'I felt the leaves were shed,
I felt the birds were dead:
And on the earth I snowed the winter of my soul!'
Expressive words, and only too true! * * * Not less than a 'good many' readers of the Knickerbocker can 'place' the parties who figure in this little anecdote, which we are assured is entirely authentic: 'A young lady named Taylor, meeting a former acquaintance named Mason, at a party, where the latter was assuming any quantity of importance in consequence of her wealth, and who did not deign to notice her, revenged herself by stepping into the group surrounding the haughty belle, and thus addressing her, with the most winning smile: 'I have been thinking, my dear Miss Mason, that we ought to exchange names.' 'Why, indeed?' 'Because my name is Taylor, and my father was a mason; and your name is Mason, and your father was a tailor.' There was a scene then; but there was no help for it. * * * 'I was exceedingly amused,' writes a Boston friend, 'by your double-brace of 'The Practical Jokes of the late Colonel E. L. Snow.' I knew that original 'Joker' well. There was never any mischief in his fun: it was always harmless and always good-natured. I spent a winter four years ago in your 'Great Metropolis,' and saw much of 'The Colonel' in the very barber's shop which you designate. One cold blustering morning he came in, and as he took his seat in the 'operator's chair,' he said, with a 'wondering' expression of countenance: 'That is a strange thing about the Fountain: it's frozen over sixty feet high!' 'Is that so?' asked three or four gentlemen, seated on a sofa, waiting their 'turn.' 'Yes: it's a fact: I saw it myself before I came in.' Out they rushed, to the Park Fountain, which at that time used to throw up its white column of water into the clear, cold air. Pretty soon they came back 'disgusted,' and looking daggers at Snow, 'It's all a lie!' they said: 'the Fountain is playing eighty feet high: Humbug!' 'No humbug at all,' responded the 'Colonel:' 'I meant the Fountain in Union-Square! It's a good deal more than sixty feet high from here; and I saw it frozen solid not more than half-an-hour ago!' 'The laugh' was on the other side now: but the victims were good-natured fellows, and laughed as heartily as the rest. On another occasion, upon entering the shop, I found Snow 'in the chair,' with a very lugubrious countenance 'on him,' as the Irish have it. 'That was a terrible thing,' said he, 'which happened on the Harlem Railroad this morning!' 'What was that?' asked several 'voices.' 'Why,' explained Snow, 'the entire New-Haven train, of eight cars, ran over four men and a young lady.' 'They were instantly killed, of course?' 'No: miraculous as it may seem, not a single life was lost!' 'Why, how was that?' 'Well, they were under the Harlem Bridge, when the train passed over them, and not a car touched them! Cur'ous, wasn't it?' * * * Thanks to our old Boyhood's Friend, 'J. B. B.,' for his notelet, written in our absence at the desk of our town-sanctum. One 'plum' in it we are going to transfer to our own 'pudding:' 'I met an old school-mate in the cars last evening, who gave me an amusing anecdote of a character who lived in Pittsfield, (Mass.;) a man full of hearty humor—his name S—— P——, Jr. He was at Cleveland; and recognizing a nephew across the street, hailed him, as he was walking along in solemn mood: and as he took his hand he said: 'Well, Tom, I understand you have sold out entirely and gone into a new business: taken up the Millerite business, eh!' 'Well, Uncle Lem.,' was the reply, 'what would you do if you certainly expected the Last Day would come at twelve o'clock to-day?' 'Why, Tom,' said Lem., laughing, 'I'll tell you what I would do: I would just work till five minutes before twelve, and then I'd wash up!'' Not a bad reply to a 'hard question!' * * * Can any of our readers or correspondents inform us who is the author of the ensuing stanzas? They are certainly very beautiful: and their melody and fervor lead us to think that they may be from the pen of Rev. Mr. Bonar, from whom we have heretofore quoted two or three exquisite effusions. These lines bear this motto, from Isaiah: 'I will lead thee in the paths they have not known:'
'How few who, from their youthful day,
Look on to what their life may be;
Painting the visions of the way
In colors soft and bright and free;
How few who to such paths have brought
The hopes and dreams of early thought!
For God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead His own.
'The eager hearts, the soul of fire,
Who pant to toil for God and man;
And view with eyes of keen desire
The upland way of toil and pain;
Almost with scorn they think of rest,
Of holy calm, of tranquil breast,
But God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead them home.
'A lowlier task on them is laid—
With love to make the labor light;
And there their beauty they must shed
On quiet homes and lost to sight.
Changed are their visions high and fair,
Yet calm and still they labor there;
For God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead His own.
'The gentle heart that thinks with pain,
It scarce can lowliest tasks fulfil;
And if it dared its life to scan,
Would ask but pathway low and still;
Often such lowly heart is brought
To act with power beyond its thought:
For God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead His own.
'And they, the bright, who long to prove,
In joyous path, in cloudless lot,
How fresh from earth their grateful love
Can spring without a stain or spot—
Often such youthful heart is given
The path of grief, to walk in Heaven:
For God, through ways they have not known.
Will lead His own.
'What matter what the path shall be?
The end is clear and bright to view;
We know that we a strength shall see,
Whate'er the day may bring to do.
We see the end, the house of God,
But not the path to that abode;
For God, through ways they have not known,
Will lead His own.'
These fervent lines are 'poetry.' * * * Mr. Charles L. Elliott, the eminent portrait-painter, was safely delivered of the subjoined remark, at a quarter to four of the clock, on the afternoon of February the twenty-second, while crossing the Hudson River. He commenced as follows: said he: The epitaphs which you quote in a late number of the Knickerbocker, remind me of a verbal one which my father once heard. An old fellow, a coarse, ill-grained Dutchman, died one day. He was a disagreeable man, and a bad neighbor: even the children feared and disliked him. One of his neighbors asked him just before his death, if he was ready to go, to which he answered: 'Yes.' 'Well,' was the rejoinder, 'if you are willing to die yourself, all your neighbors are willing you should.' At the grave, even, there was no one to say a good word for him, except one good-hearted old German, who remarked, as he turned away to go home: 'Well, he vas a goot shmoker!'' This was the 'shmoker's only epitaph. * * * A friend mentioned to us the other evening an amusing example of 'A Dutchman's Reliance on Providence.' There had been a great drought in the county of Columbia: no rain had fallen for the space of two or three months; and all the upland fields were parched and dry: insomuch that great fears were entertained that there would be an utter failure of the usual crops. In this extremity, a meeting was called of all devout citizens of that particular 'rural district,' to offer up Prayers for Rain to the 'Lord of the Harvest.' One honest old Dutchman who had a large farm, stated his 'views' to the meeting in this way: 'Dere ish some vields along der hills dere, dat ish pooty dry: I wis you bray for some rain on dem: but you needn't bray for any mores vater on der moisht black ground under der hills dere; 'cause corn moosht grow on dem vields any how!' The 'argument' was effective! * * * Among the Public Lecturers of the Season we may mention the name of our correspondent, and country neighbor, Mr. William Wirt Sikes. His lectures are upon attractive themes, are well written, and he delivers them with entire effect. The subjects of four, which we have seen mentioned, are: 'The Beautiful,' 'William Wirt,' 'The Noble Life,' 'Insanity.' Mr. Sikes' address is, Nyack on the Hudson. * * * 'A Conundrum by Induction,' must have cost a good deal of hard work to make:
Why is a bee-hive like a bad potato?
Because a bee-hive is a bee-holder:
And a beholder is a spectator,
And a speck-tater is a bad potato!