CHAPTER II.
"Harry," said Mrs. Castleton, in her prettiest and most winning manner, "I am going to call on your friend, Miss Dawson, and invite her for Thursday evening."
Harry looked up very much astonished, hardly knowing whether to be pleased or not, and said,
"What put that in your head?"
"I want to know her," continued Mrs. Castleton. "They tell me you admire her, Harry; and if she is to be my future sister, as people say—"
"People say a great deal more than they know," said Harry, hastily.
"Well," rejoined his sister, playfully, "be that as it may, Harry, I should like to see the young lady; and beside, I want as many pretty girls as I can get, they always make a party brilliant—and you say she is pretty, don't you, Harry?"
"Beautiful," he replied, with an earnestness that startled Mrs. Castleton. "You'll have no prettier girl here, I promise you that, Laura," he added, presently, more quietly. "But what will Emma say," he continued, bitterly. "She'll never give her consent, depend upon it, to your calling."
"It's not necessary that she should," said Mrs. Castleton, good humoredly; "so perhaps I had better not ask her."
"Emma gives herself airs," continued Harry, angrily. "She thinks that all the world are just confined to her one little clique; that there's neither beauty, nor sense, nor any thing else out of her particular set. Now I can tell her that there's more beauty among those who don't give themselves half the airs, and who she looks down upon, than there is to be found among her 'fashionables.' But Emma is perfectly ridiculous with her 'exclusive' nonsense," he continued, with much feeling, evidently showing how deeply he resented his sister's reflections upon the style and stamp of his present admiration, Miss Dawson.
"Oh," said Mrs. Castleton, soothingly, "it's a mistake all very young girls make, Harry. They know nothing out of one circle. Of course, they disparage all others."
But Harry was not to be quieted so easily. He was not satisfied until he had poured forth all his complaints against Emma; and Mrs. Castleton found it best not to take her part, but trust to the result of her experiment of the next week with putting him in good humor with her again.
"Will you call with me?" she continued, presently. "I have ordered the carriage at one."
He looked pleased, and said he would. But after a little while he seemed to grow nervous and fidgetty—walked about the room—asked a good many questions, without seeming to attend much to the answers, and at last said, hurriedly,
"Well, Laura, it's rather late, and I have an engagement down town—do you care about my calling with you? You know it's only necessary for you to leave your card. You need not go in even, if you don't care about it."
"Oh, certainly," she replied. "No, don't wait for me."
And he took his hat and darted off like light, as if he had made an escape from he hardly knew what.
Mrs. Castleton could not but laugh as she heard him shut the hall-door, almost before she was aware he had left the room, well pleased with this indication of susceptibility on his part, which she took as a good omen of the future, fully believing that "future events cast their shadows before." "If Harry were nervous already, what would he be on Thursday evening."
The call was made. Miss Dawson was out. A card was left, with an invitation, which, in due time, was accepted.
"Are you going to ask the Hazletons," inquired Emma.
"No," said Mrs. Castleton; "I don't want to have too large a party. I want just enough to fill my rooms prettily, so that you can see everybody, and how they are dressed—just one of those small, select, pretty parties, where everybody is noticed. I have hardly asked a person—I don't know one—who is not in some way distinguished for either dress, manner, air, or beauty. I have taken pains to cull the most choice of my acquaintance. The rooms will be beautifully lighted—and I expect it to be a brilliant affair."
"If it were not for that Miss Dawson to spoil all," said Emma, dejectedly—for she had never liked the scheme, though she did not oppose it. "I declare, Laura, I wonder at your moral courage in having her. I don't think I could introduce her among such a set, even to be sure of breaking it off. You will be terribly ashamed of her. You don't know, I think, what you have undertaken."
Mrs. Castleton could not but laugh at the earnestness, not to say solemnity, of Emma's manner.
"Not I, Emma—why should I be ashamed of her. If she were Harry's wife, or if even he were engaged to her, the case would be different—I should blush for her then, if she is vulgar. But merely as a guest, how can her dress or manners affect me. My position is not to be altered by my happening to visit a girl who dresses vilely, and flirts à discretion."
But still Emma looked very dubious, and only said, "Well, don't introduce me."
"Don't be alarmed," replied her sister. "I don't mean to. Come, come, Emma," she continued, laughing, "I see you are nervous about it, but I think you may trust me for carrying it off well," to which her sister replied,
"Well, Laura, if any one can get out of such a scrape gracefully, you will."
Mrs. Castleton laughed, and the subject dropped.
What Emma had said was true. There was an airy grace, a high-bred ease about Mrs. Castlelon, that could carry her through any thing she chose to undertake.
Thursday evening arrived at last. Mrs. Castleton's rooms were lighted to perfection, and she herself dressed with exquisite taste, looking the fitting priestess of the elegant shrine over which she presided. Emma, with her brothers, came early—and one glance satisfied Mrs. Castleton. The simplicity and elegance of Emma's toilette were not to be out-done even by her own. Tom looked at them both with great pride; and, certainly, two prettier or more elegant specimens of humanity are not often to be met with.
He made some playful observation to his sister, expressive of his admiration of her taste, and looking about, said,
"Your rooms are very well lighted. There's nothing like wax, after all."
"They are too hot," said Harry, pettishly.
"Bless you, man," replied Tom, "how can you say so. I am downright chilly; but as there is to be dancing, it is better it should be so."
"If you find this room warm, Harry," said Mrs. Castleton, "you had better go in the dancing-room—there is not a spark of fire there."
Harry walked off, and Emma said,
"I don't know what is the matter with him—he's so cross. He has been so irritable all day that I have hardly dared to speak to him."
Tom only laughed.
Mrs. Castleton gave him a quick look of intelligence, but before she had time to speak, she was called upon to receive her guests, who began to come.
At every fresh arrival Harry's face was to be seen peeping in anxiously from the dancing-room, and it wore something of a look of relief as he turned off each time to resume his restless wanderings in the still empty apartment.
Miss Dawson, meaning to be very fashionable, came late. The bride for whom the party was ostensibly given had arrived; and Mrs. Castleton was about giving orders to have the dancing-room thrown open, and just at the pause that frequently precedes such a movement in a small party, the door was thrown open, and Miss Dawson entered, leaning on the arm of a gentleman whom she introduced as Mr. Hardwicks. Now this Mr. Hardwicks was something more than Mrs. Castleton had bargained for; and Harry hastened forward with a look of some embarrassment and vexation as he perceived the mistake his fair friend had made in taking such a liberty with his high-bred sister. Miss Dawson had often taken him to parties with her, and somehow it had not struck him then as strange. Perhaps it was because he saw it was the style among those around him. But these were not the "customs of Branksome Hall;" and Harry was evidently annoyed. Moreover, this Mr. Hardwicks was a forward, under-bred looking individual, with a quantity of black whisker, and brass buttons to his claret-colored coat, altogether a very different looking person from the black-coated, gentlemanly-looking set that Mrs. Castleton had invited. She received him with a graceful but distant bow, somewhat annoyed, it is true; but as she never allowed trifles to disturb her, she turned calmly away, and never gave him a second thought during the evening.
Miss Dawson she received with empressement. She was dressed to her heart's delight, with a profusion of mock pearl and tinsel; her hair in a shower of long curls in front, with any quantity of bows and braids behind, and a wreath!—that required all Mrs. Castleton's self-possession to look at without laughing. Her entrance excited no little sensation—for she was a striking-looking girl, being tall, and full formed, with a very brilliant complexion. Simply and quietly dressed, and she would have been decidedly handsome; but as it was, she was intensely showy and vulgar.
"Harry, the music is just beginning; you will find a place for Miss Dawson in the dancing-room," and so, whether he would or no, he had to ask her to dance. Probably he would have done so if his sister had let him alone; but as it was, he felt as if he had to.
She danced very badly. Harry had not been aware of it before; but she jumped up and down—and if the truth must be told, with an air and spirit of enjoyment not just then the fashionable style.
"How in earnest your fair friend dances," said a young man, with a smile, to Harry, as they passed in the dance.
Harry colored.
"Who on earth have you there, Harry?" asked another, with rather a quizzical look. "Introduce me, wont you?" But Harry affected not to hear the request.
"Who is the young lady your brother is dancing with, Mrs. Castleton?" he heard asked several times; to which his sister answered in her sweetest and most winning manner, "Miss Dawson—a friend of Harry's;" and to some of her brother's particular friends, he heard her say, "Oh, that's Harry's belle. Don't you know Miss Dawson—let me introduce you."
Harry felt quite provoked, he did not know why, at hearing his sister couple him always with Miss Dawson; and if he thought the room hot at the beginning of the dance, he did not feel it any cooler before it was over.
Mrs. Castleton introduced a gentleman just as the dance finished, who asked her for the next, when Harry said quickly,
"You are fatigued, are you not? Perhaps you had better go with me and get an ice."
"Do you go and bring Miss Dawson one," said his sister. "I hope," she continued, "you are not fatigued already?"
"Oh, no," replied the young lady, with an animation and energy that proclaimed she had a dancing power within not to be readily exhausted. "Oh, no, indeed; I could dance all night."
"I am glad to hear it," said Mrs. Castleton, graciously, as if she felt her dancing a personal compliment. And before the dance was over she had introduced half a dozen young men to her.
Feeling herself a decided belle, Miss Dawson was in high spirits (that trying test to an unrefined woman.) She considered Mrs. Castleton's visit and invitation as a marked compliment, (as she had every right to do,) and her attentions now, and the admiration she received, excited her to even more than her ordinary animation, which was always, to say the least of it, sufficient. She laughed, and she talked, and shook her long curls about, and flirted in a style that made the ladies look, and the gentlemen smile. Moreover, Mr. Hardwicks, who knew no one else, (for Mrs. Castleton had no idea of forcing him on any of her friends,) never left her side; and the easy manner in which he spoke to her, and took her fan from her hand while she was talking, and even touched her sleeve to call her attention when her head was turned away, all of which she seemed to think quite natural, made Harry color, and bite his lip more than once with mortification and vexation.
"You are not going to waltz?" he said, justly distrusting the waltzing of a lady who danced so.
"Yes," she said, "with Mr. Hardwicks;" and in a moment they were whirling round in a style quite peculiar, and altogether new to the accomplished waltzers then and there assembled.
People looked, and some smiled—and then couple after couple paused in the dance to gaze on the strangers who had just taken the floor—and soon they had it all to themselves, and on they whirled like mad ones. Harry could not stand it—he left the room.
Presently some of his young friends followed him, who seemed excessively amused, and one of them exclaimed,
"Harry, where on earth did you pick up those extraordinary waltzers. Mrs. Castleton tells me they are friends of yours?"
Harry muttered something, and said,
"Hardwicks should not ask any woman to waltz. He did not know how; no man should, if he could not waltz himself."
"Are you dancing, Francis?" asked another, of a fashionable looking young man standing near.
"No," he replied, languidly, "I am exhausted. I danced with Harry's fair friend the last dance, and it requires no small degree of physical power to keep pace with her efforts."
Harry was excessively annoyed. He heartily wished he had never seen her; and was quite angry with Mrs. Castleton for having invited her. And just then, irritated and cross as he was, Mrs. Castleton met him with,
"Harry, Miss Dawson says you have carried off her bouquet."
"I have not got her bouquet," he answered, angrily.
"Well, go and make your own apology," and before he had time to know what she was about, she had her arm in his, and had taken him up to Miss Dawson, saying,
"Here is the culprit, Miss Dawson—but he pleads not guilty;" whereupon the young lady tapped him with her fan, and declared he was a "sad fellow," and shook her curls back, and looked up in his face, and flirted, as she thought, bewitchingly, while he with pleasure could have boxed her ears.
"Your carriage is at the door," Mrs. Castlelon heard him say soon after.
"Why, Harry!" exclaimed his sister, looking almost shocked at his evident desire to hurry away her guest. "You surely don't think of going yet. Miss Dawson?" said she, in her most persuasive manner. "You will dance this polka."
A polka! Harry was in despair. He would have preferred dancing on hot ploughshares himself.
"The scheme works to admiration," said Mrs. Castleton to Emma, as they met for a moment in the crowd.
"But it has spoiled your party," replied the other.
"Not at all," she answered, laughing, "what it has withdrawn in elegance, it has made up in spirit. The joke seems to take wonderfully."
But Emma did not like such "jokes." Mrs. Castleton's hauteur was of a more flexible kind. To spoil a match she was willing to spoil her party.
"Was I right?" she said to Tom, toward the close of the evening.
He nodded and laughed, and said, "I congratulate you."
Harry had in vain attempted to persuade Miss Dawson that she was heated and tired, and had better not polka; but the young lady thought him over-careful, and chose to dance.
"A willful thing!" muttered Harry, as he turned off. "Trifles show the temper—preserve me from an unamiable woman."
Now Miss Dawson was not unamiable, but Harry was cross. If he were ashamed of her, she was hardly to be expected to know that. At any rate he walked off and left her to take care of herself. Mr. Hardwicks took her home as he had brought her—and Harry hardly looked at her again.
He was thoroughly out of humor. Mrs. Castleton had discretion enough not to follow up her victory. She saw she was successful, and so left things to their own course.
Never was a "dissolving view" more perfect. Harry had really imagined Miss Dawson not only very beautiful, but thought she would grace any drawing-room in Europe. He now saw her hoydenish, flirty, and ungraceful, with beauty of a very unrefined style—in fact, a different person. Such is the power of contrast, and the effect of a "new light."
The spell was broken—for when a lover is mortified, ashamed of his choice, the danger is over.
Fortunately, his honor was no deeper pledged than his heart. Miss Dawson had not flirted more with him than with two or three others; and though she would have preferred him, one of the others would do.
"What did Harry say of my party last night?" asked Mrs. Castleton of her sister.
"He merely said 'it was a great bore, this going out,' and seemed quite cross, and took his light and walked off to his room immediately; and, in fact, it seemed such a delicate point with him, that I did not dare to make any allusion to it this morning."
"Poor fellow! I don't wonder," said Mrs. Castleton, laughing. "How she did look beside the Claverings and Lesters."
"Like a peony among moss rose-buds," said Emma.
"Laura," said Harry, a few days after, "I am going to New Orleans for the rest of the winter."
"Are you?" she said, in surprise.
"Yes. My father is anxious about that business of his, and I am going for him."
"I thought you had declined, and that he was going to send Tom," she said.
"I've changed my mind," he replied. "In fact it is very dull here, and as Tom don't want to go, I think I shall like the trip."
"I've no doubt you will find it very pleasant," she said, cheerfully, amused at his proposing himself the very thing they had all been so anxious to have him do, and which he had negatived so decidedly some weeks back.
"Ah, Tom," said Mrs. Castleton, laughing, "that was a bright idea of yours. There's nothing like a new light for bringing out new colors. I think that party of mine finished Miss Dawson."
"You need not crow too much, Laura," replied Tom, "for, in all probability, if you had left Harry alone in the beginning, the party never would have been required. You women never learn not to thwart and oppose a man until it is too late. Then, you'll move heaven and earth to undo your own work. If you would only govern that 'unruly member' in the beginning, you would have required no 'dissolving views, in the end."
THE VOICE OF THE FIRE.
BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.
They sat by the hearth-stone, broad and bright,
Whose burning brands threw a cheerful light
On the frosty calm of the winter's night.
Her radiant features wore the gleam
Which childhood learns from an angel-dream,
And her bright hair stirred in the flickering beam.
Those tresses soft to his lips were pressed,
Her head was leaned on his happy breast,
And the throb of the bosom his soul expressed;
And ever a gentle murmur came
From the clear, bright heart of the wavering flame,
Like the faltering thrill of a worshiped name.
He kissed her on the warm, white brow,
And told her in fonder words, the vow
He whispered under the moonlit bough;
And o'er them a steady radiance came
From the shining heart of the mounting flame,
Like a love that burns through life the same.
The maiden smiled through her joy-dimmed eyes,
As he led her spirit to sunnier skies,
Whose cloudless light on the future lies—
And a moment paused the laughing flame,
And it listened awhile, and then there came
A cheery burst from its sparkling frame.
He visioned a home by pure love blest,
Clasping their souls in a calmer rest,
Like woodland birds in their leafy nest.
There slept, foreshadowed, the bliss to be,
When a tenderer life that home should see,
In the wingless cherub that climbed his knee.
And the flame went on with its flickering song,
And beckoned and laughed to the lovers long,
Who sat in its radiance, red and strong.
Then broke and fell a glimmering brand
To the cold, dead ashes it fed and fanned,
And its last gleam leaped like an infant's hand.
A sudden dread to the maiden stole,
For the gloom of a sorrow seemed to roll
O'er the sunny landscape within her soul.
But, hovering over its smouldering bed,
Its ruddy pinions the flame outspread,
And again through the chamber its glory shed;
And ever its chorus seemed to be
The mingled voices of household glee,
Like a gush of winds in a mountain tree.
The night went on in its silent flow,
While through the waving and wreathéd glow
They watched the years of the Future go.
Their happy spirits learned the chime
Of its laughing voice and murmured rhyme—
A joyous music for aftertime.
They felt a flame as glorious start,
Where, side by side, they dwelt apart,
In the quiet homestead of the heart.
MARGINALIA.
BY EDGAR A. POE.
One of the happiest examples, in a small way, of the carrying-one's-self-in-a-hand-basket logic, is to be found in a London weekly paper called "The Popular Record of Modern Science; a Journal of Philosophy and General Information." This work has a vast circulation, and is respected by eminent men. Sometime in November, 1845, it copied from the "Columbian Magazine" of New York, a rather adventurous article of mine, called "Mesmeric Revelation." It had the impudence, also, to spoil the title by improving it to "The Last Conversation of a Somnambule"—a phrase that is nothing at all to the purpose, since the person who "converses" is not a somnambule. He is a sleep-waker—not a sleep-walker; but I presume that "The Record" thought it was only the difference of an l. What I chiefly complain of, however, is that the London editor prefaced my paper with these words:—"The following is an article communicated to the Columbian Magazine, a journal of respectability and influence in the United States, by Mr. Edgar A. Poe. It bears internal evidence of authenticity."!
There is no subject under heaven about which funnier ideas are, in general, entertained than about this subject of internal evidence. It is by "internal evidence," observe, that we decide upon the mind.
But to "The Record:"—On the issue of my "Valdemar Case," this journal copies it, as a matter of course, and (also as a matter of course) improves the title, as in the previous instance. But the editorial comments may as well be called profound. Here they are:
"The following narrative appears in a recent number of The American Magazine, a respectable periodical in the United States. It comes, it will be observed, from the narrator of the 'Last Conversation of a Somnambule,' published in The Record of the 29th of November. In extracting this case the Morning Post of Monday last, takes what it considers the safe side, by remarking—'For our own parts we do not believe it; and there are several statements made, more especially with regard to the disease of which the patient died, which at once prove the case to be either a fabrication, or the work of one little acquainted with consumption. The story, however, is wonderful, and we therefore give it.' The editor, however, does not point out the especial statements which are inconsistent with what we know of the progress of consumption, and as few scientific persons would be willing to take their pathology any more than their logic from the Morning Post, his caution, it is to be feared, will not have much weight. The reason assigned by the Post for publishing the account is quaint, and would apply equally to an adventure from Baron Munchausen:—'it is wonderful and we therefore give it.'...The above case is obviously one that cannot be received except on the strongest testimony, and it is equally clear that the testimony by which it is at present accompanied, is not of that character. The most favorable circumstances in support of it, consist in the fact that credence is understood to be given to it at New York, within a few miles of which city the affair took place, and where consequently the most ready means must be found for its authentication or disproval. The initials of the medical men and of the young medical student must be sufficient in the immediate locality, to establish their identity, especially as M. Valdemar was well known, and had been so long ill as to render it out of the question that there should be any difficulty in ascertaining the names of the physicians by whom he had been attended. In the same way the nurses and servants under whose cognizance the case must have come during the seven months which it occupied, are of course accessible to all sorts of inquiries. It will, therefore, appear that there must have been too many parties concerned to render prolonged deception practicable. The angry excitement and various rumors which have at length rendered a public statement necessary, are also sufficient to show that something extraordinary must have taken place. On the other hand there is no strong point for disbelief. The circumstances are, as the Post says, 'wonderful;' but so are all circumstances that come to our knowledge for the first time—and in Mesmerism every thing is new. An objection may be made that the article has rather a Magazinish air; Mr. Poe having evidently written with a view to effect, and so as to excite rather than to subdue the vague appetite for the mysterious and the horrible which such a case, under any circumstances, is sure to awaken—but apart from this there is nothing to deter a philosophic mind from further inquiries regarding it. It is a matter entirely for testimony. [So it is.] Under this view we shall take steps to procure from some of the most intelligent and influential citizens of New York all the evidence that can be had upon the subject. No steamer will leave England for America till the 3d of February, but within a few weeks of that time we doubt not it will be possible to lay before the readers of the Record information which will enable them to come to a pretty accurate conclusion."
Yes; and no doubt they came to one accurate enough, in the end. But all this rigmarole is what people call testing a thing by "internal evidence." The Record insists upon the truth of the story because of certain facts—because "the initials of the young men must be sufficient to establish their identity"—because "the nurses must be accessible to all sorts of inquiries"—and because the "angry excitement and various rumors which at length rendered a public statement necessary, are sufficient to show that something extraordinary must have taken place."
To be sure! The story is proved by these facts—the facts about the students, the nurses, the excitement, the credence given the tale at New York. And now all we have to do is to prove these facts. Ah!—they are proved by the story.
As for the Morning Post, it evinces more weakness in its disbelief than the Record in its credulity. What the former says about doubting on account of inaccuracy in the detail of the phthisical symptoms, is a mere fetch, as the Cockneys have it, in order to make a very few little children believe that it, the Post, is not quite so stupid as a post proverbially is. It knows nearly as much about pathology as it does about English grammar—and I really hope it will not feel called upon to blush at the compliment. I represented the symptoms of M. Valdemar as "severe," to be sure. I put an extreme case; for it was necessary that I should leave on the reader's mind no doubt as to the certainty of death without the aid of the Mesmerist—but such symptoms might have appeared—the identical symptoms have appeared, and will be presented again and again. Had the Post been only half as honest as ignorant, it would have owned that it disbelieved for no reason more profound than that which influences all dunces in disbelieving—it would have owned that it doubted the thing merely because the thing was a "wonderful" thing, and had never yet been printed in a book.
LETHE.
BY HENRY B. HIRST.
Agressi sunt mare tenebrarum id in eo exploraturi esset. Nubian Geographer.
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not for the world awake. "The Sleepers." Poe.
There is a lake whose lilies lie
Like maidens in the lap of death,
So pale, so cold, so motionless
Its Stygian breast they press;
They breathe, and toward the purple sky
The pallid perfumes of their breath
Ascend in spiral shapes, for there
No wind disturbs the voiceless air—
No murmur breaks the oblivious mood
Of that tenebrean solitude—
No Djinn, no Ghoul, no Afrit laves
His giant limbs within its waves
Beneath the wan Saturnian light
That swoons in the omnipresent night;
But only funeral forms arise,
With arms uplifted to the skies,
And gaze, with blank, cavernous eyes
In whose dull glare no Future lies,—
The shadows of the dead—the Dead
Of whom no mortal soul hath read,
No record come, in prose or rhyme,
Down from the dim Primeval Time!
A moment gazing—they are gone—
Without a sob—without a groan—
Without a sigh—without a moan—
And the lake again is left alone—
Left to that undisturbed repose
Which in an ebon vapor flows
Among the cypresses that stand
A stone-cast from the sombre strand—
Among the trees whose shadows wake,
But not to life, within the lake,
That stand, like statues of the Past,
And will, while that ebony lake shall last.
But when the more than Stygian night
Descends with slow and owl-like flight,
Silent as Death (who comes—we know—
Unheard, unknown of all below;)
Above that dark and desolate wave,
The reflex of the eternal grave—
Gigantic birds with flaming eyes
Sweep upward, onward through the skies,
Or stalk, without a wish to fly,
Where the reposing lilies lie;
While, stirring neither twig nor grass,
Among the trees, in silence, pass
Titanic animals whose race
Existed, but has left no trace
Of name, or size, or shape, or hue—
Whom ancient Adam never knew.
At midnight, still without a sound,
Approaching through the black Profound,
Shadows, in shrouds of pallid hue,
Come slowly, slowly, two by two,
In double line, with funeral march,
Through groves of cypress, yew and larch,
Descending in those waves that part,
Then close, above each silent heart;
While, in the distance, far ahead,
The shadows of the Earlier Dead
Arise, with speculating eyes,
Forgetful of their destinies,
And gaze, and gaze, and gaze again
Upon the long funereal train,
Undreaming their Descendants come
To make that ebony lake their home—
To vanish, and become at last
A parcel of the awful Past—
The hideous, unremembered Past
Which Time, in utter scorn, has cast
Behind him, as with unblenched eye,
He travels toward Eternity—
That Lethe, in whose sunless wave
Even he, himself, must find a grave!
EPITAPH ON A RESTLESS LADY.
The gates were unbarred—the home of the blest
Freely opened to welcome Miss C——;
But hearing the chorus that "Heaven is Rest,"
She turned from the angels to flee,
Saying, "Rest is no Heaven to me!"