A. E. Chalon, R.A. W. H. Egleton

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXVI. April, 1850. No. 4.

Table of Contents

Fiction, Literature and Articles

Poetry, Music, and Fashion

[Transcriber’s Notes] can be found at the end of this eBook.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXVI. PHILADELPHIA, April, 1850. No. 4.

APRIL.

“The shower is past, the birds renew their songs,

And sweetly through its tears the landscape smiles.”

“April,” says the author of the “Fairie Queene,” “is Spring—the juvenile of the months, and the most feminine—never knowing her own mind for a day together. Fickle as a fond maiden with her first lover; toying it with the young sun till he withdraws his beams from her, and then weeping till she gets them back again.” April is frequently a very sweet and genial month, partly because it ushers in the May, and partly for its own sake. It is to May and June what “sweet fifteen,” in the age of woman, is to the passion-stricken eighteen, and perfect two-and-twenty. It is to the confirmed Summer, what the previous hope of joy is to the full fruition—what the boyish dream of love is to love itself. It is, indeed, the month of promises—and what are twenty performances compared with one promise? April, then, is worth two Mays, because it tells tales of May in every sigh that it breathes, and every tear that it lets fall. It is the harbinger, the herald, the promise, the prophecy, the foretaste of all the beauties that are to follow it—of all and more—of all the delights of Summer, and all the “pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious Autumn.” It is fraught with beauties itself, which no other month can bring before us.

“When proud, pied April, dressed in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing.”

It is one sweet alternation of smiles, and sighs, and tears—and tears, and sighs, and smiles—till all is consummated at last in the open laughter of May.

April weather is proverbial for a mixture of the bright and gloomy. The pleasantness of the sunshiny days, with the delightful view of fresh greens and newly opened flowers, is unequaled; but they are frequently overcast with clouds, and chilled by rough, wintry blasts. This month, the most perfect image of Spring —

“Looks beautiful as when an infant is waking

From its slumbers;”

and the vicissitudes of warm gleams of sunshine and gentle showers, have the most powerful effects in hastening the universal springing of vegetation, whence the season derives its appellation.

The influence of the equinoctial storms frequently prevailing, causes much unpleasant weather; its opening is—

“Mindful of disaster past,

And shrinking at the northern blast,

The sleety storm returning still,

The morning hoar, the evening chill:

Reluctant comes the timid Spring,

Scarce a bee, with airy ring,

Murmurs the blossomed boughs around

That clothe the garden’s southern bound;

Scarce a sickly, straggling flower

Decks the rough castle’s rifted tower;

Scarce the hardy ivy peeps

From the dark dell’s entangled steeps,

Fringing the forests devious edge,

Half-robed, appears the privet hedge,

Or to the distant eye displays,

Weakly green, its budding sprays.”

An ancient writer beautifully describes one of those bright, transient showers which prevail at this season.

Away to that sunny nook, for the thick shower

Rushes on strikingly: ay, now it comes,

Glancing about the leaves with its first dips,

Like snatches of faint music. Joyous bird,

It mingles with thy song, and beats soft time

To thy warbling notes. Now it louder falls,

Pattering, like the far voice of leaping rills;

And now it breaks upon the shrinking clumps

With a crash of many sounds; the thrush is still,

There are sweet scents around us; the flow’ret hides,

On that green bank, beneath the leaves;

The earth is grateful to the teeming clouds,

And yields a sudden freshness to their kisses.

And now the shower slopes to the warm west,

Leaving a dewy track; and see, the big drops,

Like falling pearls, glisten in the sunny mist.

The air is clear again, and the far woods

Shine out in their early green. Let’s onward, then,

For the first blossoms peep about the path;

The lambs are nibbling the short, dripping grass,

And the birds are on the bushes.

The month of April not unfrequently introduces us to the chimney or house-swallow, known by its long, forked tail and red breast. At first, here and there only one appears glancing quickly by us, as if scarcely able to endure the cold, which Warton beautifully describes —

The swallow for a moment seen,

Skims in haste the village green.

But in a few days their number is much increased, and they sport with seeming pleasure in the warm sunshine.

Along the surface of the winding stream,

Pursuing every turn, gay swallows skim,

Or round the borders of the spacious lawn,

Fly in repeated circles, rising o’er

Hillock and fence with motion serpentine,

Easy and light. One snatches from the ground

A downy feather, and then upward springs,

Followed by others, but oft drops it soon,

In playful mood, or from too slight a hold,

When all at once dart at the falling prize.

As these birds live on insects, their appearance is a certain proof that some of this minute tribe of animals have ventured from their winter abodes.

Thomson thus describes this busy month among the feathered tribes —

Some to the holly-hedge

Nestling repair, and to the thicket some;

Some to the rude protection of the thorn

Commit their feeble offspring. The cleft tree

Offers its kind concealment to a few,

Their food its insects, and its moss their nests.

Others apart, far in the grassy dale,

Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave;

But most in woodland solitudes delight,

In unfrequented glooms, or shaggy banks,

Steep, and divided by a babbling brook,

Whose murmurs soothe them all the livelong day,

When by kind duty fixed. Among the roots

Of hazel, pendent o’er the plaintive stream,

They frame the first foundation of their domes;

Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid,

And bound with clay together. Now ’tis naught

But restless hurry through the busy air,

Beat by unnumbered wings. The swallow sweeps

The slimy pool, to build the hanging house

Intent. And often, from the careless back

Of herds and flocks, a thousand tugging bills

Pluck hair and wool; and oft, when unobserved,

Steal from the barn a straw, till soft and warm,

Clean and complete, their habitation grows.

Another celebrated poet completes the picture: —

The cavern-loving wren sequestered seeks

The verdant shelter of the hollow stump;

And with congenial moss, harmless deceit,

Constructs a safe abode. On topmost boughs

The oriole, and the hoarse-voiced crow,

Rocked by the storm, erect their airy nests.

The ousel, long frequenter of the grove

Of fragrant pines, in solemn depth of shade,

Finds rest. Or mid the holly’s shining leaves,

A simple bush, the piping thrush contents;

Though in the woodland contest, he, aloft,

Trills from his spotted throat a powerful strain,

And scorns the humble quire. The wood-lark asks

A lowly dwelling, hid beneath some tuft,

Or hollow, trodden by the sinking hoof:

Songster beloved! who to the sun such lays

Pours forth as earth ne’er owns. Within the boughs

The sparrow lays her spotted eggs. The barn,

With eaves o’er-pendent, holds the chattering tribe.

Secret the linnet seeks the tangled wood,

The white owl seeks some antique ruined wall,

Fearless of rapine; or in hollow trees,

Which age has caverned, safely courts repose.

The velvet jay, in pristine colors clad,

Weaves her curious nest with firm-wreathed twigs,

And sidelong forms her cautious door; she dreads

The taloned hawk, or pouncing eagle,

Herself, with craft suspicion ever dwells.

As the singing of birds is the voice of courtship and conjugal love, the concerts of the groves begin to fill all with their various melody. In England the return of the nightingale in the spring is hailed with much joy; he sings by day as well as night; but in the daytime his voice is drowned in the multitude of performers; in the evening it is heard alone, whence the poets have always made the song of the nightingale a nocturnal serenade. The author of the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” thus beautifully describes an April night, and the song of this siren: —

All is still,

A balmy night! and though the stars be dim,

Yet let us think upon the vernal showers

That gladden the green earth, and we shall find

A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

And hark! the nightingale begins his song;

He crowds, and hurries, and precipitates,

With fast, thick warble, his delicious notes,

As he were fearful that an April night

Would be too short for him to utter forth

His love-chant, and disburden his full soul

Of all his music!

I know a grove,

Of large extent, hard by a castle huge,

Which the great lord inhabits not; and so

This grove is wild with tangling underwood,

And the trim walks are broken up; and grass,

Thin grass and king-cups, grow within the paths;

But never elsewhere in one place I knew

So many nightingales. And far and near,

In wood and thicket o’er the wide grove,

They answer and provoke each other’s songs —

With skirmish and capricious passagings,

And murmurs musical and swift—jug, jug!

And one low, piping sound, more sweet than all,

Stirring the air with such a harmony

That, should you close your eyes, you might almost

Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes

Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed,

You may, perchance, behold them on the twigs,

Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,

Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade

Lifts up her love-torch.

Oft a moment’s space,

What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,

Hath heard a pause of silence; till the moon

Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky

With one sensation, and those wakeful birds

Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,

As if one quick and sodden gale had swept

An hundred airy harps! And I have watched

Many a nightingale perched giddily

On blossoming twig, still swinging from the breeze,

And to that motion tune his wanton song,

Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head.

Milton, too, in the first of his sonnets, has a beautiful address to this success portending songster:

O nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray

Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,

While hours lead on the laughing month of May,

Thou with fresh hopes the lover’s heart dost fill.

The fishes are now inspired by the same enlivening influence which acts upon the rest of animated Nature, and in consequence, again offer themselves as a prey to the art of the angler, who returns to his usual haunt.

“Beneath a willow long forsook,

The fisher seeks his ’customed nook;

And bursting through the crackling sedge

That crowns the current’s caverned edge,

He startles from the bordering wood

The bashful wild-ducks early brood.”

A considerable number of plants flower in this month, which Bloomfield beautifully describes.

Neglected now the early daisy lies,

Nor thou, pale primrose, bloom’st the only prize,

Advancing Spring profusely spreads abroad

Flowers of all hues with sweetest fragrance stored,

Where’er she treads Love gladdens every plain,

Delight on tiptoe bears her lucid train;

Sweet Hope with conscious brow before her flies,

Anticipating wealth for Summer skies.

In particular, many of the fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, the flowers of which are peculiarly termed blossoms. These form a most agreeable spectacle, as well on account of their beauty, as of the promise they give of future benefits.

“What exquisite differences and distinctions, and resemblances,” exclaims Warton, “there are between all the various blossoms of the fruit-trees; and no less in their general effect, than in their separate details.

“The almond-blossom which comes first of all, and while the tree is quite bare of leaves, is of a bright blush-rose color; and when they are fully blown, the tree, if it has been kept to a compact head, instead of being permitted to straggle, looks like one huge rose, magnified by some fairy magic, to deck the bosom of some fair giantess. The various lands of plum follow, the blossoms of which are snow-white, and as full and clustering as those of the almond. The peach and nectarine, which are now preparing to put forth their blossoms, are unlike either of the above; and their sweet effect, as if growing out of the bare wall or rough wooden paling, is peculiarly pretty. They are of a deep blush color, and of a delicate bell-shape; the lips, however, divided and turning backward, to expose the interior to the cherishing sun. But, perhaps, the bloom that is richest, and most promising in its general appearance, is that of the cherry, clasping its white honors all around the long, straight branches, from heel to point, and not letting a leaf or bit of stem be seen, except the three or four leaves that come as a green finish at the extremity of each branch. The blossoms of the pears, and, loveliest of all, the apples, do not come in perfection till next month.”

It is, however, an anxious time for the possessor, as the fairest prospect of a plentiful increase is often blighted. Shakspeare draws a pathetic comparison from this circumstance, to paint the delusive nature of human expectations:

This is the state of man: To-day he puts forth

The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms,

And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost!

And Milton beautifully uses the same simile:

Abortive as the first-born bloom of Spring,

Nipped with the lagging rear of Winter’s frost.

Herrick indulges in the following “fond imaginings” to blossoms:

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,

Why do you fall so fast?

Your date is not so past

But you may stay yet here awhile

To blush and gently smile,

And go at last.

What! were ye born to be

An hour and half’s delight,

And so to bid good-night?

’Tis pity Nature brought ye forth,

Merely to show your worth,

And lose you quite!

But your lovely leaves where we,

May read how soon things have

Their end, though ne’er so brave;

And after they have shown their pride,

Like you away to glide

Into the grave.

The poet of the Seasons gives delightful utterance to the aspirations of many a bosom at this inspiring season:

Now from the town,

Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps,

Oft let me wander o’er the dewy fields,

Where freshness breathes; and dash the trembling drops

From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze

Of sweetbriar hedges I pursue my walk;

Or taste the smell of daisy; or ascend

Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains,

And see the country far diffused around,

One boundless blush of white empurpled shower

Of mingled blossoms, where the raptured eye

Hurries from joy to joy, and hid beneath

The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.

The farmer is busied in sowing early sorts of grain and seeds for fodder, for which purpose dry weather is most suitable, though plentiful showers, at due intervals, are desirable for feeding the young grass and springing seeds:

“The work is done, no more to man is given,

The grateful farmer trusts the rest to Heaven;

Yet oft with anxious heart he looks around,

And marks the first green blade that breaks the ground;

In fancy sees his trembling oats uprun,

His tufted barley yellow with the sun,

Sees clouds propitious shed their timely store,

And all his harvest gathered around his door.”

KATE LORIMER:

OR THE PEARL IN THE OYSTER.

———

BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

———

“The pearl in ocean’s cavern lies,

The feather floats upon the wave.”

Kate Lorimer was neither a beauty, a wit, nor an heiress: she was only one of those many commonplace young ladies, who are “brought out” every winter to laugh, dance and flirt, for a season or two, then to marry, and fulfill their destiny by immuring themselves in a nursery for the rest of their lives. So said the world—but for once that many-eyed and many-tongued gossip was mistaken. Kate was very unlike most young ladies. With her Juno-like figure, and fine, though somewhat massive, features, there needed only a careful study of the mysteries of the toilet to make her appear what dandies call “a splendid woman.” But Kate, though in reality she was neatness itself, generally seemed but one degree removed from a sloven; so careless was she respecting the color, make, and adjustment of her clothes. Then she had what Shakspeare calls “a very pretty wit,” a certain shrewdness of intellect, and a quiet sense of the ridiculous, which wanted only the piquant sauce of boldness and ill-nature to make her what the witlings in primrose kids would style “bre-i-lliant.” But Kate was equally indifferent to her own looks and manners. She seemed like a kind of human machine, moved by some invisible springs, at the volition of others, but by no positive will of her own.

What, you will ask, was the secret of this cold abstraction in a young and not ungifted girl? There was no mystery about it; Kate was only one of the many instances of “a candle placed in the wrong socket,” as my poor friend —— used to say. She was one of a large family, but she was neither the oldest—the first inheritor of parental love—nor the youngest—the recipient of its fond dotage. Her elder brother, a tall, graceful youth, was the pride of both father and mother, and whatever privileges Kate might have claimed as the first of the troop of damsels who chattered their days away in the nursery and school-room, they were entirely forgotten in favor of the second daughter, who chanced to be extremely beautiful. The fact was that Kate occupied a most insignificant position between a conceited oldest son and a sister who was a belle. Her brother Tom’s sententiousness overwhelmed her and crushed her into nonentity, while Louisa’s beauty and vivacity threw her completely into the shade.

At her very first entrance into society, Kate felt that she had only a subordinate part to play, and there was a certain inertness of character about her, which made her quietly adopt the habits befitting her inferior position. Her mother, a handsome, stylish woman, with an easiness of temper which won affection but not respect from her children, and a degree of indolence which sadly interfered with the regularity of her household—sometimes fretted a little at Kale’s sluggishness, and wished she was a little less “lumpish” at a party. But there was a repose in Kate’s manner, which, upon the whole, Mrs. Lorimer rather liked, as it effectually prevented any rivalry between the two sisters. Aunt Bell, a somewhat precise, but sensible old maid, was the only one who was seriously dissatisfied. She remembered Kate’s ambition as a schoolgirl; she preserved among her most precious mementoes all Kate’s “prizes,” “rewards of merit,” etc. And she could not conceive why this enthusiasm and eagerness for distinction should have died away so suddenly and so completely. Aunt Bell suspected something of the truth, but even she, who loved Kate better than any body in the world, could not know the whole truth.

Kate Lorimer was like one of those still, quiet mountain lakes, which at one particular spot are said to be unfathomable, but whether because they are so deep, or because a wonderfully strong under-current carries away the line and plummet in its descent, is never clearly ascertained by those who skim over the surface of the sleepy waters. Almost every one liked her; that is, they felt that negative kind of liking which all persons have for a quiet, good-humored sort of a body, who is never in the way. At a crowded party Kate always gave up her place in the quadrille if there was a want of room on the floor; if beaux were scarce, Kate was quite content to talk to some frowsy old lady in a corner; if a pair of indefatigable hands were required to play interminable waltzes and polkas, Kate’s long white fingers seemed unwearied; in short, Kate never thought of herself, because she honestly believed she was not worth anybody’s thinking about.

Was she so inordinately humble as to set no value upon herself? Not exactly that; but she had so high a standard of excellence in her own soul, and was so conscious of her utter inability to attain to that standard, that she grew to feel a species of contempt for herself, and therefore she neglected herself, not as a penance, but because she would not waste thought or time upon any thing appertaining to herself. No one understood poor Kate, and of course nobody appreciated her. When she spent hours in dressing her beautiful sister for a ball, and then twisting up her own fine hair in a careless knot, and slipping on a plain white dress, was ready in ten minutes to accompany the belle to the gay scene where she knew she could never shine, people only called her slovenly and careless, but gave her no credit for the generous affection which could lavish decorations on another, and be content through a whole evening

“to hear

Praise of a sister with unwounded ear.”

When she refused invitations to parties that she might stay at home and nurse Aunt Bell through a slow fever, people said—“She is so indolent, she is glad of an excuse to avoid the trouble of going out.” No one knew that she was not too indolent to watch through the long hours of night beside the sick-bed of the invalid, while her lovely sister was sleeping off the fatigues of the dance. When she gave up a gay season at the Springs, rather than disappoint her old grandmother, who had set her heart upon a visit from one of the sisters—when she spent a long, dull summer in a hot country-house, with no other companions than Aunt Bell and the infirm old lady, and no other amusement than could be found in a book-case full of Minerva-Press novels, then people—those wonderfully knowing people—again said, “Kate Lorimer is turning her indolence to account, and will earn a legacy out of it;” while the fact was, neither Aunt Bell nor grandmother had a cent in the world beyond their life-interest in their old country home.

“If Louisa makes an engagement this winter, I think I shall hurry Ella’s education a little, so as to bring her out next season;” said Mrs. Lorimer to her husband, during one of those “curtain conferences” which are quite the opposite to “curtain lectures.”

“Why should you do that? You will have Kate still to provide for, and Ella will be all the more attractive for another year’s study,” was the reply of the calculating though kind father.

“Oh, Kate is a hopeless case; she will never be married, she is too indifferent; no man will take a fancy to a girl who at the first introduction shows by her manner that she does not care what he thinks of her.”

“Then you think Kate is one of the ‘predestinate old maids?’ ”

“I am afraid so.”

“Well, Kate is a good child, and we shall want one of the girls to keep house for us when we grow old; so I don’t know that we need regret it much.”

“You don’t consider the mortification of bringing out two daughters at a time and having one left on hand, like a bale of unsaleable goods, while such a woman as that vulgar Mrs. Dobbs has married her four red-headed frights in two seasons.”

“How was that done?”

“Oh! by management; but then the girls were as anxious as the mother, and helped themselves along. As to Kate, I don’t believe she would take the trouble to walk across the room in order to secure the best match in the country.”

“She certainly is very indifferent, but she seems perfectly contented.”

“Yes, that is the trouble; she is perfectly satisfied to remain a fixture, although she knows that she will have to rank with the ‘antiques’ as soon as I begin to bring out her four younger sisters.”

“Perhaps it would be better to bring out Ella next winter,” sighed the father.

“Yes, Ella is lively and fresh-looking, and during the festivities which will follow Louisa’s wedding, she can slip into her place in society without the expense of a ‘coming-out’ party.”

“You speak as if Louisa’s marriage were a settled thing.”

“Because she can have her choice now of half a dozen, and by the time the season is over she will probably decide.”

“Well, under your guidance, she is not likely to make an imprudent choice.”

“I hope not. To tell you the truth, I am waiting for one more declaration, and then there will be no more delay,” said the mother.

“Has she not admirers enough?”

“Yes, but if she can secure young Ferrers it will be worth waiting.”

“What! Clarence Ferrers? Why, he is worth almost half a million; is he an admirer of Louisa’s?”

“He is a new acquaintance, and seems very much struck with her beauty; but he is an odd creature, and seems to pride himself upon differing from all the rest of the world; we shall see what will happen. One thing only is certain, Louisa will be married before the year is out, and Kate will, I think, resign herself to old-maidism with a very good grace.”

And having come to this conclusion, the two wise-acres composed themselves to sleep.

Clarence Ferrers, so honorably mentioned by Mr. Lorimer as “worth half a million,” was a gentleman of peculiar tastes and habits. His father died while he was yet a boy, and he had struggled with poverty and hardship while acquiring the education which his talents deserved, and which his ambition demanded. He had stooped his pride to labor, and he had learned to submit to want, but he had never bowed himself to bear the yoke of dependence. Alone he had toiled, alone he had struggled, alone he had won success. His mother had been the first to encourage his youthful genius, and to plant the seeds of honorable ambition within his soul. He had loved her with an almost idolatrous affection, and when he saw her eking out by the labors of the needle the small annuity which secured her from starvation, in order that he might devote all his own little stipend as a teacher to his own education, he felt that gratitude and love alike required him to persevere until success should reward the mother by crowning the son.

There is something ennobling and hallowing in such a tie as that which existed between Mrs. Ferrers and Clarence. A gentle, humble-minded woman herself, she was ambitious that her son should be good and great. She knew the benumbing effect of poverty upon the soul, but she took care that the genial warmth of affection should counteract its evil influences upon the gifted mind of her darling son. She was his friend, his counselor, his sympathizing companion, sharing all his hopes, his aspirations, his pleasures, and his sorrows, as only a true-hearted and loving woman can do. Long ere he reached the years of mature manhood the bond between mother and son had been made stronger than death; and, alas! far more enduring than life. Mrs. Ferrers lived to see Clarence occupying a position of honor and usefulness as professor in one of our most distinguished colleges. Her death left him a lonely and desolate man, for so close had been their communion, so thorough had been their mutual sympathy, that he had never till then felt the need of another friend. But in the enthusiasm of his deep and fervent love, he felt that he was not dissevered by the hand of death; and many an hour did he hold converse in his secret soul with the “spirit-mother,” whom he felt to be ever near him.

Clarence Ferrers had counted his thirtieth summer, when an old great-uncle, who had suffered him to struggle with poverty during all his early years, without stretching forth a finger to sustain him, died very suddenly, leaving behind him an immense fortune, which he distributed by will, among some dozen charitable associations, whose very names he had never heard until they were suggested by his lawyer, and making not the slightest mention of his nephew. Luckily for him, the will was unexecuted, and the neglected Clarence learned that, as heir-at-law, he was entitled to the whole of his miserly uncle’s hoarded wealth. Years had passed since Clarence had even seen the old man; and he certainly owed him no gratitude for the gift which would have been withheld from him if death had not been more cruel even than avarice. But Clarence was not a man to feel selfishly on any subject. One hundred thousand dollars, the fifth part of his newly-acquired fortune, was distributed among the charities named in the will, thus fulfilling the supposed wish of the deceased. With another large portion he endowed a “Home for Poor Gentlewomen,” as a tribute to the memory of his mother, whose life had been one of struggle and care for want of such “a home” in the early days of her widowhood. Then, after liberally providing for all who had any claims upon the old miser, he placed his affairs in the hands of a trusty agent, and sailed for Europe.

Clarence Ferrers set out upon his travels with no fixed purpose, except that of acquiring knowledge of all kinds, and of compelling occupation of mind to quiet yearnings of the heart. Eight years elapsed ere he revisited his native land. During that time he had explored every part of Europe, treading the greensward of its by-ways, no less than the dust of its high-roads. From the islands of the Archipelago to the most northerly part of Russia, he had traveled, commanding respect by his scientific attainments, receiving attentions every where for his courtly elegance of manner, winning love wherever he went by his suavity and kindness. Then to the East, that land of sacred memories, he turned his steps; Egypt, the land of mystery, too, was not forgotten, and when Clarence returned to his own country, he bore with him treasures of learning and wisdom from every land where the footsteps of man had trod. Yet was he as modest as he was learned, and few would have suspected that the quiet, gentlemanlike person, whose tall figure bent so gracefully over some timid girl at the piano, or who so carefully escorted some old lady to the supper-room at a party, was the celebrated traveler and man of world-known science.

Such was the man whom Mr. Lorimer pronounced to be “WORTH half a million!” I have sketched him at some length, because this is no fancy portrait, and memory has been faithful to her trust in thus enabling me to trace, though but in faint and shadowy outline, the noble character of one of God’s noblest creatures.