How would I then so heartily,So dear, so very dear, thee hold!How would I, oh! how would then weEach other in our arms enfold!Yet patience! time, too, slippeth on—Be thou but true, my darling one!
How would I then so heartily,So dear, so very dear, thee hold!How would I, oh! how would then weEach other in our arms enfold!Yet patience! time, too, slippeth on—Be thou but true, my darling one!
VI.
And now, dear soul! good-night once more;God keep thee with his shelt'ring might!What God keeps, that is well watch'd o'er,And kept from danger and affright.Adieu!—now close the sunny shineOf those blue laughing eyes of thine!
And now, dear soul! good-night once more;God keep thee with his shelt'ring might!What God keeps, that is well watch'd o'er,And kept from danger and affright.Adieu!—now close the sunny shineOf those blue laughing eyes of thine!
To the Editors of the Knickerbocker:
Michilimackinack, August 2, 1837.
Inmaking some inquiries recently of a party of the Mohegan tribe—the remnant of whom have made their way to this quarter within a few years—I find that they have preserved their traditionary history for the last two centuries, or more, with a degree of accuracy which is not common to the native tribes in this region. It is very well known, from published data, that this ancient tribe occupied Long-Island and the contiguous main land, on the discovery of the country, whence in process of time they withdrew eastwardly into Connecticut, and afterward went west into Massachusetts. They appear, from the first, to have had the means of instruction, which have been continued up to the present time, with perhaps less interruption than among most of the other tribes. This may account in part for the better preservation of their traditions. Many of them being able to read, could refer to some things in printed documents. Others appear to have retained with tenacity that traditionary lore which the aged among the tribes generally employ the leisure of their superannuated days in handing down to the young.
During the long residence of this tribe at Stockbridge, (Mass.,) they were commonly Stockbridges, and after the revolutionary war, when they transferred their residence to Oneida, in western New-York, they naturally retained this name, and finally bore it with them to their present location in Wisconsin territory. I disclaim any intention to sketch their history; and wish no farther to allude to it, than appears to be necessary to bring forward a few facts in the character of their language, and particularly their names for the places of their former residence, on the lower parts of the Hudson. And as this is a matter of which but little is generally known, it has appeared to me of sufficient local interest, to justify the liberty I take in addressing these remarks to you.
The Mohegan is readily recognised as a type of the Algonquin or (as Mr. Gallatin has recently denominated it,) the 'Lenapee-Algonkin' family, and bears a strong resemblance, both in sound and syntax, to the dialects of some of the existing lake tribes. This affinity is very striking in its grammatical structure, and its primitive words. Derivatives, with all our tribes, are subject to interchange their consonants, or drop them entirely, which creates a necessity of being constantly on the alert to detect these exchanges. Moreover, the accent is uniformly moved, or doubled, often creating primary and secondary accents in the same phrase, which, in an unwritten language, is alone sufficient to account for numerous mutations. But what, more than any other principle, affects thesoundof Indian words, in their concrete and derivative states, is the large stock of (so to say) floating particles, which come into these words in the shape of prefixes and suffixes. These are, in their offices, almost as numerous as the purposes of person, tense, number, quality, position, etc., may require. But while their respective office remains precisely the same, in almost any given number of dialects in a motherlanguage, it is found that the several tribes pique themselves in giving these auxiliary particles a sound peculiar to themselves, by which something likenationalityis kept up. Thus in two dialects indicating the least change in the primitives or derivatives, to be found among all the tribes, namely, the Chippewa and Ottowa, these particles, which, in the animate class for plural, are denoted byUG, and in the local inflections byONG, andING, in the one dialect, are respectively changed toUK,ONK, andINK, in the other.
Similar to this process, seems to have been the result of change between the ancient Algonquin and the Mohegan, the latter, like the Ottowa, constantly substitutingKforG, andPforB, etc., but in other respects, it exhibits numerous gutturals, and some aspirates, which are but rarely found in the liquid flow of the Algic. It also embraces the (perhaps) Gothic sound ofTH, which is wholly unknown (the Shawnee excepted) to the modern lake dialects.
Geographical terms, with the Indians, are found generally to unite some natural quality in the features or productions of the country with an indication of the locality; so that their names are not, as with us, simple nominatives, but (as in all other cases in these peculiar languages) the quality, action, etc., transfers itself to the object, and is expressed in a consolidated phrase. This is one of the most constant and distinguishing traits of these languages. Their nouns and adjectives, therefore, as well as their verbs, are transitives. Even their prepositions take a transitive character, and link themselves, as with 'hooks of steel,' to the objects to which they are applied. Thus their name for the island from which this letter is dated, is Place of the Gigantic Faëries, or, by another interpretation, Place of the Great Turtle. Detroit is, (literally translated,) Round-ward, or Rounds-by Place, denoting the sinuosities of the river in its approach. Sault St. Marie, 'At the Shallow Water with Rocks.' In another class of derivative words, the union of the substantive and adjective is without a local inflection, as in their name for Lake Superior, which is simply called, The Sea Waters; Mississippi, The Great River; Michigan, The Great Lake, etc.
This principle is found most fully to pervade the Mohegan. I requested one of the chiefs of the party above referred to, to pronounce their name for Long-Island. He replied,Paum-nuk-kah-huk, signifying, Place of the Long Land. The name of the coast opposite to this island, at the mouth of the Hudson, or rather, across the Sound, he pronouncedMon-ah'-ton-uk. Dropping the local inflectionUK, meaning place, or land, we have the elements of Manhattan, the latter of which preserves the original quite as well as the generality of Indian names transmitted by English enunciation. Philologists will perceive, farther, that the aspirateHwould be very naturally prefixed to the second syllable, while the sound ofO, being the sound ofOin the French wordton, might be expressed, nearly as well, by some of the modified sounds ofA.
Judged by similar means of analysis, Sing-Sing is a corruption ofOsin-sink,i. e., Place of Stones, or Rocks; Neversink fromNawaisink, a phrase descriptive of highlands equi-distant between two waters, as Raritan Bay and the Atlantic. Minisink is, literally, Place of the Island. Tappan Seaappearsto be a derivative from a bandof the Mohegans, who dwelt there, calledTaponsees, or rather from the name of their village. After getting through the Highlands, names of Mohawk derivation occur. Poughkeepsie, Warwarsing, and Coxsackie, are, however, clearly of Mohegan origin. So far as I recollect, the ancient name of Albany,Ske-nek-ta-da, is the first term of the Iroquois type of languages, in ascending the Hudson, of which any notice is preserved. In proceeding east, west, or south-west from that point, geographical names of this character universally prevail. But it is to be remarked, that but few sonorous names occur, until reaching the districts of country formerly possessed by the Oneidas, Onondagas, and other western branches of this confederacy.
I am, gentlemen, very respectfully,
Your Obedient Servant,
Henry R. Schoolcraft.
Farethee well!—the word is spoken,That makes the past a dream to me;The long delicious spell is broken—Yet fare thee well, since thou art free!Yes! thou art free; but oh, how shatter'dThis faithful heart thou couldst not know,Nor see each crush'd affection scatter'd,And yet with chilling coldness go!Perchance unto this bosom's yearning,Thou'dst answer with some kindred sigh,Or seek to quell its secret burning,With one glance from thy pitying eye.Yet were it so, how would it cherishThat tender look, 'a death in life;'Oh! better far at once to perish,Than linger through hope's fever'd strife!Then fare thee well!—mid others ranging,Thou carest not to look on me;Nor heedest the true love, unchanging,That like a beacon, shines for thee.Yet when the meteor has departed,That lur'd thee to the world's caress,When languid, drooping, broken-hearted,Thou sinkest back in weariness;Then come to one, who, though forsaken,Still loved thee on, through weal and wo;Nor would one memory awaken,That o'er thy path a shade could throw.Yes, come! and like the star of even,My love shall cheer thine earthly way,And in the blessed light of heaven,Shine on, an ever-constant ray!
Farethee well!—the word is spoken,That makes the past a dream to me;The long delicious spell is broken—Yet fare thee well, since thou art free!
Yes! thou art free; but oh, how shatter'dThis faithful heart thou couldst not know,Nor see each crush'd affection scatter'd,And yet with chilling coldness go!
Perchance unto this bosom's yearning,Thou'dst answer with some kindred sigh,Or seek to quell its secret burning,With one glance from thy pitying eye.
Yet were it so, how would it cherishThat tender look, 'a death in life;'Oh! better far at once to perish,Than linger through hope's fever'd strife!
Then fare thee well!—mid others ranging,Thou carest not to look on me;Nor heedest the true love, unchanging,That like a beacon, shines for thee.
Yet when the meteor has departed,That lur'd thee to the world's caress,When languid, drooping, broken-hearted,Thou sinkest back in weariness;
Then come to one, who, though forsaken,Still loved thee on, through weal and wo;Nor would one memory awaken,That o'er thy path a shade could throw.
Yes, come! and like the star of even,My love shall cheer thine earthly way,And in the blessed light of heaven,Shine on, an ever-constant ray!
M. E. L.
NUMBER SIX.
'Weakand irresolute is man.' I record a fault of human nature, as well as my own. I resolved and re-resolved, and am the same. Do I not blush while recording this weakness? Alas! I am dead to feeling, as it regards my fellows. I have no communion with the world, now. I pass by, unnoticed and unknown. Still, I have a love for mankind; and I make these confessions, hoping they may prove of use to others. I daily see others in the same predicament as myself, or, if not so far advanced, yet pursuing a course which will inevitably lead them where I now am. Yes! where I am; and what is that state? Solitariness, apathy, disgust, fretfulness, heart-ache; the absence of all the gentle sympathies of life; the death of all domestic affection; the familiarity of the vulgar and low-bred; the sneer of the foolish prosperous man; the contempt of the small thriving gleaner; the neglect of the busy, and the pity of the good. Oh! yes! one comfort yet remains; the prayers of the pious and truly religious.
But to my story. As hope began to fade from the heart of my dear Alice; as she saw I was beyond the influence of her prayers and entreaties; as she began to be acquainted with the real state of my habits; as she began to see, that not even my love for her availed any thing she began to despair. She had involved herself too deeply to retract. Her feelings had acquired the habit of loving me; and indeed, though an idle young man, I do not think it strange that such devotion and tenderness as I sometimes really felt and bestowed upon her, should have awakened some return.
I was well-bred, had a good person, could sing passably well, by myself, write good poetry, and was passionate and hot in my evidences of affection. I was an enthusiast, and women like decided tastes. They feel an assurance, a confidence in your good, quiet, smooth-faced, unexcitable, sensible man, if he be young, especially; but they love life and animation, even though it lead to slight errors. Women know the difficulty of restraining the feelings within the bounds of propriety; they are most open to impressions; the real creatures of feeling, they love feeling in others. They have many struggles with what they wish, and what they ought to do. They estimate in men the ardor of the temptation, as an offset to the fault. Hence they are forgiving.
Women are obliged to keep a constant guard over themselves. They know their own weakness, and self-protection arms them to the task. Many a high-souled woman knows this. When you do find a well-disciplined character in the female form, what a noble one it is! The labor of the undertaking, the education of self-control, has made her great. She is a whole host. Look at her influence in society; see the majesty of her deportment, the easy assurance of her countenance. How common men quail before her! What respect and attention she exacts from the titled profligate, and thetalented vicious! She is all that is exalted on earth. There is no beauty to compare with such beauty; no wealth with such charms. She is the nicest workmanship of God; and in her dwells a soul that scatters blessings around her. 'The heart of her husband delighteth in her, and he has no need of spoil.'
Reader, if you are a father, and have seen the son of your hopes, the inheritor of your name, the bearer of your form and features, gradually falling a victim to low vices; if you are a mother, and can trace, in those features now bloated with excess, and in that eye now dimmed with sensuality, the semblance to the babe that drew its earliest food from your pure bosom, and remember that eye upturned to your face as the innocent lay cradled in your arms; if you are a sister, and mourn the ruin of your bed-fellow; or a brother, and seen your playmate in prison, you may form some notion of what the emotions of a fond heart are, when it beholds its stay gone, its prospects blighted, and its love thrown away upon an unworthy object. No! not altogether unworthy, but with just enough of good to keep alive the love, while it mocks all efforts to draw consolation, to answer the chord in her own bosom.
Love wishes its object to be perfect. None can or must compare with its choice. How fondly does woman cheat herself, if she can, into the belief that her choice is fortunate beyond human fortune! I weep—even I, who have not wept for years for my own misfortunes—I weep, as I recall the memory of the tears she shed over my irrevocable ruin. She did know my character, at last, and she predicted, even in spite of her love, all that has happened.
Shall I record that these tears were not a source of pain to me then? They satisfied my vanity. I always reserved reformation to myself, and thought she was mistaken; and these scalding tears, as they coursed down her cheeks, told me that I was beloved. Not even the misery of the object of my affection could prevent a triumph that I had over her—her, the sought-for by many—that I was preferred among a multitude. Is this nature? Was I hard-hearted? Would not any one feel the same? Let the reader examine his own heart, and answer.
Atthis time, and in this very village, there lived a gentleman, in the truest sense of the term, by the name of Edward Lang. He was a man of high family, of aristocratic notions, and thought literature the chief object worthy of pursuit. At the time I saw him, he bore the ills of poverty, the burden of a broken heart, and disappointed hopes. He possessed a well-stored mind, unwearied benevolence, and a Tremaine-like refinement. He had, in the early part of his life, encumbered a large fortune with debts of extravagance, idleness, and folly; and at a subsequent period, lost the remainder in scheming; for he thought that his prëeminence in literature gave him prëeminence in every thing.
Every body applauded his plans; they were upon a large scale; they redounded to the good of the place, and ruined him.
Bred a lawyer, the unfairness of country practice, the low anddegraded crowd it brought him in contact with, caused him to throw up his profession. He took to farming; but he only tried experiments, to the advantage of other people, and his own loss. He got up all sorts of useful societies, which cost him his time, and paid him nothing. He bought all the new works for other people to read; subscribed liberally to reading-rooms and schools. He fatted cattle for the agricultural society, at six times their worth in corn and care. Every body in the village improved their own stock by his; but then all this took money from his pocket.
He did not know the state of his affairs, because he hated settlements. He could not bring himself down to the drudgery of life, but did his farming scientifically, in his study, and left the work to hired hands. He failed, and nobody pitied him. He began to be called a 'poor good-for-nothing fellow,' whose chimeras had brought him down. All his neighbors sued him, and he suffered all who owed him to go undunned. He gave up all for lost; sat himself down in wretchedness, disgusted with the world, and tired of himself.
I was quite intimate with this gentleman. Being much my senior, for he was about fifty, and a bachelor, he took it upon himself to give me a word of advice. He had been in love himself, and that desperately; though unfortunate in his love affairs, as well as all others. The father of the lady objected to him, on the score of his being unfit to make money. He possessed hordes of wealth, himself, and could have made two hearts happy. But no; this would not do. His ideas of excellence consisted in the faculty of making money and keeping it. 'As for literature and refinement, he did not care for them.Hewas not a literary man,' he said, 'and yet he was rich, and respected; a president of a bank; had been an unsuccessful candidate for congress, which wassomehonor, and had it in his power to fill any office in the town he would accept. No; he preferred a man of business for a son-in-law.'
He found one; a coarse, rough, unlettered country-merchant, whose ideas were bounded by the length and breadth of his counter; whose whole soul was given to traffic. A sloven, except on Sundays and courting-days, and then only clean on the outside. This fair, delicate, daughter of wealth, possessed of a mind and education much beyond her family's comprehension, was wedded to this 'respectable' man. Her heart was broken by this savage act of parental authority. She died during the first year of her wedlock, and Edward Lang was for two years deranged, and woke from this sleep of reason, to find himself without hope, without motive, without sympathy.
He took to his books; he shut out the world, and dwelt upon the beautiful and good in theory; lived in a love for the generous, the exalted, and happy scenes of his imagination. When forced abroad by his friends, he seemed lost and unhappy; he was disturbed from this resting which an unfortunate mind derives from picturing for others what he knows can never be for him.
By the world at large he was said to nourish false views of things, because he had a higher standard than the world generally live by. By these means he unfitted himself for society, and was voted dull, eccentric, and love-sick. Time, however, softened his regrets, and he came out in the scheming life I have referred to, in which, by actingby principle and science, even in the work of agriculture, he lost his all.
When I was introduced to him, he was living with an old aunt, upon his paternal estate. Though poor, they had about them those marks of refinement, which well-educated people will contrive to weave out of common materials. Whether on the farm, in the garden, at his table, in church, or in the street, no one could see Mr. Lang, and not say with certainty that he was a gentleman. The aunt belonged to the old school of ladies, rather prim and stiff; and yet her benevolent face, her self-possession, and quiet dignity, gave her great influence in society. Her reading and good sense, her piety and patience, were proverbial. Every body called her 'madam,' and treated her with marked respect. I was on the most familiar terms at their house; for I believe they felt that I appreciated them. It was the sympathy of people educated in the same way.
This gentleman was of great service to me. From the examination of his own feelings, he had learned much of the nature of passion; from severe suffering, he had become acquainted with misfortune. I used to confide to him all my sorrows, and I told him my struggles. He saw my remorse, and pitied my irresolution.
Alice, too, had confidence in him. They often rode together; and his age and purity of life, and the nice delicacy of his feelings, induced her to open her heart to him. He felt flattered, as well he might, by the trust this noble girl reposed in him. But, beside, he had read so much of love, thought so much of it, and suffered so much for it, that he engaged in the contemplation of our affairs with thegoûtof an epicure over a favorite dish. He lived over again hours of past endearment of his own. He felt young and ardent, as he listened to the recital of conversations and difficulties which I, with the greenness of a boy, always told him.
Things had arrived at a pass dangerous for both of us; and as yet her parents knew nothing. One of our conversations happened to be heard by the lady's mamma, and papa was informed of all. He was surprised, but affected to treat the matter quite coldly; told me I was too young, too unsettled, to think of matrimony, and very politely forbade me his house; 'as,' he said, 'the sooner we forgot each other the better.'
I ought to confess, here, that my habits had got to be quite irregular. I attended horse-races, tavern-suppers, balls, and sometimes drinking-parties, when the society was by no means the most select; and to drown the mortification, and get to the level of my companions, I ran into excesses that shattered my nerves, and made me unfit, for days, for any calm reflection.
I have always felt the consequences of this mode of life. Even the best minds will become tainted by contact with vulgarity and coarseness. The purest taste will get degraded, in a measure, by constant intercourse with low persons, such as young men who have nothing to do usually meet about taverns, stage-houses, and strolling theatres. We even acquire habits of speaking and pronunciation, and of cant terms, which are beneath a gentleman.
When low-bred men engage in pleasure, 'plenty of stuff to drink' is deemed the first essential. We are getting rid, to be sure, of thecharacter of 'a nation of drunkards;' but when I was a boy, liquors were set out upon all occasions; at weddings, at funerals, dinners, calls, paying money, or dunning-visits. People in the country, of respectability, used to drink at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and at four in the afternoon. That was genteel. The class who drank before breakfast then, now drink only at eleven; and those who drank only at eleven, drink not at all.
It was the custom, too, to drink before meals for an appetite; for appetite was considered a mark of health, however produced. Among very good sort of people, this was a common notion, that a man could work in proportion to the food he took into his stomach; so workmen were swilled with drams for an appetite.
It is certainly true, that temperance societies cannot hope for any permanent results in their exertions, unless there is a corresponding movement in other societies. Education societies, peace societies, temperance societies, and religious societies, they all have a common object and common cause, to ameliorate the state of man. They point to a common centre. People will not become temperate, and remain irreligious, and quarrelsome, and ignorant. I have often thought it would be well to turn all our efforts to educating mankind; and I believe all other objects would be protected by the course of events. But it is very questionable whether any benefit can result from taking down names to pledges not to drink spirits, in places where schools are not supported, nor the house of God attended.
In this village, every body drank at times, at parties and balls; and to be a little boosy, was by no means disreputable. Judges, members of congress, lawyers, doctors, mingled in these frolics, for popularity's sake; and the people at large thought, of course, they might go, upon the strength of such examples, to any extent.
If I had, by retirement, escaped the contamination of what are called 'glossed vices' in the city, in the country I contracted habits of a grosser nature. I do not mean to be understood as being a drunkard; but I had frequent 'scrapes;' my selection of associates was less nice; my delicacy less; my sense of honor less accurately defined. I lost, in refinement of feeling, immeasurably.
Taking all these things into view, it is no wonder that my intended father-in-law looked upon me with suspicious eyes. He was a man who had seen the ruin of many a likely young farmer and mechanic, from the same beginnings; and he was by no means pleased with my prospects. So I was forbidden to think of his daughter. She was sent out of town, I could not tell where, and I immediately left the village of N—— for a wider sphere of dissipation.
I returned to the city, coarse in my manners, rough in my appearance—thanks to the country tailor!—with large whiskers, and a swaggering bar-room air. I found, upon comparing myself with city appearances, that I was at least ten years behind the age. I blushed, looked ashamed, and avoided former acquaintances, who would greet me with, 'Well, Conworth, where the devil have you been?' or, 'Where the devil did you get those whiskers?' Mind, reader, I had been sentimental for a year, and when I was with gentlemen, was as stiff as country gentlemen usually are. Think, then, how my feelings must have been shocked at such familiarity, when I waslooking as grave as an owl, dressed up in my long-tailed coat, large pantaloons, nicely polished thick boots, and long-napped, broad-brimmed hat, with whiskers covering the sides of my face, and my complexion the color of a coal-heaver.
Tailors and time work wonders; and in a short time my country friends would hardly have known me. I soon settled down into courses of dissolute life. I had no restraints. I imagined myself a martyr to love, and was, indeed, unhappy; persuaded myself that I had no hope, and particularly when about half drunk, I sighed like a furnace.
I spent one year, one precious year, of my youth in this manner. I was desperate; lived away from home, and only visited my friends when I was in want of money.
Sometimes, when my stomach was deranged, and my brain flighty, I meditated self-destruction. I was only at ease when rioting in excitement. I kept all sorts of company, and indulged in all sorts of vices. I cannot imagine a more dissolute young man than I was in conduct, who keeps himself this side of penal crime; though it is worthy of remark, that I never recollect having indulged in any vice, unless under artificial stimulus.
I believe my father thought himself a little in the wrong, by suffering such desertion as I met with from all my friends. He pitied me, and in the most affectionate manner persuaded me to return to his house. A word of kindness was to me like manna in the wilderness. I eagerly acceded to his proposal. He paid me every attention, and actually left his business, and travelled with me for two months, and endeavoured to bring my mind back to pleasant reflections; for I was indeed almost a maniac. This was the balm in Gilead to my sick mind. I came to myself, and with my father's permission I went to spend the remainder of my clerkship at the celebrated law-school at L——.
I have always had the strongest inducements to do well. After all my errors, before I left home, the friends of our family vied in showing me kindness. I was in a constant round of the most refined society. To be sure, I had theéclatof having been disappointed in love with the finest girl in the country; and any thing about love is interesting; and to be crazy or drunk for love, is not so bad as to be so for any other cause.
I was grateful for these favors and attentions; and when I left home for the law lectures, I really believe all my friends were firmly persuaded that I was an instance of wonderful reformation. So credulous and forgiving are our friends for the sake of what they know we can and ought to be!
I wishmy reader could sympathize with me, upon coming thus far in my history. I am aware that I have written nothing of much importance, so far as incident may be looked for. But, to my view, life is rather a succession of feelings and sentiments, than of actions. It fills me with inexpressible satisfaction, to find that I have masteredmy adversaries, idleness and irresolution, in this instance, and have come to this point. It is the longest and most arduous task I have ever performed, for it is a work of continued exertion. I have never flagged from it; and the idea that some good inferences may be drawn from these pages, by the young among my own countrymen, so that my life may not pass away without one useful act, one deed of positive good, has supported me.
Let every idler, if he wishes to enjoy one happy hour, set about doing something, no matter what. Let him undertake to commit a chapter in the Bible to memory, or copy some piece of writing, or to make any intellectual exertion; but let it be definite; not take a walk, or a journey, or any thing that requires movement of the body, but still, continued, uninterrupted study and attention. Idlers are the veriest busy-bodies we know, and always flying about in some shape or other. They are idle with the appearance of industry, and deceive every body but themselves. While the world looks on, and wonders at their diligence, they are passing hours, days, years, of the most insupportable care, the care of finding something to do. I know something of the tedium of this life, and confess, that the hours spent in these records have been the happiest of my life, because I have had an end, an object, constantly in view.
My debts all paid once more, my character again rëinstated, my purse well supplied, my wardrobe in the newest fashion, and abundant as I could pack, behold the rustic of a year's standing, the lover, whose heart was broken, getting into the stage for L——, the place of the celebrated law-school; while Thomas, dressed in the self-same suit in which I had arrived some year before, is packing the trunks on behind. Alas! the association of that event and those pantaloons! Reader, they did put me in mind of the romantic hills and valley of N——, and then of Alice Clair; though to get to these affecting thoughts, I had to pass through the tailor's shop where they were made. There is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and so backward from the ridiculous to the sublime.
But in the height of my satisfaction in being permitted to take a new start in the world, under such favorable auspices, my love-disappointment did not weigh very heavily upon my heart. I had already, as I thought, performed all my promises of being a good student, etc., for I wished to, and I took the will for the deed. I wished it so much, that not a doubt or misgiving disturbed the serenity of my mind. I esteemed it a settled matter, that I was, in the first place, to make myself remarkable as a student; and then, without any trouble, to walk directly to the top of the profession. I was a sanguine——fool!
This confidence inspired my father with golden hopes; and when we parted, he told me he was the happiest man in the city. 'Now, my son,' said he, 'you are old enough (I was twenty) to begin to form a character; all your wild oats are sown; the past is forgotten; you have your destiny in your own hands. Write to me often; tell me all your wishes; and (here the devil jogged his elbow) draw upon me, if you want more money. God bless you, my dear boy!' The tears started in his eyes; mine were wet, too. As I got into the stage, (mark the baseness of my heart!) I dwelt mostly upon the words,'Draw upon me, if you want more money.' My eyes ceased their weeping. I addressed some gay make-acquaintance remarks to a fellow passenger, and as we rattled over the bridge in the velocipede line of coaches, forgot every thing but the beauty of the morning, and only wondered how long it would be before breakfast.
So contemptible is thespiritof youth, in its blind passion for pleasure. All the higher, nobler feelings sink into insignificance, compared with its own selfish enjoyments. Pleasure, love of pleasure, tramples upon the holy influences of home; it steels the heart to filial affection; it saps the juices of youth; and leaves the young body prematurely cold, and lifeless, and insensible, to the natural action of all those relations and sentiments, that reason is intended to draw its moral food from. The mother 'who watched o'er our childhood' is forgotten; the father disregarded, and the sister's face is crimsoned with shame for us, and we ourselves are lost. And for what? For an hour's amusement; a short-lived enjoyment; an empty sound of revelry, and unmeaning mirth.
What inconsistency! Hardly had I got a step from my father's door; hardly had my fingers lost the affectionate pressure of his hand, when the evil genius stepped in, to scatter the impressions which a moment before seemed so fixed.
Since the time of my mother's death, I never had passed the door of the chamber where she died, without thinking of the evening when I visited her corpse, alone—a pure boy, free from all vice, all contamination—and then drawing the comparison between the present and the past. Such reflections always gave me pain, and summoned up all the resolution I was master of. I am convinced, that, if I had had a mother until my mind had acquired strength and firmness, I should have been a better and a happier man.
A father's love acts upon us later in life, but a mother leads us up to God. She bends and moulds our tender minds to her purposes so gently, that we are hardly aware of the pressure; but the father admires, and praises, and waters the more vigorous branches of our growth.
Our reading, our studies, sermons, nature, observation, tend to give to the mother a poetical interest in our hearts, in after years, when she is dead. She is the nucleus about which gather some of the most beautiful associations of our manhood. When we ourselves have children, we find out what is the nature of parental affection, and we look back with regret that we did not know and estimate it better, so that the homage of our love might have been more devoted, for what is so worthy of being repaid.
I lovethe Indian. Ere the white man came,And taught him vice, and infamy, and shame,His soul was noble. In the sun he sawHis God, and worshipped him with trembling awe.Though rude his life, his bosom never beatWith polished vices, nor with dark deceit.
I lovethe Indian. Ere the white man came,And taught him vice, and infamy, and shame,His soul was noble. In the sun he sawHis God, and worshipped him with trembling awe.Though rude his life, his bosom never beatWith polished vices, nor with dark deceit.
A SKETCH FROM LIFE.—BY THE REV. THOMAS DALE.
I.
Tomark, the sufferings of the babeThat cannot speak its wo;To see the infant tears gush forth,Yet know not why they flow;To meet the meek, uplifted eye,That fain would ask relief,Yet can but tell of agony—This is a mother's grief.
Tomark, the sufferings of the babeThat cannot speak its wo;To see the infant tears gush forth,Yet know not why they flow;To meet the meek, uplifted eye,That fain would ask relief,Yet can but tell of agony—This is a mother's grief.
II.
Through dreary days and darker nights,To trace the march of death;To hear the faint and frequent sigh,The quick and shortened breath;To watch the last dread strife draw near,And pray that struggle brief,Though all be ended with the close—This is a mother's grief.
Through dreary days and darker nights,To trace the march of death;To hear the faint and frequent sigh,The quick and shortened breath;To watch the last dread strife draw near,And pray that struggle brief,Though all be ended with the close—This is a mother's grief.
III.
To see, in one short hour, decayedThe hope of future years;To feel how vain a father's prayers,How vain a mother's tears:To think the cold grave now must closeO'er what was once the chiefOf all the treasured joys of earth—This is a mother's grief.
To see, in one short hour, decayedThe hope of future years;To feel how vain a father's prayers,How vain a mother's tears:To think the cold grave now must closeO'er what was once the chiefOf all the treasured joys of earth—This is a mother's grief.
IV.
Yet when the first wild throb is pastOf anguish and despair,To lift the eye of faith to heaven,And think 'My child is there!'This best can dry the gushing tear,This yields the heart relief,Until the Christian's pious hopeO'ercomes a mother's grief.
Yet when the first wild throb is pastOf anguish and despair,To lift the eye of faith to heaven,And think 'My child is there!'This best can dry the gushing tear,This yields the heart relief,Until the Christian's pious hopeO'ercomes a mother's grief.
FROM THE COMMON-PLACE BOOK OF A WESTERN BACHELOR.
Aningenious friend, who has a saturnine cast of complexion, maintains with great zeal, that dark eyes are indicative of a higher order of intellect than those of other colors. This doctrine meets with great favor from every one whose eyes are black, while those that are blue, hazel, or gray, kindle with indignation at such monstrous absurdity. Our friend borrows a very happy illustration from nature, and says, that as the wildest and most vivid flashes of lightning burst from the blackest clouds, so do the most brilliant emanations of mind glare from the darkest eyes. Whether there be any truth in this doctrine, or not, it must be admitted, that our friend has the authority of the poets on his side. From immemorial time, they have been sonnetizing dark and black eyes, to the almost utter neglect of all others. Your novelists never in painting a heroine, say she has gray eyes; but all their poetical fictions see with those that are large, languishing, lustrous, and dark.
The vividness of an eye's expression is not dependent on its color. The eye is most expressive, whose owner has the most thought and feeling. The eye expresses the language of the mind and heart; and whether light or dark, wherever there is strong emotion, it manifests it. A man is a better reader of the meaning of a woman's eye, than he is of one of his own gender; and a lady discovers more indications in the eyes of the opposite sex, than can the most scrutinizing man.
The eye is the most poetical of features; and ample testimonyhas been borne, in all time, to its superiority in this particular. There is much poetry in the smile of one we love; but there is more in the gleaming kindness of an eye from which the concentrated rays of feeling, thought, and sentiment, are looking forth. Did you never look into the tranquil depths of an eye, and see the shadows of thoughts winging their flight onward? Did you never read whole chapters about the sympathy of souls in them? If not, your observation has not been acute, nor your love very devout.
The sublime science of astrology, which once commanded the faith of the learned, has been laughed at by the wisdom or scepticism of more modern times. The doctrines and the devotion of those old readers of the stars have been discarded; and to the human eye the only relict of astrology now on earth has been confided. Lovers are the sole inheritors of the romantic doctrines bequeathed by elder astrologers to posterity. They do not cast devout looks toward the bespangled firmament, at night; but to them, the brow of a beloved being is a heaven, and the eye is the star that unfolds to them the shadows of their coming destinies. Their ancestors read the decrees of fate in the glittering watchers of the night-season, and they foresee the mysteries of the future in the expressions which shift and play upon the eye. If the eye of his mistress sparkles at his approach, it is the precursor of after joy. If the murky shadow of a frown rests upon it, it is the foreshadowing of the woe to come. To the lover, the eye of his mistress is ever eloquent, of hope or fear, of triumph or defeat. It is the polar star of his hope, the cynosure of his faith; and the complexion of the future changes, as her eye wanes into shadow, or waxes into the light of day.
A wholesomelip is a thing to be loved. People are too much in the habit of regarding lips as mere appendages to the 'human face divine'—ornaments, like ear-rings, to set off its beauty. This is to detract from their true use and excellence. They serve other purposes, and are indices of character.
A wholesome lip is of the complexion of a morello cherry. It pouts like a rosebud, and might lead a bee astray, as the grapes of Zeuxis did the birds. When kissing was in fashion, gallants of taste showed a flattering preference for lips of this kind. There was a flavor about them—ambrosia, on which young Love fed and grew fat. The disciple of Socrates was feminine in the matter of lips, for bees hovered over them; and the judgment of a bee, in this respect, is scarcely inferior to that of a bachelor under thirty.
In general, people are disposed to think their noses of more importance than their lips, and many saucy noses seem to be of the same way of thinking; since we see them turning up with an expression of high disdain, as if the lips were so inferior as to merit scorn. No 'genteel,' well-behaved nose, is guilty of such dastardly effrontery. Such an one, it is true, may at times flap its nostrils, and crow lustily over its neighbors, as if it were 'cock of the walk;' but there is a soft insinuation about an eloquent lip, that cuts the comb of the braggart, and tames the monarch down to a mere republican.
Our maiden aunt Sally wore a lip, which, like her matrimonialchances, was rather shrivelled. It was a mere streak along the horizon; an indistinct margin along an ocean of mouth; a strip to tell you where her teeth were. My aunt died husbandless. If she had wedded, her bridal kiss would have been interesting. She saluted my cheek once, when, like Fanny, I was 'younger than I am now, and prettier—of course!' I thought the sensation like a gentle bite. Instead of soft, spongy flesh, her lips seemed like scraps of flesh, iron-bound. Sometimes she puckered them up like the orifice of her reticule; and this was an infallible precursor of a coming storm. Xantippe had a thin, bluish, unwaving lip. Beware of such!
My nurse was a grizzly-headed negro woman; and her gift of underlip was stupendous. It poured down, a real cataract of lip. It was without model, although not without shadow. She was deficient in chin, and her lip circled over her lower jaw-bone, in shape and size resembling a half-grown grey-hound's ear. At a distance, you might have mistaken it for an extra allowance of tongue, which her mouth could not contain. It was awful! That is, to think of kissing such a thing! When the old woman bustled about, it shivered like a sheep in shearing-time; and when she jumped, it flapped over her under-jaw like the wing of a squat pigeon.
Among the ladies, there are two orders of lips—the nectarine and the vinegarish. The former swell out like the heave of a deep sigh; the latter are sharp, and make you smack your mouth when you look on them. The first denotes amiability, the second acidity. Everlasting spring lives in the blossoms of a nectarine lip, and eternal winter dwells upon the vinegarish, along which no rill of blood ever strays.
The lips of one's sweet-heart are a volume of poetry. Smiles fling a ray like the flush of morning upon them, and they are glorious in their brightness. They are an oracle, and from them comes the voice of destiny. They are a shrine, and around them the breath of inspiration ever lingers. It would be vain to talk of kissing any thing so sacred, when the mere thought overwhelms one in unspeakable bliss!
T. H. S.