Finally, he determined upon a change of tactics. He spoke of the decay of Woodville; how it was falling behind every other town on the river—"Oh!" said he, "might but the Angel of Mercy be sent forth from before the Great White Throne, commissioned to proclaim to all the region round that there was a revival in Woodville, and what a change there would be! The people would flock here from every quarter; the hum of business would be heard in your streets; the steamers, whose bright wheels now go flashing past your wharf, would stay in their fleet career; these dense forests, which now lour around, would be hewn down and piled up for food for these vast leviathans; and thus a golden tide would pour in upon you; and Woodville would become the wealthiest, the most beautiful, and the happiest place on the banks of the great Father of Waters!"
A chord had been touched in the hitherto insensible hearts of the Woodvillers. Thought, emotion, feeling, were aroused; and soon the strange electric sympathy of mind with mind was excited. The emotion spread and increased; the anxious seats were thronged; and a powerful, and to all appearance genuine revival of religion ensued. The character of Woodville was entirely changed; and from that time it has continued to be one of the most moral, quiet, thriving, and prosperous of all the minor towns upon the Mississippi.
Turning our eye Paris-ward, our first emotion is one of sorrow—for their sakes and our own—at the present sad fate of our French brethren of the quill. The bayonet has pitted itself against the pen, and has come off victor—for the time being. The most immediate sufferers are doubtless political writers, who must stretch their lucubrations upon the Procrustean bed furnished by the Prince-President. But the sparkling feuilletonists who blow up such brilliant bubbles of romance from the prosaic soap-and-water of every-day life, can not escape. How can Fancy have free play when the Fate-like shears of the Censure or the mace of the new press-law are suspended over its head? Besides, the lynx-eye of despotism may detect a covert political allusion in the most finely-wrought romance of domestic life. The delicate touches by which the feuilletonist sought to depict the fate of the deserted girl whose body was fished up from the Seine, may be thought to bear too strongly upon the fate of poor Liberté, betrayed and deserted by her quondam adorer, the Nephew of his Uncle; in which case, the writer would find himself forced to repent of his pathos behind the gratings of a cell, while his publisher's pocket would suffer the forfeiture of the 'caution-money.' Parisian gossip can not, under such circumstances, furnish us any thing very lively, but must content itself with chronicling the brilliant but tiresome receptions of the Elysée.
An occasional claw is however protruded through the velvet paws upon which French society creeps along so daintily in these critical days, showing that the propensity to scratch is not extinct, though for the present, as far as the President and his doings are concerned, "I dare not waits upon I would" in the cat-like Parisian salon life.
The subject of gossip most thoroughly French in its character, which has of late days passed current, is one of which the final scene was Genoa, and the prominent actor unfortunately an American. We touch upon the leading points of this as they pass current from lip to lip.
Our readers have no great cause of regret if they have never before heard of, or have entirely forgotten, a certain so-called "Chevalier" Wykoff, who, a few years since, gained an unenviable notoriety, in certain circles in this country, as the personal attendant of the famous danseuse, Fanny Elssler. Since that time the Chevalier has occasionally shown his head above water in connection with Politics, Literature, Fashion, and Frolic.
In due course of years the Chevalier grew older if not wiser, and became anxious to assume the responsibilities of a wife—provided that she was possessed of a fortune. It chanced that, about these times, a lady whom he had known for many years, without having experienced any touches of the tender passion, was left an orphan with a large fortune. The sympathizing Chevalier was prompt with his condolences at her irreparable loss, and soon established himself in the character of confidential friend.
The lady decides to visit the Continent to recruit her shattered health. The Chevalier—sympathizing friend that he is—is at once convinced that there is for him no place like the Continent.