Graham's Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 3, March 1842

by Various

CHAPTER III.

Early the next morning, as May sat teaching Willie to read, with a demure face, through which the rebel dimples would peep in spite of her assumed dignity; while Julia, with a look equally demure, was bending over an Italian book; Georgy drawing, and Lizzie hemming a wee bit ’kerchief for her doll—the Earl entered the school-room from the lawn.

Unseen, he paused at the open door to contemplate the lovely tableau within;—the governess in her pretty girlish morning dress, with her long ringlets shadowing half her face and neck, as she bent over the boy, pointing out to him the word;—Willie by her side—one hand holding the book, the other his top, kicking the chair impatiently—first with one foot, then with the other, and looking round every minute to see what his sisters were doing;—Georgy smiling as she drew; Lizzie sitting upright in her little chair, with a doll almost as large as herself on her lap, ever and anon trying the ’kerchief round its neck to see the effect; and the simple, modest Julia, looking even older than May, with her dark hair smoothly parted—raising at times her eyes with looks of loving sympathy to those of the youthful teacher.

It was indeed a sunny scene; but the silence was broken by the voice of Georgy requesting assistance in her drawing. The young governess rose, and taking her offered pencil, retouched the sketch in a few places, at the same time giving the child directions how to finish it. Suddenly the pencil trembled in her hand,—the sweet low voice stopped—went on—faltered—ceased again, and May burst into tears! The Earl had stolen behind them to watch the progress of the drawing. May had felt, rather than heard, his approach,—and confused by his presence, half suspecting her own deficiency in the art, yet afraid to discontinue her directions at once, her face suffused with blushes, she tried in vain to proceed. Little Lizzie saw her tears, and springing from her seat, climbed a chair to caress her, exclaiming, “Don’t cry! papa won’t hurt you! Papa loves you dearly—don’t you, papa?”

Here was a situation! It was now the Earl’s turn to color; but the artless and innocent May, who had as yet known only a father’s and a brother’s love, did not dream of any other in the present case; on the contrary, she was soothed by the affectionate assurances of the child, and, smiling through her tears, looked up confidingly in the Earl’s face. Charmed with the childlike sweetness of her expression he could not resist taking her hand, with almost paternal tenderness, in his, while May, reassured by the gentleness of his manner, ventured to acknowledge her own ignorance, and to request his assistance in the sketch before them. This, to the delight of all, he willingly consented to give, and when, at two o’clock, the nurse came to take the children to dinner, she found May seated alone at the table, intent on a newly commenced drawing—the Earl leaning over her chair and instructing her in its progress—Julia singing “Love’s Young Dream,” and the three children gone no one knew where.

The next day, and the next, the Earl was still to be found in the school-room, sometimes spinning Willie’s top, sometimes reading an Italian author aloud to his daughter and her governess—often sharing the book with the latter, and oftener still, blending his rich and manly voice with hers as she sang to the harp or piano. One day a visiter asked Willie how he liked his new governess? “Oh!” said the boy, “papa is governess now. May is only our sister, and we are all so happy!”

Thus passed a year—Julia and May daily improving under their indulgent and unwearied teacher—and imparting in their turn instruction to the younger branches of the family. May had confided to Julia all her little history. She had written often to her father, and had received many letters in return. From one of them she learned, to her great joy and surprise, that Lionel had received his commission from some unknown friend. At the same time, her father advised her, as she had engaged for a year, to be contented until the expiration of it. “Contented!”

The last day of the year had arrived—May had lately been so happy that she had forgotten to think of being separated from the family she loved so much.

On the morning of the day, the Earl was in his library, Julia making tea, and May on a low ottoman at his feet, reading aloud the morning paper. Suddenly she paused, dropped the paper, and covered her face with her hands. The Earl, alarmed, bent tenderly over her, and Julia was by her side in a moment.

“What is it, dear May?” she said.

“Oh, the paper—look at the paper, Julia!”

The Earl caught it up—“Where—tell me where to look, May?”

“At the date—the date!”

“The date—it is the first of June—and what then?”

“Oh! did I not come the first of June and must I not go to-morrow? I am sure I shall never do for a governess!” and she hid her face on Julia’s shoulder, and wept afresh.

The Earl raised her gently—“Perhaps not; but you will do for something else, sweet May!”

“For what?” she asked earnestly—half wondering whether he could mean housekeeper!

“Come into the garden with me, dear, dear May, and I will tell you,” he whispered in her ear.

At once the whole truth flashed upon her heart. “She loved—she was beloved!” She was no longer a child—that moment transformed her; and shrinking instantly from his embrace and blushing till her very temples glowed again—she said in a low and timid voice, “I think I had better go home to-morrow—perhaps to-day: my father will expect me.”

“Julia,” said the Earl, “run into the garden, love, and see to Willie—he is in mischief, I dare say.” His daughter was out of sight in a moment. May stood shrinking and trembling, but unable to move. The Earl gazed, with a feeling bordering upon reverence, at the young girl, as she stood alone in her innocence. He drew slowly towards her—hesitated—again approached, and taking her hand with respectful tenderness, he said—“You know that I love you, May—how fondly—how fervently—time must show for language cannot:—will you—say you will be mine—with your father’s consent, dear May—or say that I may hope!”

Her whole soul was in her eyes as she raised them slowly to his and dropped them instantly again beneath his ardent gaze. “But—papa!” she murmured.

“We will all go together, and ask ‘papa,’ dearest; and now for a turn in the garden. You will not refuse now, love?” And May Evelyn, blushing and smiling, took his offered arm, wondering what “dear papa and Lionel” would say to all this.

It was a lovely evening in the early part of June, that, while Mr. Evelyn sat dozing in his arm chair and dreaming of his absent children, a light form stole over the threshold, and when he awoke, his gray hair was mingled with the glistening locks of his own beautiful and beloved May—his head resting on her shoulder, and her kiss warm upon his cheek!

“My Lord,” said May, demurely, as she entered, with her father, the drawing-room in which the Earl awaited them—“papa is very glad that I have given satisfaction;—he thinks your visit a proof of it—although he could hardly have expected so much from his little ignoramus, as he will persist in calling me.”

“My dear sir,” said the Earl, cordially pressing the offered hand of his host, “she has given so much satisfaction, that I wish, with your consent, to retain her as governess for life, not for my children, but myself.”

The reader has already foreseen the conclusion. Mr. Evelyn’s consent was obtained;—Lionel was sent for to be present at the wedding;—the ceremony was quietly performed in the little church of the village;—and for many succeeding seasons in London, the graceful and elegant wife of the Earl of —— was “the observed of all observers,” “the cynosure of neighboring eyes.”

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AN EPISTLE TO FANNY.

———

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

———

Sweet Fanny, though I know you not,

And I have never seen the splendor

That flashes from your hazel eyes

To make the souls of men surrender;

Though, when they ask me how you look,

I’m forced to say “I never met her,”

I hope you will not deem it wrong

If I address to you a letter.

Here in mine own secluded room,

Forgetful of life’s sober duty,

Lapped in the stillness of repose,

I sit and muse and dream of beauty;

I picture all that’s fair and bright

Which poets sometimes call Elysian,

And, ’mid the shapes that round me throng,

Behold one soft, enchanting vision.

A lady—lovely as the morn

When Night her starry mansion closes,

And gentle winds with fairy feet

Toss the sweet dew from blushing roses⁠—

A lady—to whose lip and cheek

Some twenty summer suns have given

Colors as rich as those that melt

Along the evening clouds of Heaven.

Her stature tall, her tresses dark,

Her brow like light in ambush lying,

Her hand—the very hand I’d give

The world to clasp if I were dying!

Her eyes, the glowing types of love,

Upon the heart they print their meaning⁠—

How mild they shine as o’er them fall

Those lashes long their lustre screening!

Sweet Fanny, can you not divine

The form that floats before my dreaming,

And whose the pictured smiles I see

This moment on my canvass beaming?

You cannot! then I’ve failed indeed,

To paint a single look I cherish⁠—

So, you may cast my lines aside,

And bid them like my memory perish.

My memory! what am I to thee,

Oh purest, gentlest, fairest, dearest!

Yes, dearest, though thy glance be cold

When first my humble name thou hearest.

Though I am nothing, thou to me

Art Fancy’s best beloved ideal;

And well I know the form she paints

Is far less charming than the real.

---

THE DOOM OF THE TRAITRESS.[^[1]]

———

BY THE AUTHOR OF “CROMWELL,” “THE BROTHERS,” ETC.

———

A cold and dark northeaster had swept together a host of straggling vapors and thin lowering clouds over the French metropolis—the course of the Seine might be traced easily among the grotesque roofs and gothic towers which at that day adorned its banks, by the gray ghostly mist which seethed up from its sluggish waters—a small fine rain was falling noiselessly and almost imperceptibly, by its own weight as it were, from the surcharged and watery atmosphere—the air was keenly cold and piercing, although the seasons had not crept far as yet beyond the confines of the summer. The trees, for there were many in the streets of Paris and still more in the fauxbourgs and gardens of the haute noblesse, were thickly covered with white rime, as were the manes and frontlets of the horses, the clothes, and hair, and eyebrows of the human beings who ventured forth in spite of the inclement weather. A sadder and more gloomy scene can scarcely be conceived than is presented by the streets of a large city in such a time as that I have attempted to describe. But this peculiar sadness was, on the day of which I write, augmented and exaggerated by the continual tolling of the great bell of St. Germain Auxerrois, replying to the iron din which arose from the gray towers of Notre Dâme. From an early hour of the day the people had been congregating in the streets and about the bridges leading to the precincts of the royal palace, the Chateau des Tournelles, which then stood—long since obliterated almost from the memory of men—upon the Isle de Paris, the greater part of which was covered then with the courts, and terraces, and gardens of that princely pile.

Strong bodies of the household troops were posted here and there about the avenues and gates of the royal demesne, and several large detachments of the archers of the prevôt’s guard—still called so from the arms which they had long since ceased to carry—might be seen every where on duty. Yet there were no symptoms of an émeute among the populace, nor any signs of angry feeling or excitement in the features of the loitering crowd, which was increasing every moment as the day waxed toward noon. Some feeling certainly there was—some dark and earnest interest, as might be judged from the knit brows, clinched hands, and anxious whispers which every where attended the exchange of thought throughout the concourse—but it was by no means of an alarming or an angry character. Grief, wonder, expectation, and a sort of half doubtful pity, as far as might be gathered from the words of the passing speakers, were the more prominent ingredients of the common feeling, which had called out so large a portion of the city’s population on a day so unsuited to any spectacle of interest. For several hours this mob, increasing as it has been described from hour to hour, varied but little in its character, save that as the day wore it became more and more respectable in the appearance of its members. At first it had been composed almost without exception of artisans and shop boys, and mechanics of the lowest order, with not a few of the cheats, bravoes, pickpockets, and similar ruffians, who then as now formed a fraternity of no mean size in the Parisian world. As the morning advanced, however, many of the burghers of the city, and respectable craftsmen, might be seen among the crowd; and a little later many of the secondary gentry and petite noblesse, with well-dressed women and even children, all showing the same symptoms of sad yet eager expectation. Now, when it lacked but a few minutes of noon, long trains of courtiers with their retinues and armed attendants, many a head of a renowned and ancient house, many a warrior famous for valor and for conduct might be seen threading the mazes of the crowded thoroughfares toward the royal palace.

A double ceremony of singular and solemn nature was soon to be enacted there—the interment of a noble soldier, slain lately in an unjust quarrel, and the investiture of an unwilling woman with the robes of a holy sisterhood preparatory to her lifelong interment in that sepulchre of the living body—sepulchre of the pining soul—the convent cloisters. Armand de Laguy!—Marguerite de Vaudreuil!

Many circumstances had united in this matter to call forth much excitement, much grave interest in the minds of all who had heard tell of it!—the singular and wild romance of the story, the furious and cruel combat which had resulted from it—and last not least, the violent, and, as it was generally considered, unnatural resentment of the King toward the guilty victim who survived the ruin she had wrought.

The story was in truth, then, but little understood—a thousand rumors were abroad, and of course no one accurately true—yet in each there was a share of truth, and the amount of the whole was, perhaps, less wide of the mark than is usual in matters of the kind. And thus they ran. Marguerite de Vaudreuil had been betrothed to the youngest of France’s famous warriors, Charles de La-Hirè, who after a time fell—as it was related by his young friend and kinsman, Armand de Laguy—covered with wounds and honor. The body had been found outstretched beneath the surviver, who, himself desperately hurt, had alone witnessed, and in vain endeavored to prevent, his cousin’s slaughter. The face of Charles de La-Hirè, as all men deemed the corpse to be, was mangled and defaced so frightfully as to render recognition by the features utterly hopeless—yet from the emblazoned surcoat which it bore, the well-known armor on the limbs, the signet ring upon the finger, and the accustomed sword clenched in the dead right hand, none doubted the identity of the body, or questioned the truth of Armand’s story.

Armand de Laguy, succeeding by his cousin’s death to all his lands and lordships, returned to the metropolis, mixed in the gayeties of that gay period, when all the court of France was revelling in the celebration of the union of the Dauphin with the lovely Mary Stuart, in after days the hapless queen of Scotland.

He wore no decent and accustomed garb of mourning—he suffered no interval, however brief, due to decorum at least if not to kindly feeling, to elapse before it was announced that Marguerite de Vaudreuil, the dead man’s late betrothed, was instantly to wed his living cousin. Her wondrous beauty, her all-seductive manners, her extreme youth had in vain pleaded against the general censure of the court—the world! Men had frowned on her for awhile, and women sneered and slandered!—but after a little while, as the novelty of the story wore away, the indignation against her inconstancy ceased, and she was once again installed the leader of the court’s unwedded beauties.

Suddenly, on the very eve of her intended nuptials, Charles de La-Hirè returned—ransomed, as it turned out, by Brissac, from the Italian dungeons of the Prince of Parma, and making fearful charges of treason and intended murder against Armand de Laguy. The King had commanded that the truth should be proved by a solemn combat, had sworn to execute upon the felon’s block whichever of the two should yield or confess falsehood, had sworn that the inconstant Marguerite, who, on the return of De La-Hirè, had returned instantly to her former feelings, asserting her perfect confidence in the truth of Charles, the treachery of Armand, should either wed the victor, or live and die the inmate of the most rigorous convent in his realm.

The battle had been fought yesterday!—Armand de Laguy fell, mortally wounded by his wronged cousin’s hand, and with his latest breath declared his treasons, and implored pardon from his King, his kinsman, and his God—happy to perish by a brave man’s sword not by a headsman’s axe. And Marguerite—the victor’s prize—rejected by the man she had betrayed—herself refusing, even if he were willing, to wed with him whom she could but dishonor—had now no option save death or the detested cloister.

And now men pitied—women wept—all frowned and wondered and kept silence. That a young, vain, capricious beauty—the pet and spoiled child from her very cradle of a gay and luxurious court—worshipped for her charms like a second Aphrodite—intoxicated with the love of admiration—that such an one should be inconstant, fickle!—should swerve from her fealty to the dead!—a questionable fealty always!—and be won to a rash second love by the falsehood and treasons of a man, young and brave and handsome—falsehood which had deceived wise men—that such should be the course of events, men said, was neither strange nor monstrous! It was a fault, a lapse of which she had been guilty, which might indeed make her future faith suspected, which would surely justify Charles de La-Hirè in casting back her proffered hand, but which at the worst was venial, and deserving no such doom as the soul-chilling cloister.

She had, they said, in no respect participated in the guilt, or shared the treacheries of Armand—on the contrary—she, the victim of his fraud, had been the first to denounce, to spit at, to defy him.

Moreover it was understood that although de La-Hirè had refused her hand, several of equal and even higher birth than he had offered to redeem her from the cloister by taking her to wife of their free choice—Jarnac had claimed the beauty—and it was whispered that the Duke de Nevers had sued to Henry vainly for the fair hand of the unwilling novice.

But the King was relentless. “Either the wife of De La-Hirè!—or the bride of God in the cloister!” was his unvarying reply. No farther answer would he give—no disclosure of his motives would he make even to his wisest councillors. Some indeed augured that the good monarch’s anger was but feigned, and that deeming her sufficiently punished already he was desirous still of forcing her to be the bride of him to whom she had been destined, and whom she still, despite her brief inconstancy, unquestionably worshipped in her heart. For all men still supposed that at the last Charles would forgive the hapless girl, and so relieve her from the living tomb that even now seemed yawning to enclose her. But others—and they were those who understood the best mood of France’s second Henry—vowed that the wrath was real; and felt, that, though no man could fathom the cause of his stern ire, he never would forgive the guilty girl, whose frailty, as he swore, had caused such strife and bloodshed.

But now it was high noon, and forth filed from the palace gates a long and glittering train—Henry and all his court, with all the rank and beauty of the realm, knights, nobles, peers and princes, damsels and dames—the pride of France and Europe. But at the monarch’s right walked one, clad in no gay attire—pale, languid, wounded and warworn—Charles de La-Hirè, the victor. A sad deep gloom o’ercast his large dark eye, and threw a shadow over his massy forehead—his lip had forgot to smile! his glance to lighten! yet was there no remorse, no doubt, no wavering in his calm, noble features—only fixed, settled sorrow. His long and waving hair of the darkest chesnut, evenly parted on his crown, fell down on either cheek, and flowed over the broad plain collar of his shirt which, decked with no embroidery lace, was folded back over the cape of a plain black pourpoint, made of fine cloth indeed, but neither laced nor passemented, nor even slashed with velvet—a broad scarf of black taffeta supported his weapon—a heavy double-edged straight broadsword, and served at the same time to support his left arm, the sleeve of which hung open, tied in with points of ribbon. His trunk-hose and his nether stocks of plain black silk, black velvet shoes and a slouched hat, with neither feather nor cockade, completed the suit of melancholy mourning which he wore. In the midst of the train was a yet sadder sight, Marguerite de Vaudreuil, robed in the snow-white vestments of a novice, with all her glorious ringlets flowing in loose redundance over her shoulders and her bosom, soon to be cut close by the fatal scissors—pale as the monumental stone and only not as rigid. A hard-featured gray-headed monk, supported her on either hand—and a long train of priests swept after with crucifix and rosary and censer.

Scarce had this strange procession issued from the great gates of les Tournelles, the death-bells tolling still from every tower and steeple, before another train, gloomier yet and sadder, filed out from the gate of the royal tilt-yard, at the farther end of which stood a superb pavilion. Sixteen black Benedictine monks led the array chanting the mournful miserere—next behind these, strange contrast!—strode on the grim gaunt form, clad in his blood-stained tabard, and bearing full displayed his broad two-handed axe—fell emblem of his odious calling!—the public executioner of Paris. Immediately in the rear of this dark functionary, not borne by his bold captains, nor followed by his gallant vassals with arms reversed and signs of martial sorrow, but ignominiously supported by the grim-visaged ministers of the law, came on the bier of Armand, the last Count de Laguy.

Stretched in a coffin of the rudest material and construction, with his pale visage bare, displaying still in its distorted lines and sharpened features the agonies of mind and body which had preceded his untimely dissolution, the bad but haughty noble was borne to his long home in the grave-yard of Notre Dâme. His sword, broken in twain, was laid across his breast, his spurs had been hacked from his heels by the base cleaver of the scullion, and his reversed escutcheon was hung above his head.

Narrowly saved by his wronged kinsman’s intercession from dying by the headsman’s weapon ere yet his mortal wounds should have let out his spirit—he was yet destined to the shame of a dishonored sepulchre—such was the King’s decree, alas! inexorable.

The funeral train proceeded—the King and his court followed. They reached the grave-yard, hard beneath those superb gray towers!—they reached the grave, in a remote and gloomy corner, where, in unconsecrated earth, reposed the executed felon—the priests attended not the corpse beyond the precincts of that unholy spot—their solemn chant died mournfully away—no rites were done, no prayers were said above the senseless clay—but in silence was it lowered into the ready pit—silence disturbed only by the deep hollow sound of the clods that fell fast and heavy on the breast of the guilty noble! For many a day a headstone might be seen—not raised by the kind hands of sorrowing friends nor watered by the tears of kinsmen—but planted there, to tell of his disgraceful doom—amid the nameless graves of the self-slain—and the recorded resting-places of well-known thieves and felons. It was of dark gray free-stone, and it bore these brief words—brief words, but in that situation speaking the voice of volumes.

Ci git Armand

Le Dernier Comte de Laguy.

Three forms stood by the grave—stood till the last clod had been heaped upon its kindred clay, and the dark headstone planted. Henry, the King! and Charles, the Baron De La-Hirè; and Marguerite de Vaudreuil.

And as the last clod was flattened down upon the dead, after the stone was fixed, De La-Hirè crossed the grave to the despairing girl, where she had stood gazing with a fixed rayless eye on the sad ceremony and took her by the hand, and spoke so loud that all might hear his words, while Henry looked on calmly but not without an air of wondering excitement.

“Not that I did not love thee,” he said, “Marguerite! Not that I did not pardon thee thy brief inconstancy, caused as it was by evil arts of which we will say nothing now—since he who plotted them hath suffered even above his merits, and is—we trust—now pardoned! Not for these causes, nor for any of them—have I declined thine hand thus far—but that the King commanded, judging it in his wisdom best for both of us. Now Armand is gone hence—and let all doubt and sorrow go hence with him! Let all your tears, all my suspicions be buried in his grave forever. I take your hand, dear Marguerite—I take you as mine honored and loved bride—I claim you mine forever!”

Thus far the girl had listened to him, not blushingly, nor with a melting eye; nor with any sign of renewed hope or rekindled happiness in her pale features—but with cold resolute attention—but now she put away his hand very steadily, and spoke with a firm unfaltering voice.

“Be not so weak!” she said. “Be not so weak, Charles de La-Hirè!—nor fancy me so vain! The weight and wisdom of years have passed above my head since yester morning—then was I a vain, thoughtless girl—now am I a stern wise woman. That I have sinned is very true—that I have betrayed thee—wronged thee! It may be, had you spoke pardon yesterday—it might have been all well! It may be it had been dishonor in you to take me to your arms—but if to do so had been dishonor yesterday, by what is it made honor now? No! no! Charles de La-Hirè—no! no!—I had refused thee yesterday, hadst thou been willing to redeem me, by self-sacrifice, then from the convent walls!—I had refused thee then, with love warming my heart toward thee—in all honor! Force me not to reject thee now with scorn and hatred. Nor dare to think that Marguerite de Vaudreuil will owe to man’s compassion, what she owes not to love! Peace! Charles de La-Hirè—I say, peace! my last words to thee have been spoken, and never will I hear more from thee! And now, Sir King, hear thou—may God judge between thee and me, as thou hast judged. If I was frail and fickle, nature and God made woman weak and credulous—but made man not wise, to deceive and ruin her. If I sinned deeply against this Baron De La-Hirè—I sinned not knowingly, nor of premeditation! If I sinned deeply, more deeply was I sinned against—more deeply was I left to suffer!—even hadst thou heaped no more brands upon the burning. If to bear hopeless love—to pine with unavailing sorrow—to repent with continual remorse—to writhe with trampled pride!—if these things be to suffer, then, Sir King, had I enough suffered without thy just interposition!” As she spoke, a bitter sneer curled her lip for a moment; but as she saw Henry again about to speak, a wilder and higher expression flashed over all her features—her form appeared to distend—her bosom heaved—her eye glared—her ringlets seemed to stiffen, as if instinct with life “Nay!” she cried, in a voice clear as the strain of a silver trumpet—“nay! thou shalt hear me out—and thou didst swear yesterday I should live in a cloister cell forever!—and I replied to thy words then, ‘not long!’—I have thought better now—and now I answer ‘never!’ Lo here!—lo here! ye who have marked the doom of Armand—mark now the doom of Marguerite! Ye who have judged the treason, mark the doom of the traitress!” And with the words, before any one could interfere, even had they suspected her intentions, she raised her right hand on high, and all then saw the quick twinkle of a weapon, and struck herself, as it seemed, a quick slight blow immediately under the left bosom! It seemed a quick slight blow! but it had been so accurately studied—so steadily aimed and fatally—that the keen blade, scarcely three inches long and very slender, of the best of Milan steel, with nearly a third of the hilt, was driven home into her very heart—she spoke no syllable again!—nor uttered any cry!—nor did a single spasm contract her pallid features, a single convulsion distort her shapely limbs! but she leaped forward, and fell upon her face, quite dead, at the King’s feet!

Henry smiled not again for many a day thereafter—Charles De La Hirè died very old, a Carthusian monk of the strictest order, having mourned sixty years and prayed in silence for the sorrows and the sins of that most hapless being.

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[1]	See the [Duello], page 85.

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THE STRANGER’S FUNERAL.

———

BY N. C. BROOKS.

———

A solitary hearse without mourner or friend wheeled by me with unceremonious speed. It filled my heart with feelings of the most chilling desolation, which were augmented perhaps by the peculiar gloom of the evening. I reached the rude grave in which the corpse was deposited, and learned from the menial who was performing the last rites that it was a young German of fine talents, with whom I had travelled a few months before, who, far from his home and friends, had fallen a victim to the prevailing epidemic.—Letter of a Friend.

No solemn bell pealed on the air,

No train in sable gloom

Moved slow with the holy man of prayer

To stand around his tomb;

The hearse rolled on without sign of love

To the church, in lonely woe,

Where bent the solemn heavens above

The opened grave below:

But he recked not of the heavens o’ercast,

Or the yawning gulf of death;

For with him Earth’s bitterness had passed,

Ere passed his fleeting breath.

The stranger pressed a lonely bed,

No smiles dispelled the gloom

Of the dark and funeral shades that spread

Around his dying room;

And his heart with grief did melt,

And he wandered in fevered dreams

To the home where the loved of his youth still dwelt,

By the side of his own blue streams:

His heart for their voices yearned,

And the warm tears fell like rain,

As his dying eyes to the home were turned

That he ne’er should see again.

The stranger’s griefs are o’er,

And his body lies alone,

From his friends afar on a foreign shore

Without a funeral stone;

And long shall voices call,

And midnight tapers burn

For him that is bound in death’s cold thrall,

But he shall no more return:

He shall return no more

From his lowly sleep in dust,

’Till the trump announce death’s bondage o’er,

And the “rising of the just.”

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THE FIRST STEP.

———

BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

———

“Well met, Harry,” exclaimed Edward Morton, as he encountered his friend Wilford in Broadway, “I have two questions to ask you. In the first place, what do you call that odd-looking vehicle in which I saw you riding yesterday? and in the second, who was that pretty little sister Ruth seated so demurely beside you?”

“My new carriage,” said Harry, laughing, “having been invented by myself, has the honor to bear my name; it is called a Wilford; I will sell it to you cheap, if you like it, for that booby Danforth has ordered one of the same pattern, and I will never sport mine after he comes out with his.”

“And so because a fool follows your lead you throw up your cards; you will have enough to do if you carry out that rule in all your actions. Thank you for your kind offer; but really I am neither rich nor fashionable enough to drive about town in such a Welsh butter-tub. Now, answer my second question; who is the lady;—has she been named in honor of the vehicle?”

“No, but she will probably bear the name of its inventor in due time.”

“Can it be possible, Harry? have you really determined to turn Benedict before the pleasures of freedom have palled upon your taste? Have you seriously reflected upon all you are about to relinquish? Have you thought upon the pleasant tête-à-têtes, the agreeable flirtations, the many delicious ‘love-passages’ which the admired Harry Wilford is privileged to enjoy while he roves at large, but which will hereafter be denied to him who wears the clanking fetters of matrimony?”

“I have thought of every thing, Ned; and, to tell you the truth, I am beginning to get tired of the aimless, profitless life I now lead.”

“And, therefore, you are going to turn merchant and marry; you will have a considerable amount to add to profit and loss by these experiments. Pray who is the enchantress that has woven so wondrous a spell of transformation?”

“She bears the primitive name of Rachel, and was both born and bred in the little village of Westbury, where, as I am told, a fashionably cut coat or one of Leary’s hats would be regarded as a foreign curiosity. She has never stirred beyond the precincts of her native place until this spring, when she accompanied a newly married relative to our gay city. Indeed she has been kept so strictly within the pale of her society, that if her cousin had not fortunately married out of it, the lovely Rachel would probably have walked quietly to meeting with some grave young broad-brim, and contented herself with a drab bonnet all her life.”

“So your inamorata is country bred. By Jupiter I shall begin to believe in the revival of witchcraft. Is she rich, Harry?”

“I see the drift of your question, Ned; but you are mistaken if you think I have looked on her through golden spectacles. She is an orphan with sufficient property to render her independent of relatives, but not enough to entice a fortune-hunter.”

“Well, if any one but yourself had told me that Harry Wilford, with all his advantages of purse and person, had made choice of a little rusticated Quakeress to be his bride, I could not have believed it,” said Morton; “pray do you expect this pretty Lady Gravely to preside at the exquisite dinners for which your bachelor’s establishment has long been famous? or do you intend to forego such vulgar enjoyments for the superior pleasures of playing Darby to Mrs. Wilford’s Joan in your chimney corner?”

“No quizzing, Ned,” said Wilford, smiling, “Rachel has been well educated, and the staid decorum of the sect has not destroyed her native elegance of manner.”

“But the drab bonnet, Harry:—can you, the pride of your tailor and the envy of your less tasteful friends,—you, the very prince of Broadway exquisites,—you, the American Brummel, who would as willingly have been caught picking a pocket, as wearing a glove two days, a hat two weeks, or a coat two months,—can you venture to destroy the reputation which you have acquired at such cost, by introducing a drab bonnet to the acquaintance of your be-plumed and be-flowered female friends?”

“Wait awhile, Edward; Rachel has not yet learned to admire the gayeties of our city; her eyes have been too long accustomed to the ‘sober twilight gray,’ and she is rather dazzled than pleased with the splendor of fashionable society, but she has too much of womanly feelings to continue long insensible to womanly vanity.”

“Well, success to you, Harry, but let me beg you to lay an interdict on that ugly bonnet as soon as you have a right to exercise your marital authority.”

Wilford laughed, and the two gentlemen parted; the one to fulfil an engagement with the pretty Quakeress, and the other to smoke a cigar, drink a mint julep, and laugh at his friend’s folly.

Harry Wilford had been so unlucky as to come into possession of a large fortune as soon as he attained his majority. I am not in error, gentle reader, when I say he was unlucky, for daily experience bears witness to the fact, that in this country, at least in nine cases out of ten, a large inheritance is a great misfortune. The records of gay life in every large city prove that the most useless, most ignorant, most vicious, and often the most degraded among the youth, are usually the sons of plodding and hoarding parents, who have pawned health and happiness, aye, and sometimes integrity—the very life of the soul—to procure the gold which brings the destruction of their children. Wilford had passed through college with the reputation of being one of the most gifted and most indolent of scholars, while his eccentric fits of study, which served to give him the highest rank in his class, only showed how much more he might have done, if industry and perseverance had been allowed to direct his pursuits. Like his career in the university had been his course through life. With much latent energy of character he was too infirm of purpose to become distinguished either for virtue or talent. The curse of Ephraim seemed to have fallen upon the child of prosperity, and the impressive words of the ancient Patriarch: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel,” might have shadowed forth his destiny. His fine talents were wasted in empty witticisms; his classical taste only served to direct his lavish expenditure, and his really noble feelings were frittered away in hollow friendship, or in transitory attachments. Handsome, brilliant, and, above all, rich, he became the idol of a coterie, and intoxicated by the incense which smoked before him, he did not perceive that its subtle influence enervated all his nobler faculties. Yet Wilford had escaped the contagion of vice. The dark stain of criminal excess, which too often sullies the cloth of gold more deeply than it does the coat of frieze, had never fallen upon his garments. He could not forget the trembling hand which had been laid upon his infant head when he offered up his innocent prayers at a mother’s knee. He remembered her dying supplication that her child might be kept “unspotted from the world,” and her gentle face, beaming with unutterable purity and love, often interposed itself between his and his tempter, when his heart would have failed from very weakness.

Harry Wilford had completed his thirtieth summer and yet he was a bachelor. The artillery of bright eyes and brighter smiles had been levelled at him in vain; the gentler weapons of sweet words and soft glances had been equally ineffectual. His heart had been captured again and again, but it was a far easier task to gain than to keep it. Indeed it was like an ill-garrisoned border fortress, and generally surrendered at discretion to the first enemy that sat down before it, who was sure to be soon driven out in turn by another victorious assailant. He was too universal a lover, and until, like Apelles, he could unite in one woman the charms which he admired in twenty, there seemed little probability of his ever being won to wear the chain. The truth was, that of the many who courted the attentions of the handsome Mr. Wilford, there was none that seemed to have discovered the fine gold which lay beneath the surface of his character. The very exuberance of flowers and fruit which the soil produced, prevented one from expecting any hidden treasure, for it is not often that the precious things of earth are found beneath its gay adornments. We look for the diamond, not under the bank of violets but in the rugged bosom of the mountain, and thus Wilford’s friends, content with the beautiful blossoms of fancy and wit which he lavishly flung around, suspected not the noble gifts of intellect which he possessed.

Wilford had frequently imagined himself in love, but something had always occurred to undeceive him and to resolve his pleasant fancies with very disagreeable facts. He had learned that the demon of selfishness often lurks under the form of an angel of light, and he began to distrust many of the fair beings who bestowed upon him their gentle smiles. He had received more than one severe lesson in human nature, and it was very soon after officiating as groomsman at the bridal of a lovely girl whose faith had once been pledged to him, that he first met the young and guileless Quakeress. There was something so pure and vestal-like in the delicate complexion, soft blue eye, and simply braided hair of the gentle Rachel, that Wilford was instantly charmed. His eye, so long dazzled with the gorgeous draperies, glittering jewels, and well-displayed beauties of fashionable belles, rested with a sense of relief on the sober French gray silk, and transparent lawn neckerchief which so carefully shaded the charms of the fair rustic. He saw the prettiest of tiny feet peeping from beneath a robe of far more decorous length than the laws of fashion then allowed—the whitest of white hands were unadorned by a single jewel—and the most snowy of necks was only discovered by the swan-like grace which rendered it visible above its envious screen of muslin. Even in the society of Friends, where a beautiful complexion is almost as common to the females as a pair of eyes to each face, Rachel was remarkable for the peculiar delicacy of hers. It was not of that waxy, creamy tint, so often considered the true fashionable and aristocratic complexion, because supposed to be an evidence that the “winds of heaven” have never visited the face except through the blinds of a carriage; nor was it the flake-white and carmine-red which often claims for its possessor the reputation of a brilliant tincture of the skin. Even the old and worn-out similes of the lily and the rose, would have failed to give an idea of the delicate hues which added such a charm to Rachel’s countenance, for the changing glow of her soft cheek, and the tracery of blue veins which adorned her snowy brow could never be imaged by a flower of the field. Harry Wilford thought he had never seen anything so exquisitely lovely, so purely fair, as that sweet face when in perfect repose, or so vividly bright as it seemed when lighted by the blush of modesty. There are some faces which require shadows to perfect their beauty; the eye, though bright, must flash beneath jetty lashes; the brow, though white, must gleam amid raven tresses or half the effect is lost. But Rachel’s face, like that of joyous childhood, was all light. Her hair was silky and soft as an infant’s, her eyes blue as the summer heaven, her lips like an opening rose-bud—it was a face like spring sunshine, all brightness and all beauty.

Rachel had been left an orphan in her infancy, and the relatives to whom she was indebted for her early nurture were among the straitest of a strait sect, consequently she had imbibed their rigid ideas of dress and manners. Indeed she had never wasted a thought upon the pomps and vanities of the ‘world’s people,’ until she visited the gay metropolis. The sneers which her plain dress occasioned in the circle where she now moved, and the merry jibes which young and thoughtless companions cast upon her peculiar tenets of faith, aroused all the latent pride of her nature, until she actually felt a degree of triumph in exhibiting her quaint costume in society.

If Wilford had been charmed with her beauty, he was in raptures with her unsophisticated character. After ringing the changes on sentiment until his feelings were ‘like sweet bells jangled out of tune,’ it was absolutely refreshing to find a damsel who had never hung enraptured over the passionate pages of Byron, nor breathed the voluptuous songs of Moore, but who, in the simplicity of her heart, admired and quoted the gentle Cowper, as the prince of poets. “She has much to learn in the heart’s lore,” said Wilford to himself, “and what pleasure it will be to develop her innocent affections.” So he offered his hand to the pretty Quakeress, and she, little versed in the arts of coquetry, modestly accepted the gift.

One morning Rachel sat by the window, looking out upon the gay throng in Broadway, when her cousin entered with a small packet in her hand.

“Here is something for you, Rachel, a love token I suppose,” said Mrs. Hadley. Rachel blushed as she opened the envelope, but her color deepened to an almost angry hue when she unclosed a morocco box, and beheld an exquisite set of pearls.

“Beautiful!” exclaimed Mrs. Hadley.

“I shall not keep them,” said Rachel quietly.

“Not keep them! pray why?” asked her cousin.

“Because I should never wear them, and because Mr. Wilford has not kept his word with me. He promised never to interfere with what he called my style of dress, and I told him I would never lay aside my plain costume, though I was willing to modify it a little for his sake.”

“Here he comes to answer for himself,” said Mrs. Hadley as Wilford entered. “You are just in time,” she continued, “for Rachel is very angry with you.”

Rachel could not repress a feeling of pride and pleasure as she looked on the graceful form of her lover, who, taking a seat beside her, whispered, “Are you indeed displeased with me, dearest? Pray what is my offence?”

She replied by placing in his hand the box of pearls.

“Do you then reject so simple an offering of affection, Rachel?” said Harry, “you should regard these gems not as the vain ornaments of fashion, but as the most delicate and beautiful productions of the wonderful world of ocean. Look, can any thing be more emblematical of purity?” and as he spoke he placed a pearl rose upon the soft golden hair which was folded above her white forehead.

Rachel did look, and, as the large mirror reflected her beautiful face, she was conscious of an impulse, (almost her very first) of womanly vanity.

“I cannot wear them, Harry,” said she, “necklace and bracelets would be very useless to one who never unveils either neck or arms, and such costly head-gear would be ill suited to my plain silk dress, and lawn cape.”

Wilford had too much tact to press the subject. The box was consigned to his pocket, and the offence was forgiven.

“Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute,” said he, as he walked home, “my fifteen hundred dollars has been thrown away for the present; I must proceed more cautiously in my work of reform.”

The morning fixed for the marriage at length arrived. Rachel was in her apartment, surrounded by her friends, and had just commenced her toilet, when a small parcel, accompanied by a delicate rose-colored note, was placed in her hands. She, of course, opened the note first; it was as follows:

“Forgive me, my sweet Rachel, if on this morning I venture to suggest a single addition to your simple dress. There are always idle persons standing about the church door on such an occasion as a wedding, and I am foolish enough to be unwilling that the careless eye of every indifferent spectator should scan the exquisite beauty of your face to-day. There is something extremely painful to me in the thought that the blushing cheek of my fair bride should be the subject of cold remark. Will you not, for my sake, dearest, veil the rich treasure of your loveliness for one brief hour? I know I am selfish in making the request, but for once forgive my jealousy, and shade your brightness from the stranger’s gaze.”

The parcel contained a Brussels lace veil of surpassing richness, so delicate in its texture, so magnificent in its pattern that Rachel could not repress an exclamation of pleasure at the sight.

Her toilet was at length completed. A dress of plain white satin, finished at the neck by a chemisette of simple lace, her hair folded plainly around her small head and plaited in a single braid behind:—such was the bridal attire of the rigid little Quakeress.

“And the veil, Rachel,” whispered her cousin.

“Why, rather than shock Harry’s delicacy,” said she, half smiling, “I believe I will wear it, but I shall look very ridiculous in it.”

The veil fell in rich folds nearly to her feet, and nothing could be imagined more beautiful than her whole appearance in this plain but magnificent costume.

“You want a pearl comb, or something of the kind, to fasten this veil properly,” said one of the bridesmaids.

“What a pity you had not kept the box,” whispered her cousin. Rachel smiled as she replied, “if I had ever dreamed of wearing such an unusual appendage as this perhaps I might have retained the rose at least.”

Rachel had taken the first step when she consented to adopt the veil, the second would have cost her less trouble.

Immediately after the ceremony, Mr. and Mrs. Wilford set off for the Springs. A servant had preceded them with their baggage, and Rachel soon found herself in the midst of a more brilliant circle than she had yet seen. The day after their arrival she was preparing for a ride, and a crowd had collected on the piazza to admire Wilford’s elegant equipage and fine blood-horses. But an unforeseen annoyance had occurred to disturb the bride’s feelings. Attired in a dress of dark lavender-colored silk, she folded her white cashmere around her shoulders, and opened the band-box which contained her bridal hat. This had only been sent home on the morning of her marriage, and having been instantly forwarded with the other baggage, she had not yet seen it. How was she startled therefore to find, instead of the close cottage hat which she had ordered, as the nearest possible approach to her Quaker bonnet, a gay-looking French affair, trimmed with a wreath of lilies of the valley. What was to be done? it was impossible to procure another, and to despoil the bonnet of its flowers gave it an unfinished and slovenly appearance. Harry affected to condole with her, and finally persuaded her to wear it rather than expose herself to the charge of affectation by assuming her travelling calash.

“Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute,” said he, to himself, as he saw the blush mantle her lovely cheek when she contemplated her reflection in the mirror.

“What shall I do?” exclaimed Rachel, “it does not half cover my head; I never wore such a flaunting, flaring thing in my life: I wish I had my veil, for I am actually ashamed of myself: ah, here it is, coz must have put it into the box, and I dare say it is she who has played me this trick about my bonnet.”

So, throwing on her splendid veil to hide her unwonted finery, Rachel took her husband’s arm and entered the carriage, leaving the gentlemen to admire her beauty and the ladies to talk about her magnificent Brussels.

Six months after her marriage Mrs. Wilford was dressing for a party; Monsieur Frisette had arranged her beautiful hair in superb ringlets and braids, and was just completing his task when the maid accidentally removing her embroidered handkerchief from the dressing-table discovered beneath it the box of pearls.

“Ah voilà Madame, de very ting—dat leetle rose vill just do for fix dese curl,” said Monsieur.

As she continued her toilet she found that Madame M*** had trimmed the corsage of her dress in such a manner as to preclude the possibility of wearing either cape or scarf according to her usual habit. She could not appear with her neck quite bare, and nothing remained but to cover it with the massy medallions of her pearl necklace. In short, when fully dressed for the party, some good reason had been found for adopting every ornament which the box contained.

“Just as I expected,” said Wilford, mentally, as he conducted her to the carriage, “Rachel has taken the first step, she will never put on the drab bonnet again.”

* * * * *

Three years after the events just recorded, the fatal red flag of the auctioneer was seen projecting from one of the upper windows of a stately house, and crowds of the idle, the curious, and the speculating were entering the open door. It was the residence of Harry Wilford.

“Well, how things will turn out,” said a fat, frowsy dame, as she seated herself on a velvet sofa and drew a chair in front of her to keep off the throng, “sit down Charlotte,” continued she, addressing a newly married niece, “sit down and let us make ourselves comfortable until the auctioneer has done selling the kitchen furniture. Only think—the last time I was here before Mrs. Wilford had a great party, and the young folks all came in fancy dresses, and I sat on this very sofa. That is only three months ago, and now everything has gone to rack and ruin.”

“How did it all happen?” asked a pleasant-looking woman who stood near.

“Oh, Mrs. Wilford was awfully extravagant, and her husband thought there was no bounds to his riches, so they lived too fast; ‘burnt their candle at both ends,’ as the saying is. They say Mrs. Wilford hurried on her husband’s ruin, for he had been speculating too deeply, and was in debt, but his creditors would have waited if she had not given that last dashing party.”

“How do you know that fact!” asked the other.

“Oh, from the best authority, my husband is one of the principal creditors,” replied the dame with a look of dignity, “he told me the whole story as we were going to the party, and declared that he would not stand such dishonest dealings, so the very next morning he was down upon Mr. Wilford, and before twelve o’clock he had compelled him to make an assignment.”

And it was among such people—men and women who would sit at the hospitable board with murder in their hearts—who would share in the festivities of a household even while meditating the destruction of that pleasant home—it was among such as these that Wilford had lived—it was for such as these that he had striven to change the simple habits and artless manners of his true-hearted Rachel. It was the dread laugh of such as these which had led him to waste her energies as well as his own in the pursuit of fashion and folly.

Wilford had succeeded even beyond his intentions in imbuing his gentle bride with a love for worldly vanities. His wishes delicately but earnestly expressed, together with the new-born vanity which her unwonted adornments engendered in the bosom of Rachel, gradually overcame her early habits. One by one the insignia of her simple faith were thrown aside. Her beautiful neck was unveiled to the admiring eye—her ungraceful sleeve receded until the rounded arm was visible in its full proportions—the skirt, following the laws of fashion, lost several degrees of longitude, until the beauty of Mrs. Wilford’s foot was no longer a disputable fact. In short, in little more than two years after her marriage, her wealth, her beauty, her elegance of manners, and her costly dress made her decidedly a leader of ton. Wilford could not but regret the change. She was ever affectionate and devoted to him with all the earnestness of womanly tenderness, but he was ashamed to tell her that in obeying his wishes she had actually gone beyond them. He hoped that it was only the novelty of her position which had thus fascinated her, and yet he often found himself regretting that he had ever exposed her to such temptations.

But new and unlooked-for trials were in store for both. The estate of Mr. Wilford had always been managed by his uncle, a careful merchant, who, through the course of his whole life, had seemed to possess the Midas-like faculty of converting every thing he touched into gold; and satisfied that, as he was the old man’s only heir, the property would be carefully husbanded, Wilford gave himself no trouble about the matter. But the mania for real estate speculation had now infected the whole nation. The old gentleman found himself the ridiculed of many a bold spirit who had dashed into the stream and gathered the gold dust which it bore along; he had long withstood the sneers of those who considered themselves wise in their generation, because they were pursuing a gambling scheme of wealth; but at length he could no longer resist the influence! He obtained the concurrence of his nephew, and thus furnished with double means struck boldly out from the safe haven where he had been ensconced. Every thing went on swimmingly for a time; his gains were immense—upon paper, but the tide turned, and the result was total wreck.

It was long ere Wilford became aware of his misfortunes. Accustomed to rely implicitly on his uncle’s judgment, he reposed in indolent security until the tidings of the old man’s bankruptcy and his own consequent ruin came upon him like a thunderbolt. He had been too long the child of prosperity to bear reverses with fortitude. He had no profession, no knowledge of business, nothing by which he could obtain a future livelihood; and now, when habits of luxury had enervated both mind and body, he found himself utterly beggared. He brooded over his losses in moody bitterness of spirit long before the world became acquainted with his situation. He even concealed them from his wife, from that mistaken and cruel kindness which thinks to lighten the blow by keeping it long suspended. “How can I overwhelm her with sorrow and mortification by telling her we are beggars?” he cried, in anguish. “How can I bid her descend from the lofty eminence of wealth and fashion and retire to obscurity and seclusion? How can I be sure that she will bear the tidings with a patient spirit? I have sown within her young heart the seeds of vanity, and how can I hope to eradicate now the evils which have sprang from them? Her own little fortune is all that is now left, and how we are to live on that I cannot tell. Rachel cannot bear it—I know she cannot!”

His thoughts added new anguish to his regrets, and months of harrowing dread and anxiety passed away before Wilford could summon courage to face manfully his increasing misfortunes.

Mrs. Wilford had long intended to celebrate her husband’s birth-day by a brilliant party, and, quite unconscious of the storm which impended over her, she issued her cards nearly a month previous to the appointed evening. Harry Wilford knew that the party ought not to be given; he knew that it would bring discredit upon him, and perhaps censure upon his wife, for he was conscious that his affairs were rapidly approaching a fatal crisis; but he had not courage to own the truth. He watched the preparations for the party with a boding spirit; he looked sadly and fondly upon the brilliant attire of his young wife as she glided about the gorgeous apartments, and he felt that he was taking his last glance at happiness and comfort. The very next day his principal creditor, a fat, oily-faced, well-fed individual, remarkable for the regularity of his attendance, and the loudness of his responses at church—a man whose piety was carried to such lengths that in the fear lest his left hand should know the good which his right hand did, he was particularly careful never to do any—a man who would sit first at a feast and store up the careless sayings of convivial frankness to serve his own interest in the mart and the market-place—this man, after pledging him in the wine-cup and parting from him with the cordial grasp of friendship, met him with a legal demand for that which he knew would ruin him.

The fatal tidings could no longer be withheld from Mrs. Wilford, and she was roused from the languor which the fatigue of the preceding evening had left both on mind and body, by the tidings of her husband’s misfortunes.

“It is as I feared,” thought Wilford, as he observed her overwhelming emotion, “she cannot bear the degradation.”

But he was mistaken. There is a hidden strength of character which can only be developed by the stroke of calamity, and such was possessed by Rachel Wilford. A moment, and but a moment, she faltered; then she was prepared to brave the worst evils of her altered fortunes. Wilford soon found that she had both mind to comprehend and judgment to counsel. Ere the morrow had passed half his sorrow was assuaged, for he had found comfort and even hope in the bosom of his young and devoted wife. There was only one thing over which she still deeply grieved, and this was her fatal party.

“Had you only confided in me, Harry,” said she, “worlds would not have tempted me to place you and myself in so dishonorable a light. How could you see me so unconscious of danger and treading so heedlessly on the verge of ruin without withdrawing me from it? Your own good name, Harry, aye, and mine too, have suffered. Our integrity has been doubted.”

“I did it for the best, Rachel; I would have spared you as long as possible.”

“It was most ill-judged kindness, Harry; it has ruined you and deeply injured me. Believe me, a wife is infinitely happier in the consciousness that she possesses her husband’s confidence, than in the discovery that she has been treated like a petted child; a being of powers too limited to understand his affairs or to be admitted to his councils.”

Mrs. Wilford did not merely meet her reverses with fortitude. She was resolved to act as became a high-minded woman. Her jewels were immediately disposed of, not stealthily, and as if she dreaded exposure, but by going openly to the persons from whom they were purchased; and thus realizing at least two-thirds of their original cost. This sum she immediately appropriated to the payment of household debts; and with it she satisfied the claims of all those who had supplied them with daily comforts. “I could not rest,” she said, “if I felt there was one person living who might say I wronged him out of the very bread I have eaten.” The furniture was next given up—nothing was reserved—not even the plate presented by her own friends, nor the work-box, the gift of Harry. Lodgings quiet and respectable but plain and cheap were taken in a private boarding-house. Every vestige of their former splendor was gone, and when all was over, it was with a feeling of relief that the husband and wife sat down together to form plans for the future. The past seemed like a troubled dream. Scarcely six months had elapsed since their stately mansion had been the scene of joyous festivity, and the very suddenness with which distress had come seemed to have paralysed their sense of suffering.

“I received a proposal to-day, Rachel, which I would not accept without consulting you,” said Harry, as they sat together in their neatly furnished apartment. “Edward Morton offers me the situation of book-keeper, with a salary of a thousand dollars per annum.”

“Take it, by all means, dear Harry,” said his wife, “constant employment will make you forget your troubles, and a thousand dollars,” added she, with a bright smile, “will be a fortune to us.”

“I suppose I had better accept his offer,” said Wilford, gloomily, “but it cuts down a man’s pride to be reduced to the condition of a hireling.”

“Do not make me ashamed of my husband, dear Harry,” was the earnest reply, “do not suffer me to blush for the weakness and false pride which can think only of external show. We can live very comfortably on your salary, especially when we have the consciousness of integrity to sweeten our privations.”

“You forget that you are not quite so much a beggar as your husband, Rachel. The interest of your twenty thousand dollars, added to my salary, will give us something more than the mere comforts of life.”

“What do you mean, Harry?” asked his wife, turning very pale.

“Why you do not suppose I was scoundrel enough to risk your little property, Rachel; that was secured you by a marriage settlement, and no creditor can touch it unless you should assign it.”

Rachel made no reply but fell into a long fit of musing.

It was but a few days after this conversation that Wilford, conquering his false pride, entered upon his duties in the counting-room of his old friend Morton. He returned early in the evening, wearied, sad, and dispirited, but his wife met him with a face so bright that he almost forgot the annoyances of the day.

“How happy you look, Rachel,” said he, as she drew her chair beside his and laid her hand upon his arm.

“I am indeed happy, dear Harry, for I am now no richer than yourself.”

“I don’t understand you,” replied Wilford with a puzzled look.

“You gave me a most unpleasant piece of news yesterday, Harry, when you told me that my paltry little fortune had been preserved from your creditors, and now I am happy in the consciousness that no such reproach can attach to us. I have been closeted with your lawyer this morning; he told me about twenty thousand dollars would clear off all claims against you, and by this time I suppose you are free.”

“What have you done?”

“Handed over my marriage settlement to your assignees, Harry”—

“And reduced yourself to a bare subsistence, Rachel, to satisfy a group of gaping creditors who would swallow my last morsel if they knew I was left to starve.”

“The debts were justly due, Harry, and I would rather that the charge of illiberality should attach to them than of dishonesty to us.”

“You have never known the evils of poverty, my poor child,” said Wilford, despondingly.

“Nor do I mean to experience them now, dear husband; you will not let me want for comforts, and you seem to forget that, though you have tried to spoil me, my early habits were those of economy and frugality.”

“So you mean to adopt your simple Quaker habits again, Rachel,” said Wilford, more cheerfully; “will they include the drab bonnet also?”

“No,” returned the young wife, her face dimpled with joyous smiles, “I believe now that as much vanity lurked under my plain bonnet as ever sported on the wave of a jewelled plume; and yet,” said she, after a moment’s pause, “when I threw off my Quaker garb I took my first step in error, for I can trace all my folly, and extravagance, and waste of time to the moment when I first looked with pleasure in that little mirror at Saratoga.”

“Well, well, dearest, your first step has not led you so far astray but that you have been able most nobly to retrace your path. I am poorer than I ever expected to be, yet richer than I could ever have hoped, for had I never experienced a reverse of fortune, I should never have learned the worth of my own sweet wife.”

Harry Wilford was right, and the felicity which he now enjoys in his own quiet and cheerful home—a home won by his own industry and diligence—is well worth all the price at which it was purchased, even though it cost him his whole estate.

---

AGATHÈ.—A NECROMAUNT.

IN THREE CHIMERAS.

———

BY LOUIS FITZGERALD TASISTRO.

———

CHIMERA II. (Continued.)

The ship! that self-same ship, that Julio knew

Had passed him, with her panic-stricken crew,

She gleams amid the storm, a shatter’d thing

Of pride and lordly beauty; her fair wing

Of sail is wounded—the proud pennon gone!

Dark, dark she sweepeth like an eagle, on

Through waters that are battling to and fro,

And tossing their great giant shrouds of snow

Over her deck.—Ahead, and there is seen

A black, strange line of breakers, down between

The awful surges, lifting up their manes

Like great sea-lions. Quick and high she strains

Her foaming keel—that solitary ship!

As if, in all her frenzy, she would leap

The cursed barrier: forward, fast and fast⁠—

Back, back she reels; her timbers and her mast

Split in a thousand shivers! A white spring

Of the exulting sea rose bantering

Over her ruin; and the mighty crew

That mann’d her deck, were seen, a straggling few,

Far scatter’d on the surges. Julio felt

The impulse of that hour, and low he knelt,

Within his own light bark—a pray’rful man!

And clasp’d his lifeless bride; and to her wan,

Cold cheek did lay his melancholy brow.⁠—

“Save thou a mariner!” he starteth now

To hear that dying cry; and there is one,

All worn and wave-wet, by his bark anon,

Clinging, in terror of the ireful sea,

A fair-hair’d mariner! But suddenly

He saw the pale dead ladye by a flame

Of blue and livid lightning, and there came

Over his features blindness, and the power

Of his strong hands grew weak,—a giant shower

Of foam rose up, and swept him far along;

And Julio saw him buffetting the throng

Of the great eddying waters, till they went

Over him—a wind-shaken cerement!

Then terribly he laugh’d, and rose above

His soulless bride—the ladye of his love!

Lifting him up in all his wizard glee;

And he did wave, before the frantic sea,

His wasted arm.—“Adieu! adieu! adieu!

Thou sawest how we were; thou sawest, too,

Thou wert not so; for in the inmost shrine

Of my deep heart are thoughts that are not thine.

And thou art gone, fair mariner! in foam

And music-murmurs to thy blessed home⁠—

Adieu! adieu! Thou sawest how that she

Sleeps in her holy beauty tranquilly:

And when the fair and floating vision breaks

From her pure brow, and Agathè awakes⁠—

Till then, we meet not; so, adieu, adieu!”

Still on before the sullen tempest flew,

Fast as a meteor star, the lonely bark;

And Julio bent over to the dark,

The solitary sea, for close beside

Floated the stringed harp of one that died,

In that wild shipwreck, and he drew it home

With madness to his bosom; the white foam

Was o’er its strings; and on the streaming sail

He wiped them, running with his fingers pale,

Along the tuneless notes, that only gave

Seldom responses to his wandering stave!

O THE HARP.

Jewel! that lay before the heart

Of some romantic boy,

And startled music in her home,

Of mystery and joy!

The image of his love was there;

And, with her golden wings,

She swept their tone of sorrow from

Thy melancholy strings!

We drew thee, as an orphan one,

From waters that had cast

No music round thee, as they went

In their pale beauty past.

No music but the changeless sigh—

That murmur of their own,

That loves not blending in the thrill

Of thine aerial tone.

The girl that slumbers at our side

Will dream how they are bent,

That love her even as they love

Thy blessed instrument.

And music, like a flood, will break

Upon the fairy throne

Of her pure heart, all glowing, like

A morning star, alone!

Alone, but for the song of him

That waketh by her side,

And strikes thy chords of silver to

His fair and sea-borne bride.

Jewel! that hung before the heart

Of some romantic boy:

Like him, I sweep thee with a storm

Of music and of joy!

And Julio placed the trembling harp before

The ladye; till the minstrel winds came o’er

Its moisten’d strings, and tuned them with a sigh.

“I hear thee, how thy spirit goeth by,

In music and in love. Oh, Agathè!

Thou sleepest long, long, long; and they will say

That seek thee,—‘she is dead—she is no more!’

But thou art cold, and I will throw before

Thy chilly brow the pale and snowy sheet.”

And he did lift it from her marble feet,

The sea-wet shroud! and flung it silently

Over her brow—the brow of Agathè!

But, as a passion from the mooded mind,

The storm had died, and wearily the wind

Fell fast asleep at evening, like one

That hath been toiling in the fiery sun.

And the white sail dropt downward, as the wing

Of wounded sea-bird, feebly murmuring

Unto the mast—it was a deathly calm,

And holy stillness, like a shadow, swam

All over the wide sea, and the boat stood,

Like her of Sodom, in the solitude,

A snowy pillow, looking on the waste.

And there was nothing but the azure breast

Of ocean and the sky—the sea and sky.

And the lone bark; no clouds were floating by

Where the sun set, but his great seraph light,

Went down alone, in majesty and might;

And the stars came again, a silver troop,

Until, in shame, the coward shadows droop

Before the radiance of these holy gems,

That bear the images of diadems!

And Julio fancied of a form that rose

Before him from the desolate repose

Of the deep waters—a huge ghastly form,

As of one lightning-stricken in a storm;

And leprosy cadaverous was hung

Before his brow, and awful terror flung

Around him like a pall—a solemn shroud!⁠—

A drapery of darkness and of cloud!

And agony was writhing on his lip,

Heart-rooted, awful agony and deep,

Of fevers, and of plagues, and burning blain,

And ague, and the palsy of the brain—

A weird and yellow spectre! and his eyes

Were orbless and unpupil’d, as the skies

Without the sun, or moon, or any star:

And he was like the wreck of what men are,⁠—

A wasted skeleton, that held the crest

Of time, and bore his motto on his breast!

There came a group before of maladies,

And griefs, and Famine empty as a breeze,⁠—

A double monster, with a gloating leer

Fix’d on his other half. They drew them near,

One after one, led onward by Despair,

That like the last of winter glimmer’d there,⁠—

A dismal prologue to his brother Death,

Which was behind; and, with the horrid breath

Of his wide baneful nostrils, plied them on.

And often as they saw the skeleton

Grisly beside them, the wild phantasies

Grew mad and howl’d; the fever of disease

Became wild frenzy—very terrible!

And, for a hell of agony—a hell

Of rage, was there, that fed on misty things,

On dreams, ideas, and imaginings.

And some were raving on philosophy,

And some on love, and some on jealousy,

And some upon the moon, and these were they

That were the wildest; and anon alway

Julio knew them by a something dim

About their wasted features like to him!

But Death was by, like shell of pyramid

Among old obelisks, and his eyeless head

Shook o’er the wry ribs, where darkness lay

The image of a heart—she is away!

And Julio is watching, like Remorse,

Over the pale and solitary corse.

Shower soft light, ye stars, that shake the dew

From your eternal blossoms! and thou, too,

Moon! minded of thy power, tide-bearing queen!

That hast a slave and votary within

The great rock-fetter’d deep, and hearest cry

To thee the hungry surges, rushing by

Like a vast herd of wolves,—fall full and fair

On Julio as he sleepeth, even there,

Amid the suppliant bosom of the sea!⁠—

Sleep! dost thou come, and on thy blessed knee

With hush and whisper lull the troubled brain

Of this death-lover?—still the eyes do strain

Their orbs on Agathè—those raven eyes!

All earnest on the ladye as she lies

In her white shroud. They see not, though they are

As if they saw; no splendour like a star

Is under their dark lashes: they are full

Of dream and slumber—melancholy, dull!

* * * * * *

A wide, wide sea! and on it rear and van

Amid the stars, the silent meteors ran

All that still night, and Julio with a cry

Woke up, and saw them flashing fiercely by.

* * * * * *

Full three times three, its awful veil of night

Hath Heaven hung before the blessed light;

And a fair breeze falls o’er the sleeping sea,

When Julio is watching Agathè!

By sun and darkness hath he bent him over⁠—

A mad, moon-stricken, melancholy lover!

And hardly hath he tasted, night or day,

Of drink or food, because of Agathè!

He sitteth in a dull and dreary mood,

Like statue in a ruin’d solitude,

Bearing the brent of sunlight and of shade,

Over the marble of some colonnade.

The ladye, she hath lost the pearly hue

Upon her gorgeous brow, where tresses grew

Luxuriantly as thoughts of tenderness,

That once were floating in the pure recess

Of her bright soul. These are not as they were;

But are as weeds above a sepulchre,

Wild waving in the breeze: her eyes are now

Sunk deeply under the discolor’d brow,

That is of sickly yellow, and pale blue

Unnaturally blending. The same hue

Is on her cheek. It is the early breath

Of cold corruption, the ban-dog of death,

Falling upon her features. Let it be,

And gaze awhile on Julio, as he

Is gazing on the corse of Agathè!

In truth, he seemeth like no living one,

But is the image of a skeleton:

A fearful portrait from the artist tool

Of madness—terrible and wonderful!

There was no passion there—no feeling traced

Under those eyelids, where had run to waste

All that was wild, or beautiful, or bright;

A very cloud was cast upon their light,

That gave to them the heavy hue of lead;

And they were lorn, lustreless, and dead!

He sate like vulture from the mountains gray,

Unsated, that had flown full many a day

O’er distant land and sea, and was in pride

Alighted by the lonely ladye’s side.

He sat like winter o’er the wasted year⁠—

Like melancholy winter, drawing near

To its own death. “Oh me! the worm at last

Will gorge upon me, and the autumn blast

Howl by!—Where?—where?—there is no worm to creep

Amid the waters of the lonely deep;

But I will take me Agathè upon

This sorrowful, sore bosom, and anon,

Down, down, through azure silence, we shall go,

Unepitaph’d, to cities far below;

Where the sea Triton, with his winding shell,

Shall sound our blessed welcome. We shall dwell

With many a mariner in his pearly home,

In bowers of amber weed and silver foam,

Amid the crimson corals; we shall be

Together, Agathè! fair Agathè!⁠—

But thou art sickly, ladye—thou art sad;

And I am weary, ladye—I am mad!

They bring no food to feed us, and I feel

A frost upon my vitals, very chill,

Like winter breaking on the golden year

Of life. This bark shall be our floating bier,

And the dark waves our mourners; and the white,

Pure swarm of sunny sea birds, basking bright

On some fair isle, shall sorrowfully pour

Their wail of melancholy o’er and o’er,

At evening, on the waters of the sea,⁠—

While, with its solemn burden, silently,

Floats forward our lone bark.—Oh, Agathè!

Methinks that I shall meet thee far away,

Within the awful centre of the earth,

Where, earliest, we had our holy birth,

In some huge cavern, arching wide below,

Upon whose airy pivot, years ago,

The world went round: ’tis infinitely deep,

But never dismal; for above it sleep,

And under it, blue waters, hung aloof,

And held below,—an amethystine roof,

A sapphire pavement; and the golden sun,

Afar, looks through alternately, like one

That watches round some treasure: often, too,

Through many a mile of ocean, sparkling through,

Are seen the stars and moon, all gloriously,

Bathing their angel brilliance in the sea!

“And there are shafted pillars, that beyond,

Are ranged before a rook of diamond,

Awfully heaving its eternal heights,

From base of silver strewn with chrysolites;

And over it are chasms of glory seen,

With crimson rubies clustering between,

On sward of emerald, with leaves of pearl,

And topazes hung brilliantly on beryl,

So Agathè!—but thou art sickly sad,

And tellest me, poor Julio is mad,⁠—

Ay, mad!—was he not madder when he swore

A vow to Heaven? Was there no madness then,

That he should do—for why?—a holy string

Of penances? No penances will bring

The stricken conscience to the blessed light

Of peace.—Oh! I am lost, and there is night,

Despair, and darkness, darkness and despair,

And want, that hunts me to the lion-lair

Of wild perdition: and I hear them all⁠—

All cursing me! The very sun-rays fall

In curses, and the shadow of the moon,

And the pale star-light, and the winds that tune

Their voices to the music of the sea,

And thou,—yes, thou! my gentle Agathè!⁠—

All curse me!—oh! that I were never, never!

Or but a breathless fancy, that was ever

Adrift upon the wilderness of Time,

That knew no impulse, but was left sublime

To play at its own will!—that I were hush’d

At night by silver cataracts, that gush’d

Through flowers of fairy hue, and then to die

Away, with all before me passing by.

Like a fair vision I had lived to see,

And died to see no more!—it cannot be!

By this right hand! I feel it is not so,

And by the beating of a heart below,

That strangely feareth for eternity!”

He said, and gazing on the lonely sea,

Far off he saw, like an ascending cloud,

To westward, a bright island, lifted proud

Amid the struggling waters, and the light

Of the great sun was on its clifted height,

Scattering golden shadow, like a mirror;

But the gigantic billows sprung in terror

Upon its rock-built and eternal shore,

With silver foams, that fell in fury o’er

A thousand sunny breakers. Far above,

There stood a wild and solitary grove

Of aged pines, all leafless but their brows,

Where a green group of tempest-stricken boughs

Was waving now and then, and to and fro,

And the pale moss was clustering below.

Then Julio saw, and bent his head away

To the cold wasted corse of Agathè,

And sigh’d; but ever he would turn again

A gaze to that green island on the main.

The bark is drifting through the surf, beside

Its rocks of gray upon the coming tide;

And lightly is it stranded on the shore

Of purest silver shells, that lie before,

Glittering in the glory of the sun;

And Julio hath landed him, like one

That aileth of some wild and weary pest;

And Agathè is folded on his breast,

A faded flower! with all the vernal dews

From its bright blossom shaken, and the hues

Become as colorless as twilight air⁠—

I marvel much, that she was ever fair!

(End of the second Chimera.)

---

DREAMS OF THE LAND AND SEA.

TAKE ME HOME.

———

BY DR. REYNELD COATES.

———

“And all for thee! vile yellow fiend!”

I was wandering in the streets of a populous city—thousands crowded the thronged thoroughfares—jarring and jostling along,—each intent on his own petty schemes. Here, a merchant rushed onward with a rapid step—for it wanted but five minutes of three o’clock! If clouds had overspread his countenance an hour before, they had given place to a determined expression, that seemed to say, “safe till to-morrow, anyhow!” There, a belle flaunted in costly attire, with a curl on her lip and pride in her tread that spoke, more plainly than words, “conquest is my right! for my beauty and wealth are alike undisputed, I have but to smile and win!”

At one moment, my eye was attracted by a young couple in the spring-tide of their promise, associated by that magic feeling which comes over us but once in a life-time. At the next, it rested on a pair of unfortunates with locked arms but gloomy brows and half averted faces, convinced, by twenty years of bitter experience, that it is wise to preserve appearances, even when doing penance for that most common, but most fatal indiscretion of youth—an ill-assorted marriage!

A little girl, upon the door-step of an elegant mansion, stood gazing upon the passing crowd and the unbroken line of splendid equipages hurrying by, glancing her eye occasionally upward at the tall trees that shielded her from the sunshine, or the bright blue sky and fleecy vapor which seemed to rest upon their summits. The breezes of May waved the translucent ringlets athwart her snowy shoulders, while the leaves danced and rustled mirthfully in the wind, and a little bird, upon a neighboring bough, poured out its joyous song! The child threw back her head and laughed long and merrily: yet there was nothing in view to awaken laughter!

Guarded, and clad,—and nourished,—and incognisant of care,—the bounding pulse of youth felt keenly in every fibre,—existence itself, with her, became delight! and she laughed in the fulness of irrepressible joy—that the skies were bright and the leaves were green!—On the pavement beside her, a barefoot and ragged boy leaned for support against a post. Famine and fatigue were legibly stampt upon his sunken cheek and attenuated limbs. The sound of merriment awakened him, and he turned his dull eye in wonder upon the beautiful object before him!—But he comprehended it not!—joy was to him a stranger!

These, and a hundred other episodes in the selfish history of common life claimed, in turn, my attention;—and each might have furnished subject matter for a month of thought or a volume of moral deduction. But there was one group so peculiarly striking that it still dwells upon my memory with more than usual vividness of coloring.

In the most luxurious portion of the city, where palaces of marble and granite rose on every hand, and the very air was redolent of the incense of exotic flowers, a coach, dusty with travel, suddenly drew up before one of the most conspicuous residences. The liveried footman instantly threw open the door, and a delicate young girl, with a highly intellectual, but care-worn and sorrowful expression of countenance, began to descend the steps. But, before she could reach the pavement a masculine arm was projected from the vehicle to arrest her progress, and a voice, tremulous with age and grief, exclaimed, “No! no! not here! not here!—Why will you not take me home!—I must go home!—I am old and sick!—Do take me home at once!”

The attempt to draw the young lady back within the coach endangered her foot-hold, and courtesy obliged me to spring to her assistance, lest she should fall beneath the wheels. Adroitly lifting her from the carriage while the footman hastened to ring the bell, I obtained a view of all the parties interested in this little incident.

The half fainting girl, still leaning upon my arm, might have numbered about fourteen summers, and within the coach were two other individuals, in both of whom the same family traits were visible. One of these, a woman about thirty-five years of age, was evidently the mother. She was still beautiful, though strong traces of habitual thought and mental suffering were perceptible upon her brow. The other was a man of noble figure, probably advanced to seventy years, with locks of snowy whiteness, but dressed with a degree of richness and precision, not usually observed among the old. It was evident that he had been familiar with the world—that wealth and luxury were no novelties to him. The forms of society had been his study, if not the business of his life. Yet, what a satire upon the vulgar misconceptions of the means of happiness was the aspect of that face! The broad brow was furrowed with deep lines of mental distress. The boldly chiselled nose was thinned, rather by muscular contraction than by age. The model of the lip still presented the curve of pride and habitual authority, contrasting most painfully with the tremor of helpless suspicion and childish anxiety.

“Why will you not take me home?” he exclaimed again—and his eye wandered restlessly from side to side, peering through the door and windows of the coach, as if in search of some object once familiar—with an expression of hopeless distress that it was difficult even to witness with fortitude.

To one familiar with large hospitals, the scene was clearly intelligible. Insanity from disappointed hope was mingled with the fatuity of premature old age.

Propriety would have dictated my immediate retreat, after the necessary care of the ladies in alighting; but perceiving that the united persuasions of mother and daughter were likely to fail in inducing the grandfather to quit the coach without too strongly inviting public attention towards a private misfortune, I felt bound to inquire, “May I not save you, madam! from some embarrassment by begging you to enter the house? I will engage myself to place your father under the protection of your roof, in a very few minutes, and without annoyance.” Nothing insures such instantaneous confidence with the gentler sex as self-dependence in a man, and grave, though courteous authority of manner. The offer was accepted with a glance of mute thankfulness, and handing the ladies to the door, I returned to the carriage.

“Come, my dear sir,” I said to the elderly gentleman, “allow me the pleasure of assisting you to alight! your horses are a little restive.”

“No, sir!” he replied; “you are in league with them!—You lead me from place to place, and every where you tell me I am at home!—Oh! I shall never find it!—I wish to repose in my own house, and my own garden!—my mother’s house!—and you bring me here and tell me this is my house!—Do you think I have grown so weak and imbecile as not to know the chamber where I was born?—the garden where I played when a child?—No!—I will not go in!—They are kind to me here, but I am not at home!—Do, take me home!—You seem to think that I cannot tell the difference between this great palace, with its rich carpets and its marble columns, and our own little cottage, with its arbor of grape-vines and wild-creepers, where my mother used to nurse me to sleep in the old carved rocking-chair!—Oh! take me home!”

Long habituated to the management of lunatics, I had learned to guide the tangled reins of a disordered mind, and found but little difficulty in persuading the old man to rest awhile in the parlor on the plea of examining whether his granddaughter, to whom he was much attached, had not received some injury by stumbling in her descent from the coach. Seating him upon an ottoman, it was easy, by the same innocent deception to withdraw to another apartment in company with the ladies: and there, after tendering any further services which their affliction might render desirable, I heard, with deep attention, the history of their woes.

Mr. A——, the old gentleman, was, as I had inferred, the father of the elder and the grandsire of the younger lady. At an early age he came into hereditary possession of a handsome capital, and a range of ample stores near the centre of the commercial mart of ——.

His mother, who was esteemed rich in those early times (soon after the revolutionary war) retained the family homestead in addition to her dower; and, in this venerable mansion, distant about a mile from the borders of the then small, but flourishing city, her son continued to reside; for he preferred the society of his remaining parent, and the quietude of rural life in the intervals of business, to the gayer scenes and more luxurious habits of the town. Thither, he soon conveyed a young and beautiful wife; and there his happiest years were spent in the midst of a family circle bound together by ties of the warmest affection.—Even their dead were gathered around them:—for the white monuments of their departed friends peered over the stone wall of the family grave-yard, from the grove of funereal pines behind the garden.

But this peaceful life of domestic enjoyment was not destined to continue. Within a few years subsequent to his marriage, there occurred one of those sudden revolutions in trade which periodically sweep, with the force of a deluge, over the commercial interests of our country.—Mr. A⁠—— was ruined!—He became dependent upon the resources of his parent for the support of his wife; but pride would not permit him to grant the urgent request of his mother that he would share that support himself; and he fled his native country for a time, to woo the breeze of Fortune beneath other stars.

After two long years of toil and danger among the furs of the North-West, the hides of California, the biche-le-mer and birds-nests of the Eastern Archipelagoes, he arrived at the great entrepot of the Celestial Empire with a cargo insuring him an ample competence, just in time to receive intelligence of the death of his wife, leaving to his charge an only child! She had been the star of his destiny!—That star was set, and darkness enshrouded his soul!

Recovering from this terrible shock, he shunned the very idea of returning to the scene of his former happiness. She for whom he had braved the deep!—had toiled—had grappled with the sun of the tropics,—the ice of the pole—had left him desolate!—the infant, whom no parent welcomed to this world of trial, was a stranger to him!—one whom he had never beheld! and the only remaining link which bound him to his country was his affection for an aged mother.

But who is not aware that the noon of manhood—its mid-day strife and bustle—are unfavorable to the glow of filial affection? Maternal love,—the deepest—the purest—the least selfish of human emotions!—knows no ebb—no diminution on this side the grave! Time, which may sap or shatter every other sympathy, adds strength to this at every revolution of its fatal glass!

Not so the attachment of the offspring!—Like a delicate flower which sheds its fragrance freely on the morning or the evening air, but denies all sweetness to the bold glance of noon, this feeling flourishes only at the commencement and the close of our career. When, at length, in the decline of our energies, both mind and body verge once more towards the feebleness of infancy, how painfully the affections of earlier years flow back upon us!—Then would we gladly repose our aching temples—aching with the memory of many an unkind word or action—upon the bosom from which we first drew sustenance! and we yearn after a mother’s love with a longing that will not be repressed!

It is not surprising that Mr. A⁠——, thus suddenly cut off by death from her whose welfare had been the chief purpose of his life, should have buried his gloom in the cares of business. Such is the usual resource of those who bound their vision, as, alas! too many are prone to do! within the narrow limits of this sublunary theatre of action! For thirty years he pursued the search of wealth beneath the burning skies of India, with singleness of purpose and untiring zeal.

He remitted large sums, from time to time, for the convenience of a mother to whom he was ever dutiful, and a daughter that he had never seen; but his letters were cold and formal. His child was married,—he congratulated her. A grand-child was born to him;—he sent her his blessing. His daughter became a widow;—he condoled with her upon her loss. But nothing could arouse him from his bootless labor for superfluous gold!

At length, as age approached, he felt wearied with his monotonous existence. With the decline of his bodily powers came the desire for rest:—with the weakening of his mental energies, the longing for sympathy grew stronger and stronger. He did not wish to die alone! Dreams of his juvenile days came over him, and he sighed for the quietude of the old family mansion, and the warm welcome of his mother on his return from the cares of business. When the sudden twilight of the tropics sunk abruptly into night, he dreamed of the lingering glories of an American evening. When he heard the cry of the bramin kite, the harsh call of the adjutant crane, and the chattering of a thousand obscene birds retiring to their roosts, gorged with their horrible repast on the corpses that pollute the Ganges, he longed for the wild notes of the whip-poor-will, the rushing sound of the night-hawk, and the melancholy hooting of the owl, that render night musical in the bright green woods of his native land.

He knew that the growing city had swept far beyond the retreat of his earlier days—that many magnificent residences had risen over the site of his boyish play-grounds, and that even the relics of his dead had been removed from their original resting-place, to make room for the house of the stranger. He had permitted—he had even advised these changes, but, he could not realize them! The old mansion with its broad elms, the garden, and the pine-grove with the monuments beneath its shade, were ever present to his mind, and his letters were painfully charged with allusions to scenes and persons whose existence was blotted from the page of history.

With every year, these feelings became more and more intense, until incipient childishness made its appearance, and he became affected with a confirmed nostalogia. At length he closed his concerns, remitted the unappropriated balance of his earnings, and launched himself once more upon the ocean, on his homeward route.

As he drew near his native shore, memory retraced more and more vividly, the scenes of other days, until his failing intellect began to confuse the present with the past, and, at times, he dreamed of once more welcoming the little circle of the loved and cherished, in the same old wainscotted parlor,—around the same wide, hospitable, antique fire-place, where he slept with head reclined upon his mother’s knee when the presence of company obtained him the privilege of sitting up an hour beyond his usual bed time.

The vessel neared the port. The pilot, ever the first to welcome the wanderer home, ascended the deck and distributed the “papers” of the previous day. With one of these, Mr. A⁠—— hastily retired to the cabin. Not even the blue hills of his native land, now full in sight, could wean him from the fatal record. His eye glanced rapidly over the leading article, but the struggle of contending candidates had no charm for him. He furtively regarded the items of foreign news;—was shocked at the long record of crimes and casualties made piquant and racy with details and comments which the purer manners of his early years would not have tolerated; and, for the first time in his life, he turned from the price current in disgust, but why did he start, turn pale, and tremble when his eye rested upon the ominous black lines that cross the final column of the second page? The identical paper is still preserved, and I extract the notice!—Read!

---

Died, suddenly, of apoplexy, on the 29th inst., in the 96th year of her age, Mrs. C⁠—— A⁠——, the venerable relict of the late Hon. W⁠—— A⁠——, and mother of Mr. H⁠—— A⁠——, the distinguished American merchant at ——.

---

The cup was full! There breathed not in the land of his birth one kindred being to unite him with the past!—His daughter!—she was a stranger! How should he recognise her in the stranger crowd!—The mind, already weakened, was crushed!—The cracked vase was shivered!

The moment the anchor dropped, he leaped into a boat, and hurried on shore. Calling the nearest coach he ordered it in haste and sternly, “To ——’s lane, half a mile from the turnpike gate of the —— road!”

The astonished driver stared as he replied, “There’s no such lane now, sir! I heard of it when I was a boy, but it’s all built up long ago, and I never knew even where it was!”

“Then drive me to my mother’s,” cried Mr. A⁠——, in a voice almost of fury; and holding forth the paper, which had never left his hand, he pointed to the notice. An old man, standing by, struck by the haggard and maniacal look, perused the article and simply said, “Drive to the marble building, No. 20 —— Place.”

The grieving survivers of the family of Mrs. A⁠—— were sitting silently in the darkened parlor, on the morning after the funeral, when a loud appeal at the bell startled the whole household—so ill did it accord with the silence of grief brooding over all who had lived under the mild influence of the departed! A female attendant hurried to the door, and was instantly thrust to the wall by one who rushed furiously past her, crying aloud and wildly, “Where is my wife!—my mother!” Mr. A⁠—— actually sprang into the presence of the ladies; for he was endowed for the moment with unnatural strength by the intensity of feeling. The figure of the elder lady, as she started to her feet in terror on the sudden intrusion, appeared to awaken some long dormant recollection, for he checked, on the instant, his precipitate advance, regarded her intently for a moment, and approaching gently, but before her alarm permitted her to move, he laid his hands upon her shoulders, and read her features with a steady and protracted gaze that seemed to search her very soul! “No! no!” he cried, “You are not my Jane!” and fainted at her feet.

---

In the cemetery of ——, where the eye stretches wide and far over beautiful wooded slopes and a broad expanse of water—rock, ravine, spire, hamlet, and the distant city—where all is peace, and the weary soul is tempted to covet the repose of those who wait beneath,—now rest the remains of Mr. A⁠——.

“After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well!”

Standing beside his grave, as the moon-beams flickered on the marble, contending with the shadows of o’erhanging leaves that rustled in the night-breeze, I thought how rapidly every haunt of my own bright, holiday youth was yielding to the inroads of another populous capital. The pond on which we used to ply the armed heel when winter ruled the year, has disappeared.—Its site is occupied with civic palaces. The shady glen where the winged hours of starry summer nights flew all unheeded by in converse with the loved who are no more, lies bare and sered beneath the August sun!—The very stream that wound so gracefully among the trees is dry!—The dews of heaven that fed its crystal sources fall now in vain upon a mountain mass of marble—column,—plynth and dome—rising in mockery of posthumous benevolence,—a long enduring witness of perverted trust! Where are the few and fondly cherished who shared the converse of those happy hours?—One lies deep in the coral groves of the Hesperides!—One fell a victim to a philanthropic spirit when the plague of Indoostan ravaged the vallies of the West!—Another!—Strangers tread lightly round his narrow house in the gardens of Père-la-Chaise!—The last—

“Peace to thy broken heart and early grave!”

But why repeat these woes that are the lot of all?—Who is there that has learned the value of the baubles that entice us here—Wealth! Fame! Power! or sublunary Love!—but will join in the secret aspiration with which I left the silent resting-place of a perturbed spirit—“Take! oh! Take me home!”

---

WESTERN HOSPITALITY.

———

BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.

———

Hard by I’ve a cottage that stands near a wood,

A stream glides in peace at the door,

Where all who are weary, ’tis well understood,

Receive hospitality’s store.

To cheer that the brook and the thicket afford,

The stranger we freely invite:

You’re welcome to come and partake at the board,

And afterwards rest for the night.

The birds in the morning will sing from the trees,

And herald the young god of day;

Then with him uprising, depart if you please,

We’ll set you refresh’d on your way.

Your coin for this service we sternly reject,

No traffic for gain we pursue,

And all the reward that we wish or expect,

We take in the good that we do.

Mankind are all travellers on life’s rugged road,

And myriads would wander astray

In seeking eternity’s silent abode

Did mercy not point out the way.

If all would their duty discharge as they should,

To those that are helpless and poor,

The world would resemble my cot near the wood,

And life the sweet stream at my door.

---

THE LADY AND THE PAGE.

A STORY OF MOORISH SPAIN.

———

BY MARY S. PEASE.

———

Many years ago there dwelt, not far from Seville, in a castle so old it was a wonder what kept it from tumbling down, a Spanish hidalgo, remarkable for but two things—a very beautiful daughter, and the very strict manner in which he secluded her from the world. In every other respect this hidalgo was like other hidalgos, full of pride, sporting a pair of Spanish mustachios, and wearing a stiletto by his side.

The wonderful beauty of his daughter, the Doña Ysabel, had somehow—in spite of the seclusion in which she was kept—become proverbial, and the fame thereof had spread from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees. Not a caballero of that chivalric country but would have given his best steed for one glance from the eyes of the hidalgo’s daughter—eyes which shrouded under their long lashes, were like diamonds winning across the midnight. Her hair was silky and soft, darker and more glossy than the raven’s wing—and in such luxuriance did it grow that she might almost have hid herself in it, as did “the lady of the golden locks” in the fairy tale. Her face was fitful as an April day. It was the clear and faithful mirror to the warmest, purest heart in all Spain. And never did a young heart beat within a lighter and more graceful form than that of the Doña Ysabel.

The castle where the hidalgo resided with his daughter was built on a rocky eminence, in one of the wildest parts of the country. Tradition said it had been erected by a powerful and wealthy Moor, from whom it had been conquered by the strong arm of one of the present occupant’s ancestors. The father of Ysabel had resided there but rarely until the death of his wife; but, after that event, he had retired almost broken-hearted to this wild retreat. Here, from early childhood, the Lady Ysabel had been brought up. Wanting the care of a mother, she had always been left to have her own way, and a more self-willed, impetuous sylph never dashed the dew from the wild flowers that grew so luxuriantly around the Moorish castle.

One day, when the Doña Ysabel had nearly attained her sevententh year, the Count de Llenaro, her father, stood within the deep embrasure of the richly carved corridor, absorbed in thought. His eyes were fixed on the shadows that played so fancifully on the rocks below. A light step was heard and a fairy form entered the apartment.

“Bella mi cara nina, I was thinking of thee, I would speak with thee.” And the gentle girl stood beside the proud lord. “What wouldst thou my father?” The maiden’s voice was low and silvery soft. Her dark eye looked up into her father’s with an expression soft and confiding as childhood. One little snow-white hand rested upon his shoulder, while the other nestled within his own.

“How old are you, Ysy?”

“I shall be seventeen come next Michaelmas.”

“ ’Tis even as I thought. Thou art getting to be a great girl, Belle,—I have something to say to thee; wilt thou listen?”

“Dear papa, thy word is my law.”

“Is it so?” and the father fixed his eyes upon the girl with a look so penetrating that her own eye fell, and the rich warm blood rushed from her young heart and burnt upon her brow.

Llenaro seated himself upon a low turco, and drawing his child towards him, he fondly kissed her glowing cheek.

“I fear, Belle,” said he, putting back the world of curls that had fallen over her brow, “thy will hath never yet been broken. Thou art but a wild one.” Count Alcaros fell into a long fit of musing. The silver breathing tones of the Doña’s soft voice broke the stillness.

“What wouldst thou with thy child, papa? my birds, and young flowers, even now mourn my absence.”

“And canst thou not give one hour unto thy father, Ysy? What will thy birds and flowers do when I bring thee a right noble bird, an eagle among birds, for thine own? Wilt thou then give up all others and love but only that?”

“What does my papa mean?” tremblingly replied the maiden.

“I mean that thou art to be a child no longer.”

“But, papa, all my pretty birds and⁠—”

“Thou shalt have a bird worth the whole, a right proud gallant bird. Ysy, dost thou remember the Marquis of Talavera?”

“What of him, dearest papa?”

“Dost thou remember him?”

“Yes, papa.”

“This Marquis hath sought thee, Belle, in marriage, and I have said thou shalt be his bride.”

The girl started to the ground in unfeigned surprise.

“Why, papa! he is old enough to be my grandfather, and besides, he is ugly enough to⁠—”

“He is just the age of thy father, Ysabel. His years will serve to guide thy wayward ones. He is all that is brave and noble, besides being one of the richest, and most powerful lords in Spain. You may know, Belle, how well I think of him—he is almost the only one of my many friends, that I admit into this our wild retreat.”

“But, papa—”

“Nay, Belle, I will have no buts. It must be as I say.”

“But, papa.” The Count’s brow darkened. “But, papa, I do not love him.”

“Love—pah!”

“Papa, I cannot love him.”

“Pah!”

“Papa, I will not love him!” and the Doña’s eyes grew bright and large.

“Ysabel!”

“Dear papa,—I mean I cannot—” and the little lady burst into tears.

“Ysabel,—hear me—I have said thou shalt become the bride of the Marquis of Talavera. What I say I never unsay—that thou knowest. Two weeks from this. The day thou art seventeen—is the day decided upon. It must, it shall be so! Wilt thou do thy father’s bidding, Belle?”

The girl answered not a word but her eye lit up and her little mouth was tightly compressed. Every line of her statue-like form expressed firmness and resolution.

“Wilt thou do thy father’s bidding, Ysabel?” again demanded the Count.

“Thou hast ever been an indulgent father to me, never hast thou crossed my slightest wish, and now, father, I must say firmly no! I never can become the bride of him thou namest.”

“Girl! thou shalt not even be consulted. Thou hast had thine own way seventeen years, now I will have mine. Thou shalt wed the Talavera if I have to drag thee to the altar. Nay, no fawning.” The girl had twined her soft round arms about her father’s neck—her eyes looked beseechingly into his. But he pushed her from him, saying—“Go to thy room, Ysabel, and there remain until thy reason comes to thee. Dost thou hear me?”

The Spaniard strode from the room, and the weeping lady sought, with a heavy heart, her own turret.

It was the first time her father had been unkind to her, and she threw herself down, on a low couch, in all that utter hopelessness of grief youth alone can feel. It was her first sorrow.

There came a soft rap at the door,—but she heeded it not;—and not until a hand, soft as woman’s, held her own,—and a voice, whose deep, low tones were breathing music, whispered in her ear, did she know her father’s handsome page was kneeling by her.

“Weep not, mi cara Ysabel,” soothingly said he, “or rather let me share thy grief. I know it all—thy father hath told me, and sent me here to bring thee to reason, as he said. Can I do it sweet lady?” and the handsome page smiled.

It was wicked in him to smile when her heart was so full of grief—and so the lady thought. But she had learned to love, and when love is warm and new, all the loved one says or does is more than right.

“Love flings a halo round the dear one’s head,

Faultless, immortal”——

The Doña Ysabel loved her father’s page,—loved him as an ardent-souled daughter of sunny Spain knows how to love. The father!——he did not even dream of such wickedness. (If he had he could not have slept for at least six months)—the unpardonable wickedness of a daughter of his—his bright, beautiful Ysabel—the high born lady of Llenaro,—loving her father’s page!—a nameless page!—and so he slept secure. The thought was too preposterous. And the Doña Ysabel loved. Love is all trustfulness, all watchfulness, all hopefulness. The page was handsome; the page was graceful, witty, accomplished. He was indeed an uncommon page;—and so thought the Doña’s father,—and so thought her father’s daughter. He could sing to the music of Ysabel’s guitar, most divinely; he could dance, fence, was perfectly skilled in all horsemanship, moreover he was acquainted with all the then lore of bright Spain. He wrote poetry too; and sang the words of his own composing. In sooth he was a most marvellous page—a perfect paragon of a page; and then his eye—why it was wilder than lightning shot from a midnight sky. The servants all feared and hated him. To Ysabel alone was he all that was gentle,—and to her father, for her sake. He was her teacher; her patient, faithful, untiring teacher. They drank together at the pure well of learning—a well too often untasted in those days of fair Spain.

“Weep not, sweetest; thy noble father would see thee wed with the Marquis of Talavera, and thou canst not love him. And it is for that thou weepest. Is it not so sweet lady?”

“I was happy,” replied the sorrowing girl. “I did not dream of love, or that I had a heart. I only felt that I was happy. And now⁠—”

“And now, my gentle Ysabel?”

“And now,” said the Señorita, deeply blushing, “now I feel I have no heart to give.”

“Bless thee, dearest, for those words. Ysabel hear me for I must speak. I love thee Ysabel—I am other than I seem. I am no hireling—I am the heir to a noble house. One year ago, having heard so much of thy wondrous beauty, and full of curiosity and daring, I contrived to get admitted into the castle as thy father’s page. To see, is to love thee—but to be near thee day after day—to read thy gentle thoughts—to gaze in thy liquid, truthful, soul-beaming eyes—to feel thy soft hand within my own. Ysabel, a being cut from granite to see thee thus could not help loving thee. I love a soul—a soul thou hast sweet Ysabel—a reflecting, gentle, trustful, ardent, heart-ful soul. Ysabel I love thee, wilt thou love me?”

“Jose, I will, I do love thee”—and the girl’s eyes were soft as she rested them in his.

He took her hand—her little, warm, white hand, and covered it with kisses. Then drawing her gently towards him, he clasped her silently to his heart. She nestled like a bird in his bosom—and rested her head there. At intervals a low sob swelled her little heart, like that of a wearied infant, worn out with much crying. At length her sighs came less and less frequent; and when the page bent over to gaze upon her face, she had sunk into a calm, gentle sleep. A bright tear still glistened on her silky lash—that long black fringe that reposed so quietly on her pale, fair cheek.

There is something inexpressibly touching in the quiet and calm repose of a beautiful girl. And when we feel that that youth and beauty is all we love on earth—that it is near us—nestling in sweet trust within our arms—our all—our own—life of our life—heart of our heart—soul of our soul—what other happiness can earth give more pure, more holy, more unalloyed?

The page Jose almost wished the Doña might never awake—but she did awake. And when she did, she looked up in his eyes and smiled. There was everything in that smile, love, hope, faith, gentleness, truth, trust, joy. It was a droll smile too; there was archness in it—Jose never forgot that smile!—Strange, that an outward symbol of the inner world can express so much.

The page attempted to kiss the bright smile into his own heart—but the lady’s mood had changed. Half ashamed, half in sport, she broke from him with a laugh—her own peculiar laugh—bird-like in its silvery clearness; and like a bird, as wild, and sweet.

“Sit down, dear Ysabel—I would talk with thee calmly—wilt thou be mine? Ysabel, I love thee. Oh! how I love thee. Naught on earth is half so dear as thou—life—ten thousand lives, were they mine, would I give for thy love. Wilt thou be mine? my own?”

The girl put both her little hands in his—that was her only answer. And then the page drew her again to his heart and kissed her brow and lips. And then—and then—and then—why then, and there, right up before them—with curled lip and cloudy brow—stood the castle’s lord!—the proud hidalgo!—the Count Alcaros de Llenaro!—the Doña Ysabel’s father!—the handsome page’s master!

“Ha!” exclaimed he, “is this the way ye obey my commands? Ah, I see! Thou’rt doing my bidding, sir page. Hast thou won the self-willed lady to think as I do? Away, girl!—Back, I say! Away with thee, page!”

Pale, drooping, quailing beneath her father’s angry glance, the gentle girl silently twined her arms around his frame, and strove to kiss away the angry spot upon his brow.

“Back! Judas!” exclaimed he, pushing her rudely from him. “When thou hast learned to do thy father’s wishes, then will he accept thy caresses.”

Frightened—crushed—she shrunk within herself, like the sensitive plant at some rude touch, nor dared to raise her gentle eye to the fire-darting ones of her angry sire.

And the page?

The father glanced from the drooping form of his daughter to the unbending one of the presumptuous lover.

“And so, sir menial, thou art aspiring—we like ambition. Thou thinkest to love my daughter—the daughter of the noble house of Llenaro—good!”

“Count of Llenaro—hear me. I ask of thee thy daughter. My house, proud lord, is full as noble as thine own—perhaps more ancient. I am no page—I am the only son of⁠——”

“I will not even hear who thou art—wert thou the monarch of the universe, thou shouldst not wed my daughter. I have sworn she shall become the bride of the Talavera—I never recall an oath.”

The group as they stood there would have made a picture for the pencil of a Salvator. The proud, determined figure of Llenaro, standing with his arms folded, looking lightning on the no less proud form of the handsome page, as he stood in the glow of his young manhood’s strength and beauty. Then the shrinking form of the Doña Ysabel—slightly leaning forward, with clasped hands—her head partly raised—the speechless, imploring agony of her lovely face.

The room contributed not a little to the scene—all around was purely, beautifully feminine. The low damask ottomans—the bright-eyed birds in their glittering gold cages—the rich, mellow paintings hanging around the room. Among them was her own soft eyed mother. The sweet, dreamy eyes of the Italian seemed to look down on the father of her daughter reproachfully for his harshness to that daughter. The parting beams of the sun, as he bade adieu to his love the fair earth, streamed in the room, gilding with their warm glow the expressive faces of the three. A ray more softened fell on the calm, angel face of the wife,—the mother.

“Alcaros de Llenaro, I entreat thee to listen to me. On my knees I supplicate thee to give me thy daughter. Doom her not to misery. She loves me. Think upon thy child’s mother—on the love vows given and taken before thy child was born. When she—the mother, the wife, was all in all to thee. Thou didst love once, and she thou didst love, was the mother of the child thou’rt dooming to wretchedness—and now that mother looks down upon thee, imploring happiness on her child.”

Alcaros glanced at the image of his wife. He fancied, as the warm, red sunlight fell upon it, the gentle eyes looked a reproachful gaze on him. He was not a hard-hearted man. Pride was his ruling passion. False pride it might have been; whether false or true, it fastened on him then, driving back the kindlier feelings the memory of his wife had roused within him. He checked the tear before it came to his eyes, and putting on a heavy frown—

“Rise, sir minion,” said he, “I have told thee my daughter shall wed the Talavera—and she shall!”

“Never! as I live, never!” said the girl. “Never shall a Llenaro become the bride of the man she cannot love!—never!”

The lady looked her father’s child—as though she had been born to be obeyed. The softness of the mother had gone. Her slight, round figure, straight as a young Indian’s, had risen to its full height. Her eyes dilated—those eyes, where shone her soul—those warm, black eyes, whose every glance kept time to the throbbings of her impulsive heart.

“Ysabel,” said Llenaro, sadly, after a pause, “thou forgetest I am thy father.”

“My father! dearest papa!—my own father, forgive me. Thou art my father! but do not,” her tones were low and earnest, “oh! do not force this hated match on thy child. She will do anything—all thou wishest—but oh! do not seal her misery forever.”

The count permitted the ardent caresses of the maiden, then putting her gently from him, he told her to remain in her turret. He had much to say to her. He would seek her when he was ready to tell her what he had to say. Then turning to Jose, he added, “Follow me, sir page, I have somewhat to say to thee also.”

The maiden watched the receding forms of the two until they had disappeared, and then she murmured, “He spoke kindly to me,” and Hope warmed her heart. A bright Hope! Hope the deceiver! What would the world be without thee, fairy Hope? Thou comest like a dream, whispering in our soul’s ear thy witching fancies, until they seem realities—and the is to be, stands before us a living now! Great is thy power, fair Hope—and thou knowest it,—and so thou goest on deluding mortals,—making the dim shadowy perspective a glorious foreground. So, when our hearts feel sad and weary, and long to burst the chain that binds them to this dark earth, thou comest with the dews of heaven fresh glistening on thy lips—and tellest us fairy tales, and singest us fairy songs—and kissest our hearts with thy cool, dewy lips. And we believe thee, syren, and let thee deceive us again and again.

The Lady Ysabel rested her wild, black eyes—beaming with a thousand thoughts—upon her mother’s picture, and kneeling before it, she clasped her little hands and implored her gentle mother to look down kindly on her daughter. “And, mother,” continued she—her lute-like voice scarce audible—“ask Him, the mighty one—whose throne is in high heaven—to forgive thy erring child, if she forgets, in her love for the creature, the Creator. God forgive me if I love him more than I ought, for I cannot love him less.”

The Lady Ysabel watched all that evening for her father, and the next day—and the next—and the next—and then her cheek began to pale, and her eye grew dim with weeping. For Hope had grown weary and fled. She could not dream either why the page came not—a little indignation mingled with her sorrow.

The duenna did all she could to restore her young lady to her right mind, as she said. At length she brought her a letter—saying⁠—

“Take it, mi señorita, a holy friar gave it me for thee. Learn from it, Señorita Ysabel, to control thy too great grief. It is sinful and wrong to indulge in sorrow as thou dost.”

The Lady Ysabel knew the writing—tremblingly she broke the seal, and read,

“My gentle Ysabel—Thy father hath forbidden me the castle, or ever to see thee again—but fear not, dearest, thy father cannot withstand thy gentleness—thy goodness. Thou wert not made to be unhappy—thou art too good—too kind—too true. God will not see thee made wretched. He watches over thee. He will not desert thee—and, dearest, remember there is one heart that beats for thee—and thee alone—whose every pulse is thine. Sunshine is midnight without the light of thine eyes to tell where shineth the sun, and when, gentlest, I would see thee, I would press thy hands upon my heart—that its wild throbbings might be stilled. I would look into the clear depths of thy truthful eyes, and learn there a lesson of calmness—of faith to bear, and hope to look beyond. Thy duenna, sweetest, more than mistrusts my disguise—but a golden bait has lured stronger minds than hers from the clear waters of truth. I cannot quit the castle grounds, for in it is all that is dear to me on earth. Write, dearest, if thou canst, to thine own

Jose.”

The lady sat before her scrutoire to write to him she loved, when she heard her father’s step. She had only time to crumple his letter in her bosom as the father entered. Ever obedient to her heart’s impulse, she sprang towards him, and throwing her white arms about his neck, she called him her dear, dear papa, and burst into tears.

“Calm thyself, my Ysabel. I would tell thee frankly why I ask thee to sacrifice thyself—to seal thy misery, as thou sayest.” He led her gently to an ottoman, and seated himself beside her.

“Ysabel, wouldst thou see thy father penniless, homeless, a beggar?”

“Papa!” looked the wondering eyes of Ysabel.

“I repeat it, Ysy, wouldst thou see thy father resign all these fair acres, and starve a houseless beggar? Wouldst thou, Ysy?”

“What meanest thou, papa? in mercy tell me.”

“If by one act of thine, it were in thy power to make thy father’s happiness, wouldst thou not do that act?”

“Dear papa, thou knowest I would—but oh! tell me all. What am I to do? And yet I know—but why? tell me why”⁠—

“Ysabel, by becoming his bride, thou canst save thy father from becoming a beggar.”

The girl shuddered but said in a low calm voice,

“Father, tell me why—tell me all. Make a confidant of thy child. I can bear anything. See! I am calm.”

“Ysabel, I will! in as few words as possible. A year ago, you may remember, Talavera was here. He has not been here since. A short time after that, his last visit, the page came—though it is not of him I would speak. We played—Talavera and I. At first I won—in the success of the moment I staked high—and lost. I still played on—every throw swept off acre after acre of the lands my fathers owned. Midnight saw me without a farthing—and without a foot of earth to call my own. Then came a bond. I signed it. It gave me back my broad lands—my wealth—but it deprived me of the only thing I had on earth to love—of you, my Ysabel! See! here is the bond.”

The lady’s heart was still—very still—so still it almost frightened her. Her cheek, lips, hands, were cold and bloodless. It seemed as though her blood had all gone to her heart—and frozen there! Her eye was passionless, it was so calm. She held the open paper before her, and without reading or seeing, she read and saw enough to know that the fair grounds and castle of Ysolo-Rosse—where she had lived from her infancy—where her father had loved her mother—were to go into the hands of the Talavera, unless she became his bride.

“Ysabel, I have sworn thou shalt be his bride, but I will recall my oath if thou sayest so. What is thy decision?”

“I will wed him,” replied the girl.

Llenaro clasped her to his heart, and kissing her cold brow, he added,

“The day thou art seventeen was the day decided upon—it will be here in a week. But if ’twill be too soon, no doubt the Marquis will”⁠—

“ ’Twill not be too soon.”

“Ysabel, thou frightenest me, thou art so pale—I will not force thee into what would be thy unhappiness.”

“Nay, papa, I had much rather be unhappy myself than to see thee so. But I will not be. To-morrow thou shalt see me more cheerful.”

The wily lord had learned the way to make his daughter’s will his own. He loved that daughter, and felt a father’s pity for her. But he thought although she suffered then—and it pained him to the soul to see it—she would soon forget her youthful passion, and, as the wife of the Talavera, she would gradually learn to be happy. Her future husband was all that was noble and good—all this thought the father—and then he thought “the Castle of Ysolo-Rosse will still be mine.” The father’s conscience was almost quieted.

“I have foresworn playing, Belle,” said he, sadly, “never, should I live forever, will another card pass through my hands. Ysabel, my darling child! do not look so sad,—seek the cool air, it will revive thee. Go and gather thy favorite wild flowers: they will divert thy mind from its sorrow. My noble, generous girl.” He fondly kissed his child and then withdrew.

Ysabel left to herself mechanically sought the garden. She wandered over her favorite haunts, scarce knowing what she did. Her heart, her thoughts were still as the grave. She reached her bower—the little vine-clad bower, where the page and she had so often sat listening to the music of each other’s voices. And there, on the very seat where they were wont to sit—was Jose! the page!

“Ysabel! beloved!” exclaimed he in unfeigned delight—and the girl was in his arms.

“Dearest, best, my gentle Ysabel! am I once more permitted to see thee?—to clasp thee to my heart? But, sweetest, how thou hast changed. How pale thou art. Go with me dearest, I will be thy father, brother, husband, friend. Leave this hated castle—now—speak, dear one, wilt thou go with me? Dear, dear Ysabel, tell me.”

“Jose, I cannot—I have promised to become his bride!”

“But, dearest, they shall not force thee to do what thou dost not wish.”

“Jose, I had my own free choice.”

“And thou didst choose—”

“To become his bride.”

“Will nothing induce thee to alter thy determination?”

“Nothing!”

“Good bye, Ysabel.”

“Jose! Dear Jose—” but the page was gone.

The next morning found the lady Ysabel in the spot where the page had left her. Then followed many days of sickness. Her life was despaired of. Day after day she lay, pale, cold, insensible. Reason had forsaken her throne. Her sweet smiles were gone; and the speaking glances of her dewy eyes had fled. Her voice too—for she had not spoken since that night. Even the pulsations of her heart were silent. Life alone remained—life without its light. And how her father watched over her—and how bitterly he lamented, and cursed himself for having brought her thus. At length light shone in her eyes—the light of life. Morning dawned in upon the darkness of her soul.

“Good bye, Ysabel,” said she.

“My own child, what dost thou say?” asked the father, bending anxiously over her.

“Good bye, Ysabel—” and she looked up in her father’s face and smiled.—That smile! it haunted him to his grave!

“Are you better, my own Ysabel? my dearest child?”

“Yes papa,—I am well. What a strange dream I have had. Ah! now I recollect—” and she sunk into a gentle sleep.

Day by day she gained health and strength. The father never left her side.

“Papa,” said she one day, “will you let me see that paper again? you know the one I mean.”

“No, my child, you never need see or think of it.”

“Do let me take it, papa—you do not know how well and strong I am—do, dearest papa?” And the father was prevailed upon. She saw she could save her father from ruin, and her mind was made.

“How old am I, papa?”

“Three weeks ago saw you seventeen.”

“Does the—does my future husband know of my illness?”

“He has sent repeatedly to inquire after your health. His courier was here this morning.”

“Will you send him word I am well—and am ready in two weeks from now to become his wife?”

“Are you in earnest, Ysabel?”

“Perfectly so.”

“Is it of your own free will you speak?”

“It is, papa.” And the father was deceived—perhaps too willingly so.

The Lady Ysabel was able now to revisit her favorite haunts. Every thing she saw brought the page vividly before her eyes. Sometimes an inscription on a tree—the walks, the flowers, the bower where last they met—all, all brought with them the memory of him. She strove to banish, as high treason to her happiness, all thoughts of him—and the firmness of her nature conquered. She familiarised herself to all the old spots where she had loved to be with him—and she thought she was happy—almost—happy.

The day at length came—clear—cloudless—sun-bright. And then the lady’s heart misgave her—she said not a word, however, but let them deck her in her bridal gear, scarce knowing or caring what they did.

Evening came. The chapel was brilliantly lighted. The bright red wine flowed freely—and joy danced in all hearts, save one.

Ysabel was pale, very, very pale when she entered the chapel. The orange buds that wreathed her hair were not more pale.

The Talavera had not yet come. All was ready. The priest in his long flowing robes—the father—the bridesmaid—the guests; for the father had invited many a noble house to witness his daughter’s nuptials. All were ready, and still the bridegroom came not. At length was heard a confused movement, and, in the midst of that joyous mass of life, the Marquis of Talavera had been thrown from his carriage, and the servants, in their fright and dismay, scarce knowing what they did, had borne him in his litter to the chapel.

The Lady Ysabel grew even more pale, as she looked upon the bier. There lay the lord who was to have been her husband! She gazed on him in a sort of nightmare fascination—a weight seemed taken from her heart—a feeling of relief mingled with the horror of the hour.

The Doña Ysabel enjoyed one short month of tranquillity—and then came news from the castle of Talavera. The will of the marquis had been read. He had bequeathed to his son and heir all his vast estates together with the Lady Ysabel, should he himself die before the marriage took place. The bond still held good!

A letter came from the young marquis to the count, demanding his daughter’s hand in marriage. The letter was gracefully written, and told how he had long heard of the wondrous beauty of the Doña Ysabel, and how ardently he desired to become the possessor of it.

Again the lady yielded to her father’s persuasion. The present marquis was young and handsome—so the objection of age was removed. All Spain knew he was noble, and brave—and all the bright-eyed daughters of Spain might well look envy on the favored Ysabel, that the young Talavera had chosen her.

He was then travelling in the interior of Europe. His letter was dated, Vienna. One year from the day of the elder Talavera’s death was the day fixed upon to celebrate the bridals of the bravest cavalier and loveliest flower in all Spain.

Ysabel yielded, and tried to seem cheerful, but her step grew slower and slower, and her fair face paler and more pale. As her days went on did she each day lose some part of this earth, earthy. So very gradual was the change that neither her father nor those around her seemed to observe it. So passed seven months. Four months more were to find her a new home in the heart of the Talavera.

She daily visited the spot where she had last seen him, in the hope of——she knew not what.

The Doña Ysabel was in her bower—neither reading, nor sewing, nor watching her flowers—but in a state of listlessness, half reclining on the cushioned seat, when suddenly her name was spoken! It was not her father’s voice. The next instant saw the Doña close to the heart of the page, Jose! Neither spoke—the heart of each was too full for words—dull words cannot express our strongest emotions, when the heart is too big for utterance, speech is but a mockery. Words came at length, and the page told her how much anguish he had suffered, and how he could no longer stay away from her he loved. That he came, hardly expecting to see her, and if he did see her, he feared he should find her changed.

“And, dearest Ysabel, thou art changed—not in thy love—but thou art but the shadow of the Ysabel that in days syne, bounded so joyfully over these hills.” He held up her hand⁠—

“It was so thin and transparent of hue,

You might have seen the moon shine through!”

The Lady Ysabel told the page all. How that she had consented to become the bride of the young Talavera. The page learned the reason from her too, why she had consented to become the wife of one she could not love. He smiled when he heard that the Talavera must become master, either of the castle and property of Ysolo-Rosse, or of the lovely Lady Ysabel.

When Ysabel retired to rest that night, it was with a light heart. Day after day witnessed the meetings of the lady and the page—and day after day witnessed her returning bloom of face and buoyancy of heart. She was once more that glad, bright Ysabel as when the page first came to her father’s castle.

The father, without inquiring the cause, saw his child happy and smiling, and he was satisfied. And she was happy and smiling—the smiles never left her little dimpled mouth—soon as one went another came. Even in her sleep, her joyous heart beamed from her face.

The morning came bright and sunshiny as it had done just one year before. The chapel was again illuminated—again were the guests assembled—and again, surrounded by her bridesmaids, came the Lady Ysabel into the chapel. But oh! what a different Lady Ysabel from the one of the year ago. The bridal wreath encircled her brow—and below that fair brow beamed out the happiest pair of eyes imaginable! What could it mean?

There was heard among the guests a universal murmur of admiration as she made her appearance. So beautiful, so bright, so radiant a being they had never seen. Her face appeared actually to emit light—so truly did the bright sunshine of her glad young heart shine through.

A slight movement at the great double door of the chapel—and the bridegroom, the Marquis of Talavera was announced!

Quite as great a sensation did the noble, manly figure of the young marquis create, as had the softer and more gentle one of the Lady Ysabel.

The father seemed struck dumb in sudden surprise!—at length, burst from his lips—“The page!”

Any of the old gossips of Spain will tell you the rest of the story—and what a joyous wedding there was—and how every one said there never was so well matched—so noble a pair, as Don Jose, Marquis of Talavera, and his gentle bride, Ysabel! They will tell you, too, that the honey-moon, instead of lasting but thirty-one days, did outlast thirty-one years!—and the love that was true to the sire could not but bless the son.

---

So endeth the story of “The Lady and the Page.”

---

FANCIES ABOUT A ROSEBUD,

PRESSED IN AN OLD COPY OF SPENSER.

———

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

———

Who prest you here? The Past can tell,

When summer skies were bright above,

And some full heart did leap and swell

Beneath the white new moon of love.

Some Poet, haply, when the world

Showed like a calm sea, grand and blue,

Ere its cold, inky waves had curled

O’er the numb heart once warm and true;

When, with his soul brimful of morn,

He looked beyond the vale of Time,

Nor saw therein the dullard scorn

That made his heavenliness a crime;

When, musing o’er the Poets olden,

His soul did like a sun upstart

To shoot its arrows, clear and golden,

Through slavery’s cold and darksome heart.

Alas! too soon the veil is lifted

That hangs between the soul and pain,

Too soon the morning-red hath drifted

Into dull cloud, or fallen in rain!

Or were you prest by one who nurst

Bleak memories of love gone by,

Whose heart, like a star fallen, burst

In dark and erring vacancy?

To him you still were fresh and green

As when you grew upon the stalk,

And many a breezy summer scene

Came back—and many a moonlit walk;

And there would be a hum of bees,

A smell of childhood in the air,

And old, fresh feelings cooled the breeze

That, like loved fingers, stirred his hair!

Then would you suddenly be blasted

By the keen wind of one dark thought,

One nameless woe, that had outlasted

The sudden blow whereby ’twas brought.

Or were you pressed here by two lovers

Who seemed to read these verses rare,

But found between the antique covers

What Spenser could not prison there:

Songs which his glorious soul had heard,

But his dull pen could never write,

Which flew, like some gold-winged bird,

Through the blue heaven out of sight?

My heart is with them as they sit,

I see the rose-bud in her breast,

I see her small hand taking it

From out its odorous, snowy nest;

I hear him swear that he will keep it,

In memory of that blessed day,

To smile on it or over-weep it

When she and spring are far away.

Ah me! I needs must droop my head,

And brush away a happy tear,

For they are gone, and, dry and dead,

The rose-bud lies before me here.

Yet is it in no stranger’s hand,

For I will guard it tenderly,

And it shall be a magic wand

To bring mine own true love to me.

My heart runs o’er with sweet surmises,

The while my fancy weaves her rhyme,

Kind hopes and musical surprises

Throng round me from the olden time.

I do not care to know who prest you:

Enough for me to feel and know

That some heart’s love and longing blest you,

Knitting to-day with long-ago.

---

IMAGINATION.[^[2]]

It is so long a time since a poem of any serious pretensions has made its appearance before the British or American public, that we have almost ceased to look for new metrical productions, divided into books or cantos. We have been contented with the light, fugitive strains of the periodicals, and have not asked for grand overtures—such as used to absorb the whole interest of the reading public, twenty, thirty, fifty and more years ago. In the middle of the last century, a man, to be recognised as a poet, was required to issue some single work of a thousand lines. Quantity was more considered than quality; intellectual labor was judged of rather by the amount of its achievements than by their kind.

Poetry has at times been criticised by a different rule than Painting. That age never was, when an artist acquired a reputation in consequence of the number of his pictures: one gem of art has always been more highly esteemed than a million crystals. In all days past, as in the day present, it might be said of a single head by a master, small, faded, stained, yet beautiful through the rust of age,—“that little bit of canvass is worth more than a whole gallery of fresh portraits, though after living models, as beautiful as Aspasia, or as stately as Alcibiades.” But a solitary brief poem was never so valued in comparison with a voluminous production. Even now, formed and polished as the public taste pretends itself to be, there lurks with us that prejudice which more highly ranks the author of a book of verses than the author of a sonnet. Though the book may be as negative in merit as the correct hand of gentle dullness could make it, and the sonnet as perfect as the best that Petrarch wrote, in the intensest glow of his love and his genius—except by the few, the former would be regarded as the more arduous, the more commendable performance.

The philosophy of this prejudice, is a sort of respect mankind entertains for a constant fulfilment of the original curse. We love to see hard work done or indicated. We look at a mass of printed leaves and exclaim, “Goodness! what an industrious individual the writer must have been! How much he has accomplished!” It may be that, upon examination, his work may have added nothing to the available stock of literature; it may be that it will prove useless lumber, destined to dust and obscurity in men’s garrets, and not worth the corners it will encumber. “What of that? the author had to work hard to do it—didn’t he?” Yes! such is the question put by people who seem to love labor for its own sake. They look upon men of talent very much in the same light that old Girard of Philadelphia considered poor people who existed by the employment of their arms and legs.

At a season of distress, some day-laborers applied to Girard for assistance. There was a huge pile of bricks lying in the vicinity of the house of Dives. “Take up those bricks,” said he, “and place them yonder, and then I will pay you for the task.” The men obeyed; the bricks—to use a verb for which we are indebted to Dr. Noah Webster and the Georgia negroes—were toted from one position to another, and the stipulated price demanded. Girard paid it cheerfully. “But,” said the laborers, “what are we to do now? Must we be idle while we spend this money, and starve by and by? We shall come to you again in a week. Keep us employed—bid us perform another task.” “Yes,” said Girard. “Take up those bricks from the place where you have put them, and carry them back to the place whence you removed them.” Pretty much as Girard used the poor operatives does the public treat the man of genius. Let him write the immortal sonnet, bright and beautiful, to be fixed hereafter, a star in the firmament of fame, and his contemporaries, in reply to his demand for praise, will say, “What has he done? What book has he written? What is he the author of?”—They want to see work—honest labor, and plenty of it, though that labor be as useless as the toting of the bricks.

Not without some qualifications must these remarks be considered strictly true, with regard to the present age, or to our own country. There are facts to the contrary, though not sufficient to disprove the general truth of what we say. We have no poet, who is more generally, or more highly esteemed, than Halleck; and yet his truly great reputation has been built up on some four or six short pieces of verse. On the other hand, Mr. Sumner Lincoln Fairfield, has lumbered the bookseller’s lofts with ream after ream of printed paper, and nobody but an occasional crazy reviewer, calls such a dunce, a poet. Nevertheless, we maintain the verity of the general observation, that those poets have heretofore been most esteemed, who have done the most work. It is downright astonishing, how much some of them did do. We look over their long poems, with a sentiment of wonder, and reverence, and we are awfully perplexed to determine, how vast a length of time it must have taken these modern Cheopses, to build their pyramids. Hamlet’s account to Polonius, of the graybeard’s book he was reading, appears to us a pretty comprehensive description of many of these vast metrical diffusions—“words, words, words.” It exceeds our powers of conjecture, how the writers could have completed their whole task, so labors the line and so slow runs the verse. We have seen a sturdy blacksmith pound a piece of iron, for hours and hours, till it became as malleable as lead; we have seen a woodsawyer saw, and saw, and saw, up and down, down and up, till the very sight of him made us ready to drop with imaginary fatigue; thy still-beginning, never ending whirl, oh weary knife-grinder, have we also contemplated with feverish melancholy—still for the endurance of all these, have we been able satisfactorily to account; drilled by habit, ruled by habit, habit is to them a second nature. But for the perpetration of a long, tedious poem for the manufacture of verse after verse, the last drier and duller than the preceding, there is no possible manner of accounting. It is an infliction, which can be borne by neither gods, men nor columns. Your médiocre man may be forgiven for talking one into a paralysis, or writing prose, till every word acts like a mesmerist and puts you to sleep; but for his writing verses, there can be, there ought to be no forgiveness; he should be consigned to the cave of perpetual oblivion, and over its entrance should be inscribed, “Hope never enters here.”

Were we to follow in the track of reviewers in the Quarterlies, who always seem to think it necessary to make a considerable preliminary flourish to the solemn common-places they are about to utter, we should observe that the foregoing remarks had been elicited by a work on our table, entitled “Imagination, a poem in two parts, with other poems, by Louisa Frances Poulter.” But as the work did not call forth the remarks, we shall observe nothing of the kind. The moment we wrote the title of the poem, and saw that it consisted of nearly eleven hundred lines, we began to reflect that very few long poems had been written lately, and our pen scampered over the paper at a rail-road rate, till we reached the dépôt at the end of this paragraph.

Pausing here, we first look back over what we have said; it pleases us—let it stand, therefore, and let us now employ ourselves with reading Miss Poulter’s poem in two cantos. We have not the slightest dread of it—no! it seems a pleasant land, of which we have had delightful glimpses in a transient survey. With these glimpses we mean to entertain the reader, besides giving him an idea of the face of the country.

In limine, we ought to confess ourselves amiable critics, when we are called upon to pronounce on the works of a female writer, and more particularly of one who is a new claimant for distinction. It is our desire to encourage the intellectual efforts of the gentle sex, if for no better purpose, at least for that of inciting women to assert their claims to the honors and the rewards of authorship. These pages are scrutinized by many a brilliant pair of eyes, ready to flash indignation upon the slightest disparagement of female genius. Far be it from us to evoke from those mortal stars any other beams than those of softness and serenity. Lovely readers! smile therefore upon this article as kindly as upon the prettiest story in the Magazine, and think well of him who seeks to win no better guerdon than your approbation.

Miss Poulter has put upon her title-page a striking passage in French from some essay of Bernardin de St. Pierre, which may be thus literally translated. “Tasso, while travelling with a friend, one day ascended a very high mountain. When he had reached the summit, he exclaimed: ‘Seest thou these rugged rocks, these wild forests, this brook bordered with flowers, which winds through the valley, this majestic river, which rolls onward and onward till it bathes the walls of a hundred cities? Well, these rocks, these mountains, these walls, these cities, gods, men—lo! these are my poem!’ ” On the page immediately preceding the principal poem in the volume, “Imagination,” there appears the following from Stewart’s Outlines of Moral Philosophy, “One of the principal effects of a liberal education is to accustom us to withdraw our attention from the objects of our present perceptions, and to dwell at pleasure on the past, the absent and the future. How much it must enlarge in this way the sphere of our enjoyment or suffering is obvious: for (not to mention the recollection of the past) all that part of our happiness or misery, which arises from our hopes or our fears, derives its existence entirely from the power of our imagination.”

We are pleased with these quotations. They augur well for the original words that are to follow. They prepare the mind of the reader for something almost as good as they are. The talent, or rather tact of quoting well is no mean one; it is not possessed by many, scarcely possessed at all by those who say that a quotation should be as strictly appropriate as a title. It is enough that a quotation be one naturally appertaining to or suggestive per se of the subject matter. Mottoes, it should be remembered, are not texts, but simply prefixes, intended rather as ornaments than things of use. They are to books, chapters, and cantos, what jewels are to the clasps of a fair lady’s girdle, not indispensable to the clasps, but decorating them. In the choice of the jewels and the style of their setting the taste of the wearer is manifested.

The reflection which first suggests itself to us after a consideration of this poem, is that the author preferred rather to indulge her inclination for roving from topic to topic, than to confine herself to any exact method. She does not so much consider the power of imagination or its effect upon life as she does the places and persons upon which this faculty of the mind would choose to expand itself. The single word, therefore, which constitutes the title, might be regarded as too pretensive, as demanding too much, more than it is within the capacity or education of the writer to give. Her modes of thought seem to be too independent of the influence of “Association,” and it would confuse a philosophical thinker to follow the diversities of her fancy. Perhaps, however, the person who reads only to be amused, would derive more gratification from Miss Poulter’s disregard of rules than were she more correct and less fervid.

The poem opens with a picture of sunset after a storm, and this affords an apt and natural illustration for the Power of the Imagination. The first topic pursued is the fact that childhood is but little under the influence of Imagination, being led away by the pleasures of the present moment and apt to resign itself wholly to the object by which it is temporarily attracted. Illustrative of this is the following admirably drawn scene⁠—

See, from his sheltering roof, the infant boy

Rush with delight, to snatch the promised joy;

Allowed for once to stray where’er he please,

And live one day of liberty and ease.

His frugal basket to his girdle hung,

His little rod across his shoulder flung,

With eager haste he starts at dawn of day,

Yet every trifle lures him from his way;

An opening rose, a gaudy butterfly,

Turn his light steps and fix his wandering eye;

He plucks ripe berries blushing in the hedge,

And pungent cresses from the watery sedge.

At length he gains the bank, and seeks to fill

His little scrip, and prove his infant skill;

He marks the fish approach in long array⁠—

Then, stamps the ground, to see them glide away.

But lo! one speckled wanderer lurks behind,

’Mid the tall reeds that skirt the stream confined:

It comes—it bites—he finds himself possest

Of one small trout, less wary than the rest:

With trembling hands he grasps his finny spoil,

The rich reward of one long day of toil.

For some short moments yet he keeps his seat

Close to the brook, and laves his weary feet;

Wide from his face his auburn locks he throws,

That playful airs may fan his little brows;

Then upward springs, and hums a blithesome lay,

To cheat fatigue, and charm his lengthened way.

Hark! while across the verdant lawn he skips,

The half-told tale is muttered from his lips;

With bounding heart he shows his spotted prize,

And marks, exulting, the well-feigned surprise.

A second moment sees him locked in sleep,

And placid slumbers o’er his senses creep;

In dreams he rests along some river’s side,

Where giant trout beneath clear waters glide.

The following figure illustrates the toilsome ascent of youth to Greatness:

So up yon cliffs that frown in stern array,

The hardy pilgrim climbs his painful way;

His form bends forward—see! how he expands

O’er each frail mountain-shrub his fearful hands;

Will it resist?—or, from the rocky steep,

Whirl him below unnumbered fathoms deep?

He grasps it firm—he keeps his dizzy ground⁠—

Though blasts and foaming torrents roar around;

Soon from the summit, views, with raptured eye,

The lovely scenes that far extended lie;

The smiling hamlet; the deep-tangled grove;

The lake whose breast reflects the hills above;

The lowing herds that through green pastures stray,

Where limpid streams pursue their pebbled way.

After showing that imagination is most powerful in youth, and the different manner in which it operates upon men, leading some to public life, and some to retirement; after drawing a picture of domestic felicity, and dwelling upon the question whether the happiness derived from the indulgence of an ardent fancy is not ill exchanged for a reasonable view of human life,—the poet speaks of the moral influence of a fine imagination; and here occur these lines⁠—

Shall the pale Autumn shed his leaves in vain,

Sear the green woods, and all their glories stain?

Shall Winter clouds and bitter frosts impart,

Yet force no saddening moral on the heart?

Oh! let the warning past one thought employ!

Have not our projects, marked by grief or joy,

And all that we call beauty, talent, worth,

Mimicked the transient fashion of the Earth?

The fragile bloom has withered in the storm⁠—

The pride of better years now feeds the worm!

The next subject of contemplation is the death of a beloved and distinguished friend; afterwards the poet goes on to describe the influence of sublime scenery in awakening corresponding sensations in the mind. An address to the Deity is attempted: next it is shown that external beauties alone cannot soothe a wounded heart; a fact happily illustrated by the disappointment of Tasso on his return to his native Sorrento⁠—

Tasso, the pride, the victim of the Great,

Who learned the value of their smile too late.

Had shone in courts resplendent, and beneath

A prison’s wall had drawn his painful breath,

Sought his beloved Sorrento; for he fed

A wild delirious hope that bade him tread,

In search of peace, her groves, her spicy hills,

And woo the balsam her soft air distils.

Impetuous passion in his mind had wrought,

And trenched it deep with many a bitter thought;

Perchance the breeze that fans her rocky shore,

The mournful measure of the plashing oar,

Her blooming gardens that expanded lie,

Breathing their citron fragrance to the sky,

Her clustered almond trees, her sighing pines,

Her founts of crystal, and her palmy wines,

May lull its throb, its languid tone restore,

And charm it back to all it was before.

The poetess then describes the anguish he endured.

This is all that we can extract for the reader’s recreation from the first Part or Canto of this meritorious poem, with the exception of a very touching ballad. The verses are supposed to be repeated by an Indian mother, over the grave of her departed child. Let us call them

THE INDIAN MOTHER’S LAMENT.

Twice falling snows have clad the earth;

Twice hath the fly-bird weaved his nest;

Since first I smiled upon thy birth,

And felt thee breathing on my breast.

Now snowy wreaths will melt away,

And buds of red will shine around;

But, heedless of the sunny ray,

Thy form shall wither in the ground.

Oft hath thy father dared the foe,

And, while their arrows drank his blood,

And round him lay his brothers low,

Careless ’mid thousand darts he stood.

But when he saw thee droop thy head,

Thy little limbs grow stiff and cold,

And from thy lip the scarlet fled,

Fast down his cheek the tear-drops rolled.

The land of souls lies distant far,

And dark and lonely is the road;

No ghost of night, no shining star,

Shall guide me to thy new abode.

Will some good Spirit to thee bring

The milky fruits of cocoa-tree?

To shield thee stretch his pitying wing?

Or spread the beaver’s skin for thee?

Oh! in the blue-bird’s shape descend,

When broad magnolias shut their leaves!

With evening airs thy lisping blend,

And watch the tomb thy mother weaves!

I’ve marked the lily’s silken vest,

When winds blew fresh and sunbeams shine

On Mississippi’s furrowed breast,

By many a watery wreath entwined.

But soon they rippled down the stream,

To lave the stranger’s distant shore;

One moment sparkled in the beam⁠—

Then saw their native banks no more.

Of the second Part or Canto, the following is a brief analysis. The poet first addresses the Spirit of Ruin; then displays various forms of destruction—a shipwreck: the descent of an avalanche. The topics next treated are intellectual decay; the fatal effects of an ill-regulated and warm Imagination; the power of Love in youth; the influence of Imagination in our choice of life; the love of Fame; an active life necessary to a person of vivid Imagination; the thirst of some overcoming the love of life. Next occurs an apostrophe to the noble and patriotic and sainted spirits of the heroes of Switzerland and America—Arnold de Winkelried and George Washington. It is then shown that Imagination represents them as still living; the power of Imagination in old age is portrayed, and the poem concludes.

From this part, we regret that we have room but for two extracts; for these are of so excellent a character that the reader, like Oliver Twist, will be certain to ask for more.

Our first extract is a description of the life of an Alpine shepherd. The lines are eminently good.

Track thou my path where Alpine winters shed

Their lingering snows o’er bare St. Gothard’s head,

Ghastly his savage aspect; there recline

Rocks piled on rocks, and shagg’d with stunted pine;

Yet touched with beauty, when the purple haze

Its softening shadows o’er their summit lays;

Then melts in air, while wandering sunbeams streak,

With tints of rose, each ridge and frozen peak.

From cliff to cliff hoarse cataracts pursue

Their shattered course; now stained with lovely hue,

Lovely, and yet more transient, while a ray

Athwart the shivered waters cuts its way;

Now whirling in black eddies, as they lash

The darkened precipice with hideous crash.

But see! with trees and freshest verdure bright,

A lonely valley starts upon the sight,

Whose peaceful hamlet clinging to their side,

And sweet retirements, beetling mountains hide.

Their fury spent, o’er dell and grassy knoll

The lucid streams in crystal bubbles roll,

Whose gentle gushings break the deep repose,

As down steep, pebbled banks, the current flows.

Here, free from Passion’s storm and splendid Care,

A hardy race Life’s simple blessings share.

Breathes there on Earth who boasts a happier lot,

Than the rude owner of yon smiling cot?

Sighs he for joys by Nature’s hand denied?

Feels he a want by labor unsupplied?

The flock which oft his children’s pranks disturb,

The goats delighting in the sprouted herb,

The sleepy cows aroused by sauntering flies,

His verdant paddock with sweet food supplies.

Vigorous from rest, not weak with slothful ease,

At dawn he scents the sharp reviving breeze;

With eager industry and rustic skill

First prunes his purple vine, then hastes to till

His garden, freshened by the chills of night,

Where many a grateful tribute cheers his sight;

The jasmine bent beneath his clustering bees,

The green retiring herb, the lofty trees,

That, gemmed with blooms and dew drops, on the air

Waft their sweet incense to the God of pray’r.

But noon advances, and he drives his flocks

Where spots of verdure brighten ’mid the rocks;

There spends the day; and, far above, inhales

The love of Freedom with his mountain gales.

Hark! to those sounds, which now the herds invite,

Slow pacing homeward from the dizzy height;

The shepherd’s evening call—and in each dell

Tinkles the music of the pastoral bell.

His labor done, a frugal meal prepared

By her he loves, recruits his strength impaired;

Breathing a pious prayer he sinks to rest,

And rural visions charm his peaceful breast.

Our second, and last, extract is one the spirit and force of which every devotee of Freedom, every true American heart cannot fail to acknowledge.

Spirits of noble beings, who, arrayed

In mortal clothing, once a proud part played

Upon this nether orb! If ye retain

No human sense of honor, joy, or pain;

If, fixed in seats of blessedness, ye deem

Earth’s goodliest pageantries an idiot’s dream;

Yet in your bosoms not in vain was sown

Deep as Life’s pulse the love of fair Renown;

For still as Age to fleeting Age succeeds,

Your track of Glory, your remembered deeds,

A spark of fire ethereal shall impart,

To rouse each godlike passion in the heart.

Still, gallant Arnold! while the Switzer fights

E’en to his blood’s last drop, to guard his rights;

The right to tread his hills begirt with storm,

Free as the winds that brace his nervous form;

Your dying words, invincible he hears;

When with gored bosom, grasping Austria’s spears,

To glorious death you singly forced the way,

And bade forever live red Sempach’s day;

“The ranks are broken! charge! the cowards yield!

My little orphans, Oh my Country! shield.”

And You! in whose unconquerable mind

The wide-expanded wish to serve Mankind

Ruled as a master-passion; whether laid

At ease, you wooed Mount Vernon’s pleasant shade,

And the pure luxury of rural life;

Or plunged, reluctant, into desperate strife,

To breast the weight of tyrannous command.

And stamp the badge of Freedom on your Land;

Shall You, the meteor of a fickle day,

Blaze for one moment, strike, and pass away?

No—to her sons unborn shall cling your name,

Linked to their country’s proudest hour of Fame;

Till private, public worth, to Ruin hurled,

Shall leave not e’en their shadow in the World;

Then must the Slave, the Patriot, share one lot⁠—

And He, and Washington, shall be forgot.

From the remarks, with which this article began, it is clearly enough to be inferred that we are no admirers of long poems, unless they be of extraordinary and sustained merit. This praise cannot be awarded to Miss Poulter’s production: We believe that we have taken pretty much all that is excellent, though a fine passage or two may be left in the exquisite volume which we have just now cut to pieces—not metaphorically, but literally. It was sad to destroy so charming a library book; but what were the exquisite typography and clear white paper of one of Saunders & Otley’s editions, when compared with the amusement of the friends of Graham’s Magazine? Nothing. Moreover, we should not have quoted so largely as we have, had we not felt assured of the fact that the volume to which we refer was the only copy of Miss Poulter’s poem in America. Such works are not in the least likely to be reprinted here; and our readers would therefore know nothing about them, were it not for the pains we are happy to take in their behalf.

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[2]	Imagination: a Poem in two parts, with other poems, by Louisa Frances Poulter, London: Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street.

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HARRY CAVENDISH.

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

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