The following to M. de la Morvonnais he must have received and read with intense emotion:
Cayla, 28th July, 1835.
Did you imagine, Monsieur, that I should not write to you any more? Oh! how mistaken you would have been! It was your journey to Paris, and, after that, other obstacles, which prevented my speaking to you earlier of Marie. But we will speak of her to-day; yes, let us speak of her, always of her; let her be always betwixt us. It is for her sake I write to you: first of all, because I love her and find it sweet to recall her memory; and then, because it seems to me that she is glad you should sometimes hear terms of expression that vividly recall her. I come, then, to remind you of that sacred resemblance so sweet to myself when it strikes you. How I bless God for having bestowed it upon me, and thus enabled me to do you some good! This shall be my mission with regard to you, and with what delight shall I fulfil it!
Do not say that there is any merit or act of profound charity in this acceptation. My heart goes out quite naturally toward those who weep, and I am happy as an angel when I can console. You tell me that your life will no longer have any bright side, that I can elicit nothing from you but sadness. I know this; but can that estrange me--I, who loved the Marie you weep? Ah! yes; let us weep over her; lean on me the while, if you will. To me it is not painful to receive tears: not that my heart is strong, as you believe, only it is Christian, and finds at the foot of the cross enough to enable it to support its own sorrows and those of others. Marie did the same . . . . let us seek to imitate the saints. You will teach this to your daughter beside the cross on that grave whither you often lead her. Poor little one! how I should like to see her, to accompany her in that pilgrimage to that tomb beside the sea, and under the pines, to pray, to weep there, to take her on my knees and speak to her of heaven and of her mother. This would be a joy to me: you know that there are melancholy ones.
We give only these little tastes of the charming volume, which will find its way, after the "journal," into many a circle, to afford in its perusal the most unqualified delight to all its readers.
THE VALLEY OF WYOMING; the Romance of its History and its Poetry; also Specimens of Indian Eloquence. Compiled by a Native of the Valley. 12mo, pp. 153. New York: R. H. Johnston & Co. 1866.
"This little volume," says the author in his prefatory note, "has not the slightest claim to be either a history or a study of romance." We are sorry that it has not, for we cannot see that (apart from the republication of Campbell's "Gertrude of Wyoming") it has the slightest claim to be anything else. We thank the author, however, for giving us the following amongst the specimens of Indian eloquence. It is part of the reply of the celebrated chief Red Jacket to a Protestant missionary,
"Brother, continue to listen. You say you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to his mind, and that if we do not take hold of the religion which you teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. How do we know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well as you, why has not the Great Spirit given it to us: and not only to us, but why did he not give to our forefathers the knowledge of that book, with the means of rightly understanding it? . . . . Brother, you say that there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agree, as you can all read the book?"
We should like to know what answer the missionary made, or could make, to that argument.
SHAKESPEARE'S DELINEATION OF INSANITY AND SUICIDE. By A. O. Kellogg, M.D., Assistant Physician State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N. Y. 12mo, pp. 204. New-York: Hurd and Houghton. 1866.
Dr. Kellogg's essays upon some of the characters in Shakespeare are the evidence of an expert in support and illustration of the intuitive apprehension and scientific fidelity of genius to truth. The difference between the creations of genius and those of industry is, to a certain degree, the difference between the limning of the sea and the laborious skill of the engraver. The mind gives its unquestioning and conscious assent to the psychological delineations of Shakespeare, but it is doubtful if Shakespeare ever made it a special subject of study. He was undoubtedly a thorough reader of the ancient classics, and a close and critical observer of the persons and events of his own time, and that we believe to have been the substance of his education, properly so called.