The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I.,
No. 1, August, 1834, by Various
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Title: The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 1, August, 1834
Author: Various
Editor: James E. Heath
Release Date: March 11, 2016 [EBook #51424]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, AUG 1834 ***
Produced by Ron Swanson
THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER:
DEVOTED TO EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS.
Au gré de nos desirs bien plus qu'au gré des vents.
_Crebillon's Electre_.
As _we_ will, and not as the winds will.
RICHMOND:
T. W. WHITE, PUBLISHER AND PROPRIETOR.
1834-5.
SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
VOL. I.] RICHMOND, AUGUST, 1834. [NO. 1.
T. W. WHITE, PRINTER AND PROPRIETOR. FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.
PUBLISHER'S NOTICE.
In issuing the first number of the "SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER," the
publisher hopes to be excused for inserting a few passages from the
letters of several eminent literary men which he has had the pleasure
to receive, approving in very flattering terms, his proposed
publication. Whilst the sentiments contained in these extracts
illustrate the generous and enlightened spirit of their authors, they
ought to stimulate the pride and genius of the south, and awaken from
its long slumber the literary exertion of this portion of our country.
The publisher confidently believes that such will be the effect. From
the smiles of encouragement, and the liberal promises of support
received from various quarters--which he takes this opportunity of
acknowledging,--he is strongly imboldened to persevere, and devote his
own humble labors to so good a cause. He is authorised to expect a
speedy arrangement either with a competent editor or with regular
contributors to his work,--but, in the mean time, respectfully solicits
public patronage, as the only effectual means of ensuring complete
success.
FROM WASHINGTON IRVING.
"Your literary enterprise has my highest approbation and warmest good
wishes. Strongly disposed as I always have been in favor of 'the
south,' and especially attached to Virginia by early friendships and
cherished recollections, I cannot but feel interested in the success of
a work which is calculated to concentrate the talent and illustrate the
high and generous character which pervade that part of the Union."
FROM J. K. PAULDING.
"It gives me great pleasure to find that you are about establishing a
literary paper at Richmond,--and I earnestly hope the attempt will be
successful. You have abundance of talent among you; and the situation
of so many well educated men, placed above the necessity of laboring
either manually or professionally, affords ample leisure for the
cultivation of literature. Hitherto your writings have been principally
political; and in that class you have had few rivals. The same talent,
directed to other pursuits in literature, will, unquestionably, produce
similar results,--and Virginia, in addition to her other high claims to
the consideration of the world, may then easily aspire to the same
distinction in other branches that she has attained in politics.
* * * * *
"Besides, the muses must certainly abide somewhere in the beautiful
vallies, and on the banks of the clear streams of the mountains of
Virginia. Solitude is the nurse of the imagination; and if there be any
Virginia lass or lad that ever seeks, they will assuredly find
inspiration, among the retired quiet beauties of her lonely retreats.
Doubtless they only want a vehicle for their effusions,--and I cannot
bring myself to believe that your contemplated paper will suffer from
the absence of contributors or subscribers.
* * * * *
"If your young writers will consult their own taste and genius, and
forget there ever were such writers as Scott, Byron, and Moore, I will
be bound they produce something original; and a tolerable original is
as much superior to a tolerable imitation, as a substance is to a
shadow. Give us something new--something characteristic of yourselves,
your country, and your native feelings, and I don't care what it is. I
am somewhat tired of licentious love ditties, border legends, affected
sorrows, and grumbling misanthropy. I want to see something wholesome,
natural, and national. The best thing a young American writer can do,
is to forget that any body ever wrote before him; and above all things,
that there are such caterpillars as critics in this world."
FROM J. FENIMORE COOPER.
"The south is full of talent, and the leisure of its gentlemen ought to
enable them to bring it freely into action. I made many acquaintances,
in early youth, among your gentlemen, whom I have always esteemed for
their manliness, frankness, and intelligence. If some, whom I could
name, were to arouse from their lethargy, you would not be driven to
apply to any one on this side the Potomac for assistance."
FROM J. P. KENNEDY.
"I have received your prospectus, along with your letter of the 1st
instant. It gives me great pleasure to perceive so just an estimate of
the value of literary enterprise as that indicated by your announcement
of the 'Southern Literary Messenger.' A work of this kind is due to the
talents of your noble state, and I doubt not will be received with a
prompt encouragement."
FROM JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
"Your design is so laudable, that I would gladly contribute to its
promotion; but the periodical literature of the country seems to be
rather superabundant than scanty. The desideratum is of quality rather
than quantity."
FROM PETER A. BROWNE.
"Although you could not have chosen one less able to assist you, owing
to my numerous professional engagements, which deprive me of the
pleasure of dipping into the other sciences, or literature, I am
willing to contribute my mite, and sincerely wish you success."
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
SOUTHERN LITERATURE.
It is understood that the first number of the "Messenger," will be sent
forth by its Publisher, as a kind of pioneer, to spy out the land of
literary promise, and to report whether the same be fruitful or barren,
before he resolves upon future action. It would be a mortifying
discovery, if instead of kindness and good will, he should be repulsed
by the coldness and neglect of a Virginia public. Hundreds of similar
publications thrive and prosper north of the Potomac, sustained as they
are by the liberal hand of patronage. _Shall not one be supported in
the whole south?_ This is a question of great importance;--and one
which ought to be answered with sober earnestness by all who set any
value upon public character, or who are in the least degree jealous of
that individual honor and dignity which is in some measure connected
with the honor and dignity of the state. Are we to be doomed forever to
a kind of vassalage to our northern neighbors--a dependance for our
literary food upon our brethren, whose superiority in all the great
points of character,--in valor--eloquence and patriotism, we are no
wise disposed to admit? Is it not altogether extraordinary that in this
extensive commonwealth, containing a white population of upwards of six
hundred thousand souls--a vast deal of agricultural wealth, and
innumerable persons of both sexes, who enjoy both leisure and
affluence--there is not one solitary periodical exclusively literary?
What is the cause? We are not willing to borrow our
political,--religious, or even our agricultural notions from the other
side of Mason and Dixon's line, and we generously patronize various
domestic journals devoted to those several subjects. Why should we
consider the worthy descendants of the pilgrims--of the Hollanders of
Manhattan, or the German adventurers of Pennsylvania, as exclusively
entitled to cater for us in our choicest intellectual aliment? Shall it
be said that the empire of literature has no geographical boundaries,
and that local jealousies ought not to disturb its harmony? To this
there is an obvious answer. If we continue to be _consumers_ of
northern productions, we shall never ourselves become _producers_. We
may take from them the fabrics of their looms, and give in exchange
without loss our agricultural products--but if we depend exclusively
upon their _literary_ supplies, it is certain that the spirit of
invention among our own sons, will be damped, if not entirely
extinguished. The value of a _domestic_ publication of the kind,
consists in its being at once accessible to all who choose to venture
into the arena as rivals for renown. It imparts the same energy, and
exercises the same influence upon mental improvement, that a rail road
does upon agricultural labor, when passing by our doors and through our
estates. The literary spirit which pervades some portions of New
England and the northern cities, would never have existed, at least in
the same degree, if the journals and repositories designed to cherish
and promote it, had been derived exclusively from London and Edinburgh.
In like manner, if we look entirely to Boston, New York or
Philadelphia, for that delightful mental enjoyment and recreation,
which such publications afford, we must content ourselves with being
the readers and admirers of other men's thoughts, and lose all
opportunity of stirring up our own minds, and breathing forth our own
meditations. In other words, we must be satisfied to partake of the
feast, as it is set before us by our more industrious and enterprising
countrymen, and if peradventure, the cookery should not be altogether
to our taste, we must, nevertheless, with our characteristic courtesy,
be thankful,--and like honest Sancho, "bid God bless the giver."
It is not intended to be intimated that the aristarchy of the north and
east, cherish any unkind feelings towards the literary claims of the
south. Oh no! In truth, they have no cause whatsoever, either for
unkindness or jealousy. If we only continue to patronize their
multitudinous magazines, they will pocket our money and praise us as a
very generous and chivalrous race; or if, perchance, some juvenile
drama, or poem, or some graver duodecimo of southern manufacture,
should find its way to the seats of learning and criticism beyond the
Susquehanna, it is an even chance, that in order to preserve the
monopoly of the southern market, they will dole out to us a modicum of
praise, and render some faint tribute to rising merit. Without
therefore intending any thing invidious, or without cherishing any
unkind or unmanly sentiment towards our political confederates, we
ought forthwith to buckle on our armour, and assert our mental
independence. All their own lofty and generous spirits will approve the
resolution, and be among the first to welcome the dawn of a brighter
era in a region of comparative twilight. Their Irvings and Pauldings,
their Everetts and Neals, their Coopers and Verplancks, their Kennedys
and Flints, their Hallecks and Bryants, their Sedgewicks and
Sigourneys, will rejoice in the emancipation of the south, from the
shackles which either indolence, indifference, or the love of pleasure,
have imposed upon us. We are too old, and ought to be too proud to lag
behind even some of our younger sisters, in the cultivation of one of
the most attractive departments of human knowledge. It is folly to
boast of political ascendancy, of moral influence, of professional
eminence, or unrivalled oratory, when, in all the Corinthian graces
which adorn the structure of mind, we are lamentably deficient. It is
worse than folly to talk of this "ancient and unterrified
commonwealth"--if we suffer ourselves to be _terrified_ at the idea of
supporting one poor periodical, devoted to letters and mental
improvement. It would be an indelible reproach to us, that whilst we
waste so many thousands annually in luxury--whilst we squander our
means in expensive tours of recreation and pleasure,--and even
impoverish our resources in indulgences too gross to be mentioned--we
should be unwilling to contribute a single mite towards building up a
character of our own, and providing the means of imbodying and
concentrating the neglected genius of our country. Let the hundreds of
our gifted sons, therefore, who have talents and acquirements, come
forth to this work of patriotism, with a firm resolution to persevere
until victory is achieved. Let them dismiss their apprehensions,--that
because as yet they are unpractised in composition--and the highway to
literary eminence is already thronged with competitors--that,
therefore, the most vigorous effort will be vanquished in the contest.
In the race for political or professional distinction, who is
influenced by such timid suggestions? In that noble strife, which
animates southern bosoms to control by the magic of oratory the
passions of the multitude, or in a more learned arena "the applause of
listening senates to command"--who ever heard of discouragements and
difficulties sufficient to chill their ardor, or restrain their
aspirations? And yet is it less difficult to attain the prize of
eloquence--to rival the fame of a Henry, or a Wirt, than to achieve the
task of vigorous and graceful composition?
To our lovely and accomplished countrywomen, may not a successful
appeal be also addressed, to lend their aid in this meritorious task.
Their influence upon the happiness and destiny of society, is so
extensively felt and acknowledged, that to dwell upon its various
bearings and relations, would be altogether superfluous. It is to the
watchful care of a mother's love, that those first principles of moral
wisdom are implanted in childhood, which ripen into the blossoms and
fruit of maturer years; and it is to the reproving virtues and refining
tenderness of the sex, through all its mutations, from blooming sixteen
to the matronly grace of forty--that man is indebted for all that is
soft, and for much that is noble and wise, in his own character. It is
true that there is another side to this picture. If a woman's education
has itself been neglected; if she has been trained up in the paths of
folly and vanity--and been taught to ornament the casket in preference
to the celestial jewel which it contains,--she will neither be a fit
companion for the sterner sex, nor be qualified to assume the divine
responsibility of maternal instruction. To diffuse therefore not only
the benefits of moral but intellectual culture, among those whom heaven
has given to restore in part the blessings of a lost Eden--to withdraw
their minds from vain and unprofitable pursuits--to teach them to
emulate the distinguished names of their own sex, who have given lustre
to literature, and scattered sweets in the paths of science--is a duty
not only of paramount importance on our part, but claims the united and
cordial support of the fair and interesting objects of our care.
Let no one therefore presume to disparage this humble effort to redeem
our country's escutcheon from the reproach which has been cast upon it.
Let the miser open his purse--the prodigal save a pittance from his
health-wasting and mind-destroying expenditures--the lawyer and
physician, spare a little from their fees--the merchant and mechanic,
from their speculations and labor--and the man of fortune, devote a
part, a very small part of his abundance, towards the creation of a new
era in the annals of this blessed Old Dominion. It may possibly be the
means of effecting a salutary reform in public taste and individual
habits; of overcoming that tendency to mental repose and luxurious
indulgence supposed to be peculiar to southern latitudes; and of
awakening a spirit of inquiry and a zeal for improvement, which cannot
fail ultimately to exalt and adorn society.
H.
EXTRACT FROM A JOURNAL.
The following is from the unpublished journal of a gentleman of this
state, who visited Europe some years since, with objects, we believe,
exclusively literary and scientific. Though not at liberty to mention
his name, if we mistake not, the time will come when his country will
be proud to claim him as one whose fine natural genius has been adorned
and improved by the treasures of learning. Though we do not present
this sketch of a voyage over the great deep as having any peculiar
claims to admiration, and are sure that the author himself would
disclaim for it any such pretensions--yet we do not hesitate to
recommend it to our readers as a sportive, graphic, and interesting
delineation of the novelties and adventures of a sea trip.
* * * * *
On the 15th of June, 18--, the fine ship Edward Quesnel, E. Hawkins,
master, one of the packets between New York and Havre, received her
passengers on board at the former place, and dropped down to Sandy Hook
Bay, where she anchored, awaiting a favorable wind.
Here she remained until the next morning, which however brought no
change of wind, but rather an increase of that which was already
blowing full in our teeth, together with a most disagreeable
accompaniment in the shape of a misty rain, which caused us to confine
ourselves below the deck.
The next morning came--and the next--but still all was dark and
lowering, and still did the wind meet us from the ocean, or--what was
equally unfavorable--remain hushed and calm. Day after day thus rolled
by and found us quietly resting on the bosom of the waters; each
morning hoping that
"The breeze would freshen when the day was done;"
and each evening retiring to rest, anxiously expecting to have our
slumbers broken by the heaving up of the anchor.
Each day however, were our hopes disappointed, until the evening of the
24th, when the wind proving favorable, we moved from our station with
as much pleasure as would animate the garrison of a besieged fortress,
marching out after the departure of the besiegers. Our probation of
nine days was succeeded by weather as bright as that had been gloomy.
The sky was unclouded--
"The sails were filled, and fair the light winds blew."
The pilot left us; and it was not until this last link which bound us
to terra firma was separated, that I could realize to myself, that I
was upon the pathless deep; of which I had heard, and read, and
dreamed; but never had it entered my dreams, that I was one day to
"wend my way" over its billows. The coast of America, rapidly receded
from the view; and when I laid my head upon my pillow, I bade
"My native land good night!"
with a heaviness of heart, which I presume there is no one who has not
felt, who sees fading from his sight, the land of his birth--the land
which contains all for which he cares to live.
There is something indescribable in the feeling of being thus separated
as it were, from the rest of the world. It seems as though our ship is
of itself, a distinct and independent world, on which we wing our way,
with
"All heaven above, all ocean around us;"
not knowing any, and unknown to all. Empires may fall--states be
dissolved--whole nations swept from the earth; yet we pursue our course
as profoundly ignorant of aught that has occurred, as are the
inhabitants of another planet, of what is done upon our own.
After getting fairly upon the ocean, and being satisfied, that we were
making the best of our way to our place of destination, I began to
direct my attention to those with whom my lot had been cast, and with
whom I was daily to associate, whether willing or otherwise. And
surely, since the days of Noah, never was a more heterogeneous
congregation deposited within the compass of a ship. Imprimis, there
were three ladies--two of them French and one American. There were
three Frenchmen, two Germans, one Italian, one Spaniard, one Austrian
Baron, one Dutch Naval Officer, one Portuguese--two natives of
Massachusetts, two Rhode Islanders, two Pennsylvanians, two Virginians
and one Mississippian.
Of this number there were three, who from their peculiarities, merit a
more particular notice, than the mere enumeration I have given; and
who, should any chance inform them, that any one had been "takin notes"
of this voyage, would never forgive the chronicler who should pass over
in silence their multifarious merits;--for however different otherwise,
they most harmoniously agreed in the one particular of placing a
sufficiently exalted estimate upon their own qualities. One of these
notable individuals was a Catholic Priest, a native of Gascony, whose
character may at once be comprehended, by referring to the idea which
one always conceives of the "Gascon;"--for he imbodied in an eminent
degree, those peculiarities which I had hitherto supposed ridicule and
satire, but which I now found that truth, assigned to his countrymen.
Further, his tolerance towards the gentlemanly peccadilloes of gaming
and intoxication, was most praiseworthy. His zeal, or rather wrath, in
defence of the Catholic religion, was most edifying--and his admiration
of Bishop Dubourg most profound.
Another of these worthies was a young gentleman of ----, from whose
dissertations upon the subject, I learned more of the sublime science
of cookery, than it had ever before fallen to my lot to acquire. He
abused the viands which were every day set before us in profusion, and
(as I most unscientifically imagined) of excellent quality, with most
gentlemanly and connoisseurlike assurance; for the purpose I presume,
of insinuating in that indirect and delicate manner, that he had been
used to better things;--and verily his expedient was ingenious--since
from no other part of his conduct could this conclusion have been
derived. It would be unbecoming to omit to mention three articles which
he excepted from the sweeping condemnation, and honored with his
commendation. These were--1. Whiskey punch, whereof he occasionally
illustrated the potency--2. A dish consisting of mustard, cayenne
pepper and broiled ham, and in cuisinical nomenclature ycleped "a
devil"--and 3. French mustard--of which the chief excellence seemed to
consist in its containing something of almost every thing, save only
the article whose name it bears: reminding me of the sermon of a priest
who preached before Louis 16th, of whom the Monarch remarked, that had
he but touched upon religion a little, he would have had a little of
every thing.
The last of the trio was the aforesaid Portuguese--an old doctor--who
was equally an epicure with the last named gentleman, but who extended
his critical acumen to works of the votaries of the muses, as well as
to the productions of the followers of "Le Sieur Louis Eustace Ude." He
was indeed a man of extensive reading and various information, but his
arrogance detracted from these advantages, as much as they would have
been adorned by modesty. In short, this compound of Apicius, Petronius
and Dennis, would have served admirably, as the original of Fadladeen,
the chamberlain of the Harem in Lalla Rookh, "who was a judge of every
thing, from the mixture of a conserve to the composition of an epic
poem;" and of whom it is recorded, that "all the cooks and poets of
Delhi, stood in awe of him."
The rest of my fellow voyagers were unfortunate enough to be remarkable
for no peculiarities, and among them, I found some pleasant companions,
who caused the time to pass with as little of irksomeness and
inconvenience as can be expected on board a ship, where there is
nothing of the beauty and variety of scenery which beguile the land
traveller of weariness, and where every one is forced to turn to his
companions as the only source which can afford amusement, or which can,
for "one treacherous hour," obliterate the recollection that every wave
which urges the vessel onward in her course, does but increase the
distance between himself and his home.
For some time indeed, the situation of a voyager, who for the first
time crosses the ocean, possesses sufficient novelty to interest him;
nor is the scene around and above him, destitute of all that can
attract the eye and excite admiration. The ship itself is an object
worthy of attention. It is delightful to see
"How gloriously her gallant course she goes,
Her white wings flying;" ---- ----
to watch the billows which she spurns from her prow, chafed into foam
as if enraged at the impotency of their attempts to resist the
superiority which the genius of man asserts over their mighty waters.
It is beautiful at night to see these billows rolled from the prow in
sheets of flame, whilst all around, where the waters are agitated,
their surface appears studded with stars, which shine as if to rival
those which sparkle on high:--or when the moon arises, to behold the
flood of mild radiance which she casts along the deep, which
"Sleeps in the night-beam beauteously."
Should a sail perchance cross this path of light, it seems a fairy
visitant of this earth, and just about to take its departure from it
for the bright world beneath which it seems suspended.
All this is scenery which can in no other situation be enjoyed, yet
which like every thing else, soon palls upon the taste, as I can bear
testimony both on my own behalf and on that of
"My comates and brothers in exile."
We soon became accustomed to "the wonders of the deep" and far from
responding to the sentiment of Long Tom in "the Pilot," who declared
that "the sight of land always made him feel uncomfortable;" rather
agreed with Gonzalo in the Tempest, when he asseverated that he would
"give a thousand furlongs of sea, for an acre of barren ground." Our
taste became so perverted, that we heeded not the grandeur of the ocean
or the beauties of the heavens, and sighed that we had
"No delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy our shadows in the sun,"
or engage in the most sage pastime of building castles in the clouds
where,
"Sometime we'd see a cloud look dragonish;
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock,
A forked mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon 't." ---- ----
In short, every thing which could divert for a while, was eagerly
caught at, as a child pursues a butterfly. "A sail in sight," served as
the event of a day; a porpoise or flying fish excited as much interest,
as would on land be produced by the apparition of a gryphon, a winged
dragon, or any other fabulous monster of romance; whilst the huge
leviathan, heaving his vast bulk into view and spouting rivers to the
skies, created as much sensation, as an earthquake or a revolution.
The graceful little nautilus too, spreading its transparent sail, and
pursuing its dancing career over the waves, was ever hailed with
acclamation; though as a faithful journalist, who would wish even in
the slightest affairs to be considered "an honest chronicler," I am
compelled to denounce them as unprofitable sailors, as they ever steer
full in the "wind's eye."
A most remarkable event in our voyage was the celebration of the
anniversary of our independence; which, happening about the middle of
our course, was mirthfully kept by the Americans on board, aided by the
representatives of the different nations there assembled. The
celebration commenced with a prayer from the Rev. Mr. ---- of ----; and
I wish I could say that it ended as appropriately; for soon after
dinner it became quite apparent, that a certain young gentleman, and
old doctor, of whom I have before spoken, however well fortified
against mustard and cayenne, were not proof against
champagne--so----they were put to bed.
On the evening of the 16th of July, we were first greeted by that sound
of all others, the most grateful to the ears of those who have been for
twenty tedious days, upon the unstable element. The deck was soon
deserted by the younger portion of the passengers, who climbed to
various heights, according to their proficiency, to behold the welcome
prospect. The shore of "merry England" could then be seen; presenting
to the eye however, nothing save a line faintly sketched, undulating a
little above the horizon, so that many still remained in doubt
"---- 'till the light-house far blazed,
Like a star in the midst of the ocean."
Thus did we enter the English channel (almost the end of our voyage,)
without having encountered any of those "dangers of the seas" of which
we hear and read such appalling descriptions. I really felt almost
mortified that I should have crossed the great Atlantic, without having
beheld the waves running "mountain high," with bottomless abysses
between; without having seen,
"---- the strained mast quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvass, fluttering strew the gale."
I cannot pretend to say however that this would at all have improved my
idea of a sea voyage; towards which I cannot say that my experiment has
impressed me very favorably. Indeed I cannot but wonder at the
magnificent descriptions sometimes given, of an "excursion over the
waters"--gentle Zephyrs swelling the sails--Tritons and Nereids
sporting around, melodious with Conchs--Old Neptune calming the
waves--and the gallant vessel gaily bounding
"O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,"
as if the whole were a fairy pageant. I can only give it as my opinion,
that most of those who give such glowing representations of a sea
voyage, have either, never tried one; or are guilty of the common
littleness of imitation--imitation of the noble bard who "laid his hand
on ocean's mane," and who exclaimed--"I have loved thee ocean!" because
in reality he did.
For my own part, I can give no better idea of my opinion of a ship,
than by quoting a definition of one, which struck me as peculiarly
felicitous--viz. "a dirty prison with a good chance of being drowned."
On the 18th; our eyes when turned towards the east, no longer wandered
over a drear expanse of waters, but the coast of "la belle France"
offered itself to our view, and as we gradually approached, it assumed
the appearance of tremendous cliffs, presenting their awful fronts full
to the ocean.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON.
Amid the untiring efforts of the present age, to elevate the standard
of female education, it is possible that the excellencies of a more
ancient system, may be too much disregarded. In our zeal for
reformation, we are in danger of discarding, or pronouncing obsolete,
some requisitions of salutary tendency. The wider range both of
intellect and accomplishment, which is now prescribed, seems to exclude
some of those practical and homebred virtues, on which the true
influence of woman depends.
There was a fine mixture of energy and dignity, in the character of
females, of the higher ranks in our olden time. We of modern days, to
whom languor and luxury are dear, allege that it was carried too far.
We complain that it involved reserve and sternness. Perhaps, we are not
sensible that we verge so palpably to the other extreme, as to retain
in our style of manners scarcely the shadow of that power by which
folly is checked and frivolity silenced.
The mother of Washington, has been pronounced a model of the true
dignity of woman. She seemed to combine the Spartan simplicity and
firmness, with the lofty characteristics of a Roman matron. With a
heart of deep and purified affections, she blended that majesty which
commanded the reverence of all. At the head of a large household, whose
charge, by the death of her husband, devolved solely on her, the energy
of her tireless superintendence preserved subordination and harmony.
The undeviating integrity and unshaken self-command of her illustrious
son, were developements of her own elements of character,--fruits from
those germs which she planted in the soil of his infancy. To the
inquiry, what course had been pursued in the early education of one,
whom not only America, but the world, regarded with honor almost
divine, she replied,--_"his first lesson was to obey."_ It was her
dignity of manner, courteous, yet rejecting all ostentation, and
content to array itself in the "plain and becoming garb of the ancient
Virginian lady,"--that elicited from those accustomed to the pomp and
gorgeous costume of European courts, the high praise, that _"it was no
wonder that a country which produced such mothers, could boast such a
man as Washington."_
He therefore, who has been likened to Fabius,--to Cincinnatus, and to
other heroes of antiquity, only to show how greatly he transcended them
by being a christian,--he who has made the hallowed shades of Mount
Vernon, as sacred to the patriot, as the shrine at Mecca, to the
pilgrim,--shares his glory with her, who wrought among the rudiments of
his being, with no careless or uncertain hand. The monument which now
designates her last repose,--which her native clime should have hasted
to erect,--but which private munificence exulted to rear,--speaks
strongly and eloquently to her sex. It bids them impress the character
of true greatness upon the next generation. It warns them to prepare by
unslumbering effort, for this tremendous responsibility. It reminds
them that in their appointed ministration, they stand but "a little
lower than the angels." And let her who is disposed to indulge in
lassitude, or to trifle away the brief season of her probation,--or to
forget that she may stamp an indelible character either for good or
evil, on some immortal mind,--go and renounce her errors, and deepen
her energies,--and relumine her hopes, at the tomb of the _Mother of
Washington_.
L. H. S.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
SERVILITY.
The most servile are frequently the most arrogant. The possessor of
these qualities will display the one or the other according to the
condition of the person whom he encounters. For an individual who in
the estimation of society holds a rank above him, he will be ready to
perform any office, however menial: while to another, whose situation
in life is more humble, he will be in the highest degree haughty and
assuming. No man of proper feeling can entertain the least respect for
such a character. How very different from that of Urbanus. His manner
always shows a consideration for those whose station in society may be
less desirable than his own. He feels the disposition to oblige, and
never fails to indulge it when a proper occasion is presented. Let any
individual of correct deportment be in want of aid which Urbanus can
give, and no matter how humble his condition, that aid will be
extended. Not so, however, when the man who wishes his services assumes
a superiority over him. A laudable pride and a proper self-respect will
then forbid what otherwise might be done. Urbanus will be courteous and
polite to all, but in a state of subjection to none. He will take a
pleasure in yielding, of his own free will, to talents, attainments,
and high character, their just due. But this must be the result of his
own opinion as to what is right, and not the effect of base submission
to another's will.
C.
The communication which follows on the subject of that remarkable kind
of "extemporaneous speaking" which has been long practised in some
parts of Europe, but is entirely unknown in this country,--is entitled
to the reader's attention not only on account of the source from which
it is derived, but also from its intrinsic merit. An accomplished
_improvvisatore_ is certainly an intellectual phenomenon, of the
existence of which we should be strongly inclined to doubt--if so many
well attested facts did not establish it beyond all controversy. We
hope that some one of our readers of taste and erudition will furnish a
handsome translation of the Italian poetry which accompanies the
article.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING.
Astonishing as it may appear, there are men who can deliver
extemporaneously, not only excellent orations and discourses, but also
beautiful poems, tragedies and comedies. Exhibitions of this kind have
been so frequent, that no deception can possibly exist. You may even
specify the measure in which you desire the poetical production, and
the verses, as if inspired, will flow from the lips of the
_improvvisatore_, with ease, elegance, and beauty. When I was in Paris,
Sgricci extemporized several tragedies in Italian.[1] Eugene Pradel
delivered a poem on Columbus, and proposed to extemporize tragedies and
operas in French. Manuel could at any time speak appropriately and
eloquently without preparation. The number of _improvvisatori_ is very
great, and I might enumerate, if necessary, many of these distinguished
men. Italy boasts of the names of several ladies who have acquired fame
by their poetical extempore compositions, among whom I may mention the
Bandettini, the Mazei and the Corilla. This fact being admitted, two
questions arise--1st. Is it possible to acquire this wonderful talent?
2nd. What are the means to be employed in order to succeed in speaking
extemporaneously?
To the first question, I answer affirmatively.--The talent of speaking
extempore is always an acquired one: all good _improvvisatori_ have
followed a course of mental exercises. Illustrious men at first uttered
a few words with stammering tongues, then spoke hesitatingly--and by
proper combinations of their intellectual faculties, became the
extraordinary _improvvisatori_, who excite wonder and admiration.
Experience shows the truth of this assertion.
The second question is, what are the means to be employed in order to
succeed in speaking extempore? They are numerous, and they must be
pursued with that enthusiasm and perseverance, without which, a man can
never reach the temple of fame: for he who feels the noble ambition of
distinguishing himself from the crowd which surrounds him--he who
wishes to leave traces of his passage on earth, and to raise a monument
which ages shall not destroy--must be moved by an energetic spirit, and
have the moral courage to banish mental indolence from his bosom--to
shake off that apathy so fatal to intellectual improvement, and to
imbibe that love of immortality, which will carry him triumphantly
through his career. He will bear in mind meanwhile, that
"Aucun chemin de fleurs ne conduit à la gloire,"
and deeply impressed with this important truth, will display the energy
necessary to overcome all difficulties. I will not say that it is
easy--that it requires but little labor to become a good extempore
speaker. Still less will I advance the false opinion, that some men are
naturally so. You will perceive by what follows, that I am far from
believing it. What are the preliminary acquirements of a good
_improvvisatore_? He must embrace the whole circle of human knowledge.
He must know the fundamental principles of nearly all the arts and
sciences, (I do not mean by this, that it is necessary he should
possess the details connected with them--that is above human
strength)--he must be acquainted with all the revolutions in which
human genius has been displayed--he must be familiar with all important
discoveries, and with the deeds of great men, in all ages and
countries. He must be a cosmopolite, that is to say, he must be
acquainted with the customs and manners of every nation--and it is
necessary he should put aside his prejudices, in order to understand
the peculiarities which characterize the members of the great human
family. The wonders of nature must be impressed on his mind, and above
all, he must have read and meditated upon the works of the classical
writers of all nations, and know perfectly the beauties and genius of
his own language.
These are the materials of the _improvvisatore_,--but these
acquirements, extensive as they are, will not give him the power of
extemporizing. How often do we see men endowed with profound
wisdom,--vast experience and learning,--unable to express and convey to
others the result of their long meditations! The reason of this is
obvious. How could the man who devotes the whole of his time to the
acquisition of sciences, expect to express himself well, if he neglects
to study the only art which can teach him the means of speaking
fluently and extempore?
When a man has learned the arts and sciences of which I have
spoken--when he has examined the political, religious and philosophical
opinions which have governed the world from the remotest ages--he sees
that the number of original ideas is not as great as one might
suppose--he perceives that all mental faculties are connected--and that
there is a chain which unites all thoughts--that they proceed from each
other--that an idea must spring from a cause which gives rise to it.
Thus he studies the laws of reasoning--thus by practice he learns to
fix his attention on his sensations, and sometimes a single sensation,
when properly analyzed, presents him the substance of a whole
discourse: for a good discourse is nothing more than _a series of
judgments_ logically deduced from each other,--_it is a chain of ideas
connected by a close analogy_. By training his mind to logical
deductions, he acquires by degrees, the facility of combining ideas;
and, guided by analogy, he reasons correctly without effort. Reasoning
is learned like languages. At first, we hesitate in placing the words
of a foreign tongue--we are obliged to recollect the rule which is to
guide us in every part of speech; but when thoroughly versed in the
genius of the language, we speak it fluently, without thinking about
the arrangement of words. So it is with reasoning. A man who is equally
versed in several languages, may express his ideas without knowing at
the moment, in what idiom he imbodies his thoughts. A man who has
trained his mind logically, reasons well, without thinking about the
principles which guide him. It is well known that men have many ideas
in common, and very often an author becomes popular and illustrious,
only because he expresses with great superiority and beauty, that which
every body thinks and feels. This is the very foundation of poetry and
eloquence. It is this art which is called _nature_, and which gives
immortality to literary productions. The work which does not awake our
sympathy--which is not in harmony with the feelings of our nature--and
which is not expressed in words best suited to its subject, can never
acquire fame for its author. Hence the importance of the
_improvvisatore's_ studying mankind--hence the necessity of learning to
imbody his ideas in appropriate language.--As each _passion_ has its
peculiar expression and style, the _improvvisatore_ must engrave on his
mind, the _association_ of suitable expressions for every _feeling_;
so, that every time he experiences or brings back to his memory a
_sensation_, a _passion_, or an _idea_, he may also, simultaneously
recall the words best suited to express them. He must acquire the
faculty of bringing before his mind, all the scenes of nature--and the
passions which spring from the heart of man; and, at the same time,
possess language to convey them with eloquence. His imagination must be
active, impetuous, or overwhelming, according to the objects which he
intends to describe. The mind of the _improvvisatore_ must be exercised
to employ every style: the simple--the flowery--the majestic--the
pathetic--the sublime--to combine ideas with the rapidity of
lightning;--in a word, he must know all the springs of the human heart,
in order to move it at his will, as if by enchantment.
Although it may seem paradoxical, it is seldom for want of ideas, that
a man fails in being eloquent. Thought is always ready--always
instantaneous. Learn to extemporize its expression. Where is the man
who surrounded by an indignant people, breaking the chains of
despotism, and defending their sacred rights with courage and
patriotism--where is the man, I say, who, at the sight of such a
spectacle, could remain unmoved? Where is the man who could not be
eloquent, were his mind provided with expressions worthy of his
thoughts? Where is the man who can be thoughtless at the view of a
vessel beaten by the tempestuous billows in the midst of the
ocean--when he perceives this frail nautic dwelling at war with
infuriated storms--when on a sudden he sees the long agitated ship
breaking asunder, and every human being which she contains scattered
and struggling against death? In this frightful scene, where darting
lightnings are shedding their vacillating light on the ghastly faces of
expiring victims, and when the last beam of earthly hope is to be
buried with them in the bosom of the deep,--can that spectator be
unconcerned? No. His very soul shudders--his limbs are trembling, and
his eyes filled with tears. Are not these feelings impressed in the
bosom of every human being? If the witness of such a shipwreck could
imbody faithfully in language his sensations at the moment he
experiences them, could he fail to excite our sympathy? No--no--a man
who has ready expressions to convey his thoughts and feelings will
always be eloquent. I need not mention Demosthenes and Cicero, Æschines
and Hortensius, Isocrates, Lysias, Pericles, and a crowd of sophists
who displayed, in former ages, great skill in the art of speaking.
Their writings have been the mental food for those who studied
antiquity. In modern times, lord Chatham, Fox, Pitt, Burke, Sheridan,
Canning, have shone in the British House of Commons, and their fame is
familiar to every American scholar. I will only name some of those
illustrious men who displayed splendid abilities in the different
political assemblies of France. Who has not heard of the astonishing
oratorical powers of Mirabeau, Maury, Barnave and Vergniaud the pride
of the Gironde? Manuel, Foy, Benjamin Constant, Lamarque, and several
others have of late added a new lustre to French eloquence. All these
eminent orators were distinguished for their improvisations. My
intention now is not to discuss their peculiar merit as men of genius
and extempore speakers; I merely quote them as models. I must not omit
mentioning three orators now wandering in exile, after having displayed
in their native land all the magic of eloquence, in order to restore
liberty to their enslaved country. Though the efforts of Galiano,
Argüelles and Martinez de la Rosa were not crowned with success, they
will ever be the pride of Spain. These gifted patriots, struggling
against adversity and preserving their noble independence, deserve the
admiration of mankind.[2]
In concluding, I may say that the power of combining just and useful
ideas, and expressing them extemporaneously in an appropriate
language--the knowledge of man and of every thing which concerns him--a
strong and well modulated voice, and dignified gestures, constitute
what is called a _good improvvisatore_. Few succeed in all the
multifarious qualifications of an extempore speaker--few are led by
this unabated enthusiastic spirit resolved to meet and triumph over
difficulties. This disposition of mind, however, must exist--for in
mental contention as in war,
"A vaincre sans péril on triomphe sans gloire."
And every one that has witnessed the wonders of this art, will grant
that if there be a talent by which the powers of man are exhibited in
all their sublimity, it is undoubtedly that of the accomplished
_improvvisatore_.
J. H.
[Footnote 1: It was in 1825 that Sgricci invited the literati of Paris
to meet in a spacious hall, where he was to extemporize a tragedy.
Every spectator was allowed to vote for the subject of the play, and
the majority decided in favor of _the Death of Charles I_. A few
moments afterwards, Sgricci explained the _dramatis personæ_, and began
to deliver extempore a tragedy of about _fifteen hundred verses!_ That
production was printed, and many passages are full of poetical talent.
Francisco Gianni extemporized, during one year, every morning and
evening, two pieces of poetry under the title of _Saluto del Matino_,
and _Saluto de la Sera_. In order that the lovers of Italian poetry may
judge Gianni's skill in extemporising, I will quote as a specimen, one
of his productions.
SALUTO DE LA SERA.
Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda.
_Dant. Parad._ cant. 1.
Or non più de' pianti miei Che parean cangiate in rose.
Violette inumidite, Ma nel punto che più fiso
Non andrete impietesite. In te gli occhi disbramava,
A infiorar quel niveo petto, Cui tra il velo già diviso
Che diè funebre ricetto Agitato in sen balsava;
Al più amabil degli Dei: Ecce uscir con la facella
Chè li dove tomba avea, Da quel sen tra fiore e fiore,
Sorger vidilo in subito Ecco uscir volando amore;
E sorgendo sorridea E col vento de le penne
D'un tal riso, ch'io non dubito, Irritare cosi quella,
Per deludermi l'accorto, Che più fervida divenne
Abbia únto d' esser morto. E una sua scintilla ardente
E tu, bell' amica, in vano, Nel mio cor passò repente:
Tenti in van col tuo rigore Come fosca nube tetra,
Di celarmi un tanto arcano; Quando in Ciel risorgì il sole,
Che mal puù celarsi amore. Se d' un raggio la penetra,
Beu del suo risorgimento, Arder tutta e splender suole.
Beu m' avvidi nel momento Tale in esso quella immensa
Che di lagrime e di fiori Ed antica flamma intensa
Io gli offriva il don funebre; Che sembrava spenta affatto
Porche allor le tue palpebre Rallumavasi ad un tratto;
Un soave e chiare lume E più viva traboccarsi
Abbelliva di splendori; Dal mio cor con dolce pena,
E le guancie a poco a poco E veloce diramarsi
Rosseggiaro oltra il costume La sentii di vena in vena,
D' una porpora di fuoco; E di vena in vena errando,
Et il tornito sen venusto, Risalir più accesa al core,
Che balzando allor più gia Che tremando, va mancando
Lo spiraglio meno angusto Di dolcezza a tanto ardore.
Fea del vel che lo copria: Onde più de' pianti miei
Sin le caste violette Violette inumidite,
Che locate su quel seno, Non andrete impietesite
Già languenti venian meno, A infiorar quel niveo petto,
In sembianze lascivette Che diè funebre ricetto
Arrossian si grazione, Al più amabil degli Dei.]
[Footnote 2: Since this was written, the late political events of Spain
have placed Martinez de la Rosa at the head of the ministry of the
regent queen, Isabella. Supported by the count of Toreno, who is
considered as the first statesman of his country, Gareli, who is known
by his great talents, general Llander, minister of war, and Remisa,
minister of finance, the Spanish government has at last published the
_Estatuto Real_, which regulate the convocation of the _Cortes_.]
INTERESTING RUINS ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK.
If we do not err in the conjecture, our correspondent "NUGATOR" has
frequently charmed the public by his writings both in prose and verse.
But whether we are right or wrong, we can assure him that he will
always find a ready demand for his "wares" at our "emporium." According
to his request we have handed the inscription to a classical friend,
whose elegant translation we also subjoin with the original.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
Mr. White,--As I find you are about to establish a sort of Literary
Emporium, to which every man, no matter how trifling his capital of
ideas, may send his productions, I have resolved to transmit to you my
small wares and merchandise. The relation I shall bear to your other
correspondents, will be that, which the vender of trifles in a town
bears to the wealthy merchant; and, therefore, I shall assume an
appropriate title, and under this humble signature, shall consider
myself at liberty to offer you any thing I may have, without order or
method, and just as I can lay my hands upon it.--My head is somewhat
like Dominie Sampson's, which as well as I remember, resembled a
pawnbroker's shop where a goodly store of things were piled together,
but in such confusion, he could never find what he wanted. When I get
hold of any thing, however, I will send it to you, and if it be worth
nothing, why just "martyr it by a pipe."
NUGATOR.
"Here lived, so might it seem to Fancy's eye,
The lordly Barons of _our_ feudal day;
On every side, lo! grandeur's relics lie
Scatter'd in ruin o'er their coffin'd clay.--
How vain for man, short-sighted man, to say
What course the tide of human things shall take!
How little dream'd the Founder, that decay
So soon his splendid edifice should shake,
And of its high pretence, a cruel mock'ry make."
There cannot be a more striking exemplification of the powerful
influence of laws upon the state of society, than is exhibited on the
banks of the rivers in the lower part of Virginia. How many spacious
structures are seen there, hastening to decay, which were once the
seats of grandeur and a magnificent hospitality! The barons of old were
scarcely more despotic over their immediate demesnes, than were the
proprietors of these noble mansions, with their long train of servants
and dependents; their dicta were almost paramount to law throughout
their extensive and princely possessions. But since the introduction of
republican institutions, and the alteration in the laws respecting the
descent of property, and more especially since the "docking of
entails," a total change has been effected. Our castles are crumbling
on every side--estates are subdivided into minuter portions, instead of
being transmitted to the eldest son; and so complete is the revolution
in sentiment, that he would be deemed a savage, who would now leave the
greater part of his family destitute, for the sake of aggrandizing an
individual. It is not unusual to find a son in possession of the once
splendid establishment of his fathers, with scarcely paternal acres
enough to afford him sustenance, and hardly wood enough to warm a
single chamber of all his long suite of apartments. The old family
coach, with his mother and sisters, lumbers along after a pair of
superannuated skeletons; and some faithful domestic, like Caleb
Balderstone, is put to the most desperate shifts to support the phantom
of former grandeur. Debts are fast swallowing up the miserable remnant
of what was once a principality, while some wealthy democrat of the
neighborhood, who has accumulated large sums by despising an empty
show, is ready to foreclose his mortgage, and send the wretched heir of
Ravenswood to mingle with the Bucklaws and Craigengelts of the west.
Many a story of deep interest might be written upon the old state of
things in Virginia, if we possessed some indefatigable Jedidiah
Cleishbotham to collect the traditions of our ancestors.
Those who took part in our revolutionary struggle were too much
enlightened not to foresee these consequences, and therefore deserve
immortal credit for their disinterested opposition to Great Britain.
Had they been aristocrats instead of the purest republicans, they would
surely have thrown their weight into the opposite scale. We do not
estimate enough the merit of the rich men of that day. The danger is
now past--the mighty guerdon won--the storm is gone over, and the sun
beams brightly: but though bright our day, it was then a dark
unknown--dark as the hidden path beyond the grave--and it was nobly
dared to risk their all in defence of liberty. They knew that freedom
spurned a vain parade, and would not bow in homage to high-born wealth;
yet their splendid possessions were staked upon the desperate throw,
and the glorious prize was won. Such were not the anticipations of the
_founders_ of these establishments; but such was surely the merit of
their sons: and it is painful to think how few, of all who engaged in
that noble struggle, have been handed down to fame. Many a one, whose
name has been loudly sounded through the earth, would have shrunk from
such a sacrifice, and clung to his paternal hearth; and yet these
modern Curtii, who renounced the advantages of birth, and leaped into
the gulf for their country's sake, have not won a single garland for
their Roman worth.
There is a scene in the county of Lancaster, where these reflections
pressed themselves very forcibly upon my mind. Imagine an ample estate
on the margin of the Rappahannock--with its dilapidated mansion
house--the ruins of an extensive wall, made to arrest the inroads of
the waves, as if the proprietor felt himself a Canute, and able to stay
the progress of the sea--a church of the olden time, beautiful in
structure, and built of brick brought from England, then the home of
our people. Like Old Mortality, I love to chisel out the moss covered
letters of a tombstone; and below I send you the result of my labors,
with a request that some of your correspondents will take the trouble
to give you a faithful translation of the Latin inscription. The only
difficulty consists in a want of knowledge of the names of the officers
under the colonial government. The epitaph will show by whom the church
was built, and the motive for its erection. In the yard are three
tombstones conspicuous above the rest, beneath which repose the bones
of the once lordly proprietor of the soil and his two wives. How vain
are human efforts to perpetuate by monuments the memory of the great!
The sepulchre of Osymandus is said by Diodorus to have been a mile and
a quarter in circumference. It had this inscription: _"I am Osymandus,
King of Kings. If any one is desirous to know how great I am and where
I lie, let him surpass any of my works."_ With more propriety might he
have said, _let him search out my works_; for we are left to conjecture
the very site of his tomb. It would be easy to extend this narrative,
but perhaps what struck me as interesting would be unworthy a place in
your Literary Messenger.
THE EPITAPH. TRANSLATION.
H. S. E. HERE LIES
Vir honorabilis Robertus Carter, Robert Carter, Esquire; an
Armiger, qui genus honestum honorable man, who exalted his high
dotibus eximiis, moribus birth by noble endowments and pure
antiquis illustravit. Collegium morals. He sustained the College of
Gulielmi et Mariæ temporibus William and Mary in the most trying
difficilimis propugnavit. times.
Gubernator, He was Governor,
Senatus Rogator et Quæstor, sub Speaker of the House and Treasurer,
serenissimis Principibus under the most serene Princes
Gulielmo, Anna, Georgio 1 mo. et William, Anne, George the 1st and
2 do. 2d.
A publicis consiliis concilii Elected Speaker by the Public
per sexennium præses, plus annum Assembly for six years, and
Coloniæ Præfectus cum regiam Governor for more than a year, he
dignitatem tam publicum equally upheld the regal dignity
libertatem æquali jure asseruit. and public freedom.
Opibus amplissimis bene partis Possessed of ample wealth,
instructus, ædem hanc sacram In honorably acquired, he built and
Deum pietatis grande monumentum, endowed at his own expense this
propriis sumptibus extruxit. sacred edifice, a lasting monument
of his piety to God.
Locupletavit.
In omnes quos humaniter incepit, Entertaining his friends with
nec prodigus, nec parcus hospes. kindness, he was neither a prodigal
Liberalilatem insignem testantur not a thrifty host.
debita munifice remissa.
Primo Judithum, Johannis His first wife was Judith, daughter
Armistead Armigeri filiam, of John Armistead, Esquire; his
deinde Betty, generosa second Betty, a descendant of the
Landonorum stirpe oriundam sibi noble family of the Landons, by
connubio junctas habuit. E whom he had many children--
quibus prolem numerosam
suscepit.
On whose education he expended a
In qua erudienda pecuniæ vim considerable portion of his
maximam insumpsit property.
Tandem honorum et dierum satur At length, full of honors and
cum omnia vitæ munera egregiæ years, having discharged all the
præstitisset obiit Pri. Non. duties of an exemplary life, he
Aug. An. Dom. 1732 Aet. 69. departed from this world on the 4th
day of August, 1732, in the 69th
year of his age.
Miseri solamen, viduæ The wretched, the widowed and the
præsidium, orbi patrem, ademptum orphans, bereaved of their comfort,
lugent. protector and father, alike lament
his loss.
STORY FROM VOLTAIRE.
We hope to have the pleasure of delighting our readers frequently with
the chaste and classic pen of our correspondent M. By a curious
coincidence, about the time he was translating the subjoined story from
Voltaire, a correspondent of the Richmond Compiler furnished the Editor
of that paper with another version, which was published. Without
disparagement to the latter however, the reader of taste will find no
difficulty in awarding the preference to the one which we insert in our
columns.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
Below, is a neat and sportive little story of Voltaire's, never before
translated into English, that I know of; though containing sufficient
point and good sense to make it well worthy of that honor. No one who
has ever sorrowed, can fail to acknowledge the justice of styling TIME
the "Great Consoler." The balm he brings, has never failed sooner or
later to heal any grief, which did not absolutely _derange_ the mind of
its victim. By one part of the tale, the reader will be reminded of the
philosopher in Rasselas, who, the morning after he had eloquently and
conclusively demonstrated the folly of grieving for any of the ills of
life, was found weeping inconsolably, for the loss of his only
daughter. Whether Dr. Johnson, or the French wit, first touched off
this trait of human weakness, is not material: it may be set down as
rather a coincidence than a plagiarism. So much of the region of
thought is _common ground_, over which every active mind continually
gambols, that it would be wonderful if different feet did not sometimes
tread in identical foot prints.
M.
From the French of Voltaire.
THE CONSOLED.
The great philosopher, Citophilus, said one day to a justly
disconsolate lady--"Madam, an English Queen, a daughter of the great
Henry IV. was no less unhappy than you are. She was driven from her
kingdom: she narrowly escaped death in a storm at sea: she beheld her
royal husband perish on the scaffold." "I am sorry for her;" said the
lady--and fell a weeping at her own misfortunes.
"But," said Citophilus, "remember Mary Stuart. She was very becomingly
in love with a gallant musician, with a fine _tenor_ voice. Her husband
slew the musician before her face: and then her good friend and
relation, Elizabeth, who called herself the Virgin Queen, had her
beheaded on a scaffold hung with black, after an imprisonment of
eighteen years." "That was very cruel," replied the lady--and she
plunged again into sorrow.
"You have perhaps heard," said her comforter, "of the fair Jane of
Naples, who was taken prisoner and strangled?" "I have a confused
recollection of her," said the afflicted one.
"I must tell you," added the other, "the fate of a Queen, who, within
my own time, was dethroned by night, and died in a desert island." "I
know all that story," answered the lady.
"Well then, I will inform you of what befel a great princess, whom I
taught philosophy. She had a lover, as all great and handsome
princesses have. Her father once entering her chamber, surprised the
lover, whose features were all on fire, and whose eye sparkled like a
diamond: she, too, had a most lively complexion. The young gentleman's
look so displeased the father, that he administered to him the most
enormous box on the ear, ever given in that country. The lover seized a
pair of tongs, and broke the old gentleman's head; which was cured with
difficulty, and still carries the scar. The nymph, in despair, sprung
through the window; and dislocated her foot in such a way, that she to
this day limps perceptibly, though her mien is otherwise admirable. The
lover was condemned to die, for having broken the head of a puissant
monarch. You may judge the condition of the princess, when her lover
was led forth to be hanged. I saw her, during her long imprisonment:
she could speak of nothing but her afflictions."
"Then why would not you have me brood over mine?" said the lady.
"Because," said the philosopher, "you _ought not_ to brood over them;
and because, so many great ladies having been so miserable, it ill
becomes _you_ to despair. Think of Hecuba--of Niobe." "Ah!" said the
lady, "if I had lived in their time, or in that of all your fine
princesses, and you, to comfort them, had told them my misfortunes, do
you think they would have listened to you?"
The next day, the philosopher lost his only son; and was on the point
of dying with grief. The lady had a list prepared, of all the kings who
had lost their children, and carried it to the philosopher: he read it,
found it correct, and----wept on, as much as ever. Three months after,
they met again; and were surprised to find each other cheerful and gay.
They caused a handsome statue to be reared to TIME, with this
inscription:
"TO THE GREAT CONSOLER."
ORIGINAL POETRY.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
I have been permitted to copy the original verses which I send you,
from a young lady's album. They were written by a gentleman of literary
merit, whose modesty will probably be somewhat startled at seeing
himself in print. I could not resist the opportunity however, of
adorning the columns of your first number with so fine a specimen of
native genius. According to my poor taste, and humble judgment in such
matters, these lines are beautiful. They are tinged with the deep
misanthropy of Byron, and yet have all the flowing smoothness and
vivacity of Moore. Shall it be said after reading such poetry, that the
muses are altogether neglected in the Ancient Dominion--that there is
no genuine ore in our intellectual mines which with a little labor may
be refined into pure gold? Shall it be longer contended that we are
altogether a nation of talkers, and that politics, summer barbecues and
horse-racing are our all engrossing and exclusive recreations. In
truth, is not this the very land of poetry! Our colonial and
revolutionary history is itself fruitful in the materials of song; and
even our noble rivers--our lofty mountains--our vast and impenetrable
forests--and our warm and prolific sun, are so many sublime sources of
inspiration. With respect to the belle passion,--_that_ has in all
ages, climates and countries, constituted one of the strongest
incitements to poetical genius. The imagination, warmed by impressions
of feminine beauty and innocence, at once takes wing, and wanders
through regions of thought and melancholy--investing the object of its
idolatry with attributes and perfections which more properly belong to
a purer state of being. Whether the philosophy of the subjoined stanzas
is equal to their harmony, I leave to your readers to decide. The
voluntary sacrifice of the heart at the shrine of prudence is doubtless
heroic; but there are few lovers, and especially of the poetic
temperament, who are willing to submit to "brokenness of heart" rather
than encounter the hazard of sharing with a beloved object the "cup of
sorrow." Whether, moreover, the ingenious author was actually breathing
in eloquent earnestness his own "private griefs," or amusing himself
only by the creations of fancy,--I am not prepared to determine. One
thing I do know, however--that the charming nymph in whose album these
lines were written, though not "too dear to love," possesses a heart
both "warm and soft," and is in every respect worthy of all the
admiration which the most romantic lover could bestow.
H.
_Lines written in a Young Lady's Album._
_Air_--"The Bride."
I'd offer thee this heart of mine,
If I could love thee less;
But hearts as warm, as soft as thine,
Should never know distress.
My fortune is too hard for thee,
'Twould chill thy dearest joy:
I'd rather weep to see thee free,
Than win thee to destroy.
I leave thee in thy happiness,
As one too dear to love!
As one I'll think of but to bless,
Whilst wretchedly I rove.
But oh! when sorrow's cup I drink,
All bitter though it be,
How sweet to me 'twill be, to think
It holds no drop for thee.
Then fare thee well! An exile now,
Without a friend or home,
With anguish written on my brow,
About the world I'll roam.
For all my dreams are sadly o'er--
_Fate_ bade them all depart,--
And I will leave my native shore,
In brokenness of heart.
S.
Our young correspondent "M'C." will perceive that his poem has been
altered in some of its expressions, and perhaps not altogether to his
liking. Our object has been, not to damp the aspirations of genius, but
to prune its luxuriance. The ardour of youth too often betrays into
extravagance, which can only be corrected by cultivation and
experience. We hope that he will persevere in his invocations to the
muse,--believing that the time will come when she will amply reward him
by her smiles.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
SERENADE.
Sweet lady, awake from thy downy pillow!
Moonlight is gleaming all bright on yon billow,
Night-flowers are blooming,--south winds are blowing
So gently, they stir not the smooth waters flowing.
Wake lady! wake from thy gentle slumber,
Heav'n's gems are all sparkling, uncounted in number,
How calm, yet how brilliant those beautiful skies,
Which the wave glances back like the beam of thine eyes.
Wake, dearest! wake thou, my heart's fond desire!
All trembling these fingers sweep over the lyre,
This bosom is heaving with love's tender throes,
And my song, like the swan's last, is wild at the close.
Yet thou wilt not list to me,--then lady, farewell!
My lyre shall be hush'd with this last mournful swell;
All lonely and desolate,--onward I roam;
My bosom is void!--the wide world is my home!
M'C.
It is with much pleasure that the publisher is enabled to present in
the first number of the "Messenger" the following poetical
contributions, not heretofore published, from the pen of Mrs.
Sigourney, of Hartford, Connecticut. There are few literary readers on
either side of the Potomac, who are not familiar with some of the
productions at least, of this accomplished authoress. The purity of her
sentiments, and the strength and mellowness of her versification, will
remind the reader of the highly gifted and almost unrivalled Hemans.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
COLUMBUS BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF SALAMANCA.
"Columbus found, that in advocating the spherical figure of the earth,
he was in danger or being convicted not merely of _error_,--but even of
heterodoxy."--_Washington Irving_.
St. Stephen's cloister'd hall was proud
In learning's pomp that day;
For there, a rob'd and stately crowd
Press'd on, in long array.
A mariner, with simple chart
Confronts that conclave high,
While strong ambition stirs his heart,
And burning thoughts, in wonder part
From lip and sparkling eye.
_What hath he said?_--With frowning face,
In whisper'd tones they speak,
And lines upon their tablets trace,
That flush each ashen cheek:
The Inquisition's mystic doom
Sits on their brows severe,
And bursting forth in vision'd gloom,
Sad heresy from burning tomb,
Groans on the startled ear.
Courage, thou Genoese!--Old Time
Thy brilliant dream shall crown;
Yon western hemisphere sublime,
Where unshorn forests frown,
The awful Andes' cloud-wrapp'd brow,
The Indian hunter's bow,
Bold streams untam'd by helm or prow,
And rocks of gold and diamond, thou
To thankless Spain shalt show.
Courage, world-finder!--Thou hast need!--
In fate's unfolding scroll,
Dark woes, and ingrate-wrongs I read,
That rack the noble soul.
On!--On!--Creation's secrets probe,
Then drink thy cup of scorn,
And wrapp'd in fallen Cesar's robe,
Sleep, like that master of the globe,
All glorious,--yet forlorn.
L. H. S.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
INTEMPERANCE.
Parent!--who with speechless feeling
O'er thy cradled treasure bent,
Every year, new claims revealing,
Yet thy wealth of love unspent,--
Hast thou seen that blossom blighted,
By a drear, untimely frost?
All thy labor unrequited?
Every glorious promise lost?
Wife!--with agony unspoken,
Shrinking from affliction's rod,
Is thy prop,--thine idol broken,--
Fondly trusted,--next to God?
Husband!--o'er thy hope a mourner,
Of thy chosen friend asham'd,
Hast thou to her burial borne her,
Unrepentant,--unreclaimed?
Child!--in tender weakness turning
To thy heaven-appointed guide,
Doth a lava-poison burning,
Tinge with gall, affection's tide?
Still that orphan-burden bearing,
Darker than the grave can show,
Dost thou bow thee down despairing,
To a heritage of woe?
Country!--on thy sons depending,
Strong in manhood, bright in bloom,
Hast thou seen thy pride descending
Shrouded,--to th' unhonor'd tomb?
Rise!--on eagle-pinion soaring,--
Rise!--like one of Godlike birth,--
And Jehovah's aid imploring,
Sweep the Spoiler from the earth.
L. H. S.
The following beautiful lines have been very generally ascribed to the
pen of the Hon. R. H. Wilde, a member of the present House of
Representatives from the State of Georgia. We do not know that Mr. W.
has ever confessed the authorship, but we think that they would not
discredit even their supposed origin. We have had the pleasure to read
some of Mr. Wilde's brilliant speeches in Congress, and we are
confident that they are the emanations of a mind deeply imbued with the
spirit of poesy. Not that we thence necessarily infer that these lines
are the genuine offspring of his muse--but merely allude to the
character of his parliamentary efforts, in connexion with the common
opinion that the poetry is from the same source. One of our present
objects is to give what we conceive to be a correct version of these
admired lines; for in almost all the copies we have seen, we have been
struck with several gross errors, alike injurious to their sense and
harmony. Not the least remarkable of these errors has been the uniform
substitution of _Tempè_ for some other word,--thereby imputing to the
author the geographical blunder of converting the delightful and
classic valley of Greece, into a desert shore or strand. We have no
doubt that _Tampa_ is the word originally written by the author, there
being a bay of that name in Florida sometimes described on the maps as
the bay of Espiritu Santo.
MY LIFE IS LIKE THE SUMMER ROSE.
My life is like the summer rose
That opens to the morning sky,
And ere the shades of evening close,
Is scattered on the ground to die;
Yet on that rose's humble bed
The softest dews of night are shed
As though she wept such waste to see,
But none shall drop one tear for me!
My life is like the autumn leaf
Which trembles in the moon's pale ray,
Its hold is frail, its date is brief,
Restless;--and soon to pass away:
Yet when that leaf shall fall and fade
The parent tree will mourn its shade,
The wind bemoan the leafless tree,
But none shall breathe a sigh for me!
My life is like the print, which feet
Have left on Tampa's desert strand,
Soon as the rising tide shall beat
Their trace will vanish from the sand;
Yet, as if grieving to efface
All vestige of the human race,
On that lone shore loud moans the sea,
But none shall thus lament for me.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
TO MY INFANT DAUGHTER EVE.
_By Mrs. D. P. Brown._
Fair little flow'r, may no rude storm
Impair thy early bloom,--
No cank'rous grief that smile deform,
Or antedate its doom.
In soul be ever as thou art
Mild, merciful, and kind,
Date all enjoyments from the heart,
All conquests from the mind.
The body is an empty thing,
Frail, worthless, weak, and vain;
The _mind_ alone can pleasure bring,
Or soothe the bed of pain.
What is the gaudy casket, when
The priceless jewel's gone?
Such to the eyes of noble men,
Is beauty's charm _alone_.
Fashion may decorate the brow,
Fortune the eye allure,
But nothing _worldly_ can bestow
Those treasures which _endure_.
Then fix, my child, thy hopes above;
All earthly joys deceive:
Rest solely on a Saviour's love,
My gentle daughter _Eve_.
_Philadelphia._
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
TO MY CHILDREN--ON NEW-YEAR.
_By Mrs. D. P. Brown._
Another year has wing'd its flight,
And left us where it found us,
In health, affection, and delight,
With every charm around us.
The overseeing Eye of Heaven
Has guided, guarded, cheer'd us,
Its bounteous hand has freely given,
Its bounteous love endeared us.
Time shall roll on, and still each year
Enhance our mutual pleasure,--
Tho' fortune frown on our career
The _heart_ shall be our treasure:
And when at last stern Fate's decree
Our kindred souls shall sever,
In regions of eternity
They'll join in joy forever.
_Philadelphia._
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
MUSINGS--_By the Author of Vyvyan._
A patchwork of disjointed things--
Of grave and gay imaginings.--_The Visionary._
My thoughts resemble scattered leaves,
Which Fancy, like the Sybil, weaves,
Just as may suit her wayward whim,
Into a many colored dream.
* * * * *
A tablet resteth on my knee--
The gift of one most dear to me;
Upon its fair unwritten face
My pencil now and then may trace
The flitting visions of my mind,
Like cloud-forms varying in the wind--
Too incoherent, wild and roving,
To weave into a song of loving--
Such as might suit the gentle ear
Of one--I wish to heaven were here.
All things breathe loveliness--the sky
Looks on me like my lady's eye,
Clear--beautiful as crystal blue
And darkling in its own bright hue.
The faint air, sighing from the south,
Steals sweetly o'er my cheek and brow,
As late I felt and _fancy_ now
The breath of her own rosy mouth
When, in her eagerness to look
Into the pages of my book
She stood by, o'er my shoulder leaning,
In innocent but simple meaning.
* * * * *
Amid the voiceless wild
Of the ancestral forest,
I feel even as a child,
Whose pleasure is the surest
When most by wonderment beguiled.
A lovely lake before me sleeps,
Whose quiet on my spirit creeps--
Around and o'er me, solemn trees
Of the eternal forest, dart
Their wildly straggling boughs athwart
The sky--with their rich panoplies
Of varied foliage. Here and there
A withered trunk by storms laid bare,
Spectre like--whitening in the air,
Spreads wide and far its skeleton limbs,
Where, up the creeping verdure climbs,
And wreathes its draperies, ere they fall,
In festoons so fantastical.
* * * * *
Here moves the Genius of Romance,
With lofty mien and eagle glance--
No plumed casque adorns his brow--
No glittering falchion does he wield--
Nor lance bears he, nor 'scutcheoned shield.
Nor among fallen columns low,
Behold him crouch and muse upon
The shattered forms of sculptured stone--
Fair classic marbles, which recall
The glories of an ancient time--
Its pride--its splendor and its fall--
Such things belong not to our clime.
The Genius of our Solitude
Stalks forth in hunter's garb arrayed,
A child of nature--wild and rude--
Yet not averse to gentle mood:
The same high spirit, undismayed,
Amid the stormy battles roar,
As when he wooes his dusky maid,
Beside some dim lake's lonely shore;
Or paddles his skiff at eventide,
O'er Niagara's waters wide.
* * * * *
'Tis sweet to sit alone, and muse
In such a spot as this--
Thus imperceptibly to lose
In dim, imagined bliss,
The vulgar thoughts and cares that shroud
The spirits of the busy crowd--
That chain their grovelling minds to earth
And wretched things of little worth.
Years seem not many, since a child,
I loved to haunt this pathless wild,
And wearied lay me down to rest
Upon some broad rock's mossy breast,
Lulled by a dreamy listless thought,
From loneliness and quiet caught--
Or, prying with most curious eye
Into dark hollows, to descry
Some robber haunt or hidden grot,
Where haply it might be my lot,
Like Alla-Ad-Deen, to find a treasure
Of gems and jewels without measure.
But what a change is wrought since then!
I've mingled with the world and men,
Who scoff at boyhood's guiltless joys,
Yet scorn them but for _greater_ toys.
Well--let them mar their health for fame,
And waste their days, to gain a name,
Built on the rabble's wretched praise,
Whose voice awhile may sink or raise,
But cannot rescue from the lot
Old Time, the despot, hath assigned
Impartially to all earth's kind.
Such record vain I envy not,
Nor burn with mightier men to mate--
The followers of a fiercer fate,
Who trample on all human good
To win awards least understood.
Such is renown reaped with the sword--
Such glory! Empty, fatal word,
That lures men on through fire and flood--
Through scenes of rapine, crime and blood,
To write in history's page, a tale,
O'er which their fellow man grows pale.
Could half the tears they cause to flow
Bedew that page--how few could read
The blotted record of each deed,
Which laid the brave by thousands low
And broke more living hearts with wo,
That ONE might be what good men hate,
And fools and knaves miscal "THE GREAT."
ORIGINAL LITERARY NOTICES.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS, DELIVERED BY THE REV. STEPHEN OLIN, President of
Randolph-Macon College, on the occasion of his induction into office,
5th March, 1834. _Richmond: Nesbitt & Walker._
Randolph-Macon College is a new institution, in Mecklenburg county,
Virginia; and President Olin, we believe, is a late comer into the
state: at least we are so ignorant as not to have heard of him before.
If we are permitted to judge from the "inaugural address," we
congratulate the commonwealth upon the acquisition of an instructor of
solid endowments, sound practical views, and elegant taste. He treats
the subject of education like one who had thoroughly mastered the
philosophy upon which it is founded--and who evidently prefers to be
guided by the safe lights of experience, rather than by the specious
but uncertain theories which acquire a transient popularity--but which
cannot bear the test of sound investigation and analysis. President
Olin, we think, combats with effect a very popular error, to wit: that
education ought to be so directed as to subserve a particular
profession or pursuit; in other words, that the profession or pursuit
of a young man ought to be previously selected, and the course of
instruction made to conform accordingly. Now nothing, in our view, can
be more preposterous; and we concur entirely with the President in the
opinion, that _one of the objects of education it to develop the
intellectual aptitudes and moral qualities_, and that these when
developed, should entirely control the preference or choice of a
profession. Not that if these aptitudes and qualities when manifested,
should point in an evil direction, they should therefore be indulged.
By no means. The primary object of education should be--the highest
development of morals and intellect. In the pursuit of this great
object however, if the course of instruction is rightly ordered, the
predominant aptitudes and qualities will appear--and then is the time
for the judicious parent or guardian to co-operate with the wise
indications of nature.
In conformity to this view of the subject, the President urges the
choice of such studies in a collegiate course, as have a tendency to
_enlarge_, _invigorate_ and _discipline_ the mind. To the mathematics
he assigns a high rank. "They habituate the mind to protracted and
difficult efforts of attention, and to clear and lively perception of
truth, and at the same time furnish it with principles and facts of
inestimable value in many of the departments of useful industry and
philosophical research."
Nor does he attach less importance to the study of the Greek and Roman
languages. In the opinion of President Olin they "give useful
employment to the intellectual faculties at a period when they are
incompetent to more abstract and severe occupations. They call up the
attention to such short and easy, but repeated efforts, as are best
calculated to correct its wanderings and increase its energies. The
mind is accustomed to analysis and comparison, and its powers of
discrimination are improved by frequent exercises in declension,
inflexion and derivation, and by the constant necessity that is imposed
upon it, of deciding between the claims of rival definitions. The
memory is engaged in the performance of such tasks as are precisely
fitted for its development, and the judgment and other reasoning
faculties find ample and invigorating employment in the application of
grammatical rules, and the investigation of philological principles."
We wish we had space for the whole of Mr. Olin's remarks upon classical
learning. He considers the growing scepticism in reference to its
utility and importance as an evil omen.
Next to pure and mixed mathematics and the learned languages, the
President is inclined to give a place to intellectual philosophy. "It
familiarises the student with the laws and the phenomena of mind, and
with such efforts of subtle analysis and difficult combination as are
best fitted to enlarge and fill the grasp of the highest intellectual
capacities." He also recommends as subordinate, but highly important
studies--composition and eloquence--moral and natural
philosophy--chemistry--the French language--and geology and mineralogy.
Mr. Olin opposes with much force the excessive multiplication of
studies without a correspondent prolongation of the collegiate term.
"The industry which was profitably directed to a few, may be divided
amongst a multitude of objects; but it will incur the inevitable
penalty of fitful and dissipated intellectual exertion--superficial
attainments and vicious intellectual habits." In what is denominated
the art of education, the President is not inclined to set as high a
value upon the lecture system as upon the mode of frequent recitations
from well digested text books. From the history of the two
universities, and of the literature of Scotland and England for the
last century, he is led to draw the conclusion that the "lecture system
is more favorable to the improvement of the professor, and the
reputation of the university--whilst the opposite method has been more
productive of thorough and accomplished scholars."
Upon the subject of moral restraint and college discipline, Mr. Olin is
forcible and interesting. With a mind well organized for the clear
perception of truth, we take the President to be fearless in
proclaiming his convictions, without stopping to calculate the strength
of opposing prejudices and opinions. He does not hesitate to come up
boldly to the mark, and to advocate the only rational system by which
our erring nature, and especially our youthful nature, can be brought
to a just sense of what is due to its own interests, as well as to the
requirements of society. Upon this subject, however, we prefer that the
President should speak for himself.
"In proportion as virtue is more valuable than knowledge, pure and
enlightened morality will be regarded by every considerate father the
highest recommendation of a literary institution. The youth is
withdrawn from the salutary restraints of parental influence and
authority, and committed to other guardians, at a time of life most
decisive of his prospects and destinies. The period devoted to
education usually impresses its own character upon all his future
history. Vigilant supervision, employment, and seclusion from all
facilities and temptations to vice, are the ordinary and essential
securities which every institution of learning is bound to provide for
the sacred interests which are committed to its charge. But safeguards
and negative provisions are not sufficient. The tendencies of our
nature are retrograde, and they call for the interposition of positive
remedial influences. The most perfect human society speedily
degenerates, if the active agencies which were employed in its
elevation are once withdrawn or suspended. What then can be expected of
inexperienced youth, sent forth from the pure atmosphere of domestic
piety, and left to the single support of its own untested and unsettled
principles, in the midst of circumstances which often prove fatal to
the most practised virtue! I frankly confess that I see no safety but
in the preaching of the cross, and in a clear and unfaltering
exhibition of the doctrines and sanctions of christianity. The beauty
and excellence of virtue are excusable topics, though they must ever be
inefficient motives, with those who reject the authority of revelation;
but in a christian land, morality divorced from religion, is the
emptiest of all the empty names by which a deceitful philosophy has
blinded and corrupted the world. I venture to affirm, that this
generation has not given birth to another absurdity so monstrous, as
that which would exclude from our seminaries of learning the open and
vigorous inculcation of the religious faith which is acknowledged by
our whole population, and which pervades every one of our free
institutions. Our governors and legislators, and all the depositaries
of honor and trust, are prohibited from exercising their humblest
functions till they have pledged their fidelity to the country upon the
holy gospels. The most inconsiderable pecuniary interest is regarded
too sacred to be entrusted to the most upright judge or juror, or to
the most unsuspected witness, till their integrity has been fortified
by an appeal to the high sanctions of christianity. Even the exercise
of the elective franchise is usually suspended upon the same condition.
The interesting moralities of the domestic relations--the laws of
marriage and divorce--the mutual obligations of parents and
children--are all borrowed from the christian scriptures. The fears of
the vicious and the hopes of the upright--the profane ribaldry of the
profligate, no less than the humble thanksgiving of the morning and
evening sacrifice, do homage to the gospel as the religion of the
American people. Our eloquence and our poetry--our periodical and
popular literature in all their varieties--the novel, the tale, the
ballad, the play, all make their appeal to the deep sentiments of
religion that pervade the popular bosom. Christianity is our
birthright. It is the richest inheritance bequeathed us by our noble
fathers. It is mingled in our hearts with all the fountains of
sentiment and of faith. And are the guardians of public education alone
'halting between two opinions?' Do they think that in fact, and for
practical purposes, the truth of christianity is still a debateable
question? Is it still a question whether the generations yet to rise up
and occupy the wide domains of this great empire--to be the
representatives of our name, our freedom and our glory, before the
nations of the earth, shall be a christian or an infidel people? Can
wise and practical men who are engaged in rearing up a temple of
learning to form the character and destinies of their posterity, for a
moment hesitate to make 'Jesus Christ the chief corner stone?"
It is not to be supposed, however, that Mr. Olin is in favor of
subjecting our public seminaries to the control of any particular
religious denomination, or that the faith of the student is either to
be influenced or regulated by sectarian views. On the contrary, he
considers that such a course would be a manifest violation of the
principles of free government. His remarks upon the internal discipline
of a college are sound and excellent. He is decidedly opposed to that
"multitude of vexatious enactments," and those frivolous and arbitrary
regulations which too often disgrace our seats of learning. In the
administration of such wise and salutary laws, however, as experience
has proved to be necessary, President Olin refers to the co-operation
of parents and guardians as absolutely essential. We wish that
conviction on this subject was more general than it is, and that all
who are in any wise responsible for the intellectual and moral training
of youth, whether at colleges, academies, or private schools, would
consider the importance of sustaining, by parental authority, the just
and wholesome government of the teacher. A weak or capricious parent,
who from false tenderness, countenances the wayward inclinations of a
child in opposition to school authority, is not only inflicting upon it
irreparable mischief, but is doing equal injury to others by the
encouragement of a bad example.
A DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF WM. WIRT, late Attorney
General of the United States; pronounced at the request of the
Baltimore Bar before the Citizens of Baltimore, on the 20th of May,
1834, by John P. Kennedy. _Baltimore: Wm. & Joseph Neal._ 1834.
Mr. Kennedy is favorably known as an eloquent lawyer and literary
writer of distinction. The task therefore of delineating the character
and genius of Mr. Wirt, could not have been confided to abler hands. We
have read his oration with great pleasure; a pleasure it is true,
alloyed by the reflection that the country has sustained a bereavement
so afflicting and irreparable. There is a mournful satisfaction in
recalling the eminent virtues, and matchless accomplishments of the
deceased,--in dwelling upon his bright example, and retracing the
incomparable graces and excellencies which adorned his public and
private character. Mr. Kennedy has touched with the hand of a master,
the sad but brilliant theme, and has poured forth in "thoughts that
breathe and words that burn"--a most eloquent tribute to the memory of
one of the brightest and purest spirits of the age. Mr. Wirt, though a
native of Maryland, was in truth a Virginian, by all the endearing ties
of social and domestic life. He spent the prime of his youth and
manhood among us, and it was here in the Metropolis of the Old
Dominion, that he reared that enduring fabric of illustrious talent and
virtue which placed him first among his equals--and which will long be
embalmed in the recollection of his contemporaries. Hundreds in this
city, still remember those surpassing triumphs of his genius as an
orator and advocate, achieved in the celebrated trial of Burr;--how he
depicted in colors glowing and beautiful the enchanting island of
Blennerhassett--the misery of his disconsolate wife--and the wiles of
that evil genius who entered the Paradise of the Ohio, and withered
forever its enjoyments. Hundreds here and elsewhere have hung with
ecstasy over the rich pages of the "British Spy" and "Old
Batchelor"--have listened to the magic of his voice both in public and
colloquial discourse--and have been constant eyewitnesses of the "daily
beauty" and sublime morality of his life. Proudly and sacredly however
as his native and adopted states ought to cherish his memory--the fame
of such a man as Wirt, must be regarded as the property of the whole
nation. His great and commanding genius illustrated and adorned the age
and country in which he lived, and thousands and tens of thousands of
American bosoms have exulted at the thought that _he was their
countryman_.
In one respect especially, Mr. Wirt was an uncommon man. Most persons
distinguished for their moral and intellectual qualities, have at some
time or other, been the objects of illiberal censure. Greatness is
almost invariably the mark of envy, and envy gives birth to detraction.
The deceased however, it is believed, lived and died without an enemy.
His manners were so bland and gentle--his purposes so pure--and his
life so blameless--that even malice had no nourishment left whereon to
feed. In the language of Mr. Kennedy "he possessed, in a remarkable
degree, that trait which has been called simplicity of heart--it was
single mindedness, straight forward candor. His manners had the wayward
playfulness of a boy, that won upon, and infected with their own
buoyancy every class of his associates, from the youngest to the
oldest--from the humblest retainer about his person, or casual
stranger, to the most eminent and most intimate."
In analyzing the intellectual qualities of the deceased, Mr. Kennedy is
inclined to the opinion, that powerful as was his legal acumen, and
almost unsurpassed his eloquence, yet, that if circumstances had
permitted an exclusive devotion to literary pursuits, his fame might
have become still more brilliant. We cannot forbear to extract from the
oration, the whole passage which illustrates this idea.
"In taking this survey of the chief productions of Mr. Wirt's pen, I am
tempted to pause for a moment, to express my regret that the pursuits
of his life had not been more decidedly applied to literary labors,
than either circumstances or his own choice seem to have permitted. He
was remarkably qualified by the character of his mind, and, I think I
am warranted in saying, by his inclination, to attain great distinction
in these pursuits. A career, in a larger degree, directed to this end
would certainly have been not less honorable to himself, nor less
useful to his country, and, I would fain persuade myself, not less
profitable,--although the consideration of gain be but an unworthy
stimulant to the glorious rewards which should interest the ambition of
genius. He had, however, a large family around him who depended upon
him for protection; and it may be that, surveying the sad history of
the gifted spirits who have lighted the path of mankind with the lamps
of their own minds and made their race rich with the treasures of
wisdom and science, he has turned distrustfully from the yearnings of
his ambition, and followed the broader and more certain track that led
to professional fame and wealth. I can excuse him for the choice,
whilst I lament over the dispensation of human rule by which the latter
pursuits should have such an advantage.
"As a literary man he would have acquired a more permanent renown than
the nature of professional occupation or the exercises of the forum are
capable of conferring upon their votaries. The pen of genius erects its
own everlasting monument; but the triumphs of the speaker's eloquence,
vivid, brilliant and splendid as they are, live but in the history of
their uncertain effects and in the intoxicating applause of the
day:--to incredulous posterity they are distrusted tradition, the
extravagant boasting of an elder age prone by its nature to disparage
the present by the narrated glories of the past. So has it, even now,
befallen the name of Patrick Henry, whom not all his affectionate
biographer's learned zeal has rescued from the unbelieving smile of but
a second generation. The glory of Cicero lives more conspicuously in
his written philosophy than even in his speeches, which, although
transmitted by his own elaborate and polished hand, may rather be
assigned to his literary than to his forensic fame.
"Mr. Wirt had many inducements to the cultivation of letters. He might
have entered upon the field, in this country, almost without a rival.
Our nation, young in the career of liberal arts, had but few names to
reckon when asked, as she has sometimes been in derision, where were
the evidences of her scholarship. Her pride would have pointed to a man
like William Wirt with a peculiar complacency. His comprehensive and
philosophical mind, acute and clear-sighted, was well adapted to master
the truths of science: it was fruitful and imaginative and full of
beautiful illustration. He had wit and humor of the highest flavor,
combined with a quick and accurate observation of character: his taste,
sensitive and refined, delighted in the harmony and truth of nature:
his full memory furnished him abundant stores of learning: his style,
rich and clear, like a fountain of sparkling waters played along a
channel of golden sands and bright crystals and through meads begirt
with flowers. Above all, the tendency of his mind was to usefulness: he
indited no thought that did not serve to inculcate virtuous sentiments,
noble pursuits, love of country, the value of generous and laudable
ambition, trust in Heaven, or earnest attachment to duty. He has
embellished and vivified the grave experience of age with all the warm
enthusiasm of youth, and has taught his countrymen the most severe and
self-denying devotion to purposes of good, in lessons of so amiable a
tone, as to win many a young champion to virtue by the kindness of his
persuasion. His sketches of character are pleasantly graphic, and leave
us room to believe that, either, in the drama or in that species of
fictitious history which the great enchanter of this age has made so
popular a vehicle for profound philosophy, he would have attained to an
exalted fame. In short, there are but few amongst us who, in
scholarship, learning, observation or facility and beauty of
expression, may claim to be ranked with William Wirt."
Our readers must not be denied the pleasure of another quotation in
which Mr. Wirt's powers of oratory are sketched with a graphic pencil.
"He was a powerful orator, and had the art to sway courts and juries
with a master's spirit. The principal traits of his eloquence were
great clearness and force in laying the foundations of an argument, and
the steady pursuit of it through the track of logical deduction. He was
ingenious in choosing his position, and, that once taken, his hearers
were borne to his conclusion upon a tide almost as irresistible as that
which wafts the idle skiff upon the Potomac, downward from the
mountains to the last cataract that meets the ebb and flood of the sea.
In this train of earnest argumentation the attention of his auditory
was kept alive by a vivid display of classic allusion, by flashes of
wit and merriment, and by the familiar imagery which was called in aid
to give point to his demonstrations, or light to what the subject
rendered obscure to the common apprehension. He sometimes indulged in
satire and invective, and, where the subject called for it, in stern
denunciation. Many have felt with what indignant power these weapons
have been wielded in his hand. His utterance, in early life, was said
to have been confused and ungraceful. Practice had conquered these
defects, and no man spoke with a more full, effortless and unobstructed
fluency. His diction was scrupulously neat, and might have often
deceived an audience into the opinion that his speeches were prepared
in the closet. His manner was remarkably impressive. Endowed with a
commanding figure, a singularly graceful carriage and with a
countenance of manly and thoughtful beauty, that struck an instant
sense of respect into all that looked upon him, he was pre-eminent in
that most significant trait of an orator, action. We can all remember
the rich and flowing music of that voice which was wont to stir the
inmost souls of our tribunals and bring down the loud applause of
delighted bystanders; the dignity with which we have seen his majestic
person dilate itself before the judgment seat; the ineffable grace that
beamed upon the broad expanse of his brow, and the kindled transport of
his fine face, in those wrapt moments when his mind was all in a blaze
with the inspirations of his own eloquence. These were the rare gifts
that imparted a charm to his oratory, which often wrought more
powerfully for the success of his cause than even the efficacy of
'right words set in order.'"
We shall conclude with one more passage, in which the man who filled so
large a space in the public eye--whose eloquence placed him on the
highest pedestal of fame, and whose writings have charmed by their
richness and beauty so many thousand readers--is exhibited in a light
more attractive and enduring than the highest human attainments are
able to bestow. Mr. Wirt looked far beyond the narrow bounds of earth
for his reward. He saw that neither wealth, nor power, nor fame, could
satisfy the immortal cravings of the mind--and he lifted up his
thoughtful eye to another and more permanent state of being.
"Lastly, he was a zealous and faithful christian. In such a mind as
his, so inquiring, so masterly, so discriminating, religion was the
child of his judgment, not the creation of his passion. It was an
earnest, abiding sense of truth, and showed itself in daily exercise
and constant acknowledgment. With the sublime system of revelation
resting ever in his thoughts, the christian law hung like a tablet upon
his breast, and duty ever pointed her finger to the sculptured commands
that were graven there to serve him as a manual of practice. He loved
old forms and old opinions, and, with something like a patriarch's
reverence, he headed his little family flock on their Sunday walks to
church: morning and evening he gathered them together, and on bended
knee, invoked his Father's blessing on his household; and at the daily
meal bowed his calm and prophet-like figure over the family repast, to
ask that grace of the Deity, on which his heart rested with its
liveliest hope, and to express that thankfulness which filled and
engrossed his soul. Such was this man in the retirement of his domestic
hearth, and thus did his affections, in that little precinct, bloom
with the daily increasing virtues of love of family, of friends, of his
country and of his God."
We hope that Mr. Kennedy's discourse will be extensively circulated and
read. We confess that we rose from its perusal much wiser, better, and
happier than before. It not only gave play to the imagination, but it
distilled precious dews of thought and feeling, the memory of which is
still delightful.
A LETTER TO HIS COUNTRYMEN. By J. Fenimore Cooper.--_New York: John
Wiley._ 1834.
Mr. Cooper's letter is partly private and controversial, and partly
political, and therefore any thing like an extended notice or review of
it does not fall within the range which has been prescribed for the
"Southern Literary Messenger." We cannot but express our regret,
however, that Mr. Cooper should have suffered himself to be seduced
into the arena of party politics. Upon that theatre he will meet with
many distinguished rivals--whereas he had none or few to contend with
on his favorite ground of romantic fiction. Is it possible that Mr.
Cooper will suffer himself to be driven from the field on which he has
earned so many enduring laurels, by the criticisms or even illnature of
a few newspaper editors? Why, if we had been fortunate enough to write
the "Red Rover," or even the "Bravo," we would have good humoredly
defied the whole fraternity from Maine to New Orleans. Mr. Cooper
forgets that there are thousands, who form their own opinions of
literary works, without ever once thinking to turn over the pages of a
daily or semiweekly instructor in order to learn its opinion. What if
some of his finest romances have been criticised? Is there any human
production which can be said to be perfect? Even Walter Scott
acknowledged that his "Monastery" and probably some of his other works
were total failures. We hope to spend many a long winter night yet in
reading some of Mr. Cooper's new novels.
DIARY OF AN ENNUYEE. _Boston: Lilly, Wait, Colman & Holden._ 1833.
We opened this book, we confess, with some reluctance. The reading
world has been so completely surfeited, especially in late years, by
works of the same description,--by the diaries and letters of
travellers and tourists,--and many of them have been so obviously
designed to encourage the art of _book making_, rather than to impart
solid instruction or intellectual pleasure, that we had almost resolved
to proscribe altogether that branch of literature. France, Switzerland
and Italy, have, moreover, been so often described, that neither the
theatre of Napoleon's glory, nor the sublimities of Alpine scenery--nor
the classical antiquities of the "Eternal City"--could impart any
longer, it was supposed, the grace or freshness of novelty to the
sketches of a new adventurer. Fortunately for us, however, we did not
carry our resolution into effect, until we looked into the charming
volume whose title is at the head of this article. For rich and
powerful thought,--for glowing and beautiful description,--for chaste
composition and elegance of taste, we have seldom or never seen it
surpassed. It is, too, the production of a lady,--an Englishwoman of
rank and fortune, who seems to have visited the sunny clime of Italy in
order to restore a constitution wasted by disease, and if possible,
alleviate some secret misery which was "feeding on her damask cheek"
and withering her heart.--Notwithstanding her efforts to conceal her
wretchedness, enough is told to excite the reader's sympathy and impart
a melancholy interest to the narrative. She finally fell a victim to
her sufferings, and found at the age of twenty-six, a premature grave
at Autun, in France, on her return to her native England.
In the course of her pilgrimage she visited Paris, Geneva, Milan,
Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Genoa, and various other cities. All
the wonders of art and glories of nature in Italy's elysian land, seem
to have borrowed additional splendor and beauty from the touches of her
magic pencil--and in her reflections upon men and manners there is a
purity of sentiment which could neither be sullied by the temptations
of wealth and fashion, nor by the prevalence of licentious customs in
that voluptuous climate.
We cannot deny to our readers the pleasure of a few extracts, which
will fully justify the estimate we have placed upon this delightful
volume.
The frivolous extravagance which in many things characterises the
French people, and especially the Parisian circles, is thus described:
"_La mode_ at Paris is a spell of wondrous power: it is most like what
we should call in England a rage, a mania, a torrent sweeping down the
bounds between good and evil, sense and nonsense, upon whose surface
straws and egg-shells float into notoriety, while the gold and the
marble are buried and hidden till its force be spent. The rage for
cashmeres and little dogs, has lately given way to a rage for Le
Solitaire, a Romance written, I believe, by a certain vicomte
d'Arlincourt. Le Solitaire rules the imagination, the taste, the dress
of half Paris: if you go to the theatre, it is to see the 'Solitaire,'
either as tragedy, opera, or melodrame: the men dress their hair and
throw their cloaks about them _à la Solitaire_; bonnets and caps,
flounces and ribbons are all _à la Solitaire_; the print shops are full
of scenes from Le Solitaire; it is on every toilette, on every work
table;--ladies carry it about in their reticules to show each other
that they are à la mode; and the men--what can they do but humble their
understandings and be _extasiés_, when beautiful eyes sparkle in its
defence, and glisten in its praise, and ruby lips pronounce it divine,
delicious, 'quelle sublimité dans les descriptions, quelle force dans
les caractères! quelle âme! quel feu! quelle chaleur! quelle verve!
quelle originalité! quelle passion!' &c.
"'Vous n'avez pas lu le Solitaire?' said Madame M. yesterday; 'eh mon
dieu! est-il donc possible! vous? mais, ma chère, vous êtes perdue de
reputation, et pour jamais!'
"To retrieve my lost reputation, I sat down to read Le Solitaire, and
as I read, my amazement grew, and I did in 'gaping wonderment abound,'
to think that fashion, like the insane root of old, had power to drive
a whole city mad with nonsense; for such a tissue of abominable
absurdities, bombast, and blasphemy, bad taste and bad language, was
never surely indited by any madman, in or out of Bedlam: not Maturin
himself, that king of fustian,
'---- ever wrote or borrowed,
Any horror half so horrid!'
and this is the book which has turned the brains of half Paris, which
has gone through fifteen editions in a few weeks, which not to admire
is '_pitoyable_,' and not to have read '_quelque chose d'inouie_.'"
Again,
"This is the place to live in for the merry poor man, or the melancholy
rich one; for those who have too much money, and those who have too
little; for those who only wish like the Irishman, 'to live all the
days of their life,'--_prendre en légère monnoie la somme des
plaisirs_--but to the thinking, the feeling, the domestic man, who only
exists, enjoys, suffers through his affections--
'Who is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noonday grove--'
to such a one, Paris must be nothing better than a vast frippery shop,
an ever varying galanty show, an eternal vanity fair, a vortex of
folly, a pandemonium of vice."
At Milan the fair invalid was induced to visit the Scala, where she saw
the _Didone Abandonnato_, a ballet by Vigano. This piece was founded
upon the loves of Dido and Eneas, and the celebrated cavern scene in
the 4th book of Virgil was copied _almost_ to the life. A noble English
family just arrived at Milan, was present at the performance, and the
effect upon one of its members is thus described:
"In the front of the box sat a beautiful girl, apparently not fifteen,
with laughing lips and dimpled cheeks, the very personification of
blooming, innocent, _English_ loveliness. I watched her, (I could not
help it, when my interest was once awakened,) through the whole scene.
I marked her increased agitation: I saw her cheeks flush, her eyes
glisten, her bosom flutter, as if with sighs I could not overhear, till
at length, overpowered with emotion, she turned away her head, and
covered her eyes with her hand. Mothers!--English mothers! who bring
your daughters abroad to finish their education--do ye well to expose
them to scenes like these, and _force_ the young bud of early feeling
in such a precious hotbed as this?--Can a finer finger on the piano,--a
finer taste in painting, or any possible improvement in foreign arts,
and foreign graces, compensate for one taint on that moral purity,
which has ever been, (and may it ever be!) the boast, the charm of
Englishwomen? But what have I to do with all this?--I came here to be
amused and to forget:--not to moralize, or to criticise."
The picture of Venice, "throned on her hundred isles," is vivid and
beautiful.
"The morning we left Padua was bright, lovely and cloudless. Our drive
along the shores of the Brenta crowned with innumerable villas and gay
gardens was delightful; and the moment of our arrival at Fusina, where
we left our carriages to embark in gondolas, was the most auspicious
that could possibly have been chosen. It was about four o'clock: the
sun was just declining towards the west; the whole surface of the
_lagune_ smooth as a mirror, appeared as if paved with fire;--and
Venice with her towers and domes, indistinctly glittering in the
distance, rose before us like a gorgeous exhalation from the bosom of
the ocean. It is farther from the shore than I expected. As we
approached, the splendor faded: but the interest and the wonder grew. I
can conceive nothing more beautiful, more singular, more astonishing,
than the first appearance of Venice, and sad indeed will be the hour
when she sinks, (as the poet prophecies) 'into the slime of her own
canals.'
"The moment we had disembarked our luggage at the inn, we hired
gondolas and rowed to the Piazza di San Marco. Had I seen the church of
St. Mark any where else, I should have exclaimed against the bad taste
which every where prevails in it: but Venice is the proper region of
the fantastic, and the Church of St. Mark, with its four hundred
pillars of every different order, color, and material; its oriental
cupolas, and glittering vanes, and gilding and mosaics, assimilates
with all around it: and the kind of pleasure it gives is suitable to
the place and people.
"After dinner I had a chair placed on the balcony of our inn, and sat
for some time contemplating a scene altogether new and delightful. The
arch of the Rialto, just gleamed through the deepening twilight; long
lines of palaces, at first partially illuminated, faded away at length
into gloomy and formless masses of architecture; the gondolas glided to
and fro, their glancing lights reflected on the water. There was a
stillness all around me, solemn and strange in the heart of a great
city. No rattling carriages shook the streets, no trampling of horses
echoed along the pavement:--the silence was broken only by the
melancholy cry of the gondoliers, and the dash of their oars; by the
low murmur of human voices, by the chime of the vesper bells, borne
over the water, and the sounds of music raised at intervals along the
canals. The poetry, the romance of the scene stole upon me unawares. I
fell into a reverie, in which visionary forms and recollections gave
way to dearer and sadder realities, and my mind seemed no longer in my
own power. I called upon the lost, the absent, to share the present
with me--I called upon past feelings to enhance that moment's delight.
I did wrong--and memory avenged herself as usual. I quitted my seat on
the balcony, with despair at my heart, and drawing to the table took
out my books and work. So passed our first evening at Venice."
At Florence she met with the poet Rogers, who seems to have been a
familiar acquaintance:
"Samuel Rogers paid us a long visit this morning. He does not look as
if the suns of Italy had _revivified_ him--but he is as _amiable_ and
amusing as ever. He talked long, _et avec beaucoup d'onction_, of
ortolans and figs; till methought it was the very poetry of epicurism;
and put me in mind of his own suppers--
'Where blushing fruits through scatter'd leaves invite,
Still clad in bloom and veil'd in azure light.
The wine as rich in years as Horace sings;'
and the rest of his description worthy of a poetical Apicius.
"Rogers may be seen every day about eleven or twelve, in the Tribune,
seated opposite to the Venus, which appears to be the exclusive object
of his adoration; and gazing, as if he hoped, like another Pygmalion,
to animate the statue: or rather, perhaps, that the statue might
animate _him_. A young Englishman of fashion, with as much talent as
espiéglerie, placed an epistle in verse between the fingers of the
statue, addressed to Rogers; in which the Goddess entreats him not to
come there _ogling_ her every day;--for though 'partial friends might
deem him still alive,' she knew by his looks he had come from the other
side of the Styx; and retained her _antique_ abhorrence of the spectral
dead, &c. &c. She concluded by beseeching him, if he could not desist
from haunting her with his _ghostly_ presence, at least to spare her
the added misfortune of being be-rhymed by his Muse.
"Rogers with equal good nature and good sense, neither noticed these
lines, nor withdrew his friendship and intimacy from the writer."
The fine arts which are cultivated with so much distinction in the
"Etrurian Athens," attracted the particular attention of our
accomplished traveller. Referring to the Dutch school and the Salle des
Portraits,--she says,
"The Dutch and Flemish painters (in spite of their exquisite pots and
pans, and cabbages and carrots, their birch brooms, in which you can
count every twig, and their carpets in which you can reckon every
thread) do not interest me; their landscapes too, however natural, are
mere Dutch nature (with some brilliant exceptions,) fat cattle, clipped
trees, boors and wind-mills. Of course I am not speaking of Vandyke,
nor of Rubens, he that 'in the colors of the rainbow lived,' nor of
Rembrandt, that king of clouds and shadows; but for mine own part, I
would give up all that Mieris, Netscher, Teniers and Gerard Duow ever
produced, for one of Claude's Eden-like creations, or one of Guido's
lovely heads--or merely for the pleasure of looking at Titian's Flora
once a day, I would give a whole gallery of Dutchmen, if I had them."
The following _coup-d'oeil_ of Florence is distinct and impressive:
"We then ascended the Campanile or Belfry Tower to see the view from
its summit. Florence lay at our feet, diminished to a model of itself,
with its walls and gates, its streets and bridges, palaces and
churches, all and each distinctly visible; and beyond, the Val d'Arno
with its amphitheatre of hills, villas, and its vineyards--classical
Fiesole, with its ruined castle, and Monte Ulivetto, with its diadem of
cypresses; luxuriant nature and graceful art, blending into one
glorious picture, which no smoky vapors, no damp exhalations, blotted
and discolored; but all was serenely bright and fair, gay with moving
life, and rich with redundant fertility."
But it was in Rome, "the city of the soul," that the spirit of the
authoress revelled amidst the magnificent trophies of art, and was
refreshed in spite of pain and despondency, by the reviving beauties of
nature.
"The weather is cold here during the prevalence of the tramontana: but
I enjoy the brilliant skies, and the delicious purity of the air, which
leaves the eye free to wander over a vast extent of space. Looking from
the gallery of the Belvedere at sun-set this evening, I clearly saw
Tivoli, Albano, and Frascati, although all Rome, and part of the
Campagna lay between me and those towns. The outlines of every
building, ruin, hill and wood, were so distinctly marked, and _stood
out_ so brightly to the eye! and the full round moon, magnified through
the purple vapor which floated over the Appenines, rose just over
Tivoli, adding to the beauty of the scene. O Italy! How I wish I could
transport hither all I love! how I wish I were well enough, happy
enough to enjoy all the lovely things I see! but pain is mingled with
all I behold, all I feel: a cloud seems for ever before my eyes, a
weight for ever presses down my heart. I know it is wrong to repine;
and that I ought rather to be thankful for the pleasurable sensations
yet spared to me, than lament that they are so few. When I take up my
pen to record the impressions of the day, I sometimes turn within
myself, and wonder how it is possible, that amid the strife of feelings
not all subdued, and the desponding of the heart, the mind should still
retain its faculties unobscured, and the imagination all its vivacity,
and its susceptibility to pleasure,--like the beautiful sun-bow I saw
at the falls of Terni, bending so bright and so calm over the verge of
the abyss, which toiled and raged below."
Having visited and examined in detail, with the feelings of an amateur,
almost every thing worthy of note in the ancient city--the sublime
architecture of St. Peter's--the treasures of the Vatican and the
Capitol--the numberless galleries of painting and sculpture--and having
loitered with the spirit of an antiquary amidst the ruins of tombs and
temples, our fair tourist describes the rapid _survey_ which she made
with a view to generalize the whole.
"For this purpose, making the Capitol a central point, I drove first
slowly through the Forum, and made the circuit of the Palatine hill,
then by the arch of Janus (which by a late decision of the antiquarians
has no more to do with Janus than with Jupiter,) and the temple of
Vesta, back again over the site of the Circus Maximus, between the
Palatine and the Aventine (the scene of the Rape of the Sabines,) to
the baths of Caracalla, where I spent an hour, musing, sketching, and
poetizing; thence to the Church of San Stefano Rotundo, once a temple
dedicated to Claudius by Agrippina; over the Celian hill, covered with
masses of ruins, to the Church of St. John and St. Paul, a small but
beautiful edifice: then to the neighboring church of San Gregorio, from
the steps of which there is such a noble view. Thence I returned by the
arch of Constantine, and the Coliseum, which frowned on me in black
masses through the soft and deepening twilight, through the street now
called the Suburra, but formerly the Via Scelerata, where Tullia
trampled over the dead body of her father, and so over the Quirinal,
home.
"My excursion was altogether delightful, and gave me the most
magnificent, and I had almost said, the most _bewildering_ ideas of the
grandeur and extent of ancient Rome: every step was classic ground;
illustrious names, and splendid recollections crowded upon the fancy--
'And trailing clouds of glory did they come.'
On the Palatine Hill were the houses of Cicero and the Gracchi: Horace,
Virgil, and Ovid resided on the Aventine; and Mecænas and Pliny on the
Æsquiline. If one little fragment of a wall remained, which could with
any shadow of probability be pointed out as belonging to the residence
of Cicero, Horace, or Virgil, how much dearer, how much more sanctified
to memory would it be than all the magnificent ruins of the fabrics of
the Cæsars! But no--all has passed away. I have heard the remains of
Rome coarsely ridiculed, because after the researches of centuries, so
little is comparatively known, because of the endless disputes of
antiquarians, and the night and ignorance in which all is involved. But
to the imagination there is something singularly striking in this
mysterious veil which hangs like a cloud upon the objects around us. I
trod to-day over shapeless masses of building, extending in every
direction as far as the eye could reach. Who had inhabited the edifices
I trampled under my feet? What hearts had burned--what heads had
thought--what spirits had kindled _there_, where nothing was seen but a
wilderness and waste, and heaps of ruins, to which antiquaries--even
Nibby himself, dare not give a name? All swept away--buried beneath an
ocean of oblivion, above which rise a few great and glorious names,
like rocks, over which the billows of time break in vain."
Her journey from Rome to Naples was short and delightful. The following
is one among innumerable descriptive passages in her diary:
"In some of the scenes of to-day--at Terracina particularly, there was
a beauty beyond what I ever beheld or imagined: the scenery of
Switzerland is of a different character, and on a different scale; it
is beyond comparison grander, more gigantic, more overpowering, but it
is not so poetical. Switzerland is not Italy--is not the enchanting
_south_. This soft balmy air, these myrtles, orange groves, palm trees;
these cloudless skies, this bright blue sea, and sunny hills, all
breathe of an enchanted land; 'a land of Faery.'"
At Naples our traveller was fortunate enough to witness a brilliant
eruption of Mount Vesuvius--and overcoming the natural timidity of her
sex, she resolved to ascend the mountain at midnight attended by chosen
guides and companions. Her account of the terrible spectacle is too
graphic to withhold from our readers.
"Before eleven o'clock we reached the Hermitage, situated between
Vesuvius and the Somma, and the highest habitation on the mountain. A
great number of men were assembled within, and guides, lazzaroni,
servants, and soldiers were lounging round. I alighted, for I was
benumbed and tired, but did not like to venture among those people, and
it was proposed that we should wait for the rest of our party a little
farther on. We accordingly left our donkeys and walked forward upon a
kind of high ridge, which serves to fortify the Hermitage and its
environs, against the lava. From this path as we slowly ascended, we
had a glorious view of the eruption, and the whole scene around us, in
its romantic interest and terrible magnificence, mocked all power of
description. There were, at this time, five distinct torrents of lava
rolling down like streams of molten lead; one of which extended above
two miles below us, and was flowing towards Portici. The showers of red
hot stones flew up like thousands of sky rockets; many of them being
shot up perpendicularly, fell back into the crater, others falling on
the outside, bounded down the side of the mountain, with a velocity
which would have distanced a horse at full speed: these stones were of
every size, from two to ten or twelve feet in diameter.
"My ears were by this time wearied and stunned by the unceasing roaring
and hissing of the flames, while my eyes were dazzled by the glare of
the red, fierce light: now and then I turned them for relief, to other
features of the picture, to the black shadowy masses of the landscape
stretched beneath us, and speckled with little shining lights, which
showed how many were up and watching that night; and often to the calm
vaulted sky above our heads, where thousands of stars (not twinkling,
as through our hazy or frosty atmosphere, but shining out of 'heaven's
profoundest azure,' with that soft steady brilliance, peculiar to a
highly rarified medium) looked down upon this frightful turmoil, in all
their bright and placid loveliness. Nor should I forget one other
feature of a scene, on which I looked with a painter's eye. Great
numbers of the Austrian forces, now occupying Naples, were on the
mountain, assembled in groups, some standing, some sitting, some
stretched on the ground and wrapped in their cloaks, in various
attitudes of amazement and admiration; and as the shadowy glare fell on
their tall martial figures and glittering accoutrements, I thought I
had never beheld any thing so wildly picturesque."
After spending the day with a select party of friends amidst the ruins
of Pompeii, she draws the following picture of the celebrated environs
of Naples.
"Of all the heavenly days we have had since we came to Naples, this has
been the most heavenly; and of all the lovely scenes I have beheld in
Italy, what I saw to-day has most enchanted my senses and imagination.
The view from the eminence on which the old temple stood, and which was
anciently the public promenade, was splendidly beautiful: the whole
landscape was at one time overflowed with light and sunshine; and
appeared as if seen through an impalpable but dazzling veil. Towards
evening, the outlines became more distinct: the little white towns
perched upon the hills, the gentle sea, the fairy island of Rivegliano
with its old tower, the smoking crater of Vesuvius, the bold forms of
Mount Lactarius and Cape Minerva, stood out full and clear under the
cloudless sky; and as we returned, I saw the sun sink behind Capri,
which appeared by some optical illusion, like a glorious crimson
transparency suspended above the horizon: the sky, the earth, the sea,
were flushed with the richest rose color, which gradually softened and
darkened into purple: the short twilight faded away, and the full moon,
rising over Vesuvius, lighted up the scenery with a softer radiance."
We intended to have quoted other passages, in which our fair authoress
sketches with striking eloquence, the exhibitions of _Sestine_, one of
that extraordinary race called _Improvvisatori_--a race which seems to
be almost peculiar to Italy; and which, far from being extinct, are
still to be found in almost every town from Florence to Naples. Her
description too of a splendid illumination at St. Peter's, and her just
observations upon the works of the great masters, particularly of the
_Divine Raffaelle_, are worthy of particular designation; but it would
be an almost endless task to select passages from a work, which from
beginning to end, and through almost every page, is a volume of
thrilling interest. We shall content ourselves with one or two
beautiful extracts distinguished for their deep moral tone, and
somewhat connected, as we suppose, with that all-engrossing and
mysterious source of melancholy which seems to have imbittered the
peace and hastened the dissolution of this interesting female.
"It is sorrow which makes our experience; it is sorrow which teaches us
to feel properly for ourselves and for others. We must feel deeply
before we can think rightly. It is not in the tempest and storm of
passions, we can reflect--but afterwards, when the _waters have gone
over our soul_; and like the precious gems and the rich merchandise
which the wild wave casts on the shore out of the wreck it has
made--such are the thoughts left by retiring passions."
Again; what can be more affecting than her final adieu to Naples.
"When we turned into the Strada Chiaja, and I gave a last glance at the
magnificent bay and the shores all resplendent with golden light; I
could almost have exclaimed like Eve, 'must I then leave thee,
Paradise!' and dropt a few natural tears--tears of weakness, rather
than of grief: for what do I leave behind me worthy one emotion of
regret? Even at Naples, even in this all-lovely land, 'fit haunt for
gods,' has it not been with me as it has been elsewhere? as long as the
excitement of change and novelty lasts, my heart can turn from itself
'to luxuriate with indifferent things:' but it cannot last long; and
when it is over, I suffer, I am ill: the past returns with tenfold
gloom; interposing like a dark shade between me and every object: an
evil power seems to reside in every thing I see, to torment me with
painful associations, to perplex my faculties, to irritate and mock me
with the perception of what is lost to me: the very sunshine sickens
me, and I am forced to confess myself weak and miserable as ever. O
time! how slowly you move! how little you can do for me! and how bitter
is that sorrow which has no relief to hope but from time alone!"
We shall quote only one of the many interesting specimens of poetry
with which the volume is interspersed. It is an extempore translation
of a beautiful sonnet of Zappi, an Italian poet.
"Love, by my fair one's side is ever seen,
He hovers round her steps, where'er she strays,
Breathes in her voice, and in her silence speaks,
Around her lives and lends her all his arms.
"Love is in every glance--Love taught her song;
And if she weep, or scorn contract her brow,
Still Love departs not from her, but is seen
Even in her lovely anger and her tears.
"When, in the mazy dance she glides along,
Still Love is near to poise each graceful step:
So breathes the zephyr o'er the yielding flower.
"Love in her brow is throned, plays in her hair,
Darts from her eye and glows upon her lip,
But oh! he never yet approached her heart!"
Upon the whole we earnestly recommend this book to the attention of the
public, and especially to our fair countrywomen, whose pride and
curiosity will be gratified in so rich an example of the taste and
intellectual power of their own sex.
THE MAGDALEN AND OTHER TALES. By Jas. Sheridan Knowles, author of
Virginius, The Hunchback, The Wife, &c. _Philadelphia: Carey, Lea &
Blanchard_, 1833.
SKETCHES, by Mrs. Sigourney. _Philadelphia: Key & Biddle_. 1834.
Both these volumes are by writers of distinction; the first a gentleman
well known to the British public, and the last an American lady who
devotes her delightful seclusion, near Hartford, Connecticut, to the
cultivation of the muses and to the moral improvement of society.
Though both are excellent in their way, each is adapted to a distinct
class of readers. Mr. Knowles will be particularly acceptable to those
who think that the happiness of reading consists in _amusement_. He
depicts with a graphic pencil, and his pictures will be highly
attractive to the young, the ardent and romantic. Mrs. Sigourney takes
a loftier aim. Though highly gifted with the powers of imagination, and
of course capable of exciting that faculty in others, her object seems
to be rather to touch the springs of the heart and awaken the moral
feelings of our nature. Her spirit is not only imbued with poetry but
religion. In all her productions that we have seen, there is a direct
tendency to improve as well as to delight. She is an example altogether
worthy of imitation among the professors of literature, in enlisting
all its allurements in the great cause of human virtue.
Mr. Knowles' book consists of various interesting tales, one of which,
"Love and Authorship," we have selected for publication as a fair
specimen of the rest. It is a genuine love story, and of course will
have its admirers. From Mrs. Sigourney's volume, we have transferred to
our own pages the story of the "Patriarch," in which the fair authoress
personates, in the narrator of the tale, a minister of the gospel. The
scene is laid in the state of North Carolina; and the few remarks in
allusion to Bishop Ravenscroft will strike many of our readers as
faithful notices of the eloquence and piety of that distinguished and
lamented champion of the cross.
LOVE AND AUTHORSHIP.
"Will you remember me, Rosalie?"
"Yes!"
"Will you keep your hand for me for a year?"
"Yes!"
"Will you answer me when I write to you?"
"Yes!"
"One request more--O Rosalie, reflect that my life depends upon your
acquiescence--should I succeed, will you marry me in spite of your
uncle?"
"Yes," answered Rosalie. There was no pause--reply followed question,
as if it were a dialogue which they had got by heart--and by heart
_indeed_ they had got it--but I leave you to guess the book they had
conned it from.
'Twas in a green lane, on a summer's evening, about nine o'clock, when
the west, like a gate of gold, had shut upon the retiring sun, that
Rosalie and her lover, hand in hand, walked up and down. His arm was
the girdle of her waist; hers formed a collar for his neck, which a
knight of the garter--ay, the owner of the sword that dubbed him--might
have been proud to wear. Their gait was slow, and face was turned to
face; near were their lips while they spoke, and much of what they said
never came to the ear, though their souls caught up every word of it.
Rosalie was upwards of five years the junior of her lover. She had
known him since she was a little girl in her twelfth year. He was
almost eighteen then, and when she thought far more about a doll than a
husband, he would set her upon his knee, and call her his little wife.
One, two, three years passed on, and still, whenever he came from
college, and as usual went to pay his first visit at her father's,
before he had been five minutes in the parlor, the door was flung open,
and in bounded Rosalie, and claimed her accustomed seat. The fact was,
till she was fifteen, she was a child of a very slow growth, and looked
the girl when many a companion of hers of the same age had begun to
appear the woman.
When another vacation however came round and Theodore paid his
customary call, and was expecting his little wife as usual, the door
opened slowly, and a tall young lady entered, and curtseying, colored,
and walked to a seat next the lady of the house. The visitor stood up
and bowed, and sat down again, without knowing that it was Rosalie.
"Don't you know Rosalie," exclaimed her father.
"Rosalie!" replied Theodore in an accent of surprise; and approached
his little wife of old who rose and half gave him her hand, and
curtseying, colored again; and sat down again without having
interchanged a word with him. No wonder--she was four inches taller
than when he had last seen her, and her bulk had expanded
correspondingly; while her features, that half a year before gave one
the idea of a sylph that would bound after a butterfly, had now
mellowed in their expression, into the sentiment, the softness, and the
reserve of the woman.
Theodore felt absolutely disappointed. Five minutes before, he was all
volubility. No sooner was one question answered than he proposed
another--and he had so many capital stories for Rosalie, when she came
down--and yet, when Rosalie did come down, he sat as though he had not
a word to say for himself. In short, every thing and every body in the
house seemed to have changed along with its young mistress; he felt no
longer at home in it, as he was wont; and in less than a quarter of an
hour he made his bow and departed.
Now this was exceedingly strange; for Rosalie, from a pretty little
girl, had turned into a lovely young woman. If a heart looked out of
her eyes before, a soul looked out of them now; her arm, which formerly
the sun had been allowed to salute when he liked, and which used to
bear the trace of many a kiss that he had given it, now shone white
through a sleeve of muslin, like snow behind a veil of haze; her bosom
had enlarged its wavy curve, and leaving her waist little more than the
span it used to be, sat proudly heaving above it; and the rest of her
form which, only six months ago, looked trim and airy in her short and
close-fitting frock now lengthening and throwing out its flowing line,
stood stately in the folds of a long and ample drapery. Yet could not
all this make up for the want of the little wife that used to come and
take her seat upon Theodore's knee.
To be sure there was another way of accounting for the young man's
chagrin. He might have been disappointed that Rosalie, when five feet
four, should be a little more reserved than when she was only five feet
nothing. Romantic young men, too, are apt to fancy odd things. Theodore
was a very romantic young man; and having, perhaps traced for himself
the woman in the child--as one will anticipate, in looking at a peach
that is just knit, the hue, and form, and flavor of the consummate
fruit--he might have set Rosalie down in his mind as his wife in
earnest, when he appeared to call her so only in jest.
Such was the case. Theodore never calculated that Rosalie knew nothing
about his dreams--that she had no such vision herself; he never
anticipated that the frankness of girlhood would vanish, as soon as the
diffidence of young womanhood began its blushing reign; the thought
never occurred to him that the day would come when Rosalie would
scruple to sit on his knee--ay, even though Rosalie should then begin
to think upon him, as for many a year before he had thought upon her.
He returned from college the fifth time; he found that the woman which
he imagined in a year or two she would become, was surpassed by the
woman that she already was; he remarked the withdrawal of confidence,
the limitation of familiarity--the penalty which he must inevitably pay
for her maturing--and he felt repelled and chilled, and utterly
disheartened by it.
For a whole week he never returned to the house. Three days of a second
week elapsed, and still he kept away. He had been invited, however to a
ball which was to be given there the day following; and, much as he was
inclined to absent himself, being a little more inclined to go--he
went.
Full three hours was he in the room without once setting his eyes upon
Rosalie. He saw her mother and her father, and talked with them; he saw
'squire this and doctor that, and attorney such-a-one, and had fifty
things to say to each of them; he had eyes and tongue for every body,
but Rosalie--not a look, or a word did he exchange with her; yet he was
here and there and every where! In short he was all communicativeness
and vivacity, so that every one remarked how bright he had become since
his last visit to college!
At last, however, his fine spirits all at once seemed to forsake him,
and he withdrew to the library, which was lighted up for the occasion
as an anti-room, and taking a volume out of the book-case, threw
himself into a chair and began to turn over the leaves.
"Have you forgotten your little wife," said a soft voice near
him--'twas Rosalie's--"if you _have_," she added as he started from his
seat, "she has not forgotten you."
She wore a carnation in her hair--the hue of the flower was not deeper
than that of her cheek as she stood and extended her hands to Theodore
who, the moment he rose, had held forth both of his.
"Rosalie!"
"Theodore!"--He led her to a sofa, which stood in a recess on the
opposite side of the room, and for five minutes not another word did
they exchange.
At length she gently withdrew her hand from his--she had suffered him
to hold it all that time--"We shall be observed," said she.
"Ah Rosalie," replied he, "nine months since you sat upon my knee, and
they observed us, yet you did not mind it!"
"You know I am a woman now," rejoined Rosalie, hanging her head,
"and--and--will you lead off the next dance with me?" cried she,
suddenly changing the subject. "There now; I have asked you," added
she, "which is more than you deserve!"--Of course Theodore was not at
all happy to accept the challenge of the metamorphosed Rosalie.
One might suppose that the young lady's heart was interested, and that
Theodore was a far happier man than he imagined himself to be. The fact
was neither more nor less. Little Rosalie was proud of being called
Theodore's wife, because she heard every body else speak in praise of
him. Many a marriageable young lady had she heard declare--not minding
to speak before a child--that Theodore was the finest young man in
B----; that she hoped Theodore would be at such or such a house where
she was going to dine, or spend the evening; nay, that she would like
to have a sweetheart like Theodore. Then would Rosalie interpose, and
with a saucy toss of her head exclaim, nobody should have Theodore but
Rosalie, for Rosalie was his little wife, 'twas thus she learned to
admire the face and person of Theodore, who more than once paid for her
acquired estimation of them; for sometimes before a whole room full of
company she would march up to him, and scanning him from head to foot,
with folded arms, at length declare aloud, that he _was_ the handsomest
young man in B----. Then Theodore was so kind to her, and thought so
much of any thing she did, and took such notice of her! Often, at a
dance, he would make her his partner for the whole evening; and there
was Miss Willoughby, perhaps, or Miss Miller, sitting down, either of
whom would have given her eyes to stand up if only in a reel with
Theodore.
But when the summer of her seventeenth year beheld her bursting into
womanhood; when her expanding thoughts, from a bounding, fitful,
rill-like current, began to run a deep, a broad, and steady stream;
when she found that she was almost arrived at the threshold of the
world, and reflected that the step which marks a female's first
entrance into it is generally taken in the hand of a partner--the
thought of who that partner might be, recalled Theodore to her
mind--and her heart fluttered as she asked herself the question--should
she ever be indeed his wife? when, this time, he paid his first visit,
Rosalie was as much mortified as he was. Her vexation was increased
when she saw that he absented himself; she resolved, if possible, to
ascertain the cause; and persuaded her mother to give a ball, and
specially invite the young gentleman. He came: she watched him,
observed that he neither inquired after her nor sought for her; and
marked the excellent terms that he was upon with twenty people, about
whom she knew him to be perfectly indifferent. Women have a perception
of the workings of the heart, far more quick and subtle than we have.
She was convinced that all his fine spirits were forced--that he was
acting a part. She suspected that while he appeared to be occupied with
every body but Rosalie--Rosalie was the only body that was running in
his thoughts. She saw him withdraw to the library; she followed him;
found him sitting down with a book in his hand; perceived, from his
manner of turning over the leaves, that he was intent on any thing but
reading.--She was satisfied that he was thinking of nothing but
Rosalie. The thought that Rosalie might one day become indeed his wife,
now occurred to her for the thousandth time, and a thousand times
stronger than ever; a spirit diffused itself through her heart which
had never been breathed into it before; and filling it with hope and
happiness, and unutterable contentment, irresistibly drew _it_ towards
him. She approached him, accosted him, and in a moment was seated with
him, hand in hand, upon the sofa!
As soon as the dance was done,--"Rosalie," said Theodore, "'tis almost
as warm in the air as in the room! will you be afraid to take a turn
with me in the garden?"
"I will get my shawl in a minute," said Rosalie, "and meet you there;"
and the maiden was there almost as soon as he.
They proceeded, arm-in-arm, to the farthest part of the garden; and
there they walked up and down without either seeming inclined to speak,
as though their hearts could discourse through their hands, which were
locked in one another.
"Rosalie!" at last breathed Theodore. "Rosalie!" breathed he a second
time, before the expecting girl could summon courage to say "Well!" "I
cannot go home to-night," resumed he, "without speaking to you." Yet
Theodore seemed to be in no hurry to speak; for there he stopped, and
continued silent so long that Rosalie began to doubt whether he would
open his lips again.
"Had we not better go in?" said Rosalie, "I think I hear them breaking
up."
"Not yet," replied Theodore.
"They'll miss us," said Rosalie.
"What of that?" rejoined Theodore.
"Nay," resumed the maid, "we have remained long enough, and at least
allow me to go in."
"Stop but another minute, dear Rosalie!" imploringly exclaimed the
youth.
"For what!" was the maid's reply.
"Rosalie," without a pause resumed Theodore, "you used to sit upon my
knee, and let me call you wife. Are those times passed forever? dear
Rosalie!--will you never let me take you on my knee and call you wife
again?"
"When we have done with our girlhood, we have done with our plays,"
said Rosalie.
"I do not mean in _play_, dear Rosalie," cried Theodore. "It is not
playing at man and wife to walk, as such, out of church. Will you marry
me, Rosalie?"
Rosalie was silent.
"Will you marry me?" repeated he.
Not a word would Rosalie speak.
"Hear me?" cried Theodore. "The first day, Rosalie, I took you upon my
knee, and called you my wife, jest as it seemed to be, my heart was
never more in earnest. That day I wedded you in my soul; for though you
were a child, I saw the future woman in you, rich in the richest
attractions of your sex. Nay, do me justice; recal what you yourself
have known of me; inquire of others. To whom did I play the suitor from
that day? To none but you, although to you I did not seem to play it.
Rosalie! was I not always with you? Recollect now! did a day pass, when
I was at home, without my coming to your father's house! When there
were parties there, whom did I sit beside, but you? Whom did I stand
behind at the piano forte, but you? Nay for a whole night, whom have I
danced with, but you? Whatever you might have thought _then_, can you
believe _now_, that it was merely a playful child that could so have
engrossed me? No, Rosalie! it was the virtuous, generous, lovely,
loving woman, that I saw in the playful child. Rosalie! for five years
have I loved you, though I never declared it to you till now. Do you
think I am worthy of you? Will you give yourself to me? Will you marry
me? Will you sit upon my knee again, and let me call you wife?"
Three or four times Rosalie made an effort to speak; but desisted, as
if she knew not what to say, or was unable to say what she wished;
Theodore still holding her hand. At last, "Ask my father's consent!"
she exclaimed, and tried to get away; but before she could effect it
she was clasped to the bosom of Theodore, nor released until the
interchange of the first pledge of love had been forced from her
bashful lips!--She did not appear, that night, in the drawing-room
again.
Theodore's addresses were sanctioned by the parents of Rosalie. The
wedding day was fixed; it wanted but a fortnight to it, when a
malignant fever made its appearance in the town; Rosalie's parents were
the first victims. She was left an orphan at eighteen, and her uncle,
by her mother's side, who had been nominated her guardian in a will,
made several years, having followed his brother-in-law and sister's
remains to the grave, took up his residence at B----.
Rosalie's sole consolation now was such as she received from the
society of Theodore; but Theodore soon wanted consolation himself. His
father was attacked by the fever and died, leaving his affairs, to the
astonishment of every one, in a state of the most inextricable
embarrassment; for he had been looked upon as one of the wealthiest
inhabitants of B----. This was a double blow to Theodore, but he was
not aware of the weight of it till, after the interment of his father,
he repaired, for the first time to resume his visits to his Rosalie.
He was stepping up without ceremony to the drawing-room, when the
servant begged his pardon for stopping him, telling him, at the same
time, that he had received instructions from his master to shew
Theodore into the parlor when he should call.
"Was Miss Wilford there?"
"No." Theodore was shewn into the parlor. Of all savage brutes, the
human brute is the most pernicious and revolting, because he unites to
the evil properties of the inferior animal the mental faculties of the
superior one; and then he is at large. A vicious tempered dog you can
muzzle and render innocuous; but there is no preventing the human dog
that bites from fleshing his tooth; he is sure to have it in somebody.
And then the infliction is so immeasurably more severe!--the quick of
the mind is so much more extensive than that of the body! Besides, the
savage that runs upon four legs is so inferior in performance to him
that walks upon two? 'Tis he that knows how to gnaw! I have often
thought it a pity and a sin that the man who plays the dog should be
protected from dying the death of one. He should hang, and the other go
free.
"Well, young gentleman!" was the salutation which Theodore received
when he entered the parlor; "and pray what brings you here?"
Theodore was struck dumb; and no wonder.
"Your father, I understand, has died a beggar! Do you think to marry my
niece?" If Theodore respired with difficulty before, his breath was
utterly taken away at this. He was a young man of spirit, but who can
keep up his heart, when his ship, all at once, is going down.
The human dog went on. "Young gentleman, I shall be plain with you, for
I am a straightforward man; young women should mate with their
matches--you are no match for my niece; so a good morning to you!" How
more in place to have wished him a good halter! saying this, the
straightforward savage walked out of the room, leaving the door wide
open, that Theodore might have room for egress; and steadily walked up
stairs.
It was several minutes before he could recover his self-recollection.
When he did so he rang the bell.
"Tell your master I wish to speak to him," said Theodore to the servant
who answered it. The servant went up stairs after his master, and
returned.
"I am sorry, sir," said he, "to be the bearer of such an errand; but my
master desires you instantly to quit the house; and has commanded me to
tell you that he has given me orders not to admit you again."
"I must see Miss Wilford!" exclaimed Theodore.
"You cannot, sir!" respectfully remarked the servant, "for she is
locked in her room; but you can send a message to her," added he in a
whisper, "and I will be the bearer of it. There is not a servant in the
house, Mr. Theodore, but is sorry for you to the soul."
This was so much in season, and was so evidently spoken from the heart,
that Theodore could not help catching the honest fellow by the hand.
Here the drawing-room bell was rung violently.
"I must go, sir," said the servant; "what message to my mistress?"
"Tell her to give me a meeting, and to apprize me of the time and
place," said Theodore; and the next moment the hall door was shut upon
him.
One may easily imagine the state of the young fellow's mind. To be
driven with insult and barbarity from the house in which he had been
received a thousand times with courtesy and kindness--which he looked
upon as his own! Then, what was to be done? Rosalie's uncle, after all,
had told him nothing but the truth. His father had died a beggar! Dear
as Rosalie was to Theodore, his own pride recoiled at the idea of
offering her a hand which was not the master of a shilling! Yet was not
Theodore portionless. His education was finished; that term he had
completed his collegiate studies. If his father had not left him a
fortune, he had provided him with the means of making one himself--at
all events, of commanding a competency. He had the credit of being a
young man of decided genius, too. "I will not offer Rosalie a beggar's
hand!" exclaimed Theodore; "I shall ask her to remain true to me for a
year; and I'll go to London, and maintain myself by my pen. It may
acquire me fame as well as fortune; and then I may marry Rosalie?"
This was a great deal of work to be done in a year; but if Theodore was
not a man of genius, he possessed a mind of that sanguine temperament,
which is usually an accompaniment of the richer gift. Before the hour
of dinner all his plans were laid, and he was ready to start for
London. He waited for nothing but a message from Rosalie, and as soon
as the sweet girl could send it, it came to him. It appointed him to
meet her in the green lane after sunset; the sun had scarcely set when
he was there; and there, too, was Rosalie. He found that she was
Rosalie still. Fate had stripped him of fortune; but she could not
persuade Rosalie to refuse him her hand, or her lip; when, half-way
down the lane, she heard a light quick step behind her, and, turning,
beheld Theodore.
Theodore's wishes, as I stated before, were granted soon as
communicated: and now nothing remained but to say good by--perhaps the
hardest thing to two young lovers. Rosalie stood passive in the arms of
Theodore, as he took the farewell kiss, which appeared as if it would
join his lips to hers for ever, instead of tearing them away. She heard
her name called from a short distance, and in half-suppressed voice;
she started and turned towards the direction whence the pre-concerted
warning came; she heard it again; she had stopped till the last moment!
She had half withdrawn herself from Theodore's arms; she looked at him;
flung her own around him, and burst into tears upon his neck!--In
another minute there was nobody in the lane.
London is a glorious place for a man of talent to make his way
in--provided he has extraordinary good luck. Nothing but merit can get
on there; nothing is sterling that is not of its coinage. Our
provincial towns won't believe that gold is gold unless it has been
minted in London. There is no trickery there; no treating, no
canvassing, no intrigue, no coalition! there, worth has only to show
itself if it wishes to be killed with kindness! London tells the truth!
You may swear to what it says--whatsoever may be proved to the
contrary. The cause--the cause is every thing in London! Shew but your
craft, and straight your brethren come crowding around you, and if they
find you worthy, why you shall be brought into notice--even though they
should tell a lie for it and damn you. Never trouble yourself about
getting on by interest in London! Get on by yourself. Posts are filled
there by merit: or if the man suits not the office, why the office is
made to adapt itself to the man, and so there is unity after all! What
a happy fellow was Theodore to find himself in such a place as London!
He was certainly happy in one thing: the coach in which he came set him
down at a friend's whose circumstances were narrow, but whose heart was
large--a curate of the Church of England. Strange that, with all the
appurtenances of hospitality at its command, abundance should allow it
to be said, that the kindest welcome which adversity usually meets
with, is that which it receives from adversity! If Theodore found that
the house was a cold one to what he had been accustomed, the warmth of
the greeting made up for it. "They breakfasted at nine, dined at four,
and, if he could sleep upon the sofa, why there was a bed for him!" In
a day he was settled, and at his work.
And upon what did Theodore found his hopes of making a fortune, and
rising to fame in London?--Upon writing a play. At an early period he
had discovered, as his friends imagined, a talent for dramatic
composition; and having rather sedulously cultivated that branch of
literature, he thought he would now try his hand in one bold effort,
the success of which should determine him as to his future course in
life. The play was written, presented, and accepted; the performers
were ready in their parts; the evening of representation came on, and
Theodore, seated in the pit beside his friend, at last, with a
throbbing heart, beheld the curtain rise. The first and second acts
went off smoothly, and with applause.
Two gentlemen were placed immediately in front of Theodore. "What do
you think of it?" said the one to the other.
"Rather tame," was the reply.
"Will it succeed?"
"Doubtful."
The third act, however, decided the fate of the play; the interest of
the audience became so intense, that, at one particular stage of the
action, numbers in the second and third rows of the side boxes stood
up, and the clapping of hands was universal, intermingled with cries of
"bravo!" from every part of the theatre. "'Twill do," was now the
remark, and Theodore breathed a little more freely than he had done
some ten minutes ago. Not to be tedious, the curtain fell amidst shouts
of approbation, unmingled with the slightest demonstration of
displeasure, and the author had not twenty friends in the house.
If Theodore did not sleep that night, it was not from inquietude of
mind--contentment was his repose. His most sanguine hopes had been
surpassed; the fiat of a London audience had stamped him a dramatist;
the way to fortune was open and clear, and Rosalie would be his.
Next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Theodore and his friend
repaired to the coffee-room. "We must see what the critics say,"
remarked the latter. Theodore, with prideful confidence,--the offspring
of fair success,--took up the first morning print that came to his
hand. _Theatre Royal_ met his eye. "Happy is the successful dramatist!"
exclaimed Theodore to himself; "at night he is greeted by the applause
of admiring thousands, and in the morning they are repeated, and echoed
all over the kingdom through the medium of the press! What will Rosalie
say when her eye falls upon this!"--And what, indeed, would Rosalie say
when she read the utter damnation of her lover's drama, which the
critic denounced from the beginning to the end, without presenting his
readers with a single quotation to justify the severity of his
strictures!
"'Tis very odd!" said Theodore.
"'Tis very odd, indeed!" rejoined his friend, repeating his words. "You
told me this play was your own, and here I find that you have copied it
from half a dozen others that have been founded upon the same story."
"Where?" inquired Theodore, reaching for the paper.
"There!" said his friend, pointing to the paragraph.
"And is this London," exclaimed Theodore. "I never read a play, nor the
line of a play upon the same subject. Why does not the writer prove the
plagiarism?"
"Because he does not know whether it is or is not a plagiarism,"
rejoined the other. "He is aware that several other authors have
constructed dramas upon the same passage in history; and--to draw the
most charitable inference, for you would not suspect him of telling a
deliberate lie--he thinks you have seen them, and have availed yourself
of them."
"Is it not the next thing to a falsehood," indignantly exclaimed
Theodore, "to advance a charge, of the justness of which you have not
assured yourself?"
"I know not that," rejoined his friend; "but it certainly indicates a
rather superficial reverence for truth; and a disposition to censure,
which excludes from all claim to ingenuousness the individual who
indulges it."
"And this will go the round of the whole kingdom?"
"Yes."
"Should I not contradict it?"
"No."
"Why?"
"'Tis beneath you; besides, the stamp of malignancy is so strong upon
it, that, except to the utterly ignorant, it is harmless; and even
these, when they witness your play themselves, as sometime or another
they will, will remember the libel, to the cost of its author and to
your advantage. I see you have been almost as hardly treated by this
gentleman," continued he, glancing over the paper which Theodore had
taken up when he entered the room. "Are you acquainted with any of the
gentlemen of the press?"
"No; and is it not therefore strange that I should have enemies among
them!"
"Not at all."
"Why?"
"Because you have succeeded. Look over the rest of the journals,"
continued his friend; "you may find salve, perhaps, for these
scratches."
Theodore did so; and in one or two instances salve, indeed, he found;
but upon the whole he was in little danger of being spoiled through the
praises of the press. "Why," exclaimed Theodore, "why do not letters
enlarge the soul, while they expand the mind? Why do they not make men
generous and honest? Why is not every literary man an illustration of
Juvenal's axiom?"
"Teach a dog what you may," rejoined his friend, "can you alter his
nature, so that the brute shall not predominate?"
"No," replied Theodore.
"You are answered," said his friend.
The play had what is called a run, but not a decided one. Night after
night it was received with the same enthusiastic applauses; but the
audiences did not increase. It was a victory without the acquisition of
spoils or territory. "What can be the meaning of this?" exclaimed
Theodore; "we seem to be moving, and yet do not advance an inch?"
"They should paragraph the play as they do a pantomime," remarked his
friend. "But then a pantomime is an expensive thing; they will lay out
a thousand pounds upon one, and they must get their money back. The
same is the case with their melo-dramas; so, if you want to succeed to
the height, as a play-wright, you know what to do."
"What?" inquired Theodore.
"Write melo-dramas and pantomimes!"
Six months had now elapsed, and Theodore's purse, with all his success,
was rather lighter than when he first pulled it out in London. However,
in a week two bills which he had taken from his publisher would fall
due, and he would run down to B----, and perhaps obtain an interview
with Rosalie. At the expiration of the week his bills were presented,
and dishonored! He repaired to his publisher's for an explanation: the
house had stopped! Poor Theodore! They were in the gazette that very
day! Theodore turned into the first coffee room to look at a paper:
there were, indeed, the names of the firm! "I defy fortune to serve me
a scurvier trick!" exclaimed Theodore, the tears half starting into his
eyes. He little knew the lady whose ingenuity he was braving.
He looked now at one side of the paper, and now at the other, thinking
all the while of nothing but the bills and the bankrupt's list.
_Splendid Fete_ at B---- met his eye, and soon his thoughts were
occupied with nothing but B----; for there he read that the young lord
of the manor, having just come of age, had given a ball and supper, the
former of which he opened with the lovely and accomplished Miss Rosalie
----. The grace of the fair couple was expatiated upon; and the editor
took occasion to hint, that a pair so formed by nature for each other,
might probably, before long, take hands in another, a longer, and more
momentous dance. What did Theodore think of fortune now?
"O that it were but a stride to B----!" he exclaimed, as he laid down
the paper, and his hand dropped nerveless at his side. He left the
coffee-house, and dreamed his way back to his friend's. Gigs,
carriages, carts rolled by him unheeded; the foot path was crowded, but
he saw not a soul in the street. He was in the ball room at B----, and
looking on while the young lord of the manor handed out Rosalie to lead
her down the dance, through every figure of which Theodore followed
them with his eyes with scrutinizing glance, scanning the countenance
of his mistress. Then the set was over, and he saw them walking
arm-in-arm up and down the room, and presently they were dancing again;
and now the ball was over, and he followed them to the supper room,
where he saw the young lord of the manor place Rosalie beside him. Then
fancy changed the scene from the supper room to the church, at the
altar of which stood Rosalie with his happy rival; and he heard the
questions and responses which forge the mystic chain that binds for
life; and he saw the ring put on, and heard the blessing which
announces that the nuptial sacrament is complete! His hands were
clenched; his cheek was in a flame; a wish was rising in his
throat--"Good news for you," said some one clapping him on the back: "a
letter from Rosalie lies for you at home. Why are you passing the
house?" 'Twas his friend.
"A letter from Rosalie!" exclaimed Theodore.--Quickly he retraced his
steps, and there on his table lay, indeed, the dear missive of his
Rosalie.
"Welcome, sweet comforter!" ejaculated Theodore, as he kissed the
cyphers which his Rosalie's hand had traced, and the wax which bore the
impress of her seal. "Welcome, O Welcome! you come in time: you bring
an ample solace for disappointment, mortification, poverty--whatever my
evil destiny can inflict! You have come to assure me that they cannot
deprive me of my Rosalie!"
Bright was his eye, and glistening while he spoke; but when he opened
the fair folds that conveyed to him thoughts of his mistress, its
radiancy was gone!
"THEODORE,
"I am aware of the utter frustration of your hopes; I am convinced that
at the end of a year you will not be a step nearer to fortune than you
are now; why then keep my hand for you? What I say briefly, you will
interpret fully. You are now the guardian of my happiness; as such I
address you. Thursday, so you consent, will be my wedding day.
ROSALIE."
Such was the letter, upon the address and seal of which Theodore had
imprinted a score of kisses before he opened it. "Fortune is in the
mood," said Theodore with a sigh, so deeply drawn, that any one who had
heard it would have imagined he had breathed his spirit out along with
it--"Fortune is in the mood, and let her have her humor out! I shall
answer the letter; my reply to her shall convey what she
desires--nothing more! she is incapable of entering into my feelings,
and unworthy of being made acquainted with them; I shall not condescend
even to complain!"
"ROSALIE,
"You are free! THEODORE."
Such was the answer which Theodore despatched to Rosalie. O the
enviable restlessness of the mind upon the first shock of thwarted
affection! How it turns every way for the solace which it feels it can
no more meet with, except in the perfect extinction of consciousness.
Find it an anodyne!--you cannot. A drug may close the eye for a time,
but the soul will not sleep a wink: it lies broad awake, to agony
distinct, palpable, immediate;--howsoever memory may be cheated to lose
for the present the traces of the cause. Then for the start, the spasm,
the groan which, while the body lies free, attest the presence and
activity of the mental rack! Better walk than go to sleep! A heath,
without a soul but yourself upon it!--an ink-black sky, pouring down
torrents--wind, lightning, thunder, as though the vault above was
crackling and disparting into fragments!--any thing to mount above the
pitch of your own solitude, and darkness, and tempest; and overcome
them, or attract and divert your contemplation from them, or threaten
every moment to put an end to them and you!
Theodore's friend scarcely knew him the next morning. He glanced at
him, and took no further notice. 'Twas the best way, though people
there are who imagine that it rests with a man in a fever, at his own
option to remain in it, or to become convalescent.
Theodore's feelings were more insupportable to him the second day than
the first. He went here and there and every where; and nowhere could he
remain for two minutes at a time at rest. Then he was so abstracted.
Crossing a street he was nearly run over by a vehicle and four. This
for a moment awakened him. He saw London and B---- upon the pannels of
the coach. The box seat was empty; he asked if it was engaged. "No." He
sprung up upon it and away they drove. "I'll see her once more,"
exclaimed Theodore, "it can but drive me mad or break my heart."
Within a mile of B---- a splendid barouch passed them. "Whose is that?"
inquired Theodore.
"The young lord of the manor's," answered the driver, "Did you see the
lady in it?"
"No."
"I caught a glimpse of her dress," said the driver. "I'll warrant she's
a dashing one! The young squire, they say, has a capital taste!"
Theodore looked after the carriage. There was nothing but the road. The
vehicle drove at a rapid pace, and was soon out of sight. Theodore's
heart turned sick.
The moment the coach stopped he alighted, and with a misgiving mind he
stood at the door which had often admitted him to his Rosalie. It was
opened by a domestic whom he had never seen before. "Was Miss Wilford
within?" "No." "When would she return?" "Never. She had gone that
morning to London to be married!" Theodore made no further inquiries,
neither did he offer to go, but stood glaring upon the man more like a
spectre than a human being.
"Any thing more?" said the man retreating into the house, and gradually
closing the door, through which now only a portion of his face could be
seen. "Any thing more?" Theodore made no reply: in fact he had lost all
consciousness. At last, the shutting of the door, which half from
panic, half from anger the man pushed violently to, aroused him. "I
shall knock at you no more!" said he, and departed, pressing his heart
with his hand, and moving his limbs as if he cared not how, or whither
they bore him. A gate suddenly stopped his progress; 'twas the entrance
to the green lane. He stepped over the stile--he was on the spot where
he had parted last from Rosalie--where she had flung her arms about his
neck, and wept upon it. His heart began to melt, for the first time
since he had received her letter: a sense of suffocation came over him,
till he felt as if he would choke. The name of Rosalie was on his
tongue: twice he attempted to articulate it, but could not. At last it
got vent in a convulsive sob, which was followed by a torrent of tears.
He threw himself upon the ground--he wept on--he made no effort to
check the flood, but let it flow till forgetfulness stopped it.
He rose with a sensation of intense cold.
'Twas morning! He had slept! "Would he had slept on!" He turned from
the sun, at it rose without a cloud, upon the wedding morn of Rosalie.
'Twas Thursday. He repassed the stile; and, in a few minutes, was on
his road to London, which he entered about eleven o'clock at night, and
straight proceeded to his friend's. They were gone to bed.
"Give me a light," said Theodore, "I'll go to bed."
"Your bed is occupied, sir," replied his servant.
"Is it?" said Theodore; "Well, I can sleep upon the carpet." He turned
into the parlor, drew a chair towards the table, upon which the servant
had placed a light, and sat down. All was quiet for a time. Presently
he heard a foot upon the stair; it was his friend's who was descending,
and now entered the parlor.
"I thought you were abed," said Theodore.
"So I was," replied his friend, "but hearing your voice in the hall, I
rose and came down to you." He drew a chair opposite to Theodore. Both
were silent for a time; at length Theodore spoke.
"Rosalie is married," said he.
"I don't believe it."
"She is going to be married to the young lord of the manor."
"I don't believe it."
"She came to town with him yesterday."
"I don't believe it."
Theodore pushed back his chair, and stared at his friend.
"What do you mean?" said Theodore.
"I mean that I entertain some doubts as to the accuracy of your grounds
for concluding that Rosalie is inconstant to you."
"Did I not read the proof of it in the public papers?"
"The statement may have been erroneous."
"Did not her own letter assure me of it?"
"You may have misunderstood it."
"I tell you I have been at B----; I have been at her house. I inquired
for her, and was told she had gone up to London to be married! Oh, my
friend," continued he, covering his eyes with his handkerchief,--"'tis
useless to deceive ourselves. I am a ruined man! You can see to what
she has reduced me. I shall never be myself again! Myself! I tell you I
existed in _her_ being more than in my own. She was the soul of all I
thought, and felt, and did; the primal vivifying principle! She has
murdered me! I breathe it is true, and the blood is in my veins and
circulates; but every thing else about me is death--hopes! wishes!
interests! there is no pulse, no respiration there! I should not be
sorry were there none any where else! Feel my hand," added he, reaching
his hand across the table, without removing his handkerchief from his
eyes; for the sense of his desolation had utterly unmanned him, and his
tears continued to flow. "Feel my hand. Does it not burn. A hearty
fever, now would be a friend," continued he, "and I think I have done
my best to merit a call from such a visitor. The whole of the night
before last I slept out in the open air. Guess where I took my bed. In
the green lane--the spot where I parted last from Rosalie!"--He felt a
tear drop upon the hand which he had extended--the tear was followed by
the pressure of a lip. He uncovered his eyes, and turning them in
wonderment to look upon his friend--beheld Rosalie sitting opposite to
him!
For a moment or two he questioned the evidence of his senses--but soon
was he convinced that it was indeed reality; for Rosalie, quitting her
seat, approached him, and breathing his name with an accent that
infused ecstasy into his soul, threw herself into his arms, that
doubtingly opened to receive her.
* * * * *
Looking over her father's papers, Rosalie had found a more recent will,
in which her union with Theodore had been fully sanctioned, and he
himself constituted her guardian until it should take place. She was
aware that his success in London had been doubtful; the generous girl
determined that he should no longer be subjected to incertitude and
disappointment; and she playfully wrote the letter which was a source
of such distraction to her lover. From his answer she saw that he had
totally misinterpreted her: she resolved in person to disabuse him of
the error; and by offering to become his wife, at once to give him the
most convincing proof of her sincerity and constancy. She arrived in
London. His friend, who had known her from her infancy, received her as
his daughter; and he and his wife listened with delight to the
unfolding of her plans and intentions, which she freely confided to
them. Late they sat up for Theodore that night, and when all hopes of
his coming home were abandoned, Rosalie became the occupant of his bed.
The next night, in a state of this most distressing anxiety, in
consequence of his continued absence, she had just retired to her
apartment, when a knock at the street door made her bound from her
couch, upon which she had at that moment thrown herself, and presently
she heard her lover's voice at the foot of the stair. Scarcely knowing
what she did, she attired herself, descended, opened the parlor door
unperceived by Theodore, and took the place of their friendly host,
who, the moment he saw her, beckoned her, and resigning his chair to
her, withdrew.
The next evening a select party were assembled in the curate's little
drawing-room, and Theodore and Rosalie were there. The lady of the
house motioned the latter to approach her, she rose and was crossing
Theodore, when he caught her by the hand, and drew her upon his knee.
"Theodore!" exclaimed the fair one, coloring.
"My wife," was his reply, while he imprinted a kiss upon her lips.
They had been married that morning.
THE PATRIARCH.
"Gently on him, had gentle Nature laid
The weight of years.--All passions that disturb
Had passed away."--_Southey_.
Soon after my entrance upon clerical duties, in the state of North
Carolina, I was informed of an isolated settlement, at a considerable
distance from the place of my residence. Its original elements were
emigrants from New England; a father, and his five sons, who, with
their wives and little children, had about thirty years before become
sojourners in the heart of one of the deepest Carolinian solitudes.
They purchased a tract of wild, swamp-encircled land. This they
subjected to cultivation, and by unremitting industry, rendered
adequate to their subsistence and comfort. The sons, and the sons'
sons, had in their turn become the fathers of families; so, that the
population of this singular spot comprised five generations. They were
described as constituting a peaceful and virtuous community, with a
government purely patriarchal. Secluded from the privileges of public
worship, it was said that a sense of religion, influencing the heart
and conduct, had been preserved by statedly assembling on the sabbath,
and reading the scriptures, with the Liturgy of the Church of England.
The pious ancestor of the colony, whose years now surpassed four-score,
had, at their removal to this hermitage, established his eldest son in
the office of lay-reader. This simple ministration, aided by holy
example, had so shared the blessing of heaven, that all the members of
this miniature commonwealth held fast the faith and hope of the gospel.
I was desirous of visiting this peculiar people, and of ascertaining
whether such precious fruits might derive nutriment from so simple a
root. A journey into that section of the country afforded me an
opportunity. I resolved to be the witness of their Sunday devotions,
and with the earliest dawn of that consecrated day, I left the house of
a friend, where I had lodged, and who furnished the requisite
directions for my solitary and circuitous route.
The brightness and heat of summer began to glow oppressively, ere I
turned from the haunts of men, and plunged into the recesses of the
forest. Towering amidst shades which almost excluded the light of
heaven, rose the majestic pines, the glory and the wealth of North
Carolina. Some, like the palms, those princes of the East, reared a
proud column of fifty feet, ere the branches shot forth their
heavenward cone. With their dark verdure, mingled the pale and
beautiful efflorescence of the wild poplar, like the light interlacing
of sculpture, in some ancient awe-inspiring temple, while thousands of
birds from those dark cool arches, poured their anthems of praise to
the Divine Architect.
The sun was high in the heavens when I arrived at the morass, the
bulwark thrown by Nature around this little city of the desert.
Alighting, I led my horse over the rude bridges of logs, which
surmounted the pools and ravines, until our footing rested upon firm
earth. Soon, an expanse of arable land became visible, and wreaths of
smoke came lightly curling through the trees, as if to welcome the
stranger. Then, a cluster of cottages cheered the eye. They were so
contiguous, that the blast of a horn, or even the call of a shrill
voice, might convene all their inhabitants. To the central and the
largest building, I directed my steps. Approaching the open window, I
heard a distinct manly voice, pronouncing the solemn invocation,--"By
thine agony, and bloody sweat,--by thy cross and passion,--by thy
precious death and burial,--by thy glorious resurrection and
ascension,--and by the coming of the Holy Ghost." The response arose,
fully and devoutly, in the deep accents of manhood, and the softer
tones of the mother and her children.
Standing motionless, that I might not disturb the worshippers, I had a
fair view of the lay-reader. He was a man of six feet in height,
muscular and well proportioned, with a head beautifully symmetrical,
from whose crown time had begun to shred the luxuriance of its raven
locks. Unconscious of the presence of a stranger, he supposed that no
eye regarded him, save that of his God. Kneeling around him, were his
"brethren according to the flesh," a numerous and attentive
congregation. At his right hand was the Patriarch--tall, somewhat
emaciated, yet not bowed with years, his white hair combed smoothly
over his temples, and slightly curling on his neck. Gathered near him,
were his children, and his children's children. His blood was in the
veins of almost every worshipper. Mingling with forms that evinced the
ravages of time and toil, were the bright locks of youth, and the rosy
brow of childhood, bowed low in supplication. Even the infant, with
hushed lip, regarded a scene where was no wandering glance.
Involuntarily, my heart said,--_"Shall not this be a family in
Heaven?"_ In the closing aspirations, "O Lamb of God! that takest away
the sins of the world, have mercy upon us!"--the voice of the Patriarch
was heard, with strong and affecting emphasis. After a pause of silent
devotion, all arose from their knees, and I entered the circle.
"I am a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I come to bless you in
the name of the Lord."
The ancient Patriarch, grasping my hand, gazed on me with intense
earnestness. A welcome, such as words have never uttered, was written
on his brow.
"Thirty-and-two years has my dwelling been in this forest. Hitherto, no
man of God hath visited us. Praised be his name, who hath put it into
thy heart, to seek out these few sheep in the wilderness. Secluded as
we are, from the privilege of worshipping God in his temple, we thus
assemble every Sabbath, to read his holy Book, and to pray unto him in
the words of our liturgy. Thus have we been preserved from 'forgetting
the Lord who bought us, and lightly esteeming the Rock of our
Salvation.'"
The exercises of that day are indelibly engraven on my memory. Are they
not written in the record of the Most High? Surely a blessing entered
into my own soul, as I beheld the faith, and strengthened the hope of
those true-hearted and devout disciples. Like him, whose slumbers at
Bethel were visited by the white-winged company of heaven, I was
constrained to say,--"Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it
not."
At the request of the Patriarch, I administered the ordinance of
baptism. It was received with affecting demonstrations of solemnity and
gratitude. The sacred services were protracted until the setting of the
sun. Still they seemed reluctant to depart. It was to them a high and
rare festival. When about to separate, the venerable Patriarch
introduced me to all his posterity. Each seemed anxious to press my
hand; and even the children expressed, by affectionate glances, their
reverence and love for him who ministered at the altar of God.
"The Almighty," said the ancient man, "hath smiled on these babes, born
in the desert. I came hither with my sons and their companions, and
their blessed mother, who hath gone to rest. God hath given us families
as a flock. We earn our bread with toil and in patience. For the
intervals of labor we have a school, where our little ones gain the
rudiments of knowledge. Our only books of instruction, are the bible
and prayer-book."
At a signal they rose and sang, when about departing to their separate
abodes,--"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, and good
will towards men." Never, by the pomp of measured melody, was my spirit
so stirred within me, as when that rustic, yet tuneful choir,
surrounding the white-haired father of them all, breathed out in their
forest sanctuary, "Thou, that takest away the sins of the _world_, have
mercy upon _us_."
The following morning, I called on every family, and was delighted with
the domestic order, economy, and concord, that prevailed. Careful
improvement of time, and moderated desires, seemed uniformly to produce
among them, the fruits of a blameless life and conversation. They
conducted me to their school. Its teacher was a grand-daughter of the
lay-reader. She possessed a sweet countenance, and gentle manners, and
with characteristic simplicity, employed herself at the spinning-wheel,
when not absorbed in the labors of instruction. Most of her pupils read
intelligibly, and replied with readiness to questions from Scripture
History. Writing and arithmetic were well exemplified by the elder
ones; but those works of science, with which our libraries are so
lavishly supplied, had not found their way to this retreat. But among
the learners was visible, what does not always distinguish better
endowed seminaries; docility, subordination, and profound attention to
every precept and illustration. Habits of application and a desire for
knowledge were infused into all. So trained up were they in industry,
that even the boys, in the intervals of their lessons, were busily
engaged in the knitting of stockings for winter. To the simple
monitions which I addressed to them, they reverently listened; and ere
they received the parting blessing, rose, and repeated a few passages
from the inspired volume, and lifted up their accordant voices,
chanting, "blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and
redeemed his people."
Whatever I beheld in this singular spot, served to awaken curiosity, or
to interest feeling. All my inquiries were satisfied with the utmost
frankness. Evidently, there was nothing which required concealment. The
heartless theories of fashion, with their subterfuges and vices, had
not penetrated to this hermetically sealed abode. The Patriarch, at his
entrance upon his territory, had divided it into six equal portions,
reserving one for himself, and bestowing another on each of his five
sons. As the children of the colony advanced to maturity, they, with
scarcely an exception, contracted marriages among each other, striking
root, like the branches of the banian, around their parent tree. The
domicile of every family was originally a rude cabin of logs, serving
simply the purpose of shelter. In front of this, a house of larger
dimensions was commenced, and so constructed, that the ancient abode
might become the kitchen, when the whole was completed. To the
occupation of building they attended as they were able to command time
and materials. "We keep it," said one of the colonists, "for
_handy-work_, when there is no farming, or turpentine-gathering, or
tar-making." Several abodes were at that time, in different stages of
progress, marking the links of gradation between the rude cottage, and
what they styled the "framed house." When finished, though devoid of
architectural elegance, they exhibited capabilities of comfort, equal
to the sober expectations of a primitive people. A field for corn, and
a garden abounding with vegetables, were appendages to each habitation.
Cows grazed quietly around, and sheep dotted like snow-flakes, the
distant green pastures. The softer sex participated in the business of
horticulture, and when necessary, in the labors of harvest, thus
obtaining that vigor and muscular energy which distinguish the
peasantry of Europe, from their effeminate sisters of the nobility and
gentry. Each household produced or manufactured within its own domain,
most of the materials which were essential to its comfort; and for such
articles as their plantations could not supply, or their ingenuity
construct, the pitch-pine was their medium of purchase. When the season
arrived for collecting its hidden treasures, an aperture was made in
its bark, and a box inserted, into which the turpentine continually
oozed. Care was required to preserve this orifice free from the
induration of glutinous matter. Thus, it must be frequently reopened,
or carried gradually upward on the trunk of the tree; sometimes, to
such a height, that a small knife affixed to the extremity of a long
pole, is used for that purpose. Large trees sustain several boxes at
the same time, though it is required that the continuity of bark be
preserved, or the tree, thus shedding its life-blood at the will of
man, must perish. Though the laborers in this department are
exceedingly industrious and vigilant, there will still be a
considerable deposit adhering to the body of the tree. These portions,
called "turpentine facings," are carefully separated, and laid in a
cone-like form, until they attain the size of a formidable mound. This
is covered with earth, and when the cool season commences, is ignited;
and the liquid tar, flowing into a reservoir prepared for it, readily
obtains a market among the dealers in naval stores.
Shall I be forgiven for such minuteness of detail? So strongly did this
simple and interesting people excite my affectionate solicitude, that
not even their slightest concerns seemed unworthy of attention. By
merchants of the distant town, who were in habits of traffic with them,
I was afterwards informed that they were distinguished for integrity
and uprightness, and that the simple affirmation of these "Bible and
Liturgy men," as they were styled, possessed the sacredness of an oath.
The lay-reader remarked to me, that he had never known among his
people, a single instance of either intemperance or profanity.
"Our young men have no temptations, and the old set an uniformly sober
example. Still, I cannot but think our freedom from vice is chiefly
owing to a sense of religious obligation, cherished by God's blessing
upon our humble worship."
"Are there no quarrels or strifes among you?"
"For what should we contend? We have no prospect of wealth, nor motive
of ambition. We are too busy to dispute about words. Are not these the
sources of most of the 'wars and fightings' among mankind? Beside, we
are all of one blood. Seldom does any variance arise, which the force
of brotherhood may not quell. Strict obedience is early taught in
families. Children who learn thoroughly the Bible-lesson to obey and
honor their parents, are not apt to be contentious in society, or
irreverent to their Father in Heaven. Laws so simple would be
inefficient in a mixed and turbulent community. Neither could they be
effectual here, without the aid of that gospel which speaketh peace,
and prayer for his assistance, who 'turneth the hearts of the
disobedient to the wisdom of the just.'"
Is it surprising that I should take my leave, with an overflowing
heart, of the pious Patriarch and his posterity?--that I should
earnestly desire another opportunity of visiting their isolated domain?
Soon after this period, a circumstance took place, which they numbered
among the most interesting eras of their history. A small chapel was
erected in the village nearest to their settlement. Though at the
distance of many miles, they anticipated its completion with delight.
At its consecration by the late Bishop Ravenscroft, as many of the
colonists as found it possible to leave home, determined to be present.
Few of the younger ones had ever entered a building set apart solely
for the worship of God; and the days were anxiously counted, until they
should receive permission to tread his courts.
The appointed period arrived. Just before the commencement of the
sacred services of dedication, a procession of singular aspect was seen
to wind along amid interposing shades. It consisted of persons of both
sexes, and of every age, clad in a primitive style, and advancing with
solemn order. I recognized my hermit friends, and hastened onward to
meet them. Scarcely could the ancient Jews, when from distant regions
they made pilgrimage to their glorious hill of Zion, have testified
more touching emotion, than these guileless worshippers, in passing the
threshold of this humble temple to Jehovah. When the sweet tones of a
small organ, mingling with the voices of a select choir, gave "glory to
the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end," the young
children of the forest started from their seats in wondering joy, while
the changing color, or quivering lip of the elders, evinced that the
hallowed music awoke the cherished echoes of memory.
But with what breathless attention did they hang on every word of
Bishop Ravenscroft, as with his own peculiar combination of zeal and
tenderness, he illustrated the inspired passage which he had chosen, or
with a sudden rush of strong and stormy eloquence broke up the
fountains of the soul! Listening and weeping, they gathered up the
manna, which an audience satiated with the bread of heaven, and
prodigal of angels' food, might have suffered to perish. With the hoary
Patriarch, a throng of his descendants, who had been duly prepared for
that holy vow and profession, knelt around the altar, in commemoration
of their crucified Redeemer.
At the close of the communion service, when about to depart to his
home, the white-haired man drew near to the Bishop. Gratitude for the
high privileges in which he had participated; reverence for the father
in God, whom he had that day for the first time beheld; conviction that
his aged eyes could but a little longer look on the things of time;
consciousness that he might scarcely expect again to stand amid these
his children, to "behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in
his temple," overwhelmed his spirit. Pressing the hand of the Bishop,
and raising his eyes heavenward, he said,--"Lord! now lettest thou thy
servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."
Bishop Ravenscroft fixed on him one of those piercing glances which
seemed to read the soul; and then tears, like large rain-drops stood
upon his cheeks. Recovering from his emotion, he pronounced, with
affectionate dignity, the benediction, "the Lord bless thee and keep
thee; the Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto
thee; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."
The Patriarch, bowing down a head, heavy with the snows of more than
fourscore winters, breathed a thanksgiving to God, and turned homeward,
followed by all his kindred. Summer had glided away ere it was in my
power again to visit the "lodge in the wilderness." As I was taking in
the autumn twilight my lonely walk for meditation, a boy of rustic
appearance, approaching with hasty steps, accosted me.
"Our white-haired father, the father of us all, lies stretched upon his
bed. He takes no bread or water, and he asks for you. Man of God, will
you come to him?"
Scarcely had I signified assent, ere he vanished. With the light of the
early morning, I commenced my journey. Autumn had infused chillness
into the atmosphere, and somewhat of tender melancholy into the heart.
Nature seems to regard with sadness the passing away of the glories of
summer, and to robe herself as if for humiliation.
As the sun increased in power, more of cheerfulness overspread the
landscape. The pines were busily disseminating their winged seeds. Like
insects, with a floating motion, they spread around for miles. Large
droves of swine made their repast upon this half ethereal food. How
mindful is Nature of even her humblest pensioners!
As I approached the cluster of cottages, which now assumed the
appearance of a village, the eldest son advanced to meet me. His head
declined like one struggling with a grief which he would fain subdue.
Taking my hand in both of his, he raised it to his lips. Neither of us
spoke a word. It was written clearly on his countenance, "Come quickly,
ere he die."
Together we entered the apartment of the good Patriarch. One glance
convinced me that he was not long to be of our company. His posterity
were gathered around him in sorrow;
"For drooping,--sickening,--dying, they began,
Whom they ador'd as _God_, to mourn as _man_."
He was fearfully emaciated, but as I spake of the Saviour, who "went
not up to joy, until he first suffered pain," his brow again lighted
with the calmness of one, whose "way to eternal joy was to suffer with
Christ, whose door to eternal life gladly to die with him."
Greatly comforted by prayer, he desired that the holy communion might
be once more administered to him, and his children. There was a
separation around his bed. Those who had been accustomed to partake
with him, drew near, and knelt around the dying. Fixing his eye on the
others, he said, with an energy of tone which we thought had forsaken
him,--_"Will ye thus be divided, at the last day?"_ A burst of wailing
grief was the reply.
Never will that scene be effaced from my remembrance: the expressive
features, and thrilling responses of the Patriarch, into whose expiring
body the soul returned with power, that it might leave this last
testimony of faith and hope to those whom he loved, are among the
unfading imagery of my existence. The spirit seemed to rekindle more
and more, in its last lingerings around the threshold of time. In a
tone, whose clearness and emphasis surprised us, the departing saint
breathed forth a blessing on those who surrounded him, "in the name of
that God, whose peace passeth all understanding."
There was an interval, during which he seemed to slumber. Whispers of
hope were heard around his couch, that he might wake and be refreshed.
At length, his eyes slowly unclosed. They were glazed and deeply sunken
in their sockets. Their glance was long and kind upon those who hung
over his pillow. His lips moved, but not audibly. Bowing my ear more
closely, I found that he was speaking of Him who is the "resurrection
and the life." A slight shuddering passed over his frame, and he was at
rest, for ever.
A voice of weeping arose from among the children, who had been summoned
to the bed of death. Ere I had attempted consolation, the lay-reader
with an unfaltering tone pronounced, "the Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away: _blessed be the name of the Lord._"
Deep silence ensued. It seemed as if every heart was installing him who
spake, in the place of the father and the governor who had departed. It
was a spontaneous acknowledgment of the right of primogeniture, which
no politician could condemn. He stood among them, in the simple majesty
of his birthright, a ruler and priest to guide his people in the way
everlasting. It was as if the mantle of an arisen prophet had descended
upon him, as if those ashen lips had broken the seal of death to utter
"behold my servant whom I have chosen." Every eye fixed upon him its
expression of fealty and love. Gradually the families retired to their
respective habitations. Each individual paused at the pillow of the
Patriarch, to take a silent farewell; and some of the little ones
climbed up to kiss the marble face.
I was left alone with the lay-reader, and with the dead. The enthusiasm
of the scene had fled, and the feelings of a son triumphed. Past years
rushed like a tide over his memory. The distant, but undimmed
impressions of infancy and childhood,--the planting of that once wild
waste,--the changes of those years which had sprinkled his temples with
gray hairs,--all, with their sorrows and their joys, came back,
associated with the lifeless image of his beloved sire. In the
bitterness of bereavement, he covered his face, and wept. That iron
frame which had borne the hardening of more than half a century, shook,
like the breast of an infant, when it sobbed out its sorrows. I waited
until the first shock of grief had subsided. Then, passing my arm
gently within his, I repeated, "I heard a voice from heaven
saying,--Write, from henceforth, blessed are the dead, who die in the
Lord." Instantly raising himself upright, he responded in a voice whose
deep inflections sank into my soul, "Even so, saith the spirit, for
they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."
I remained to attend the funeral obsequies of the Patriarch. In the
heart of their territory was a shady dell, sacred to the dead. It was
surrounded by a neat enclosure, and planted with trees. The drooping
branches of a willow, swept the grave of the mother of the colony. Near
her, slumbered her youngest son. Several other mounds swelled around
them, most of which, by their small size, told of the smitten flowers
of infancy. To this goodly company, we bore him, who had been revered
as the father and exemplar of all. With solemn steps, his descendants,
two and two, followed the corpse. I heard a convulsive and suppressed
breathing, among the more tender of the train; but when the burial
service commenced, all was hushed. And never have I more fully realised
its surpassing pathos and power, than when from the centre of that deep
solitude, on the brink of that waiting grave, it poured forth its
consolation.
"Man, that is born of woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full
of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower. He fleeth as it
were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. In the midst of life,
we are in death. Of whom may we seek succor but of thee, Oh Lord!--who
for our sins art justly displeased? Yet, O Lord God most holy--O God
most mighty,--O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the
bitter pains of eternal death. Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our
hearts, shut not thy most merciful ears to our prayers, but spare us, O
Lord most holy,--O God most mighty,--O holy and merciful
Saviour,--suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death to
fall from thee."
Circumstances compelled me to leave this mourning community immediately
after committing the dust of their pious ancestor to the earth. They
accompanied me to some distance on my journey, and our parting was with
mutual tears. Turning to view them, as their forms mingled with the
dark green of the forest, I heard the faint echo of a clear voice. It
was the lay-reader, speaking of the hope of the resurrection: "If we
believe that Christ died and rose again, even so them also, that sleep
in Jesus, will God bring with him."
Full of thought, I pursued my homeward way. I inquired, is Devotion
never encumbered, or impeded by the splendor that surrounds her? Amid
the lofty cathedral,--the throng of rich-stoled worshippers,--the
melody of the solemn organ,--does that incense never spend itself upon
the earth, that should rise to heaven? On the very beauty and glory of
its ordinances, may not the spirit proudly rest, and go no more forth
to the work of benevolence, nor spread its wing at the call of faith?
Yet surely, _there is a reality in religion_, though man may foolishly
cheat himself with the shadow. Here I have beheld it in simplicity,
disrobed of "all pomp and circumstance," yet with power to soothe the
passions into harmony, to maintain the virtues in daily and vigorous
exercise, and to give victory to the soul, when death vanquishes the
body. So, I took the lesson to my heart, and when it has languished or
grown cold, I have warmed it by the remembrance of the ever-living
faith, of those "few sheep in the wilderness."
MEMORY AND HOPE.
The following beautiful apologue, copied from the New York Mirror, is
from the pen of J. K. Paulding. We hope often to enrich our pages with
his productions. His style is a model of simplicity, vigor and ease,
which we should like to see more generally imitated by our Literary
writers.
Hope is the leading-string of youth--memory the staff of age. Yet for a
long time they were at variance, and scarcely ever associated together.
Memory was almost always grave, nay sad and melancholy. She delighted
in silence and repose, amid rocks and waterfalls; and whenever she
raised her eyes from the ground it was only to look back over her
shoulder. Hope was a smiling, dancing, rosy boy, with sparkling eyes,
and it was impossible to look upon him without being inspired by his
gay and sprightly buoyancy. Wherever he went he diffused around him
gladness and joy; the eyes of the young sparkled brighter than ever at
his approach; old age as it cast its dim glances at the blue vault of
heaven, seemed inspired with new vigor; the flowers looked more gay,
the grass more green, the birds sung more cheerily, and all nature
seemed to sympathize in his gladness. Memory was of mortal birth, but
Hope partook of immortality.
One day they chanced to meet, and Memory reproached Hope with being a
deceiver. She charged him with deluding mankind with visionary,
impracticable schemes, and exciting expectations that only led to
disappointment and regret; with being the _ignis fatuus_ of youth, and
the scourge of old age. But Hope cast back upon her the charge of
deceit, and maintained that the pictures of the past were as much
exaggerated by Memory, as were the anticipations of Hope. He declared
that she looked at objects at a great distance in the past, he in the
future, and that this distance magnified every thing. "Let us make the
circuit of the world," said he, "and try the experiment." Memory
consented, reluctantly, and they went their way together.
The first person they met was a schoolboy, lounging lazily along, and
stopping every moment to gaze around, as if unwilling to proceed on his
way. By and by he sat down and burst into tears.
"Whither so _fast_, my good lad?" asked Hope, jeeringly.
"I am going to school," replied the lad, "to study, when I had rather a
thousand times be at play; and sit on a bench with a book in my hand
while I long to be sporting in the fields. But never mind, I shall be a
man soon, and then I shall be free as the air." Saying this, he skipped
away merrily, in the hope of soon being a man.
"It is thus you play upon the inexperience of youth," said Memory,
reproachfully.
Passing onward, they met a beautiful girl, pacing slow and melancholy
behind a party of gay young men and maidens, who walked arm in arm with
each other, and were flirting and exchanging all those little harmless
courtesies, which nature prompts on such occasions. They were all gaily
dressed in silks and ribbons; but the little girl had on a simple
frock, a homely apron, and clumsy thick-soled shoes.
"Why don't you join yonder group," asked Hope, "and partake in their
gaiety, my pretty little girl?"
"Alas!" replied she, "they take no notice of me. They call me a child.
But I shall soon be a woman, and then I shall be so happy!" Inspired by
this hope, she quickened her pace, and soon was seen dancing along
merrily with the rest.
In this manner they wended their way, from nation to nation, and clime
to clime, until they had made the circuit of the universe. Wherever
they came, they found the human race, which at this time was all
young--it being not many years since the first creation of
mankind--repining at the present, and looking forward to a riper age
for happiness. All anticipated some future good, and Memory had scarce
any thing to do but cast looks of reproach at her young companion. "Let
us return home," said she, "to that delightful spot where I first drew
my breath. I long to repose among its beautiful bowers; to listen to
the brooks that murmured a thousand times more musically; to the birds
that sung a thousand times sweeter; and to the echoes that were softer
than any I have since heard. Ah! there is nothing on earth so
enchanting as the scenes of my earliest youth."
Hope indulged himself in a sly, significant smile, and they proceeded
on their return home. As they journeyed but slowly, many rears elapsed
ere they approached the spot whence they had departed. It so happened
one day they met an old man, bending under the weight of years, and
walking with trembling steps, leaning on his staff. Memory at once
recognized him as the youth they had seen going to school, on their
first outset in the tour of the world. As they came nearer, the old man
reclined on his staff, and looking at Hope, who, being immortal, was
still a blithe young boy, sighed as if his heart was breaking.
"What aileth thee, old man?" asked the youth.
"What aileth me," he replied, in a feeble, faltering voice--"What
should ail me, but old age. I have outlived my health and strength; I
have survived all that was near and dear; I have seen all I loved, or
that loved me, struck down to the earth like dead leaves in autumn, and
now I stand like an old tree withering alone in the world, without
roots, without branches and without verdure. I have only just enough of
sensation to know that I am miserable, and the recollection of the
happiness of my youthful days, when careless and full of blissful
anticipation, I was a laughing, merry boy, only adds to the miseries I
now endure."
"Behold!" said Memory, "the consequence of thy deceptions," and she
looked reproachfully at her companion.
"Behold!" replied Hope, "the deception practised by thyself. Thou
persuadest him that he was happy in his youth. Dost thou remember the
boy we met when we first set out together, who was weeping on his way
to school, and sighing to be a man?"
Memory cast down her eyes and was silent.
A little way onward, they came to a miserable cottage, at the door of
which was an aged woman, meanly clad, and shaking with palsy. She sat
all alone, her head resting on her bosom, and as the pair approached,
vainly tried to raise it up to look at them.
"Good-morrow, old lady--and all happiness to you," cried Hope, gaily,
and the old woman thought it was a long time since she had heard such a
cheering salutation.
"Happiness!" said she, in a voice that quivered with weakness and
infirmity. "Happiness! I have not known it since I was a little girl,
without care or sorrow. O, I remember those delightful days, when I
thought of nothing but the present moment, nor cared for the future or
the past. When I laughed and played and sung, from morning till night,
and envied no one, or wished to be any other than I was. But those
happy times are past, never to return. O, if I could only once more
return to the days of my childhood!"
The old woman sunk back on her seat, and the tears flowed from her
hollow eyes.
Memory again reproached her companion, but he only asked her if she
recollected the little girl they had met a long time ago, who was so
miserable because she was so young? Memory knew it well enough, and
said not another word.
They now approached their home, and Memory was on tiptoe with the
thought of once more enjoying the unequalled beauties of those scenes
from which she had been so long separated. But, some how or other, it
seemed they were sadly changed. Neither the grass was so green, the
flowers so sweet and lovely, nor did the brooks murmur, the echoes
answer, or the birds sing half so enchantingly, as she remembered them
in long time past.
"Alas!" she exclaimed, "how changed is every thing! I alone am the
same."
"Every thing is the same, and thou alone art changed," answered Hope.
"Thou hast deceived thyself in the past just as much as I deceive
others in the future."
"What is it you are disputing about?" asked an old man, whom they had
not observed before, though he was standing close by them. "I have
lived almost four-score and ten years, and my experience may perhaps
enable me to decide between you."
They told him the occasion of their disagreement, and related the
history of their journey round the earth. The old man smiled, and for a
few moments sat buried in thought. He then said to them:
"I, too, have lived to see all the hopes of my youth turn into shadows,
clouds and darkness, and vanish into nothing. I, too, have survived my
fortune, my friends, my children--the hilarity of youth and the
blessing of health."
"And dost thou not despair?" said Memory.
"No, I have still one hope left me."
"And what is that?"
"The hope of heaven!"
Memory turned towards Hope, threw herself into his arms, which opened
to receive her, and burst into tears, exclaiming--"Forgive me, I have
done thee injustice. Let us never again separate from each other."
"With all my heart," said Hope, and they continued for ever after to
travel together hand and hand, through the world.
The publisher has received the prospectus of the "_Southern Magazine,
or Journal of Literature, Arts and Sciences_," to be published at
Charleston, S. Carolina, and edited by James Haig. This work "will
consist entirely of original matter in prose and verse, embracing all
subjects of general interest, and exclusive of controversial divinity
and party politics, accompanied with criticisms upon the productions of
the day, and notices of the most important passing events." It is
strongly recommended to public patronage by the Literary and
Philosophical Society of South Carolina--and subscriptions to it will
be cheerfully received at the office of the "Southern Literary
Messenger." The South is awakening!
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol.
I., No. 1, August, 1834, by Various
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