Chapter II

In a rude log hut of Western Kentucky was seated an animated and intelligent-looking young man. A bright moon was silvering the forest-tops, which were almost the only prospect from his window; but in that beauteous light the rough clearing around seemed changed to fairy land; and even his rude domicile partook of the transient renovation. His lone walls, his creviced roof, and ragged floor, were transformed beneath that silvery veil; and truly did it look as though it might well be the abode of peaceful happiness.

"I feel as though I could write poetry now," said Alfred to himself. "Let me see--'The Spirit's Call to the Absent,' or something like that; but if I should strike my light, and really get pens, ink, and paper, it would all evaporate, vanish, abscond, make tracks, become scarce, be o. p. h. Ah, yes! the poetry would go, but the feeling, the deep affection, which would find some other language than simple prose, can never depart.

"How I wish I could see them all! There is not a codger in my native town--not a crusty fusty old bachelor--not an envious tattling old maid--not a flirt, sot, pauper, idiot, or sainted hypocrite, but I could welcome with an embrace. But if I could only see my father, or Jimmy, or Lina, dear girl! how much better I should feel! It would make me ten years younger, to have a chat with Lina; and, to tell the truth, I should like to see any woman, just to see how it would seem. I'd go a quarter of a mile, now, to look at a row of aprons hung out to dry. But there! it's no use to talk.

"An evening like this is such an one as might entice me to my mother's grave, were I at home. Oh! if she were but alive--if I could only know that she was still somewhere on the wide earth, to think and pray for me--I might be better, as well as happier. Methinks it must be a blessed thing to be a mother, if all sons cherish that parent's memory as I have mine--and they do. It cheers and sustains the exile in a stranger's land; it invigorates him in trial, and lights him through adversity; it warns the felon, and haunts and harrows the convict; it strengthens the captive, and exhilarates the homeward-bound. Truly must it be a blessed thing to be a mother!"

He stopped--for in the moonlight was distinctly seen the figure of a horseman, emerging from the public road, and galloping across the clearing. He turned towards the office of the young surveyor, and in a few moments the carrier had related the incident by which he obtained the paper, and placed "The Village Chronicle" in Alfred's hand.

He struck a light, tore off the wrapper, and the only written word which met his eye was "Lina." "Dear name!" said he, "I could almost kiss it, especially as there is none to see me. She must have been in a prodigious hurry! and how funny that little rascal, Jimmy, must have looked! Well, 'when he next doth run a race, may I be there to see.'"

He took the paper to read. It was a very late one--he had never before received one so near the date; and even that line of dates was now so pleasing. First was Miss Helena Carroll's poetry. "Dear girl!" said he, "what a beautiful writer she is! Really, this is poetry! This is something which carries us away from ourselves, and more closely connects us with the enduring, high, and beautiful. Methinks I see her now--more thin, pale, and ethereal in her appearance than when we were gay school-mates; but I wonder that, with all her treasures of heart and intellect, she is still Helena Carroll.

"And now here is Miss Simpkin's story of 'The injured One'--beautiful, interesting, and instructive, I am confident; and I will read it, every word; but she italicises too much; she throws too lavishly the bright robes of her prolific fancy upon the forms she conjures up from New-England hills and vales. I wonder if she remembers now the time when she made me shake the old-apple tree, near the pound, for her, and in jumping down, I nearly broke my leg. Well, if I read her story, I will try that it does not break my heart.

"And here is an excellent editorial about 'Our Representatives'--I will read it again, and now for the ITEMS."

These were all highly interesting to the _absentee_, and on each did he expatiate to himself. How different were his feelings from his sister's, as he read of the cracked bell, the burned meeting-house, the dead oxen, the apoplectic old Colonel, the decayed bridge, the hints of the friends of "good order" and "equal rights." Then there was a little scene suggested by every card; he wondered who had their heads examined at the Phrenological lecture; and if the West Parish old farmers were now as stiffly opposed to the science. And how he would like to see Lina's chart, and to know if Jimmy had brains--he was sure he had legs, and a big heart for a little boy; and he wondered what girls ran up to have their heads felt of in public; and what the man said about matrimony--an affair which in old times was thought to have more to do with the heart than the head.

Then his imagination went forward to the fair of the Anti-Slavery Society, and he wondered where it would be, and who would go, and what Lina would make, and whether so much fuss about slavery was right or wrong, and if "father" approved of it. Then the temperance lecture was the theme for another self-disquisition. He wondered who had joined the society, and how the Washingtonians held out, and if Mr. Hawkins was ever coming to the West.

Then he was glad the trustees were determined to resuscitate the old academy. What grand times he had enjoyed there, especially at the exhibitions! and he wondered where all the pretty girls were who used to go to school with his bachelorship. Then they were to have a new alms-house; and forty more things were mentioned, of equal interest--not forgetting Mr. Olden's accident, for which "father would be so sorry." Then there were the Marriages and Deaths--each a subject of deep interest, as was also the list of Bankrupts. The foreign news was news to him; and Congress matters were not passed unheeded by.

Then he read with deep interest every "Assessor's Notice," also those of "Assignees," "Contractors," and "Auctioneers." There was not a single "Whereas" or "Resolved," but was most carefully perused; and every "Be it enacted" stared him in the face like an old familiar friend.

Then there were the advertisements; and Grosvenor's first attracted his attention from its _big_ letters. "CHENIE-DE-LAINES!" said he, "What in the name of common sense are they? Something for gal's gowns, _I guess_; and what will they next invent for a name?"

But each advertisement told its little history. Some of the old "_pillars_" of the town were still in their accustomed places. The same signatures, places, and almost the same goods--nothing much changed but the dates. Another advertisement informed him of the dissolution of an old copartnership, and another showed the formation of a new one. Some old acquaintances had changed their location or business, and others were about to retire from it. Those whom he remembered as almost boys, were now just entering into active life, and those who should now be preparing for another world were still laying up treasures on earth. One, who had been a farmer, was now advertising himself as a _doctor_. A lawyer had changed into a miller, and old Capt Prouty was post-master. The former cobler now kept the bookstore, and the young major had turned printer. The old printer was endeavoring to collect his debts--for he said his devil had gone to Oregon, and he wished to go to the devil.

Not a single puff did Alfred omit; he noticed every new book, and swallowed every new nostrum. "Old rags," "Buffalo Oil," "Bear's Grease," "Corn Plaster," "Lip Salve," "Accordions," "Feather Renovators," "Silk Dye-Houses," "Worm Lozenges," "Ready-made Clothing," "Ladies' Slips," "Misses' Ties," "Christmas Presents," "Sugar-house Molasses," "Choice Butter," "Shell Combs," "New Music," "Healing Lotions," "Last Chance," "Hats and Caps," "Prime Cost," "Family Pills," "Ladies' Cuff Pins," "Summer Boots," "Vegetable Conserve," "Muffs and Boas," "Pease's Horehound Candy," "White Ash Coal," "Bullard's Oil-Soap," "Universal Panacea," "Tailoress Wanted," "Unrivalled Elixir," "Excellent Vanilla," "Taylor's Spool Cotton," "Rooms to Let," "Chairs and Tables," "Pleasant House," "Particular notice," "Family Groceries," "A Removal," "Anti-Dyspeptic Bitters," &c., &c., down to "One Cent Reward--Ran away from the Subscriber," &c.--Yes; he had read them all, and all with much interest, but one with a deeper feeling than was awakened by the others. It was the notice of the sale of the late Mr. Gardner's House, farm, &c.

"And so," said Alfred, "Cynthia Gardner is now free. She used to love me dearly--at least she said so in every thing but words; but the old man said she should never marry a harum-scarum scape-grace like me. Well! it's no great matter if I did sow all my wild oats then, for there is too little cleared land to do much at it here. The old gentleman is dead, and I'll forgive him; but I will write this very night to Cynthia, and ask her to--

----'come, and with me share
Whate'er my hut bestows;
My cornstalk bed, my frugal fare,
My labor and repose.'"

LUCINDA.

AMBITION AND CONTENTMENT.

It has been said that all virtues, carried to their extremes, become vices, as firmness may be carried to obstinacy, gentleness to weakness, faith to superstition, &c., &c.; and that while cultivating them, a perpetual care is necessary that they may not be resolved into those kindred vices. But there are other qualities of so opposite a character, that, though we may acknowledge them both to be virtues, we can hardly cherish them at the same time.

Contentment is a virtue often urged upon us, and too often neglected. It is essential to our happiness; for how can we experience pleasure while dissatisfied with the station which has been allotted us, or the circumstances which befall us? but when contentment degenerates into that slothful feeling which will not exert itself for a greater good--which would sit, and smile at ease upon the gifts which Providence has forced upon its possessor, and turns away from the objects, which call for the active spring and tenacious grasp--when, I repeat, contentment is but another excuse for indolence, it then has ceased to be a virtue.

And Ambition, which is so often denounced as a vice--which _is_ a vice when carried to an extent that would lead its votary to grasp all upon which it can lay its merciless clutch, and which heeds not the rights or possessions of a fellow-being when conflicting with its own domineering will, which then becomes so foul a vice--this same ambition, when kept within its proper bounds, is then a virtue; and not only a virtue, but the parent of virtues. The spirit of laudable enterprise, the noble desire for superior excellence, the just emulation which would raise itself to an equality with the highest--all this is the fruit of ambition.

Here then are two virtues, ambition and contentment, both to be commended, both to be cherished, yet at first glance at variance with each other; at all events, with difficulty kept within those proper bounds which will prevent a conflict between them.

We are not metaphysicians, and did we possess the power to draw those finely-pencilled mental and moral distinctions in which the acute reasoner delights so often to display his power, this would be no place for us to indulge our love for nicely attenuated theories. We are aware, that to cherish ambition for the good it may lead us to acquire, for the noble impulses of which it may be the fountain-spring, and yet to restrain those waters when they would gush forth with a tide which would bear away all better feelings of the heart--this, we know, is not only difficult, but almost impossible.

To strive for a position upon some loftier eminence, and yet to remain unruffled if those strivings are in vain; to remain calm and cheerful within the little circle where Providence has stationed us, yet actively endeavoring to enlarge that circle, if not to obtain admittance to a higher one; to plume the pinions of the soul for an upward flight, yet calmly sink again to the earth if these efforts are but useless flutterings; all this seems contradictory, though essential to perfection of character.

Thankfulness for what we have, yet longings for a greater boon; resignation to a humble lot, and a determination that it shall not always be humble; ambition and contentment--how wide the difference, and how difficult for one breast to harbor them both at the same time!

Nothing so forcibly convinces us of the frailty of humanity as the tendency of all that is good and beautiful to corruption. As in the natural world, earth's loveliest things are those which yield most easily to blighting and decay, so in the spiritual, the noblest feelings and powers are closely linked to some dark passion.

How easily does ambition become rapacity; and if the heart's yearnings for the unattainable are forcibly stilled, and the mind is governed by the determination that no wish shall be indulged but for that already in its power, how soon and easily may it sink into the torpor of inaction! To keep all the faculties in healthful exercise, yet always to restrain the feverish glow, must require a constant and vigilant self-command.

How soon, in that long-past sacred time when the Savior dwelt on earth, did the zeal of one woman in her Master's cause become tainted with the earth-born wish that her sons might be placed, the one upon his right and the other upon his left hand, when he should sit upon his throne of glory; and how soon was _their_ ardent love mingled with the fiery zeal which would call down fire from heaven upon the heads of their fellow-men!

Here was ambition, but not a justifiable desire for elevation; an ambition, also, which had its source in some of the noblest feelings of the soul, and which, when directed by the pure principles which afterwards guided their conduct, was the heart-spring of deeds which shall claim the admiration, and spur to emulous exertions, the men of all coming time.

"Be content with what ye have," but never with what ye are; for the wish to be perfect, "even as our Father in heaven is perfect," must ever be mingled with regrets for the follies and frailties which our weak nature seems to have entailed upon us.

And while we endeavor to be submissive, cheerful, and contented with the lot marked out for us, may gratitude arouse us to the noble desire to render ourselves worthy of a nobler station than earth can ever present us, even to a place upon our Savior's right hand in his heavenly kingdom.

H. F.

A CONVERSATION ON PHYSIOLOGY.