It may be that all beauteous things,
Though lacking music's perfect key,
Have with their inmost being twined
The hidden chords of melody.
So pine they all, to hear again
The song they know, but cannot sing;
The living utterance, full and clear,
Whose voiceless breathings round them cling.
Yet still those accents waken not;
The bird has left the linden tree;
A summer silence falls once more
Upon the listening rose and me.
A DETECTIVE'S STORY.
The following is a true story, by a late well-known member of the Detective service, and, with, the exception of some names of persons and places, is given precisely as he himself related it.
Late one Friday afternoon, in the latter part of November, 18—, I was sent for by the chief of the New York Police, and was told there was a case for me. It was a counterfeiting affair. Notes had been forged on a Pennsylvania bank; two men had been apprehended, and were in custody. The first, Springer, had turned State's evidence on his accomplice; who, according to his account, was the prime mover in the business. This man, Daniel Hawes by name, had transferred the notes to a third party, of whom nothing had been ascertained except that he was a young man, wrote a beautiful hand, and had been in town the Monday before. He was the man I was to catch.
It was sundown when I left the superintendent's office. I had not much to guide me: there were hundreds of young men who wrote a beautiful hand, and had been in town last Monday. But I did not trouble myself about what I did not know: I confined myself to what I did know. Upon reflection I thought it probable that my man had been in intimate relations with Hawes for the last few days, probably since Monday last, although it was not known that he had been in town since that day. He might not be a resident in the city; but I decided to seek him here—since, if he had not left town before the arrest of Springer and Hawes, he would not just now run the risk of falling into the hands of the police by going to any railroad station or steamer wharf.
I determined, therefore, to follow up the track of Hawes, and thereby, if possible, strike that of his confederate—which was, in fact, all that could be done.