The door was opened, and who but Sansecrat stood before me.
"Have you heard the news?" was the first interrogatory of my friend Arcanus, in reply to which Sansecrat said that he knew it all half an hour previous,—was at the railroad station when the express arrived, and was the first man to open the Southern papers.
In vain Arcanus told him that the information came by a private letter. He averred, point blank, that it was no such thing; that he had the papers in his pocket; and was about to exhibit them as proof of what he had said, when he suddenly recollected that he had sold them to an editor for one-and-sixpence.
Notwithstanding the proverb of "Man, know thyself," Sansecrat seems to know everything but himself. Thousands of times has it been said that man can see innumerable faults and foibles in his neighbors, but none in himself. Very true; and man can see his own character, just as he can see his own face in a mirror. His own associates mirror forth his own character; and the faults, be they great or small, that he sees in them, are but the true reflection of his own errors. Yet, blind to this, and fondly imagining that he is the very "pink of excellence," he flatters his own vain feeling with the cherished idea that, while others have faults, he has none, and so slumbers on in the sweet repose of ignorance.
Sansecrat imagines that he knows everything; that to teach him would be like "carrying coals to Newcastle," or sending ship-loads of ice to Greenland, or furnaces to the coast of Africa; yet he is as ignorant as the greatest dunce, who, parrot-like, repeats that he has heard, without having the least understanding of what he says.
Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that Sansecrat will prosper in the world; for, though destitute of those qualifications which render their possessor worthy of success, he has an abundance of brazen-facedness, with which he will work himself into the good opinion of not a few, who look more closely upon exterior appearance than they do upon inward worth, and judge their fellowmen more by the good quality of their cloth than by the good quality of their hearts, and set more value on a shining hat and an unpatched boot than they do on a brilliant intellect and a noble soul.
PRIDE AND POVERTY.
I CANNOT brook the proud. I cannot love
The selfish man; he seems to have no heart;
And why he lives and moves upon this earth
Which God has made so fair, I cannot tell.
He has no soul but that within his purse,
And all his hopes are centred on its fate;
That lost, and all is lost.
I knew a man
Who had abundant riches. He was proud,—
Too oft the effect of riches when abused,—
His step was haughty, and his eye glanced at
The honest poor as base intruders on
The earth he trod and fondly called his own;
Unwelcome guests at Nature's banqueting.
Years passed away,—that youth became a man;
His beetled brow, his sullen countenance,
His eye that looked a fiery command,
Betrayed that his ambition was to rule.
He smiled not, save in scorn on humble men,
Whom he would have bow down and worship him.
Thus with his strength his pride did grow, until
He did become aristocrat indeed.
The humble beggar, whose loose rags scarce gave
Protection to him from the cold north wind,
He scarce would look upon, and vainly said,
As in his hand he held the ready coin,
"No mortal need be poor,—'t is his own fault
If such he be;—if he court poverty,
Let all its miseries be his to bear."
'T is many years since he the proud spake thus,
And men and things have greatly changed since then.
No more in wealth he rolls,—men's fortunes change.
I met a lonely hearse, slowly it passed
Toward the church-yard. 'T was unattended
Save by one old man, and he the sexton.
With spade beneath his arm he trudged along,
Whistling a homely tune, and stopping not.
He seemed to be in haste, for now and then
He'd urge to quicker pace his walking beast,
With the rough handle of his rusty spade.
Him I approached, and eagerly inquired
Whose body thus was borne so rudely to
Its final resting-place, the deep, dark grave.
"His name was Albro," was the prompt reply.
"Too proud to beg, we found him starved to death,
In a lone garret, which the rats and mice
Seemed greatly loth to have him occupy.
An' I, poor Billy Matterson, whom once
He deemed too poor and low to look upon,
Am come to bury him."
The sexton smiled,—
Then raised his rusty spade, cheered up his nag,
Whistled as he was wont, and jogged along.
Oft I have seen the poor man raise his hand
To wipe the eye when good men meet the grave,—
But Billy Matterson, he turned and smiled.
The truth flashed in an instant on my mind,
Though sad, yet deep, unchanging truth to me.
'T was he, thus borne, who, in his younger days,
Blest with abundance, used it not aright.
He, who blamed the poor because they were such;
Behold his end!-too proud to beg, he died.
A sad example, teaching all to shun
The rock on which he shipwrecked,—warning take,
That they too fall not as he rashly fell.
WORDS THAT TOUCH THE INNER HEART.
WORDS, words! O give me these,
Words befitting what I feel,
That I may on every breeze
Waft to those whose riven steel
Fetters souls and shackles hands
Born to be as free as air,
Yet crushed and cramped by Slavery's bands,—
Words that have an influence there.
Words, words! give me to write
Such as touch the inner heart;
Not mere flitting forms of light,
That please the ear and then depart;
But burning words, that reach the soul,
That bring the shreds of error out,
That with resistless power do roll,
And put the hosts of Wrong to rout.
Let others tune their lyres, and sing
Illusive dreams of fancied joy;
But, my own harp,—its every string
Shall find in Truth enough employ.
It shall not breathe of Freedom here,
While millions clank the galling chain;
Or e'en one slave doth bow in fear,
Within our country's broad domain.
Go where the slave-gang trembling stands,
Herded with every stable stock,—
Woman with fetters on her hands,
And infants on the auction-block!
See, as she bends, how flow her tears!
Hark! hear her broken, trembling sighs;
Then hear the oaths, the threats, the jeers,
Of men who lash her as she cries!
O, men! who have the power to weave
In poesy's web deep, searching thought,
Be truth thy aim; henceforward leave
The lyre too much with fancy fraught!
Come up, and let the words you write
Be those which every chain would break,
And every sentence you indite
Be pledged to Truth for Freedom's sake.