LIBRARY p ANNEX i €t3 ^#^ Hbl CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 189I BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library PS 2497.H61 The memorial: 3 1924 022 500 056 DATE DUE Interltbr JfV Loan ' GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. Cornell University Library The original of tinis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022500056 lL(u^&U VOX ,QpJr \k ir# I'l^iJSfi ig^ 1^ t?)r| :T 'K -W 'Y 'I,) ilH JkK ; a: E '0) iJ'i 'E L£ _ [P u [P U -^J^ Kl iKi 1 .LL 'X^ 'ii> » J THE M E M E I A L: •WRITTEN BY fmh o! tlie late 3fir^. ^0gOOh AND EDITED BY MARY E. HEWITT. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS ENGKAVED ON STEEL BY J. CHENEY, AND H. BECKWITH. , HALPIN, J. I. PEASE, NEW-YORK: GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 165 BROADWAY. 1851. A..a\'-'3\^ Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty By GEORGE P. PUTNAM, in the Clerk's OtEce of the District Court of the Southern District of KTe'w York lister, mt king tn t^n jTraititgf anil Wnmn, IBjiite tjiB Wrh sing tn tjjf? (DflBt tjji]: tnmli. dFinhljins nrj tlpt nf tliq IvipmM ttiii smtstttBSS, fMU nf tjiB itpiKr stttf, (0lnrif nuii flEBtnM. 3tt tljf still mntfrs jurB, 3inngpi mt m, llljirrp t{jtt[ nrB iirigjit Mi rlrnr, :^.Hrtnn3 nf tjir^. Snjin Mml ^.aovtlanO, i«e., aujj., 1850. PREFACE. Soon after the death of Frances Sargent Osgood — a friend to whom by the sincerest affection and admiration I had been attached for many years — a party, consisting principally of authors, chanced to meet for an evening's conversation. To nearly all who were present she had been known, and by as many as had known her she had been loved. The recollection of her beautiful and noble character, her genius, and the circumstances of her de- parture to the " other and better world," were dwelt upon with a mournful interest, and various plans were suggested for commemorating the common loss. At length it was proposed to publish a souvenir volume, to which as many as might be of her literary friends should each contribute an article; and to devote the profits from its sale to the erection of a monument to her memory in the cemetery of Mount Auburn, where she is buried. A design so appropriate could not fail of an immediate and warm approval, and Mr. Osgood having readily given it his sanction, a conifmittee consisting of His Excellency Gov- ernor Anthony, of Providence, E. P. Whipple, Esq., and James T. Fields, Esq., of Boston, the Rev. Rufus W. Griswold and Bayard Taylor, Esq., of New York, George H. Boker, Esq., of Philadelphia, and Alfred B. Street, Esq., of Albany, undertook to carry it into effect, and the undersigned was requested to act as editor. In bringing her melancholy yet still pleasant labors to a close, she gratefully acknowledges the ready co-ope- 1* VI PREFACE. ration of all Mrs. Osgood's friends whom she addressed upon the subject, and especially thanks His Lordship the Bishop of Jamaica, a "friend of her friends;" the Rt. Rev. Bishop Doane, of New Jersey ; Nathaniel Hawthorne, Esq., G. P. R. James, Esq., and Miss Fanny Haworth, none of whom had been personally acquainted with Mrs. Osgood, for their very valuable contributions. Near the close of the period devoted to the preparation of "the Memorial" many articles were sent to her, which she regrets that she is unable to insert, as they would add very much to the attractiveness of any book of this description. But the size of " The Memorial " was limited, and its pages are filled with offerings that were first received. MARY E. HEWITT. New York, October, 1850. *^* The Committee add the expression of their obligations to the ■writers of the " Memorial ;" and to George P. Putnam, Esq., and A. Hart, Esq., for their important aids in its publication. New-Tokk, October, 1850. CONTENTS. PAOB. Inscription : By John Keal 3 Proem: By the Editor H Fragment of an Unfinished Poem : By N". P. "Willis 12 Frances Sargent Osgood : By Eufus W. Griswold 13 Letter from the Hon. E. H. Walworth, LL. D 31 The Flight of the Falcon : By Mary B. Hewitt 3S " Heaven lies about us in our Infancy :" By R. H. Stoddard 36 The Angel of Death : By George Aubrey, Bishop of Jamaica 37 Remembrance : By S. G. Goodrich 39 The Snow Image— A Childish Miracle : By Nathaniel Hawthorne 41 The Blessed Rain: By Lydia Huntley Sigourney 69 My Friends : By Alfred B. Street 61 The Resurrection : By George Lunt 64 Admiration : By the Rev. E. L. Magoon 65 A Mountain Castle : By John R. Thompson "JS Relics : By James T. Fields '?* The Pure Spot in the Heart : By G. P: R. James T5 A Plea for Dreams and Apparitions : By Ernest HeKenstein 11 Love and Death : By Augustine Duganne 98 A Lament: By Mrs. Harrington 99 Our Pearl : By Mary L. Seward 101 Thoughts and Suggestions : By the Author of " Acton," 103 The Prisoner of Perote : By Estelle Anna Lewis 108 Cattle in Summer : By Mary E. Hewitt 1 1 1 To a Picture : By R, S. Chilton 112 " The Beautiful is Vanished :" By C. D. Stuart 113 The Rose-Tree : From the German of Starlse 115 Leonora Thinking of Tasso 122 Stanzas : By Mary E. Brooks 123 Incidents of Life : By the Hon. J. Leander Starr 126 « Our Friendship is a Vanished Dream:" By EUzabeth Bogart 148 In Memory of Mi's. Osgood : By Emily Waters 151 CONTENTS. PAQE. Tlie Passage of the Jordan : By Alice B. Neal 153 A Story of the Cape de Verdes : By the Author of " Kaloolah," "The Berber," (fee 165 Femside : By George W. Dewey 161 To Him " whose Heart-strings were a Lute :" By Sarah Helen Whitman. .163 A Story of Calais : By Richard B. Kimball 165 My Garden ; By Emma C. Embury 188 Song : By George H. Boker 191 Eleanor Wilmot, or the Ideal : By Louise Olivia Hunter 193 The Pilot: By Mary E. Hewitt 211 The Waves : By Bayard Taylor 213 ObUvion : By J. H. Hewitt 215 The Phoebe Bird : By Carohne Cheesebro' 217 A Requiem: By Mrs. Richard B. Kimball 240 A Reverie : By Rev. Ralph Hoyt 241 Gifts for the Grave : By Elizabeth G. Barber 243 Reminiscences ofc^enice : By Miner K. Kellogg 245 A Memory of Frances Sargent Osgood : By William C. Richards 250 Absence : By the Rt. Rev. George W. Doane, D. D., LL. D 251 The Blind Fidler : By Herman S. Saroni 253 Song : By George P. Morris 274 The Lost Bird : By William Gilmore Simms, LL. D 275 The South of France : By Charles G. Leland 277 Prometheus: By Anne C. Lynch 283 Child and Blossoms : By Charles G. Eastman 284 Sonnet — From the City : By Mary E. Hewitt 285 Sonnet : By R. S. Chilton 286 Three Midsummer Evenings : By E. Fanny Haworth 287 Pygmalion : By Professor Gillespie 325 Rambles in Greenwood : By Frederic Saunders 329 Life — Its Seasons : By Catherine Mathews Rhodes 332 Moina: By Mary E. Hewitt 335 ^muMum^^. I. Frontispiece* PORTRAIT OF FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. PAINTED BY S. S. OSGOOD : ENGRAVED BY J. OHENEiT. II. TiUe Page. VIGNETTE. DESIGNED BY D. MACLISE ; ENGRAVED BY J. HALPIN. III. Page 19. PORTRAIT OF ELLEN FRANCES OSGOOD. PAINTED BY S. S. OSGOOD : ENGRAVED BY JOSEPH I. PEASE. IV. Page 29. PORTRAIT OF MAY VINCENT OSGOOD. PAINTED BY S. S. OSGOOD : ENGRAVED BY JOSEPH I. PEASE. V. Page 33. THE FALCON. PAINTED BY C. HANCOCK : ENGRAVED BY H. BECKWITH. VI. Page 73. A CASTLE IN THE MOUNTAINS. PAINTED AND ENGRAVED BY H. BECKWITH. VII. PagelU. CATTLE, IN SUMMER. PAINTED BY S. COOPER: ENGRAVED BY H. BECKWITH. 10 ILLUSTRATIONS. Vin. Page 161. FERNSIDK PAINTED BY RHODES ; ENGRAVED BY H. BECICWITH. IX. Fage 211. SHIPWRECK. PAINTED BY OWEN : ENGRAVED BY H. BECKWITH. X. PageWS. THE CITY FROM THE SEA. PAINTED BY CHAMBERS : ENGRAVED BY H. BECKWITH. PROEM. BY MABT E. HEWITT. She sleeps in peace till Christ at last shall raise her, The beautiful, whom countless hearts held dear — Speak low — we come to bury, not to praise her Who was so cherished while she lingered here. The flowers around are of her sweetness telling. The soft wind whispers of her childlike ways — Heart ! have thy will, and let thy memories swelling, Pour forth in loving words her right of praise. A fount of beauty all her life was filhng, And ever the sweet thoughts her lips betrayed Fell on the soul like Persia's dew, distilling So pure, it leaves no rust upon the blade. And evermore her song exultant ringing. Rose on strong pinions from her heart of care ; Still upward, upward, like a skylark singing. Till her voice joined with seraphs in the air. Her sister angels missed her long from heaven. They missed her harp harmonious from the sky ; And thus, upon a holy Sabbath even. They bore her to their glorious home on high. And now, tearful sisters of the lyre, O bard, and sage, raise we " the stone of fame" To her who wrought the lay with minstrel fire. And left to earth her song and blameless name. 12 FRAGMENT OF AN UNFINISHED POEM. FRAGMENT OF AN UNFINISHED POEM. BY K. r. WILLIS. That she we love is with us here no more, We tearfully and mournfully may say — But, for ourselves we weep, and not for her ! Like one uplifted in a march by night. And borne on to the morning, 't is to her But an unwearied minute to the dawn. While we, with torn feet, on the darkling way. Follow to that same home where she 's at rest, Waiting to give us welcome. Mourning mother ! The voice, within the soft lips where your love Look'd for its music, is all hush'd — we know ! The roses that it parted have grown pale ! But still, perhaps, with its accustom'd tones. It lends her sweet thoughts utterance, where she is ; And oh, while in the softer air of Heaven, It unlearns only its complaining, say. Is 't well to wish, that, even to the ears That cannot sleep with aching for its music, 'T were audible again ? FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. 13 FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. BY EUFUS WILMOT ORISWOLD. From the beginning of our intellectual history women have done far more than their share in both creation and construction. The -worshipful Mrs. Brad- street, who two hundred years ago held l^er court of wit among the classic groves of Harvard, was in her day — the day in which Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton sung — the finest poet of her sex whose verse was in the English language ; and there was little extravagance in the title bestowed by ber Lon- don admirers, when they printed her works as those " of the Tenth Muse, recently sprung up in America." In the beginning of the present century we had no bard to dispute the crown with Elizabeth Townsend, whose " Ode to Liberty " commanded the applause of Southey and Wordsworth in their best days ; whose " Omnipresence of the Deity " is declared by Dr. Cheever to be worthy of those great poets or of Coleridge ; and who still lives, beloved and reverenced, in venerable years, the last of one of the most distinguished fami- lies of New England. More recently, Maria Brooks, called in " The Doctor'' Maria del Occidente, burst upon the world with " Zophiel," that splendid piece of imagination and passion which stands, the vindication of the subtlety, power and comprehen- sion of the genius of woman, justifying by comparison, the skepticism of Lamb when he suggested, to the author of " The Excursion," whether the sex had " ever produced any tiling so great." Of our living and more strictly contem- porary female poets, we mention with unhesitating pride Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Oakes Smith, Mrs. Hewett, Mrs. Whitman, Mrs. Welby, Alice Carey, " Edith May," Miss Lynch, and Miss Clarke, as poets of a genuine inspiration, display- ing native powers and capacities in art such as in all periods have been held sufficient to insure to their possessors lasting fame, and to the nations which they adorned the most desirable glory. It is Longfellow who says, " What we admire in wonLin, Is her affection, not her intellect." The sentiment is unworthy a poet, the mind as well as the heart claims sym- pathy, and there is no sympathy but in erjuality ; we need in woman the com- 2 14 FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. pletion of our own natures ; that her finer, clearer, and purer vision sliould pierce for us the mysteries that are hidden from our own senses, strengthened, but dulled, in the rude shocks of the oul^door world, from which she is screen- ed, by her pursuits, to be the minister of God to us : to win us by the beauti- ful to whatever in the present life or the immortal is deserving u, great ambition. We care little for any of the mathematicians, metaphysicians, or poUticians, who, as shamelessly as Helen, quit their sphere. Intellect in wo- man so directed we do not admire, and of affection such women are incapa- ble. There is something divine in woman, and she whose true vocation it is to write, has some sort of inspiration, which reheves her from the processes and accidents of knowledge, to display only wisdom, in all the range of gentleness, and all the forms of grace. The equality of the sexes is one of the absurb questions which have ai-iseii from a denial of the distinctions of their faculties and duties — of the masculine energy from the feminine refinement. The ruder sort of women cannot apprehend that there is a distinction, not of dignity, but of kind ; and so, casting aside their own eminence, for which they are too base, and seeking after ours, for which they are too weak, they are hermaphroditisli disturbers of the peace of both. In the main our American women are free from this reproach ; they have known their mission, and have carried on the threads of civility through the years, so strained that they have been melodi- ously vocal with every breath of passion from the common heart. We turn from the jar of senates, from politics, theologies, philosophies, and aU forms of intellectual trial and conflict, to that portion of our literature which they have given us, coming like dews and flowers after glaciers and rocks, the hush of music after the tragedy, silence and rest after turmoil of action. The home where love is refined and elevated by intellect, and woman, by her separate ind never-supei-fluous or clashing mental activity, sustains her part in the life- harmony, is the vestibule of heaven to us ; and there we hear the poetesses repeat the songs to which they have Ustened, when wandering nearer than we may go to the world in which humanity shall be perfect again, by the union in all of aU power and goodness and beauty. The finest intelligence tliat woman has in our time brought to the ministiy of the beautiful, is no longer with us. Fkances Saegent Osgood died in New- York, at fifteen minutes before three o'clock, in the afternoon of Sunday, the twelfth of May, 1850. These words swept like a surge of sadness wher- ever there was grace and gentleness and sweet affections. AU that was in her life was womanly, " pure womanly," and so is all in the undying words she left us. This is her distinction. Mrs. Osgood was of a family of poets. Mrs. Anna Maria Wells, whose abili- ties are illustrated in a volume of " Poems and Juvenile Sketches" published in 1830, is a daughter of her mother; Mrs. E. D. Harrington, the author of va- rious graceful compositions in verse and prose, is her youngest sister ; and Mr. A. A. Locke, a brilliant and elegant writer, for many years connected with tho public journals, was her brother. She was a native of Boston, where her father, Mr. Joseph Locke, was a highly accomplished merchant. Her earUer hfe, FRANCES SARGKNT OSGOOD. 15 however, was passed principally in Hingham, a village of peculiar beauty, well calculated to arouse the dormant poetry of the soul; and here, even in child- hood, she became noted for her poetical powers. In their exercise she was rather aided than discouraged by her parents, who were proud of her genius and sympathized with all her aspirations. The unusual merit of some of her first productions attracted the notice of Mrs. Child, who waa then editing a Juvenile Miscellany, and who foresaw the reputation which her young contri- butor afterwards acquired. Employing ihe nomme de plume of " Florence," she made it widely familiar by her numerous contributions in the Miscellany, as well as, subsequently, for other periodicals. In 1834 she became acquamted with Mr. S. S. Osgood, the painter — a man of genius in his profession — whose Ufe of various adventure is full of romantic interest : and while, soon after, she was sitting for a portrait, the artist told her his strange vicissitudes by sea and land ; how as a sailor-boy he had climbed the dizzy maintop in the storm ; how in Europe he followed with his palette in the track of the flute-playing Goldsmith ; and among the Antres vast and deserts idle, Kough qimiTtes, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, of South America, had found in pictures of the Crucifixion, and of the Libera- tor Bolivar — the rude productions of his untaught pencil — passports to the hearts of the peasant, the partizan, and the robber. She listened, Uke the fair Venetian ; they were married, and soon after went to London, where Mr. Os- good had sometime before been a pupil of the Royal Academy. During this residence in the Great Metropolis, which lastled fouryears, Mr. Osgood was successful in his art — painting portraits of Lord Lyndhurst, Thomas Campbell, Mrs. Korton, and many other distinguished characters, which secured for him an enviable reputation — and Mrs. Osgood made herself known by her contributions to the magazines, by a miniature volume entitled " The Casket of Fate,"' and by the collection of her poems published by Edward Churton, in 1839, under the title of "A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England." She was now about twenty-seven years of age, and this volume contained all her early compositions which then met the approval of her judgment. Among them are many pieces of grace and beauty, such as belong to joyous and hope- ful girlliood, and one, of a more ambitious character, under the name of " Elfri- da" — a dramatic poem founded upon incidents in early Enghsh history — in which there are signs of more strength and tenderness, and promise of greater achievement, though it is without the unity and proportion necessary to emi- nent success in this kind of writing. Among her attached friends here— a circle that included the Hon. Mrs. Nor- ton, the Rev. Hobart Gaunter, Archdeacon Spenser, the late W. Cooke Tay- lor, LL.D., and many others known in the various departments of literature — was the most successful dramatist of the age, James Sheridan Knowles, who was so much pleased with " Elfrida," and so confident that her abilities in this line, if duly cultivated, would enable her to win distinction, that he urged upon her the composition of a comedy, promising himself to superintend its produc- tion on the stage. She accordingly wrote " The Happy Release, or The Tri- 16 FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. 'jmphs of Love," a play in three acts, ■whicli -was accepted, and was to have been brought out as soon as she could change slightly one of the scenes, to suit the views of the manager as, to effect, -when intelligence of the death of her father suddenly recalled her to the tJnited States, and thoughts of writing for the stage were abandoned for new interests and new pursuits. Mr. and Mrs. Osgood arrived in Boston early in 1840, and they soon after came to New-York, where they afterward resided ; though occasionally absent, as the pursuit of his profession, or ill health, called Mr. Osgood to other parts of the country. Mrs. Osgood was engaged in various literary occupations. She edited, among other books, " The Poetry of Flowers, and Flowers of Poetry," (New-York, 1841,) and "The Floral Offering," (Philadelphia, 1847,) two richly embellished souvenirs ; and she was an industrious and very popular writer for the literary magazines and other miscellanies. She was always of a fragile constitution, easily acted upon by whatever affects health, and in her latter years, except in the more genial seasons of the spring and autumn, was frequently an mvalid. In the winter of 1847-8 she suffered more than ever previously, but the next winter she was better, and her husband, who was advised by his physicians to discontinue for a while the practice of liis profession, availed himself of the opportunity to go in pursuit of health and riches to the mines of the Pacific. He left New- York on the fifth of February, 1849, and was absent one year. Mrs. Osgood's health was variable during tlie summer, which she passed chiefly at Saratoga Springs, in the com- pany of a family of intimate friends ; and as the colder months came on, her strength decayed, so that before the close of November she was confined to her apartments. She bore her sufferings with resignation, and her natural hopefidness cheered her all the while, with remembrances that she had before come out with the flowers and the embracing airs, and dreams that she would again be in the world with nature. Two or three weeks before her death her husband carried her in his arms, like a child, to a new home, and she was happier than she had been for months, in the excitement of selecting its furniture, brouglit in specimens or pattenis to her bedside. " ]Ve shall be so happy F' was her salu- tation to the few friends who were admitted to see her ; but they saw, and her pliysicians saw, that her life was ebbing fast, and that she would never again see the brooks and green fields for which she pined, nor even any of the apart- ments but the one she occupied of her own house. I wrote the terrible truth to her, in studiously gentle words, reminding her that in heaven there is richer and more deUcious beauty, that there is no discord in the sweet sounds there, no poison in the perfume of tlie flowers there, and that they know not any sor- row who are with Our Father. She read the brief iiote almost to the end silently, and then turned upon her pillow like a child, and wept the last tears that were in a fountain which had flowed for every grief but hers she ever knew. " I cannot leave my beautiful home," she said, looking about upon the souvenirs of many an affectionate recollection ; " and my noble husband, and Lily and May !" These last are her children. But the sentence was confirmed by other friends, and she resigned herself to the will of God. The next even- ing but one, a young girl went to amuse her, by making paper flowers for her, FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. iV find teacliing her to make them ; and she wrote to her these verses — her dying song : You've woven roses round my way, /'m gtring through the Eternal ffatei And gladdened all my being ; Ji're June^a sweet roses blow ; How mncli 1 thank you none can say Death's lovclu anf/et 'eads vie t/tere — ■ S ave only the All-seeing. And it is ameet to go. May 1th, 1850. At the end of five days, in the afternoon of Sunday, the twelfth of May, as gently as one goes to sleep, she withdrew into a better world. On Tuesday her remains were removed to Boston, to be interred in the ceme- tery of Mount Auburn. It was a beautiful day, in the fulness of the spring, mild and calm, and clouded to a solemn shadow. In the morning, as the com- pany of the dead and living started, the birds were singing what seemed to her friends a sadder song than they were wont to sing ; and, as the cars flew fast on the long way, the trees bowed their luxuriant foliage, and the flowers in the verdant fields were swung slowly on their stems, filling the air with the gentlest fragrance ; and the streams, it was fancied, checked their turbulent speed to move in sympathy, as from the heart of nature tears might flow for a dead worshipper. God was thanked that all the elements were ordered so, that sweetest incense, and such natural music, and reverent aspect of the silent world, should wait upon her, as so many hearts did, in this last journey. She slept all the while, nor waked when, in the evening, in her native city, a few familial' faces bent above her, with diificult looks through tears, and scarcely audible words, to bid farewell to her. On Wednesday she was buried, with some dear ones who had gone before her — -beside her mother and her daugh- ter — in that City of Rest, more sacred now than all before had made it, to those whose spirits are attuned to Beauty or to Sorrow — those twin sisters, so rarely parted, until the last has led the first to Heaven. The character of Mrs. Osgood, to those who were admitted to its more mi- nute observance, illustrated the finest and highest qualities of intelligence and virtue. In her manners, there was an almost infantile ■ gaiety and vivacity, with the utmost simplicity and gentleness, and an unfailing and indefectable grace, that seemed an especial gift of nature, unattainable, and possessed only by her and the creatures of our imaginations whom we call the angels. The delicacy of her organization was such that she had always the quick sensibility of childhood. The magnetism of life was round about her, and her astonish- ingly impressible faculties were vital in every part with a polarity toward beauty, all the various and changing rays of wliioh entered into her conscious- ness, and were refracted in her conversation and action. Tliough, from the generosity of her nature, exquisitely sensible to applause, she had none of those immoralities of the intellect which impair the nobleness of impulse — no unworthy pride, or vanity, or selfishness — nor was her will ever swayed from the hne of truth, except as the action of the judgment may sometimes have been irregular from the feverish play of feeling. Her friendships were quickly formed, but Umited by tlie number of genial hearts brought within the sphere of her knowledge and sympathy. Probably there was never a woman of whom it might be said more ti-uly that to her own sex she was an object al- most of worship. She was looked upon for her simpUcity, purity, and childlike 18 FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. •want of worldly tact or feeling, with involuntary affection ; listened to, for her freshness, grace, and brilliancy, with admiration ; and remembered, for her un- selfishness, quick sympathy, devotedness, capacity of suffering, and high aspi- rations, with a sentiment approaching reverence. This regard which she inspired in women was not only shown by the most constant and dehcate at- tentions in society, where she was always the most loved and honored guest, but it is recorded in the letters and other writings of many of her most emi- nent contemporaries, who saw in her an angel, haply in exile, the sweetness and natural wisdom of whose life elevated her far above all jealousies, and made her the pride and boast and glory of womanhood. Many pages might be filled with their tributes, which seem surely the most heartfelt that mortal ever gave to mortal, but the limits of this sketch of her will suffer only a few and very brief quotations from her correspondence. Unquestionably one of the most brilliant literary women of our time is Miss Clarke, so well known as " Grace Greenwood." She wrote of Mrs. Osgood with no more earnestness than others wrote of her, yet in a letter to the " Home Journal," in 1846, she says : " And how are the critical Ciesars, one after another, 'giving in' to the grHces, and fas- cinations, and soft enchantments of this Cleopatra of song. She charms lions to sleep, with her silver liite, and then throws around them Ihe delicate net work of her exquisite fancy, and lo ! when they wake, they are well content in their silken prison. * From the tips of her pen a melody flows, Svrc<;t ua the nightingnle sings to the rose.' "With her beautiful Italian sont— with her impulse, and wild energy, and exuberant fancy, and glowing passionateness — and with the wonderful facility with which, like an almond- tree casting off its blossoms, she flings abroad her heart-tinted and love-perfumed lays, she has, I must believe, more of the improvisatrice than has yet been revealed by any of our pifted countrywomen, now before the people. Heaven bless her, and grant her ever, as now, to have laurels on her brows, and to browse on her laurels ! Were I the President of these United States, I would immortalize my brief term of office by the crowning of our Corinna, at the CHpitol.*' And about the same period, having been introduced to her, she referred to the event: " It seems like a * pleasant vision of the night ' that I have indeed seen 'the idol of my early dreams,' that I huve been within the charmed circle of her real presence, sat by her very side, and lovingly ' watched the shadow of each feeling that moved her soul, glance o'er that radiant face !' " And writing to her : 'Dear Mrs. Osgood, let me lay this sweet weight off my heart — look down into my eyes — believe me— long, long before we met, I loved you, with a strange, almost passionate Jove. You were my literary idol : I repeated some of your poems so often, that their echo never had time to die away; your earlier, bird-like warblings so chimed in with the joy- ous beatings of my heart, that it seemed it could not throb without them ; and when ynu riiised ' your lightning glance to heaven,' and sang your loftiest song, the liquid notes fell upon my soul like baptismal waters. Wilh an 'intense and burning,' almost unwomanly ambition, I have still joyed in your success, and gloried in your glory ; and all because Love laid ils reproving finger on the lip of Envy. 1 cannot tell you how much this romantic in- terest has deepened. " Now 1 have loolced upon thv face, Have felt thy twining tmnB' embrace, Thy very boanm'e swell ; — One moment leaned this brow of mine On Hong'e sweet source, and love's pure shrine. And music's ' mngic cell P " FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. 19 Another friend of hers, Miss Hunter, whose pleasing contributions to our literature are well known, probably on account of some misapprehension, had not visited her for several months, but hearing of her illness she wrote : " Learning this, by chance, I have summoned courage once more to address you — over- coming my fear of being intrusive, and offering as my apology the simple assertion that it is my heart prompts me. Till to-day pride has checked me : but you are ' very ill,' and I can no longer resist the impulse. With the assurance that I will never again trouble you, that now I neither ask nor expect the slightest response, suffer me thus to steal to your pre- sence, to sit beside your bed, and for the last time to speak of a love that has followed you through months of separation, rejoicing when you have rejoiced, and mourning when you have mourned. You know how, from childhood, I have worshipped you, that since our first meeting you have been my idol, the realizaliun of my dreams ; and do not suppose that be- cause I have failed to inspire you with a lasting interest, I shall ever feel for you a less deep or less fervent devotion. The blame or misfortune of our estrangement I have always re- garded as only mine. I know I have seemed inditferent when I panted for expression. You have thought me unsympathizing when my every nerve thrilled to ) our words. I nave lived in comparative seclusion; I have an unconquerable reserve, induced by such an ex- perience ; and when I have been with you my soul has had no voice. " The time has been when I could not bear the thought of never regaining your friend- ship in this world — when I would say ' The years ! oh, the years of this earth-life, that must pass so slowly!' And when I saw any new poem of yours, I experienced the most sad emotions, — every word I read was so like you, it seemed as if you had passed thnmgh the room, speaking to others near me kindly, but regarding me coldly, or not seeing me. But one day I read in a book by Miss Bremer, 'It is a sad experience, who can describe its bit- terness ! when we see the friend, on whom we have built for eternity, grow cold, and be- come lost to us. But believe it not. thou loving, sorrowing soul— believe it not! continue thyself only, and the moment will come when thy friend will return to thee. Yes, there, where all delusions cease, thy friend will find thee again, in a higher light,— will acknow- ledge thee and unite herself to thee forever.' And 1 took this assurance to my heart ! We may meet in heaven, if not here. I shall not go see you, though my heart is wrung by this intelligence of your illness. So good-bye, darling! May good angels who have power to bless }ou, linger around your pillow with as much love as I shall feel for you forever. "March 6, 1850." I have been permitted to transcribe this letter, and among Mrs. Osgood's papers that have been confided to me are very many such, evincing a devotion from women that could have been won only by the most angelic qualities of intellect and feeling. It was the custom in the last century, wlien there was among authors more of the esprit du corps than now, for poets to greet each otlier's appearance in print with complimental verses, celebrating the qualities for which the seeker after bays was most distinguished. Thus in 1729 we find the Omnium Opera of John Duke of Buckingliam prefaced by " testimonials of authors concerning His Grace and his writings ;'' and the names of Gai-th, Roscommon, Dryden, and Prior are among his endorsers. There have been a few instances of the kind in this country, of which the most noticeable is that of Cotton Mather, in whose Magnalia there is a curious display of erudition and poetical ingenuity, in gra- tulatory odes. Tlie literary journals of the last few years furnish many such tributes to Mrs. Osgood, which are interesting to her friends for their illustra- tion of the personal regard in which she was held. I cannot quote them here ; they alone would fill a volume, as others might be filled with the copies of verses privately addressed to her, all through her Ufe, from tlie period when, 20 FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. like a lovely vision, she first beamed upon society, till that last season, in which the salutations in assemblies she had frequented were followed by saddest in- quiries for the absent and dying poetess. They but repeat, with more or less felicity, the graceful praise of Mrs. Hewitt, in a poem upon her portrait: She dwells amid the wnrld'e dark ways Pure as In childhood's houis ; And nil her thoughts ure poetry, And all her words are flowera. Or that of another, addressed to her : Tliou wouldflt be loved ? then let thy henrt From its present pathway part not I Being everything, which now thou art. Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways. Thy grace, thy more than beauty. Shall be an endleBs theme of praise. And love — a simple duty. Among men, generally, such gentleness and sweetness of temper, joined to such grace and wit, could not feil of making her equally beloved and admired. She was the keeper of secrets, the counsellor in difficulties, the ever wise mis- sionary and industrious toiler, for all her friends. She would brave any priva- tion to alleviate another's suflFerings ; she never spoke ill of any one ; and when others assailed, she was the most prompt of all in generous argument An eminent statesman having casually met her in Philadelphia, afterward described her to a niece of his who was visiting that city : *' If you have opportunity do not fail to become ncquainted with Mrs. Osgood. I have never known such a womnn. She continually surprised me by the strength and subtlety of her understanding, in which I looked for only spnrtiveness and delicHcy. She is entirely a child of nature, and Mrs. ■, who introduced nie to her, and who has known her many years I believe, very intimately, declares that she is an angel. Persuade her to Washington, and promise her everything you and all of us can do for her pleasure here." For lier natural gaiety, her want of a certain worldly tact, and other reasons, the determinations she sometimes formed that she would be n housekeeper, were regarded as fit occasions of jesting, and among the letters sent to her when once she ventured upon the ambitious office, is one by her early and always devoted friend, Governor , in which we have gUmpses of her domestic quahties — " It is not often that I waste fine paper in writing to people who do not think me worth answering. I generally reserve my ' ornamental hand' for those who return two letters for my one. But you are an exception to all rules, — and when I heard that you were about to commence housekeepivff, I could not forbear sending a word of congratulation and encour- agement. I have long thought that your eminently yracizcai turn of mind, my dear friend, would find congenial employment in superintending an 'establishment.' What a house ;jou will keep! nothing out of place, from garret to cellar— dinner always on the table at the regular hour— everything like clock-work— and wo to the servant who attempts to steal anything from your store-rooin ! wo to the butcher who attempts to impose upon y',""^"i'''i"'.t'i firoiigh the dreid realm, divuio with truth and grace, My lord, my king, recall the dread behest I See, deal one 1 how the chain of linked note. Tnni not, ah I turn not back those ejes ol hre 1 Has fetter'd everj' spirit in its place I Oh I lost, forever lost ! undone I unbkst 1 Even Death, beside me, still andVlpless lies, I faint, 1 die 1-the serpent's fang once more And strives m vam to chill my frame w ith his coM eyes. Is here !-nay, grieve not thus I Life, but not ione, is o er i This is a noble poem, with too many interjections, and occasional redundan- cies of imagery and epithet, betraying the author's customary haste : but with unquestionable signs of that genuineness which is tlie best attraction of the literature of sentiment. The longest and most sustained of Mrs. Osgood's com- positions is one entitled "Fragments of an Unfinished Story," in which she has exhibited such a skill in blank verse— frequently regarded as the easiest, but really the most difficult of any— as induces regret that she so seldom made use of it. "We have here a masterly contrast of character in the equally natural expressions of feeling by the two principal persons, both of whom are women : the haughty Ida, and the impulsive child of passion. Imogen. It displays in eminent perfection, that dramatic faculty which Sheridan Knowles and the late Wilham Cooke Taylor recognised as the most striking in the composition of her genius. She had long meditated, and in her mind had perfectly arranged, a more extended poem than she has left to us, upon Music. It was to be in this measure, except some lyrical interludes, and she was so confident of suc- ceeding in it, that she deemed all she had written of comparatively little worth. " These," she said to me one day, pointing to the proof-leaves of the new edition of lier poems, " these are my ' Miscellaneous Verses :' let us get them out of the way, and never think of them again, as the public never will when they have MY POEM !" And her friends who heard the splendid scheme of her im- agination, did not doubt that when it should be clothed with the rich tissues of her fancy, it would be all she dreamed of, and vmdicate all that they them- selves were fond of saying of her powers. It was while her life was fading ; and no one else can grasp the shining threads, or weave them into song, such as she heard hps, touched with divinest fire, far along in the ages, repeating with her name. This was not vanity, or a low ambition. She lingered, with sub- dued and tearful joy, when all the living and the present seemed to fail her, upon the pages of tlie elect of genius, and was happiest when she thought some words of hers might lift a sad soul from a sea of sorrow. FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. 25 It "was perhaps the key-note of that unwritten poem, ■which she sounded in these verses upon its subject, composed while the design most occupied her attention : ,The Father epnlce I In grand raTerberationa Through spuce roU'd on the mighty music-tide, While to ita low, mnjestic modulHtioiiB^ The' clouds of chaos slowly swept aside. The Fnther epiike': a dream, that had been lying H}ish'd, ^om eternity, in silence there, Heard the pure melody, and Ibw replying, Grew to that music m the wondermg air^ Grew to that music — slowly, grandly watinc^ Till, bathed in beauty, it became a world I Led by his voice, its epheric pathway taking. WMle glorious clouds their wings around it fiirl'd. Nor yet has ceased that sound, his love revealing, Though, in reepKinije, a univerae moves by ', Throughout eternity ite echo pealing, World after world awakes in glad reply. And wheresoever, in his grand creation, Sweet music breathes — in wave, ot bird, or soul — 'Tifl but the faint and far reverberation Of that great tune to which the planets roll. Mrs. Osgood produced something in almost every. form of poetical compo- sition, but the necessary limits of this article permit but few illustrations of the variety or perfectness of her capacities. The examples given here, even if fa- miliar, will possess a new interest now ; and no one will read them without a feeling of sadness that she who wrote them died so young, just as the fairest flowers of her genius were unfolding. One of the most exquisite pieces she had written in the last few years, is entitled " Calumny," and we know not where to turn for anything more delicately beautiful than the manner in which the subject, is treated. A whisper woke the air, A soft, light tone, and low, Yet barbed with shame and wo. Ah ! might it only perish there, Nor farther go 1 But nol a quick and eager ear Caught up the little, meaning sound ; Another voice has breathed it clear; And 60 it wandered round From ear to lip, from lip to ear, Until it reached a gentle heart That throbbed from all the world apart. And that — it broke 1 It was the only heart it Ibund, The only heart 't was meant to find, When first its accents woke. It reached that gentle heart at last. And that— it broke ! Low as it seemed to other eats, It came a thunder-crash to hera^ That iraeile girl, so fair and gay. *Ti3 said a lovely humming bird. That dreaming in a lily lay. Was killed but by the gun's report Some idle boy had fired in sport — So exquisitely frail its Irame, The very immd a death-blow came— And thus her heart, unused to shame, Shrined in iu lily to,o, (For who the maid that knew. But owned the delicate, flower-like grace Of her young form and face !) .Her li^ht ana happy heart, that beat With love and hope so fast andBw6et^ When firet that cruel word it beard. It fluttered like a frightened bird — Then abut its win^ and sighed. And with a silent shudder died 1 In some countries this would, perhaps, be the most frequently quoted of the author's effusions ; but here, the terse and forcible piece under the title of " Laborare est Orare," will be admitted to all collections of poetical specimens ; and it deserves such popularity, for a combination as rare as it is successful of common sense with the form and spirit of poetry. Pause not to dream of the future before us ; Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us ; Hark^ how Creation's deep^ musical chorus, Unmtermitting, goes up into heaven I Never the ocean-wave falteis in flowing ; Never the little seed stops in its growing- More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing, Till from ita oourisliing stem it ia rived. " I^bor is worship !" — the robin ie singing: "Labor is woiship!" — the wild bee is ringing: Listen \ that eloquent whisper upspringing Speaks to thy soul from out nature's great heart. From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower; From the rough sod blows the soft-Dreatning flower; From the small insect, the rich coral bower; Only man, in the plan, shrinks from his part. Idbor ia life! 'Us the still water faileth; Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ; Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust nraaileth; Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. Labor is glory ! — the flying cloud lightens ; Only the waving wing changes and brightens; Idle hearts only the dark future frightens Labor is rest — from the sorrows that greet us ; Kest iroTa all petty vexations that meet us, Kest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us, Rest firom world-syrene that lute us to ill. Work — and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow; Work — thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow ; Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping willow ; Work with a stout heart and resolute will 1 Labor is health ! Lo ! the husbandman reaping. How through his veins goes the life current leaping I How his strong arm, in its stalwart pride sweeping. True as a sunbeam the swift sickle ^ides. I^bor is wealth — in the sea the pearl groweth ; Rich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon floweth ; From the flne acorn the strong forest bloweth; Temple and statue the marble block hides. Droop not, tho' shame, sin, and anguish are round thee Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee ; Look to yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee ; Best not. content in thy darkness — a clod I , Work — for some good, be it ever so slowly; Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly; Labor ! — all labor is noble and holy ; Flay the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tone I Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy Ood. 3 26 FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. In fine contrast with this is the description of a " Dancing Girl * written in a longer poem, addressed to her sister soon after her arrival in London, in the autumn of 1834. It is as graceful as the vision it brings so magically before us : She comes — the Gpirit of ihe dance '. And but for those Inr^, eloquent eyes, Where passion speaks in everj' jinnee. She'd seem a wanderer from uie skies. So light thnt, gazing breathless there, l^st the celestial dream should go, Vou'd think the music in the air Waved the fair vision to and fro 1 Or that the melody's sweet flow Wilhin iLe r^^ant creature plny'd, And those soft wreathing arms of snow And white sylph feet the music made. Now gliding alow with dreamy grace, Her eyes beneath tbeir Iflshes lost; Now motionless, with lifted face, And email hands on her bosom cross'd. And now with flashing eyes she spring Her whole bright figure raised in air. As if her soul had spread its ^vings And poised her one wild instant there 1 She spoke not : but, so richly fraught With language are her glance and smile, Thai, when the curtain fell, I thought She had been talkbg all the while. In illustration of what we have said of Mrs. Osgood's delineations of re- fined sentiment, we refer to the poems from pages one hundred and eleven to one hundred and thirty-one, wilUng to rest upon them our praises of her genius. It may be accidental, but tliey seem to have an epic relation, and to constitute one continuous history, finished with uncommon elegance and glowing with a beauty which has its inspiration in a deeper profound than was ever penetrated by messengers of the brain. The third of these glimpses of heart-life — all hav- ing the same air of sad reality — exhibits, with a fidelity and a peculiar power which is never attained in such descriptions by men, the struggle of a pure and passionate nature with a hopeless affection : How had I hush'd each sorrowful emotion, Lull'd by thy love to sweet, untroubled rest. How hnd I knelt hour after hour beside thee, When trom thy lips the rare scholoslic lore Fell on the soul that all but deified thee, While at each pause I, childlike, pray'd for more. How had I watch'd the shadow of each feeling, Thnt mov'd thy soul-glance o'er that radiant face, " Taming my wild heart " to that dear revealing, And glorying in thy genius and thy grace 1 Then hadst thou loved me with a love abiding. And I had now been less unworthy thee, For I was gonerntis, guileless, and confldint;, A frank enthusiast, buoyant, frosh, and free 1 But now — ^my loftiest aspirations perish 'd. My holiest hopes a jest for lips profane, The tenderest yearnings of my soul uncherish'd, A soul-worn slave in Custom's iron chain : Check'd by those ties that make mv lightest sigh, My faintest blush, at thought of thee, a crime — How must 1 still my heart, and school my eye, And count in vain the stow dull stops of Time I Wilt thou come backt Ah 1 what avmls to ask thee Since hrnor, faith, forbid thee to return! Yet to forgetfiilness I dare not task thee, Lest thou too soon that easy leaaon learn t Ah ! come not back, love 1 even throue:h Memory's er.r Thy tone's melodious murmur thrills my heart — Come not with that fond smile, so frank, so dear : While yet wo mny, let ua for ever parti The passages commencing, " Thank God, I glory in thy love ;" " Ah, let our love be still a folded flower ;" " Believe me, 'tis no pang of jealous pride ;" " "We part forever : silent be our parting ;" are in the same measure, and in perfect keeping, but evince a still deeper emotion and greater pathos and power. We copy the closing cantatas, " To Sleep," and " A Weed " — a prayer and a pro- Had we but met in life's delioioua spring. When young romance made Eden of the world; When bird-like Hope was ever on the wing, (In My dear breast how soon had it been furled 1) Hnd we but met when both our hearts were beating With the wild joy, the guilelras Inve of youth — Thf-u a prond boy, with frank and ardent greeting, And 1 a timid girl, all trust aud truth! — Fre yet my pulse's light, elflctic piny Had leam'd the weary weight of grief to know, Ere frcm these eyes had passed the morning ray, And from my cheek tho early rose's glow; — Had we but met in life's delicinus spring, Ere wrong nnd falsehood taught me doubt and fear, Ere Hope came back with worn and wounded wing, To die upon the heart it could not cheer ; Ere I love's precious pearl had vainly lavished. Pledging an idol deaf to my despair; En' one by one the buds and blooms were ravish'd From life's rich garland by the clasp of Care. Ah I had we then but met I — ^I dare not listen To the wild whispers of my fnncy now 1 My lull heart beats— my sad, droop'd lashes glisten — 1 hear the music of thy boyhood^a vow I I see thy dark eyes lustrous with love's meaning, I feel thy dear hand softly clasp mine own — Thy noble form is fondly o'er me leaning — It is too much — but ah I the dream has flown. How had I ponr'd this passionate heart's devotion In voiceless rapture on thy manly breast 1 FRAIJ^^CES SARGENT OSGOOD. 27 phecy — in which the profoundest eoiTow is displayed with touching simpKcity and unaflfected earnestness. First, to Death's gentle sister : Come to me, angol of the weary hearted ; Since they, my loved ones, breathed upon by thee, Unto thy realms unreal have departed, J, too, may rest — even I : ah 1 haate to me. I dare not bid thy darker, colder brother With his more welcome offering, appear, For those sweet lipa, at mom, will murmur, " Motlier," There is no I have no heart to rove in realms of Faery — To follow Fancy at her elfin cull ; I am too wretched — too aoul-worw and weary; Give me but rest, for rest to me is all. Faint not the future to my fainting spirit, Though it were etarr'd wi(h glory like the ekies; And who shall soothe them if I be not near) That couli gift that mortals may inherit Id rekindle hope in these cold eyes. Bring me no dream, dear Sleep, though visions glowing And for the Past— the fearful Past— ah I never With hues of heaven thy wiuid enchanted shows } Bo Memory's downcast gaze unveil'd by thee ; I ask no glorious boon of thy bestowing, Would thou couldst bring oblivion forever Save that most true, most beautiful— repose. Of all that is, that has been, and will be 1 And more monmful still, the dream of the after days : Only to Love and Grief her grave revealing, And they will hush their chiding then — to weep 1 And some, (for though too oft she err'd, too blindly. She was beloved — how fondly and how well !) — Some few, with faltering feet, will linger kindly. And plant dear flowers within that silent dell. I know whose fragile hand will bring the bloom Best loved by Iwth — the violet's — to that bower; And one will bid whito lilies bless the gloom ; And one, perchance, wdl plant the passion flower; When from onr northern woods pale summer fljTng, Breathes her last fragrant sigh — her low farewell — While her sad wild flowers' dewy eyes, in dying. Plead for her stay, in every nook and dell. A heart that loved too tenderly and truly, Will break at last; and m some dim, sweet shade. They'll smooth the sod o'er her you prized unduly, And leave her to the rest for which she pray'd. Ah ! trustfully, not mournfully, they'll leave her, Assured that deep repose is welcomed well ; The pure, glad breeze can whisper naught to grieve her ; The brook's low voice no wrongful tjHe can toll. Then do thou come, when all the rest have parted — Thou, who alone dost know her soid's deep gloom I They'll hide her where no false one's footsteps, stoaling, And wreathe above the lost, the broken-hearted. Con mar the chaston'd meekness of her sleep ; Some idle weed, that knew nut how to bloom. We pass from these painful but exquisitely beautiful displays of sensitive feehng and romantic fancy, to pieces exhibiting Mrs. Osgood's more habitual spirit of arch playfulness and graceful invention, scattered through the volume, and constituting a class of compositions in which she is scarcely approachable. The " Lover's List;" an improvisation, is one of her shorter ballads : " Coma sit on this bank so shady, Sweet Evelyn, sit with me ! And count me your loves, fair lady- How many may they be !" Tlie maiden smiled on her lover, And traced with her dimpled hand, Of names a dozen and over Down in the shining sand. *'And now^" said Evelyn, rising, " Sir Knight 1 your own, if you please ; And if there be no disguising, The list will outounmer these ; "Then count me them truly, roverl" And the noble knight obeyed ; And of names a dozen and over He traced within the shade. Fau" Evelyn pouted proudly; She sighed " Will ne never have done !" And at last she murmur'd loudly, " I thought be would writo but one /" "Now read," said the gay youth, rising; " The scroll — it is fail- and free ; In truth, there is no disguising That list is the world to me!" She read it with joy and wonder, For the first was her own sweet name ; And again and again written under, If was still — it was still the same ! It began with—" My Evelyn fairest 1" It ended with — " Evelyn best !" And epithets fondest and dearest Were lavished between on the rest. There were tears in the eves of the lady As she swept with her cLelicate hand, On the river-bank cool and shady, The list she had traced in the sand. There were smiles on the lip of the maiden As she turned to her knight once more, And the heart was with joy o'erladen That was heavy with doubt before ! And for its lively movement and buoyant feeling — equally characteristic of lier geuius — the following song, upon " Lady Jane," a favorite horse : Oh ! saw ye e'er creature so queenly, so fine, As this dainty, aerial darling of mine 1 With a toss of her mane, that is glossy as jet, With a dance and a prance, and a frouc curvet, She is off ! she is stepping superbly away 1 Her dark, speaking eye mil of pride and of play. Oh 1 she spurns the dull earth with a graceful disdam, My fearless, my peerless, my loved Lwiy Jane ! Her silken ears lifted when danger is nigh. How kindlbs the night in her resolute eye 1 Now stetoly she paces, as if to the sound Of a proud, martial melody playing around, Now pauses at once, 'mid a light caracole. To turn her mild glance on me beaming with soul : Now fleet as a fairy, she speeds o'er the plain. My darling, my treasure, my own X^dy Jane I Give her rein ! let her go ! Like a shaft from a bow, Like a bird on the wing, she is speeding I trow — Light of heart, lithe of limb, with a spirit all fire, Yet sway'd and subdued by my idlest desire — Though daring, yet docile, and sportive but true, Her nature 's the noblest that ever 1 knew. How she flu]gs hack her head, in her dain^ disdain ! My beauty, my graceful, my gay Lady Jane I 28 FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. It is among the one hundred and thirteen songs, of which this is one, and which form the last division of her poems, that we have the greatest varieties of rhythm, cadence, and expression ; and it is here too that we have, perhaps, the most clear and natural exhibitions of that class of emotions which she con- ceives with such wonderful truth. The prevaihng characteristic of these pieces is a native and dehcate raillery, piquant by wit, and poetical by the freshest and gracefuUest fancies ; but they are frequently marked by much tenderness of sentiment, and by boldness and beauty of imagination. They ai'C in some instances without that siagleness of purpose, that unity and completeness, which ought invariably to distinguish this sort of compositions, but upon the whole it must be considered that Mrs. Osgood was remarkably successful in the song. The fulness of our extracts from other parts of the volume will prevent that liberal illustration of her excellence in this which would be as gratifying to the reader as to us ; and we shall transcribe but a few specimens, which, by various felicities of language, and a pleasing delicacy of sentiment, will detain the admiration : Oh 1 would I were only a spirit of Bong I'd bring rare visiona of pare delight I'd tio&t forever around, abore you : From the land of dreams before you. If I wore a apirit, it wouldn't be wrong, It couldu't be wroag, to love you I Oh ! if I were only n spirit of song, I'd float forever around, above you, I'd hide in the light of a moonbeam bright, For a musical spirit oould never do wrong, I'd sing Love's lullaby softly o'er you, And it would!n't be wrong to love ypu f The next, an exquisitely beautiful song, suggests its own music: She loves him yet 1 She loves him yet !— I know by the blush that rises The flower the fiilse one gave her. Beneath the curia When hat he came. That shadow her eoul-lit oheet ; ■ Is still with her wild tears wet. She loves him yet I She'll ne'er forget, Through aU I^ove's sweet disguises Howe'er bis Eaith may waver, In timid girls, Tlirough grief and shame, A blush will be sure to speak. Believe it— she kives him yet. But deeper signs His favorite songs Than the radiant blush of beauty, She will sing— she heeds no other ; The midden finds, With all her wrongs Whenever his name is heard ; Her life on his love ie set. Her young heiirt thrills, Oh 1 doubt no more I "'"■ gnerself— ' Forgetting herself— her duly— She never can wed another ; Her dark eye fills, TQl life be o'er, And her pulao with hope is stirr'd. She loves— she will love him yet! And this is not less remarkable for a happy adaptation of sentiment to the sound : Low, my lute — breathe low I — She sleeps ! — All my passion, all my wo ■nrT.-, V- x.^i'*'^;^' , Speak for me! Whde his watch her l^ver keeps. Ask her in her balmy rest Soft and dewy slumber steeps WhomJier holy heart loves best I Golden tress imd fringed tid Afik her if she thinks of me !— With the blue heaven 'neath it hid — Eulalie ! T ,1 . v^^H'®', ■ ci. , ■ Low.mylute!— breathe low!— She sleeps!— Low, my lute— breathe low 1 — She sleeps !— Eulalie I Eiibilie ! Slumber while thy lover keeps Let thy music, light and low, Fondest watch and ward for thee Through her pure dream corne and go. Eulalie I Lute on Love 1 with silver flpw. The following evinces a deeper feeling, and has a corresponding force and dignity in its elegance : — Yes " lower to the level " Yet when the lauph is lightest, Of those who laud thee now 1 When wildest ffies tlie jest. Go join the joyous rove , vtTien gleams tlie goblet Srigktest. And pledge the heartless vow I And proudest heaves thy hreasL ^^li^^™,- v^ soul-bom beauty And thou art madly pledgfoK r?-» ^n'.V'^v '^ ^^"■^ 1°,^^ *!"*'^ '. ^ch Ray and joVial guest^ Fdl, fill the bowl 1 let burning wme A ghost shall gUde amid tlie flowera— Drown m thy soul Uve's dremii divme ! The shade of Love's departed hours I FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. 29 And thou flhalt Bbrink in BadneM Yet deem not this my prayer, love, From all the splendor there, Ah I no. if I could keep And curae the revel's gUidnoss, Thy alter'd heart from care, love, And hate the banquet's glare ; And charm its griefs to sleep. And pme, 'mid Passion's madness, Mine only should despair, love. For true love's purer air, I — 1 alone would weep I And feel thou'dst give their wildest glee T — I alone would mouni the Howeia For one unsullied sigh from me I That fade in Love'B deserted bowers! Among her poema are many which admit us to the sacredest recesses of the mother's heart : " To a Child Playing -with a "Watch," " To Little May Vin- cent," " To Ellen, Learning to Walk," and many others, show the almost wild tenderness with which she loved her two surviving daughters — one thirteen, and the other eleven years of age now ; — and a " Prayer in Illness," in wliich she besought God to " take them first," and suffer her to lie at their feet in death, lest, deprived of her love, they should be subjected to all the soitow she herself had known in the world, is exquisitely beautiful and touching. Her parents, her brothers, her sisters, her husband, her children, were the deities of her tranquil and spiritual worship, and she turned to them in every vicissitude of feeling, for hope and strength and repose. " Lilly " and " May," were objects of a devotion too sacred for any idols beyond the threshold, and we witness it not as something obtruded upon the outer world, but as a display of beautified and dignified humanity which is among the ministries appointed to be received for the elevation of our natures. With these holy and beautiful songs is inter- twined one, which under the title of " Ashes of Roses," breathes the solemnest requiem that ever was sung for a child, and in reading it we feel that in the subject was removed into the Unknown a portion of the mother's heart and life. The poems of Mrs. Osgood are not a laborious balancing of syllables, but a spontaneous gushing of thoughts, fancies and feelings, which fall naturally into harmonious measures ; and so perfectly is the sense echoed in the sound, that it seems as if many of her compositions might be intelligibly written in the char- acters of music. It is a pervading excellence of her works, whether in prose or verse, that they are graceful beyond those of any other' author who has written in this country; and the delicacy of her taste was such that it would pro bably be impossible to find in all of them a fancy, a thought, or a word oflfensive to that fine instinct in its highest cultivation or subtlest sensibility. It is one of her great merits that she attempted nothing foreign to her own afilu- ent but not various genius. There is a stilted ambition, common lately to lit- erary women, which is among the fatalest diseases to reputation. She was never betrayed into it ; she was always simple and natural, singing in no fal- setto key, even when she entered the temples of old mythologies. With an extraordinary susceptibility of impressions, she had not only the finest and quickest discernment of those peculiarities of character which give variety to the surface of society, but of certain kinds and conditions of life she perceived the slightest undulations and the deepest movements. She had no need to travel beyond the legitimate sphere of woman's observation, to seize upon the upturnings and overthrows which serve best for rounding periods in the senate or in courts of criminal justice — trying everything to see if poetry could be made of it. Nor did she ever demand audience for rude or ignoble passion, or admit the moral shade beyond the degree in which it must appear in all pic- s'* 30 FRANCES SAKGENT OSGOOD. tures of life. She lingered ■with her keen insight and quick sensibilities among the associations, influences, the fine sense, brave perseverance, earnest affection- ateness, and unfailing truth, which, when seen from the romantic point of view, are suggestive of all the poetry which it is within the province of woman to write. I have not chosen to dwell upon the faults in her works ; such labor is more fit for other hands, and other days ; and so many who attempt criticism seem to think the whole art lies in the detection of blemishes, that one may some- times be pardoned for lingering as fondly as I have done, upon an author's finer qualities. It must be confessed, that in her poems there is evinced a too unrestrained partiality for particular forms of expression, and that — it could scarcely be otherwise in a collection so composed — thoughts and fancies are occasionally repeated. In some instances too, her verse is diffuse, but general- ly, where this objection is made, it mil be found that what seems most careless and redundant is only delicate shading : she but turas her diamonds to the va- rious rays ; she rings no changes till they are not music ; she addresses an eye more sensitive to beauty and a finer ear than belong to her critics. The col- lection of her works is one of the most charming volumes that woman has con- tributed to literature ; of all that we are acquainted with the most womanly ; and destined, for that it addresses with truest sympathy and most natural elo- quence the commonest and noblest affections, to be always among the most fondly cherished Books of the Heart. Reluctantly I bring to a close these paragraphs — a hasty and imperfect tribute, from my feelings and my judgment, to one whom many will remember long as an impersonation of the rarest intellectual and moral endowments, as one of the loveliest characters in literary or social history. Hereafter, unless the office fall to some one worthier, I may attempt from the records of our friendship, and my own and others' recollections, to do such justice to her life and nature, that a larger audience and other times shall feel how much of beau- ty with her spirit left us. This requiem she wrote for another, little thinking that her friends would so soon sing it with hearts saddened for her own departure. The hand that swept the eoundiag lyre Bat angel hands shall bring her balm With more than mortal skill. For every grief she knew. The lightning eye, the heart of fire, And Heaven's soft harps her soul shall calm The fervent lip ore still : With musio sweet and true ; No more in rapture or ia wo, And tench to her the holy charm With melody to thrill, Of Israfel anew. Ah I nevermore 1 For evermore I Oh I bring the flowers she oherish'd so, Love's silver lyre she played so well, With eager child-like care ; Lies shattered on her tomb ; For o'er her grave they'll love to grow, But still in air its music-spell And sigh tlieir sorrow there ; Floats on through light and gloom, Ah me 1 no more their bahny glow And in the hearts where soft they fell, IVIay sootlie her heart's despair, Her worxis of bsauty bloom No I nevermore 1 For evermore I A LETTER FROM CHANCELLOR "WALWORTa A LETTER FROM CHANCELLOR WALWORTH. TO THE EDITEESS OF "THE MEMORIAL." Dear Madam : I am unworthy to have my name associated with the names of the talented and highly gifted writers whose beautiful productions will enrich and adorn your monumental volume, as it was my misfortune to be deprived of the unapprecia- ble advantages of a liberal education. I was literally graduated behind the plough, after having passed through a fitting course of preparatory studies, by the aid of the ferules of such country peda- gogues as were entrusted with the care and education of the youth in our common-schools at the close of the eighteenth century. Filial duty, however, requires me to admit, that in obtaining an ordinary common-school education, I was deeply indebted to one now gone to her rest in Heaven, who was most competent to in- struct her children in their initiatory studies. It was my happiness in early life to be blessed with the coun- sels and the instructions of a most intelligent, pious, and devoted mother, who watched over the tender years of infancy and the dawnings of my opening manhood with much more than a mother's ordinary attention. True, the cares of a very large family did not allow that mother the necessary time, even if she had possessed all the requisite qualifications, to conduct her children up the more rugged and difficult paths of human knowledge. But she could and did direct their early attention to the entrances into those paths ; and she also pointed out to them, with all the solicitude of a truly Christian mother's love, the elevated and splendid goal of usefulness and happiness to which those paths are sure to lead those who follow them with due diligence, and with a proper reliance upon the Divine aid. She also strove with all that energy which the fondest affection for her offspring can give to a mother's, 32 A LETTER FROM CHANCELLOR 'WALWORTH. faithful counsels, to convince her children that the ways of wisdom and knowledge, though at times toilsome and of very difiBcult ascent, were not actually inaccessible to any of them ; and that they were far more pleasant and safe than the dark and precipitous paths of ignorance and folly. It was that excellent and devoted mother who early taught me to seek the society, to cultivate the friendship, to venerate the char- acter, and to endeavor to emulate the virtues of all the talented the pure, and the good. As our dear departed friend belonged to this elevated class of the children of the world, when she was with us, I cannot refuse your request to contribute this very brief note to be inserted in your work — the \ proceeds of which are to be devoted to the erection of a monument over the early grave of one who was so accomplished, so lovely, and so pure in heart. Permit me, however, to say that Frances Sargent Osgood has already erected for herself, a monument far more enduring than sculptured marble. Her beautiful Floral Fancies, her exquisite Songs, and above all, her delightful Sacred Poems, will be read and admired by successive thousands long after the monumental stone which friendship is about to raise to her memory shall have been crum- bled to the earth by the unceasing attacks of the ruthless destroyer Time. The organism of matter endures but for a season ; but the beautiful scintillations of a true mind, like the soul itself, are im- mortal. When I first had the pleasure of meeting with the late Mrs. Osgood, it was in the Green Eide Cemetry, at Saratoga Springs, the summer previous to her death. It was near the last resting, place of my dear sainted wife and my cherub child, upon whose hallow- ed graves I had just deposited my accustomed offering of fresh summer flowers. We there conversed upon the subject of thus decking with such emblems the graves of those we have loved ; and of the pleasure which the disembodied spirits of our departed friends, if permitted to revisit this world, would take in receiving these simple mementos of our continued affection. I afterwards frequently met the lovely poetess near the same sacred spot. A LETTER FKOM CHANCELLOR WALWORTa 33 We spoke of the blessedness of the dead, who had departed hence with joy and hope ; and we conversed, too, of those upon whose grass-covered places of sleeping no bright flowers were permitted to bloom. We stood together by that splendid monument which records the name and marks the premature grave of the inventor of the Eolian lute, which has given such a charm to the lengthened notes of solemn and holy melody. We there found the sculptured, symbols of painting and poetry and music, blended with those of fleeting mortality, while the broken stem of the lately opened rose reminded us, that the young man in the flower of his youth may be suddenly cut down by the angel of death. But the placid sweetness of the lovely emblem of religion, which also adorns this beautiful memorial column, is admirably calculated to withdraw our thoughts from the mournful contemplation of all which is perishable here, to that sweet cherub of beatitude, that appropriate emblem of the sacred and eternal rest which awaits the true believer beyond the grave. Again, we directed our footsteps to that broken shaft which fraternal aft'ection has raised to the memory of a lovely child of genius : the youngest of the two youthful poetesses whose whose beautiful efi'usions and early deaths have deeply interested so many hearts. And we read together the melancholy poetic prediction which this short-lived child had so early made of her own too brief existence : " A few short years have rolled along, With mingled joy and pain, And I have passed — a broJEen tone. An echo of a strain." Near by this monument our eyes rested for a moment upon the gray marble slab with which a fond husband had marked his recollection of a youthful bride, who had prematurely withered in his arms, while the dew of her youth was still upon her. We lingei'ed together where another imperfect column has been reared by a heart-stricken father to mark the early grave of an only son. The smiling boy was snatched from the embrace of his 34 A LETTER FROM CHANCELLOR WALWORTH. doting parent, when his mind was beginning to expand under the culture of education, and now rests here by the side of his once beautiful and noble Christian mother, who was taken to the arms of her Saviour just as her infant son was beginning to lisp her beloved name. Farther on we passed a marble scroll on which it was vainly attempted to illustrate a young mother's affection for her first born. And then we stood by a mound of fresh earth, upon which rested a bouquet of white but faded flowers, that marked the recent burial of a fair and smiling boy who in the summer of his existence had been snatched from the embraces of his parents, and consigned thus early to his dark and narrow home. As we lingered around these and other mementos of blighted hopes and withered affections, can you entertain a doubt that our dear friend discoursed most feelingly and beautifully of sundered ties and bleeding hearts ? As I stood by her side and thus conversed of death and the grave, I perceived that the flower of her own life was beginning to fade, and that the shadow-like destroyer had already marked her for his own. But I did not then anticipate that she would be called away so soon, that the wine of life was so nearly on its lees. I fondly hoped again to meet her here, when another sum- mer should have come around — hoped again to commune with her in the same hallowed place. But alas, she is gone 1 She who had all the sweetest graces of humanity, now sleeps in the silence of the grave, where her body must rest until the trump of the Archangel shall awake the innumerable dead. Yet may we most confidently hope that her kind and gentle spirit which once so delighted in the sweet songs of earth, is now permitted to join in the still sweeter songs of the redeemed in Heaven. Yours, with respect, R. H. Walworth. Pink Gbove, Sakatoqa Springs, September 11, 1850 ^•F" %U:/v.!ri.^ THE FLIGHT OF THE FALCON. 35 THE FLIGHT OF THE FALCON. BT MART E. HEWITT. The dove was the falcon's love, The dove with her tender breast — Ah ! weary the day that gave The dove to the kite's dark nest ! The moon from yon cloud to-night Upon the meadows and moor-land shines Oh, marked she the falcon's flight For the home where his own dove pines ? There's a shadow on moor and mead, There's a cloud o'er the moon's fair breast ; And the falcon, with wings outspread, Hangs o'er the kite's dark nest. The famishing birds of prey Are hurrying through the night. But the dove with her falcon love Will have flown ere the morning light ! 36 "HEAVEN LIES ABOUT US IN OUR INFANCT." "HEAVEN LIES ABOUT US IN OUR INFANCY." BY E. H. STODDAED. We walk in garments white, In childish pomp and state, Where Earth is bathed with light, And lies at Heaven's gate. And golden ladders rise Around us from the sod ; And up and down the skies. With wing6d sandals shod. The Angels come and go, the Messengers of God I But by and by we stain The whiteness of our hearts ; And Heaven is lost again. And all its light departs : — Then more and more astray. Pursued by phantom Fears, And weeping day by day. We lose our sight in tears. And grope our way along the downward slope of years ! THE AITGEL OF DEATH. 37 THE ANGEL OF DEATH. BT GEORGE AnBBEr, LOKD BISHOP OF JAMAICA. Angel of Death, where art tliou now ? Where do thy darkling shadows gloom ? Rest they on Labor's flushing brow, Or Beauty's bloom ? Where'er thy hated footsteps glide. And horror dogs thy withering way, On tented plain, or stormy tide. Awhile delay ! Yet linger on the battle field, Wheie man thy murderous spirit woos ; There barb the spear, and break the shield Of mortal foes ; Or go where fever spreads thy path. Or raves the wilderness simoom ; But yet avert thy fatal wrath From my loved home. The flowers that round my board have sprunc. Have scarcely breathed the vernal air. And they are beautiful as young. And good as fair ; They sparkle on the lovely stem That all their nourishment supplies, Like stars that nobly diadem Their natal skies. 4 38 THE ANGEL OF DEATR Far from the scenes where passions rage, And envy and ambition glow, Their lives can scarcely swell the page Of human wo ; They mingle not with that gay throng, Who to the world their glory give ; They gladden but the little space Where'er they live. But when 't is past — and thou must come, Angel of Death, to this retreat, — O, then, another form assume. More mild and sweet ; Come as the Messenger of Peace, Come, as a friend in mercy given. To bid all earthly sorrows cease. And lead to Heaven. Angel of Death ! I know thee now — No spectral horrors with thee dwell. No horrid phantasy, but those Of pain and hell. The Word — the living Word has told How calm, how hopeful is the tomb. O, thou, who hast the stone unrolled, Messiah, come ! New Yoek, Jime, 1850. REMEMBRANCE. 39 REMEMBRANCE. JY S. G. GOODMCH. You bid the minstrel strike the lute, And wake once more a soothing tone — Alas, its strings — untuned — are mute, Or only echo moan for moan. The flowers around it twined are dead — And those who wreathed them there are flown- The spring that gave them bloom is fled. And withering frost is o'er them thrown. Poor lute — forgot mid strife and care, — I fain would try thy strings once more — Perchance some lingering tone is there — Some cherish'd melody of yore. If flowers that bloomed no more are here, Their odors still around us cling — And though the loved are lost — still dear. Their memories may wake the string. I strike — but lo the wonted thrill, Of joy in sorrowing cadence dies — Alas — the minstrel's hand is chill, And the sad lute, responsive, sighs. 'Tis ever thus — our life begins In Eden, and all fruit is sweet — We taste, and knowledge with our sins Creeps to the heart and spoils the cheat. 40 REMEMBRAi^^CE. In youth the sun brings light alone ; No shade then rests upon the sight — But when the dreamer's morn is flown We see the shadows — not the light. I once found music everywhere — The whistle from the willow wrung, The string set in the window, there, Sweet measures to my fancy flung But now this dainty lute is dead. Or answers but to sigh and wail — Echoing the voices of the fled, Passing before me — dim and pale. Yet angel forms are in that train — And One upon the still air flings. Of woven melodies, a strain Down, trembling, from Her heaven-bent wings 'Tis past — that speaking Form is flown — But Memory's pleased and listening ear. Shall oft recall that choral tone. To Love and Poetry so dear. And far away, in after time. Shall blended piety and love, Find fond expression in the rhyme. Bequeathed to earth from one above Poor lute — thy throbbing pulse is still — Yet all thy silence I forgive, That thus thy last, thy dying thrill. Would make Her gentle virtues live. THE SNOW-IMAGE. 41 THE SNOW-IMAGE. A CHILDISH MIRACLE. BY NATHANIEL HAWTHOENE. One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow. The eldest child was a little girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her parents, and other people that were familiar with her, used to call Violet. But her brother was known by the style and title of Peo- ny, on account of the ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which made everybody think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers. The father of these two children, a certain Mr. Lindsey, it is im- portant to say, was an excellent, but exceedingly matter-of-fact sort of man, a dealer in hardware, and was sturdily accustomed to take what is called the common-sense view of all matters that came un- der his consideration. With a heart about as tender as other people's, he had a head as hard and impenetrable, and therefore, perhaps, as empty, as one of the iron pots which it was a part of his business to sell. The mother's character, on the other hand, had a strain of poetry in it, a trait of unworldly beauty, a delicate and dewy flower, as it were, that had survived out of her imagina- tive youth, and still kept itself alive amid the dusty realities of matrimony and motherhood. So, Violet and Peony, as I began with saying, besought their mother to let them run out and play in the new snow ; for, though it had looked so dreary and dismal, drifting downward out of the gray sky, it had a very cheerful aspect, now that the sun was shining on it. The children dwelt in a city, and had no wider 4* 42 THE SNOW-IMAGE. play-place than a little garden before the house, divided by a white fence from the street, atid with a pear-tree and two or three plum- trees overshadowing it, and some rose-bushes just in front of the parlor-windows. The trees and shrubs, however, were now leaf- less, and their twigs were enveloped in the light snow, which thus made a kind of wintry foliage, with here and there a pendant icicle for the fruit. " Yes, Violet — yes, my little Peony," said their kind mother ; " you may go out and play in the new snow." Accordingly, the good lady bundled up her darlings in woollen jackets and wadded sacks, and put comforters round their necks, and a pair of striped gaiters on each little pair of legs, and worsted mittens on their hands, and gave them a kiss a piece, by way of a spell to keep away Jack Frost. Forth sallied the two children with a hop-skip-and-jump, that carried them at once into the very heart of a huge snow-drift, whence Violet emerged like a snow-bunting, while httle Peony floundered out with his round face in full bloom. Then what a merry time had they ! To look at them, frolicking in the wintry garden, you would have thought that the dark and piti- less storm had been sent for no other purpose but to provide a new plaything for Violet and Peony ; and that they themselves had been created, as the snow-birds were, to take delight only in the tempest, and in the white mantle which it spread over the earth. At last, when they had frosted one another all over with hand- fuls of snow, Violet, after laughing heartily at little Peony's figure, was struck with a new idea. " You look exactly like a snow-image. Peony," said she, " if your cheeks were not so red. And that puts me in mind ! Let us make an image out of snow — an image of a little girl — and it shall be our sister, and shall run about and play with us all winter long. Won't it be nice 1" " Oh, yes !" cried Peony, as plainly as he could speak, for he was but a little boy. " That will be nice ! And mamma shall see it !" " Yes," answered Violet ; " mamma shall see the new little girl. THK SNOW-IMAGE. 43 But ste must not make her come into tLe warm parlor ; for, you know, our little snow-sister will not love the warmth." And, forthwith, the children began this great business of making a snow-image that should run about — while their mother, who was sitting at the window and overheard some of their talk, could not help smiling at the gravity with which they set about it. They really seemed to imagine that there would be no difficulty what- ever in creating a live little girl out of the snow. And, to say the truth, if miracles are ever to be wrought, it will be by putting our hands to the work, in precisely such a simple and undoubting frame of mind as that in which Violet and Peony now undertook to per- form one, without so much as knowing that it was a miracle. So thought the mother ; and thought, likewise,, that the new snow, just fallen from heaven, would be excellent material to make new beings of, if it were not so very cold. She gazed at the children a moment longer, delighting to watch their little figures — the girl, tall for her age, graceful and agile, and so delicately colored, that she looked like a cheerful thought, more than a physical reality— while Peony expanded in breadth rather than height, and rolled along on his short and sturdy legs, as substantial as an elephant, though not quite so big. Then the mother resumed her work ; what it was I forget ; but she was either trimming a silken bonnet for Violet, or darning a pair of stockings for little Peony's short legs. Again, however, and again, and yet other agains, she could not help turning her head to the window, to see how the children got on with their snow-image. Indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight, those bright little souls at their tasks 1 Moreover, it was really wonderful to observe how knowingly and skilfully they managed the matter. Violet assumed the chief direction, and told Peony what to do, while, with her own dehcate fingers, she shaped out all the nicer parts of the snow-figure. It seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the children, as to grow up under their hands, while they were playing and prattling about it. Their mother was quite surprised 44 THE SNOW-IMAGE. at this ; and the longer she looked, the more and more surprised she grew. " What remarkable children mine are !" thought she, smiling with a mother's pride; and smiling at herself, too, for being so proud of them. " "What other children could have made anything so like a little girl's figure out of snow, at the first trial ? Well ; • — but now I must finish Peony's new frock; for his grandfather is coming to-morrow, and I want the little fellow to look as handsome as possible." So she took up the frock, and was soon as busily at work again with her needle, as the two children with their snow-image. But still, as the needle travelled hither and thither through the seams of the dress, the mother made her toil light and happy by listening to the airy voices of Violet and Peony. They kept talking to one another all the time — their tongues being quite as active as their feet and hands. Except at intervals, she could not distinctly hear what was said, but had merely a sweet impression that they were in a most loving mood, and were enjoying themselves highly, and that the business of making the snow-image went prosperously on. Now and then, however, when Violet and Peony happened to raise their voices, the words were as audible as if they had been spoken in the very parlor, where the mother sat. Oh, how delightfully those words echoed in her heart, even though they meant nothing so very wise or wonderful, after all ! But, you must know, a mother listens with her heart, much more than with her ears ; and thus she is often delighted with the trills of celestial music, when other people can hear nothing of the kind. " Peony, Peony !" cried Violet to her brother, who had gone to another part of the garden ; " bring me some of that fresh snow, Peony, from the very furthest corner, where we have not been trampling. I want it to shape our little snow-sister's bosom with. You know that part must be quite pure — just as it came out of the sky 1" " Here it is, Violet !" answered Peony, in his bluflf tone — but a THE SNOW IMAGE. 45 very sw€et tone, too — as he came floundering through the half- trodden drifts. " Here is the snow for her Httle bosom. Oh, Violet, how heau-ti-ful she begins to look !" "Yes," said Violet, thoughtfully and quietly ; "our snow-sister does look very lovely. I did not quite know, Peony, that we could make such a sweet little girl as this." The mother, as she listened, thought how fit and delightful an incident it would be, if fairies, or, still better, if angel-children were to come from Paradise, and play invisibly with her own darhngs, and help them to make their snow-image — giving it the features of celestial babyhood ! Violet and Peony would not be aware of their immortal playmates — only they would see that the image grew very beautiful, while they worked at it, and would think that they themselves had done it all. " My little girl and boy deserve such playmates, if mortal chil- dren ever did !" said the mother to herself; and then she smiled again at her own motherly pride. Nevertheless, the idea seized upon her imagination ; and, ever and anon, she took a glimpse out of the window, half-dreaming that she might see the golden-haired children of Paradise, sporting with her own golden-haired Violet and bright-cheeked Peony. Now, for a few moments, there was a busy and earnest, but indistinct hum of the two children's voices, as Violet and Peony wrought together with one happy consent. Violet still seemed to be the guiding spirit : while Peony acted rather as a laborer, and brought her the snow from far and near. And yet the little urchin evidently had a proper understanding of the matter, too ! " Peony, Peony !" cried Violet ; for her brother was again at the other side of the garden. " Bring me those light wreaths of snow that have rested on the lower branches of the pear-tree. You can clamber on the snow-drift. Peony, and reach them easily. I must have them to make some ringlets for our snow-sister's head !" " Here they are, Violet !" answered the little boy. " Take care you do not break them. Well done ! Well done ! How pretty!" 46 THE SNOW-IMAGE. " Does she not look sweetly ?" said Violet, with a very satisfied tone, " and now we must have some little shining bits of ice, to make the brightness of her eyes. She is not finished yet. Mamma ■will see how very beautiful she is ; but papa will say, ' Tush ! nonsense ! — come in out of the cold !' " "Let us call mamma to look out," said Peony ; and then he shouted lustily, " Mamma ! mamma ! ! mamma ! ! ! Look out, and see what a nice 'ittle girl we are making !" The mother put down her work, for an instant, and looked out of the window. But it so happened that the sun — for this was one of the shortest days of the whole year — had sunken so nearly to the edge of the world, that his setting shine came obliquely into the lady's eyes. So she was dazzled, you must understand, and could not very distinctly observe what was in the garden. Still, however, through all that bright, blinding dazzle of the sun and the new snow, she beheld a small white figure in the garden, that seemed to have a wonderful deal of human likeness about it. And she saw Violet and Peony — indeed, she looked more at them than at the image — she saw the two children still at work; Peony bringing fresh snow, and Violet applying it to the figure, as scien- tifically as a sculptor adds clay to his model. Indistinctly as she discerned the snow-child, the mother thought to herself, that never before was there a snow-figure so cunningly made, nor ever such a dear little girl and boy to make it. " They do everything better than other children," said she, very complacently. " Then no wonder they make better snow-images !" She sate down again to her work, and made as much haste with it as possible ; because twilight would soon come, and Peony's frock was not yet finished, and grandfather was expected, by rail- road, pretty early in the morning. Faster and faster, therefore, went her flying fingers. The children, likewise, kept busily at work in the garden, and still the mother listened, whenever she could catch a word. She was amused to observe how their little imaginations had got mixed up with what they were doing, and THE SNOW-IMAGE. 47 were carried away by it. They seemed positively to think that the snow-child would run about and play with them. " What a nice playmate she will be for us, all winter long 1" said Violet. " I hope papa will not be afraid of her giving us a cold ! Shan't you love her dearly, Peony ?" " O, yes !" cried Peony. " And I will hug her, and she shall sit down close by me, and drink some of my warm milk !" "Oh no. Peony!" answered Violet, with grave wisdom. "That will not do at all. Warm milk will not be wholesome for our little snow-sister. Little snow-people, like her, eat nothing but icicles. No, no, Peony ; — we must not give her anything warm to drink !'' There was a minute or two of silence ; for Peony, whose short legs were never weary, had gone on a pilgrimage again to the other side of the garden. All of a sudden, Violet cried out, loudly and joyfully :— " Look here. Peony ! Come quickly ! A light has been shining on her cheek out of that rose-colored cloud !— and the color does not go away I Is not that beautiful ?'' " Yes ; it is beau-ti-ful," answered Peony, pronouncing the three syllables with deliberate accuracy. " Oh, Violet, only look at her hair ! It is all like gold 1" " Oh, certainly," said Violet, with tranquillity, as if it were very much a matter of course. " That color, you know, comes from the golden clouds, that we see up there in the sky. She is almost finished now. But her lips must be made very red — redder than her cheeks. Perhaps, Peony, it will make them red, if we both kiss them 1" Accordingly, the mother heard two smart little smacks, as if both her children were kissing the snow-image on its frozen mouth. But, as this did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, Violet next proposed that the snow-child should be invited to kiss Peony's scarlet cheek. " Come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me !'' cried Peony. 48 THE SNOW-IMAGE. " There ! She has kissed you," added Violet, " and now her lips are very red. And she blushed a little, too !" " Oh, what a cold kiss !" cried Peony. Just then, there came a breeze of the pure west wind, sweeping through the garden and rattling the parlor-windows. It sounded so wintry cold, that the mother was about to tap on the window- pane with her thimbled finger, to summon the two children in ; when they both cried out to her with one voice. The tone was not a tone of surprise, although they were evidently a good deal excited ; it appeared rather as if they were very much rejoiced at some event that had now happened, but which they had been looking for, and had reckoned upon all along. " Mamma ! mamma ! We have finished our little snow-sister, and she is running about the garden with us !" " What imaginative little beings my children are !" thought the mother, putting the last few stitches into Peony's frock. "And it is strange, too, that they make me almost as much a child as they themselves are ! I can hardly help believing, now, that the snow-image has really come to life !" " Dear mamma," cried Violet, " pray look out, and see what a sweet playmate we have !" The mother, being thus entreated, could no longer delay to look forth from the window. The sun was now gone out of the sky, leaving, however, a rich inheritance of his brightness among those purple and golden clouds which make the sunsets of winter so magnificent. But there was not the slightest gleam or dazzle, either on the window or on the snow ; so that the good lady could look all over the garden, and sec every thing and every body in it. And what do you think she saw there ? Violet and Peony, of course, her own two darHng children. Ah, but whom or what did she see besides ? Why, if you will believe me, there was a small figure of a girl, dressed all in white, with rose-tinged cheeks and ringlets of golden hue, playing about the garden with the two children. A stranger though she was, the child seemed to be on as familiar terms with Violet and Peony, and they with her, as if THE SNOW-IMAGE. 49 all the three had been playmates during the whole of their little lives. The mother thought to herself, that it must certainly be the daughter of one of the neighbors, and that, seeing Violet and Peony in the garden, the child had run across the street to play with them. So this kind lady went to the door, intending to invite the little runaway into her comfortable parlor ; for, now that the sunshine was withdrawn, the atmosphere, out of doors, was already growing very cold. But, after opening the house-door, she stood an instant on the threshold, hesitating whether she ought to ask the child to come in, or whether she should even speak to her. Indeed, she almost doubted whether it were a real child, after all, or only a light wreath of the new-fallen snow, blown hither and thither about the garden by the intensely cold west-wind. There was cer- tainly something very singular in the aspect of the little stranger. Among all the children of the neighborhood, the lady could remember no such face, with its pure white, and delicate rose- color, and the golden ringlets tossing about the forehead and cheeks. And as for her dress, which was entirely of white, and fluttering in the breeze, it was such as no reasonable woman would put upon a little girl, when sending her out to play, in the depth of winter. It made this kind and careful mother shiver only to look at those small feet, with nothing in the world on them, except a very thin pair of white slippers. Nevertheless, airily as she was clad, the child seemed to feel not the slightest inconvenience from the cold, but danced so lightly over the snow that the tips of her toes left hardly a print in its surface ; while Violet could but just keep pace with her, and Peony's short legs compelled him to lag behind. Once, in the course of their play, the strange child placed her- self between Violet and Peony, and taking a hand of each, skipt merrily forward, and they along with her. Almost immediately, however. Peony pulled away his little fist, and began to rub it as if the fingers were tingling with cold ; while Violet also released herself, though with less abruptness, gravely remarking that it was 5 50 THE SNOW-IMAGE. better not to take hold of hands. The white-robed damsel said not a word, but danced about, just as merrily as before. If Violet and Peony did not choose to play with her, she could make just as good a playmate of the brisk and cold west-wind, which kept blowing her all about the garden, and took such liberties with her that they seemed to have been friends for a long time. All this while, the mother stood on the threshold, wondering how a little girl could look so much like a flying snow-drift, or how a snow- drift could look so very like a little girl. She called Violet, and whispered to her. "Violet, my darling, what is this child's name?" asked she. "Does she live near us ?" " Why, dearest mamma,'' answered Violet, laughing to think that her mother did not comprehend so very plain an aflfair, " this is our little snow-sister, whom we have just been making 1" " Yes, dear mamma," cried Peony, running to his mother and looking up simply into her face. " This is our snow-image ! Is it not a nice 'ittle child ?" At this instant, a flock of snow-birds came flitting through the air. As was very natural, they avoided Violet and Peony. But — and this looked strange — they flew at once to the white-robed child, fluttered eagerly about her head, alighted on her shoulders, and seemed to claim her as an old acquaintance. She, on her part, was evidently as glad to see these little birds, old Winter's grand-children, as they were to see her, and welcomed them by holding out both her hands. Hereupon, they each and all tried to alight on her two palms and ten small fingers and thumbs, crowd- ing one another off, with an immense fluttering of their tiny wings. One dear little bird nestled tenderly in her bosom ; another put its bill to her lips. They were as joyous, all the while, and seemed as much in their element, as you may have seen them when sporting with a snow-storm. Violet and Peony stood laughing at this pretty sight ; for they enjoyed the merry time which their new playmate was having THE SNOW-IMAGE. 51 with these small winged visitants, almost as much as if they themselves took part in it. " Violet," said her mother, greatly perplexed, " tell me the truth, without any jest. Who is this little girl ?" " My darling mamma," answered Violet, looking seriously into her mother's face, and apparently surprised that she should need any further explanation, " I have told you truly who she is. It is our little snow-image, which Peony and I have been making. Peony will tell you so, as well as I." "Yes, mamma!" asseverated Peony, with much gravity in his crimson little phiz. " This is 'ittle snow-child. Is not she a nice one ? But, mamma, her hand is, oh, so very cold !" While mamma still hesitated what to think and what to do, the street-gate was thrown open, and the father of Violet and Peony appeared, wrapt in a pilot-cloth sack, with a fur-cap drawn down over his ears, and the thickest of gloves upon his hands. Mr. Lindsey was a middle-aged man, with a weary, and yet a happy look in his wind-flushed and frost-pinched face, as if he had been busy all day long, and was glad to get back to his quiet home. His eyes brightened at the sight of his wife and children, although he could not help uttering a word or two of surprise, at finding the whole family in the open air, on so bleak a day, and after sunset too. He soon perceived the little white stranger, sporting to and fro in the garden, like a dancing snow-wreath, and the flock of snow-birds fluttering about her head. " Pray, what little girl may that be ?" inquired this very sen- sible man. " Surely her mother must be crazy, to let her go out in such bitter weather as it has been to-day, with only that flimsy white gown, and those thin slippers !" " My dear husband," said his wife, " I know no more about the little thing than you do. Some neighbor's child, I suppose. Our Violet and Peony," she added, laughing at herself for repeating so absurd a story, " insist that she is nothing but a snow-image, which they have been busy about in the garden, almost all the afternoon." 52 THE SNOW-IMAGE. As she said this, the mother glanced her eyes towards the spot where the children's snow-image had been made. What was her surprise, on perceiving that there was not the slightest trace of so much labor ! — no image at all ! — no piled-up heap of snow ! — nothing whatever, save the prints of little footsteps around a vacant space. " This is very strange !'' said she. "What is strange, dear mother?" asked Violet. "Dear father, do not you see how it is ? This is our snow-image, which Peony and I have made, because we wanted another playmate. Did not we, Peony ?" " Yes, papa," said crimson Peony. " This be our 'ittle snow- sister. Is not she beau-ti-ful ? But she gave me such a cold kiss !" " Poh, nonsense, children !" cried their good, honest father, who, as we have already intimated, had an exceedingly common — sensible way of looking at matters. " Do not tell me of making live figures out of snow. Come, wife ; this little stranger must not stay out in the bleak air a moment longer. We will bring her into the parlor; and you shall give her a supper of warm bread and milk, and make her as comfortable as you can. Mean- while, I will inquire among the neighbors ; or, if necessary, send the city crier about the streets, to give notice of a lost child." So saying, this honest and very kind-hearted man was going towards the little white damsel, with the best intentions in the world. But Violet and Peony, each seizing their father by the hand, earnestly besought him not to make her come in. "Dear father," cried Violet, putting herself before him, "it is true, what I have been telling you ! This is our little snow-girl, and she cannot live any longer than while she breathes the cold west-wind. Do not make her come into the hot room !" " Yes, father," shouted Peony, stamping his little foot, so mightily was he in earnest, — " This be nothing but our 'ittle snow- child ! She will not love the hot fire !" " Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense !" cried the father, half THE SNOW-IMAGE. 53 vexed, half-laughing at what he considered their foolish obstinacy. " Run into the house, this moment ! It is too late to play any longer, now. I must take care of this little girl immediately, or she will catch her death-acold !" " Husband ! — dear husband !" said his wife, in a low voice ; for she had been looliing narrowly at the snow-child, and was more perplexed than ever, — "There is something very singular in all this. You will think me foolish — but — but — may it not be that some invisible angel has been attracted by the simplicity and good-faith with which our children set about their undertaking ? May he not have spent an hour of his immortality in playing with those dear little souls ? — and so the result is what we call a miracle. No, no ! Do not laugh at me, I see what a foolish thought it is !'' " My dear wife," replied the husband, laughing heartily, " you are as much a child as Violet and Peony." And, in one sense, so she was ; for, all through life, she had kept her heart full of child-like simplicity and faith, which was as pure and clear as crystal ; and, looking at all matters through this transparent medium, she sometimes saw truths, so profound, that other people laughed at them as nonsense and absurdity. But, now, kind Mr. Lindsey had entered the garden, breaking away from his two children, who still sent their shrill voices after him, beseeching him to let the snow-child stay and enjoy herself in the cold west-wind. As he approached, the snow-birds took to flight. The little white damsel, also, fled backward, shaking her head as if to say — " Pray do not touch me !" — and roguishly, as it appeared, leading him through the deepest of the snow. Once, the good man stumbled, and floundered down upon his face ; so that, gathering himself up again, with the snow sticking to his rough pilot-cloth sack, he looked as white and wintry as a snow- image of the largest size. Some of the neighbors, meanwhile, seeing him from their windows, wondered what could possess poor Mr. Lindsey to be running about his garden in pursuit of a snow- drift, which the west-wind was driving hither and thither! At 5* 54 THE SNOW-IMAGE. length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased the little stranger into a corner, where she could not possibly escape him. His wife had been looking on, and, it being now nearly twilight, was wonder- struck to observe how the snow-child gleamed and sparkled, and how she seemed to shed a glow all round about her, and when driven into the corner, she positively glistened .like a star ! It was a frosty kind of brightness, too, like that of an icicle in the moon- light. The wife thought it strange that good Mr. Lindsey should see nothing remarkable in the snow-child's appearance. " Come, you odd little thing !'' cried the honest man, seizing her by the hand. " I have caught you at last, and will make you com- fortable in spite of yourself. We will put a nice warm pair of woi-sted stockings on your frozen little feet ; and you shall have a good thick shawl to wrap yourself in. Your poor white nose, I am afraid, is actually frost-bitten. But we will make it all right. Come along in !" And so, with a most benevolent smile on his sagacious visage, all purple as it was with the cold, this very well-meaning gentleman took the snow-child by the hand and led her towards the house. She followed him, droopingly and reluctant ; for all the glow and sparkle was gone out of her figure ; and, whereas, just before, she had resembled a bright, frosty, star-gemmed evening, with a crimson gleam on the cold horizon, she now looked as dull and languid as a thaw. As kind Mr. Lindsey led her up the steps of the door, Violet and Peony looked into his face — their eyes full of tears which fioze before they could run down their cheeks — and again entreated him not to bring their snow-image into the house. " Not bring her in !" exclaimed the kind-hearted man. " Why you are crazy, my little Violet !— quite crazy, my small Peony ! She is so cold, already, that her hand has almost frozen mine, in spite of my thick gloves. Would you have her freeze to death ?" His wife, as he came up the steps, had been taking another long, earnest, almost awe-stricken gaze at the little white strano-er. She hardly knew whether it was a dream or no ; but she could not help fancying that she saw the delicate print of Violet's finders on THE SNOW-IMAGE. 65 the child's neck. It looked just as if, while Violet was shaping out the image, she had given it a gentle pat with her hand, and had neglected to smooth the impression quite away. " After all, husband," said the mother, recurring to her idea, that the angels would be as much delighted to play with Violet and Peony as she herself was, " after all, she does look strangely like a snow-image ! I do believe she is made of snow !" A puff of the west-wind blew against the snow-child ; and again she sparkled like a star. "Snow!" repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing the reluctant guest over his hospitable threshold. " No wonder she looks like snow. She is half-frozen, poor little thing ! But a good fire will put everything to rights." Without further talk, and always with the same best intentions, this highly benevolent and common-sensible individual led the little white damsel — drooping, drooping, drooping, more and more — out of the frosty air, and into his comfortable parlor. A Heidenberg stove, filled to the brim with intensely burning anthracite, was sending a bright gleam through the isinglass of its iron-door, and causing the vase of water on its top to fume and bubble with excitement. A warm, sultry smell was diffused throughout the room. A thermometer, on the wall farthest from the stove, stood at eighty degrees. The parlor was hung with red curtains, and covered with a red carpet, and looked just as warm as it felt. The difference betwixt the atmosphere here, and the cold, wintry twi- light, out of doors, was like stepping at once from Nova Zembla to the hottest part of India, or from the North-pole into an oven. Oh, this was a fine place for the little white stranger ! " The common-sensible man placed the snow-child on the hearth- rug, right in front of the hissing and fuming stove. "Now she will be comfortable !" cried kind Mr. Lindsey, rubbing his hands and looking about him, witli the pleasantest smile ydu ever saw. " Make yourself at home, my child !" Sad, sad, and drooping, looked the little white maiden, as she stood on the hearth-rug, with the hot blast of the stove striking 5 a THE SNOW-IMAGE. through her Uke a pestilence. Once, she threw a glance wistfully towards the windows, and caught a glimpse through its red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs, and the stars glimmering frostily, and all the dehcious intensity of the cold night. The bleak wind rattled the window-panes, as if it were summoning her to come forth. But there stood the snow-child, drooping, before the hot stove ! But the common-sensible man saw nothing amiss. " Come, wife," said he, " let her have a pair of thick stockings and a woollen shawl or blanket directly ; and tell Dora to give her some warm supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet and Peony, amuse your little friend. She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a strange place. For my part, I will go round among the neighbors, and find out where she belongs." The mother, meanwhile, has gone in search of the shawl and stockings ; for her own view of the matter, however subtle and delicate, had given way, as it always did, to the stubborn material- ism of her husband. Without heeding the remonstrances of her two children, who still kept murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlor-door carefully behind him. Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the house, and had barely reached the street-gate, when he was recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and the rapping of a thimbled finger against the parlor-window. " Husband ! Husband !" cried his wife, showing her horror- stricken face through the window-panes. " There is no need of going for the child's parents !" " We told you so, father !" screamed Violet and Peony, as he reentered the parlor. " You would bring her in ; and now our poor — dear — beau-ti-ful little snow-sister is thawed !" And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears ; so that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in this every-day world, felt not a little anxious lest his children mifht be going to thaw too ! In the utmost perplexity, he THE SNOW-IMAGE. S7 demanded an explanation of his wife. She could only reply, that, being summoned to the parlor by the cries of Violet and Peony, she found no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of snow, which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the hearth-rug. " And there you see all that is left of it !" added she, pointing to a pool of water, in front of the stove. "Yes, father," said Violet, looking reproachfully at him, through her tears, " there is all that is left of our dear httle snow-sister !" " Kaughty father !" cried Peony, stamping his foot, and — I shudder to say — shaking his little fist at the common-sensible man. " We told you how it would be ! What for did you bring her in ?" And the Heidenberg stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to glare at good Mr. Lindsey, like a red-eyed demon, triumphing in the mischief which it had done ! This, you will observe, was one of those rare cases, which yet will occasionally happen, where common-sense finds itself at fault. The remarkable story of the snow-image, though, to that sagacious class of people to whom good Mr. Lindsey belongs, it may seem but a childish aifair, is, nevertheless, capable of being moralised in various methods, greatly for their edification. One of its lessons, for instance, might be, that it behoves men, and especially men of be- nevolence, to consider well what they are about, and, before acting on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure that they compre- hend the nature and all the relations of the business in hand. What has been established as an element of good to one being, may prove absolute mischief to another ; even as the warmth of the parlor was proper enough for children of flesh and blood, like Violet and Peony — though by no means very wholesome, even for them — but involved nothing short of annihilation to the unfortu- nate snow-image. But, after all, there is no teaching anything to wise men of good Mr. Lindsey's staitip. They know everything — Oh, to be sure ! — everything that has been, and everything that is, and everything 58 THE SNOW-IMAGE. that, by any future possibility, can be. And, should some phe- nomenon of Nature or Providence transcend their system, they will not recognise it, even if it come to pass under their very noses. " Wife," said Mr. Lindsey, after a fit of silence, " see what a quantity of snow the children have brought in on their feet ! It has made quite a puddle here before the stove. Pray tell Dora to bring some towels and sop it up !'' THE BLESSED RAIN. 59 THE BLESSED RAIN. BY MBS. L. H. SIGOUENET. I WOKE, and heard the dropping of the rain, So long withheld, that to my ear it seem'd The richest music. And methought, a voice Of praise went up, from every drooping spray, And crisping grass-blade, unto Him whose love Had not forget them in their low estate, But sent a comforter ; to Him, who still In all the thirst and fever of our sins Eemembereth us with mercy. Then, the vine That o'er my casement mantled, whispering taught Her topmost leaves to bow themselves, and shed The sweet redundance of God's bounteous gift On their less favor'd sisters, who beneath Dwelt in the shade, till the whole family Rejoiced together. Cowering at their feet Was an unsightly, and unnurtur'd thing Noteless and dry, — yet pitiful they bent In the full pride of their prosperity. And freely shook their superflux of wealth Into its wither'd bosom, brown with dust, Till the poor mendicant look'd up and smiled. 00 THE BLESSED RAIN. Then, all syraphonious, breathed a strain of praise From harp and tabret of the secret soul, Heard by the listening Angel of the Flowers, Who bore it up to heaven. Oh, Mother Vine, Training thy children in the blessed ways Of charity, retouch within our souls The Savior's sweet monition, — " Lo ! the poor Are always with you, and whate'er ye do In their behalf, with lowliness and love, Is done to me." MT FRIENDS. 61 MY FRIENDS. BY ALTKED B. STREET. I had four friends in that enchanted season When youth o'er all things sheds its golden glow ; When Fancy's empire is our world, and Reason Over that empire seeks no shade to throw. Oh ftiiry time ! oh season full of sweetness ! Why hast thou fled and left me so forlorn ? Time to the happy hath a wing of fleetness, But oh how slow he steals to those who mourn. Those four loved friends ! how different, soul and feature, One from the other ! and yet each a gem. I wonder now that any living creature I could have ever loved, as I did them. How fondly, fondly memory dwells upon them ! Lo here they stand as in old happy days ! Ere the false phantoms of the world had won them To wander darkly in its fatal ways. One was a spirit fiery, headlong, eager, Ever the foremost in each daring game ; Mock swords he'd wield, and snow-built forts beleagues, With voice all fury, and with eye all flame. Ah my poor friend ! fast, fast he now is sleeping On the red field where he so bravely fought ; The moss-robed cypress watch above him, keeping — All, all his burning dreams of glory naught. 62 MY FRIENDS. Well I remember the bright morn he left me For Montezuma's halls, far, far away ; It seemed as if the sunshine was bereft me ; Lone, oh how lone I felt for many a day 1 At length the tidings came ; — he fell whilst dashing Into the battle's reddest, wildest wave — The war-shout on his tongue — his good sword flashing Above his head — the bravest of the brave. The other was a youth all soft and pensive, Thought in his eye and genius on his brow ; In our wild sports he acted the defensive, To our boys' tyranny did naught but bow. Oft would he steal away to some lone dingle, And in the grass extend himself for hours. Watching the shadow and the sunlight mingle, Talking with birds, and making love to flowers. Alas, the mild ! alas, the gentle-hearted ! Alas, alas the suffering child of song ! Dream after dream from his wrung soul departed. He fondly looked for right and found but wrong. Lays did he sing of sweet and tender beauty. Yet fail to win the world's capricious breath, His lyre he broke to cold and iron Duty, And faded, meek and silent, into death. The third was thoughtful too, but strong and fearless. Formed to lead men ; to mould their minds at will ; To tread, no matter how forlorn and cheerless, The path of life, unbent, and hopeful still. First of his class — with deep and careful study He stored his mind — and though he bent not o'er The poet's page, from actions stern and bloody He also turned to seek a different lore. MY FEIENDS. 63 Alas, the calm ! alas, the proud high-minded ! What though he scaled the hill with haughty tread ! There did he stand, with vision almost blinded, With^ almost every hue from being fled. What was his fame ! his best hours had he wasted To win the garland, worthless now 'twas gained ! Bitter the cup at first so fondly tasted I His youth was gone, and what, oh what remained ! The fourth and last — a young girl sweet and tender ! With smiles so radiant, and such holy eyes, None could behold her, and not homage render. As if she were some wanderer from the skies. Iler simple tones were music, oh how thrilling ! Her laugh was like the warble of a bird ! And when she wept, you felt your own eyes filling As if some seraph's sorrowing moan you heard. At length her smiles came less and less and vanished — Tears came more often, and her cheek turned pale — Her eyes grew holier — her light step was banished — And day by day her being seemed to fail. Ay, day by day we saw the dear one fading. Nor knew we what with life so wildly strove, Till with last breath, but oh, with no upbraiding, She named the cause of death — forsaken love 64 RESURRECTIOK RESURRECTION. BY GEORGE LUNT. Oh fool ! to judge, that He, who from the earth Created man, cannot his frame restore — The scattered elements from every shore Call back and clothe with a celestial birth ! See from its sheath the buried seed break forth, Blade, stalk, leaf, bud, and now the perfect flower, Changing, and yet the same ; and of His power A token each ! And art thou counted worth Less than the meanest herb ? Changed from the dust, And little lower than the angels made ; More changed by sin, — to death itself betrayed, — Yet heir of Heaven, by an immortal trust ! — Doubtless unwise, in reason's narrow school, Well might the great apostle say, " Thou Fool !" ADMIRATION. ADMIRATION. BY B.EV. is. L. MAGOON. " We live througli fldmiration, bope, and love." The above saying of the poet we believe to be true as gospel ; and if you will give heed, gentle reader, we will thereupon preach you a short sermon. The following are our points: — we can " hve through admiration, hope, and love ;" if we are wise, we will so live ; and, to be happy, we must live after the mode by the poet prescribed. In the first place, we are constituted with power to know what is worthy of esteem, and to become sagacious in the use of this faculty just in proportion to the exercise of generous love. He who made the human soul, planted therein the capacity to admire, and designed the cultivation of this to be at once the foundation of our best virtue, and the source of our highest joy. Brute creatures stupidly rove on with eyes directed towards the earth, from which their nutriment is obtained, but man is endowed with a diviner prerogative. He can at once survey the garniture of earth, and the canopy of heaven, pluck gems from the ocean, gather fra- grance from the mountains, and thence soar to revel amid the glories of unnumbered worlds. In the image of God was man made, a creature of mind. Earth was perfected and placed under his feet, the pedestal of a mightier creation, with the glory of heavenly intellect on his brow. About him, every thing fragrant, and beautiful, and sublime, was made to ascend ; but he, in the free exercise of spiiitual powers, more magnificent than all material things, could at will soar above them all. He was made to look up, and to find his highest good 6* 66 ADMIRATION. in forever aspiring after something higher and better than this world could show. There can be no stronger argument of God's utter aversion to sin, than his having endowed us with a nature which sin torments, so that we cannot be reconciled to it ourselves. His mercy is equally signalized, not only in the means provided for our rescue, but in preserving to our race so much of mental vigor, despite the ruins sin has produced. There is nothing good and enduring in this world unconnected with thought. In every vigorous concep- tion of the mind there is latent power, as an oak is enclosed in an acorn. The children of the soul cannot die. The obscure thinker, mi- ning amidst the hidden treasures of his spirit, under the silent cano- py of stars, or by the flickerings of his lonely lamp, is offering, upon the altar of eternity, creations which are to pass into other nations, and distant lands — impressions destined to glow through intermina- ble generations, when the heart that conceived them has long since crumbled into common dust. For weal or wo, the capacity of thought in man is fearfully great. In moral architecture, this crea- tive power is everything. It gave Milton heaven, it gave Dante hell. The mental eye, which alone gives value to the mightiest telescope, can seize in the vast azure of waters, or the vaster ocean of air, a new world, like Columbus, or a new planet, hke Herschel. The master of thought is he to whom the soul and all the world of its sway belongs. What has changed the whole process of modern commerce, and carried civilization to the remotest regions of our globe ? The thought of Watt and Fulton. What discovered the mechanism of the universe, and traced the law that governs all, in the fall of an apple ? The thought of Newton. What swept the chords of a harp, and sent thrilling music to cheer and ennoble roan in his progress westward round the world ? The thought of David and Homer. Thought touched the granite, and vast pyramids, symbolizing souls vaster and more lasting than material grandeurs, commemorate that which nerved hands now buried in the dust of four thousand years. Thought touched the marble, and in attitude sublime, or fascinating form, that thought ADMIRATION. 67 endures from age to age, with unwasting charms. Thought touched the canvass, thereon to live and glow in perpetual bloom. Thought touched a frail leaf of papyrus, and its inscriptions be- came more enduring than states and empires. Thought touched a lonely reed, formed the fragile thing into a pen, and made it mightier than sceptres, more potent than the whole world's accu- mulated munitions of war : — " It smole the smiter, and it broke the chain ; Or towering o'er them all, without a plume, It pierced the purple air, the tempest's gloom ; 'Till burst th' Olympian splendors on the eye — Stars, temples, thrones, and gods, — Infinity 1" Intellect, however, is not the only exalted faculty of the soul, nor the best. In being made in the image of divinity, we have our ori- gin at the great fountain, and through the essence of all things, and can possess life only so far as we partake anew of the Spirt of Life, which is God, who, says the disciple of love, is Love. It is mer- cifully permitted to us to regain perfection by degrees, under the guidance of that true genius of love, the divine Eros, the only me- dium between earth and heaven, and combining in himself all that is excellent in both. Through atfection we may attain moral quietude; and this, with perfect mental activity, constitutes all that we can conceive of angelic bliss, or of the majestic felicity of God. '* The heart that loves, Dwells in an Eden, hearing angel -lutes. As Eve in the first garden." In the second place, we not only can live " through admiration, hope and love ;" but, if we are wise, we will so live. He who crip- ples his affections, makes a cannibal of his own heart. Cherubim are called knowing ones, and Seraphim loving ones ; they who are imbued with the best influences, and cultivate the best virtues, will combine the qualities of both, in themselves. The miser of money is a selfish fool, but the miser of affection is the most contemptible of all fools, because affection costs nothing. People who search con- stantly for faults, to feed their captiousness, are always mean, while those who discriminate excellence everywhere, in order to admire and 68 ADMIRATION. encourage it, are invariably the noblest of their kind. Select the greatest and best of mankind, and you will perpetually find that in them, heart and head are symmetrical ; they have a double organ of vision, can see both sides of a thing, and are in an equal degree, the enlightened and the affectionate. The intellect may be invigorated by science, but the soul, that which is divi- nest within us, is most fed and fortified by the heart. As the passion for Iphigenia changed the nature of Cymon from the habit of a clown to refinement and courtesy ; so the admiration of excellence transforms its devotee from brutality, and exalts him to the highest state of cultivation and spiritual worth. Emerging from the gloom of sensuality, the aspiring soul shines forth ; emancipated from the body and its grovelling lusts, it rises with the strength of a giant, to become the vanquisher of every vice, and the possessor of every virtue. The true worship of a true man, was well personified by honest old Bunyan's " Great-Heart," — tender towards the feeble and fear- less before the strong. It is a great thing to have intellect, but much greater and better to have soul. The effeminate are usually the most cruel, while it is the universal characteristic of the brave to be merciful. Great excellence is sure to be most prompt in eliciting and fostering the obscurest worth. The softest down clothes the eagle's breast, a protection to its young, and a pano- ply against the fiercest storm. Hollow trees are the stiffest, and persons of the fewest talents strive most to impede all talent. If one lays himself out generously for the general good, he will grow colossal like his purpose, and divine hke liis love. On the other hand, if he lays himself up in selfishness, he will soon find himself dry, the higher the drier, a miserable ossification of hu- manity, cursed of God, and scorned of man. We have said that man is so constituted that he can " live through admiration, hope, and love ;" and that if he is wise he will so live. Let it be remarked, thirdly^ that, in order to secure happiness worthy of the name, we must live in the manner pre- scribed above. ADMIRATION. 69 It has been shown that the genial and useful being is not sim- ply an eflSgy of learned dust, a mere dry thing of intellect. A fitter symbol was revealed to John, an angel standing in the sun, — indestructible mind invested with unclouded glory. When the head and heart are both free, and strike with simultaneous ardor, their united force constitutes consummate power. In such instances we have the nearest approach to " a sea of glass mingled with fire ;" the purest substance melted into sublime motion, and ren- dered doubly impresive by its splendid heat. And what is the most intense passion in such men? Profound, admiration. In every kingdom of nature, science, and art, they find much that creates and feeds delight. The loftiest spirits are always the widest likers. They understand full well that the bases of the arts touch each other, and that the same principles underlie and govern all. If EaflFaelle lived in New York, he would be the kindest patron of all the young artists here. Michael Angelo stumbled upon the celebrated antique fragment, called the Torso, and pondered its intimations of majesty, till scrutiny grew into admiration, and thence originated the gigantic race of the Sistina. If his Prophets and Sibyls bend over us with superhuman grandeur, it is because that such was the habitual attitude of the mighty spirit from which they sprang. The most original creators of excellence, of every kind, are always those who, with a wise and friendly appreciation, make themselves most comprehensively acquainted with the good things which others have achieved. The most meritorious ever have the most ardent love of merit, and not only search for the best speci- mens with becoming assiduity, but judge every degree of worth in a manner best calculated to augment the capacity of the worthy. This is the reason, perhaps, why genius so generally appears in clusters. Let ten youth of rich and rare endowments be associated together in kindred pursuits, and each one will be ten times the greater proficient, on account of the proficiency and magnanimous emulation of each. Even mediocrity may be unconsciously lifted above itself, but when only mediocres attempt to have fellowship. 70 ADMIRATION. how soon they will sting or throttle each other into destruction or disgrace ! Next to being admirable, there is nothing on earth so grand as admiration ; you may rest assured the two are never divorced. The twelve manner of fruits on the tree of life, grow richer on the liigher branches ; and if we are obliged constantly to reach yet higher for the best, it is in order that by thus reaching we may grow. It is a divine pleasure to admire, and in exercising this attribute, we appropriate to ourselves the best use of the qualities we fervently commend. The affections are the chief sources of thought, and as these are directed, the character is formed. The sages of antiquity, struck with the universal power of love, — the perfection of its assimilative principle, — assigned to it a divine character, and thus anticipated a prominent truth of Christianity. Plato taught that love takes away one's being in himself, and trans- fers it into the party loved. Paul, cognizant of this law in its highest exercise, described to the Romans how that, beholding the invisible things of God, clearly indicated by the things that are made, and contemplating, as in a mirror, their di^•ine features with admiring gaze, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord. We insensibly imitate what we habitually admire, and when our regards for the merits of others are most kind, we become ourselves most imbued with attractions which all persons of merit will most kindly regard. Deep and generous emotions purify the thoughts much more effectually than tragedy, according to Aristotle, purities the passions. A genial spirit always gives more than it receives, and beautifies all it touches ; like a prism, not robbing the sun or earth of needful beams, but by the gentlest action causing the sim- plest element to assume the most exquisite combination of hues. Disinterested love liberalizes the soul of its possessor, widening the area of his freedom, and i-evealing the secret of his strength. " And I also am a painter !" exclaimed Corregio, on beholding for the first time a master-piece. The spirit of intrinsic nobleness, prompt to admire excellence, is sure in the end to attain it. ADMIRATION. 71 The soul is constituted not only to admire and love, but to adore; and this is the only worship worthy of a rational creature, the only service our Maker asks and accepts at our hands. In the depths of infinite wisdom, and as if to provide against our impiety, he ha.s encompassed us with every form of the beautiful and sublime, thus rendering it impossible for us, sometimes at least, not to be stim- ulated into adoration. liut we are not to rest content with the complacency of Narcissus, self-enamored at the fountain. Nor are we to court the disastrous excitement produced by the statue of Apollo on the " Girl of Provence, "-^a devotion ending in madness and death. Our purest love and profoundest adoration are due Him in whom alone humanity coalesced with divinity, and consti- tuted a redeemer exactly adapted to our highest wants in this life, preparatory to the purest bliss in the next. If the sacred fire on ancient altars became extinct, it was rekin- dled only by the rays of the god of day. Love, renovated at the cross, like the sun in heaven, not only penetrates all mysteries, and reveals all worth, but invests the excellence it beholds with splen- dors, like itself, divine. It was the torch of love that animated the statue of Pygmalion, while to all others it was but marble still. It was said by Bishop Patrick of the inhabitants of his happy city, that the beauty on which they fix their eyes, imprints its own form upon their hearts, and makes them fair and lovely with the quali- ties which they delight to behold. May our contemplations of the " Chief among ten thousands, the one altogether lovely," be blessed indeed! All things admonish us to turn our admiring thoughts towards those objects which are great, and good, and pure — the throne of Virtue, the majesty of Truth, the beauty of Holiness. The affections are immortal hgaments, and by them we may fasten our destiny to things eternal. They may be spread into unwearied pinions whereon to mount through the highest spiritual sky, " springing from crystal step to crystal step," and bathing the soul in living, life-giving ether forever. Oh ! why linger in the dust, when all sweet voices invite us to dwell above the stars ? Sweet voices ! Daughter of song, they ask me to contribute a 72 ADMIRATION. pebble to thj rhonument. It shall be the fairest I can at present command, and let them lay it deep in the ground, where it will be near the gentle decay of thy most gentle heart. One year ago this sultry week, we met at that Bethesda of our land, Saratoga. The melody of thy spirit awoke to my passing ear a few sweet echoes in the bowers through which living waters flow, and where sleep the dead. Thanks be to God, that when genial friendships lie shattered on the shore of time, it is still vouchsafed us forever to admire ! New- York, Auqcst, 1850. A CASTLE IN THE MOUNTAINS. BY J. R. THOMPSON. The mountains in their places stand around A castellated mansion of old days, And in the rosy sunset's dying rays, Their summits with a halo seiim encrowned ; The lake, a burnished mirror, lies below, Its surface flecked with, here and there, a boat. Whose rower's songs upon the evening float ; Thus music mingles with the western glow. To soothe the weary spirit to repose : O ! mid such pleasant sights and sounds as these,- The plash of waters and the play of trees, — How smoothly on life's gentle current flows. Let but affection consecrate the place. And woman there diffuse the sunlight of her grace ! Richmond, Va. ^ 74 RELICS. RELICS. BT JAMES T. FIELDS. You ask me why, with such a jealous care I hoard these rings, this chain of silken hair, This cross of pearl, this simple key of gold ; And all these trifles which my hands enfold. I'll tell you, friend, why all these things become My blest companions when remote from home ; Why, when I sleep, these first secured I see. With wakeful eye, and guarded constancy : — Each little token, each familiar toy, My mother gave her once too happy boy : Her kiss went with them, — chide me then no more That I should count my treasures o'e/ and o'er, — Alas, she sleeps beneath the dust of years. And these dear flowers I water with my tears ! THE PURE SPOT IN THE HEART. 75 THE PURE SPOT IN THE HEART. BT G. P. R. JAMES . There is within the heart of man — Corrupt as it may be — A toucli of that which Eden knew Ere Eve profaned the tree : A love of guileless innocence Forever lost, yet dear, Which makes the first words of a child All music to his ear. One time, in a far sunny land. And years long, long ago — A land of love, and tale, and song — I saw a scene of wo. I stood within four noisome walls That formed a felon's cell : I listened to his dark cold words, I marked his visage fell. Kind I bespoke him ; for I ne'er Could trample on a worm, And fain would raise each flower again That 's broken by the storm. After a sort, his bosom warmed: He spoke of his past life ; And many an awful deed he ownVl, Told tales of bloody strife. 7 16 THE PURE SPOT IN THE HEART. He was a man without remorse, "Who feared nor God, nor fiend. Pleasure, not happiness, he'd found, Companions, but no friend. And there he was, next day to die For his worst deed of all. He'd murdered one who trusted him, For pittance bare and small. Yet no compunction he betray'd. No hope, no fear, no grief. He seemed a man without a soul, And hard beyond belief. Yet as we talk'd, the sounds of life Came upward from the street, And merry laughs, and joyous tones, And children's voices sweet. At that last sound, a pleasant smile Pass'd o'er his iron face, Which seemed to give each haggard line A strange redeeming grace. " I love to hear a child's dear tongue," That man of horrors said, " It brings back days when I was young And by my mother play'd, " And gather'd flowers and foolish things, And chased the butterfly, And little thought I thus should live — - Still less, I thus should die." He fell into a fit of thought. His face grew cold and gray. No farther converse would he bear, I turn'd and went my way. Long Island, August 23, 1850. A PLEA FOR DREAMS, APPARITIONS, Ac. 11 A PLEA FOR DREAMS, APPARITIONS, PRESENTIMENTS, &c. BT E. HELFENSTEIN. "The teEir whoae source I could not giicBB, The deep sigh that seemed fntherless, Were mine in early days ; And now, unforced by Time to part With Fancy, I obey my henrt, And venture on your praise." — Wokdstvorth. " If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither -will they be persuaded though one should rise from the dead." These words of the Divine Teacher have the vividness and authority of Truth. The mind, incapable of receiving the demonstrations of the Un- derstanding, the evidence of human testimony, and the authority of tradition, will be far less ready to accept the testimony supposed to come through the doubtful source of the Imagination. It would be curious to inquire into the reason why such contempt is cast upon this God-like faculty, one more arbitrarily distributed than any other, as though it were a best and final gift imparted richly only to the few. Indeed, all that is essential for our well- being in this world can be carried on through the help of other faculties; we can be judicious, witty, provident, energetic, and loving, without the aid of the Imagination; and, therefore, the majority of mankind have it only in the rudimentary state ; and these are the dull wiseacres, who sneer at what they have not the instruments to measure ; laugh at what they cannot comprehend, and go about triumphantly flaunting their own deficiencies. A munificent bestowal of the Imagination, other things being equal, gives the man of enlarged and comprehensive views, the far-seer into truth, the prophetic observer, the Milton, or Shaks- peare, of the age. — It presents, as it were, wings to the soul ; im- 78 A PLEA FOR DREAMS, APPARITIONS, (fee. parts aspiration ; gives a glow and elevation to all the other faculties of the mind — shaking them from the dust, and lifting them into a higher and better atmosphere. Now it is a curious fact, that all matters relating to the super- natural, are cast at once upon this faculty — thus giving it an om- nipotence of power. A knock heard at an unwonted hour is at once referred to the Imagination — any unusual form, sight, or movement, is imputed to an excitement of this organ. To me, this seems an exceeding unphilosophic, not to say indolent disposal of the matter. Either these things did, or did not exist. I do not believe that a faculty that aided Shakspeare to comprehend the universal in the human mind, and the blind Milton to see all space peopled with beings intent upon missions from the Most High, Cromwell and Napoleon to detect the rottenness of empire, and Newton to grasp the impalpable chain that binds the Universe into one, was given to mislead, abuse, and trick us into fantastical spec- tacles. It is time we dared take hold of these matters manfully ; if truth be in them, accept it boldly, like any other truth — if not, reject it by the wholesale. " Do you believe, then ?" it may be asked. I believe so far as my own experience, and the testimony of others justify. I will not believe myself deluded and bewildered by what is going on around me. I will not believe that senses, which have served me accurately hitherto, can be put upon by some little ex- citement only to play me tricks. I will sooner believe there are hidden laws of what we call spiritual life, unknown to us as yet, but gradually unfolding, which, when comprehended, will cease to be supernatural. I will not insult the veracity of others by doubting what they tell me as fticts, because these facts wear an air of mys- tery, when I would take their word upon all other subjects even where the issues of life were concerned. We know, in dreams, we seem to go forward and anticipate what it may take us days or years to overtake. I remember at one time I was conscious of dreaming constantly and most de- liciously, and yet could remember afterwards only some trivial or A PLEA FOR DREAMS, APPARITIONS, &c 19 annoying circumstance in my dream, wliicli was sure to transpire al- most immedirttely — as though the mind, as it removed from the locality of the body, remembered only what was nearest to it. In this way, I was often whimsically reminded of my dream by the cook, who, unknown to me, served up the identical article I had seen in my sleep. For instance — I once said, " I saw bring in a lobster, I thought, last night." Now I am not particularly fond of lobsters, and they were but scarcely in the market. I had hardly finished speaking when he came in just as I had seen. At another time I dreamed of walking up a very long, narrow wharf, when a man jostled me, and went by bearing a little coflSn under his arm. I noticed his step was long and high. The next day, being invited to join a sailing-party, I walked up the identical wharf, and the incident I have described occurred — the man with the peculiar walk bearing the little coffin having jostled me pre- cisely as in my sleep. At another time, I saw a man with a foreign, Jewish style of face, pass along, who fixed his eyes strangely upon mine. The next morning I saw the same individual as I walked with a fiiend through the Battery, who looked at me so fixedly as to attract the attention of my companion. Now it would seem, that, as the soul went forward it encountered these unimportant features on its way, and these being nearest home, were remembered, while the images of its more distant excursion faded in sleep-land. In this way, it may be, arises that puzzled feeling which we sometimes have in regard to persons, events, and scenes — as though we had seen them all before — were acquainted with them, had lived with them, experienced them at some hidden time, we know not how or when. ColeriJn-e and Wordsworth, with other Platonists, would call it pre-existence, but, may it not be owing to the experience of sleep ? — we had lived it all before in that mysterious state when the body is wrapt in slum- ber, and the soul, ever active, journeys in space, and sees all that the body shall undergo, and anticipates its own freedom from the bondage of materialism. I remember with what delight I once in sleep hailed the idea, 1* 80 A PLEA FOR DREAMS, APPARITIONS,