. Nobody'd give me ten cents to vote for 'em with such a head as that. It's a'—
'Big thing,' interrupted a bystander.
'Fellers,' said the blackguard, 'I'll kill a feller any day of the week, with old rye, if he'll only tell er feller how to cure this head of mine.'
'Have it shaved, sir, by all means,' spoke the landlady: 'shaved at once, and then a mild fly blister will draw out the inflammation, and the swelling will go down. Don't you think so, doctor?'
The doctor thus addressed was a cow doctor, but, accustomed to attending brutes, his advice was worth something in the present case; so he also recommended shaving and blistering.
'I'll go git the barber right off the reel, sha'n't I?' asked the doctor, to which the legislator assenting, it chanced that in fifteen minutes his head was as bald as a billiard ball, and in a few more was covered with a good-sized fly blister.
'Ouch—good woman—how it hurts!' he cried. But that was only the beginning of it.
'Ee-ea-ah!' he roared, as it grew hotter and hotter. One might have heard him a mile. The neighbors did hear it, and rushed in. The joke was 'contaminated' round among them, and they enjoyed it. He had disgusted them all.
'Golly! what a big head!' cried a bystander.
The legislator took another look at the glass. They held it about a yard from him.
'It's gittin' smaller, ain't it?' he groaned.
'Yes, it's wiltin',' said the landlady. 'Now go to bed.'
He went, and on rising departed. Whether he ever became an honest man is not known, but the legend says he has from that day avoided 'bust-head whiskey.'
Don't you see it, reader? The landlady had shown him his face in a convex mirror—one of those old-fashioned things, which may occasionally be found in country taverns.