You'never loved me,' Ada!—Those slow wordsDropped softly from your gentle woman's tongue,Out of your true and tender woman's heart,Dropped—piercing into mine like very swords,The sharper for their brightness! Yet no wrongLies to your charge; nor cruelty, nor art;Even while you spoke, I saw the ready tear-drop start.You 'never loved me?'—No, you never knew—You, with youth's dews yet glittering on your soul—What 'tisto love. Slow, drop by drop, to pourOur life's whole essence, perfumed through and throughWith all the best we have, or can control,For the libation; cast it down beforeYour feet—then lift the goblet, dry for evermore!I shall not die, as foolish lovers do:A man's heart beats beneath this breast of mine;The breast where—Curse on that fiend's whispering,'It might have been!'—Ada, I will be trueUnto myself—the self that worshipped thine.May all life's pain, like those few tears that springFor me—glance off as rain-drops from my white dove's wing!May you live long, some good man's bosom-flower,And gather children round your matron knees!Then, when all this is past, and you and IRemember each our youth but as an hourOf joy—or torture; one, serene, at ease,May meet the other's grave yet steadfast eye,Thinking, 'He loved me well!'—clasp hands, and so pass by.
You'never loved me,' Ada!—Those slow wordsDropped softly from your gentle woman's tongue,Out of your true and tender woman's heart,Dropped—piercing into mine like very swords,The sharper for their brightness! Yet no wrongLies to your charge; nor cruelty, nor art;Even while you spoke, I saw the ready tear-drop start.
You 'never loved me?'—No, you never knew—You, with youth's dews yet glittering on your soul—What 'tisto love. Slow, drop by drop, to pourOur life's whole essence, perfumed through and throughWith all the best we have, or can control,For the libation; cast it down beforeYour feet—then lift the goblet, dry for evermore!
I shall not die, as foolish lovers do:A man's heart beats beneath this breast of mine;The breast where—Curse on that fiend's whispering,'It might have been!'—Ada, I will be trueUnto myself—the self that worshipped thine.May all life's pain, like those few tears that springFor me—glance off as rain-drops from my white dove's wing!
May you live long, some good man's bosom-flower,And gather children round your matron knees!Then, when all this is past, and you and IRemember each our youth but as an hourOf joy—or torture; one, serene, at ease,May meet the other's grave yet steadfast eye,Thinking, 'He loved me well!'—clasp hands, and so pass by.
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Glancing round this anatomical workshop (the oyster), we find, amongst other things, some preparations shewing the nature of pearls. Examine them, and we find that there are dark and dingy pearls, just as there are handsome and ugly men; the dark pearl being found on the dark shell of the fish, the white brilliant one upon the smooth inside shell. Going further in the search, we find that the smooth, glittering lining, upon which the fish moves, is known as thenacre, and that it is produced by a portion of the animal called themantle; and, for explanation's sake, we may add that gourmands practically know the mantle as the beard of the oyster. When living in its glossy house, should any foreign substance find its way through the shell to disturb the smoothness so essential to its ease, the fish coats the offending substance with nacre, and a pearl is thus formed. The pearl is, in fact, a little globe of the smooth, glossy substance yielded by the oyster's beard; yielded ordinarily to smooth the narrow home to which his nature binds him, but yielded in round drops, real pearly tears, if he is hurt. When a beauty glides among a throng of her admirers, her hair clustering with pearls, she little thinks that her ornaments are products of pain and diseased action, endured by the most unpoetical of shell-fish.—Leisure Hours.
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Inour recent notice of Robespierre, it was mentioned that, at the period of his capture in the Hôtel de Ville, he was shot in the jaw by a pistol fired by one of the gendarmes. Various correspondents point to the discrepancy between this account and that given by Thiers, and some other authorities, who represent that Robespierre fired the pistol himself, in the attempt to commit self-destruction. In our account of the affair, we have preferred holding to Larmartine (History of the Girondists), not only in consequence of his being the latest and most graphic authority on the subject, but because his statement seems to be verified by the appearance of the half-signed document which it was our fortune to see in Paris in 1849.
The following is Lamartine's statement:—'The door soon yielded to the blows given by the soldiers with the but-end of their muskets, amid the cries of "Down with the tyrant!" "Which is he?" inquired the soldiers; but Léonard Bourdon durst not meet the look of his fallen enemy. Standing a little behind the men, and hidden by the body of a gendarme, named Méda; with his right hand he seized the arm of the gendarme who held a pistol, and pointing with his left hand to the person to be aimed at, he directed the muzzle of the weapon towards Robespierre, exclaiming: "That is the man." The man fired, and the head of Robespierre dropped on the table, deluging with blood the proclamation he had not finished signing.' Next morning, adds this authority, Léonard Bourdon 'presented the gendarme who had fired at Robespierre to the notice of the Convention.' Further: on Robespierre being searched while he lay on the table, a brace of loaded pistols were found in his pocket. 'These pistols, shut up in their cases still loaded, abundantly testify that Robespierre did not shoot himself.' Accepting these as the true particulars of the incident, Robespierre cannot properly be charged with an attempt at suicide.
In the article referred to, the name Barras was accidentally substituted for Henriot, in connection with the insurrectionary movement for rescuing Robespierre. Barras led the troops of the Convention.
A correspondent asks us to state what was the actual number of persons slaughtered by the guillotine, and otherwise, during the progress of the Revolution. The question cannot be satisfactorily answered. Alison (vol. iv. p. 289) presents a list, which shews the number to have been 1,027,106; but this enumeration does not comprehend the massacres at Versailles, the prisons of Paris, and some other places. A million and a half would probably be a safe calculation. One thing is certain, that from the 2d of September 1792, to the 25th of October 1795, a space of little more than three years, 18,613 persons perished by the guillotine. Strangely enough, the chief destruction of life was among the humbler classes of society, those who mainly promoted the revolution; and still more strange, the greater number of victims were murdered by the verdicts of juries—a striking example of that general subserviency which has since become the most significant defect in the French character.
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