Chapter VI (4)

They were not so richly dressed as their predecessors, nor were they so elegant and graceful, but their manners were quite as affected. Then came again the taste for gallant acrostics and love songs, which caused the poetry of the Cheniers to be forgotten for _fantasies_ addressed to the popular actresses. This prodigality was the more criminal because it had a contrast in alarming want. The Revolution did not make France more rich, nor did the hecatombs slain in defence of the liberty of the country make the cornfields and vineyards more fruitful. French prodigality was imitated everywhere, and to this recklessness may we attribute the fact of the great increase of the expense of dress in every grade of society over all the civilized world.

The mode of wearing the hair for men had long become fixed; it was cropped and _au naturel_, and has thus remained to our own day. The male costume became every day more and more inelegant. Frocks were worn short, loose and broad; pantaloons loose as a sailor’s lasted to a late day of the empire. This costume had but one merit, simplicity, a quality inspection of the following engraving will show it to have possessed in a great degree.

All embroidery was abandoned. In 1803 the coat had taken its definite form, where there is every prospect that it will remain permanent. It had an immense collar and was very short before, but it was yet a coat. Pantaloons were by no means what they are now, yet still the garment is unchanged. The hat had become round, and the cravat was stationary.

This brings us to the end of our subject. From the doublet of Louis XIV. costume has been traced to our time, and an impartial observer will be satisfied we have lost nothing by the change; for none who compare the garments of the _schneiders_ of our own era with those of the Latours or Justins of old, will think good taste has retrograded, or dream of comparing the bucket-like things which once were worn on the head, with the tasteful and artistic hats of Oakford. Thus ends this disquisition on dress, which, believe me, is no trifle; and the evidence of it is, that nothing more ridiculous can be conceived, than would be a President, a Senate, or a Supreme Court _in puris naturalibus_.

* * * * *

WILD-BIRDS OF AMERICA.

BY PROFESSOR FROST.

THE CAT-BIRD.

The Cat-Bird is one of our earliest morning songsters, beginning generally before break of day, and hovering from bush to bush with great sprightliness when there is scarcely light sufficient to distinguish him. His favorite note is the one from which he takes his name, and is known to every farmer’s boy in the United States. It so exactly resembles the mewing of a kitten as to be invariably taken for it by the uninitiated; and when a number of these birds get together it is difficult to resist the impression that all the feline residents of an entire village are gravely discussing some important subject. But in addition to this rather singular tone, the Cat-Bird has a variety of others, made up, it is true, mostly of imitations, but blended together with considerable strength and melody. The Cat-Bird is indeed no mean songster, and when listened to attentively is capable of at once pleasing and interesting. He is one of the most familiar of the feathered race, seeming to have very little dread of man, and building his nest in every garden hedge. His confidence is but too often repaid with death; and notwithstanding his friendly habits he is persecuted with singular and unrelenting prejudice by every inmate of the farm-house. It must be acknowledged that he sometimes revenges himself by drafts upon the strawberry-beds and cherry-trees.

The Cat-Bird is one of the most prolific of the feathered race, and were he to fly in flocks would darken the air. He probably winters in Florida, from whence he reaches Georgia early in March. In the following month he appears in Pennsylvania. His nest is generally finished by the beginning of May. The place is usually a hawthorn fence, a small tree, briers, brambles or a thick vine. The female lays four eggs, of a greenish blue color, and sometimes raises three broods in a season. In affection and attention to their young the Cat-Bird is unsurpassed. The cry of man imitating their brood will frequently throw her apparently into fits; and in their defence both male and female often risk their lives. He boldly attacks the black-snake, striking him on the head with his bill, until the baffled reptile is glad to withdraw from the coveted nest. It is rare that the female forsakes her eggs, even after they have been handled by man. If one or two be broken she continues to sit upon the others; and if strange eggs are put in she, with the assistance of her mate, turns them out. If the nest be removed to another situation she follows it and continues to sit as before.

The Cat-Bird is nine inches long, of a deep slate color above, which fades into a lighter tint on the breast and throat. The legs, bill and tail are black, with some red about the latter. He is sometimes domesticated, and in the cage will eat fruit, insects, bread, cakes, and nearly every kind of vegetable. He is fond of the water, and, when wild, frequently dashes through it with great velocity. The species is said to reach as far north as Kamschatka.

The author of the American Ornithology thus philosophizes on the ungrounded antipathy against this harmless and interesting bird:

“Even those by whom it is entertained, can scarcely tell you why; only they ‘hate Cat-Birds;’ as some persons tell you they hate Frenchmen, they hate Dutchmen, etc., expressions that bespeak their own narrowness of understanding and want of liberality. Yet, after ruminating over in my own mind all the probable causes, I think I have at last hit upon some of them; the principal of which seems to me to be a certain similarity of taste, and clashing of interest, between the Cat-Bird and the farmer.

“The Cat-Bird is fond of large, ripe garden-strawberries; so is the farmer, for the good price they bring in the market; the Cat-Bird loves the best and richest early cherries; so does the farmer, for they are sometimes the most profitable of the early fruit; the Cat-Bird has a particular partiality for the finest, ripe mellow pears; and these are also particular favorites with the farmer. But the Cat-Bird has frequently the advantage of the farmer, by snatching off the first fruits of these delicious productions; and the farmer takes revenge by shooting him down with his gun, as he finds old hats, wind-mills, and scare-crows are no impediments in his way to these forbidden fruits; and nothing but this resource—the ultimatum of farmers as well as kings—can restrain his visits. The boys are now set to watch the cherry-trees with the gun; and thus commences a train of prejudices and antipathies, that commonly continue through life. Perhaps, too, the common note of the Cat-Bird, so like the mewing of the animal whose name it bears, and who itself sustains no small share of prejudice, the homeliness of its plumage, and even his familiarity, so proverbially known to beget contempt, may also contribute to this mean, illiberal and persecuting prejudice; but with the generous and the good, the lovers of nature and rural charms, the confidence which the familiar bird places in man, by building in his garden, under his eye, the music of his song, and the interesting playfulness of his manners, will always be more than a recompense for all the little stolen morsels he snatches.”

THE CHICADEE.

This bird is also known as the Black-capt Titmouse. It is an active, hardy animal, abounding in the Northern and Middle States, Canada, and as far north as the 60th parallel. It is a familiar and amusing bird, often making its appearance in our cities in fall or winter, and approaching near to man, in order to glean from his bounty or carelessness a supply of food. During the same seasons large flocks scour the fields and woods in search of insects, larvæ, seeds and berries. Kernels containing oil, and the fat of animals are greedily devoured by them. When all these fail, they enter barns, sheds, and the roofs of houses, clearing them of moths, eggs of insects, spiders and wood-worms. They appear to be very little affected by extreme cold, being provided with thick downy feathers, and a constitution naturally robust. In winter, numbers collect on a snow-bank, and swallow small pieces, either to slake thirst or for pleasure. On such occasions, and generally when collecting food, they keep up a continual chattering, which renders their places of haunt easy of discovery.

The Chicadee builds in the hollows of trees, the nest being constructed of moss, feathers, and similar soft materials. The eggs are from six to a dozen in number, white, speckled with red. They rear two broods in a season. The young are strong and lively, requiring little assistance from the old ones, but living with them, as one family, through the fall and winter.

Beside the usual chicking note of this bird, from whence its name, it has a harsh angry tone, to express anger or fright, and a kind of melancholy wail, approaching a song. Sometimes its voice is said to resemble the noise produced by sharpening a saw. “These birds,” says Wilson, “sometimes fight violently with each other, and are known to attack young and sickly birds that are incapable of resistance, always directing their blows against the skull. Being in the woods one day, I followed a bird for some time, the singularity of whose notes surprised me. Having shot him from off the top of a very tall tree, I found it to be the Black-Headed Titmouse, with a long and deep indentation in the cranium, the skull having been evidently at some former time drove in and fractured, but was now perfectly healed. Whether or not the change of voice could be owing to this circumstance, I cannot pretend to decide.” The unnatural practice of destroying their sick is however denied of these birds by late writers.

The Chicadee is five and a half inches in length, and six in extent. The whole upper part of the head and neck is black, and the body a mouse-color. It has often been confounded with the European Marsh Titmouse, but there seems good reason to consider this as an error. The foreign bird is never seen in flocks, frequents streams or water-courses, and has a note quite different from that of the Chicadee. It is also an inch shorter.

* * * * *

ARIEL IN THE CLOVEN PINE.

BY BAYARD TAYLOR.

Now the frosty stars are gone:
I have watched them, one by one,
Fainting on the shores of Dawn.
Round and full the glorious sun
Walks with level step the spray,
Through his vestibule of Day,
While the wolves that howled anon
Slink to dens and coverts foul,
Guarded by the demon owl,
Who, last night, with mocking croon
Wheeled athwart the chilly moon,
And with eyes that blankly glared
On my direful torment stared.

The lark is flickering in the light;
Still the nightingale doth sing—
All the isle, alive with Spring,
Lies, a jewel of delight
On the blue sea’s heaving breast:
Not a breath from out the West,
But some balmy smell doth bring
From the sprouting myrtle buds,
Or from meadows wide, that lie
Each a green and dazzling sky,
Paved with yellow cowslip-stars,
Cloud-like, crossed by roseate bars
Of the bloomy almond woods,
And lit, like heaven, with fairest sheen
Of the sun that hangs between.
All is life that I can spy,
To the farthest sea and sky,
And my own the only pain
Within this ring of Tyrrhene main.

In the gnarled and cloven Pine
Where that hell-born hag did chain me,
All this orb of cloudless shine,
All this youth in Earth’s old veins
Tingling with the Spring’s sweet wine,
With a sharper torment pain me.
Pansies, in soft April rains
And April’s sun, from Thea’s lap
Fill their stalks with honeyed sap,
But the sluggish blood she brings
To the tough Pine’s hundred rings,
Closer locks their cruel hold,
Closer draws the scaly bark
Round my prison, lightning-riven;
So when Winter, wild and dark,
Vexes wave and writhing wold
And with murk vapor swathes the heaven,
I must feel the vile bat creep
In my narrow cleft, to sleep.
By this coarse and alien state
Is my dainty essence wronged;
The fine sense that erst belonged
To my nature, chafes at Fate,
Till the happier elves I hate,
Who in moonlight dances turn
Underneath the palmy fern,
Or in light and twinkling bands
Follow on with linked hands
To the Ocean’s yellow sands.

The primrose-bells each morning ope
In their cool, deep beds of grass;
Violets make the airs that pass
Tell-tales of their fragrant slope.
I can see them where they spring
Never brushed by fairy wing.
All those corners I can spy
In the island’s solitude,
Where the dew is never dry,
Nor the miser bees intrude.
Cups of rarest hue are there,
Full of perfumed wine undrained—
Mushroom banquets, ne’er profaned,
Canopied by maiden-hair.
Pearls I see upon the sands,
Never touched by other hands,
And the rainbow bubbles shine
On the ridged and frothy brine,
Tenantless of voyager
Till they burst in vacant air.
O the songs that sung might be
And the mazy dances woven,
Had that witch ne’er crossed the sea
And the Pine been never cloven!

Many years my direst pain
Has made the wave-rocked isle complain.
Winds, that from the Cyclades
Came, to ruffle with foul riot
Round its shore’s enchanted quiet,
Bore my waitings on the seas;
Sorrowing birds in Autumn went
Through the world with my lament.
Still the bitter fate is mine,
All delight unshared to see,
Smarting in the cloven Pine,
While I wait the tardy axe
Which, perchance, shall set me free
From the damned witch, Sycorax.

* * * * *

REMINISCENCES;

OR AUNT ABBY’S PINCUSHION.

BY EMMA C. EMBURY.

Reader, do you love old houses, old books, old pieces of furniture, old chairs, in short, all the relics of antiquity which fashionable people usually discard and despise? If so, there is a bond of sympathy between us, and I shall not be afraid to rake among the cold ashes of the past for some unconsumed remnant of other days, even though I find only trifles to reward my search. The very table on which I write, black with age, and wearing a polish which nothing but years and years of manual labor could have given it, owes its peculiar favor in my eyes to the fact of its being more than a century old. What stories could it not tell of days gone by; what reminiscences of tea-drinkings, and christenings, and weddings, and funerals must be imbedded in every pore of the old mahogany!

But for real hearty enjoyment of such a taste for homely antiquities, commend me to an old-fashioned secretary, (_that_ is the true name—_bureau_ is but a modern Gallicism,) with its desk, and pigeon-holes, and secret-drawers, especially if it have been an heirloom in possession of a maiden aunt, who died a spinster of seventy-two, or thereabouts. What stores of relics it contains—locks of hair taken from the heads of pretty children, whom we only recollect as wrinkled old bodies that seemed never to have been young; mourning-rings, with obituary inscriptions of persons whose existence we should never have known but for this record of their death; golden knee-buckles and sparkling paste shoe-buckles, reminding us of the days when the dress of a gentleman was hopelessly inimitable to the rowdies and loafers of the period; fragments of wedding-gowns, carefully rolled in bits of linen, yellow with age—preserved in order to impress the next generation with due respect for some wizened-up, childish old lady, who was once a belle, and was married in a dress of silver brocade.

Perhaps, too, there are more tender memorials hidden in the secret drawer. Let us touch the spring, and lo! what trophies of love’s power are there. Shall we pause to read these verses? The ink is almost faded out, the paper is falling to pieces in its folds, and he who wrote, and she who with fluttering heart first read those tender lines, have long since been dirt and ashes. Here is a quaint old ring—two hands clapped together, and within the circle an inscription in old English characters—the single word, “_Forever_.” She who once wore that ring was an angel upon earth, and he who placed it there, lived and died “as the beasts that perish;” will their union be, indeed, _forever_? Look at that bracelet, woven of soft, silken hair, its golden clasps are dimmed with age, but the hair still wears its rich sunshiny lustre, though she who bestowed it as a parting gift to a sister, has been long a tenant of the tomb. What is this, folded so carefully and so closely, like one of the mummied mysteries of the pyramids? A curl, a thick, dark curl—not the long flowing tress that might have floated over woman’s graceful neck; these crisped and glossy tendrils tell of the strength and beauty of manhood. A faint perfume rises from the inner folds of the envelope—the ashes of a rose are there enclosed. And this is all! But what a tale do these scanty memorials of a by-gone love impart to the beholder! What matters it that the details of the story are forgotten? What matters it whether the lady or her lover were to blame? It was a love tender and true, but yet unhappy, else wherefore the curl of raven hair so carefully cherished, and the dead rose so reverently buried beside the more life-like memento? The love which brings happiness becomes diffusive in its expression, and the love-tokens of the youth and maiden are hidden, in after-days, beneath the accumulation of affection’s later offerings. But when one flower becomes the treasure of a life-time; when one lock of hair is guarded like the heart’s pearl of price, then be sure that the hallowing touch of sorrow has been there. It is only when grief and love go hand in hand, that trifles become holy relics wherever they tread. Alas! do we not all wear upon our hearts a reliquary, in which, impearled with tears, and adorned with the fine gold of our best affections, we have enshrined some fragment of the past, whose value we alone can tell?

But I am growing sad, serious, and, of course, dull; yet the object which led me into this train of thought was certainly not calculated to inspire any especial exhibition of sentiment. I was rummaging in such a secretary as I have described, when I accidentally pulled out a round pincushion, banded with silver about the middle, and attached to a substantial silver chain, which terminated in a broad hook, for the purpose of fastening it to the girdle of some thrifty housewife. On the heavily-wrought circlet which made the equinoctial line of the purple velvet globes which had been doomed to do duty in so humble a capacity, were the initials “_A. L._,” and I at once recognized it as the constant appendage of my respected and venerated relative, Aunt Abby.

I had just been reading a paragraph respecting the female clubs in Paris, and the sight of this relic of old times, reminded me of the fact that poor Aunt Abbey had lived just half a century too soon, for to the day of her death the old lady’s favorite topic of conversation was the “equality of the sexes.” How would she have rejoiced in the modern attempts to enfranchise woman from her thraldom! how would she have gloried in the idea of woman’s equal rights of property! how would she have delighted in the prospect of political privileges for her sex! how she would have expatiated upon the benefits of a female House of Representatives! Aunt Abby (my _great_ aunt, by the by) was emphatically an advocate for woman’s “_standing alone_,” (I believe that is the phrase among the reformers,) and certainly, though she had a father, uncles, cousins, to say nothing of a husband, she succeeded in “_standing alone_,” to a certain extent, all her life.

But what, you will say, had a disciple of progress, a defender of woman’s rights, a declaimer against woman’s slavery, to do with a _pincushion_? Let me sketch her portrait at full length, and then you will see how curiously she blended the duties and prerogatives of both sexes in her own proper person.

Abigal, or, as she was usually called, Abby Leyburn, was the only child of a learned and eccentric clergyman, who, being disappointed in his hope of exercising his theories of education on a son, chose to educate his daughter after the manner of a boy. Fortunately for him, the little girl possessed a singularly strong and quick mind. She grasped at knowledge as most children would at playthings, and imbibed wisdom with as much zest as others would have sucked an orange. Latin, Greek and Hebrew, mathematics, moral philosophy, to say nothing of the lighter accomplishments of botany, geology, and natural history, were _among_ the young lady’s acquirements. Her father had determined to make her a second Madame Dacier, and he really seemed likely to find her a sort of female _Crichton_. Nor were these all her acquisitions. The details of housekeeping, the thrift, management, and tidiness necessary to the comfort of American homes, was as easy as the alphabet to Abby. She could knit, and spin, and sew; she could bake, and brew, and cook; she could milk, and churn, and make cheese; and nobody could so effectually and rapidly “set things to rights.”

Beside all this, Abby Leyburn, at twenty years of age, was one of the handsomest girls in the country. She was like nothing so much as the effigy of Britannia on an English penny. Don’t laugh, reader, the comparison is a highly complimentary one, but lest you should not recollect the stately Mrs. Bull, I will describe my heroine. Abby was just six feet high, but magnificently proportioned, a perfect Juno in form, with large black eyes, a high forehead, full red lips, and a chin as massive and as despotic in its expression as Napoleon’s. Her profile was superb—bold, strongly-marked, but beautifully classical. Her abundant hair, usually worn back from her brow, and gathered into a knot at the back of her head, was black as the crow’s wing. Her teeth were white, strong, and somewhat pointed in shape, a peculiarity which rather impaired the softness of her smile, inasmuch as it was always associated with the beholder’s remembrance of a somewhat similar conformation in the dental perfections of the only wild animal who has ever been accused of laughing—I mean the hyena. Not that Abby bore the slightest resemblance to the disagreeable creature just named. But her smile certainly lacked that indefinable charm which usually belongs to such pleasant demonstrations of good humor.

As a specimen of the human animal Abby was perfect. The superb proportions of her well-rounded figure, her complexion, pure, fresh, and radiant with health, her firm step, quick, active motions, and great strength of frame, combined to make her a model of “_le grande et beau physique_.” Add to these personal attractions, her learning, and her domestic accomplishments, and one might almost fancy that Aunt Abby, in her younger days at least, came near being

“That faultless monster which the world ne’er saw.”

What did she lack? you will ask. Certainly not virtues, for she abounded in them. No; her defects were of a very different character. She had every thing that one would consider desirable; but Aunt Abby lacked “one sweet weakness.” There was the difficulty. She had no _weaknesses_. That magnificent person of hers was brimful of strong, stubborn intellect. If she had a heart, it was only a piece of mechanism, necessary to the workings of the human machine. The brain—the strong, massive, abundant brain, which lay behind that immense forehead, was the only motive power which she acknowledged. Had she no benevolence, no kindly impulses, no yearning tenderness of soul, no sentiment? Not an atom of either; yet she did the most benevolent things in the world, lavished kindness upon all who deserved it, was full of gentleness toward little children, and, if judged by her deeds, would have seemed overflowing with the milk of human kindness. But still it was the dictates of that cold despotic intellect which she obeyed. “People must be in want, and must be relieved by those who had means. Humanity was full of suffering—the healthy must look after the sick. Little children are incipient men and women, therefore must be taken care of. Sentiment was but the _penumbra_, the shadow of a shadow as unsubstantial as itself.” Such were among the apothegms of this singular woman. Reversing the established axiom, that “there is nothing in the intellect which does not come by the senses,” she seemed to assert that “there was nothing in the senses which did not come by the intellect.”

As Mr. Leyburn held the office of president over one of the few institutions of learning then in America, Abby had ample opportunity for displaying her talents and beauty to the admiring eyes of sundry young students. But Abby had no personal vanity; she knew she was handsome, just as she knew she was strong and robust, and she would have scorned the idea of being a belle. The young men, although belonging to that peculiarly inflammable species known by the name of “College Boys,” would as soon have thought of falling in love with the stone image of Minerva on the college-green, as with the president’s learned daughter. There was something in her sturdy good sense which everybody rather liked, yet the want of softness and pliability in her character excited a certain dread in all who came near her. Gifted with peculiar powers both of mind and body, she had no compassion for feebleness of frame or infirmity of purpose, for she had no clear perception of such things. Her intellect was like a telescope through which she could examine the grand and the remote, but she could not use it as a microscope to examine the littlenesses of humanity. It is only through the sympathies of the heart that we learn respect for the sufferings, or compassion for the weaknesses of our fellows—and Abby Leyburn had no sympathies, except those of the brain.

Perfectly self-possessed, because thoroughly conscious of her own vast superiority, and utterly indifferent as to the impression she was likely to make, Abby’s manners in society had all the elegance and nonchalant ease which fashion tries so hard to teach. She conversed exceedingly well on all subjects, and possessed the gift (most rare among talented women) of making herself as agreeable to her own sex, as to the men. Everybody admired her, yet everybody feared her; everybody acknowledged her rare powers, yet everybody kept at a certain distance. “He comes too near who comes to be denied,” so says one of the wits and demi-reps of a past age; but Abby never suffered any one to reach the confines of _Love-Land_, and, of course, none ever attained to _Declaration Point_.

It is difficult to imagine a character like that of Aunt Abby. A woman without softness, and tenderness, and sentiment, seems such an anomaly, that we are tempted to doubt the probability of her possessing any of the qualities we seek in woman. But Abby had all the necessary knowledge of womanly duties, all the considerateness we look for in woman, all the attention to detail which is a woman’s peculiar province, and withal was possessed of the most indomitable good humor. She was sententious, because every truth became, in her mind, an axiom, to be stowed away in the smallest possible space; she was dogmatic, because her opinions were made up by her own unaided reflection, and were not to be changed or modified by words. Her self-esteem was prodigious; it was not the puny vanity which is so often dignified with such a title, it was rather a magnificent _Johnsonesque_ self-appreciation, precisely like that which looms so grandly beside the vain pettinesses of the biographer of the great lexicographer.

She was certainly a great puzzle to every one. A woman who could quote Longinus, read Homer, expound a disputed text in the Hebrew Bible, chop logic with the most caviling acuteness, and talk of the Differential Calculus as if it were the last new poem, was certainly something of a wonder; but when that same woman was seen seated on the milking-stool, or standing at the churn, or presiding over a blazing oven, or, broom in hand, raising motes in the sunbeams by her vigorous attack upon the “dust of the schools,” or displaying the beauty of her Juno-like figure, as she paced to and from the huge spinning-wheel; she was certainly a _world’s_ wonder. There is a half-remembered story of Aunt Abby’s spirit, which no one dares to talk of openly; but it is believed that a certain gentleman, now high in civic honors, received, when a youth of twenty, a severe _caning_ from the lady, in consequence of some impertinence, offered when under the influence of a deep potation. But this may be only a piece of scandal.

The circumstances of Aunt Abby’s marriage were as peculiar as were her own traits of character. Among the students of the college was a young gentleman of large fortune and fine talents, who was afflicted with a constitutional timidity and nervousness that paralyzed all his powers. He was the only child of a widowed mother, who had foolishly resisted the boy’s wish to go to school. He had therefore remained at home under the charge of tutors, and when the death of his mother released him from her affectionate tyranny, he entered college only to find himself inferior in attainments to every one else, and a perfect butt, from his timid shyness. He was full of poetry and sentiment. Among realities he was lost and bewildered, but in the world of fancy he was a hero even to himself.

To a gay set of frolicksome students nothing could offer better game than the mental and personal peculiarities of the rich young Southerner, who rejoiced in the name of Sampson Terricott, (a name soon transmuted into Sampson Tear-your-coat) by his companions. Nothing could be more ludicrous than the association of such a name with such a person. The redoubtable Sampson was some five feet four inches in height, with an exceedingly slight figure, small features of the style usually designated as “_snub-faced_,” with a skim-milk complexion, and hair of that _sun-burned_ flaxen color, so common among hatless country urchins. His voice was a piping treble, with an occasional tone in it like that of a cracked penny-trumpet. His hands and feet were ridiculously small, and when attired in his college-gown, it required but little caricaturing to draw his portrait in a style decidedly feminine, yet decidedly like. He received all kinds of nicknames for his personal peculiarities, but, perhaps, none annoyed him more than the _soubriquet_ of “Miss Dalilah,” which was generally bestowed upon him. Yet a mind filled with images of beauty was hidden beneath this unpromising exterior. He had no force of character, no iron strength of intellect, but he had an unbounded imagination, and an unlimited reach of vision into spiritualities. He was a poet, but lacking the key to a poet’s harmonies of utterance, he expended his strength in the beautiful cloud-land of metaphysics and became a moral philosopher.

Like all diminutive men Sampson had a decided partiality for large women. The colossal beauty of Abby Leyburn had struck him when he first beheld her, and he loved nothing so well as to contemplate her from a distance, being quite too timid to address himself to her. Now there was in Abby a certain propensity that might almost be called compassion toward little people. She regarded them as a huge Newfoundland dog often looks upon a poodle—their very insignificance and feebleness seemed a claim upon her protection. It had often been remarked that Miss Leyburn showed especial favor to those whom she denominated “the _poor little_ fellows,” and no one was surprised, therefore, to find her taking a great fancy to Sampson Terricott. There was something so appealing in his manner, such a tacit acknowledgment of inferiority in his humble demeanor, such an irresistible claim to tender treatment in his timid little voice and stammering speech, that Abby at once took to him as to one of those “incurables” for whom the world is a hospital, and every charitable person ought to be a nurse. To the gentle Sampson the lady became “like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” She overshadowed him so completely that he could find repose and refreshment in her presence. Instead of attempting to be any thing, or do any thing, or say any thing, he gave himself up to the enjoyment of a consciousness of perfect insignificance as compared with the splendid creature, who could excel any and every body. It was a comfort to see everybody look small in her presence, but to the nervous student it was a positive luxury to _feel small_, without being mortified and disgraced.

Sampson was not in love with his Minerva, he had no sentiment, no passionate longings for any thing which the world of reality could afford. His loves were all idealities, and could not be prisoned in flesh. But with the same weak fondness that had once tied him to his mother’s apron-string, he submitted to the guidance of Abby Leyburn. What were Abby’s motives for troubling herself with little Sampson no one knew or cared; but when it was known that she was soon to become Mrs. Terricott, everybody thought that the large fortune of the tiny lover would account for the whole affair.

As usual, the world was mistaken. Abby was as free from all mercenary feelings as she was from all other frailties. But she had her own notions about doing good. She saw in Sampson Terricott a highly imaginative and gifted man, wasting mental power in immature schemes which his timidity thwarted in their very outset, and suffering a fine fortune to be idle in his hands for want of energy to take up his stewardship. He was weak in health, and subject to attacks of morbid spirits which sometimes threatened his reason. In a word, Abby saw that he wanted some one to take care of him, and she fixed upon herself as the fittest person. She was now nine-and-twenty, in the full bloom of health and beauty, and, as she argued, “if society provides no other resource for destitute females than marriage, I must marry, or at my father’s death find myself a beggar.” Having come to this conclusion, she decided that, as the giving herself a master was out of the question, and the idea of possessing a slave in her husband was equally disagreeable, she had better divide the difference, and unite herself to one who needed a stronger nature on which to rest.

How the courtship was managed no one ever knew. I am inclined to think there was not much love-making, and from the kind of dreamy surprise which Sampson exhibited when questioned about his engagement, it is presumed he was scarcely conscious of his own happiness. People said that Miss Leyburn, reversing the usual order of things, had popped the question to Sampson, who stammered out, “Yes,” through sheer fright. The probability is that he did exactly as she directed him. She gave him to understand she meant to marry him, and if he offered no resistance, feeling rather pleased at being relieved from responsibility for the rest of his life.

They were married in the chapel of the college, and the half-suppressed glee of the saucy students may be imagined. All the blank walls about the college were filled with caricatures, illustrative of the one idea, “_paired, not matched_.” One of these charcoal libels was particularly annoying, it represented a nondescript and beautiful winged animal—a Hippogriff—with the face of a woman, curving her proud neck beneath a rein held in the hands of Apollo, while directly beneath was a second representation of the same magnificent creature tamely yoked with an ox to the plough.

But Abby cared little for these things, and she would not suffer her husband to pay any attention to them. She made him one of the best wives in the world, and though she was ten years his elder, and thrice as big as he, nobody ever believed that he repented the step he had taken. Their home was at the South, and, during her husband’s lifetime, Abby never paid a visit to her early friends. But she was visited by her family connections, and we younger members of the circle were often entertained in childhood by the accounts of Aunt Abby’s splendid service of gold-plate, her massive silver ewers and basins in every dressing-room, her Turkey carpets and rich hangings of Gobelin tapestry, and all the paraphernalia of great wealth and magnificent tastes.

When Terricott died, she exhibited her peculiarities of character still more strikingly. She knew people had accused her of marrying for money, and she therefore induced him to make a will, bestowing all his large property upon his own relatives, with the exception of a life-annuity of a thousand dollars to his widow. “I don’t want his money,” she said, “I took good care of him while he lived, and if he did not become a great man, it was no fault of mine. He was rich, and I used his money freely, because he liked to see fine things and good things around him; but now I have no occupation here, and so I shall go back to my old home, and ‘live along.’ I dare say something will be given me to do.”

So she buried her poor little Sampson, handed over his property to the heirs, and with the first instalment of her annuity in her pocket, came to take up her abode in ——. But her father had been dead for many years, and the place was filled with new people who knew little of her history or of her character. She soon became disgusted with her new home, and removing to New York, established herself there for the rest of her life. In her later years she gave up taking exercise daily, and in consequence of this she grew immensely large. I have the faintest shadow of a reminiscence respecting her personal appearance at that time. I was a child of perhaps five years old, and had a dear old aunt, who was as little as a fairy, and almost as benevolent. This kind little old body once took me to see our great Aunt Abby; but my head was crammed full of fairy legends and nursery tales, and when I saw an immensely large, fat woman sitting in a chair from which she could not lift her ponderous form, and met the full stare of her great black eyes, I thought of the Ogress who always devoured little children, and immediately set up such a howl of terror that I was sent away in disgrace. She died not long afterward, having lived to count her _ninetieth_ birthday. Her disinterestedness left her no fortune to bestow on her relatives, and but for her profile, (which, cut in black paper, hangs in an attic room,) her pincushion, and the traditions which remain in the family respecting her, all trace of her has vanished from the earth.

Poor Aunt Abby! she used to shock the women of her time by talking of women’s rights, and was guilty once of the enormity of wishing to be Pope of Rome, in order to carry out some scheme for the advancement of woman’s social position. She talked of _freedom_ until some pious prudes really suspected she meant _license_, and she predicted that the time would come when the genius of woman would rise superior to the imposed trammels of sex. She should have lived in the present age, when she would have seen woman’s struggles for emancipation, as exhibited in the French female clubs, and the German free associations, to say nothing of the free inquirers and declaimers against female slavery in this country. She should have lived till now to exhibit a rare and peculiar instance of masculine power submitting itself cheerfully to feminine duties; and perhaps the knowledge that Aunt Abby, with all her mental, moral, and physical perfections, lived and died unloving and unloved, might go far toward settling the question of _woman’s rights_, and make her quite satisfied with her easily accorded _privileges_.

* * * * *

PARTING.

INSCRIBED TO MY SISTER ADELA M. WADSWORTH.

BY MRS. LYDIA JANE PEIRSON.

Parting! Oh, is it not the bitterness
Of life, and death? It were small agony
If we and those we love—heart pressed to heart—
With loving words, and blended prayers, could die.

’Tis not the rending of the strings of life
That makes death terrible. The mental pain
Is parting from our dear and beautiful,
Who weep, and pray—and bid us live in vain.

It is not that we fear to close our eyes,
And rest from life’s long labor, that we cling
To pain and weakness. ’Tis fond human love
Which binds our soul with many a quivering string.

To know that we shall never look again
Into those loving eyes—shall never hear
Again those sweet-toned voices—never clasp
Again those forms, so tender, and so dear.

Yes—parting is the bitterness of death—
And life is full of parting. Day by day
We see the cherished of our homes depart,
As fledglings from the bird-nests flit away.

The cherished ones, whom we have called our own,
And loved so many years, that they have grown
Into our hearts, and so become a part
Of all that we have felt, or done, or known.

The ever-present with us, who were wont
To greet us every morning, with a smile,—
To answer to our voices all day long,—
And cheer us with love’s sunlight all the while.

Each hath a separate mission to fulfill,
And when their path diverges from our own,
And they have said farewell! and turned away
From our embrace—oh, then, we are _alone!_

We miss them in all places, everywhere,
And feel a shadow, and an emptiness
Forever by our side—but most of all
In the departed one’s accustomed place.

We turn to speak to them—they are not there—
The thought we would have uttered curdles back
Upon our heart, a stifling agony—
We turn our tearful gaze along the track

By which the dear one went—’tis desolate—
Our home—our heart—our world is desolate—
In all the places where our joy has been
Dark shades, and weeping memories, congregate.

But when our only one—the dearest, best,
The angel of our household, bids good-bye
And goes forth weeping—then the tortured heart
Reels with the anguish of the broken tie.

Yes—parting is the bitterness of life—
The agony of death—the ban of earth—
The inevitable doom—to love—to part—
Is the condition of our human birth.

Thank God! there is a world where loved ones meet
In perfect beauty, and unclouded joy,
Where all is love—where parting never comes
The everlasting rapture to destroy.

* * * * *

* * * * *

MONTGOMERY’S HOUSE.

THE HEAD-QUARTERS OF GENERAL JACKSON AT THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS.

[SEE ENGRAVING.]

By the courtesy of Mr. J. R. Smith, the artist, we are permitted to present our readers with another view of a remarkable place. It is Montgomery’s House, occupied by General Jackson as his headquarters at the time of the celebrated Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. It is surrounded by a splendid garden and grounds, and a beautiful grove of cedars, which in this latitude grow to an immense size. The line of intrenchments running up the lane by Montgomery’s House back to the cedar swamp can still be distinctly traced. Farther down on the banks of the river Mississippi are four live-oak trees, of immense size, forming a square, and hanging with Spanish moss. Beneath these trees the British commander, General Packenham, expired and was laid out. The spot is a favorite resort of curious visiters from the city, who go to examine the battle-ground. Below this is a splendid building, called the Battle-Ground Sugar Refinery, on the rear of which is a group of willows, with a mound in the centre, and surrounded by water. Here are buried the 2000 British warriors who were slain in the battle of the 8th of January. A planter’s house near the spot was occupied, previously to the action, by General Packenham as his head-quarters. All these objects form very suitable subjects for the pencils of our artists; and we are only surprised that they have not been drawn, engraved and familiarized to the public long ago.

* * * * *

EDITOR’S TABLE.

GOING AROUND THE HORN.

The search after the philosopher’s stone, after having vexed the crucibles, and puzzled the brains of alchemists for ages, is about to be rewarded with success. The New Eldorado promises wonders as great, and riches as abundant, as the most vigilant of dreamers could imagine. The phrase “untold gold” is meaningless now, for nothing but gold is talked of, and the wealth, which was significant of immensity, when coupled with “iron chests,” and “bank vaults,” is sicklied over, and feeble, when contrasted with the fields of gold which glitter over thousands of square miles. The very idea of “10,000 a year” has become paltry—it is but the cost of a dish of bean-soup in California—suggestive of utter poverty—the daily scrapings of the poorest and most indigent digger, self-sold into slavery at the mines. The man who owns a square of brick houses is nobody; an empty braggart, beside him who sits upon golden rocks, with a cigar in his mouth, overlooking acres of the shining metal. The very millionaire who used to strut about consequentially, with his hands thrust into his pockets significantly, may be hooted now by the veriest sweep in California, as a vulgar ragamuffin, who would scarce have money enough to pay his board there on Saturday night, and would be utterly at the mercy of his landlady.

Girard College, as a building, is very well, too, in its way, as reminding us of an old gentleman who spent half a century in picking up gold flakes, one at a time, with his fingers; a plodding, careful old chap, who lacked the creative faculty altogether, and had no idea of cradles and basins. His school-house on the Ridge Road will do very well as a specimen of primitive architecture, and might answer very well as a sort of outhouse to the palaces that we _will have_ in California—a very good stable for the Master of Hounds to Col. Mason, or some other grandee—but as it stands, it is _now_ a shocking evidence of parsimony, utterly disgraceful to the spirit of the age. A sort of lame and impotent conclusion to a long life foolishly spent.

The far-famed Genoese must have been a dull fellow, or he would have cast anchor in the Pacific, near San Francisco, instead of sailing about to no purpose. It is a wonder, too, how he could have been so stupid, when there are so many routes to this desirable haven. He certainly must have been a bad navigator, too, or he would have got around the Horn, some how, at some time. But it was reserved for the adventurous sons of Jonathan to make the successful voyage, and with _the sword_ to cut the way to fortune; and instead of diverging like radii from a common centre, to take the outermost limit, and to claim as his own all that he walked around and into. Showing conclusively that instead of bothering one’s brain about getting on the right side of a question, the safest plan is to get around it, and capture it by force of arms, as the Irish policeman did with the mob. It saves a vast deal of hair-splitting, in argument, and of irrelevant discussion, first to knock down your man, and then pinion him. Or like the Cockney sportsman, who winged the farmer’s goose, to say that you “only came out for the sport, and now that you have hit the bird, you have no objection to _buy him_.” Jonathan in this case, and in this way, seems to have bagged the one that laid the golden eggs, which we used to read of in the nursery, and a whole army of his sons are now rifling her nest. She must have left behind her a prolific brood if she satisfies the whole of them. The veriest “madness of the moon,” must impart a feeble pulse, compared with the fever which Jonathan’s lucky hit has created in the whole family. Homeopathy is totally at fault in this disease. Nothing but very violent depletion will answer.

The whole body of family physicians, and nurses of the body politic, have their hands full, and the multifarious practice sets at naught the popular idea of perfection, as a necessary consequence. It is gratifying to know, however, that in the absence of consistent and regular treatment, the popular remedy applied in its early stages is conducive to longevity and temperance—those who suffer severely from the fever here, and become exceedingly dry in consequence, are cured effectually by GOING AROUND THE HORN. Lying water-logged under the Tropics being rather a different thing from “getting up a breeze” at home, and being eminently suggestive of sobriety of thought, and of taking their cue from facts, and not from “Q Brandy” continually. Young gentlemen whose systems were here so relaxed, that nothing but taking a horn two or three times before dinner could impart to them sufficient energy to attend to out-of-door business, go around it, and give it a wide berth in the hot latitudes—shut their ears to all hints about the nervous system, and with a hardihood and self command, acquired within view of sharks and yellow fever, brave danger without stimulus, and fatigue without “having a gale.”

Under the tropics, too, young men, who have at home found no difficulty in getting three sheets in the wind, have rather an aerial difficulty in getting a flowing sail, and with plenty of steam on board, in the absence of propellers, decline all invitation to steam it, “to drive dull care away”—the trouble greatest, for the time, being to get away themselves. The boys who often declared in the hours of midnight that they were the particular individuals who feared no noise, and who would not go home till morning, wish themselves very quietly dozing there, and are perfectly subdued and indolent under the Equator in a three days’ calm, and do not insist upon “three more—and again,” so that they have an opportunity of candid inquiry and sober reflection, which may be serviceable—promotive of a thirst for cold water, and an abhorrence of dark brandy, in a “_sun_ny” clime. We do not see why something cannot be done for Temperance in this way, as well as not. People talk very disparagingly about “whipping the devil round the stump,” but so that the old scoundrel gets soundly thrashed at last, I never could see that the _modus operandi_ is so particularly important.