Chapter IV: Part 4

You can see the end of all this as well as I can, for though never has other mortal than Porphyro breathed the language of love into the ears of one like Madeline, yet we have all pleaded more than once in the ears of angels only one remove less beautiful. Shut your eyes, and fancy you see the lover kneeling by the bedside of that white-armed one, fragrant and pure as a lily in the overshadowed brook—lovelier than an Imogen, whose very breath perfumes the chamber. Hear her low complainings when she fancies that her lover is about to desert her. Are they not more musical than the zephyrs sighing through the moonlit pines? And then how soothing is Porphyro, and how delicately he allays her fears. Ah! the moon is down, and the chamber is in darkness—and there, as I live, the rain-drops are pattering against the casement. Now is thy time, bold Porphyro—St. Agnes will befriend thee—urge, urge that sweet lady, with all thy eloquence, to seize the chance and fly amid the confusion. We know how it will end! Love ever wins the day—and is not Madeline yet all blushing with her dream? And so—and so—hear the rest!

“She hurried at the words, beset with fears,
For there were sleeping dragons all around,
At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears—
Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found,—
In all the house was heard no human sound.
A chain-dropp’d lamp was flickering by each door;
The arras, rich with horsemen, hawk, and hound,
Fluttered in the besieging wind’s uproar;
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;
Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide,
Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,
With a huge empty flagon by his side:
The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,
But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:
By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:—
The chains lie silent on the foot-worn stones;
The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.

And they are gone: ay, ages long ago
These lovers fled away into the storm.
That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,
And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form
Of witch, and demon, and large coffin worm,
Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old
Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;
The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,
For aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold.”

Who, after that, will say that Keats was not a genius? But “Hyperion,” though less complete than this poem, evinces—let me tell you—even more of the “_mens divinior_.” “The Eve of St. Agnes” is warm, voluptuous, luxuriant, yet pure as a quiet pool with silver sand below—but “Hyperion” is bold, impassioned and colossal, Miltonic even in its grandeur, overpowering at times as a thunder-storm among the mountains. Would God that Keats had lived to finish it! With many faults, it evinces more genius than any poem since written in our language. Hear the speeches of the Titans!—read the description of Apollo!—drink in the intoxication of its less sublime but more beautiful passages! It often exhibits a redundant fancy—the style is at times affected, and the choice of words bad—the execution is careless, though less so than that of Endymion—and, above all, the plan of the poem, so far as it has been developed, bears an unhappy resemblance to Milton’s Paradise Lost. Yet it displays such extraordinary genius, that we will never forgive the Quarterly for having disheartened Keats from the completion of this poem. Ah! sir, what has the world lost?

I repeat it, I am an Epicurean. Fame!—immortality!—what are they? We wear out our lives for a bauble, and coin our souls away to purchase dross. We dig our own graves and call it GLORY. Away with such sophistry! Go over the melancholy list of unfortunate genius—White, Collins, Keats, Chatterton and the rest—and tell me what they reaped except thorns! Ah! sir, it melts my heart with pity—I must take a glass on it. But, I declare, the bottle’s out, and—by my halidome!—here is Oliver asleep.

J. S.

* * * * *

THE AFFAIR AT TATTLETOWN.

BY EPES SARGEANT.

It is very questionable whether the reader has ever heard a true and impartial account of the affair at Tattletown. So many exaggerated versions have been put forth—so many garbled and malicious reports in regard to it, have been propagated—that the world is likely to be either unduly prejudiced against one of the parties, or wholly in doubt as to the merits of both. It is with an emotion of pride, that I take up my pen with the consciousness of being able to throw light upon this interesting, but mysterious subject.

There have been many changes in Tattletown during the last twenty years. Of this fact I became assured the last summer, when, by the way of a parenthesis in a tour to the White Hills, I branched off from my prescribed route to visit the little village where I had spent so many pleasant days in boyhood. What a change! It used to be one of the quietest, greenest, most sequestered nooks in the world, with its single wide street, bordered by venerable elms, and its shady by-roads radiating in every direction, and dotted with white cottages embosomed in clouds of verdure.

And then its inn! its single, unpretending inn, with its simple flag-staff, its modest piazza, and its cool, clean parlor, with the vase of asparagus upon the freshly reddened hearth-stone! Its sleeping-rooms with their snow-white curtains and coverlets, and the rustling foliage against their windows—what a temptation it was to enter them of a warm summer afternoon! Now, forsooth, the respectable old tenement is replaced by a hotel. I beg pardon—a _house_, built after the style of the Parthenon, its sides painted very white, and its blinds very green. The bar-room is floored with tesselated squares of marble, and there is a white marble counter, behind which presides a spruce young man with long dark hair plastered over his right ear, and an emerald breast-pin on his shirt bosom. Nay, it is rumored that the landlord has serious designs of introducing a gong in the place of the good old-fashioned bell of our forefathers. What is the country coming to?

Within my remembrance, the people of Tattletown were the best natured, most industrious and contented people alive. Every evening in summer their patriarchs might be seen sitting in front of their woodbine-covered porches, smoking their pipes and talking over old times, while groups of ruddy, riotous children, flaxen-haired and blue-eyed, danced to the strains of some village Paganini. Poor, deluded, miserable Tattletonians! What a sight was it for the philanthropist to grieve at! Little knew they, of the errors and vices of the social system! They had not read Miss Martineau’s tracts; knew nothing of Owenism, nothing of Grahamism, nothing of transcendentalism, nothing of Fourierism, nothing of Mormonism. The “Society for the promotion of every thing,” had not established a branch among them. They were benighted, uninitiated; contented to live as their fathers had lived before them; to pluck the rose and leave the thorn behind; to keep their linen and their consciences clean, and to remain at peace with all mankind.

Then the belles of the village—how beautiful they were! how artless! how adorned with every sylvan grace! Now they all seem to have lost the heritage of loveliness. They look didactic, sedentary and precocious. There is not the same bloom on the cheek—the same sparkle in the eye—the same ruby mischief on the lip. Instead of cultivating their music and their flower-gardens, working flags for the Tattletown “Guardians of Liberty,” and teaching the children their catechisms on Sundays, they are meddling with matters that they have not the means of comprehending, establishing _anti-everything_ societies, and fussing over phrenology and other newfangled heresies. Instead of a vase of freshly gathered flowers upon their shelves, you are now greeted by a vile plaster bust, with the skull phrenologically mapped out, and figured. I never encounter one of the odious things, without putting my fist in its face.

A religious revolution has, of course, been introduced among the other mutations. Instead of one well-filled church, where all the villagers may meet as members of one family, Tattletown can now boast of half a dozen sectarian societies, which are eternally at war with one another. Poor old Dr. Balmwell, who is still the meekest of God’s creatures, and whose annual salary would not equal the one night’s wages of a second-rate theatrical star, is denounced as a “haughty, over-fed prelate,” “the advocate of an established church,” and a “vile minion of the aristocracy.” Many a fair maiden is content to go with holes in her stockings, in order that she may contribute to the “society for the support of indigent young men intended for the ministry!”

“Dear smiling village! loveliest of the lawn!
Thy joys are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn.”

As for politics—but here I approach the subject which was uppermost in my mind at starting. All the world knows that there are, or rather used to be, two rival newspapers published at Tattletown, the editors of which manage to keep the poor people in a perpetual ferment. There is the Tattletown Independent American, edited by Mr. Snobb! and the Tattletown _Free_ and Independent American, edited by Mr. Fobb. The former is the longer established of the two, and, as the public are well aware, is conservative in its tone. Fobb’s hebdomadal, on the contrary, is characterised by the spirit of innovation. If a doctrine be new, startling, incredible, abrupt, violating all preconceived notions and prejudices, it commends itself at once to Fobb’s acceptance. He will urge it with a boldness and pertinacity that confound the unthinking. To incur his opposition, it is only necessary that a principle should be old and well established. His morality would seem to resemble that of the tribe, with whom it is a custom to kill all their old men and women. Age is with him the worst of crimes, and the most penal. Novelty is the first of charms.

Strange as it may seem, Fobb has his devoted admirers and active supporters. As for Snobb, I am credibly informed, that, disgusted with the supineness of the Tattletonians, he had at one time resolved to relinquish the publication of the “Independent American,” when, unexpectedly, the field was invaded by Fobb with his “Free and Independent.” Then it was that the patriotism and disinterestedness of Snobb’s character shone conspicuous. He was, to use his own vigorous expression, determined to stand to his guns, and however great might be the pecuniary sacrifice, to remain in the village to combat the pernicious influence, which, “like the Bohon Upas,” I quote Snobb’s own words—“would spread poison and desolation among families and communities.” Snobb wound off his appeal, by calling upon all, who valued their liberty and their lives; who would save their country from intestine confusion and slaughter; who would keep unstained the altar of domestic felicity, and transmit unimpaired that glorious fabric of constitutional right, cemented by the blood of martyred ancestors—to rally round him and the Independent American. “Any person obtaining five subscribers,” said he in conclusion, “shall receive a sixth copy gratis.”

It is difficult to conceive of the degree of excitement produced in Tattletown by this fulmination, on the part of Snobb, and the subsequent establishment of the “Free and Independent American,” on the part of Fobb. Such a thing as neutrality could no longer exist. Great and vital principles were at stake; and from the squire to the tinman’s apprentice, it was necessary that every man should take one side or the other—should be either a Snobbite or a Fobbite. Both journals were benefited by this agitation. New subscribers poured in daily, and a fund was raised by the partisans of each establishment for the more effectual prosecution of the war. And what was the war about? To this day nobody can tell.

Personalities now began to be interchanged. Snobb gave Fobb the lie direct, and defied him to prove a statement which had appeared in the “Free and Independent,” accusing Snobb of highway robbery, arson and other little peccadilloes. Fobb treated Snobb’s defiance with an easy irony, which bewildered the good people of Tattletown, who began to think that Fobb must know a good deal more of Snobb than other people. The following answer appeared in the “Independent American:”

“We must apologise to our readers for again polluting our columns with an allusion to the reckless traducer, whose journal of yesterday came forth reeking with slanders against ourselves. It would be charitable, perhaps, to attribute to a diseased intellect, rather than a malicious temper, these ebullitions of mendacity, but the motive is too obviously bad. We can assure this poor creature, this beggarly reprobate and unwashed scribbler, that mere declamation is not proof, and that assertion carries no weight when unsustained by evidence. If he can keep sober long enough, let him reply to the question which we once more reiterate, ‘where are your proofs?’”

It was with intense anxiety that the citizens of Tattletown looked for the next number of the “Free and Independent.” Never before had Snobb been so severe, so savage. Fobb’s rejoinder excited public interest in the quarrel, to a painful degree. It was as follows:

“The guilty fugitive from justice, whom it is with shame we acknowledge as our contemporary, attempts to invalidate our charges by clamoring for proofs. We beg him to reflect a moment before he repeats his call. If he has sincerely striven to make reparation for past misdemeanors, by a life comparatively guiltless—if there be any hope or prospect of reformation in his case—most reluctantly would we be instrumental in re-consigning him to the States-prison or the gallows. Before, therefore, we come out with any statements, that shall be universally admitted as final and conclusive as to the character of this man, we will put a few questions which he will understand, however enigmatical they may be to others. Did Snobb ever make the acquaintance of Miss Amanda W——? Did he ever see a white crape scarf that used to belong to that ill-fated young lady? Does he remember the circumstance of an old pruning-knife being found beneath a cherry-tree? Has he still got _that red silk hankerchief_?”

I must leave it for some more graphic pen—to the author of “Jack Sheppard” or “Barnaby Rudge,” to depict the consternation and horror produced among the Tattletonians by this publication. Could it be that Tattletown harbored a murderer? What other interpretation could be put upon the diabolical insinuations in Fobb’s paper? For a week and more nothing was talked of but this article. At the post office—the tinman’s shop—the grocer’s—on the steps of the meeting-houses, no other topic was broached. With unprecedented eagerness the next number of Snobb’s paper was looked for and purchased. The only allusion it contained to Fobb’s ferocious attack was in these simple lines: “As we shall make the insinuations contained in the last number of the Tattletown Free and Independent the subject of a judicial investigation, it is quite unnecessary for us to bestow any farther notice upon the miserable calumniator, who is striving to get into notice by means of the attention he may provoke from ourselves.”

Tattletown was disappointed in this rejoinder, and began to entertain its suspicions as to the truth of Fobb’s intimations. The old women of the place began to shake their heads and look wise, when the subject was broached. “They _must_ say they always thought there was something wrong—something not altogether _easy_ about Mr. Snobb. They hoped for the best, but there _were_ things—however murder will out.” The fate of the injured “Amanda” was a topic of endless speculation among the more youthful of the feminine inhabitants; and there was a delightful mystery about the “white crape scarf,” which afforded an exhaustless pabulum for curiosity. Snobb must certainly clear up his character. He must explain the circumstances in regard to that “ill-fated young lady.” He must tell the public what became of “that red silk handkerchief.” Above all, he must satisfactorily account for the horrible fact of the old pruning-knife being found under the cherry-tree.

In the meantime Fobb declared that he was daily and hourly environed with the perils of assassination. He was obliged to go armed, to protect himself from the minions of the culprit Snobb. His fearless devotion to the cause of truth and justice had “sharpened daggers that were thirsting for his blood—but what was life compared with the proud satisfaction of having maintained the cause of the people,

‘Unmoved by flattery and unbribed by gain?’”

In the midst of the excitement produced by this war of words, Tattletown was electrified one fine morning in December, by the report, that Snobb and Fobb had gone over to the neighboring village of Bungville to settle their differences by mortal combat. Two spruce young men from New York had arrived in the stage-coach the night before, and put up at the Tattletown house. _They had brought guns with them_; and early that morning the two editors, similarly armed and equipped, had started off with the strangers in a wagon belonging to the latter, in the direction of the village already named. As these facts became currently known among the Tattletonians the sensation was prodigious. A meeting of the “select men” was instantly called, and a committee of five, consisting of Mr. Fuzz, the retired “squire of the village,” Mr. Rattle, the tinman, Mr. Ponder, the celebrated lecturer on matters and things in general, Mr. Rumble the auctioneer, and Mr. Blister the apothecary, were appointed to proceed on horseback to Bungville, and prevent if possible the duel—or, if that had transpired, to arrest the survivor and the seconds.

Headed by Mr. Fuzz, the cavalcade started off in gallant style, followed by the prayers and anxious entreaties of the gentler sex to prevent if possible the “effusion of blood.” Miss Celestina Scragg, the poetess of the village, and the author of the celebrated ode to that beautiful stream, the Squamkeog, came very near being thrown under the hoofs of the squire’s horse, as she appealed to Mr. Fuzz, and besought him to rescue Albert, as she tenderly designated Mr. Fobb, or “perish in the attempt.”

After riding hard for about an hour, the committee approached the Bungville house, where they determined to make their first inquiries as to the fate of the editors and their seconds. Mr. Buzz, the landlord, was a brisk, officious little man, who always knew before you spoke what you were going to say, and rarely listened to more than the two first words of any question you might put to him. He was, moreover, a little deaf, so that the habit of anticipation was, perhaps, as much a matter of necessity as of choice.

“Have we arrived too late?” asked Fuzz.

“Oh, by more than an hour. It is all over,” replied Buzz, who supposed that the inquiry had reference to the dinner hour.

“It is all over, gentlemen,” said Fuzz, in a magisterial tone, turning to his awe-stricken companions. “Has any one been killed or wounded?” continued he, addressing the landlord.

“Killed, indeed? I guess you would think so,” exclaimed Buzz. “They have shot one fine, plump fellow.”

“It is probably Snobb. He is the plump one,” said Fuzz, contracting his lips, and looking sternly round at the members of the committee. “Did he fall dead on the spot?” he rejoined.

“Dead as Julius Cæsar—I may say very dead,” replied Buzz.

“Serious business this, gentlemen,” said Fuzz, dilating with importance.

Here Mr. Rattle, the tinman, was seen to mount his horse and gallop off in the direction of Tattletown. He was determined to be the first to communicate the news of the catastrophe.

“There will be no need of your services, Mr. Blister,” said Fuzz, bestowing a patronizing glance upon the apothecary. “Have the seconds escaped, Mr. Buzz?”

“Yes, the second one escaped, but with a bullet in his neck. They tracked him a mile or two by his blood.”

“Dreadful!” muttered Mr. Blister. “So Fobb is wounded! I will just ride back and inform Miss Scragg of the fact. She will go into hysterics, and I shall get a job.” And so saying, the apothecary mounted his horse, and followed in Rattle’s track.

“What have you done with the killed, Mr. Buzz?”

“Oh, we have skinned him, and hung him up to dry, to be sure. One of the gents _would_ have a slice of him for dinner, but he found it rather tough eating I suspect; not quite equal to the ducks.”

“What!” exclaimed Fuzz, turning pale and starting back with horror. “Are they cannibals?”

“Yes, to be sure,” responded Buzz, who did not fully comprehend the question.

“Gentlemen, we must pursue the guilty fugitives,” said the squire. “What direction did they take, landlord? No equivocation, sir. The law will bear us out in adopting the most rigorous measures. Where are they?”

“Bless me, they are cosily seated at dinner in my little back parlor. I wouldn’t interrupt them now. It may make them mad.”

“Landlord! Lead us to them at once—at once, I say,” exclaimed Fuzz, turning very red about the gills.

“Well, squire, don’t talk so loud. I will show you the way, but mind that I say I shouldn’t wonder if they resented it.”

Buzz led the way through a long entry to a door, which he pointed out to the squire as communicating with the apartment where the “young gentlemen” were assembled. It needed not his words to convince Fuzz and his two remaining companions of this fact. A noise of uproarious mirth, mingled with the jingling of glasses, the clash of plates and the stamping of feet, plainly foretold the state of things within. Fuzz buttoned his coat, and tried to look undismayed.

“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “stand by me. Don’t flinch.”

He made a bold step forward, but as his palm approached the door-handle, an explosion of laughter, loud and long, made him recoil like a man who has barely saved himself from falling over a precipice. He looked at his associates, puffed out his cheeks, and seemed to be gathering energy for a renewed essay. Again he stopped suddenly, and assuming a look of unwonted sagacity, remarked that it was best to proceed gently and craftily about the business. Then motioning the bystanders to keep silence, he cautiously turned the handle of the door, and, opening it an inch or two, stealthily looked in upon the convivial party. It consisted of four nice young men. They were seated at a round table, which was plentifully covered with bottles, decanters, glasses, and the remains of a dessert. Two of the party were strangers to Fuzz, but the other two were, marvellous to behold, no other than Fobb and Snobb, not seamed with ghastly wounds, but quaffing champagne and clapping each other on the back with the affectionate familiarity of old friends.

At this spectacle, Fuzz was no less amazed than he would have been, had he seen one of the editors trussed, spitted and “done to a turn,” served up in a big dish on the table, while the other was flourishing his knife with the savory anticipation of making a meal of him. Cautiously shutting the door, Fuzz communicated the astounding fact to his brethren of the committee, and then reopening the door so that they might hear without seeing or being seen, they listened “with all their ears.”

“Yes, gentlemen,” said the voice of Fobb in tones of mock solemnity, “you behold in that abandoned individual, my unworthy brother Zeke Peabody, otherwise known as Simon Snobb—you behold in him, I repeat, the ruthless, unhung murderer of the unfortunate Amanda W——.”

Here a roar of obstreperous laughter, in which Snobb’s lungs seemed to crow like chanticleer, interrupted the speaker for a moment. He continued:

“If you ask me for proofs, consider for a moment the fact of the red silk handkerchief—the white crape scarf—the old pruning-knife that was found under the cherry-tree. If these circumstances be not enough to convict that cowering culprit—then pass along the champagne, and fill to my toast.”

“Fill to Fobb’s toast!” exclaimed three voices amid shouts of laughter.

“My toast,” said Fobb, “is one that cannot fail to be appreciated by this intelligent company. You, my dear Timms, will drink to it with a tear in your eye, for are you not the immortal inventor of the world-renowned Tricogrophpophphlogidion, that invaluable and never-to-be-sufficiently-commended preparation for the hair, by merely spreading which over a wig-block, you find there the next morning, a beautiful, curly wig, redundant and glossy? And you, O modest and retiring Jones, are not you the man that, by your grandfather’s celebrated pills, have rejuvenated suffering humanity? Have you not ‘floored consumption,’ and broken the back of dispepsia? Isn’t it a man’s own fault now if he is sick? Do not children cry for your incomparable lozenges? Are they not a blessing to mothers, and a curse to the doctors? Cannot a hand-cart-man, with your powerful ‘poor man’s plaster’ on his back, draw fifty times the weight that he could without it? Estimable, philanthropic Jones! Posterity will do you justice. And you, brother Zeke, in Tattletown known as Snobb, where shall we find an editor in the country who can fight windmills and make people think they are devouring despots with a better grace than yourself? My own accomplishments modesty forbids me to speak at length; but I flatter myself, that the story of Amanda W—— and the pruning-knife—and my eloquent denunciations of the monster, Snobb—are not unworthy specimens of those talents which entitle me to rank myself in your fraternity, and to participate in the emotions, which the sentiment I am now about to offer is calculated to excite. I will give you, gentlemen: _Vive la humbug!_”

Hardly had the peals of laughter consequent upon this prolonged sally subsided, when Fuzz, who was holding on to the door by the handle, being pressed upon from behind by his own companions, and two or three bar-room loungers, whom the sound of speech-making had attracted to the spot, suddenly let the handle slip from his grasp, whereupon the whole body of eaves-droppers, preceded by the squire, were precipitated into the room, where the two editors and their friends were at their revels. Imagining it to be a hostile invasion, the four friends, whose tempers had been pretty well primed with champagne, immediately “squared off,” and showed their “science.”

Fuzz was greeted by Timms with what the latter was pleased to call “a settler in his bread-basket,” which had the effect of lifting him from his feet, and spinning him into a corner of the room with a most unmagisterial celerity. Mr. Ponder, the “celebrated lecturer on matters and things in general,” was attended to in the most prompt manner by Jones, who, as he technically expressed himself, “punished him by a dig in his dice-box,” meaning that his blow took effect somewhere in the region of his teeth. As for Rumble, the auctioneer, he was knocked down by a bottle in the hand of Snobb, like an old remnant of goods disposed of under his own hammer. The rest of the invaders met with due attention from Fobb, who broke two chairs over as many heads.

The battle was speedily fought and won. The committee sent by the select men of Tattletown returned home that night in melancholy disarray, and imprecating vengeance upon their assailants. There was an immediate demand in the village for brown paper and vinegar, court plaster and lint. It was long before Mr. Ponder could deliver another lecture at the new Lyceum, owing to the disfigurement of his countenance. As for Snobb and Fobb, who were in fact the originators of the whole mischief, they issued no more numbers of their sprightly papers. The “Independent,” and the “Free and Independent” were abruptly stopped. The two brother editors were never more seen in Tattletown. The last I heard of them, one was lecturing on Animal Magnetism, while the other accompanied him as a subject for his experiments. Their wonderful feats in clairvoyance have been so trumpeted by the country press, that it is unnecessary for me to allude to them more minutely.

* * * * *

THE OLD MAN RETURNED HOME.

BY G. G. FOSTER.

The dews fall softly from the dropping skies,
And winds are dallying with the wanton flowers,
That like young maidens in their coy retreats
Unveil their beauties for the spirit stars
Alone to gaze on.—Age, they say, dries up
The fountain of enthusiasm, and the hues
That morning sunlight pictures in the wave,
Shrink like scared spirits away beneath the disc
Of noontide sun, or evening’s cheerless beam.
Now, I have seen old Time’s retreating tide
Leave its white froth upon me—aye, gray hairs
Have sprung from out the furrows of my brain,
As weeds will grow upon the o’erwrought soil,
To tell me that I’m _old_—bid me put off
The misty mantle of life’s morning dreams,
And plod in dull indifference to the grave.
Why, ’tis a lie! I feel the air as fresh—
I scent the fragrance of this beauteous eve
As gratefully—I watch the paling moon
Stealing to her magnificent repose
Behind the starry curtains of the west,
With as unchanged and vigorous delight
As when, a boy, beside my own dear lake
I lay, and saw the same moon kiss the wave
That in strange music murmured out its joy.
The whippoorwill amid the hazel boughs
Sings his old tunes _unchanged_—as are the leaves
And skies and waves that echo it. ’Tis _man_,
And not man’s real _nature_, which dims o’er
The gold of feeling with pernicious rust,
Drawn, like the poison of the asp, from flowers
Which spring forever, would he cherish them,
Within his heart of hearts.
What! I grow old?
I haven’t felt so young for forty years!
And, were it not my mother’s hair is white—
My father dead, and all that’s _human_, changed—
I’d deem the past but as a school-boy’s dream
Over an ill-conned lesson—and awake
To the reality of living joy.

* * * * *

STANZAS

FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.

BY MRS. R. S. NICHOLS.

“I have a passion” for the budding Spring,
Who clasps the wanton Earth in her embrace,
For, like a glorious vision, she doth bring
Rich fruits and flowers, which the tropics grace;
And shining bands, that make our forests ring
With melodies so rich, that they efface
All thoughts of gloomy winter from my mind,
And leave my heart as free as is the summer wind!

“I have a passion” for the girdled mountain,
That rears its crowned head beneath the sky,
Which bends above it like a blue, sealed fountain,
Whose waters flow not in those realms on high!
Though many of these hours I cannot count on,
Yet when these glories meet mine eager eye,
I stand entranced upon the mount or lea,
For hours like these are years—are years of bliss to me!

But more than these, I love the restless sea,
The kingly element!—Its dark blue waves
Were ever like some gentle friends to me!
For oft, in dreams, I’ve wandered through its caves
Like some pale spirit of the dead, now free;
I’ve seen the bright, but tombless “place of graves,”
Where Ocean gathers all his dead to sleep,
The pale and shadowy sleep, which Death’s phantasms keep!

“I have a passion” for all lovely features
That deck fair nature’s ever glowing face;
Rocks, hills and waves to me seem glorious creatures,
Endowed with life, and majesty, and grace!
They are to us as everlasting teachers,
In whose revealings, truths divine we trace;
They bid us raise, when sad, our tearful eyes,
And seek perfection only ’mid the blissful skies.

* * * * *

THE BACHELOR’S EXPERIMENT.

BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

There are some persons in the world who seem born to evil fortune; they grow up under the shadow of care, and misfortune dogs their footsteps like a sleuth-hound eager for his prey. Reversing the old fable of King Midas, every thing they touch becomes valueless. Their best efforts are rewarded with disappointment,—their life is a perpetual struggle,—troubles come not in a host which might be confronted at once, but in slow and sure succession, one evil being overcome only to make room for another, until at length the energies of the worn spirit are all exhausted, and patient endurance is the only trace which still remains of the high capabilities with which it was originally gifted. But there are others who are decidedly born to good luck. (Poor Power! how do we check the career of laughter with a sigh, when some passing word recalls the inimitable skill with which he ruled the chords of mirth!) There are people to whom success is a sort of natural inheritance,—who never put forth a finger to beckon fortune onwards, and yet find her following in their track, dropping her golden favours in their way, and smoothing with obsequious care the asperities in their path of life. Such an one was the hero of the following sketch.

Mr. Simon D. Waldie, or rather S. De Courcy Waldie, (for thus he always wrote it; having rather a leaning towards aristocracy even in the trifling matter of names,) was the son of a highly respectable merchant, who, conscious of the defects in his own early education, determined to bestow on his child all the advantages of scholarship. As young De Courcy exhibited evidences of talent, and indeed was looked upon as a remarkably precocious boy ere he attained his fifth year, he was early banished from his paternal roof to the residence of a private tutor in the country. This plan was adopted in order to rescue him from the temptations to idleness which exist in large schools, and, so far, it was very judicious. But to a constitution naturally delicate and a temper exceedingly reserved, a public school offered some advantages which were not to be found in the home of a secluded student, and the want of which had no small influence on the future life of young De Courcy. Shut out from other companionship than that of his pedantic tutor, he devoted himself to study with most indefatigable zeal, and his close application was rewarded by the attainment of the highest honours, when called to pass through the ordeal of a collegiate examination.

Of course all those who were interested in his future welfare anticipated great results from this early development of mind. But in the education of the young student one most material point had been forgotten. He had been taught to labor but no object had been offered to his future attainment:—he had learned to delve the classic mine but he knew not how to coin the fine gold he there discovered:—he had been trained to run a race without having any fixed goal to direct his steps. His life was a perfectly aimless one,—he had no definite end in view. His father’s competent fortune placed him above the necessity of seeking a livelihood, and nothing short of absolute want seemed likely to drive the solitary student into the haunts of men. When desired to choose a profession he was utterly confounded. The various claims of Law, Gospel and Physic were placed before him in every possible light; but they were exhibited after his habits of desultory thought and profitless study had become too deeply rooted. At first he was inclined to adopt the law; but a few days attendance on court, (where he heard the finest powers of reasoning and the noblest gifts of eloquence exerted in behalf of one of the vilest criminals that ever stood before the bar of Justice,) sickened him of this profession. “I cannot spend some of the best years of my life,” said he, “in learning to make the worse appear the better reason.” The delight with which he sometimes listened to the gifted preacher, who spoke as if his lips had been ‘touched with a live coal from the altar,’ tempted him to the study of divinity. But his delicate sense of duty checked the impulse ere it became a wish, for he dared not assume the ‘form’ without the ‘spirit of godliness’ or enter into the ‘holy of holies’ with the soil of earth upon his garments’ hem. The study of medicine attracted him by the facilities which it afforded for relieving the sufferings of mortality; but the illness of a young friend showed him the darker side of the picture also. He beheld the weeping relatives looking up to the medical attendant as if he were an angel endowed with the power of life and death. He learned how fearful is the responsibility of him who ministers at the bed of sickness, and how deeply it is felt by the honest and conscientious physician. He was disgusted with the heartlessness of those (and there are such) who calculate a patient’s means of payment ere they enter his sick room; and he was intimidated by the remembrance of the wear and tear of feeling which is necessarily suffered by the man of science who puts heart and soul into his duties at the couch of suffering. Commerce, De Courcy abhorred, for the details of its busy scenes were little suited to his reserved habits and refined tastes. Viewed in its fairest light he recognised it as a noble calling, but those who pursued it were but too apt to wander with idolatry and bow down before the golden calf.

So the youth hesitated, and deferred his decision, passing his days amid his books in the seclusion of his study until his habits of reverie were rather rudely broken by the sudden death of his father. This startled him from his torpor and had he been then called to enter upon the active duties of life, might have aroused him more effectually. But the elder Mr. Waldie had been one of those careful bodies who trust nothing to chance. Every thing was in such perfect order, his business was so admirably arranged, and his will was so precise in its directions that De Courcy had nothing to do and little to reflect upon. The head clerk assumed the business and purchased the stock in trade,—the income of the property was bequeathed to mother and son during life with a reversion of the whole estate to the survivor, and after the legal forms had been properly attended to, every thing went on in its usual manner. The only perceptible difference was that when rents, or interests on bonds and mortgages became due the bold and flourishing signature of S. De Courcy Waldie was appended to the receipts instead of the cramped and queer hieroglyphics which were formerly presumed to designate the name of his parent.

There was something in the mode of life peculiarly calculated to cherish the secluded habits of De Courcy Waldie. Their abode was situated in one of those narrow gloomy streets, where the sun is only visible at noonday,—a street which formed, in old times, a portion of the ‘court-end’ of the city, but which is now occupied principally by elderly proprietors or decayed gentlewomen, who, compelled to live on a small income, yet unwilling to appear shorn of their former honors, haunt the scenes of their youthful gaiety, and affect to despise the upstart ‘nobodies’ of B—— Street and —— Place. The tall, dusky houses stand wedged in close array, looking upon their opposite neighbors like a row of their old time-worn spinsters in an old fashioned contra-dance; in one of these sleepy-looking mansions, resided the Waldie family. Every thing in the house bore evidences of Dutch neatness in housekeeping. The faded but unworn carpets were the same which had been the wonder of the neighborhood when the parents of our hero were first married; the carved chairs belonged to that perpendicular race now rarely to be found except in rubbish rooms; the narrow necked china jars on the high chimney-piece were relics of a by-gone age; and the tall clock, standing in the very spot where it had been placed thirty years before, rolled its Ethiop eyes, and ticked its monotonous warnings in a most drowsy and slumber-inducing voice. Dark heavy curtains in winter, and yellow Venitian half-blinds in summer, added to the gloomy appearance of apartments in which the sun never shone. The sound of the clock, the low purr of the cat as she stretched her overgrown body on the soft hearth-rug, and the dull clicking of Mrs. Waldie’s knitting-needles, which she plied with unceasing assiduity, alone broke the deep silence of the apartment, and the most sincere votary of indolence could scarcely have imagined a more comfortable sort of domestic “sleepy-hollow.”

Here would Mr. De Courcy Waldie sit hour after hour, pondering over some learned treatise, digging out Greek roots, exhausting his ingenuity in patching up some mutilated fragment of antiquity, and occasionally, by way of light reading, arousing himself with the Latin Poets, but never condescending to look into any thing which could not boast the musty flavor of past ages, except the daily newspapers. It is not strange that a man of such habits should soon learn to mistake _reverie_ for _reflection_, and _feasible projects_ for _good resolutions_. There was always something which he meant to do at some future time. He would tilt himself back in his chair, plant his feet against the chimney-piece, and, with a cigar in his mouth, indulge those vague and pleasant but idle dreams, which such men are apt to dignify with the name of thoughts. The household went on with a kind of mechanical regularity. The important affairs of indoor life were managed by two old servants, who, before the abolition of slavery in New York, had been the property of Mr. Waldie, and had been carefully trained in all the duties of their station, (a class, by the way, who make the very best domestics, but who are now almost extinct; thanks to the spirit of philanthropy, which has thrown them upon their own resources and left them to die by want, vice and intemperance.) Mrs. Waldie walked into the kitchen every morning, and gave, or fancied she gave directions for the day; but Dinah needed no such watchfulness,—she knew her business and went about it as regularly as if she were wound up like the clock every Saturday night.

In the early part of his life it had been suggested that De Courcy ought to look out for a wife. But the idea of returning into a throng of giddy giggling girls, was quite too trying to the poor youth’s feelings. He was sometimes conscious of an emotion of pleasure when, as he sat at the head of his pew in church, his eye fell upon the rosy cheek and bright eye of some fair damsel. Yet he only admired at a respectful distance, for a single word from a lady, or even the necessity of touching his hat to her in the street, would crimson his face with the painful blush of most officious modesty. If perchance he did venture to play the agreeable to some female less volatile than her companions, his constrained manner and pedantic compliments evinced a much more intimate acquaintance with the Daphnes and Chloes of antiquity, than with the luring, breathing, captivating beauties of the nineteenth century. By degrees all hope of taming the shy young student was relinquished. His female contemporaries married less intractable individuals, and long before he had made up his mind as to the propriety of assuming the responsibilities of wedlock, a second race of giggling girls was springing up around him. However he seemed quite contented with his celibacy. Perhaps some of my readers may consider this as a very integral portion of the good fortune which had fallen to his lot, and this I will not venture to dispute, for to a man of his dreamy temper and indolent habits, a wife would have been a positive annoyance—unless indeed, he could have found a sister to the inimitable “_fat boy_” of Pickwick.

Matters went on very smoothly with De Courcy Waldie until he had attained that awkward corner in man’s life, which must be turned, and the pathway from which leads rather down hill. Mr. De Courcy Waldie reached his forty-fifth birth-day, ere he had decided upon a profession or concluded to take a wife, but his time had glided away so calmly, that he scarcely noted its loss, till a second domestic bereavement aroused him. Quiet old ladies, who do not trouble themselves about their neighbors and never talk scandal, generally spin out life to its most attenuated thread, and thus Mrs. Waldie dozed away until she had completed her eighty-fourth year, when she fell into a sound sleep from which she never woke. It was not until the bustle attendant upon the funeral, had subsided, that the son had time to think of his loss, and then, when left to the utter solitude of his home—for the first time in his life he was sensible of actual profound grief. He did not know how essential his mother’s presence had become to him. He was so accustomed to see her in the warmest corner in winter, and by the recess of the window in summer, that the apartment seemed to have lost, not only one of its inmates, but part of its furniture. Her tiny work-table and easy chair still held their wonted place, but she who was almost a part of them, was gone forever, and a feeling of loneliness took possession of his heart. He knew not, until the form of that revered parent was hidden from his sight, how often his eye had wandered from the page of his favourite book, to rest on her placid face. He remembered how carefully she had studied his tastes, how scrupulously she had obeyed his wishes, how well she had adapted herself to his peculiar habits; and when he reflected upon the different degree of his grief at the loss of his father, he began to think that there was something in the nature of woman particularly calculated to make man happy. This thought was followed by regret at not having secured a continuance of womanly tenderness for his future life. In the natural order of events, he must long outlive his mother, and who would have supplied her place, like a devoted wife. Mr. De Courcy Waldie began to wish he was married.

The longer he dreamed over this new idea, however, the more his difficulties seemed to increase. He thought of the pretty delicate girls whom he had admired in his college days, but he recollected them now as fat comfortable matrons, or thin, withered spinsters; and he looked in his mirror as if to discover whether age had made the same havoc with his appearance. But the daily use of the said useful appendage of the toilet had rendered him so gradually habituated to time’s changes, that he could discern little difference in himself. He had never possessed much of the bloom of youth, and his face had early worn the pale student-like ‘cast of thought,’ which years had only traced in deeper characters. His dapper little figure, still trim and upright, was not spoiled by the obesity so much dreaded by elderly gentlemen; his teeth were still perfect—his incipient baldness—but this was an exceedingly delicate point—we will draw the veil of silence over his reflections on this painful subject. Suffice it to say that Mr. De Courcy Waldie came to the conclusion that he was yet young enough to think of matrimony.

It was necessary for him to proceed with great caution however, for he knew that he was reputed rich, and he heard that society contained such anomalies as mercenary young ladies. While thinking over his new project, he was one day called upon for a subscription to some benevolent association, by one of those charitable persons who relieve the real or fancied distresses of their fellow mortals, by a free expenditure of _their own time_ and their _neighbor’s money_. With his usual generosity, Mr. Waldie handed her a liberal contribution, not sorry perhaps, to buy off her garrulity at such a price. But the lady dropped some words ere she departed, which set him off upon a new track. She had suggested the propriety of his adopting some orphan boy and educating him as his own. This was quite a new idea to him, but he viewed it in rather a different light from that which his visitor had intended. “Adopt a son,” said he to himself, in a tone that seemed strangely like disgust, “no indeed. I should go crazy with a rollicking boy ransacking the house, and turning every thing upside down. Besides, boys have always got dirty faces, and they are forever cutting their fingers with their penknives, breaking their heads against horse posts or cracking their skulls on skating ponds; then they always tear their trousers, lose their gloves, and stump their toes through their shoes. Faugh! I can’t endure great rude bearish boys. If she had said a daughter now, I might have thought better of it; there is certainly something very pleasant in a nice little quiet girl.”

The more he reflected upon this fancy, the better he liked it, but the idea of adopting a daughter soon gave place to a more eccentric scheme. He determined to make an experiment. He would ‘train up’ a child in the way she should go; he would _educate a wife_.

Whether it was the loss of his mother which had awakened him from his apathy, or whether the long latent affections of his nature were now only developing themselves, cannot be determined, but, certain it is, that before he had dreamed over his project three months, Mr. De Courcy Waldie actually applied to the managers of the Orphan Asylum for permission to adopt _three_ of the female inmates. He engaged to educate them according to their different capacities, to furnish them with the means of obtaining a future livelihood, and to settle the sum of two thousand dollars on each, when she should either marry or attain her majority. His character for probity and honor, was as well known as his eccentricity, and as no doubt existed of the fulfilment of his promises, his proposition was accepted. He was allowed to select his three protégées, and however ignorant he might be of female character, he showed himself no mean judge of female beauty, for his choice fell on three of the loveliest children in the institution. He wished them to be about twelve years of age, and there was but the difference of a few months between them. They were poor, friendless orphans, destined to a life of hardship if not of want, and he knew that if his experiment terminated unsuccessfully, the girls would be better provided for by his means, than if they were apprenticed to some hard task-master. He determined to bestow on all the same care, to educate them after his own peculiar notions, and when they should have attained a proper age, to decide upon their individual claims to his affections.

The old servants shook their heads in ominous silence, when they learned the sudden increase of family. Old Dinah went so far as to hint that his mother’s death had touched Mr. Waldie’s brain, and indeed wiser folks than she came to something like the same conclusion. But your quiet people, who are so amazingly slow in waking up to any purpose, pursue it with wonderful perseverance, when once fairly placed on the track. Mr. Waldie engaged an elderly governess to take charge of his young wards, and an apartment in the upper part of the house was appropriated to her use as a schoolroom. It was agreed that the privacy of Mr. Waldie’s sitting room should never be violated by the intrusion of the females, except when he invited them to enter its hallowed precincts. His old-fashioned politeness regulated the etiquette of the table at their daily meals, and very soon the household assumed its usual regularity, notwithstanding the presence of three little girls. Mr. Waldie did not consider them old enough to deserve his particular attention for the present, and he therefore left them to the care of their very competent governess: only stipulating that they were never to be allowed to read poetry or fiction—never to wear any other dress than a calico frock, white apron and cottage bonnet,—and by no means, to form an acquaintance with other children. Having made these rules he returned to his former abstract studies, until such a time as he should deem it proper to undertake the instruction of his young protégées.