Chapter XVI: Part II: Miscellanies (4)

to have around him those who do their work in serenity of mind, neither deceiving nor envying him whom circumstances have enabled to command their service. As to the carriage, that is used for the purpose of going to and fro in bad weather, or ill health, or haste, or for drives to enjoy the country. But my nobleman and his family are too well born and bred not to prefer employing their own feet when possible. And their carriage is much appropriated to the use of poor invalids, even among the abhorred class of poor relations, so that often they have not room in it for themselves, much less for flaunting dames and lazy dandies.

We need hardly add that, their attendants wear no liveries. They are aware that, in a society where none of the causes exist that justify this habit abroad, the practice would have no other result than to call up a sneer to the lips of the most complaisant "milor," when "Mrs. Higginbottom's carriage stops the way," with its tawdry, ill-fancied accompaniments. _Will_ none of their "governors" tell our cits the AEsopian fable of the donkey that tried to imitate the gambols of the little dog?

The wife of my nobleman is so well matched with him that she has no need to be the better half. She is his almoner, his counsellor, and the priestess who keeps burning on the domestic hearth a fire from the fuel he collects in his out-door work, whose genial heart and aspiring flame comfort and animate all who come within its range.

His children are his ministers, whose leisure and various qualifications enable them to carry out his good thoughts. They hold all that they possess--time, money, talents, acquirements--on the principle of stewardship. They wake up the seeds of virtue and genius in all the young persons of their acquaintance; but the poorer classes are especially their care. Among them they seek for those who are threatened with dying--"mute, inglorious" Hampdens and Miltons--but for their scrutiny and care; of these they become the teachers and patrons to the extent of their power. Such knowledge of the arts, sciences, and just principles of action as they have been favored with, they communicate, and thereby form novices worthy to fill up the ranks of the true American aristocracy.

And the house--it is a large one; a simple family does not fill its chambers. Some of them are devoted to the use of men of genius, who need a serene home, free from care, while they pursue their labors for the good of the world. Thus, as in the palaces of the little princes of Italy in a better day, these chambers become hallowed by the nativities of great thoughts; and the horoscopes of the human births that may take place there, are likely to read the better for it. Suffering virtue sometimes finds herself taken home here, instead of being sent to the almshouse, or presented with half a dollar and a ticket for coal, and finds upon my nobleman's mattresses (for the wealth of Croesus would not lure him or his to sleep upon down) dreams of angelic protection which enable her to rise refreshed for the struggle of the morrow.

The uses of hospitality are very little understood among us, so that we fear generally there is a small chance of entertaining gods and angels unawares, as the Greeks and Hebrews did in the generous time of hospitality, when every man had a claim on the roof of fellow-man. Now, none is received to a bed and breakfast unless he come as "bearer of despatches" from His Excellency So-and-so.

But let us not be supposed to advocate the system of all work and no play, or to delight exclusively in the pedagogic and Goody-Two-Shoes vein. Reader, if any such accompany me to this scene of my vision, cheer up; I hear the sound of music in full band, and see the banquet prepared. Perhaps they are even dancing the polka and redowa in those airy, well-lighted rooms. In another they find in the acting of extempore dramas, arrangement of tableaux, little concerts or recitations, intermingled with beautiful national or fancy dances, some portion of the enchanting, refining, and ennobling influence of the arts. The finest engravings on all subjects attend such as like to employ themselves more quietly, while those who can find a companion or congenial group to converse with, find also plenty of recesses and still rooms, with softened light, provided for their pleasure.

There is not on this side of the Atlantic--we dare our glove upon it--a more devout believer than ourselves in the worship of the Muses and Graces, both for itself, and its importance no less to the moral than to the intellectual life of a nation. Perhaps there is not one who has _so_ deep a feeling, or so many suggestions ready, in the fulness of time, to be hazarded on the subject.

But in order to such worship, what standard is there as to admission to the service? Talents of gold, or Delphian talents? fashion or elegance? "standing" or the power to move gracefully from one position to another?

Our nobleman did not hesitate; the handle to his door bell was not of gold, but mother-of-pearl, pure and prismatic.

If he did not go into the alleys to pick up the poor, they were not excluded, if qualified by intrinsic qualities to adorn the scene. Neither were wealth or fashion a cause of exclusion, more than of admission. All depended on the person; yet he did not _seek_ his guests among the slaves of fashion, for he knew that persons highly endowed rarely had patience with the frivolities of that class, but retired, and left it to be peopled mostly by weak and plebeian natures. Yet all depended on the individual. Was the person fair, noble, wise, brilliant, or even only youthfully innocent and gay, or venerable in a good old age, he or she was welcome. Still, as simplicity of character and some qualification positively good, healthy, and natural, was requisite for admission, we must say the company was select. Our nobleman and his family had weeded their "circle" carefully, year by year.

Some valued acquaintances they had made in ball-rooms and boudoirs, and kept; but far more had been made through the daily wants of life, and shoemakers, seamstresses, and graziers mingled happily with artists and statesmen, to the benefit of both. (N.B.--None used the poisonous weed, in or out of our domestic temple.)

I cannot tell you what infinite good our nobleman and his family were doing by creation of this true social centre, where the legitimate aristocracy of the land assembled, not to be dazzled by expensive furniture, (our nobleman bought what was good in texture and beautiful in form, but not _because_ it was expensive,) not to be feasted on rare wines and highly-seasoned dainties, though they found simple refreshments well prepared, as indeed it was a matter of duty and conscience in that house that the least office should be well fulfilled, but to enjoy the generous confluence of mind with mind and heart with heart, the pastimes that are not waste-times of taste and inventive fancy, the cordial union of beings from all points and places in noble human sympathy. New York was beginning to be truly American, or rather Columbian, and money stood for something in the records of history. It had brought opportunity to genius and aid to virtue. But just at this moment, the jostling showed me that I had reached the corner of Wall Street. I looked earnestly at the omnibuses discharging their eager freight, as if I hoped to see my merchant. "Perhaps he has gone to the post office to take out letters from his friends in Utopia," thought I. "Please give me a penny," screamed a half-starved ragged little street-sweep, and the fancied cradle of the American Utopia receded, or rather proceeded, fifty years, at least, into the future.

THE POOR MAN.

AN IDEAL SKETCH.

The foregoing sketch of the Rich Man, seems to require this companion-piece; and we shall make the attempt, though the subject is far more difficult than the former was.

In the first place, we must state what we mean by a poor man, for it is a term of wide range in its relative applications. A painstaking artisan, trained to self-denial, and a strict adaptation, not of his means to his wants, but of his wants to his means, finds himself rich and grateful, if some unexpected fortune enables him to give his wife a new gown, his children cheap holiday joys, and his starving neighbor a decent meal; while George IV., when heir apparent to the throne of Great Britain, considered himself driven by the pressure of poverty to become a debtor, a beggar, a swindler, and, by the aid of perjury, the husband of two wives at the same time, neither of whom he treated well. Since poverty is made an excuse for such depravity in conduct, it would be well to mark the limits within which self-control and resistance to temptation may be expected.

When he of the olden time prayed, "Give me neither poverty nor riches," we presume he meant that proportion of means to the average wants of a human being which secures freedom from pecuniary cares, freedom of motion, and a moderate enjoyment of the common blessings offered by earth, air, water, the natural relations, and the subjects for thought which every day presents. We shall certainly not look above this point for our poor man. A prince may be poor, if he has not means to relieve the sufferings of his subjects, or secure to them needed benefits. Or he may make himself so, just as a well-paid laborer by drinking brings poverty to his roof. So may the prince, by the mental gin of horse-racing or gambling, grow a beggar. But we shall not consider these cases.

Our subject will be taken between the medium we have spoken of as answer to the wise man's prayer, and that destitution which we must style infamous, either to the individual or to the society whose vices have caused that stage of poverty, in which there is no certainty, and often no probability, of work or bread from day to day,--in which cleanliness and all the decencies of life are impossible, and the natural human feelings are turned to gall because the man finds himself on this earth in a far worse situation than the brute. In this stage there is no ideal, and from its abyss, if the unfortunates look up to Heaven, or the state of things as they ought to be, it is with suffocating gasps which demand relief or death. This degree of poverty is common, as we all know; but we who do not share it have no right to address those who do from our own standard, till we have placed their feet on our own level. Accursed is he who does not long to have this so--to take out at least the physical hell from this world! Unblest is he who is not seeking, either by thought or act, to effect this poor degree of amelioration in the circumstances of his race.

We take the subject of our sketch, then, somewhere between the abjectly poor and those in moderate circumstances. What we have to say may apply to either sex, and to any grade in this division of the human family, from the hodman and washerwoman up to the hard-working, poorly-paid lawyer clerk, schoolmaster, or scribe.

The advantages of such a position are many. In the first place, you belong, inevitably, to the active and suffering part of the world. You know the ills that try men's souls and bodies. You cannot creep into a safe retreat, arrogantly to judge, or heartlessly to forget, the others. They are always before you; you see the path stained by their bleeding feet; stupid and flinty, indeed, must you be, if you can hastily wound, or indolently forbear to aid them. Then, as to yourself, you know what your resources are; what you can do, what bear; there is small chance for you to escape a well-tempered modesty. Then again, if you find power in yourself to endure the trial, there is reason and reality in some degree of self-reliance. The moral advantages of such training can scarcely fail to amount to something; and as to the mental, that most important chapter, how the lives of men are fashioned and transfused by the experience of passion and the development of thought, presents new sections at every turn, such as the distant dilettante's opera-glasses will never detect,--to say nothing of the exercise of mere faculty, which, though insensible in its daily course, leads to results of immense importance.

But the evils, the disadvantages, the dangers, how many, how imminent! True, indeed, they are so. There is the early bending of the mind to the production of marketable results, which must hinder all this free play of intelligence, and deaden the powers that craved instruction. There is the callousness produced by the sight of more misery than it is possible to relieve; the heart, at first so sensitive, taking refuge in a stolid indifference against the pangs of sympathetic pain, it had not force to bear. There is the perverting influence of uncongenial employments, undertaken without or against choice, continued at unfit hours and seasons, till the man loses his natural relations with summer and winter, day and night, and has no sense more for natural beauty and joy. There is the mean providence, the perpetual caution to guard against ill, instead of the generous freedom of a mind which expects good to ensue from all good actions. There is the sad doubt whether it will _do_ to indulge the kindly impulse, the calculation of dangerous chances, and the cost between the loving impulse and its fulfilment. Yes; there is bitter chance of narrowness, meanness, and dulness on this path, and it requires great natural force, a wise and large view of life taken at an early age, or fervent trust in God, to evade them.

It is astonishing to see the poor, no less than the rich, the slaves of externals. One would think that, where the rich man once became aware of the worthlessness of the mere trappings of life from the weariness of a spirit that found itself entirely dissatisfied after pomp and self-indulgence, the poor man would learn this a hundred times from the experience how entirely independent of them is all that is intrinsically valuable in our life. But, no! The poor man wants dignity, wants elevation of spirit. It is his own servility that forges the fetters that enslave him. Whether he cringe to, or rudely defy, the man in the coach and handsome coat, the cause and effect are the same. He is influenced by a costume and a position. He is not firmly rooted in the truth that only in so far as outward beauty and grandeur are representative of the mind of the possessor, can they count for any thing at all. O, poor man! you are poor indeed, if you feel yourself so; poor if you do not feel that a soul born of God, a mind capable of scanning the wondrous works of time and space, and a flexible body for its service, are the essential riches of a man, and all he needs to make him the equal of any other man. You are mean, if the possession of money or other external advantages can make you envy or shrink from a being mean enough to value himself upon such. Stand where you may, O man, you cannot be noble and rich if your brow be not broad and steadfast, if your eye beam not with a consciousness of inward worth, of eternal claims and hopes which such trifles cannot at all affect. A man without this majesty is ridiculous amid the flourish and decorations procured by money, pitiable in the faded habiliments of poverty. But a man who is a man, a woman who is a woman, can never feel lessened or embarrassed because others look ignorantly on such matters. If they regret the want of these temporary means of power, it must be solely because it fetters their motions, deprives them of leisure and desired means of improvement, or of benefiting those they love or pity.

I have heard those possessed of rhetoric and imaginative tendency declare that they should have been outwardly great and inwardly free, victorious poets and heroes, if fate had allowed them a certain quantity of dollars. I have found it impossible to believe them. In early youth, penury may have power to freeze the genial current of the soul, and prevent it, during one short life, from becoming sensible of its true vocation and destiny. But if it _has_ become conscious of these, and yet there is not advance in any and all circumstances, no change would avail.

No, our poor man must begin higher! He must, in the first place, really believe there is a God who ruleth--a fact to which few men vitally bear witness, though most are ready to affirm it with the lips.

2. He must sincerely believe that rank and wealth

"are but the guinea's stamp;
The man's the gold;"--

take his stand on his claims as a human being, made in God's own likeness, urge them when the occasion permits, but never be so false to them as to feel put down or injured by the want of mere external advantages.

3. He must accept his lot, while he is in it. If he can change it for the better, let his energies be exerted to do so. But if he cannot, there is none that will not yield an opening to Eden, to the glories of Zion, and even to the subterranean enchantments of our strange estate. There is none that may not be used with nobleness.

"Who sweeps a room, as for Thy sake
Makes that and th' action clean."

4. Let him examine the subject enough to be convinced that there is not that vast difference between the employments that is supposed, in the means of expansion and refinement. All depends on the spirit as to the use that is made of an occupation. Mahomet was not a wealthy merchant, and profound philosophers have ripened on the benches, not of the lawyers, but the shoemakers. It did not hurt Milton to be a poor schoolmaster, nor Shakspeare to do the errands of a London play-house. Yes, "the mind is its own place," and if it will keep that place, all doors will be opened from it. Upon this subject we hope to offer some hints at a future day, in speaking of the different trades, professions, and modes of labor.

5. Let him remember that from no man can the chief wealth be kept. On all men the sun and stars shine; for all the oceans swell and rivers flow. All men may be brothers, lovers, fathers, friends; before all lie the mysteries of birth and death. If these wondrous means of wealth and blessing be likely to remain misused or unused, there are quite as many disadvantages in the way of the man of money as of the man who has none. Few who drain the choicest grape know the ecstasy of bliss and knowledge that follows a full draught of the wine of life. That has mostly been reserved for those on whose thoughts society, as a public, makes but a moderate claim. And if bitterness followed on the joy, if your fountain was frozen after its first gush by the cold winds of the world, yet, moneyless men, ye are at least not wholly ignorant of what a human being has force to know. You have not skimmed over surfaces, and been dozing on beds of down, during the rare and stealthy visits of Love and the Muses. Remember this, and, looking round on the arrangements of the lottery, see if you did not draw a prize in your turn.

It will be seen that our ideal poor man needs to be religious, wise, dignified, and humble, grasping at nothing, claiming all; willing to wait, never willing to give up; servile to none, the servant of all, and esteeming it the glory of a man to serve. The character is rare, but not unattainable. We have, however, found an approach to it more frequent in woman than in man.

THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE.

During a late visit to Boston, I visited with great pleasure the Chinese Museum, which has been opened there.

There was much satisfaction in surveying its rich contents, if merely on account of their splendor and elegance, which, though fantastic to our tastes, presented an obvious standard of its own by which to prize it. The rich dresses of the imperial court, the magnificent jars, (the largest worth three hundred dollars, and looking as if it was worth much more,) the present-boxes and ivory work, the elegant interiors of the home and counting-room,--all these gave pleasure by their perfection, each in its kind.

But the chief impression was of that unity of existence, so opposite to the European, and, for a change, so pleasant, from its repose and gilded lightness. Their imperial majesties do really seem so "perfectly serene," that we fancy we might become so under their sway, if not "thoroughly virtuous," as they profess to be. Entirely a new mood would be ours, as we should sup in one of those pleasure boats, by the light of fanciful lanterns, or listen to the tinkling of pagoda bells.

The highest conventional refinement, of a certain kind, is apparent in all that belongs to the Chinese. The inviolability of custom has not made their life heavy, but shaped it to the utmost adroitness for their own purposes. We are now somewhat familiar with their literature, and we see pervading it a poetry subtle and aromatic, like the odors of their appropriate beverage. Like that, too, it is all domestic,--never wild. The social genius, fluttering on the wings of compliment, pervades every thing Chinese. Society has moulded them, body and soul; the youngest children are more social and Chinese than human; and we doubt not the infant, with its first cry, shows its capacity for self-command and obedience to superiors.

Their great man, Confucius, expresses this social genius in its most perfect state and highest form. His golden wisdom is the quintescence of social justice. He never forgets conditions and limits; he is admirably wise, pure, and religious, but never towers above humanity--never soars into solitude. There is no token of the forest or cave in Confucius. Few men could understand him, because his nature was so thoroughly balanced, and his rectitude so pure; not because his thoughts were too deep, or too high for them. In him should be sought the best genius of the Chinese, with that perfect practical good sense whose uses are universal.

At one time I used to change from reading Confucius to one of the great religious books of another Eastern nation; and it was always like leaving the street and the palace for the blossoming forest of the East, where in earlier times we are told the angels walked with men and talked, not of earth, but of heaven.

As we looked at the forms moving about in the Museum, we could not wonder that the Chinese consider us, who call ourselves the civilized world, barbarians, so deficient were those forms in the sort of refinement that the Chinese prize above all. And our people deserve it for their senselessness in viewing _them_ as barbarians, instead of seeing how perfectly they represent their own idea. They are inferior to us in important developments, but, on the whole, approach far nearer their own standard than we do ours. And it is wonderful that an enlightened European can fail to prize the sort of beauty they do develop. Sets of engravings we have seen representing the culture of the tea plant, have brought to us images of an entirely original idyllic loveliness. One long resident in China has observed that nothing can be more enchanting than the smile of love on the regular, but otherwise expressionless face of a Chinese woman. It has the simplicity and abandonment of infantine, with the fulness of mature feeling. It never varies, but it does not tire.

The same sweetness and elegance stereotyped now, but having originally a deep root in their life as a race, may be seen in their poetry and music. The last we have heard, both from the voice and several instruments, at this Museum, for the first time, and were at first tempted to laugh, when something deeper forbade. Like their poetry, the music is of the narrowest monotony, a kind of rosary, a repetition of phrases, and, in its enthusiasm and conventional excitement, like nothing else in the heavens and on the earth. Yet both the poetry and music have in them an expression of birds, roses, and moonlight; indeed, they suggest that state where "moonlight, and music, and feeling are one," though the soul seems to twitter, rather than sing of it.

It is wonderful with how little practical insight travellers in China look on what they see. They seem to be struck by points of repulsion at once, and neither see nor tell us what could give any real clew to their facts. I do not speak now of the recent lecturers in this city, for I have not heard them; but of the many, many books into which I have earlier looked with eager curiosity,--in vain,--I always found the same external facts, and the same prejudices which disabled the observer from piercing beneath them. I feel that I know something of the Chinese when reading Confucius, or looking at the figures on their tea-cups, or drinking a cup of _genuine_ tea--rather an unusual felicity, it is said, in this ingenious city, which shares with the Chinese one trait at least. But the travellers rather take from than add to this knowledge; and a visit to this Museum would give more clear views than all the books I ever read yet.

The juggling was well done, and so solemnly, with the same concentrated look as the music! I saw the juggler afterwards at Ole Bull's concert, and he moved not a muscle while the nightingale was pouring forth its sweetest descant. Probably the avenues wanted for these strains to enter his heart had been closed by the imperial edict long ago. The resemblance borne by this juggler to our Indians is even greater than we have seen in any other case. His brotherhood does not, to us, seem surprising. Our Indians, too, are stereotyped, though in a different way; they are of a mould capable of retaining the impression through ages; and many of the traits of the two races, or two branches of a race, may seem to be identical, though so widely modified by circumstances. They are all opposite to us, who have made ships, and balloons, and magnetic telegraphs, as symbolic expressions of our wants, and the means of gratifying them. We must console ourselves with these, and our organs and pianos, for our want of perfect good breeding, serenity, and "thorough virtue."

KLOPSTOCK AND META.[36]

The poet had retired from the social circle. Its mirth was to his sickened soul a noisy discord, its sentiment a hollow mockery. With grief he felt that the recital of a generous action, the vivid expression of a noble thought, could only graze the surface of his mind. The desolate stillness of death lay brooding on its depths. The friendly smiles, the tender attentions which seemed so sweet in those hours when Meta was "crown of his cup and garnish of his dish," could give the present but a ghastly similitude to those blessed days. While his attention, disobedient to his wishes, kept turning painfully inward, the voice of the singer suddenly startled it back. A lovely maid, with moist, clear eye, and pleadi ng, earnest voice, was seated at the harpsichord. She sang a sad, and yet not hopeless, strain, like that of a lover who pines in absence, yet hopes again to meet his loved one.

The heart of Klopstock rose to his lips, and natural tears suffused his eyes. She paused. Some youth of untouched heart, shallow, as yet, in all things, asked for a lively song, the expression of animal enjoyment. She hesitated, and cast a sidelong glance at the mourner. Heedlessly the request was urged: she wafted over the keys an airy prelude. A cold rush of anguish came over the awakened heart; Klopstock rose, and hastily left the room.

He entered his apartment, and threw himself upon the bed. The moon was nearly at the full: a tree near the large window obscured its radiance, and cast into the room a flickering shadow, as its leaves kept swaying to and fro with the breeze.

Vainly Klopstock sought for soothing influences in the contemplation of the soft and varying light. Sadness is always deepest at this hour of celestial calmness. The soul realizes its wants, and longs to be in harmony with itself far more in such an hour than when any outward ill is arousing or oppressing it.

"Weak, fond wretch that I am!" cried he. "I, the bard of the Messiah! To what purpose have I nurtured my soul on the virtues of that sublime model, for whom no renunciation was too hard? Four years an angel sojourned with me: her presence vivified my soul into purity and benevolence like her own. Happy was I as the saints who rest after their long struggles in the bosom of perfect love. I thought myself good because I sinned not against a bounteous God, because my heart could spare some drops of its overflowing oil and balm for the wounds of others: now what am I? My angel leaves me, but she leaves with me the memory of blissful years and our perfect communion as an earnest of that happy meeting which awaits us, if I prove faithful to my own words of faith, to those strains of religious confidence which are even now cheering onward many an inexperienced youth. And what are my deeds and feelings? The springs of life and love frozen, here I lie, sunk in grief, as if I knew no world beyond the grave. The joy of others seems an insult, their grief a dead letter, compared with my own. Meta! Meta! couldst thou see me in my hour of trial, thou wouldst disdain thy chosen one!"

A strain of sweet and solemn music swelled on his ear--one of those majestic harmonies which, were there no other proof of the soul's immortality, must suggest the image of an intellectual paradise. It closed, and Meta stood before him. A long veil of silvery whiteness fell over her, through which might be seen the fixed but nobly-serene expression of the large blue eyes, and a holy, seraphic dignity of mien. Klopstock knelt before her: his soul was awed to earth. "Hast thou come, my adored!" said he, "from thy home of bliss, to tell me that thou no longer lovest thy unworthy friend?"

"O, speak not thus!" replied the softest and most penetrating of voices. "God wills not that his purified creatures should look in contempt or anger on those suffering the ills from which they are set free. O, no, my love! my husband! I come to speak consolation to thy sinking spirit. When you left me to breathe my last sigh in the arms of a sister, who, however dear, was nothing to my heart in comparison with you, I closed my eyes, wishing that the light of day might depart with thee. The thought of what thou must suffer convulsed my heart with one last pang. Once more I murmured the wish I had so often expressed, that the sorrows of the survivor might have fallen to my lot rather than to thine. In that pang my soul extricated itself from the body; a sensation like that from exquisite fragrance came over me, and with breezy lightness I rose into the pure serene. It was a moment of feeling almost wild,--so free, so unobscured. I had not yet passed the verge of comparison; I could not yet embrace the Infinite: therefore my joy was like those of earth--intoxicating.

"Words cannot paint, even to thy eager soul, my friend, the winged swiftness, the onward, glowing hopefulness of my path through the fields of azure. I paused, at length, in a region of keen, pure, bluish light, such as beams from Jupiter to thy planet on a lovely October evening.

"Here an immediate conviction pervaded me that this was home--was my appointed resting place; a full tide of hope and satisfaction similar to the emotion excited on my first acquaintance with thy poem flowed over this hour; a joyous confidence in the existence of Goodness and Beauty supplied for a season, the want of thy society. The delicious clearness of every emotion exalted my soul into a realm full of life. Some time elapsed in this state. The whole of my temporal existence passed in review before me. My thoughts, my actions, were placed in full relief before the cleared eye of my spirit. Beloved, thou wilt rejoice to know that thy Meta could then feel that her worst faults sprung from ignorance. As I was striving to connect my present state with my past, and, as it were, poising myself on the brink of space and time, the breath of another presence came across me, and, gradually evolving from the bosom of light, a figure rose before me, in grace, in sweetness, how excelling! Fixing her eyes on mine with the full gaze of love, she said, in flute-like tones, 'Dost thou know me, my sister?'

"'Art thou not,' I replied, 'the love of Petrarch? I have seen the portraiture of thy mortal lineaments, and now recognize that perfect beauty, the full violet flower which thy lover's genius was able to anticipate.'

"'Yes,' she said, 'I am Laura--on earth most happy, yet most sad; most rich, and yet most poor. I come to greet her whom I recognize as the inheritress of all that was lovely in my earthly being, more happy than I in her temporal state. I have sympathized, O wife of Klopstock! in thy transitory happiness. Thy lover was thy priest and thy poet; thy model and oracle was thy bosom friend. All that earth could give was thine; and I joyed to think on thy rewarded love, thy freedom of soul, and unchecked faith. Follow me now: we are to dwell in the same circle, and I am appointed to show thee thine abiding place.'

"She guided me towards the source of that light which I have described to thee. We paused before a structure of dazzling whiteness, which stood on a slope, and overlooked a valley of exceeding beauty. It was shaded by trees which had that peculiar calmness that the shadows of trees have below in the high noon of summer moonlight--

'... trees which are still
As the shades of trees below,
When they sleep on the lonely hill,
In the summer moonlight glow.'

It was decked with majestic sculptures, of which I may speak in some future interview. Before it rose a fountain, from which the stream of light flowed down the valley, dividing it into two unequal parts. The larger and farther from us seemed, when I first looked on it, populous with shapes, beauteous as that of my guide. But, when I looked more fixedly, I saw only the valley, carpeted with large blue and white flowers, which emitted a hyacinthine odor. Here, Laura, turning round, asked, 'Is not this a poetic home, Meta?'

"I paused a moment ere I replied, 'It is indeed a place of beauty, but more like the Greek elysium than the home Klopstock and I were wont to picture to ourselves beyond the gates of Death.'

"'Thou sayest well,' she said; 'nor is this thy final home; thou wilt but wait here a season, till Klopstock comes.'

"'What' said I, 'alone! alone in Eden?'

"'Has not Meta, then, collected aught on which she might meditate? Hast thou never read, "While I was musing, the fire burned"?'

"'Laura,' said I, 'spare the reproach. The love of Petrach, whose soul grew up in golden fetters, whose strongest emotions, whose most natural actions were, through a long life, constantly repressed by the dictates of duty and honor, she content might pass long years in that contemplation which was on earth her only solace. But I, whose life has all been breathed out in love and ministry, can I endure that my existence be reversed? Can I live without utterance of spirit? or would such be a stage of that progressive happiness we are promised?'

"'True, little one!' said she, with her first heavenly smile; 'nor shall it be thus with thee. A ministry is appointed thee--the same which I exercised while waiting here for that friend whom below I was forbidden to call my own.'

"She touched me, and from my shoulders sprung a pair of wings, white and azure, wide and glistering.

"'Meta!' she resumed, 'spirit of love! be this thine office. Wherever a soul pines in absence from all companionship, breathe sweet thoughts of sympathy to be had in another life, if deserved by virtuous exertions and mental progress. Bind up the wounds of hearts torn by bereavement; teach them where healing is to be found. Revive in the betrayed and forsaken heart that belief in virtue and nobleness, without which life is an odious, disconnected dream. Fan every flame of generous enthusiasm, and on the altars where it is kindled strew thou the incense of wisdom. In such a ministry thou couldst never be alone, since hope must dwell with thee. But I shall often come and discourse to thee of the future glories of thy destiny. Yet more: Seest thou that marble tablet? Retire here when thy pinions are wearied. Give up thy soul to faith. Fix thine eyes on the tablet, and the deeds and thoughts which fill the days of Klopstock shall he traced on it. Thus shall ye not be for a day divided. Hast thou, Meta, aught more to ask?"

"'Messenger of peace and bliss!' said I, 'dare I frame another request? Is it too presumptuous to ask that Klopstock may be one of those to whom I minister, and that he may know it is Meta who consoles him?'

"'Even this, to a certain extent, I have power to grant. Most pure, most holy was thy life with Klopstock; ye taught one another only good things, and peculiarly are ye rewarded. Thou mayst occasionally manifest thyself to him, and answer his prayers with words,--so long,' she continued, looking fixedly at me, 'as he continues true to himself and thee!'

"O, my beloved, why tell thee what were my emotions at such a promise? Ah! I must now leave thee, for dawn is bringing back the world's doings. Soon I shall visit thee again. Farewell! Remember that thy every thought and deed will be known to me, and be happy!"

She vanished.

WHAT FITS A MAN TO BE A VOTER?

A FABLE.

The country had been denuded of its forests, and men cried, "Come! we must plant anew, or there will be no shade for the homes of our children, or fuel for their hearths. Let us find the best kernels for a new growth." And a basket of butternuts was offered.

But the planters rejected it with disgust. "What a black, rough coat it has!" said they; "it is entirely unfit for the dishes on a nobleman's table, nor have we ever seen it in such places. It must have a greasy, offensive kernel; nor can fine trees grow up from such a nut."

"Friends," said one of the planters, "this decision may be rash. The chestnut has not a handsome outside; it is long encased in troublesome burs, and, when disengaged, is almost as black as these nuts you despise. Yet from it grow trees of lofty stature, graceful form, and long life. Its kernel is white, and has furnished food to the most poetic and splendid nations of the older world."

"Don't tell me," says another; "brown is entirely different from black. I like brown very well; there is Oriental precedent for its respectability. Perhaps we will use some of your chestnuts, if we can get fine samples. But for the present, I think we should use only English walnuts, such as our forefathers delighted to honor. Here are many basketsful of them, quite enough for the present. We will plant them with a sprinkling between of the chestnut and acorn."

"But," rejoined the other, "many butternuts are beneath the sod, and you cannot help a mixture of them being in your wood, at any rate."

"Well, we will grub them up and cut them down whenever we find them. We can use the young shrubs for kindlings."

At that moment two persons entered the council of a darker complexion than most of those present, as if born beneath the glow of a more scorching sun. First came a woman, beautiful in the mild, pure grandeur of her look; in whose large dark eye a prophetic intelligence was mingled with infinite sweetness. She looked at the assembly with an air of surprise, as if its aspect was strange to her. She threw quite back her veil, and stepping aside, made room for her companion. His form was youthful, about the age of one we have seen in many a picture produced by the thought of eighteen centuries, as of one "instructing the doctors." I need not describe the features; all minds have their own impressions of such an image,

"Severe in youthful beauty."

In his hand he bore a white banner, on which was embroidered, "PEACE AND GOOD WILL TO MEN." And the words seemed to glitter and give out sparks, as he paused in the assembly.

"I came hither," said he, "an uninvited guest, because I read sculptured above the door 'All men born free and equal,' and in this dwelling hoped to find myself at home. What is the matter in dispute?"

Then they whispered one to another, and murmurs were heard--"He is a mere boy; young people are always foolish and extravagant;" or, "He looks like a fanatic." But others said, "He looks like one whom we have been taught to honor. It will be best to tell him the matter in dispute."

When he heard it, he smiled, and said, "It will be needful first to ascertain which of the nuts is soundest _within_." And with a hammer he broke one, two, and more of the English walnuts, and they were mouldy. Then he tried the other nuts, but found most of them fresh within and _white_, for they were fresh from the bosom of the earth, while the others had been kept in a damp cellar.

And he said, "You had better plant them together, lest none, or few, of the walnuts be sound. And why are you so reluctant? Has not Heaven permitted them both to grow on the same soil? and does not that show what is intended about it?"

And they said, "But they are black and ugly to look upon." He replied, "They do not seem so to me. What my Father has fashioned in such guise offends not mine eye."

And they said, "But from one of these trees flew a bird of prey, who has done great wrong. We meant, therefore, to suffer no such tree among us."

And he replied, "Amid the band of my countrymen and friends there was one guilty of the blackest crime--that of selling for a price the life of his dearest friend; yet all the others of his blood were not put under ban because of his guilt."

Then they said, "But in the Holy Book our teachers tell us, we are bid to keep in exile or distress whatsoever is black and unseemly in our eyes."

Then he put his hand to his brow, and cried in a voice of the most penetrating pathos, "Have I been so long among you, and ye have not known me?" And the woman turned from them the majestic hope of her glance, and both forms suddenly vanished; but the banner was left trailing in the dust.

The men stood gazing at one another. After which one mounted on high, and said, "Perhaps, my friends, we carry too far this aversion to objects merely because they are black. I heard, the other day, a wise man say that black was the color of evil--marked as such by God, and that whenever a white man struck a black man he did an act of worship to God.[37] I could not quite believe him. I hope, in what I am about to add, I shall not be misunderstood. I am no abolitionist. I respect above all things, divine or human, the constitution framed by our forefathers, and the peculiar institutions hallowed by the usage of their sons. I have no sympathy with the black race in this country. I wish it to be understood that I feel towards negroes the purest personal antipathy. It is a family trait with us. My little son, scarce able to speak, will cry out, 'Nigger! Nigger!' whenever he sees one, and try to throw things at them. He made a whole omnibus load laugh the other day by his cunning way of doing this.[38] The child of my political antagonist, on the other hand, says 'he likes _tullared_ children the best.'[39] You see he is tainted in his cradle by the loose principles of his parents, even before he can say nigger, or pronounce the more refined appellation. But that is no matter. I merely mention this by the way; not to prejudice you against Mr.----, but that you may appreciate the very different state of things in my family, and not misinterpret what I have to say. I was lately in one of our prisons where a somewhat injudicious indulgence had extended to one of the condemned felons, a lost and wretched outcast from society, the use of materials for painting, that having been his profession. He had completed at his leisure a picture of the Lord's Supper. Most of the figures were well enough, but Judas he had represented as a black.[40] Now, gentlemen, I am of opinion that this is an unwarrantable liberty taken with the Holy Scriptures, and shows _too much_ prejudice in the community. It is my wish to be moderate and fair, and preserve a medium, neither, on the one hand, yielding the wholesome antipathies planted in our breasts as a safeguard against degradation, and our constitutional obligations, which, as I have before observed, are, with me, more binding than any other; nor, on the other hand, forgetting that liberality and wisdom which are the prerogative of every citizen of this free commonwealth. I agree, then, with our young visitor. I hardly know, indeed, why a stranger, and one so young, was permitted to mingle in this council; but it was certainly thoughtful in him to crack and examine the nuts. I agree that it may be well to plant some of the black nuts among the others, so that, if many of the walnuts fail, we may make use of this inferior tree."

At this moment arose a hubbub, and such a clamor of "dangerous innovation," "political capital," "low-minded demagogue," "infidel who denies the Bible," "lower link in the chain of creation," &c., that it is impossible to say what was the decision.

DISCOVERIES.

Sometimes, as we meet people in the street, we catch a sentence from their lips that affords a clew to their history and habits of mind, and puts our own minds on quite a new course.

Yesterday two female figures drew nigh upon the street, in whom we had only observed their tawdry, showy style of dress, when, as they passed, one remarked to the other, in the tone of a person who has just made a discovery, "_I_ think there is something very handsome in a fine child."

Poor woman! that seemed to have been the first time in her life that she had made the observation. The charms of the human being, in that fresh and flower-like age which is intended perpetually to refresh us in our riper, renovate us in our declining years, had never touched her heart, nor awakened for her the myriad thoughts and fancies that as naturally attend the sight of childhood as bees swarm to the blossoming bough. Instead of being to her the little angels and fairies, the embodied poems which may ennoble the humblest lot, they had been to her mere "torments," who "could never be kept still, or their faces clean."

How piteous is the loss of those who do not contemplate childhood in a spirit of holiness! The heavenly influence on their own minds, of attention to cultivate each germ of great and good qualities, of avoiding the least act likely to injure, is lost--a loss dreary and piteous! for which no gain can compensate. But how unspeakably deplorable the petrifaction of those who look upon their little friends without any sympathy even, whose hearts are, by selfishness, worldliness, and vanity, seared from all gentle instincts, who can no longer appreciate their spontaneous grace and glee, that eloquence in every look, motion, and stammered word, those lively and incessant charms, over which the action of the lower motives with which the social system is rife, may so soon draw a veil!

We can no longer speak thus of _all_ children. On some, especially in cities, the inheritance of sin and deformity from bad parents falls too heavily, and incases at once the spark of soul which God still doth not refuse in such instances, in a careful, knowing, sensual mask. Such are never, in fact, children at all. But the rudest little cubs that are free from taint, and show the affinities with nature and the soul, are still young and flexible, and rich in gleams of the loveliness to be hoped from perfected human nature.

It is sad that all men do not feel these things. It is sad that they wilfully renounce so large a part of their heritage, and go forth to buy filtered water, while the fountain is gushing freshly beside the door of their own huts. As with the charms of children, so with other things. They do not know that the sunset is worth seeing every night, and the shows of the forest better than those of the theatre, and the work of bees and beetles more instructive, if scanned with care, than the lyceum lecture. The cheap knowledge, the cheap pleasures, that are spread before every one, they cast aside in search of an uncertain and feverish joy. We did, indeed, hear one man say that he could not possibly be deprived of his pleasures, since he could always, even were his abode in the narrowest lane, have a blanket of sky above his head, where he could see the clouds pass, and the stars glitter. But men in general remain unaware that

"Life's best joys are nearest us,
Lie close about our feet."

For them the light dresses all objects in endless novelty, the rose glows, domestic love smiles, and childhood gives out with sportive freedom its oracles--in vain. That woman had seen beauty in gay shawls, in teacups, in carpets; but only of late had she discovered that "there was something beautiful in a fine child." Poor human nature! Thou must have been changed at nurse by a bad demon at some time, and strangely maltreated,--to have such blind and rickety intervals as come upon thee now and then!

POLITENESS TOO GREAT A LUXURY TO BE GIVEN TO THE POOR.

A few days ago, a lady, crossing in one of the ferry boats that ply from this city, saw a young boy, poorly dressed, sitting with an infant in his arms on one of the benches. She observed that the child looked sickly and coughed. This, as the day was raw, made her anxious in its behalf, and she went to the boy and asked whether he was alone there with the baby, and if he did not think the cold breeze dangerous for it. He replied that he was sent out with the child to take care of it, and that his father said the fresh air from the water would do it good.

While he made this simple answer, a number of persons had collected around to listen, and one of them, a well-dressed woman, addressed the boy in a string of such questions and remarks as these:--

"What is your name? Where do you live? Are you telling us the truth? It's a shame to have that baby out in such weather; you'll be the death of it. (To the bystanders:) I would go and see his mother, and tell her about it, if I was sure he had told us the truth about where he lived. How do you expect to get back? Here, (in the rudest voice,) somebody says you have not told the truth as to where you live."