CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BEQUEST 
 
 OF 
 
 STEWART HENRY BURNHAM 
 1943 
 
arV1889 
 Dream life : 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 
 .. 3 1924 031 285 624 
 oiin,anx 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031285624 
 
DREAM LIFE: 
 
 FABLE OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 DONALD G. MITCHELL. 
 
 We are such stuff 
 
 AB dreams are made of; and 3ur Httla life 
 Ib rounded with a sleep 
 
 Tebifbst. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONC;, AND COMPANY 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY 
 
Entered according to Act of Congreas, in the year 1863, by 
 
 ScRiBNEK, Armstrong, & Co., 
 
 In the Clerk^s Office of the Distrirt Court of the United States for the Southern 
 
 District of New York 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAHBKIDOE : 
 
 BTBRBOTTPED AND PRINTED HT 
 
 H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY 
 
A NEW PREFACE. 
 
 rriWELVE years ago, this autumn, when I had fin- 
 -*- ished the concluding chapters of this little book, I 
 wrote a letter of Dedication to Washington Irving, and, 
 forwarding it by mail to Sunnyside, begged his permis- 
 sion to print it. I think I shall gratify a rational curi- 
 osity of my readers (however much they may condemn 
 my vanity) if I give his reply in full. 
 
 " My deak Sib, — 
 
 "Though I have a great disinclination in general to be 
 the abject of literary oblations and compliments, yet in the 
 present instance I have enjoyed your writings with such 
 peculiar relish, and been so drawn toward the author by the 
 qualities of head and heart evinced in them, that I confess 
 I feel gratified by a dedication, over-flattering as I may 
 deem it, which may serve as an outward sign that we are 
 cordially linked together in sympathies and friendship. 
 
 " I would only suggest thai in your dedication you would 
 omit the LL. D., a learned dignity urged upon me very much 
 ' against the stomach of my sense,' and to which I have nevci 
 laid claim. 
 
 " Ever, my dear sir, 
 
 " Yours, very truly, 
 
 " WASiinsTGTON Irvixo 
 
 " Su.VNYSIDE, Nov. 1851." 
 
VI A NEW PREFACE. 
 
 I had been personally presented to Mr. Irving for 
 the first time, only a year before, under the introduc- 
 tion of my good friend, Mr. Clark (the veteran Editor 
 of the old Knickerbocker in its palmy days). There- 
 after I had met him from time to time, and had paid 
 a charming visit to his delightful home of Sunnyside. 
 But it was after the date of the publication of this book 
 and during the summer of 1852, that I saw Mr. Irving 
 more familiarly, and came to appreciate more fully that 
 charming bonhomie and geniality in his character which 
 we-afl recognize so constantly in his writings. And if 
 I set down here a few recollections of that pleasant in- 
 tercourse, they will, I am sure, more than make good 
 the place of the old letter of Dedication, and will serve 
 to keep alive the association I wish to cherish between 
 my little book and the name of the distinguished author 
 who so kindly showed me his favor. 
 
 For the first time, after many years, Mr. Irving made 
 a stay of a few weeks at Saratoga, in the summer of 
 1852. By good fortune, I chanced to occupy a room 
 upon the same corridor of the hotel, within a few doors 
 of his, and shared very many of his early morning walks 
 to the " Spring." What at once struck me very for- 
 cibly in the course of these walks, was the rare alertness 
 and minuteness of his observation : not a fair young 
 face could dash past us in its drapery of muslin, but 
 the eye of the old gentleman drank in all its freshness 
 
A NEW PREFACE. vii 
 
 and beauty with the keen appetite and the grateful 
 admiration of a boy ; not a dowager bnished past us 
 bedizened with finery, but he fastened the apparition 
 in my memory witli some piquant remark, — as the pin 
 of an entomologist fastens a gaudy fly. No rheumatic 
 ■ old hero-invalid, battered in long wars with the doc 
 tors, — no droll marplot of a boy, could appear within 
 range, but I could see in the changeful expression of 
 my companion the admeasurement ■ and quiet adjust- 
 ment of the appeal which either made upon his sym- 
 pathy or his humor. A flower, a tree, a burst of music, 
 a country market-man hoisted upon his wagon of cab- 
 bages, — all these by turns caught and engaged his 
 .attention, however little they might interrupt the flow 
 of his talk. 
 
 I ventured to ask on one occasion, if he had de- 
 pended solely upon his memory for the thousand little 
 descriptions of natural objects which occur in his books. 
 
 " Not wholly," he replied ; and went on to tell me 
 it had been his way, in the earlier days' of his author- 
 ship, to carry little tablets with him into the country, 
 and whenever he saw a scene specially picturesque, 
 — a cottage of marked features, a noticeable tree, any 
 picture, in short, which promised service to him, — 
 to note down its distinguishing points, and hold it in 
 reserve. 
 
 " This," said he, " is one among those small arts and 
 
nu A NEW PREFACE. 
 
 Industries which a person who writes much must avail 
 himself of: they are equivalent to the little thumb- 
 sketches from which a painter makes up his larger 
 compositions.'' 
 
 On our way to the church on a certain Sunday morn- 
 ing, he tapped my shoulder as we entered the little 
 gate, and called my attention to a lithe young Indian 
 girl, who had strolled down from the campment on the 
 plains, and was standing proudly erect upon the church- 
 porch, with finger to her lips, scanning curiously the 
 worshippers as they passed in. 
 
 " What a splendid figure of a woman ! " said he . 
 " she is puzzling over the extravagances and devotions 
 of the white-faces." 
 
 The black, straight elf-locks, the swart face, the great 
 wondering eye, with the gay blanket, short gown of 
 woollen-stuff, and brilliant moccasins, made a striking 
 picture to be sure ; and I could not help thinking, that 
 if the apparition had chanced upon him earlier, she 
 might have figured in some story of Pokanoket or of 
 the Prairies. 
 
 I took occasion one morning to ask if he was always 
 able to control the "humors of writing,'' and to put 
 himself resolutely to work, whatever might be the state 
 of his feeling. 
 
 "■No," he said, very decidedly, — "unfortunately I 
 cannot : there are men who do, I believe. T al ways 
 
A NEW PREFACE. a 
 
 envied them,; but there was a period of a month or 
 more, after I had finally decided upon, literary labors, 
 and had declined a lucrative position under Govern- 
 ment, when it seemed as if I was utterly bereft of all 
 the fancies I ever had ; for weeks I could do nothing; 
 but at last the clouds lifted, and I wrote off the first 
 numbers of the ' Sketch-Book,' and dispatched them to 
 my good friends in this country, to make the most of. 
 I feared it would not be much. 
 
 " And the worst of it is," continued he, " the good 
 people do not allow for these periods of depression ; 
 if a man does a thing tolerably well in his happy moods, 
 they see no reason why he should not be always in a 
 happy mood." 
 
 I asked if he had never found relief, and a stimulant 
 to work, in the reading aloud of some favorite old 
 author. 
 
 " Often," said he ; " and none are more effective with 
 me for this service than the sacred writers ; I think I 
 have waked a good many sleeping fancies by the read- 
 ing of a chapter in Isaiah." 
 
 In answer to inquiries of mine in regard to the 
 incomplete state of several of the stories of " Wolfert's 
 Roost," he said : " Yes, we do not get through all we 
 lay out. Some of those sketches had lain in my mind 
 for a great many years ; they made a sort of garret- 
 trumpery, of which I thought I would make a gen 
 
Z A NEW PREFACE. 
 
 eral clearance, leaving the odds and ends to take care 
 of themselves. 
 
 " There was a novel too, I once laid out, in which an 
 English lad, being a son of one of the old Regicide 
 Judges, was to come over to New England in search of 
 his father : he was to meet with a throng of adventures, 
 and to arrive at length upon a Saturday night, in the 
 midst of a terrible thunder-storm, at the house of a 
 stern old Massachusetts Puritan, v/ho comes out to 
 answer to the rappings ; and by a flash of lightning 
 which gleams upon the harsh, iron visage of the old 
 man, the son fancies he recognizes his father." 
 
 And as he told it, the old gentleman wrinkled his 
 brow, and tried to put on the fierce look he would 
 describe. 
 
 " It 's all there is of it," said he. " If you want to 
 make a story, you can furbish it up." 
 
 There were among other notable people at Saratoga, 
 during the summer of which I speak, the well-known 
 
 Mrs. Dr. R , of Philadelphia, since deceased, — a 
 
 woman of great eccentricities, but of a wonderfully 
 masculine mind, and of great cultivation. It was a 
 fiincy of hers to give special, social patronage to foreign 
 artists ; and among those just then at Saratoga, and the 
 recipients of her favor, were a distinguished violinist — 
 whose name I do not now recall — and the newly mar- 
 ried Mme. Alboni. Mr. Irving, in common with hei 
 
A NEW PREFACE. xi 
 
 Other acquaintances, she was inclined to make con- 
 tributory to her attentions. To this Mr. Irving was not 
 averse, both from his extreme love of music, and his 
 kindliness toward the artists themselves; yet, in his 
 own quiet way, I think he fretted considerably at being 
 pounced upon at odd hours to give them French talk. 
 
 " It 's very awkward," said he to me one day ; " I 
 have had large occasion for practice to be sure ; but I 
 rather fancy, after all, our own language ; it 's heartier 
 and easier." 
 
 He was utterly incapable of being lionized. Time and 
 again, under the trees in the court of the hotel, did I 
 hear him enter upon some pleasant story, lighted up 
 with that rare turn of his eye, and by his deft expres- 
 sions, when, as chance acquaintances grouped about 
 him, — as is the way of watering-places, — and eager 
 listeners multiplied, his hilarity and spirit took a chill 
 from the increasing auditory, and drawing abruptly to a 
 close, he would sidle away with a friend and be gone. 
 
 Among the visitors was a tall, interesting young girl 
 — from Louisiana, if I mistake not — who had the 
 reputation of being a great heiress, and who was, of 
 course, beset by a host of admirers. There was some- 
 thing very attractive in her air, and Mr. Irving was 
 never tired of gazing on her as she walked, with what 
 he called a "faun-like step," across the lawn, or up 
 and down the corridors. Her eyes too — " dove-like,"' 
 
Ml A NEW PREFACE. 
 
 he termed them — were his special admiration. He 
 watched with an amused interest the varying fortimes 
 of the rival lovers, and often met me with — "Well, 
 who is in favor to-day ? " And he discussed very freely 
 the varying chances. 
 
 One brusque, heavy man, who thought to carry the 
 matter through by a coup de main, he was sure could 
 never succeed. A second, who was most assiduous, but 
 whose brazen confidence was unyielding, he counted 
 still less upon. But a quiet, somewhat older gentle- 
 man, whose look was ever full of tender appeal, and who 
 bore himself with a modest dignity, he reckoned the 
 probable winner. " lie will feel a Nay grievously,'' said 
 he ; " but for the others, they will forget it in a supper." 
 
 I believe it eventually proved that no one of those 
 present was the successful suitor. I know only that 
 the fair girl was afterward a bride ; and (what we all so 
 little anticipated) her home is now a scene of desola- 
 tion, her fortune very likely a wreck, her family scat- 
 tered or slain, and herself, maybe, a fugitive. 
 
 I saw Mr. Irving afterward repeatedly in New York, 
 and passed two delightful days at Sunnyside. I can 
 never forget a drive with him upon a crisp autumn 
 morning through Sleepy Hollow, and all the notable 
 localities of his neighborhood, in the course of which 
 he kindly called my attention, in the most unaffected 
 md incidental way, to those which had been specially 
 
A NEW PREFACE. xiii 
 
 illustrated by his pen ; aud with a rare humor recounted 
 to me some of his boyish adventures among the old 
 Dutch farmers of this region. Most of all, it is impos- 
 sible for me to forget the rare kindliness of his man- 
 ner, his friendly suggestions, and the beaming expression 
 of his eye. 
 
 I met it last at the little stile from which I strolled 
 away to the station at Dearnian ; and when I saw the 
 kind face again, it was in the coffin, at the little church 
 where he attended service. But the eyes were closed, 
 and the wonderful radiance of expression gone. It 
 seemed to me that death never took away rnore from a 
 living face ; it was but a cold shadow lying there, of the 
 man who had taught a nation to love him. 
 
 Edoewood, Sept. 1863. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 FAOg 
 
 I. With my Aunt Tabithy 1 
 
 II. With my Reader 9 
 
 DREAMS OF BOYHOOD. 
 
 BrsiNO 21 
 
 I. Bain in the Garket 26 
 
 II. School-Dreams 33 
 
 III. Boy Sentiment 43 
 
 IV. A Eriend made and Friend lost .... 49 
 V. Boy Ekligion 60 
 
 VI. A New-England Squire 67 
 
 VII. The Country Church 78 
 
 VIII. A Home Scene 86 
 
 DREAMS OF YOUTH. 
 
 Summer 97 
 
 I. Cloister Life 104 
 
 II. First Ambition 115 
 
 in. College Romance 120 
 
 IV. First Look at the World 132 
 
 V. A Broken Home 142 
 
 VI. Family Confidencr 151 
 
 VII. A Good Wife 150 
 
 VIII. A Broken Hope 167 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 DREAMS OF MANHOOD. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Autumn ... 179 
 
 I. Pkide of Manmnkss ... . . 184 
 
 n. Man of the World 191 
 
 III. Manly Hope 198 
 
 IV. Manly Love 207 
 
 V. Cheek and Childebn 213 
 
 VI. A Dbeam of Darkness 221 
 
 VII. Peace 229 
 
 DREAMS OF AGE. 
 
 WlNTEK 239 
 
 I. What is Gone 243 
 
 II. What is Left 249 
 
 III. Geiep and Joy op Age 255 
 
 IV. The End of Dreams 261 
 
INTBODUOTORY. 
 
 I. 
 
 With my Aunt Tabithy. 
 
 T>SHAW ! " said my Aunt Tabithy, « have you not 
 -'- done with dreaming ? " 
 
 My Aunt Tabithy, though an excellent and most 
 notable person, loves occasionally a quiet bit of satire, 
 And when I told her that I was sharpening my pen for 
 a new story of those dreamy fancies and half-experi- 
 ences which lie grouped along the journeying hours of 
 my solitary life, she smiled as if in derision. 
 
 "Ah, Isaac," said she, " all that is exhausted ; 
 
 you have rung so many changes On your hopes and 
 your dreams, that you have nothing left but to make 
 them real — if you can." 
 
 It is very idle to get angry with a good-natured old 
 lady. I did better than this, — I made her listen to me 
 
 Exhausted, do you say. Aunt Tabithy ? Is life 
 
 then exhausted ; is hope gone out ; is fancy dead ? 
 
 No, no. Hope and the world are full ; and he who 
 1 
 
2 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 drags into book-pages a phase or two of the great life 
 of passion, of endurance, of love, of sorrow, is but wet- 
 ting a feather in the sea that breaks ceaselessly along 
 the great shore of the years. 'lEvery man's heart is a 
 living drama ; every death is a drop-scene ; every book 
 only a faint foot-light to throw a little flicker on the 
 stage. -^ 
 
 There is no need of wandering widely to catch inci- 
 dent or adventure ; they are everywhere about us ; each 
 day is a succession of escapes and joys, — not perhaps 
 clear to the world, but brooding in our thought, and 
 •living in our brain. -^From the very first, Angels and 
 Devils are busy with us, and we are struggling against 
 them and for them. '' 
 
 No, no. Aunt Tabithy ; this life of musing does nc/t 
 exhaust so easily. ~It is like the springs on the farm- 
 land, that are fed with all the showers and the dews of 
 the year, and that from the narrow fissures of the rock 
 send up streams continually ; or it is like the deep well 
 in the meadow, where one may see stars at noon when 
 no stars are shining. 
 
 What is Reverie, and what are these Day-dreams, 
 but fleecy cloud-drifts that float eternally, and eternally 
 change shapes, upon the great over-arching sky of 
 thought ? You may seize the strong outlines that the 
 passion-breezes of to-day shall throw into their figures ; 
 but^to-morrow may breed a whirlwind that will chase 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 8 
 
 Bwift, gigantic shadows over the heaven of your thought, 
 and change the whole landscape of your life. 
 ^ Dream-land will never be exhausted, until we enter 
 the land of dreams, and until, in " shuffling off this mor- 
 tal coil," thought will become fact, and all facts will be 
 only .thought/ 
 
 As it is, I can conceive no mood of mind more in 
 keeping with what is to follow upon the grave, than 
 those fancies which warp our frail hulks toward the 
 ocean of the Infinite, and that so sublimate the realities 
 of this being, that they seem to belong to that shadowy 
 ■ realm whither every day's journey is leading. 
 
 — It was warm weather, and my aunt was dozing. 
 " What is this all to be about ? " said she, recovering 
 her knitting-needle. 
 
 "About love, and toil, and duty, and sorrow," said I. 
 
 My aunt laid down her knitting, looked at me over 
 the rim of her spectacles, and — took snuff. 
 
 I said nothing. 
 
 " How many times have you been in love, Isaac ? " 
 said she. 
 
 It was now my turn to say, " Pshaw ! " 
 
 Judging from her look of assurance, I could not pos- 
 sibly have made a more satisfactory reply. 
 
 My aunt finished the needle she was upon, smoothed 
 the stocking-leg over her knee, and looking at me with 
 a very comical expression, said, " Isaac, you are a sad 
 fellow I " 
 
i DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 I did not like the tone of this ; it sounded very much 
 as if it would have been in the mouth of any one else — 
 « bad fellow." 
 
 And she went on to ask me, in a very bantering way, 
 if my stock of youthful loves was not nearly exhausted ; 
 and she cited the episode of the fair-haired Enrica, as 
 perhaps the most tempting that I could draw from my 
 experience. 
 
 A better man than myself, if he had only a fair share 
 of vanity, would have been nettled at this ; and I re- 
 plied somewhat tartly, that I had never professed to 
 write my experiences. These might be more or less 
 tempting ; but certainly if they were of a kind which I 
 have attempted to portray in the characters of Bella, or 
 of Carry, neither my Aunt Tabithy nor any one else 
 should have learned such truth from any book of mine. 
 There are griefs too sacred to be babbled to the world ; 
 and there may be loves which one would forbear to 
 whisper even to a friend. 
 
 No, no ; imagination has been playing pranks with 
 memory ; and if I have made the feeling real, I am con- 
 tent that the facts should be false. ^ Feeling, indeed, has 
 a higher truth in it than circumstance. ' It appeals to a 
 larger jury for acquittal ; it is approved or condemned 
 by a better judge. And if I can catch this bolder and 
 richer truth of feeling, I will not mind if the types of it 
 are all fabrications. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 If I run over some sweet experience of love, (my 
 Aunt Tabithy brightened a little,) must I make good 
 the fact that the loved- one lives, and expose her name 
 and qualities to make your sympathy sound ? Or shall ] 
 not rather be working upon higher and holier ground, 
 if I take the passion for itself, and so weave it into 
 words, that you and every willing suiFerer may recog 
 nize the fervor, and forget the personality ? 
 
 Life, after all, is but a bundle of hints, each suggest- 
 ing actual and positive development, but rarely reach- 
 ing it. And as I recall these hints, and in fancy trace 
 them to their issues, I am as truly dealing with life as 
 if my life had dealt them all to me. 
 
 This is what I would be doing in the present book. 
 I would catch up here and there the shreds of feeling 
 which the brambles and roughnesses of the world have 
 left tangling on my heart, and weave them out into 
 those soft and perfect tissues which, if the world had 
 been only a little less rough, might now perhaps enclose 
 my heart altogether."' 
 
 " Ah," said my Aunt Tabithy, as she smoothed the 
 stocking-leg again, with a sigh, " there is, after all, but 
 one youth-time ; and if you put down its memories once, 
 vou can find no second growth." 
 
 My Aunt Tabithy was wrong. ^ There is as much 
 growth in the thoughts and feelings that run behind us 
 as in those that run before us. - You may make a rich, 
 
6 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 full picture of your childhood to-day ; but let the hour 
 go by, and the darkness stoop to your pillow with its 
 million shapes of the past, and my word for it, you shall 
 have some flash of childhood lighten upon you, that was 
 unknown to your busiest thought of the morning. 
 
 Let a week go by, and in some interval of care, as 
 you recall the smile of a mother, or some pale sister who 
 is dead, a new crowd of memories will rush upon your 
 soul, and leave their traces in such tears as will make 
 you kinder and better for days and weeks. Or you shall 
 assist at some neighbor funeral, where the little dead 
 one (like one you have seen before) shall hold in its 
 tiny grasp (as you have taught little dead hands to do) 
 fresh flowers, laughing flowers, lying lightly on the 
 white robe of the dear child, — all pale, cold, silent — 
 
 I had touched my Aunt Tabithy : she had dropped a 
 stitch in her knitting. I believe she was weeping. 
 
 -V- Aye, this brain of ours is a master-worker, whose 
 appliances we do not one half know ; and this heart of 
 ours is a rare storehouse, furnishing the brain with new 
 material every hour of our lives ; and their limits we 
 shall not know, until they shall end —4- together. 
 
 Nor is there, as many faint-hearts imagine, but one 
 phase of earnestness m our life of feeling. "^ One train 
 of deep emotion cannot fill up the heart : it radiates like 
 1 star, God-ward and earth-ward. It spends and reflects 
 all ways. Its force is to be reckoned not so much by 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 1 
 
 token as by capacity. Facts are the poorest and most 
 slumberous evidences of passion or of affection. True 
 feeling is ranging everywhere ; whereas your actual 
 attachmeuts are too apt to be tied to sense.' 
 
 A single affection may indeed be true, earnest, and 
 absorbing ; but such an one, after all, is but a type ■^- 
 and if the object be worthy, a glorious type — of the 
 great book of feeling : it is only the vapor from the 
 caldron of the heart, and bears no deeper relation to 
 its exhaustless sources than the letter, which my pen 
 makes, bears to the thought that inspires it, — or than 
 a single morning strain of your orioles and thrushes 
 bears to that wide bird-chorus which is making every 
 sunrise a worship, and every grove a temple ! 
 
 My Aunt Tabithy nodded. 
 
 Nor is this a mere bachelor fling against constancj'. 
 I can believe, Heaven knows, in an unalterable and 
 unflinching affection, which neither desires nor admits 
 the prospect of any other. But when one is tasking 
 his brain to talk for his heart, — when he is not writing 
 positive history, but only making mention, as it were, 
 of the heart's capacities, — who shall say that he has 
 reached the fulness, that he has exhausted the stock 
 of its feeling, or that he has touched its highest notes ? 
 It is true, there is but one heart in a man to be stirred ; 
 but every stir creates a new combination of feeling, that 
 like the turn of a kaleidoscope will show some fresh 
 color or form. 
 
8 DREAM-LIFE 
 
 A bachelor, to be sure, has a marvellous advantage in 
 this ; and with the tenderest influences once anchored 
 in the bay of marriage, there is little disposition to scud 
 off under each pleasant breeze of feeling. Nay, I can 
 even imagine — perhaps somewhat captiously — that 
 after marriage, feeling would become a habit, a rich and 
 holy habit certainly, but yet a habit, which weakens the 
 omnivorous grasp of the affections, and schools one to ■ 
 a unity of emotion that doubts and ignores the prompt- 
 ness and variety of impulse which we bachelors possess. 
 
 My aunt nodded again. 
 
 Could it be that she approved what I 'had been say- 
 ing ? I hardly knew. 
 
 Poor old lady, — she did not know herself. She was 
 asleep ! 
 
n. 
 
 With my Reader. 
 
 "IT A.VING silenced my Aunt Tabithy, I shall be 
 
 -^ generous enough, in my triumph, to offer an ex- 
 planatory chat to my reader. 
 
 This is a history of Dreams ; and there will be those 
 who will sneer at such a history, as the work of a 
 dreamer. So indeed it is ; and you, my courteous 
 readei, are a dreamer too ! 
 
 You would perhaps like to find your speculations 
 about wealth, marriage, or influence called by some 
 better name than Dreams. You would like to see the 
 history of them — if written at all — baptized at the 
 font of your own vanity, with some such title as — life's 
 cares, or life's work. If there had been a philosophic 
 naming to my observations, you might have reckoned 
 them good ; as it is, you count them all bald and pal- 
 pable fiction. 
 
 But is it so ? I care not how matter-of-fact you may 
 
 be, you have in your own life at some time proved the 
 
 »rery truth of what I have set down ; and the chances 
 
 are. that even now, gray as you may be, and economic 
 
 1* 
 
10 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 as you may be, and devotional as you pretend to be, you 
 light up your Sabbath reflections with just such dreams 
 of wealth, of per centages, or of family, as you will find 
 scattered over these pages. 
 
 I am not to be put aside with any talk about stocks, 
 and duties, and respectability : all these, though very 
 eminent matters, are but so many types in the volume 
 of your thought ; and j'our eager resolves about them 
 are but so many ambitious waves breaking up from 
 that great sea of dreamy speculation that has spread 
 over your soul from its first start into the realm of 
 Consciousness. 
 
 ^ No man's brain is so dull, and no man's eye so blind, 
 that they cannot catch food for dreams. Each little 
 episode of life is full, had we but the perception of its 
 fulness. There is no such thing as blank in the world 
 of thought. Every action and emotion have their devel- 
 opment growing and gaining on the soul. Every affec- 
 tion has its tears and smiles. Nay, the very material 
 world is full of meaning, and by suggesting thought is 
 making us what we are and what we will be. " 
 
 The sparrow that is tvidttering on the edge of my 
 balcony is calling up to me this moment a world of 
 memories that reach over half my lifetime, and a world 
 of hope that stretches farther than any flight of spar- 
 rows. The rose-tree which shades his mottled coat is 
 liU of buds and blossoms ; and each bud and blossom 
 
WITH MY READER. 11 
 
 is a token of promise that has issues coveirng life, and 
 reaching beyond death. The quiet sunshine beyond 
 the flower and beyond the sparrow, — glistening upon 
 the leaves, and playing in delicious waves of warmth 
 over the reeking earth, — is lighting both heart and hope, 
 and quickening into activity a thousand thoughts of 
 what has been and of what will be. The meadow 
 stretching away under its golden flood, — waving with 
 grain, and with the feathery blossoms of the grass, and 
 golden buttercups, and white, nodding daisies, — comes 
 to my eye like the lapse of fading childhood, studded 
 here and there with the bright blossoms of joy, crim- 
 soned all over with the flush of health, and enamelled 
 with memories that perfume the soul. The blue hills 
 beyond, with deep - blue shadows gathered in their 
 bosom, lie before me like mountains of jears, over which 
 I shall climb through shadows to the slope of Age, and 
 go down to the deeper shadows of Death. 
 
 Nor are dreams without their variety, whatever your 
 character may be. ' I care not how much in the pride of 
 your practical judgment, or in your learned fancies, you 
 may sneer at any dream of love, and reckon it all a 
 poet's fiction : there are times when such dreams come 
 over you like a summer-cloud, and almost stifle you with 
 their warmth." 
 
 Seek as you will for increase of lands or moneys, and 
 there are moments when a spark of some giant mind 
 
12 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 will flash over your cravings, and wake your soul sud- 
 denly to a quick and yearning sense of that influence 
 which is begotten of intellect; and you task your 
 dreams — as I have copied them here — to build before 
 you the pleasures of such a renown. 
 
 I care not how worldly you may be : there are times 
 when all distinctions seem like dust, and when at the 
 graves of the great you dream of a coming country, 
 where your proudest hopes shall be dimmed forever. 
 
 Married or unmarried, young or old, poet or worker, 
 you are still a dreamer, and will one time know, and 
 feel, that your life is but a dream. Yet you call this 
 fiction : you stave off the thoughts in print which come 
 over you in reverie. You will not admit to the eye 
 what is true to the heart. Poor weakling, and world- 
 ling, you are not strong enough to face yourself ! 
 
 You will read perhaps with smiles ; you will possibly 
 praise the ingenuity ; you will talk with a lip schooled 
 against the slightest quiver of some bit of pathos, and 
 say that it is — well done. Yet why is it well done ? — 
 only because it is stolen from your very life and heart. 
 It is good, because it is so common ; ingenious, be- 
 cause it is so honest ; well-conceived, because it is not 
 conceived at all. / 
 
 There are thousands of mole-eyed people who conn 
 all passion in print a lie, — people who will grow into 
 a rage at trifles, and weep in the dark, and love in secret. 
 
WITH MY RBADER. 18 
 
 and hope without mention, and cover it all under the 
 cloak of what they call — propriety. I can see before 
 me now some gray-haired old gentleman, very money- 
 getting, yery correct, very cleanly, who reads the morning 
 paper with unction, and his Bible with determination, 
 — who listens to dull sermons with patience, and who 
 prays with quiet self-applause ; and yet there are mo- 
 ments belonging to his life, when his curdled affections 
 yearn for something that they have not, — ■ when his 
 avarice oversteps all the commandments, — when his 
 pride builds castles full of splendor ; and yet put this 
 before his eye, and he reads with the most careless air 
 in the world, and condemns as arrant fiction, what can- 
 not be proved to the elders. 
 
 ^We do not like to see our emotions unriddled: it is 
 not agreeable to the pro'ud man to find his weaknesses 
 exposed ; it is shocking to the disappointed lover to see 
 his heart laid bare ; it is a great grief to the pining 
 maiden to witness the exposure of her loves. "We do 
 not like our fancies painted ; we do not contrive them 
 for rehearsal : our dreams are private, and when they are 
 made public, we disown them. 
 
 I sometimes think that I must be a very honest fellow 
 for writing down those fancies, — which every one else 
 seems afraid to whisper. I shall at least come in for 
 3iy share of the odium in entertaining such fancies : 
 indeed I shall expect the charge of entertaining them 
 
14 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 exclusively, and shall scarce expect to find a single 
 fellow-confessor, unless it be some pure and innocent- 
 thoughted girl, who will say peccavi to — here and then? 
 — a single rainbow fancy. 
 
 "Well, I can bear it ; but in bearing it, I shall- be con- 
 soled with the reflection that I have a great company 
 of fellow-sufferers, who lack only the honesty to tell me 
 of their sympathy. It will even relieve in no small 
 degree my burden to watch the effort they will take to 
 . conceal what I have so boldly divulged. 
 
 Nature is very much the same thing in one man that 
 it is in another ; and, as I have already said. Feeling has 
 a higher truth in it_than „circum stance. Let it only be 
 touched fairly and honestly, and the heart of humanity 
 answers ; but if it be touched foully or one-sidedly, you 
 may find here and there a Mme-souled creature who 
 will give response, but there is no heart-throb in it. 
 
 Of one thing I am sure : — if my pictures are fair, 
 worthy, and hearty, you must see it in the reading ; but 
 if they are forced and hard, no amount of kindness can 
 make you feel their truth, as I want them felt. 
 
 I make no self-praise out of this : if feeling has been 
 honestly set down, it is only in virtue of a native im 
 pulse, over which I have altogether too little control -, 
 but if it is set down badly, I have wronged Nature, and 
 (as Nature is kind) I have wronged myself. 
 
 A great many inquisitive people will, I do not doubt. 
 
WITH MY READER. 15 
 
 be asking, after all this prelude, if my pictures are true 
 pictures ? The question — the courteous reader will 
 allow me to say — is an impertinent one. It is but a 
 shabby truth that wants an author's affidavit to make it 
 ti-ustworthy. I shall not help my story by any such 
 poor support. If there are not enough elements of 
 truth, honesty, and nature in my pictures to make' them 
 believed, they shall have no oath of mine to bolster 
 them up. 
 
 1 have been a suSerer in this way before now ; and a 
 little book that I had the whim to publish a year since, 
 has been set down by many as an arrant piece of im- 
 posture. Claiming sympathy as a Bachelor, I have 
 been recklessly set down as a cold, undeserving man 
 of family ! My story of troubles and loves has been 
 sneered at as the sheerest gammon. 
 
 But among this crowd of cold-blooded critics, it was 
 pleasant to hear of one or two pursy old fellows who 
 railed at me for winning the affections of a sweet Italian 
 girl, and then leaving her to pine in discontent ! Yet 
 in the face of this, an old companion of mine in Rome, 
 with whom I accidentally met the other day, wondered 
 how on earth I could have made so tempting a story 
 out of the matronly and black-haired spinster with 
 whom I happened to be quartered in the Eternal City ! 
 
 T shall leave my critics to settle such differences 
 between themselves ; and consider it far better to beat 
 
10 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 with slanders from both sides of the house, than to 
 bewray the pretty tenderness of the pursy old gentle- 
 men, or to cast a doubt upon the practical testimony of 
 my quondam companion. Both give me high and ju- 
 dicious compliment, — all the more grateful because 
 only half deserved. For I never yet was conscious — 
 alas, that the confession should be forced from me ! — 
 of winning the heart of any maiden, whether native or 
 Italian ; and as for such delicacy of imagination as to 
 work up a lovely damsel out of the withered remnant 
 that forty odd years of Italian life can spare, I can 
 assure my middle-aged friends, (and it may serve as a 
 caveat,) I can lay no claim to it whatever. 
 
 The trouble has been, that those who have believed 
 one passage, have discredited another ; and those who 
 have sympathized with me in trifles, have deserted me 
 when affairs grew earnest. I have had sympathy 
 enough with my married griefs, but when it came to 
 the perplexing torments of my single life — not a 
 weeper could I find ! 
 
 I would suggest to those who intend to believe only 
 half of my present book, that they exercise a little dis- 
 cretion in their choice. I am not fastidious in the 
 matter, and only ask them to believe what counts most 
 toward the goodness of humanity, and to discredit — • 
 if they will persist in it — only what tells badly for our 
 3ommon nature. The man, or the woman, who be- 
 
WITH My HEADER. 17 
 
 lieves well, is apt to work well ; and ^aith is as much 
 the key to happiness here, as it is the key to happiness 
 hereafter. " 
 
 I have only one thing more to say before I get upon 
 my story. A great many sharp-eyed people, who havb 
 a horror of light reading, — by which they mean what 
 ever does not make mention of stocks, cottons, or moral 
 homilies, — tvill find much fault with my book for its 
 ephemeral character. 
 
 I am sorry that I cannot gratify such : homilies are 
 not at all in my habit ; and it does seem to me an 
 exhausting way of disposing of a good moral, to ham- 
 mer it down to a single point, so that there shall be 
 only one chance of driving it home. For my own part, 
 I count it a great deal better philosophy to fuse it, and 
 rarefy it, so that it shall spread out into every crevice 
 of a story, and give a color and a taste, as it were, to 
 the whole mass. 
 
 I know there are very good people, who, if they 
 cannot lay their finger on so much doctrine set down 
 in old-fashioned phrase, will never get an inkling of 
 it at all. With such people, goodness is a thing of 
 understanding, more than of feeling, and all their 
 morality has its action in the brain. 
 
 God forbid that I should sneer at this terrible in- 
 firmity, which Providence has seen fit to inflict ; God 
 forbid, too, that I should not be grateful to the same 
 
18 DliEAM-LlFE. 
 
 kind Providence for bestowing upon others among his 
 creatures a moi'e genial apprehension of true goodness,. 
 and a hearty sympathy with every shade of human 
 kindness. 
 
 But in all this I am not making out a case for my 
 own correct teaching, or insinuating the propriety of 
 my tone. I shall leave the book, in this regard, to 
 speak for itself; and whoever feels himself growing 
 worse for the reading, I advise to lay it down. It will 
 be very harmless on the shelf, however it may be in 
 the hand. 
 
 I shall lay no claim to the title of moralist, teacher, 
 or romancist : my thoughts start pleasant pictures to 
 my mind ; and in a garrulous humor I put my finger 
 in the button-hole of my indulgent friend, and tell him 
 some of them, — giving him leave to quit me whenever 
 he chooses. 
 
 Or, if a lady is my listener, let her fancy me only an 
 honest, simple-hearted fellow, whose famiharities are so 
 innocent that she can pardon them ; — taking her hand 
 in his, and talking on ; sometimes lo oking in heroes, 
 and then looking into the sunshine for relief; some- 
 times prosy with narrative, and then sharpening up 
 my matter with a few touches of honest pathos ; — let 
 her imagine this, I say, and we may become the most 
 excellent friends in the world. 
 
spRmo; 
 
 OJK, 
 
 DREAMS OF BOYHOOD. 
 
DHUAMS OF BOYHOOD. 
 
 rriHE old chroniclers made the year begin in the 
 ■^ season of frosts ; and they have launched us upon 
 the current of the months from the snowy banks of 
 January. I love better to count time from spring to 
 spring; it seems to me far more cheerful to reckon 
 the year by blossoms than by 'blight. 
 
 Bernardin de St. Pierre, in his sweet story of Vir- 
 ginia, makes the bloom of the cocoa-tree, or the growth 
 of the banana, a yearly and a loved monitor of the 
 passage of her life. How cold and cheerless in the 
 comparison would be the icy chronology of the North ; 
 — So many years have I seen the lakes locked, and 
 the foliage die ! 
 
 The budding and blooming of spring seem to be- 
 long properly to the opening of the months. It is the 
 season of the quickest expansion, of the warmest blood, 
 of the readiest growth ; it is the boy-age of the year. 
 The birds sing in chorus in the spring — just as cliil- 
 
22, DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 dren prattle; the brooks run full — like the overflow 
 of young hearts ; the showers drop easily — as young 
 tears flow ; and the whole sky is as capricious as the 
 mind of a boy. 
 
 Between tears and smiles, the year, like the child, 
 struggles into the warmth of life. The old year — say 
 what the chronologists will — lingers upon the very 
 lap of spring, and is only fairly gone when the blos- 
 soms of April have strown their pall of glory upon his 
 tomb, and the bluebirds have chanted his requiem. 
 
 It always seems to me as if an access of life came 
 with the melting of the winter's snows, and as if every 
 rootlet of grass, that lifted its first green blade from the 
 matted debris of the old year's decay, bore my spirit 
 upon it, nearer to the largess of Heaven. 
 
 I love to trace the break of spring step by step : I 
 love even those long rain-storms, that sap the icy for- 
 tresses of the lingering winter, — that melt the snows 
 upon the hills, and swell the mountain-brooks, — that 
 make the pools heave up their glassy cerements of ice, 
 and hurry down the crashing fragments into the wastes 
 of ocean. 
 
 I love the gentle thaws that you can trace, day by 
 day, by the stained snow-banks, shrinking from the 
 grass ; and by the gentle drip of the cottage-eaves. I 
 love to search out the sumiy slopes by a southern wall, 
 where the reflected sun does double duty to the earth, 
 
SPRING. 23 
 
 and where the frail anemone, or the faint blush of the 
 arbutus, in the midst of the bleak March atmosphere, 
 will touch your heart, like a hope of Heaven in a field 
 of graves ! Later come those soft, smoky days, when 
 the patches of winter grain show green under the 
 shelter of leafless woods, and the last snow-drifts, re- 
 duced to shrunken skeletons of ice, lie upon the slope 
 of northern hills, leaking away their life. 
 
 Then the grass at your door grows into the color of 
 the sprouting grain, and the buds upon the lilacs swell 
 and burst. The peaches bloom upon the wall, and the 
 plums wear bodices of white. The sparkling oriole 
 picks string for his hammock on the sycamore, and the 
 sparrows twitter in pairs. The old elms throw down 
 their dingy flowers, and color their spray with green ; 
 and the brooks, where you throw your worm or the 
 minnow, float down whole fleets of the crimson blos- 
 soms of the maple. Finally the oaks step into the 
 opening quadrille of spring, with grayish tufts of a 
 modest verdure, which by-and-by will be long and 
 glossy leaves. The dog-wood pitches his broad, white 
 tent in the edge of the forest; the dandelions lie 
 along the hillocks, like stars in a sky of green ; and 
 the wild cherry, growing in all the hedge-rows, with- 
 out other culture than God's, lifts up to Him thank- 
 fully its tremulous white fingers. 
 
 Amid all this come the rich rains of spring. The 
 
24 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 afFectioiis of a boy grow up with tears to water them ; 
 and the year blooms with showers. But the clouds 
 hover over an April sky timidly, like shadows upon 
 innocence. The showers come gently, and drop dain- 
 tily to the earth, — with now and then a glimpse of 
 sunshine to make the drops bright — like so many 
 tears of joy. 
 
 The rain of winter is cold, and it conies in bitter 
 scuds that blind you; but the rain of April steals upon 
 you coyly, half reluctantly, — yet lovingly — like the 
 steps of a bride to the Altar. 
 
 It does not gather like the storm-clouds of winter, 
 gray and heavy along the horizon, and creep with 
 subtle and insensible approaches (like age) to the very 
 zenith ; but there are a score of white-winged swim- 
 mers afloat, that your eye has chased as you lay fa- 
 tigued with the delicious languor of an April sun ; — 
 nor have you scarce noticed that a little bevy of those 
 floating clouds had grouped together in a sombre com- 
 pany. But presently you see across the fields the dark 
 gray streaks, stretching like lines of mists frorii the 
 green bosom of the valley to that spot of sky where 
 the company of clouds is loitering ; and with an easy 
 shifting of the helm the fleet of swimmers come drift- 
 ing over you, and drop their burden into the dancing 
 pools, and make the flowers glisten, and the eaves drip 
 with their crystal bounty. 
 
SPRING. 25 
 
 The cattle lingei' still, cropping the new-come grass ; 
 and childhood laughs joyously at the warm rain, or 
 under the cottage-roof catches with eager ear the pat- 
 ter of its fall. 
 
 And with that patter on the roof, — so like to 
 
 the patter of childish feet, — my story of boyish dreams 
 shall begin. 
 
Bain in the Garret. 
 
 IT is an old garret with big brown rafters ; and the 
 boards between are stained darkly with the rain- 
 storms of fifty years. And as the sportive April shower 
 quickens its flood, it seems as if its torrents would come 
 dashing through the shingles upon you, and upon your 
 play. But it will not ; for you know that the old roof 
 is strong, and that it has kept you, and all that love 
 you, for long years from the rain and from the cold ; 
 you know that the hardest storms of winter will only 
 make a little oozing leak, that trickles down the brown 
 stains — like tears. 
 
 You love that old garret-roof ; and you nestle down 
 under its slope with a sense of its protecting power 
 that no castle-walls can give to your maturer years. 
 Aye, your heart clings in boyhood to the roof-tree of 
 the old family garret with a grateful affection and an 
 earnest confidence, that the after-years — whatever may 
 be their successes, or their honors — can never re-create. 
 Under the roof-tree of his home the boy feels safe.: 
 Hnd where in the whole realm of life, with its bitter 
 
RAIN IN THE GARRET. 27 
 
 toils and its bitterer temptations, will he feel safe 
 again ? ^ 
 
 But this you do not know. It seems only a grand 
 old place ; and it is capital fun to search in its corners, 
 and drag out some bit of quaint old furniture, with a 
 leg broken, and lay a cushion across it, and fix your 
 reins upon the lion's claws of the feet, and then — gal- 
 lop away ! And you offer sister Nelly a chance, if she 
 will be good ; and throw out very patronizing words to 
 little Charlie, who is motmted upon a much humbler 
 horse, — to wit, a decrepit nursery-chair, — as he of 
 right should ISe, since he is three years your junior. 
 
 I know no nobler forage-ground for a romantic, vent 
 uresome, mischievous boy, than the garret of an old 
 family mansion on a day of storm. It is a perfect field 
 of chivalry. The heavy rafters, the dashing rain, the 
 piles of spai-e mattresses to carouse upon, the big 
 trunks to hide in, the old white coats and hats hanging 
 in obscure corners, like ghosts, — are great ! And it is 
 so far away from the old lady who keeps rule in the 
 nursery, that there is no possible risk of a scolding for 
 twisting off the fringe of the rug. There is no baby 
 in the garret to wake up. There is no " company " in 
 the garret to be disturbed by the noise. There is no 
 crotchety old Uncle, or Grand-Ma, with their everlast- 
 ing " Boys, boys ! " and then a look of such horror ! 
 
 There is great fun in groping through a tall barrel 
 
28 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 of books and pamphlets, on the look-out for startling 
 pictures ; and there are chestnuts in the garret drying, 
 which you have discovered on a ledge of the chimney 
 and you slide a few into your pocket, and munch them 
 quietly, — giving now and then one to Nelly, and beg 
 ging her to keep silent, — for you have a great fear of 
 its being forbidden fruit. 
 
 Old family garrets have their stock, as I said, of 
 castaway clothes of twenty years gone by ; and it is 
 rare sport to put them on ; buttoning in a pillow or 
 two for the sake of good fulness ; and then to trick out 
 Nelly in some strange-shaped head-gear; and old-fash- 
 ioned brocade petticoat caught up with pins ; and in 
 such guise to steal cautiously down-stairs, and creep 
 slyly into the sitting-room, — half afraid of a scolding, 
 and very sure of good fun, — trying to look very sober, 
 and yet almost ready to die with the laugh that you 
 know you will make. And your mother tries to look 
 harshly at little Nelly for putting on her grandmother's 
 best bonnet ; but Nelly's laughing eyes forbid it utterly ; 
 and the mother spoils all her scolding with a perfect 
 shower of kisses. 
 
 After this you go, marching very stately, into the 
 nursery, and utterly amaze the old nurse ; and make a 
 deal of wonderment for the staring, half-frightened 
 baby, who drops his rattle, and makes a bob at you as 
 if he would jump into your waistcoat-pocket. 
 
RAIN IN THE GARRET. 29 
 
 But yoxi grow tired of this ; you tire even of the 
 swing, and of the pranks of Charlie ; and you glide 
 away into a comer with an old, dog's-eared copy of 
 " Robinson Crusoe." And you grow heart and soul into 
 the story, until you tremble for the poor fellow with his 
 guns behind the palisade ; and are yourself half dead 
 with fright when you peep cautiously over the hill with 
 your glass, and see the cannibals at their orgies around 
 the fire. 
 
 Yet, after all, you.think the old fellow must have had 
 a capital time with a whole island to himself; and you 
 think you would like such a time yourself, if only Nelly 
 and Charlie could be there with you. But this thought 
 does not come till afterward ; for the time you are noth- 
 ing- but Crusoe ; you are living in his cave with Poll 
 the parrot, and are looking out for your goats and man 
 Friday. 
 
 You dream what a nice thing it would be for you to 
 slip away some pleasant morning, — not to York, as 
 young Crusoe did, but to New York, — and take pas- 
 sage as a sailor ; and how, if they knew you were going, 
 there would be such a world of good-byes ; and how, if 
 they did not know it, there would be such a world of 
 wonder ! 
 
 And then the sailor's dress would be altogether such 
 a jaunty affair ; and it would be such rare sport to lie 
 off upon the yards far aloft, as you have seeiL sailors in 
 
30 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 pictures, looking out upon the blue and tumbling sea. 
 No thought now, in your boyish dreams, of sleety storms, 
 and cables stiffened with ice, and crashing spars, and 
 great icebergs towering fearfully around you ! 
 
 You would have better luck than even Crusoe ; you 
 would save a compass, and a Bible, and stores of 
 hatchets, and the captain's dog, and great puncheons 
 of sweetmeats, (which Crusoe altogether overlooked ,) 
 and you would save a tent or two, which you could set 
 up on the shore, and ah American flag, and a small 
 piece of cannon, which you could fire as often as you 
 liked. At night you would sleep in a tree, — though 
 you wonder how Crusoe did it, — and would say the 
 prayers you had been taught to say at home, and fall 
 to sleep, dreaming of Nelly and Charlie. 
 
 At sunrise, or thereabouts, you would come down, 
 feeling very much refreshed ; and make a very nice 
 breakfast off of smoked herring and sea-bread, with a 
 little currant jam, and a few oranges. After this you 
 would haul ashore a chest or two of the sailors' clothes, 
 and putting a few large jackknives in your pocket, 
 would take a stroll over the island, and dig a cave some- 
 where, and roll in a cask Or two of sea-bread. And 
 you fancy yourself growing after a time very tall and 
 corpulent, and wearing a magnificent goat-skin' cap 
 trimmed with green ribbons, and set off with a plume 
 You thinji you would have put a few more guns in the 
 
RAIN IN THE GARRET. 31 
 
 palisade than Crusoe did, and cliarged them with a little 
 more grape. 
 
 After a long while you fancy a ship would arrive 
 which would carry you back ; and you count upon very 
 great surprise on the part of your father and little 
 Nelly, as you march up to the door of the old family 
 mansion, with plenty of gold in your pocket, and a 
 small bag of cocoa-nuts for Charlie, and with a great 
 deal of pleasant talk about your island far away in the 
 South Seas. 
 
 Or pei^haps it is not Crusoe at all, that your eyes 
 
 and your heart cling to, but only some little story about 
 Paul and Virginia ; — that dear little Virginia ! how 
 many tears have been shed over her — not in garrets 
 only, or by boys only ! 
 
 You would have liked Virginia, you know you would ; 
 but you perfectly hate the beldame aunt who sent for 
 her to come to France ; you think she must have been 
 like the old schoolmistress, who occasionally boxes your 
 ears with the cover of the spelling-book, or makes you 
 wear one of the girls' bonnets, that smells strongly of 
 j)asteboard and calico. 
 
 As for black Domingue, you think he was a capital old 
 fellow ; and you think more of him and his bananas 
 than you do of the bursting, throbbing heart of poor 
 Paul. As yet Dream-life does not take hold on love. 
 A little maturity of heart is wanted to make up what 
 
S-i DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 the poets call sensibility. If love should come to be 8 
 dangerous, chivalric matter, as in the case of Helen 
 Mar and Wallace, you can very easily conceive of it, 
 and can take hold of all thb little accessories of male 
 costume and embroidering of banners ; but as for pure 
 sentiment, such as lies in the sweet story of Bernardin 
 de St. Pierre, it is quite beyond you.' 
 
 The rich, soft nights, in which one might doze in his 
 hammock, watching the play of the silvery moonbeams 
 upon the orange-leaves and upon the waves, you can 
 understand ; and you fall to dreaming of that lovely Isle 
 of France, and wondering if Virginia did not perhaps 
 have some relations on the island, who raise pine-apples, 
 and such sort of things, still ? 
 
 And so with your head upon your hand in your 
 
 quiet garret - corner, over some such beguiling story, 
 your thought leans away from the book into your own 
 dreamy cruise over the sea of life. 
 
n. 
 
 Scliool-Dreams. 
 
 T T is a proud thing to go out from under the realm 
 -*- of a schoolmistress, and to be enrolled in a com- 
 pany of boys,, who are under the guidance of a master. 
 It is one of the earliest steps of worldly pride, which 
 has before it a long and tedious ladder of ascent. Even 
 the advice of the old mistress, and the ninepenny book 
 that she thrusts into your hand as a parting gift, pass for 
 nothing ; and her kiss of adieu, if she tenders it in the 
 sight of your fellows, will call up an angry rush of blood 
 to the cheek, that for long years shall drown all sense 
 of its kindness. 
 
 You have looked admiringly many a day upon the 
 tall fellows who play at the door of Dr. Bidlow's school ; 
 you have looked with reverence — second only to that 
 felt for the old village church — upon its dark-looking, 
 heavy brick walls. It seemed to be redolent of learn- 
 ing ; and stopping at times to gaze upon the gallipots 
 and broken retorts at the second-story window, you 
 have pondered in your boyish way upon the inscrutable 
 wonders of Science, and the ineffable dignity of Dr 
 Bidlow's brick school ! 
 2« 
 
34 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 Dr. Bidlow seems to you to belong to a race of 
 giants ; and yet he is a spare, thin man, with a hooked 
 nose, a large, flat, gold watch-key, a crack in his voice, 
 a wig, and very dirty wristbands. Still you stand in 
 awe at the mere sight of him, — an awe that is very 
 much encouraged by a report made to you by a small 
 boy, that " Old Bid " keeps a large ebony ruler in his 
 desk. You are amazed at the small boy's audacity ; it 
 astonishes you that any one who had ever smelt the 
 strong fumes of sulphur and ether in the Doctor's room, 
 and had seen him turn red vinegar blue, (as they say 
 he does,) should call him " Old Bid-! " 
 
 You however come very little under his control ; you 
 enter upon the proud life, in the small boy's depart- 
 ment, under the dominion of the English master. He 
 is a different personage from Dr. Bidlow : he is a dap- 
 per little man, who twinkles his eye in a peculiar fash- 
 ion, and who has a way of marching about the school- 
 room with his hands crossed behind him, giving a 
 playful flirt to his coat-tails. He wears a pen tucked 
 behind his ear ; his hair is carefully set up at the sides 
 and upon the top, to conceal (as you think later in life) 
 his diminutive height ; and he steps very springily 
 around behind the benches, glancing now and then at 
 the books, — cautioning one scholar about his dog's-ears, 
 and startling another from a doze by a very loud and 
 ■odious snap of his forefinger upon the boy's head. 
 
SCHOOL-DREAMS. 35 
 
 At other times he sticks a hand in the armlet of his 
 waistcoat ; he brandishes in the other a thickish bit of 
 Bmooth cherry-wood, sometimes dressing his hair withal ; 
 and again giving his head a slight scratch behind the 
 ear, while he takes occasion at the same time for an 
 oblique glance at a fat boy in the corner, who is reach- 
 ing down from his seat after a little paper pellet that has 
 just been discharged at him from some unknown quar- 
 ter. The master steals very cautiously and quickly to 
 the rear of the stooping boy, dreadfully exposed by his 
 unfortunate position, and inflicts a stinging blow. A 
 weak-eyed little scholar on the next bench ventures a 
 modest titter, at which the assistant makes a significant 
 motion with his ruler, — on the seat, as it were, of an im- 
 aginary pair of pantaloons, — which renders the weak- 
 .eyed boy on a sudden very insensible to the recent joke. 
 
 You meantime profess to be very much engrossed 
 with your grammar — turned upside-down ; you think 
 it must have hurt, and are only sorry that it did not 
 happen to a tall, dark-faced boy, who cheated you in a 
 swop of jackkniyes. You innocently think that he 
 must be a very bad boy, and fancy — aided by a sugges- 
 tion of the old nurse at home on the same point — that 
 he will one day come to the gallows. 
 
 There is a platform on one side of the schoolroom, 
 vhere the teacher sits at a little red table ; and they 
 have a tradition among the boys, that a pin properly 
 
36 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 bent was one day put into the chair of the English mas- 
 ter, and that he did not wear his hand in the armlet of 
 his waistcoat for two whole days thereafter. Yet his air 
 of dignity seems proper enough in a man of such eru- 
 dition, and such grasp of imagination, as he must pos- 
 sess. For he can quote poetry, — some of the big 
 scholars have heard him do it; he can parse the whole 
 of " Paradise Lost," and he can cipher in Long Divis- 
 ion, and the Rule of Three, as if it was all Simple 
 Addition ; and then, such a hand as he writes, and such 
 a superb capital B ! It is hard to understand how he 
 does it. 
 
 Sometimes lifting the lid of your desk, where you 
 pretend to be very busy with your papers, you steal the 
 reading of some brief passage of " Lazy Lawrence," or 
 of the " Hungarian Brothers," and muse about it for , 
 hours afterward to the great detriment of your cipher- 
 ing; or, deeply lost in the story of the " Scottish Chiefs," 
 you fall to comparing such villains as Menteith with 
 the stout boys who tease you ; and you only wish they 
 could come within reach of the fierce Kirkpatrick's 
 claymore. 
 
 But you are frighted out of this stolen reading by a 
 circumstance that stirs your young blood very strangely. 
 The master is looking very sourly on a certain morning, 
 and has caught sight of the little weak-eyed boy over 
 beyond you, reading " Roderick Random." He sends 
 
SCHOOL-DREAMS. 37 
 
 Dut for a long birch rod, and having trimmed off the 
 leaves carefully, — with a glance or two in your direc- 
 tion, — he marches up behind the bench of the poor 
 culprit, — who turns, deathly pale, — grapples him by 
 the collar, drags him out over the desks, his limbs dang- 
 ling in a shocking way against the sharp angles, and 
 having him fairly in the middle of the room, clinches 
 his rod with a new, and; as it seems to you, a very sport- 
 ive grip. 
 
 You shudder fearfully. 
 
 " Please don't whip me," says the boy, whimpering. 
 
 "Aha ! " says the smirking pedagogue, bringing down 
 the stick with a quick, sharp cut, — " you don't like it, 
 eh?" 
 
 The poor fellow screams, and struggles to escape; 
 but the blows come faster and thicker. The blood 
 tingles in your finger-ends with indignation. 
 
 " Please don't strike me again," says the boy, sobbing, 
 and. taking breath, as he writhes about the legs of the 
 master ; " I won't read another time." 
 
 " Ah, you won't, sir, — won't you ? I don't mean you 
 shall, sir ; " and the blows fall thick and fast, until the 
 poor fellow crawls back, utterly crestfallen and heart- 
 sick, to sob over his books. 
 
 You grow into a sudden boldness ; you wish you 
 were only large enough to beat the master ; you know 
 such treatment would make you miserable ; you shud- 
 
88 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 der at the thought of it ; you do not believe he would 
 dare ; you know the other boy has got no father. This 
 seems to throw a new light upon the matter, but it only 
 intensifies your indignation. You are sure that no 
 father would suffer it ; or, if you thought so, it would 
 sadly weaken your love for him. You pray Heaven, 
 that it may never be brought to such proof. 
 
 Let a boy once distrust the love or the tender- 
 ness of his parents, and the last resort of his yearning 
 affections — so far as the world goes — is utterly gone. 
 He is in the sure I'oad to a bitter fate. His heart will 
 take on a hard, iron covering, that will flash out plenty 
 of fire in his after contact with the world, but it will 
 never — never melt ! 
 
 There are some tall trees, that overshadow an angle 
 of the schoolhouse ; and the larger scholars play some 
 very surprising gymnastic tricks upon their lower limbs : 
 one boy, for instance, will hang for an incredible length 
 of time by his feet with his head down ; and when you 
 tell Charlie of it at night, with such additions as your 
 boyish imagination can contrive, the old nurse is shocked, 
 and states very gravely that it is dangerous, and that 
 the blood all runs to the head, and sometimes bursts 
 out of the eyes and mouth. You look at that particular 
 boy with astonishment afterward, and expect to see him 
 some day burst into bleeding from the nose and ears, 
 and flood the schoolroom benches. 
 
SCHOOL-DREAMS. 89 
 
 In time however you get to performing some modest 
 experiments j'ourself upon the very lowest limbs, tak- 
 ing care to avoid the observation of the larger boys, 
 who else might laugh at you ; . you especially avoid the 
 notice of one stout fellow in pea-green breeches, who is 
 a sort of " bully " among the small boys, and who de- 
 lights in kicking your marbles about very accidentally. 
 He has a fashion too of twisting his handkerchief into 
 what he calls a " snapper," with a knot at the end, and 
 cracking at you with it, very much to the irritation of 
 your spirits and of your legs. 
 
 Sometimes, when he has brought you to an angry 
 burst of tears, he will very graciously force upon you 
 the handl?erchief, and insist upon your cracking him 
 in return ; which, as you' know nothing about his effect- 
 ive method of making the knot bite, is a very harm- 
 less proposal on his part. 
 
 But you have still stronger reason to remember that 
 boy. There are trees, as I said, near the school ; and 
 you get the reputation, after a time, of a good climber. 
 One day you are well in the tops of the trees, and being 
 dared by the boys below, you venture higher — higher 
 than any boy has ever gone before. You feel very 
 proudly, but just then catch sight of the sneering face 
 of your old enemy of the snapper ; and he dares you to 
 go upon a limb that he points out. 
 
 The rest say, — for you hear them plainly, — " It 
 
40 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 won't bear him." And Frank, a great friend of yours, 
 shouts loudly to you not to try. 
 
 " Pho," says your tormentor, — " the little coward ! " 
 
 If you could whip him, you would go down the tree, 
 and do it willingly ; as it is, you cannot let him triumph ; 
 so you advance cautiously out upon the limb ; it bends 
 and sways fearfully with your weight ; presently it 
 cracks ; you try to return, but it is too late ; you feel 
 yourself going ; your mind flashes home — over your 
 life, your hope, your fate — like lightning ; then comes a 
 sense of dizziness, a succession of quick blows, and a 
 dull, heavy crash ! 
 
 You are conscious of nothing again, until you find 
 yourself in the great hall of the school, covered with 
 blood, the old Doctor standing over you with a phial, 
 and Frank kneeling by you, and holding your shattered 
 arm, which has been broken by the fall. 
 
 After this come those long, weary days of confine- 
 ment, when you lie still through all the hours of noon, 
 looking out upon the cheerful sunshine only through 
 the windows of your little room. Yet it seems a grand 
 thing to have the whole household attendant upon you. 
 The doors are opened and shut softly, and they all step 
 noiselessly about your chamber ; and when you groan 
 with pain, you are sure of meeting sad, sympathizing 
 lOoks. Your mother will step gently to your side and 
 lay her cool, white hand upon your forehead ; and little 
 
SCMOOI^DREAMS. 41 
 
 Nelly will gaze at yoii from the foot of your bed with a 
 sad earnestness, and with tears of pity in her soft haze! 
 eyes. And afterward, as your pain passes away, she 
 will bring you her prettiest books, and fresh flowers, 
 and whatever she knows you will love. 
 
 But it is dreadful when you wake at night from your 
 feverish slumber, and see nothing but the spectral shad- 
 ows that the sick-lamp upon the hearth throws aslant 
 the walls ; and hear nothing but the heavy breathing 
 of the old nurse in the easy-chair, and the ticking of 
 the clock upon the mantel ! Then silence and the 
 night crowd upon your soul drearily. But your thought 
 is active. It shapes at your bedside the loved figure 
 of your mother, or it calls up the whole company of 
 Dr. Bidlow's boys and weeks of study or of play group 
 like ma^c on your quickened vision ; then a twinge 
 of pain will call again the dreariness, and your head 
 tosses upon the pillow, and your eye searches the gloom 
 vainly for pleasant faces ; and your fears brood on that 
 drearier, coming night of Death — far longer, and far 
 more cheerless than this. 
 
 But even here the memory of some little prayer you 
 have been taught, which promises a Morning after the 
 Night, comes to your throbbing brain ; and its murmur 
 an your fevered lips, as you breathe it, soothes like a 
 caress of angels, and wooes you to smiles and sleep. 
 
 As the days pass, you grow stronger; and Frank 
 
42 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 comes in to tell you of the school, and that your old 
 tormentor has been expelled ; and you grow into a 
 strong friendship with Frank, and you think of your- 
 selves as a new Damon and Pythias, and that you will 
 some day live together in a fine house, with plenty of 
 horses, and plenty of chestnut-trees. Alas, the boy 
 counts little on those later and bitter fates of life, whicl 
 sever his early friendships like wisps of straw! 
 
 At other times, with your eye upon the sleek, trim 
 figure of the Doctor, and upon his huge bunch of watch- 
 seals, you think you will some day be a Doctor ; and 
 that with a wife and children, and a respectable gig, 
 and gold watch, with seals to match, you would needs 
 be a very happy fellow. 
 
 And with such fancies drifting on your thought, you 
 count for the hundredth time the figures upon the cur- 
 tains of your bed ; you trace out the flower-wreaths 
 upon the paper-hangings of your room ; your eyes rest 
 idly on the cat playing with the fringe of the curtain ; 
 you see your mother sitting with her needle-work beside 
 the fire ; you watch the sunbeams, as they drift along 
 the carpet, from morning until noon ; and from noon 
 till night you watch them playing on the leaves, and 
 dropping spangles on the lawn ; and as you watch — 
 you dream. 
 
m. 
 
 Boy Sentiment 
 
 TTTEEKS and even years of your boyhood roll on, 
 ' ' in the which your dreams are growing wider and 
 grander, — even as the Spring, which I have made the 
 type of the boy-age, is stretching its foliage farther and 
 farther, and dropping longer and heavier shadows on 
 the land. 
 
 Nelly, that sweet sister, has grown into your heart 
 strangely ; and you think that all they write in their 
 books about love cannot equal your fondness for little 
 Nelly. She is pretty, they say ; but what do you care 
 for her prettiness ? She is so good, so kind, so watch- 
 ful of aU your wants, so willing to yield to your haughty 
 claims ! 
 
 ■^ But, alas ! it is only when this sisterly love is lost 
 forever, — only when the inexorable world separates a 
 family, and tosses it upon the waves of fate to wide- 
 lying distances, perhaps to graves, — that a man feels, 
 what a boy can never know, — the disinterested and 
 ibiding affection of a sister; y 
 All this that I have set down comes back to you long 
 
44 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 afterward, when you recall with tears of regret youi 
 reproachful words, or some swift outbreak of passion. 
 
 Little Madge is a friend of Nelly's, — a mischievous, 
 blue-eyed hoyden. They tease you about Madge. You 
 do not of course care one straw for her, but yet it is 
 rather pleasant to be teased thus. Nelly never does 
 this ; oh no, not she. I do not know but in the age of 
 childhood the sister is jealous of the affections of a 
 brother, and would keep his heart wholly at home, until, 
 suddenly and strangely, she finds her own wandering. 
 
 But after all Madge is pretty, and there is something 
 taking in her name. Old people, and very precise 
 people, call her Margaret Boyne. But you do not : it 
 is only plain Madge ; it sounds like her, very rapid and 
 mischievous. It would be the most absurd thing in the 
 world for you to like her, for she teases you in innumer- 
 able ways : she laughs at your big shoes, (such a sweet 
 little foot as she has !) and she pins strips of paper on 
 your coat-collar ; and time and again she has worn off 
 your hat in triumph, very well knowing that you — such 
 a quiet body, and so much afraid of her — will never 
 venture upon any liberties with her gypsy bonnet. 
 
 You sometimes wish in your vexation, as "you see her 
 running, that she would fall and hurt herself badly ; but 
 the next moment it seems a very wicked wish, and you 
 renounce it. Once she did come very near it. You 
 were all playing together by the big swing ; (how plainly 
 
BOY SENTIMENT. 45 
 
 it swings in your memory now !) Madge had the seat 
 and you were famous for running under with a long 
 push, which Madge liked better than anything else ; — 
 well, you have half run over the ground when, crash ! 
 comes the swing, and poor Madge with it ! You fairly 
 scream as you catch her up. But she is not hurt, — ■ 
 only a cry of fright, and a little sprain of that fairy 
 ankle ; and as she brushes away the tears and those 
 flaxen curls, and breaks into a merry laugh, — half at 
 your woe-worn face, and half in vexation at herself, — 
 and leans her hand (such a hand !) upon your shoulder, 
 to limp away into the shade, you dream your first 
 dream of love. '' 
 
 But it is only a dream, not at all acknowledged by 
 you; she is three or four years your junior, — too young 
 altogether. It is very absurd to talk about it. There 
 is nothing to be said of Madge, only — Madge ! The 
 name does it. 
 
 It is rather a pretty name to write. You are fond of 
 making capital M's ; and sometimes you follow it with 
 a capital A. Then you practise a little upon a D, and 
 perhaps back it up with a G. Of course it is the merest 
 accident that these letters come together. It seems 
 *unny to you — very. And as a proof that they are 
 made at random, you make a T or an R before them, 
 and some other quite irrelevant letters after it. 
 
 Finally, as a sort of security against all suspicion, you 
 
46 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 cross it out, — cross it a great many ways, even holding 
 it up to the light to see that there should be no air of 
 intention about it. 
 
 You need have no fear, Clarence, that your 
 
 hieroglyphics will be studied so closely. Accidental as 
 they are, you are very much tiiore interested in them 
 than any one else, 
 
 It is a common fallacy of this dream in most 
 
 stages of life, that a vast number of persons employ 
 their time chiefly in spying out its operations. 
 
 Yet Madge cares nothing about you, that you know 
 of Perhaps it is the very reason, though you do not 
 suspect it then, why you cai'e so much for her. At any 
 rate she is a friend of Nelly's, and it is your duty not 
 to dislike her. Nelly too, sweet Nelly, gets an inkling 
 of matters, — for sisters are very shrewd in suspicions 
 of this sort, shrewder than brothers or fathers, — and, 
 like the good, kind girl that she is, she wishes to humor 
 even your weakness. 
 
 Madge drops in to tea quite often : Nelly has some- 
 thing in particular to show her, two or three times 
 a week. Good Nelly ! perhaps she is making your 
 troubles all the greater. You gather large bunches of 
 grapes for Madge — because she is a friend of Nelly's — 
 which she does n't want at all, and very pretty bou- 
 quets, which she either drops or pulls to pieces. 
 
 In the presence of your father one day you drop 
 
BOY SENTIMENT. -17 
 
 some hint about Madge in a very careless way, — a way 
 ■shrewdly calculated to lay all suspicion, — at which your 
 father laughs. This is odd ; it makes you wouder if 
 your father was ever in love himself. 
 
 You rather think that he has been. 
 
 Madge's father is dead, and her mother is poor ; and 
 you sometimes dream how — whatever your father may 
 think or feel — you will some day make a large fortune, 
 in some very easy way, and build a snug cottage, and 
 have one horse for your carriage and one for your wife, 
 'not Madge, of course — that is absurd,) and a turtle- 
 shell cat for your wife's mother, and a pretty gate to the 
 front yard, and plenty of shrubbery ; and how your 
 wife will come dancing down the path to meet you, — 
 as the "Wife does in Mr. Irving's " Sketch-Book," — 
 and how she will have a harp in the parlor, and will 
 wear white dresses with a blue sash. 
 
 Poor Clarence, it never occurs to you that 
 
 even Madge may grow fat, and wear check aprons, and 
 snuffy-brown dresses of woollen stuff, and twist her hair 
 in yellow papers ! Oh, no, boyhood has no such dreams 
 as that ! 
 
 I shall leave you here in the middle of your first 
 foray into the world of sentiment, with those wicked 
 blue eyes chasing rainbows over your heart, and those 
 ittle feet walking every day into your affections. I 
 shall leave you, before the affair has ripened into any 
 
48 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 overtures, and while there is only a sixpence split in 
 halves, and tied about your neck and Maggie's neck,- 
 to bind your destinies together. 
 
 If I even hinted at any probability of your marrying 
 her, or of your not marrying her, you would be very 
 likely to dispute me. One knows his own feelings, or 
 thinks he does, so much better than any one can tell 
 him. 
 
tv. 
 
 A Friend made and Friend Lost. 
 
 ri^O visit, is a great thing in the boy calendar ; — not, 
 -*- to visit this or that neighbor, — to drink tea, or 
 eat strawberries, or play at draughts, — but to go 
 away on a visit in a coach, with a trunk, and a great- 
 coat, and an umbrella — this is large ! 
 
 It makes no difference that they wish to be rid of 
 your noise, now that Charlie is sick of a fever: the 
 reason is not at all in the way of your pride of visiting. 
 You are to have a long ride in a coach, and eat a din- 
 ner at a tavern, and to see a new town almost as large 
 as the one you live in ; and you are to make new ac- 
 quaintances. In short, you are to see the world: a 
 very proud thing it is to see the world ! 
 
 As you journey on, after bidding your friends adieu, 
 and as you see fences and houses to which you have 
 not been used, you think them very odd indeed : but 
 it occurs to you that the geographies speak of very 
 various national characteristics, and you are greatly 
 gratified with this opportunity of verifying your study 
 You see new crops too, perhaps a Broad-leaved tobacco- 
 field, which reminds you pleasantly of the luxuriant 
 3 
 
50 DREAlvl-LIFE. 
 
 vegetation of the tropics,- spoken of by Peter Parley, 
 and others. 
 
 As for the houses and barns in the new town, they 
 quite startle you with their strangeness : you observe 
 that some of the latter, iiistead of having one stable- 
 door, have five or six, — a fact which puzzles you very 
 much indeed. You observe further that the houses 
 many of them have balustrades upon the top, which 
 seems to you a very wonderful adaptation to the wants 
 of boys who wish to fly kites, or to play upon the roof. 
 You notice with special favor one very low roof, which 
 you might climb upon by a mere plank, and you think 
 the boys whose father lives in that house are very for- 
 tunate boys. 
 
 Your old aunt, whom you visit, you think, wears a 
 very queer cap, being altogether different from that of 
 the old nurse, or of Mrs. Boyne, — Madge's mother. 
 As for the house she lives in, it is quite wonderful. 
 There are such an immense number of closets, and 
 closets within closets, reminding you of the mysteries - 
 of " Einaldo Einaldini." Beside which there are im- 
 mensely curious bits of old furniture — so black and 
 heavy, and with such curious carving ! — and you think 
 of the old wainscot in the " Children of the Abbey." 
 You think you will never tire of rambling about in its 
 odd corners, and of *hat glorious stories you will have 
 to tell of it when you go back to Nelly and Charlie. 
 
A FRIEND MADE AND FRIEND LOST. 51 
 
 As for acquaintances, you fall in the very first day 
 with a tall boy next door, called Nat, which seems an 
 extraordinary name. Besides, he has travelled ; and as 
 he sits with you on the summer nights under the linden- 
 trees, he tells you gorgeous stories of the things he has 
 seen. He has made the voyage to London ; and he 
 talks about the ship (a real ship) and starboard and 
 larboard, and the spanker, in a way quite surprising ; 
 and he takes the stern-oar in the little skiff, when you 
 row off in the cove abreast of the town, in a most sea- 
 man-like way. 
 
 He bewilders you, too, with his talk about the great 
 bridges of London, — London Bridge specially, where 
 they sell kids for a penny ; which story your new ac- 
 quaintance unfortunately does not confirm. You have 
 read of these bridges, and seen pictures of them in 
 the "Wonders of the World"; but then Nat has seen 
 them with his own eyes : he has literally walked over 
 London Bridge, on his own feet ! You look at his 
 very shoes in wonderment, and are surprised you do 
 not find some startling difference between those shoes 
 and your shoes. But there is none, — only yours are a 
 trifle stouter in the welt. You think Nat one of the 
 fortunate boys of this world, — born, as your old nurse 
 used to say, with a gold spoon in his mouth. 
 
 Beside Nat there is a girl lives over the opposite 
 side of the way, named Jenny, — with an eye as black 
 
52 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 as a coal, and a half a year older than you, but about 
 your height, — whom you fancy amazingly. 
 
 She has any quantity of toys, that she lets you play 
 with as if tliey were your own. And she has an odd 
 old uncle, who sometimes makes you stand up together, 
 and then marries you after his fashion, — much to the 
 amusement of a grown-up house-maid, whenever she 
 gets a peep at the performance. And it makes you 
 somewhat proud to hear her called your wife ; and you 
 wonder to yourself, dreamily, if it won't be true some 
 day or other. 
 
 Fie, Oiarence, where is your split sixpence, 
 
 and your blue ribbon ! 
 
 Jenny is romantic, and talks of " Thaddeus of War- 
 saw " in a very touching manner, and promises to lend 
 you the book. She folds billets in a lover's fashion, 
 and practises love-knots upon her bonnet-strings. She 
 looks out of the corners of her eyes very often, and 
 sighs. She is frequently by herself, and pulls flowers 
 to pieces. She has great pity -for middle-aged bach- 
 elors, and thinks them all disappointed men. 
 
 After a time she writes notes to you, begging you 
 would answer them at the earliest possible moment, 
 and signs herself — " your attached Jenny." She takes 
 the marriage farce of her uncle in a cold way, as 
 trifling with a very serious subject, and looks tenderly 
 Bt you. She is very much shocked when her uncle 
 
A FRIEND MADE AND FRIEND LOST. 63 
 
 ofTers to kiss her; and when he proposes it to you. 
 she is equally indignant, but — with a great change of 
 color. 
 
 Nat says one day in a ronfidential conversation that 
 it won't do to marry a woman six months older than 
 yourself ; and this, coming from Nat who has been to 
 London, rather staggers you. You sometimes think 
 that you would like to marry Madge and Jenny both, 
 if the thing were possible, for Nat says they sometimes 
 do so the other side of the ocean, though he has never 
 seen it himself. 
 
 Ah, Clarence, you will have no such weakness 
 
 as you grow older ; you will find that Providence has 
 charitably so tempered our affections, that every man 
 of only ordinary nerve will be amply satisfied with a 
 single wife. 
 
 All this time — for you are making your visit a very 
 long one, so that autumn has come, and the nights are 
 growing cool, and Jenny and yourself are transferring 
 your little coquetries to the chimney - corner — poor 
 Charlie lies sick at home. Boyhood, "thank Heaven ! 
 does not suffer severely from sympathy when the object 
 is remote. And those letters from the mother, telling 
 you that Charlie cannot play, — cannot talk even as he 
 used to do, — and that perhaps his " Heavenly Father 
 will take him away to be with him in the better world,' 
 disturb you for a time only. Sometimes however the^ 
 
54 DREAM-LJFE. 
 
 come back to your thought on a wakeful night, and 
 you dream about his suffering, and think — why it is 
 not you, but Charlie, who is sick ? The thought puzzles 
 you ; and well it may, for in it lies the whole mystery 
 of our fate. 
 
 Those letters grow more and more discouraging, and 
 the kind admonitions of your mother grow more earnest, 
 as if (though the thought does not come to you until 
 years afterward) she was preparing herself to fasten 
 upon you that surplus of affection which she fears may 
 soon be withdrawn forever from the sick child. 
 
 It is on a frosty, bleak evening, when you are playing 
 with Nat, that the letter reaches you which says Charlie 
 is growing worse, and that you must come to your home. 
 It makes a dreamy night for you — fancying how Charlie 
 will look, and if sickness has altered him much, and if 
 he will not be well by Christmas. From this you fall 
 away in your reverie to the odd old house and its secret 
 cupboards, and your aunt's queer caps ; then come up 
 those black eyes of "your attached Jenny," and you 
 think it a pity that she is six month's older than you ; 
 and again — as you recall one of her sighs — you think 
 that six months are not much after all ! 
 
 You bid her good-bye, with a little sentiment swelling 
 in your throat, and are mortally afraid Nat will see 
 your lip tremble. Of course you promise to write, and 
 squeeze her hand with an honesty you do not think of 
 doubti n<j — for weeks. 
 
A FRIEND MADE AND FllIEND LOST. 0.5 
 
 It is a dull, cold ride, that day, for you. The winds 
 sweep over the withered cornfields with a harsh, chilly 
 whistle, and the surfaces of the little pools by the 
 roadside are tossed up into cold blue wrinldes of water. 
 Here and there a flock of quail, with their feathers 
 ruffled in the autumn gusts, tread through the hard, dry 
 stubble of an oatfield ; or, startled by the snap of the 
 driver's whip, they stare a moment at the coach, then 
 whir away down the cold current of the wind. The 
 blue jays scream from the roadside oaks, and the last 
 of the blue and purple asters shiver along the wall. 
 And as the sun sinks, reddening all the western clouds 
 to the color of the frosted maples, light lines of the 
 Aurora gush up from the northern hills, and trail their 
 splintered fingers far over the autumn sky. 
 
 It is quite dark when you reach home, but you see 
 the bright reflection of a fire within, and presently at 
 the open door Nelly clapping her hands for welcome. 
 But there are sad faces when you enter. Your mother 
 folds you to her heart ; but at your first noisy outburst 
 of joy puts her finger on her lip, and whispers poor 
 Charlie's name. The Doctor you see too, slipping softly 
 out of the bedroom-door, with glasses in his hand ; and 
 — you hardly know how — your spirits grow sad, and 
 your heart gravitates to the heavy air of all about you. 
 
 You cannot see Charlie, Nelly says ; — and you can- 
 not in the quiet parlor tell Nelly a single one of the 
 
56 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 many things, which you had hoped to tdl her. She 
 says, — " Charlie has grown so thin and so pale, you 
 would never know him." You listen to her, but you 
 cannot talk : she asks you what you have seen, and you 
 begin, for a moment joyously ; but when they open the 
 door of the sick-room, and you hear a faint sigh, you 
 cannot go on. You sit still, with your hand in Nelly's, 
 and look thoughtfully into the blaze. 
 
 You drop to sleep after that day's fatigue, with singu- 
 lar and perplexed fancies haunting you ; and when you 
 wake up with a shudder in the middle of the night, you 
 have a fancy that Charlie is really dead : you dream of 
 seeing him pale and thin, as Nelly described him, and 
 with the starched grave-clothes on him. You toss over 
 in your bed, and grow hot and feverish. You cannot 
 sleep ; and you get up stealthily, and creep down-stairs. 
 A light is burning in the hall : the bedroom-door stands 
 half open, and you listen — fancying you hear a whisper. 
 You steal on through the hall, and edge around the side 
 of the door. A little lamp is flickering on the hearth, 
 and the gaunt shadow of the bedstead lies dark upon 
 the ceiling. Your mother is in her chair with her 
 head upon her hand — though it is long after midnight. 
 The Doctor is standing with his back toward you, and 
 with Charlie's little wrist in his fingers ; and you hear 
 hard breathing, and now and then a low sigh from your 
 mother's chair. 
 
A FRIEND MADE AND FRIEND LOST. 57 
 
 An occasional gleam of firelight makes the gaun* 
 shadows stagger on the wall, like something spectral. 
 You look wildly at them, and at the bed where your 
 own brother — your laughing, gay-hearted brother — is 
 lying. You long to see him, and sidle up softly a step 
 or two ; but your mother's ear has caught the sound, 
 and she beckons you to her, and folds you again in her 
 embrace. You whisper to her what you wish. She 
 rises, and takes you by the hand, to lead you to the 
 bedside. 
 
 The Doctor looks very solemnly as we approach. He 
 takes out his watch. He is not coimting Charlie's pulse, 
 for he has dropped his hand, and it lies carelessly, but 
 oh, how thin ! over the edge of the bed. 
 
 He shakes his head mournfully at your mother ; and 
 she springs forward, dropping your hand, and lays her 
 fingers upon the forehead of the boy, and passes her 
 hand over his mouth. 
 
 " Is he asleep, Doctor ? " she says in a tone you do 
 not know. 
 
 " Be calm, madam." The Doctor is very calm. 
 
 " I am calm," says your mother ; but you do not think 
 t, for you see her tremble very plainly. 
 
 " Dear madam, he will never waken in this world ! " 
 
 There is no cry, — only a bowing down of your 
 mother's head upon the body of poor dead Charlie ! — 
 and only when you see her form shake and quiver with 
 
58 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 the deep, smothered sobs, your crying bursts forth loud 
 and strong. 
 
 The Doctor Ufts you in his arms, that you may see 
 that pale head, — those blue eyes all sunken, — that 
 flaxen hair gone, — those white lips pinched and hard ! 
 ■ — Never, never will the boy forget his first terrible 
 sight of Death ! 
 
 In your silent chamber, after the storm of sobs has 
 wearied you, the boy-dreams are strange and earnest. 
 They take hold on that awful Visitant, — that strange 
 slipping away from life, of which we know so little, and 
 yet know, alas, so much ! Charlie that was your brother, 
 is now only a name : perhaps he is an angel ; perhaps 
 (for the old nurse has said it when he was ugly — and 
 now you hate her for it) he is with Satan ! 
 
 But you are sure this cannot be : you are sure that 
 God, who made him suffer, would not now quicken and 
 multiply his suifering. It agrees with your religion to 
 think so ; and just now you want your religion to help 
 you all it can. 
 
 You toss in your bed, thinking over and over of that 
 strange thing — Death ; and that perhaps it may over- 
 take you before you are a man ; and you sob out those 
 prayers (you scarce know why) which ask God to keep 
 life in you. You think the involuntary fear, that makes 
 your little prayer full of sobs, is a holy feeling; — and so 
 it is a holy feeling, — the same feeling which makes a 
 
A FRIEND MADE AND FRIEND LOST. 59 
 
 stricken child yearn for the embrace and the protec- 
 tion of a Parent. But you will find there are those 
 canting ones trying to persuade you, at a later day, that 
 it is a mere animal fear, and not to be cherished. 
 
 You feel an access of gi.odness growing out of your 
 boyish grief; you feel right-minded ; it seems as if youi 
 little brother in going to Heaven had opened a path 
 way thither, down which goodness comes streaming ovei 
 your soul. 
 
 You think how good a life you will lead; and you 
 map out great pui-poses, spreading themselves over the 
 school-weeks of your remaining boyhood ; and you love 
 your friends, or seem to, far more dearly than you evei 
 loved them before ; and you forgive the boy who pro- 
 voked you to that sad fall from the oak, and you forgive 
 him all his wearisome teasings. But you cannot forgive 
 yourself for some harsh words that you have once spoken 
 to Charlie ; still less can you forgive yourself for having 
 once struck him in passion with your fist. You cannot 
 forget his sobs then ; — if he were only alive one little 
 instant to let you say, — " Charlie, will you forgive 
 me?" 
 
 Tourself you cannot forgive ; and sobbing over it, 
 and murmuring " Dear, dear Charlie ! " you drop into a 
 troubled sleep. 
 
?. 
 
 Soy Beligwn. 
 
 IS any weak soul frightened, that I should write of 
 the Religion of the boy ? How indeed could I cover 
 the field of his moral or intellectual growth, if I left 
 unnoticed those dreams of futurity and of goodness, 
 which come sometimes to his quieter moments, and 
 oftener to his hours of vexation and trouble ? It would 
 be as wise to describe the season of Spring with no note 
 of the silent iniluences of that burning Day-god which 
 is melting day by day the shattered ice-drifts of Win- 
 ter, — which is filling every bud with succulence, and 
 painting one flower with crimson, and another with 
 white. 
 
 I know there is a feeling — by much too general as it 
 seems to me — that the subject may not be approached 
 except through the dicta of certain ecclesiastic bodies, 
 and that the language which touches it must not be 
 that every-day language which mirrors the vitality of 
 our thought, but should have some twist of that theo- 
 logic mannerism, which is as cold to the boy as to the 
 busy man of the world. 
 
BOY RELIGION. 61 
 
 I know very well that a great many good souls will 
 call levity what I call honesty, and will abjure that 
 familiar handling of the boy's lien upon Eternity which 
 my story will show. But I shall feel sure, that, in keep- 
 ing true to Nature with word and with thought, I shall 
 in no way offend against those highest truths to which 
 all truthfulness is kindred. 
 
 You have Christian teachers, who speak always rev- 
 erently of the Bible ; you grow up in the hearing of 
 daily prayers ; nay, you are perhaps taught to say them. 
 
 Sometimes they have a meaning, and sometimes they 
 have none. They have a meaning when your heart is 
 troubled, when a grief or a wrong weighs upon you : 
 then the keeping of the Father, which you implore, 
 seems to come from the bottom of your soul ; and your 
 eye suffuses with such tears of feeling as you count 
 holy, and as you love to cherish in your memory. 
 
 But they have no meaning when some trifling vexav 
 tion angers you, and a distaste for all about you breeds 
 a distaste for all above you. In the long hours of 
 toilsome days little thought comes over you of the morn- 
 ing prayer ; and only when evening deepens its shad- 
 ows, and your boyish vexations fatigue you to thought- 
 fulness, do you dream of that coming and endless night, 
 to which — they tell you — prayers soften the way. 
 
 Sometimes upon a Summer Sunday, when you are 
 trakeful upon your seat in church, with some strong- 
 
82 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 worded preacher who says things that half fright you 
 it occurs to you to consider how much goodness you are 
 made of; and whether there be enough of it after iilJ 
 to carry you safely away from the clutch of Evil ? And 
 straightway you reckon up those friendships where your 
 heart lies ; you know you are a true and honest friend 
 to Frank ; and you love your mother, and your father ; 
 as for Nelly, Heaven knows, you could not contrive a 
 way to love her better than you do. 
 
 You dare not take much credit to yourself for the 
 love of little Madge, — partly because you have some- 
 times caught yourself trying — not to love her ; and 
 partly because the black-eyed Jenny comes in the way. 
 Yet you can find no command in the Catechism to love 
 one girl to the exclusion of all other girls. It is some- 
 what doubtful if you ever do find it. But as for loving 
 some half-dozen you could name, whose images drift 
 through your thought, in dirty, salmon-colored frocks, 
 and slovenly shoes, it is quite impossible ; and suddenly 
 this thought, coupled with a lingering remembrance of 
 the pea-green pantaloons, utterly breaks down your 
 hopes. 
 
 Yet you muse again, — there are plenty of good 
 people, as the times go, who have their dislikes, and 
 who speak them too. Even the sharp-talking clergy- 
 man you have heard say some very sour things about 
 his landlord, who raised his rent the last year. And 
 
BOY RELIGION. 63 
 
 you know that he did not talk as mildly as he does in 
 the church, when he found Frank and yourself quietly 
 filching a few of his peaches through the orchard fence. 
 
 But your clergyman will say perhaps, with what 
 seems to you quite unnecessary coldness, that goodness 
 is not to be reckoned in your chances of safety ; that 
 there is a Higher Goodness, whose merit is All-SufR- 
 cient. This puzzles you sadly ; nor will you escape the 
 puzzle, until, in the presence of the Home altar, which 
 seems to guard you, as the Lares guarded Roman chil- 
 dren, yoa feel — you cannot tell how — that good ac- 
 tions nuist spring from good sources; and that those 
 sources must lie in that Heaven toward which your 
 boyish spirit yearns, as you kneel at your mother's side. 
 
 Conscience too is all the while approving you for 
 deeds well done ; and — wicked as you fear the preacher 
 might judge it — you cannot but found on those deeds 
 a hope that your prayer at night flows more easily, 
 more freely, and more holily toward " Our Father in 
 Heaven.'' Nor indeed later in life — whatever may be 
 the ill-advised expressions of human teachers — will 
 you ever find that Duty performed, and generous endeavor 
 will stand one whit in the way either of Faith or of 
 Love. Striving to be good is a very direct road toward 
 Goodness and if life be so tempered by high motive 
 ns to make actions always good. Faith is unconsciously 
 won. 
 
G4 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 Another notion that disturbs you very much, is your 
 positive dislike of long sermons, and of such singing as 
 ttey have when the organist is away. You cannot get 
 the force of that verse of Dr. "Watts which likens heaven 
 to a never-ending Sabbath ; you do hope — though i 
 
 seems a half wicked hope — that old Dr. will not 
 
 be the preacher. You think that your heart in its best 
 moments craves for something more lovable. You sug- 
 gest this perhaps to some Sunday teacher, who only 
 shakes his head sourly, and tells you it is a thought 
 that the Devil is putting in your brain. It strikes you 
 oddly that the Devil should be using a verse of Dr. 
 Watts to puzzle you ! But if it be so, he keeps it stick- 
 ing tiy your thought very pertinaciously, until some sim- 
 ple utterance of your mother about the Love that reigns 
 in the other world seems on a sudden to widen Heaven, 
 and to waft away your doubts like a cloud. 
 
 It excites your wonder not a little to find people, who 
 talk gravely and heartily of the excellence of sermons 
 and of church-going, sometimes fall asleep under it all. 
 And you wonder — if they really like preaching so 
 well — why they do not buy some of the minister's old 
 manuscripts, and read them over on week-days, or in 
 vite the clergyman to preach to them in a quiet way in 
 private. 
 
 Ah, Clarence, you do not yet know the poor 
 
 weakness of e^^en maturest manhood, and the feeble 
 
BOY RELIGION. 65 
 
 gropings of the soul toward a soul's paradise in the besi 
 of the world ! You do not yet know either, that igno« 
 ranee and fear will be thrusting their untruth and false 
 show into the very essentials of Religion. 
 
 Again you wonder, if the clergymen are all such very 
 good men as you are taught to believe, why it is that 
 every little while people will be trying to send them off, 
 and very anxious to prove that, instead of being so good, 
 they are in fact very stupid and bad men. At that day 
 you have no clear conceptions of the distinction between 
 stupidity and vice, and think that a good man must ne- 
 cessarily say very eloquent things. You will find your- 
 self sadly mistaken on this point, before you get on very 
 far in life. 
 
 Heaven, when your mother peoples it with friends 
 gone, and little Charlie, and that better Friend who, she 
 says, took Charlie in his arms, and is now his Father 
 above the skies, seems a place to be loved and longed 
 for. But to think that Mr. Such-an-one, who is only 
 good on Sundays, will be there too, — and to think of his 
 talking as he does of a place which you are sure he 
 would spoil if he were there, — puzzles you again ; and 
 you relapse into wonder, doubt, and yearning. 
 
 And there, Clarence, for the present, I shall 
 
 leave you. A wide, rich heaven hangs above you, but 
 it hangs very high. A wide, rough world is around you, 
 and it lies very low ! 
 
66 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 I am assuniiug in these sketches no office of a 
 feacher. I am seeking only to make a truthful analysis 
 of the boyish thought and feeling. But having ventured 
 thus far into what may seem sacred ground, I shall vent- 
 ure still farther, and clinch my matter with a moral. 
 
 There is very much religious teaching, even in so 
 good a country as New England, which is far too harsh, 
 too dry, too cold for the heart of a boy. Long sermons, 
 doctrinal precepts, and such tediously-worded dogmas 
 as were uttered by those honest but hard-spoken men, 
 the Westminster Divines, fatigue, and puzzle, and dis- 
 pirit him. 
 
 They may- be well enough for those strong souls 
 which strengthen by task - work, or for those mature 
 people whose iron habit of self-denial has made patience 
 a cardinal virtue ; but they fall (experto crede) upon the 
 unfledged faculties of the boy like a winter's rain upon 
 spring flowers, — like hammers of iron upon lithe tim- 
 ber. They may make deep impression upon his moral 
 nature, but there is great danger of a sad rebound. 
 
 Is it absurd to suppose that some adaptation is desir- 
 able ? And might not the teachings of that Religion, 
 which is the aegis of our moral being, be inwrought with 
 some of those finer harmonies of speech and form which 
 were given to wise ends, — and lure the boyish soul by 
 something akin to that gentleness which belonged to 
 the Nazarene Teacher, and which provided not only 
 meat for men, but "-milk for babes " ? 
 
VL 
 
 A New-England Squire. 
 
 IjlRANX has a grandfather living in the country, a 
 -*- good specimen of the old-fashioned New-England 
 farmer. And — go where one will the world over — I 
 know of no race of men who, taken as a whole, pos- 
 sess more integrity, more intelligence, and more of 
 those elements of comfort which go to make a home be- 
 loved and the social basis firm, than the New-England 
 farmers. 
 
 They are not brilliant, nor are they highly refined ; 
 they know nothing of arts, histrionic or dramatic ; they 
 know only so much of older nations as their histories 
 and newspapers teach them ; in the fashionable world 
 they hold no place ; — but in energy, in industry, in 
 hardy virtue, in substantial knowledge, and in manly 
 independence, they make up a race that is hard to be 
 matched. 
 
 The French peasantry are, in all the essentials of 
 intelligence and sterling worth, infants compared with 
 them ; and the farmers of England are either the merest 
 'ockeys in grain, with few ideas beyond their sacks, 
 
68 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 samples, and market-days, — or, with added cultivation 
 they lose their independence in a subserviency to some 
 neighbor patron of rank ; and superior intelligence 
 teaches them no lesson so quickly as that their breth- 
 ren of the glebe are unequ.J to them, and are to be left 
 to their cattle and the goad . 
 
 There are English farmers indeed, who are men in 
 ■earnest, who read the papers, and who keep the current 
 of the year's intelligence ; but such men are the excep- 
 tions. In New England, with the school upon every 
 third hillside, and the self-regulating, free-acting church 
 to watch every valley with week-day quiet, and to wake 
 every valley with Sabbath sound, the men become, as a 
 class, bold, intelligent, and honest actors, who would 
 make again, as they have made before, a terrible army 
 of defence, — and who would find reasons for their 
 actions as strong as their armies. 
 
 Frank's grandfather has silver hair, but is still hale, 
 erect, and strong. His dress is homely but neat. Being 
 a thorough-going Protectionist, he has no fancy for the 
 gewgaws of foreign importation, and makes it a point to 
 appear always in the village church, and on all great 
 occasions, in a sober suit of homespun. He has no 
 pride of appearance, and he needs none. He is known 
 as the Squire throughout the township ; and no im- 
 portant measure can pass the board of selectmen with- 
 out the Squire's approval ; — and this from no blind 
 
A NEW-ENGLAND SQUIRE. 69 
 
 subserviency to his opinion, — because his farm is large, 
 and he is reckoned " forehanded," — but because there 
 is a confidence in his judgment. 
 
 He is jealous of none of the prerogatives of the coun- 
 try parson, or of the schoolmaster, or of the village doc- 
 tor ; and although the latter is a testy politician of the 
 opposite party, it does not all impair the Squire's faith 
 in his calomel ; he suffers all his Radicalism with the 
 same equanimity that he suffers his rhubarb. 
 
 The day-laborers of the neighborhood, and the small 
 farmers, consider the Squire's note-of-hand for their sav- 
 ings better than the best bonds of city origin ; and they 
 seek his advice in all matters of litigation. He is a 
 Justice of the Peace, as the title of Squire in a New- 
 England village implies ; and many are the sessions of 
 tlie country courts that you peep upon with Frank, from 
 the door of the great dining-room. 
 
 The defendant always seems to you in these impor- 
 tant cases — especially if his beard is rather long — an 
 extraordinary ruffian, to whom Jack Sheppard would 
 have been a comparatively innocent boy. You watch 
 curiously the old gentleman sitting in his big arm-chair, 
 with his spectacles in their silver case at his elbow, and 
 his snuffbox in hand, listening attentively to some 
 grievous complaint ; you see him ponder deeply, — with 
 a pinch of snuff to aid his judgment, — and you listen 
 with intense admiration as he gives a loud preparatory 
 
70 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 "Ahem ! " and clears away the intricacies of the case 
 with a sweep of that strong practical sense which distin- 
 guishes the New-England farmer, — getting at the very 
 hinge of the matter, without any consciousness of his 
 own precision, and satisfying the defendant by the clear- 
 ness of his talk as much as by the leniency of his 
 judgment. 
 
 His lands lie along those swelling hills, which in 
 southern New England carry the chain of the White 
 and Green Mountains in gentle undulations to the 
 borders of the sea. He farms some fifteen hundred 
 acres, — " suitably divided," as the old-school agricult- 
 urists say, into " woodland, pasture, and tillage." The 
 farm-house — a large, irregularly-built mansion of wood 
 — stands upon a shelf of the hills looking southward, 
 and is shaded by century-old oaks. The barns and out- 
 buildings are grouped in a brown phalanx a little to 
 the northward of the dwelling. Between them a high 
 timber gate opens upon the scattered pasture lands of 
 the hills ; opposite to this and across the farmyard, 
 which is the lounging-place of scores of red-necked 
 turkeys and of matronly hens, clucking to their callow 
 brood, another gate of similar pretensions opens upon 
 the wide meadow-land, which rolls with a heavy " ground- 
 Bwell " along the valley of a mountain river. A veteran 
 oak stands sentinel at the brown meadow-gate, its tnmk 
 all scarred with the ruthless cuts of new-ground axes, 
 
A NEW-ENGLAND SQUIRE. 71 
 
 and the limbs garnished in summer-time with the 
 crooked snathes of murderous-looking scythes. 
 
 The high-road passes a stone's-throw away ; but there 
 is little " travel " to be seen ; and every chance passef 
 will inevitably come under the range of the kitchen 
 windows, and be studied carefully by the eyes of tht 
 stout dairy-maid, — to say nothing of the stalwar 
 Indian cook. 
 
 This last you cannot but admire as a type of thai 
 noble old race, among whom your boyish fancy has 
 woven so many stories of romance. You wonder how 
 she must regard the white interlopers upon her own 
 soil ; and you think that she tolerates the Squire's farm- 
 ing privileges with more modesty than you would sup- 
 pose. You learn however that she pays very little 
 regard to white rights — when they conflict with her 
 own ; and further learn, to yeur deep regret, that your 
 Princess of the old tribe is sadly addicted to cider-drink- 
 ing; and having heard her once or twice with a ver;- 
 indistinct " Goo-er night, Sq-quare " upon her lips, your 
 dreams about her grow very tame. 
 
 The Squire, like all very sensible men, has his hob- 
 bies and peculiarities. He has a great contempt, for 
 instance, for all paper money, and imagines banks to 
 be corporate societies skilfully contrived for the legal 
 plunder of the community. He keeps a supply of silver 
 and gold by him in the foot ol an old stocking, and 
 
72 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 seems to have great confidence in the value of Spanish 
 milled dollars. He has no kind of patience with the 
 new doctrines of farming. Liebig, and all the rest, he 
 sets down as mere theorists, and has far more respect 
 for the contents of his barnyard than for all the guano 
 deposits in the world. Scientific farming, and gentle- 
 man farming, may do very well, he says, " to keep idle 
 young fellows from the city out of mischief; but as for 
 real, effective management, there's nothing like the old 
 stock of men, who ran barefoot until they were ten, 
 and who count the hard winters by their frozen toes." 
 And he is fond of quoting in this connection — the 
 only quotation, by the by, that the old gentleman ever 
 makes — that couplet of " Poor Richard," — 
 
 " He, that by the plough would thrive, 
 Himself must either hold or drive." 
 
 The Squire has been in his day connected more or 
 less intimately with turnpike enterprise, which the 
 railroads of the day have thrown- sadly into the back- 
 ground ; and he reflects often in a melancholy way 
 upon the good old times when a man could travel in 
 his own carriage quietly across tne country, without 
 being frightened with the clatter of an engine, and 
 when turnpike stock paid wholesome yearly dividends 
 of six per cent. 
 
 An almost constant hanger-on about the premises, 
 and a great favorite with the Squire, is a stout, middle- 
 
A NEW-ENGLAND SQUIRE. 73 
 
 aged man, with a heavy-bearded face, to whom Frank 
 introduces you as " Captain Dick " ; and he tells you 
 moreover that he is a better butcher, a better wall- 
 layer, and cuts a btoader '' swathe," than any man upon 
 the farm. Beside all which he has an immense deal 
 of information. He knows in the spring where all the 
 crows'-nests are to be found ; he tells Frank where the 
 foxes burrow ; he has even shot two or three raccoons 
 in the swamps ; he knows the best season to troll for 
 pickerel ; • he has a thorough understanding of bee- 
 hunting ; he can tell the ownership of every stray heifer 
 that appears upon the road : indeed scarce an inquiry is 
 made, or an opinion formed, on any of these subjects, 
 or on such kindred ones as the weather, or potato crop, 
 without previous consultation with " Captain Dick.'' 
 
 You have an extraordinary respect for Captain Dick: 
 his gruff tones, dark beard, patched waistcoat, and cow- 
 hide boots, only add to it : you can compare your regard 
 for him only with the sentiments you entertain for those 
 fabulous Roman heroes, led on by Horatius, who cut 
 down the bridge across the Tiber, and then swam over 
 to their wives and families ! 
 
 A superannuated old greyhound lives about the prem- 
 ises, and stalks lazily around, thrusting his thin nose 
 into your hands in a very affectionate manner. 
 
 Of course, in your way, you are a lion among the 
 boys of the neighborhood : a blue jacket that you wear. 
 
74 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 with bell buttons of white metal,- is their especial won' 
 derment. You astonish them moreover with your 
 stones of various parts of the world which they have 
 never visited. They tell you of the haunts of rabbits, 
 and great snake stories, as you sit in the dusk after 
 supper under the old oaks ; and you delight them in 
 turn with some marvellous tale of South-American rep- 
 tiles out of Peter Parley's books. 
 
 In all this your new friends are men of observation ; 
 while Frank and yourself are comparatively men of 
 reading. In ciphering, and all schooling, you find your- 
 self a long way before them ; and you talk of problems, 
 and foreign seas, and Latin declensions, in a way that 
 sets them all agape. 
 
 As for the little country girls, their bare legs rather 
 stagger your notions of propriety ; nor can you wholly 
 get over their out-of-the-way pronunciation of some 
 of the vowels. Frank however has a little cousin, • — a 
 toddling, wee thing, some seven years your junior, who 
 has a rich eye for an infant. But, alas, its color means 
 nothing ; poor Fanny is stone-blind ! Your pity leans 
 toward her strangely, as she feels her way about the old 
 parlor ; and her dark eyes wander over the wainscot, 
 or over the clear, blue sky, with the same sad, painful 
 vacancy. 
 
 And yet — it is very strange ! — she does not grieve : 
 there is a sweet, soft smile upon her lip, — a smile, that 
 
A NEW-ENGLAND SQUIRE. 75 
 
 will come to you in your fancied troubles of after-life 
 with a deep voice of reproach. 
 
 Altogether you grow into a' liking of the country : 
 your boyish spirit loves its fresh, bracing air, and the 
 sparkles of dew that at sunrise cover the hills with 
 diamonds ; and the wild river, with its black-topped, 
 loitering pools ; and the shaggy mists that lie in the 
 nights of early autumn like unravelled clouds, lost upon 
 the meadow. You love the hills, climbing green and 
 grand to the skies, or stretching away in distance their 
 soft, blue, smoky caps, like the sweet, half-fadgd. mem- 
 ories of the years behind you. You love those oaks, 
 tossing up their broad arms into clear heaven with a 
 spirit and a strength that kindles your dawning pride 
 and purposes, and that makes you yearn, as your 
 forehead mantles with fresh blood, for a kindred spirit 
 and a kindred strength. Above all you love — though 
 you do not know it now — the Breadth of a country 
 life. In the fields of God's planting there is Eoom. 
 No walls of brick and mortar cramp one ; no factitious 
 distinctions mould your habit. The involuntary reaches 
 of the spirit tend toward the True and the Natural. 
 The flowers, the clouds, and the fresh-smelling earth, 
 all give width to your intent. The boy grows into man- 
 liness, instead of growing to be like men. He claims 
 — with tears almost of brotherhood — his kinship with 
 Nature ; and he feels in the mountains his heirship to 
 the Father of Nature ! 
 
76 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 This delirium of feeling may not find expression upon 
 the lip of the boy 5 but yet it underlies his thought, and 
 will without his consciousness give the spring to his 
 musing dreams. 
 
 So it is, that, as you lie there upon the sunny 
 
 greensward, at the old Squire's door, you muse upon 
 the time when some rich-lying land, with huge gran 
 aries, and cosy old mansion sleeping under the trees, 
 shall be yours, — when the brooks shall water your 
 meadows, and come laughing down your pasture-lands, 
 
 — when the clouds shall shed their spring fragrance 
 upon your lawns, and the daisies bless your paths. 
 
 You will then be a Squire, with your cane, your 
 lean-limbed hound, your stocking-leg of specie, and 
 your snuffbox. You will be the happy and respected 
 husband of some tidy old lady in black, and spectacles, 
 
 — a little phthisicky, like Frank's grandmother, — and 
 an accomplished cook of stewed pears and Johnny- 
 cakes ! 
 
 It seems a very lofty ambition at this stage of growth 
 to reach such eminence, as to convert your drawer in 
 the wainscot, that has a secret spring, into a bank for 
 the country people ; and the power to send a man to 
 jail seems one of those stretches of human preroga- 
 tive to which few of your fellow-mortals can ever hope 
 to attain. 
 
 Well, it may all be. And who knows but th* 
 
A NEW-ENGLAND SQUIRE. 77 
 
 Dreams of Age, when they are reached, will be lighted 
 by the same spirit and freedom of nature that is 
 around you now ? Who knows, but that after tracking 
 you through the spring and the summer of Youth, 
 we shall find frosted Ago tattling upon you heavily 
 and solemnly in the very fields where you wanton 
 to-day ? 
 
 This American life of ours is a tortuous and shifting 
 impulse. It brings Age back from years of wandering 
 to totter in the hamlet of its birth ; and it scatters 
 armies of ripe manhood to bleach far-away shores with 
 their bones. 
 
 That Providence, whose eye and hand are the spy 
 and the executioner of the Fateful changes of our life, 
 may bring you back in Manhood, or in Age, to this 
 mountain home of New England ; and that very wil- 
 low yonder, which your fancy now makes the graceful 
 mourner of your leave, may one day shadow muurn 
 fully your grave ! 
 
VII. 
 
 The Country Church. 
 
 njIHE country church is a square old building of 
 -*- wood without paint or decoration," and of thai 
 genuine P.uritanic stamp which is now fast giving way 
 to Greek porticos and to cockney towers. It stands 
 upon a hill, with a little churchyard in its rear, where 
 one or. two sickly-looking trees keep watch and ward 
 over the vagrant sheep that graze among the graves. 
 Bramble-bushes seem to thrive on the bodies below, 
 and there is no flower in the little yard, save a few 
 golden-rods, which flaunt their gaudy inodorous color 
 under the lee of the northern wall. 
 
 New England country-livers have as yet been very 
 little inoculated with the sentiment of beauty ; even 
 the door-step to the church is a wide flat stone, that 
 shows not a single stroke of the hammer.- Within, the 
 simplicity is even more severe. Brown galleries run 
 around three sides of the old building, supported by 
 timbers, on which you still trace, imder the stains from 
 the leaky roof, the deep scoring of the woodman's axe. 
 
 Below, the unpainted pews are ranged in square 
 
THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 79 
 
 forms, and by age have gained the color of those frag- 
 mentary wrecks of cigar-boxes which you see upon 
 the top shelves in the bar-rooms of country, taverns. 
 The minister's desk is lofty, and has once been hon- 
 ored with a coating of paint ; — as well as the huge 
 sounding-board, which to your great amazement pro- 
 trudes from the wall at a very dangerous angle of in- 
 clination over the speaker's head. As the Squire's pew 
 is the place of honor to the right of the pulpit, you have 
 a little tremor yourself at sight of the heavy sounding- 
 board, and cannot forbear indulging in a quiet feeling 
 of relief when the last prayer is said. 
 
 There are in the Squire's pew long, faded, crimson 
 cushions, which, it seems to you, must date back 
 nearly to the commencement of the Christian era in 
 this country. There" are also sundry old thumb-worn 
 copies of Dr. Dwight's Version of the Psalms of David, 
 — " appointed to be sung in churches by auth4)rity of 
 the General Association of the State of Connecticut." 
 The sides of Dr. Dwight's Version are, you observe, 
 sadly warped and weather-stained; and from some 
 stray figures which appear upon a fly-leaf you are con- 
 strained to think, that the Squire has sometimes em- 
 ployed a quiet interval of the service with reckoning 
 up the contents of the old stocking-leg at home. 
 
 The parson is a stout man, remarkable in your opin- 
 ion chiefly for a yellowish-brown wig, a strong nasal 
 
80 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 tone, aiicl occasional violent thumps upon the little, 
 clingy, red velvet cushion, studded with brass tacks, at 
 che top of the desk. You do not altogether admire 
 his style ; and by the time he has entered upon his 
 " Fourthly," you give your attention in despair to a 
 new reading (it must be the twentieth) of the preface 
 to Dr. Dwight's Version of the Psalms. 
 
 The singing has a charm for you. There is a long, 
 thin-faced, flax-haired man, wlio carries a tuning-fork 
 in his waistcoat-pocket, and who leads the choir. His 
 position is in the very front rank of gallery benches 
 facing the desk ; and by the time the old clergyman 
 has read two verses of the psalm, the country chorister 
 turns around to his little group of aids — consisting of 
 the blacksmith, a carroty-headed schoolmaster, two 
 women in snuff-colored silks, and* girl in pink bonnet 
 
 — to announce the tune. 
 
 This,being done in an authoritative manner, he lifts 
 his long music-book — glances again at his little com- 
 pany, — clears his throat by a powerful ahem, followed 
 by a powerful use of a bandanna pocket-handkerchief, 
 
 — draws out his tuning-fork, and waits for the parson 
 to close his reading. Pie now reviews once more his 
 ■onipany, — throws a reproving glance at the young 
 
 woman in the pink hat, who at the moment is biting 
 off a stout bunch of fennel, — lifts his music-book, — 
 thumps upon the rail with his fork, — listens keenly, — 
 
THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 81 
 
 gives a slight ' ahem, — falls into the cadence, — swells 
 into a strong crescendo, — catches at the first word of 
 the line as if he were afraid it might get away, — turns 
 to his company, — lifts his music-book with spirit, gives 
 it a powerful slap with the disengaged hand, and with 
 a majestic toss of the head soars away, with half the 
 women below straggling on in his wake, into some such 
 brave old melody as — Litchfield ! 
 
 Being a visitor, and in the Squire's pew, you are nat- 
 urally an object of considerable attention to the girls 
 about your age, as well as to a great many fat old ladies 
 in iron spectacles, who mortify you excessively by pat- 
 ting you under the chin after church ; and insist upon 
 mistaking you for Frank ; and force upon you very drj 
 cookies spiced with caraway seeds. 
 
 You keep somewhat shy of the young ladies, as they 
 are rather stout for your notions of beauty, and wear 
 thick calf-skin boots. They compare very poorly with 
 Jenny. Jenny, you think, would be above eating gin- 
 gerbread between service. None of them, you imagine, 
 ever read " Thaddeus of Warsaw," or ever used a col- 
 ored glass seal with a Cupid and a dart upon it. You 
 are quite certain they never did, or they could not 
 surely wear such dowdy gowns, and suck their thumbs 
 as they do ! 
 
 The farmers you have a high respect for, — particu- 
 larly for one weazen-faced old gentleman in a brown 
 
82 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 surtout, who brings his whip into church -with him, who 
 sings in a very strong voice, and who drives a span of 
 gray colts. You think, however, that he has got rather 
 
 stout wife ; and from the way he humors her in stop- 
 ping to talk with two or three other fat women, before 
 setting off for home, (though he seems a little fidgety,) 
 you naively think that he has a high regard for her 
 ©pinion. Another townsman who attracts your notice 
 is a stout old deacon, who, before entering, always steps 
 around the corner of the church, and puts his hat upon 
 the ground, to adjust his wig in a quiet way. He then 
 marches up the broad aisle in a stately manner, and 
 plants his hat and a big pair of buckskin mittens on the 
 little table under the desk. When he is fairly seated in 
 his corner of the pew, with his elbow upon the top 
 rail, — almost the only man who can comfortably reach 
 it, — you observe that he spreads his brawny fingers 
 oyer his scalp in an exceedingly cautious manner ; and 
 you innocently think again that it is very hypocritical in 
 a deacon to be pretending to lean upon his hand when 
 he is only keeping his wig straight. 
 
 After the morning service they have an " hour's in- 
 termission," as the preacher calls it ; during which the 
 old men gather on a sunny side of the building, and, 
 after shaking hands all around, and asking after the 
 ' folks " at home, they enjoy a quiet talk about the 
 crops. One man, for instance, with a twist in his nose. 
 
THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 83 
 
 would say, " It 's raether a growin' season ; " and an 
 other would reply, " Tolerable, but potatoes is feelin' 
 the wet badly." The stout deacon approves this opin 
 ion, and confirms it by blowing his nose very power- 
 fully. 
 
 Two or three of the more worldly-minded ones will 
 perhaps stroll over to a neighbor's barn-yard, and take 
 a' look at his young stock, and talk of prices, and whittle 
 a little ; and very likely some two of them will make a 
 conditional " swop " of " three likely ye'rlings " for a 
 pair of " two-year-olds." 
 
 The youngsters are fond of getting out into the grave- 
 yard, and comparing jackknives, or talking about the 
 schoolmaster or the menagerie, or, it may be, of some 
 prospective "travel" in the fall, — either to town, or 
 perhaps to the " sea-shore." 
 
 Afternoon service hangs heavily ; and the tall chor- 
 ister is by no means so blithe, or so majestic in the toss 
 of his head, as in the morning. A boy in the next box 
 cries to provoke you into familiarity by dropping pellets 
 of gingerbread through the bars of the pew ; but as you 
 are not accustomed to that way of making acquaint- 
 ance, you decline all overtures. 
 
 After the service is finished, the wagons, that have 
 been disposed on either side of the road, are drawn up 
 before the door. The old Squire meantime is sure to 
 Have a little chat with the parson before he leaves ; in 
 
84 JJREAM-LIFE. 
 
 Mie course of which the parson takes occasion to saj 
 that his wife is a little ailing, — "a slight touch," he 
 thinks, " of the rheumatiz." One of the children too 
 has been troubled with the " summer complaint " for a 
 day or two ; but he thinks that a dose of catnip, under 
 Providence, will effect a cure. The younger and un- 
 married men, with red wagons flaming upon bright 
 yellow wheels, make great efforts to drive off in the 
 van ; and they spin frightfully near some of the fat, 
 sour-faced women, who remark in a quiet, but not very 
 Christian tone, that they " fear the elder's sermon has 
 n't done the young bucks much good." It is much to 
 be feared in truth that it has not. 
 
 In ten minutes the old church is thoroughly de- 
 serted ; the neighbor who keeps the key has locked up 
 for another week the creaking door ; and nothing of 
 the service remains within except — Dr. Dwight's Ver- 
 sion, — the long music-books, — crumbs of gingerbread, 
 and refuse stalks of despoiled fennel. 
 
 And yet under the influence of that old, weather- 
 stained temple are perhaps growing up — though you 
 do not once fancy it — souls possessed of an energy, an 
 industry, and a respect for virtue, which will make them 
 stronger for the real work of life than all the elegan 
 children of a city. One lesson, which even the rudest 
 churches of New England teach, — with all their harsh- 
 ness, and all their repulsive severity of form, — is the 
 
THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 85 
 
 lesson of Self-Denial. Once armed with that, and man 
 hood is strong. The soul that possesses the conscious- 
 ness of mastering passion, is endowed with an element 
 of force that can never harmonize with defeat. Diffi- 
 culties it wears like a summer garment, and flings away 
 at the first approach of the winter of Need. 
 
 Let not any one suppose, then, that in this detail of 
 the country life through which our hero is led, I would 
 cast obloquy or a sneer upon its simplicity, or upon its 
 lack of refinement. Goodness and strength in this 
 world are quite as apt to wear rough coats as fine ones. 
 And the words of thorough and self-sacrificing kindness 
 are far more often dressed in the uncouth sounds of 
 retired life than in the polished utterance of the town. 
 Heaven has not made warm hearts and honest hearts 
 distinguishable by the quality of the covering. True 
 diamonds need no work of the artificer to reflect and- 
 multiply their rays. Goodness is more within than 
 without ; and purity is of nearer kin to the soul than to 
 the body. 
 
 And, Clarence, it may well happen that later in 
 
 life — under the gorgeous ceilings of Venetian churches, 
 or at some splendid mass in Notre Dame, with embroid- 
 ered coats and costly silks around you — your thoughts 
 will lun back to that little storm-beaten church, and to 
 the willow waving in its yard, with a Hope that glows, 
 and with a tear that you embalm ! 
 
vin. 
 
 A Some Scene. 
 
 A ND now I shall not leave this realm of boyhood, 
 •^^ or suffer my hero to slip away from this gala- 
 time of his life, without a fair look at that Home where 
 his present pleasures lie, and where all his dreams begin 
 aiid end. 
 
 Little does the boy know, as the tide of years drifts 
 by, floating him out insensibly from the harbor of his 
 home upon the great sea . of life, — what joys, what 
 opportunities, what affections, are slipping from him 
 into the shades of that inexorable Past, where no man 
 can go save on the wings of his dreams. Little does 
 he think — and God be praised that the thought does 
 not sink deep lines in his young forehead! — as he 
 leans upon the lap of his mother, with his eye turned to 
 her in some earnest pleading for a fancied pleasure of 
 the hour, or in some important story of his griefs, that 
 ,3uch sharing- of his sorrows, and such sympathy with 
 his wishes, he will find nowhere again. 
 
 Little does he imagine that the fond Nelly, ever 
 thoughtful of his pleasure, ever smiling away his griefs, 
 
A HOME SCENE. 87 
 
 vpill soon be beyond the reach of either, and that the 
 waves of the years, which come rocking so gently under 
 him, will soon toss her far away upon the great swell 
 of life. 
 
 But now you are there. The firelight glimmers 
 upon the walls of your cherished home, like the Vestal 
 fire of old upon the figures of adoring virgins, or like 
 the flame of Hebrew sacrifice, whose incense bore 
 hearts to Heaven. The big chair of your father is 
 drawn to its wonted corner by the chimney-side ; his 
 head, just touched with gray, lies back upon its oaken 
 top. Little Nelly leans upon his knee, looking up for 
 some reply to her girlish questionings. Opposite sits 
 your mother : her figure is thin, her look cheerful, yet 
 subdued ; her arm perhaps resting on your shoulder, as 
 she talks to you in tones of tender admonition of the 
 days that are to come. 
 
 The cat is purring on the hearth; the clock, that 
 ticked so plainly when Charlie died, is ticking on the 
 mantel still. The great table in the middle of the 
 room with its books and work waits only for the lighting 
 of the evening lamp, to see a return to its stores of 
 embroidery, and of story. 
 
 Upon a little stand under the mirror, which catches 
 now and then a flicker of the firelight, and makes it 
 play wantonly over the ceiling, lies that big book rev- 
 erenced of your New-England parents, — the Family 
 
88 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 Bible. It is a ponderous square volume, with heavj, 
 silver clasps that you have often pressed open for a 
 look at its quaint old pictures, or for a study of those 
 prettDy bordered pages which lie between the Testa- 
 ments, and which hold the Family Record. 
 
 There are the Births, — your father's, and your moth- 
 er's ; it seems as if they were born a long time ago ; 
 and even your own date of birth appears an almost 
 incredible distance back. Then there are the mar- 
 riages, — only one as yet ; and your mother's maiden 
 name looks oddly to you : it is hard to think of her as 
 any one else than your doting parent. You wonder if 
 your name will ever come under that paging ; and won- 
 der, though you scarce whisper the wonder to yourself, 
 how another name would look, just below yours, — such 
 a name, for instance, as Fanny, or as Miss Margaret 
 Boyne ! 
 
 Last of all come the Deaths, — only one. Poor 
 Charlie ! How it looks ? — « Died 12 September 18— 
 Charles Henry, aged four years." You know just how 
 it looks. You have turned to it often ; there you seem 
 to be joined to him, though only by the turning of a 
 leaf. And over your thoughts, as you look at that page 
 of the record, there sometimes wanders a vague shad- 
 owy fear, which will come, — that your own name may 
 soon be there. You try to drop the notion, as if it were 
 not fairly your own ; you aifect to slight it, as you would 
 
A HOME SCENE. H9 
 
 slight a boy who presumed on your acquaintance, but 
 whom you have no desire to know. It is a common 
 thing, you will find, with our world to decline familiarity 
 with those ideas that fright us. 
 
 Yet your mother — how strange it is ! — has no fears 
 of such dark fancies. Even now as you stand beside 
 her, and as the twilight deepens in the room, her low, 
 silvery voice is stealing upon your ear, telling you that 
 she cannot be long with you ; that the time is coming 
 when you must be guided by your own judgment, and 
 struggle with the world unaided by the friends of your 
 boyhood. There is a little pride, and a great deal more 
 of anxiety, in your thoughts now, as you look stead- 
 fastly into the home blaze, while those delicate fingers, 
 so tender of your happiness, play with the .locks upon 
 your brow. 
 
 To struggle with the world, — that is a proud 
 
 thing ; to struggle alone, — there lies the doubt ! Then 
 crowds in swift upon the calm of boyhood the first 
 anxious thought of youth ; then chases over the sky of 
 Spring the first heated and wrathful cloud of Summer 
 
 But the lamps are now lit in the little parlor, and 
 they shed a soft haze to the farthest corner of the 
 room ; while the firelight streams over the floor, where 
 puss lies purring. Little Madge is there ; she has 
 dropped in softly with her mother, and Nelly has wel- 
 comed her with .a bound and with a kiss. Jenny has 
 
90 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 not so vosy a cheek as Madge. But Jenny with her 
 love-notes, and her languishing dark eye, you think of 
 as a lady ; and the thought of her is a constant drain 
 upon your sentiment. As for Madge, — that girl Madge, 
 whom you know so well, — you think of her as a sis- 
 ter; "and yet — it is very odd — you look at her far 
 oflener than you do at Nelly ! 
 
 Frank too has come in to have a game with you at 
 draughts ; and he is in capital " spirits, all brisk and 
 glowing with his evening's walk. He — bless his hon- 
 est heart ! — never observes that you arrange the board 
 very adroitly, so that you may keep half an eye upon 
 Madge, as she sits yonder beside Nelly. Nor does he 
 once notice your blush as you catch her eye when she 
 raises her head to fling back the ringlets, and then 
 with a sly look at you bends a most earnest gaze upon 
 the board, as if she were especially interested in the 
 disposition of the men. 
 
 ' You catch a little of the spirit of coquetry yourself, — 
 (what a native growth it is !) — and if she lift her eyes 
 when you are gazing at her, you very suddenly divert 
 your look to the cat at her feet, and remark to your 
 friend Frank in an easy off-hand way — how still the 
 cat is lying ! / 
 
 And Frank turns — thinking probably, if he thinks 
 at all about it, that cats are very apt to lie still when 
 they sleep. 
 
A HOME SCENE. 91 
 
 As for Nelly, half neglected by your thought as wel\ 
 as by your eye, while mischievous-looking Madge is sit 
 ting by her, you little know as yet what kindness, what 
 gentleness, you are careless of. Few loves in life, and 
 you will learn it before life is done, can balance the 
 lost love of a sister. 
 
 As for your parents, in the intervals of the game you 
 listen dreamily to their talk with the mother of Madge, 
 — good Mrs. Boyne. It floats over your mind, as you 
 rest your chin upon your clenched hand, like a strain 
 of old familiar music, — a household strain that seems 
 to belong to the habit of your ear, — a strain that will 
 linger about it melodiously for many years to come, — 
 a strain that will be recalled long time hence, when life 
 is earnest, and its cares heavy, with tears of regret and 
 with sighs of bitterness. 
 
 By-and-by your game is done ; and other games, in 
 which join Nelly (the tears come when you write her 
 name now/) and Madge, (the smiles come when you 
 look on her then,) stretch out that sweet eventide of 
 Home, until the lamp flickers, and you speak your 
 friends — adieu. To Madge, it is said boldly, — a bold- 
 ness put on to conceal a little lurking tremor ; but there 
 is no tremor in the home good-night. 
 
 Aye, my boy, kiss your mother, — kiss her 
 
 again ; fondle your sweet Nelly ; pass your little hand 
 through the gray locks of your father; love then' 
 
i)2 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 dearly while you can ! Make your good-nights linger 
 and make youi- adieus long, and sweet, and often re- 
 peated. Love with your whole soul, — Father, Mother, 
 and Sister, — for these loves shall die ! 
 
 Not indeed in thought, — God be thanked ! 
 
 Nor yet in tears, — for He is merciful ! But they shall 
 die, as the leaves die, — die, as Spring dies into the 
 heat and ripeness of Summer, and as boyhood dies 
 into the elasticity and ambition of youth. Death, Dis- 
 tance, and Time shall each one of them dig graves for 
 your aifections ; but this you do- not know, nor can 
 know, until the story of your life is ended. 
 
 The dreams of riches, of love, of voyage, of learning, 
 that light up the boy age with splendor, will pass on 
 and over into the hotter dreams of youth. Spring buds 
 and blossoms, under the glowing sun of April, nurture 
 at their heart those firstlings of fruit which the heat 
 of summer shall ripen. 
 
 You little know — and for this you may well thank 
 Heaven — that you are leaving the Spring of life, and 
 that you are floating fast from the shady sources of 
 your years into heat, bustle, and storm. Your dreams 
 are now faint, flickering shadows, that play like fire-flies 
 in the coppices of leafy June. They have no rule but 
 the rule of infantile desire j they have no joys to 
 promise greater than the joys that belong to your pass- 
 hig life ; they have no terrors but such terrors as the 
 
A HOME SCENE. 93 
 
 darkness of a Spring night makes. They do not take 
 hold on your soul as the dreams of youth and manhood 
 will do. 
 
 Your highest hope is shadowed in a cheerful, boyish 
 home. You wish no friends but the friends of boy- 
 hood ; no sister but your fond Nelly ; none to love bet- 
 ter than the playful Madge. 
 
 You forget, Clarence, that the Spring with you is 
 the Spring with them, and that the storms of Summer 
 may chase wide shadows over your path and over 
 theirs. And you forget that Summer is even now 
 lowering with its mist, and with its scorching rays, 
 upon the hem of your flowery May ! 
 
 The hands of the old clock upon the mantel, 
 
 that ticked off the hours when Charlie sighed and 
 when Charlie ' died, draw on toward midnight. The 
 shadows that the fire-flame makes grow dimmer and 
 dimmer. And thus it is that Home, boy home, passes 
 away forever, — like the swaying of a pendulum, — like 
 the fading of a shadow on the floor ! 
 
DREAMS OF YOUTH. 
 
 Summer. 
 
 T FEEL a great deal of pity for those honest but 
 -*- misguided people who call their little, spruce sub- 
 urban towns, OT the shaded streets pf their inland cities, 
 — the country and I have still more pity for those 
 who reckon a season at the summer resorts — country 
 enjoyment. Nay, my feeling is more violent than pity ; 
 and I count it nothing less than blasphemy so to take 
 the name of the country in vain. 
 
 I thank Heaven every summer's day of my life, that 
 my lot was humbly cast within the hearing of romping 
 brooks, and beneath the shadow of oaks. And from 
 all the tramp and bustle of the world into which for- 
 tune has led me in these latter years of my life, I de- 
 light to steal away for days, and for weeks together, 
 and bathe my spirit in the freedom of the old woods ; 
 and to grow young again, lying upon the brook-side, 
 and counting the white clouds that sail along the sky 
 softly and tranquilly — even as holy memories go steal- 
 ing over the vault of life. 
 
 6 
 
98 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 I am deeply thankful that I could never find it in 
 my heart so to pervert truth as to call the smart vil- 
 lages with the tricksy shadow of their maple avenues 
 
 — the Country. 
 
 I love these in their way, and can recall pleasant 
 passages of thought, as I have idled through the Sab- 
 bath-looking towns, or lounged at the inn-door of some 
 quiet New-England village. But I love far better to 
 leave them behind me, and to dash boldly out to where 
 some out -lying farm-house sits — like a sentinel — 
 under the shelter of wooded hills, or nestles in the lap 
 of a noiseless valley. 
 
 In the town, small as it may be, and darkened as it 
 may be with the shadows of trees, you cannot forget 
 
 — men. Their voice, and strife, and ambition come to 
 your eye in the painted paling, in the swinging sign- 
 board of the tavern, and — worst of all — in the trim- 
 printed "Attorney at Law." Even the little milli- 
 ner's shop, with its meagre show of leghorns, and its 
 string across the window all hung with tabs and with 
 cloth roses, is a sad epitome of. the great and conven- 
 tional life of a city neighborhood. 
 
 I like to be rid of them all, as I am rid of them this 
 midsummer's day. I like to steep my soul in a sea of 
 quiet, with nothing floating past me, as I lie moored 
 to my thought, but the perfume of flowers, and soaring 
 Wrds, and shadows of clouds. 
 
SUMMER. 99 
 
 Two days since I was sweltering in the heat of the 
 City, jostled by the thousand eager workers, and pant- 
 ing under the shadow of the walls. But I have stolen 
 away; and for two hours of healthful regrowth into 
 the darling Past I have been lying this blessed sum- 
 mer's morning upon the grassy bank of a stream that 
 babbled me to sleep in boyhood. — Dear old stream, 
 unchanging, unfaltering, — with no harsher notes now 
 than then, — never growing old, — smiling in your sil- 
 ver rustle, and calming yourself in the broad, placid 
 pools, — I love you as I love a friend ! 
 
 But now that the sim has grown scalding hot, and 
 the waves of heat have come rocking under the shadow 
 of the meadow-oaks, I have sought shelter in a cham- 
 ber of the old farm-house. The window-blinds are 
 • closed ; but some of them are sadly shattered, and I 
 have intertwined in them a few branches of the late- 
 blossoming white azalia, so that every puff of the sum- 
 mer air comes to me cooled with fragrance. A dimple 
 or two of the sunlight still steals through my flowery 
 screen, and dances (as the breeze moves the branches) 
 upon the oaken floor of the farm-house. 
 
 Through one little gap indeed I can see the broad 
 stretch of meadow, and the workmen in the field bend- 
 ing and swaying to their scythes. I can see to(j the 
 glistening of the steel, as they wipe their blades, and 
 can just catch floating on the air the measured, tinkling 
 thwack of the rifle-stroke. 
 
100 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 Here and there a lark, scared from his feeding-place 
 in the grass, soars up, bubbling forth his melody in 
 globules of silvery sound, and settles upon some tall 
 tree, and waves his wings, and sinks to the swaying 
 twigs. I hear too a quail piping from the meadow 
 fence, and another trilling his answering whistle from 
 the hills. Nearer by, a tyrant king-bird is poised on 
 the topmost branch of a veteran pear-tree, and now 
 and then dashes down, assassin-like, upon some home- 
 bound, honey-laden bee, and then with a smack of his 
 bill resumes his predatory watch. 
 
 A chicken or two lie in the sun, with a wing and a 
 leg stretched out, — lazily picking at the gravel, or 
 relieving their ennui from time to time with a spas- 
 modic rustle of their feathers. An old, matronly hen 
 stalks about the yard with a sedate step, and with quiet 
 self-assurance she utters an occasional series of hoarse 
 and heated clucks. A speckled turkey, with an aston- 
 ished brood at her heels, is eying curiously, and with 
 earnest variations of the head, a full-fed cat, that lies 
 iurled up, and dozing, upon the floor of the cottage 
 porch. 
 
 As I sit thus, watching through the interstices of my 
 leafy screen the various images of country life, I hear 
 distant mutterings from beyond the hills. 
 
 The sun has thrown its shadow upon the pewter dial 
 two hours bevond the meridian line. Great cream 
 
SUMMER. 101 
 
 solored heads of thunder-clouds are lifting above the 
 sharp, clear line of the western horizon ; the light 
 breeze dies away, and the air becomes stifling, even 
 under the shadow of my withered boughs in the cham- 
 ber-window. The white-capped clouds roll up nearer 
 and nearer to the sun, and the creamy masses below 
 grow dark in their seams. The mutterings, that came 
 faintly before, now spread into wide volumes of rolling 
 sound, that echo again and again from the eastward 
 heights. 
 
 I hear in the deep intervals the men shouting to 
 their teams in the meadows ; and great companies of 
 startled swallows are dashing in all directions around 
 the gray roofs of the barn. 
 
 The clouds have now wellnigh reached the sun, 
 which seems to shine the fiercer for his coming eclipse. 
 The whole west, as I look from the sources of the brook 
 to its lazy drift under the swamps that lie to the south, 
 is hung with a curtain of darkness ; arid like swift-work- 
 ing, golden ropes, that lift it toward the zenith, long 
 chains of lightning flash through it ; and the growing 
 thunder seems like the rumble of the pulleys. 
 
 I thrust away my azalia-boughs, and fling back the 
 shattered blinds, as the sun and the clouds meet, and 
 my room darkens with the coming shadows. For an 
 instant the edges of the thick, creamy rnasses of cloud 
 are gilded by the shrouded sun, and show gorgeous 
 
102 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 scallops of gold, that toss upon the hem of the storm. 
 But the blazonry fades as the clouds mount ; and the 
 brightening lines of the lightnmg dart up from the 
 lower skirts, and heave the billowy masses into the 
 middle heaven. 
 
 The workmen are urging their oxen fast across 
 the meadow, and the loiterers come straggling after 
 with rakes upon their shoulders. The matronly hen 
 has retreated to the stable-door ; and the brood of 
 turkeys stand dressing their feathers under the. open 
 shed. 
 
 The air freshens, and blows now from the face of the 
 coming clouds. I see the great elms in the plain sway- 
 ing their tops, even before the storm-breeze has reached 
 me ; and a bit of ripened grain upon a swell of the 
 meadow waves and tosses like a billowy sea. 
 
 Presently I hear the rush of the wind; and the 
 cherry- and pear-trees rustle through all their leaves ; 
 and my paper is wTiisked away by the intruding blast. 
 
 There is a quiet of a moment, in which the wind 
 even seems weary and faint, and nothing finds utter- 
 ance save one hoarse tree - toad, doling out his lugu- 
 brious notes. 
 
 Now comes a blinding flash from the clouds, and a 
 quick, sharp clang clatters through the heavens, and 
 bellows loud and long among the hills. Then — like 
 great grief spending its pent agony in tears — come the 
 
SUMMER. 103 
 
 big drops of rain, — pattering on the lawn and on the 
 leaves, and most musically of all upon the roof above 
 me, — not now with the light fall of the Spring shower, 
 but with strong steppings, like the first proud tread 
 of Youth I 
 
Cloister Life. 
 
 T T has very likely occurred to you, my reader, that I 
 -■- am playing the wanton in these sketches, and am 
 breaking through all the canons of the writers in mak- 
 ing You my hero. 
 
 It is even so ; for my work is a story of those vague 
 feelings, doubts, passions, which belong more or less to 
 every man of us all ; and therefore it is that I lay upon 
 your shoulders the burden of these dreams. If this or 
 that one never belonged to your experience, have pa- 
 tience for a while. I feel sure that others are coming 
 which will lie like a truth upon your heart, and draw 
 you unwittingly — perhaps tearfully even — into the 
 belief .that You are indeed my hero. 
 
 The scene now changes to the cloister of a college ; 
 not the gray, classic cloisters which lie along the banks 
 of the Cam or the Isis, — huge, battered hulks, on 
 whose weather-stained decks great captains of learning 
 have fought away their lives, — nor yet the cavernous, 
 quadrangular courts that sleep under the dingy walls of 
 the Sorbonne. 
 
CLOISTER LIFE. 105 
 
 The youth-dreams of Clarence begin under the roof 
 of one of those long, ungainly piles of brick and mor- 
 tar which make the colleges of New England. 
 
 The floor of the room is rough, and divided by wide 
 seams. The study-table does not stand firmly without 
 a few spare pennies to prop it into solid footing. The 
 bookcase of stained fir -wood, suspended against the 
 wall by cords, is meagrely stocked witn a couple of 
 Lexicons, a pair of Grammars, a Euclid, a Xenophon, a 
 Homer, and a Livy. Beside these are scattered about 
 here and there a thumb- worn copy of British ballads, 
 an odd volume of the " Sketch-Book," a clumsy Shaks- 
 peare, and a pocket edition of the Bible. 
 
 With such appliances, added to the half-score of pro- 
 fessors and tutors who preside over the awful precincts, 
 you are to work your way up to that proud entrance 
 upon our American life which begins with the Bacca- 
 laureate degree. There is a tingling sensation in first 
 walking under the shadow of those walls, uncouth as 
 they are, and in feeling that you belong to them, — that 
 you are a member, as it were, of the body-corporate, 
 subject to an actual code of printed laws, and to actual 
 moneyed fines varying from a shilling to fifty cents ! 
 
 There is something exhilarating in the very con- 
 sciousness of your subject state, and in the necessity of 
 measuring your hours by the habit of such a learned 
 sommunity. You think back upon your respect for the 
 5* 
 
106 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 lank figure of some old teacher of boy-days as a child- 
 ish weakness ; even the little coteries of the home fire- 
 side lose their importance when compared with the ex- 
 traordinary sweep and dignity of your present position. 
 
 It is pleasant to measure yourself with men ; and 
 there are those about you who seem to your untaught 
 eye to be men already. Your chum, a hard-faced fel- 
 low of ten more years than you, digging sturdily at his 
 tasks, seems by that very conimimity of work to dignify 
 your labor. You watch his cold, gray eye bending down 
 over some theorem of Euclid, with a kind of proud 
 companionship in what so tasks his manliness. 
 
 It is nothing for him to quit sleep at the first tinkling 
 of the alarm-clock that hangs in your chamber, or to 
 brave the weather in that cheerless run to the morning 
 prayers of winter. Yet with what a dreamy horror you 
 wake on mornings of snow to that tinkling alarum ! — 
 and glide in the cold and darkness under the shadow 
 of the college-walls, shuddering under the sharp gusts 
 that come sweeping between the buildings, — and af- 
 terward, gathering yourself up in your cloak, watch in 
 a sleepy, listless maze the flickering lamps that hang 
 around the dreary chapel ! You follow half uncon- 
 sciously some tutor's rhetorical reading of a chapter of 
 Isaiah ; and then, as he closes the Bible with a flourish, 
 your eye, half open, catches the feeble figure of the old 
 Dominie as he steps to the desk, and, with his frail 
 
CLOISTER LIFE. 107 
 
 hands stretched out upon the cover of the big book, 
 and his head leaning slightly to one side, runs through 
 in gentle and tremulous tones his wonted form of invo- 
 cation. 
 
 Your Division room is steaming with foul heat, and 
 there is a strong smell of burnt feathers and oil. A 
 jaunty tutor with pug nose and consequential air steps 
 into the room — while you all rise to show him def- 
 erence — and takes his place at the pulpit-like desk. 
 Then come the formal loosing of his camlet cloak-clasp, 
 — the opening of his sweaty Xenophon to where the 
 day's parasangs begin, — the unsliding of his silver 
 pencil-case, — the keen, sour look around the benches, 
 and the cool pinch of his thumb and forefinger into the 
 fearful box of names ! 
 
 How you listen for each as it is uttered, — running 
 down the page in advance, — rejoicing when some hard 
 passage comes to a stout man in the corner ; and what 
 a sigh of relief — on mornings after you have been out 
 late at night — when the last paragraph is reached, the 
 ballot drawn, and — you, safe ! 
 
 You speculate dreamily upon the faces around you. 
 You wonder what sort of schooling they may have had, 
 and what sort of homes. You think one man has got 
 an extraordinary name, and another a still more ex- 
 traordinary nose. The glib, easy way of one student, 
 ind his perfect sang-froid, completely charm you : you 
 
108 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 set him down in your own mind as a kind of Crichton, 
 Another weazen-faced, pinched-up fellow in a scant 
 cloak, you think must have been sometime a school- 
 master : he is so very precise, and wears such an in- 
 describable look of the ferule. There is one big student, 
 with a huge beard and a rollicking good-natured eye, 
 whohi you would quite like to see measure strength 
 with your old usher, and on careful comparison rather 
 think the usher would get the worst of it. Another 
 appears as venerable as some fathers you have seen ; 
 and it seems wonderfully odd that a man old enough 
 to have children should recite Xenophon by morning 
 candle-light ! 
 
 The class in advance you study curiously ; and are 
 quite amazed at the precocity of certain youths belong- 
 ing to it, who are apparently about your own age. The 
 Juniors you look upon with a quiet reverence for their 
 aplomb and dignity of character; and look forward 
 with intense yearnings to the time when you too shall 
 be admitted freely to the precincts of the Philosophical 
 chamber, and to the very steep benches of the Labo- 
 ratory. This last seems, from occasional peeps through 
 the blinds, a most mysterious building. The chimneys, 
 recesses, vats, and cisterns — to say nothing of certain 
 galvanic communications, which, you are told, traverse 
 the whole building in a way capable of killing a rat 
 at an incredible remove from the bland professor — ■ 
 
CLOISTER LIFE. 109 
 
 Utterly fatigue your wonder ! Tou humbly trust — ■ 
 though you have doubts upon the point — that you will 
 have the capacity to grasp it all, when once you shall 
 have arrived at the dignity of a Junior. 
 
 As for the Seniors, your admiration for them is en- 
 tirely boundless. In one or two individual instances, 
 it is true, it has been broken down by an unfortunate 
 squabble with thick-set fellows in the Chapel aisle. A 
 person who sits not far before you at prayers, and whose 
 name you seek out very early, bears a strong resem- 
 blance to some portrait of Dr. Johnson ; you have very 
 much the same kind of respect for him that you feel 
 for the great lexicographer, and do not for a moment 
 doubt his capacity to compile a dictionary equal, if not 
 superior, to Johnson's. 
 
 Another man with very bushy, black hair, and an 
 easy look of importance, carries a large cane, and is 
 represented to you as an astonishing scholar and speaker. 
 You do not doubt it ; his very air proclaims it. Tou 
 think of him as presently — (say four or five years 
 hence) — astounding the United States Senate with his 
 eloquence. And when once you have heard him in 
 debate, with that ineffable gesture of his, you absolutely 
 languish in your admiration for him, and you describe 
 his speaking to your country friends as very little in- 
 ferior, if at all, to Mr. Burke's. Beside this one are 
 some half dozen others, among whom the question 
 
ilO DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 of superiority ii., you understand, strongly mooted. 
 It puzzles you to think, what an avalanche of talent 
 will fall upon the country at the graduation of those 
 Seniors ! 
 
 You will find however that the country bears such 
 inundations of college talent with a remarkable degree 
 of equanimity. It is quite wonderful how all the 
 Burkes, and Scotts, and Peels, among college Seniors, 
 do quietly disappear, as a man gets on in life. 
 
 As for any degree of fellowship with such giants, it 
 is an honor hardly to be thought of But you have 
 a classmate — I will call him Dalton — who is very 
 intimate with a dashing Senior ; they room near each 
 other outside the college. You quite envy Dalton, and 
 you come- to know him well. He says that you are not 
 a " green-one," — that you have " cut your eye-teeth " ; 
 in return for which complimentary opinions you enter- 
 tain a strong friendship for Dalton. 
 
 He is a " fast " fellow, as the Senior calls him ; and it 
 is a proud thing to happen at their rooms occasionally, 
 and to match yourself for an hour or two (with the 
 windows ' darkened) against a Senior at "old sledge." 
 It is quite " the thing," as Dalton says, to meet a Senior 
 familiarly in the street. Sometimes you go, after Dalton 
 has taught you "the ropes," to have a cosy sit-down over 
 oysters and champagne, . — to which the Senior lends 
 himself with the pleasantest condescension in the world 
 
CLOISTER LIFE. Ill 
 
 Ton are not altogether used to hard drinking ; but this 
 you conceal — as most spirited young fellows do — by 
 drinking a great deal. You have a dim recollection 
 of certain circumstances — very ufiimportant, yet very 
 vividly impressed on your mind — ■ which occurred on 
 one of these occasions. 
 
 The oysters were exceedingly fine, and the cham- 
 pagne exquisite. You have a recollection of some- 
 thing being said, toward the end of the first bottle, of 
 Xenophon, and of the Senior's saying in his playful 
 way, " Oh, d — n Xenophon ! " 
 
 You remember Dalton laughed at this ; and you 
 laughed — for company. You remember that you 
 thought, and Dalton thought, and the Senior thought, 
 by a singular coincidence, that the second bottle of 
 champagne was better even than the first. You have 
 a dim remembrance of the Senior's saying very loudly, 
 "Clarence — (calling you by yotir family name) — is 
 no spooney ; " and drinking a bumper with you in con- 
 firmation of the remark. 
 
 You remember that Dalton broke out into a song, 
 and that for a time you joined in the chorus ; you think 
 the Senior called you to order for repeating the chorus 
 in the wrong place. You think the lights burned with 
 remarkable brilliancy ; and you remember that a remark 
 of yours to that effect met with very much such a re- 
 sponse from tlie Senior as he had before employed with 
 "eference to Xenophon. 
 
112 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 You have a confused idea of calling Dalton — Xen. 
 ophon. You think the meeting broke up with a chonis, 
 and that somebody — you cannot tell who — broke two 
 or three glasses. You remember questioning yourself 
 very seriously as to whether you were, or were not, 
 tipsy. You think you decided that you were not, but — 
 might be. 
 
 You have a confused recollection of leaning upon 
 some one, or something, going to your room ; this sense 
 of a desire to lean, you think, was very strong. You 
 remember being horribly afflicted with the idea of hav- 
 ing tried your night-key at the tutor's door, instead of 
 your own ; you remember further a hot stove, — made 
 certain indeed by a large blister which appeared on 
 your hand next day. You think of throwing off your 
 clothes by one or two spasmodic efforts, — leaning in 
 the intervals against the bedpost. 
 
 There is a recollection of an uncommon dizziness 
 afterward, as if your body was very quiet, and your 
 head gyrating with strange velocity, and a kind of cen- 
 trifugal action, all about the room, and the college, and 
 indeed the whole town. You think that you felt uncon- 
 trollable nausea after this, followed by positive sickness, 
 — which waked your chum, who thought you very inco- 
 herent, and feared derangement. 
 
 A dismal state of lassitude follows, broken by the 
 sollege-clock striking three, and by very rambling re- 
 
CLOISTER LIFE. 113 
 
 flections upon champagne, Xenophon, " Captain Dick," 
 Madge, and the old deacon who clinched his wig in the 
 church. 
 
 The next morning (ah, how vexatious that all our 
 follies are followed by a " next morning ! ") you wake 
 with a parched mouth, and a torturing thirst ; the sun 
 is shining broadly into your reeking chamber. Prayers 
 and recitations are long ago over ; and you see through 
 the door in the outer room that hard-faced chum^ with 
 his Lexicon and Livy open before him, working out 
 with all the earnestness of his iron purpose the steady 
 steps toward preferment and success. 
 
 You go with some story of sudden sickness to the 
 tutor, — half fearful that the bloodshot, swollen eyes 
 will betray you. It is very mortifying too to meet Dal- 
 ton appearing so gay and lively after it all, while you 
 wear such an air of being " used up.'' You envy him 
 thoroughly the extraordinary capacity that he has. 
 
 Here and there creeps in, amid all the pride and 
 shame of the new life, a tender thought of the old 
 home ; but its joys are joys no longer : its highest aspi- 
 rations even have resolved themselves into fine mist, — 
 like rainbows that the sun drinks with his beams. / 
 
 The affection for a mother, whose kindness you recall 
 with a suffused eye, is not gone, or blighted ; but it is 
 ivoven up, as only a single adorning tissue, into the 
 growing pride of youth : it is cherished in the proud 
 
114 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 soul rather as a redeeming weakness than as a vital 
 energy. 
 
 And the love for Nelly, though it bates no jot of fer- 
 vor, is woven into the scale of growing purposes rather 
 as a color to adorn than as a strand to strengthen. 
 ^ As for your other loves, those romantic ones which 
 were kindled by bright eyes, and the stolen reading of 
 Miss Porter's novels, they linger on your mind like per- 
 fume| ; and they float down your memory — with the 
 figure, the step, the last words of those young girls who 
 raised them — like the types of some dimly shadowed 
 but deeper passion, which is some time to spur your 
 ipaturer purposes and to quicken your manly resolves. 
 
 It would be hard to tell, for you do not as yet know, 
 .but "that Madge herself — hoidenish, blue-eyed Madge 
 — is to be the very one who will gain such hold upon 
 your riper affections as she has held already over your 
 boyish caprice. It is a part of the pride — I may say 
 rather an evidence of the pride — which youth feels in 
 leaving boyhood behind him, to talk laughingly and 
 carelessly of those attachments which made his young 
 years so balmy with dreams. 
 
n. 
 
 First Atnbition. 
 
 T BELIEVE that sooner or later there come to everj 
 -*- man dreams of ambition.'' They may be covered 
 with the sloth^of habit, or with the pretence of humil- 
 ity ; they may come only in dim, shadowy visions, that 
 feed the eye like the glories of an ocean sunrise ; but 
 you may be sure that they will come : even before one 
 is aware, the bold, adventurous goddess, whose name 
 is Ambition, and whose dower is Fame, will be toying 
 with the feeble heart. And she pushes her ventures 
 with a bold hand ; she makes timidity strong, and weak- 
 ness valiant. 
 
 ^ The way of a man's heart will be foreshadowed by 
 what goodness lies in him, — coming from above, and 
 from around ; — but a way foreshadowed is not a way 
 made. And the making of a man's way comes only 
 from that quickening of resolve which we call Ambi- 
 tion. It is the spur that makes man struggle with Des- 
 tiny: it is Heaven's own incentive, to make Purpose 
 great, and Achievement greater.'' 
 
 It would be strange if you, in that cloister life of a 
 
116 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 college, did not sometimes feel a dawning of new resolves. 
 They grapple you indeed oftener than you dare to speak 
 of Here you dream first of that very sweet, but very 
 shadowy success called Reputation. 
 
 You think of the delight and astonishment it would 
 give your mother and father, and most of all little 
 Nelly, if you were winning such honors as now escape 
 you. You measure your capacities by those about you, 
 and watch their habit of study ; you gaze for a half- • 
 hour together upon some successful man who has won 
 his prizes, and wonder by what secret action he has 
 done it. And when in time you come to be a compet- 
 itor yourself, your anxiety is immense. 
 
 You spend hours upon hours at your theme. You 
 write and rewrite ; and when it is at length complete 
 and out of your hands, you are harassed by a thousand 
 doubts. At times, as you recall your hours of toil, you 
 question if so much has been spent upon any other ; 
 you feel almost certain of success. You repeat to your- 
 self some passages of special eloquence at night. You 
 fancy the admiration of the professors at meeting with 
 such a wonderful performance. You have a slight fear 
 that its superior goodness may awaken the suspicion 
 that some one out of the college some superior man, 
 may have written it. But this fear dies away. 
 
 The eventful' day is a great one in your calendar; 
 vou hardly sleep the night previous. You tremble as 
 
■FIRST AMBITION. 117 
 
 the chapel-bell is rung ; you profess to be very indif- 
 ferent, as the reading and the prayer close ; you even 
 stoop to take up your hat, as if you had entirely over- 
 looked the fact that the old President was in the desk 
 for the express purpose of declaring the successful 
 names. You listen dreamily to his tremulous, yet fear- 
 fully distinct enunciation. Your head swims strangely. 
 
 They all pass out with a harsh murmur along the 
 aisles and through the doorways. It would be well if 
 there were no disappointments in life more terrible 
 than this. It is consoling to express very depreciating 
 opinions of the Faculty in general, — and very con- 
 temptuous ones of that particular officer who decided 
 upon the merit of the prize-themes. An evening or 
 two at Dalton's room go still farther toward healing the 
 disappointment, and — if it must be said — towiird 
 moderating the heat of your ambition. 
 
 You grow up however, unfortunately, as the college 
 years fly by, into a very exaggerated sense of your own 
 capacities. Even the good, old, white-haired Sqiiiie, 
 for whom you once entertained so much respect, seems 
 to your crazy, classic fancy a very humdrum sort of 
 personage. Frank, although as noble a fellow as ever 
 sat a horse, is yet — you cannot help thinking — very 
 /gnorant of Euripides ; even the English master at Dr. 
 Bidlow's school, you feel sure, would b^k at a dozen 
 problems you could give him. 
 
118 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 Tou get an exalted idea of that uncertain quality 
 which turns the heads of a vast many of your fellows, 
 called — Genius. An odd notion seems to be inherent 
 in the atmosphere of those college chambers, that there 
 is a certain faculty of mind — first developed, as would 
 seem, in colleges — which accomplishes whatever it 
 chooses without any special painstaking. For a time 
 you fall yourself into this very unfortunate haLucina 
 tion ; you cultivate it after the usual college fashion, by 
 drinking a vast deal of strong coffee and whiskey-toddy, 
 by writing a little poor verse in the Byronic temper, 
 and by studying very late at night with closed blinds. 
 
 It costs you however more anxiety and' hypocrisy 
 than you could possibly have believed. 
 
 You will learn, Clarence, when the Autumn has 
 
 rounded your hopeful Summer, if not before, that there 
 is no Genius in life like the Genius of energy and 
 industry. You will learn, that all the traditions so cur- 
 rent among very young men that certain great charac- 
 ters have wrought their greatness by an inspiration, as 
 it were, grow out of a sad mistake. 
 ^ And you will further find, when you come to measure 
 yourself with m.en, that there are no rivals so forrai 
 dable as those earnest, determined minds which reckon 
 the value of every hour, and which achieve eminence 
 by persistent application. - 
 
 Literary ambition may inflame you at certain periods 
 
FIRST AMBITION. 119 
 
 and a thought of some great names will flash like a 
 spark into the mine of your purposes ; you dream till 
 midnight over books ; you set up shadows, and chase 
 them down, — other shadows, and they fly. ^Dreaming 
 will never catch them. Nothing makes the " scent lie 
 well " in the hunt after distinction, but labor. 
 
 And it is a glorious thing, when once you are weary 
 of the dissipation, and the ennui of your own aimless 
 thought, to take up some glowing page of an earnest 
 thinker, and read — deep and long, until you feel the 
 metal of his thought tinkling on your brain, and strik- 
 ing out from your flinty lethargy flashes of ideas that 
 give the mind light and heat. And away you go in the 
 chase of what the soul within is creating on the instant, 
 and you wonder at the fecundity of what seemed so 
 barren, and at the ripeness of what seemed so crude. 
 The glow of toil wakes you to the consciousness of 
 your real capacities : you feel sure that they have taken 
 a new step toward final development. In such mood 
 it is that one feels grateful to the musty tomes, which 
 at other hours stand like wonder - making mummies 
 with no warmth and no vitality. Now they grow into 
 the affections like new-found friends, and gain a hold 
 upon the heart, and light a fire in the brain, that tha 
 years and the mould cannot cover nor quench, " 
 
in. 
 
 College Boinance. 
 
 TN following the mental vagaries of youth, I must not 
 ■*- forget the curvetings and wiltings of the heart. 
 
 The black-eyed Jenny, with whom a correspondence 
 at red heat was kept up for several weeks, is long 
 before this entirely out of your regard, — not so much 
 by reason of the six months' disparity of age, as from 
 the fact, communicated quite confidentially by the trav- 
 elled Nat, that she has had a desperate flirtation with- 
 a handsome midshipman. The conclusion is natural 
 that she is an inconstant, cruel-hearted creature, with 
 little appreciation of real worth ; and furthermore, that 
 all midshipmen are a very contemptible — not to say 
 dangerous — set of men. She is consigned to forgetful- 
 ness and neglect ; and the late lover has long ago con- 
 soled himself by reading in a spirited way that passage 
 of Childe Harold commencing, — 
 
 " I have not loved the world, nor the world me." 
 
 As for Madge, the memory of her has been more 
 wakeful, but less violent. To say nothing of occasional 
 returns to the old homestead, when you have met her 
 
COLLEGE ROMANCE. 121 
 
 Nelly's letters not unfrequently drop a careless half- 
 sentence that keeps her strangely in mind. 
 
 " Madge," she says, " is sitting by me with her work ; " 
 or, '= You ought to see the little silk purse that Madge 
 is knitting ; " or, — speaking of some country rout, — • 
 " Madge was there in the sweetest dress you can im- 
 agine." All this will keep^ Madge in mind ; not, it is 
 true, in the ambitious moods, or in the frolics with Dal- 
 ton ; but in those odd half-hours that come stealing 
 over one at twilight, laden with sweet memories of the 
 days of old. 
 
 A new romantic admiration is started by those pale 
 lady-faces which light up on a Sunday the gallery of 
 the college chapel. An amiable and modest fancy gives 
 to Ihem all a sweet classic grace. The very atmos- 
 phere of these courts, wakened with high metaphysic 
 discourse, seems to lend them a Greek beauty and 
 fineness ; and you attach to the prettiest, that your 
 eye can reach, all the charms of some Sciote maiden, 
 and all the learning of her father — the professor. 
 And as you lie half-wakeful and half-dreaming, through 
 the long Divisions of the Doctor's morning discourse, 
 the twinkling eyes in some corner of the gallery bear 
 you pleasant company as you float down those stream- 
 ing visions which radiate from you' far over the track 
 of the coming life. 
 
 But following very closely upon this comes a whole 
 
 6 
 
122 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 volume of street romance. There are prettily shaped 
 figures that go floating at convenient hours for college 
 observation along the thoroughfares of the town. And 
 these figures come to be known, and the dresses, and 
 the streets; and even the door-plate is studied. The 
 hours are ascertained, by careful observation and induc- 
 tion, at which some particular figure is to be met, — or 
 is to be seen at some low parlor-window, in white sum- 
 mer dress, with head leaning on the hand, very mel- 
 ancholy, and very dangerous. Perhaps her very card 
 is stuck proudly into a corner of the mirror in the col- 
 lege-chamber. After this may come moonlight meet- 
 ings at the gate, or long listenings to the plaintive 
 lyrics that steal out of the parlor-windows, and that 
 blur wofuUy the text of the Conic Sections. 
 
 Or perhaps she is under the fierce eye of some Cer- 
 berus of a schoolmistress, about whose grounds you 
 prowl piteously, searching for small knot-holes in the 
 surrounding board fence, through which little souveniri 
 of impassioned feeling may be thrust. Sonnets are writ- 
 ten for the town papers, full of telling phrases, and with 
 classic allusions and foot-notes which draw attention to 
 some similar felicity of expression in Horace or Ovid. 
 Correspondence may even be ventured on, enclosing 
 locks of hair, and interchanging rings, and paper oaths 
 of eternal fidelity. 
 But the old Cerberus is very wakeful : the letters fail ; 
 
COLLEGE ROMANCE. 12S 
 
 the lamp that used to glimmer for a sign among the 
 sycamores is gone out ; a stolen wave of a handkerchief, 
 a despairing look, and tears, — which you fancy, but dc 
 not see, — make you miserable for long days. 
 
 The tyrant teacher, with no trace of compassion in 
 her withered heart, reports you to the college authori- 
 ties. There is a long lecture of admonition upon the 
 folly of such dangerous practices ; and if the offence be 
 aggravated by some recent joviality with Dalton and 
 the Senior, you are condemned to a month of exile with 
 a country clergyman. There are a few tearful regrets 
 over the painful tone of the home letters ; but the brac- 
 ing country air, and the pretty faces of the village girls, 
 heal your heart — with fresh wounds. 
 
 The old Doctor sees dimly through iiis spectacles ; 
 and his pew gives a geod look-out upon the smiling 
 choir of singers. A collegian wears the honors of a 
 stranger, and the country bucks stand but poor chance 
 in contrast with your wonderful attainments in cravats 
 and verses. But this fresh dreanv odorous with its 
 memories of sleigh-rides or lilac-blossoms, slips by, and 
 yields again to the more ambitious dreams of the 
 cloister. 
 
 In the prouder moments that come when you are 
 more a man and less a boy, — with more of strategy and 
 [ess of faith, — your thought of woman runs loftily; not 
 .oftily in the realm of virtue or goodness, but loftily on 
 
124 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 your new world-scale. The pride of intellect, that is 
 thirsting in you, fashions ideal graces after a classic 
 model. The heroines of fable are admired ; and the 
 soul is tortured with .that intensity of passion whict 
 gleams through the broken utterances of Grecian 
 tragedy. 
 
 ■^ In the vanity of self-consciousness one feels at a long 
 remove above the ordinary love and trustfulness of t: 
 simple and pure heart. You turn away from all such 
 with a sigh of conceit, to graze on that lofty but bitter 
 pasturage where no daisies grow. Admiration may be 
 called up by some graceful figure that you see moving 
 under those sweeping elms ; and you follow it with an 
 intensity of look that makes you blush, and straightway 
 hide the memory of the blush by summing up some 
 artful sophistry, that resolves your delighted gaze into a 
 weakness, and your contempt into a virtue. 
 
 But this cannot last. As the years drop off, a certain 
 pair of eyes beam one day upon you that seem to have 
 been cut out of ^ page of Greek poetry. They have 
 all its sentiment, its fire, its intellectual reaches: it 
 would be hard to say what they have not. The pro- 
 fdc is a Greek profile, and the heavy chestnut hair is 
 plaited in Greek bands. The figure, too, might easily 
 be that of Helen, or of Andromache. 
 
 You gaze, ashamed to gaze; and your heart yearns, 
 ashamed of its yearning. It is no young girl who is 
 
COLLEGE ROMANCE. 125 
 
 thus testing jou : there is too much pride "for that A 
 ripeness und maturity rest upon her look and figure 
 that completely fill up that ideal which exaggerated 
 fancies have wrought out of the Grecian heaven. The 
 vision steals upon you at all hours, — now rounding its 
 flowing outline to the mellifluous metre of Epic hex- 
 ameter, and again with its bounding life pulsating with 
 the glorious dashes of tragic verse. 
 
 Yet with the exception of stolen glances and secret 
 admiration, you keep aloof There is no wish to fathom 
 what seems a happy mystery. There lies a content in 
 secret obeisance. Sometimes it shames you, as your 
 mind glows with its fancied dignity ; but the heart 
 thrusts in its voice ; and, yielding to it, you dream 
 dreams like fond old Boccaccio's upon the olive-shaded 
 slopes of Italy. The tongue even is not trusted with 
 the thoughts that are seething within : they begin and 
 end in the voiceless pulsations of your nature. 
 
 After a time — it seems a long time, but it is in truth 
 a very short time — you find who she is who is thus 
 entrancing you. It is done most carelessly. No creat- 
 ure could imagine that you felt any interest in the ac- 
 complished sister — of your friend Dalton. Yet it is 
 even she who has thus beguiled you; and she is at 
 'east some ten years Dalton's senior, and by even more 
 years — your own ! 
 
 It is singular enough, but it is true, that the af 
 
126 DREAM-LIFE. ' 
 
 feutions of that transition state from youth to manlinesa 
 run toward the types of maturity. i^The mind in its 
 reaches toward strength and completeness creates a 
 heart - sympathy — which in its turn craves fulness. • 
 There is a vanity too about the first steps of manly 
 education, which is disposed to underrate the innocence 
 and unripened judgment of the other sex. Men see 
 the mistake as they grow older ; for the judgment of a 
 woman, in all matters of the affections, ripens by ten 
 years faster than a man's. 
 
 In place of any relentings on such score you are set 
 on fire anew. The stories of her accomplishments, and 
 of her grace of conversation, absolutely drive you mad. 
 You watch your occasion for meeting her upon the 
 street. You wonder if she has any conception of your 
 capacity for mental labor, and if she has any adequate 
 i^ea of your admiration for Greek poetry, and for herself. 
 
 You tie your cravat poet-wise, and wear broad collars 
 turned down, wondering how such disposition may af- 
 fect her. Her figure and step become a kind of mov- 
 ing romance to you, drifting forward and outward into 
 that great land of dreams which you call the world. 
 When you see her walking with others, you pity her, 
 and feel perfectly sure, that, if she had only a hint of 
 that intellectual fervor which in your own mind blazes 
 up at the very thought of her, she would perfectly scorn 
 the stout gentleman who spends his force in tawdry 
 
 -> --4 r* > Tjl "T» "3 "n to 
 
COLLEGE ROMANCE. 127 
 
 A visit to your home wakens ardor by contrast aa 
 much as by absence. Madge, so gentle, and now steal 
 ing sly looks at you in a way so different from her hoi 
 denish manner of school-days, you regard complacently 
 as a most lovable, fond girl, — the very one for some 
 fond and amiable young man whose soul is not filled, as 
 yours is, with higher things ! To Nelly, earnestly lis- 
 tening, you drop only exaggerated hints of the won- 
 derful beauty and dignity of this new being of your 
 fancy. Of her age you scrupulously say nothing. 
 
 The trivialities of Dalton amaze you : it is hard to 
 understand how a man within the limit of such influ- 
 ences as Miss Dalton must inevitably exert, can tamely 
 sit down to a rubber of whist, and cigars ! There must 
 be a sad lack of congeniality ; — it would certainly be a 
 proud thing to supply that lack ! 
 
 The new feeling, wild and vague as it is, — for as yet 
 you have only most casual acquaintance with Laura 
 Dalton, — invests the whole habit of your study; not 
 quickening overmuch the relish for Dugald Stewart, or 
 the miserable skeleton of college Logic, but spending 
 a sweet charm upon the graces of Rhetoric and the 
 music of Classic Verse. It blends harmoniously with 
 your quickened ambition. There is some last appear- 
 Since that you have to make upon the college stage, in 
 the presence of the great worthies of the State, and of 
 all the beauties of the town, — Laura chiefest among 
 
128 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 them. In view of it you feel dismally intellectual 
 Prodigious faculties are to be brought to the task. 
 
 You think of throwing out ideas that will quite startle 
 His Excellency the Governor, and those very distin- 
 guished public characters whom the college purveyors 
 vote into their periodic public sittings. You are quite 
 sure of surprising them, and of deeply provoking such 
 scheming, shallow politicians as have never read Way- 
 land's " Treatise," and who venture incautiously within 
 hearing of your remarks. You fancy yourself in ad- 
 vance the victim of a long leader in the next day's 
 paper, and the thoughtful but quiet cause of a great 
 change in the political programme of the State. But 
 crowning and eclipsing all the triumph, are those dark 
 eyes beaming on you from some corner of the church 
 their floods of unconscious praise and tenderness. 
 
 Your father and Nelly are there to greet you. He 
 has spoken a few calm, quiet words of encouragement, 
 that make you feel — very wrongfully — that he is a 
 cold man, with no earnestness of feeling. As for Nelly, 
 she clasps your arm with a fondness, and with a pride, 
 that tell at every step her praises and her love. 
 
 But even this, true and healthful as it is, fades before 
 a single word of commendation from the new arbitress 
 of your feeling. You have seen Miss Dalton ! You 
 have met her on that last evening of your cloistered 
 fife in all the elegance of ball-costume ; your eye has 
 
COLLEGE ROMANCE. 12S 
 
 feasted on her elegant figure, and upon her eye 
 sparkling with the consciousness of beauty. You have 
 talked with Miss Dalton about Byron, about Words- 
 worth, about Homer. You have quoted poetry to Miss 
 Dalton ; you have clasped Miss Dalton's hand ! 
 
 Her conversation delights you by its piquancy and 
 grace ; she is quite ready to meet you (a grave matter 
 of surprise !) upon whatever subject you may suggest. 
 You lapse easily and lovingly into the current of her 
 thought, and blush to find yourself vacantly admiring 
 when she is looking for reply. The regard you feel for 
 her resolves itself into an exquisite mental love, vastly 
 superior, as you think, to any other kind of love. 
 There is no dream of marriage as yet, but only of sit- 
 ting beside her in the moonlight during a countless 
 succession of hours, and talking of poetry and nature, 
 of destiny and love. 
 
 Magnificent Miss Dalton ! 
 
 And all the while vaunting youth is almost 
 
 mindless of the presence of that fond Nelly whose 
 warm sisterly affection measures itself hopefully against 
 the proud associations of your growing years, — and 
 whose deep, loving eye, half suffused with its native 
 tenderness, seems longing to win you back to the old 
 joys of that Home-love, which linger on the distant 
 Aorizon of your boyhood like the golden glories of a 
 siriking day. 
 
 6* 
 
130 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 As the night wanes, you wander for a last look to- 
 ward the dingy walls that have made for you so long a 
 home. The old broken expectancies, the days of glee, 
 the triumphs, the rivalries, the defeats, the friendships, 
 are recalled with a fluttering of the heart that pride 
 cannot wholly subdue. You step upon the chapel- 
 porch in the quiet of the night as you would step on 
 the graves of friends. You pace back and forth in the 
 wan moonlight, dreaming of that dim life which opens 
 wide and long from the morrow. The width and length 
 oppress you : they crush down your struggling self-con- 
 sciousness like Titans dealing with Pygmies. A single 
 piercing thought of the vast and shadowy future, which 
 is so near, tears off on the instant all the gewgaws of 
 pride, strips away the vanity that doubles your bigness, 
 and forces you down to the bare nakedness of what you 
 truly are ! 
 
 "With one more yearning look at the gray hulks of 
 building, you loiter away under the trees. The monster 
 elms, which have bowered your proud steps through 
 four years of proudest life, lift up to the night their 
 rounded canopy of leaves with a quiet majesty that 
 mocks you. They kiss the same calm sky which they 
 wooed four years ago ; and they droop their trailing 
 limbs lovingly to the same earth, which has steadily 
 and quietly wrought in them their stature and their 
 strength. Only here and there you catch the' loitering 
 
COLLEGE ROMANCE. 131 
 
 footfall of some other benighted dreamer, strolling 
 around the vast quadrangle of level green, which lies, 
 like a prairie-child, under the edging shadows of the 
 town. The lights glimmer one by one ; and one by 
 one, like breaking hopes, they fade away from the 
 houses. The full-risen moon, that dapples the ground 
 beneath the trees, touches the tall church-spires with 
 silver, and slants their loftiness — as memory slants 
 grief — in long, dark, tapering lines upon the silvered 
 Green. 
 
IV. 
 
 First Look at the World. 
 
 /^UR Clarence is now fairly afloat upon the swift 
 ^^ tide of Youth. The thrall of teachers is ended, 
 and the audacity of self-resolve is begun. It is not a 
 little odd, that, when we have least strength to combat 
 the world, we have the highest confidence in our 
 ability. 
 
 Very few individuals in the world possess that happy 
 consciousness of their own prowess which belongs to 
 the newly-graduated collegian. He has most abound- 
 ing feith in the tricksy panoply that he has wrought out 
 of the metal of his Classics. His Mathematics, he has 
 not a doubt, will solve for him every complexity of life's 
 questions ; and his Logic will as certainly untie all 
 Gordian knots, whether in politics or ethics. 
 
 He has no idea of defeat ; he proposes to take the 
 world by storm ; he half wonders that quiet people are 
 not startled by his presence. He brushes with an air 
 of importance about the halls of country hotels ; he 
 wears lys honor at "the public tables ; he fancies that 
 the inattentive guests can have little idea that the young 
 
FIRST LOOK AT THE WORLD. 133 
 
 gentleman, who so recently delighted the public ear with 
 his dissertation on the " General Tendency of Opinion," 
 is actually among them, and quietly eating from the 
 same dish of beef and of pudding ! 
 
 Our poor Clarence does not know -.— Heaven forbid 
 he should ! — that he is but little wiser now than when 
 he turned his back upon the old Academy, with its gal- 
 lipots and broken retorts ; and that with the addition of 
 a few Greek roots, a smattering of Latin, and some 
 readiness of speech, he is almost as weak for breasting 
 the strong current of life as when a boy. America is 
 but a poor place for the romantic book-dreamer. The 
 demands of this new, Western life of -ours are practical 
 and earnest. Prompt action, and ready tact, are the 
 weapons by which to meet it, and subdue it. The edu- 
 cation of the cloister offers at best only a sound start- 
 ing-point from which to leap into the tide. 
 
 The father of Clarence is a cool, matter-of-fact man. 
 He has little sympathy with any of the romantic notions 
 that enthrall a youth of twenty. He has a very humble 
 opinion — much humbler than you think he should have 
 — of your attainments at college. He advises a short 
 period of travel, that by observation you may find out 
 •nore fully how that world is made up with which you 
 are henceforth to struggle. 
 
 Your mother half fears your ' alienation from the 
 affections of home. Her letters all run over with a 
 
134 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 tenderness that makes you sigh, and that makes you 
 feel a deep reproach. You may not have been wanting 
 in the more ordinary tokens of affection ; you have made 
 your periodic visits ; but you blush for the consciousness 
 that fastens on you of neglect at heart. You blush for 
 the lack of that glow of feeling which once fastened to 
 every home-object. 
 
 [Does a man indeed outgrow affections as his mind 
 ripens ? Do the early and tender sympathies become 
 a part of his intellectual perceptions, to be appreciated 
 and reasoned upon as one reasons about truths of 
 science ? Is their vitality necessarily young ? Is there 
 the same ripe, joyous burst of the hearf at the recol- 
 lection of later friendships, which belonged to those of 
 boyhood ; and are not the later ones more the sug- 
 gestions of judgment, and less the absolute conditions 
 of the heart's health ?] f 
 
 The letters of your mother, as I said, make you sigh : 
 ^there is no moment in our lives when we feel less 
 worthy of the love of others, and less worthy of our 
 own respect, than when we receive evidences of kind- 
 ness which we know we do not merit, '- — and when souls 
 are laid bare to us, and we have too much indifference 
 to lay bare our own in return. ' 
 
 " Clarence," — writes that neglected mother, — " you 
 do not know how much you are in our thoughts, and 
 how often you are the burden of my prayers. Oh,' 
 
FIRST LOOK AT THE WORLD. 13i 
 
 Clarence, I could almost wish that you were still a boy, 
 ■ — still running to me for those little favors which I 
 was only too happy to bestow, — still dependent in 
 some degree on your mother's love for happiness. 
 
 " Perhaps I do you wrong, Clarence, but it does 
 seem from the changing tone of your letters, that you 
 are becoming more and more forgetful of us all ; 
 that you are feeling less need of our advice, and — 
 what I feel far more deeply — less need of our affec- 
 tion. Do not, my son, forget the lessons of home. 
 There will coiiie a time, I feel sure, when you will know 
 that those lessons are good. They may not indeed help 
 you in that intellectual strife which soon will engross 
 you ; and they may not have fitted you to shine in what 
 are called the brilliant circles of the world, but they 
 are such, Clarence, as make the heart pure and honest 
 and strong ! 
 
 '' You may think me weak to write you thus, as 1 
 would have written to my light-hearted boy years ago ; 
 indeed I am not strong, but growing every day more 
 feeble. 
 
 "Nelly, your sweet sister, is sitting by me. 'Tell 
 Clarence,' she says, ' to come home soon.' You know, 
 my son, what hearty welcome will greet you ; and that, 
 whether here or away, our love and prayers will be 
 with you always ; and may God in his infinite mercy 
 keep you from all harm ! " 
 
136 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 A tear or two — brushed away as soon as they come 
 — is all that youth gives to embalm such treasure of 
 love ! A gay laugh, or the challenge of some com- 
 panion of a day, will sweep away into the night the 
 earnest, regretful, yet happy dreams that rise like in- 
 cense from the pages of such hallowed affection. 
 
 The brusque world too is to be met, with all its 
 Imriy and promptitude. "^Manhood, in our swift Ameri- 
 can world, is measured too much by forgetfulness of all 
 the sweet bonds which tie the heart to the home of its 
 first attachments. We deaden the glow that nature has 
 kindled, lest it may lighten our hearts into an enchant- 
 ing flame of weakness. We have not learned to make 
 that flame the beacon of our purposes and the warmer 
 of our strength. We are men too early. " 
 
 But an experience is approaching Clarence, that 
 will drive his heart home for shelter, like a wounded 
 bird! 
 
 It is an autumn morning, with such crimson 
 
 glories to kindle it as lie along the twin ranges of 
 mountain that guard the Hudson. The white frosts- 
 shine like changing silk in the fields of late-growing 
 clover ; the river-mists curl, and idle along the bosom 
 of the water, and creep up the hillsides, and at noon 
 float their feathery vapors aloft in clouds ; the crimson 
 trees blaze in the side valleys, and blend their vermilion 
 tints under the fairy hands of our American frost- 
 
FIRST LOOK AT THE WORLD. 137 
 
 painters with the dark blood of the ash-trees and the 
 orange-tinted oaks. Blue and bright under the clear 
 Fall heaven, the broad river shines l/efore the surging 
 prow of the boat like a shield of steel. 
 
 The bracing air lights up rich dreams of life. Your 
 fancy peoples the valleys and the hill-tops with its cre- 
 ations ; and your hope lends some crowning beauty of 
 the landscape to your dreamy future. The vision of 
 your last college year is not gone. That figure, whose 
 elegance your eyes then feasted on, still floats before 
 you ; and the memory of the last talk with Laura is as 
 vivid as if it were only yesterday that you listened. In- 
 deed this opening campaign of travel — although you 
 are half ashamed to confess it to yourself — is guided 
 by the thought of her. 
 
 Dalton with a party of friends, his sister among 
 them, is journeying to the north. A hope of meeting 
 them — scarce acknowledged as an intention — -spurs 
 you on. The eye rests dreamily and vaguely on the 
 beauties that appear at every turn : they are beauties that 
 charm you, and charm you the more by an indefinable 
 association with that fairy object that floats before you, 
 half unknown, and wholly unclaimed. The quiet towns 
 with their noonday stillness, the outlying mansions 
 with their stately splendor, the bustling cities with their 
 'uocking din, and the long reaches of silent and wooded 
 shore, chime with their several beauties to your heart. 
 
138 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 in keeping with the master-key that was touched long 
 weeks before. 
 
 The cool, honest advices of the father drift across 
 your memory in shadowy forms, as you wander through 
 the streets of the first northern cities ; and all the need 
 for observation, and the incentives to purpose, which 
 your ambitious designs would once have quickened, fade 
 dismally when you find that she is not there. All the 
 lax gayety of Saratoga palls on the appetite ; even the 
 magnificent shores of Lake George, though stirring 
 your spirit to an insensible wonder and love, do not 
 cheat you into a trance that lingers. In vain the sun 
 blazons every isle, and lights every shaded cove, and at 
 evening stretches the Black Mountain in giant slumber 
 on the waters. 
 
 Your thought bounds away from the beauty of sky 
 and lake, and fastens upon the ideal which your dreamy 
 humors cherish. The very glow of pursuit heightens 
 your fervor, — a fervor that dims sadly the new-wfik- 
 ened memories of home. The southern gates of Cham- 
 plain, those fir-draped Trosachs of America, are passed, 
 and you find yourself, upon a golden evening of Cana- 
 dian autumn, in the quaint old city of Montreal. 
 
 Dalton with his party has gone down to Quebec. He 
 is to return within a few days on his way to Niagara. 
 There is a letter from Nelly awaiting you. It says : — 
 " Mother is much more feeble : she often speaks of yoiw 
 
FIRST LOOK AT THE WORLD. 139 
 
 return in a way that I am sure, if you heard, Clarence, 
 would bring you back to us soon." 
 
 There is a struggle in your mind: old affection is 
 weaker than young pride and hope. Moreover, the 
 world is to be faced ; the new scenes around you are to 
 be studied. An answer is penned full of kind remem- 
 brances, and begging a few days of delay. You wander, 
 wondering, under the quaint old houses, and wishing 
 for the return of Dalton. 
 
 He meets you with that happy, careless way of his, — 
 the dangerous way which some men are born to, and 
 which chimes easily to every tone of the world, — a way 
 you wondered at once ; a way you admire now ; and a 
 way that you will distrust as you come to see more of 
 men. ' Miss Dalton — (it seems sacrilege to call her 
 Laura) — is the same elegant being that entranced 
 you first. 
 
 They urge you to join their party. But there is no 
 need of urging : those eyes, that figure, the whole pres- 
 ence indeed of Miss Dalton, attract you with a power 
 which you can neither explain nor resist. One look of 
 grace enslaves you ; and there is a strange pride in the 
 enslavement. 
 
 Is it dream, or is it earnest, — those moonlit 
 
 walks upon the hills that skirt the city, when you watch 
 Ihe stars, listening to her voice, and feel the pressure 
 of that jewelled hand upon your arm ? — when you drain 
 
140 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 your memory of its whole stock of poetic beauties to 
 lavish upon her ear? Is it love, or is it madness, when 
 you catch her eye as it beams more of eloquence than 
 lies in all your moonlight poetry, and feel an exultant 
 gush of the heart that makes you proud as a man, and 
 yet timid as a boy, beside her ? 
 
 Has Dalton, with that calm, placid, nonchalant look 
 of his, any inkling of the raptures which his elegant 
 sister is exciting? Has the stout, elderly gentleman, 
 who is so prodigal of his bouquets* and attentions, any 
 idea of the formidable rival that he has found ? Has 
 Laura herself — you dream — any conception of that 
 intensity of admiration with which you worship ? 
 
 Poor Clarence ! it is his first look at Life ! 
 
 The Thousand Lsles with their leafy beauties lie 
 around your passing boat, like the joys that skirt us, 
 and pass us, on our way through life. The Thousand 
 Isles rise sudden before you, and fringe your yeasty 
 track, and drop away into floating spectres of beauty, 
 of haze, of distance, like those dreams of joy that your 
 passion lends the brain. The low banks of Ontario 
 look sullen by night ; and the moon, rising tranquilly 
 over the tops of vast forests that stand in. majestic 
 ranks over ten thousand acres of shore-land, drips its 
 silvery sparkles along the rocking waters, and flashes 
 across your foamy wake. 
 
 "With such attendance, that subdues for the time the 
 
FIRST LOOK AT THE WORLD. 141 
 
 dreamy forays of your passion, you draw toward the 
 sound of Niagara ; and its distant, vague roar, coming 
 through great aisles of gloomy forest, bears up your 
 spirit, like a child's, into the Highest Presence. 
 
 The morning after, you are standing with your party 
 upon the steps of the hotel. A letter is handed to you. 
 Dalton remarks in a quizzical way, that "it shows a 
 lady's hand." 
 
 " Aha, a lady ! " says Miss Dalton, — and so gayly ! 
 
 " A sister," I say ; for it is Nelly's hand. 
 
 " By the by,' Clarence," says Dalton, " it was a very 
 pretty sister you gave us a glimpse of at Commence 
 ment." 
 
 " Ah, you think so ; " and there is something in your 
 tone that shows a little indignation at this careless men- 
 tion of your fond Nelly ; and from those lips ! It wU) 
 occur to you again. 
 
 A single glance at the letter blanches your cheek 
 Your heart throbs — throbs harder — throbs tumultu 
 ously. You bite your lip, for there are lookers-op 
 But it will not do. You hurry away ; you find your 
 chamber ; you close and lock the door, and burst into 
 a flood of tears. 
 
A Broken Some. 
 
 TT is Nelly's own fair hand, yet sadly blotted,— 
 -^ blotted with her tears, and blotted with yours. 
 
 " It is all over, dear, dear Clarence ! Oh, how I 
 
 wish you were here to mourn with us ! I can hardly 
 now believe that our poor mother is indeed dead." 
 
 Dead ! — It is a terrible word ! You repeat it 
 
 with a fresh burst of grief. The letter is crumpled in 
 your hand. Unfold it again, sobbing, and read on. 
 
 " For a week she had been failing every day ; but 
 on Saturday we thought her very much better. I told 
 her I felt sure she would live to see you again. 
 
 " ' I shall never see him again, Nelly,' said she, 
 bursting into tears." 
 
 Ah, Clarence, where is your youthful pride, and 
 
 your strength now ? — with only that frail paper to annoy 
 you, crushed in your grasp ! 
 
 " She sent for father, and taking his hand in hers, 
 told him she was dying. I am glad you did hot see 
 his grief. I was kneeling beside her, and she put her 
 hand upon my head, and let it rest there for a moment, 
 while her lips moved as if she were praying. 
 
A BROKEN HOME. 143 
 
 " ' Kiss me, Nelly,' said she, growing fainter : kiss 
 ine again for Clarence.' 
 
 " A little while after she died." 
 
 For a long time you remain with only that letter, 
 and your thought, for company. You pace up and 
 down your chamber : again you seat yourself, and lean 
 your head upon the table, enfeebled by the very grief 
 that you cherish still. The whole day passes thus : you 
 excuse yourself from all companionship : you have not 
 the heart to tell the story of your troubles to Dalton, — 
 least of all, to Miss Dalton. How is this ? Is sorrow 
 too selfish, or too holy ? 
 
 Toward nightfall there is a calmer and stronger 
 feeling. The voice of the present world comes to your 
 ear again. But you move away from it unobserved to 
 that stronger voice of God in the Cataract. Great 
 masses of angry cloud hang over the west ; but be- 
 neath them the red harvest sun shines over the long 
 reach of Canadian shore, and bathes the whirling rapids 
 in splendor. Tou stroll alone over the quaking bridge, 
 and under the giant trees of the Island, to the edge of 
 the British Fall. You go out to the little shattered 
 tower, and gaze down, with sensations that will last till 
 death, 'upon the deep emerald of those awful masses of 
 water. 
 
 It is not the place for a bad man to ponder ; it is 
 not the atmosphere for foul thoughts, or weak ones. 
 
144 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 A man is never better than when he has the humblest 
 sense of himself: he is never so unlike the spirit of 
 Evil as when his pride is utterly vanished.'* You linger, 
 looking upon the stream of fading sunlight that plays 
 across the rapids, and down into the shadow of the 
 depths below, lit up with their clouds of spray; — 
 yet farther down, your sight swims upon the black 
 eddying masses, with white i-ibbons streaming across 
 their glassy surface ; and your dizzy eye fastens upon 
 the frail cockle-shells — their stout oarsmen dwindled 
 to pygmies — that dance like atoms upon the vast 
 chasm, or like your own weak resolves upon the whirl 
 of Time. 
 
 Your thought, growing broad in the view, seems to 
 cover the whole area of life : you set up your affections 
 and your duties; you build hopes with fairy scenery, 
 and away they all go, tossing like the relentless water,; 
 to the deep gulf that gapes a hideous welcome ! You 
 sigh at your weakness of heart, or of endeavor, and 
 your sighs float out into the breeze, that rises ever from 
 the shock of the waves, and whirl, empty-handed, to 
 Heaven. You avow high purposes, and clench them 
 with round utterance ; and your voice, like a sparrow's, 
 is caught up in the roar of the fall, and thrown at you 
 from the cliffs, and dies away in the solemn thunders 
 of nature. Great thoughts of life come over you — of 
 its work and destiny — of its affections and duties, and 
 
A BROKEN HOME. 145 
 
 roll down swift — like the river — into the deep whirl 
 of doubt and danger. Other thoughts, grander and 
 stronger, Jike the continuing rush of waters, come over 
 you, and knit your purposes together with their weight, 
 and crush you to exultant tears, and then leap, shat- 
 tered and broken, from the vety edge of your intent 
 into mists of fear ! 
 
 The moon comes out, and gleaming through the 
 clouds, braids its light fantastic bow upon the waters. 
 You feel calmer as the night deepens. The darkness 
 softens you ; it hangs — like the pall that shrouds 
 your mother's corpse — low and heavily to your heart. 
 It helps your inward grief with some outward show. 
 It makes the earth a mourner; it makes the flash- 
 ing water - drops so many attendant mourners. It 
 makes the Great Fall itself a mourner, and its roar 
 a requiem! 
 
 The pleasure of travel is cut short. To one person 
 of the little company of fellow-voyagers you bid adieu 
 with regret; pride, love, and hope point toward her, 
 while all the gentler affections stray back to the broken 
 home. Her srnile of parting is very gracious, but it is 
 not, after all, such a smile as your warm heart pines 
 for. 
 
 Ten days after, you are walking toward the old home- 
 stead with such feelings as it never called up before. 
 In the days of boyhood there were triumphant thoughts 
 
146 . DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 of the gladness and the pride with which, when grown 
 to the stature of manhood, you would come back to 
 that little town of your birth. As you have bent with 
 your dreamy resolutions over the tasks of the cloister 
 life, swift thoughts have flocked on you of the proud 
 step, and prouder heart, with which you would one 
 day greet the old acquaintances of boyhood ; and you 
 have regaled yourself on the jaunty manner with which 
 you would meet old Dr. Bidlow, and the patronizing 
 air with which you would address the pretty, blue-eyed 
 Madge. 
 
 It is late afternoon when you come in sight, of the 
 tall sycamores that shade your home ; you shudder now, 
 lest you may meet any whom you once knew. /The 
 first keen grief of youth seeks little of the sympathy of 
 companions : it lies — with a sensitive man — bounded 
 within the narrowest circles of the heart. They only 
 who hold the key to its innermost recesses can speak 
 consolation-^- Years will make a change ; — as the Sum- 
 mer grows in fierce heats, the balminess of the violet 
 banks of Spring is lost in the odors of a thousand flow- 
 ers ; — the heart, as it gains in &ge, loses freshness, but 
 wins breadth. 
 
 ' Throw a pebble into the brook at its source, 
 
 and the agitation is terrible, and the ripples chafe 
 madly their narrowed banks ; — throw in a pebble 
 when the brook has become a river, and you see a few 
 
A BROKEN HOME. 147 
 
 circles, widening and widening and widening, until 
 they are lost in the gentle every-day murmur of. its 
 life^ 
 
 You draw your hat over your eyes, as you walk 
 toward the familiar door : the yard is silent ; the night 
 is falling gloomily ; a few katydids are crying in the 
 trees. The mother's window, where at such a season 
 as this it was her custom to sit watching your play', is 
 shut, and the blinds are closed over it. The honey- 
 suckle, which grew over the window, and which she 
 loved so much, has flung out its branches carelessly; 
 and the spiders have hung their foul nets upon its 
 tendrils. 
 
 And she, who made that home so dear to your boy- 
 hood, so real to your after-years, — standing amid all 
 the flights of your youthful ambition, and your paltry 
 cares (for they seem paltry now), and your doubts, and 
 anxieties and weaknesses of heart, like the light of- 
 your hope — burning ever there under the shadow of 
 the sycamores, — a holy beacon, by whose guidance 
 you always came to a sweet haven, and to a refijge 
 from all your toils, — is gone, gone forever ! 
 
 The father is there indeed, — beloved, respected, 
 esteemed ; but the boyish heart, whose old life is now 
 reviving, leans more readily and more kindly into that 
 \oid where once beat the heart of a mother. 
 
 Nelly is there, — cherished now with all the added 
 
118 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 love that is stricken off from her who has left you for- 
 ever. Nelly meets you at the door. 
 
 " Clarence ! " 
 
 "Nelly!" 
 
 There are no other words ; but you feel her tears as 
 the kiss of welcome is given. With your hand joined 
 in hers, you walk down the hall into the old, familiar 
 room, — not with the jaunty college step, — not with 
 any presumption on your dawning manhood, — oh, no,^ 
 nothing of this ! 
 
 Quietly, meekly, feeling your whole heart shattered, 
 and your mind feeble as a boy's, and your purposes 
 nothing, and worse than nothing, — with only one proud 
 feeling you fling your arm around the form of that 
 gentle sister, — the pride of a protector, — the feeling 
 — " / will care for you now, dear Nelly ! " — that is all. 
 And even that, proud as it is, brings weakness. 
 
 You sit down together upon the lounge ; Nelly buries 
 her face in her hands, sobbing. 
 
 " Dear Nelly ! " and your arm clasps her more fondly. 
 
 There is a cricket in the corner of the room, chirping 
 very loudly. It seems as if nothing else were living, — 
 only Nelly, Clarence, and the noisy cricket. Your eye 
 falls on the chair where she used to sit ; it is drawn up 
 with the same care as ever beside the fire. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you, Clarence," says Nelly, 
 .•ecovering herself; and there is a swefet, sad smile now 
 
A BROKEN HOME. 149 
 
 And sitting there beside you, she tells you of it all, — 
 of the day, and of the hour, — and how she looked, — 
 and of her last prayer, and how happy she was. 
 " And did she leave i)o message for me, Nelly ? " 
 " Not to forget us, Clarence ; but you could not ! " 
 " Thank you, Nelly. And was there nothing else ? " 
 " Yes, Clarence, — to meet her one day ! " 
 You only press her hand. 
 
 Presently your father comes in : he greets you with 
 far more than his usual cordiality. He keeps your hand 
 a long time, looking quietly in your face, as if he were 
 reading traces of some resemblance that had never 
 struck him before. 
 
 ^ The father is one of those calm, impassive men, who 
 shows little upon the surface, and whose feelings you 
 have always thought cold. But now there is a tremu- 
 lousness in his tones that you never remember observ- 
 ing before. He seems conscious of it himself, and 
 forbears talking. He goes to his old seat, and after 
 gazing at you a little while with the same steadfastness 
 as at first, leans forward, and buries his face in his 
 hands. 
 
 From that very moment you feel a sympathy and a 
 love for him, that you have never known until then. 
 And in after-years, when suffering or trial come over 
 jrou, and when your- thoughts fly as to a refuge to that 
 shattered home, you will recall that stooping image of 
 
160 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 the father, — with his head bowed, and from time to 
 time trembling convulsively with grief, — and feel that 
 there remains yet by the household fires a heart of 
 kindred love and of kindred sorrow ! " 
 
 Nelly steals away from you gently, and stepping' 
 across the room, lays her hand upon his shoulder with 
 a touch that says, as plainly as words could say it, — 
 " "We are here, father ! " 
 
 And he rouses himself, — passes his arm around her, 
 — looks in her face fondly, — draws her to him, and 
 prints a kiss upon her forehead. 
 
 " Nelly, we must love each other now more than 
 ever." 
 
 Nelly's lips tremble, but she cannot answer ; a tear or 
 two go stealing down her cheek. 
 
 You approach them ; and your father takes your 
 hand again with a firm grasp, — looks at you thought- 
 fully, — drops his eyes upon the fire, and for a moment 
 there is a pause ; '— " We are quite alone now, my 
 boy!" 
 
 It is a Broken Home ! 
 
Family Confideij^. 
 
 /^ RIEF has a strange power in opening the hearts 
 ^-^ of those who sorrow in common.^ The father, who 
 has seemed to you, not so much neglectful, as careless 
 of your aims and purposes, — toward whom there have 
 been in your younger years yearnings of affection which 
 his chilliness of manner has seemed to repress, now 
 grows under the sad light of the broken household into 
 a friend. ''The heart feels a joy it cannot express, in its 
 freedom to love and to cherish.- There is a pleasure 
 wholly new to you in telling him of your youthful 
 projects, in listening to his questionings, in seeking 
 his opinions, and in yielding to his judgment. 
 
 It is a sad thing for the child, and quite as sad for 
 the parent, when this confidence is unknown. Many 
 and many a time with a bursting heart you have longed 
 to tell him of some boyish grief, or to ask his guidance 
 out of some boyish trouble ; but at the first sight of 
 that calm, inflexible face, and at the first sound of his 
 measured words, your enthusiastic yearnings toward 
 his love and his counsels have all turned back upon 
 
152 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 your eager and sorrowing heart, and you have gouG 
 away to hide in secret the tears which the lack of his 
 sympathy has wrung from your soul. 
 
 But now over the tomb of her, for whom you weep 
 iu common, there is a new light breaking ; and your 
 only fear is lest you weary him with what may seem a 
 barren show of you^onfidence. 
 
 Nelly too is nearer now than ever ; and with her you 
 have no fears of your extravagance ; you listen delight- 
 fully there by the evening flame to all that she tells you 
 of the neighbors of your boyhood. You shudder some- 
 what at her genial praises of the blue-eyed Madge, — 
 a shudder that you can hardly account for, and which 
 yau do not seek to explain. It may be that there is a 
 clinging and tender memory yet — wakened by the 
 home atmosphere — of the divided sixpence. 
 
 Of your quondam friend, Frank, the pleasant recol- 
 lection of whom revives again under the old roof-tree, 
 she tells you very little, — and that little in a hesitating 
 and indifferent way that utterly surprises you. Can it 
 be, you think, that there has been some cause of un- 
 kindness ? 
 
 Clarence is still very young ! 
 
 The fire glows warmly upon the accustomed hearth- 
 stone, and — save that vacant place never to be filled 
 again — a home cheer reigns even in this time of your 
 mourning. The spirit of the lost parent seems to 
 
. FAMILY CONFIDENCE. 153 
 
 linger over the remnant of the household ; and the Bible 
 upon its stand — the book she loved so well — the 
 book so sadly forgotten — seems still to open on you 
 its promises in her sweet tones, and to call you, as it 
 were, with her angel-voice to the land that she in- 
 herits. 
 
 And when late night has come, and the household 
 is quiet, you call up in the darkness of your chamber 
 that other night of grief which followed upon the death 
 of Charlie. That was the boy's vision of death ; and 
 this is the youthful vision. Yet essentially there is but 
 little difference. " Death levels the capacities of the 
 living as it levels the strength of its victims. ' It is as 
 grand to the man as to the boy , its teachings are as 
 deep for age as for infancy. 
 
 You may learn its manner, and estimate its ap- 
 proaches ; but when it comes, it comes always with the 
 same awful front that it wore to your boyhood. Rea- 
 son and Revelation may point to rich issues that unfold 
 from its very darkness ; yet all these are no more to 
 your bodily sense, and no more to your enlightened 
 hope, than those foreshadowings of peace which rest 
 like a halo on the spirit of the child as he prays in 
 guileless tones — Our Father, who art in Heaven ! 
 
 It is a holy and a placid grief that comes over you, 
 ■ — not crushing, but bringing to life from the grave of 
 boyhood all its better and nobler instincts. In theii 
 
154 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 light your wild plans of youth look sadly misshapen 
 and in the impulse of the hour you abandon them ; holy 
 resolutions beam again upon your soul like sunlight 
 your purposes seem bathed in goodness. There is an 
 effervescence of the spirit that carries away all foul 
 matter, and leaves you in a state of calm that seems 
 kindred to the land and to the life whither the sainted 
 mother has gone. 
 
 This calm brings a smile in the middle of tears, and 
 an inward looking and leaning toward that Eternal 
 Power which governs and guides us ; — with that smile 
 and that leaning, sleep comes like an angelic minister, 
 and fondles your wearied frame and thought into that 
 repose which is the mirror of the Destroyer. 
 
 Poor Clarence,*he is like the rest of the world, 
 
 — whose goodness lies chiefly in the occasional throbs 
 of a better nature, which soon subside, and leave them 
 upon the old level of desire. ' 
 
 As you lie between waking and sleeping, you have a 
 fancy of a sound at your door ; — it §eems to open 
 softly, and the tall figure of your father, wrapped in 
 his dressing-gown, stands over you, and gazes — as he 
 gazed at you before ; — his look is very mournful ; and 
 he murmurs your mother's name — and sighs — and 
 looks again — and passes out. 
 
 At morning you cannot tell if it was real or a dream 
 Those higher resolves too, which grief and the night 
 
FAMILY CONFIDENCE. 155 
 
 made, seem very vague and shadowy. Life with its 
 ambitious and cankerous desires wakes again. You do 
 not feel them at first ; the subjugation of holy thoughts 
 and of reaches toward the Infinite, leave their traces 
 on you, and perhaps bewilder you into a half-conscious- 
 ness of strength. But at the first touch of the grosser 
 elements about you, — on your very first entrance upon 
 those duties which quicken pride or shame, and which 
 are pointing at you from every quarter, — your holy 
 calm, your high-bom purpose, your spiritual cleav- 
 ings, pass away, like the electricity of August storms 
 drawn down by the thousand glittering turrets of a 
 city! 
 
 The world is stronger than the night ; and the bind- 
 ings of sense are tenfold stronger than the most ex- 
 quisite delirium of soul. This makes you feel, or will 
 one day make you feel,^that life, — strong life atid 
 sound life, — that life which lends approaches to the 
 Infinite, and takes hold on Heaven, is not so much a 
 Progress as it is a Resistance ! ' 
 
 There is one special confidence which, in all your 
 talk about plans and purposes, you do not give to your 
 father : you reserve that for the ear of Nelly alone. 
 Why happens it that a father is almost the last con 
 fidant that a son makes in any matter deeply afiect- 
 ■ng the feelings ? Is it the fear that a father may 
 regard such matter as boyish ? Is it a lingering su» 
 
156 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 picion of your own childishness ; or of that extrema 
 of affection which reduces you to childishness ? 
 
 I Why is it always that a man, of whatever age or con- 
 dition, forbears to exhibit to those whose respect for his 
 judgment and mental abilities only he seeks, the most 
 earnest qualities of the heart, and those intenser suscep- 
 tibilities of love which underlie his nature, and which 
 give a color in spite of him to the habit of his life ? 
 Why is he so morbidly anxious to keep out of sight any 
 extravagances of aifection, when he blurts officiously to 
 the world his extravagances of action and of thought ? 
 Can any lover explain me this ? , 
 
 Again, why is a sister the one of all others to whom 
 you first whisper the dawnings of any strong emotion, 
 — as if it were a weakness that her charity alone could 
 cover ? 
 
 However this may be, you have a long story for 
 Nelly's ear. It is some days aftei' your return : you 
 are strolling down a quiet, wooded lane, — a remem- 
 bered place, — when you first open to her your heart. 
 Your talk is of Laura Dalton. You describe her to 
 Nelly with the extravagance of a glowing hope. You 
 picture those qualities that have attracted you most ; 
 you dwell upon her beauty, her elegant figure, her grace 
 of conversation, her accomplishments. Tou make a 
 study that feeds your passion as you go on. You rise 
 by the very glow of your speech into a frenzy of feel- 
 
FAMILY CONFIDENCE. 157 
 
 iiig that she has never excited before. You are quite 
 sure that you would be wretched and miserable without 
 her. 
 
 " Do you mean to marry her ? " says Nelly. 
 
 It is a question that gives a swift bound to the blood 
 of youth. It involves the idea of possession, and of 
 the dependence of the cherished one upon your own 
 arm and strength. But the admiration you entertain 
 seems almost too lofty for this ; Nelly's question makes 
 you diffident of reply ; and you lose yourself in a new 
 story of those excellencies of speech and of figure 
 which have so charmed you. 
 
 Nelly's eye on a sudden becomes full of tears. 
 
 " What is it, Nelly ? " 
 
 " Our mother, Clarence.'' 
 
 The word and the thought dampen your ardor ; the 
 sweet watchfulness and gentle kindness of that parent 
 for an instant make a sad contrast with the showy 
 qualities you have been naming ; and the spirit of that 
 mother — called up by Nelly's words — seems to hang 
 over you with an anxious love that subdues all your 
 pride of passion. 
 
 But this passes ; and now — half believing that 
 Nelly's thoughts have run over the same ground with 
 yours — you turn special pleader for your fancy. You 
 argue for the beauty which you just now affirmed ; you 
 do your utmost to vrin over Nelly to some burst ol 
 
158 DHEAM-LIFE. 
 
 admiration. Yet there she sits beside you, thought- 
 fiilly and half sadly, playing with the frail autumn 
 flowers that grow at her side. What can she be think- 
 ing ? You ask it by a look. 
 
 She smiles, — takes your hand, for she will not let 
 you grow angry, — 
 
 " I was thinking, Clarence, whether this Laura Dal ton 
 would, after all, make a good wife, — such an one aa 
 you would love a' ways ? " 
 
vn. 
 
 A Good Wife. 
 
 rriHE thought of Nelly suggests new dreams that 
 -■- are little apt to find place in the rhapsodies of a 
 youthful lover. The very epithet of a good wife mates 
 tamely with the romantic fancies of a first passion. It 
 is measuring the ideal by too practical a standard. It 
 sweeps away all the delightfiil vagueness of a fairy 
 dream of love, and reduces one to a dull and economic 
 estimate of actual qualities. '~ Passion lives above all 
 analysis and estimate, and arrives at its conclusions by 
 intuition. ^ 
 
 ^ Did Petrarch ever think if Laura would make a good 
 wife ; did Oswald ever think it of Corinne ? Nay, did 
 even the more practical Waverley ever think 't of the 
 impassioned Flora? Would it not weaken faith in 
 their romantic passages, if you believed it? What 
 have such vulgar, practical issues to do with that 
 passion which sublimates the faculties, and makes the 
 loving dreamer to live in an ideal sphere where nothing 
 but goodness and brightness can come ? 
 Nelly is to be pitied for entertaining such a thought ; 
 
160 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 nd yet Nelly is very good and kind. Her affection. s 
 are without doubt all centred in the remnant of the 
 shattered home ; she has never known any further and 
 deeper love ; never once fancied it even — 
 
 Ah, Clarence, you are very young ! 
 
 And yet there are some things that puzzle ycu in 
 Nelly. You have found accidentally, in one of her 
 treasured books, — a book that lies almost always ov 
 her dressing-table, — a little withered flower with its 
 stem in a slip of paper, and on the paper the initials 
 of — your old friend Frank. You recall, in connection 
 with this, her indisposition to talk of him on the firs' 
 evening of your return. It seems — you scarce know 
 why — that these are the tokens of something very like 
 a Jeaning of the heart. It does occur to you that she 
 too may have her little casket of loves ; and you try 
 one day very adroitly to take a look into this casket. 
 
 You will learn later in life that the heart of a ■ 
 
 modest, gentle girl is a very hard matter for even a 
 brother to probe ; it is at once the most tender and the 
 most unapproachable of all fastnesses. It admits feel<- 
 ing by armies, with great trains of artillery, — but not a 
 single scout. It is as calm and pure as polar snows ; 
 but deep underneath, where no footsteps have gone, 
 and where no eye can reach but one, lies the warm and 
 the throbbing earth. 
 
 Make what you will of the slight, quivering blushes, 
 
A GOOD WIFE. 161 
 
 and of the half broken expressions, — more you cannot 
 get. The love that a delicate-minded girl will tell is a 
 short-sighted and outside love; but the love that she 
 cherishes without voice or token is a love that will 
 mould her secret sympathies, and her deepest, fondesl 
 yearnings, either to a quiet world of joy, or to a world 
 of placid sufferance. The true voice of her love she 
 will keep back long and late, fearful ever of her most 
 prized jewel, — fearful to strange sensitiveness ; she will 
 show kindness, but the opening of the real floodgates 
 of the heart, and the utterance of those impassioned 
 yearnings which belong to its nature, come far later. 
 And fearful, thrice fearful is the shock, if these flow 
 out unmet ! 
 
 That deep, thrilling voice, bearing all the perfume of 
 the womanly soul in its flow, rarely finds utterance ; 
 and jf uttered vainly, — if called out by tempting de- 
 vices, and by a trust that is abused, — desolate indeed 
 is the maiden heart, widowed of its chastest thought ! 
 The soul shrinks afirighted within itself Like a tired 
 bird lost at sea, fluttering around what seem fiiendly 
 boughs, it stoops at length, and finding only cold, slip- 
 pery spars, with no bloom and no foliage, — its last hope 
 gone, — it sinks to a wild ocean grave ! -^ 
 
 Nelly — and the thought brings a tear^)f sympathy 
 to your eye — must have such a heart ; it speaks in 
 every shadow of her action. And this very delicacy 
 
162 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 seems to lend her a charm that would make her a wife 
 to be loved and honored. . 
 
 - Ay, there is something in that maidenly modesty — 
 retiring from you as you advance, retreating timidly 
 from all bold approaches, fearful and yet joyous — which 
 wins upon the iron hardness of a man's nature like a 
 rising flame. To force of action and resolve he opposes 
 force ; to strong will he mates his own ; pride lights 
 pride ; but to the gentleness of the true womanly char- 
 acter he yields with a gush of tenderness that nothing 
 else can call out. He will never be subjugated on his 
 own ground of action and energy ; but let him be lured 
 to that border country over which the delicacy and 
 fondness of a womanly nature presides, and his energy 
 yields, his haughty determination faints, he is proud of 
 submission ! _ "^ 
 
 And with this thought of modesty and gentleness to 
 illuminate your dream of an ideal wife, you chase the 
 pleasant phantom to that shadowy home — lying far oif 
 in the future — of which she is the glory and the crown. 
 I know it is the fashion nowadays with many to look 
 for a woman's excellencies and influence — away from 
 her home ; but I know too that a vast many eager and 
 hopeful hearts still cherish the belief that her virtues 
 vill range highest and live longest within those sacred 
 walls. 
 
 Where, indeed, can the modest and earnest virtue of 
 
A GOOD WIFE. 163 
 
 a woman tell a stronger story of its worth than upon 
 the dawning habit of a child ? Where can her grace 
 of character win a higher and a riper effect than upon 
 the action of her household ? What mean those noisy 
 declaimers who talk of the feeble influence, and of the 
 crushed faculties, of a woman ? 
 
 What school of learning, or of moral endeavor, de- 
 pends more on its teacher, than the home upon the 
 mother ? What influence of all the world's professors 
 and teachers tells so strongly on the habit of a man's 
 mind as those gentle droppings from a mother's lips, 
 which, day by day and hour by hour, grow into the 
 enlarging stature of his soul, and live with it forever r 
 They can hardly be mothers who aim at a broader and 
 noisier field ; they have forgotten to be daughters ; they 
 roust needs have lost the hope of being wives ! 
 " Be this how it may, the heart of a man with whom 
 affection is not a name, and love a mere passion of the 
 hourj yearns toward the quiet of a home as toward the 
 goal of his earthly joy and hope. And as you fasten 
 there your thought, an indulgent yet dreamy fancy 
 paints the loved image that is to adorn it and to make 
 it sacred. 
 
 She is there to bid you God speed ! and an 
 
 adieu that hangs like music on your ear as you go out 
 to the every-day labor of life. At evening she is there 
 to greet you, as you come back wearied with a day's 
 
164 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 toil ; and her look so full of gladi^ss cheats you of 
 your fatigue ; and she steals her arm around you with 
 a soul of welcome that beams like sunshine on her 
 brow, and that fills your eye with tears of a twin grat- 
 itude — to her and Heaven ! 
 
 She is not unmindful of those old-fashioned virtues 
 of cleanliness and of order which give an air of quiet, 
 and which secure content. Your wants are all antici- 
 pated : the fire is burning brightly ; the clean hearth 
 flashes under the joyous blaze ; the old elbow-chair is 
 in its place. Your very unworthiness of' all this haunts 
 you like an Recusing spirit, and yet penetrates your 
 heart with a new devotion toward the loved one who is 
 thus watchful of your comfort. 
 
 She is gentle, — keeping your love, as she has won 
 it, by a thousand nameless and modest virtues which 
 radiate from her whole life and action. She steals upon 
 your affections like a summer wind breathing softly 
 over sleeping valleys. She gains a mastery over your 
 sterner nature by very contrast, and wins you unwit- 
 tingly to her lightest wish. And yet her wishes are 
 guided by that delicate tact which avoids conflict with 
 your manly pride; she subdues by seeming to yield. 
 By a single soft word of appeal she robs your vexation 
 of its anger ; and, with a slight touch of that fair hand, 
 and one pleading look of that earnest eye, she disarms 
 your sternest pride. 
 
A GOOD WIFE. 165 
 
 She is kind, — shedding her kindness as heaven 
 slicds dew. Who indeed could doubt it ? — least of all 
 you, who are living on her kindness day by day, as 
 flowers live on light ? There is none of that officious 
 parade which blunts the point of benevolence ; but it 
 tempers every action with a blessing. If trouble has 
 come upon you, she knows that her voice, beguiling you 
 into cheerfulness, will lay your fears ; and as she draws 
 her chair beside you, she knows that the tender and 
 confiding way with which she takes your hand, and 
 looks up into your earnest face, will drive away from 
 your annoyance all its weight. As she lingers, leading 
 off your thought with pleasant words, she knows well 
 that she is redeeming you from care, and soothing you 
 to that sweet calm which such home and such wife can 
 alone bestow. And in sickness, — sickness that you 
 almost covet for the sympathy it brings, — that hand of 
 hers resting on your fevered forehead, or those fingers 
 playing with the scattered locks, are more full of kind- 
 ness than the loudest vaunt of friends ; and when your 
 failing strength will permit no more, you grasp that 
 cherished hand with a fulness of joy, of thankfulness, 
 nnd of love, which your tears only, can tell. 
 
 She is good ; her hopes live where the angels live, 
 fler kindness and gentleness are sweetly tempered 
 with that meekness and forbearance which are born of 
 Faith. Trust comes into her heart as rivers come to 
 
166 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 the sea. And in the dark hours of doubt and fore 
 boding you rest fondly upon her buoyant Faith, as the 
 treasure of your common life ; and in your holier 
 musings you look to that frail hand, and that gentle 
 spirit, to lead you away from the vanities of worldly 
 ambition to the fulness of that joy which the good 
 inherit. 
 Is Laura Dalton such an one ? 
 
vni. 
 
 A Broken Hope. 
 
 VT'OUTHFtllj passion is a giant. It overleaps all 
 '-'- the dreams, and all the resolves of our better and 
 quieter nature ; and drives madly toward some wild 
 issue, that lives only in its frenzy. How little account 
 does passion take of goodness ! It is not within the 
 cycle of its revolution : it is below ; it is tamer ; it is 
 older ; it wears no wings. ' 
 
 And your proud heart flashing back to the memory 
 of that sparkling eye which lighted your hope — full- 
 fed upon the vanities of cloister learning, drives your 
 soberer visions to the wind. As you recall those tones, 
 so full of brilliancy and pride, the quiet virtues fade, 
 like the soft haze upon a spring landscape driven west- 
 ward by a swift, sea-born storm. The pulse bounds ; 
 the eyes flash ; the heart trembles with its sharp springs. 
 Hope dilates, like the eye, fed with swift blood leaping 
 to the brain. 
 
 Again the image of Miss Dalton, so fine, so noble, so 
 womanly, fills and bounds the Future. The lingering 
 tears of grief drop away from your eye, as the lingering 
 
168 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 (oves of boyhood drop from your scalding passion, or 
 drip into clouds of vapor. 
 
 You listen to the calm, thoughtful advice of the 
 father, with a deep consciousness of something stronger 
 than his counsels seething in your bosom. The words 
 of caution, of instruction of guidance, fall upon your 
 heated imagination like the night-dews iipon the crater 
 of an ^tna. They are beneficent and healthful for the 
 straggling herbage upon the surface of the mountain, 
 but they do not reach or temper the inner fires that are 
 rolling their billows of flame beneath ! 
 
 You drop hints from time to time, to those with whom 
 you. are most familiar, of some prospective change of 
 condition. There is a new and cheerful interest in the 
 building-plans of your neighbors, — a new and cheer- 
 ful study of the principles of domestic architecture, — 
 in which very elegant boudoirs, adorned with harps, 
 hold prominent place ; and libraries with gilt-bound 
 books, very rich in lyrical and dramatic poetry ; fine 
 views from bay - windows ; graceful pots of flowers ; 
 sleek-looking Italian greyhounds ; cheerful sunlight ; 
 musical goldfinches chattering on the wall ; superb pict- 
 ures of princesses in peasant dresses ; soft Axminster 
 carpets ; easy-acting bell-pulls ; gigantic candelabrums ; 
 porcelain vases of classic shape ; neat waiters in white 
 aprons ; luxurious lounges ; and, to crown them all with 
 the very height of your pride, — the elegant Laura, 
 
A BROKEN HOPE. 169 
 
 the mistress, and the guardian of your soul, moving 
 amid the scene like a new Duchess of Valliere ! 
 
 You catch chance sights here and there of the blue- 
 eyed Madge : you see her in her mother's household, 
 the earnest and devoted daughter, — gliding gracefiilly 
 about her mother's cottage, the very type of gentleness 
 and of duty. Yet withal there are sparks of spirit in 
 her that pique your pride, lofty as it is. You offer 
 flowers, which she accepts with a kind smile, not of 
 coquetry, but of simplest thankfulness. She is not the 
 girl to gratify your vanity with any half-show of tender- 
 ness. And if there hved ever in her heart an old 
 girlish liking for the schoolboy Clarence, it is all gone 
 before the romantic lover of the elegant Laura ; or at 
 most it lies in some obscure comer of her soul, never 
 to be brought to light. 
 
 You enter upon the new pursuits, which your father 
 has advised, with a lofty consciousness, not only of 
 the strength of your mind, but of your heart. You 
 relieve your opening professional study with long letters 
 to Miss Dalton, full of Shakspearean compliments, and 
 touched off with very dainty elaboration. And you 
 receive pleasant, gossiping .notes in answer, — full of 
 quotations, but meaning very little. 
 
 Youth is in a grand flush, like the hot days of ending 
 summer ; and pleasant dreams thrall your spirit, like 
 the smoky atmosphere that bathes the landscape of an 
 
170 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 August day. Hope rides high in the heavens, as when 
 the summer sun mounts nearest to the zenith. /Youth 
 feels the fulness of maturity before the second season 
 of life is ended ; yet is it a vain maturity, and all the 
 glow is deceitful. <^ Those fruits that ripen in summer do 
 not last. They are sweet ; they are glowing with gold ; 
 but they melt with a luscious sweetness upon the lip. 
 They do not give that strength and nutriment which 
 will bear a man bravely through the coming chills of 
 winter. ' 
 
 The last scene of summer changes now to the cob- 
 webbed ceiling of an attorney's office. Books of law, 
 scattered ingloriously at your elbow, speak dully to the 
 flush of your vanities. You are seated at your side- 
 desk, where you have wrought at those heavy, mechanic 
 labors of drafting which go before a knowledge of your 
 craft. 
 
 A letter is by you, which you regard with strange 
 feelings : it is yet unopened. It comes from Laura. It 
 is in reply to one which has cost you very much of 
 exquisite elaboration. You have made your avowal of 
 feeling as much like a poem as your education would 
 admit. Indeed it was a pretty letter, — promising not 
 so much the trustful love of an earnest and devoted 
 heart, as the fervor of a passion which consumed 
 you, and glowed like a furnace through the lines of 
 
A BROKEN HOPE. 171 
 
 your letter. It was a confession in which your vanity 
 of intellect had taken very entertaining part, and in 
 which your judgment was too cool to appear at all. 
 
 She must needs break out into raptures at such a 
 letter; and her own will doubtless be tempered with 
 even greater passion. 
 
 It is well to shift your chair somewhat, so that the 
 clerks of the office may not see your emotion as you 
 read. It would be silly to manifest your exuberance 
 in a dismal, dark office of your instructing attorney. 
 One sighs rather for woods, and brooks, and sunshine, 
 in whose company the hopes of youth stretch into ful- 
 filment. 
 
 We will look only at a closing passage : — 
 
 " My friend Clarence will, I trust, believe me, 
 
 when I say that his letter was a surprise to me. To 
 say that it was very grateful, would be what my 
 womanly vanity could not fail to claim. I only wish 
 that I was equal to the flattering portrait which he has 
 drawn. I even half fancy that he is joking me, and 
 can hardly believe that my matronly air should have 
 quite won his youthful heart. At least I shall try not to 
 believe it ; and when I welcome him one day, the hus- 
 band of some fairy who is worthy of his love, we will 
 Bmile together at the old lady who once played the 
 Circe to his senses. Seriously, my friend Clarence, 1 
 
172 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 know your impulse of heart has carried you away, and 
 that in a year's time, you will smile with me at your old 
 •penchant for one so much your senior, and so ill-suited 
 to your years, as your true friend, Latjba." 
 
 Magnificent Miss Dalton ! 
 
 Read it again. Stick your knife in the desk : — tut ! 
 — you will break the blade ! Fold up the letter care- 
 fully, and toss it upon your pile of papers. Open 
 Chitty again ; — pleasant reading is Chitty ! Lean 
 upon your haiid — your two hands, so that no one will 
 catch sight of your face. Chitty is very interesting, — 
 how sparkling and imaginative ! — what a depth and 
 flow of passion in Chitty ! 
 
 The office is a capital place — so quiet and sunny. 
 Law is a delightful study — so captivating, and such 
 stores of romance ! And then those trips to the Hall 
 offer such relief and variety, — especially just now. 
 It would be well not to betray your eagerness to go. 
 You can brush your hat a round or two, and take a 
 peep into the broken bit of looking-glass over the wash- 
 stand. 
 
 You lengthen your walk, as you sometimes do, by a 
 stroll upon the Battery, — though rarely upon such a 
 blustering November day. You put your hands in 
 your pockets, and look out upon the tossing sea. 
 
 It is a fine sight — very fine. There are few finer 
 
A BROKEN HOPE. . 17iJ 
 
 bays ill the world than New York Bay, — either to 
 look at, or, for that matter, to sleep in. The ships ride 
 ap thickly, dashing about the cold spray delightfully ; 
 the little cutters gleam in the November sunshine like 
 white flowers shivering in the wind. 
 
 The sky is rich — all mottled with cold, gray streaka 
 of cloud. The old apple-women, with their noses frost- 
 bitten, look cheerful and blue. The ragged immi- 
 grants, in short trousers and bell-crowned hats, stalk 
 about with a very happy expression, and very short- 
 stemmed pipes ; their yellow-haired babies look com- 
 fortably red and glowing. And the trees with their 
 scant, pinched foliage have a charming, summer-like 
 effect ! 
 
 Amid it all the thoughts of the boudoir, and harp- 
 sichord, and goldfinches, and Axminster carpets, and 
 sunshine, and Laura, are so very, very pleasant ! How 
 delighted you would be to see her married to the stout 
 man in the red cravat, who gave her bouquets, and 
 strolled with her on the deck of the steamer upon the 
 St. Lawrence ! What a jaunty, self-satisfied air he 
 wore ; and with what considerate forbearance he treated 
 you — calling you once or twice Master Clarence ! It 
 never occurred to you before, how much you must be 
 ndebted to that pleasant, stout man. 
 
 You try sadly to be cheerful ; you smile oddly ; your 
 pride comes strongly to your help, but yet helps you 
 
174 . DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 very little. It is not so much a broken heart that yoii 
 have to mourn over, as a broken dream. You seem to 
 Bee in a hundred ways, that had never occurred to you 
 before, the marks of her superior age. Above all it is 
 manifest in the cool and unimpassioned tone of her 
 letter. Yet how kindly withal ! It would be a relief 
 to be angry. 
 
 New visions come to you, wakened by the broken 
 fancy which has just now eluded your grasp. You will 
 make yourself, if not old, at least gifted with the force 
 and dignity of age. You will be a man, and build no 
 more castles until you can people them with men ! In 
 an excess of pride you even take umbrage at the sex ; 
 they can have little appreciation of that engrossing 
 tenderness of which you feel yourself to be capable. 
 Love shall henceforth be dead, and you will live boldly 
 without it. 
 
 Just so, when some dark, eastern cloud-bank 
 
 shrouds for a morning the sun of later August, we say 
 in our shivering pride — the winter is come early ! But 
 God manages the seasons better than we ; and in a day, 
 or an hour perhaps, the cloud will pass, and the heavens 
 glow again upon our ungrateful heads. 
 
 Well it is even so, that the passionate dreams of 
 youth break up, and wither. Vanity becomes tempered 
 mill wholesome pride ; and passion yields to the riper 
 
A BROKEN HOPE. 175 
 
 judgment of manhood, — even as the August heats 
 pass on, and over, into the genial glow of a Septembei 
 sun. There is a strong growth in the struggles against 
 mortified pride ; and then only does the youth get an 
 ennobling consciousness of that manhood which is 
 dawning in him, when he has fairly surmounted those 
 puny vexations which a wounded vanity creates. 
 
 Now your heart is driven home ; and that cherished 
 place, where so little while ago you wore your vanities 
 with an air that mocked even your grief, and that sub- 
 dued your better nature, seems to stretch toward you 
 over long miles of distance its wings of love, and to 
 welcome back to the sister's and the father's heart, 
 not the self- sufficient and vaunting youth, but the 
 brother and son — the schoolboy Clarence. Like a 
 thirsty child, you stray in thought to that fountain of 
 cheer, and live again — your vanity crushed, your wild 
 hope broken — in the warm and natural affections of 
 the boyish home. 
 
 Clouds weave the Summek into the season of Au- 
 tumn ; and Youth rises from dashed hopes into the 
 stature of a Man. 
 
BREAMS OF MANHOOD. 
 
 Autumn. 
 
 f I IHERE are those who shudder at the approach of 
 -■- Autumn, and who feel a light grief stealing over 
 their spirits, like an October haze, as the evening shad- 
 ows slant sooner, and longer, over the face of an ending 
 August day. 
 
 But is not Autumn the Manhood of the year ? Is it 
 not the ripest of the seasons ? Do not proud flowers 
 blossom, — the golden-rod, the orchis, the dahlia, and 
 the bloody cardinal of the swamp-lands ? 
 
 The fruits too are golden, hanging heavy from the 
 tasked trees. The fields of maize show weeping spin- 
 dles, and broad rustling leaves, &nd ears half glowing 
 with the crowded com ; the September wind whistles 
 over their thick-set ranks with whispers of plenty. The 
 staggering stalks of the buckwheat grow red with ripe 
 ness, and tip their tops with clustering tricornerel 
 kernels. 
 
 The cattle, loosed from the summer's yoke, grom 
 
180 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 Btrong upon the meadows new -starting from the 
 scythe. The lambs of April, rounded into fulness of 
 limb, and gaining day by day their woolly cloak, bite at 
 the nodding clover-heads ; or, with their noses to the 
 ground, they stand in solemn, circular conclave under 
 the pasture oaks, while the noon-sun beats with the 
 lingering passion of July. 
 
 The Bob-o'-Lincolns have come back from their 
 Southern rambles among the rice, all speckled with 
 gray ; and, singing no longer as they did in spring, 
 they quietly feed upon the ripened reeds that straggle 
 along the borders of the walls. The larks, with their 
 black and yellow breastplates, and lifted heads, stand 
 tall upon the close-mown meadow, and at your first 
 motion of approach spring up, and soar away, and light 
 again, and with their lifted heads renew the watch. 
 The quails, in half-grown coveys, saunter hidden through 
 the underbrush that skirts the wood, and only when 
 you are close upon them, whir away, and drop scattered 
 under the coverts of the forest. 
 
 The robins, long ago deserting the garden neighbor- 
 hood, feed at eventide in flocks upon the bloody her 
 ries of the sumac ; and the soft-eyed pigeons dispute 
 possession of the feast. The squirrels chatter at sun- 
 rise, and gnaw off the full-grown burrs of the chestnuts. 
 The lazy blackbirds skip after the loitering cow, watch- 
 ful of the crickets that her slow steps start to danger 
 
AUTUMN. 181 
 
 The crows in companies caw aloft, and hang high over 
 the carcass of some slaughtered sheep lying ragged 
 upon the hills. 
 
 The ash-trees grow crimson in color, and lose their 
 summer life in great gouts of blood. The birches touch 
 their frail spray with yellow ; the chestnuts drop down 
 their leaves in brown, twirling showers. The beeches, 
 crimped with the frost, guard their foliage until each 
 leaf whistles white in the November gales. The bitter- 
 sweet hangs its bare and leafless tendrils from rock to 
 tree, and sways with the weight of its brazen berries. 
 The sturdy oaks, unyielding to the winds and to the 
 frosts, struggle long against the approaches of the win- 
 ter, and in their struggles wear faces of orange, of scar- 
 let, of crimson, and of brown ; and finally, yielding to 
 swift winds, as youth's pride yields to manly duty, strew 
 the ground with the scattered glories of their summer 
 strength, and warm and feed the earth with the debris 
 of their leafy honors. 
 
 The maple in the lowlands turns suddenly its silvery 
 greenness into orange scarlet, and in the coming chil- 
 liness of the autumn eventide seems to catch the glories 
 of the sunset, and to wear them — as a sign of God's 
 old promise in Egypt — like a pillar of cloud by day, 
 and of fire by night. 
 
 And when all these are done, — and in the paved and 
 noisy aisles of the city the allantus, with all its green- 
 
182 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 ness gone, lifts up its skeleton fingers to the God of 
 Autum-n and of storms, — the dogwood still guards its 
 crown ; and the branches, which stretched their white 
 canvas in April, now bear up a spire of bloody 
 tongues, that lie against the leafless woods like a tree 
 on fire ! 
 
 Autumn brings to the home the cheerful glow of 
 " first fires." It withdraws the thoughts from the wide 
 and joyous landscape of summer, and fixes them upon 
 those objects which bloom and rejoice within the house- 
 hold. The old hearth, that has rioted the summer 
 through with boughs and blossoms, gives up its with- 
 ered tenantry. The fire-dogs gleam kindly upon the 
 evening hours ; and the blaze wakens those sweet 
 hopes and prayers which cluster around the fireside of 
 home. 
 
 The wantoning and the riot of the season gone are 
 softened in memory, and supply joys to the season to 
 come, — just as youth's audacity and pride give a glow 
 to the recollections of our manhood. 
 
 At mid-day the air is mild and soft ; a warm, blue 
 smoke lies in the mountain gaps ; the tracery of dis- 
 tant woods upon the upland hangs in the haze with a 
 dreamy gorgeousness of coloring. The river runs low 
 with August drought, and frets upon the pebbly bottom 
 with a soft, low murmur, as of joyousness gone by. The 
 hemlocks of the river-bank rise in tapering sheens, and 
 tell tales of Spring. 
 
AUTUMN. 18S 
 
 As the sun sinks, doubling his disk in the October 
 smoke, the low south-wind creeps over the withered 
 tree-tops, and drips the leaves upon the land. The win- 
 dows, that were wide open at noon, are closed ; and a 
 bright blaze — to drive off the easterly dampness that 
 promises a storm — flashes lightly and kindly over the 
 book-shelves and busts upon my wall. 
 
 As the sun sinks lower and lower, his red beams die 
 in a sea of great gray clouds. Slowly and quietly they 
 creep up over the night-sky. Venus is shrouded. The 
 western stars blink faintly, then fade in the mounting 
 vapors. The vane points east of south. The constel- 
 lations in the zenith struggle to be seen, but presently 
 give over, and hide their shining. 
 
 By late lamp-light the sky is all gray and dark ; the 
 vane has turned two points nearer east. The clouds 
 spit fine rain-drops, that you only feel with your face 
 turned to the heavens. But soon they grow thicker 
 and heavier ; and as I sit, watching the blaze, and — 
 dreaming — they patter thick and fast under the driv- 
 ing wind upon the window, like the swift tread of an 
 army of Men! 
 
Pride oj Manliness. 
 
 AND has manhood no dreams? Does the soul 
 wither at that Rubicon which lies between the 
 Gallic country of youth and the Rome of manliness ? 
 Does not fancy still love to cheat the heart, and weave 
 gorgeous tissues to hang upon that horizon which lies 
 along the years that are to come ? Is happiness so 
 exhausted that no new forms of it lie in the mines of 
 imagination, for busy hopes to drag up to day ? 
 
 Where then would live the motives to an upward 
 looking of the eye and of the soul ; where the beckon- 
 ings that bid us ever onward ? 
 
 But these later dreams are not the dreams of fond 
 boyhood, whose eye sees rarely below the surface of 
 things ; nor yet the delicious hopes of sparkling-blooded 
 youth : they are dreams of sober trustfulness, of practi- 
 cal results, of hard-wrought world-success, and, maybe, 
 of Love and of Joy. 
 
 Ambitious forays do not rest where they rested once : 
 hitherto the balance of youth has given you, in all that 
 you have dreamed of accomplishment, a strong vantage 
 
PRIDE OF MANLINESS. 18fi 
 
 against age ; hitherto in all your estimates you have 
 been able to multiply them by that access of thought 
 and of strength which manhood would bring to you. 
 Now this is forever ended. 
 
 There is a great meaning in that word — manhood. 
 It covers all human growth. It supposes no extensions 
 or increase ; it is "integral, fixed, perfect, — the whole. 
 There is no getting beyond manhood ; it is much to 
 live up to it ; but once reached, you are all that a man 
 was made to be in this world. 
 
 It is a strong thought — that a man is perfected, so 
 far as strength goes ; that he will never be abler to do 
 his work than under the very sun which is now shining 
 on him. There is a seriousness that few call to mind 
 in the reflection that whatever you do in this age of 
 manhood is an unalterable type of your whole bigness. 
 You may qualify particulars of your character by re- 
 finements, by special studies, and practice ; but, once a 
 man, and there is no more manliness to be lived for ! 
 
 This thought kindles your soul to new and swifter 
 dreams of ambition than belonged to youth. They were 
 toys ; these are weapons. They were fancies ; these 
 are motives. The soul begins to struggle with the dust, 
 the sloth, the circumstance, that beleaguer humanity, 
 and to stagger into the van of action. 
 
 Perception, whose limits lay along a narrow horizon, 
 aow tops that horizon, and spreads, and reaches toward 
 
186 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 the heaven of the Infinite. The mind feels its birth, 
 and struggles toward the great birth-master. The heart 
 glows ; its humanities even yield and crimple under the 
 fierce heat of mental pride. Vows leap upward, and 
 pile rampart upon rampart to scale all the degrees of 
 human power. 
 
 ~ Are there not times in every man's life when there 
 flashes on him a feeling — nay, more, an absolute con- 
 viction — that this soul is but a spark belonging to some 
 upper fire ; and that, by as much as we draw near by 
 effort, by resolve, by intensity of endeavor, to thai up- 
 per fire, by so much we draw nearer to our home, 
 and mate ourselves with angels ? Is there not a ring- 
 ing desire in many minds to seize hold of what floats 
 above us in the universe of thought, and drag down 
 what shreds we can to scatter to the world ? '' Is it not 
 belonging to greatness to catch lightning from the 
 plains where lightning lives, and curb it for the hand- 
 ling of men ? 
 
 Eesolve is what makes a man manliest ; — - not puny • 
 resolve, not crude determination, not errant purpose, 
 but that strong and indefatigable will which treads 
 down difficulties and danger as a boy treads down the 
 heaving frost-lands of winter, — which kindles his eye 
 and brain with a proud pulse - beat toward the unat- 
 tainable. Will makes men giants.' It made Napoleon 
 / an emperor of kings. Bacon a fathomer of nature 
 
PRIDE OF MANLINESS. ] 
 
 Byron a tutor of passion, and the martyrs masters 
 Death ! 
 
 In this age of manhood you look back upon 
 dreams of the years that are past: they glide to 
 vision in pompous procession ; they seem bloated v 
 infancy. They are without sinew or bone. They 
 not bear the hard touches of the man's hand. 
 
 It is not long, to be sure, since the summer of 
 ended with that broken hope ; but the few years 1 
 lie between have given long steps upward. The li 
 grief that threw its shadow, and the broken vis 
 that deluded you, have made the passing years lonj 
 such feeling as ripens manhood. Nothing lays 
 brown of autumn upon the green of summer so qi 
 as storms. 
 
 There have been changes too in the home seer 
 these graft age upon a man. Nelly — your sweet N 
 of childhood, your affectionate sister of youth. — 
 grown out of the old brotherly companionship into 
 new dignity of a household. 
 
 The fire flames and flashes upon the accustoi 
 hearth. The father's chair is there in the woi 
 corner ; he himself — we must call him the old i 
 now, though his head shows few white honors — w( 
 a calmness and a trust that light the failing eye. N 
 is not away ; Nelly is a wife ; and the husband yon 
 as you may have dreamed, — your old friend Frank. 
 
188 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 Her eye is joyous ; her kindness to you is unabated 
 her care for you is quicker and wiser. But yet the 
 old unity of the household seems broken ; nor can ah 
 her winning attentions bring back the feeling wliich 
 lived in Spring under the garret-roof. 
 ^The isolation, the unity, the integrity of manhood 
 make a strong prop for the mind, but a weak one for 
 the heart. " Dignity can but poorly fill up that chasm 
 of the soul which the home aifections once occupied. 
 Life's duties and honors press hard upon the bosom 
 that once throbbed at a. mother's tones, and that 
 bounded in a mother's smiles. ^ 
 
 In such home, the strength you boast of seems a 
 weakness ; manhood leans into childish memories, and 
 melts — as Autumn frosts yield to a soft south-wind 
 coming from a Tropic spring. You feel in a desert, 
 where you once felt at home, — in a bounded landscape, 
 that was once the world ! 
 
 The tall sycamores have dwindled to paltry trees; 
 the hills that were so large, and lay at such grand 
 distance to the eye of childhood, are now near by, and 
 have fallen away to mere rolling waves of upland. 
 The garden-fence, that was so gigantic, is now only a 
 simple paling ; its gate that was such a cumbrous aflfair 
 — reminding you of Gaza — you might easily lift from 
 its hinges. The lofty dove-cote, which seemed to rise 
 like a monument of art before your boyish vision, is 
 now only a flimsy box upon a tall spar of hemlock. 
 
PRIDE OF MANLINESS. 189 
 
 The garret even, with its lofty beams, its dark stains, 
 and its obscure corners, where the white hats and coats 
 hung ghost-like, is but a low loft darkened by age, — 
 hung over with cobwebs, dimly lighted with foul win- 
 dows, — its romping Charlie — its glee — its swing — 
 its joy — its mystery — all gone forever. 
 
 The old gallipots and retorts are not anywhere to be 
 Been in the second-story window of the brick school- 
 house. Dr. Bidlow is no more ! The trees that seemed 
 so large, the gynmastic feats that were so extraordinary, 
 the boy that made a snapper of his handkerchief, — 
 have all lost their greatness and their dread. Even 
 the springy usher, who dressed his hair with the ferule, 
 has become the middle-aged father of five curly-headed 
 boys, and has entered upon what once seemed the gigan- 
 tic conmierce of "stationery and account-books." 
 
 The marvellous labyrinth of closets at the old man- 
 sion where you once paid a visit — in a coach — is all 
 dissipated. They have turned out to be the merest 
 cupboards in the wall. Nat, who had travelled and 
 seen London, is by no means so surprising a fellow to 
 your manhood as he was to the boy. lie has grown 
 spare, and wears spectacles. He is not so famous as he 
 was. You would hardly think of consulting him now 
 about your marriage, or even about the price of goats 
 upon London Bridge. 
 
 As for Jenny, — your first, fond flame ! — lively, ro- 
 
190 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 tnantic, black-eyed Jenny, — the reader of " Thaddeiis 
 of Warsaw," — who sighed and wore blue ribbons on her 
 bonnet, — ^ who wrote love-notes, — who talked so tenderly 
 of broken hearts, — who used a glass seal with a Cupid 
 and a dart, — dear Jenny ! — she is now the plump and 
 thriving wife of the apothecary of the town! She 
 sweeps out every morning at seven the little entry of 
 the apothecary's house; she buys a "joint" twice a 
 week from the butcher, and is particular to have the 
 " knuckle " thrown in for soups ; she wears a sky-blue 
 calico gown, and dresses her hair in three little flat 
 quirls on either side of her head, each one pierced 
 through with a two-pronged hair-pin. 
 
 She does not read " Thaddeus of Warsaw " now. 
 
II. 
 
 Man of the World. 
 
 TT^EW persons live through the first periods of man- 
 -*- hood without strong temptations to be counted 
 "men of the world." The idea looms grandly among 
 those vanities that hedge a man's approach to maturity. 
 
 Clarence is in good training for the acceptance of 
 this idea. The broken hope, which clouded his closing 
 youth, shoots over its influence upon the -dawn of 
 manhood. Mortified pride had taught — as it always 
 teaches — not caution only, but doubt, distrust, indiffer- 
 ence. A new pride grows up on the ruins of the old, 
 weak, and vain pride of youth. Then it was a pride 
 of learning, or of affection ; now it is a pride of indif- 
 ference. Then the world proved bleak and cold, as 
 contrasted with his shining dreams; and now he accepts 
 the proof, and wins from it what he can. 
 
 The man of the world puts on the method and 
 measure of the world: he studies its humors. He 
 gives up the boyish notion of a sincerity among men 
 like that of youth : he lives to seem. He conquers 
 such annoyances as tlie world may thrust upon him, in 
 
192 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 the shape of grief or losses, like a practical athlete of 
 the ring. He studies moral sparring. 
 
 With somewhat of this strange vanity growing on 
 you, you do not suffer the heart to wake into life except 
 in such fanciful dreams as tempt you back to the • sunny 
 slopes of childhood. 
 
 In this mood you fall in with Dalton, who has jus 
 returned from a year passed in the French capital. 
 There is an easy suavity and graceful indifference in 
 his manner that chimes admirably with your humor 
 He is gracious, without needing to be kind. He is a 
 friend, without any challenge or proffer of sincerity. 
 He is just one of those adepts in world tactics which 
 match him with all men, but which link him to none. 
 He has made it his art to be desired and admired, but 
 rarely to be trusted. You could not have a better' 
 teacher ! 
 
 Under such instruction you become disgusted for the 
 time with any effort, or pulse of affection, which does 
 not have immediate and practical bearing upon that 
 success in life by which you measure your hopes. The 
 dreams of love, of romantic adventure, of placid joy, 
 liave all gone out with the fantastic images to which 
 your passionate youth had joined them. The world is 
 now regarded as a tournament, where the gladiator- 
 ship of life is to be exhibited at your best endeavor. 
 Its honors and joys lie in a brilliant pennon and a 
 plaudit. 
 
MAN OF THE WORLD. 193 
 
 Dalton is learned in those arts which make of action, 
 not a duty, but a conquest ; and sense of duty has 
 expired in you with those romantic hopes to which 
 you bound it, not as much through sympathy as igno- 
 rance. It is a cold and a bitterly selfish work that lies 
 before you, — to be covered over with such borrowed 
 show of smiles as men call aflfability. The heart wears 
 a stout, brazen screen ; its inclinations grow to the 
 habit of your ambitious projects. 
 
 In such mood come swift dreams of wealth, — -not 
 of mere accumulation, but of the splendor and parade 
 which in our Western world are, alas ! its chiefest at trac- 
 tions. You grow observant of markets, and estimate 
 percentages. You fondle some speculation in your 
 thought, until it grows into a gigantic scheme of profit'; 
 and if the venture prove successful, you follow the 
 tide tremulously, until some sudden reverse throws 
 you back upon the resources of your professional em- 
 ploy. 
 
 But again as you see this and that one wearing the 
 blazonry which wealth wins, and which the man of the 
 world is sure to covet, — your weak soul glows again 
 with the impassioned desire, and you hunger, with 
 brute appetite and bestial eye, for riches. You see 
 the mania aroimd you, and it is relieved of odium by 
 the community of error. You consult some gray old 
 veteran in the war of gold, scarred with wounds, and 
 9 
 
194 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 crowned with honors, and watch eagerly for the wordi 
 and the ways which have won him wealth. 
 
 Your fingers tingle with mad expectancies ; your 
 eyes roam, lost in estimates. Your note-book shows 
 long lines of figures. Your reading of the news centres 
 in the stock-list. Your brow grows cramped with the 
 fever of anxiety. Through whole church-hours your 
 dreams range over the shadowy transactions of the 
 week or the month to come. 
 
 Even with- old religious habit clinging fast to your 
 soul, you dream now only of nice conformity, comfort- 
 able faith, high respectability ; there lies very little in 
 you of that noble consciousness of Duty performed, — 
 of living up to the Life that is in you, — of grasping 
 boldly and stoutly at those chains of Love which the 
 Infinite Power has lowered to our reach. You do not 
 dream of being, but of seeming. You spill the real 
 essence, and clutch at the vial which has only a label 
 of Truth. ^Great and holy thoughts of the Future, — 
 shadowy, yet bold conceptions of the Infinite, — float 
 past you dimly, and your hold is never strong enough 
 to grapple them to you. They fly, like eagles, too near 
 the sun ; and there lies game below for your vulture 
 beak to feed upon. ■- 
 
 ~ [Great thoughts belong only and truly to him whose 
 mind can hold them. No matter who first puts them 
 m words, if they come to a soul and fill it, they belong 
 
MAN OF THE WORLD. 195 
 
 to it, — whether they floated on the voice of others, or 
 on the wings of silence and the night] "^ 
 
 To be up with the fashion of the time, to be ignorant 
 of plain things and people; and to be knowing in brill- 
 iancies, is a kind of Pelhaniism that is very apt to 
 overtake one in the first blush of manhood. To hold 
 a fair place in the after-dinner table-talk, to meet dis- 
 tinction as a familiarity, to wear salon honors with 
 aplomb, to know affection so far as to wield it into 
 grace of language, are all splendid achievements with 
 a man of the world. Instruction is caught without 
 asking it ; and no ignorance so shames as ignorance 
 of those forms by which natural impulse is subdued 
 to the tone of civilian habit. You conceal what tells 
 of the man, and cover it with what smacks of the 
 roue. 
 
 Perhaps under such training, and with a slight 
 memory of early mortification to point your spirit, you 
 affect those gallantries of heart and action which the 
 world calls flirtation. You may study brilliancies of 
 speech to wrap their net around those susceptible 
 heai-ts whose habit is too nawe by nature to wear the 
 leaden covering of custom. You win approaches by 
 artful counterfeit of earnestness, and dash away any 
 naivete of confidence with some brave sophism of the 
 world. A doubt or a distrust piques your pride, and 
 Uiakes attentions wear a humility that wins anew. An 
 
196 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 indifference piques you more, and throws into your art 
 a counter-indifference, — lit up by bold flashes of feel- 
 ing, — sparkling with careless brilliancies, and crowned 
 with a triumph of neglect. 
 
 It is curious how ingeniously a man's vanity will 
 frame apologies for such action. — It is pleasant to give 
 pleasure ; you like to see a jojous sparkle of the eye, 
 whether lit up by your presence or by some buoyant 
 fancy. It is a beguiling task to weave words into some 
 soft, melodious flow, that shall keep the ear and kindle 
 the eye ; and to strew it over with half-hidden praises, 
 so deftly couched in double terms that their aroma 
 shall only come to the heart hours afterward, and seem 
 to be the merest accidents of truth. It is a happy art 
 to make such subdued show of emotion as seems to 
 struggle with pride, and to flush the eye with a moisture, 
 of which you seem ashamed, and yet are proud. It is 
 a pretty practice to throw an earnestness tnto look and 
 gesture, that shall seem full of pleading, and yet — ask 
 nothing ! 
 
 And yet it is nard to admire greatly the reputation 
 of that man who builds his triumphs upon womanly 
 weakness ; that distinction is not over-enduring whose 
 chiefest merit springs out of the delusions of a too 
 trustful heart. The man, who wins it, wins only a poor 
 sort of womanly distinction. Without power to cope 
 ■»rith men, he triumphs over the weakness of the other 
 
MAN OF THE WORLD. 197 
 
 Bex only by hypocrisy. ' He wears none of the armor 
 of Romans, and he- parleys with Punic faith. 
 
 Yet even now there is a lurking goodness in 
 
 you that traces its beginning to the old garret-home, — 
 there is an air in the harvest heats that whispers of the 
 bloom of spring. 
 
 And over your brilliant career as man of the world, 
 however lit up by a morbid vanity, or galvanized by a 
 lascivious passion, there will come at times the con- 
 sciousness of a better heart, struggling beneath your 
 cankered action, — like the low VesuVian fire, reeking 
 vainly under rough beds of tufa and scoriated lava. 
 And as you smile in loge or salon, with daring smiles, 
 or press with villain fondness the hand of those lady- 
 votaries of the same god you serve, there will gleam 
 upon you over the waste of rolling years a memory 
 that quickens again the nobler and bolder instincts of 
 the heart. 
 
 Childish recollections, with their purity and earnest- 
 ness, — a sister's love, — a mother's solicitude, will flood 
 your soul once more with a gushing sensibility that 
 yearns for enjoyment. *> And the consciousness of some 
 lingering nobility of affection, that can only grow great 
 in mating itself with nobility of heart, will sweep off 
 your puny triumphs, your Platonic friendships, your 
 dashing coquetries, like the foul smoke of a city before 
 1 fresh breeze of the country autimin. ^ 
 
in. 
 
 Manly Hope. 
 
 "VrOU are at home again; not your own home, — thai 
 -"- is gone, — but at the home of Nelly and of Frank. 
 The city heats of summer drive you to the country. 
 You ramble, with a little kindling of old desires and 
 memories, over the hill-sides that once bounded your 
 boyish vision. Here you netted the wild rabbits, as 
 they came out at dusk to feed ; there, upon that tall 
 chestnut, you cruelly maimed your first captive squirrel. 
 The old maples are even now scarred with the rude 
 cuts you gave them in sappy March. 
 
 You sit down upon some height overlooking the val- 
 ley where you were born ; you trace the faint, silvery 
 line of river ; you detect by the leaning elm your old 
 bathing-place upon the Saturdays of Summer. Your 
 eye dwells upon some patches of pasture-wood which 
 were famous for their nuts. Your rambling and sad- 
 dened vision roams over the houses ; it traces the fa- 
 miliar chimney-stacks ; it searches out the low-lying 
 cottages ; it dwells upon the gray roof sleeping yondef 
 inder the sycamores. 
 
MANLY HOPE. 199 
 
 Tears swell in your eye as you gaze ; you cannot tell 
 whence or why they come. Yet they are tears eloquent 
 of feeling. They speak of brother-children, — of boy- 
 ish glee, — of the flush of young health, — of a moth- 
 er's devotion, — of the home affections, — of the vani- 
 ties of life, — of the wasting years, — of the Death that 
 nmst shroud what friends remain, as it has shrouded 
 what friends have gone, — and of that Great Hope, 
 beaming on your seared manhood dimly from the upper 
 world ! 
 
 Your wealth suffices for all the luxuries of life ; there 
 is no fear of coming want ; health beats strong in your 
 veins ; you have learned to hold a place in the world 
 with a man's strength, and a man's coniidence. And 
 yet in the view of those sweet scenes which belonged 
 to early days, when neither strength, confidence, nor 
 wealth were yours, — days never to come again, — a 
 shade of melancholy broods upon your spirit, and cov- 
 ers with its veil all that fierce pride which your worldly 
 wisdom has wrought. 
 
 You visit again with Frank the country homestead 
 of his grandfather : he is dead ; but the old lady still 
 ives ; and blind Fanny, now drawing toward woman- 
 hood, wears yet through her darkened life the same air 
 of placid content, and of sweet trustfulness in Heaven. 
 The boys, whom you astounded with your stories of 
 books, are gone, building up now with steady industrj 
 
200 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 the queen cities of our new western land. The old 
 clergyman is gone from the desk, and from under his 
 sounding board ; he sleeps beneath a brown stone slab 
 in the church-yard. The stout deacon is dead ; his wig 
 and his wickedness rest together. The tall chorister 
 sings yet; but they have now a bass-viol — handled by 
 a new schoolmaster — in place of his tuning-fork ; and 
 the years have sown feeble quavers in his voice. 
 
 Once more you meet at the home of Nelly the blue- 
 eyed Madge. The sixpence is all forgotten ; you can- 
 not tell where your half of it is gone. Yet she is beau- 
 tiful, just budding into the full ripeness of womanhood. 
 Her eyes have a quiet, still joy, and hope beaming in 
 them, like angel's looks. Her motions have a native 
 grace and freedom that no culture can bestow. Her 
 words have a gentle earnestness and honesty that could 
 never nurture guile. 
 
 You had thought after yeur gay experiences of the 
 world to meet her with a kind condescension, as an old 
 friend of Nelly's. But there is that in her eye which 
 forbids all thought of condescension. There is that in 
 her air which tells of a high womanly dignity, which 
 can only be met on equal ground. Your pride is 
 piqued. She has known — she must know your his- 
 tory ; but it does not tame her. There is no marked 
 and submissive appreciation of your gifts as a man of 
 the world. 
 
MANLY HOPE. 201 
 
 She meets your happiest compliments with a very 
 easy indifference ; she receives your elegant civilities 
 with a very assured brow. She neither courts your so- 
 ciety, nor avoids it. She does not seek to provoke any 
 special attention. And only when your old self glows 
 in some casual kindness to Nelly, does her look beam 
 with a flush of sympathy. 
 
 This look touches you. It makes you ponder on the 
 noble heart that lives in Madge. It makes you wish it 
 were yours. But that is gone. The fervor and the 
 honesty of a glowing youth is swallowed up in the flash 
 and splendor of the world. A half-regret chases over 
 you at nightfall, when solitude pierces you with the 
 swift dart of gone-by memories. But at morning the 
 regret dies in the glitter of ambitious purposes. 
 
 The summer months linger ; and still you linger with 
 them. Madge is often with Nelly ; and Madge is never 
 less than Madge. You venture to point your attentions 
 with a little more fervor ; but she meets the fervor with 
 no glow. She knows too well the habit of your life. 
 ' Strange feelings come over you, — feelings like half- 
 forgotten memories, — musical, dreamy, doubtful. You 
 have seen a hundred faces more brilliant than that of 
 Madge ; you have pressed a hundred jewelled hands 
 that have returned a half-pressure to yours. You do 
 not exactly admire ; to love you have forgotten ; you 
 only — linger ! 
 
202 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 It is a soft autumn evening, and the harvest-moon ia 
 red and round over the eastern skirt of woods. You 
 are attending Madge to that little cottage-home where 
 lives that gentle and doting mother, who, in the midst 
 of comparative poverty, cherishes that refined delicacy 
 which never comes to a child but by inheritance. 
 
 Madge has been passing the day with Nelly. Some- 
 thing — it may be the soft autumn air, wafting toward 
 you the freshness of young days — moves you to speak 
 as you have not ventured to speak, as your vanity has 
 not allowed you to speak before. 
 
 " You remember, Madge, (you have guarded this sole 
 token of boyish intimacy,) our split sixpence ? " 
 
 " Perfectly ; " it is a short word to speak, and there 
 is no tremor in her tone, — not the slightest. 
 
 « You have it yet ? " 
 
 " I dare say I have it somewhere ; " — no tremor 
 now ; she is very composed. 
 
 " That was a happy time ; '' — very great emphasis on 
 the word happy. 
 
 " Very happy ; " — no emphasis anywhere. 
 
 " I sometimes wish I might live it over again." 
 
 " Yes ? " — inquiringly. 
 
 " There are, after all, no pleasures in the world like 
 those." 
 
 " No ? " — inquiringly again. 
 
 You thought you had learned to have language at 
 
MANLY HOPE. 203 
 
 sommand ; you never thought, after so many years' 
 schooling of the world, that your pliant tongue would 
 play you truant. Yet now you are silent. 
 
 The moon steals silvery into the light flakes of cloud, 
 and the air is soft as May. The cottage is in sight. 
 Again you risk utterance : — 
 
 " You must live very happily here." 
 
 " I have very kind friends ; " — the very is emphap 
 sized. 
 
 " I am sure Nelly loves you very much." 
 
 " Oh, I believe it ! " — with great earnestness. 
 
 You are at the cottage-door. — 
 
 " Good night, Maggie ; " — very feelingly. 
 
 " Good night, Clarence ; " — very kindly ; and she 
 draws her hand coyly, and half tremulously, from your 
 somewhat fevered grasp. 
 
 You stroll away dreamily, watching the moon, — run- 
 ning over your fl-agmentary life, — half moody, half 
 pleased, half hopeful. 
 
 You come back stealthily, and with a heart throbbing 
 with a certain wild sense of shame, to watch the light 
 gleaming in the cottage. You linger in the shadows 
 of the trees until you catch a glimpse of her figure 
 gliding past the window. You bear the image home 
 with you. You are silent on your return. You retire 
 early, but you do not sleep early. 
 
 If you were only as you were : if it were not 
 
204 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 too late ! If Madge could only love you, as you know 
 she will and must love one manly heart, there would 
 be a world of joy opening before you. But it is too 
 late! 
 
 You draw out Nelly to speak of Madge : Nelly is 
 very prudent. " Madge is a dear girl," she says. Does 
 Nelly even distrust you ? It is a sad thing to be too 
 much a man of the world ! 
 
 You go back again to noisy, ambitious life : you try 
 to drown old memories in its blaze and its vanities. 
 Your lot seems cast beyond all change, and you task 
 yourself with its noisy fulfilment. But amid the silence 
 and the toil of your office-hours, a strange desire broods 
 over your spirit, — a desire for more of manliness, — 
 that manliness which feels itself a protector of loving 
 and trustful innocence. 
 
 You look around upon the faces in which you have 
 smiled unmeaning smiles : there is nothing there to 
 feed your dawning desires. You meet with those ready 
 to court you by fiattering your vanity, by retailing the 
 praises of what you may do well, by odious familiarity, 
 by brazen proffer of friendship, but you see in it only 
 the emptiness and the vanity which you have studied to 
 enjoy. 
 
 Sickness comes over you, and binds you for weary 
 days and nights, — in which life hovers doubtfully, and 
 the lips babble secrets that you cherish. It is astonish- 
 
MANLY HOPE. 206 
 
 ing ho*' disease clips a man from the artificialities of 
 the world ! Lying lonely upon his bed, moaning, writh- 
 ing, suffering, his soul joins on to the universe of souls 
 by only natural bonds. The factitious ties of wealth, 
 of place, of reputation, vanish from his bleared eyes ; 
 and the earnest heart, deep under all, craves only 
 heartiness ! 
 
 The old craving of the office silence comes back, — 
 -not with the proud wish only of being a protector, 
 but — of being protected. And whatever may be the 
 trust in that beneficent Power who '' chasteneth whom 
 he loveth," there is yet an earnest, human yearning 
 toward some one, whose love — most, and whose duty i 
 — least, would call her to your side ; whose soft hands 
 would cool the fever of yours, whose step would wake 
 a throb of joy, whose voice would tie you to life, and 
 whose presence would make the worst of Death — an 
 Adieu ! 
 
 As you gain strength once more, you go back to 
 Nelly's home. Her kindness does not falter ; every 
 care and attention belong to you there. Again your 
 eye rests upon that figure of Madge, and upon her face, 
 wearing an even gentler expression as she sees you 
 sitting pale and feeble by the old hearth-stone. She 
 brings flowers — for Nelly : you beg Nelly to place 
 .hem upon the little table at your side. It is as yet the 
 snly taste of the country that you can enjoy. You love 
 
206 DREAM-LIFE 
 
 After a time you grow strong, and walk in the fields, 
 You linger until nightfall. You pass hy the cottage 
 where Madge lives. It is your pleasantest walk. The 
 trees are greenest in that direction ; the shadows are 
 softest ; the flowers are thickest. 
 
 It is strange — this feeling in you. It is not the 
 feeling you had for Laura Dalton. It does not even 
 remind of that. That was an impulse, but this is 
 growth. That was strong, but this is strength. You 
 catch sight of her little notes to Nelly ; you read them 
 over and over ; you treasure them ; you learn them by 
 heart. There is something in the very writing that 
 touches you. 
 
 You bid her adieu with .tones of kindness that trem- 
 ble, — and that meet a half-trembling tone in reply. 
 She is very good. 
 
 If it were not too late ! '' 
 
IV. 
 
 Manly Love. 
 
 A ND shall pride yield at length ! 
 
 "^-^ Pride ! — and what has love to do with 
 
 pride ? Let us see how it is. 
 
 Madge is poor ; she is humble. Ton are rich ; you 
 are a man of the world ; you are met respectfully by 
 the veterans of fashion ; you have gained perhaps a 
 kind of brilliancy of position. 
 
 Would it then be a condescension to love Madge ? 
 Dare you ask yourself such a question ? Do you not 
 know — -in spite of your worldliness — thatHhe man or 
 the woman, who condescends to love, never loves in 
 earnest ? ' 
 
 But again Madge is possessed of a purity, a delicacy, 
 and a dignity that lift her far above you, — that make 
 you feel your weakness and your unworthiness ; and it 
 is the deep and the mortifying sense of this unworthi- 
 ness that makes you bolster yourself upon your pride. 
 You know that you do yourself honor in loving such 
 grace and goodness ; you know that you would be 
 honored tenfold more than you deserve in being loved 
 by so much grace and goodness. 
 
208 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 It scarce seems to you possible ; it is a joy too great 
 to be hoped for; and in the doubt of its attainment 
 your old, worldly vanity comes in, and tells you to — 
 beware ; and to live on in the splendor of your dissipa- 
 tion and in the lusts of your selfish habit. Yet still 
 imderneath all there is a deep, low, heart-voice, — 
 quickened from above, — which assures you that you 
 are capable of better things ; that you are not wholly 
 lost ; that a mine of unstarted tenderness still lies 
 smouldering in your soul. 
 
 And with this sense quickening your better nature, 
 you venture the wealth of your whole heart-life upon 
 the hope that now blazes on your path. 
 
 You are seated at your desk, working with such 
 
 zeal of labor as your ambitious projects never could 
 command. It is a letter to Margaret Boyne that so 
 tasks your love, and makes the veins upon your forehead 
 swell with the earnestness of the employ. 
 
 " Dear Madge, — May I not call you thus, if 
 
 only in memory of our childish affections ; and might 
 I dare to hope that a riper aifection, which your char- 
 acter has awakened, may permit me to call you thua 
 always ? 
 
 " If I have not ventured to speak, dear Madge, will 
 you not believe that the consciousness of my own 
 ill-desert has tied my tongue ; will you not at least 
 
MANLY LOVE. 209 
 
 give me credit for a little remaining modesty of heart r 
 You know my life, and you know my character, — what 
 a sad jumble of errors and of misfortunes have be 
 longed to each. You know the careless and the vain 
 purposes which have made me recreant to the better 
 nature which belonged to that sunny childhood, when 
 we lived and grew up together. And will you not 
 believe me when I say, that your grace of character 
 and kindness of heart have drawn me back from the 
 follies in which I lived, and quickened new desires 
 which I thought to be wholly dead ? Can I indeed 
 hope that you will overlook all that has gained your 
 secret reproaches, and confide in a heart which is 
 made conscious of better things by the love you have 
 inspired ? 
 
 " Ah, Madge, it is not with a vain show of words, or 
 with any counterfeit of feeling, that I write now ; you 
 know it is not ; you know that my heart is leaning 
 toward you with the freshness of its noblest instincts ; 
 you know that — I love you ! 
 
 " Can I, dare I hope, that it is not spoken in vain ? 
 I had thought in my pride never to make such avowal, 
 — never again to sue for affection ; but your gentle- 
 ness, your modesty, your virtues of life and heart, have 
 conquered me ! I am sure you will treat me with the 
 generosity of a victor. 
 
 " You know my weaknesses ; I would not conceal 
 
210 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 from you a single one, — even to win you. I can offer 
 nothing to you which will bear comparison in value 
 with what is yours to bestow. I can only offer this 
 feeble hand of mine — to guard you ; and this pooi 
 heart — to love you! 
 
 "Am I rash? Am I extravagant, in word, or in 
 hope ? Forgive it then, dear Madge, for the sake of 
 our old childish affection ; and believe me, when I say, 
 that what is here written — is written honestly and 
 tearfully. Adieu." 
 
 It is with no fervor of boyish passion that you fold 
 this letter : it is with the trembling hand of eager and 
 earnest manhood. They tell you that man is not capa- 
 ble of love : so the September sun is not capable of 
 warmth! It may not indeed be so fierce as that of" 
 July ; but it is steadier. It does not force great flaunt- 
 ing leaves into breadth and succulence, but it matures 
 whole harvests of plenty ! /^ 
 
 There is a deep and earnest soul pervading the reply 
 of Madge that makes it sacred ; it is full of delicacy, 
 and full of hope. Tet it is not final. \Her heart lies 
 intrenched within the ramparts of Duty and of Devo- 
 tion. It is a citadel of strength in the middle of the 
 city of her affections. To win the way to it, there 
 must be not only earnestness of love, but earnestness 
 of life. 
 
MANLY LOVE. 211 
 
 Weeks roll by, and other letters pass and are an- 
 Bwered, — a glow of warmth beaming on either side. 
 
 You are again at the home of Nelly ; she is very 
 joyous ; she is the confidante of Madge. Nelly feels, 
 that with all your errors you have enough inner good- 
 ness of heart to make Madge happy ; and she feels — 
 doubly — that Madge has such excess of goodness as 
 will cover your heart with joy. Yet she tells you very 
 little. She will give you no full assurance of the love 
 of Madge ; she leaves that for yourself to win. 
 
 She will even tease you in her pleasant way, until 
 hope almost changes to despair, and your brow grows 
 pale with the dread — that even now your unworthi- 
 ness may condemn you. 
 
 It is summer, weather ; and you have been walking 
 over the hills of home with Madge and Nelly. Nelly 
 has found some excuse to leave you, — glancing at yon 
 most teasingly as she hurries away. 
 
 You are left sitting with Madge upon a bank tufted 
 with blue violets. You have been talking of the days 
 of childhood, and some word has called up the old 
 'chain of bojrish feeling, and joined it to your new 
 hope. 
 
 What you would say crowds too fast for utterance ; 
 and you abandon it. But you take from your pocket 
 that little, broken bit of sixpence, — which you have 
 found after long search, — and without a word, but with 
 
212 DEEA M-LIFE. 
 
 a look that tells your inmost thought, you lay it in the 
 half-opened hand of Madge. 
 
 She looks at you with a slight suffusion of color, — 
 seems to hesitate a moment, — raises her other hand, 
 and draws from her ^bosom by a bit of blue ribbon a 
 little locket. She touches a spring, and there falls 
 beside your relique — another, that had once belonged 
 to it. 
 
 Hope glows now like the sun. 
 
 " And you have worn this, Maggie ? " 
 
 "Always! " 
 
 " Dear Madge ! " 
 
 " Dear Clarence ! " 
 
 And you pass your arm now, unchecked, around 
 
 that yielding, graceful figure, and fold her to your 
 bnsom with the swift and blessed assurance that your 
 fullest and n ablest dream of love is won ! 
 
V. 
 
 Cheer and Children, 
 
 TTTHAT a glow there is to the sun ! What warmth 
 ^ ^ — yet it does not oppress you : what coolness 
 
 — yet it is not too cool. The birds sing sweetly ; you 
 catch yourself watching to see what new songsters they 
 can be : they are only the old robins and thrushes 
 yet what a new melody is in their throats ! 
 
 The clouds hang gorgeous shapes upon the sky, — 
 shapes they could hardly ever have fashioned before. 
 The grass was never so green, the buttercups were 
 never so plentiful ; there was never such a life in the 
 leaves. It seems, as if the joyousness in you gave a 
 throb to nature that made every green thing buoyant. 
 
 Faces, too, are changed : men look pleasantly ; chil- 
 dren are all charming children ; even babies look ten- 
 der and lovable. The street-beggar at your door is 
 suddenly grown into a Belisarius, and is one of the 
 most deserving heroes of modern times. Your mind 
 is in a continued ferment ; you glide through your toil 
 
 — dashing out sparkles of passion — like a ship in the 
 sea. No difficulty daunts you : there is a kind of buoy- 
 
214 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 ancy in your soul that rocks over danger or doubt, 
 as sea-waves heave calmly aud smoothly over sunken 
 rocks. 
 
 You grow unusually amiable and kind ; you are ear- 
 nest in your search of friends ; you shake hands with 
 your office-boy as if he were your second cousin. You 
 joke cheerfully with the stout washerwoman, and give 
 her a shilling over-change, and insist upon her keep- 
 ing it, and grow quite merry at the recollection of it. 
 You tap your hackman on the shoulder very familiarly, 
 and tell him he is a capital fellow ; and don't allow him 
 to whip his horses, except when driving to the post- 
 office. You even ask him to take a glass of beer with 
 you upon some chilly evening. You drink to the health 
 of his wife. He says he has no wife ; whereupon you 
 think him a very miserable man, and give him a dol- 
 lar by way of consolation. 
 
 You think all the editorials in the morning papers 
 are remarkably well written, — whether upon your side, 
 or upon the other. You think the stock-market has 
 a very cheerful look, even with Erie — of which you 
 are a large holder — down to seventy-five. You won- 
 der why you never admired Mrs. Hemans before, or 
 Stoddard, or any of the rest. 
 
 You give a pleasant twirl to your fingers as you 
 saimter along the street, and say, — but not so loud as 
 to be overheard, — " She is mine ; she is mine ! " 
 
CHEER AND CHILDREN. 216 
 
 You wonder if Frank ever loved Nelly one half as 
 well as you love Madge. You feel quite sure he never 
 did. You can hardly conceive how it is that Madge 
 has not been seized before now by scores of enamored 
 men, and borne off, like the Sabine women in Roman 
 history. You chuckle over your future, like a boy who 
 has found a guinea in groping for sixpences. You 
 read over the marriage service, — thinking of the time 
 when you will take her hand, and slip the ring upon her 
 finger, — and repeat, after the clergyman, " for richer 
 — for poorer ; for better — for worse ! " A great deal 
 of " worse " there will be about it, you think ! 
 
 Through all, your heart cleaves to that sweet image 
 of the beloved Mpdge, as light cleaves to day. The 
 weeks leap with a bound ; and the months only grow 
 long when you approach that day which is to make 
 her yours. There are no flowers rare enough to make 
 bouquets for her ; diamonds are too dim for her to 
 wear ; pearls are tame. 
 
 And after marriage the weeks are even shorter 
 
 than before : you wonder why on earth all the single 
 men in the world do not rush tumultuously to the 
 Altar ; you look upon them all as a travelled man will 
 look upon some conceited Dutch boor who has never 
 been beyond the limits of his cabbage-garden. Mar- 
 ried men, on the contrary,, you regard as fellow-voy- 
 agers ; and look upon their wives — ugly as they may 
 hp — as better than none. 
 
216 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 ^ You blush a little at first telling your butcher what 
 " your wife " would like ; you bargain with the grocer 
 for sugars and teas, and wonder if he knows that you 
 are a married man. You practise your new way of 
 talk upon your ofiice-boy : you tell him that " your wife '' 
 expects you home to dinner ; and are astonished that 
 he does not stare to hear you say it ! ^> (f^ - 
 
 You wonder if the people in the omnibus know that 
 Madge and you are just married ; and if the driver 
 knows that the shilling you hand to him is for " self 
 and wife." ^You wonder if anybody was ever so happy 
 before, or ever will be so happy again. * 
 
 You enter your name upon the hotel books as 
 
 " Clarence and Wife " ; and come back to look at 
 
 it, wondering if anybody else has noticed it, — and 
 thinking that it looks remarkably well. You cannot 
 help thinking that every third man you meet in the 
 hall wishes he possessed your wiffe ; nor do you think it 
 very sinful in him to wish it. You fear it is placing 
 temptation in the way of covetous men to put Madge's 
 little gaiters outside the chamber-door at night, u V '^'( 
 
 Your home, when it is entered, is just what it should 
 be, — quiet, small, — with everything she wishes, and 
 nothing more than she wishes. The sun strikes it in 
 the happiest possible way ; the piano is the sweetest- 
 toned in the world ; the library is stocked to a charm ; — 
 and Madge, thi t blessed wife, is there, adorning and 
 
CHEER AND CHILDREN. 217 
 
 giving life to it all. To think even of her possible 
 death is a suffering you class with the infernal tortures 
 of the Inquisition. You grow twin of heart and of 
 purpose. Smiles seem made for marriage ; and you 
 wonder how you ever wore them before ! 
 
 So a year and more wears off of mingled home-life, 
 visiting, and travel. A new hope - and joy lightens 
 home : there is a child there. 
 
 What a joy to be a father ! "What new emo- 
 tions crowd the eye with tears, and make the hand 
 tremble ! "What a benevolence radiates from you to- 
 ward the nurse,' — toward the physician, r- toward every- 
 body ! What a holiness and sanctity of love grows 
 upon your old devotion to that wife of your bosom — 
 the mother of your child ! 
 
 The excess of joy seems almost to blur the stories 
 of happiness which attach to heaven. You are now 
 joined, as you were never joined before, to the great 
 family of man. Your name and blood will live after 
 you ; nor do you once think (what father can ?) but that 
 it will live honorably and well. 
 
 With what a new air you walk the streets ! With 
 what a triumph you speak, in your letter to Nelly, of 
 ■' your family ! " "Who, that has not felt it, knows what 
 't is to be " a man of family ! " 
 
 How weak now seem all the imaginations of your 
 10 
 
218 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 single life ; what bare, dry skeletons of the reality they 
 furnished ! You pity the poor fellows who have no 
 wives or children — from your soul ; you count their 
 smiles as empty smiles, put on to cover the lack that is 
 in them. There is a freemasonry among fathers that 
 they know nothing of. You compassionate them deeply ; 
 you think them worthy objects of some charitable asso- 
 ciation ; you would cheerfully buy tracts for them, if 
 they would but read them, — tracts on marriage and 
 children. 
 
 And then " the boy," — svu:h a boy ! 
 
 There was a time when you thought all babies very 
 much alike ; — alike ? Is your boy like anything, ex- 
 cept the wonderful fellow that he is ? Was there ever 
 a baby seen, or even read of, like that baby ! 
 
 Look at him : pick him up in his long, white 
 
 gown : he may have an excess of color, — but such a 
 pretty color! he is a little pouty about the mouth, — 
 but such a mouth ! His hair is a little scant, and he is 
 rather wandering in the eye, — but. Good Heavens, 
 what an eye ! 
 
 There was a time when you thought it very absurd 
 for fathers to talk about their children ; but it does not 
 seem at all absurd now. You think, on the contrary, 
 that your old friends, who used to sup with you at the 
 club, would be delighted to know how your baby is 
 getting on, and how much he measures around the calf 
 
CHEER AND CHILDREN. 219 
 
 of the leg ! If they pay you a visit, you are quite sure 
 they are in an agony to see Frank ; and you hold the 
 little squirming fellow in your arms, half conscience- 
 smitten for provoking them to such envy as they must 
 be suffering. You make a settlement upon the boy 
 with a chuckle, — as if you were treating yourself to a 
 mint-julep, instead of conveying away a few thousands 
 of seven per cents. 
 
 Then the boy develops astonishingly. What a 
 
 head, — what a foot, — what a voice ! And he is so quiet 
 withal, — never known to cry, except under such provo- 
 cation as would draw tears from a heart of adamant ; 
 in short, for the first six months he is never anything 
 but gentle, patient, earnest, loving, intellectual, and 
 magnanimous. You are half afraid that some of the 
 physicians will be reporting the case, as one of the 
 most remarkable instances of perfect moral and physi- 
 cal development on record. 
 
 But the years roll on, in the which your extravagant 
 fancies die into the earnest maturity of a father's love. 
 You struggle gayly with the cares that life brings to 
 your door. You feel the strength of three beings in 
 your single arm ; and feel your heart warming toward 
 God and man with the added warmth of two other 
 loving and trustful beings. 
 
 How eagerly you watch the first tottering step of 
 that boy ; how you riot in the joy and pride that swell 
 In tliat mother's eves, as thev follow his feeble, staffffer- 
 
220 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 ing motions ! Can God bless his creatures more than 
 he has blessed that dear Madge and you ? Has Heaven 
 even richer joys than live in that home of yours ? 
 / By-and-by he speaks; and minds tie together by 
 language, as the hearts hat'e long tied by looks. He 
 wanders with you feebly, and with slow, wandering 
 paces, upon the verge of the great universe of thought. 
 His little eye sparkles with some vague fancy that 
 comes upon him first by language. Madge teaches 
 him the words of affection and of thankfulness ; and 
 she teaches him to lisp infant prayer ; and by secret 
 pains (how could she be so secret?) instructs him in 
 some little phrase of endearment that she knows will 
 touch your heart ; and then she watches your coming ; 
 and the little fellow runs toward you, and warbles out 
 his lesson of love in tones that forbid you any answer, 
 — save only those brimming eyes, turned first on her, 
 and then on him, — and poorly concealed by the quick 
 embrace, and the kisses which you shower in transport ! 
 Still slip on the years, like brimming bowls of nectar ! 
 Another Madge is sister to Frank ; and a little Nelly is 
 younger sister to this other Madge. 
 
 Three of them ! a charmed and mystic num- 
 ber, which, if it be broken in these young days, — as, 
 alas, it may be ! — will only yield a cherub angel to 
 float over you, and to float over them, — to wean you, 
 and to wean them, from this world, where all joys- do 
 perish, to that seraph world where joys do last forever 
 
VL 
 
 A Dream of Darkness. 
 
 X & our life a sun, that it should radiate light and heat 
 -*- forever ? Do not the calmest and brightest days 
 of autumn show clouds, that drift their ragged edges 
 over the golden disk, and bear down swift with their 
 weight of vapors, until the sun's whole surface is 
 shrouded ; and you can see no shadow of tree or flower 
 upon the land, because of the greater and gulping 
 shadow of the cloud ? 
 
 Will not life bear me out ; will not truth, earnest and 
 stem, around me make good the terrible imagination 
 that now comes swooping, heavily and darkly, upon my 
 brain ? 
 
 You are living in a little village not far away from 
 the city. It is a graceful and luxurious home that you 
 possess. The holly and the laurel gladden its lawn in 
 winter ; and bowers of blossoms sweeten it through all 
 the summer. You know each day of your return from 
 the town, where first you will catch sight of that grace- 
 ful figure flitting like a shadow of love beneath the 
 te-ees ; you know well where you will meet the joyous 
 
222 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 and noisy welcome of stout Frank, and of tottling 
 Nelly. Day after day and week after week they fail 
 not. 
 
 A friend sometimes attends you ; and a friend to you 
 is always a friend to Madge. In the city you fall in 
 once more with your old acquaintance Dalton, ^ — -the 
 graceful, winning, yet dissolute man that his youth 
 promised. He wishes to see your cottage home. Your 
 heart half hesitates ; yet it seems folly to cherish dis- 
 trust of a boon companion in so many of your revels. 
 
 Madge receives him with that sweet smile which 
 welcomes all your friends. He gains the heart of Frank 
 by talking of his toys and of his pigeons ; and he wins 
 upon the tenderness of the mother by his attentions to 
 the child. Even you repent of your passing shadow of 
 dislike, and feel your heart warming toward him as he 
 takes little Nelly in his arms and provokes her joyous 
 prattle. 
 
 Madge is unbounded in her admiration of your 
 friend : he renews, at your solicitation, his visit : he 
 proves kinder than ever ; and you grow ashamed of 
 your distrust. 
 
 Madge is not learned in the arts of a city life ; the 
 accomplishments of a man-of-the world are almost new 
 to her ; she listens with eagerness to Dalton's graphic 
 stories of foreign fetes and luxury ; she is charmed with 
 his clear, bold voice, and with his manly execution ot 
 'ittle operatic airs. 
 
A DREAM OF DARKNESS. 223 
 
 V 
 
 She is beautiful, — that wife who has made your 
 
 heart whole by its division, — fearfully beautiful ! And 
 she is not cold, or impassive : her heart, though fond 
 and earnest, is yet human ; — we are all hunfan. The 
 accomplishments and graces of the world must needs 
 take hold upon her fancy. And a fear creeps over you 
 that you dare not whisper, — that those graces may 
 cast into the shade your own yearning and silent ten- 
 derness. 
 
 But this is a- selfish fear, that you think you have no 
 right to cherish. She takes pleasure in the society of 
 Dalton, — what right have you to say her — nay ? His 
 character indeed is not altogether such as you could 
 wish ; but will it not be selfish to tell her even this ? 
 Will it not be even worse, and show taint of a lurking 
 suspicion, which you know would wound her griev- 
 ously ? You struggle with your distrust by meeting him 
 more kindly than ever ; yet at times there will steal 
 over you a sadness, which that dear Madge detects, 
 and sorrowing in her turn, tries to draw away from you 
 by the touching kindness of sympathy. Her look and 
 manner kill all your doubt ; and you show that it is 
 gone, and piously conceal the cause by welcoming in 
 gayer tones than ever the man who has fostered it by 
 his presence. 
 
 Business calls you away to a great distance from 
 home : it is the first long parting of your real manhood. 
 
224 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 And can suspicion, or a fear, lurk amid those tearful 
 embraces ? Not one, — thank God, — not one ! 
 
 Your letters, frequent and earnest, bespeak your in- 
 creased devotion ; and the embraces you bid her give 
 to the sweet ones of your little flock, tell of the calm- 
 ness and sufficiency of your love. Her letters too are 
 running over with affection ; — what though she men- 
 tions the frequent visits of Dalton, and tells stories of 
 his kindness and attachment? You feel safe in her 
 strength ; and yet — yet there is a brooding terror, 
 that rises out of your knowledge of Dalton's character. 
 
 And can you tell her this ; can you stab her fondness, 
 now that you are away, with even a hint of what would 
 crush her delicate nature ? 
 
 What you know to be love, and what you fancy to 
 be duty, struggle long ; but love conquers. And with 
 sweet trust in her, and double trust in God, you await 
 your return. That return will be speedier than you 
 think. 
 
 You receive one day a letter : it is addressed in the 
 hand of a friend, who is often at the cottage, but who 
 has rarely written to you. What can have tempted 
 him now ? Has any harm come near your home ? 
 No wonder your hands tremble at the opening of that 
 sheet ; no wonder that your eyes run like lightning 
 over the hurried lines. Yet there is little in them, 
 very little. The hand is stout and fair. It is a calm 
 
A DREAM OF DARKNESS 225 
 
 letter, a friendly letter; but it is short, terribly short. 
 It bids you come home — "at once ! " 
 
 And you go. It is a pleasant country you have 
 
 to travel through ; but you see very little of the coun- 
 try. It is a dangerous voyage, perhaps, you have to 
 make ; but you think very little of the danger. The 
 creaking of the timbers, and the lashing of the waves, 
 are quieting music compared with the storm of your 
 raging fears. All the while you associate Dalton with 
 the terror that seems to hang over you ; and yet, your 
 trust in Madge is true as Heaven ! 
 
 At length you approach that home : there lies your 
 cottage resting sweetly upon its hill-side ; and the au- 
 tumn winds are soft; and the maple-tops sway grace- 
 fully, all clothed in the scarlet of their frost-dress. 
 Once again as the sun sinks behind the mountain witfe 
 a trail of glory, and the violet haze tints the gray 
 clouds like so njany robes of angels, you take heart 
 and courage, and with firm reliance on the Providence 
 that fashions all forms of beauty, whether in heaver, 
 or in heart, your fears spread out, and vanish with 
 the waning twilight. 
 
 She is not at the cottage-door to meet you ; she 
 does not expect you ; and yet your bosom heaves, and 
 your breathing is quick. Your friend meets you, and 
 shakes your hand. — " Clarence," he says, with the teu 
 derness of an old friend, — "be a man ! " 
 10* 
 
226 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 Alas, you are a man ; — with a man's heart, and a 
 man's fear, and a man's agony ! Little Frank comes 
 bounding toward you joyously — yet under traces of 
 tears : — " Oh, papa, mother is gone ! " 
 
 " Gone ! " And you turn to the face of your 
 
 friend; it is well he is near by, or you would have 
 fallen. 
 
 He can tell you very little ; he has known the char- 
 acter of Dalton ; he has seen with fear his assiduous 
 attentions — tenfold multiplied since your leave. He 
 has trembled for the issue : this very morning he ob- 
 served a travelling carriage at the door ; — they drove 
 away together. You have no strength to question him. 
 Tou see that he fears the worst : he does not know 
 Madge so well as you. 
 
 And can it be ? Are you indeed widowed with 
 
 that most terrible of widowhoods ? Is your wife liv- 
 ing, and yet — lost ! Talk not to such a man of the 
 woes of sickness, of poverty, of death ; he will laugh 
 at your mimicry of grief. 
 
 All is blackness ; whichever way yo"^ turn, it is 
 
 the same ; there is no light ; your eye is put out ; your 
 soul is desolate forever ! The heart by which you had 
 grown up into the full stature of joy and blessing, is 
 looted out of you, and thrown like something loath- 
 some, at which the carrion dogs of the world scent and 
 gnuffle ! 
 
A DREAM OF DARKNESS. 227 
 
 They will point at you, as the man who has lost all 
 that he prized ; and she has stolen it, whom he prized 
 more than what was stolen ! And he, the accursed 
 
 miscreant But no, it can never be ! Madge is 
 
 as true as Heaven ! 
 
 Yet she is not there : whence comes the light that is 
 to cheer you ? 
 
 Your children ? 
 
 Ay, your children, — your little Nelly, — your noble 
 Frank, — they are yours, — doubly, trebly, tenfold 
 yours, now that she, their mother, is a mother no more 
 to them forever ! 
 
 Ay, close your doors ; shut out the world ; draw 
 close your curtains ; fold them to your heart, — your 
 crushed, bleeding, desolate heart ! Lay your forehead 
 to the soft cheek of your noble boy ; — beware, beware 
 how you dampen that damask cheek with your scalding 
 tears : yet you cannot help it ; they fall — great drops 
 
 — a river of tears, as you gather him convulsively to 
 your bosom ! 
 
 " Father, why do you cry so ? " says Frank, with the 
 tears of dreadful sympathy starting from those eyes of 
 childhood. 
 
 " "Why, papa ? " — mimes little Nelly. 
 
 Answer them, if you dare ! Try it ; — what 
 
 words — blundering, weak words — choked with agony 
 
 — leading nowhere — ending in new and convulsive 
 
 olncnfi nf vniir xFPPnincr. mnthf>rlpR« rhilHrfMi ! 
 
228 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 Had she gone to her grave, there would have been a 
 holy joy, a great and swelling grief indeed, — but 
 your poor heart would have found a rest in the quiet 
 churchyard ; and your feelings, rooted in that cherished 
 grave, would have stretched up toward Heaven their 
 delicate leaves, and caught the dews of His grace, who 
 watcheth the lilies. But now, — with your heart cast 
 underfoot, or buffeted on the lips of a lying world, — 
 finding no shelter and no abiding place ! — alas, we do 
 guess at infinitude only by suffering ! 
 
 Madge, Madge ! can this be so ? " Are you not 
 
 still the same sweet, guileless child of Heaven ? 
 
vn. 
 
 Peace. 
 
 TT is a dream, — fearful, to be sure, but only a 
 -*- dream ! Madge is true. That soul is honest ; it 
 could not be ' otherwise. God never made it to be 
 false ; He never made the sun for darkness. 
 
 And before the evening has wa,ned to midnight, 
 sweet day has broken on your gloom ; — Madge is 
 folded to your bosom, sobbing fearfully, — not for 
 guilt, or any shadow of guilt, but for the agony she 
 reads upon your brow, and in your low sighs. 
 
 The mystery is all cleared by a few lightning words 
 from her indignant lips, and her whole figure trembles, 
 as she shrinks within your embrace, with the thought 
 of that great evil that seemed to shadow you. The 
 villain has sought by every art to beguile her into 
 appearances which should compromise her character 
 and so wound her delicacy as to take away the courage 
 for return ; he has even wrought upon her affection for 
 you as his master-weapon : a skilfully contrived story 
 of some accident that had befallen you, had wrought 
 
230 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 apon her — to the sudden and silent leave of home. 
 But he has failed- At the first suspicion of his falsity, 
 her dignity and virtue shivered all his malice. She 
 shudders at the bare thought of that fiendish scheme 
 which has so lately broken on her view. 
 
 " Oh, Clarence, Clarence, could you for one moment 
 believe this of me ? " 
 
 " Dear Madge, forgive me if a dreamy horror did 
 for an instant palsy my better thought ; — it is gone 
 utterly ; it will never, never come again ! " 
 
 And there she leans with her head pillowed on your 
 shoulder, the same sweet angel that has led you in the 
 way of light, and who is still your blessing and your 
 pride. 
 
 He — and you forbear to name his name — is gone, 
 — flying vainly from the consciousness of guilt with the 
 curse of Cain upon him, — hastening toward the day 
 when Satan shall clutch his own ! 
 
 A heavenly peace descends upon you that night, — 
 all the more sacred and calm for the fearful agony that 
 has gone before. A Heaven, that seemed lost, is yours. 
 A love, that you had almost doubted, is beyond all 
 suspicion. A heart, that in the madness of your frenzy 
 you had dared to question, you worship now, with 
 blushes of shame. You thank God for this great good- 
 ness, as you never thanked him for any earthly blessing 
 before ; and with this twin gratitude lying on youJ 
 
PEACE. 2!j1 
 
 hearts, and clearing your face to smiles, you live on 
 together the old life of joy and of affection. 
 
 Again with brimming nectar the years fill up their 
 vases. Your children grow into the same earnest 
 joyousness, and with the same home faith, which 
 ightened upon your young dreams, and toward which 
 you seem to go back, as you riot with them in their 
 Christmas joys, or upon t!ie velvety lawn of June. 
 
 Anxieties indeed overtake you, but they are those 
 anxieties which only the selfish would avoid, — anxieties 
 that better the heart with a great weight of tenderness. 
 It may be that your mischievous Frank runs wild with 
 the swift blood of boyhood, and that the hours are long 
 which wait his coming. It may be that your heart 
 echoes in silence the mother's sobs, as she watches his 
 fits of waywardness, and showers upon his very neglect 
 excess of love. 
 
 Danger perhaps creeps upon little, joyous Nelly, 
 which makes you tremble for her life ; the mother's 
 tears are checked that she may not deepen your grief; 
 and her care guards the little sufferer like a Provi- 
 dence. The nights hang long and heavy ; dull, stifled 
 breathing wakes the chamber with ominous sound ; 
 the mother's eye scarce closes, but rests with fond sad- 
 ness upon the little struggling victim of sickness ; Ber 
 hand rests like an angel touch upon the brow, all 
 
232 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 beaded with the heats of fever; the straggling, gray 
 light of morning breaks through the crevices of the 
 closed blinds, — bringing stir and bustle to the world, 
 but in your home — lighting only the darkness. 
 
 Hope, sinking in the mother's heart, takes hold on 
 Faith in God ; and her prayer, and her placid look of 
 submission, — more than all your philosophy, — add 
 strength to your faltering courage. 
 
 But little Nelly brightens ; her faded features take 
 on bloom again ; she knows you ; she presses your 
 hand ; she draws down your cheek to her parched lip ; 
 she kisses you, and smiles. The mother's brow loses its 
 shadow ; day dawns within as well as without, and on 
 bended knees God is thanked ! 
 
 Perhaps poverty faces you ; — your darling schemes 
 break down. One by one, with failing heart, you strip 
 the luxuries from life. But the sorrow which oppresses 
 you is not the selfish sorrow which the lone man feels : 
 it is far nobler ; its chiefest mourning is over the 
 despoiled home. Frank must give up his promised 
 travel ; Madge must lose her favorite pony ; Nelly 
 must be denied her little fete upon the lawn. The 
 home itself, endeared by so many scenes of happiness 
 and by so many of suffering, must be given up. It 
 is hard, very hard, to tear away your wife from the 
 flowers, the birds, the luxuries, that she has made so 
 dear. 
 
PEACE 233 
 
 Now she is far stronger than you. She contrives 
 new joys ; she wears a holy calm ; she cheers by a new 
 hopefulness ; she buries even the memory of luxury in 
 the riches of the humble home that her wealth of heart 
 endows. Her soul, catching radiance from that heav- 
 enly world where her hope lives, kindles amid the 
 growing shadows, and sheds balm upon the little griefs, 
 — like the serene moon, slanting the dead sim's life, 
 upon the night ! 
 
 Courage wakes in the presence of those dependent 
 on your toil. Love arms your hand and quickens your 
 brain. Eesolutions break large from the swelling soul. 
 Energy leaps into your action like light. Gradually 
 you bring back into your humble home a few traces of 
 the luxury that once adorned it. That wife, whom it is 
 your greatest pleasure to win to smiles, wears a half- 
 sad look as she meets these proofs of love ; she fears 
 that you are perilling too much for her pleasure. 
 
 For the first time in life you deceive her. You 
 
 have won wealth again ; you now step firmly upon your 
 new-gained sandals of gold. But you conceal it from 
 her. You contrive a little scheme of surprise, with 
 Frank alone in the secret. 
 
 You purchase again the old home; you stock it, as, 
 far as may be, with the old luxuries ; a new harp is in 
 the place of that one which beguiled so many hours of 
 joy ; new and cherished flowers bloom again upon the 
 
234 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 windows ; her birds hang, and warble their melodji 
 where they warbled it before. A pony — like as pos- 
 sible to the old — is there for Madge ; 2ifete is secretly 
 contrived upon the lawn. You even place the old, 
 familiar books upon the parlor-table. 
 The birthday of your own Madge is approaching, 
 
 — a fete you never pass by without home rejoicings 
 You drive over with her upon that morning for an 
 other look at the old place ; a cloud touches her brow, 
 
 — but she yields to your wish. An old servant — 
 whom you had known in better days — throws open the 
 gates. 
 
 " It is too, too sad," says Madge. " Let us go 
 
 back, Clarence, to our own home ; — we are happy 
 there.'' 
 
 « A little farther, Madge." 
 
 The wife steps slowly over what seems the sepulchre 
 of so many pleasures ; the children gambol as of old, 
 and pick flowers. But the mother cheeks them. 
 
 " They are not ours now, my children ! " 
 
 You stroll to the very door ; the goldfinches are 
 hanging upon the wall ; the mignonette is in the win- 
 dow. You feel the hand of Madge trembling upon 
 your arm ; she is struggling with her weakness. 
 
 A tidy waiting-woman shows you into the old parlor : 
 ■ — there is a harp ; and there, too, such books as we 
 loved to read. 
 
PEACE. 235 
 
 Madge is overcome; now she entreats: — "Let us 
 go away, Clarence ! " and she hides her face. 
 
 " Never, dear Madge, never ! it is yours — all 
 
 yours ! " 
 
 She looks up in your face; she sees your look of 
 triumph ; she catches sight of Frank bursting in at the 
 old hall-door all radiant with joy. 
 
 " Frank ! — Clarence ! " — the tears forbid any 
 
 more. 
 
 " God bless you, Madge ! God bless you ! " 
 
 And thus in peace and in joy Majshood passes on 
 into the third season of our life — even as golden 
 Autumn sinks slowly into the tomb of Winteb, 
 
BREAMS OF AaU. 
 
 Winter. 
 
 QLOWLY, thickly, fastly, fall the snow-flakes, — like 
 '^ the seasons upon the life of man. At the first they 
 lose themselves in the brown mat of herbage, or gently 
 melt, as they fall -upon the broad stepping-stone at the 
 door. But as hour after hour passes, the feathery flakes 
 stretch their white cloak plainly on the meadow, and 
 chilling the doorstep with their multitude, cover it with 
 a mat of pearl. 
 
 The dried grass-tips pierce the mantle of white, like 
 so many serried spears ; but as the storm goes softly 
 on, they sink one by one to their snowy tomb, and 
 presently show nothing of all their army, save one or 
 two straggling banners of blackened and shrunken 
 daisies. 
 
 Across the wide meadow that stretches from my 
 o'indow, I can see nothing of those hills which were so 
 green in summer ; between me and them lie only the 
 soft, slow-moving masses, filling the air with whiteness. 
 
240 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 I catch only a glimpse of one gaunt and bare-armed 
 oak, looming through the feathery multitude like a tall 
 ship's spars breaking through fog. 
 
 The roof of the barn is covered ; and the leaking 
 eaves show dark stains of water that trickle down the 
 weather-beaten boards. The pear-trees, that wore such 
 weight of greenness in the leafy June, now stretch their 
 bare arms to the snowy blast, and carry upon each 
 tiny bough a narrow burden of winter. 
 
 The old house-dog marches stately through the 
 strange covering of earth, and seems to ponder on the 
 welcome he will show, — and shakes the flakes from his 
 long ears, and with a vain snap at a floating feather he 
 stalks again to his dry covert in the shed. The lambs 
 that belonged to the meadow flock, with their feeding- 
 ground all covered, seem to wonder at their losses ; but 
 take courage from the quiet air of the veteran sheep, 
 and gambol after them, as they move sedately toward 
 the shelter of the barn. 
 
 The cat, driven from the kitchen-door, beats a coy 
 retreat, with long reaches of her foot, upon the yielding 
 surface. The matronly hens saunter out at a little 
 lifting of the storm, and eye curiously, with heads half 
 turned, their sinking steps, and then fall back, with a 
 quiet cluck of satisfaction, to the wholesome gravel by 
 the stable-door. 
 
 By-and-by the snow-flakes pile more leisurely : they 
 
WINTER. 241 
 
 grow large and scattered, and come more slowly than 
 before. The hills, that were brown, heave into sight — 
 great, rounded billows of white. The gray woods look 
 shrunken to half their height, and stand waving in the 
 storm. The wind freshens, and scatters the light flakes 
 that crown the burden of the snow ; and as the day 
 droops, a clear, bright sky of steel color* cleaves the 
 land and clouds, and sends down a chilling wind to 
 bank the walls and to freeze the storm. The moon 
 rises full and round, and plays with a joyous chill over 
 the glistening raiment of the land. 
 
 I pile my fire with the clean-cleft hickory ; and mus- 
 ing over some sweet story of the olden time, I wander 
 into a rich realm of thought, until my eyes grow dim, 
 and dreaming of battle and of prince, I fall to sleep in 
 my old farm-chamber. 
 
 At morning I find my dreams all written on the 
 window in crystals of fairy shape. The cattle, one by 
 one, with ears frost-tipped, and with frosted noses, wend 
 their way to the watering-place in the meadow. One 
 by one they drink, and crop at the stunted herbage 
 which the warm spring keeps green and bare. 
 
 A hound bays in the distance ; the smoke of cot- 
 tages rises straight toward heaven ; a lazy jingle of 
 sleigh-bells wakens the quiet of the high-road ; and 
 upon the hills the leafless woods stand low, like 
 crouching armies, with guns and spears in rest ; and 
 11 
 
242 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 among them the scattered spiral pines rise like banner- 
 men, uttering with their thousand tongues of green 
 the proud war-cry — " God is with us ! " 
 
 But the sky of winter is as capricious as the sky of 
 spring, even as the old wander in thought, like the 
 vagaries of a boy. 
 
 Before noon the heavens are mantled with a leaden 
 gray ; the eaves, that leaked in the glow of the sun, 
 now tell their tale of morning's warmth iu crystal 
 ranks of icicles. The cattle seek their shelter ; the 
 few lingering leaves of the white-oaks rustle dismally ; 
 the pines breathe sighs of mourning. As the night 
 darkens, and deepens the storm, the house-dog ' bays ; 
 tlie children crouch' in the wide chimney-comers ; the 
 sleety rain comes in sharp gusts. And as I sit by the 
 light leaping blaze in my chamber, the scattered hail- 
 drops beat upon my window, like the tappings of an 
 Old Man's cane. 
 
What is Gone, 
 
 /"^ ONE ! Did it ever strike you, my reader, how i 
 ^-^ meaning lies in that little monosyllable -^ g 
 
 Say it to yourself at nightfall, when the sun has 
 under the hills, and the crickets chirp, — " gone." 
 it to yourself when the night is far over, and you 
 with some sudden start from pleasant dreams, — " g 
 Say it to yourself in some country churchyard, \\ 
 your father, or your mother, sleeps under the bloo 
 violets of spring, — " gone." Say it in your sol 
 prayer to Heaven, as you cling lovingly, but oh, 
 vainly, to the hand of your sweet wife, — " go'he ! ' 
 
 Ay, is there not meaning in it ? And now, wh 
 gone, — or rather what is not gone ? Childhood is j 
 with all its blushes and fairness, — with all its h 
 and wantoning, — with all its smiles like glimps( 
 heaven, and all its tears which were but the suffi 
 of joy. 
 
 Youth is gone, — bright, hopeful youth, when 
 counted the years with jewelled numbers, and 1 
 lamps of ambition on your path, which lighted the 
 
244 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 ace of renown ; when the days were woven into weeks 
 of blithe labor, and the weeks were rolled into harvest 
 months of triumph, and the months were bound into 
 golden sheaves of years, — -"all gone ! 
 
 The strength and pride of manhood is gone ; your 
 heart and soul have stamped their deepest dye ; the 
 time of power is past ; your manliness has told its tale 
 henceforth your career is down ; — hitherto you have 
 journeyed up. You look back upon a decade as you 
 once looked upon a half score of months ; a year has 
 become to your slackened memory, and to your dull 
 perceptions, like a week of childhood. Suddenly and 
 swiftly come past you great whirls of gone-by thought, 
 and wrecks of vain labor, eddying upon the stream that 
 rushes to the grave. The sweeping outlines of life, 
 that lay once before the vision, — rolling into wide 
 billows of years, like easy lifts of a broad mountain- 
 range, — • now seem close-packed together as with a 
 Titan hand, and you see only crowded, craggy heights, 
 — like Alpine fastnesses, — parted with glaciers of grief, 
 and leaking abundant tears ! 
 
 Your friends are gone ; they who counselled and 
 advised you, and who protected your weakness, will 
 guard it no more forever. One by one they have 
 dropped away as you have journeyed on ; and yet your 
 journey does not seem a long one. Life at the longest 
 is but a bubble that bursts so soon as it is rounded. 
 
WHAT IS GONE. 245 
 
 Nelly — your sweet sister, to whom your heart clung 
 BO fondly in the young days, and to whom it has clung 
 ever since in the strongest bonds of companionship — 
 is gone — with the rest ! 
 
 Your thought — wayward now, and flickering ■ — runs 
 over the old days with quick and fevered step ; it brings 
 back, faintly as it may, the noisy joys, and the safety, 
 that belonged to the old garret-roof; it figures again 
 the image of that calm-faced father, — long since sleep- 
 ing beside your mother ; it rests like a shadow upon the 
 night when Charlie died ; it grasps the old figures of 
 the school-room, and kindles again (how strange is 
 memory) the fire that shed its lustre upon the curtains, 
 and the ceiling, as you lay groaning with your first 
 hours of sickness. , 
 
 Your flitting recollection brings back with gushes of 
 exultation the figure of that little, blue-eyed hoiden, — 
 Madge, — as she came with her work to pass the long 
 evenings with Nelly ; it calls again the shy glances that 
 you cast upon her, and your naive ignorance of all the 
 little coimter-play that might well have passed between 
 Frank and Nelly. Your mother's form too, clear and . 
 distinct, comes upon the wave of your rocking thought j 
 her smile touches you now in age as it never touched 
 you in boyhood. 
 
 The image of that fair Miss Dalton, who led your 
 fancy into such mad captivity, glides across your vision 
 
246 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 like the fragment of a crazy dream long gone by. 
 The country home, where lived the grandfather of 
 Frank, gleams kindly in the sunlight of your memory ; 
 and still, — poor, blind Fanny — long since gathered to 
 that rest where her closed eyes will open upon visions 
 of joy — draws forth a sigh of pity. 
 
 Then comes up that sweetest and brightest vision of 
 love, and the doubt and care which ran before it, — 
 when your hope groped eagerly through your pride 
 and worldliness toward the sainted purity of her whom 
 you know to be — all too good, — when you trembled 
 at the thought of your own vices and blackness in 
 the presence of her who seemed virtue's self. And 
 even now your old heart bounds with joy as you recall 
 the first timid assurance that yo.u were blessed in the 
 possession of her love, and that you might live in her 
 smiles. 
 
 Your thought runs like floating melody over the calm 
 joy that followed you through so many years, — to the 
 prattling children, who were there to bless your path. 
 How poor seem now your transports, as you met their 
 childish embraces, and mingled in their childish em- 
 ploy ; how utterly weak the actual, when compared with 
 that glow of affection which memory lends to the 
 scene ! 
 
 Yet all this is gone ; and the anxieties are gone, 
 which knit your heart so strongly to those children, and 
 
WHAT IS GONE. 
 
 to lier — the mother, — anxieties which distressed ; 
 which you would eagerly have shunned, yet 
 memory you would not now bargain away for a 
 ransom ! What were the sunlight worth, if clom 
 not sometimes hide , its brightness ; what wen 
 spring, or the summer, if the lessons of the cl 
 winter did not teach us the story of their warmth 
 
 The days are gone too, in which you may hav 
 gered under the sweet suns of Italy, — with the 
 ished one beside you, and the eager children, les 
 new prattle in the soft language of those Eastern 
 The evenings are gone, in which you loitered und( 
 trees with those dear ones under the light of a ha 
 moon, and talked of your blooming hopes, and ( 
 stirring plans of your manhood. There are no 
 ambitious hopes, no more sturdy plans ! Life's 
 has rounded into the evening that shortens labor. 
 
 And as you loiter in dreams over the wide was 
 what is gone, — a mingled array of griefs and of 
 of failures and of triumphs, — you bless God that 
 has been so much of joy belonging to your shat 
 life ; and you pray God, with the vain fondness 
 belongs to a parent's heart, that more of joy, am 
 of toil, may come near to the cherished ones who 
 np your hope and name. 
 
 And with your silent prayer come back th( 
 teachings, and vagaries of the boyish heart in its re 
 
248 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 toward Heaven. You recall the old church-reckoning 
 of your goodness : is there much more of it now than 
 then ? Is not Heaven just as high, and the world as 
 sadly broad ? 
 
 Alas, for the poor tale of goodness which age brings 
 to the memory ! There may be crowning acts of benev- 
 olence', shining here and there ; but the margin of what 
 has not been done is very broad. How weak and insig- 
 nificant seems the story of life's goodness and profit, 
 when Death begins to slant his shadow upon our souls ! 
 How infinite in the comparison seems that Eternal good- 
 ness which is crowned with mercy. How soK vanishes, 
 like a blasted thing, and only lives- -if it lives t all — 
 in the glow of that redeeming light which fadiai^s from 
 the Cross and the Thbone I 
 
n. 
 
 What is Left. 
 
 "TJUT much as there is gone of life, and of its joys, 
 -■--' very much remains, — very much in earnest, and 
 very much more in hope. Still you see visions, and 
 you dream dreams, of the times that are to come. 
 
 Your home and heart are left : within that home, the 
 old Bible holds its wonted place, which was the monitor 
 of your boyhood ; and now, more than ever, it prompts 
 those reverent reaches of the spirit, which go beyond 
 even the track of dreams. 
 
 That cherished Madge, the partner of your life and 
 joy, still lingers, though her step is feeble, and her 
 eyes are dimmed ; — not as once attracting you by any 
 outward show of beauty ; your heart, glowing through 
 the memory of a life of joy, needs no such stimulant 
 to the affections. Your hearts are knit together by a 
 habit of growth, and a unanimity of desire. There is 
 less to remind of the vanities of earth, and more to 
 quicken the hopes of a time when body yields to spirit. 
 
 Your own poor, battered hulk wants no jaunty- 
 trimmed craft for consort ; but twin of heart and soul, 
 11* 
 
250 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 as you are twin of years, you float tranquilly toward 
 that haven which lies before us all. 
 
 Your children, now almost verging on maturity, bless 
 your hearth and home. Not one is gone. Frank in- 
 deed — that wild fellow of a youth, who has wrought 
 your heart into perplexing anxieties again and again, as 
 you have seen the wayward dashes of his young blood — 
 is often away. But his heart yet centres where yours 
 centres ; and his absence is only a nearer and boldei 
 strife with that fierce world whose circumstances every 
 man of force and energy is born to conquer. 
 
 His return from time to time with that proud figure 
 of opening manliness, and that full flush of health, 
 speaks to your affections as you could never have be- 
 lieved it would. It is not for a man, who is the father 
 of a man, to show any weakness of the heart, or any 
 over-sensitiveness, in those ties which bind him to his 
 kin. And yet — yet, as you sit by your fireside, with your 
 clear, gray eye feasting in its feebleness on that proud 
 figure of a man who calls you " father," — and as you see 
 his fond and loving attentions to that one who has been 
 your partner in all anxieties and joys, there is a throb- 
 bing within your bosom that makes you almost wish 
 him young again, — that you might embrace him now, 
 as when he warbled in your rejoicing ear those first 
 words of love ! — Ah, how little does a son know the 
 secret and craving tenderness of a parent, — how little 
 
WHAT IS LEFT. 251 
 
 conception has he of those silent bursts of fondness and 
 of joy which attend his coming, and which crown his 
 parting ! 
 
 There is young Madge too, — dark-eyed, tall, with a 
 pensive shadow resting on her face, — the very image 
 i)f refinement and of delicacy. She is thoughtful ; — 
 not breaking out, like the hoiden, flax-haired Nelly, 
 into bursts of joy and singing, — but stealing upon 
 your heart with a gentle and quiet tenderness that 
 diffuses itself throughout the household like a soil 
 zephyr of summer. 
 
 There are friends too yet left, who come in upon 
 your evening hours, and light up the loitering time with 
 dreamy story of the years that are gone. How eagerly 
 you listen to some gossiping veteran friend, who with 
 his 'deft words calls up the thread of some by-gone 
 years of life; and with what a careless, yet grateful 
 recognition you lapse, as it were, into the current 
 of the past, and live over again by your hospitable 
 blaze the stir, the joy, and the pride of your lost man- 
 hood. 
 
 The children of friends too have grown upon your 
 march, and come to welcome you with that reverent 
 deference which always touches the heart of age. That 
 wild boy Will, — the son of a dear friend, — who but 
 a little while ago was worrying you with his bojdsh 
 pranks, has now shot up into tall and graceful youth, 
 
252 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 and evening after evening finds him making part of 
 your little household group. 
 
 Does the fond old man think that he- is all the 
 
 attraction ! 
 
 It may be that in your dreamy speculations about the 
 future of your children, (for still you dream,) you think 
 that Will may possibly become the husband of the 
 sedate and kindly Madge. It worries you to find Nelly 
 teasing him as she does; that mad hoiden will never 
 be quiet ; she provokes you excessively : and yet she is 
 a dear creature ; there is no meeting those laughing 
 blue eyes of hers without a smile and an embrace ! 
 
 It pleases you however to see the winning frankness 
 with which Madge always receives Will. And with a 
 little of your old vanity of observation you trace out 
 the growth of their daWning attachment. It provokes 
 you to find Nelly breaking up their quiet tete-a-tetes 
 with her provoking sallies, and drawing away Will to 
 some saunter in the garden, or to some mad gallop over 
 the hills. 
 
 At length upon a certain summer's day Will asks to 
 see you. He approaches with a doubtful and dis- 
 turbed look ; you fear that wild Nell has been teasing 
 him with her pranks. Yet he wears not so much an 
 offended look as one of fear. You wonder if it ever 
 happened to you to carry your hat in just that timid 
 manner, and to wear such a shifting expression of the 
 
WHAT IS LEFT. 253 
 
 eye,, as poor Wilf wears just now? You wonder if it 
 ever happened to you to begin to talli with an old 
 friend of your father's in just that abashed way ? Will 
 must have fallen into some sad scrape. — Well, he is a 
 good fellow, and you will help him out of it ! 
 
 You look up as he goes on with his story ; — you 
 grow perplexed yourself ; — you scarce believe your 
 own ears. 
 
 " Nelly ? " — Is Will talking of Nelly ? 
 
 "Yes, sir,— Nelly." 
 
 "What! — and you have told all this to Nelly 
 
 — that you love her ? " 
 " I have, sir." 
 
 " And she says " — 
 
 " That I must speak with you, sir." 
 
 "Bless my soul! — But she's a good girl;" — and 
 the old man wipes his eyes. 
 
 " Nell ! — are you there ?" 
 
 And she comes, — blushing, lingering, yet smiling 
 through it all. 
 
 " And you could deceive your old father, Nell " 
 
 — (very fondly.) 
 
 Nelly only clasps your hand in both of hers. 
 " And so you loved Will all the while ? " 
 
 Nelly only stoops to drop a little kiss of plead 
 
 ng on your forehead. 
 "Well,. Nelly," (it is hard to speak roundly,) 
 
254 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 " give me your hand ; — here, Will, — take it : — she 's 
 a wild girl ; — be kind to her, Will." 
 
 " God bless you, sir ! " 
 
 And Nelly throws herself, sobbing, upon your bosom. 
 
 " Not here, — not here now, Nell ! — Will is 
 
 yonder ! " 
 
 Sobbing, sobbing still ! Nelly, Nelly, — who "I 
 
 would have thought that your merry face covered such J 
 a heart of tenderness ! 
 
ni. 
 
 Chief and Joy of Age. 
 
 rpiHE Winter has its piercing storms, — even a,i 
 -■- Autumn hath. Hoary age, crowned with honor 
 and with years, bears no immunity from suffering. It 
 is the common heritage of us all : if it come not in the 
 spring or in the summer of our day, it will surely find 
 us in the autumn, or amid the frosts of winter. It is 
 the penalty humanity pays for pleasure; human joys 
 will have their balance. ^ Nature never makes false 
 weight. The east wind is followed by a wind from the 
 west; and every smile will have its equivalent in a 
 tear!'' 
 
 You have lived long and joyously with that dear one 
 who has made your life a holy pilgrimage. She has 
 seemed to lead you into ways of pleasantness, and has 
 kindled in you — as the damps of the world came near 
 to extinguish them — ■ those hopes and aspirations which 
 rest not in life, but soar to the realm of spirits. 
 
 You have sometimes shuddered with the thought of 
 Darting ; you have trembled even at the leave-taking 
 of a year, or of months, and have suffered bitterly 
 
256 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 as some danger threatened a parting forever. That 
 danger threatens now. Nor is it a sudden fear to 
 startle you into a paroxysm of dread : nothing of this. 
 Nature is kinder, — or she is less kind. 
 
 It is a slow and certaii. upproach of danger which 
 you read in the feeble step, — in the wan eye, lighting 
 up from time to time into a brightness that -seems no 
 longer of this world. You read it in the new and 
 ceaseless attentions of the fond child, who yet blesses 
 your home, and who conceals from you the bitterness 
 of the coming grief. 
 
 Frank is away — over-seas ; and as the mother men- 
 tions that name with a tremor of love and of regpret, 
 . that he is not now with you all, — you recall that other 
 death, when you too were not there. Then, you 
 knew little of a parent's feeling ; now, its intensity 
 is present ! 
 
 Day after day, as summer passes, she is ripening for 
 that world where her faith and her hope have so long 
 lived. Her pressure of your hand at some casual part- 
 ing for a day is full of a gentle warning, as if she 
 said, — prepare for a longer adieu ! 
 
 Her language, too, without direct mention steeps 
 your thought in the bitter certainty that she foresees 
 her approaching doom, and that she dreads it only so 
 far as she dreads the grief that will be left in her 
 broken home. Madge — the daughter — glides through 
 
GRIEF AND JOY OF AGE. 257 
 
 the duties of that householff like an angel of mercy : 
 she lingers at the sick-bed, — blessing, and taking bless- 
 ings. 
 
 The sun shines warmly without, and through the 
 open casement beats Warmly upon the floor within. 
 The birds sing in the joyousness of full-robed summer ; 
 the drowsy hum of the bees, stealing sweets from the 
 honeysuckle that bowers the window, lulls the air to a 
 gentle quiet. Her breathing scarce breaks the sum- 
 mer stillness. Yet, she knows it is nearly over. Madge, 
 too, — with features saddened, yet struggling against 
 grief, — feels — that it is nearly over. 
 
 It is very hard to think it; how much harder fo 
 know it ! But there is no mistaking her look now — 
 so placid, so gentle, so resigned ! And her grasp of 
 your hand — so warm — so full of meaning ! 
 
 " Madge, Madge, must it be ? " And a pleasant 
 
 smile lights her eye; and her grasp is warmer; and 
 her look is — upward ! 
 
 "Must it — must it be, dear Madge?" — A 
 
 holier smile,- — loftier, — lit up of angels, beams on her 
 faded features. The hand relaxes its clasp, and you 
 cling to it faster — harder, — joined close to the frail 
 wreck of your love, — joined tightly — but oh, how far 
 apart ! 
 
 She is in Heaven ; — and you, .struggling against the 
 grief of a lorn, old man ! 
 
258 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 But sorrow, however gftat it be, must be subdued in 
 the presence of a child. Its fevered outbursts must be 
 kept for those silent hours when no young eyes are 
 watching, and no young hearts will " catch the trick of 
 grief." 
 
 When the household is quiet'and darkened, — when 
 Madge is away from you, and your boy Frank slumber- 
 ing — as youth slumbers upon sorrow, — when you are 
 alone with God and the night, — in that room so long 
 hallowed by her presence, but now — deserted — silent, 
 — then you may yield yourself to such frenzy of tears 
 as your strength will let you ! And in your solitary 
 rambles through the churchyard you can loiter of a 
 summer's noon over her fresli-made grave, and let your 
 pent heart speak, and your spirit lean toward the Best 
 where her love has led you ! 
 
 Thornton, the clergyman, whose prayer over the 
 dead has dwelt with j ou, comes from time to time to 
 light up your solitary hearth with his talk of the Rest 
 for all men. He is young, but his earnest and gentle 
 speech win their way to your heart, and to your under- 
 standing. You love his counsels ; you make of him a 
 friend, whose visits are -long and often repeated. 
 
 Frank only lingers for a while; and you bid him 
 again — adieu. It seems to you that it may well be 
 the last ; and your blessing trembles on your lip. Yet 
 you look not with dread, but rather with a firm trust- 
 
GRIEF AND JOY OF AGE. 259 
 
 fulness toward the day of the end. For your darling 
 Madge, it is true, you have anxieties ; you fear to leave 
 her lonely in the world with no protector save the way- 
 ward Frank. 
 
 It is later August when you call to Madge one daj 
 to bring you the little escritoire, in which are youi 
 cherished papers; among them is your last will and 
 testament. Thornton has just left you, and it seems 
 to you that his repeated kindnesses are deserving of 
 some substantial mark of your regard. 
 
 "Maggie," you say, "Mr. Thornton has been very 
 kind to me." 
 
 " Very kind, father." 
 
 " I mean to leave him here some little legacy, Mag- 
 gie." 
 
 " I would not, father." 
 
 " But Madge, my daughter ! " 
 
 " He is not looking for such return, father." 
 
 " But he has been very kind, Madge ; I must show 
 him some strong token of my regard. What shall it 
 be, Maggie ? " 
 
 Madge hesitates, — Madge blushes, — Madge stoops 
 to her father's ear as if the very walls might catch the 
 secret of her heart ; — " Would you give me to him. 
 father ? " 
 
 " But — my dear Madge — has he asked this ? " 
 
260 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 " Eight months ago, papa." 
 
 " And you told him " — 
 
 " That I would never leave you, so long as you 
 lived ! " 
 
 " My own dear Madge, — come to me, — kiss 
 
 me ! And you love him, Maggie ? " 
 
 " With all ray heart, sir." 
 
 "So like your mother, — the same figure, — 
 
 the same true, honest heart ! It shall be as you wish, 
 dear Madge. Only you will not leave me in my old 
 age, — eh, Maggie ? " 
 
 " Never, father, — never." 
 
 And there she leans upon his chair ; — her 
 
 arm around the old man's neck, — her other hand 
 clasped in his, — and her eyes melting with tenderness 
 as she gazes upon his aged face, — all radiant with joy 
 and with hope ! 
 
IV. 
 
 The End of Dreams. 
 
 A FEEBLE old man, and a young lady who is just 
 -*--*- now blooming into the maturity of womanhood, 
 are toiling up a gentle slope, where the spring sun lies 
 warmly. The old man totters, though he leans heavily 
 "upon his cane ; and he pants as he seats himself upon 
 a mossy rock that crowns the summit of the slope. 
 As he recovers breath, he draws the hand of the lady 
 in his, and with a trembling eagerness he points out an 
 old mansion that lies below under the shadow of tall 
 sycamores ; and he says, — feebly and brokenly, — 
 " That is it, Maggie, — the old home — the syca- 
 mores — the garret — Charlie — Nelly " — 
 
 The old man wipes his eyes. Then his hand shiils : 
 he seems groping in darkness ; but soon it rests upon a 
 little cottage below, heavily overshadowed. 
 
 " That was it, Maggie ; — Madge lived there — sweet 
 Madge — your mother " — 
 
 Again the old mart wipes his eyes, and the lady turns 
 away. 
 
 Presently they walk down the hill together. They 
 
262 DREAM-LIFE. 
 
 cross a little valley with slow, faltering steps. ITie lady 
 guides him carefiilly, until, they reach a little grave- 
 yard. 
 
 " This must be it, Maggie, but the fence is new. 
 There it is, Maggie, under the willow, — my poor 
 mother's grave!" 
 
 The lady weeps. 
 
 " Thank you, Madge ; you did not know her, but you 
 weep for me. God bless you ! " 
 
 The old man is in the midst of his household. It is 
 some festive day. He holds feebly his place at the 
 head of the board. He utters in feeble tones — a 
 Thanksgiving. 
 
 His married Nelly is there with two blooming chil- 
 dren. Frank is there with his bride. Madge — dearest 
 of all — is seated beside the old man, watchful of his 
 comfort, and assisting him as with a shadowy dignity 
 he essays to do the honors of the board. The children 
 prattle merrily : the elder ones talk of the days gone 
 by ; and the old man enters feebly, yet with floating 
 glimpses of glee, into the cheer and the rejoicings. 
 
 Poor old man, he is near his tomb ! Yet his 
 
 calm eye, looking upward, seems to show no fear. 
 
 The same old man is in his chamber: he cannot 
 leave his chair now. Madge is beside him ; Nelly is 
 
THE END OF DREAMS. 263 
 
 there too with her eldest-born. Madge has been read- 
 ing to the old man : it was a passage of promise — of 
 the Bible promise. 
 
 " A glorious promise ! " says the old man, feebly ; — 
 •' a promise to me, — ^ a promise to her, poor Madge ! " 
 
 " Is her picture there, Maggie ? " 
 
 Madge brings it to him : he turns his head ; but the 
 light is not strong. They wheel his chair to the win- 
 dow. The sun is shining brightly : still the old man 
 cannot see. 
 
 " It is getting dark, Maggie." 
 
 Madge looks at Nelly — wistfully — sadly. 
 
 The old man murmurs something; and Madge 
 stoops. — " Coming," he says, — " coming ! " 
 
 Nelly brings the little child to take his hand. Per- 
 haps it will revive him. She lifts her boy to kiss his 
 cheek. 
 
 The old man does not. stir : his eyes do not move : 
 they seem fixed above. The child cries as his lips 
 touch the cold cheek. — It is a tender Spring flower 
 upon the bosom of the dying Winter ! 
 
 The old man is gone : his dream-life is ended. 
 

 
 
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