Ah! there was a foam, a sparkle, a sort of frost-work fizzling upon those mead-glasses, which we shall never see again, Jeremy!—NEVER! Champagne, bubble it ever so brightly, pales in its ineffectual rivalry with the memory of the snowy effervescence, which crowned the goblet at “Bamford’s!” With the freshness of life’s morning, has “Bamford” and his “imperial” melted away! and the place which knew them and us is known no more. The old blue frame, with an attic in its first story, and its window all awry, is gone!—as if to join those bright dreams which have floated into the unattainable. The very dew of the heart of each of us has been exhaled, and with those laughing hours has gone, upward we trust, to enjoy sunshine and smiles with the angels.
Do you know that I cannot look upon the staring brick edifice which covers that hallowed ground, without thinking it a desecration? and feeling a sort of unbidden wish for a circumscribed earthquake! Is it not enough that the heart shrivels and grows cold in its calloused casement, under the blighting influences of the god of this world—that Mammon must bridge over and entomb the small spot that memory has consecrated to truth; so that the scared conscience shall be watered no more at the fountain at which in youth the heart’s secrets of each of us were mirrored. Must even the green places which we remember in the past be obliterated forever?—the points from which, with imprisoned impulses and high hopes, we started into that untried and beckoning world, which, as a prism to the young eye, varied its fanciful and attractive colors as we advanced, forever changing, forever deceptive, until the heart, jaded and wearied with the cheat, started from its dreams of bliss, to dream—to hope—no more.
It is enough that the heart changes—that all that we looked forward to in youth, hopefully and trustfully, fades as we advance. That the path which before us was verdant and full of flowers, is sterile and strewn with ashes, as we tread it now; and instead of the songs of birds, which filled the grove and made the air vocal, and the heart happy, we have but the melancholy dirge—the funeral wail of autumn—sweeping with moaning sound through the unleafed trees—a sad sky above our heads—and withered leaves beneath our feet!
Ah! how sadly have we changed!—“We Three!” What bitter heart experiences have we treasured up! How many of “the world’s” dark lessons do we know! Would not either of us give all that we have learned for one hour of the unshadowed happiness of those young days? Could we but go back again to taste it—did you ever muse on this?—would we change as we have, or remain as we were, think you? With but a slice of a year’s experience—as years roll by us now—to start with as a capital, would we be as wordly-wise—in any way as worldly—as we are? I think not. We should quaff its knowledge more sparingly, believe me, in a Bamford-reminiscence, vividly intermingled with that slight appreciation of men as we know them! We should treasure those heart bubbles, which the world has blown into air! Should we not, Jeremy?
G. R. G.
Industry and Perseverance.—The power of these two qualities to overcome almost every difficulty is well exemplified in the case of Bulwer, the novelist. When he first commenced writing, he found it to be very hard work. Bently says he worked his way to eminence through failure and ridicule. His facility is only the result of practice and study. He wrote at first very slowly, and with great difficulty; but he resolved to master his stubborn instrument of thought, and mastered it. He has practiced writing as an art, and has re-written some of his essays (unpublished) nine or ten times over. Another habit will show the advantage of continuous application. He only works about three hours a day—from ten in the morning till one—seldom later. The evenings, when alone, are devoted to reading, scarcely ever to writing. Yet what an amount of good hard labor has resulted from these three hours! He writes very rapidly, averaging 20 pages a day of novel print.
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
Lays and Ballads. By Thomas Buchanan Read. Philadelphia: Geo. S. Appleton. 12mo. pp. 140.