^^P 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
Of a special edition of five hundred copies this is 
 No. 
 
 r 
 
^%^ 
 
 * ' I 
 
 y/hMn^CX^^. Dfh 
 
SELECTED 
 
 PROSE WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 / 
 
 .^ 
 
 MRS. EMMA C.'EMBURY 
 
 '^^0^"^^ 
 
 V 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 
 PRINTED AT THE DE VINNE PRESS 
 
 1893 
 
 

 .t^. 
 
 Copyright, 1893, by 
 Anna K. Sheldon. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It may he of interest to the reader to Mow when 
 and where these selections from the writings of Mrs. 
 Emma C. Emhnry were puhlished. '^Thoughts of 
 a Silent Man," written under the nom de plume of 
 Rudolph Rertzmann, appeared in a New-Yorl weekly 
 paper called the Broadway Journal, in 1845 ; ''JS'o- 
 tions about Music" and ''ThePoefs Thought," 
 with the same signature, in another weeJcly, Hewefs 
 Excelsior and Wew-Yorl Illustrated Times, the 
 date not hnoivn, hut prohahly not very far from the 
 time of the first-mentioned papers. The last two 
 pieces, under the title ''Midsummer Fancies," have 
 never hefore heen priyited. The remaining pa- 
 pers ivere puhlished at different periods in the 
 Lady's Companion and the Columbian, of New- 
 York, also Godefs Lady's Book and Graham's 
 Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine, of Philadelphia, 
 the lest and most popular monthlies of their day. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Thoughts op a Silent Man ; 
 
 No. 1 1 
 
 No. 2 7 
 
 No. 3 13 
 
 No. 4 22 
 
 No. 5 29 
 
 Notions about Music 38 
 
 Genius and its Rewards 47 
 
 Essay on American Literature ... 60 
 
 The Rights of Children 71 
 
 Corinna 86 
 
 Moods of the Mind . . . . . 104 
 
 Growing Old 122 
 
 A Chapter on Idleness 135 
 
 The Spirit-Bond. A Fantasy . . . 150 
 
 Barbara Uttman's Dream 169 
 
 The Poet's Thought 183 
 
 The Fane-Builder 194 
 
 The Child's Mission ...... 202 
 
 Midsummer Fancies: 
 The Voice of the Charmer. (Pleasure) . 218 
 The Vine. (Loyalty) . . . . .222 
 
€t)aug]^tj0? of a Silent 09ait 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 Nemo est meorum amicorum liodie 
 
 Apud quem expromerc occulta mea audeam. 
 
 \¥ all the various causes which may be 
 assigned for the superabundance of in- 
 ferior authorship, so much complained 
 of among readers, perhaps the most 
 frequent may be found in that terrible necessity 
 for expression which in many minds is even more 
 powerful than the ^' strong necessity of loving." 
 Yet the world rarely understands this. Ambition, 
 avarice, and, above all, vanity, are regarded as 
 propellants to literary labor, while a yearning for 
 sympathy, a desire for repose, an irrepressible 
 longing to claim kindred with congenial hearts 
 are feelings which are rarely believed in or appre- 
 ciated. The practical part of the world, who live 
 
2 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 on from day to day, governed only by the exigen- 
 cies of the moment; and yielding to the expedien- 
 cies of the passing honr, can have no idea of such 
 needs. They find sufficient utterance in the gos- 
 sip of petty scandal, the discussion of minor politi- 
 cal questions, or the detail of every-day business. 
 They eat, drink, sleep, and read newspapers ; while 
 the real energies of their nature are all expended 
 in the task of gain. They live for bargaining and 
 trading; they feel no vacancy of soul, because they 
 have filled that temple of the living God with the 
 tables of the money-changers. 
 
 But to those who think deeply, and feel vividly, 
 expression is a necessity of their being. They 
 must " speak or die." Some find their utterance 
 in the interchange of socialities, some in discours- 
 ing elegant music 5 some speak in the wordless 
 tints of painting; some few work out the ideal of 
 their souls in the enduring marble, and some send 
 forth their thoughts, winged by poesy, to the far 
 winds of heaven. Yet there are still left many to 
 whom are denied all these resources. There are 
 some who have all the elements of power within 
 them, but have never had their lips touched with 
 the live coal from the altar, which was to the pro- 
 phet both inspiration and expression. There are 
 some who seem, like Zacharias, to be struck dumb 
 by the very power which brings the promise of 
 blessing : some to whom self-distrust is an incubus 
 
Thoughts of a Silent Man. 3 
 
 upon the mind^ exciting it to an uneasy activity, 
 yet deterring it from utterance. Without putting 
 forth any pretension to the possession of the higher 
 order of such power, I may yet claim to know some- 
 thing of the discomforts attendant upon compul- 
 sory silence. I have outlived all the associates of 
 early life, and my unconquerable shyness of tem- 
 per has prevented me from forming new ones. I 
 have a large circle of acquaintances and many 
 family friends, but not one to whom I can open 
 my inner heart. I have a competent fortune, re- 
 fined tastes, and, I think, warm affections; yet I 
 lead the life of a hermit so far as social sympa- 
 thies are concerned. In the opinion of the world 
 I have all the means of happiness within my reach, 
 but all these gifts are marred by the want of a 
 power which is so generally possessed, that, like 
 the blessings of light and air, people scarcely 
 value it — I mean the power of expressing my 
 over-burdened mind in words. I cannot talk. An 
 unfortunate impediment in my speech, which is 
 always increased by any nervous excitement, is 
 one obstacle ; but another, and more insuperable 
 one, is my unconquerable shyness and self-dis- 
 trust. I enjoy society with m}^ whole heart. I 
 listen to brilliant conversation (for I number 
 among my friends some of the best talkers I ever 
 heard), and within my own mind I take full part 
 in it. Ready rejoinders, sparkling repartees, un- 
 
4 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 answerable arguments, profound reflections, high- 
 toned moralizing, and all the varied forms of 
 spoken eloquence are wrought out in the cham- 
 bers of mine imagery. Sometimes I delude myself 
 with the belief that I have really contributed my 
 proportion of amusement to the social circle. My 
 fancies are so vivid that it often seems to me as if 
 I had actually uttered all the fine things which 
 have been passing through my mind. I have often 
 pleased myself with such a belief, and have ex- 
 perienced for a moment all the satisfaction of a 
 man who has acted well his part in society, until 
 some trivial recollection has brought me back to 
 the consciousness that mine had been only an 
 " imaginary conversation," a sort of a vivification 
 of birth-strangled ideas. How can one like me 
 find expression 1 My mind is too active for con- 
 tinued silence ; it hives up stores of knowledge, it 
 accumulates masses of facts, it fashions images of 
 beauty, it works out conceptions of goodness and 
 greatness. Why then must it be ever dumb, when 
 it would utter the oracles of nature and truth ? I 
 am resolved. I will take my humble pen, and, sur- 
 rounded by my books, those quiet friends whose 
 silence is so suggestive, I will imprison in written 
 words the busy fancies which so disturb my peace. 
 Crude and ill-arranged as my ideas may seem, they 
 will perhaps give out glimpses of something better 
 to come. There is more in me than I can now 
 
Thoughts of a Silent Man. 5 
 
 litter, but a true word was never yet spoken in 
 vain, and it may be that some one will become 
 the happier for having picked up a rough-hewn 
 thought from my quarry. I do not flatter myself 
 that mine is an unusual case, or that I possess the 
 genius which demands freedom. There is no con- 
 dition of life to which the history of human nature 
 does not afford numerous parallels, and one of 
 the grand mistakes which make the wretchedness 
 of mortals is the belief in a peculiar destiny of 
 suffering. Therefore 1 know that thousands have 
 felt as I do, and could doubtless have expressed 
 their feelings better. As for genius, that is a gift 
 of God, vouchsafed once in an age to the world. 
 Men of talent may be counted by hundreds, men 
 of learning by thousands, but men of genius must 
 still be numbered by tens, although the world is six 
 thousand years old. Besides, genius comes with 
 a commission from the Most High ; it cannot be 
 silent, even if it would. 
 
 But I am wearied of ceaseless commune in che 
 shyness of my own heart, wearied of perpetual 
 activity and unbroken silence. I would fain speak, 
 aye, speak without feeling the eye of ridicule 
 scorching my cheek, without having my ear pained 
 by the half-inarticulate sounds that fall from my 
 stammering lips, without feeling in every vein the 
 throb of that terrible silence which always follows 
 my attempts at vocal utterance. It may be that 
 
6 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 old age is creeping upon me apace, and that I 
 grow garrulous as I grow gray. It may be that I 
 am mistaken in thinking I have anything to say. 
 If so, I shall soon learn my error, for nothing is so 
 severe a trial of one's crude fancies as the sight of 
 them in print. We all have our imaginings, but 
 when the " soul of our thoughts " first appears be- 
 fore us in actual form and type, we feel very much 
 as if we looked upon an apparition from the world 
 of shadows, and, like the witch of Endor, we are 
 terrified before the specter we have ourselves 
 called forth. 
 
anjou0lf)t!0^ of a ,^ilcnt ^m. 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 La nature n' est pour Vhomme que les feuilles eparses de la 
 Sybille, dont nul, jusqu'a ce jour, n'a pu faire un Uvre. 
 
 HE tendency of philosophy in the seven- 
 teenth century was toward abstrac- 
 tion and mysticism. The high-toned 
 ^ mind, when lifting itself above com- 
 mon things, cherished a contempt for the claims 
 of ordinary humanity, and lost itself in the pure 
 vacuum of abstract truth- while the restless and 
 fanciful thinkers of the age, unable to plume their 
 wings to so bold a flight, reached only to the 
 cloudy regions of mysticism, and, like the traveler 
 on the Hartz Mountains, beheld their own shadows 
 magnified into giants by the fog. The course of 
 the human mind is onward, but it pursues a very 
 winding way. Accordingly we find the succeeding 
 
8 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 century marked by a spirit of analysis and skep- 
 ticism. Nothing but demonstrable truth was re- 
 ceived. The mind, the organ of intelligence, 
 was alone called into exercise; while doubt was 
 thrown upon the very existence of the sonl, that 
 dweller in the inner temple, that recipient and ex- 
 ponent of God's truth through conscience. In the 
 progress of the human intellect, we now behold 
 another phase. The present is eminently the age 
 of inquiry. Men speculate upon everything; they 
 seek to generalize all things. Every fact in nature, 
 every truth in physics, is made the nucleus of a 
 theory, which, whether true or false, finds ready 
 receivers. He who is content to satisfy his mind 
 with the exact sciences, and his soul with trusting 
 faith, is regarded as one who lingers last in the 
 march of intellect. The habit of theorizing upon 
 every discovery in art or science has given to the 
 faculty of imagination a much higher rank in the 
 scale of mental power than philosophers of former 
 times were willing to allow. In some men this 
 faculty has all the power of a separate and distinct 
 mind — a sort of " double," or ghost, of the faculty 
 of reason. Formerly men of imagination were 
 poets, novelists, or painters; now we find them 
 philosophers, metaphysicians, and mechanicians. 
 Once the highest province allotted to the imagina- 
 tion was the privilege of decorating truth; but 
 now it often happens that while reason busies her- 
 
Thoughts of a Silent Man. 9 
 
 self in defining, arranging, and combining some 
 abstract theory, imagination is employed in analyz- 
 ing and assimilating the truths of science. But 
 as, in former times, the spirit of analysis led by im- 
 perceptible gradations to skepticism, so it seems to 
 me that, in modern days, the habit of generaliza- 
 tion tends decidedly toward materialism. Take 
 for instance a book recently published, which, for 
 lucid arrangement, and admirably sustained gen- 
 eralization, is unsurpassed by any work on the 
 same subject — I mean ''Vestiges of the Natural 
 History of Creation.'^ It contains no new facts, 
 but is filled with groups of facts (so to speak) 
 which come to us as new, because they appear so 
 striking in their arrangement. The author is no 
 materialist ; on the contrary, he takes great pains 
 to disclaim all such tendencies, yet what a store- 
 house of materialism would his book afford to 
 one who doubted every truth which did not come 
 through the intellect. His own faith in his theories 
 adds an irresistible charm to his arguments, and it 
 requires a most determined examination of truth 
 to distinguish in many instances the workings 
 of his imagination from the action of his reason. 
 His system of progression has no limit short 
 of Deity, and notwithstanding the experience of 
 thousands of years tells us that, however the 
 human mind may have advanced, the physical 
 structure has known no other changes than such 
 
10 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 as are made by climate and modes of life, he talks 
 of that perfect type of Divinity to which man may 
 hereafter attain. Have we not already had in the 
 Incarnate Divinity the most perfect type of exalted 
 " Humanity " ? Or can it be believed that when 
 ^' God was made man, and dwelt among us/' he 
 wore the semblance of an inferior humanity, which 
 to the nobler race destined to succeed us will seem 
 as degraded in the scale of being as do the various 
 tribes of Simia in comparison with the present 
 race of mankind ? In his theory of the geological 
 and vegetable transformations many discoveries 
 in science seem to bear him out, and although facts 
 might be adduced which would at least throw some 
 doubt upon it, yet his picture of creation at the 
 period of "carboniferous formation" is so sublime 
 that we would fain believe it as true as it is grand. 
 Its suggestiveness is positively overpowering. He 
 has given us only a few noble strokes of the pencil, 
 but it would require all the genius of a Milton to 
 fill up the outlines he has traced. When he applies 
 his system to animate nature, however, we feel its 
 fallacy. The merest tyro in physiology can bring 
 the most decided testimony against him. All the 
 laws of nature (as they are called) prove the im- 
 possibility of generating superior races from in- 
 ferior ones, or even of producing, from the union 
 of the two, a species capable of continuous repro- 
 duction. It may be answered that the Almighty, 
 
TJionghts of a Silent Man. 11 
 
 who made those laws, is superior to them, but this 
 does not settle the question, since, if we believe 
 in a departure from the laws of progression in 
 a single instance, we may as well believe in the 
 miracle of instantaneous creation. There is some- 
 thing frightful to feeble human nature in the idea 
 of necessity ruling with iron rod over earth's help- 
 less children. How can we imagine Heaven filled 
 only by an infinite Intelligence to which we 
 are but as atoms of dust on the rolling wheel of 
 progression? A finite mind shrinks before such 
 a fearful truth. Jean Paul has given us some 
 idea of such a state of orphanage in his terrific 
 " Dream." 
 
 His powerful imagination has carried the hor- 
 rors of atheism into the world of spirits. He 
 brings before us a vision of the souls of buried 
 children, wandering blindly through a dark, vague 
 space, and calling vainly upon a Heavenly Father, 
 while the voice of the risen Christ mournfully re- 
 plies, " We are all orphans — we have no Father in 
 Heaven." He who first called God our Father 
 knew more of the human heart than the most pro- 
 found thinkers. His book is one of great power, 
 and greater suggestiveness ; yet one of his readers, 
 at least, closed the volume with a feeling of deep 
 sadness. As I sate in my lonely room pondering 
 over its facts and fancies, my thoughts shaped 
 themselves into the language of earnestness, which 
 
12 ThougJits of a Silent Man. 
 
 is poetry; and, safe in my own insignificance, I 
 thus spake out : 
 
 TO THE AUTHOR OF VESTIGES OF CREATION. 
 
 Self -Missioned Leader through Creation's maze ! 
 
 Dost thou interpret thus God's mighty scheme ? 
 
 Weaving the cobweb fancies of a dream 
 O'er each gray vestige of His mystic ways ? 
 When thus 'mid chaos thou didst blindly grope. 
 
 Gathering new links for matter's heavy chain, 
 Dwelt there not in thy soul the secret hope 
 
 That some strong truth would rend the bond of 
 pain 
 Which fixed thee to Progression's iron wheel ? 
 
 Oh, teach not suffering earth such hopeless 
 creed : 
 Too heavy were her curse if doomed to feel 
 
 That in her frequent hour of bitter need, 
 Her lifted eye of prayer could only see 
 Necessity's stern laws graven on eternity. 
 
€f|ou0f)t^ of a Silent ^an* 
 
 No. 3. 
 
 HAD been amusing an idle moment 
 with Elia's delightful essay on '' Im- 
 perfect Sympathies/' when, as I laid 
 down the book, my eye fell upon the 
 ^'Correspondence between Burns and Clarinda." 
 This gave rise to a train of thought respecting 
 those '^ instinctive antipathies" which the mass 
 of mankind so readily allow, and those 'Annate 
 assimilations " about which they are so skeptical. 
 Everybody has some idiosyncrasy with regard to 
 likings and dislikings. The '^ non te amo, Sabide," 
 of the Latin poet, in its English doggerelism of 
 
 I do not love thee, Dr. Fell ; 
 The reason why I cannot tell : 
 But only this I know full well, 
 I do not love thee, Dr. Fell, 
 
 has come home to the coarsest as well as to the finest 
 minds. There are persons who inspire us with an 
 
 13 
 
14 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 instant repugnance — persons with whom we, if 
 pugnacious, would like to pick a quarrel; or, if in 
 a gracious mood, we would at least like to see 
 kicked by our next neighbor. There are people 
 whose souls inhabit an atmosphere so uncongenial 
 to our own, that we feel their presence as if we 
 were breathing a sort of mephitic air, benumbing 
 every faculty, and smothering every impulse. 
 
 The refinements of education and cultivated 
 society may render this sense more painfully deli- 
 cate, but it is universal in its existence. Look at 
 any ship's company, for instance, meeting perhaps 
 for the first time in their lives, in the forecastle, 
 which is to be their home during the months to 
 come, and you will perceive sudden antipathies 
 exhibited between certain individuals, and sudden 
 assimilations between others, for no outward cause. 
 It is an instinct of the soul, a recognition of kin- 
 dred or a perception of antagonistic nature. Why 
 is it, then, that while everybody is willing to ac- 
 knowledge a faith in instinctive dislikes, few are 
 found as ready to believe in instinctive attachments 1 
 If the one part of the proposition be true, the 
 other must be not less so. People say seriously, 
 '' I don't like Mr. Such-an-one — I can't tell why, 
 but I took a dislike to him the first time I ever 
 saw him " ; and yet these same people will sneer at 
 the notion of " love at first sight." Now I do not 
 believe that love in its fuU perfectness and grand 
 
Thoughts of a Silent Man. 15 
 
 developments — love wearing the proof -armor of 
 friendship and fidelity — is born thus instanta- 
 neoush^ But that there may be a sudden rec- 
 ognition of soul, an instant sense of kindred 
 affinities, a secret sympathy exerting magnetic 
 influence over two individuals, without any de- 
 cided volition on the part of either, is most un- 
 doubtedly true. 
 
 Under favorable circumstances, this instinctive 
 preference grows into the full stature of true love; 
 under others it may attain the size of friendship ; 
 and if there exist uncongenialities around, it may 
 be chilled and frozen into the semblance of indif- 
 ference. Who that ever overcame one of these 
 instinctive dislikes did not find reason, at some 
 after period, to lament their having done so! 
 Who that ever conquered an instinctive prefer- 
 ence did not find its specter haunting the silent 
 chambers of the heart, long after more reasonable 
 likings have left no trace of their existence ! One 
 of the falsest of all false theories is that which 
 denies the existence of friendship between the 
 sexes. ^'Platonic love," as it is called, has been 
 so often the object of ridicule, that one dares not 
 now utter its name, except with a half sneer. Yet 
 what can be more beautiful, more elevating, than 
 the true doctrine of the divine Plato — of him 
 who was the purest and noblest of that glorious 
 company of truth-seekers, the ancient philoso- 
 
16 Thoughts of a Silent Man, 
 
 phers — of him who taught that ^^ Beauty is but 
 the reflected glory of Virtue, and Love only the 
 yearning of the Soul after that perfection of which 
 Deity is the ideal t3^pe." In love, as it ordinarily 
 exists, there is jealousy and exactingness, or at 
 least the taint, slight though it may be, of sexual 
 emotions. In Platonic love or friendship, uniting, 
 as it does, warmth and purity, claiming mutual 
 recognition while it denies not separate affinities, 
 the cravings of the soul are fully satisfied. 
 
 The terrible sense of human nature's degrada- 
 tion which always attends the success of mere 
 passion, and often waits upon the tenderest af- 
 fection with which passion mingles, is unknown 
 in such a union. There can be no enduring af- 
 fection which has not among its primordial ele- 
 ments much of this holy friendship, but on the 
 contrary, such friendship may exist, and go on 
 advancing in fervor and strength, without adopt- 
 ing a single constituent of what the world calls 
 Love. Yet it is only the higher order of minds 
 which can recognize this beautiful form of human 
 tenderness. To a low nature physical laws seem 
 so much stronger than spiritual bonds, that a love 
 which rises superior to all grosser modes of ex- 
 pression is as far beyond their comprehension as 
 it is above their consciousness. Not that I would 
 assert '^ there is no sex in genius" ; there is sex as 
 strongly marked in mental as in physical organi- 
 
Thoughts of a Silent Man. 17 
 
 zation ; but its existence refines instead of profan- 
 ing the worship of truth and love. 
 
 The happiness of men and women of genius has 
 rarely been found in the sentiment of love, but 
 it has often grown up quietly and surely beneath 
 the fostering care of friendship. Genius rarely 
 chooses wisely for itself in the first outgoings of 
 its affections. It seeks the qualities which are 
 wanting in its own being ; and, finding these, it 
 fancies that all other qualities essential to harmo- 
 nious combinations exist with them. 
 
 Oh, ask not, hope not thou too mnch 
 
 Of sympathy below ; 
 Few are the hearts whence kindred streams 
 
 At the same touch will flow. 
 
 This is the usual result of its experience. It 
 clothes some mere human creature with its own 
 beautiful ideality, and when 
 
 Charm by charm unwinds 
 That robes its idol, 
 
 it feels that not only was the object of its worship 
 a false divinity, but that even the religion of its 
 own deep heart is a weakness and an error. Of 
 poets this is precisely true. Few or none have 
 found peace in the sanctuary of their hearts while 
 the altar blazed before the image of love. Yet 
 how many have been blessed when they learned to 
 
18 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 weave their votive garlands only for the shrine of 
 friendship. Whenever any exposition of the real 
 heart of man is brought before the public eye, 
 there is invariably a cry raised of the ^^ wickedness 
 of human nature/' '^innate depravity/' "immoral 
 tendencies/' and the thousand watchwords people 
 whose consciences are apt to slumber think it 
 necessary to repeat for the awakening of their 
 neighbors, who in all probability need no such 
 rousing. The " Correspondence between Burns and 
 Clarinda" was precisely one of those expositions; 
 nine tenths of its readers turned up their eyes in 
 holy horror, and looked upon the man as a scape- 
 grace, and the woman as a "very naughty woman." 
 Yet why? There was earnestness of feeling and 
 fervid expression, such as only a poet could utter, 
 or a congenial nature understand ; but where was 
 a single passage which could justify the charge of 
 immorality? Clarinda was a woman of refined 
 mind, delicate tastes, and strong affections; her 
 husband had ill-treated and abandoned her. Full 
 of unappreciated tenderness of nature, and of un- 
 appropriated sympathies, she had been for years 
 worse than widowed in heart, when she acciden- 
 tally met with Burns. What was more natural 
 than that he — a being whose heart, like a full 
 cup held by an unsteady hand, always trembled 
 over at a breath — should have recognized a kin- 
 dred nature? What more likely than that a 
 
Thoughts of a Silent Man. 19 
 
 woman whose power of loving even cruelty 
 could not crush out should have found a passing 
 joy in this pure poetic sympathy? Burns had 
 been wild and wayward — 
 
 His pulse's maddening play 
 
 Wild sent him pleasure's devious way, 
 
 By passion driven. 
 And yet the light that led astray 
 
 Was light from heaven. 
 
 He was his own true interpreter in these lines. 
 The struggle of his soul after something more true 
 than the coarseness of peasant life, or the cold con- 
 ventionalism of high society, together with the 
 fierce strivings of a strong physical nature, led him 
 into many an error. But who that reads his ex- 
 quisite songs can doubt his many glimpses of that 
 higher life after which genius so vainly soars % 
 
 He who cannot see in Burns's intercourse with 
 Clarinda one of those ^^ better moments ^' in his 
 life is, I think, to be pitied for the obtuseness of 
 his perception. Shame on the man who believes 
 that a feeling like this could not exist without 
 wrong ! Does he believe that only the marriage 
 tie can sanctify such an affection ? Alas ! seldom 
 does such an affection sanctify the church's bond. 
 
 Passion, prudence, pride, and a thousand similar 
 motives may make men marry, and then the power 
 of habit and a strong sense of duty assimilate 
 
20 TJiougJits of a Silent Man. 
 
 them to their companions through life. But rarely 
 indeed does this mystic recognition of soul pre- 
 cede, or accompany, the outward and visible bond 
 of marriage. Men look not enough into their own 
 natures. They know not the necessity of such a 
 recognition, until, perhaps, in after life, when the 
 mysteries of life have been revealed to them 
 through suffering. Like Alciphron, the Epicurean, 
 they go through the Egyptian darkness and mys- 
 teries of sorrow and sin, in search of that truth 
 whose symbol is light. That this mystic recog- 
 nition exists, I can no more doubt than I can 
 disbelieve the existence of the subtle power of 
 magnetism. But it cannot be theorized upon 
 even by such a mind as Swedenborg's. There will 
 never be a system of sympathetic emotions which 
 will satisfy those who are susceptible to their in- 
 fluence ; and to those who are insensible to them, 
 all attempts to classify such impalpabilities must 
 seem absurd. Neither can be materialized, as the 
 mesmerisers of the present day would fain assert. 
 It is purely a spiritualism — a link in the chain 
 which binds the soul to its dim remembrances of 
 a preexistence. Society has made certain wise and 
 good laws for the maintenance of order. A high 
 nature will not offend against these laws; but 
 neither will it allow a narrow interpretation of 
 them to destroy all the elemental purity of the 
 soul. God has given us wiser and better laws, 
 
Thoughts of a Silent Man, 21 
 
 which find a ready acceptance in the souls of his 
 true children. 
 
 The laws uttered amid the thunders of Sinai are 
 sufficiently comprehensive — they denounce every 
 sin which can make man blush before his Maker, 
 and he who breaks none of these will certainly 
 never offend against society. I am no believer in 
 perfect sympathy, — that is reserved to be one of 
 the joys of heaven, — but I believe in approaches 
 to it, as firmly as I do in decided antipathies. 
 And therefore, as I can understand how Burns 
 might have hated an enemy without seeking to 
 murder him, so I can easily comprehend how he 
 might have loved Clarinda deeply and fondly, 
 without degrading her by illicit passion. 
 
€{)oug][)t^ of a .-Silent ^an* 
 
 No. 4. 
 
 N a foregoing paper I spoke of sympathy 
 as existent between kindred souls, in a 
 much more perfect state than the world 
 was willing to allow. The recently 
 published correspondence between Schiller and 
 Goethe affords the most beautiful exposition of 
 this spiritual recognition that the annals of literal 
 ture have ever recorded. Literary friendships, as 
 they are called, are too often mere leagues growing 
 out of community of interests, or attachments 
 formed from the necessity of insatiate vanity. 
 Inferior minds sometimes make themselves essen- 
 tial to superior ones, by ministering to unsus- 
 pected weakness ; and a man willing to play the 
 jackal will rarely fail to find a lion to wait upon. 
 A connection of this kind deserves not the name 
 of friendship ; yet the world never discriminates, 
 and when the tie of mutual interest is severed be- 
 
TJioiigJits of a Silent Man. 23 
 
 tween two such pseudo-friends, commonplace peo- 
 ple exclaim at the instability of men of genius. 
 No one can read the correspondence of the two 
 minds to whom I have alluded without feeling 
 sensible of the nobler bond of union which true 
 sympathy alone can weave, while the very sudden- 
 ness of the recognition between them is the best 
 proof of its genuineness. 
 
 Schiller had occasion to ask the literary aid of 
 Goethe in behalf of a new periodical, and accord- 
 ingly indites a letter of formal respect, filled with 
 the most reverential appreciation of Goethe's 
 Awakism, yet containing not a single word of 
 flattery or servility. Goethe returns a frank and 
 hearty response, giving not a mere assent to 
 Schiller's proposition, but professing the genial 
 grasp of mental compa^nionship. In less than two 
 months we find Schiller opening his heart to his 
 new friend with all the confidingness of a woman. 
 How fearlessly aud unjealously does he disclose 
 the benefits he has derived from his recently 
 formed attachment! 
 
 ^' On much about which I could not obtain har- 
 mony with myself, the contemplation of your mind 
 (for thus I must call the full impression of your 
 ideas upon me) has kindled a new light. I needed 
 the object — the body to many speculative ideas, 
 and you have put me on the track of it." Mark 
 Goethe's somewhat oracular reply. "Pure enjoy- 
 
24 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 ment and real benefits can only be reciprocal, and 
 it will give me pleasure to nnfold to you at leisure 
 what my intercourse with you has done for me — 
 how I, too, regard it as an epoch in my existence, 
 and how content I am to have gone on my way 
 without particular encouragements, as it now ap- 
 pears as if we, after so unexpected a meeting, are 
 to proceed forward together. I have always prized 
 the honest and rare earnestness visible in all you 
 have done and written. All that relates to me, and 
 is in me, I will gladly impart. For as I feel very 
 sensibly that my undertaking far exceeds the mea- 
 sure of the faculties of one earthly life, I would 
 wish to repose much with you, and thereby give it 
 not only endurance but vitality." 
 
 Now there may be something approaching to too 
 much self-reliance in the one, and perhaps too lit- 
 tle self-appreciation in the other ; but they both 
 write from genuine feeling. There is no courtly 
 flattery in the younger bard, no gratified vanity in 
 the crowned poet. There never was a more genial 
 yielding up of the soul to sudden and secret sym- 
 pathy. There was no measured routine of civili- 
 ties to be trodden before they could join hands at 
 the shrine of friendship. ^^ However strong," says 
 Schiller, ^' has been my desire to enter into closer 
 relation with you than is possible between the 
 spirit of a writer and his most attentive reader, 
 yet I now perceive clearly that the different paths 
 
Thoughts of a Silent Man. 25 
 
 ill wliich you and I moved could not have brought 
 us together with advantage sooner than just at 
 this time. But now I can hope that we shall travel 
 together the rest of the way, and with greater 
 profit, inasmuch as the last travelers who join 
 company have always the most to say to one 
 another." When we regard the character of the 
 men, and the position they occupied in the world 
 of letters, the picture of a pure and beautiful lit- 
 erary friendship becomes complete, and we turn 
 with a feeling of refreshment from the cold, hard, 
 narrow selflsms of society to the rich development 
 of soul in such a union. 
 
 Their correspondence, which lasted ten years, 
 and closed only with the death of Schiller, is like 
 a many-sided mirror, reflecting every object that 
 passes before it, in every variety of light and 
 shade ; while the pure, clear atmosphere in which 
 such souls live, and move, and have their being, 
 gives almost magical distinctness to each image. 
 No breath of selfishness or distrust ever rests for 
 an instant on its bright surface. The glimpse 
 which it affords us of Goethe's magnificent vanity 
 (for he was a man who made even his weakness 
 almost sublime) seems necessary to the proper il- 
 lustration of Schiller's exquisite humility; and 
 the hierarch of German literature never appears 
 in so amiable an aspect as when cordially accept- 
 ing and adopting his friend's close and quick- 
 
26 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 sighted criticisms. Yet as in my former paper I 
 ventured to assert that such sympathy could only 
 grow to perfectness in persons of opposite sex, so 
 now I dare affirm that this very correspondence is 
 a proof of my theory. Genius assimilates though 
 it does not confound sex, and while it gives some- 
 thing of manly strength to woman, it always im- 
 parts much feminality of perfection and feeling to 
 man, especially if it exists with a delicately organ- 
 ized physical structure. Goethe, with his robust 
 physique, his wide perceptive faculties, his enter- 
 prise, his towering independence of soul, his easy, 
 graceful, yet despotic exe'rcise of mental domina- 
 tion, affords a perfect contrast to Schiller, who 
 was feeble in health, self-distrustful, eminently 
 tender in his imaginativeness, and full of up-look- 
 ing reliance upon the stronger spirit of his friend. 
 Had they both possessed only strongly marked 
 masculine traits of character, their union could 
 never have been so perfect. Now it has some of the 
 best characteristics of Platonic affection. Goethe 
 was the strong man, self-dependent, self-subsistent, 
 yet needing companionship ; Schiller was the ten- 
 der, womanish nature, strong in principle, and 
 perhaps with a latent power of self-reliance, but 
 happier and better in its gentle dependence on a 
 bolder nature. Advice, counsel, dictation, sugges- 
 tion, amid a sort of watchful guardianship, these 
 are Goethe's duties; deference, devotion, nay. 
 
TJwughfs of a Silent Man. 27 
 
 the very outward ministry for which women seem 
 so essentially fitted, come from Schiller. It is 
 Schiller who sends the frequent box of biscuits — 
 Goethe now and then furnishes his friend a fish, 
 snared in the free waters, but the remembrance of 
 household tastes comes from the womanlike affec- 
 tion of the gentler spirit. 
 
 This is no mere fanciful speculation. Perfect 
 similarity is not sympathy; each must find in the 
 other what is wanting in itself. There need be no 
 inferiority in mind, yet there may be differences in 
 mental and moral qualities. Men judge of their 
 own sex through their consciousness, and they 
 judge of women through their imagination. Both 
 faculties may be erring guides, but the latter is 
 more likely to be right than the former, since it 
 usually gives a much more exalted view of human 
 nature. The love of a high-souled man is one of 
 the noblest, most unselfish, and loftiest feelings of 
 which humanity is capable. The love of woman, 
 even of the most gentle as well as of the highest 
 nature, is exacting, for even as she is willing to 
 give all, so she is not content with less than the 
 sacrifice of all things to her. Considerateness, 
 tenderness, the entire devotion of a life, are but as 
 grains of incense in her eyes. She would fain give 
 as much as she could, and therefore nothing can 
 be offered which her love does not deserve. She 
 may be humble in all things else, but she is al- 
 
28 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 ways appreciating toward her own affections, and 
 hence her utter unreasonableness in all love af- 
 fairs. But her friendship is another thing. All 
 the superiority which man's stronger nature gives 
 him over her in love, her greater purity affords 
 her over him in friendship. Nowhere is there 
 more devotion, more disinterestedness, more ready 
 self-sacrifice, than in woman's friendship ; no- 
 where more teasing, annoying, heart-stirring pet- 
 tiness of exaction than in her love ; and a man 
 who w^ould have full appreciation of woman's 
 nature, as well as full enjoyment of her sweet 
 presence, must be her dearest friend, but never 
 her devoted lover. 
 
Cljoiigljt.i^ of a Silent ^an» 
 
 No. 5. 
 
 | ?^^^ HE desire, common to all men who can- 
 ^JvS Stu not originate, of looking into the in- 
 ^9l ^-3$ most nature of men of genius (the 
 Ci^:^^ '^ seers and makers," as they were 
 styled in the older tongue), prevails in me, I con- 
 fess, with full power. Hence it was that I found 
 myself turning from Goethe's letters to Schiller, 
 where the great man wears the graceful disha- 
 bille of social friendship, to the picture of the 
 same mind in the half dress which it exhibits in 
 ^^Der Brief wechsel mit einem Kinde." Nothing 
 can be in greater contrast than the same individ- 
 ual under the two different aspects. In his letters 
 to Schiller, Goethe is frank, cordial, and self-dis- 
 closing, fully conscious that he is an acknowledged 
 dictator, and therefore laying aside all outward 
 emblems of power, while he meets Schiller on the 
 broad ground of community of feeling and opin- 
 
 29 
 
30 TJwiigJits of a Silent Man. 
 
 ion. He does not elevate Scliiller to an equality 
 with himself, bnt descends one step from his cano- 
 pied dais to meet him, and this he does so grace- 
 fully that one scarcely notices the kingly conde- 
 scension of the act. The fact was that Schiller 
 won G-oethe's respect by his manliness, his truth, 
 and his genius, while he secured his affection by the 
 unconscious development of his tender and loving 
 nature. Yet to gain such a regard from Goethe, 
 it was necessary first to command his respect, and 
 this no woman ever succeeded in obtaining. From 
 his earliest youth, Goethe had been as remarkable 
 for his beauty of person as for his powers of mind. 
 Of course he was eminently attractive to women. 
 His wonderful mind captivated her who could 
 only be approached through the intellect, his no- 
 ble and commanding figure won the admiration of 
 her who had an eye only for physical beauty, and 
 his delicate and refined sentiment was irresistible 
 to her who needed ideal ministry. From his boy- 
 hood, therefore, he had been a favorite with the 
 sex, and we need scarcely add that the very wor- 
 ship he received diminished his respect for the 
 worshipers. A man may be made vain by the 
 extravagant admiration of women, but it never in- 
 spires him with self-respect. He learns to doubt, 
 if not its genuineness, at least its discrimina- 
 tion, and when he finds women governed, as they 
 so usually are, in their likings and dislikings by 
 
TJwughts of a Silent Man. 31 
 
 whim, lie begins to distrust the very possession 
 of those qualities to which he is indebted for their 
 approbation. Goethe loved to be flattered, and 
 courted, and idolized by women, but he cared lit- 
 tle for their opinions, except as they might influ- 
 ence stronger minds. He looked to his own sex 
 for appreciation. The column erected to his fame 
 might be wreathed with flowers by gentle hands, 
 but he expected it to be built by the strong arm 
 of man. 
 
 In his " Correspondence with a Child ^' (a child, 
 by the way, of twenty years), which commenced a 
 year or two after Schiller's death, Goethe shows 
 himself as having thoroughly developed the self- 
 ism that in very early life had characterized his 
 first love-passage. When he first met Bettina 
 von Arnim, he had already passed his sixtieth 
 year, his fame was established on a sure basis, and 
 his mine of sentiment, though not exhausted, yet 
 had been so fully worked in real life, as well as for 
 the purposes of poetry, that there were no new 
 veins of ore to be discovered. Bettina possessed 
 great talent, together with a temperament which, 
 if associated with genius, would have produced 
 grand results, but which, being connected with the 
 perceptive instead of the inventive faculty, only 
 sufficed to fill her with restless eothusiasm and an 
 uneasy sense of unappropriated power. Her love 
 for G-oethe, about which so much outcry has been 
 
32 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 made, was a very harmless fantasy, growing out 
 of a girlish admiration of the poet, and afterward 
 fostered by the vanity of both. That it was the 
 true sentiment of love is too absurd for belief, 
 and that it was the effervescence of passion is 
 worse than absurd. It would require an exceed- 
 ingly spiritualized imagination to exalt Bettina's 
 girlishness into the utterance of that soul-born 
 sympathy which links one with heaven ; and at 
 the same time, none but a fancy nurtured on the 
 loathly food of sensualism could discover aught 
 of evil in the exaggerated sentiments she ex- 
 pressed. Flattered by the privilege of familiar 
 correspondence with the ruler of German litera- 
 ture, happy in his half-constrained fondness to- 
 ward her^ proud of being the pet and plaything of 
 the lion, Bettina appears to have given herself 
 up to the pleasurable excitement without a single 
 fear, or a moment's calculation. She seems to 
 have remained standing on the threshold of wo- 
 manhood, unwilling to turn her back on the irre- 
 sponsible enjoyments of childhood, yet occasion- 
 ally glancing, half yearningly, toward the veiled 
 shrine within the temple. If the hand of Goethe 
 sometimes lifted that veil, it was only to afford a 
 momentary glimpse of the flame which was there 
 burning, and the girl was more attracted to the 
 flowers that grew around the porch than to the 
 mystic worship of the inner shrine. In order to 
 
Thoughts of a Silent Man. 33 
 
 judge fairly of Bettina, we must take into view 
 the peculiarities of the society in which she lived. 
 In England, where conventionalism forms the 
 strongest of all bonds, she would have been re- 
 garded as a mad woman. In our own country, 
 where so much freedom of inclination exists 
 among her sex, she would probably have discov- 
 ered much earlier that she was no longer a child, 
 and the affair would have had more earnestness 
 and less unconsciousness. But in Germany, ever 
 since the days of '' Werther" and '^Elective Affin- 
 ities," such things are part of the social system. 
 Their philosophers, as well as their poets, have 
 taught the jjeople that impressions may be re- 
 garded as precepts, and consequently a want of 
 enthusiasm or sensibility is considered by them 
 almost as an immorality. "We are content with a 
 man if he possesses a strong moral sense, but the 
 Germans demand also that he shall have an in- 
 dwelling love for the good as for the beautiful, a 
 quick perception of its presence in outward things, 
 and an instant recognition of its power, notwith- 
 standing the oppression of circumstances. I, for 
 one, am not disposed to blame them; but unfortu- 
 nately, this extreme susceptibility of character 
 makes them attach infinite importance to the 
 slightest shades of sentiment, and as proofs of the 
 existence of a feeling, they feel bound to express 
 its every gradation. The perfect development of 
 
34 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 a sentiment is not sufficient in their view ; they 
 must see the process by which the result has been 
 obtained. They are never content with the ''piled 
 up agony '^ — they want to see the agglomera- 
 tion of each individual pang. This microscopic 
 habit of looking into hearts is peculiarly German^ 
 and of course gives rise to a world of affectation. 
 True feeling shrinks ever from the scalpel of 
 analysis, and an emotion which will bear dissec- 
 tion has certainly lost vitality. Yet in a country 
 where sensibility is regarded as eminently a vir- 
 tue, it will be as certainly simulated as will be cold- 
 ness and prudery among a people who claim to be 
 moral in proportion as they are unfeeling. Not 
 only this, but where it is not feigned and really 
 exists, it will be heightened by fictitious means. 
 If susceptibility be a virtue, then increased suscep- 
 tibility is increased morality, and what would be 
 elsewhere regarded as an indiscretion in Bettina 
 is only an evidence of her acute sensibility, and 
 of course of her elevation of character. 
 
 Almost all highly civilized communities regard 
 the repression of sensibility as a moral duty ; the 
 Germans alone consider its constant exercise as the 
 strongest test of true virtue; and there is as much 
 evil in the code which forces its suppression, as 
 in that which inculcates its exposition. We can 
 make direct rules of conduct based upon the im- 
 mutable laws of duty to God and justice to man, 
 
Thoiighfs of a Silent Man. 35 
 
 but we can make no such regulation for the emo- 
 tions. We have no right to make sensibility a 
 duty. To some few it may be an unconditional 
 privilege — to many it is a penance, willingly en- 
 dured for the sake of some concomitant blessing 
 — to most of us it is a clinging curse. The dry, 
 hard, unsympathizing individual, who is virtuous 
 from calculation, and treads his narrow path with- 
 out ever looking down upon the flowers beneath 
 his feet, or upward to the stars above his head, 
 may often perform his duties in life better than 
 the tender, susceptible being, who is ever stepping 
 aside in kindness, or at least forgetting to keep a 
 steady eye on the distant goal. If the world were 
 made up of persons who think and feel, rather 
 than act (and such are persons of susceptibility), 
 how many more projects of good would be con- 
 ceived, but how few would ever be accomplished ! 
 Grod be praised that sensibility is not a duty. 
 The curse would be too heavy for frail humanity 
 if we had all been called to endure the burden of 
 sensibility as well as the weight of labor. We are 
 doomed to eat our bread in the sweat of our brow 
 not in the sweat of our hearts ; and how compara- 
 tively merciful is the dispensation, those only 
 know who have felt the double curse of a grief- 
 worn spirit in a toil-worn frame. Yet while we 
 regard Bettina as only very German in her girl- 
 ishness, we have less respect for the sexagenarian 
 
36 Thoughts of a Silent Man. 
 
 coquetry of Goethe. He evidently likes the pas- 
 sionate tone of her letters, he rather encourages 
 her little petulant jealousies. Sometimes he checks 
 her vehemence, but in such a manner that he 
 approves, even while he seems to chide. Some- 
 times he praises her descriptive powers, some- 
 times sends her back her own sentiments em- 
 balmed in his verse, and sometimes calls forth 
 all the vividness and warmth of devotion by his 
 eloquent appreciation. Had this affection grown 
 up when Groethe was twenty years younger, it 
 would have been numbered among the many sim- 
 ilar testimonies to his attractiveness which he 
 was always proud to remember. But coming, as 
 it did, when he had already attained to old age, it 
 had an importance in his eyes which called forth 
 especial indulgence. 
 
 The man whom Ninon honored with her favors 
 after she had counted her eightieth year would 
 probably have been less fortunate had he been her 
 lover forty years earlier. Compared with Goethe, 
 Bettina was indeed a child, but the poet had not 
 read the human heart in vain, and he well knew 
 the probable result of such a waste of devotion. 
 The danger was not to virtue, not to good name — 
 it was the heart's unsullied purity that was risked. 
 There was no outward wrong, no sacrifice of duty; 
 but was it nothing to accept the first outpourings 
 of tenderness; nothing to have awakened the first 
 
TJioughts of a Silent Man. 37 
 
 blush of the soul ; nothing to have stolen the 
 dewy freshness of the heart's first-fruits? How 
 easy it would have been for Goethe to have di- 
 rected aright all the overflowing fullness of Bet- 
 tina's nature ; to have guided her enthusiasm, 
 repressed her passionateness, weeded out her jea- 
 lousy, and, in short, to have raised her above the 
 blind idolatry which made her bow down before 
 the priest, instead of worshiping the divinity at 
 whose shrine he ministered ! But the fact was 
 that, in spite of all his greatness of mind, Goethe 
 was fully sensible of the pleasures of gratified 
 vanity. He valued Bettina's adoration as any 
 other man would have done, and, perhaps, in 
 expecting him to have repelled the votary who 
 brought such costly gifts, we ask more stoic 
 virtue than falls to the lot of even the highest 
 humanity. 
 
 Nothing is more evident in this singular corre- 
 spondence than the difference between the hopeful 
 fervor of youth and the back-looking yearning of 
 age. It is the same difference as that which exists 
 between the newly gathered blossom, and the spec- 
 tral rose which the chemist's almost magical skill 
 can bring out from the flower. Goethe could call 
 up the faded and ghastly image from the crucible 
 of memory, but the fresh garland which Bettina 
 offered must be consumed in the mystic process. 
 
I^Dtion^ about :^u^ic* 
 
 y APPENING to find myself, a few even- 
 ings since, in the midst of a circle of 
 people who were discussing the merits 
 ^^^W^^ of a certain celebrated pianist, I was 
 struck with the peculiar knowingness of their 
 remarks. None were mere amateurs — all ap- 
 peared to be decided connoisseurs in music; and 
 as many of them were, to my knowledge, by no 
 means remarkably well informed in other respects, 
 my curiosity was a little excited as to the means 
 by which this skill in musical criticism had been 
 obtained. 
 
 According to my usual habit, I listened instead 
 of sharing in the conversation ; and nothing en- 
 ables one so soon to see through the mist of super- 
 ficiality as such quiet observation. I found that 
 each one of the speakers had some especial favo- 
 rite among professional musicians, some ^' magnus 
 Apollo," in whose cast-off ideas he was content 
 
Notions ahout Music. 39 
 
 to array his own mind, and whose technicalities 
 were preferred to original, but less scientific, ex- 
 pressions of a genuine love for music. The 
 fashion of the day is not to be music-mad, but 
 music-wise. When the Italian opera was first in- 
 troduced by that glorious Garcia troupe, the like 
 of which has never been seen since in our country, 
 everybody who aspired to be anybody was ex- 
 pected to*^ profess the most enthusiastic love for 
 this lofty style of music. 
 
 To those whose taste had been formed after the 
 classic models, or to those with sufacient delicacy 
 of ear to detect the sentiment through the sound, 
 this was an easy task ; but to most of our busy, 
 bustling, money-making aspirants after fortune 
 and fashion, it was the severest tax they had ever 
 been called upon to pay. But the adaptability of 
 the American character is proverbial, and this 
 graft of foreign taste, which required nearly a 
 century to attain a vigorous growth in England's 
 soil, in less than five years flourished among us 
 like an indigenous production. 
 
 We are called a money-loving people, a specu- 
 lating people, and a thousand other names equally 
 significant of the " almighty dollar "; but the recent 
 railway doings in John Bull's insular manufac- 
 turing workshop, and the late glorification in 
 Britain of a man whose only claim to public con- 
 sideration is his success in making a rapid fortune, 
 
40 Notions about Music. 
 
 prevent us from claiming any of these titles so 
 exclusively as to make them tests of identity. If 
 our '' cousin of England " (instead of making our 
 pseudo-national portrait a caricature of his own 
 respectable matter-of-fact physiognomy) would so 
 far recognize our difference of national feature 
 from his own, as to see that both peoples bear 
 more resemblance to the Englishman of the days 
 of Elizabeth than they do to each other, he would 
 discover our strong impressibility to Art; and 
 detect the most striking sign of departure in dis- 
 position from the modern English stock in our 
 nascent devotion to music! We are emphati- 
 cally a musical people — yes, I say emphatically; 
 for the German fervor and Italian impressibility 
 which are blended in the American character give 
 us both the susceptibility to musical sounds and 
 the craving for musical utterance which, with long 
 cultivation, has brought the art to high perfection 
 among the countrymen of Mozart and Rossini. 
 Certain clever but not very philosophical writers 
 have recently made themselves merry with the first- 
 fruits of this national predisposition, as it has dis- 
 played itself in the popularity of "the negro 
 melodies " of the South. Let no one presume to 
 smile scornfully at such humble examples of origi- 
 nality in so lofty an art. The beginnings of all 
 nationality must be rude and unpolished, because, 
 in order to be nationalities, they must begin with 
 
Notions ahout Music. 41 
 
 the people, not with the gentry, of a country. 
 Our scholars form their tastes and educate their 
 perceptions after Old World models; our populace 
 display the influences of untutored nature. In all 
 great cities we must necessarily have that artifi- 
 cial kind of existence which soon levels down 
 originality. The rich will exhibit European re- 
 finement, and carefully repress all nationality as 
 vulgar, while the poor, recruited as their ranks con- 
 tinually are by paupers from abroad, will differ 
 little from their kindred classes on the other side 
 of the water. Yet even here we may see this 
 strong musical taste filling the concert-room, and 
 gathering a crowd around some peripatetic min- 
 strel. It is only in Atlantic cities that this bor- 
 rowed refinement prevails. In the wide tracts of 
 our western country, in the cities which have 
 sprung up, like Aladdin's palace, in the midst of 
 trackless forests or almost illimitable prairies, we 
 find, even amid the growing desire for luxury 
 which follows the bountiful supply of the neces- 
 saries of life, a degree of originality unknown in 
 older settlements. The pioneer of civilization is 
 generally a sturdy, reckless woodsman, full of ex- 
 pedients, and gifted with a certain daredevil cheer- 
 fulness that carries him through all difficulties and 
 dangers. The children of such a man must neces- 
 sarily inherit much of his temperament, for all 
 strong natures impress themselves deeply upon 
 
42 Notions about Music. 
 
 their offspring. Those things which were but half- 
 discovered tastes and tendencies in him, repressed, 
 perhaps, by the necessities of every-day life, will 
 in them be developed into talents and powers. 
 Untrammeled by any knowledge of classic models, 
 unfettered by that awe of the intellectual giants 
 whose fame overshadows the scholastic world, they 
 utter themselves in a language coarse, strong, and 
 original. 
 
 They become poets in soul, though not in verbal 
 expression ; for the language of poetry must neces- 
 sarily have a certain artificiality, arising out of 
 its recurring rhythm and cadence, which involves 
 the need of a degree of cultivation ; and hence it 
 is that our most national efforts of sculpture, and 
 our most original specimens of melody, are the 
 growth of our western forests. It is on account of 
 their conformity to the rules of counterpoint, or 
 their scientific combinations of harmony and mel- 
 ody, that the national airs of any country have 
 obtained their popularity. In point of real music, 
 the songs of the boatmen on our great western 
 rivers exceed the celebrated Ranz des Vaches, or 
 even the Rhine song ; while the monotonous 
 chanting of the Neapolitan barcarole differs little 
 in merit from the melodies with which our South- 
 ern negroes beguile their labors in the cotton-field. 
 We have no great national composers, and prob- 
 ably never shall have; for a musician could 
 
Notions about Music. 43 
 
 scarcely attain sufficient skill in his art without 
 imbibing at the same time those anti-national 
 ideas, and that reliance upon transatlantic taste, 
 which will make him only an imitator of some 
 German or Italian model. But we have the 
 materials and the taste, if w^e only had the con- 
 rage, for an entirely new school of music. It is 
 with nations as with individuals j a strongly sel- 
 fish person never could have a strong and enthusi- 
 astic love for music, although such an one might 
 become a skilful and accomplished musician ; and 
 thus a nation whose self-concentration is pro 
 verbial can never expect to produce great musical 
 composers. We may look to Shaksperian England 
 for our masterpieces in literature, if we will ; we 
 may look to the England of Watt, Arkwright, and 
 Davy for the most definite, if not the most inge- 
 nious, in science. But music, it must be remem- 
 bered, is art, science, and inspiration combined ; 
 and it requires not less the soul to feel, and the 
 heart to respond, than it does the brain to con- 
 ceive its dainty and subtle inventions*! The adipose 
 of pride that wraps the mechanical nerves of an 
 Englishman, no less than the wondrous self-com- 
 placency of those brave, ingenious, and sturdy 
 islanders (the finest artificial race, perhaps, that 
 the world has ever seen, but at the same time the 
 most artificial), utterly prevents his freely giving 
 himself up to the power of music. A man who 
 
44 Notions about Music. 
 
 sympathizes so little with other men among the 
 nations, how can he sympathize with a floating 
 sound! The abandon with which his continental 
 brethren yield themselves to the enthusiasm of the 
 moment is incompatible with his sense of dignity ; 
 and hence music, however suggestive, is to him 
 like a walk through pleasure-grounds guarded by 
 man-traps and spring-guns — he is continually on 
 the lookout lest he shoukl be awkwardly caught. 
 We, on the contrary, rather pique ourselves on a 
 certain degree of extravagance in feeling — a sort 
 of half -comic, half-earnest exaggeration of senti- 
 ment, apparently arising from a kind of bragga- 
 docio spirit, but in reality growing out of an 
 awkward consciousness of real emotion. We 
 have not yet attained to that point of refinement 
 where civilization and savage life meet, closing the 
 circle on the one part with stoical indifference, 
 and on the other with fashionable nonchalance. 
 We have enterprise, enthusiasm, depth of feeling, 
 liveliness of imagination, and quickness of per- 
 ception. We have around us the grand harmo- 
 nies which nature produces to the eye, and there 
 are as yet few of the discords of social life (those in- 
 congruities which spring from overgrown wealth 
 and squalid poverty) to mar the music of our 
 rapid onward march. The clashings of political 
 excitement are to us like the trumpet-call of 
 
Notions about Music. 45 
 
 gatheriDg armies; while the tones of domestic 
 peace are ever sounding in our ears like 
 
 That sweetest of all melodies — the voice 
 Of song o'er mooulit waters. 
 
 In short, we have all the materials for a na- 
 tional music ; and it is to be hoped that the time 
 will come when an American composer may be 
 found, who to artistic skill shall unite a full per- 
 ception of the feeling which is the great first cause 
 of music, and the suggestiveness which should be 
 its highest aim. With the usual garrulity of age, 
 I have traveled far from my original purpose, 
 which was simply to show how much those lose 
 who, not content with enjoying music, think it 
 necessary to become technical, and fancy that 
 ^' they are nothing, if not critical." All persons of 
 true feeling may enjoy good music through its 
 suggestiveness, while only practical and theoreti- 
 cal musicians are qualified to judge learnedly and 
 scientifically of the merits of a composition. The 
 botanist may pull a flower to pieces to lecture on 
 its various parts, and a musician may dissect a 
 thrilling melody in order to discover its mysteri- 
 ous combinations of sweetness ; but he who loves 
 flowers and music for their own sake needs no 
 such scientific investigation to increase his en- 
 joyment of their delights — albeit such investiga- 
 
46 
 
 Motions ahout Music. 
 
 tion alone can teach him the law of snch enjoy- 
 ment. A thorough knowledge of music is a most 
 desirable and noble gift ; but the mere smatter- 
 ing which enables men to chatter like apes about 
 an art which has power to fill the soul with the 
 highest emotions cannot be too carefully eschewed. 
 
(©miii!^ anb it^ iSciuatb^* 
 
 ;HAT a glorious gift is that of eloquent 
 utterance ! The laurels of the warrior 
 are only achieved on the field of blood; 
 the honors of the statesman depend on 
 the fickle breath of the multitude ; but the author 
 — the creator — he who in the seclusion of his 
 closet can commune with the solemn majesty of 
 truth, whose oracles he has been chosen to inter- 
 pret ; he who can people the narrow limits of his 
 solitary chamber with images of beauty ; he who 
 amid the sands of worldliness has found the " dia- 
 mond of the desert," while its sweet waters are 
 welling up in all their freshness and purity — 
 what a noble power is his ! And what a strange 
 and mystic faculty is that which gives to ^' airy 
 nothings " such shapes as make them seem, even 
 to the coarse-minded worldling, like familiar 
 friends ; which imparts to unsubstantial dreams a 
 
 47 
 
48 Oenitis and its Bewards. 
 
 visible and lifelike presence ; which invests the 
 impalpable shadows of the brain with the attri- 
 butes of humanity, and demands for these fairy 
 creatures of the fancy our kindliest and warmest 
 sympathy ! What a godlike gift is that which 
 enables the lonely student to sway the minds of 
 myriads on whom his eye may never rest with a 
 glance of friendly recognition ; to move as if by 
 one impulse the hearts of thousands ; to stir up 
 high and holy feelings in bosoms which the com- 
 merce of the world and the exigencies of life had 
 chilled and hardened. Yet it is with the mind as 
 with the body; the exercise of our physical ener- 
 gies is delightful in proportion as it is the act of 
 unfettered volition. The man who, in the sport- 
 iveness of health and spirits, will go into the 
 woodland and make the strokes of his ax ring 
 through the forest aisles would find little pleasure 
 i^ the same labor if necessity had driven him to 
 become a hewer of wood. 
 
 The well-trained dancer, whose lithe form moves 
 to the voice of music as if she were but an em- 
 bodiment of the spirit of harmony, feels none 
 of the pure joy which once possessed her when, 
 in the freedom of childish mirth, her dance was 
 but the evidence of a lightsome heart. It is only 
 when the will is left free to direct the faculties 
 that we can derive full gratification from our con- 
 sciousness of power; and if this be true of the 
 
Genms and its Bewards. 49 
 
 body, — that mere machine which, from its earliest 
 sentient moment, is submitted to restraint and sub- 
 jection, — how much more is it true of the free and 
 unchained mind. It matters not whether the fet- 
 ters that are laid upon the soul be forged from the 
 iron scepter of necessity, or wrought from the 
 golden treasures of ambition ; still they are but 
 chains, and he who would feel the true majesty 
 of mental power must never have worn the badge 
 of thraldom. It is not the triumph of satisfied 
 ambition which affords the highest gratification 
 to the truly noble-minded. Intellectual toil is its 
 own exceeding great reward. The applause of 
 the world may gladden the heart and quicken the 
 pulse of the aspirant for fame, but the brightest 
 crown that was ever laid on the brow of genius 
 imparts no such thrill of joy as he felt in that de- 
 licious moment when the consciousness of power 
 first came upon him. It is this sense of power 
 — this innate consciousness of hidden strength — 
 which is his most valued guerdon ; and well would 
 it be for him if the echo of worldly fame never 
 resounded in the quiet, secluded chambers of his 
 secret soul. Well would it be if no hand ever 
 offered to his lips the cup of adulation, whose 
 magic sweetness awakens a thirst no repeated 
 draughts can slake. Well would it be if the voice 
 of a clamorous multitude never mingled with the 
 sweeter music of his own gentle fancies. Well 
 
 4 
 
50 Genius and its Beivards. 
 
 would it be if lie could always abide in tbe pure 
 regions of elevated thought, leaving the mists 
 and the darkness, the lightnings and tempests, 
 of a lower world beneath his feet. Titian, living 
 amid wealth and honors, and dying in the arms of 
 a weeping monarch, presents to the eye of thought 
 a far less noble picture than the poor, unfriended, 
 humble Correggio, when, at the sight of some 
 glorious works of art, the veil which had hidden 
 his own resplendent genius was suddenly lifted 
 from his eyes, and he exclaimed, in the ecstasy of 
 an enlightened spirit, '^Anche son io pittore ! " — I, 
 too, am a painter ! 
 
 With the first knowledge of innate power to the 
 mind of genius comes also the desire of benefiting 
 humanity, and at that moment, when the fire 
 which God has lighted within the soul burns up- 
 ward with a steady light toward Heaven, while 
 it diffuses its pure splendors on a darkened world 
 around, at such a moment man is indeed but little 
 lower than the angels. 
 
 Could he keep his spirit to this pitch, 
 He might be happy; 
 
 but, alas ! the mists of earth rise up around 
 him; the light is dimmed upon the altar; less 
 holy gleams shoot athwart the growing dark- 
 ness, and too often the fading flame of spiritual 
 
Genms and its Rewards. 51 
 
 existence is rekindled at the bale-fires of the nether 
 world. 
 
 There is something fearful in the responsi- 
 bility which attaches to the expression of human 
 thought and feeling. ^' We may have done that 
 yesterday/' says Madame de Stael, " which has 
 colored our whole future life." Appalling as this 
 idea is, the reflection that in some idle mood and in 
 some uncounted moment, now gone past recall, we 
 may have uttered that which has influenced the 
 opinions, the feelings, perhaps the fate, of another, 
 is even more terrific to the conscience. Who can- 
 not remember some single word, some careless 
 remark, which, coming from lips fraught with 
 eloquence, or uttered from a heart filled with 
 truth, has affected our early fortunes and perhaps 
 our lifelong destiny! Who cannot look back 
 upon some moment in life when the unconscious 
 accents of another have withheld the foot which 
 already pressed the verge of some frightful 
 precipice ? Who cannot recall, in bitter anguish 
 of spirit, some hour when the " voice of the 
 charmer " has won the soul to evil influences and 
 late remorse! If such things come within the 
 experience of each one of us (and that they do 
 no one can doubt), may not every human being, 
 however humble, feel awed before the power of 
 human expression ! Oh ! it is a fearful thing to 
 pour out one's soul in eloquent utterance. Fear- 
 
52 Genius and its Rewards. 
 
 fill, because it opens the inner sanctuary to the 
 gaze of vulgar eyes ; fearful, because its oracular 
 voice is rarely interpreted aright ; doubly fearful, 
 because even its most truthful sayings may be of 
 evil import to those who listen to its teachings. 
 ^^When the gifts of genius inspire those who 
 know us not with the desire to love us, they are 
 the richest blessings Heaven can bestow upon 
 human nature." This is a woman's sentiment, 
 but it is one to which every gifted soul will re- 
 spond. I once heard it asserted by one who has 
 but to look within himself to behold the rich- 
 est elements of the good and grand most har- 
 moniously commingled, that '' there is something 
 essentially feminine in the mental character of 
 a man of genius, while there are decidedly mas- 
 culine traits in the intellectual developments of 
 a gifted woman." The idea was at first start- 
 ling, but it is undoubtedly true. The delicacy of 
 perception, the refinement of thought, the ten- 
 derness of fancy which mark the man of genius 
 approach very nearly to the finest traits of wo- 
 manly nature; while the vigor of thought and 
 magnanimity of feeling which belong to an en- 
 larged and occupied mind in the gentler sex are 
 certainly borrowed from the stronger nature of 
 man. There is an assimilation between them, 
 which, while it does not prove the assertion that 
 
Genius and its Rewards. 53 
 
 ^^ there is no sex in genius/' goes far to establish 
 a theory, and account for apparent incongruities. 
 It is those very faculties, compelling each, as it 
 were, to trench upon the privileges of the other, 
 which involve and almost insure the social un- 
 happiness of genius. How difficult is it for 
 thought to fold its wings beside the household 
 hearth, or brood with fostering care over the 
 petty duties of life! How much more difficult for 
 the delicate and sensitive nature to assert its 
 manly strength, when every pulse is thrilling 
 with refined emotion ! Yet the diligent culture 
 of the affections, the unselfish devotion to social 
 duties, may and do preserve to each its true 
 nature. Hence it is that while others seek for 
 palpable and tangible rewards, the children of 
 genius find so much to prize in the distant and 
 far-off affection which their gifts awaken in lov- 
 ing and humble hearts. What can impart more 
 pure delight than the consciousness that we have 
 given consolation to the wretched ; that we have 
 deepened the thrill of joy in the breast of the 
 happy ; that we have elevated the thoughts of an 
 awakened mind by the expression of unconscious 
 sympathy ? 
 
 How many hearts, aching with excess of feel- 
 ing, have found vent for their fullness in those 
 exquisite lines of the poet of nature — those lines 
 
54 Genius and its Uewards. 
 
 which contain an embodiment of all the romance 
 — I had almost said of all the poetry — of life : 
 
 Had we never loved sae kindly, 
 Had we never loved sae blindly, 
 Never met or never parted. 
 We had ne'er been broken-hearted. 
 
 How many have felt the wild surges of feeling 
 heave with a calmer swell when they listened to 
 the solemn music uttered by the great master of 
 passion : 
 
 Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer! 
 
 Ave Maria ! 't is the hour of love ! 
 
 Ave Maria ! may our spirits dare 
 
 Look up to thine and to thy Son's above ? 
 
 How many, ^' nel tempo dei dolci sospiri/' have 
 echoed the strain of that passionate emotion 
 which thrilled the heart of Petrarca when he ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 Benedetto sia '1 giorno, e '1 mese, e 1' anno, 
 E la stagione, e '1 tempo, e 1' ora, e '1 punto, 
 E '1 bel paese, e '1 loco ov' io fin giunto 
 Da duo begl' oechi, che legato m' hanno. 
 
 How many, while listening to the voice of na- 
 ture's great high-priest, learn to love the gifted 
 beings who have power to interpret the vague or- 
 acles of God within their souls; how many would 
 fain utter in nobler language the sentiment which 
 
Genius and its Retvards. 55 
 
 dictated this grateful burst of feeling to one of 
 our country's greatest bards : 
 
 TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 My thanks are thine, most gifted one ! to thee 
 
 I owe an hour of intellectual life, 
 
 A sweet hour stolen from the noise, and strife, 
 And turmoil of the world ; which, but to see, 
 Or hear of from afar, is pain to me. 
 
 I thank thee for the rich draught thou hast 
 brought 
 
 To lips that love the well-springs of pure thought 
 Which from thy soul gush up so plenteously. 
 The hymnings of thy prophet voice awake 
 
 Those nobler impulses, that, hushed and still, 
 
 Lie hidden in our hearts till some wild thrill 
 Of spirit-life has power their chains to break ; 
 
 Then from our long inglorious dream we start. 
 
 As if an angel's tone had stirred the slumbering 
 heart. 
 
 It is true such thanks may come from one whose 
 "name is writ in water" — from a mind which is 
 only endowed with power to enjoy a music it never 
 can create; yet surely it is pleasant to feel that 
 we have imparted pure and intellectual gratifica- 
 tion to one of God's creatures, however humble ; 
 and that we have awakened, for one brief hour. 
 
56 Genius and its Rewards. 
 
 the joy of inner life. Well may such things be 
 prized^ for they are among the few earthly joys 
 which cheer the heart of genius when the dark- 
 ness of self-distrust gathers around him. The 
 smile of Heaven may beam upon him with unfad- 
 ing brightness, but he must tread an earthly path, 
 and dangers and sorrows beset him on every side. 
 They who are his daily companions are those who 
 see not into the mysteries of life. They weigh 
 him in the balance of worldly prudence, and he is 
 found wanting; they watch his moods, and bring 
 them up in judgment against him, as if every 
 variation of a sentiment was a deviation from a 
 moral principle ; they try him by tests from which 
 even the enduring spirit of calculation would 
 shrink; they stand afar off and then wonder that 
 he is not of themselves ; they seek to despise that 
 which they may not comprehend, and they re- 
 ceive his teachings rather as the ravings of the 
 Delphic Pythoness than as the solemn voice of a 
 prophet. Weary and heartsick, how often does 
 he pause on his lonely way ! how often does he 
 faint in very heaviness of soul ! how often does he 
 long to fold his weary pinion in the still chamber 
 of death ! 
 
 Yet comfort is still for him. The multitude 
 may know him not ; the laurel may never wreathe 
 his brow to guard it from the lightning which 
 hallows even while it scathes ; yet will his clarion 
 
Genius and its Rewards. 57 
 
 voice be heard afar off, and while those pause to 
 catch its tones who have never listened to his 
 household words, it will echo widely through the 
 dim shadow of the future. His thoughts will find 
 response in hearts that knew him not, and his 
 memory will live, embalmed in sweetest fancies, 
 when he shall have lain down like a weary child 
 to sleep the dreamless sleep of death. His life 
 will be one of fevered hope and chilling disap- 
 pointment ; he will ever grasp after some un at- 
 tained delight, for it is in vain yearnings after the 
 spiritual that men utter the hymnings of their 
 noblest nature; he will wander unsatisfied through 
 a world which seems green and beautiful beneath 
 every foot save his; he will drink of many a 
 Circean cup, but his thirst will be still unslaked, 
 his joy still untasted ! But '^ coraggio e pazienza " 
 must be written upon his heart and upon his 
 banner. Life has only its transient joys and 
 sorrows, while his course is still onward and 
 upward. He may be of those whom the world 
 knows not, but while he guards the sacred flame 
 within his bosom, he is not forsaken of Him who 
 gave that spark of celestial fire. In his journey- 
 ing across the sands of worldly care, he is guided 
 as were the Israelites of old. When the day-star 
 beams on high, and all around seems bright, his 
 eye may see only a pillar of cloud ; but when all 
 earthly light has departed, then does it beam forth 
 
58 Genius and its Rewards. 
 
 a heaven-sent flame to direct his steps to a better 
 land ! Let him never forget that his gifts are 
 not his own. '^ Is not this great Babylon, that I 
 havebnilt?" was the arrogant thought of him who 
 became as the beast of the field. Others may be 
 endowed with the power of gathering the trea- 
 sures of worldliness 5 wealth may fall to the lot of 
 some ; power may be the destiny of others 5 popu- 
 lar applause may follow the steps of others ; but 
 to him has been given a nobler faculty, and for a 
 nobler aim. They are ^^ of the earth, earthy '' 5 
 in the providence of God all these his creatures 
 are needed to fulfil their mission, and verily they 
 have their reward. But thou, child of genius, art 
 chosen for a higher purpose. It is thy privilege 
 to guard the sacred shield on whose safety de- 
 pends the welfare of thy fellow-beings. Thou art 
 chosen to watch over truth, to interpret the voice 
 of conscience, to utter the oracles of love and wis- 
 dom. No selfish dream must fill thy fancy ; the 
 dark form of ambition must fling no shadow over 
 the pure stream of thought within thy bosom. 
 
 The world may sneer at the nobleness of soul it 
 cannot imitate 5 friends may rebuke the nature 
 they cannot comprehend ; even affection may be 
 blind to the deep mysteries of a high and holy 
 purpose of life ; but still faint not thou ! 
 
 Like the fabled bird of Eden, it is only in up- 
 ward flight that thy pinions give out their radiant 
 
Genius and its Rewards. 59 
 
 hues of paradise ; thou wert not meant to fold thy 
 wing above thy weary heart and rest on earth. 
 To be poor in worldly goods, despised by the 
 worldly-wise, half dreaded by the worldly-ambi- 
 tious, and only half loved by those on whom thy 
 best affections have been poured forth • such is 
 thy earthly destiny, O genius ! 
 
 Thou wilt give thyself out like incense to the 
 wind, like music on the tempest. Yet rejoice thou 
 in thy destiny. The incense may be borne afar 
 off, but it will yet breathe sweetness upon some 
 weary brow 5 the melody may be wasted on the 
 blast, but some faint tones will reach and cheer a 
 brother's sinking heart. 
 
 Truly the gift of genius is a glorious one, even 
 in its grief. The fruits which are given to its 
 thirsting lip may be bitter to the taste, but they 
 are plucked from the tree which is ^^ for the heal- 
 ing of the nations." 
 
(fi.is^i^aii on Jtnicirican Hitcratutrc* 
 
 ^O much has been written on both sides 
 of the Atlantic by the ablest pens on 
 the subject of American literature that 
 it seems presumptuous now to attempt 
 its discussion, but the resources of our rapidly 
 growing country, and the station which she holds 
 among the nations of the earth, render it a topic 
 of daily increasing importance to all who have 
 any pretensions to patriotism or literary tastes. 
 To form an idea of the science of a nation we 
 must examine its books — to learn how to estimate 
 its literature we need only make ourselves ac- 
 quainted with its periodical press. If we take the 
 most cursory view of the monthly, weekly, and 
 daily journals which traverse our country from 
 Georgia to Maine, we cannot fail to be struck by 
 the variety of talent which they exhibit. 
 
 The fugitive poetry which floats from paper to 
 paper, read, admired, and then forgotten, is of a 
 
 60 
 
Essay on American Literature. 61 
 
 far higher order than that which made the repu- 
 tation of many votaries of the mnses in the days 
 of Queen Anne, and of the first two Georges. 
 The slightly sketched tales and essays which are 
 thrown into oblivion after they have afforded 
 momentary amusement are many of them worthy 
 of a Goldsmith or an Addison, but the very abun- 
 dance of the article causes its value to be over- 
 looked, and we look through a magazine as we 
 might through a cabinet of gems where the rich- 
 ness of the collection makes us too fastidious to 
 pause over everything of less price than the 
 diamond. 
 
 The reproaches which have been cast upon 
 America for her total neglect of the elegancies of 
 life will never more be heard. The young nation 
 has labored first to acquire the necessaries of 
 life — industry has brought wealth, and she is now 
 able to indulge in luxuries. We have our poets, 
 our painters, our architects and sculptors, our 
 writers and our readers, and while establishing 
 institutions for the promotion of the fine arts, 
 let us not forget the establishment of a national 
 literature. There have heretofore been two grand 
 obstacles in the way of such an establishment, 
 viz., the want of literary patronage which neces- 
 sarily involves a dearth of literary industry, and 
 a strange fondness among our writers for foreign 
 rather than American subjects of discussion. 
 
62 Essay on American Literature. 
 
 The deficiency of patronage may be easily ex- 
 plained. We are especially an active, industrious, 
 commercial population, and the merchant who 
 sits poring over his ledger, calculating the riches 
 which are wafted by the four winds of Heaven 
 into his coffers ; the settler who takes his ax on 
 his shoulder and trudges off to the wilderness 
 with the certainty of there building up his for- 
 tune; even the farmer who, by his labor, wins a 
 competence for his family, and obtains for them 
 an estate rich in Nature's bounties — all look with 
 contempt upon the inactive student. To them 
 his habits seem those of confirmed indolence, for 
 a man who takes up a book to amuse himself 
 during his hour of relaxation from bodily labor 
 can never be made to realize the intense and 
 wasting toil of mental exertion. 
 
 Literary patronage to such seems to be bestow- 
 ing the price of industry upon indolence, and he 
 who has courage enough to devote himself to 
 learning and its usual attendant poverty is pitied 
 by his friends, and ridiculed by the world, as one 
 who has banished himself from communion with 
 his fellows in pursuit of a vain shadow. He will 
 find himself alone — there are no professedly lit- 
 erary men in our country to form a class with 
 which he may unite himself. Our professional 
 men are the only ones who make any approach 
 toward such a class, but even they are compelled 
 
Essay on American Literature. 63 
 
 to active employment in their several duties, and 
 have little time for classic lore, or the speculations 
 of abstract truth. All useful labor can command 
 a high price in America, but she is now only be- 
 ginning to esteem intellectual pursuits as such, 
 and years must elapse before our citizens can live 
 as well by the exercise of their brain as by the 
 work of their hands. The roads to wealth are so 
 numerous, and so easily trodden, while the path of 
 science is so rugged and unpromising, that it is 
 not to be regarded as matter for surprise if onr 
 youth are tempted rather by the glittering prizes 
 that await them in the temple of Mammon than 
 by the fadeless laurel wreath which lies on the 
 shrine of learning. The influence of wealth they 
 feel at every step of their progress in life — but 
 time may bleach the dark brown locks, and disease 
 furrow the lofty brow, before the laurel crown can 
 be known to be unfading. A few gifted spirits 
 may rise superior to the temptations of earthly 
 aggrandizement, and struggle successfully against 
 the tide of public opinion, but how few are they 
 compared to the multitude who, after a few in- 
 effectual attempts, either sink into oblivion, or 
 cease their eiforts, and float with the current. 
 We want literary patronage such as will enable 
 men to live in comfort, if not in afluence, by the 
 exercise of their intellectual as well as their phys- 
 ical powers. We want such a spirit of liberality 
 
64 Essay on American Literature. 
 
 among all classes of men as may enable them to 
 regard the anthor with the same degree of con- 
 sideration as is bestowed upon the lawyer or the 
 physician. Then, and not till then, shall we have 
 a literary class in society — a class willing to admit 
 within its limits all who can show themselves 
 worthy, and which demands no other qnalifica- 
 tions than those of mental superiority. The pref- 
 erence which too many of our writers have shown 
 for traveling abroad in search of subjects for the 
 exercise of their intellect may be attributed to 
 the total absence of all independence of opinion 
 among our critics. Until very recently a book 
 written by an American was scarcely deemed 
 worthy to come under the scalping-knife of criti- 
 cism at home, and if written upon an American 
 subject would have fallen lifeless from the press. 
 Few have been found prepared to brave the un- 
 equal conflict with public opinion, and many a fine 
 writer, who might have been a glor}^ to our coun- 
 try, has sunk into oblivion while our reading 
 public has been insulted by the republication of 
 myriads of trashy English novels, exaggerated in 
 sentiment, bombastic in style, and false in deline- 
 ation. I said few had been found, but America 
 may well be proud of those few. Long before our 
 eyes were opened to see the exhaustless mine of 
 literary wealth which our country held within its 
 bosom, Irving, Paulding, and, at a later period. 
 
Essay on American Literature. 65 
 
 Cooper, coined some of its fine gold, and sent it 
 forth to the world stamped with the impress of 
 genius. 
 
 The name of Irving will be loved while America 
 exists. He has associated himself with our most 
 intimate sympathies j he has learned the sources 
 of our smiles and tears ; we have laughed with 
 him until our eyes ran o'er with glee ; and we have 
 wept with him until our tears fell like rain upon 
 his page — how can we think of him then merely 
 as the author? No, it is Irving the man, the com- 
 panion, whom we love, even though our eyes 
 may never have rested on his face. And who 
 does not know Paulding — the keen satirist of 
 foreign fopperies, the true-hearted American au- 
 thor whose every thought has been for his coun- 
 try? His pen has ever been employed in her 
 service, whether he used its point to sting those 
 who would undermine her strength by luxury, or 
 its feather to paint her exquisite scenery, and the 
 workings of human nature in the hearts of her 
 sons. Cooper has done more good abroad than 
 at home. His books were American; as such 
 they were received with avidity in Europe, and 
 though creatures such as he drew never existed 
 in this or any other quarter of the world, still, as 
 an American, he served as a power to open the 
 way for others. Many noble names may now be 
 found who are American in heart as well as in 
 
 5 
 
66 Essay on American Literature. 
 
 nativity. We have onr Bryant, whose sonl is filled 
 with images of beauty, and whose words breathe 
 the sweetness of the '^ Summer Wind." His muse 
 was born amid American scenery, and though her 
 eye has since marked the course of the rapid 
 Rhine, yet she still loves the country of her birth. 
 Halleck has followed no foreign leader in his 
 flights of fancy. His feelings are the impulses of 
 an American, and his satire leaves us only cause 
 to regret that its local merit cannot be estimated 
 properly across the broad Atlantic. How it irks 
 the ear of an American when we hear the names, 
 however honored, of the gifted of another land 
 applied to our writers ! 
 
 Who would condescend to call Miss Sedgewick 
 the Edgeworth of our country? Whether her 
 hand portrays the sweet Hope Leslie, the grace- 
 ful Grace Campbell, the noble Maganesca, or the 
 excellent Deborah, she is alike feminine, natural, 
 and American. We can never consent to bestow 
 on her the mantle which fell from the shoulders 
 of another — she is one of our national glories — 
 our Sedgewick. Nor would we bestow on Mrs. 
 Sigourney the honored name borne by one whom 
 all alike lament. Beside, the absurdity of classing 
 as similar poetry of so different a style — whose 
 only similitude is the occasional choice of sub- 
 jects. We would have our gifted ones known by 
 their own names — not as wearing a chaplet woven 
 
Essmj on American Literature. 67 
 
 from the faded leaves dropped from others' gar- 
 lands. Our country, however, is now fully awak- 
 ened, and our literary aspirants have learned that 
 their true ambition must ever be to acquire dis- 
 tinction as national writers. The field w^hich lies 
 before them is an immense one — for the painter 
 of society who seeks to catch the manners of liv- 
 ing as they arise, there never could be finer 
 studies than are to be found in our own land. 
 Every variety of character may there be found : 
 the eccentric backwoodsman, the haughty South- 
 erner, the Quaker descendant of William Penn, 
 the acute New Englander, and the thousand queer 
 phases of character which abound in our Atlantic 
 cities might furnish subjects enough for any rea- 
 sonable satirist. For him who turning from the 
 study of man devotes himself to the contempla- 
 tion of the works of God, we could ask no nobler 
 themes than our magnificent country can afford. 
 The pathless forest with its dim, monastic aisles, 
 the untrodden wilderness, the expansive lake, the 
 silvery waterfall, the world-astounding cataract, 
 the towering mountain, the broad prairie spread- 
 ing like a lake of verdure, — all are there in match- 
 less beauty to fill the eye and the imagination. 
 The poet, the painter, need look no farther than 
 their native soil to find subjects by which to im- 
 mortalize themselves. Let them go abroad for 
 study — let them enlarge their minds by commu- 
 
68 Essay on American Literature. 
 
 nion with their fellows in every clime. Let them 
 gaze on the miraculous beauty of St. Peter's, on 
 the exquisite proportions of the Venus de Medici, 
 and become eloquent in praise of the glorious 
 visions of beauty which throng the galleries of the 
 nobles of other lands, but let them pay the debt 
 they owe to the country of their birth. Let their 
 hope of fame be so interwoven with her glory that 
 the laurel would be worthless if it grew on another 
 soil. 
 
 Much is now doing for the cause of literature, but 
 much yet remains to be done. Our young men 
 must be taught that wealth is not the only good. 
 The desolation which is now sweeping over the 
 land, crushing down the golden harvest which 
 men hoped to garner in their graneries, and, 
 alas ! crushing with it many a noble spirit, might 
 well teach them such a lesson. The resources of 
 mental treasure are indeed incalculable, and happy 
 is he to whom such wealth belongs. Our country 
 now demands intellectual laborers. Our sons must 
 be educated in such a manner that if suddenly 
 summoned to act they may be ready. A mere 
 military education was once sufficient for this — 
 the man that could handle a musket was once 
 ready to serve his country, but now we fight with 
 other weapons. The cool head, the collected judg- 
 ment, the warm patriotism, the undeviating in- 
 tegrity of a statesman are now his noblest aims. 
 
Essay on American Literature. 69 
 
 It is not alone as a poet or a satirist that a man 
 may rise to distinction. Every member who oc- 
 cupies the floor in our houses of Congress is an 
 object of attention to his fellow-citizens and to the 
 assembled thousands of Europe. 
 
 The Old World is calmly looking to see the result 
 of the grand experiment of self-government, and 
 surely it behooves us to use every effort for its suc- 
 cess. ^' Let me make the songs of a nation, and I 
 care not who makes its laws," said a skilful stu- 
 dent of human nature. The laws of a country 
 may be the best ever planned, but public opin- 
 ion will sometimes rule in spite of them, and is it 
 not then important that public opinion should be 
 properly directed ? 
 
 The same impulses which are wrought upon for 
 purposes of disorderly demagogues might be 
 wrought upon for good by better men. The 
 amazing influence of newspapers will sufficiently 
 prove what might be the influence of literature 
 over the people. We are, generally speaking, an 
 educated nation, and therefore its influence must 
 necessarily be widely diffused. Who can doubt, 
 therefore, the importance of possessing a literary 
 class in society and a national literature. But 
 before this can be accomplished our authors must 
 be sufficiently encouraged to enable them to live 
 by their mental rather than manual labor. Our 
 poets must not be obliged to close the book of 
 
70 Essay on American TAterature. 
 
 nature while they pore over a dull ledger, or 
 waste their fine powers on the columns of a daily 
 newspaper. Our gifted delineators of character 
 must not be obliged to steal a few brief moments 
 for such pursuits from the toils of an arduous 
 business or a laborious profession. The pleasant 
 labors of the intellect are sufficiently severe with- 
 out adding the task-work of worldly business. 
 The lamp of life will waste quite soon enough 
 when fed with midnight oil, without also con- 
 suming its pure light over the dull details of a 
 working-day world. 
 
€ljc disW of Cljilbtcu. 
 
 MONG- the various forms under which 
 the subject of human rights has been 
 discussed, it seems strange that no one 
 has attempted to define with accuracy 
 and precision the rights of that portion of the 
 inhabitants of earth who are destined soon to 
 jostle us aside in the race of life. The claims 
 of children we are willing to allow, but their 
 rights we rarely take into consideration. The 
 laws by which they are governed, though founded 
 principally on the immutable basis of moral truth, 
 are yet so modified by the caprice of those to 
 whom has been deputed their execution, that their 
 original meaning is often entirely lost. Every 
 parent is his own commentator upon that system 
 of laws; and it frequently happens in this, as in 
 the tribunals of public justice, that, while moot- 
 ing some trifling point of legal subtlety, the equity 
 of the case is forgotten. There is no want of pa- 
 rental love in the world, for God has wisely im- 
 
72 The Rights of Children. 
 
 planted iu our bosoms an instinct which awakens 
 at the first feeble wail of infancy. Well is it for 
 the creatures intrusted to our care that we do share 
 this instinct with the beasts that perish. Well is 
 it that a law of our being regulates our primary 
 duties to the helpless little ones who come into the 
 world to be a weariness to our hearts, even if they 
 be not a burden to our hands. Well is it that we 
 are not left to the cold calculations of reason in 
 our first consciousness of these new duties and 
 cares ! But the mere animal instinct which be- 
 longs to all differs as widely from the true, de- 
 voted, disinterested sentiment of parental tender- 
 ness, as does the selfish policy of the mouthing 
 demagogue from pure, elevated, enlightened pa- 
 triotism. Children may be beloved, and yet may 
 suffer great injustice and cruel wrong at the 
 hands of those whose privilege it is to protect 
 them from harm ; for it is difficult to say whether 
 utter neglect is worse than the evils which grow 
 out of a mistaken sense of duty, a vague and in- 
 distinct idea of their rights, and a belief in the 
 necessity of certain rules, which perhaps never ex- 
 isted save in the mind of an injudicious parent. 
 One of the first rights which children are dis- 
 posed to claim is that of being instructed and en- 
 lightened. As soon as they begin to take note 
 of objects, their inquiring looks tell what their 
 imperfect organs of speech fail to utter; and 
 
The Rights of Children. 73 
 
 as soon as tliey can frame language for their 
 thoughts they ask questions. Everything is new 
 and strange to them; objects of curiosity and in- 
 terest surround them on every side, and they de- 
 mand the information which is best adapted to 
 their unfolding faculties. But how do we gener- 
 ally respond to this claim ? The guardians of in- 
 fancy are usually selected with infinitely less care 
 than we should bestow npon the qualifications of 
 a cook, since a certain degree of skill is requisite 
 to the proper pampering of our appetites, while 
 any one is supposed to be capable of '' tending 
 baby." That poor scapegoat of a family, known as 
 the '' little servant-girl," or a nursemaid, who is 
 supposed to perform the duties of a foster-mother, 
 just in proportion to the amount of her wages, 
 is usually intrusted to imprint first impressions 
 upon the waxen minds of our little ones. And 
 surely the child whose dawning intellect is clouded 
 by the mists of ignorance and folly, through this 
 gross neglect of one of a parent's highest privi- 
 leges, has been despoiled of one of its most solemn 
 rights. Years may elapse ere the thick darkness 
 which is thus allowed to settle on the infant mind 
 is dissipated ; j^ears of weariness to the child, of 
 anxiety to the parent; of self-distrust to the one, 
 and of self-reproach to the other. Let us recur 
 to the scenes of our own childhood, and endeavor 
 to recall some of the moments in which light was 
 
74 The Eights of Children. 
 
 poured into our own souls. What do we remem- 
 ber most vividly ? It is the precepts of the father 
 to whose knee we climbed when the toils of the day 
 were over, and the weary man sought rest in the 
 bosom of domestic peace. It is the counsel of the 
 mother who never silenced by rebuke the inquir- 
 ing voice ; of the mother who threw aside book 
 or work at the call of her child, and, seated on the 
 floor amid our heap of infant toys, would share 
 our sports while she imparted the golden trea- 
 sures of daily wisdom. How futile are all the 
 attempts of modern utility, all the schemes of 
 '' philosophy made easy," etc., all the new methods 
 of cheating children into the rudiments of science, 
 compared with the varied and desultory, but im- 
 pressive, instructions of the judicious parent, who, 
 while possessing sufficient youthfulness of feeling 
 to enjoy with her children the game of romps so 
 essential to the overflow of their animal spirits, 
 has yet sufficient tact and wisdom to seize the 
 moment of quiet thoughtfulness to impress on 
 their ductile minds the lessons of truth. Yes, 
 children have a right to be instructed. They 
 come to us fresh and pure from the hands of the 
 Almighty, bearing on their souls the impress of 
 his signet. It is for us to unfold the unwritten 
 scroll, to inscribe it with the characters of moral 
 truth, and to trace on it not only the oracles of 
 nature, but also the interpretation of her dark 
 
The Rights of Children. 75 
 
 sayings. Another right which children possess in 
 as great a degree as their elders is that of be- 
 ing governed by fixed rules of conduct. What 
 should we say of a state which, instead of promul- 
 gating a code of laws for the direction of its sub- 
 jects, left them entirely at the mercy of a ruler^s 
 whims ? 
 
 Yet wherein does such a despotic system differ 
 from the domestic tyranny which fixes no boun- 
 dary between right and wrong except such as the 
 caprice of the parent may build up at the moment ? 
 In most points, the moral code is the same in all 
 well-regulated families; but the system of family 
 government must necessarily differ. Every head 
 of a household, like a patriarch of the olden time, 
 is a ruler over his people, but all the general sys- 
 tems of conduct that ever were propounded, all 
 the guides to domestic happiness that ever ema- 
 nated from the fertile brains of theorizers, will fail 
 in enabling a man to fulfil the duties of so respon- 
 sible a station, if his mind be not illumined by 
 truth, and his heart filled with religious reverence. 
 There must be one general system of government, 
 and there must be an individual one, modified by 
 the exigencies of special circumstances, but both 
 must harmonize. Children must be taught the 
 principles of the laws by which they are directed, 
 and they should be fully informed of the meaning 
 of every variation from the fixed rules. They 
 
76 The Eights of Children. 
 
 should not be constrained by the old despotic 
 method, '^ Sic volo, sic jubeo." Such a species of 
 tyranny awakens in a spirited child a sense of in- 
 justice, while in a timid one it tends to crush all 
 latent energy of character. During the first two 
 or three years of infancy, the '^ sic volo'^ should 
 be made to exert its proper influence in subject- 
 ing the will of a creature too young to be made ac- 
 quainted with moral restraints ; but when the time 
 arrives (and it comes far sooner than we are will- 
 ing to believe) when the mind is awakening to a 
 perception of truth, and the child asks, "Why 
 must I do so ! " no judicious parent will be content 
 with answering, ''Sic jubeo." Let the expanding rea- 
 son be enlightened, let the intellect be satisfied, let 
 the young questioner feel that he is not expected 
 to offer the slavish obedience of the ox or the ass; 
 and be assured that if you have fulfilled your 
 duty in the days of infancy, he will not hesitate in 
 his obedience. A little while, and the remembrance 
 that his questions on such points ever resulted in 
 renewed assurance of his parent's superior judg- 
 ment will silence all doubt, and produce in his 
 mind the habit of silent, unquestioning submission. 
 Surely the willing obedience of an enlightened 
 and trusting spirit is far better than the reluctant 
 deference of an impatient bondsman. Nothing 
 can be more absurd in theory and more vile in 
 practice than the attempt, in common parlance, to 
 
The Bights of Children. 77 
 
 " break the temper," and to ^' crusli the will." The 
 force which seeks to subdue a determined will only 
 increases its obstinate power of resistance, while 
 if the power be exerted against a wayward rather 
 than a strong will, the effect must necessarily be 
 to produce weakness, irresolution, want of moral 
 dignity, and almost of moral responsibility. 
 
 No, let the temper be subdued, softened, modi- 
 fied by every gentle and decided means ; let the 
 will be directed by the precepts of the book of all 
 truth ; let the mind be illumined with knowledge, 
 and the heart purified by virtue, and then safely 
 may we trust the hottest head and the most way- 
 ward temper. Many a noble and spirited boy has 
 been driven to desperation and destruction by the 
 exercise of despotic power, suddenly assumed as a 
 counterpoise to the evil results of the past unlim- 
 ited injustice. Many a timid and sensitive child 
 has been bowed down beneath a weight of tyranny 
 which he could not comprehend, and in learning to 
 submit to thraldom has learned to play the liar to 
 his own soul. Children are entitled to more respect 
 than is generally accorded them. There is in every 
 young mind, unless perverted by indulgence, or 
 indurated by unkindness, a certain quality, which 
 cannot be better designated than by the term self- 
 respect. Next to the restraints of religion and 
 conscience, there is nothing which can erect so 
 strong a barrier against the encroachments of vice 
 
78 The Eights of Children. 
 
 as this same quality. Yet in nine cases out of ten 
 we confound self-respect with self-conceit, and 
 attribute to the dictates of foolish vanity or per- 
 verse pride those emotions of acute shame which 
 are occasioned by the public rebuke, or the per- 
 sonal degradation. A keen sense of shame is usu- 
 ally accompanied with great sensitiveness of con- 
 science, and when in the plenitude of our power 
 we pursue a system which tends to blunt the one, 
 we may be sure that we shall dull the perceptions 
 of the other. Any kind of discipline which de- 
 grades a child in his own eyes, or in those of his 
 companions, is injurious to the character, and of 
 all debasing, demoralizing influences, the worst 
 is bodily fear. One of the most frightful pictures 
 ever presented to the writer's mind was that af- 
 forded by the convicts of Auburn prison as they 
 were marched out from their workshops to their 
 dining-hall, with locked step, folded arms, and 
 faces turned toward their keepers. There were 
 six hundred men, strong in body, active in mind, 
 powerful in will — men who had faced crime in 
 almost every shape, men who had learned to 
 make daring and criminal deeds the very measure 
 of their lives; yet were they subjected to the most 
 implicit obedience, reduced to the most abject sub- 
 missiori, crushed beneath the paralyzing weight of 
 positive bodily fear. They dreaded the lash like 
 base hounds ; and amid the deep traces of sin and 
 
The Rights of Children. 79 
 
 suffering written on their blasted brows, could be 
 read the debasing influence of that system which 
 sears the mind through the scars of the quivering 
 body. It may be that there are characters which 
 require the exercise of brute force to restrain their 
 evil propensities; but let us at least hope that 
 they are but few. 
 
 The child who has been early taught the power 
 of moral influences, whose perceptions have been 
 fully awakened to the dignity of human nature 
 by being made acquainted with its direct respon- 
 sibility to God, its Creator and Preserver, who has 
 been guided, restrained, directed, but never de- 
 graded by the discipline which his youth required, 
 will be found to be one of the noblest of the hu- 
 man race. And is there not another species of 
 respect to which children are entitled ? " Let no- 
 thing impure enter here, for this is the abode of 
 infancy," might be inscribed in letters of gold on 
 the portal of every nursery. How often does the 
 idle song, the ribald jest, or the loose conversa- 
 tion uttered by those who believe themselves safe 
 in a child's youth and ignorance, contaminate for 
 ever the snowy purity of the infant mind ! How 
 often does the want of that sensitive delicacy 
 which is, as it were, the blush of the soul, that in- 
 stinctive dread of everything like the shadow of 
 evil, how often does the lack of this quality in 
 the guardians of childhood lay the foundation of 
 
80 The Rights of Children. 
 
 shamelessiiess in after lite ! How much of the 
 recklessness of vice, and its distrust of virtue, 
 may be traced to the indiscriminate associations 
 of the nursery and the boarding-school! In the 
 course of a discussion which I once heard respect- 
 ing the moral tendency of Bulwer^s writings, a 
 lady of the company gave the following testimony : 
 
 ^^ I was one day reading aloud for a friend," 
 said she, '^ one of Bulwer's most fascinating novels, 
 and, while thus engaged, my daughter, a child of 
 some ten years of age, entered and seated herself 
 beside me. I was in the midst of one of his most 
 impassioned scenes ; the language was full of elo- 
 quence and beauty, yet my cheek burned as I 
 pursued the theme. My eye glanced timidly down 
 the page in advance of my voice, as if I feared 
 to give utterance to all that might come, and at 
 length, with some plausible excnse, in order to 
 avoid exciting curiosity by my sudden change of 
 purpose, I closed the book. I well knew that the 
 spotless mind of my child could not be sullied by 
 the burning words which she could not compre- 
 hend, but the presence of purity was a reproach 
 to passion, and I dared not insult the dignity of 
 unconscious innocence." 
 
 What a commentary upon the book ! What an 
 example to those who know naught of the respect 
 due to childhood ! 
 
 But the right which most closely appertains to 
 
The Bights of Children. 81 
 
 these little people, and one which most materially 
 affects their after life, is one which, strange to 
 say, is often least regarded. It is the right to en- 
 joy a happy childhood. You look surprised, gen- 
 tle reader. Did you labor under the mistake of 
 supposing all children happy? You were never 
 more deceived. Gay and thoughtless and merry 
 they may be, for there is a sense of animal enjoy- 
 ment in their young life which ever utters its 
 voice in mirthfulness, but how few can you find 
 in whom is a fountain of pure, deep joy ever 
 bubbling up from the heart to the lips? How 
 few are there who are habitually cheerful without 
 the excitements of amusements and companion- 
 ship. We take great pains to procure pleasures 
 for our children, but rarely do we study the art 
 of making them happy. 
 
 Regard, for instance, the children of those fond 
 and i jdulgent parents who seem to forget that 
 there are any other claims upon them than those 
 of parental love. Look into the nursery strewed 
 with fragments of costly toys, remnants of the 
 whim of yesterday ; observe the varied appliances 
 which nurture them into feebleness, the delicate 
 food which pampers diseased appetite, the rich 
 attire which awakens selfish vanity, and the un- 
 limited devotion to their caprices which governs 
 the whole household. Every day brings a new 
 pleasure j something is constantly in prospect for 
 
82 The Bights of Children. 
 
 their gratification, and the time, the wealth, and 
 the talents of those fond parents are lavished to 
 confer happiness upon their idols. But how do 
 they succeed 1 Let the fragile health, the dissatis- 
 fied temper, the peevish indifference, the revolting 
 selfishness of the indulged and sated creatures, an- 
 swer. Their happiness has been sought through 
 the medium of the senses alone. They have been 
 gratified in every appetite, but the moral sources 
 of enjoyment have never been opened to them. 
 Selfish desires have been forced into premature 
 development, and the result is satiety and dis- 
 content. The childish voluptuary must suffer the 
 same penalty which awaits sensual indulgence in 
 later life; but woe unto those who hang so fear- 
 ful a weight upon the wings of a pure and sinless 
 spirit ! Let us reverse the picture, and look into 
 the domestic circle of one of those mistaken men 
 who find sin in everything beautiful or joyful in 
 the world, and " seek to merit heaven by making 
 earth a hell." Carefully, conscientiously, ay, with 
 deep agony of spirit, has he unfolded to his chil- 
 dren the sinfulness of their hearts, the utter de- 
 pravity of their natures, and the certainty of their 
 eternal condemnation. The God whom his chil- 
 dren ought to address as their Father in Heaven 
 wears to them the semblance of a stern and vin- 
 dictive Judge. This beautiful world they are 
 taught to regard but as a field of snares and pit- 
 
The Rights of Children. 83 
 
 falls, while the resources of intellectual life are to 
 them but so many temptations of the Evil One. 
 
 Self-denial, not the voluntary surrender of sel- 
 fish wishes to the impulses of a noble and gener- 
 ous soul, but the self-denial of a mean calculation, 
 which by a sacrifice now hopes to secure a re- 
 ward in future; a truckling, bargaining disposi- 
 tion, which would fain buy God to favor by bod- 
 ily penance, together with the carefulness of the 
 steward who hid in a napkin the talent which 
 should have been used to his Master's honor, are 
 enjoined upon them by every threat and promise. 
 They are taught that just in proportion to their 
 obstinate rejection of all pleasures now will be 
 their fruition of heavenly joys, and the fearful 
 words of Scripture, which might well appal the 
 stoutest heart, ^^ He that otfendeth in one point is 
 guilty of all," are written as in letters of blood upon 
 the door-posts of their houses. Oh ! if there be a 
 deep and damning sin, next in blackness only to 
 the guilt of deliberately seducing youth into vice, 
 it is that of turning into such a bitter draught of 
 gall and wormwood the pure upspringings of early 
 devotion. There is an instinctive, impulsive sense 
 of religion in every young, pure heart, an innate 
 reverence for the good, an intuitive perception of 
 the beauty of holiness ; and woe unto those who 
 check the spontaneous effusions of gratitude, by 
 depicting to the mental view a God of judgment 
 
84 The Rights of Children. 
 
 rather than of mercy. Happiness is ever allied 
 with goodness, and the happiest child is that one 
 who has been fully disciplined in every dut}^ Let 
 a child be taught the religion of love, and not of 
 fear; let every day afford him a new lesson of 
 forbearance toward others, and control over him- 
 self ; let every selfish impulse be repressed by 
 noble motives of action ; let his mind be enlight- 
 ened by knowledge best adapted to his faculties, 
 and then let him be surrounded by everything 
 that can make life bright and beautiful. Send 
 him out into the woods and fields to study the 
 works of God, and to acquire health of body, and 
 vigor of mind, beneath the blessed influences of 
 the free air and blessed sunshine. Let him enjoy 
 to the very utmost all the simple pleasures which 
 nature affords to the unpolluted heart, and thus, 
 amid all things joyous, will he acquire the elas- 
 ticity of mind and cheerfulness of temper which 
 are such effectual aids in life to after sorrows. 
 Salutary, indeed, in later years, are the iufluences 
 of a happy childhood. Sorrow may cloud each 
 coming day, and fear may haunt the distant fu- 
 ture; guilt may have stained the hand, and vice 
 may have blackened the heart, but from the 
 depths of degradation and sorrow and crime will 
 men look back to the scenes of their earliest youth 
 with a yearning tenderness. And if those scenes 
 are clad in the sunshine of happiness, if they can 
 
TJie Rights of Children. 85 
 
 behold there ever the good, the beautiful, and the 
 true, who can tell with what saving power such 
 remembrances may come to the world-wearied and 
 sin-stained soul ? It is not for us to guard from 
 life's manifold ills the precious beings intrusted 
 to our care, but we can at least impart the bless- 
 ing of happiness in those years when impressions 
 are most easily fixed in unchangeable truthfulness. 
 We can make them happy in childhood, happy 
 not in pampered indulgence, not in unrestrained 
 license, not in ascetic penance, but in the daily 
 exercise of duties, in the consciousness of moral 
 dignity, in the enjoyment of all pure pleasures. 
 Let us look upon them as rational and responsible 
 beings, never forgetting that their responsibility 
 as moral agents imposes a double duty upon those 
 whose privilege it is to lead their faltering steps 
 from the threshold of life to the portal of eternity. 
 
Cotiniia* 
 
 ■ N a certain evening in the year 1808, 
 a brilliant party was assembled in the 
 splendid mansion of M, Hottinger^ 
 the rich banker of Geneva. All that 
 wealth and taste could provide for the entertain- 
 ment of guests was there gathered in profusion, 
 and never had there been a finer display of the 
 beauty and gaiety of that distinguished city. 
 But there was one attraction which upon this 
 occasion far outvied all others — for fashion was 
 just then shedding its benignant smile upon a 
 true child of genius ; and the authoress of '' Co- 
 rinna/' who was enjoying, not the first, but cer- 
 tainly the most wide-spread triumphs of her lite- 
 rary renown, was the star of the splendid festival. 
 The strikingly original character of this noble 
 work, its high-toned sentiment, its fine poetic 
 spirit, and its exquisite pictures of Italy, that 
 treasure-house of classical reminiscence, all com- 
 
Corinna. 
 
 87 
 
 bined to make it the most remarkable production 
 of the age. The general belief, too, that in the 
 gifted heroine was depicted the author's self (a 
 belief which is now known to be erroneous*), gave 
 intensity to the interest with which this distin- 
 guished woman w^as greeted in society, and wher- 
 ever she appeared she was welcomed by crowds 
 of admirers. 
 
 In the midst of a magnificent saloon, surrounded 
 by a large circle of delighted listeners, was seated 
 the woman to whom the united suffrages of soci- 
 ety had given the name by which she is still 
 known, — "the Corinna of her age." She was no 
 
 * It is now believed, and with 
 much reason, that in her deline- 
 ation of the character of Co- 
 rinna, Mme. de Stael drew upon 
 the stores of memory rather 
 than imagination. A friend of 
 her early years, Mademoiselle 
 Braun, a Danish lady, was the 
 original of this portrait, which, 
 exaggerated as it seems, scarcely 
 does justice to the wonderful 
 charms of the real woman. She 
 is said to have been extremely 
 beautiful and graceful, and to 
 have been mistress of all the 
 continental languages at the 
 early age of thirteen, while her 
 skill in music, her great power 
 in the higher walks of dramatic 
 representation, and, above all, 
 
 her superb talent for improvisa- 
 tion, obtained her the most bril- 
 liant success in the best society 
 of Europe. Even the jealous 
 Romans listened to her with 
 delight, and Canova, who ex- 
 pressed in everlasting marble 
 the poetry of his nature, was 
 enraptured with the Scandina- 
 vian enchantress, whose ex- 
 ceeding grace, he confessed, had 
 greatly aided his own ideal sense 
 of beauty. Mademoiselle Braun 
 accompanied Mme. de Stael to 
 Italy, and while in Rome she 
 met Count Ludwig de Bom- 
 belles, ambassador from the 
 court of Austria to Tuscany, 
 whom she afterward married. 
 
88 Gorinna. 
 
 longer young, but time had contented himself 
 with developing the full proportions of her noble 
 figure without venturing yet to lay upon her a 
 despoiling hand. Her person was large, stately, 
 and commanding, and the effect of her queenly 
 bearing was increased by a rich and peculiar style 
 of dress, which, without departing widely from 
 the fashion of the day, was yet decidedly pictur- 
 esque and characteristic. Her eyes were magnifi- 
 cent, large, black, lustrous, and full of expression; 
 her small hand and snowy arms were as beautiful 
 as if modeled after a sculptor^s dream of sym- 
 metry ; but, alas ! these constituted Corinna's only 
 claim to a woman's dower of loveliness. Even her 
 most extravagant admirers could find no trace of 
 beauty in those heavy features, whose rapid play 
 of expression and extreme mobility seemed to 
 bring out in stronger relief their total want of 
 regularity. Corinna had never been popular in 
 general society. Men could not forgive the ugli- 
 ness of a woman who possessed such superiority 
 of intellect, for the two qualities involved a double 
 sin against themselves. Women were startled by 
 her fearless strength of mind, her frank expression 
 of opinions, and her want of courtly stratagem 
 and tact. They might have excused her mental 
 excellence on the ground of her utter deficiency 
 in feminine loveliness, but they shrank from one 
 who could become the exponent of many a hidden 
 
Gorinna. 89 
 
 thing in woman's heart, and who was also guilty 
 of the heinous offense of daring to dress and act 
 independently of the prescribed laws of fashion. 
 Yet all wondered at her, many admired her, and 
 some appreciated and loved her. Her soul was 
 full of energy ; she grasped every idea with almost 
 masculine firmness, while she analyzed every sub- 
 ject with the delicate perceptions of a woman. 
 She seemed to revel in a sense of power; there 
 was a reckless outpouring of her strength on all 
 occasions, which the world mistook for presump- 
 tion and arrogance, but which was, in fact, only 
 an overwhelming sense of pleasure in the exercise 
 of her restless faculties. She had little of the 
 craftiness which nature ever bestows on weaker 
 animals. There was a fearless truthfulness in 
 her nature which scorned the petty concealments 
 to which women are trained from the cradle ; but 
 in her noble contempt of deception, she went al- 
 most too far, and amid the false conventionalisms 
 of society, she became almost brusque and stern. 
 Yet was her heart full of womanly tenderness, and 
 abounding in all human charities. She knew that 
 her gifts were perilous ones to a woman's happi- 
 ness; she knew that on her had been bestowed 
 few of those endowments which win the love that 
 women are born to prize. Yet how nobly she 
 bore this knowledge may be conjectured from the 
 fact that the chosen friend and companion, both 
 
90 Gorinna. 
 
 of her solitary and social hours, was the lovely 
 Mme. de Recamier, whose beauty was so remark- 
 able that, when in London, she was compelled to 
 wear a thick veil in order to avoid the rudely 
 expressed homage of a not over-refined popu- 
 lace. Is it to be wondered at, if the renowned Co- 
 rinna should value those gifts of genius which 
 she hoped would recompense her for the denial of 
 personal attractions? Is it surprising if, in the 
 brilliant circles of such society as she now drew 
 around her, she should give herself up to the joy 
 of those triumphs which her genius had achieved? 
 And is it strange that they who envied the powers 
 they could not appreciate, should mistake the plea- 
 sure for the arrogance of power ? On the evening 
 of which we speak, Corinna had been wonderfully 
 brilliant, and had excited general admiration by 
 her ready wit, her beautiful poetic fancies, and 
 her striking apothegms, which seemed less the 
 result of past reflection than the effect of sudden 
 intuition. Every one seemed to have either shared 
 her success or to have admired her at a distance, 
 and, in the plenitude of her gratified pride, she 
 appeared the admired, the flattered, the excited, 
 perhaps the vain woman. '^ Had she been less 
 brilliant in conversation," says Chateaubriand, 
 ^' she would have loved the world less, and would 
 have been ignorant of its petty passions. To 
 render her perfect, she needed not a virtue more, 
 
Corinna. 91 
 
 but a talent less.'' This remark from the lips of 
 cotemporary genius is as true as it is beautiful. 
 The mind that feared not to brave the vengeance 
 of Napoleon yet suffered from the petty stings of 
 narrow-souled envyj and the neglect of society 
 was as painful to the gifted woman as its appre- 
 ciation was gratifying. 
 
 Among M. Hottinger's guests was a young sol- 
 dier, a native of Geneva, whose striking beauty of 
 person, added to a certain lofty and spiritualized 
 expression of countenance, had early attracted the 
 notice of Corinna. She observed that he mingled 
 not with those who clustered around her, where 
 she sat enthroned like a priestess whose words 
 were oracles. With the usual perversity of hu- 
 man nature, which ever finds double interest in 
 that which seems difficult of attainment, the eyes 
 and thoughts of the lady wandered again and 
 again toward the indifferent spectator of her suc- 
 cess. She inquired his name, and learned that 
 Captain de Rocca was an officer in the army 
 of Napoleon; that he was without influence or 
 fortune, but well born, gifted with indomitable 
 courage, possessing talents of a high order, and 
 occasionally giving evidences of a character deeply 
 tinged with that romance which, in earlier times, 
 would have made him a '^ preux chevalier." But 
 she had no opportunity of testing the truth of 
 these things, for he studiously avoided a presen- 
 
92 Corinna. 
 
 tation to the literary star, and seemed content to 
 while away the hours in the merry dance or the 
 gay gossip of the fair and young. 
 
 Toward the close of the evening, accident brought 
 Corinna almost beside the young soldier, although 
 the heavy folds of some ornamental drapery pre- 
 vented him from discovering her proximity. A 
 friend with whom he was conversing was pouring 
 forth a glowing eulogium upon her talents, and 
 with an interest for which she could not account. 
 The lady half paused to catch De Rocca's reply. 
 "EUe est bien laide" (She is ugly enough), was 
 the half-indolent, half-scornful answer of the 
 young officer. And this was all. He had no ear 
 for her musical voice, no eye for her exceeding 
 grace, no soul for her high thoughts — he noted 
 nothing but personal defects. For an instant Co- 
 rinna's lip grew pale, and a cold shudder pervaded 
 her frame. In the excitement of the moment, she 
 had lost all painful sense of outward identity ; she 
 had forgotten the brand which stamped her as one 
 shut out from womanly hope. This sudden and 
 cruel recall to a bitter consciousness came with 
 double force in an hour of surpassing triumph. 
 But cold eyes were looking upon her ; and, sum- 
 moning her pride to her aid, she swept by the of- 
 fender with a half smile, while she playfully chal- 
 lenged the friends who had heard the remark, to 
 afford her an opportunity of avenging herself. 
 
Corinna. 93 
 
 What were her real feelings may be surmised, but 
 they were never expressed, for with the morrow 
 came the tidings that De Rocca was ordered to join 
 his regiment without delay. The army was sent 
 into Spain for the purpose of upholding the power 
 of the new king w^hich Napoleon had given to the 
 country; and ere the close of another day, the 
 young officer was far distant from Geneva and 
 Corinna. Time passed on, and amid the trials and 
 troubles which assailed her, Mme. de Stael had 
 ceased to think of the offense or the offender, 
 w^hen she accidentally encountered De Rocca soon 
 after his return from the disastrous Spanish 
 campaign. He was now invested with all the 
 honors of heroism, for he had performed prodigies 
 of valor in the field -, and the price at which his 
 fame had been won w^as shown in his bowed form 
 and pallid features. He had received incurable 
 wounds, from the effects of which his health was 
 gradually declining; and the bold hardihood of 
 his noble spirit had been crushed beneath the mor- 
 tification of a defeat against which no single- 
 handed bravery could contend. He was no longer 
 the gay and light-hearted youth, looking only on 
 the surface of things, and trusting to his good 
 sword to carve his way to fortune and honor. The 
 stately beauty of his person was faded, the fire of 
 his soul was quenched ; he was feeble from bodily 
 suffering, and subdued by mental grief. But his 
 
94 Corinna. 
 
 thoughts took refuge in their secret sanctuary; 
 he was more unworldly, more intellectual, and the 
 pure light of spiritual influences illumined the 
 countenance from which the glow of outward life 
 had departed. 
 
 The tale of De Rocca's heroic valor had reached 
 Corinna's ears, and when she read in his changed 
 appearance the evidence of his sufferings, her soul 
 was touched with compassion. She accosted him 
 with kindly sympathy, and he who had scorned 
 the proud charms of the genius was melted before 
 the sweetness of the gentle and tender woman. 
 An acquaintance now commenced, which was soon 
 ripened into intimacy by the claims of gratitude 
 on the one side, and the gifts of sympathy on the 
 other. In the wreck of health and hopes, De 
 Rocca was compelled to seek for some means 
 of an honorable subsistence, and ere long the 
 noble-minded Corinna proposed that he should 
 fulfil the responsible and confidential duties of 
 her amanuensis. 
 
 How little could it have been foreseen that the 
 accidental and disagreeable meeting which took 
 place a few years before would have resulted in 
 such a friendship as had now grown up between 
 them. Months swiftly glided away. De Rocca 
 was now occupying apartments in Castle Coppet, 
 sitting daily at its hospitable board, and sharing 
 the every thought of its gifted mistress, as his 
 
Corinna. 95 
 
 ready pen noted the eloquent utterance of her 
 hiirh soul. Had he found her a mere creature of 
 intellect, his task would have been one of little 
 danger, for the affections wake not at the voice of 
 mental power. But Corinna was a being full of 
 tender emotion, sympathizing with all who suf- 
 fered, abounding in charity and goodness, bestow- 
 ing the most winning kindliness on the humblest 
 domestic in her household, considerate for the 
 comfort of all, ever generous and self -forgetting, 
 and exercising her genius only as a means of ele- 
 vating the daily charities of life. To the world 
 her talents were like a lofty beacon-light, illumin- 
 ing a wide waste of darkness; but to those who 
 dwelt within the influences of her home, they were 
 like a bright household fire, giving warmth and 
 cheerfulness to all around. De Rocca saw all these 
 things, and his heart was disquieted within him. 
 He could not comprehend the struggles of his own 
 soul; he could not believe that his nature was 
 seeking the recognition of its ideal in the glorious 
 being with whom he was now daily associated. 
 And as little could Corinna dream that now, when 
 her head was bowed beneath the weary weight 
 of its laurel crown, when time had furrowed her 
 brow, and grief had saddened her spirit, she should 
 be the object of a love so tender and enduring. 
 One evening De Rocca sat alone in the library; 
 many papers lay before him which needed to be 
 
96 Corinna. 
 
 arranged on the morrow, and as he wearily re- 
 sumed his pen, he heard the roll of the carriage- 
 wheels which bore Corinna to a gay party in 
 Geneva. He was too feeble and broken-spirited 
 to find pleasure in such scenes of excitement, yet 
 now, as he listened to the sound that reminded 
 him of the brilliant circles of which the baroness 
 was ever the ornament, he felt unutterably 
 wretched. Leaning his head on his clasped hands, 
 he gave himself up to the bitter fancies which his 
 condition awakened. With a feeling of hopeless 
 anguish, such as he had never before known, he 
 forced himself to look into his own heart, and he 
 beheld there a love, deep, fervent, yet, as it seemed 
 to him, worse than frantic, for one whose years far 
 outnumbered his, whose position elevated her be- 
 yond his loftiest aims, and whose renown made 
 her so shining a mark for the shafts of envy and 
 calumny. Silent, almost stirless, he sat, while the 
 shiver of sudden pain, or the mechanical gesture 
 by which he wiped from his high, pale brow the 
 big drops of agony, alone disturbed his statue-like 
 stillness. How long he thus dwelt amid his fear- 
 ful thoughts he knew not, but hours passed away 
 unheeded, and he awoke not from his trance of 
 feeling until a light hand was laid upon his shoul- 
 der, and a gentle voice addressed him in accents 
 of wondering sympathy. He looked up, and Co- 
 rinna stood before him decked in the rich array 
 
Corinna. 97 
 
 which she had worn at the gay scene she had just 
 quitted. She had seen the light as she passed the 
 library on her way to her dressing-room, and fear- 
 ing lest De Rocca was overtasking his strength in 
 her service, she had entered the apartment unper- 
 ceived by its melancholy inmate. 
 
 "You are early returned, madame/' was the 
 stammering salutation of De Rocca, as he started 
 from his reverie, and rose hastily from his chair. 
 
 " Not so, monsieur ; the night is rapidly wearing 
 away, but the flight of time has been forgotten by 
 you while watching the vagrant wanderings of 
 thought," replied the lady. "You are sad, my 
 friend," continued she ; " have you any new sor- 
 row which sympathy may alleviate ; or think you 
 that I have not the right to comfort, or the privi- 
 lege of sharing your confidence?" 
 
 De Rocca gazed for an instant into the superb 
 eyes which were bent tenderly upon him ; then, as 
 if the tide of feeling overpowered him, he poured 
 forth all the wild dreams which had so absorbed 
 his soul. He told her of the deep love which had 
 sprung up within his heart ; he pictured the wild 
 and fervid tenderness which he could no longer 
 subdue or repress; he uttered those eloquent 
 breathings of the soul which woman never hears 
 without a thrill of sympathizing if not responsive 
 emotion, and then, kneeling before her, he bent 
 his head until his lips almost met the small, white 
 
98 Corinna. 
 
 hand he deemed it sacrilege to profane with a 
 touch, and bade her farewell forever. Corinna's 
 whole frame shook as she listened to his burning 
 words. Her lips were blanched and her cheek 
 was like ashes as she bowed her proud forehead 
 until it rested on the dark locks of her youthful 
 lover. A moment, a blissful moment, of silent 
 emotion ensued, and then, rising, she paced the 
 room with hurried steps 5 at length she paused. 
 '^Are you not deceiving yourself in this matter, 
 De Rocca!" she exclaimed, while the faltering 
 tones of her musical voice betrayed her interest 
 in the question. ''Do you really believe I can 
 contribute to your happiness!^' 
 
 '' More than all earth beside," was the patient 
 reply. 
 
 " Yet you would leave me, — you would shun 
 my presence." 
 
 ''I would, madame; for I dare not yield myself 
 to the dangerous fascination of your society. I 
 have not strength to endure such a fiery trial." 
 
 " These are strange words, De Rocca. Do you 
 forget that I am no longer young — that you are 
 addressing these words to one whose heart was 
 withered ere its time ; to one who has passed the 
 season of passion 5 to one who, from her very girl- 
 hood, has learned to crush the deep yearnings of 
 her nature, and to utter only through the lips of 
 ideal beings the strong emotions of her soul ? " 
 
Corinna. 99 
 
 " I know you to be as a being of a higher and 
 holier sphere. I know that in loving yon I am 
 like the mad votary of the sun, who would fain 
 pluck his idol from its lofty sphere, and dies be- 
 neath its light." 
 
 "Listen to me, my friend. From my youth I 
 have ever struggled against those tender and 
 passionate impulses which make the charm or the 
 curse of woman's life. Wedded to one with whom 
 I had no sympathy, yet coldly fulfilling every duty 
 toward him until drawn from his side by my duty 
 to our children when his affairs became inextri- 
 cably embarrassed, and I was compelled to take 
 refuge with my father ; again assuming my place 
 near him when infirmity and illness rendered the 
 services of a friend essential to him ; and finally 
 closing his eyes, and receiving his last sigh with 
 a regret growing out of benevolence and habitude 
 — such has been my experience of domestic hap- 
 piness. I was cut off from a woman's sweetest 
 privilege, that of loving and being loved, aud I 
 sought the only true vocation which remained for 
 me. I trod the path of literature with a step ren- 
 dered firmer by that unquenchable thirst which I 
 hoped to slake in the fountain of knowledge, and 
 I have won deep draughts from that enduring 
 stream. I have gained fame beyond my hopes, 
 but never have I satisfied my pining want of sym- 
 pathy — never has my search for quiet happiness 
 
100 Corinna. 
 
 been rewarded. My children love me fondly, but 
 my renown has come between me and them ; they 
 love and honor and revere me, but they venture 
 not to enter my heart of hearts -, they minister 
 not at the cold shrine of my womanly instincts. 
 Time and the weight of long repression have 
 chilled my wild and vain regrets. I cannot now 
 yield myself up to the allurements of the passion- 
 ate love which would once have made my life like 
 a dream of heaven. But there is still within me 
 a capacity for friendship tender and true ; for 
 friendship which is, perhaps, only a sweeter and 
 more enduring form of the Proteus love. You 
 are necessary to my happiness, dear Albert ; you 
 have sympathies and aifections which meet the 
 exigencies of my nature. We must not part." 
 
 ^' We must — alas! we must part. It is dying a 
 thousand deaths to live thus. I must leave you 
 while I yet have power." 
 
 ^^ Not if this hand can stay you, Albert," was 
 the low-breathed reply. 
 
 ''What mean you, madame?" 
 
 " Must I speak more plainly 1 I offer you this 
 hand — you have not sought it, but will you value 
 less the gift which is freely and frankly proffered 
 — the gift which will confer on you the right to 
 love me as your wife 1 Nay, nay," continued the 
 noble woman, as De Rocca, overcome by love and 
 gratitude, and murmuring the incoherent words 
 
Gorinna. 101 
 
 of passion, sank at her feet; ''pain me not by this 
 wild emotion. I will be your wife, Albert; but 
 there will be sorrow, and it may be shame, in our 
 union, for the world must not know of the bond 
 which unites us. For your sake, as well as for 
 that of my children, I would shun the cold sneers 
 of those who could not appreciate the pure ten- 
 derness which binds our hearts. I dare not brave 
 the ridicule of a world that looks only on the sur- 
 face of things. I will be your wedded wife, De 
 Rocca, but in secrecy shall you claim my faith, 
 and while we will live for each other's happiness, 
 we will wait until death has set the seal of un- 
 changeable ness upon our hearts ere we suffer cold 
 and scornful eyes to look upon our sacred bond 
 of faith." 
 
 A true and full biography of Madame de Stael 
 yet remains to be written; but those who have 
 gathered up fragments of her history — those who 
 have dwelt with interest upon every detail of that 
 gifted and extraordinary woman, whom Byron, 
 after an intimate acquaintance, justly styled " the 
 incomparable Corinna," will have no difficulty 
 in discerning the truth of the foregoing sketch, 
 through its adornments of fancy. The acquain- 
 tance of Madame de Stael with De Rocca occurred 
 under the circumstances I have related, and her 
 marriage with him a few years afterward is also a 
 matter of history. Their union was never pub- 
 
102 Corinna. 
 
 licly acknowledged, although universally believed. 
 They were devoted in their attachment to each 
 other, and Corinna, wearied with the excitement 
 of renown, enjoyed in the retirement of Coppet a 
 few brief years of quiet domestic happiness. Her 
 fears for De Rocca's failing health alone marred 
 her peace, and yet he for whom only she seemed 
 to live was destined to survive his gifted wife. 
 
 Madame de Stael died on the 14th of July, 1817, 
 and in her will she avowed her marriage, enjoin- 
 ing it upon her children to make it known to the 
 world. De Rocca survived her but six months; 
 his overwhelming grief, acting upon a frame en- 
 feebled by many wounds, soon destroyed him. 
 He was nearly twenty years younger than the ob- 
 ject of his passionate affection, having barely at- 
 tained his thirtieth year at the period of his death. 
 Madame de Stael was the mother of four children, 
 to whose moral and intellectual culture she devoted 
 great care. While she was in England she re- 
 ceived tidings of the death of her second son, a 
 youth of twenty, who was killed in a duel, his head 
 being literally severed from his body by a saber 
 cut. Her eldest child inherited the title of his 
 father and the estate of his mother, and was noted 
 for his zeal in the dissemination of the Bible 
 throughout Europe. He is, I believe, since dead. 
 The Duchesse de Broglie, her only daughter, died 
 a few years ago, and how estimable was the wor- 
 
Cor i una. 103 
 
 thy daughter of such a mother may be judged 
 from the heartbroken expression of her husband, 
 the excellent duke. " I am not blighted, but with- 
 ered at the root," said he, when alluding to his 
 bereavement. 
 
 Auguste De Rocca, the only child of Madame de 
 Stael's second marriage, still survives, and is said 
 to inherit much of the wit and talent for which his 
 mother was renowned. 
 
^oob.ies of tjjc Qi^inb. 
 
 THE OLD PORTRAIT. 
 
 We are the stuff 
 
 That dreams are made of, and om' little life 
 
 Is rounded by a sleep. 
 
 WAS amused and interested by a dis- 
 cussion which I heard a few days since, 
 between two persons who were my near 
 neighbors on board a — ferrj^-boat. 
 They had been in close conversation when they 
 entered the cabin, and as they did not lower their 
 tones I soon discovered that the dapper, neatly 
 whiskered, dogmatic little man beside me was a 
 young physician who had just been ground out by 
 the '^saw-bones" mill and was not yet sifted, if 
 one might judge by the husks of learning which 
 seemed mingled with the good grain. His com- 
 
 104 
 
Moods of the Mind. 105 
 
 panion, a modest, pale-faced, sickly-seeming Ger- 
 maij, evidently regarded him with much respect, 
 and listened to him as if there was no possible ap- 
 peal from his opinions. 
 
 " Depend upon it, sir/' said the doctor; '^depend 
 upon it, there is a great deal of misconception 
 about this matter; a person who dreams cannot 
 be said to be asleep." (This was a startling propo- 
 sition, by the way, to one who is an accomplished 
 sleeper and a most inveterate dreamer.) ^^ You may 
 rely upon it that no person ever enjoys a quiet, 
 natural, healthful sleep if his mental faculties are 
 awake," he continued, tapping his little cane most 
 determinedly against the toe of his boot. 
 
 ^^ But," said the German timidly, ^' you surely do 
 not mean to say that the habit of dreaming argues 
 an unsound state of the physical system ! There are 
 persons who enjoy the most robust health, and yet 
 whose faculty for dreaming is almost an idiosyn- 
 crasy." 
 
 '' Impossible, my dear sir !" — and the doctor com- 
 pressed his lips with the air of a man who knows 
 he is right. '' The mental faculties slumber with 
 the corporeal functions; the man who is under the 
 influence of a profound, healthful sleep is, in a 
 manner, dead to all impressions; unconsciousness, 
 a total forgetfulness of every mental and bodily 
 capacity, is necessary to the enjoyment of repose. 
 No, sir; slumber may bring dreams, but sleep 
 
106 Moods of the Mind. - 
 
 must be unbroken by the vagaries of the imagi- 
 nation ; therefore a man is not asleep when he 
 dreams." 
 
 This was uttered in such Johnsonian style, there 
 was such a bridling up of the neck, such a peculiar 
 pigeon-breasted swelling out of the speaker's per- 
 son, as if he would have said, 
 
 I am Sir Oracle, and when I ope 
 My mouth, let no dog bark, 
 
 that his companion was silenced if not convinced. 
 At this moment the boat touched the wharf, and I 
 soon lost sight of the interlocutors ; but as I wended 
 my way I could not help thinking how much cause 
 I had to feel pity for myself; for, if the doctor's 
 theory were true, from my childhood to the present 
 hour I had never slept. 
 
 Right sorry should I be to believe any such ma- 
 terial doctrine. Sad, indeed, would be my privation 
 if compelled to relinquish my nocturnal wander- 
 ings in the fairyland of dreams. Surely, when 
 
 Darkness shows us realms of light 
 We never saw by day, 
 
 we may rejoice in the brightness and beauty of 
 that spirit-life which we can never enter while the 
 
Moods of the Mind. 107 
 
 fetters of clay cling as closely as they do in our 
 waking hours! Day has its cares and its toils, its 
 anxieties and its doubts, its vexations and its sor- 
 rows ; scarcely does a sun rise and set without the 
 destruction of some fair scheme, the withering of 
 some green hope. Amid the glare of sunshine we 
 live, and move, and suffer j it brings us active, 
 sentient life; but it is all external — the world 
 claims us, a,nd the energies of the soul are all em- 
 ployed by, and for the service of, the perishing 
 body. But when night closes around us — when 
 the brow of Heaven is wearing its coronal of stars 
 — when the far-sweeping breeze comes with lulling 
 music to the ear wearied with the turmoil of the 
 world, then is it not sweet to lie down on our couch 
 of nightly rest, and with the accents of prayer upon 
 our lips, and thoughts of tenderness concentrating 
 within our hearts like honey-dew in the petals of a 
 flower, to close the eyes of the body in calm slum- 
 ber, while the mind awakens in unfettered vigor to 
 tread the realms of space and range the glorious 
 spirit-land of dreams ! Strange that the mind has 
 this power to roam at large ! strange that it is thus 
 privileged to annihilate time and space in its un- 
 checked career ! Yet methinks the only idea that 
 a finite mind can form of infinitude is derived from 
 this wonderful faculty, which enables us to con- 
 dense a life into an hour. 
 
108 Moods of the Mind. 
 
 Sleep has its own world, 
 And a wide realm of wild reality, 
 And dreams in their development have breath, 
 And tears, and torture, and the touch of joy ; 
 They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts. 
 They take a weight from off our waking toils ; 
 They do divide our being ; they become 
 A portion of ourselves as of our time, 
 And seem like heralds of eternity. 
 
 But there is another mood of mind far more 
 wonderful than that which admits us through the 
 ivory portal of dreams. There are moments when 
 a peculiar retroversive vision is given to the sonlj 
 when, amid scenes which have never before met 
 the bodily eye, a sudden consciousness of a pre- 
 existence in which they were once familiar comes 
 over the spirit. Who has not experienced that in- 
 stant insensibility to mere outward impressions, 
 while the soul was looking back through the vista 
 of memory and beholding there precisely the same 
 objects which were vainly addressing themselves 
 to the external senses ? Who has not paused in 
 painful wonder at the discovery that the material 
 things which surrounded him were but the tangi- 
 ble forms of some shadowy reminiscence ? Who 
 has not felt, at some especial moment, that the 
 present was to him but a renewal of a bygone 
 scene, and that his mind was wandering in a vague 
 past, where all was dim, dark, and troublous to 
 the spirit ? 
 
Moods of the Mind. 109 
 
 The speculations into which my subject has un- 
 consciously led me remind me of a singular in- 
 stance of hallucination, or perhaps of clairvoyance 
 — according as one chooses to determine— in the 
 case of a personal friend, which occurred some 
 years since. 
 
 Mrs. L was one of the most quiet, gen- 
 tle, womanly creatures that I have ever known. 
 Intelligent and well informed, without being posi- 
 tively intellectual in her tastes, her varied accom- 
 plishments gave her brilliancy in society, while 
 her kindliness of heart made her a decided favor- 
 ite with all who came near enough to share it. 
 With just enough imagination to adorn, but not 
 to outshine, her other qualities, with sufficient sen- 
 timent to give depth of tone to the lights and 
 shades of her character, and destitute of a single 
 strongly developed passion, she always appeared 
 to me peculiarly happy in the possession of one 
 of those unexcitable tempers which ever secure 
 content. 
 
 She was pensive more than melancholy, 
 And serious more than pensive, and severe, 
 It may be, more than either; 
 
 and had I been called to designate one who looked 
 neither into the vague past nor the dim future, 
 but found enjoyment in the tranquil present, I 
 
110 Moods of the Mind. 
 
 should have pointed to my pretty and agreeable 
 friend. 
 
 An incident, trifling in itself, bnt leading to a 
 singular development of character, showed me the 
 folly of thus judging of another's nature, espe- 
 cially when we have never been admitted to the 
 intimacy of friendship until after the door of the 
 inner sanctuary of the soul was closed against 
 earthly sympathies. 
 
 It happened one morning that I accompanied 
 Mrs. L to the rooms of a celebrated picture- 
 dealer, whom she wished to consult respecting the 
 framing of a valuable painting she had recently 
 received from Italy. The virtuoso was absent, but 
 learning that he was expected to be at home in a 
 short time, we determined to wait, and in the 
 mean time to amuse ourselves with the various 
 articles of taste and fancy with which his apart- 
 ments were filled. I had been for some time lean- 
 ing over a scagliola table, absorbed in the study 
 of some exquisite cameos, when an exclamation 
 from my companion, who had been occupied with 
 the pictures, aroused me from my abstraction. As 
 I looked up I beheld her standing opposite a paint- 
 ing, but her close bonnet entirely concealed her 
 face from me, and conjecturing that she had dis- 
 covered something of superior merit, I stepped up 
 behind her to observe it also. 
 
 It was only a portrait of a man in the prime of 
 
Moods of the Mind. Ill 
 
 life : an old portrait, for the surface was in some 
 places cracked and broken, while the unframed 
 canvas showed on its edges the discoloration as 
 well as the rents of time. But never did I see a 
 face to which the doubly significant word ^' fasci- 
 nating" could be so exactly applied. The broad, 
 high forehead was bare, while the long chestnut 
 curls which fell back from its expanse were so 
 mellowed into the background of the picture that 
 the outline of the head was undefined, and the 
 charm of vagueness was thus given, as if the face 
 was looking out from behind a curtain, or rather 
 from the indistinct gloom of a chamber. The 
 eyes were large, dark, and dreamy, with that sad 
 but not sorrowful drooping of the delicately cut 
 lids, that downward bend of the outer corner, 
 which ever denotes the world- sated rather than 
 the wounded spirit. But the mouth was the most 
 peculiar feature, for the upper lip was curled like 
 a bow at its utmost tension, and rested with so 
 slight a pressure upon the full softness of its fel- 
 low that one almost expected to see it expand with 
 smiles at the beholder^s gaze. The rounded and 
 beardless cheek was almost too massive in its 
 downward sweep, and the chin, though Napoleon- 
 esque in its outline, had that heaviness of finish 
 which marks the influence of the animal nature j 
 but the coloring of the face — its pale, clear, yet 
 not effeminate hue — the dark, well-defined brows 
 
112 Moods of the Mind. 
 
 arching over those superb eyes — the shadow 
 flung upon the cheek by those fringed eyelids — 
 the deep, rich color of the womanish mouth 
 — the softness of the flesh-tints — and, above 
 all, the almost serpent-like fascination of expres- 
 sion which pervaded the whole countenance, all 
 combined to form a most remarkable and beauti- 
 ful physiognomy. The costume was that of the 
 time of George II., and a diamond star on the 
 breast of the gold-embroidered coat bore witness 
 to the rank of him whose pictured semblance was 
 without a name to designate its claims to our re- 
 spect. Beautiful was that face in its calm immo- 
 bility — how gloriously beautiful must have been 
 the flashings of the soul through such exquisite 
 features, when that eye was lighted up with life, 
 and that lip was eloquent with passionate emo- 
 tion ! Yet even while my fancy conjured up the 
 image of such a being, those instincts which in 
 woman^s heart are ever true, if the world have not 
 checked their honest teachings, made me recoil 
 from the creature of my imagination. Something 
 in those delicate features, something in that sweet 
 sadness of the eye and lip, something in the almost 
 girlish hand which lay half hidden in its point- 
 lace ruffle, seemed to speak of the voluptuary — 
 of one who with the holy fires of intellect had kin- 
 dled a flame on the altar of sensual and selfish 
 indulgence. 
 
Moods of the Mind. 113 
 
 But all these things were observed in much less 
 time than is required for the description of them, 
 and I was turning away with an expression of 
 the mingled feeling that had been excited by the 
 picture, when my attention was excited by the 
 
 fixedness of Mrs. L 's attitude. Changing my 
 
 position so as to obtain a view of her face, I was 
 startled by the extraordinary change which had 
 taken place in her appearance. With her tall 
 figure drawn up to its full height, yet shrinking 
 back as if alarmed, her arms folded tightly upon 
 her bosom, and her hands grasping the drapery 
 of her shawl, as if to veil herself from the eyes 
 bent down upon her from the canvas, she stood 
 entranced before the picture. Her face was ashy 
 pale, her eyes dilated and vacant, her lips parted 
 and almost livid in their hue, and her whole coun- 
 tenance bore the impress of intense horror. 
 Alarmed at her appearance, I addressed her, but 
 without attracting her notice; I attempted to 
 draw her away, but to my surprise I felt her arm 
 as rigid as stone beneath my touch, while her 
 whole attitude was that of one who is subjected 
 to cataleptic influence. 
 
 Gradually the spell which bound her faculties 
 seemed to disperse, and as she slowly and sliud- 
 deringly turned from the picture she fell almost 
 fainting into my arms. 
 
 ''Let us go — quick — let us go!" she gasped; 
 
114 Moods of the Mind. 
 
 and, terrified by her unusual agitation, I hurried 
 her into the carriage. During our ride she did 
 not utter a word, but when we reached her door 
 she exclaimed, '' Do not leave me — I would not be 
 alone just now"; and drawing her veil over her 
 face, she hurried up to her apartment. As soon as 
 we were alone and safe from intruders, she flung 
 herself upon a couch and a violent flood of tears 
 seemed somewhat to relieve the dreadful tension 
 of her nerves. It was long before she recovered 
 from her excessive agitation, and all my attempts 
 to soothe her were utterly useless until she had 
 exhausted her excitement by indulgence; then, 
 when her emotion had subsided into the deep 
 calm which conies from utter feebleness of body, 
 she unfolded to me one of the strangest moods of 
 mind that it had ever been my fortune to discover. 
 
 ''How long were we at Mr. 's room this 
 
 morning?" she asked. 
 
 " Perhaps a quarter of an hour," was my reply. 
 
 " And how long did I stand before that dreadful 
 picture f " 
 
 " Not more than five minutes." 
 
 ''And yet in that brief space the events of a 
 whole life passed before me." 
 
 "Your thoughts must have traveled with a 
 speed like that which transported Mahomet to the 
 seventh heaven, and restored him to his couch, 
 before the vessel of water which had been over- 
 
Moods of the Mind. 115 
 
 turned in his ascent had lost one drop of its con- 
 tents." 
 
 " Nay, this is no jest ; it is to me sad and sober 
 
 earnest. Let me teU yon, E , my ideas on the 
 
 subject of preexistence." 
 
 '^ My dear friend, you are nervous and excited; 
 we had better not discuss such matters." 
 
 ^^You think me a little egaree—jon mistake; 
 my nerves have been shaken, but my mind is per- 
 fectly unclouded. Ever since I have been able to 
 look into my own nature I have been convinced 
 that my present life is only the completion of an 
 earthly probation which was begun long, long 
 since." 
 
 " What do you mean ! You are surely not in 
 earnest?" 
 
 ^'I never was more so in my life, and yet I 
 scarcely know how to explain myself to you. 
 There are persons who live and die with natures 
 but half developed; circumstances call forth one 
 set of feelings and faculties, while others are left 
 dormant. Such I believe to be the case with the 
 great proportion of men, and especially of women, 
 in this world; and therefore it is that I have much 
 charity for those who fall short of my standard of 
 goodness, since there may be an infinite deal of 
 latent virtue hidden in their hearts. But there 
 are others among mankind who seem to have the 
 use of only half their souls, not from the want of 
 
116 3foods of the Mind. 
 
 development, but rather from exhaustion of the 
 faculties. Among the latter class I rank myself. 
 I am calm, cold, and passionless ; never violently 
 excited, never deeply depressed; kindly in my 
 feelings, and warm but not ardent in my affections. 
 Yet do I often feel within me the faint stirrings 
 of a wild and passionate nature : a throe of the 
 spirit which tells, not of repressed emotion, but 
 rather of half-extinct capacity for suffering. In a 
 word, I believe that in a former state of existence 
 I have outlived my passions. 
 
 ''You are surprised. I tell you my life is full 
 of vague memories of a dark and troubled past. I 
 am as one in a dream ; the things which surround 
 me in actual life are entirely distinct from the ob- 
 jects that are daily presented to my mental view 
 as forming part of my existence. Often that 
 strange, painful consciousness of some past scene 
 precisely resembling the present comes over me, 
 and I can scarcely determine whether it is the 
 reality or the vision which most impresses me. 
 My very affections seem to me rather like old 
 habitudes of feeling, and when I look upon my 
 children or listen to their merry voices, a dreamy 
 consciousness of having, years since, heard the 
 same ' sweet discord ' and gazed with a mother's 
 pride upon creatures as fair and as dear, makes 
 me doubt my own identity. 
 
 ''That which is vague is always terrible, and 
 
Moods of the Mind. 117 
 
 my thoughts have gone out fearfully into that 
 dark, cloudy past, seeking vainly to comprehend 
 the wild memories that so disturb my present 
 tranquillity. But to-day — to-day — I have seen a 
 vision which has satisfied my quest. I had wan- 
 dered listlessly about Mr. 's rooms this morn- 
 ing, thinking only of beguiling the time until his 
 return, when my eye fell upon the old portrait. 
 You saw the effect it produced," — and she shud- 
 dered at the recollection, — ^'but you could not 
 know why it thus overpowered me. Now listen, 
 and remember that I know well what I am saying; 
 that I am perfectly calm and collected, and as sane 
 in mind as yourself. 
 
 " As my look became fastened on that superb 
 face, a strain of low, unearthly music floated on 
 the air, and suddenly I found myself in a gorgeous 
 apartment, blazing with lights and filled with a 
 gay company attired in the rich fashion of the 
 olden time. A large mirror hung opposite me, 
 and as I raised my eyes I saw reflected on its sil- 
 very surface the image of a young girl moving in 
 the stately mazes of the minuet with a handsome 
 and graceful partner. I saw the blush which man- 
 tled the maiden's cheek as her companion's deep, 
 dark eyes rested upon her ; I beheld the quivering 
 of her lip as she timidly replied to the courtly 
 flatteries which were rather breathed than uttered 
 from that exquisite mouth; I marked the trem- 
 
118 Moods of the Mind. 
 
 bling of her hand as it touched his in the evolu- 
 tions of the formal dance; the very beatings of her 
 heart as it bounded against her jeweled bodice 
 were visible to me. That maiden was myself ; not 
 a lineament was changed ; it was myself, wearing 
 the same freshness of tint and frankness of ex- 
 pression as in the youthful portrait which hangs 
 in yonder recess, differing only in the costume, 
 which was that in fashion a century ago ; while 
 he who was thus awaking me to a consciousness 
 of passionate existence was the living semblance 
 of that nameless picture. 
 
 ''Again that strain of music sounded; a mist 
 came before my eyes, and as it cleared away I saw 
 a wide and beautiful landscape. There were gent- 
 ly swelling hills in the distance, enfolding, as it 
 were, in their embrace one of those rich parks 
 which are said to form so lovely a feature in Eng- 
 lish scenery. Broad oaks stretched their gnarled 
 branches over the soft, green turf, and here and 
 there an antlered deer was seen bounding across 
 the lawn-like verdure. But in the foreground of 
 the picture was a closely shaded walk, where the 
 boughs of the overarching trees had been carefully 
 interlaced, so as to exclude every straggling ray 
 of sunshine. A sweet and tender light, as soft as 
 moonlight, but far warmer in its glow, filled the 
 place, and there in that secluded spot sate a maiden 
 on a mossy bank. The graceful form of her part- 
 
Moods of the Mind. 119 
 
 ner in the dance was bending over her in the atti- 
 tude of protecting tenderness, and as she lifted 
 her face confidingly toward the eyes which seemed 
 radiant with affection, as she met their glance, I 
 again recognized my own features. 
 
 '^ Once more that faint melody swept by ; again 
 my eyes were darkened, and the next scene showed 
 me the arrangements of a joyous bridal. A gay 
 company were assembled in a small but beautiful 
 chapel, and, as if power had been given to my men- 
 tal vision to embrace all objects whether great or 
 small, I could distinctly trace the rich carvings of 
 the clustered pillars and the grotesque corbels of 
 the groined roof, while the flickering tints which 
 fell upon the snowy vestments of the bridal party^ 
 from the stained-glass window behind the altar, 
 added gorgeousness to the scene. As the newly 
 wedded pair turned from the shrine, while merry 
 friends pressed round them with looks of pride 
 and joy, I beheld again the familiar faces which 
 twice before had met my view. 
 
 '^ But the vision faded, the figures vanished, and 
 a cloud seemed to arise, in which only the noble 
 face of the portrait was visible. Presently the 
 cloud shifted, as if moved by a passing breeze, and 
 my own face, pale, tearful, and sad, looked out 
 from its dim shadow. Again the cloud closed over 
 the apparition, and thus, folding and unfolding, 
 as we often see the edges of a thundercloud in the 
 
120 Moods of the Mind. 
 
 sky, it gave out alternate glimpses of the two faces 
 as it altered its position and its form. But a 
 change gradually came over the countenances of 
 both ; my own became faded and sorrowful, while 
 the cold sneer upon those bright lips, the keen 
 glitter of those soft eyes, and an expression of bit- 
 ter contempt in the scowl of that placid brow, con- 
 verted its glorious beauty into the beauty of 
 ^ archangel ruined.' 
 
 "Again came that tone of music, but it was 
 now dirge-like and mournful as it trembled upon 
 my ear. The shadow passed away, and I beheld a 
 funeral bier. A rigid form lay extended upon it, 
 and a child of some ten summers knelt beside the 
 body, while her sunny curls mingled with the dark 
 locks which lay so lifelessly on the brow of the 
 dead. As the child raised her head to wipe away 
 her gushing tears I beheld the face of the de- 
 parted, and again did I recognize my own features. 
 A feeling of irrepressible horror crept over me, 
 but I was compelled to gaze, while slowly, and as 
 if emerging from the darkness of the distant apart- 
 ment, came out the shadowy face of that old por- 
 trait, as if bending over the cold lineaments of 
 death. 
 
 ^' At this moment you spoke to me, but I could 
 not answer -, you touched me, but I was fixed and 
 almost turned to stone ; nor could I move until the 
 fearful vision had entirely vanished, and then, ex- 
 
Moods of the Mind. 121 
 
 hausted and almost lifeless, I found myself rest- 
 ing in your arms, with that cold, calm picture 
 looking quietly down upon me from the wall." 
 
 Such was my friend's account of this most ex- 
 traordinary fantasy, and without pretending to 
 trace its source, or to explain the probable cause 
 of such a mood of mind, I would only add that it 
 was followed by a severe attack of brain-fever. 
 She recovered, however, and lived several years, 
 but never again gave the slightest evidence of any 
 tendency to the vague speculations of which she 
 had spoken to me ; though, as I afterward learned, 
 she had vainly endeavored to purchase the old 
 portrait, which had been sold, during her illness, 
 to some unknown picture-fancier. I pretend not 
 to elucidate the mystery of her changeful vision, 
 or to define my own belief in her fanciful creed of 
 preexistence. It is enough for me to know that 
 our dreams, whether they be waking visions or 
 nightly slumbering fantasies, often 
 
 Pass like spirits of the past, and speak 
 Like sibyls of the future. 
 
Addressed to a Distant Friend. 
 
 Out upon Time ! who forever will leave 
 
 But euougli of the past for the future to grieve 
 
 O'er that which hath been and o'er that which must be. 
 
 -^OUR melancholy letter of self-condo- 
 lence, my dear and most wayward of 
 friends, your eloquent but unreason- 
 able regrets at having passed through 
 "life's midway turnstile'' (to use your own quaint 
 version of the poet's " mezza del cammen di nostra 
 vita"), have awakened in me a train of reflections 
 which, for your punishment, rather than with any 
 hope of your edification, I shall offer to your 
 serious consideration. There are few things so 
 little understood, and yet so indispensable to the 
 comfort of every child of earth, as the art of 
 
 122 
 
Growing Old. 123 
 
 growing old. If I were a man (as, thank God, I 
 am not; for among my many blessings I rank first 
 that of being a woman), I would make it the sub- 
 ject of a course of lectures; and should probably 
 share the fate of other preachers, who, while eluci- 
 dating truth, afford melancholy evidence, in their 
 own persons, of the difficulty which ever attends 
 its practical application. The reason why the 
 matter now in question is so little comprehended, 
 is very obvious. The subject is distasteful, and 
 each one feels that there is yet full time for con- 
 templating it afar off. We fancy ourselves still 
 wandering on the confines of youth, or, at least, 
 but just entering the dusty paths of middle life, 
 when suddenly we find ourselves at the opening 
 of a yawning ravine, down which we are irresisti- 
 bly hurried by the crowd behind us ; and when we 
 reach the cold, bleak, barren region of old age 
 which lies below, we feel that we have yielded with 
 an ill grace to the necessity which drove us from 
 the busy scenes of active life. Age is certainly an 
 evil, — necessary to our mortal being, doubtless, 
 but only less terrible than death; and had not 
 God implanted in our bosoms that strong love of 
 life which makes us cling to mere existence, the 
 King of Terrors would often be a less painful visi- 
 tant than the graybeard Time. Who ever detected 
 the first furrow on his brow, the first gray hair 
 amid his flowing locks, without a pang! And yet 
 
124 Orotving Old. 
 
 methinks it were pastime to grow old, if age were 
 only an external evil. If the deepened lines of the 
 face, the despoiled honors of the brow, the faded 
 light of the eye, were the only changes which 
 Time brings, we might learn to look on him with 
 indifference. But, alas ! he bears away other treas- 
 ures; he defaces the bright beauty of the casket 
 while he steals some of the richest gems which it 
 contains. We lose the unselfish enthusiasm of 
 youth — its generous ardor, its sweet confiding 
 trust ; we learn to question our own impulses ; 
 and the lesson which teaches us to mistrust our 
 own nature, like all the other lessons of skepticism, 
 offers nothing in exchange for the faith it would 
 disturb. '^ It seems to me,'' says the warm-hearted 
 and joyous-tempered Mme. de Sevigne, '4t seems 
 to me that I have been dragged against my will 
 to the fatal period when old age must be endured. 
 I see it, I have come to it, and I would fain if 
 I could help it go no farther, nor advance an- 
 other step in the road of infirmities, of pains, 
 of losses of memory, of disfigurements ready to 
 do me outrage; and I hear a voice which says, 
 ^You must go on in spite of yourself; or if you 
 will not go on, you must die' ; and this is another 
 extremity from which nature revolts. Such is 
 the lot of all who advance beyond middle life. 
 What is the resource ? To reflect on the will of 
 God, and the universal law of being, and so restore 
 
Growing Old. 125 
 
 reason to her dominion, and be patient." They 
 who would grow old gracefully must equally avoid 
 too much haste, and too much delay in their pro- 
 gress. They must neither wait to be jostled aside 
 by younger competitors in the race, nor must 
 they fling off too soon the rose-chains which held 
 them in sweet bondage amid the bowers of youth- 
 ful happiness. Nothing is more disgusting than 
 an imbecile aping of gaiety and folly in old age, 
 and nothing more painful than ther premature self- 
 ishness and calculation of age in the glad season 
 of youth. If I were called to give one short and 
 comprehensive rule for growing old properly, I 
 would say, ^'Cherish that health which is the 
 next best gift to that of youth; let the mind 
 ripen fully and perfectly in the light of know- 
 ledge; and above all things, keep the heart young 
 by the constant exercise of kindly and genial 
 sympathy.'' Even while I write, memory presents 
 some lovely pictures of this youth in age which 
 is ever so desirable. I behold a mother faded in 
 beauty, but wearing upon her face that sweetness 
 which emanates from the inner light of the soul. 
 Her children are around her, and with the recol- 
 lection of her own glad and wayward youth still 
 fresh in her heart, she fully and entirely sympa- 
 thizes with all. The workings of incipient vanity 
 in one child, the gushing forth of passionate feel- 
 ing in another, the proud and fiery temper of a 
 
126 Growing Old. 
 
 third, perhaps the timid, facile temper of a fourth, 
 or the generous, impulsive nature of a fifth, — all 
 are understood, all are appreciated, all receive 
 the indulgence due to weakness, and the gentle 
 restraint necessary to future correction of error. 
 She is the friend, the counselor, the confidante of 
 her children, the tender elder sister rather than 
 the rigid parent, guiding rather than controlling 
 them, sharing their every j)leasure, bearing their 
 every sorrow, and cherishing a youthfulness of 
 heart amid the young which adds new grace to 
 the matronly dignity and beauty of her perfectly 
 consistent character. I can remember, too, an 
 honored and venerable man, who in the decline of 
 years, amid the seclusion of domestic life, still 
 preserves the freshness of those fervent feelings 
 which won for him the happiness which he now 
 enjoys. In the youth of his children he reviews 
 his own early life, in the exercise of hospitality he 
 keeps alive his social virtues, in the duties of 
 benevolence he finds an outlet for the impulsive 
 generosity of his nature, in the daily exertion of 
 his intellect he finds a safeguard against the 
 corrosions of Time, — does such a man grow old 
 because his eye is dim, his brow furrowed by the 
 plowshare of age, and his frame bowed beneath 
 the weight of years! But there are those who 
 must grow old without any such means of renew- 
 ing their life. There are hearts which find no com- 
 
Growing Old. 127 
 
 panionship in wedded life, hearts which have felt a 
 blight worse than the frost of years, hearts whose 
 glad youth departed ere the shadow of Time's 
 wing had darkened in their path. Yet even for 
 them there is a fountain of freshness, a " diamond 
 of the desert." To them are offered the pure delights 
 of friendship, that sweetest of all forms of earthly 
 affection, which is all of love but its selfishness, all 
 of passion but its exacting spirit, all of tenderness 
 but its weakness. 
 
 I know not what may be the nature of friendship 
 in the heart of man, but in the breast of woman 
 I know it to be what I have depicted it. Love lives 
 not without jealousy, which ever stalks beside it 
 like its shadow, flinging gloom upon its brightest 
 way. But friendship asks nothing, save to be 
 allowed to serve; hopes nothing, save to be con- 
 sidered of some import to the happiness of its ob- 
 ject ; expects nothing, save to be remembered with 
 tender regret when death shall have stilled the 
 beatings of the warm heart, and the pulses of the 
 ready hand. If I were a man, and knew of woman 
 what my present experience has taught me (an im- 
 possibility, by the way), I should prefer the deep, 
 fervent friendship of a woman's heart to all the 
 deceitful promises of love. After all, love is like 
 grief — ^'it consumes or is consumed"; the wild, 
 fierce, fiery passion, which makes every hour either 
 a pang or an ecstasy, cannot last ; it is weakened 
 
128 Growing Old. 
 
 by its own excess, and must either subside into a 
 tame sentiment, or die away in utter indifference, 
 if it be not merged in such a friendship. But the 
 friendship which is born of esteem for high and 
 noble qualities, which sees in its object something 
 to be admired, respected, looked up to (I speak 
 now of friendship between persons of opposite 
 sex; and to be perfectly happy in any attachment, 
 there must be a blending of reverence in woman's 
 tenderness), which knows no jealous fears, no 
 envious heart-burnings, which is full of self -for- 
 getting affection, and yet asks no other return 
 than the kindly word and the gentle tone — the 
 friendship which is ever mingled with that innate 
 principle of loving, so perfectly a part and parcel 
 of her very nature — such is the true sweetener 
 of life, such the only worthy object of attainment, 
 such the only lasting passion. A woman need 
 never suffer her heart to grow old. I care not 
 how lonely be her lot, wherever she can find a home, 
 there is always some brother or sister, a niece, 
 or, it may be, a wayward nephew, or, at least, 
 some of those '^ little people," whose claims upon us 
 depend not on ties of blood, to occupy her inter- 
 est. If ever a woman finds herself utterly lonely 
 and unloved, depend on it, the cause lies, not in 
 her unfortunate destiny, but in herself. Live 
 without loving ! why, the thing is impossible. Me- 
 thinks if I were the sole inhabitant of a desolate 
 
Growing Old. 129 
 
 islaud in inid-oceau, I should find somethings over 
 which to pour out the fullness of a j^earning heart. 
 "Je meurs ou je m'attache " is a true woman's 
 motto, and happy is she whose heart, while it 
 clings like the ivy, finds something better than 
 ruin and decay to support its entwining tendrils. 
 A woman, I repeat, need never be a solitary being. 
 In the cheerful stillness of her own thoughts she 
 can be ever devising some good for others ; and 
 if she never forgets that a woman is sent upon 
 earth to minister comfort to the toilworn children 
 of Adam; if she remembers that God has given 
 her a nature which enables her to convert the curse 
 pronounced upon our first mother into a boundless 
 blessing; if she never forgets that they who ^' stand 
 and wait" are numbered among the servants of 
 the Most High, no less than those who do his bid- 
 ding in the whirlwind and the storm, she will 
 not repine at the destiny which gives her happi- 
 ness just in proportion as she lives for others and 
 not for herself. But with men, the case is some- 
 what different. Few conditions can be more 
 melancholy than that of a lonely man who has 
 outlived all early associations; who has grown 
 estranged by time and circumstance from the com- 
 panions of his youth ; who enters not closely into 
 the interests of a single one of God's creatures, 
 and who is keenly conscious that to no one is he 
 an object of real regard. Yet why should these 
 
130 Growing Old. 
 
 things be so"? Why should man be so isolated an 
 individual merely because he has no conjugal nor 
 filial ties? Are there not other bonds of union 
 which, if less closely woven, are still worth cher- 
 ishing! It was but yesternight that one whose 
 language is ever like the poetry of knightly days, 
 stirring my heart at one time like the sound of a 
 trumpet calling to the tourney, and anon melting 
 me into sweet, regretful tears of tenderness — it 
 was but yesternight he told me of a solitary man 
 who bethought him of putting in practice the 
 chivalry which is still extant in the world, albeit 
 it is now hidden beneath a velvet vest instead of 
 a mailed cuirass. This strange being became the 
 friend, the guardian, over certain gentle and, I 
 doubt not, lovely maidens, at their first entrance 
 into life. His delight was to show them all that 
 earth held of good, and to protect them from all 
 that it contained of evil ; to watch over the devel- 
 oping affections of those young hearts, and to 
 guard them from the noxious influence of passion. 
 A beautiful blending of the brother's watchful- 
 ness, the father's tenderness, and the lover's jealous 
 affection filled the heart of that solitary man. One 
 after another the objects of his love were taken 
 from him by happier and more fervent admirers ; 
 and in every instance he felt for a time the keen, 
 sharp pang of disappointed, or rather unsatisfied, 
 love. Yet the pain was but a transient sorrow. 
 
Growing Old. 131 
 
 for a consciousness of self-sacrifice, a pleasant 
 sense of heroic devotion, which could silently re- 
 linquish its own happiness for the object of its 
 tenderness, became his solace. Another soon was 
 found to take the place of the wedded one, and the 
 same round of attentions, and watchfulness, and 
 growing regard was again traveled. Thus passed 
 the life of this eccentric but noble-hearted bache- 
 lor; and who will say that he found not happi- 
 ness! It is true that he stored up for himself a 
 new sorrow with every affection ; but who would 
 not prefer to suffer the pain of an overcharged 
 heart, rather than the aching void of a vacant 
 bosom? The old man found bliss beyond the 
 capacity of common minds in these sweet ties, 
 and when death summoned him to his reward in 
 a better world, he was wept by gentle eyes and 
 remembered by loving hearts. Tell me not, dear 
 friend, of that solitary man who, years hence, will 
 take his accustomed walk on the sunny side of the 
 street, and who will pause, leaning on his cane, to 
 watch the gambols of merry boys, perhaps to 
 give a feeble impetus to their bounding ball as 
 it passes him on its winged way, or it may be to 
 aid the timid steps of a shrinking girl as she 
 crosses the icy pathway, — tell me not of that man 
 dwelling lonely and unsought in his secluded cham- 
 ber, seeking his enjoyment only in remembrance 
 of the past, and wasting the remnant of his days, 
 
132 Growing Old. 
 
 like his own noble hound, in sluggishness and sun- 
 shine. Tell me not that the time will come when 
 his foot will cease to descend the stair, when his 
 face will be missed from the accustomed walk, 
 when the boys will wonder why they hear not his 
 kindly greeting; and finally when the hearse and 
 its few respectful followers will be seen bearing 
 to their last resting-place the remains of him who 
 amid the crowded city still dwelt in hermit-like 
 solitude. Tears such as I have seldom shed 
 would blind me could I believe such picture aught 
 than the image of a mocking fancy. Rather let 
 me take the pencil and try a woman's power. Let 
 me imagine myself transported some thirty years 
 hence to your distant city of refuge, the far-off 
 home of your adoption. The scene is one of quiet 
 enjoyment, a pleasant fireside, a cheerful apart- 
 ment, books, pictures, deep, kindly-looking chairs; 
 all the comforts, but none of the mere luxuries, of 
 life are there; and two, who have grown old 
 together, albeit the years of one, even as his 
 virtues and his graces, outnumber those of his 
 companion, are seated in gentle converse. The 
 door opens, and the cherished friend of earlier 
 days enters. He is a solitary man, but what warm 
 and gushing affection is poured out at his feet. 
 The impassioned poet, the daring hunter, the 
 friend of the red kings of the soil, the embodi- 
 ment of all that we can dream of chivalrous and 
 
Growing Old. 133 
 
 noble, how can he be called solitary, when the very 
 shadows of his brain have peopled the forest and 
 prairie with beauty? His place is ever reserved 
 in the hearts as at the fireside of those who love 
 him. He is as one of that quiet household, free to 
 go and come as he lists, but not from the indiffer- 
 ence of habitual intercourse; no, his step is still 
 listened for, his opinions treasured up, his deep 
 and earnest tones still caught as eagerly as in the 
 days of his youth. Anon enters another, in the 
 full, deep light of whose lustrous and spiritual 
 eyes may be read the refined and lofty soul of 
 him whose earh^ life was like an acted poem, full 
 of passionate sweetness, and whose gentle heart 
 never knew a feeling which was not as abounding 
 in human sympathies as in elevated purity. Two 
 more are added to the little circle. The merry 
 voice, the agile step of one is yet unchanged, and 
 the wit ''wont to set the table on a roar," the 
 quips and cranks of overflowing humor, the bril- 
 liant scintillations of ready repartee, and the gen- 
 uine kindness and warm-heartedness which per- 
 vaded and shone through all his character, are 
 no less remarkable than when, years before, he 
 first charmed the mirth-loving fancy of the now 
 sobered hostess. But of his companion how shall 
 I speak ! how depict the softened, chastened beauty 
 of that sweet matronly face! The tresses, once 
 hanging in such luxuriance upon the peach-like 
 
134 Groiving Old. 
 
 bloom of the rounded cheek, are now put back 
 under a simple cap, but the soft dewy lip is still 
 as bright as in her gentle youth: only the ex- 
 panded proportions of that womanly form betray 
 the lapse of time. Friend of my soul, what sayest 
 thou to my gossiping? Why may we not have 
 such a tableau vivant, if the stern mower whet not 
 his scythe among us"? Why may not age find us 
 with busy minds and young hearts? Why may 
 we not meet in after years, even as now, and bid 
 defiance to Time when he attempts to penetrate 
 the stronghold of our affections? Hast thou not 
 said that poetry is the true fountain of rejuvenes- 
 cence? Let us then quaff deeply of its sweet 
 waters, and while their subtle influence sends new 
 life through our sluggish veins, we will forget 
 "Time's takings," and only remember that the 
 sweetest of all the treasures which he leaves is the 
 love which was born for immortality. 
 
311 CJjaptet on ^tilcnc^^* 
 
 PITY the being who is always busy, 
 whose life passes in a perpetual buzz 
 of activity, like that of a bluebottle 
 fly in a sunshiny window-pane. I pity 
 the man or woman whose days are consumed in a 
 continual round of tasks, an unbroken series of 
 employments, even though they be self-imposed, 
 and apparently fully rewarded by the self-com- 
 placent vanity of the busybody. I look upon the 
 true enjoyment of an hour of idleness as an 
 especial gift, a talent bestowed by nature, and as 
 impossible to be acquired from habit or education 
 as the dreamy fancy of the poet, or the graphic 
 power of the painter. 
 
 Wealth may purchase immunity from labor; the 
 minion of luxury, like the voluptuous Hindu, 
 may be borne over life's dusty pathway so gently 
 
 135 
 
136 A Chapter on Idleness. 
 
 that not even a crumpled rose-leaf mars his pro- 
 found repose ; but he cannot taste the true delights 
 of an hour of idleness. Like all other best bless- 
 ings of earth, it is only to be bought at the ex- 
 pense of toil. We must have spent hours in labor, 
 the heart must have been fully occupied, the mind 
 tasked to its utmost, and the body must have 
 been the efficient minister to both, ere we can 
 know the inestimable pleasure of perfect idleness. 
 Then must come the entire cessation of fatigue, 
 the gradual consciousness of repose-, the sensation 
 of perfect rest which precedes and finally loses 
 itself in the dreamy delights of reverie. There is 
 yet another requisite to the full enjoyment of idle- 
 ness. The idler must possess that poetic fancy 
 which can people the void air with images of 
 beauty; he must be able to find pictures in the 
 changing clouds, music in the viewless wind, and 
 harmony in all material things. He must have 
 learned to bring up from the past its treasures, to 
 look on the present with a loving eye, to gaze far 
 out into the dim future with a hopeful spirit; he 
 must be awake to the sweet influences of nature ; 
 he must be alive to the high and holy impulses of 
 humanity; he must have power to silence the 
 demons of distrust and selfishness which haunt 
 even the heart of man ; he must forget the frailties 
 and the follies, the vices and the weaknesses, of 
 his kind, and remember only that they are his 
 
A Chapter on Idleness. 137 
 
 brethren. With such a man let us spend, in fancy, 
 an hour of idleness. Where shall we go to shnn 
 the turmoil of the world, which comes with harsh 
 tumult to the ear of the dreamer? Let us enter 
 an artistes studio, the abode of personified dreams, 
 fitting place for pleasant meditation. How does 
 the din of business die upon the ear as we ap- 
 proach this noble Gothic pile! We ascend the 
 quaint oaken staircase, we tread the cloistered 
 galleries, while our light footsteps are echoed with 
 that peculiar clearness of sound never heard save 
 '4n the vaulted cell, where silence loves to reign." 
 A door opens, and suddenly, as if a curtain 
 which divides the material from the invisible 
 world had been lifted, we find ourselves in the 
 midst of images of beauty. Now seat thee, gentle 
 idler, in that rich and cunningly wrought chair, 
 carved with a skill but rarely practised in modern 
 days, and its armorial crest, graven deep in the 
 costly wood, will tell thee whence it came; for 
 even as it now appears, so did it once grace the 
 banquet-hall of a stately castle in sunny Prance; 
 seat thyself in that old chair, and then thou wilt 
 be not only surrounded, but literally embraced by 
 associations of the past. How does every turbu- 
 lent thought grow still, as we gaze around this 
 peopled apartment! Seen in the cool, dim, reli- 
 gious light which is diffused around, the pictures 
 would seem like beings of living and breathing 
 
138 A Chapter on Idleness. 
 
 loveliness, save that they wake not the vague, 
 wild wishes which in the presence of beaiity ever 
 stir and trouble the human heart. Mark the noble 
 face which bends from yonder canvas: that bright 
 and flashing eye has gazed upon the mysterious 
 pyramids of Egypt ; that delicate hand has drawn 
 bridle-rein on the plains of Palestine; that fair 
 cheek has been kissed by the same sun which once 
 awakened the music of Memnon's harp. Look, 
 too, upon, that portraiture of earnest and gracious 
 womanhood, which appears half withdrawing from 
 our gaze: the deep-set intellectual eyes would 
 seem to disclaim the playfulness which lurks upon 
 the lips, did not an indescribable expression of 
 impulsive sympathy pervade the whole counte- 
 nance, and harmonize its mirthf ulness and thought. 
 It is the faithful semblance of one on whom 
 Heaven has bestowed high and holy gifts — of one 
 whom 'Hhe strong necessity of utterance" (to use 
 her own beautiful phrase) has urged to lay many 
 a rich and acceptable offering on the altar of 
 Fame. 
 
 And lo ! another, whose youthful beauty might 
 look like that of opening girlhood, did not those 
 sweet eyes and the gentle curve of the rosy mouth 
 betray the exquisite tenderness of nature which 
 only belongs to the happy wife and mother: 
 observe those golden curls dropping over the 
 delicately tinted cheek, and tell me if Fancy does 
 
A Chapter on Idleness. 139 
 
 not image under such a form the holy and sinless 
 mother to whom • 
 
 It would not be idolatry to kneel ; 
 
 while we thank the Giver of all good that such 
 blessed and passionless creatures are sometimes 
 allowed to dwell upon this blighted and blasted 
 earth. Far off, amid dusky shadows, gleam out 
 the features of one early numbered with the dead : 
 he died, and left no trace, but memory's haunted 
 cell gave out his semblance to the eye of friend- 
 ship, and again he lives in the bright colors of un- 
 fading youth. We see the eagle eye which once 
 flashed with the souPs lightnings; the passion- 
 molded lips which were once eloquent with the 
 genius and the fire of that land whence he drew 
 his birthright of intellect. Alas! his life was one 
 of toil and weariness and heaviness of spirit, 
 until by the wayside he fell, and perished ere the 
 goal of his hopes was won. Behold the face of 
 him whom America is proud to claim as her first 
 of philosophic poets ! The world has traced stern 
 characters on his brow, but here, as if his soul 
 had felt the influence of the place, his eye is 
 lighted up with the rich ray of intellect, and he 
 looks as one might fancy he must appear when, 
 in his seclusion, he calls up those glorious thoughts 
 and noble images of moral and natural beauty 
 which are ever embodied in his verse. He is here 
 
140 A Chapter on Idleness. 
 
 the poet, not the partizan — the Tyrtaeus, inspir- 
 ing men to lofty deeds by the solemn music of his 
 hymns f not the Demosthenes, arousing their pas- 
 sions by the thunder of his philippics. Beside 
 him, and in most strange contrast to the calm im- 
 mobility of that mind-fraught face, beam forth 
 the features of one who has peopled the forest 
 and the prairie with images of beauty. Well does 
 that noble and spirited portrait depict the beauti- 
 ful blending of the genial and the intellectual, 
 which is as visible in the countenance as it is re- 
 markable in the character of him whose exquisite 
 songs have given to Anacreon Moore the only 
 rival worthy to dispute with him the palm of 
 lyric excellence. 
 
 Does not a sad and solemn earnestness fill our 
 hearts as we gaze on the lustrous and spiritual 
 eyes which seem to follow us from yonder can- 
 vas? Such eyes never belonged to one whose 
 thoughts dwelt amid outward things; their light 
 is but the reflex of the flame kindled by God him- 
 self within the soul. How characteristic — aye, 
 even to the delicate beauty of the hand which has 
 penned so many pure and beautiful thoughts — is 
 that pictured semblance of him who has "kept 
 the whiteness of his soul," and, untainted amid a 
 world of falsehood, has ever been true to the 
 heaven-born instincts of his nature! Art thou 
 weary, friend, of the mere shadow of reality? 
 
A Chapter on Idleness. 141 
 
 Wouldst thou leave the images of actual life for 
 the creatures of Fancy's realm ! Then turn to the 
 inspired Sibyl — a poet's fancy traced by a paint- 
 er's hand; gaze with me upon yon star-crowned 
 Beatrice, the cherished idol of Dante's haunted 
 heart; or watch the flashing yet tearful eye of 
 Darthula, as she presses onward to avenge her 
 lover's fall. Hast thou not now drunk deeply of 
 the joy of idleness P 
 
 It may be that thy spirit pants for larger free- 
 dom; it may be that only under the open heaven 
 thou canst feel the full enjoyment of thine idle 
 hour. Then hie thee to that sweet spot where 
 King Death, laying aside his insignia of terror, 
 reigns as a sylvan monarch over a domain of 
 beauty. Wander through the winding walks of 
 Greenwood, until the influences of the place have 
 chastened thy feelings into quietude; then cast 
 thyself on yonder knoll, and look upon the scene 
 beneath. Nay, do not turn thy steps to the silver 
 lake, that mirror set with emeralds ; it is beauti- 
 ful, I grant, but coarse minds have learned to 
 appreciate its loveliness, and anon the tramp of 
 prancing horses, or the tread of busy feet, — may- 
 hap the idle jest and merry laugh, — will echo from 
 
 1 Those who have recently visited the studio of Mr. C G. 
 Thompson, at the New York University, will have no difficulty 
 in discovering from what source were derived the materials for 
 the foregoing sketch of one of the most nobly peopled apart- 
 ments that the writer ever entered. 
 
142 A Chapter on Idleness. 
 
 its oozy margin. Lie upon the grassy knoll that 
 overhangs the path; the clear water, reflecting 
 every bird that skims the surface, is before you, 
 while the monumental stones which mark the last 
 resting-place of mortality shine out from the rich 
 shrubbery beyond. The air is redolent of music 
 and fragrance; the breath of the scented clover 
 fills the gale; the song of the bird and the hum 
 of the bee swell upon the breeze ; the tremble of 
 so many myriads of leaflets around is as audible 
 as the hum of insect life. With the soft and 
 velvet greensward for thy couch, the blue sum- 
 mer sky smiling above thy head, the whisper of 
 the refreshing south wind lulling thee to sweet 
 repose, and all this wondrous wealth of nature 
 spread before thy half -shut eye, — then yield thy- 
 self to the enjoyment of thine hour of idleness. 
 Alone — alone with thy God — alone in the gar- 
 den of death, with trophies of his power gleam- 
 ing from every thicket, thou mayest "commune 
 with thine own heart and be still.'' Wilt thou 
 not rise from such fellowship a wiser and a better 
 man? Will not thine hour of idleness be one of 
 good likewise ? Wilt thou not return to the world 
 saddened and purified in spirit, and with a faith 
 which all the weary tasks of this working-day 
 world can neither weaken nor discourage? In 
 our country, where everything is to be obtained 
 by industry, and nothing can be won without it, 
 
A Chapter on Idleness. 143 
 
 we are apt to become mere operatives. So much 
 may be gained by toil that we learn to despise 
 those amenities of life which interfere with the 
 rough task-work we have prescribed to ourselves. 
 Unlike the inhabitants of other climes, who work 
 only to live, we seem to live only to work ; and 
 while we despise the ill-fed, ill-clad lazzarone who 
 lounges on the steps of some ducal palace, en- 
 joying the idleness which is to him far more es- 
 sential than the gratification of his appetite, we 
 forget that, between the indolence which casts its 
 mildew over every energy of the soul, and the 
 untiring activity which wears out the springs of 
 life by over-toil, lies the true medium. 
 
 Yet how much of picturesque and poetic beauty 
 surrounds the daily walks of that contemned son 
 of the sweet south ! From his very infancy the 
 Italian beggar has been familiar with images of 
 loveliness. A master-hand has depicted the per- 
 sonification of holy womanhood in the sweet Ma- 
 donna to whom his prayers are addressed; the 
 old cathedral at whose shrine he prostrates him- 
 self is filled with treasures of sculpture and paint- 
 ing, such as wake the wildest enthusiasm even in 
 those who, ^'cold in clime, are cold in blood." 
 
 The ancient glories of his country are still seen 
 in the wonders of architectural grandeur on which 
 his eye ever rests with pride and pleasure; and 
 over 'all these riches of art, over all these mag- 
 
144 A Chapter on Idleness. 
 
 nificent remains of genius and power, bends a 
 sky of such transparent purity that simple life — 
 mere breath — in such an atmosphere is happi- 
 ness. He has dwelt amid such things until their 
 shadow has fallen upon him, and in his chis- 
 eled features, his lofty bearing, his graceful dig- 
 nity of mien, we recognize none of the sordid 
 poverty which is his only birthright. Give to 
 such a being his dish of macaroni, his pure 
 draught of aqua fresca, and the shady side of 
 some antique column, or the cool retreat beside 
 some gushing fountain, where he may enjoy the 
 " dolce far niente '' which makes up his sum of 
 human happiness, and he asks no richer boon. 
 
 Who will say that the gift of comforts and 
 riches and honors would not overcloud his life 
 with misery, if with them was linked the stern 
 necessity of labor, and banishment from the beauty 
 of art and nature which surrounded him in his 
 abasement I Let not the cold utilitarian who 
 measures the value of a man, as he would that of 
 a beast of burden, by his capacity for toil — let him 
 not sneer at the luxurious enjoyment which may 
 be tasted by a beggar. Compare the condition of 
 this idle, reckless, useless being with the honest, 
 hard-working laborer of that land which in the 
 old times of serfdom and feudal slavery was called 
 (and justly too) merry England. 
 
 Look at the stultified countenance, the bowed 
 
A Chapter oh Idleness. 145 
 
 frame, the broken health, the crushed spirit of 
 him who has known nothing but toil; of him 
 who only exchanged an infancy of hardship for a 
 manhood of labor and privation and profligacy; 
 of him who has been trained up to become but a 
 part, a single part, of the vast machine which the 
 wealth of the few has framed at the expense of 
 the many; of him whom long-continued task- 
 work has reduced to the condition of a mere 
 animal, who drags through a miserable existence, 
 only diversified by the debauch, and relieved by 
 the unrefreshing slumber of intemperance or ex- 
 haustion. Look at the condition of him whose 
 powers of endurance are made subjects of medical 
 investigation, in order that not an iota of his 
 physical strength shall be unemployed; whose 
 thews and sinews are tried by the test of selfish 
 cupidity, until the last ounce-weight crushes the 
 sinking frame; whose mind is slowly but surely 
 darkened over by the mists of ignorance and vice, 
 until each lingering trace of the image of God is 
 shut out forever; of him whose death is what we 
 shudder to contemplate. 
 
 You may say the English operative is the more 
 useful member of society. In one sense he is; 
 he is more useful to his taskmaster, he performs 
 more actual service, even as the horse or the ox 
 who patiently treads the stubble and drags the 
 plow. But is this all that is required? Were 
 
146 A Chapter on Idleness. 
 
 men sent into the world to live at another's bid- 
 ding? — to delve the mine, and die within its poison- 
 ous vapors, that a more successful brother may 
 inhale the balmy airs of Fortune's fair domain? 
 Can the soul which is thus trampled under foot of 
 the oppressor retain one spark of the ethereal fire 
 which was breathed into it by the beneficent 
 Creator! Is not the sentiment of religion which 
 fills the mind of the indolent and, it may be, 
 bigoted beggar, who feels the bounty of Heaven in 
 the genial breeze which chills not his unsheltered 
 form, who beholds its power in the miracles of 
 nature, and who sees its glories in the visible 
 objects of his daily worship — is not this merely 
 poetic sentiment of piety better than the dogged, 
 stupid, brutal ignorance and recklessness of him 
 w^ho never knew one idle hour in which to look 
 into the mystic volume of his own wayward heart ? 
 Few persons ever yielded themselves up to the 
 enjoyment of an idle hour such as I have described 
 without deriving benefit from it. There comes to 
 all of us a time when the world seems to darken 
 around us, when cares press wearily upon the 
 spirit, when the eyes are heavy with the weight of 
 unshed tears, when the brow aches beneath its 
 burden of sad thought, when the din of ceaseless 
 duties has dulled the mental ear, and the recurring 
 round of business has dimmed the intellectual 
 vision. All day the work goes on, and nightfall 
 
A Chapter on Idleness. 147 
 
 finds us still paiufully busied. But night closes 
 in, the shadows deepen around us, and as the 
 light of Heaven darkens without, the fire upon 
 our household hearth seems to grow brighter. 
 Familiar objects in our quiet apartment assume 
 that dusky indistinctness which is to material 
 things what the mistiness of romance is to the 
 moral world ; the dull-red firelight diffuses itself 
 more widely ; the tall, ghostly statue which looked 
 coldly and unsympathizingly upon us in the glare 
 of day, now, in its depth of shadow, and tinted by 
 the mellow glow, wears the semblance of a gentle 
 friend; the books which, but an hour since, 
 seemed to look down upon us frowningly, as if in 
 scorn of our baser thoughts, now cluster together 
 in pleasant communion, wooing us to share their 
 banquet; the old chairs seem to hold out their 
 cumbrous arms invitingly; and, ere we are con- 
 scious of the change, we have passed from sadness 
 and despondency to dreamy and delicious reverie. 
 It may be that something too trivial to be noted 
 has called up memories of the past, and we are 
 once more lapped in the Elysium of early happi- 
 ness. It may be that the loved and lost gather 
 around us ; we behold the " dear, familiar faces " 
 which beamed sunshine upon us in the days of 
 passionate emotion ; we clasp the warm hand 
 which death has long since touched with ice; we 
 hear the gentle tones which, save to our hearts, 
 
148 A Chapter on Idleness. 
 
 have long been hushed in silence. The tide of 
 years is rolled back, the treasures of wrecked 
 affection are once more revealed to our eyes ; we 
 are once more children on the shores of Time. 
 What though the awakening from such a dream 
 be pain, sharp and bitter pain? Have we not 
 been withdrawn for one blissful hour from the 
 carking cares which waste but never purify the 
 heart ? And do we not return to our duties with 
 a thoughtful but quiet spirit, blessing Grod that 
 the troubles of this life last but for a season, and 
 that though ^^ heaviness endureth for a night, 
 joy cometh in the morning"! Or suppose that, 
 during our hour of reverie, the thoughts look out 
 into the vague Future. Our first gaze may meet 
 only dim and dusky forms of fear rather than of 
 hope; but gradually the darkness clears away, 
 the mists disappear, and the shadows of beauty 
 come out from the gloom, like the phantasmagoria 
 which amused our childhood. Half-formed pro- 
 jects wear the semblance of perfected and success- 
 ful schemes, good resolves appear like noble 
 actions, unfledged fancies seem plumed with angel 
 pinions, and the heart-warm affections which we 
 are scattering like rose-leaves on the blast, there 
 seem gathered into unfading garlands. The sweet 
 and musical voice of Hope is singing her quiet 
 song in our enchanted ears, nor do we listen less 
 gladly to the strain because it is blent with a tone 
 
A Chapter on Idleness. 149 
 
 caught from memory's pleasant sadness. If the 
 world wears no longer the rosy hues of romance, 
 it is at least tinged with the warm and mellow 
 light which emanates from our household fire, 
 and we awaken from our hour of idleness only to 
 return to busy life with fresh hopes and higher 
 aspirations. Tell me not that such dreams are 
 vain, that they are but the offspring of brain-sick 
 fancy, that they enervate the soul, even as the 
 opium-draught destroys the body. If the mind be 
 justly balanced, if the hours of active employment 
 be properly proportioned to the hours of idleness, 
 if life be made a succession of useful deeds and 
 noble thoughts, if the indulgence of imagination 
 gives a higher tone and loftier aim to the claims 
 of duty and of necessity, then are they not mis- 
 spent and wasted moments. Give me full employ- 
 ment for mind and heart, task my physical powers 
 to their utmost endurance, let me wear my life out 
 in the humblest drudgery of existence, and I would 
 bear all with patience if I could but reserve the 
 occasional luxury of an idle hour, the priceless 
 enjoyment of poetic reverie. 
 
€l)c ^5pirit^25oitti* 
 
 A Fantasy. 
 
 In immeasurable heights above us, 
 At our first birth, the wreath of love was woven, 
 With sparkling stars for flowers. — The Piccolomini. 
 
 Those first affections, 
 Those shadowy recollections, 
 Which, be they what they may, 
 Are yet the fountain-light of all oui' day; 
 Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; 
 Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
 Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
 Of the eternal silence. — Wordsworth. 
 
 HERE is in my possession a very curi- 
 ous book, published some thirty years 
 ago, of which I have never seen but a 
 single copy. It is entitled, '' La Pittura 
 parlante, ovvero II Cuore et lo Spirito^'; which 
 may be literally translated, ^'The Speaking Pic- 
 
The Spirit-Bond. 151 
 
 ture, or The Heart and the Mind." What was the 
 actual end and aim of the writer, I cannot pre- 
 tend to determine, for the work is extremely des- 
 ultory in its character, and evidently unfinished 
 in its design. Perhaps there may be a later vol- 
 ume necessary to the full understanding of the 
 one now in question ; but if there be such a one, 
 I have not yet met with it. The book is filled 
 with graphic sketches of romantic incidents, and 
 reminiscences of impassioned feelings; it is just 
 such a book, in short, as a truthful picture of the 
 heart and mind must ever be,— disclosing many a 
 by-past error, unveiling many a scarce suspected 
 weakness, and arresting many a speculative fancy. 
 From among the various strange things which 
 pleased me in the volume, I have selected one, 
 rather because it was quite unconnected with 
 other parts of the work than from its actual su- 
 periority. It seems like an attempt at developing 
 one of the most beautiful of our fanciful theories 
 of a higher state of being; and in thus offering to 
 the reader a literal translation of this '' Wander- 
 ing of the Mind," I would premise that I have 
 left the main part of the work as yet untouched. 
 I would not destroy a fine piece of mosaic for 
 the sake of exhibiting its component parts, but I 
 would not hesitate to pick up a pebble which the 
 workmen had thrown carelessly aside ; and thus 
 have I done with this glimpse into preexistence. 
 
152 The Spirit-Bond. 
 
 In the boundless realms of space, far, far be- 
 yond the blue ether which confines the limited 
 vision of man, lies the beautiful world where 
 abide the spirits destined to inhabit mansions of 
 flesh in this lower sphere. Perpetual spring reigns 
 in that clime of eternal youth. Fadeless flowers, 
 renewed in fresh beauty by the sweet breath of 
 the evening breeze which closes their delicate 
 petals in slumber, enamel the verdant meads; 
 fruits, such as had their birth in Eden, blush 
 upon every bough j trees of rare beauty, wear- 
 ing every tint of that sweet color which we mor- 
 tals fancy to be most symbolic of hopefulness, 
 stand in changeless verdure; pellucid streams 
 murmur placidly along their grassy banks, or 
 break with pleasant and soothing melody upon 
 the pebbly strand. All things are young, all 
 things are beautiful. The sweet changes of the 
 rosy dawn, the fervent noontide, and the dewy 
 twilight relieve by their varied loveliness the sweet 
 monotony of existence. Night alone — dark, sin- 
 veiling, passion-curtaining night alone — is suf- 
 fered not to shroud with its blackness the glorious 
 bowers of juvenescence. Here in these scenes of 
 bliss dwell the pure and sinless souls which come 
 fresh from the hand of the Almighty, the be- 
 ings of his breath, creatures made in his image, 
 and bearing upon their unsullied brows the signet 
 of Eternity. Here dwell they in happiness, deep, 
 
The Spirit-Bond. 153 
 
 calm, unutterable, until the moment ordained for 
 their entrance into mortal life — the moment when 
 the joys of a sinless nature must be resigned for 
 the duties of an earthly mission. Here dwell they 
 in the perfect peace of love and unity, for never 
 are they placed in solitariness amid these lonely 
 shades. Twin-born, they dwell in pairs, bound 
 together by a sense of inseparable oneness, a 
 consciousness of simultaneous existence 5 and as 
 indissolubly united are those twin spirits in that 
 fair world, as are the soul and body during their 
 continuance in this world of sin and sorrow. Two 
 such spirits suddenly found themselves in ex- 
 istence. They knew not how, they asked not 
 whence, they came ; to be, was sufficient for their 
 happiness. 
 
 They lived — they loved; for in that pure region 
 Life was but another word for Love. They had 
 awakened, as from a deep sleep, to find themselves 
 among creatures resembling their own bright 
 beauty, and a choral hymn of joy had welcomed 
 the advent of the newly created spirits. From 
 that moment they were sentient beings, and the 
 measure of their peaceful days was mutual love. 
 They knew no name, these twin-born spirits. '' My 
 Soul,'' ^^Life of my Soul," '^ Light of my Life," 
 ^^ Mine own sweet Self," — such were the epithets 
 which each bestowed upon the other. Alike were 
 they, too, in form and visage, save that the one 
 
154 The Spirit-Bond. 
 
 had the broad front and noble proportions which 
 in this world appertain to stately manhood, while 
 the other was lower of statnre, finer in the delicate 
 symmetry of limbs, and wore a meek, up-looking 
 tenderness in her bright face. Both were fair, 
 for were they not the untainted, unsullied crea- 
 tures of Grod's hand? Both were goodly to look 
 upon, for were they not sinless and passionless? 
 Happy, thrice happy were those twin souls in that 
 glorious realm of beauty and of love. Few words 
 were needed to express their joyfulness, for they 
 were ever side by side, and the look which beamed 
 from the earnest eyes of one saw its own reflection 
 in the tender glances of the other. Alas! why 
 were they allowed to be so happy ? Why were be- 
 ings already preordained to suffer all the chances 
 and changes of this mortal life — why were they 
 filled with such unutterable joy ? Why were they 
 placed in those regions of bliss, since they were 
 destined so soon to leave those sweet retreats for 
 the bleak, cold wilderness of earth ? Peace, vain 
 questioner ! Seek not to read that which is wisely 
 hidden from thine eyes. Look into thine own 
 heart, and be still 5 for there will be found the re- 
 sponse to aU that thou canst ask. When the cup 
 of earthly felicity has been brimmed to thy thirst- 
 ing soul, has not the wild yearning for some bliss 
 unattained and unattainable made the rich draught 
 almost tasteless! And what was that but a long- 
 
The Spirit-Bond. 155 
 
 ing for the forgotten Amreeta cup from wliicli thou 
 once didst quaff, and whose sweetness yet lingers 
 on thy unsated lips "? When all that earth can give 
 of glory and honor gathers around thy head, does 
 not a vague and undefined vision of something 
 higher still come before thy mental vision, and 
 with its nobler brightness dim the splendor of thy 
 groveling pride"? When misfortune comes upon 
 thee, when the blackness of darkness overshad- 
 ows thee, and no help or hope seems present with 
 thee, hast thou not lifted up thine eye to heaven, 
 and sought to image the peace which belougeth to 
 the children of God, the peace which seemeth to 
 thee less a fancy than a remembrance, the peace 
 which in thy state of sinlessness thou didst once 
 enjoy? Aye, to each and all of us have come 
 these pure aspirations; and how could our dull 
 and blunted faculties have ever been awakened to 
 such lofty visions, if we had not once known what 
 " it hath not entered into the heart of man to con- 
 ceive " ? How could our groveling human nature 
 be ever raised from the mire of sensual indulgence, 
 and lifted up to grasp the hope of immortality, if 
 a dim foreknowledge of its joys did not aid our 
 trembling faith f 
 
 The time came when the twin-born were to enter 
 upon their mission of duty and suffering. Igno- 
 rant of the future as of the past, and dwelling in 
 sweet enjoyment of present peacefulness, they saw 
 
156 The Spirit-Bond. 
 
 not the approaching sorrow. They had wandered 
 together beneath the noontide glow of sunshine 
 nntilj wearied with very joy, they sank to repose 
 beside a murmuring rivulet, which sang its quiet 
 song amid the painted flowers. Clasped in each 
 other's arms, the gentler and fairer spirit reclined 
 her head upon the broad breast where she had 
 ever found protection, and while his lips pressed 
 her brow with the pure, fervent, passionless ten- 
 derness of a brother's love, the wings of sleep over- 
 shadowed them. Deep and tranquil was their 
 slumber ; no evil thing came nigh those innocent 
 and loving creatures ; no prophetic dream sent the 
 image of coming sorrow into their hearts. At 
 the very hour when these fair creatures reposed 
 in their gentle beauty amid the amaranth bowers 
 of eternal youth, — at that very hour a voice of 
 wail awoke in two of those little communities, 
 those pretty microcosms of earth, which we call 
 families. The half-suppressed moan of bitter 
 anguish was heard, and pale and ghastly with 
 mortal pain were the faces of those on whom the 
 curse of womanhood had fallen in all its deepest 
 bitterness. But when did the judgment of God 
 pronounce a curse which his mercy did not con- 
 vert into a blessing on the children of Adam? 
 The anguish has passed away, the feeble voice of 
 prayer and praise ascends to Heaven; for the 
 passionate and loving human hearts are thanking 
 
The Spirit-Bond. 157 
 
 God for the children which have that day been 
 born unto the world. Fearful in its agony was 
 the awakening of those twin-born souls to mortal 
 existence. They had closed their eyes in slumber 
 amid all beautiful and glorious things ; they had 
 lain down in peace and joy, happy and united as 
 at the moment of their creation. They awoke to 
 a sense of insupportable pain ; a weight was upon 
 their free limbs ; and the wings which had once 
 borne them through the ambient air were fallen 
 off. Their eyes looked out from dim and narrow 
 loopholes, and beheld objects dark, gloomy, and 
 strange. Their voices issued in a shrill and dis- 
 cordant wail from lips distorted by suffering. 
 They were imprisoned in flesh, bound in the fet- 
 ters of clay, and their feeble and impotent strug- 
 gles to free themselves from these frightful bonds 
 seemed only the unmeaning gestures of a new- 
 born babe. Their first consciousness was of pain, 
 bodily pain, which till now they could not know; 
 but the next sensation — and it was the most agon- 
 izing — was that of being torn asunder from each 
 other. Their earthly existence was begun; the 
 twin-born souls were dissevered; each was in a 
 prison-house alone ! — alone ! — chained down to 
 suffer, to live, and to die alone ! Oh, what bright 
 and beautiful dreams came to the fancy of these 
 wailing infants as they lay in feeble helplessness 
 amid those who were henceforth to be their friends 
 
158 The Spirit-Bond. 
 
 and kindred ! How many recollections of their 
 prior life brightened their slumbers, and added 
 new pangs to their waking hours ! How many a 
 gleam of heavenly light from the Paradise they 
 had left still lingered upon their enchanted souls ! 
 Yet each knew nought of the other, for their spir- 
 itual nature was now confined within the narrow 
 limit of mortal perceptions. Oceans and moun- 
 tains — barriers which in their preexistent state 
 would have been overpassed with the speed of 
 thought — now lay between those twin-born be- 
 ings who had once breathed with but one impulse. 
 The weight of an oppressive burden crushed their 
 souls within them ; their very voices seemed strange 
 unto themselves, for how could they utter the dic- 
 tates of a pure nature through the imperfect or- 
 gans of feeble mortality? Well is it that all 
 earthly suffering is subject to earthly changes. 
 Well is it that in putting on its garments of flesh, 
 the spirit learns to love its thraldom. Well is it 
 that human anguish is linked with human fickle- 
 ness and forgetfulness. Well was it that the re- 
 membrances of their beautiful world grew fainter 
 and fainter, as the hues of Paradise faded from 
 their souls 5 and that, ere they had learned the 
 articulate shaping of their viewless thoughts, the 
 twin-born had forgotten their birthplace. Time's 
 ceaseless course went on, and the years, which had 
 once fleeted like days in that higher world, now 
 
The Spirit-Bond, 159 
 
 lagged slowly on, until infancy had given place 
 to youth. He whom we have called the manlier 
 spirit was on earth known by the name of Ernest; 
 and goodly was he to look upon, for the spirit 
 within him shone through his noble beauty, and 
 illumined it with heaven's own light. Gifted with 
 genius and with goodness, lofty in principle, gen- 
 tle and tender in heart toward everything that 
 lived, he was also proud, impetuous, wilful, and 
 wayward. Yet the frailties of humanity were in 
 him as the rust-spots on his own polished breast- 
 plate — but for the brightness of the surface they 
 had never been discovered. To see him was to 
 admire him ; to know him was to love him. His 
 words, winged by glorious thought, were borne 
 far and wide through the world ; and ere he had 
 reached the maturity of manhood, he had attained 
 an eminence which to others would have cost a 
 lifelong travail. Different, and yet most strangely 
 similar, was the character of his twin sister in the 
 spirit. That which in Ernest was genius, in Er- 
 nestine never rose beyond the aspirations after a 
 higher existence. The intellectual power which 
 remained to him of his former state of being, in 
 her was only beautiful remembrance. He sought 
 to create, and thus add intensity to an existence 
 which he felt to be lower than his own nature, 
 while she wished only to preserve within her heart 
 of hearts the pure tenderness which makes this 
 
160 The Spirit-Bond. 
 
 life so sweet a scene of ministry to woman. He 
 would fain have made the creatures of his brain 
 to wear the semblance of real and living claimants 
 on human sympathy, and with him to will was to 
 do ; while she only hoped to awaken in other breasts 
 those gentle impulses that thrilled her own. Both 
 were ambitious, but the one sought renown, the 
 other regard. Both were successful, and both 
 lived to feel the vanity of their wishes. Wonder- 
 fully alike were they in their strong will, their 
 generous impulses, their impassioned tenderness 
 of nature, their waywardness of fancy, their fine 
 sense of justice, their truthfulness, their pride, 
 and their longings for a higher state of being. 
 But Ernestine was most unlike, in outward seem- 
 ing, to him of whom she had once been the mir- 
 rored self. Dwarfed and unlovely in person, with 
 a look of habitual suffering in her pale face, she 
 had lost all that glorious beauty which had been 
 hers in her spiritual existence. She was a woman, 
 and deeply sensible of the value of woman's gifts 
 and graces ; she was a woman, and keenly alive to 
 her own personal defects. Can it be doubted that 
 Ernestine was unhappy! They had counted a 
 score of years when, by one of those strange 
 events which wear to mortals the semblance of 
 chance, the twin-born met for the first time upon 
 earth. All trace of their spirit-bond had long 
 since faded from their hearts, and they were now 
 
The Spirit-Bond, 161 
 
 as strangers to each other. Ernest gazed with 
 compassion, half kindly, half contemptuous, upon 
 the pallid, shrinking creature who stood before 
 him. What could he, the proud, the gifted, the 
 admired, — what could he see in the unlovely being 
 who trembled at his look ? His mortal nature was 
 one of passionate emotion; beauty was the very 
 light of his life ; he basked in the smiles of fair 
 women, and quaffed the rich draught of fame from 
 the hands of noble men, until he was sated even to 
 weariness of both. He had nothing but enjoy- 
 ment in life, and his world-satisfied spirit retained 
 no remembrance of its former life, so he looked 
 upon the pale maiden and turned away. But she 
 whose mental vision had been purified by tears, — 
 she who had lived in darkness until her eye had 
 learned to pierce the thick gloom, — could see afar 
 off the vague shadows of the past. A dim remem- 
 brance of that prior life and of that broken tie 
 haunted her lonely spirit, until in the deep secrecy 
 of her woman's heart she acknowledged her spirit- 
 bond. Years again passed on, and wrought out 
 their changes as they swept along. Health had 
 shed its balm upon Ernestine's shrunken frame, 
 and the dwarfed and sickly and sorrowful maiden 
 had now flung off the weight of bodily infirmities 
 which had so cumbered her soaring mind. The 
 thirst of her fevered heart, too, was quenched. She 
 loved and was beloved, even as mortal beings love. 
 
162 The Spirit-Bond. 
 
 She had won the deep and abiding tenderness of 
 one of the noblest of God's creatures, and sons 
 and daughters were growing up around her in 
 infant beauty. Ernest, too, had passed through 
 the ordeal which so severely tries and refines the 
 character. He had concentrated all the passion 
 of his ardent nature upon one object; he had 
 poured out the priceless treasures of his heart 
 and mind at the feet of one who smiled upon the 
 votary, while she trampled on his offering. Vanity 
 taught her to rejoice in her triumph over that 
 noble spirit, but she lacked the soul to appreciate 
 the value of the riches which he proffered. Wear- 
 ied, disgusted, heart-sick, he gathered up his 
 crushed gifts, and locking them within his heart's 
 most secret cell, he sealed with a fearful oath 
 his vow that none should ever again unclose that 
 despoiled treasure-house. Time subdued his wild 
 anguish, but it could not restore his trusting faith. 
 Ernest had drunk the cup of sorrow, and hence- 
 forth he looked upward for his hopes of happi- 
 ness. But opportunity, that double-faced fiend, 
 which sometimes turns on us the features of an 
 angel, and again shows us the distorted visage of 
 a demon, — opportunity, and the thirst for human 
 affection which consumes so many hearts, decided 
 Ernest's destiny. There was a fair and gentle 
 maiden whose lonely and unprotected youth 
 claimed his pitying tenderness. Less for his own 
 
The Spirit-Bond. 163 
 
 sake than for hers — the timid and the trustful — 
 did he woo her to be his bride, and kindly and 
 devotedly did he watch over her comfort and 
 happiness. Fame, and honor, and domestic peace 
 were now the lot of Ernest; while love, and hope, 
 and happiness shed their sunshine over the destiny 
 of Ernestine. Yet there were moments when the 
 one turned with weariness from the peace which 
 to his impetuous spirit seemed like listless indo- 
 lence of soul, and when the other felt her heart 
 grow cold and still amid her happiness. Why 
 was this? Alas! those dim remembrances haunted 
 the secret chambers of their souls. A longing 
 after the perfect sympathy which is found only 
 in spiritual existence wearied their disappointed 
 hearts. Ernest found none to read the volume of 
 his thoughts. His gentle wife would have stood 
 aghast had but a single page of that passion- 
 worded book been revealed to her timid eyes. 
 She might share his kindly emotions, but hidden 
 deep within his bosom were vague desires, half- 
 crushed hopes, wild imaginings, fierce emotions, 
 aye, and maddening passions, which, like the im- 
 prisoned winds, wanted only freedom to make 
 them devastating in their power. And Ernestine, 
 found she not the fullness of sympathy in her 
 heart's deep love? Ah! when did the passion- 
 haunted bosom ever find the sweet repose of per- 
 fect sympathy ? Rare, indeed, is that precious boon, 
 
164 The Spirit-Bond. 
 
 and even when found, rarely is it proffered at the 
 instant when the heart is fainting for its refresh- 
 ment. They who love with the fervors of earthly 
 passion are as those who wander in an atmos- 
 phere of fog and mist. Objects are seen in false 
 positions; their forms change with the shifting 
 clouds, and while the eyes of one of the loving 
 pair may discern the perfect outline of some 
 distant view, the other can see only vagueness. 
 Things wear often a different aspect to the twain, 
 even as on Hartz Mountains one traveler per- 
 ceives at early dawn the Giant of the Hills walk- 
 ing his mystic rounds, while his companion sees 
 in the same image only an indistinct and magni- 
 fied reflex of his own person. It has been most 
 wisely ordered that the bond which unites wedded 
 hearts should be woven of manifold sympathies 
 — sympathies growing out of differences as well 
 as similitudes of character, even as harmony is 
 produced by a skilful introduction of an occa- 
 sional discord in the concord of sweet sounds — 
 sympathies which, when entwined with our best 
 feelings, form a tie which is stronger than the 
 fetter of triple brass. But there is in every heart 
 a ''holy of holies," into which earthly passion 
 never intrudes ; and when we enter in behind that 
 veil, when we find ourselves there alone, the priest, 
 aye, and ofttimes the victim, in that secret sanc- 
 tuary, what wonder if we feel that we would fain 
 
The Spirit-Bond. 165 
 
 find a brother Levite to share our sacred ministry! 
 Even in the most loving hearts there come mo- 
 ments of oppressive loneliness, when we feel that 
 we dwell solitary amid the ruins of our hopes ; and 
 thus must it ever be until this "mortal shall put 
 on immortality/' 
 
 Again th e twin-born met. The world was around 
 them, and cold eyes looked upon them as hand 
 grasped hand in the cordial interchange of kindly 
 greeting ; but a sudden thrill, like that with which 
 the night breeze awakens the harp-string, was 
 felt in the hearts of both. The ordeal of sorrow 
 had been passed, the soul was regaining some 
 of its lost perceptions, the unity of spirit was 
 faintly shadowed forth, and the life of life was for 
 an instant felt, like a pulse in the secret soul. 
 Why should we trace so minutely the earthly ex- 
 istence of those who were united in this spirit- 
 bond! It is but a record of those changes and 
 sorrows which belong to all who live. Griefs 
 came upon them, in many and varied forms. The 
 shadow of Death often darkened their threshold, 
 and their steps became heavy and slow over the 
 dust and ashes of extinguished hopes and affec- 
 tions. Worldly cares beset them, and temptations 
 often resisted, but sometimes too powerful for 
 erring mortal to repel, added the sting of remorse 
 to the bitterness of life. But in proportion as the 
 world lost its hold upon their hearts, did their 
 
166 The Spirit-Bond. 
 
 sympathies in each other strengthen. At first 
 there were brief and blissful meetings, succeeded 
 by intervals of separation, almost of forgetful- 
 nessj then came anew the '^ surprises of sudden 
 joy" when the delicious thrill of spirit-life taught 
 them the presence of a kindred nature. The deep 
 heaviness of soul which fell upon them when in 
 loneliness they indulged their vain longings and 
 aspirations, at length taught them to respect the 
 close-knit sympathies which united them. But 
 never did the stain of earthly passion sully those 
 pure bonds. The dove-like wings of spiritual love 
 are never folded in a myrtle bower; no rose- 
 wreaths fetter its upward flight. Brooding with 
 protecting care over the wayward hearts which 
 are to be purified by suffering, it awaits the mo- 
 ment when it may soar to a holier sphere, and 
 catch on its radiant pinions the light which ema- 
 nates from the tree which standeth by the River 
 of Life in the midst of Paradise. Through many 
 years did the twin-born spirits fulfil their mission 
 of usefulness. The affections of their earthly na- 
 ture were made to minister to the good and hap- 
 piness of all who dwelt within their influence,- 
 while the sense of their higher existence, which 
 grew stronger as the claims of mortal life lost 
 their value, gave them new energy to bear the 
 heat and burden of the day. The world of sin 
 and misery in which they dwelt had sullied and 
 
The Spirit-Bond. 167 
 
 disfigured, but it could not efface, the image of 
 God within their souls. They were weak and 
 erring and sinful creatures, but they were also 
 purified by their ordeal of human suffering. They 
 waited in patient hope the moment when sorrow 
 should have done its work, and when the released 
 spirit should return to the place of its birth. At 
 length the hour came when, with dim eye and 
 failing breath, the strong man lay down to die in 
 his old age. Time had dealt kindly with him, and 
 no infirmity had marred his stately form or weak- 
 ened his noble mind. Calm as an infant on his 
 couch of nightly rest lay Ernest on his bed of 
 death. Children and friends were around him; 
 his gentle and loving wife bent tearfully over 
 him to catch the last faint accents of his voice ; 
 but all outer things were hidden from his glazing 
 eyes. Suddenly a vision passed before the dying 
 man. He saw a form of one like himself in 
 lineaments, yet wearing the softer features of 
 womanhood; but the seal of death was upon her 
 brow, and the old man knew that the mighty 
 hand of the King of Terrors had restored for one 
 brief moment to that pale and faded form its 
 pristine and unsullied loveliness. 
 
 At that instant his eyelids fell; a light like that 
 of a sunbeam, a sudden flashing as if an angel's 
 radiant wing had swept the air, gleamed over his 
 pale face; while a voice, sweet as the summer 
 
168 The Spirit-Bond. 
 
 wind, whispered in his dull ear, "Come, brother, 
 come to the better land." And the spirit obeyed 
 the spirit call. One bright look beamed from his 
 dim eyes, then all waxed gray and ghastly. But 
 high above these dark scenes of sin and misery 
 rose the twin-born spirits. One glance they cast 
 upon the prison-house they had left; one sigh 
 they gave to those who wept with unavailing 
 regret beside their senseless clay; then, folded in 
 each other's arms, they turned their gaze upward : 
 but not to the rosy bowers of uncreated souls. 
 Their earthly mission was fulfilled; their spirits 
 had known the bondage of the flesh; they had 
 found the freedom which belongs to the sons of 
 God ; and now, united Id the bonds of unchange- 
 able love, the twin-born soared to the mansions of 
 eternal happiness which await the created and 
 the redeemed. 
 
25at6am dttman^is 2Dteaiti* 
 
 N the little hamlet of Anneberg, far up 
 ^ among the Erzberges, or Copper Moun- 
 45^*^ tains, of Saxony, there dwelt, once upon 
 a time, a gentle child named Barbara. 
 She was so fair, with such soft blue eyes, such 
 long golden curls, and withal wearing a look of 
 such exceeding sweetness, that the people of the 
 hamlet, who were all miners, or workers in metal, 
 called her by a name that signified the " Lily of 
 the Mines." Barbara was an orphan, a little lone 
 creature whom no one claimed, but whom every- 
 body loved. Her father had been a delver into 
 the depths of the earth, and when she was only a 
 tiny little baby he had kissed her round cheek and 
 gone to his daily labor at early dawn ; but ere the 
 shadows of the dark trees fell toward the eastern 
 slope of the hills, he was brought home mangled 
 and lifeless. The '^ fire-damp " had seized him and 
 his companions; or, as the simple peasants be- 
 
 169 
 
170 Barbara JJttman\s Dream. 
 
 lieved, the demon of the mine had arisen in his 
 might, and torn to pieces the daring spoilers of 
 his treasure-house. Barbara's mother did not 
 long outlive the dreadful sight. She pined away 
 with a dull aching at her heart, and one morning 
 a kind neighbor found the child sleeping calmly 
 on the cold bosom of her dead mother. From that 
 moment the little Barbara became the nursling of 
 the whole hamlet. The good women of the village 
 remembered that she had been born on a Sunday 
 morning, and according to their tender and beau- 
 tiful faith, the "Sabbath-child" had received a 
 peculiar blessing, which was shared, in some de- 
 gree, by all who ministered to her wants. So Bar- 
 bara was the foster-child of many mothers, and 
 found heart-kindred in every cottage. But chiefly 
 did she dwell, after she had grown beyond the 
 swaddling bands of infancy, in the house of the 
 good Gottlieb, the pastor of this little mountain 
 flock of Christians. Barbara grew up a gentle, 
 quiet child, rarely mingling in the noisy sports of 
 the villagers, and loving nothing so well as to 
 steal away to some forest nook, where she would 
 sit for hours looking out upon the rugged face of 
 nature, and weaving dreams whose web, like that 
 of the wood-spider, was broken by a breath. Some 
 said : " Little Barbara is moping for the lack of 
 kindred." Others said more truly: '^ Nay, is she 
 not a blessed Sabbath-child ? It may be that the 
 
Barhara Uttmaii's Dream. 171 
 
 spirit of her dead mother is with her in the lonely 
 places where she loves to abide. Hinder her not, 
 therefore, lest ye break the unseen bond between 
 the living and the dead." So Barbara was left to 
 the guidance of her own sweet wiU, and long ere 
 she had grown beyond childhood she was familiar 
 with all the varied aspects of nature in the wild 
 and beautiful country of her birth. It seemed as 
 if some holy charm had indeed been bestowed on 
 the little orphaned Sabbath-child, for every living 
 thing seemed to recognize in her a gentle and lov- 
 ing companion. All the children of the hamlet 
 loved her, and it was wonderful to see the little 
 shy birds hopping about her feet to pick the 
 crumbs which she always scattered for them in 
 her wanderings. But Barbara was not a merry, 
 light-hearted maiden. Cheerful she was and gen- 
 tle, but not gay ; for a cloud had fallen upon her 
 earliest years, and a shadow from Death's wing 
 had thrown a gloom over her infant life, darkening 
 those days which should have been all sunshine. 
 True, she had found friends to shield her from 
 want, but never did she see a child nestling upon 
 its mother's bosom without feeling a mournfal 
 loneliness of heart. Therefore it was that she 
 loved to steal away to the green foldings of the 
 hills, and hold companionship with the pleasant 
 things of earth, where, in the quietude of her own 
 pure nature, she could commune with herself. 
 
172 Barbara TJttman^s Dream. 
 
 She had early learned to think of her mother as 
 an angel in heaven, and when she looked up to 
 the blue sky, gorgeous in its drapery of gold and 
 purple clouds, or shining with its uncounted mul- 
 titude of stars, she never forgot that she was gaz- 
 ing upon the outer gates of that glorious home 
 where dwelt her long-lost parents. Yet she was 
 not an idle or listless dreamer in a world where 
 all have their mission to fulfil, and where none 
 are so desolate as to have no duties to perform. 
 She learned all the book-lore that the good pastor 
 chose to impart to the little maidens of the hamlet, 
 and no hand was more skilful than hers with the 
 knitting-needle and distaff. Thus she grew up, 
 delicate and fair, with eyes as blue as summer 
 skies, and long, golden locks hanging almost to 
 her feet, for she was as tiny as a fairy in stature. 
 There came sometimes to the cottage of Father 
 Grottlieb a dark-browed man, whose towering form 
 and heavily built limbs gave him the semblance of 
 some giant of the hills. His voice was loud and 
 as clear as a trumpet-call, and his step was bold 
 and firm, like that of a true-born mountaineer. 
 He was the owner of vast tracts in the mine dis- 
 tricts, and stores of untold wealth lay hidden for 
 him in earth's deep caverns. Herr Uttman was 
 stern of visage, and bold — it may be rough — in 
 his bearing, but his heart was as gentle as a 
 woman's. He loved to sit at Gottlieb's board. 
 
Barhara Uttman^s Bream. 173 
 
 and, while partaking of his simple fare, to drink 
 in the wisdom which the good pastor had learned 
 in far-off lands. The wonders of Nature — the 
 mystic combinations that are ever going on in her 
 subterranean laboratory — the secret virtues, or 
 the equally secret venom, which is found in her 
 humblest plants — the slow but unfailing process 
 of her developments, by which the small and 
 worthless acorn grows into the towering oak, and 
 the winged seed lifts its broad pinions in the new 
 form of leafy branches toward the skies — all 
 these things Herr Uttman loved to learn from the 
 lips of the wise old man. Therefore did he seek 
 the pastor's cottage whenever he had leisure to 
 listen to his teachings. 
 
 Uttman's kindly heart had early warmed toward 
 the orphan child of Gottlieb's adoption. He won 
 her infantine love by telling her wild tales of the 
 dark mines, and the fantastic spirits of the nether 
 world. He had tales of the Fire Demon and the 
 Water Dragon, of the Mocking Imp who led poor 
 miners to their destruction by mimicking the voice 
 of a companion, and of the dazzling Cavern Queen, 
 the flash of whose diamond crown, and the gleam 
 of whose brighter eyes, lured the poor workman 
 to a frightful death. To sit on his knee, twining 
 her small fingers in the black curls which fell un- 
 shorn upon his shoulders — to look in his great 
 dark eyes as they gleamed with the enthusiasm of 
 
174 Barbara Uttman\s Dream. 
 
 that half -poetic nature which is the inheritance of 
 a high-hearted mountaineer — to feel herself nest- 
 ling like a dove on his broad breast, and clinging 
 to him half in terror, half in delight, as his strong 
 words brought all those fearful shapes vividly be- 
 fore her eyes — these had been Barbara's pleasures 
 when a little child. But Barbara could not always 
 remain the petted child, and the time came when 
 the budding maiden sat on a stool at Uttman's 
 feet, and no longer leaned her head upon his 
 bosom while she listened to his wild legends. At 
 first Herr Uttman was troubled at the change in 
 Barbara's manner; then he pondered over its mean- 
 ing, and at last he seemed to awaken to a new 
 perception of happiness. So he asked Barbara to 
 be his wife, and though his years doubly numbered 
 hers, she knew that she loved no one half so well, 
 and, with the affection which a child might feel 
 for a tender parent, she gave him the troth-pledge 
 of her maiden faith. Nor was Barbara mistaken 
 in her recognition of his real nature. A rough 
 and stern man did he seem to many, but his heart 
 was full of kindness, and his affections, though re- 
 pressed and silent, yet, like a mountain stream, 
 made for themselves only a deeper channel. He 
 had an abiding love for Nature. He defaced not 
 her fair bosom with the scars of the plow or the 
 pick- ax, but following the course of the dark ra- 
 vine, and entering into the yawning chasm, he 
 
Barbara TJttman^s Dream. 175 
 
 opened his way into earth's treasure-house, leaving 
 the trees to tower from the mountain's brow, the 
 streams to leap down their rocky beds, and the 
 greensward to stretch down the sunny slopes. 
 
 Barbara was as a dove nestling in the branches 
 of a stately tree. No wonder her husband wor- 
 shiped her, for his affections were like a full, deep 
 stream rushing through a mine, and she was like 
 the star which, even at noonday, may be seen re- 
 flected in its depths. She was the angel of his 
 life, the bright and beautiful spirit of truth and 
 love within his household. Years passed on, and 
 Barbara had but one ungratified hope within her 
 heart. God had given her no children, and the 
 tenderness of her nature found no vent save in her 
 kindly charities. To the poor, and needy, and 
 sorrowful she was the friend and benefactress, 
 but her heart sometimes thrilled with a vain re- 
 pining, and she felt a thirst for those pure waters 
 which spring up only in a mother's pathway. One 
 night she was oppressed with sadness, and ere she 
 yielded herself up to sleep, she prayed that this 
 vain longing within her heart might be quenched 
 forever, or find some solace in the duties which 
 lay around her. Scarcely had she closed her eyes 
 in slumber, when her couch was visited by a wild 
 and wonderful dream. She dreamed she was 
 standing within the porch, when a lady clad in 
 shining raiment emerged from the foldings of the 
 
176 Barbara Uttman^s Dream. 
 
 hills and slowly approached her. The lady's face 
 was hidden beneath a snow-white veil of some 
 transparent fabric which, though it seemed as 
 translucent as water, yet, like water, gave an in- 
 distinctness to the object seen through it. But 
 when the strange visitant spoke, her voice thrilled 
 through Barbara's inmost heart, for it w^as the 
 spirit-voice which she had so often heard in her 
 childhood — the voice of her dead mother. It 
 seemed to Barbara that the lady stood close beside 
 her, and then, without fear, Barbara laid her head 
 on the stranger's bosom and clasped her arms 
 around her tall form, while she rather felt than 
 heard these words : ^' Daughter, lift up thine eyes, 
 and behold the children which the Lord hath given 
 unto thee." Barbara raised her head and beheld 
 a train of young maidens clad in the simple cos- 
 tume of the Saxon peasant, and linked together, 
 as it seemed, by webs of the same transparent tex- 
 ture as that which veiled the lady's face. Slowly 
 they passed before her wondering eyes, fading 
 into thin air as they became lost in the distance, 
 but still succeeded by others similarly clad and 
 holding webs of the same delicate fabric, until 
 Barbara's brain grew giddy as the troop swept on 
 unceasingly. Weary with gazing, she closed her 
 eyes, and when she reopened them the maidens 
 had vanished ; only the strange lady in her shin- 
 ing garments was beside her, and she heard a low, 
 
Barbara Uttman^s Dream. 177 
 
 silvery voice saying : ^' They who are called to ful- 
 fil a mission among nations mnst find their sons 
 and their daughters beneath the roof-tree of the 
 poor and the oppressed. Childless art thou, Bar- 
 bara, yet the maidens of Saxony through yet un- 
 counted ages shall call thee mother." Barbara 
 awoke from her dream, but so strongly was it im- 
 pressed upon her memory that she could not ban- 
 ish it from her thoughts for many days. But it 
 had done its work upon her gentle spirit, for from 
 that hour she felt that Heaven had some recom- 
 pense in store for her, and though utterly unable 
 to interpret her vision, she endeavored, by re- 
 doubling her charities, to find for herself children 
 among the needy and sorrowful. But year after 
 year fleeted on, and Herr Uttman's coal-black 
 locks had become almost silver- white, while Bar- 
 bara's cheek had lost nothing of its smoothness, 
 and her golden locks, though gathered beneath a 
 matron's coif, were still as glossy and sunny as in 
 her girlhood (for time seemed to have spared her 
 gentle beauty as if in reverence for the gentle 
 spirit which it had so long clothed in a fitting 
 garb). She had long since forgotten her youthful 
 repinings, for from every cottage in the hamlet 
 had blessings gone up to Heaven upon her who 
 was the friend of the friendless; and though her 
 dream was still vivid in her remembrance, she fan- 
 cied she had already attained its fulfilment in the 
 
 12 
 
178 Barbara Uttman^s Bream. 
 
 gratitude of the poor. " Come with me, sweet 
 wife, and I will show thee a new wonder in the 
 mines," said the good Herr Uttman one summer's 
 morning. Barbara looked up with a pleasant 
 smile : " Have I not threaded with thee all the 
 mazes of the dark mountains, and gathered the 
 glittering spar, the many-tinted stone, and the 
 rough gem ? Are there yet more marvels in thy 
 dark domain ? " " Nay, don thy wimple and hood 
 and thou shalt see." So Barbara went forth with 
 her husband, and he led her to the yawning mouth 
 of a dark cavern in the mountains. Carefully in- 
 folding her in a thick cloak, to protect her from 
 the jagged points of the rocks, he took her in his 
 arms, for he had lost none of his gigantic strength, 
 and bore her like a child into the cavern. For a 
 time they wended their way in what seemed to her 
 total darkness, and she was only conscious of be- 
 ing carried along winding passages where she felt 
 the spray of a subterranean torrent, and heard the 
 dash of its waters in some unfathomed chasm. 
 At length her husband, setting her feet upon a 
 broad ledge of rock, lifted the cloak from her face 
 and bade her look upon the scene before her. 
 Barbara found herself at the entrance of a long 
 gallery in the mine, in the roof of which an aper- 
 ture had been made up to the outer surface of the 
 mountain, and through which a flood of sunshine 
 was pouring down into what seemed a glittering 
 
Barbara Uttman's Bream. 179 
 
 corridor hung with festoons of the most exqui- 
 sitely wrought tapestry. Never had Barbara be- 
 held anything so fantastically beautiful. The 
 sides of the shaft were covered with a half-trans- 
 parent fabric, inwrought with patterns like rich 
 embroidery, through which the gleam of the metal 
 shone like gold, as the sunbeam danced into the 
 cavern depths. It was a gallery in the mine 
 which years before had been closed up and for- 
 gotten. The workmen, while digging an air-shaft, 
 had struck into the disused chamber. Cut in the 
 solid ore, the pillars which supported its roof 
 were carved into grotesque shapes as the whim of 
 the old miners had directed the stroke of their 
 tools. During the years that it had been closed 
 the spiders had taken possession of its walls, and 
 their webs, spun over and over again for more 
 than half a century, had produced a tapestry 
 richer in design and more airy in fabric than ever 
 came from the looms of Ispahan. It needed but 
 little stretch of imagination to behold the vine 
 with its tiny tendrils and drooping fruit, the rose 
 with its buds and leaves, the fantastic arabesque 
 border, and the quaint devices of ancient embla- 
 zoning, in that many-tissued, yet translucent web. 
 Nowhere else could the same humble material 
 have worn the same magical beauty, for the min- 
 gled colors of the ore which formed the walls, and 
 the golden sunshine pouring in through the roof, 
 
180 Barbara TJttman^s Dream, 
 
 tinted the woven tracery with all the hues of the 
 rainbow. Barbara stood entranced before this 
 strange spectacle; but while she gazed, dim and 
 vague recollections came thronging upon her 
 mind. At length all was clear to her. In the 
 webs which adorned the walls of the mine she 
 recognized the beautiful drapery which had veiled 
 the face of her dream-visitant, and had linked to- 
 gether the band of dream-children in former years. 
 A cry of wild surprise broke from her lips, and 
 from that moment she felt that there was a mys- 
 terious connection between her fate and this 
 haunted chamber of the mine. Now when Bar- 
 bara returned to her home, and sat down amid her 
 workwomen, she told of this wondrous fabric 
 woven by the little fairy spinners in the mine. It 
 happened that among the pensioners of her bounty 
 was numbered a certain woman from Brabant who 
 had been driven from her home by the cruelties 
 practised by the Duke of Alva in the Low Coun- 
 tries. In her own country she had learned to 
 weave a coarse kind of lace, and when she heard 
 her lady describe the delicate texture of the spi- 
 ders' webs, she drew forth some flaxen threads, and 
 wove them into meshes resembling somewhat the 
 drapery which Barbara had so much admired. 
 This was all that was wanting to give purpose and 
 definiteness to Barbara's vague fancies. 
 
 They who look with most pleasure on a finished 
 
Barhara TJttman^s Bream. 181 
 
 work are ofttimes most easily wearied witli trac- 
 ing the slow footsteps of the patient laborer. The 
 reader would tire of this faithful chronicle if called 
 to watch the gradual progress of Barbara Utt- 
 man's schemes of wide-spread good. By unwearied 
 toil she made herself acquainted with the means 
 of perfecting the new manufacture, which offered 
 to her prophetic spirit a means of livelihood to the 
 feebler portion of the poor. Going from one im- 
 provement to another, she finally invented the 
 cushion, the bobbins, and the pins by which hand- 
 woven lace is wrought with such perfect sym- 
 metry and regularity of fabric and design as make 
 it, even now, the costliest of all the trappings of 
 wealth. Then, when the invention was perfected, 
 by offering premiums to those who would engage 
 in the work, by establishing manufactories in her 
 own domain, by precept and example, and all the 
 varied means of influence which wealth and virtue 
 had placed within her power, she established the 
 weaving of lace as the special employment of the 
 women of Saxony. Thousands of maidens have 
 found their sole support in this employment, and 
 for nearly three hundred years the name of Bar- 
 bara Uttman has been revered as the ^'mother" of 
 many daughters, and the benefactress of the wo- 
 men of more than one nation in Europe. 
 
 Gentle reader, I have beguiled you with no 
 fictitious tale. In the churchyard of the little 
 
182 Barbara Uttman^s Bream. 
 
 mountain hamlet of Anneberg lie the remains of 
 Barbara Uttman, who was born in 1514, married 
 in 1531 to Christopher Uttman, a rich mine-owner, 
 and died a widow in 1575. A visit to a long dis- 
 used shaft in a mine, where the spiders had woven 
 their webs for fifty years, gave her the first idea 
 of that beautiful fabric which, under the vari- 
 ous names of Mechlin, Valenciennes, and Brussels 
 lace, makes the choicest of aU additions to a lady's 
 toilet. 
 
 It is said that since her establishment of its 
 manufacture in 1560, upward of a million of wo- 
 men are supposed to have obtained a comfortable 
 livelihood by this species of employment. Not- 
 withstanding the introduction of a much inferior 
 kind of lace which is woven by machinery, at 
 least twenty thousand women in Europe annually 
 obtain their support from the manufacture of 
 hand-woven lace. With the far-seeing spirit of 
 true philanthropy a woman thus solved for her 
 country the problem which statesmen yet cavil 
 over, and by affording the poor a means of hum- 
 ble independence, rescued the women of her own 
 land from want and destitution. Yet how few of 
 those who deck themselves with lace only less 
 costly than diamonds have ever heard the name 
 of Barbara Uttman ! 
 
Cljc ^octV otljougljt 
 
 LOOKED within a large and stately 
 apartment, where the time-hallowed me- 
 morials of past ages mingled in quaint 
 confusion with the appliances of mod- 
 ern luxury and taste. Tall and massive cabinets? 
 filled with huge tomes black with age, towered up 
 to the lofty ceiling, while nestling away in corners, 
 like children hiding from the presence of a stately 
 grandame, were slight and fanciful stands, laden 
 with the flimsier volumes of a less earnest, but 
 more progressive era. Tapestry, faded and worn, 
 yet still gorgeous in tint and noble in design, cov- 
 ered the walls, and silken curtains, fresh from the 
 weaver's loom, floated down from the heavy cor- 
 nice that crowned the oriel window. In one corner 
 lay a pile of armor, dented and battered with the 
 
184 The Poefs ThoiigJit 
 
 stroke of battle-ax and spear; beside it were 
 suspended the bow and arrows of an Indian 
 chief 5 on a table beneath were a pair of boxing- 
 gloves and foils ; w^hile leaning against a carved 
 column stood the unerring rifle of a Kentucky 
 hunter. Vases of varied shapes, from the gro- 
 tesque Indian idol to the graceful and beauti- 
 ful Etruscan lacrymatory, gave out the perfume 
 of the flowers which drooped over their curved 
 sides, or the hidden odors which lay within their 
 sculptured cells. An organ stood near the win- 
 dow, and the book upon it was open at Bee- 
 thoven's ^'Soul-Longings," that exquisite music- 
 poem in which one of the master-spirits of the 
 world of harmony has poured forth his yearnings 
 for the Infinite. 
 
 On a curiously carved table in the center of the 
 room were an antique candelabrum and an ala- 
 baster lamp ; but the lights had burned out in their 
 sockets, and the lamp was dying for lack of oil, 
 so that the moon, streaming through the open 
 casement, filled the apartment with those broken 
 shadows and clear, cold lights which only her 
 beams can give. On the balcony beyond the win- 
 dow hung an ^olian harp, and the night breeze, 
 as it stooped to kiss the trembling strings, gave 
 out from its dewy wings the perfume of flowers 
 and the odor of the distant woodlands. The mur- 
 mur of a rushing stream and the rustle of vine- 
 
The Poet's TJiougU. 185 
 
 leaves added their melody to the sweet sounds which 
 pervaded this mystic chamber j and sometimes, as 
 the wind shook the tapestry where lay the glittering 
 corselet and painted shield, a dim sound of martial 
 clangor miugled with the gentler music. While I 
 gazed, methought mine eye gradually adapted it- 
 self to the deep shadows, and many things unseen 
 before became clearly visible. Oaken cabinets, 
 made priceless in value by the skill of the cunning 
 workman ; golden caskets, whose chiseling far out- 
 vied the richness of the metal ,• gems, many-hued, 
 and each bearing in its central heart that living 
 tongue of fire which attests its purity; pearls, scat- 
 tered around like foam upon the wave — all that 
 earth, ocean, air could give of rich, and rare, and 
 marvelous, was gathered there in that wondrous 
 apartment. At last, when I was well nigh aweary 
 of this lavishment of wealth, I beheld emerging from 
 the midst of these surroundings (even as figures 
 in a time-stained picture come forth at the touch 
 of water) the form, of him who daily dwelt among 
 them. None but a poet could inhabit such a spot ; 
 none but a poet could gather around him things 
 so various, so beautiful, so quaint; none but a 
 poet could create the atmosphere which harmo- 
 nized all these incongruities, — alas ! none but a 
 poet could wear the worn and weary look of a 
 watcher of the stars, a prophet unto the deaf and 
 unbelieving. Stately and noble was the form that 
 
186 The Poefs Thought 
 
 I now looked upon, bnt the limbs were cramped 
 with long inaction, and the hand that conld once 
 guide with equal force the falchion's glittering 
 edge, or the pen's keen point, now hung nerveless 
 and feeble. The light of his eye was faded, and 
 the furrows of painful thought rose upon his 
 brow. He had grown weary of his lofty but un- 
 satisfying task. He had wasted his life in the 
 search after perfect utterance ; he had coined his 
 heart into words, but they had met with no re- 
 sponse. Suddenly, while I looked upon him, the 
 moon sank beneath the horizon, and the room was 
 left in total darkness. Then rose the murmured 
 voice of supplication. He had learned to distrust 
 his own strength, he had discerned the weakness 
 of the broken reed on which he had leaned when 
 in his own might alone he sought to do good; 
 and now the poet prayed. He prayed for strength 
 from Heaven to work out his appointed mission, 
 and power to fulfil his lofty destiny. Even while 
 the words yet lingered on his lips, the chamber 
 was filled with a radiance brighter, richer, lovelier 
 than the world could bestow ; for beside the faint- 
 ing poet stood a being from whose wings were 
 shed the many-tinted glories of paradise. Beau- 
 tiful beyond description was this new and perfect 
 creation of the poet's soul. The loveliness of 
 woman was upon its countenance ; the fresh glad- 
 ness of childhood smiled from its bright lip and 
 
The Poet's Thought 187 
 
 sunny brow; the symmetry of a young Apollo 
 molded its exquisite limbs. A moment it bent 
 over him who had called it into being. One kiss 
 upon his brow, one touch upon his heart, and the 
 fire returned to his eye, the vigor to his limbs, and 
 he rose exultingly to his feet. " Go forth " — these 
 were the w^ords which burst from his trembling 
 lips — ^'go forth unto all men; thou art the out- 
 ward symbol of my soul's ideal, — go forth! Speak 
 unto the souls of all mankind, for thou art made 
 after their semblance and canst awaken their sym- 
 pathy; thou art filled with the divine essence, 
 and canst lift them from their groveling estate. 
 As for me, I have wrought out my allotted task. 
 I wait now for the response which is my reward. 
 Let me but awaken one pulse in the world's great 
 heart, and I am content to die." Methought the 
 power was given unto me to trace the progress of 
 this spirit-messenger; and first I saw it enter the 
 streets of a great city — as if there, where the heart 
 of humanity already beat with a quickened and 
 fevered pulsation, it could be touched to the finer 
 issues of poetry. I saw the beautiful shape enter 
 the gloomy warehouse of the busy merchant. It 
 rested for a moment on the open page of his 
 ledger, and he paused in his calculations while he 
 gazed on the fair creature thus intruding itself 
 into the haunts of sordidness. There was softness 
 in his eye, and there was tenderness in the touch 
 
188 The Foefs Thought 
 
 with which he put his gentle visitant aside, and 
 said, ^' At a more convenient season I will listen to 
 thee." But the business of life was going on 
 around him, and the vision vanished from his 
 thoughts as from his presence. It went on — 
 that lovely thought — until it reached the abode 
 of him whose voice was listened to with reverence, 
 as the true exponent of complex human laws. He 
 turned aside from the ponderous volumes in which 
 he was half buried; he took the fair creature a 
 moment to his bosom ; its touch thrilled his'heart 
 and brain, and when the moment came for him 
 to speak unto the people, the power of that touch 
 was shown in the godlike thunders of his elo- 
 quence. But there came no response to the dis- 
 tant poet's listening ear, for the speaker knew not 
 how much he owed to the wandering Thought. 
 He knew not that its fresh, cool touch upon his 
 fevered brow had healed his latent malady and 
 called forth his latent power. Therefore he had 
 no thanks, no response, for him who had sent 
 forth this sweet minister of good. The wander- 
 ing Thought went on ; it entered the chamber of 
 him who had been chosen to be a priest of the 
 living God, and its many-hued wings shed new 
 and lovelier light upon the pages of the blessed 
 gospel. Truths before but dimly seen by the 
 lamp of reason now came forth in the full splen- 
 dors of faith, and the preacher felt many things 
 
The Poefs TJiought 189 
 
 which he had hitherto only known. His voice grew 
 louder in warning, his tones deeper in remon- 
 strance, as if his lips had been touched by "a live 
 coal from the altar." He spake as he had never 
 spoken before, and men trembled before the power 
 of his words. But he recognized not the spirit 
 which had transfused into him this power. He 
 knew not that the poet's thought had interpreted 
 the dark sayings of the oracle of God; he gave 
 back no response unto him who had looked back- 
 wardy and onward, and upward ere he had sent 
 forth his messenger of light. Again the Thought 
 went on; it rested at the side of the statesman, 
 and he learned sympathy with his kind. The wel- 
 fare of humanity, and not the well-being of a tiny 
 section of earth, now filled his loftier dreams and 
 gave majesty to his projects. He had been 
 taught to feel as well as to think. He had been 
 brought back to a sense of his own responsi- 
 bility. He remembered that the wheel of pro- 
 gression rolls on and on, in God's own time. A 
 child may fling pebbles which seem to retard its 
 course, or the united force of human intellect may 
 seem to urge it forward with destructive speed, 
 yet still these are but agents of almighty will. 
 But in the grandeur of the thoughts which un- 
 folded themselves before him— in the contempla- 
 tion of mankind in its multitudinous masses — he 
 forgot the gentle fantasy which had first awak- 
 
190 The Poefs Thought. 
 
 ened his nobler perceptions, and he gave forth no 
 response. To the soldier came the Thought, and 
 the love of country grew into a religion. He 
 awoke to deeds of high emprize, but in the din of 
 battle he heard not the ^' still small voice " that 
 called him to his post, and he died on the blood- 
 stained field gloriously and grandly, yet with no 
 recognition of the inspiriting director of his des- 
 tiny. Beside the easel of an artist now paused 
 the wandering Thought. As its shadow fell upon 
 the vacant canvas, a scene of ideal beauty was 
 traced thereon, while the gorgeous coloring of its 
 waving pinions flung tints beyond a painter's 
 dreaming. As if inspired, the artist snatched his 
 pencil. He fixed the fleeting shadow in the living 
 hues, and lo ! he has wrought a picture for im- 
 mortality. But did he utter his blessing on the 
 poet's dream? Alas! did he even remember the 
 bright creation of his brother's soul in the more 
 visible beings that grew beneath his own hand? 
 Now the Thought turned aside from the lofty 
 course it had first held, and sought the by- 
 paths of life. It entered the sweet seclusion 
 where woman sat among her babes, ministering 
 blessings during every hour of her blameless life. 
 Not unwelcome came the Thought to many 
 such. Its gentle influence gave depth and strength 
 to a feeble nature, and the lips which had once 
 breathed the inarticulate murmurs of a mere in- 
 
The Foefs TJwugU. 191 
 
 stinct now uttered the earnest language of a love 
 born for eternity. But the accents of woman's 
 response were too faint to reach the poet's ear. 
 If they blest the messenger of God, their blessing 
 died upon the summer air, and no tone was borne 
 afar upon the rushing winds. Still the Thought 
 went on. It paused at the dwelling of the peas- 
 ant; it stood beside the loom of the artisan, and 
 the anvil of the smith ; it shed light around the 
 earth-entombed miner; it brightened the gloom 
 of poverty. Above the pillow of the death- 
 doomed it poured the glory of an Ideal soon to 
 be realized in heaven. Amid the perplexities of 
 worldly care it appeared as a luminous guide to 
 higher hopes. To all, save those whose hearts 
 were as the nether millstone, it came with a bless- 
 ing and a power. The whole world was purer and 
 better and brighter for that beautiful and wan- 
 dering Thought. A change now came over my 
 vision — the Thought had gone beyond my ken, 
 and again the mystic chamber was before me. 
 Methought its quaint plenishing seemed more 
 shadowy than before ; an atmosphere of vague- 
 ness was around; things seemed blending one 
 with another, until the memorials of the past 
 and the present, the riches of olden time and 
 the treasures of yesterday, were mingled in dim 
 indistinctness, as if all were slowly fading away 
 like the shadows of a phantasmagoria. But amid 
 
192 The Poefs Thought 
 
 them all, and as it seemed fading away like them, 
 sate the Poet in his accustomed place, awaiting the 
 response which was to be his guerdon for lifelong 
 self-sacrifice. He was wasted and wan, for life 
 was ebbing fast away. Every pulse of his heart 
 was now like the repeated stroke of death, for the 
 convulsive strength which sent the thickened 
 blood through his frozen veins was but the last 
 effort of worn-out existence. He knew that he 
 must die, — already the film was gathering over 
 his eye, and the gray ghastliness which is the 
 shadow of Death's wing had settled upon his 
 brow; he knew that he must die, but to die with- 
 out one tone of human sympathy to cheer the pass- 
 ing spirit, — to die ere one response had reached 
 him from that pervading soul of humanity for 
 which he had lived and toiled, — this was the sting 
 of death. In that fearful moment when all con- 
 sciousness of the outer world had passed away, 
 came back the beautiful wandering Thought. The 
 gleam of its wings fell around the darkening 
 chamber, and the face of the Poet shone as the 
 face of an angel. The night breeze shook the 
 chords of the harp that hung above his head, and 
 on the wild, rich music which echoed from its 
 strings his spirit passed from earth. Then me- 
 thought, as the darkness of the grave settled for- 
 ever upon that mystic chamber, I heard a sound 
 of blessing and thankfulness and love, as from 
 
The PoeVs Thought. 
 
 193 
 
 the mingled voices of multitudes afar off; and 
 something whispered : 
 
 ^'Not until the burden of mortality be cast aside 
 can the gifted spirit hear the response which re- 
 sounds through the deep caverns of eternity , and 
 welcomes the exile back to his native heaven." 
 
 13 
 
€f)e 5panc^25uHtia:» 
 
 A poet's wreath shall be thine only crown, 
 A poet's memory thy most far renown. 
 
 — Lament of Tasso. 
 
 'N the olden time of the world there 
 stood on the ocean border a large and 
 flourishing city, whose winged ships 
 brought daily the costly merchandise 
 of all nations to its overflowing storehouses. It 
 was a place of busy, bustling life. Men were 
 struggling fiercely for wealth, and rank, and lofty 
 name. The dawn of day saw them striving each 
 for his own separate and selfish schemes; the 
 stars of midnight looked down in mild rebuke 
 upon the protracted labor of men who gave them- 
 selves no time to gaze upon the quiet heavens. 
 One only of this busy crowd mingled not in their 
 toil — one only idler sauntered carelessly along 
 the thronged mart, or wandered listlessly by the 
 sea-shore ; Adonais alone scorned to bind himself 
 
 194 
 
The Fane-Builder. 195 
 
 by fetters which he could not fling aside at his 
 own wild will. Those who loved the stripling 
 grieved to see him waste the springtime of life in 
 thus aimlessly loitering by the wayside, while the 
 old men and sages would fain have taken from 
 him his ill-used freedom, and shut him up in the 
 prison-house where they bestowed their madmen, 
 lest his example should corrupt the youth of the 
 city. But for all this Adonais cared little. In 
 vain they showed him the craggy path which 
 traversed the hill of fame ; in vain they set him 
 in the foul and miry roads which led to the tem- 
 ple of Mammon. He bowed before their solemn 
 wisdom, but there was a lurking mischief in his 
 glance as he pointed to his slender limbs and 
 feigned a shudder of disgust at the very sight of 
 those rugged and distasteful ways. So at last he 
 was suffered to wend his own idle course, and 
 save that careful sires sometimes held him up as 
 a warning to their children, his fellow-townsmen 
 almost forgot his existence. Years passed on, 
 and then a beautiful and stately fane began to 
 rise in the very heart of the great city. Slowly it 
 rose, and for a while they who toiled so intently 
 at their daily business marked not the white and 
 polished stones which were so gradually and 
 silently piled together in their midst. It grew, 
 that noble temple, as if by magic. Every morn- 
 ing dawn shed its rose-tints upon another snowy 
 
196 The Fane-Builder. 
 
 marble which had been fixed in its appointed 
 place beneath the light of the quiet stars. Men 
 wondered somewhat, but they had scarce time to 
 observe, and none to inquire. 
 
 So the superb fabric had nearly reached its 
 summit ere they heard, with unbelieving ears, 
 that the builder of this noble fane was none other 
 than Adonais the idler. Few gave credence to 
 the tale ; for whence could he, the vagrant and 
 the dreamer, have drawn those precious marbles, 
 incrusted as they were with sculpture still more 
 precious, and written over with characters as 
 inscrutable as they were immortal? Some set 
 themselves to watch for the fane-builder, but their 
 eyes were heavy, and at the magic hour when the 
 artist took up his labors their senses were fast 
 locked in slumber. Yet silently, even as the tem- 
 ple of the mighty Solomon, in which was never 
 heard the sound of the workman's tool, so rose 
 that mystic fane. Not until it stood in grand re- 
 lief against the clear blue sky ; not until its lofty 
 dome pierced the clouds, even a mountain-top ; not 
 until its polished walls were fashioned within and 
 without to surpassing beauty, did men learn the 
 truth and behold in the despised Adonais the 
 wonder-working fane-builder. 
 
 In his wanderings the dreamer had lighted on 
 the entrance to that exhaustless mine whence 
 men of like soul had drawn their riches for all time. 
 
The Fane-Builder, 197 
 
 The highest treasures of poesy had been given to 
 his grasp, and he had built a temple which should 
 long outlast the sand-heaps which the worshipers 
 of Mammon had gathered around them. But even 
 then, when pilgrims came from afar to gaze upon 
 the noble fane, the men of his own kindred and peo- 
 ple stood aloof. They cared not for this adornment 
 of their birthplace ; they valued not the treasures 
 that had been gathered together. Only a few en- 
 tered the vestibule, and saw the sparkle of jewels 
 which decked the inner shrine ; or they to whom 
 the pilgrims recounted the priceless value of these 
 gems in other lands— only they began to look with 
 something like pride upon the dreamer Adonais. 
 But not. without purpose had the fane-builder 
 reared this magnificent structure. Within those 
 costly walls was a veiled and jeweled sanctuary. 
 There had he enshrined an idol— the image of a 
 bright divinity — which he alone might worship. 
 Willingly and freely did he admit the pilgrim and 
 the wayfarer to the outer court of his temple; 
 gladly did he offer them refreshing draughts from 
 the fountain of living water which gushed up in 
 its midst 5 but never did he suffer them to enter 
 that "holy of holies," never did their eyes rest 
 on that enshrined idol in whose honor all these 
 treasures were gathered together. In progress of 
 time, when Adonais had lavished all his wealth 
 upon his temple, and when with the toil of gath- 
 
198 The Fane-Builder. 
 
 eriug and shaping out her treasures his strength 
 had well nigh failed him, there came a troop of 
 revilers and slanderers — men of evil tongue, who 
 swore that the fane-builder was no better than 
 a midnight robber, and had despoiled other tem- 
 ples of all that adorned his own. The tale was as 
 false and foul as they who coined it ; but when 
 they pointed to many pygmy fanes which now 
 began to be reared about the city, and when men 
 saw that they were built of like marbles to those 
 which glittered in the temple of Adonais, they 
 paused not to mark that the fairest stones in these 
 new structures were but the imperfect sculptures 
 which the true artist had scorned to employ, or 
 perhaps the chippings of some rare gem which in 
 his affluence he could fling aside. 
 
 So the tale was hearkened unto and believed. 
 They whose dim perceptions had been bewildered 
 by this new uncoined and uncoinable wealth, were 
 glad to think that it had belonged to some far-off 
 time, or some distant region. The envious, the 
 sordid, the cold, all listened, well pleased, to the 
 base slander j and they who had cared little for 
 his glory made themselves strangely busy in 
 spreading the story of his shame. Patiently and 
 unweariedly had the dreamer labored at his pleas- 
 ant task, while the temple was gradually growing 
 up toward the heavens ; skilfully had he polished 
 the rich marbles and graven upon them the in- 
 
The Fane-Builder. 199 
 
 effaceable characters of truth. But the jeweled 
 adornments of the inner shrine had cost him more 
 than all his other toil, for with his very heart's 
 blood had he purchased those costly gems that 
 sparkled on his soul's idol. 
 
 Now, wearied and worn with bygone suffering, 
 he had no strength to stand forth and defy his 
 revilers. Proudly and silently he withdrew from 
 the world and entered into his own beautiful fane. 
 Presently men beheld that a heavy stone had been 
 piled against the door of the inner sanctuary, and 
 upon its polished surface were inscribed these 
 words : ^' To Time the Avenger ! " 
 
 From that day no one ever again beheld the 
 dreamer. Pilgrims came as before, and rested 
 within the vestibule, and drank of the springing 
 fountain 5 but they no longer saw the dim outline 
 of the veiled goddess in the distant shrine — only 
 the white and ghostly glitter of that threatening 
 stone, which seemed like the portal of a tomb, 
 met their eyes. Thus years passed on, and men 
 had almost forgotten the name of him who had 
 wasted himself in such fruitless toil. At length 
 there came one from a country far beyond the 
 seas, who had set forth to explore the wonders of 
 all lands. He lacked the pious reverence of the 
 pilgrims, but he also lacked the cold indifference 
 of those who dwelt within the shadow of the tem- 
 ple. He entered the mystic fane, he gazed with 
 
200 The Fane-Builder, 
 
 unsated eye upon the treasures it contaiued, and 
 his soul sought for greater beauty. With daring 
 hand he and his companions thrust aside the mar- 
 ble portal which guarded the sanctuary. At first 
 they shrunk back, dazzled and awe- stricken, as the 
 blaze of rich light met their unhallowed gaze. 
 Again they went forward, and then — what saw 
 they? Surrounded by the sheen of jewels, glory- 
 ing in the light of the diamond, the chrysolite, the 
 beryl, the ruby, they found an image fashioned 
 but of common clay, while extended at its feet lay 
 the skeleton of the fane-builder. Worn with toil 
 and pain and disappointment, he had perished at 
 the feet of his idol. It may be that the scorn of 
 the world had opened his eyes to behold of what 
 mean materials was shapen the divinity he had 
 so honored. It may be that the glitter of the 
 gems he had heaped around it had perpetuated 
 the delusion which had first charmed him, and he 
 had thus been saved the last, worst pang of wasted 
 idolatry. It matters not. He died — as aU such 
 men must die — in sorrow and in loneliness. But 
 the fane he has reared is as indestructible as 
 the soul of him who lifted its lofty summit to the 
 skies. "Time the Avenger" has redeemed the 
 builder's fane ; and even the men of his own na- 
 tion now believe that a prophet and a seer once 
 dwelt among them. When that great city shall 
 have shared the fortunes of the Babylons and 
 
The Fane-Builder, 201 
 
 Ninevelis of olden time, that snow-white fane, 
 written all over with characters of truth, and 
 graven with images of beauty, will yet endure; 
 and men of new times and new states shall learn 
 lessons of holier and loftier existence from a pil- 
 grimage to that glorious temple, built by spirit 
 toil, and consecrated by spirit-worship and spirit- 
 suffering. 
 
€l)e CljilbV ^i^^ioit^ 
 
 The babe which was born into the world but yesternight 
 may be reaped by the sickle of Death on the morrow, nathe- 
 less it hath fulfilled its mission, for our Heavenly Father 
 doeth nausrht in vain. 
 
 N a secluded part of a certain great 
 city there once abode a solitary stu- 
 dent. From boyhood he had hived 
 up knowledge even as the bee gathers 
 honey, and year after year he had won from his 
 accumulated store new strength to pursue his 
 unremitted toil. Not in one field only had he 
 sought for wealth: wherever man could labor 
 there had he been found. He had gathered 
 golden sands from the rivers that rolled their 
 bright waters through classic ages 5 he had scaled 
 the moldering battlements of feudal times and 
 won many a trophy of barbaric chivalry ; he had 
 glided into the cloister and possessed himself of 
 202 
 
The Child's Mission. 203 
 
 the guarded lore of monastic wisdom ; he had 
 climbed the broken columns of antiquity, and 
 beneath the gathering mosses of time had read 
 the mysterious records of the mighty past. Of 
 what avail was all his toil ? The sands were 
 gathered, but he molded them not with a golden 
 image of ideal beauty. The relics of olden time 
 were only as broken pieces of mail, which he 
 sought not to combine into armor of proof. The 
 illuminated manuscript, though legible to his eyes, 
 was still an emblazoned mystery to his fellow- 
 men. The inscriptions from which he had swept 
 the veiling moss and ivy were yet but meaning- 
 less scratches to the gaze of others. Content 
 with accumulating, he was like the miser who 
 hoards with equal care his precious treasure, 
 whether it be of gold, or silver, or copper. Yet 
 the student was not without his cherished dream 
 of ambition. He would fain heap up knowledge 
 until the vast pile should be as a pyramid, solemn? 
 mysterious, awe-inspiring to the whole world; 
 then /Would he engrave his name on the imper- 
 ishable memorial of his lifelong labors. Such 
 was the hope, such the scheme of the cold, the 
 selfish, the unsympathizing student. He wished 
 not to enlighten his fellow-men 5 he devised no 
 plan for the progress of suffering humanity; he 
 brought not the mechanism of science to the 
 work of moral advancement. For himself only 
 
204 The Child's Mission. 
 
 did he labor; for himself only did he seek dis- 
 tinction ; for his own aggrandizement did he con- 
 centrate his whole being upon this absorbing 
 search after world-wide knowledge. Is it any 
 marvel, therefore, that the heart of the student 
 grew cold and dead within him? — that all the 
 sweet charities of life were to him but as the 
 forms of some despised or unknown religion f — 
 that the gentler affections of humanity seemed 
 but as tethers on the eagle wing of intellect? 
 Like the miner who, while he digs the bright 
 silver from its bed, loses in the deadly atmos- 
 phere that surrounds it all power to enjoy the 
 pleasures it might purchase, so did he apply him- 
 self to his life-wasting toil, until the hue of health 
 left his cheek and his form was bowed with in- 
 firmity, while gray hairs untimely strewed his 
 hollow temples. As the light of knowledge 
 brightened within him, the fire of heaven grew 
 pale within his soul. His mind was full of 
 strength, but the spirit which God had given 
 him folded its wings in helpless weakness. He 
 learned to doubt everything which came not by 
 the evidence of his senses or the cold calculations 
 of reason. Love and faith, those indwellers of 
 the soul, were but as shadows which he could not 
 grasp with his intellect, and therefore regarded 
 but as visions of poetic fancy. The claims of the 
 failing body he despised and disregarded. The 
 
Tlie GUlcVs Mission. 205 
 
 existence of the imperishable soul he disbelieved, 
 and iu the pride of mental power he imagined 
 himself to be as a god, knowing good and evil ! 
 In all great cities wealth is ever found tower- 
 ing above the humble asylum of poverty; so it 
 happened that the student's narrow and comfort- 
 less apartment overlooked a fair garden which 
 stretched back from a stately mansion near. It 
 was not a trim and garnished plot, where every 
 flower was trained with formal propriety and 
 taught to adorn its parterre, even as a beauty 
 would deck a ball-room. The master of this pleas- 
 ant domain had sought to shut out the sight of 
 his poorer neighbors, so he had planted rare trees, 
 and gathered together curious shrubs and climb- 
 ing plants, until the whole place was like a ver- 
 dant labyrinth. The student little knew how 
 unconsciously the influences of nature wrought 
 upon him from this, her sweet retreat ; he knew 
 not that the soul whose existence he doubted was 
 winning new life from the humble ministry of 
 those waving trees whose shadows fleckered the 
 page on which he looked, and those twining blos- 
 soms which crept even to the casement beside 
 which he leaned. He had been wont to study 
 nature with the cold eye of science, to dissect the 
 fair frame of her varied loveliness, to analyze 
 her every gift. Like the wise king, he could dis- 
 course of all things, ^' from the cedar of Lebanon 
 
206 The Child's Mission. 
 
 to the hyssop that groweth upon the wall '^ ; but 
 he spoke as the sage, not as the lover of the beau- 
 tiful. A veined leaf, a glowing blossom, brought 
 him no suggestions from the world of freshness 
 and beauty to which it belonged. To him crea- 
 tion was but a great laboratory, and nature only 
 a skilful workman evolving gases into varied 
 forms of beauty and usefulness. Such was the 
 daily exercise of his mind ; but his spirit, feeble 
 as it had grown from neglect, had yet something 
 left of its purer and better life ; therefore did the 
 sweet breath of the summer flower, and the whis- 
 pered voice of the evening breeze, save God's 
 lamp within him from utter extinction. It was 
 the evening of a sultry summer day, a thunder- 
 storm had cleared the heavy air, and passing off 
 in broken clouds had hung the western sky with 
 drapery of gorgeous purple and gold, as if cur- 
 taining the glorious couch of the weary sun. 
 Every leaf, every blade of grass, bore a gem which 
 sparkled in the slant beam, as if earth would fain 
 show how lavish were her riches, when even her 
 tiniest children could be so adorned. The stu- 
 dent sate by his casement, wearied, but still oc- 
 cupied in mental toil, when he espied a fairy- 
 like child amid the green boughs of the garden 
 beneath. Perhaps at another moment he would 
 scarce have noticed the little maiden, but now 
 her golden curls, her fair brow, her soft blue 
 
The ChiWs Mission. 207 
 
 eyes, and the radiant sunniness of her whole 
 countenance harmonized so exquisitely with the 
 sparkling gladness of nature, that he could not 
 choose but observe it. 
 
 For the first time the idea came to him that 
 earth might contain human flowers. But the 
 thought was as transient as the image that gave 
 it birth, for a merry laugh rang through the 
 thickets, and the child was gone. 
 
 But the next day and the next she appeared 
 among the leafy labyrinths, until the student 
 learned to look for her sweet face and listen for 
 her merry voice. True, she was nothing to him ; 
 she saw not the pale brow of the weary man as 
 he sate behind the veiling leaves to gaze upon her 
 loveliness. Nor did the student think of her, 
 even while he was awaiting her presence. His 
 thoughts were with his books, entangled in the 
 cumbrous machinery of his ambitious dreams. It 
 was rather as a consciousness, a dim perception 
 of the soul, that the little maiden came to his 
 loneliness. He did not think of her, but he had a 
 vague feeling of pleasantness in her presence. It 
 was like a new feature added to the garden 5 and 
 as if a fountain of sweet waters had sprung up in 
 its midst, so did the child unconsciously refresh 
 his spirit. I have said that the student was cold 
 and selfish, but he was also poor and proud. He 
 had suffered contumely; he had endured want ; he 
 
208 The Child's Mission. 
 
 had found none of the sympathy without which 
 warm hearts cannot live, and with which the cold- 
 est hearts will give out something of tenderness. 
 He did not hate his kind, but he despised them. 
 He had no fellowship with man, no love for wo- 
 man. He sought to rise above them by the mas- 
 tery of the mind ; he would fain have ruled, not 
 influenced, their opinions. They should respect, 
 admire, wonder at the neglected student, but they 
 should never come near enough to behold him as 
 their fellow. Such were his feelings ; yet, with a 
 strange impulse, he had seemed drawn toward this 
 child, as if there was a link slowly forging which 
 should hereafter bind him to humanity. 
 
 The season of flowers had passed away, and the 
 many-colored veil of autumn was flung over the 
 fair garden. Then came the Indian summer, with 
 its soft mists, blending at morn and eve the varied 
 hues of the landscape, and giving a tone of ten- 
 derness to the radiant brilliancy of nature. 
 
 With all these changes of time the gentle child 
 associated herself. She was like a sunbeam, dif- 
 fusing light and cheerfulness wherever her pres- 
 ence came. Hour after hour, day after day, the 
 happy creature went dancing and singing amid 
 the green aisles of that secluded garden. Of the 
 world beyond those leaf -tapestried walls she knew 
 nothing, but within all was beauty and blessed- 
 ness to her pure and sunny nature. Winter came, 
 
The Child's Mission. 209 
 
 and the trees stood naked and desolate, while the 
 vines hung leafless from their trellises, and a 
 heavy covering of snow hid the enameled par- 
 terres. The child sported no longer in the gar- 
 den, and the student missed the gleeful voice of 
 her who had been the unconscious companion of 
 his solitude. Hitherto the stately mansion, with 
 its proud owners and its host of servants, had 
 never won even his passing attention ; but now 
 he was glad that the verdureless trees afforded 
 glimpses of the windows where he sometimes saw 
 the sweet, bright face of the little maiden. The 
 house had an inclosed terrace, where, sheltered by 
 glazed casements from the weather, many choice 
 plants w^ere imprisoned during the dreary winter j 
 and there, half hidden, like a bird among the 
 blossoms, he often beheld the happy child. Some- 
 times, too, there was beauty and brightness enough 
 in the winter landscape to win her forth into the 
 frosty air. Then, in hood and muffler, with her 
 rosy face looking out from its wrappings, like a 
 lovely picture set in a quaint frame, she would 
 glide over the ice in the garden walks, or gather 
 up the soft, wool-like snow in her dimpled hands 
 to startle the fond old grandfather who watched 
 her sports. Once she stood as if entranced by a 
 sudden sense of almost mystic beauty. A heavy 
 rain had fallen during the day, and, congealing 
 upon the shrubs and trees, had covered every 
 
 14 
 
210 The Child's Mission. 
 
 twig with the richest frostwork. Night came on, 
 clear and cold, while a bright moon gave to the 
 fantastic tracery an enameling of silvery luster. 
 It was like a scene of fairyland ; and there, amid 
 this calm, silent, spiritual-looking magnificence, 
 stood the gentle child, with her eyes upturned, 
 her hands clasped, her foot lifted, as if she had 
 paused in mid-career, awe-struck by this wonder- 
 ful beauty. To the student she seemed like a 
 being of some holier sphere, and many times in 
 after life did that graceful little statue, with its 
 frostwork surroundings, appear before his men- 
 tal sight. 
 
 Time sped on, until the warm spring showers 
 had again loosened the fettered earth. Then 
 did the child rejoice in the renewed life of 
 nature. She caroled amid the budding shrubs 
 like a forest bird, and her voice, without having 
 lost any of its mirthfulness, seemed to have a 
 deeper tone of earnestness. It was strange to 
 watch the gradual growth of the student's sym- 
 pathies beneath the child's unconscious influence. 
 He did not lose one moment of study 5 he gave 
 his mind just as closely as ever to his cherished 
 schemes 5 yet the child had now become essential 
 to the quietude which the proper exercise of his 
 faculties demanded. With her voice sounding in 
 his ears, her graceful form bounding beneath his 
 eyes, he could work out his processes of thought. 
 
The Child's Mission. 211 
 
 and labor unremittingly in the deep caverns of 
 metaphysical truth. But if she delayed her com- 
 ing, if her voice was silent for hours together, 
 then a restlessness pervaded his whole being-, 
 some link seemed lost in the chain by which he 
 coerced his faculties, and the strong thinker be- 
 came the victim of a mere mood. Accustomed to 
 regard with contempt everything which did not 
 appeal to his reason, he scorned to analyze his 
 feelings toward the fairy creature. Indeed, he 
 would have found the task a fruitless one. Mere 
 intellect had no part in this new sense of purity 
 and beauty; passion could have nothing to do 
 with this yearning toward a child of eight short 
 summers; and had he not refused to believe in 
 that nobler part of human nature, the soul, by 
 whose delicacy of perception this enjoyment had 
 come to him? Once the fiend of distrust sug- 
 gested that he should test the child's innate sense 
 of good. He made a drawing of her own sweet 
 image, giving it the wings of an angelic messen- 
 ger, and then threw it from his window upon the 
 green turf below. It was not long before the lit- 
 tle maiden found the picture, and, quite uncon- 
 scious of its resemblance to herself, clapped her 
 hands with delight as at sight of a good angel. 
 The next day the student sketched a figure equally 
 beautiful and equally attractive in its rich adorn- 
 ments ; but to the delicate lineaments he gave the 
 
212 
 
 The ChilcVs Mission. 
 
 cold, blighting expression that we fancy should 
 belong to the ministers of evil. The child found 
 the second sketch, and grasped it with eager de- 
 light; but scarce had she looked upon it when 
 she cast it from her and fled. Before she had 
 reached the extremity of the avenue she returned, 
 and, digging a tiny hole in the earth, she depos- 
 ited the pictui'c within it and carefully covered 
 it again, as if unwilling that the image of evil 
 should be above the earth. It was a strange fancy 
 in the child, but there was such an earnest solem- 
 nity in her look that the student could not mis- 
 take the feelings by which she was prompted. 
 From that time he sought no more to search the 
 depths of her pure nature. He could crush a 
 blossom to determine its order and design, but 
 he dared not break into the heart of this human 
 flower to penetrate into the mysteries of that in- 
 stinctive sense of good and evil which is the prop- 
 erty of an untainted and holy spirit. Another 
 year passed on, and that sweet, bird-like voice had 
 found an echo in every chamber of the student's 
 untenanted heart ; that graceful, fawn-like form 
 was traced in every variety of attitude on the 
 margin of his mind's dark scroll. Remembrances 
 of her loveliness and joyousness were mingled with 
 his treasured learning, like the rich emblazonings 
 with which, in the olden time, the curious scribe 
 adorned the most abstruse doctrines of his faith. 
 
The GhiliVs Mission. 213 
 
 Autumn had again covered nature with the rich 
 pall that veils her decay, when a change fell upon 
 the gentle child. Her step grew slower, her voice 
 less frequently broke forth in song. She would 
 sit for hours with folded hands and drooping 
 brow, as if a sense of heaviness weighed down her 
 delicate frame, and at length she came no more 
 to the garden. For days the student watched, 
 until his heart sunk within him. The foliage still 
 shaded from his eyes the windows of the distant 
 mansion, and weeks elapsed before the fallen leaves 
 offered him a glimpse of the walls that inclosed 
 his sweet ministrant. A strange haunting fear 
 fell upon him. He grew impatient and restless ; 
 study had lost its charms for him; the atmosphere 
 in which he had learned to breathe wanted one 
 of its vital elements. He paced his narrow room 
 with a feeling of pain and powerlessness. Sud- 
 denly his eye fell on his telescope ; a thought 
 flashed through his mind, and the next moment 
 he had turned the direction of the glass, with 
 which he had been wont to sweep the heavens, to- 
 ward the tiny planet which now lighted his dreary 
 way on earth. 
 
 Alas ! his glass, like that of the enchanter, re- 
 vealed only desolation and sorrow. He looked 
 within a half -darkened apartment, and there, on 
 her little bed, lay the fair and gentle child. Her 
 cheek had lost its roundness and her eye its merry 
 
 15 
 
214 The CMMs Mission. 
 
 glance ; but she had the face of an angel as she 
 lay in her pure beauty on the couch of pain. She 
 was dying, — that sweet child, — she was leaving a 
 world of care and strife for the ^^ still waters and 
 green pastures" of paradise. It was a dark and 
 solemn road which her little feet must now trav- 
 erse, and there was many a vague terror in the 
 ''valley of the shadow of death''; yet was she 
 calm, and, as it seemed, sustained by angel minis- 
 try. The student remembered no more his dreams 
 of ambition, his half-finished researches into the 
 mysteries of science. Chained to the magic glass 
 which brought near to him the creature who so 
 strangely influenced his untamable mind, he did 
 naught but watch the movements of the dying 
 child. At last — it was the sunset hour — the 
 watcher saw a stir in the quiet apartment. A lit- 
 tle couch was brought forward to the open win- 
 dow ; the child was laid upon it, and, supported 
 in the arms of a sorrowing woman, she looked 
 forth upon the glorious sky and upon the faded 
 garden, which had now borrowed a transient 
 beauty from the evening glow. Just then her 
 bird, which hung beside the window, poured forth 
 a gush of song. For a moment her own happy 
 look came back again with all its former sunni- 
 ness; she raised her sweet face toward the aged 
 man who bent over her, and, pressing her lips to 
 his withered cheek, fell back upon her pillow. 
 
The Child's Mission. 215 
 
 The student started, and covered his eyes with 
 his hands. Then he looked again — he beheld 
 only the rigid face of the dead. On the evening 
 of the day preceding the funeral the student 
 sought the dwelling of his wealthy neighbors. 
 He came as a suppliant, and from the gray -headed 
 negro who unclosed the door he sought permis- 
 sion to look upon the face of the shrouded child. 
 It was a strange request, but sorrow had hum- 
 bled the proud hearts of her friends, and they 
 were touched by this spontaneous sympathy in a 
 stranger. He was led into a stately chamber and 
 left alone with the dead. A moment he gazed 
 upon that face, so full of calm, pure beauty ; for 
 the angel of death had given a hallowed loveli- 
 ness to those childish features. A moment he 
 stood, as if striving to nerve himself by the cold 
 teachings of reason ; then, yielding to the impulse 
 of the awakened soul within him, he fell on his 
 knees beside that coffined form. Who may dare 
 describe the emotions which then shook his soul f 
 In that dread moment he learned the mystery of 
 his being. It was no earthly passion which then 
 flooded his heart with tears. It was no appeal to 
 human reason that had so drawn him from his 
 selfishness. No ; there came to him a startling, a 
 crushing consciousness that the spirit he had so 
 often grieved was asserting itself within him. 
 The wondrous eye of thought beheld at a glance 
 
216 The Child's Mission. 
 
 the whole mighty mystery. He had struggled 
 and toiled to make himself superior to humanity, 
 and there lay before him the dead form of a sim- 
 ple child, whose bright existence, brief almost as 
 a sunbeam, had rebuked all his wisdom. The 
 strong man, who had exalted human reason until 
 to his eyes it assumed almost godlike proportions, 
 stood awed and confounded before a lifeless babe 
 — a creature who had given back an unsullied 
 soul to the Being who breathed into her the breath 
 of life. She had been as a joy and brightness 
 upon earth. Pain and grief came not nigh her; 
 toil and care touched her not ; her mind was yet 
 as the unmolded wax ; yet she had fulfilled her 
 earthly mission, and risen higher in the scale of 
 being, through her spotless purity, than all the 
 efforts of human reason could ever have lifted 
 her. He who had laughed to scorn the teachings 
 of religious truth, because they were above and 
 beyond mere reasoning, now bowed himself down 
 in grief beside the child, and acknowledged that 
 he felt within him the stirrings of a nobler prin- 
 ciple than the intellect he had so prized. 
 
 The student wept; his cold and stony nature 
 melted with tears as he recognized the truth which 
 that fair child had come across his path to teach. 
 From the depths of his nature rose up a cry, which 
 Grod's mercy interpreted as a prayer. He rose 
 from his knees, he bent himself over the icy fore- 
 
The Child's Mission. 217 
 
 head of the child, until the breath of his own lips 
 came back to him from the cold brow of the dead. 
 He did not desecrate her by a touch, but, taking 
 from the casket a rosebud that had lain upon her 
 bosom, he turned away in loneliness and sorrow, 
 yet with a consciousness that the lamp of God 
 had been rekindled within him. Many years after- 
 ward there dwelt among the red men of the West 
 a humble and devoted missionary. The Indians 
 loved him as a father, and when he sought to 
 shape their crude notions of Deity with some- 
 thing like a spiritual faith, they listened with rev- 
 erence to his teachings. His labors seemed almost 
 fruitless and his rewards few. Time had bowed 
 his form and dimmed the fire of his eye, yet with 
 childlike simplicity he taught the childlike faith 
 to which alone his people could listen. It was 
 known that he came from afar, and some travel- 
 ers who encountered him in the land of ocean 
 lakes discovered that he was learned in all the 
 wisdom of the schools. When asked why he thus 
 buried in the deep forest gifts which might arouse 
 the world's great heart, his answer was simple and 
 touching : " I was an unbeliever until the uncon- 
 scious teachings of a child awakened my soul, 
 and therefore do I come to render back my debt 
 to the child-men of nature, the sons of the wil- 
 derness." 
 
^m^ib^ummcr jfantic^* 
 
 The Voice of the Charmer. 
 
 (Pleasure.) 
 
 ) ^^(^ HERE was once a child, a noble and 
 beautiful boy, who, despising the pas- 
 times of his companions, found all his 
 pleasure in the woods and wilds. The 
 more inaccessible was the mountain pass, the bet- 
 ter he loved to tread its rugged way ; the deeper 
 the mountain torrent, the more tempting seemed 
 its cool waters. Gentle and docile as a babe in all 
 things else, in this he was not to be curbed by the 
 will of others, but would wander for days in the 
 deep forest and heap up his bed of dried leaves 
 on the very brink of the most frightful precipices. 
 Wearied and heated, he entered one day into a 
 dark and narrow dell, whose sides were so pre- 
 cipitous and so thickly clothed with trees, that 
 only at noonday could the sunshine glitter on the 
 
 218 
 
Midsummer Fancies. 219 
 
 thread-like stream which wound it way through 
 the deep ravine. The cool freshness of the place, 
 the shadowy twilight diffused around the soft, 
 thick turf, which the moisture from the hillside 
 kept as green as a living emerald, all invited him 
 to repose. So the boy flung himself beside the 
 rivulet, and resting his head on the mossy roots 
 of a gigantic oak, was fast sinking into slumber 
 when he was aroused by the faint murmur of 
 music. Like a chime of fairy bells came that 
 sweet, low, ringing tone, so faint, yet so distinct 
 upon his ear. Yet it roused him not from his 
 repose; it chased away the heavy vapors from 
 his brain, and brought sweet, delicious dreams, 
 but it did not fully awake him. His heart 
 seemed melting within him, and a tremulous and 
 thrilling torpor was fast creeping over his limbs. 
 But even while the inarticulate singing of that 
 wonderful melody was in his ears, he felt rather 
 than saw a marvelous light shining before him. 
 The starry diamond, the wave-lighted emerald, 
 the heaven-tinted sapphire, the sunset-hued opal, 
 the shadowless chrysolite, and the crimson-hearted 
 ruby, all seemed melted and blended with that 
 ray which flashed and faded and again gleamed 
 gloriously before his half-shut eye. The boy 
 grew faint with delight. The music and the 
 shifting splendors of that ray seemed to him one 
 and the same. He knew not whether his eye be- 
 
220 Midsmmner Fancies. 
 
 held those chiming bells or his ear was blessed 
 with that rich harmony of colors. Sometimes he 
 struggled faintly to arouse himself, and he ever 
 caught sight of a dimly outlined form, coiled and 
 twisted like the cable of a mighty ship, which 
 seemed hiding itself behind that wondrous light. 
 But the music would ring out a sweeter peal, the 
 changeful tints of that marvelous splendor would 
 flash athwart his sight, until the boy sank back 
 again upon his mossy pillow dazzled and sick 
 with beauty and delight. Noon came and went, 
 sunset gilded the green earth, night flung her 
 shadowy veil over all nature, the quiet stars 
 looked down into the deep, dark dell where the 
 boy was lying; yet that music paused not, and 
 those wondrous hues were fadeless. For him 
 nature had but one voice and life but one aspect ; 
 all was beauty and bliss in that deep intoxication 
 of soil and spirit. On the morrow an aged man 
 who had gone forth to meditate at eventide found 
 the boy still lying on the soft turf, with his head 
 yet resting on its mossy pillow. But the warm 
 breath stirred not now those clustering curls, and 
 his glazed eye was strained wildly open, as if 
 some brief and terrible agony had roused the 
 sleeper in his life's last hour. He was dead, that 
 young and gentle boy ; he had died in that dream 
 of beauty, but upon his lip was a purple spot, 
 and a single drop of blood had fallen upon his 
 
Midsummer Fancies. 221 
 
 white bosom. Then said the sage, " He hath 
 slept upon the den of the basilisk, and it is the 
 queen of the serpents who hath bewildered and 
 slain him." As he spoke the flashing of those 
 marvelous tints troubled his aged eyes, and a 
 creature of strange beauty, bearing upon its head 
 a crown from whence came this wondrous light, 
 reared itself from the mossy root of the old tree, 
 while the chiming of those mystic bells now came 
 with articulate voice. " I slew him not," sang the 
 voice, — '^I slew him not. I breathed a dream 
 of beauty into his spirit, and his human nature 
 sank beneath its sweetness. I did but kiss his 
 fresh lips, and lo ! his soul came forth from its 
 prison-house." " Child of perdition ! " cried the 
 sage, " the hour cometh when thy dazzling crown 
 shall be torn from thy serpent brow, and thy voice 
 of music shall be changed unto the wail of ever- 
 lasting despair." ^^But till then," sang the sweet 
 and melancholy voice, ''till that evil time cometh, 
 will men listen to my singing, and look upon my 
 beauty, and die in the madness of their dream." 
 
<Il^b^iutimct jfancic^. 
 
 The Vine. 
 
 {Loyalty.) 
 
 N the remotest corner of a luxuriant 
 ^^ but neglected garden there had sprung 
 up a rare vinCj which scarce lifted her 
 head above the cherishing bosom of 
 earth, when she began to put forth her slender 
 tendrils, and to seek the support which her frail 
 strength demanded. But she found no congenial 
 associates in that lonely spot, where grew only 
 tangled clumps of flowers, knots of untrimmed 
 shrubbery, and gnarled and twisted old fruit- 
 trees. So the poor little vine crept along the 
 thick, soft grass, and tried to hide herself from 
 all eyes. Humbly and sorrowfully she stole on 
 her lowly way until she had traveled beyond the 
 limits of that wild thicket, and found herself en- 
 tering upon a new and untried path. Then a 
 
 222 
 
Midsummer Fancies. 223 
 
 sense of loneliness came upon her, and she would 
 have gone back to her dreary birthplace, but the 
 briery arms of the thick bushes spread before the 
 path she had just traversed, and she was fain to 
 go forward, seeking some quiet nook in which to 
 find shelter and defense. At last the wandering 
 vine reached the foot of a tall and stately column, 
 which had been reared long before in honor of 
 some hero of the olden time. She was wearied 
 with her long travel, and heated with the noon- 
 day sun, therefore the polished marble felt cool 
 and refreshing to the lonely wayfarer. So she 
 twined her tiny arms around the broad base of 
 the towering pillar, and when she saw how much 
 beauty her dark and shining leaves imparted to 
 the white and glittering stone, she said, '' Here 
 will I remain, for while I can find the strong sup- 
 port my helplessness demands, I can give back in 
 return freshness and beauty." 
 
 Happy in her humble hope, she sought no fur- 
 ther, but twined her rich foliage around the 
 column, quite unconscious that while she was 
 affording new adornment to the tall pile, she was 
 also lifting her own head higher and nearer to 
 heaven. Carefully did she train her leaves over 
 every defacing stain in the snowy marble ; closely 
 she clasped her tendrils in the crevices which time 
 had made in the chiseled stones; tenderly did 
 she hold back her clustering fruit from overshad- 
 
224 Midsummer Fancies. 
 
 owing the delicate tracery of sculpture which 
 adorned its towering shaft. But never did she 
 think of herself, or strive to lift herself higher for 
 her own sake, or seek to display her own grace- 
 fulness. With the sweet humility of a loving 
 nature she cherished a double tenderness for the 
 proud and hardy nature on which she leaned, and 
 thought of infolding it more closely in her own 
 more abounding luxuriance. Now there were not 
 wanting stately and lofty trees who would fain 
 have won her from her clinging embrace of the 
 cold and uncongenial marble. She was not lovely 
 and blooming like the rose, but her leaves made 
 sweet music with the winged winds, her blossom 
 was fragrant as the voluptuous honeysuckle, and 
 the odor of her purple fruit was like the glowing 
 breath of the wine-cup. Therefore the oak and 
 the elm tree besought her to turn from the cold 
 stone, and find a sweeter companionship witla. 
 them. But the vine only laughed merrily at their 
 wooing, or if they sorrowfully entreated her, she 
 flung toward them a single wandering branch, 
 and gave them in kindliness and sympathy a por- 
 tion of the sweetness whose full treasure was be- 
 stowed upon love alone. The stately column had 
 rejoiced in the freshness of the clinging vine. 
 Cold as he seemed, the proud marble was not ut- 
 terly insensible to the tenderness of her embrace ; 
 but his nature was not responsive, and sometimes 
 
 1 
 
Midsummer Fancies. 225 
 
 the vine felt a chill from the very heart of the 
 massive stone strike shudderingly through her 
 tender frame. But only for a moment she heeded 
 this, and then she would turn herself to the glad 
 sunshine, cheating herself into the belief that the 
 frozen shaft on which she leaned had grown 
 warmer beneath her touch, when it was only the 
 genial glow of the summer piercing its very breast. 
 When the mild, soft days of autumn had come 
 and gone, the vine was despoiled of her fruit, and 
 her foliage grew brown and sere. The breath of 
 approaching winter chilled the air, and tempestu- 
 ous winds swept through the dismantled garden, 
 scattering leaf and blossom in the dust. Then 
 did the vine cling closer to the column, for she 
 knew the season of storms was coming, and she 
 soon would need the support of a stronger frame 
 and a hardier nature. But the shapely pillar was 
 ashamed of the blighted leaves and brown tendrils 
 of the vine. He did not spurn her from him, but 
 neither did he clasp her to his sheltering bosom, 
 for he had ever received and never given back her 
 caresses. So the neglected vine hung her head in 
 sorrow, and timidly loosened her strong clasp of 
 love. Soon came a whirlwind's rending blast, and 
 torn from the polished shaft the gentle vine lay 
 crushed and wounded at the base of the insensate 
 column. ^' Come to me now in the day of thy 
 desolation," said the oak, " and I will cherish thee 
 
226 Midsummer Fancies. 
 
 in my strong arms." " Give me but one clasp of 
 those faded tendrils, and thou shalt be my pride 
 and my joy forever," sighed the elm. But the 
 vine lifted not her weary head. "I did mistake 
 endurance for affection," murmured she; ^^and yet 
 when I gave so much, should I not have won back 
 some return ? Alas ! I have but wasted my youth- 
 ful freshness and my clinging faith ; yet the snow- 
 white shaft where first I found repose still lifts 
 itself upward to the skies, and the humble vine 
 must die in vain and unregarded loyalty at its 
 foot." 
 
3