With a dash of cayenne, to make one sneeze
It is hot and strong, but it’s rather queer,
Of the ground pepper-corn, there is none of it here.
E. Lawson Finerty.
——:o:——
BEAUTIFUL SNOW.
In the early part of the American civil war, one dark morning in the dead of winter, there died at the Commercial Hospital, Cincinnati, a young woman over whose head only two-and-twenty summers had passed. Once the pride of respectable parentage, her first wrong step was the small beginning of the “same old story over again,” which has been the only life-history of thousands. Highly educated and accomplished in manners, she might have shone in the best of Society. But the evil hour that proved her ruin was but the door from childhood; and having spent a young life in disgrace and shame, the poor friendless one died the melancholy death of a broken-hearted outcast.
Among her personal effects was found in manuscript, the “Beautiful Snow,” which was seen by Enos B. Reed, a gentleman of culture and literary tastes, who was at that time editor of the National Union. In the columns of that paper, on the morning following the girl’s death, the poem appeared in print for the first time. When the paper containing the poem came out on Sunday morning, the body of the victim had not yet received burial. The attention of Thomas Buchanan Read, one of the first American poets, was soon directed to the newly-published lines, who was so taken with their stirring pathos that he followed the corpse to its final resting-place.
The above account of the origin of the poem is that given by Mr. James Hogg, as far back as 1874, and repeated by him in the columns of “Notes and Queries” on July 3, 1875, but it is open to considerable doubt.
Some American writers ascribe it to Mr. James M. Watson, whilst others assert that it was written as far back as December, 1852, by Major W. A. Sigourney, and that his erring young wife was the miserable outcast described in the poem. It is also stated that on the night of April 22, 1871, Major Sigourney was found dead in the outskirts of New York, under circumstances leading to the belief that he had shot himself.