“GRAHAM” TO “JEREMY SHORT.”
My Dear Jeremy,—Do you ever think of our boarding-school loves, and wonder where all those bright eyes, which used to blaze as from a battery upon us from that pyramid of laughing faces, rising one above the other to the topmost pane of those ample windows, are weeping or laughing now? Do you promenade on the west side, as of yore, without a sigh, and gaze into those deserted windows, from which smiles and rose-tinted notes were showered down upon us with such munificence, without a thought of the fair hands and glad hearts which then gave a sort of sunlight to our devotion—the Mecca to which we turned in our morning prayers and evening rambles? Is it not a sad thought, that as we journey through life, the very innocency of boyhood, the first fresh feelings of the heart, are things of which it is conventional to be ashamed? As if it were a happiness, which we should call a conquest, to learn the bitter lessons of life, at a sacrifice of all the fond recollections of youth, a triumph to know the secret of deceiving with smiles, and of wringing the hand kindly, of people we despise. Yet must we learn the uses of adversity by time, and feel that the brightest of our days are passed forever; that hope, having cheated us for a thousand times, has become bankrupt in our esteem, while the past, brilliant and certain in joys experienced, recalls with the flitting present, doubts of true happiness for us again. It is a stern lesson—that which experience teaches us as we advance in years, to live a life of distrust and doubt, to believe all goodness assumed, and friendship but a cheat; to think that every man’s hand is either raised against his brother, or is thrust into his pocket, and that there is no such thing as self-sacrifice, except among the Hindoos.
But, Jeremy, not to speak of instances, all of which must be as fresh to your memory as to mine, I come back to the first question—do you ever think of our boarding-school loves? and mingle with the remembrance those unexpressed hopes and fears which flutter in the hearts of all of us. My falcon towered above yours in ambition then; nothing less than a mistress of rhetoric and belles letters tempted the magnificent swoop of my poetry and ambition; yours had a fierce and Byronic generality, which made it dangerous for the whole covey of lesser birds. How many were you in love with, Jeremy? At least, how many were made goddesses by your poetry? “You decline,” under present circumstances matrimonial. Well, a man with a growing family, I suppose, owes something to appearances and to example. I have no such excuse to plead, and can be as open as the day.
I really was in love then, Jeremy. Don’t you think so? But I was as jealous as a Turk—a passion which you, from a lack of concentration, thought very unreasonable. It was, too, considering that it was engendered before I had ever spoken to the lady, and finally exploded very foolishly, and harmlessly, too, I believe, upon the head of an innocent old teacher of Latin Grammar, or something of that sort, old enough to be the lady’s grandfather, who would be looking over her album. I wrote my last piece of poetry after that, which did my business in that quarter, for the lady refused to see me or my poetry any more. The loss, I think, was hers in the long run, though I suffered with a heart-ache and prospective suicide for a month or two. I was very much like the poor man in the story book, however,
“For when I saw my eyes were out,
With all my might and main,
I jumped into another bush,
And scratched them in again.”
The process was a rough one, and left a scar behind. I never saw the lady but once afterward, and that was at Niblo’s. I confess to a heart-fluttering, Jeremy, and some of that Spanish fierceness for making declarations, which you used to laugh at; but fortune or fate denied me means and opportunity; when the Vaudeville was over she was led off by her party—and I lost her.
“I saw her depart as the crowd hurried on,
Like the moon down the ocean, the graceful was gone!
On my ear her adieu, with its dulcimer swell,
Like the gush of cool waters in melody fell.
“Starry stranger! so dazzlingly distant—unknown—
And observed in thy luminous transit alone;
By what fiat supreme must thy brilliancy quiver
O’er the depths of my darkened existence forever!”
But our old friend C——, he’s married now, and is the happy father of eight children, I believe. He always had an insane passion for crowds. Do you remember the night he escorted the whole boarding-school home with his umbrella; he always would, like the author of “Calavar,” have his umbrella with him—a green one—and this night the gods were propitious. It blew a hurricane, and the rain came pitching down in sheets, as if Niagara had attached a spout to the passing clouds. C—— plied between the concert-room and the boarding-school, with the regularity and precision of a Brooklyn ferry-boat, showing his regard for the fair. After having deposited the fifteenth damsel safely, he totally upset the propriety of an elderly lady who opened the door with a polite invitation for him to “walk in”—an open sesame worth a ducat—with the information that “he was afraid some more of the folks were without umbrellas, and he must see them home!” A spirit of self-denial and enlarged philanthropy worthy of a martyr.
Do you remember the exploits of S—— with those gay girls? He was a determined dandy and lady-killer, and resolved to take the whole school by storm, and to punish the refractory. But some how or other they wouldn’t be taken; so after firing into the flock a dozen times, with his most distinguished bow, and letting off a whole volley of passionate verses upon imprisoned damsels generally without execution—for no enamored Julia threw herself at his feet, or replied—he resolved to pick his bird. S—— had a cousin who visited a Miss T——, who was immured in that dungeon which frowned most terrifically, in S.’s mind, upon those within as well as those without; and he made, through this channel, her acquaintance. A walk to church in company with his cousin and Miss T—— perfected his little plot of taking the whole castle by this entrance; but a simple incident destroyed the forces of the enemy, and routed him, horse, foot, and dragoons. A violent storm came on while they were at church one Sunday evening, and the streets were flooded when they came out. The storm had passed, however, and a dull moon lent but a feeble light to the escort. S—— dropped his cousin at her door—it was the first chance he had, and starting on with Miss T——, opened the batteries of the sentimental upon his victim in most magnificent strength and style. As they crossed Canal street, S——, who had been carefully piloting the way, releasing the lady’s arm gently from his, and taking hold of the tips of those taper fingers with a grace that D’Orsey could not have excelled, requested her to “please step upon that stone,”—which the dull moon had made in the water—and, presto! the lady stepped into a pool which would have discolored the belt of a grenadier of six feet; and in his horror at his mistake, S—— missed his footing, and plunged in with a dive that would have gained him admirers in frogdom.
You remember the wit of Miss T——; she was out of the water almost before he was in it, and turning round with a gay laugh at the discomfited dandy, begged that “if his thoughts of suicide were confirmed, to try the river the next time, but she must decline being either the disconsolate mourner, or a party to the folly!” and with a light trip was off, up the steps, and had rung the bell before S—— could gasp an apology.
This, with most men, would have been a settler, but S——’s vanity was water and bullet-proof both. He dispatched the whole affair, to his own satisfaction, in a sonnet; and the next day, at two, strode past the school with the step of a conqueror, the mark of a score of quizzing-glasses and laughing faces. S—— bore the infliction this once with a nerve that would have taken any man to the cannon’s mouth. But he grew fiery and retaliatory under its repetition. “I will settle this business with a twenty-four pounder,” said he; and he did. The next day S—— begged the spy-glass of an old pilot, and walking calmly down with his dexter-eye on the enemy, surprised his forces by a cool, steady, deliberate gaze through his blunderbuss with glasses. The mistress ended the flirtation and supposed conquest by a threat, delicately conveyed, that “any future conduct of the kind would be intimated to the police.”
S—— determined to “die game,” and marched by with his Spanish mantle on each particular cold day, with the step of a grenadier; but fate, jealous of his valor, tripped him up one exceedingly wintry afternoon, when boys were experimenting with skates upon the side-walk. Poor S——, who had given his cloak an extra turn over his shoulders, fell at full length exactly opposite the window of the boarding-school, and floundered in his vain attempts to extricate himself, like a salmon thrown upon the land, his “Oakford” most ruinously crushed by a passing omnibus; and to crown his confusion, in the midst of a dozen windows suddenly thrown up, an Irish cabman hastened to his rescue, and having unrolled him and placed him on his feet, considerately asked, within hearing of two score of ears, “whether he had been long there?” The glory of the conqueror was gone!
“So fades, so languishes, grows dim, and dies,
All that this world is proud of.”
The bright faces, laughing eyes, and happy hearts of our youth, with its early friendships, have been replaced with sadder views of life, and you and I, Jeremy, are older—the world would say, wiser—but are we happier, Jeremy, think you?
G. R. G.
Mrs. Davidson.—We present our reader this month with a well engraved portrait of Mrs. Davidson, the mother of the celebrated and talented girls Margaret and Lucretia Davidson, made immortal as well by their own genius as by the beautiful volumes of their works, edited by Washington Irving and Miss Sedgwick, and published by Lea & Blanchard in 1841. Lucretia was born in Plattsburg, New York, on the 27th of September, 1808, and died on the 27th of August, 1825, just one month before her 17th birth-day. Margaret was born at the same place, on the 26th of March, 1823, and died on the 25th of November, 1838, at the early age of fifteen years and eight months. The early fate and singular genius of these youthful poets occupied for so long a time the attention and sympathy of the literary world, that it is needless for us to say much here, but we cannot refrain from quoting two passages from a distinguished critic upon their works.
“The name of Lucretia Davidson is familiar to all readers of poetry. Dying at the early age of 17, she has been rendered famous not less, and certainly not more, by her own precocious genius than by three memorable biographies, one by President Morse of the American Society of Arts, one by Miss Sedgwick, and a third by Robert Southey. Mr. Irving had formed an acquaintance with some of her relatives, and thus, while in Europe, took great interest in all that was written or said of his young countrywomen. Upon his return to this country, he called upon Mrs. Davidson, and then, in 1833, first saw the subject of the memoir, a fairy-like child of eleven. Three years having again elapsed, the MSS., which formed the basis of his volume, were placed in his hands by Mr. Davidson, as all that remained of his daughter. Few books have interested us more profoundly. Yet the interest does not appertain solely to Margaret. In fact, the narrative, says Mr. Irving, ‘will be found almost as illustrative of the character of the mother as the child; they were singularly identified in taste, feeling and pursuits: tenderly entwined together by maternal and filial affection, they reflected an inexpressibly touching grace and interest upon each other by this holy relationship, and, to my mind, it would be marring one of the most beautiful and affecting groups in modern literature to sunder them.’ In these words the biographer conveys no more than a just idea of the loveliness of the picture here presented to view.”
“In the way of criticism upon these extraordinary compositions, Mr. Irving has attempted little. . . . In respect to a poem entitled “My Sister Lucretia,” he thus speaks, ‘We have said that the example of her sister Lucretia was incessantly before her, and no better proof can be given of it than the following lines, which breathe the heavenly aspirations of her pure young spirit, in strains quite unearthly. We may have read poetry more artificially perfect in its structure, but never any more truly divine in its inspiration.’”
“Lucretia Maria Davidson, the elder of the two sweet sisters, who have acquired so much fame prematurely, had not, like Margaret, an object of poetical emulation in her own family. In her genius, be it what it may, there is more of self-dependence—less of the imitative. Her mother’s generous romance of soul may have stimulated but did not instruct. Thus, although she has actually given less evidence of power than Margaret—less written proof—still its indication must be considered at higher value. Margaret, we think, has left the better poems—certainly the more precocious—while Lucretia evinces more unequivocally the soul of a poet.”
We had intended to have said more of the mother—since deceased—of these remarkable girls, but our space warns us, that in this number, it is impossible. Enough has been indicated above, to show her strong sympathy with her daughter’s tastes, and how much she aided in forming them.
The January Number.—We confess to a great degree of pride, from the reception of our January number, by the newspaper press all over the country, and from the regular subscribers to the work. It has been pronounced, indeed, in several influential quarters, “The best number of a monthly magazine ever issued in the language,” and this not alone from the number and beauty of the embellishments—every one of which imparted a value as a work of art to the number—but from the worth, variety and amount of literary matter. In issuing a double number to our readers, we were fully aware that we were repaying but a part of what we owe them, for the liberal encouragement extended to us for a period of ten years, without deviation or diminution; but we were scarcely prepared for the large increase to our list of new friends which, in two cities alone, extended to over three thousand new names.
From every part of the country each mail comes freighted with clubs from persons with whose subscriptions we have not heretofore been honored, and our old friends, with astonishing unanimity, continue to cling to “Graham as the best and only good Magazine” amidst the mass of periodicals which now make up in noise and promises, what they lack in merit and ability to perform. To say that we are not flattered by this mark of favor extended to us by the readers of this country would be useless, but so far from this fact lessening our exertions, it only spurs us on to new endeavors to maintain that ascendancy over all others which we have always held, by issuing a Magazine incomparably better than any that attempts to rival it.
Our February number, we think, will show no falling off in our exertions, and the two numbers of the volume are an earnest of what our readers may expect during the whole year of 1849. May it prove a prosperous and happy one to our subscribers, as it has opened auspiciously for ourselves.
A New Sea Story.—We are gratified to be able to announce a new Sea Story for the pages of Graham’s Magazine, by W. F. Lynch, of the navy, whose recent explorations of the Dead Sea and vicinity, have so much occupied the attention of the newspapers and scientific bodies generally. The story is written with marked ability, and will be quite an attraction in the coming numbers of Graham.
Our Premium Plate.—We shall forward promptly to clubs and subscribers entitled to our large premium plate, copies, carefully done up for preservation, as soon as the artist completes it. It will be a very beautiful parlor ornament when properly framed.
Our Fashion Plate for this month has been delayed by the ocean steamer, and as we issue this number early, we postpone it till next month.
Painted by Cook Engd by Rawdon, Wright & Hatch
(OUR CONTRIBUTORS)
Mrs. M. M. Davidson
Engraved Expressly for Graham’s Magazine
THE BELLS OF OSTEND.
WRITTEN ON A BEAUTIFUL MORNING AFTER A STORM,
BY W. L. BOWLES,
THE MUSIC COMPOSED AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO
SAMUEL MOFFAT JR. ESQ. OF ALBANY,
BY J. HILTON JONES.
No, I never, till life and its shadows shall end,
Can forget the sweet sound of the bells of Ostend!
The day set in darkness, the wind it blew loud,
And rung as it pass’d thro’ each
murmuring shroud.
My forehead was wet with the foam of the spray,
My heart sighed in secret for those far away;
When slowly the morning advanc’d from the east,
The toils and the noise of the tempest had ceased:
The peal from a land I ne’er saw seemed to say,
Let the stranger forget all his sorrow to-day.
SECOND VERSE.
Yet the short-lived emotion was mingled with pain—
I thought of those eyes I should ne’er see again;
I thought of the kiss, the last kiss which I gave,
And a tear of regret fell unseen on the wave;
I thought of the schemes fond affection had planned,
Of the trees, of the towers of my own native land;
But still the sweet sounds, as they swelled on the air
Seemed tidings of pleasure, though mournful to bear;
And I never, till life and its shadows shall end,
Can forget the sweet sound of the bells of Ostend.
For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals available for preparation of the ebook. In the story [The Wager of Battle], the Chapter VI heading is missing due to being absent from the original publication. Hyphenation and archaic spellings have been retained. Punctuation has been corrected without note. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected as noted below.
page 90, leaves are sear, ==> leaves are [sere],
page 93, to make their ==> to make [to] their
page 104, whispered a page ==> whispered [to] a page
page 106, cylinders and guaging ==> cylinders and [gauging]
page 107, for the denouément ==> for the [dénouement]
page 107, I glad ==> I [am] glad
page 110, from all wordly ==> from all [worldly]
page 111, none was politec ==> none was [politic]
page 111, of their Lupercalla ==> of their [Lupercalia]
page 113, the wordly advantages ==> the [worldly] advantages
page 113, Mendelsshon’s music ==> [Mendelssohn’s] music
page 114, Druid chorusses ==> Druid [choruses]
page 119, Greydon, then she ==> Greydon, [than] she
page 121, tonge of flame ==> [tongue] of flame
page 125, from a regime forcé ==> from a [régime] forcé
page 127, merchans of celebrity ==> [merchants] of celebrity
page 128, ask him them ==> ask him [then]
page 132, sod have been ==> sod [had] been
page 132, sear turf of ==> [sere] turf of
page 145, havn’t told us ==> [haven’t] told us
page 146, physican arrived ==> [physician] arrived
page 150, maiden-thought be- becomes ==> maiden-thought [becomes]
page 151, style and rythm ==> style and [rhythm]
page 152, invaluabte companion ==> [invaluable] companion
page 153, with the orginal ==> with the [original]
page 154, down and mak ==> down and [make]
page 155, was her’s ==> was [hers]
page 155, an open sessame ==> an open [sesame]