Chapter XIV (1)

I WISH my reader could sympathize with me, upon coming thus far in my history. I am aware that I have written nothing of much importance, so far as incident may be looked for. But, to my view, life is rather a succession of feelings and sentiments, than of actions. It fills me with inexpressible satisfaction, to find that I have mastered my adversaries, idleness and irresolution, in this instance, and have come to this point. It is the longest and most arduous task I have ever performed, for it is a work of continued exertion. I have never flagged from it; and the idea that some good inferences may be drawn from these pages, by the young among my own countrymen, so that my life may not pass away without one useful act, one deed of positive good, has supported me.

Let every idler, if he wishes to enjoy one happy hour, set about doing something, no matter what. Let him undertake to commit a chapter in the Bible to memory, or copy some piece of writing, or to make any intellectual exertion; but let it be definite; not take a walk, or a journey, or any thing that requires movement of the body, but still, continued, uninterrupted study and attention. Idlers are the veriest busy-bodies we know, and always flying about in some shape or other. They are idle with the appearance of industry, and deceive every body but themselves. While the world looks on, and wonders at their diligence, they are passing hours, days, years, of the most insupportable care, the care of finding something to do. I know something of the tedium of this life, and confess, that the hours spent in these records have been the happiest of my life, because I have had an end, an object, constantly in view.

My debts all paid once more, my character again rëinstated, my purse well supplied, my wardrobe in the newest fashion, and abundant as I could pack, behold the rustic of a year's standing, the lover, whose heart was broken, getting into the stage for L----, the place of the celebrated law-school; while Thomas, dressed in the self-same suit in which I had arrived some year before, is packing the trunks on behind. Alas! the association of that event and those pantaloons! Reader, they did put me in mind of the romantic hills and valley of N----, and then of Alice Clair; though to get to these affecting thoughts, I had to pass through the tailor's shop where they were made. There is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and so backward from the ridiculous to the sublime.

But in the height of my satisfaction in being permitted to take a new start in the world, under such favorable auspices, my love-disappointment did not weigh very heavily upon my heart. I had already, as I thought, performed all my promises of being a good student, etc., for I wished to, and I took the will for the deed. I wished it so much, that not a doubt or misgiving disturbed the serenity of my mind. I esteemed it a settled matter, that I was, in the first place, to make myself remarkable as a student; and then, without any trouble, to walk directly to the top of the profession. I was a sanguine----fool!

This confidence inspired my father with golden hopes; and when we parted, he told me he was the happiest man in the city. 'Now, my son,' said he, 'you are old enough (I was twenty) to begin to form a character; all your wild oats are sown; the past is forgotten; you have your destiny in your own hands. Write to me often; tell me all your wishes; and (here the devil jogged his elbow) draw upon me, if you want more money. God bless you, my dear boy!' The tears started in his eyes; mine were wet, too. As I got into the stage, (mark the baseness of my heart!) I dwelt mostly upon the words, 'Draw upon me, if you want more money.' My eyes ceased their weeping. I addressed some gay make-acquaintance remarks to a fellow passenger, and as we rattled over the bridge in the velocipede line of coaches, forgot every thing but the beauty of the morning, and only wondered how long it would be before breakfast.

So contemptible is the _spirit_ of youth, in its blind passion for pleasure. All the higher, nobler feelings sink into insignificance, compared with its own selfish enjoyments. Pleasure, love of pleasure, tramples upon the holy influences of home; it steels the heart to filial affection; it saps the juices of youth; and leaves the young body prematurely cold, and lifeless, and insensible, to the natural action of all those relations and sentiments, that reason is intended to draw its moral food from. The mother 'who watched o'er our childhood' is forgotten; the father disregarded, and the sister's face is crimsoned with shame for us, and we ourselves are lost. And for what? For an hour's amusement; a short-lived enjoyment; an empty sound of revelry, and unmeaning mirth.

What inconsistency! Hardly had I got a step from my father's door; hardly had my fingers lost the affectionate pressure of his hand, when the evil genius stepped in, to scatter the impressions which a moment before seemed so fixed.

Since the time of my mother's death, I never had passed the door of the chamber where she died, without thinking of the evening when I visited her corpse, alone--a pure boy, free from all vice, all contamination--and then drawing the comparison between the present and the past. Such reflections always gave me pain, and summoned up all the resolution I was master of. I am convinced, that, if I had had a mother until my mind had acquired strength and firmness, I should have been a better and a happier man.

A father's love acts upon us later in life, but a mother leads us up to God. She bends and moulds our tender minds to her purposes so gently, that we are hardly aware of the pressure; but the father admires, and praises, and waters the more vigorous branches of our growth.

Our reading, our studies, sermons, nature, observation, tend to give to the mother a poetical interest in our hearts, in after years, when she is dead. She is the nucleus about which gather some of the most beautiful associations of our manhood. When we ourselves have children, we find out what is the nature of parental affection, and we look back with regret that we did not know and estimate it better, so that the homage of our love might have been more devoted, for what is so worthy of being repaid.

THE RED MAN.

I LOVE the Indian. Ere the white man came,
And taught him vice, and infamy, and shame,
His soul was noble. In the sun he saw
His God, and worshipped him with trembling awe.
Though rude his life, his bosom never beat
With polished vices, nor with dark deceit.

A MOTHER'S GRIEF.

A SKETCH FROM LIFE.--BY THE REV. THOMAS DALE.

I.

TO mark, the sufferings of the babe
That cannot speak its wo;
To see the infant tears gush forth,
Yet know not why they flow;
To meet the meek, uplifted eye,
That fain would ask relief,
Yet can but tell of agony--
This is a mother's grief.

II.

Through dreary days and darker nights,
To trace the march of death;
To hear the faint and frequent sigh,
The quick and shortened breath;
To watch the last dread strife draw near,
And pray that struggle brief,
Though all be ended with the close--
This is a mother's grief.

III.

To see, in one short hour, decayed
The hope of future years;
To feel how vain a father's prayers,
How vain a mother's tears:
To think the cold grave now must close
O'er what was once the chief
Of all the treasured joys of earth--
This is a mother's grief.

IV.

Yet when the first wild throb is past
Of anguish and despair,
To lift the eye of faith to heaven,
And think 'My child is there!'
This best can dry the gushing tear,
This yields the heart relief,
Until the Christian's pious hope
O'ercomes a mother's grief.

EYES AND LIPS.

FROM THE COMMON-PLACE BOOK OF A WESTERN BACHELOR.

AN ingenious friend, who has a saturnine cast of complexion, maintains with great zeal, that dark eyes are indicative of a higher order of intellect than those of other colors. This doctrine meets with great favor from every one whose eyes are black, while those that are blue, hazel, or gray, kindle with indignation at such monstrous absurdity. Our friend borrows a very happy illustration from nature, and says, that as the wildest and most vivid flashes of lightning burst from the blackest clouds, so do the most brilliant emanations of mind glare from the darkest eyes. Whether there be any truth in this doctrine, or not, it must be admitted, that our friend has the authority of the poets on his side. From immemorial time, they have been sonnetizing dark and black eyes, to the almost utter neglect of all others. Your novelists never in painting a heroine, say she has gray eyes; but all their poetical fictions see with those that are large, languishing, lustrous, and dark.

The vividness of an eye's expression is not dependent on its color. The eye is most expressive, whose owner has the most thought and feeling. The eye expresses the language of the mind and heart; and whether light or dark, wherever there is strong emotion, it manifests it. A man is a better reader of the meaning of a woman's eye, than he is of one of his own gender; and a lady discovers more indications in the eyes of the opposite sex, than can the most scrutinizing man.

The eye is the most poetical of features; and ample testimony has been borne, in all time, to its superiority in this particular. There is much poetry in the smile of one we love; but there is more in the gleaming kindness of an eye from which the concentrated rays of feeling, thought, and sentiment, are looking forth. Did you never look into the tranquil depths of an eye, and see the shadows of thoughts winging their flight onward? Did you never read whole chapters about the sympathy of souls in them? If not, your observation has not been acute, nor your love very devout.

The sublime science of astrology, which once commanded the faith of the learned, has been laughed at by the wisdom or scepticism of more modern times. The doctrines and the devotion of those old readers of the stars have been discarded; and to the human eye the only relict of astrology now on earth has been confided. Lovers are the sole inheritors of the romantic doctrines bequeathed by elder astrologers to posterity. They do not cast devout looks toward the bespangled firmament, at night; but to them, the brow of a beloved being is a heaven, and the eye is the star that unfolds to them the shadows of their coming destinies. Their ancestors read the decrees of fate in the glittering watchers of the night-season, and they foresee the mysteries of the future in the expressions which shift and play upon the eye. If the eye of his mistress sparkles at his approach, it is the precursor of after joy. If the murky shadow of a frown rests upon it, it is the foreshadowing of the woe to come. To the lover, the eye of his mistress is ever eloquent, of hope or fear, of triumph or defeat. It is the polar star of his hope, the cynosure of his faith; and the complexion of the future changes, as her eye wanes into shadow, or waxes into the light of day.

* * * * *

A WHOLESOME lip is a thing to be loved. People are too much in the habit of regarding lips as mere appendages to the 'human face divine'--ornaments, like ear-rings, to set off its beauty. This is to detract from their true use and excellence. They serve other purposes, and are indices of character.

A wholesome lip is of the complexion of a morello cherry. It pouts like a rosebud, and might lead a bee astray, as the grapes of Zeuxis did the birds. When kissing was in fashion, gallants of taste showed a flattering preference for lips of this kind. There was a flavor about them--ambrosia, on which young Love fed and grew fat. The disciple of Socrates was feminine in the matter of lips, for bees hovered over them; and the judgment of a bee, in this respect, is scarcely inferior to that of a bachelor under thirty.

In general, people are disposed to think their noses of more importance than their lips, and many saucy noses seem to be of the same way of thinking; since we see them turning up with an expression of high disdain, as if the lips were so inferior as to merit scorn. No 'genteel,' well-behaved nose, is guilty of such dastardly effrontery. Such an one, it is true, may at times flap its nostrils, and crow lustily over its neighbors, as if it were 'cock of the walk;' but there is a soft insinuation about an eloquent lip, that cuts the comb of the braggart, and tames the monarch down to a mere republican.

Our maiden aunt Sally wore a lip, which, like her matrimonial chances, was rather shrivelled. It was a mere streak along the horizon; an indistinct margin along an ocean of mouth; a strip to tell you where her teeth were. My aunt died husbandless. If she had wedded, her bridal kiss would have been interesting. She saluted my cheek once, when, like Fanny, I was 'younger than I am now, and prettier--of course!' I thought the sensation like a gentle bite. Instead of soft, spongy flesh, her lips seemed like scraps of flesh, iron-bound. Sometimes she puckered them up like the orifice of her reticule; and this was an infallible precursor of a coming storm. Xantippe had a thin, bluish, unwaving lip. Beware of such!

My nurse was a grizzly-headed negro woman; and her gift of underlip was stupendous. It poured down, a real cataract of lip. It was without model, although not without shadow. She was deficient in chin, and her lip circled over her lower jaw-bone, in shape and size resembling a half-grown grey-hound's ear. At a distance, you might have mistaken it for an extra allowance of tongue, which her mouth could not contain. It was awful! That is, to think of kissing such a thing! When the old woman bustled about, it shivered like a sheep in shearing-time; and when she jumped, it flapped over her under-jaw like the wing of a squat pigeon.

Among the ladies, there are two orders of lips--the nectarine and the vinegarish. The former swell out like the heave of a deep sigh; the latter are sharp, and make you smack your mouth when you look on them. The first denotes amiability, the second acidity. Everlasting spring lives in the blossoms of a nectarine lip, and eternal winter dwells upon the vinegarish, along which no rill of blood ever strays.

The lips of one's sweet-heart are a volume of poetry. Smiles fling a ray like the flush of morning upon them, and they are glorious in their brightness. They are an oracle, and from them comes the voice of destiny. They are a shrine, and around them the breath of inspiration ever lingers. It would be vain to talk of kissing any thing so sacred, when the mere thought overwhelms one in unspeakable bliss!

T. H. S.

AN ALBUM FRAGMENT.

WHAT is life, but a vision! The forms which have spread
Their enchantment around us, and gladdened our day,
Like the vanishing vapors of morning have fled,
Or like eve's sun-gilt clouds, they are passing away.
And when Youth's cherished hopes shall have faded and gone,
And this turbulent dream of existence is o'er--
When life's sparkling current hath ceased to flow on,
And the place which now knows me will know me no more--
Then bright on this page be engraven my name,
And long may it live, when my being is past;
Let others contend for a loftier fame,
No nobler, no dearer, no _other_, I ask.
Here perchance shouldst thou see it, forgotten, unknown,
Oh! hallow that name with the dew of a tear!
Far sweeter the tribute, than tale-telling stone,
Which Pride, or Ambition, or Folly might rear.

J. H. B.

SONNETS: BY 'QUINCE.'

ABSENCE.

EARTH owns no smiles in absence of the sun;
Dark mourns the night when chambered is her queen;
The sweet flowers wither when Sol's spring is run;
Nor fairies dance but in chaste Luna's sheen.
Nothing but mourns from that it loves apart:
The lone bird sorrows from its sever'd mate;
And pines and withers the fond human heart,
When those it worshipped leave it desolate.
Thus in earth, night, flower, bird, creation's lord,
The sweetest, dearest bond, is sympathy;
Which sever'd, snaps the close-entwining chord
That all things binds in some fond unity.
Life-killing Absence, 'neath thy curse I pine,
Affection's Upas tree--that name be thine!

AGE.

AGE is the winter season of man's life,
The last dim flickering of the taper's ray;
'Tis the last act that closes earthly strife;
The latest character that he may play.
Yet here, i' the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With rev'rend hair, white as the drifted snow,
We madly mock our fate--play the buffoon,
And self-deceiving to the dark grave go.
The withered leaf clings latest to the tree,
Hope vainly builds itself on dark despair;
The shipwreck'd mariner buffets with the sea,
And vainly strives for life, though death be there.
So age, with palsied hand, to life doth cling
Most fondly, as from age life taketh wing.

AMBITION.

THE waxen wing that strove t' empierce the sky,
The daring hand that fired the Ephesian dome,
The Spirit's strife with God for mastery,
Which made the burning depths of hell its home,
Were fell Ambition's. In that one word lies
All that is greatly good or greatly ill;
'Tis best of friends--'tis worst of enemies--
Honey and poison it doth both distil.
With vice enleagued, it sinks our spirit's down,
Till lust and murder gorge their fierce desire;
But virtue weaves for it a deathless crown,
Which teaches noble natures to aspire.
Honor and fame soar on its wingéd breath,
Hurl'd in its downward flight lie sin and death.

AUTHORS.

AUTHORS are beings only half of earth--
They own a world apart from other men:
A glorious realm! giv'n by their fancy birth,
Subjects, a sceptre, and a diadem;
A fairy land of thought, in which sweet bliss
Would run to ecstasy in wild delight,
But that stern Nature drags them back to this,
With call imperious, which they may not slight:
And then they traffic with their thoughts to live,
And coin their laboring brains for daily bread:
Getting scant dross for the rich ore they give,
While often with the gift their life is shed:
And thus they die, leaving behind a name,
At once their country's glory and her shame.

A FEW THOUGHTS ON FUNERALS.

----''Tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathéd worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death!'

SHAKSPEARE.

IN my morning walk in the country, the other day, a common poor-house hearse passed me. It was a long box, painted black, covered with a scant piece of dark cloth of some kind, hardly large enough to allow the tassels to dangle down its sides, in imitation of more gorgeous drapery. The little door at the hind-end of it looked as if it might open into the infernal regions. This dismal box, mounted nakedly on four frail wheels, was drawn along by a pale, lean horse, and the driver sat severe in his shirt-sleeves and tattered hat, like some desperate blackguard driving a night-cart. As he passed the cottages on the road-side, I observed anxious faces following its course; and particularly that of one poor woman, with an infant in her arms, whose poverty-stricken cheek was blanched still whiter, for the moment, as she contemplated the probable picture of her own humble obsequies. I imagined her as thinking of the time when she should leave her unprotected little ones to the chance charities of a heartless world--heartless to her--and herself be carried in this same vehicle to a stoneless grave.

I felt indignant at this unnecessary harrowing up of her feelings, and my own were not pleasantly affected; and then, and since, I have thought much upon the subject of funerals.

What moral purpose is answered in thus thrusting the thought of their dissolution upon the poor and miserable, amid their labors and wants? Is not life hard enough for them to bear, burthened with hunger and no food, with ignorant vice--habitual and early inculcated vice--which, in their view, is almost virtue, and certainly, is second nature? Must they turn horror-struck from the neglect, even to the remains of the poor beings who, like themselves, are not freed by death from the selfish contempt of their fellows? Why must the bell send forth those tones that seem to the sick and weak nerves of the feeble like a summons from the grave? Why this sickening array in musty black, this dressing up a banquet for the worm, with terrific ceremonies? Death is less awful to all, on account of the departure from life, than because of the black badges, the dark and gloomy retinue, that are associated in our minds with the event of it. When we think of dying, it is of being put in a coffin, the white shroud setting off, in loathsome contrast, the yellow palor of the face, and the indescribable expression of the human features without a soul; and then comes the black carriage, and that decaying pall, which has served so many like occasions, and which will itself, though with the sexton it looks as if it had a terrestrial immortality, finally perish, and be cast aside to rot, but with no ostentatious funeral. The motion, too, of this procession is slow; and our torture is felt as lingering and fated. At last, we rest in the dark earth--we are lonely and out of hearing--pinioned for ever! It would seem that human ingenuity had contrived a tissue of horrors to close the troubles of a human life.

Death is serious business, to be sure, and our passage through its shadows is a fearful journey. Yet it is an entrance to immortality. The entrance to magnificent temples, and brilliant theatres, is through dark portals--necessarily dark to be firm; and nothing human can add to the solemnity of death; but we may, by our sympathetic attempts at the terrible-sublime, change what is solemn and salutary into a source of disgust and aversion.

We come into a world of care, and want, and affliction, and our unconscious ears are struck with sounds of rejoicing. We enter upon an immortality of bliss, and around the self-same body there are wailing and lamentation.

I was perplexing myself for a solution of this strange inconsistency in our customs, when chancing to meet a philosophic friend, he relieved my perplexity, by saying: 'Oh, people are afraid of going to hell, and that their friends are gone there, and so they make all this sad array. They usher their relations into eternity--for the soul in our associations ever accompanies the body--as criminals are led to execution. Their awful fate thus finds an awful language.'

If these be the true reasons of the gloomy ceremonies of death, it is devoutly to be hoped that the fears of this result may in some cases be unfounded. We do not wish to controvert the idea of rewards and punishments hereafter, for they belong to the nature of the soul, whether in this world or in the next; but it seems rather extra-judicial, a plain case of supererogation, to bestow upon _all_ the marks of divine justice before hand.

In case of executions in human justice, if they take place _in terrorem_, to awe the multitude into obedience, it is very well to dress the hangman in the probable habiliments of the devil, and to ride the culprit through the streets as a show, upon a pine coffin. There should be as little romance, as few flowers in his way, as possible. It is gross inconsistency, certainly, to introduce any softening circumstances into public executions, as well as mistaken mercy to the passions of men. In saying this, we suppose it is not pretended that the execution of human beings is authorized upon any other ground than support of the law. To execute privately, or with as little terror as possible, is to enact over again the trick of Nero to ensnare his subjects: for surely, the penalty is part of the law, and the execution of it should be as open as the condemnation, or the people are robbed of these horrid privileges of assisting their virtue.

But to return to our subject. We dislike our funerals, because they seem to be one of the remains of the many attempts to subject the people to the control of the priests. And now, we blush to write it, we fear the influence of the clergy in some churches is mainly dependent upon a certain idea people have, that their future destiny is somewhat in such hands. It is a poor compliment to our religious nature, to suppose we are most fit to give our hearts to God, when under an abject fear of death; that

'When thoughts of the last bitter hour
Come like a blight over our spirits,
And the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make us to shudder, and grow sick at heart,'

we are best prepared to pay that voluntary homage, to feel that free devotion, which can alone be pleasing to our Creator.

Funeral occasions have been hailed as special seasons for operating upon the nervousness of people. Every poor body is dragged about, and exposed to the public gaze, in the church or meetinghouse, upon the same principle that a recruiting sergeant drums his gaily-attired soldiers about a town. Public men, the property of the people, should be buried publicly, for all are supposed to sympathize in the loss; all feel a personal interest in the ceremony. But it is otherwise with private individuals. Then it is death we see, and not a departed friend. But a still stronger objection lies against this display of corpses, and these _very_ public burials, and it is, that the poor are encouraged to indulge in mourning apparel, which they often can ill afford. The salutary terror upon the wicked is more than counteracted by the want and criminal shifts induced by this unnecessary extravagance.

Talk with any man who is not a slave to custom, upon the subject of burning the dead, and he will, with few exceptions, express a liking of it for his own body. If we retain the portraits of our friends as sacred treasures, nay, if a lock of hair, even, be held as a precious memento, why not retain their very ashes embalmed in fire? Who that has beheld the play of Virginius--we are glad to connect a fine feeling with the stage--and seen the urn of Virginia, has not felt a thrill of pleasure that so much is left to the fond father to hug to his bosom? (How Cooper played Virginius!) Who has not felt a wish, then, to have the ashes of some departed friend, to embrace in like manner in his arms? Suppose a father, a brother, a husband, a lover, to return, after long absence; death has cut down his darling child, his saint-like sister, his wife; perhaps, what is hardest to bear, because never thought of as possible, his only love; perhaps pestilence has swept away all of these. He is pointed to their graves, or to the common tomb of his kindred. A slight mound of earth is all that is left him to associate with the loved object; or what is worse, he goes to the tomb, and there is no charm in his sorrow to heal itself, for it has lost all individuality: he looks upon an array of coffins, and they all look alike; he cannot separate his own sacred sorrow from the intrusive presence of that of others. But place in his hands the ashes of those he loved; let him be alone with the embalmed dead. He will kiss the cold urn; imagination will place the cold corse in his arms, and he will take his last embrace, and serenity will begin to dawn upon his mind. As he replaces the urn in its sacred deposit, he will feel, 'She is not dead, but sleepeth!'

The headless trunk of the great Pompey was not left to decay upon the sea-shore. How it rejoices us to learn, after following his fortunes to his unhappy death, when he is cast upon the sand, neglected and uncoffined, that his faithful slave gathered a small pile of wood, and burned his body, carefully collecting the ashes. As soon as the task is done, Pompey is great again; and we close his history with satisfaction, for he is buried with affection. Far better is such a fate, than the freezing ceremony of a modern funeral.

J. N. B.

YESTERDAY.

I.

AND where are now thy sunny hours,
Fond man, which shone but yesterday?
Perchance thy path was rich with flowers,
That glittered in thy joyous way;
Perchance the Day's pure eye of light
Was one interminable smile,
And visions eloquent and bright
Stirred thy wrapt soul with bliss the while.

II.

And where are they? The sweeping tide
Of onward and resistless time
Is strewn with wrecks of baffled pride--
Conceptions high, and hopes sublime!
Dreams, that have shed upon the earth
The gladdening hues of paradise;
Their charm is flown, hush'd is their mirth,
And all their kindling exstasies.

III.

It may be that the heart was sad,
And wrapt in sorrow, yesterday;
Perchance the scenes that once could glad
Thy spirit, passed like spring away;
That on the waste of years was seen
Nought that might cheer the gloomy breast--
No sunny spot of vernal green,
On which the thoughtful eye could rest.

IV.

What recks it now, that then a cloud
Was dimly brooding o'er thy head;
That to the tempest thou hast bowed,
When joy's ephemeral beams had fled?
That day hath gone--its care is o'er--
Its shadows all have passed away;
Time's wave hath murmur'd by that shore,
And round thee now is but to-day.

V.

Then what is yesterday?--a breath,
A whisper of the summer breeze;
A thing of silent birth and death,
Colored by man's fond sympathies.
It had its buds--they all are gone;
Its fears--but they are now no more:
Its hopes--but they were quickly flown--
Its pure delights--and they are o'er!

VI.

Look ye not back, save but to glean
From the deep memories of the past--
From the illusions of each scene,
The thought that time is flying fast:
That VANITY on things of earth
Is by a pointed diamond writ;
Its hours of wild and transient mirth
Are midnight skies by meteors lit.

VII.

Oh, what is yesterday?--a ray
Which burst on being's troubled wave;
Which passed like a swift thought away
Unto eternity's wide grave!
A star whose light hath left the sky--
But for a little moment given;
Scarce gleaming on the gladdened eye,
Ere it hath left the vault of heaven!

VIII.

TO-DAY!--how in its little span
The interests of an endless state,
Beyond the feverish life of man,
Are crowded with their awful weight!
Prayers may ascend--the soul may pour
Its trembling supplications here,
That when time's fitful hour is o'er,
Its hopes of heaven may blossom there.

_Philadelphia._ W.G.C.

EDITING AND OTHER MATTERS.

A CHAPTER FROM AN UNPUBLISHED VOLUME.

THE 'LITERARY GAZETTE' created a great sensation. Frank was congratulated by his friends on the excellence of his hebdomadal. His editorial brethren bestowed liberal commendation; and he was bespattered with praise, where he expected to be flattered by criticism. To be sure, there were some croakers, who thought it a little too light, and some blithe hearts thought it a little too heavy; but generally, great satisfaction was expressed with its contents. Subscribers flocked in, and every thing went on swimmingly.

But however lightly Frank's bark danced at first, he soon found that there were clouds, storms, and rough waters, to be encountered, as well as sunshine and soft winds. An author whom he reviewed with deserved severity, was sure to regard what was said as an emanation of jealousy. Rejected fi'penny rhymists reported him unfriendly to the 'infantile efforts of genius.' Bilious moralists condemned him for what their evil-seeking imaginations tortured into profligacy. In this way, his judgment and goodness of heart were underrated; and although he won more smiles than frowns, yet he sighed when he thought of the goodness of his motives, and the abominable constructions which were frequently put upon them.

In addition to these grievances, the drudgery of preparing matter for his paper soon became sickening. At times, heavy demands were made on his exhausted brain; and then the ungentle efforts to lash his mind into a fury; to spread the wings of an imagination borne down by lassitude; to wake up reluctant thought; were most unpleasant. And yet he knew it must be done, and that his readers would judge him by his weakness rather than his strength. This knowledge, with his desire to please, placed him often in a dilemma which nothing but kindred experience can appreciate. When he was in the mood, composition was an agreeable occupation; but when draft after draft had been made upon his labors, a sense of fatigue would come over him, and he knew that the stream of thought yet in motion under such cloudy auspices, would reflect but little brilliancy on the vision of his readers. The misery of editorship is, that one dull article will receive more reprobation than a score of successful ones can remove. Men are prone to judge of things by the worst lights. The virtue which one practices, will seldom be considered expiatory of his vices; the day is judged of by the minute of cloud, rather than the hour of sunshine; and a line of dulness will condemn a page of vivacity. We look at the specks on the sun, the mole on the cheek of beauty, and the blemish on the statue otherwise perfect in its symmetry.

Often, while revelling in visions of happiness, Frank would be recalled to his earthly duties, by the entrance of the boy from the printing-office, y'clept, _par excellence_, the devil. Every editor is aware of the felicity which these intrusions into his sanctum afford. Fixed in his arm-chair, with a horizontal line of leg before him, while his fancy is with his sweet-heart, or his wife and little ones, as the case may be, he feels quite comfortable. At the next instant, all his glistening thoughts and fairy fancies are 'knocked into _pi_,' by the entrance of the imp of the printing-office, with a face streaked with ink, round-aboutless and vestless, and having on a pair of inexpressibles hitched up on one side by a twine string, who shrieks out, in a merciless tone, 'I'm come for copy, Sir!' Cowper said that the bray of an ass was the only unmusical sound in nature; but the poet had never experienced the discord occasioned to an editor's mind, by an inopportune demand for 'copy,' or he would have make one more exception.

Often did Frank hold with the dirty-faced urchin such a dialogue as the following:

_Devil._ 'They want more copy, Sir.'

_Frank._ 'What's become of that I sent before?'

_Devil._ 'It's used up, Sir.'

_Frank._ 'Isn't it enough?'

_Devil._ 'Not by a jug-full, Sir.'

_Frank._ 'How much more is wanting?'

_Devil._ 'Three columns, Sir.'

_Frank._ 'When will it be wanted?'

_Devil._ 'Why, I've been here twice before this morning, and I
couldn't get in. The foreman's mad as h--ll, and says how as that
the paper can't be got out in time.'

_Frank._ 'Well, be off. I'll have some copy ready in an hour.'

Devil goes off, with a sunken aspect, muttering, as he goes, 'I gets more kicks than coppers. The foreman kicks me for not getting copy, and the editor kicks me for coming for it. Deuce take 'em both! As to the paper, she may be late, for me; and as to the press, I wish she was blow'd to the mischief!'

The 'devil' talks upon the common principle, when he speaks of the paper and the printing-press as belonging to the feminine gender. Your statesman, speaking of the country's prosperity, says, '_Her_ commerce, _her_ manufactures, and _her_ arts, are flourishing, and will soon advance _her_ high in the respect of nations.' The backwoods-men say of Cincinnati, '_She_ is the western _queen_.' A Kentuckian will pet his rifle, and say, '_She's_ leetle the slickest bore in these parts, and her voice is sweet as Nannie's, and that's saying a heap for _her_.' Some go so far as to sex learned bodies, and to say of congress, 'The constitution does not confer such powers on her, and beyond those delegated she cannot rightfully act;' thus flinging a petticoat over this venerable body of gray-haired bachelors, husbands, and orators.

The fact is, it is quite difficult to understand the reason why the neuter gender is not applied to all things neither male nor female. Every vessel that skims the billow, in common nomenclature, belongs to the feminine gender. There is not a steam-boat that ploughs the river, however hoarsely it may bark, or however it may fling volumes of smoke above, like streamers, that belongs to the masculine gender. Every ricketty yawl or skiff that is battered to pieces by the tides, belongs to the lovely and ever-to-be-beloved sex. If a pleasure-boat, with its white sail kissing the wave which its prow proudly spurns, wins a compliment, it is sure to be uttered after this wise: 'See how finely she sails!--and

'_She_ walks the water like a thing of life.'

Is not the male sex somewhat scandalously neglected in this matter? Why should not a noble ship, daring and adventurous--a merchant-_man_, perhaps an India-_man_--belong to the masculine gender? If _it_ be female, why not be grammatically consistent, and talk of merchant-_woman_, and India-_woman_? If it be necessary that inanimate structures be sexed, why not do it with some reference to their qualities? Let a ship be called _she_, by all means; for a lady is beautiful, and a ship bearing steadily away over the waters, is beautiful to look upon, too; and a lady, though not freighted down with bales and packages by the ton, yet is she burthened with those articles in the dry-goods line which are worn by _the ton_. Streamers wave from the flag-staff of the one, and ribbons flutter gaily from the main-top of the other. Therefore, let a ship and a woman be of the same sex. But let there be some limits to the license. We take it, there is nothing that floats, which looks less like our own dear sweet-heart, than an old worm-eaten canoe, scooped out of a dead trunk; and yet, when a paddle is applied to the ugly thing, you look at it and say, '_She_ moves!'

We admit and feel the romance and propriety of sexing 'the poetry of heaven.' Blessings be yet again on benighted Egypt, for she taught us to speak of Osiris and Isis, instead of the sun and moon! Blessed for ever be the spirit of him who first conceived the idea of sexing the starry hosts, from the Cynosure to Sirius! How much more poetical is night in consequence--especially such as Moore speaks of in the Epicurean:

----'Sweet nights,
When Isis, the pure star of lovers, lights
Her bridal crescent o'er the holy stream!'

All who have been in love, feel that the soft influence which comes down from the face of Isis is feminine in its witchery. She is friendly to love affairs, although Miss Diana, when in Greece, would have nothing to do with the masculine deities; and although she banished Calisto, and transformed Acteon, yet did these same Greeks scandalize the virgin, by reporting that she forgot her fastidiousness when she was smitten by the charms of an Endymion on the Carian Mount. To return. We are glad that the poets of the olden time sexed the stars pretty much as their fancies thought proper, and that we Christians still perpetuate these beautiful fictions of their mythologies; for there is a charm in the classical association which now comes upon the mind, when viewing the heavens, that we should regret to part with, however heathenish and anti-utilitarian it may be.

The owners of bright eyes have astronomy enough to recognise Venus, the beautiful star of evening; and yet they perversely and anti-mythologically call her _it_, when they should know that _she_ is all that is now left of that beautiful being of the cestus, who, like a wreath of foam, was born of a billow near Cythera. Let us be consistent, and call Venus _she_, even as we call the moon she, and her lord and master, 'the eye of the universe,' he. It is proper to speak of Saturn, and _his_ rings, of Mars, and _his_ belligerent front; and we should, to be consistent, _she_ Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, every one of them. Let us also call this great heap of dirt and water which we tread on, and sail over, and speak of, as our _mother_ earth, feminine. Our wretchedly-abused planet is spoken of as belonging to no sex in particular, now-a-days, although she was once called Terra and Titæa; and then she was a beauty, and a charming one, too, as we should judge from some of her heart-stealing, bright-eyed daughters.

Poetry demands that we still continue to sex the stars. Let us regard Jupiter as a great big lubberly fellow, making love to the shy and bashful Vesta, and waking up jealousy in the bosom of his elder sweet-heart, Juno. Let us have Mars getting up assignations with the all-loving Venus, as of old; and Saturn and Pallas felicitating each other in the manner becoming two heads, the one so full of justice, and the other of wisdom, as are theirs. How delectable it would be, to fancy Madame Earth flirting with the long-yeared Herschel, to the utter astonishment of her neighbor Mercury, who would either have to live an old bachelor, or look up a mistress in some of the systems which revolve in the far-off regions of space!

Our imagination has run riot long enough through the heavens; and we therefore return back to our starting-place, the earth. We were speaking of the incongruity of the sexual designations now in vogue. Why is it, that once introduced, the system of sexing things was not carried out farther? Why not give sex to a tree, a carriage, a wind-mill, and our pantaloons, as well as to a yacht, a watch, and every scrabbling village in the land? We love to think upon the Mississippi as the 'Father of Waters,' and the Ohio as '_La belle Riviere_;' for to the masculine strength and stature of the one, we offer our admiration, and to the feminine beauty and grace of the other, we have yielded up our heart.

We were speaking, before we got on this mad-cap digression, of the miseries in which the editorial fraternity in general, and Frank Thornton in particular, were sometimes plunged, by ill-timed demands for that bane of the craft called 'copy.' At such times, Frank would disenchant himself of his fond visions, pick up his pen, arrange his paper, and--think, or try to think, of a subject. He would look over the newspapers for topics; whip up his brain for a suggestion, or look out at the window, and seeing his friend James Summers, who prided himself on being a man of the world, he would conclude to write an article on men of the world in general, much after the manner of the fragment below.

* * * * *

'FIELDING says, that in order to understand men, it is necessary that one should be born with a genius for that purpose.' Your men of the world think so too; hence, they are the favorites of nature, and as such, are superior to ordinary mortals, and have a right, in consequence, to look down on inferiority. We are not going to upset Fielding, Bulwer, _et id omne genus_; we only say, that we detest the boast and swagger which your men of the world take upon themselves as a natural right, peculiar to those who come into the world with an extra eye to read that volume of mysteries, the human heart, locked up, like the ark of old, from the vision of the vulgar.

'Your man of the world is the most bustling of bodies, and looks like Atlas with the globe incumbent on his shoulders. His lips form an oracle of human wisdom, and it is rank profanity to question aught that emanates from so holy a source. His contempt for inferior understandings is most supreme; and his humor, like a foaming cataract, flows and boils with sublime rage, if impertinence dare question his profundity, or contest his right to monopolize the gleams of knowledge which light up the human mind. He is the greatest and most orthodox of bigots, and takes good care that the stultified head of heresy be scathed by the lightnings of his indignation. He uses old saws with a wink; and if he chooses to bless you with a squint, you are unpardonable, if you do not cheer him with a smile. He is a stickler for antiquity, and hates smooth chins and black heads, for their greenness and folly. He is the repository of all the fragments of wisdom that are left of shipwrecked ages, which have floated down on the stream of time. He gathers together the bits and ends of sayings which go to make up the traditionary lore of a country; and this unbooked knowledge renders him sager than a man of much reading. In fine, your man of the world is a very great man, and is to be respected, whether he discourses of the evangelists at a horse-race, or flourishes political eloquence, and that Helicon which inspires it, a beer-mug, in the unquiet recesses of some venerable ale-house.

'This may be called an 'outline in pencil' of a man of the world, when the shadows of fifty years or so are upon him; when he has exhausted the fountains of his wild blood, and turned out sage and philosopher. A man must run a long and labyrinthine gauntlet, under the scourge of the vices, before he can aspire to the character. Of course, it is right that such an one should usurp the throne of wisdom, as his shoulders have been legitimately invested with the purple of sin. The right to rule can only be predicated on a youth of prostitution, a manhood of degradation, and an old age of impenitence.

'Perhaps you may have seen a man of the world, under the shadow of a tavern sign-post, discoursing wisdom to the simple-hearted villagers. He has the infallible marks of a truly great man legible in his face; bloated veins, and an indented excrescence surmounting his nose, and flaming like a fiëry beacon with the condensed heat of unnumbered barrels of all 'proofs.' His libations to Bacchus have given a remarkable clarification to the emanations of his intellect, as is discoverable in the vividness with which his wisdom glares on the understandings of all who hear him. A flippant attorney is, perhaps, at his side; and the worthy twain discuss national policies, while the unsophisticated lookers-on stand mute, admiring the prodigious display of genius. The village magistrate imbibes ideas which astonish his natural stock of well-behaved ones, that never strayed beyond the hill-top in the distance, or flew off on a wild goose-chase after the phantoms of knowledge. The man of the world lays down his positions, and fortifies them with the maxims he learned from his predecessor, who sleeps in the church-yard. The pettifogger capitulates to his invincible adversary, and acknowledges in him one whose dogmas it were irreverent to doubt.

'Your man of the world never goes to church. His own experience furnishes principles for the government of men, vastly superior to all that Christianity ever dreamed of. He has an intuitive perception into the minds of children, and can predict, to a nicety, the amount of power their intellectual machinery will be able, in time to come, to generate. He believes that scarcely an honest man, beside himself, lives; and as to women, they are not a whit better than they ought to be. Lastly, your man of the world is the chief light of the world, and when he dies, the heavens will be hung in gloom, and the edifice of society will fall into dilapidation; as he, while living, was its chief prop and support.'

* * * * *

ON the afternoon of the day on which the above article appeared, Mr. James Summers, who sat for the portrait of the 'Man of the World,' ordered his paper to be stopped, as he could not 'conscientiously patronize one devoted to Billingsgate interests, and edited by a person who had evidently received a diploma for his proficiencies, from the college of Saint Giles!'

This is a specimen of one class of miseries to which editors are subject. They rack their weary brains for subjects; and when they dissect them properly, it frequently happens that some subscriber, who fancies himself aggrieved, says, with poor Dennis the critic, 'That means _me_!'--and forthwith sends in a peremptory order to have 'his paper discontinued.' And thus the editor not only loses some one's friendship, but, what is of more importance, his subscription.

Subscribers! one word to you. Support your editor through his difficulties; and whatever else you neglect, be sure you do not forget to pay for your intellectual provant; that is, if you would pass decently through this world, and reach heaven at last!

THE SEA-ROVER.

'O'ER the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!'

* * * * *

I HAVE no ties to bind me
To any spot on earth;
I leave no love behind me,
No warm familiar hearth;
But I roam with the changeful wind
Upon the changeful sea,
Mid isles that shed their fragrance forth
Like the blessed Araby;
And in the deep and cloudless night,
We watch each dewy star,
And our fancies rove through that shadowy light,
Where the gentle spirits are:

Nor while upon the deep
We wander far and free,
Are we mariners without
Our own wild minstrelsy;
And the night-breeze seems to catch the song,
And bear it on its wing:
And the laughing waves seem to echo far
The voice of our carolling:

And then we see the unwelcome shark
Gliding beneath our lee;
Gently he looketh up, but we
Trust not his love of harmony;
Strange playful fish are gambolling
Around our white-winged bark,
All harmless, gladsome things are they,
Except that soft-eyed shark.

When the foam, torn from the billow,
Flies furious and fast,
And the good mast, like a sapling,
Bends to the mighty blast,
With steady heart and ready arm,
Fearless, unmoved, we stand--
(Our bright bow flashing through the sea,)
My own, my gallant band!

O! who would be a man
Fettered, instead of free!
A sluggard at his hearth,
With a bantling on his knee!
While there are seas to pass,
While there are winds to blow,
O! who would be content
With tales of long ago!
While there is knowledge waiting,
As fruit upon a tree,
Which we for others gather,
Over the mystic sea!

I like not traveller's stories,
Told at the blazing hearth,
Of wild and wondrous wandering
On ocean and on earth;
When the wine foams in the goblet
With its glorious ruby light,
Imagination sparkles
Proportionately bright.
I loathe to see the simple eye
In wonder opened wide,
At hair-breadth 'scapes from shot and steel,
From rock and tempest tide.

As each adventure wilder grows
Of the traveller's bold career,
The listeners gather closer round,
And cross themselves for fear;
And many an anxious glance is cast
Around the shadowy room,
As if some horrid spectacle
Lay lurking in the gloom.

But I love, in my own good bark,
And with my gallant crew,
To wander free where fancy leads
Over the waters blue:
To speak with new-found people,
Of the world a fresh-turned page;
O! grateful bounds my spirit,
That I live in a gallant age!