Chapter M: Readings with My Pencil

No. III.

Legere sine calamo est dormire.--_Quintilian_.

21. "There is a pride, in being left behind, to find resources within, which others seek without."--_Washington Irving_.

I have pondered a good deal on this passage, and find a beautiful moral in what, when I first read it, I was fain to fancy but a misanthropic, or, at the least, an unsocial sentiment. I now feel and acknowledge its truth. "There _is_ a pride in being left behind, to find resources within, which others seek without." What concern have I in the greater brightness that another's name is shedding? Let them shine on whose honor is greater. Their orbit cannot interfere with mine. There may be something very grand and sublime in the wide sweep of Herschel and Saturn: but planets, whose path is smaller, are more cheered by the rays of light and warmth from the sun, which is the centre of their revolutions.

22. "Oh the hopeless misery of March in America. Poetry, taste, fancy, feeling,--all are chilled by that ever-snowing sky, that ever snow clad earth. Man were happy could he be a mole for the nonce, and so sleep out this death-in-life, an American six months' winter."--_Subaltern in America_.

What a querulous noodle! He is one of those who can "travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, All is barren!" It is March, and "March in America," while I write. The air is bracing and full of reviving springlike influences. I disagree with the would-be mole from whom I quote. I love to watch every month's sweep of the sun,--while he is performing his low wintry arc, as if almost ashamed to revolve around the cheerless earth, and while he daily performs a wider and wider circle, until at length he comes to stand nearly over my head at noon. I enjoy the result the more intensely for watching its progress. I love to watch him gradually calling out the green on the black hills around me, whose only beauty now are the narrow stripes of fading snow, forming white borders that intersect each other, thus dividing the mould into something not altogether void of the picturesque. So, on yonder field, where the sun now shines quite cheeringly, there is a remnant of beauty. The dead grass, with its yellow and reddish tinge, is divided by small crystal ponds and canals, glistening in the bright ray, and seeming like the gratitude of the poor,--able to return but little, yet determined to return that little gladly.

23. "There is no motion so graceful as that of a beautiful girl in the mazy meanderings of the dance. Nature cannot furnish a more perfect illustration of the poetry of motion than this."--_Ibid._

Yes she can. I will give the traveller two far more perfect illustrations. The _on deggiando_ movement of a light breeze, as it passes, wave upon wave, over high grass: and the gradual and rapid passing away of a shadow, when the sun leaves a cloud, from a hill side of rich foliage.

24. "I have been thinking, more and more, of the probability of departed friends' watching over those whom they have left behind."--_Henry Kirk White_.

I have often done so; and whether the idea be a delusive one or not, there is no delusion in believing that the Deity sees them and us at the same instant. They turn, and we turn, at the same moment, to him, and thus through him we enjoy a communion. If two hearts were once preserved in reciprocal love by contemplating, when parted from each other, the same star, how close will be the bond with those who have gone before us, when, at such a distance, we are worshipping the same God!

25. "_When one is angry, and edits a paper_, I should think the temptation too strong for literary, _which is not always human nature_."--_Lord Byron_.

There is a couple of young Irishmen who "edit a paper" not far from the place of this present writing, who might furnish a striking corroboration of this opinion of the noble poet. Think of a couple of boobies, pretending to be oracles in literature, wreaking their petty vengeance upon the productions of one against whom they have a personal pique! Such and so contemptible are some of the "critics!" God save the mark! of this generation!

J. F. O.

LINES TO ----.

Lady!--afar yet loved the more--
My spirit ever hovers near,
And haunts in dreams the distant shore
That prints at eve thy footstep dear.

And say--when musing by the tide,
Beneath the quiet twilight sky,
Wilt thou forget all earth beside
And mark my memory with a sigh?

The wind that wantons in thy hair--
The wave that murmurs at thy feet,
Shall whisper to thy dreaming ear
An answer--loving--true and meet.

Oh! fancy not if from thy bower
I tarry now a weary while,
My heart e'er owns another's power
Or sighs to win a stranger's smile.

Those gentle eyes, which in my dream,
With unforgotten love still shine--
Shall never glance a sadder beam
Nor dim with tears for change of mine.

I gaze not on a cloud, nor flower
That is not eloquent of thee--
The very calm of twilight's hour
Seems voiceless with thy memory.

Like waves that dimple o'er the stream
And ripple to the shores around,
Each wandering wish--each hope--each dream
Steals unto thee--their utmost bound. {313}

Oh! think of me when day light dies
Among the far Hesperian bowers--
But most of all 'neath silent skies,
When weep the stars o'er earth's dim flowers.

When the mysterious holiness
Which spell-like lulls the silent air,
Steals to the heart with power to bless,
And hallows every feeling there.

A TALE OF JERUSALEM.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

Intensos rigidam in frontem ascendere canos
Passus erat------ _Lucan_--_de Catone_.

------a bristly _bore_------ _Translation_.

"Let us hurry to the walls"--said Abel-Shittim to Buzi-Ben-Levi, and Simeon the Pharisee, on the tenth day of the month Thammuz, in the year of the world three thousand nine hundred and forty-one--"let us hasten to the ramparts adjoining the gate of Benjamin, which is in the city of David, and overlooking the camp of the uncircumcised--for it is the last hour of the fourth watch, being sunrise; and the idolaters, in fulfilment of the promise of Pompey, should be awaiting us with the lambs for the sacrifices."

Simeon, Abel-Shittim, and Buzi-Ben-Levi were the Gizbarim, or Sub-Collectors of the offering in the holy city of Jerusalem.

"Verily"--replied the Pharisee--"let us hasten: for this generosity in the heathen is unwonted; and fickle-mindedness has ever been an attribute of the worshippers of Baal."

"That they are fickle-minded and treacherous is as true as the Pentateuch"--said Buzi-Ben-Levi--"but that is only towards the people of Adonai. When was it ever known that the Ammonites proved wanting to their own interest? Methinks it is no great stretch of generosity to allow us lambs for the altar of the Lord, receiving in lieu thereof thirty silver shekels per head!"

"Thou forgettest, however, Ben-Levi"--replied Abel-Shittim--"that the Roman Pompey, who is now impiously beseiging the City of the Most High, has no assurity that we apply not the lambs thus purchased for the altar to the sustenance of the body, rather than of the spirit."

"Now by the five corners of my beard"--shouted the Pharisee, who belonged to the sect called The Dashers (that little knot of saints whose manner of _dashing_ and lacerating the feet against the pavement was long a thorn and a reproach to less zealous devotees--a stumbling block to less gifted perambulators)--"by the five corners of that beard which as a priest I am forbidden to shave!--have we lived to see the day when a blaspheming and idolatrous upstart of Rome shall accuse us of appropriating to the appetites of the flesh the most holy and consecrated elements? Have we lived to see the day when"----

"Let us not question the motives of the Philistine"--interrupted Abel-Shittim--"for to-day we profit for the first time by his avarice or by his generosity. But rather let us hurry to the ramparts, lest offerings should be wanting for that altar whose fire the rains of Heaven cannot extinguish--and whose pillars of smoke no tempest can turn aside."

* * * * *

That part of the city to which our worthy Gizbarim now hastened, and which bore the name of its architect King David, was esteemed the most strongly fortified district of Jerusalem--being situated upon the steep and lofty hill of Zion. Here a broad, deep, circumvallatory trench--hewn from the solid rock--was defended by a wall of great strength erected upon its inner edge. This wall was adorned, at regular interspaces, by square towers of white marble--the lowest sixty--the highest one hundred and twenty cubits in height. But in the vicinity of the gate of Benjamin the wall arose by no means immediately from the margin of the fosse. On the contrary, between the level of the ditch and the basement of the rampart, sprang up a perpendicular cliff of two hundred and fifty cubits--forming part of the precipitous Mount Moriah. So that when Simeon and his associates arrived on the summit of the tower called Adoni-Bezek--the loftiest of all the turrets around about Jerusalem, and the usual place of conference with the beseiging army--they looked down upon the camp of the enemy from an eminence excelling, by many feet, that of the Pyramid of Cheops, and, by several, that of the Temple of Belus.

* * * * *

"Verily"--sighed the Pharisee, as he peered dizzily over the precipice--"the uncircumcised are as the sands by the sea shore--as the locusts in the wilderness! The valley of The King hath become the valley of Adommin."

"And yet"--added Ben-Levi--"thou canst not point me out a Philistine--no, not one--from Aleph to Tau--from the wilderness to the battlements--who seemeth any bigger than the letter Jod!"

"Lower away the basket with the shekels of silver!"--here shouted a Roman soldier in a hoarse, rough voice, which appeared to issue from the regions of Pluto--"lower away the basket with that accursed coin which it has broken the jaw of a noble Roman to pronounce! Is it thus you evince your gratitude to our master Pompeius, who, in his condescension, has thought fit to listen to your idolatrous importunities? The God Phœbus, who is a true God, has been charioted for an hour--and were you not to have been on the ramparts by sunrise? Ædepol! do you think that we, the conquerors of the world, have nothing better to do than stand waiting by the walls of every kennel, to traffic with the dogs of the earth? Lower away! I say--and see that your trumpery be bright in color, and just in weight!"

"El Elohim!"--ejaculated the Pharisee, as the discordant tones of the centurion rattled up the crags of the precipice, and fainted away against the Temple--"El Elohim!--_who_ is the God Phœbus?--_whom_ doth the blasphemer invoke? Thou, Buzi-Ben-Levi! who art read in the laws of the Gentiles, and hast sojourned among them who dabble with the Teraphim!--is it Nergal of whom the idolater speaketh?--or Ashimah?--or Nibhaz?--or Tartak?--or Adramalech?--or Anamalech?--or Succoth-Benoth?--or Dagon?--or Belial?--or Baal-Perith?--or Baal-Peor?--or Baal-Zebub?"

"Verily, it is neither--but beware how thou lettest the rope slip too rapidly through thy fingers--for should the wicker-work chance to hang on the projection of {314} yonder crag, there will be a woful outpouring of the holy things of the Sanctuary."

* * * * *

By the assistance of some rudely-constructed machinery, the heavily-laden basket was now lowered carefully down among the multitude--and, from the giddy pinnacle, the Romans were seen crowding confusedly around it--but, owing to the vast height and the prevalence of a fog, no distinct view of their operations could be obtained.

A half-hour had already elapsed.

"We shall be too late"--sighed the Pharisee, as, at the expiration of this period, he looked over into the abyss--"we shall be too late--we shall be turned out of office by the Katholim."

"No more"--responded Abel-Shittim--"no more shall we feast upon the fat of the land--no longer shall our beards be odorous with frankincense--our loins girded up with fine linen from the Temple."

"Raca!"--swore Ben-Levi--"Raca!--do they mean to defraud us of the purchase-money?--or, Holy Moses! are they weighing the shekels of the tabernacle?"

"They have given the signal at last"--roared the Pharisee--"they have given the signal at last!--pull away! Abel-Shittim!--and thou, Buzi-Ben-Levi! pull away!--for verily the Philistines have either still hold upon the basket, or the Lord hath softened their hearts to place therein a beast of good weight!" And the Gizbarim pulled away, while their burthen swung heavily upwards through the still increasing mist.

* * * * *

"Booshoh he!"--as, at the conclusion of an hour, some object at the extremity of the rope became indistinctly visible--"Booshoh he!"--was the exclamation which burst from the lips of Ben-Levi.

"Booshoh he!--for shame!--it is a ram from the thickets of Engedi, and as rugged as the valley of Jehosaphat!"

"It is a firstling of the flock," said Abel-Shittim--"I know him by the bleating of his lips, and the innocent folding of his limbs. His eyes are more beautiful than the jewels of the Pectoral--and his flesh is like the honey of Hebron."

"It is a fatted calf from the pastures of Bashan"--said the Pharisee--"the Heathen have dealt wonderfully with us--let us raise up our voices in a psalm--let us give thanks on the shawm and on the psaltery--on the harp and on the huggab--on the cythern and on the sackbut."

It was not until the basket had arrived within a few feet of the Gizbarim that a low grunt betrayed to their perception a _hog_ of no common size.

"Now El Emanu!"--slowly, and with upturned eyes ejaculated the trio, as, letting go their hold, the emancipated porker tumbled headlong among the Philistines--"El Emanu!--God be with us!--it is the unutterable flesh!"

"Let me no longer," said the Pharisee wrapping his cloak around him and departing within the city--"let me no longer be called Simeon, which signifieth 'he who listens'--but rather Boanerges, 'the Son of Thunder.'"

Lucian calls unmeaning verbosity, _anemonæ verborum_. The anemone, with great brilliancy, has no fragrance.

LEAVES FROM MY SCRAP BOOK.