THE PAST.

THE PAST.I.Despairnot, though thy course is drear,The past has pleasures for us all;Bright scenes and things to hearts most dear,And those how fondly we recall.II.Such as some lovely girl we knew;Such as some touching song we heard;Such as some evening spent, when flewThe hours as swift as passing bird.III.Such as some well-tried friend we had;Such as some acts of kindness done,Yet rising up to make us glad,And so will rise when years are gone.IV.Despair not! still be innocent;Admire the beautiful, the good,And when the cry of woe is sent,Turn to relieve, in pitying mood.V.So shall the present, when 'tis past,Rich with harmonious scenes appear,No gloomy shadows o'er it cast,No spectres there, to make thee fear.E. G.

I.Despairnot, though thy course is drear,The past has pleasures for us all;Bright scenes and things to hearts most dear,And those how fondly we recall.II.Such as some lovely girl we knew;Such as some touching song we heard;Such as some evening spent, when flewThe hours as swift as passing bird.III.Such as some well-tried friend we had;Such as some acts of kindness done,Yet rising up to make us glad,And so will rise when years are gone.IV.Despair not! still be innocent;Admire the beautiful, the good,And when the cry of woe is sent,Turn to relieve, in pitying mood.V.So shall the present, when 'tis past,Rich with harmonious scenes appear,No gloomy shadows o'er it cast,No spectres there, to make thee fear.

Despairnot, though thy course is drear,The past has pleasures for us all;Bright scenes and things to hearts most dear,And those how fondly we recall.

Despairnot, though thy course is drear,

The past has pleasures for us all;

Bright scenes and things to hearts most dear,

And those how fondly we recall.

Such as some lovely girl we knew;Such as some touching song we heard;Such as some evening spent, when flewThe hours as swift as passing bird.

Such as some lovely girl we knew;

Such as some touching song we heard;

Such as some evening spent, when flew

The hours as swift as passing bird.

Such as some well-tried friend we had;Such as some acts of kindness done,Yet rising up to make us glad,And so will rise when years are gone.

Such as some well-tried friend we had;

Such as some acts of kindness done,

Yet rising up to make us glad,

And so will rise when years are gone.

Despair not! still be innocent;Admire the beautiful, the good,And when the cry of woe is sent,Turn to relieve, in pitying mood.

Despair not! still be innocent;

Admire the beautiful, the good,

And when the cry of woe is sent,

Turn to relieve, in pitying mood.

So shall the present, when 'tis past,Rich with harmonious scenes appear,No gloomy shadows o'er it cast,No spectres there, to make thee fear.

So shall the present, when 'tis past,

Rich with harmonious scenes appear,

No gloomy shadows o'er it cast,

No spectres there, to make thee fear.

E. G.

THE HEARTH OF HOME.BY MARY E. HEWITT.Thestorm around my dwelling sweeps,And while the dry boughs fierce it reaps,My heart within a vigil keeps,The warm and cheering hearth beside;And as I mark the kindling glowBrightly o’er all its radiance throw,Back to the years my memories flow,When Rome sat on her hills in pride;When every stream and grove and treeAnd fountain had its deity.The hearth was then, ’mong low and great,Unto the Lares consecrate:The youth arrived to man’s estateThere offered up his golden heart;Thither, when overwhelmed with dread,The stranger still for refuge fled,Was kindly cheered, and warmed, and fed,Till he might fearless thence depart:And there the slave, a slave no more,Hung reverent up the chain he wore.Full many a change the hearth hath known;The Druid fire, the curfew’s tone,The log that bright at yule-tide shone,The merry sports of Hallow-e’en;Yet still where’er a home is found,Gather the warm affections round,And there the notes of mirth resound,The voice of wisdom heard between:And welcomed there with words of grace,The stranger finds a resting place.Oh! wheresoe’er our feet may roam,Still sacred is the hearth of home;Whether beneath the princely dome,Or peasant’s lowly roof it be,For home the wanderer ever yearns;Backward to where its hearth-fire burns,Like to the wife of old, he turnsEver the eyes of memory.Back where his heart he offered first—Back where his fond young hopes he nursed.My humble hearth though all disdain,Here may I cast aside the chainThe world hath coldly on me lain;Here to myLaresoffer upThe warm prayer of a grateful heart;Thouthat my household guardian art,That dost to me thine aid impart,And with thy mercy fill’st my cup;Strengthen the hope within my soul,Till I in faith may reach the goal.

BY MARY E. HEWITT.

Thestorm around my dwelling sweeps,And while the dry boughs fierce it reaps,My heart within a vigil keeps,The warm and cheering hearth beside;And as I mark the kindling glowBrightly o’er all its radiance throw,Back to the years my memories flow,When Rome sat on her hills in pride;When every stream and grove and treeAnd fountain had its deity.The hearth was then, ’mong low and great,Unto the Lares consecrate:The youth arrived to man’s estateThere offered up his golden heart;Thither, when overwhelmed with dread,The stranger still for refuge fled,Was kindly cheered, and warmed, and fed,Till he might fearless thence depart:And there the slave, a slave no more,Hung reverent up the chain he wore.Full many a change the hearth hath known;The Druid fire, the curfew’s tone,The log that bright at yule-tide shone,The merry sports of Hallow-e’en;Yet still where’er a home is found,Gather the warm affections round,And there the notes of mirth resound,The voice of wisdom heard between:And welcomed there with words of grace,The stranger finds a resting place.Oh! wheresoe’er our feet may roam,Still sacred is the hearth of home;Whether beneath the princely dome,Or peasant’s lowly roof it be,For home the wanderer ever yearns;Backward to where its hearth-fire burns,Like to the wife of old, he turnsEver the eyes of memory.Back where his heart he offered first—Back where his fond young hopes he nursed.My humble hearth though all disdain,Here may I cast aside the chainThe world hath coldly on me lain;Here to myLaresoffer upThe warm prayer of a grateful heart;Thouthat my household guardian art,That dost to me thine aid impart,And with thy mercy fill’st my cup;Strengthen the hope within my soul,Till I in faith may reach the goal.

Thestorm around my dwelling sweeps,And while the dry boughs fierce it reaps,My heart within a vigil keeps,The warm and cheering hearth beside;And as I mark the kindling glowBrightly o’er all its radiance throw,Back to the years my memories flow,When Rome sat on her hills in pride;When every stream and grove and treeAnd fountain had its deity.

Thestorm around my dwelling sweeps,

And while the dry boughs fierce it reaps,

My heart within a vigil keeps,

The warm and cheering hearth beside;

And as I mark the kindling glow

Brightly o’er all its radiance throw,

Back to the years my memories flow,

When Rome sat on her hills in pride;

When every stream and grove and tree

And fountain had its deity.

The hearth was then, ’mong low and great,Unto the Lares consecrate:The youth arrived to man’s estateThere offered up his golden heart;Thither, when overwhelmed with dread,The stranger still for refuge fled,Was kindly cheered, and warmed, and fed,Till he might fearless thence depart:And there the slave, a slave no more,Hung reverent up the chain he wore.

The hearth was then, ’mong low and great,

Unto the Lares consecrate:

The youth arrived to man’s estate

There offered up his golden heart;

Thither, when overwhelmed with dread,

The stranger still for refuge fled,

Was kindly cheered, and warmed, and fed,

Till he might fearless thence depart:

And there the slave, a slave no more,

Hung reverent up the chain he wore.

Full many a change the hearth hath known;The Druid fire, the curfew’s tone,The log that bright at yule-tide shone,The merry sports of Hallow-e’en;Yet still where’er a home is found,Gather the warm affections round,And there the notes of mirth resound,The voice of wisdom heard between:And welcomed there with words of grace,The stranger finds a resting place.

Full many a change the hearth hath known;

The Druid fire, the curfew’s tone,

The log that bright at yule-tide shone,

The merry sports of Hallow-e’en;

Yet still where’er a home is found,

Gather the warm affections round,

And there the notes of mirth resound,

The voice of wisdom heard between:

And welcomed there with words of grace,

The stranger finds a resting place.

Oh! wheresoe’er our feet may roam,Still sacred is the hearth of home;Whether beneath the princely dome,Or peasant’s lowly roof it be,For home the wanderer ever yearns;Backward to where its hearth-fire burns,Like to the wife of old, he turnsEver the eyes of memory.Back where his heart he offered first—Back where his fond young hopes he nursed.

Oh! wheresoe’er our feet may roam,

Still sacred is the hearth of home;

Whether beneath the princely dome,

Or peasant’s lowly roof it be,

For home the wanderer ever yearns;

Backward to where its hearth-fire burns,

Like to the wife of old, he turns

Ever the eyes of memory.

Back where his heart he offered first—

Back where his fond young hopes he nursed.

My humble hearth though all disdain,Here may I cast aside the chainThe world hath coldly on me lain;Here to myLaresoffer upThe warm prayer of a grateful heart;Thouthat my household guardian art,That dost to me thine aid impart,And with thy mercy fill’st my cup;Strengthen the hope within my soul,Till I in faith may reach the goal.

My humble hearth though all disdain,

Here may I cast aside the chain

The world hath coldly on me lain;

Here to myLaresoffer up

The warm prayer of a grateful heart;

Thouthat my household guardian art,

That dost to me thine aid impart,

And with thy mercy fill’st my cup;

Strengthen the hope within my soul,

Till I in faith may reach the goal.

PROFESSOR SHAW.A SKETCH.Plutarch Shaw, the naturalist, was lately in the stocks, which has been a matter of much talk among the virtuosi, and a good deal of malicious laughter on all hands. He cut a devil of a figure, rest assured, propped up in a straight jacket, his eye fiery with vengeance; the innocent victim of ‘circumstances,’ and that very common error of putting the saddle on the wrong horse. A very little explanation will serve to place this matter in the right light, and show by what a fantastic adventure an honest man, who was alway given to roam over much territory, was suddenly placed upon the limits, and one of the most profound explorers of the curious became himself for the time being a curiosity.Mr. Shaw is so much of an enthusiast, that it is very unpleasant to stand near him when he is talking about his bugs, or exhibiting his specimens, on account of being spattered all over with the spray of his eloquence. A bat shot down in the dusk of the evening is enough to set him half crazy, and make the saliva fly all over; it rolls and surges against the bulwarks of his jagged teeth in a rabid foam, showers out with his descriptions, and makes him only tolerable at arm’s length. The beetles and butterflies which he has transfixed are innumerable; and he is perpetually syringing down the humming-birds, as stationary on vibrating wings, these beautiful creatures of the air plunge their beaks deep into the cups of flowers. With him pin-money is an item. If he marks any thing curious in the natural world, he ‘sticks a pin there,’ and keeps it for future reference; any thing from a lady-bug ready to unfold suddenly the gauze upon its hard back, where you would think no wings existed, and fly away, to an offensive black beetle that snuffs the candle, or cracks its head against the wall, thence upward in the scale to the bird which Liberty loves as her sublimest emblem, the proudest of the proud, the bird of our own mountains, and the eagle of our own skies.‘I would not heedlessly set foot upon a worm,’writes Cowper: not so however with the great Shaw, whose collection of worms is most disgusting; exceeded only by his reptiles preserved in spirits, with all their sickening exhibition of claws. He has got some dragons that fall little short of the Devil himself in general hideousness and outrageous tails; some noots brought from Nootka Sound; some green monsters from Green Bay; some devilish things from Van Diemon’s land; and finally, Plutarch is himself hideous, and ought to be put in a collection, which by the by, he latelywas. It was a great era in his life time when he shot a wild-cat; that however has nothing to do with the present story, and must be told shortly. He threw a stone at him, it seems, to frighten him out of the bushes, where by dint ofsneaking he discovered something with a white and black fur, moving about in a short compass. Breathless with excitement, standing on tip-toe, dodging his head among the brambles, all ready, and meaning to have a shot at him ‘pretty soon,’ he was whispering to himself, telling himself in a mysterious voice to ‘hold fast,’ not to budge, but wait for the next movement; when thispole-cat—there is a distinction, it is well known in the species, nor in the present instance was it a ‘distinction without a difference’—opened the batteries with the precision of an artillery officer. ‘O my eyes!’ was the exclamation of Professor Shaw, ‘my eyes! my eyes! my eyes!’ It was a great era in his life time also when he shot a plover;thathowever has little to do with the present story, and must be told shortly. It was on the Big Plains, where not a tree nor shrub may be seen for miles around; where ambuscades are unknown, and it is very hard to steal a march upon the timid birds which are frightened at a very shadow; only they do not fear the flocks and herds which pasture upon the plains, but tamely pick up the worms beneath their feet. Professor Shaw hit upon an expedient to surprise them, which no other person would have thought of, than one of his extreme ingenuity: a big box, opened at both ends, into which he crawled with fowling-piece in hand. First, however, he procured an ox-hide at the stall of a neighboring farm, with all its apparatus of horns, and placed it over the box, to give it the appearance at a distance, of abonâ fideox. Sure enough, this scheme worked well. On came the plovers, hopping about with much unconcern. Shaw chuckled. He flattered himself that he should be the death of some of them, if his own life were only spared a few moments. While he hammered the flint of his fowling-piece with an old jack-knife, he heard a distant rumbling sound, which soon waxed terrible, and caused him to thrust out his head. Thunder and Mars! what should he do? If he ran, it was all up with him, and he was a dead man if he staid where he was. A wild bull of the prairies was cutting up shines at no great distance, tearing up the sod with hoofs and horns, and threatening to demolish that refuge of lies. Shaw poked out his head, and drew it in again, clutching his fowling-piece convulsively, and trembling in an agony of fear. Involuntarily he began to say his prayers. ‘Our Father who art in heaven,’ said he, with great fervor. The bull was now up, bellowing in a tumultuous passion, galloping round and round in circles which were diminishing with every turn, getting his horns ready to toss the whole fiction of an ox, box, hide, horns, Plutarch Shaw and all, into the air. ‘Help! help!’ shrieked the philosopher; ‘I’ll come out; I must, I must, Imust!’ And hedidcome out, by far the most sneaking object for miles around on the Big Plains. Some men who were hunting plover from a wagon, (which is the right way,) saw his fantastic position with mingled laughter and alarm. They drove to his assistance, but the horses shyed off at the terrific conduct of the bull, whose onslaught was now made upon the box, which he attacked hoof and horn. Mr. Shaw had barely strength to reach the shelter of the wagon, into which he was taken, much chap-fallen, and resuscitated with brandy-and-water, which were luckily at hand.He was an ‘odd fish,’ unanimously so styled, by those who knew him,nor did his appearance belie him, as he started forth on a geological excursion in the month of May last, making poems and tuning pianos by the way. He strung up the old harpsicords to the satisfaction of the country girls, who thought he ‘played on music’ with great skill, but his eyes were the very wildest. Was Professor Shaw crazy? By no means. As a proof of it, he had written several poems as voluminous as the Fredoniad; which were unavailing for the present, but which hedidhope that his ‘country would not willingly let die;’ added to this, some marches in double quick time, some intricate and inwoven harmonies in the transcendental style, stanzas set to music, thrown forth when the excitement was upon him, and fugitives from justice. Yet all these were nothing, to judge by dark and mysterious hints which were given out, of someGREAT WORKat which he was now laboring, which the world, (he said it with a presentiment of triumph) would becompelledto own. But, as I remarked, his appearance did not belie him. Whoever might doubt his metaphysics, his legs were unquestionably the very longest, by the assistance of which he had lately won a foot-race on the Union course for a hundred dollars, to enable him to pursue his studies for the ministry. ‘Accoutred as he was,’ on one fine day in the month of May, he had wandered to a distant part of the country with a walking-stick, furnished at the extremity with a small hammer. Absorbed in revery, and constructing verses by the way, he arrived at last in a romantic valley, where he was soon busily employed in cracking rocks, and collecting specimens for his cabinet.The solitude and pleasant walks were eminently suited to the mind of Professor Shaw. The babbling of the rills which came down the hill sides and washed the pebbles at his feet, were soothing to the sense, and the birds sang sweetly on the trees, which were covered with the blossoms of the spring. Only a single dwelling was seen on one of those swelling hills which rose above each other, gently and far away, till their last undulating lines were limited by the horizon’s blue verge. The eye wandered with pleasure over the diversified prospect, which included the boundaries of three sovereign states, with various rivers, valleys and fertile fields. On such a spot, where Nature reigned and developed herself in quiet beauty, whether in the voluptuous budding of the spring, or in the year’s gorgeous decline, Charity had taken the hint and erected an asylum for the insane. Happy invocation of Nature, most kind and gentle saviour of the sick, who meeting her in her quiet haunts may touch her beautiful garments and be whole! In the exhilarating sunshine, in the fields garnished so exquisitely by our good God, in the religious woods, the circling hills, and the unbounded sky, there is a force of healing, when Art has consigned the victim to despair, and the soothing hand aggravates the deep-rooted sorrow. Nature gently re-conducts the lost mind through its labyrinth of error, speaking sweet consolation in the passing breeze, and a volume of beauty in each unclasping flower.Professor Shaw was doubling up his grotesque figure over the stones, gathering garnets. With the intent look of a gold digger, or an alchymist prying into his crucible, he was seeking for treasures, cracking up rocks into the size of sugar-lumps, and Macadamizing all the place foryards round. His shadow stalked with him with colossal strides, according to the declension of the sun, and the hammer in his shadowy arm fell on the projection of the shadowy rocks. But not farther off than where his grotesque head and slanting extremity were measured on the next wall, two clowns had gee’d their oxen under a tree, and left their basket of potatoes in the furrow, (w—hoy—gee, there—I tell yer to gee!) for the sake of giving their undivided attention to the Professor. Geology they had never heard of, beyond its application to stone fence; so they considered the conduct of a man very queer indeed, who was muttering to himself, and filling his pocket full of stones. After a little silence, they nodded to each other with a knowing look, and said with one consent, ‘He’s as crazy as a coot.’ They approached Mr. Shaw, dubiously. ‘See his eyes!’ said they; ‘aint they wild? Mister?’ said the elder clown.Shaw made no reply.‘Mister, look a-here; aint you—aint you——?’‘Fel-spar,’ said Shaw, cabalistically.‘Oh dear me! that’s enough! My dear feller, we’ve got a duty to perform. I guess we know where you come from. Mister, aintyou——?’‘Are you addressing me?’ said Professor Shaw, mildly, looking up. ‘Are you addressing your remarks to me, my friend?‘Wonderful cunnin’, but it wont do. ’Twont sarve you; I’m a-feard we shall haveto——’‘Well, Sir, my name is Shaw.’‘What’s that you got onto your cane? What you doin’ in Queens cëounty? Do tell, aint you——got loose from somewhar? Honor bright!’The professor, lost in amazement, answered only by a broad stare. He then bethought him that two lunatics had escaped from yonder mansion. The idea satisfied his mind, and surprise gave way at once to a smile, full of benevolence and pity. ‘My poor friends,’ said he, ‘do go back; you have surely wandered from home; do go up the hill—do go up the hill.’ Then stamping his foot with an air of authority, he exclaimed, stretching out the hammer of his cane, ‘Go back to the asylum, in-stan-taneously!’‘I guess the one in the loft will be long enough,’ whispered the rustic; ‘but fetch the longest of the tworopes, and make haste. Oh, he’s stark!’‘Ah! how sad!’ soliloquized Professor Shaw, as both of his new friends retreated, and one hurried out of sight, ‘how sad a spectacle! the deluded, wandering mind, told by such unerring symptoms; the wild eye, strange words, and fantastic pleasantness; reason hurled from her own throne, and that steady light exchanged for the fitful flickering over decay! They mistake me for one of their melancholy fraternity, poor lunatics! whereas my lamp of life, and reason, it appears to me, never shone brighter. I shall yet work out something of which my country will be proud, and which shall inscribe on an enduring pedestal the name ofShaw.’ The professor (with his hammer) split a rock. ‘If those men come back, what had I better do with them? I will contemplatethe remarkable phenomenon of the mind in ruins. Humanity suggests to me that I ought to coax them back with sophistry as far as the garden-gate, and then holler for help.’ Shaw was the best hearted of men; he would not hurt a human being in the world, cruel as he was to bugs, and to centipedes an ‘outer barbarian.’ In the course of ten minutes he was at the base of a large rock, scooping out garnets, and thinking casually of that ‘great work which his country would not willingly let die,’ when a rope was let over his head and shoulders from above, and the professor was noosed. The countrymen jumped down, and began to drag him from the other end, squeezing his bowels, and winding him round and round, till coming to close quarters, they knocked his hat off, wrested his hammer out of his hand, and seizing him by the collar, almost throttled him with the knuckles of their immense fists.Shaw. (Kicking violently.) Murder! murder! murder!Rustics. It won’t do no good; we got yer; you may as well come fust as last. You’re crazy as a coot, and wuss now than when we fus see you. Your eyes shows it.Shaw. I’ll go with you, my friends, but don’t kill me; oh! I beseech you don’t kill me!Rustics. No, we wont hurt you; only come along to the house. Come along.Shaw. Take your knuckles out of my throat, please.Aside.Their hallucination is extreme; the symptoms of their disease have taken a form the most vindictive. Yes, my friends, conduct me safe. We shall soon reach the house; then all will be explained.At this very hour an amusing scene was enacting among the lunatics in the large hall of the asylum. One who professed magnetism was trying his skill upon a subject, to the great entertainment of his fellows. He was making the passes after a singular fashion, upon a docile fellow who sat bolt upright in a chair with a face of the most stolid gravity. Standing at a distance, he would rush up with long strides, make a wavy flourish with his hands over the face of the subject, and retreat as rapidly. Then with eager, swelling eyes, aiming with the fore-finger of each hand, he would run up and point at some phrenological bump upon the cranium. But the patient sat immovable, and was neither to be soothed into slumber, nor coaxed into giving any indication that the organs were excited; as is the case with the well-drilledprotegésof your itinerant lecturers.Nearly all the inmates were witnesses of this scene, except a few who were restricted, and one fair girl who walked in the garden sobbing; and never did tears fall out of more beautiful eyes, or shed over such a sweet face the interest of sorrow. They gushed profusely on the rosebud in her hand; fit emblem of herself; for she had not yet broke into the bloom of womanhood. Where tears flow, despair has been already softened to sorrow, and smiles may yet shine out of the darkness, as the bow of promise bridges only a firmament of cloud. This poor creature, frightened at a disturbance at the gate, fled like a fawn to her own apartment. The professor was lugged in by the head and ears, with unnecessary roughness. Appearances were much against him, as he always had a crazy look. His strange dress and equipments, his unshavenbeard, his long hair straggling over his forehead, his long nose and long legs, his much-abused and bunged-up hat, which yawned wide open at the crown and showed the lining, wore the external tokens of a mind ill at ease. Added to this, a sickly smile shed a yellow glare over his features, of which the effect was neither natural nor pleasant; and as the lunatics pressed around, and the clowns still clutched him by the throat, even that passed away, and left an expression of bewilderment and undisguised dismay. At that moment the physician arrived, and glancing at the new subject just brought to the establishment, and concluding that his present wildness would need some coercion at first, requested him to be brought into the nearest apartment. The four formed a singular group. ‘Sit down,’ said the doctor, nodding calmly to the professor, as he prepared to study the case. ‘Ha! ha!’ exclaimed Professor Shaw, dropping into a chair, and striving hard to be amused at his predicament, ‘ha! ha! ha! My dear Sir, ha! ha! yes, I think I may say ha! ha! ha!’—and he laughed so obstreperously as to set the whole company in a roar. ‘This excursion for scientific purposes; near coming to an unpleasant termination; some of your poor fellows, doctor,’ casting a knowing look at the clowns, ‘are strongly possessed they brought me here against my will.’The doctor smiled.‘Let me explain all,’ said Mr. Shaw, recovering breath, and speaking with preternatural calmness. ‘Oblige me first by having those men removed. Their presence disturbs me. I pity them from my lowest soul; but they have—it is ridiculous—ha! ha! ha! yes, itisridiculous—but they have hurt me very much and disturbed my equanimity. You should confine them more strictly, Sir, and not let them go at large to murder strangers by the way-side.’The doctor smiled.‘In search of relaxation, during the intervals of a great work which I have in hand, having been made an honorary member of the Tinnecum Association, I came here for the prosecution of scientific purposes, and for the collection of botanical and mineralogical specimens, which I have at present in my breeches pocket.’Rustics. He! he! he! that’s enough—see his eyes!Shaw. (Smiling.) Doctor, how long have these subjects been in your institution? Their insanity has not taken a very mild form. Will you oblige me by removing them from the room? Indeed it hurts me to see the immortal mind astray.The doctor smiled.Shaw. (Enthusiastically.) As I entered these doors, a most lovely being shot across my path. It was but an instant; a quick light, a momentary flash, and all was gone! But it was enough! I saw her! I never shall forget her. Who is she? That sweet girl has impressed her image on my soul!Doctor. My friend, be calm.Shaw. Oh, my dear Sir! understand me. Iamcalm, Iamcalm.Doctor. Perhaps you will be so kind as to inform me where yourfriendsreside, and when you left them upon this journey.‘My friends!’ exclaimed the professor, with a bitter sneer; ‘who aremy friends? Where have I found any whose friendship was other than a name? My books, my cabinet, my studies, the great work on which I am now laboring—these are my friends; it is only through these that I shall be raised to fame.Sic itur ad astra.’Doctor. I am satisfied that we had better secure——Shaw. Do you want any assistance, Sir? I will willingly help you to get these poor fellows to their rooms.Rustics. He’s the cunningest we ever seen.Doctor. Yes, he would deceive any one. Wait a minute my men.Shaw. If you don’t need me I’ll bid you good day; I can’t stay any longer.Doctor. Oh no, we can’t let you go, in common humanity, till we have communicated with your friends.Professor Shaw, in the utmost alarm, attempted to plunge out of the room. He was laid violent hands on by all three; his indignation boiled over; he struggled most desperately, knocked down the doctor, and attempted to jump out of the window, but in the end was overcome, a straight-jacket put on him, the stones were taken out of his pocket, he was conducted to a separate apartment, and as the shades of night fell around him, he almost doubted himself whether he was in his sound mind. His wits seemed to be indeed scattered. In vain he tried to collect them, and to realize his present position, which was the most false and unfortunate one in which he had ever been placed. He charged the Devil with conspiracy. He had already sneered at the suggestion of having friends; how should he be the victim and laughter of his enemies! He imagined them holding their gaunt sides and shaking with a spectre-like malignity. Then he thought of the fair girl whom he had seen in the garden shedding tears on roses, and strove to weave a chaplet of verse which should be more unfading than flowers. What a strange destiny was his! The victim of untoward accidents, persecuted by some evil spirit, and leading an aimless, desultory life, which he yet feared would lead on to lunacy. What should he do in the present instance? Be patient? Yes, he would be calm, forgiving, philosophical as ever. Footsteps are approaching; the door of his cell opens; perhaps it is already the token of his release. Yes, one of his own townsmen enters. Alas! he owed the professor a grudge, and assured the doctor that he was cracked, and begged him to hold on to him by all means; he would go and inform his friends. ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ exclaimed Shaw, as the door closed; ‘there it is again; in luck as usual; ha! ha! ha!—ha! ha! ha!’As it grew dark, and he lay on his pallet, a crowd of thoughts and imaginations pursued him through a long sleep, and when he opened his eyes to the morning light, he gazed around the strange place with astonishment, and tried in vain to persuade himself that his present position was not a dream.In three days he was released from limbo; retracing his steps, with all the bugs and specimens which he had collected. And, for those who feel an interest in Professor Shaw, it may be agreeable to know, that in his wanderings, having discovered in a green lane, on the margin of a duck-pond, a district school in want of a pedagogue, he forthwith assumedthe birch, and may be now seen at almost any hour of the day, in the midst of his noisy populace, commanding silence, or dusting them on their least honorable parts. ‘Tough, are you? I’ll see if I can find a tender spot. Come, no bawling, or I’ll flog you till you stop. Thomas Jones, take your book, and stick your nose in the c-o-rner. First division may go out. First class ingeography——’F. W. S.

A SKETCH.

Plutarch Shaw, the naturalist, was lately in the stocks, which has been a matter of much talk among the virtuosi, and a good deal of malicious laughter on all hands. He cut a devil of a figure, rest assured, propped up in a straight jacket, his eye fiery with vengeance; the innocent victim of ‘circumstances,’ and that very common error of putting the saddle on the wrong horse. A very little explanation will serve to place this matter in the right light, and show by what a fantastic adventure an honest man, who was alway given to roam over much territory, was suddenly placed upon the limits, and one of the most profound explorers of the curious became himself for the time being a curiosity.

Mr. Shaw is so much of an enthusiast, that it is very unpleasant to stand near him when he is talking about his bugs, or exhibiting his specimens, on account of being spattered all over with the spray of his eloquence. A bat shot down in the dusk of the evening is enough to set him half crazy, and make the saliva fly all over; it rolls and surges against the bulwarks of his jagged teeth in a rabid foam, showers out with his descriptions, and makes him only tolerable at arm’s length. The beetles and butterflies which he has transfixed are innumerable; and he is perpetually syringing down the humming-birds, as stationary on vibrating wings, these beautiful creatures of the air plunge their beaks deep into the cups of flowers. With him pin-money is an item. If he marks any thing curious in the natural world, he ‘sticks a pin there,’ and keeps it for future reference; any thing from a lady-bug ready to unfold suddenly the gauze upon its hard back, where you would think no wings existed, and fly away, to an offensive black beetle that snuffs the candle, or cracks its head against the wall, thence upward in the scale to the bird which Liberty loves as her sublimest emblem, the proudest of the proud, the bird of our own mountains, and the eagle of our own skies.

‘I would not heedlessly set foot upon a worm,’

writes Cowper: not so however with the great Shaw, whose collection of worms is most disgusting; exceeded only by his reptiles preserved in spirits, with all their sickening exhibition of claws. He has got some dragons that fall little short of the Devil himself in general hideousness and outrageous tails; some noots brought from Nootka Sound; some green monsters from Green Bay; some devilish things from Van Diemon’s land; and finally, Plutarch is himself hideous, and ought to be put in a collection, which by the by, he latelywas. It was a great era in his life time when he shot a wild-cat; that however has nothing to do with the present story, and must be told shortly. He threw a stone at him, it seems, to frighten him out of the bushes, where by dint ofsneaking he discovered something with a white and black fur, moving about in a short compass. Breathless with excitement, standing on tip-toe, dodging his head among the brambles, all ready, and meaning to have a shot at him ‘pretty soon,’ he was whispering to himself, telling himself in a mysterious voice to ‘hold fast,’ not to budge, but wait for the next movement; when thispole-cat—there is a distinction, it is well known in the species, nor in the present instance was it a ‘distinction without a difference’—opened the batteries with the precision of an artillery officer. ‘O my eyes!’ was the exclamation of Professor Shaw, ‘my eyes! my eyes! my eyes!’ It was a great era in his life time also when he shot a plover;thathowever has little to do with the present story, and must be told shortly. It was on the Big Plains, where not a tree nor shrub may be seen for miles around; where ambuscades are unknown, and it is very hard to steal a march upon the timid birds which are frightened at a very shadow; only they do not fear the flocks and herds which pasture upon the plains, but tamely pick up the worms beneath their feet. Professor Shaw hit upon an expedient to surprise them, which no other person would have thought of, than one of his extreme ingenuity: a big box, opened at both ends, into which he crawled with fowling-piece in hand. First, however, he procured an ox-hide at the stall of a neighboring farm, with all its apparatus of horns, and placed it over the box, to give it the appearance at a distance, of abonâ fideox. Sure enough, this scheme worked well. On came the plovers, hopping about with much unconcern. Shaw chuckled. He flattered himself that he should be the death of some of them, if his own life were only spared a few moments. While he hammered the flint of his fowling-piece with an old jack-knife, he heard a distant rumbling sound, which soon waxed terrible, and caused him to thrust out his head. Thunder and Mars! what should he do? If he ran, it was all up with him, and he was a dead man if he staid where he was. A wild bull of the prairies was cutting up shines at no great distance, tearing up the sod with hoofs and horns, and threatening to demolish that refuge of lies. Shaw poked out his head, and drew it in again, clutching his fowling-piece convulsively, and trembling in an agony of fear. Involuntarily he began to say his prayers. ‘Our Father who art in heaven,’ said he, with great fervor. The bull was now up, bellowing in a tumultuous passion, galloping round and round in circles which were diminishing with every turn, getting his horns ready to toss the whole fiction of an ox, box, hide, horns, Plutarch Shaw and all, into the air. ‘Help! help!’ shrieked the philosopher; ‘I’ll come out; I must, I must, Imust!’ And hedidcome out, by far the most sneaking object for miles around on the Big Plains. Some men who were hunting plover from a wagon, (which is the right way,) saw his fantastic position with mingled laughter and alarm. They drove to his assistance, but the horses shyed off at the terrific conduct of the bull, whose onslaught was now made upon the box, which he attacked hoof and horn. Mr. Shaw had barely strength to reach the shelter of the wagon, into which he was taken, much chap-fallen, and resuscitated with brandy-and-water, which were luckily at hand.

He was an ‘odd fish,’ unanimously so styled, by those who knew him,nor did his appearance belie him, as he started forth on a geological excursion in the month of May last, making poems and tuning pianos by the way. He strung up the old harpsicords to the satisfaction of the country girls, who thought he ‘played on music’ with great skill, but his eyes were the very wildest. Was Professor Shaw crazy? By no means. As a proof of it, he had written several poems as voluminous as the Fredoniad; which were unavailing for the present, but which hedidhope that his ‘country would not willingly let die;’ added to this, some marches in double quick time, some intricate and inwoven harmonies in the transcendental style, stanzas set to music, thrown forth when the excitement was upon him, and fugitives from justice. Yet all these were nothing, to judge by dark and mysterious hints which were given out, of someGREAT WORKat which he was now laboring, which the world, (he said it with a presentiment of triumph) would becompelledto own. But, as I remarked, his appearance did not belie him. Whoever might doubt his metaphysics, his legs were unquestionably the very longest, by the assistance of which he had lately won a foot-race on the Union course for a hundred dollars, to enable him to pursue his studies for the ministry. ‘Accoutred as he was,’ on one fine day in the month of May, he had wandered to a distant part of the country with a walking-stick, furnished at the extremity with a small hammer. Absorbed in revery, and constructing verses by the way, he arrived at last in a romantic valley, where he was soon busily employed in cracking rocks, and collecting specimens for his cabinet.

The solitude and pleasant walks were eminently suited to the mind of Professor Shaw. The babbling of the rills which came down the hill sides and washed the pebbles at his feet, were soothing to the sense, and the birds sang sweetly on the trees, which were covered with the blossoms of the spring. Only a single dwelling was seen on one of those swelling hills which rose above each other, gently and far away, till their last undulating lines were limited by the horizon’s blue verge. The eye wandered with pleasure over the diversified prospect, which included the boundaries of three sovereign states, with various rivers, valleys and fertile fields. On such a spot, where Nature reigned and developed herself in quiet beauty, whether in the voluptuous budding of the spring, or in the year’s gorgeous decline, Charity had taken the hint and erected an asylum for the insane. Happy invocation of Nature, most kind and gentle saviour of the sick, who meeting her in her quiet haunts may touch her beautiful garments and be whole! In the exhilarating sunshine, in the fields garnished so exquisitely by our good God, in the religious woods, the circling hills, and the unbounded sky, there is a force of healing, when Art has consigned the victim to despair, and the soothing hand aggravates the deep-rooted sorrow. Nature gently re-conducts the lost mind through its labyrinth of error, speaking sweet consolation in the passing breeze, and a volume of beauty in each unclasping flower.

Professor Shaw was doubling up his grotesque figure over the stones, gathering garnets. With the intent look of a gold digger, or an alchymist prying into his crucible, he was seeking for treasures, cracking up rocks into the size of sugar-lumps, and Macadamizing all the place foryards round. His shadow stalked with him with colossal strides, according to the declension of the sun, and the hammer in his shadowy arm fell on the projection of the shadowy rocks. But not farther off than where his grotesque head and slanting extremity were measured on the next wall, two clowns had gee’d their oxen under a tree, and left their basket of potatoes in the furrow, (w—hoy—gee, there—I tell yer to gee!) for the sake of giving their undivided attention to the Professor. Geology they had never heard of, beyond its application to stone fence; so they considered the conduct of a man very queer indeed, who was muttering to himself, and filling his pocket full of stones. After a little silence, they nodded to each other with a knowing look, and said with one consent, ‘He’s as crazy as a coot.’ They approached Mr. Shaw, dubiously. ‘See his eyes!’ said they; ‘aint they wild? Mister?’ said the elder clown.

Shaw made no reply.

‘Mister, look a-here; aint you—aint you——?’

‘Fel-spar,’ said Shaw, cabalistically.

‘Oh dear me! that’s enough! My dear feller, we’ve got a duty to perform. I guess we know where you come from. Mister, aintyou——?’

‘Are you addressing me?’ said Professor Shaw, mildly, looking up. ‘Are you addressing your remarks to me, my friend?

‘Wonderful cunnin’, but it wont do. ’Twont sarve you; I’m a-feard we shall haveto——’

‘Well, Sir, my name is Shaw.’

‘What’s that you got onto your cane? What you doin’ in Queens cëounty? Do tell, aint you——got loose from somewhar? Honor bright!’

The professor, lost in amazement, answered only by a broad stare. He then bethought him that two lunatics had escaped from yonder mansion. The idea satisfied his mind, and surprise gave way at once to a smile, full of benevolence and pity. ‘My poor friends,’ said he, ‘do go back; you have surely wandered from home; do go up the hill—do go up the hill.’ Then stamping his foot with an air of authority, he exclaimed, stretching out the hammer of his cane, ‘Go back to the asylum, in-stan-taneously!’

‘I guess the one in the loft will be long enough,’ whispered the rustic; ‘but fetch the longest of the tworopes, and make haste. Oh, he’s stark!’

‘Ah! how sad!’ soliloquized Professor Shaw, as both of his new friends retreated, and one hurried out of sight, ‘how sad a spectacle! the deluded, wandering mind, told by such unerring symptoms; the wild eye, strange words, and fantastic pleasantness; reason hurled from her own throne, and that steady light exchanged for the fitful flickering over decay! They mistake me for one of their melancholy fraternity, poor lunatics! whereas my lamp of life, and reason, it appears to me, never shone brighter. I shall yet work out something of which my country will be proud, and which shall inscribe on an enduring pedestal the name ofShaw.’ The professor (with his hammer) split a rock. ‘If those men come back, what had I better do with them? I will contemplatethe remarkable phenomenon of the mind in ruins. Humanity suggests to me that I ought to coax them back with sophistry as far as the garden-gate, and then holler for help.’ Shaw was the best hearted of men; he would not hurt a human being in the world, cruel as he was to bugs, and to centipedes an ‘outer barbarian.’ In the course of ten minutes he was at the base of a large rock, scooping out garnets, and thinking casually of that ‘great work which his country would not willingly let die,’ when a rope was let over his head and shoulders from above, and the professor was noosed. The countrymen jumped down, and began to drag him from the other end, squeezing his bowels, and winding him round and round, till coming to close quarters, they knocked his hat off, wrested his hammer out of his hand, and seizing him by the collar, almost throttled him with the knuckles of their immense fists.

Shaw. (Kicking violently.) Murder! murder! murder!

Rustics. It won’t do no good; we got yer; you may as well come fust as last. You’re crazy as a coot, and wuss now than when we fus see you. Your eyes shows it.

Shaw. I’ll go with you, my friends, but don’t kill me; oh! I beseech you don’t kill me!

Rustics. No, we wont hurt you; only come along to the house. Come along.

Shaw. Take your knuckles out of my throat, please.Aside.Their hallucination is extreme; the symptoms of their disease have taken a form the most vindictive. Yes, my friends, conduct me safe. We shall soon reach the house; then all will be explained.

At this very hour an amusing scene was enacting among the lunatics in the large hall of the asylum. One who professed magnetism was trying his skill upon a subject, to the great entertainment of his fellows. He was making the passes after a singular fashion, upon a docile fellow who sat bolt upright in a chair with a face of the most stolid gravity. Standing at a distance, he would rush up with long strides, make a wavy flourish with his hands over the face of the subject, and retreat as rapidly. Then with eager, swelling eyes, aiming with the fore-finger of each hand, he would run up and point at some phrenological bump upon the cranium. But the patient sat immovable, and was neither to be soothed into slumber, nor coaxed into giving any indication that the organs were excited; as is the case with the well-drilledprotegésof your itinerant lecturers.

Nearly all the inmates were witnesses of this scene, except a few who were restricted, and one fair girl who walked in the garden sobbing; and never did tears fall out of more beautiful eyes, or shed over such a sweet face the interest of sorrow. They gushed profusely on the rosebud in her hand; fit emblem of herself; for she had not yet broke into the bloom of womanhood. Where tears flow, despair has been already softened to sorrow, and smiles may yet shine out of the darkness, as the bow of promise bridges only a firmament of cloud. This poor creature, frightened at a disturbance at the gate, fled like a fawn to her own apartment. The professor was lugged in by the head and ears, with unnecessary roughness. Appearances were much against him, as he always had a crazy look. His strange dress and equipments, his unshavenbeard, his long hair straggling over his forehead, his long nose and long legs, his much-abused and bunged-up hat, which yawned wide open at the crown and showed the lining, wore the external tokens of a mind ill at ease. Added to this, a sickly smile shed a yellow glare over his features, of which the effect was neither natural nor pleasant; and as the lunatics pressed around, and the clowns still clutched him by the throat, even that passed away, and left an expression of bewilderment and undisguised dismay. At that moment the physician arrived, and glancing at the new subject just brought to the establishment, and concluding that his present wildness would need some coercion at first, requested him to be brought into the nearest apartment. The four formed a singular group. ‘Sit down,’ said the doctor, nodding calmly to the professor, as he prepared to study the case. ‘Ha! ha!’ exclaimed Professor Shaw, dropping into a chair, and striving hard to be amused at his predicament, ‘ha! ha! ha! My dear Sir, ha! ha! yes, I think I may say ha! ha! ha!’—and he laughed so obstreperously as to set the whole company in a roar. ‘This excursion for scientific purposes; near coming to an unpleasant termination; some of your poor fellows, doctor,’ casting a knowing look at the clowns, ‘are strongly possessed they brought me here against my will.’

The doctor smiled.

‘Let me explain all,’ said Mr. Shaw, recovering breath, and speaking with preternatural calmness. ‘Oblige me first by having those men removed. Their presence disturbs me. I pity them from my lowest soul; but they have—it is ridiculous—ha! ha! ha! yes, itisridiculous—but they have hurt me very much and disturbed my equanimity. You should confine them more strictly, Sir, and not let them go at large to murder strangers by the way-side.’

The doctor smiled.

‘In search of relaxation, during the intervals of a great work which I have in hand, having been made an honorary member of the Tinnecum Association, I came here for the prosecution of scientific purposes, and for the collection of botanical and mineralogical specimens, which I have at present in my breeches pocket.’

Rustics. He! he! he! that’s enough—see his eyes!

Shaw. (Smiling.) Doctor, how long have these subjects been in your institution? Their insanity has not taken a very mild form. Will you oblige me by removing them from the room? Indeed it hurts me to see the immortal mind astray.

The doctor smiled.

Shaw. (Enthusiastically.) As I entered these doors, a most lovely being shot across my path. It was but an instant; a quick light, a momentary flash, and all was gone! But it was enough! I saw her! I never shall forget her. Who is she? That sweet girl has impressed her image on my soul!

Doctor. My friend, be calm.

Shaw. Oh, my dear Sir! understand me. Iamcalm, Iamcalm.

Doctor. Perhaps you will be so kind as to inform me where yourfriendsreside, and when you left them upon this journey.

‘My friends!’ exclaimed the professor, with a bitter sneer; ‘who aremy friends? Where have I found any whose friendship was other than a name? My books, my cabinet, my studies, the great work on which I am now laboring—these are my friends; it is only through these that I shall be raised to fame.Sic itur ad astra.’

Doctor. I am satisfied that we had better secure——

Shaw. Do you want any assistance, Sir? I will willingly help you to get these poor fellows to their rooms.

Rustics. He’s the cunningest we ever seen.

Doctor. Yes, he would deceive any one. Wait a minute my men.

Shaw. If you don’t need me I’ll bid you good day; I can’t stay any longer.

Doctor. Oh no, we can’t let you go, in common humanity, till we have communicated with your friends.

Professor Shaw, in the utmost alarm, attempted to plunge out of the room. He was laid violent hands on by all three; his indignation boiled over; he struggled most desperately, knocked down the doctor, and attempted to jump out of the window, but in the end was overcome, a straight-jacket put on him, the stones were taken out of his pocket, he was conducted to a separate apartment, and as the shades of night fell around him, he almost doubted himself whether he was in his sound mind. His wits seemed to be indeed scattered. In vain he tried to collect them, and to realize his present position, which was the most false and unfortunate one in which he had ever been placed. He charged the Devil with conspiracy. He had already sneered at the suggestion of having friends; how should he be the victim and laughter of his enemies! He imagined them holding their gaunt sides and shaking with a spectre-like malignity. Then he thought of the fair girl whom he had seen in the garden shedding tears on roses, and strove to weave a chaplet of verse which should be more unfading than flowers. What a strange destiny was his! The victim of untoward accidents, persecuted by some evil spirit, and leading an aimless, desultory life, which he yet feared would lead on to lunacy. What should he do in the present instance? Be patient? Yes, he would be calm, forgiving, philosophical as ever. Footsteps are approaching; the door of his cell opens; perhaps it is already the token of his release. Yes, one of his own townsmen enters. Alas! he owed the professor a grudge, and assured the doctor that he was cracked, and begged him to hold on to him by all means; he would go and inform his friends. ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ exclaimed Shaw, as the door closed; ‘there it is again; in luck as usual; ha! ha! ha!—ha! ha! ha!’

As it grew dark, and he lay on his pallet, a crowd of thoughts and imaginations pursued him through a long sleep, and when he opened his eyes to the morning light, he gazed around the strange place with astonishment, and tried in vain to persuade himself that his present position was not a dream.

In three days he was released from limbo; retracing his steps, with all the bugs and specimens which he had collected. And, for those who feel an interest in Professor Shaw, it may be agreeable to know, that in his wanderings, having discovered in a green lane, on the margin of a duck-pond, a district school in want of a pedagogue, he forthwith assumedthe birch, and may be now seen at almost any hour of the day, in the midst of his noisy populace, commanding silence, or dusting them on their least honorable parts. ‘Tough, are you? I’ll see if I can find a tender spot. Come, no bawling, or I’ll flog you till you stop. Thomas Jones, take your book, and stick your nose in the c-o-rner. First division may go out. First class ingeography——’

F. W. S.

STANZASTO THE SPIRITS OF MY THREE DEPARTED SISTERS.WRITTEN AT MID-WINTER.Sweetsisters! ye have passed away,In solemn silence one by one,And left a brother here to stray,In doubt and darkness—and alone!For like three lamps of holy flame,Ye shone upon my weary way,Till a chill breath from heaven came,And quenched for aye the kindly ray.Where are ye now?—where are ye now?Those loving hearts and spirits, where!O’er three new graves in grief I bow,But ye are gone—ye are not there!The winds that sigh while wandering by,Curl the bright snow in many a wreath,And sing in mournful melody,O’er the cold dust that sleeps beneath.The birds that sang when ye were here,Are singing in another clime;Have left the hedge and forest sere,And gone where all is summer-time.The frail bright flowers that bloom’d around,When ye were blooming bright as they,Lie crushed and withered on the ground,Their fragrance heavenward passed away.And ye are gone where genial skiesAnd radiant suns eternal shine,Where peaceful songs forever rise,From saintly tongues and lips divine.And like the flowers whose sweet perfumeHas left the soil and risen above,Has risen from your silent tombThe holy fragrance of your love.But often when the silver beamsOf the pale stars are on my bed,Ye come among my sweetest dreams,And bend in silence o’er my head;And throngs of bright imaginingsFloat round and o’er me till the dawn;I hear the fluttering of wings!I start—I wake! but ye are gone.Oh! I am sad; yet still the thoughtThat when this tired though willing handIts earthly destiny hath wrought,Ye wait me in that distant land,And that ye long to have me there,More that I pine your absence here,Shall heal the touch of every careAnd quench the sting of every fear.No marble stands with towering shaftTo catch the stranger’s curious eye;No tablet graved with flattering craft,Tells where your silent ashes lie;But there is one secluded spotIn the deep shadows of my soul,Where stranger foot intrudeth not,Nor winter’s wanton tempests roll.And there in Friendship’s burial-groundThe willow of remembrance bends,And ye my sisters there have foundA home among my choicest friends;And modelled with etherial grace,The form ofHopewith heavenward eyes,Stands calmly on your burial-place,And points her finger to the skies.I. G. Holland.

TO THE SPIRITS OF MY THREE DEPARTED SISTERS.

WRITTEN AT MID-WINTER.

Sweetsisters! ye have passed away,In solemn silence one by one,And left a brother here to stray,In doubt and darkness—and alone!For like three lamps of holy flame,Ye shone upon my weary way,Till a chill breath from heaven came,And quenched for aye the kindly ray.Where are ye now?—where are ye now?Those loving hearts and spirits, where!O’er three new graves in grief I bow,But ye are gone—ye are not there!The winds that sigh while wandering by,Curl the bright snow in many a wreath,And sing in mournful melody,O’er the cold dust that sleeps beneath.The birds that sang when ye were here,Are singing in another clime;Have left the hedge and forest sere,And gone where all is summer-time.The frail bright flowers that bloom’d around,When ye were blooming bright as they,Lie crushed and withered on the ground,Their fragrance heavenward passed away.And ye are gone where genial skiesAnd radiant suns eternal shine,Where peaceful songs forever rise,From saintly tongues and lips divine.And like the flowers whose sweet perfumeHas left the soil and risen above,Has risen from your silent tombThe holy fragrance of your love.But often when the silver beamsOf the pale stars are on my bed,Ye come among my sweetest dreams,And bend in silence o’er my head;And throngs of bright imaginingsFloat round and o’er me till the dawn;I hear the fluttering of wings!I start—I wake! but ye are gone.Oh! I am sad; yet still the thoughtThat when this tired though willing handIts earthly destiny hath wrought,Ye wait me in that distant land,And that ye long to have me there,More that I pine your absence here,Shall heal the touch of every careAnd quench the sting of every fear.No marble stands with towering shaftTo catch the stranger’s curious eye;No tablet graved with flattering craft,Tells where your silent ashes lie;But there is one secluded spotIn the deep shadows of my soul,Where stranger foot intrudeth not,Nor winter’s wanton tempests roll.And there in Friendship’s burial-groundThe willow of remembrance bends,And ye my sisters there have foundA home among my choicest friends;And modelled with etherial grace,The form ofHopewith heavenward eyes,Stands calmly on your burial-place,And points her finger to the skies.

Sweetsisters! ye have passed away,In solemn silence one by one,And left a brother here to stray,In doubt and darkness—and alone!For like three lamps of holy flame,Ye shone upon my weary way,Till a chill breath from heaven came,And quenched for aye the kindly ray.

Sweetsisters! ye have passed away,

In solemn silence one by one,

And left a brother here to stray,

In doubt and darkness—and alone!

For like three lamps of holy flame,

Ye shone upon my weary way,

Till a chill breath from heaven came,

And quenched for aye the kindly ray.

Where are ye now?—where are ye now?Those loving hearts and spirits, where!O’er three new graves in grief I bow,But ye are gone—ye are not there!The winds that sigh while wandering by,Curl the bright snow in many a wreath,And sing in mournful melody,O’er the cold dust that sleeps beneath.

Where are ye now?—where are ye now?

Those loving hearts and spirits, where!

O’er three new graves in grief I bow,

But ye are gone—ye are not there!

The winds that sigh while wandering by,

Curl the bright snow in many a wreath,

And sing in mournful melody,

O’er the cold dust that sleeps beneath.

The birds that sang when ye were here,Are singing in another clime;Have left the hedge and forest sere,And gone where all is summer-time.The frail bright flowers that bloom’d around,When ye were blooming bright as they,Lie crushed and withered on the ground,Their fragrance heavenward passed away.

The birds that sang when ye were here,

Are singing in another clime;

Have left the hedge and forest sere,

And gone where all is summer-time.

The frail bright flowers that bloom’d around,

When ye were blooming bright as they,

Lie crushed and withered on the ground,

Their fragrance heavenward passed away.

And ye are gone where genial skiesAnd radiant suns eternal shine,Where peaceful songs forever rise,From saintly tongues and lips divine.And like the flowers whose sweet perfumeHas left the soil and risen above,Has risen from your silent tombThe holy fragrance of your love.

And ye are gone where genial skies

And radiant suns eternal shine,

Where peaceful songs forever rise,

From saintly tongues and lips divine.

And like the flowers whose sweet perfume

Has left the soil and risen above,

Has risen from your silent tomb

The holy fragrance of your love.

But often when the silver beamsOf the pale stars are on my bed,Ye come among my sweetest dreams,And bend in silence o’er my head;And throngs of bright imaginingsFloat round and o’er me till the dawn;I hear the fluttering of wings!I start—I wake! but ye are gone.

But often when the silver beams

Of the pale stars are on my bed,

Ye come among my sweetest dreams,

And bend in silence o’er my head;

And throngs of bright imaginings

Float round and o’er me till the dawn;

I hear the fluttering of wings!

I start—I wake! but ye are gone.

Oh! I am sad; yet still the thoughtThat when this tired though willing handIts earthly destiny hath wrought,Ye wait me in that distant land,And that ye long to have me there,More that I pine your absence here,Shall heal the touch of every careAnd quench the sting of every fear.

Oh! I am sad; yet still the thought

That when this tired though willing hand

Its earthly destiny hath wrought,

Ye wait me in that distant land,

And that ye long to have me there,

More that I pine your absence here,

Shall heal the touch of every care

And quench the sting of every fear.

No marble stands with towering shaftTo catch the stranger’s curious eye;No tablet graved with flattering craft,Tells where your silent ashes lie;But there is one secluded spotIn the deep shadows of my soul,Where stranger foot intrudeth not,Nor winter’s wanton tempests roll.

No marble stands with towering shaft

To catch the stranger’s curious eye;

No tablet graved with flattering craft,

Tells where your silent ashes lie;

But there is one secluded spot

In the deep shadows of my soul,

Where stranger foot intrudeth not,

Nor winter’s wanton tempests roll.

And there in Friendship’s burial-groundThe willow of remembrance bends,And ye my sisters there have foundA home among my choicest friends;And modelled with etherial grace,The form ofHopewith heavenward eyes,Stands calmly on your burial-place,And points her finger to the skies.

And there in Friendship’s burial-ground

The willow of remembrance bends,

And ye my sisters there have found

A home among my choicest friends;

And modelled with etherial grace,

The form ofHopewith heavenward eyes,

Stands calmly on your burial-place,

And points her finger to the skies.

I. G. Holland.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE PRAIRIE HERMIT.EDITED BY PETER VON GEIST.Ithappened on the twenty-seventh day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, that I,Peter Von Geist, found myself, in the natural course of events, journeying on horse-back along the northern bank of the Ohio river, in the state of Illinois. The space between me and the house where I designed to stop, and the time between then and sun-down, were somewhat disproportionate; so I pricked gallantly forward; as gallantly at least as could be expected from a tired horse, and a knight whose recreant thoughts were intensely fixed on dollars and cents, supper, and other trifling affairs. By dint however of much patience in the steed, and much impatience in the rider, we got over the ground, and approached a house that had been in sight for some distance.It was placed on the summit of a steep, conical hill; there was no smoke from its chimney, or voices to be heard, or persons to be seen, or other signs of life, in its precincts. The grass grew high and green all around the hillock, and there was no road, not even a foot-path, visible on its side. Nevertheless, I dismounted, left my horse to improve the opportunity of snatching a light repast on the abundant herbage, and forced my way up to the top of the knoll.The building was constructed in the rude fashion of the country; but the chinking had fallen out from between the logs; the chimney hadpartly tumbled down; tall weeds sprung up between the stones of the door-steps; the door itself was fastened with a huge padlock; the windows were nearly all beaten in, and every thing about it gave evidence that it had not been inhabited for several years. The summit of the hill was smooth and level. A few stumps grew around the edge; and the ground seemed to have been, at some former time, a garden.The situation was exceedingly fine, and the view on all sides very beautiful. The eminence commanded on one hand three or four miles of the river, and on the other an unlimited tract of prairie. At the particular moment when I first visited it, the level sun-light came glancing over the face of flood and field, tinging every thing that it touched with its own mellow hue, and casting gigantic and ill-defined shadows of the hill, the house, and myself, on the plain beyond. At the distance of a mile and a half below, stood a couple of one-story houses, the logs of which they were built newly hewed, evidently of recent construction. The inhabitants of this old building, then, must have stood where I am standing, and gazed over the vast extent of country that is spread out before me, without meeting a single habitation of man, or any thing having life, except perhaps a wolf or a buffalo. And it could not have been desire of wealth that induced a family of refinement and taste, such as the little decorations and ornaments show that this was, to select this solitude for their home; for not more than an acre of land, at the foot of the hill, had ever been invaded by the plough.There were several circumstances like these, that were unusual and unaccountable; but not being in a mood just then to be much perplexed about it, I descended the knoll, remounted, and hurried on towards the more hospitable dwellings below.Of course, the traveller was received with a welcome, and his bodily wants speedily and abundantly cared for. After this most important duty had been satisfactorily performed, and quietude of spirit consequent thereon was restored to my breast, it chanced that the host and his blue-eyed, golden-haired, neatly-dressed, smiling-faced, half-matron, and half-girlish young wife, who had lately set up business on their own account, and I, seated ourselves without the door, to feel the cool air of the evening. It chanced too that the door faced the east; and the old house towered up darkly in the distance before us. In answer to my inquiries, they were able to give but little information concerning it, and that chiefly derived from others.It appeared that there was on the other side of the river, and a little lower down, a small settlement. It had stood there from time immemorial; at least, the memory of the tidy little wife did not run to the contrary, and she had received her birth and education there, and ought to know. She remembered, one of the first things that she could remember, a middle-aged gentleman, in a black hat and coat, who used to row over the river from the other shore in a small skiff, and walk into her father’s store to make his purchases, with a grave, but not cold or forbidding face, and used to pat her on the head, with such a fatherly smile, and say a few words in such a kind tone, as to fill her little breast quite full with delight. She remembered more distinctly, a few years later, how this same gentleman used to come into the settlement as often asonce-a-week, and how glad every one appeared to meet him and shake hands with him. The villagers seemed to repose unlimited confidence in him. The moment he landed, half-a-dozen were ready to ask his advice, or to show him papers, to see if all were correctly done. He was the umpire in all differences and quarrels, and seldom failed to send away the disputants at peace with each other. If there was a wedding, he of course must be present. On May-day, when the boys and girls went out into the woods to romp, and afterward to sit down to a rustic pic-nic, he was sure to walk into their midst, just at the right moment, bearing in his hand a wreath of flowers, so beautiful, and so tastefully made, that all the girls cried when at length it fell to pieces; and he would place it on the head of the Queen of May with such a gentle, sweet little speech, that she would blush up to the tips of her ears, and all her subjects would clap their hands and laugh out with pleasure.At Christmas parties his place was never empty; and while he was there, mirth never flagged. Perhaps their sports were not so boisterous as they would have been if he had not been a spectator; but they were quite as pleasant at the time, and a great deal pleasanter when looked back upon from the next day. He used to sit in one corner, by the huge, roaring fire, and look on, apparently as much interested as they themselves were. Nothing went amiss; and there was never wanting some slight, good-natured remark or act, to rectify mistakes and set them all going again.But much as he was loved by the villagers, he was no less respected. They did not even know his name. Many would have been glad to, and wearied themselves by indirect methods to find it out. But as no one had courage to ask him, and as it never happened to fall from him incidentally, they remained in the dark about it. He was known and addressed however, by the appellation of ‘the Lawyer,’ as their conversation with him was chiefly asking his advice on points of law too knotty for them, which he freely gave. He affected no mystery or reserve; yet there was something in his bearing, affable and unaristocratic as it was, that caused those very men—who, if the governor of the state had come among them, would have slapped him on the back, and offered him a glass of liquor—to rise in his presence and approach him with respect.My bright-eyed informant, with her musical voice, recollected, a good while ago, when she was about ten years old, and he had become gray and wrinkled—though he never needed a staff, nor was his eye dim—that he rowed over one spring afternoon, and requested the men to leave their work for a few minutes, and hear something that he had to say to them. Accordingly, they collected ‘considerable of a little crowd’ around her father’s store. The lawyer stood in the door, while she made her way through the throng and sat down on the door-step, at his feet. She did not remember all that he said; only that he talked to them for about half an hour, in a calm, conversational tone, on the importance of building school-houses and educating their children. They seemed to be much pleased with what he said; and after another half hour’s free discussion, the whole village turned out, and went to work felling trees and hewing timber; and in the course of a few daysa substantial school-house was erected. From that time forth, she and all her brothers and sisters, and all her play-mates, at stated hours and seasons, were rigidly imprisoned therein, and diligently instructed in the rudiments of science.About this time, she and a brother who was about two years older embarked on a voyage of discovery. They pulled up the river, at least he did, for she only held the rudder, two miles, till they come in sight of the residence of the Great Unknown. There stood the old house, as she had often gazed at it with wondering eyes from the opposite bank, just as grim, and dark, and gloomy. It had been their intention to make an open descent upon it, and boldly beat up the premises. But now, the building was so silent, and deserted, and frowning, their hearts failed them, and they crept cautiously along up the southern shore till they were concealed by a bend in the river; then striking across, they floated down, by accident as it were, close under the northern bank. When they arrived under the hill, on the top of which the object of their curiosity was placed, they looked anxiously up at it; but every thing was as silent as the grave. Seeing it thus unguarded, they took courage, ran the skiff ashore, and prepared to land. But when on the point of stepping on the beach, the door of the house opened, the man himself walked out therefrom and advanced to the brow of the eminence. There he stood; black all over, except his face, which at that instant appeared to wear a peculiarly terrible and ferocious aspect. The children were frightened, and hastily shoved off their little cockle-boat. But the man came down to the edge of the water, and called them by name to return.Shethought how far off home was, and no one near to afford assistance in case of need; and when she thought, she would have been glad to have retreated as fast as possible; but her brother was commander of the expedition, and without more words he pushed back to land.They went ashore, neither of them altogether devoid of fear and trembling, and sat down on the grassy bank, by the side of their venerable friend. He soon talked away their timidity; and seemed so mild and affectionate, that in a few minutes they were chatting and laughing as merrily as ever children could. He showed them his garden, his trees, and flowers, and fruits. He gave them a little basket, which they filled with strawberries, some of which he squeezed between his fingers and rubbed on her cheeks, to see he said, if they could be made any redder. In fine, he amused them so much with his stories, and was so pleasant and kind, that they fell more than ever in love with him; and after promising a dozen times to come and see him every week while it was summer, they returned gaily home.But the old man died at last. The children went up one sunshiny morning to pay him a visit, and found the house all still, and the door locked. They knocked and knocked, but no one answered. They peeped in at the window and saw him stretched at length on the bed, fully dressed, with a handkerchief over his face, and his gray hair lying dishevelled on the pillow. They called to him; but still there was no answer. Then they became alarmed, and hurried home. Some men came up, broke open the door, and found him dead. Without sickness, or premonition of any kind, he had calmly passed away.They dug his grave by the side of the cottage, and laid him in it, with his feet to the east and his head to the west; and left him to rest there, unknown and unnamed in death, as he had been in life. The whole village, men, and women, and children, mourned for him many days. But when the days of lamentation were ended, and they saw his face no more, though their grief abated, his memory did not, and has not yet passed from their hearts.I observed the voice of my hostess to falter more than once, while telling this simple and dream-like story of her childhood. I could see by the night-lights too that her bright eyes sometimes became brighter and sometimes dimmer; both of which circumstances made it only the more pleasant for me to sit and listen to her words.‘There were no letters,’ she said, found in his possession from which they could learn his name. There were no writings of any kind, except a bundle of old papers, which she had looked into, but they seemed to be only disconnected thoughts and memoranda of events and feelings, and threw no light on his history. At my request she produced a lamp and spread out the papers on the table. I turned over the worn and time-stained manuscripts; but the leaves were loose, unnumbered, and put together at random, and it was some time before I could find a place to begin at.At length, however, I managed to bring a few sheets in juxtaposition, such, that with a little stretch of the imagination I could discern a slight connection between them. And thus, by dim lamp-light, alone, with the silence of night around, and the old house lifting up its dark and shadowy form in the distance, I read some of the old man’s papers.Those which I read I took the liberty of putting into my portmanteau, arguing that though they might be of no use to me, they certainly would be of none to their present possessors. Some of these papers having appeared in theKnickerbocker, and met with ‘acceptance bounteous,’ I am induced to transcribe for the edification of the reader, a portion of the autobiography of the writer. It is contained in the last chapter, or sheet, and is written in a different and more aged hand than the rest; and gives the ‘moving why’ of the old man, in isolating himself from his kind, in one of the great green deserts of the West, ‘for which the speech of England hath no name.’A DREAM OF YOUTH.Sixtyyears old! Many sorrows, many storms encountered, both within and without, and much journeying along the road of life, have left their traces on my features and on my head; but I am thankful that they have not touched my heart. I live alone, but not solitary; for I hold daily communion with the absent and beloved; communion also, sad but sweet, with the departed. The forms of those once hated too, are ready to rise up at my bidding; but they are never summoned. For I wish all within me to be gentleness and repose; and it ill becomes me on this my last failing foothold on the verge of the grave, to allow thoughts of hatred to stir up the turbid waters of bitterness which have been slumbering so many years in my heart.So I stand up here calmly at the end of my journey, and look back on the path which I have trodden. And what a path! Far back it runs, growing fainter and narrower, till I lose sight of it, an indistinct line, in the distance. I shall not say how many steep hills it crosses, where it might better have kept in the plains; how many deviations it makes from a straight course, apparently for the sole purpose of wandering through difficult places; or how often it runs along over burning sandy deserts, parallel with, and but a few steps from, the verge of a cool and pleasant meadow. I shall say nothing of this; for of the million of paths that intersect this vast plain of Life, there is probably not one which, when the traveller looks back upon it, does not like mine seem marked out by the veriest caprice of chance. Each one gropes its way along, like the crooked track of a blind man; and when it would appear the easier and almost the only way to keep on up the gentle eminence, whereon might have been found renown and happiness, by that same constant fatality, it suddenly turns short off to one side, plunges down into the rocky ravine, and pants on, for many a weary mile. That man shapes not his own ends, is a truth which I felt long since, and which each day’s experience brings home to me with the freshness of a new discovery. It is a truth which rises up and mocks us, when we sit down to calculate or plan for the future; and it almost staggers our confidence in the connection between human means and the desired result.But what a path! Proceeding out of the darkness of morning, it struggles through a brief day, sometimes in sunshine, and sometimes in shade, and ends in the darkness of night. I glance along it, and the care-worn faces of the companions of my manhood rise up, on either side, and farther back, the speaking countenances of the friends of my youth. It is but a narrow space, the land of Youth, and soon passed; but pleasant, and full of images of beauty. The sun is not so bright and hot upon it as on some other parts of the path; but we do not expect happiness in the garish light of mid-day and reality. The mellowness of a summer evening sunset lays on it, and thereby it becomes a faëry land, a land of bliss and dreams. How throng up, as I gaze, the forms of those early and best-loved friends! How distinct and life-like, even at this distance, are their characters and features! They are all there; not one name has been erased, and not one picture dimmed, on the tablet of memory. The same warm smile of kindling pleasure greets me; the same hands are thrown out, as if to touch my own; and those bright eyes grow brighter as they are turned toward me.It is with such companions that I spend the last days of my earthly pilgrimage; and thus, as I said before, though alone I am not solitary. Is not such companionship sweet? When they visit me, I throw off old age, as a garment. Smiling thoughts come gently over me, and life and happiness, as of wont, course like the mad blood of fever through my veins. I feel over again those old feelings, repass through those same scenes, and my heart beats faster or grows pale in the same places and in the same manner as it once did. The old fields and houses and roads come up too, clothed at my command, in the snows of winter, or in the beauty of summer. Old scenes, but still fresh and young; andI am sometimes tempted to believe that the intervening years have been the illusion of a dream, and that I am awakening in their midst.All this, some will say, is the weakness of age. It seems to me to be rather its strength. The future in life is nothing; and what is the bare present to any one? The past, then, alone is left me. And if by living in it I can keep my affections alive, instead of letting their fires, according to the course of nature, or rather of custom, die down into cold ashes, I do not call myself weak if I do as much as possible forget the present.I had, when I was young, many dreams; such as I dare say all have. They seem such to me now, only not at all shadowy. On the contrary, they become more and more like reality as my distance from them increases, while their hues are as well marked and distinct as ever. Many and bright; but the brightest of all, the dream of my youth, is that which flashes across my recollection, when there comes into my heart the thought of my cousin Jane!My cousinJane! Her form comes up before me, light and elastic and joyous, as though summoned for the first time, and as though it had not been my daily visitor for many a long year. Time writes no wrinkle on thy snowy brow, my first love! That glad smile knows no weariness, and I know no weariness in gazing on it. Those deep eyes, full of feeling; those soft words that thrill; I see and hear and feel them now, as I saw and heard and felt them first. Wilt thou never be tired of looking up to me, with that sweet, timid, confiding, tearful glance? Will the rising flush of thy cheek and thy subdued smile, be always fresh as now, and as in that hour when first we met? Thou hast been my companion, my unmurmuring, ever-present, unchanging companion, through many a dark time and stormy scene; and thou and the heart in which thou livest will die together.We met, my cousin Jane and I, when she was just putting on womanhood; had begun to find out the depths of her own heart, to doubt whether those depths ever could be filled, and to feel that unless they were, life would be but a blank. Not that there were not many willing enough to love her and be loved; the beauty of her form and character drew around her a crowd of admirers. But among them all, her nice perception saw that there was not one, of whom the exterior did not form by far the largest part of the man. Her admirers were good, honorable men; she respected and esteemed them; but still, gentle and timid and humble as she was, without knowing why, she felt that there was an impassable gulf between her and them. Their thoughts were not like her thoughts. Her social disposition led her much into their way, and though she tried to avoid it, she was told more than once, that the happiness or misery of her devoted lover depended on her smiles. It was a painful situation for one of her retiring and benevolent disposition, to be sure; and it is doubtful to which of the two, the lover or the mistress, every such rejection caused the keenest pang.But this was not the end of it. Malice soon prefixed to her name the epithet scornful; and among her school-girl friends there were some who always passed by on the other side. Poor girl! She wept bitter tears over these sneers and slights, for she had not studied theworld enough to learn and despise its despicable things. Even then, dear girl! too, she tried to love all the world, that is, all her native village. And she succeeded, at least far enough to forgive them all, and thus to feel her own mind at peace and resigned. But there was a tinge of sadness left on her Grecian face after all; for to the young, when the out-stretched hand of kindly feeling is coldly put aside, the grief is as great as though the repulse were deserved.And I—I hardly know what I was, when I first saw my cousin. I was without father or mother; the world seemed wide and rather cheerless; and there was a settled impression on my mind, that it was my business to glide along through life, calmly and noiselessly; attach my affections to no external object; exist without being the cause of joy, and die without being the cause of tears, to any human being. I came and took up my abode in the pleasant village where my uncle resided, and set down to gain some knowledge of that noble science, civil law. I took up the study, not because I had any intention of engaging in the active duties of the profession, but for the name’s sake, and because I loved it for itself. My uncle, he was a kind, good man, showed himself a father to me, took me into his family, tried to encourage and rouse me; and for his kindness, though it failed of its end, he had at the time, and has always had, my sincere though unexpressed thanks.I had hardly become acquainted with my relatives, uncle, aunt, and their three children, when I entered my office, shut the door, and immersed myself in books and my own thoughts. That those thoughts were not of the most joyous nature, I need hardly say. Still, looking back to that period, from where I stand now, I cannot say they were misanthropic. If I did not love all my species, it was because I saw nothing lovely in any body; but I did not hate them. I felt that I was an insignificant, an unnoticeable drop in the great world; that it was my misfortune to be so constituted as to be incapable of uniting closely and mingling with other drops; and that, without offending my neighbors, it would be my duty and pleasure to keep myself distinct from the rest, and hidden in some obscure corner. In one word, the prevailing feeling was, that nobody cared for me, and I cared for nobody.And yet, strange as it may appear, I was far from being unhappy. Sometimes, it is true, my in-turned thoughts became weary, and pined for human fellowship; and I grew sick at heart, as I contemplated the future, a vast, dry, waste, desolate desert of parched sand, over which I must toil and thirst, without one single being to speak a word of kindness, or give me a drop of water. But these were fits, fits of wildness, I called them, and seldom lasted long. And when they came over me, one attempt to link my sympathies with others was always sufficient to throw me back into a state of mind harder and colder than before. For it was so fated, that all my overtures, and they were not many, were met with open repulse or wary suspicion. It is true, suspicion is a necessary ingredient in human character; but I did not think of this then, and so it had the same effect as though I had found, indeed I thought Ihadfound, that coldness and insensibility were the prominent characteristics of the race.And yet, as I said before, I was not unhappy. If there was no happiness, there was at least no unhappiness, in sitting down for hours, and brooding over my own idiosyncrasies. It made me proud, to see and despise the weakness of others; and it gave me stern joy, to walk about and feel that there was a kind of armed neutrality between them and me. By degrees there arose, also, a gloomy pleasure in dwelling on, and picturing in deeper colors, the failings and baseness of my neighbors. Humble and weak as I knew myself to be, I exulted in my strength, because there were some still more weak and humble. Far back as my recollection ran, there had never been any thing in the world that seemed to me worthy of very much exertion or toil to obtain; but now I first learned to despise others for possessing feeble energies, as well as for directing them to the attainment of little objects. I am afraid, if left to myself, I should have hardened into a genuine hater; but I was not left to myself.I have mentioned my uncle’s kindness; his whole family were not less kind. My cousin Jane, especially, saw that I was silent, and fancied that I was unhappy, and tried, by a thousand little devices and arts, to lull me into forgetfulness of myself, and entice me into a more sociable frame of mind. I will not say that I was insensible to her enticements; I rather liked her, she was so gentle and mild and considerate. There was an air of truth and simplicity about her; she would sit herself down so cheerfully to amuse me, and there was such a sparkle in her blue eyes when, as she said, I condescended to interest myself in her little affairs, that I began, at length, to love to be with her. But proud as I was, when I viewed mankind at a distance, I no sooner came in contact with any one, who was not immeasurably beneath me, than I felt myself sinking immeasurably beneath him; and so, like a fool as I was, I fancied that all my cousin’s kindness was the result of her sense of duty to her relation; or, what was worse, of pity for his moroseness. This faint suspicion became, in a little while, a strong certainty; and I confined myself more closely to my books, and looked into my cousin’s guileless, enthusiastic face, with coldness.I had known her now a year, and yet I hardly knew her at all; for I had seen her scarcely ever, except when it was impossible to avoid it, and those occasions were not frequent or long enough to enable me to learn perfectly her mind and character. From every such meeting, I went away resolved to see her no more in future; which resolution was sure to be overruled by second and more bitter thoughts. How I lived during that year, I scarcely know; or how it was that I grew uneasy away from her, and frequently surprised myself courting her society. But as time rolled on, so it was. There was a fascination about her, the magic of which was, that it charmed to sleep my vigilant suspicion. I did not perceive any change in myself, when night after night I was with her, talking to her about poetry, beauty, love, and the thousand themes that interest the unrestrained youthful heart; or that I was different from what I used to be, when I listened to her, with a gush of pleasure, as she spoke at once with lips and eyes, and in speaking, disclosed the unimagined riches of her mind and heart. So gradual was the change, that I was wholly unaware of it.But of one thing I was aware; the face of nature and of man underwent a strange and sudden change in appearance. I looked into the face of my neighbor, and lo, he was my brother! The fire of benevolence and sympathy warmed every vein, and a new life animated every nerve within me. I felt no longer that I was alone, but that indissoluble cords bound me to the whole human family, to every being in whose nostrils was the breath of life; and that for his good, as well as for my own, it was my business to labor. New motives of action, (or rather motives of action, for there were none before,) were set before me; and I felt light of heart and wing; eager to bound forward and lend the strength of my arm to the cause of the race. The face of nature too was altered. Every part that came within the range of my vision, her seasons, her vestments in winter and summer, her sunshine and clouds, each one was a melody, and all together made harmony. Still, I was scarcely sensible that I was different from what I was a year ago; for at each period I felt that I was in my natural and proper state of mind. So slight are the influences necessary to turn the young heart into the permanent channel of selfishness, hatred and unhappiness, or into that of love and peace!It was not long before I found out that I loved my cousin Jane. How I first discovered it I do not remember; but I do remember a firm and abiding resolution, even then, that I would not love her. I sat down by her side, I listened to her music, with that distinct impression. I would not for the world have had any body suspect my feelings, because I was ashamed of the weakness. I had persuaded myself, and could not convince myself to the contrary, that there was no hope of her returning my passion. And yet, with the words on my lips, ‘This is folly—I will not!’ I yielded myself to the delicious current, forgot all the world and myself, and in the intoxication of the hour, saw visions and dreamed dreams.But there came a shock; one which awoke me from a trance like that of the Opium-eater. It was when I saw that my cousin’s smiles and attentions were not all devoted to me. There was another, a young man of promise and expectations, a year or two my senior, and far beyond me in the graces and polish of society, who had lately become intimate in my uncle’s family. Engaged in the same pursuits, and being much with him, I had rather liked him; in fact I liked him very much. He had seen, admired, and in less than six months,lovedmy Cousin Jane: this I knew, for jealousy is keen-eyed. You will not wonder then that I hated him; not on his own account—alter his feelings toward her, and I should have felt toward him as before; but on account of his love—hated him with a deadly hatred.It would be useless to tell how often I have sat down and watched them, when my cousin’s sensitive countenance would brighten at his bright thoughts, or burst forth into a merry laugh at his brilliant wit and ready repartee; or how often the iron has entered into my soul when I have seen her hang on his arm, and listen in breathless attention to his lightest word, and testify in a thousand ways her pleasure at his coming, and in his presence. Andhe, he looked on me with the most immovable indifference. He did not seem to consider me worthy of hisattention; even as a rival. He went straight forward, calmly and quietly, as though I had not existed; and if he ever glanced at my pretensions, it was perhaps with a smile of confident success. I knew he loved her; I fancied that she loved him, and I hated them both for it.I went into my office one day—if it were not part of the dream I would not tell it—in a state of partial insanity. I knew, saw, heard, felt nothing but one unalterable purpose of revenge. There happened to be a small pistol lying in the back room; I took it up, and carefully loaded it; loaded it without the tremor of a single muscle, for my heart was lead. I put it into my pocket, and walked the streets up and down, an hour or two, or it may have been four hours. I did not take count of the time. The heavens reeled above me, and the earth reeled beneath. At last he came. A thrill, the first that day, a thrill of triumph ran through my whole frame. When we met I stopped and took hold of the pistol in my pocket, but had not power to draw my hand out again; the strings of volition seemed broken. He stopped also; looked at me in some surprise; made a remark that I ‘did not appear to be well,’ and passed on. I looked after him, sick at heart with revenge deferred, and cursed my own pusillanimity.Well, well, we will let that pass. I had yielded my soul to the Author of Hatred for a time; but we will let it pass, and strive to forget it; I have been trying to ever since; I hope I shall succeed better in future. It is pleasant if we can think that the results of our evil passions do not extend beyond ourselves; and to me, it is pleasant to think that I did not break my gentle cousin’s heart, by letting her know that she had nearly driven me mad.It was a month after this. How the intervening time had been spent, in what thoughts, and hopes, and fears, it would not be profitable to tell, or to recollect. I was sitting one evening by my cousin’s side; it was growing late, and we were alone. I had been heated, as though with wine, and had probably talked incoherently. The conversation turned on that never-failing theme, love. She delighted to hear me speak on that subject; she said I spoke eloquently. If eloquence consists in earnestness, no doubt I did. It began in sportiveness, but before long became deeply serious and interesting.‘And you do not believe, my grave cousin,’ said she, in her own half-jesting, wholly earnest way, ‘that a woman can love as deeply and long as the man who loves her?’‘Bah!’ said I, bitterly, ‘women sometimes, like men, are revengeful, proud, or ambitious, but it is on a smaller scale. Every thing about them, every feeling and impulse is on a small scale. Very good objects they make for men to love; because, when onewillbe such a fool, it doesn’t much matter where he places his affection.’The poor girl looked grieved, but responded with a semblance of gaiety nevertheless: ‘Ah, you think so now, but you will be just such a fool yourself, one of these days; and then you will find out that it is necessary for a woman to have a soul; and more than that—that she has one.’‘Much obliged for your flattering opinion,’ said I. ‘But see here,my bonny Jane, did it never enter into your innocent little heart to think howyouwould love?’‘Oh yes,’ she answered quickly; ‘but that is all guess-work. I don’t know, because I haven’t yet found a man to my taste.’Of course I knew that I could not be to her taste; but a plain man does not like to be told that he is ugly, though he may be perfectly conscious of the fact. And so this avowal, which was made with the most unthinking honesty and simplicity, while it added weight to my despair, by a very usual consequence, made me desperate.‘You are certain,’ I asked, after a pause, ‘that you do not know what love is by experience?’‘Perfectly,’ she answered, half laughing.‘And that you mean to know, some time?’‘To be sure,’ said she, ‘when the right man and the right time come.’‘I do not know,’ said I, beginning slowly and calmly; but before the sentence was half completed, my voice and thoughts had escaped from under my control; ‘I do not know who the right man for you may be, but I—Ilove you—love you—love you!’She looked at me for a few seconds, with a countenance filled with astonishment, not unmingled with alarm. She would have thought it a jest; but my manner probably convinced her that I was far from jesting. She tried to smile, but it was a painful effort, and she found it much easier to conceal her face in her hands and weep.My recollection of the subsequent events of that evening is extremely dim. There was a confused crowd of flying thoughts; many tears and much friendship on one side, and much love on the other. She had received me as I knew she would, and though by the confession there was a great weight removed from my breast, the anguish was not less intense. One thing, however, among the hurried occurrences of that hour, I did not lose sight of, and that was pride. She did not suspect at the time how much of my heart, not to say existence, was bound up in her, or how greatly both were affected by her answer.The closing scene of the interview is the one which I most love to remember. We were standing at the door, her hand in mine, a mournful smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye. That bright, gentle face was pale with sorrow, and pity, and pain, and above all with fear. I gazed on it a moment, but in that moment the picture was graven indelibly on my memory. The ‘good night’ was spoken; and that is the last time I ever saw my cousin Jane.The next morning I sat down at an inn by the way-side, several miles distant from home, and sent back a few lines of farewell:‘My only beloved! You must pardon me for this note. The adieu of last evening was only for the night; I wish to say good bye this morning, for a longer time. Your answer to my suit was not unexpected; in fact, I knew it would be as it was; and it was only a fatality, a blind impulse, that drove me to make that disclosure. I fear that it has given you pain, and I beg you to forgive my thoughtlessness. And in turn, you may rest assured that I forgive you for all the anguish and sickness of spirit that I have suffered on your account. There is nothing to be forgiven; I know that you would not cause unhappiness to any one, and it has been my own folly and madness. But I promisenot to lay it up in my heart against you. I promise that in future years, wherever my lot may be cast, you shall be in my memory, only my pure, sweet, innocent cousin. And so, blessings be on your head! I go forth a vagabond and a wanderer on the face of the earth. It is probable that you will never hear from me again; and I pray you to forget our last interview, that your thoughts may be only peace. I would live in your remembrance as I was when we first met. And do not think, because long years of silence and wide lands and many mountains divide us, that your cousin has forgotten you. Your image lives in his heart and can never die!’

EDITED BY PETER VON GEIST.

Ithappened on the twenty-seventh day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, that I,Peter Von Geist, found myself, in the natural course of events, journeying on horse-back along the northern bank of the Ohio river, in the state of Illinois. The space between me and the house where I designed to stop, and the time between then and sun-down, were somewhat disproportionate; so I pricked gallantly forward; as gallantly at least as could be expected from a tired horse, and a knight whose recreant thoughts were intensely fixed on dollars and cents, supper, and other trifling affairs. By dint however of much patience in the steed, and much impatience in the rider, we got over the ground, and approached a house that had been in sight for some distance.

It was placed on the summit of a steep, conical hill; there was no smoke from its chimney, or voices to be heard, or persons to be seen, or other signs of life, in its precincts. The grass grew high and green all around the hillock, and there was no road, not even a foot-path, visible on its side. Nevertheless, I dismounted, left my horse to improve the opportunity of snatching a light repast on the abundant herbage, and forced my way up to the top of the knoll.

The building was constructed in the rude fashion of the country; but the chinking had fallen out from between the logs; the chimney hadpartly tumbled down; tall weeds sprung up between the stones of the door-steps; the door itself was fastened with a huge padlock; the windows were nearly all beaten in, and every thing about it gave evidence that it had not been inhabited for several years. The summit of the hill was smooth and level. A few stumps grew around the edge; and the ground seemed to have been, at some former time, a garden.

The situation was exceedingly fine, and the view on all sides very beautiful. The eminence commanded on one hand three or four miles of the river, and on the other an unlimited tract of prairie. At the particular moment when I first visited it, the level sun-light came glancing over the face of flood and field, tinging every thing that it touched with its own mellow hue, and casting gigantic and ill-defined shadows of the hill, the house, and myself, on the plain beyond. At the distance of a mile and a half below, stood a couple of one-story houses, the logs of which they were built newly hewed, evidently of recent construction. The inhabitants of this old building, then, must have stood where I am standing, and gazed over the vast extent of country that is spread out before me, without meeting a single habitation of man, or any thing having life, except perhaps a wolf or a buffalo. And it could not have been desire of wealth that induced a family of refinement and taste, such as the little decorations and ornaments show that this was, to select this solitude for their home; for not more than an acre of land, at the foot of the hill, had ever been invaded by the plough.

There were several circumstances like these, that were unusual and unaccountable; but not being in a mood just then to be much perplexed about it, I descended the knoll, remounted, and hurried on towards the more hospitable dwellings below.

Of course, the traveller was received with a welcome, and his bodily wants speedily and abundantly cared for. After this most important duty had been satisfactorily performed, and quietude of spirit consequent thereon was restored to my breast, it chanced that the host and his blue-eyed, golden-haired, neatly-dressed, smiling-faced, half-matron, and half-girlish young wife, who had lately set up business on their own account, and I, seated ourselves without the door, to feel the cool air of the evening. It chanced too that the door faced the east; and the old house towered up darkly in the distance before us. In answer to my inquiries, they were able to give but little information concerning it, and that chiefly derived from others.

It appeared that there was on the other side of the river, and a little lower down, a small settlement. It had stood there from time immemorial; at least, the memory of the tidy little wife did not run to the contrary, and she had received her birth and education there, and ought to know. She remembered, one of the first things that she could remember, a middle-aged gentleman, in a black hat and coat, who used to row over the river from the other shore in a small skiff, and walk into her father’s store to make his purchases, with a grave, but not cold or forbidding face, and used to pat her on the head, with such a fatherly smile, and say a few words in such a kind tone, as to fill her little breast quite full with delight. She remembered more distinctly, a few years later, how this same gentleman used to come into the settlement as often asonce-a-week, and how glad every one appeared to meet him and shake hands with him. The villagers seemed to repose unlimited confidence in him. The moment he landed, half-a-dozen were ready to ask his advice, or to show him papers, to see if all were correctly done. He was the umpire in all differences and quarrels, and seldom failed to send away the disputants at peace with each other. If there was a wedding, he of course must be present. On May-day, when the boys and girls went out into the woods to romp, and afterward to sit down to a rustic pic-nic, he was sure to walk into their midst, just at the right moment, bearing in his hand a wreath of flowers, so beautiful, and so tastefully made, that all the girls cried when at length it fell to pieces; and he would place it on the head of the Queen of May with such a gentle, sweet little speech, that she would blush up to the tips of her ears, and all her subjects would clap their hands and laugh out with pleasure.

At Christmas parties his place was never empty; and while he was there, mirth never flagged. Perhaps their sports were not so boisterous as they would have been if he had not been a spectator; but they were quite as pleasant at the time, and a great deal pleasanter when looked back upon from the next day. He used to sit in one corner, by the huge, roaring fire, and look on, apparently as much interested as they themselves were. Nothing went amiss; and there was never wanting some slight, good-natured remark or act, to rectify mistakes and set them all going again.

But much as he was loved by the villagers, he was no less respected. They did not even know his name. Many would have been glad to, and wearied themselves by indirect methods to find it out. But as no one had courage to ask him, and as it never happened to fall from him incidentally, they remained in the dark about it. He was known and addressed however, by the appellation of ‘the Lawyer,’ as their conversation with him was chiefly asking his advice on points of law too knotty for them, which he freely gave. He affected no mystery or reserve; yet there was something in his bearing, affable and unaristocratic as it was, that caused those very men—who, if the governor of the state had come among them, would have slapped him on the back, and offered him a glass of liquor—to rise in his presence and approach him with respect.

My bright-eyed informant, with her musical voice, recollected, a good while ago, when she was about ten years old, and he had become gray and wrinkled—though he never needed a staff, nor was his eye dim—that he rowed over one spring afternoon, and requested the men to leave their work for a few minutes, and hear something that he had to say to them. Accordingly, they collected ‘considerable of a little crowd’ around her father’s store. The lawyer stood in the door, while she made her way through the throng and sat down on the door-step, at his feet. She did not remember all that he said; only that he talked to them for about half an hour, in a calm, conversational tone, on the importance of building school-houses and educating their children. They seemed to be much pleased with what he said; and after another half hour’s free discussion, the whole village turned out, and went to work felling trees and hewing timber; and in the course of a few daysa substantial school-house was erected. From that time forth, she and all her brothers and sisters, and all her play-mates, at stated hours and seasons, were rigidly imprisoned therein, and diligently instructed in the rudiments of science.

About this time, she and a brother who was about two years older embarked on a voyage of discovery. They pulled up the river, at least he did, for she only held the rudder, two miles, till they come in sight of the residence of the Great Unknown. There stood the old house, as she had often gazed at it with wondering eyes from the opposite bank, just as grim, and dark, and gloomy. It had been their intention to make an open descent upon it, and boldly beat up the premises. But now, the building was so silent, and deserted, and frowning, their hearts failed them, and they crept cautiously along up the southern shore till they were concealed by a bend in the river; then striking across, they floated down, by accident as it were, close under the northern bank. When they arrived under the hill, on the top of which the object of their curiosity was placed, they looked anxiously up at it; but every thing was as silent as the grave. Seeing it thus unguarded, they took courage, ran the skiff ashore, and prepared to land. But when on the point of stepping on the beach, the door of the house opened, the man himself walked out therefrom and advanced to the brow of the eminence. There he stood; black all over, except his face, which at that instant appeared to wear a peculiarly terrible and ferocious aspect. The children were frightened, and hastily shoved off their little cockle-boat. But the man came down to the edge of the water, and called them by name to return.Shethought how far off home was, and no one near to afford assistance in case of need; and when she thought, she would have been glad to have retreated as fast as possible; but her brother was commander of the expedition, and without more words he pushed back to land.

They went ashore, neither of them altogether devoid of fear and trembling, and sat down on the grassy bank, by the side of their venerable friend. He soon talked away their timidity; and seemed so mild and affectionate, that in a few minutes they were chatting and laughing as merrily as ever children could. He showed them his garden, his trees, and flowers, and fruits. He gave them a little basket, which they filled with strawberries, some of which he squeezed between his fingers and rubbed on her cheeks, to see he said, if they could be made any redder. In fine, he amused them so much with his stories, and was so pleasant and kind, that they fell more than ever in love with him; and after promising a dozen times to come and see him every week while it was summer, they returned gaily home.

But the old man died at last. The children went up one sunshiny morning to pay him a visit, and found the house all still, and the door locked. They knocked and knocked, but no one answered. They peeped in at the window and saw him stretched at length on the bed, fully dressed, with a handkerchief over his face, and his gray hair lying dishevelled on the pillow. They called to him; but still there was no answer. Then they became alarmed, and hurried home. Some men came up, broke open the door, and found him dead. Without sickness, or premonition of any kind, he had calmly passed away.

They dug his grave by the side of the cottage, and laid him in it, with his feet to the east and his head to the west; and left him to rest there, unknown and unnamed in death, as he had been in life. The whole village, men, and women, and children, mourned for him many days. But when the days of lamentation were ended, and they saw his face no more, though their grief abated, his memory did not, and has not yet passed from their hearts.

I observed the voice of my hostess to falter more than once, while telling this simple and dream-like story of her childhood. I could see by the night-lights too that her bright eyes sometimes became brighter and sometimes dimmer; both of which circumstances made it only the more pleasant for me to sit and listen to her words.

‘There were no letters,’ she said, found in his possession from which they could learn his name. There were no writings of any kind, except a bundle of old papers, which she had looked into, but they seemed to be only disconnected thoughts and memoranda of events and feelings, and threw no light on his history. At my request she produced a lamp and spread out the papers on the table. I turned over the worn and time-stained manuscripts; but the leaves were loose, unnumbered, and put together at random, and it was some time before I could find a place to begin at.

At length, however, I managed to bring a few sheets in juxtaposition, such, that with a little stretch of the imagination I could discern a slight connection between them. And thus, by dim lamp-light, alone, with the silence of night around, and the old house lifting up its dark and shadowy form in the distance, I read some of the old man’s papers.

Those which I read I took the liberty of putting into my portmanteau, arguing that though they might be of no use to me, they certainly would be of none to their present possessors. Some of these papers having appeared in theKnickerbocker, and met with ‘acceptance bounteous,’ I am induced to transcribe for the edification of the reader, a portion of the autobiography of the writer. It is contained in the last chapter, or sheet, and is written in a different and more aged hand than the rest; and gives the ‘moving why’ of the old man, in isolating himself from his kind, in one of the great green deserts of the West, ‘for which the speech of England hath no name.’

Sixtyyears old! Many sorrows, many storms encountered, both within and without, and much journeying along the road of life, have left their traces on my features and on my head; but I am thankful that they have not touched my heart. I live alone, but not solitary; for I hold daily communion with the absent and beloved; communion also, sad but sweet, with the departed. The forms of those once hated too, are ready to rise up at my bidding; but they are never summoned. For I wish all within me to be gentleness and repose; and it ill becomes me on this my last failing foothold on the verge of the grave, to allow thoughts of hatred to stir up the turbid waters of bitterness which have been slumbering so many years in my heart.

So I stand up here calmly at the end of my journey, and look back on the path which I have trodden. And what a path! Far back it runs, growing fainter and narrower, till I lose sight of it, an indistinct line, in the distance. I shall not say how many steep hills it crosses, where it might better have kept in the plains; how many deviations it makes from a straight course, apparently for the sole purpose of wandering through difficult places; or how often it runs along over burning sandy deserts, parallel with, and but a few steps from, the verge of a cool and pleasant meadow. I shall say nothing of this; for of the million of paths that intersect this vast plain of Life, there is probably not one which, when the traveller looks back upon it, does not like mine seem marked out by the veriest caprice of chance. Each one gropes its way along, like the crooked track of a blind man; and when it would appear the easier and almost the only way to keep on up the gentle eminence, whereon might have been found renown and happiness, by that same constant fatality, it suddenly turns short off to one side, plunges down into the rocky ravine, and pants on, for many a weary mile. That man shapes not his own ends, is a truth which I felt long since, and which each day’s experience brings home to me with the freshness of a new discovery. It is a truth which rises up and mocks us, when we sit down to calculate or plan for the future; and it almost staggers our confidence in the connection between human means and the desired result.

But what a path! Proceeding out of the darkness of morning, it struggles through a brief day, sometimes in sunshine, and sometimes in shade, and ends in the darkness of night. I glance along it, and the care-worn faces of the companions of my manhood rise up, on either side, and farther back, the speaking countenances of the friends of my youth. It is but a narrow space, the land of Youth, and soon passed; but pleasant, and full of images of beauty. The sun is not so bright and hot upon it as on some other parts of the path; but we do not expect happiness in the garish light of mid-day and reality. The mellowness of a summer evening sunset lays on it, and thereby it becomes a faëry land, a land of bliss and dreams. How throng up, as I gaze, the forms of those early and best-loved friends! How distinct and life-like, even at this distance, are their characters and features! They are all there; not one name has been erased, and not one picture dimmed, on the tablet of memory. The same warm smile of kindling pleasure greets me; the same hands are thrown out, as if to touch my own; and those bright eyes grow brighter as they are turned toward me.

It is with such companions that I spend the last days of my earthly pilgrimage; and thus, as I said before, though alone I am not solitary. Is not such companionship sweet? When they visit me, I throw off old age, as a garment. Smiling thoughts come gently over me, and life and happiness, as of wont, course like the mad blood of fever through my veins. I feel over again those old feelings, repass through those same scenes, and my heart beats faster or grows pale in the same places and in the same manner as it once did. The old fields and houses and roads come up too, clothed at my command, in the snows of winter, or in the beauty of summer. Old scenes, but still fresh and young; andI am sometimes tempted to believe that the intervening years have been the illusion of a dream, and that I am awakening in their midst.

All this, some will say, is the weakness of age. It seems to me to be rather its strength. The future in life is nothing; and what is the bare present to any one? The past, then, alone is left me. And if by living in it I can keep my affections alive, instead of letting their fires, according to the course of nature, or rather of custom, die down into cold ashes, I do not call myself weak if I do as much as possible forget the present.

I had, when I was young, many dreams; such as I dare say all have. They seem such to me now, only not at all shadowy. On the contrary, they become more and more like reality as my distance from them increases, while their hues are as well marked and distinct as ever. Many and bright; but the brightest of all, the dream of my youth, is that which flashes across my recollection, when there comes into my heart the thought of my cousin Jane!

My cousinJane! Her form comes up before me, light and elastic and joyous, as though summoned for the first time, and as though it had not been my daily visitor for many a long year. Time writes no wrinkle on thy snowy brow, my first love! That glad smile knows no weariness, and I know no weariness in gazing on it. Those deep eyes, full of feeling; those soft words that thrill; I see and hear and feel them now, as I saw and heard and felt them first. Wilt thou never be tired of looking up to me, with that sweet, timid, confiding, tearful glance? Will the rising flush of thy cheek and thy subdued smile, be always fresh as now, and as in that hour when first we met? Thou hast been my companion, my unmurmuring, ever-present, unchanging companion, through many a dark time and stormy scene; and thou and the heart in which thou livest will die together.

We met, my cousin Jane and I, when she was just putting on womanhood; had begun to find out the depths of her own heart, to doubt whether those depths ever could be filled, and to feel that unless they were, life would be but a blank. Not that there were not many willing enough to love her and be loved; the beauty of her form and character drew around her a crowd of admirers. But among them all, her nice perception saw that there was not one, of whom the exterior did not form by far the largest part of the man. Her admirers were good, honorable men; she respected and esteemed them; but still, gentle and timid and humble as she was, without knowing why, she felt that there was an impassable gulf between her and them. Their thoughts were not like her thoughts. Her social disposition led her much into their way, and though she tried to avoid it, she was told more than once, that the happiness or misery of her devoted lover depended on her smiles. It was a painful situation for one of her retiring and benevolent disposition, to be sure; and it is doubtful to which of the two, the lover or the mistress, every such rejection caused the keenest pang.

But this was not the end of it. Malice soon prefixed to her name the epithet scornful; and among her school-girl friends there were some who always passed by on the other side. Poor girl! She wept bitter tears over these sneers and slights, for she had not studied theworld enough to learn and despise its despicable things. Even then, dear girl! too, she tried to love all the world, that is, all her native village. And she succeeded, at least far enough to forgive them all, and thus to feel her own mind at peace and resigned. But there was a tinge of sadness left on her Grecian face after all; for to the young, when the out-stretched hand of kindly feeling is coldly put aside, the grief is as great as though the repulse were deserved.

And I—I hardly know what I was, when I first saw my cousin. I was without father or mother; the world seemed wide and rather cheerless; and there was a settled impression on my mind, that it was my business to glide along through life, calmly and noiselessly; attach my affections to no external object; exist without being the cause of joy, and die without being the cause of tears, to any human being. I came and took up my abode in the pleasant village where my uncle resided, and set down to gain some knowledge of that noble science, civil law. I took up the study, not because I had any intention of engaging in the active duties of the profession, but for the name’s sake, and because I loved it for itself. My uncle, he was a kind, good man, showed himself a father to me, took me into his family, tried to encourage and rouse me; and for his kindness, though it failed of its end, he had at the time, and has always had, my sincere though unexpressed thanks.

I had hardly become acquainted with my relatives, uncle, aunt, and their three children, when I entered my office, shut the door, and immersed myself in books and my own thoughts. That those thoughts were not of the most joyous nature, I need hardly say. Still, looking back to that period, from where I stand now, I cannot say they were misanthropic. If I did not love all my species, it was because I saw nothing lovely in any body; but I did not hate them. I felt that I was an insignificant, an unnoticeable drop in the great world; that it was my misfortune to be so constituted as to be incapable of uniting closely and mingling with other drops; and that, without offending my neighbors, it would be my duty and pleasure to keep myself distinct from the rest, and hidden in some obscure corner. In one word, the prevailing feeling was, that nobody cared for me, and I cared for nobody.

And yet, strange as it may appear, I was far from being unhappy. Sometimes, it is true, my in-turned thoughts became weary, and pined for human fellowship; and I grew sick at heart, as I contemplated the future, a vast, dry, waste, desolate desert of parched sand, over which I must toil and thirst, without one single being to speak a word of kindness, or give me a drop of water. But these were fits, fits of wildness, I called them, and seldom lasted long. And when they came over me, one attempt to link my sympathies with others was always sufficient to throw me back into a state of mind harder and colder than before. For it was so fated, that all my overtures, and they were not many, were met with open repulse or wary suspicion. It is true, suspicion is a necessary ingredient in human character; but I did not think of this then, and so it had the same effect as though I had found, indeed I thought Ihadfound, that coldness and insensibility were the prominent characteristics of the race.

And yet, as I said before, I was not unhappy. If there was no happiness, there was at least no unhappiness, in sitting down for hours, and brooding over my own idiosyncrasies. It made me proud, to see and despise the weakness of others; and it gave me stern joy, to walk about and feel that there was a kind of armed neutrality between them and me. By degrees there arose, also, a gloomy pleasure in dwelling on, and picturing in deeper colors, the failings and baseness of my neighbors. Humble and weak as I knew myself to be, I exulted in my strength, because there were some still more weak and humble. Far back as my recollection ran, there had never been any thing in the world that seemed to me worthy of very much exertion or toil to obtain; but now I first learned to despise others for possessing feeble energies, as well as for directing them to the attainment of little objects. I am afraid, if left to myself, I should have hardened into a genuine hater; but I was not left to myself.

I have mentioned my uncle’s kindness; his whole family were not less kind. My cousin Jane, especially, saw that I was silent, and fancied that I was unhappy, and tried, by a thousand little devices and arts, to lull me into forgetfulness of myself, and entice me into a more sociable frame of mind. I will not say that I was insensible to her enticements; I rather liked her, she was so gentle and mild and considerate. There was an air of truth and simplicity about her; she would sit herself down so cheerfully to amuse me, and there was such a sparkle in her blue eyes when, as she said, I condescended to interest myself in her little affairs, that I began, at length, to love to be with her. But proud as I was, when I viewed mankind at a distance, I no sooner came in contact with any one, who was not immeasurably beneath me, than I felt myself sinking immeasurably beneath him; and so, like a fool as I was, I fancied that all my cousin’s kindness was the result of her sense of duty to her relation; or, what was worse, of pity for his moroseness. This faint suspicion became, in a little while, a strong certainty; and I confined myself more closely to my books, and looked into my cousin’s guileless, enthusiastic face, with coldness.

I had known her now a year, and yet I hardly knew her at all; for I had seen her scarcely ever, except when it was impossible to avoid it, and those occasions were not frequent or long enough to enable me to learn perfectly her mind and character. From every such meeting, I went away resolved to see her no more in future; which resolution was sure to be overruled by second and more bitter thoughts. How I lived during that year, I scarcely know; or how it was that I grew uneasy away from her, and frequently surprised myself courting her society. But as time rolled on, so it was. There was a fascination about her, the magic of which was, that it charmed to sleep my vigilant suspicion. I did not perceive any change in myself, when night after night I was with her, talking to her about poetry, beauty, love, and the thousand themes that interest the unrestrained youthful heart; or that I was different from what I used to be, when I listened to her, with a gush of pleasure, as she spoke at once with lips and eyes, and in speaking, disclosed the unimagined riches of her mind and heart. So gradual was the change, that I was wholly unaware of it.

But of one thing I was aware; the face of nature and of man underwent a strange and sudden change in appearance. I looked into the face of my neighbor, and lo, he was my brother! The fire of benevolence and sympathy warmed every vein, and a new life animated every nerve within me. I felt no longer that I was alone, but that indissoluble cords bound me to the whole human family, to every being in whose nostrils was the breath of life; and that for his good, as well as for my own, it was my business to labor. New motives of action, (or rather motives of action, for there were none before,) were set before me; and I felt light of heart and wing; eager to bound forward and lend the strength of my arm to the cause of the race. The face of nature too was altered. Every part that came within the range of my vision, her seasons, her vestments in winter and summer, her sunshine and clouds, each one was a melody, and all together made harmony. Still, I was scarcely sensible that I was different from what I was a year ago; for at each period I felt that I was in my natural and proper state of mind. So slight are the influences necessary to turn the young heart into the permanent channel of selfishness, hatred and unhappiness, or into that of love and peace!

It was not long before I found out that I loved my cousin Jane. How I first discovered it I do not remember; but I do remember a firm and abiding resolution, even then, that I would not love her. I sat down by her side, I listened to her music, with that distinct impression. I would not for the world have had any body suspect my feelings, because I was ashamed of the weakness. I had persuaded myself, and could not convince myself to the contrary, that there was no hope of her returning my passion. And yet, with the words on my lips, ‘This is folly—I will not!’ I yielded myself to the delicious current, forgot all the world and myself, and in the intoxication of the hour, saw visions and dreamed dreams.

But there came a shock; one which awoke me from a trance like that of the Opium-eater. It was when I saw that my cousin’s smiles and attentions were not all devoted to me. There was another, a young man of promise and expectations, a year or two my senior, and far beyond me in the graces and polish of society, who had lately become intimate in my uncle’s family. Engaged in the same pursuits, and being much with him, I had rather liked him; in fact I liked him very much. He had seen, admired, and in less than six months,lovedmy Cousin Jane: this I knew, for jealousy is keen-eyed. You will not wonder then that I hated him; not on his own account—alter his feelings toward her, and I should have felt toward him as before; but on account of his love—hated him with a deadly hatred.

It would be useless to tell how often I have sat down and watched them, when my cousin’s sensitive countenance would brighten at his bright thoughts, or burst forth into a merry laugh at his brilliant wit and ready repartee; or how often the iron has entered into my soul when I have seen her hang on his arm, and listen in breathless attention to his lightest word, and testify in a thousand ways her pleasure at his coming, and in his presence. Andhe, he looked on me with the most immovable indifference. He did not seem to consider me worthy of hisattention; even as a rival. He went straight forward, calmly and quietly, as though I had not existed; and if he ever glanced at my pretensions, it was perhaps with a smile of confident success. I knew he loved her; I fancied that she loved him, and I hated them both for it.

I went into my office one day—if it were not part of the dream I would not tell it—in a state of partial insanity. I knew, saw, heard, felt nothing but one unalterable purpose of revenge. There happened to be a small pistol lying in the back room; I took it up, and carefully loaded it; loaded it without the tremor of a single muscle, for my heart was lead. I put it into my pocket, and walked the streets up and down, an hour or two, or it may have been four hours. I did not take count of the time. The heavens reeled above me, and the earth reeled beneath. At last he came. A thrill, the first that day, a thrill of triumph ran through my whole frame. When we met I stopped and took hold of the pistol in my pocket, but had not power to draw my hand out again; the strings of volition seemed broken. He stopped also; looked at me in some surprise; made a remark that I ‘did not appear to be well,’ and passed on. I looked after him, sick at heart with revenge deferred, and cursed my own pusillanimity.

Well, well, we will let that pass. I had yielded my soul to the Author of Hatred for a time; but we will let it pass, and strive to forget it; I have been trying to ever since; I hope I shall succeed better in future. It is pleasant if we can think that the results of our evil passions do not extend beyond ourselves; and to me, it is pleasant to think that I did not break my gentle cousin’s heart, by letting her know that she had nearly driven me mad.

It was a month after this. How the intervening time had been spent, in what thoughts, and hopes, and fears, it would not be profitable to tell, or to recollect. I was sitting one evening by my cousin’s side; it was growing late, and we were alone. I had been heated, as though with wine, and had probably talked incoherently. The conversation turned on that never-failing theme, love. She delighted to hear me speak on that subject; she said I spoke eloquently. If eloquence consists in earnestness, no doubt I did. It began in sportiveness, but before long became deeply serious and interesting.

‘And you do not believe, my grave cousin,’ said she, in her own half-jesting, wholly earnest way, ‘that a woman can love as deeply and long as the man who loves her?’

‘Bah!’ said I, bitterly, ‘women sometimes, like men, are revengeful, proud, or ambitious, but it is on a smaller scale. Every thing about them, every feeling and impulse is on a small scale. Very good objects they make for men to love; because, when onewillbe such a fool, it doesn’t much matter where he places his affection.’

The poor girl looked grieved, but responded with a semblance of gaiety nevertheless: ‘Ah, you think so now, but you will be just such a fool yourself, one of these days; and then you will find out that it is necessary for a woman to have a soul; and more than that—that she has one.’

‘Much obliged for your flattering opinion,’ said I. ‘But see here,my bonny Jane, did it never enter into your innocent little heart to think howyouwould love?’

‘Oh yes,’ she answered quickly; ‘but that is all guess-work. I don’t know, because I haven’t yet found a man to my taste.’

Of course I knew that I could not be to her taste; but a plain man does not like to be told that he is ugly, though he may be perfectly conscious of the fact. And so this avowal, which was made with the most unthinking honesty and simplicity, while it added weight to my despair, by a very usual consequence, made me desperate.

‘You are certain,’ I asked, after a pause, ‘that you do not know what love is by experience?’

‘Perfectly,’ she answered, half laughing.

‘And that you mean to know, some time?’

‘To be sure,’ said she, ‘when the right man and the right time come.’

‘I do not know,’ said I, beginning slowly and calmly; but before the sentence was half completed, my voice and thoughts had escaped from under my control; ‘I do not know who the right man for you may be, but I—Ilove you—love you—love you!’

She looked at me for a few seconds, with a countenance filled with astonishment, not unmingled with alarm. She would have thought it a jest; but my manner probably convinced her that I was far from jesting. She tried to smile, but it was a painful effort, and she found it much easier to conceal her face in her hands and weep.

My recollection of the subsequent events of that evening is extremely dim. There was a confused crowd of flying thoughts; many tears and much friendship on one side, and much love on the other. She had received me as I knew she would, and though by the confession there was a great weight removed from my breast, the anguish was not less intense. One thing, however, among the hurried occurrences of that hour, I did not lose sight of, and that was pride. She did not suspect at the time how much of my heart, not to say existence, was bound up in her, or how greatly both were affected by her answer.

The closing scene of the interview is the one which I most love to remember. We were standing at the door, her hand in mine, a mournful smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye. That bright, gentle face was pale with sorrow, and pity, and pain, and above all with fear. I gazed on it a moment, but in that moment the picture was graven indelibly on my memory. The ‘good night’ was spoken; and that is the last time I ever saw my cousin Jane.

The next morning I sat down at an inn by the way-side, several miles distant from home, and sent back a few lines of farewell:

‘My only beloved! You must pardon me for this note. The adieu of last evening was only for the night; I wish to say good bye this morning, for a longer time. Your answer to my suit was not unexpected; in fact, I knew it would be as it was; and it was only a fatality, a blind impulse, that drove me to make that disclosure. I fear that it has given you pain, and I beg you to forgive my thoughtlessness. And in turn, you may rest assured that I forgive you for all the anguish and sickness of spirit that I have suffered on your account. There is nothing to be forgiven; I know that you would not cause unhappiness to any one, and it has been my own folly and madness. But I promisenot to lay it up in my heart against you. I promise that in future years, wherever my lot may be cast, you shall be in my memory, only my pure, sweet, innocent cousin. And so, blessings be on your head! I go forth a vagabond and a wanderer on the face of the earth. It is probable that you will never hear from me again; and I pray you to forget our last interview, that your thoughts may be only peace. I would live in your remembrance as I was when we first met. And do not think, because long years of silence and wide lands and many mountains divide us, that your cousin has forgotten you. Your image lives in his heart and can never die!’

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