11

FIRESIDE

 

 

 

 

E HOME; 

MONTHLY.

 

APRIL, 1859.

 

 

CONCERNING TlDlNESS.

THOUGHTS UPON AN OVERLOOKED SOURCE OF HUMAN CONTFNT.

HAVE long wished to write an
essay on Tidiness; 'for it appears

to me that the absence of this simple
and humble quality is the cause of a
considerable part of all the evil and
suffering, physical and moral, which
exist among ordinary folk in this
world. Most of us, my readers, are
little people; and so it is not surpris-
ing that our‘earthly comfort should
be at the mercy of little things.
even if we were, as some of us proba-
bly think ourselves, very great and
eminent people, not the less would
our content be liable to be disturbed
by very small matters. A few gritty
grains of sand finding their way amid
the polished shafts and axles of some
great piece of machinery, will suflice
to send a jar through it all; and a.
single drop ofa corroding acid falling
ceaselessly upon a bright surface will
speedily ruin its brightness. _ And in
the life of many men and women, the
presence of that physical and mental
confusion and discomfort which result
from, the absence of tidiness, is just
that dropping acid, those gritty par-
ticles. I do not know why it is that,
by the constitution of this universe,
evil has so much more power than
800d to produce its efl'ect and to prop-
agate its nature. One drop of foul
W111 pollute a whole cup of fair water;
but one drop of fair water has no
Power to appreciably improve a cup
of foul. Sharp pain, present in a
tooth or a toe, will make the ghole
Klan miserable, though  the rest of
18 body be easy ; but‘iféail the rest
of the body be suffering, an easy toe

VOL. VII. 10"

But.

or tooth will cause no perceptible al-
leviation. And so a man with an
easy income, with a pretty house in a
pleasant neighborhood, with a good-
tempered with and healthy children,
may quite well have some little drop
of bitterness day by day infused into
his cup, which will take away the
relish of it all. And this bitter drop,
I believe, in the lot of many men, is
the constant existence of a domestic
muddle.

And yet, practically important as I
belieVe the subject to be, still one
rather shrinks from the formal dis-
cussion of it. It is not a dignified
matter to write about. The name is
naturally suggestive of a sour old
maid, a precise old bachelor, a vine-
gar-faced school-mistress, or, at best,
a plump and bustling housemaid.
To some minds the name is redolent
of worry, fiiult-finding, and bother.
Every one can see that it is a fine
thing to discuss the laws and order of
great things—such as comets, planets,
empires, and great cities; things, in
short, with which we have very little
to do. And why should law all-’1
order appear contemptible just where
they touch oursdves? Is it as the
ocean, clear and clean in its distant
depths, grows foul and tugbld in“ "
where it touches the Show? 1h“.
which we call law and order when
affecting things far aW‘Y, bfwofn‘fs
tidiness'where'itNreaches Us. 1 0t It is
not a dignified topicfi’l‘ 3“ €553)“ .

There are, indee , many degrees in
thescale of tidiness. It is a disposi-
‘ktion that. grOWS upon one, and some- j

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[about it too.

i 52 THE HOME.

 

times becomes a bondage. Some
gneat musical composer said, shortly

. before he died, that he was only then

beginning to get an insight into the
capabilities of his art; and I dare say
a similar idea has occasionally oc-
curred to most persons endowed with
a very keen sense of order. In mat-
ters external, tidiness may go to the
length of what we read of Broek, that
Dutch paradise of scrubbing-brushes
and new paint; in matters metaphys-
ical, it may go the length of what
John Foster tells us of himself, when
his fastidious sense of the exact se-
quence of every shade of thought
compelled him to make some thou-
sands of corrections andoimprove.
ments in revising a dozen printed
pages of his own composition. Ti-
diness is in some measure a matter of
natural temperament; there are hu-'
man beings who never could by pos-
sibility sit down contentedly, as some
can, in a chamber where every thing
is topsy-turvy, and who never could
by possibility have their affairs, their

accounts, their books and papers, in

thatfinextricable confusion in which
some people aret'equite satisfied to
have theirs. The may, indeed, be
such a thing as that a man shall be
keenly alive to the presence or ab.
sence of order in his belongings, but
at the same time so nervelcss and
washy that he can not bestir himself
and set things to rights; but as a gen-
eral rule, the man who enjoys order
and exactness, will take care to have
them about him. There are people
who never go into a room but they
see at a glance if any of its appoint-
ments are awry; and the impression
is precisely that which a discordant
note leaves on a musxcal ear.

It is curious how some men, of

'l whom we should not have expected

ithaa a strong tendency to a certain
orderliness. Byron. for example, 18d
a very irregular life, morallysPeak-
ing; yet there was a curious tidlne'ss
He liked to spend cer-
tain hours of-“the forenoon daily in
writing; then, always at the same

- 5.

 

hour, his horses came to the door; he
rode along the same road to the same
spot; there he daily fired his pistols,
turned, and rode home again. He
liked to fall into a kind of mill-horse
round: there was an imperfectly-de-
veloped tidiness about the man. And
even Johnson himself; though he used
to kick his books savagely about, and
had his study floor littered with frag-
ments of manuscript, ShOWed hopeful
symptom of what he might have been
made, when he daily walked up Bolt-
court, carefully placing his feet upon
the self-same stones, in the self-same "
order.

Great men, to be sure, may do
what they please, and if they choose
to dress like beggars, and to have
their houses as frowzy as themselves,
why, we must excuse it for the sake
of all that we owe them. But \Ves-
ley was philosophically right when he
insisted on the necessity, for ordinary
men, of neatness and tidiness in dress;
and we can not help making a moral
estimate of people from what we see
of their conformity to the great law
of rightness in little things. Ican not
tolerate a harum-scarum fellow who
never knows where to find any thinrr
he wants; whose boots, and handke:
chiefs, and gloves are everywhere but
where they are needed. And who
would marry a slatternly girl, whose
dress is frayed at the edges, and
whose fingers are through her gloves?
The Latin poet wrote, N ulla fronti
fides; but I have considerable faith in
a front-door. if, when I go to the house
of a man of moderate means,l find
the steps scrupulously clean, and the
brass about the door shining like
gold ; and if, when the door is opened
by a perfectly neat servant (I don’t
suppose a foctman), I find the hall
trim as it should be, the oil-cloth
shiny without being slippery, the
stair-carpet laid straight as an arrow,
the brass rods which hold it gleaming,
I can not but think that things are go-
ing well in .that house; that it is the
home of cheerfulness, hopefulness, and
reasonable prosperity; that the people

 

  

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in it speak truth and hate hypocrisy,
Especially I respect the mistress of
that house; and conclude that she is
doing her duty in that station in life
to which it has pleased God to call
her.

But if tidiness be thus important
everywhere, what must it be in the
dwellings of the poor '2 In these, so
far as my experience has gone, tidi-
ness and morality are always in direct
proportion. You can see at once,
when you enter a poor man’s cottage
(always with your hat off, my friend),
how his circumstances are, and gener-
ally how his character is. If the world
is going against him; if hard work
and constant pinching will hardly get
food and clothing for the children,
you see the fact in the untidy house :
the poor mistress of it has no heart
for that constant effort which is need-
ful in the cottage to keep things right;
she has no heart for the constant
stitching which is necdf'ul to keep
the poor little children’s clothes on
their backs. Many a time it has
made my heart sore to see, in the re-
laxation of wonted tidiness, the first
Indication that things are going amiss,
that hope is dying, that the poor
struggling pair are feeling that their
heads are getting under water at last.
All! there is often a sad significance
In the hearth no longer so cleanly
swept, in the handle wanting from the
chest of drawers, in little Jamie’s torn
Jacket, which a few stitches would
mend, but which I remember torn for
these ten days past! And remem-

el‘a my reader, that to keep a poor
man’s cottage tidy, his wife must al-
Ways have spirit and heart to work.
If you choose, when you feel unstrung
by some depression, to sit all day by
the fire, the house will be kept tidy
by the servants without your inter-
ference. And indeed the inmates of

. a house of the better sort are putting

thugs out of order from morning till
night, and would leave the house in a
sa mess if the servants were not
constantly following in their wake
and setting things to rights again.

\

 

CONCERNING rmmrss. 153

But if the laborer’s wife, anxious, and
weak, and sick at heart as she may
rise from her poor bed, do not yet
wash and dress the little children,
they will not be either washed or
dressed at all; if she do not kindle
her fire, there will be no fire at all; if
she do not prepare her husband’s break-
fast, he must go out to his hard work
without any ; if she do not make the
beds, and dust the chairs and tables,
and wash the linen, and do a host of
other things, they will not be done at
all.

We hear much now-a-days about
the distinctive characteristics of ladies
and gentlemen, as contrasted with
those of people who are Well-dressed
and live in fine houses, but whom no
house and no dress will ever make
gentlemen and ladies. It seems to
me that the very first and finest char-
acteristic of all who are justly entitled
to these names of honor, is a most
delicate, scrupulous, chivalrous con-
sideration for the feelings of the poor.
Without that, the cottage-visitor will
do no good to the eottager. If you,
my lady friend, who are accustomed
to visit the dwellings of the poor in
your neighborhood,yconvey by your
entire demeanor the impression that
you are, socially and intellectually,
coming a great way down stairs in
order to make yourself agreeable and
intelligible t0 the people you find
there, you had better have staid at
home. You will irritate, you will.

rasp, you will embittcr, you will exe-
cite a disposition to let fly at your‘

head. You may sometimes gratifi-
your vanity and folly by meeu’g'

with a servile and crawling adulation,.

but it is hypocritical adulation that.-

grovels in your presence, and Shak88~

the fist at you after the door has
closed on your retreating stePS- .

I like to think of the efl‘eet which
tidiness has in equalizing the real con
tent of the rich and poor. If even

you, my reader, find it pleasant to go.

into the humblest little dwelling where
perfect neatuess reigns, think what

pleasure the inmates (Perhaps the. 

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154

THE HOME.

 

solitary inmate) of that dwelling
must have in daily maintaining that
speckless tidincss, and living in the
midst of it. There is to me a perfect
charm about a sanded floor, and about
deal furniture scrubbed into the per-
fection of cleanliness. How nice the
table and the chairs look ; how invit-
,ing that solitary big arm-chair by the
little fire! The fire-place indeed con-
sists of two blocks of stone washed over
with pipe-clay, and connected by half
a. dozen bars of iron ; but no register
grate of polished steel ever pleased
me better. God has made us so that
there is a racy enjoyment, a delight
ful smack, about extreme simplicity
co-cxisting with extreme ti-diness. I
‘ don’t mean to say that lshonld pre-
fer that sanded floor and those chairs
. of deal to a Turkey carpet and carved
oak or walnut; but lassert that there
is a certain indefinable relish about
the simpler furniture that the grander
wants. In a handsome apartment
you don’t think of looking at the
upholstery in dethil; you remark
whether the general effect be good or
bad 2;. but 'in the littlecottage you
dock with separate enjoyment on each
separate simple contrivance. Do you
think that a rich man, sitting in his
sumptuous library, all oak and mo-
rocco, glittering backs of splendid
~volumes, lounges and sofas of every
degree, which he merely paid for,
has half the enjoyment that Robinson
Crusoe had when he looked round his
.cave with its rude shelves and bulk-
heads, its clumsy arm-chair and rough
. ottcry, all contrived and made by
gfiis own hands?

I have not space to say any thing
.of the importance of tidincss in the
,poor man’s dwelling in a sanitary
point of Vlew- Unfildiness there is
ahe direct cause of disease and death.
And it is the thing, “’0, Which drives
the husband and father to the alc-
house. All this has been, so often
said,:that it is needless to repeat it;
but there is another thing which is
not so generally understood, and
which deserves to be mentioned.

 

Let me then say to all landed propri-
etors, it depends very much upon
you whether the poor man’s home
shall be tidy or not. Give a poor
man a decent cottage, and he has
some heart to keep tidiness about the
door, and his wife has some heart to
maintain tidiness within. Many of
the dwellings which the rich provide
for the poor are such that the poor
inmates must just sit down in des-
pair, feeling that it is in vain to try
to be tidy, either without doors or
within. ‘\

Experience has shown that healthy,
cheerful, airy cottages for the poor, in
which something like decency is pos.
sible, entail no pecuniary loss upon the
philanthropic proprietor who builds
them. . But even if they did, it is his
boundcn duty to provide such dwell-
ings. If he do not, he is disloyal to
his country, an enemy to his race, a
traitor to the God who intrusted him
with so much. And surely, in the
judgment of all whOse opinion is
worth a rush, it is a finer thing to
have the cottages on a man’s estate
places fit for human habitation—with
the climbing-roses covering them, the

_ little gravel-walk to the door, the lit-

tle potato-plot cultivated at after-

.hours, with windows that can open

and doors that can shut; with little
children not pallid and loan, but
plump and rosy (and fresh air has as
much to do with that as abundant
food has), surely, I say, it is better a
thousand times to have (me’s estate
dotted with scenes such as that, than
to have a dozen more paintings on
one’s walls, or a score of additiona
horses. in one’s stables. -
And now, having said so much in
praise of tidiness, let me conclude by
remarking that it is possible to carry
even this virtue to excess. It is fool-
ish to keep housm merely to be
cleaned", as some Dutch housewives .
are said to do. Nor is it fit to clip
the graceful forms of Nature into un-
natural trimness and formality, as
Dutch gardeners do. Among our-
selves, however, 1 am not aware that

 

 

 

 

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TIIE ROSE—BUSH. 155

 

there exists any tendency to either
error: so it is needless to argue
against either. The pet-fiction of
Dutch tidiness is to be found, I have
said, at Broek, a few miles from Am-
sterdam. Ilere is some account of it
from Washington Irving’s ever-pleas.

- ing pen :

“What renders Brock SO perfect
an Elysium in the eyes of all true
llollanders, is the matchless height to
which the spirit of cleanliness ls car-
ried there. It amounts almost to a re-
ligion among the inhabitants, who pass
the greater pm"; of their time rubbing
and scrubbing, and painting and varn-
ishing; each housewife Vles mth her
neighbor in devotion to the scrubbing-
brash, as zealous Catholics do In their
devotions to the Cross.

“I alightcd outside the village, for
no horse or vehicle is permitted to
enter its precincts, lest it should tausc
delilement of the well-scoured pave-
ments. Shaking the dust off my feet,
then, I prepared to enter, with due
reverence and circumspeetion, this
sanctum sunctorum of Dutch cl ‘anli-
ness. I entered by a narrow street,
paved with yellow bricks, laid edge-
wise, and so clean that one might eat
from them. Indeed, they were actu-
ally worn deep, not by the tread of
feet, but by the friction of the scrub-
hing-brush.

“The houses were built of wood,
and all appeared to have been freshly
painted, of green, yellow, and other
bright Colors. They were separated
from each other by gardens and or-
chards, and stood at some little dis-
tance from the street, with wide areas
or court-yards, paved in mosaic with
Variegated stones, polished by fre-
quent rubbinn'. The areas were di-
vided from the streets by curiously
.wrought railings or balustrades of
iron, surmounted with brass and cop.
Per balls, scoured into dazzling efful-
gence. The very trunks of the trees
"1 front of the houses were by the
Same PWCess made to look as if they
had been varnished. The porches,
doors; and window-frames of the

 

houses were ofexotic woods, curiously
carved and polished like costly fur-
niture. The front-doors are never
opened, except on christenings, mar-
riages, and funerals; on all ordinary
occasions, visitors enter by the back-
doors. ln former times, persons
when admitted had to put on slippers;
but this oriental ceremony is no
longer insisted on.”

We are assured by the same au-
thority, that such is the love of tidi-
ncss which prevails at wwli, that
the good people there can imagine no
greater felicity than to be ever sur-
rounded by the very perfection of it.
And it seems that the prediger, or
preacher of the place, accommodates
his doctrine to the views of his hear-
ers; and in his weekly discourses,
when he would describe that Happy
Place, where, as I trust, my readers
and l will one day meet the quiet
burghers of Brock, he. strongly insists
that it is the very tidiest place. in the
imiverse: a place where all things (I
trust he says within as Well as
around), are spotlessly pn re and clean;
and where all disorder, confusion, and
dirt are done with forever !

 

THE ROSE—BUSH.
no.“ rm: arenas.

A CHILD sleeps under a rose-bush fair,

The buds swell out in the soft May air;

Sweetly it rests, and on dream-wings flies

To play with the angels in Paradise.
And the years glide by.

A maiden stands by the rose-bush fair,

The dewy blossoms perfume the air;

She presses her hand to her throbbing breast.

With love's first wonderful rapture Meat.
And the years glide by.

A mother kneels by the rose-bush fill".

Soft sigh the leaves in the evening 011‘;

Borrowing thoughts of past arise,

And tears of anguish bedim her eyes.
And the years glide b?-

Nnked and lone “and; the rose-bush fair,

Whirm are the leaves in the autumn air;

Withcfll and dead they fall to the ground,

And silently cover a new-made mound.
And the years glide by.

 

 
    

   
 

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156 THE HOME.

MY “REWARD OF MERIT.”

BY CLARA AUGUSTA.

“ H, Lizzie Marsh!” said Jennie

Harrison, running into our house
one cold morning in December.
“School commences next Monday,
don‘t you think? and Mr. Marston
says e. guesses they’ve got a teacher

' now t at will make us ‘stand’!’ He

says he’d just as soon whip any of us
large girls as not, and we’ll have to
walk pre straight! Laura Mars-
ton says she saw him over to Tun-
bridge County Fair, and he is posi-
tively as black as a thunder-cloud!
l ’spose We’ll have to say good-by to
all fun and good times for this winter!
ldeclare it’s a shame ! \Vhy couldn’t
the committee have taken Charley
Ray mend? He’s handsome, and clever,
and such a nice beau ! ” ‘

“Why, Jennie, if this is n't bad
news enough !” taking my hands out
of the bread I was kneading, to lift
them up in astonishment. “Too bad!
I say—Charley would have let us
taken some peace of our lives,.and
not killed us if we had happened to
have called horse an active transitive
verb! Besides, he wears a mus-
tache, and it isn’t at all likely the
new teacher will ! What’s his name,
I wonder? John somebody, of course!
I do hate the name of John ! ”

“‘ Yes; you’ve guessed right; it is
J ohn—J ohn L. Forrester, Mr. Mars-
ton said he wrote it when he signed
the engagement papers. John! what
an abominable name! ”

u Well, Jennie,” I said, philosophi-

,cally, “I suppose we’ll have to make
the 'best of it, and put our merriment
Lin sackcloth for'this term; but just;

between you and me, J en., if he don’t)

spit me, I mean to have the'headache

and stay away half the time, and the
other half I’ll be just as cross and con.
trary as I can! Who cares for tardy
marks from a black old fellow named

John?”

“And who don’t wear any mus.
tache—snre enough, who does, I won-

.der'l But I must go; so gOOd'bY~

ll

 

Lizzie, till Monday morning—I’m go-
ing over to Nettie White’s to spend
the day, and I thought I’d call in and
tell you about the new teacher, so
you might get your mind made up to
hate him! Well, good-by, dear!"
and with a look of contempt in her
blue eyes—contempt. for the new
teacher—Jennie kissed her hand at
me from the gate, and hurried down
the road.

Jennie Harrison was a beauty—-
every one who looked on her clear,

fresh face, her bright, sparkling eyes, i
and curls of brown hair, was ready to

admit that; but Jennie was a bit of
a flirt; an only child, and a little
spoiled, and sometimes she was will-
ful and obstinate. But she had a
warm, true heart under all this chaff
lying outwardly, and I loved her, and
was glad to call her my most intimate
friend. We were very nearly of an
age—I was seventeen in August, J en-
nie sixteen the previous February.
The schoolmaster had always been
something of a distinguished person-
age in Wheatwold. From the good

old times when the school was taught

in a log house with a stone fireplace,
and stick chimney, and the master
“ boarded round,” up to the very
time when Mr. John L. Forrester
was expected to take charge of the
school in the prim, brick school-house,
which rejoiced in a furnace, ventila-
tors, black-boards, and all the mod
ern conveniences.

What a “time” there used to he
in each respective family when the
teacher was coming there to board!
It was a greater event than Thanks-
giving, and there was more cooking
to be done than for Christmas-day
itself! Venerated roosters crowed
their last—cut short in their career to
make broth for the schoolmaster;
turkeys, hens, pigs, and calves squalled
and squealed in their death~agonies,
for a week before the schoolmaster
was to honor the estate of their mas-
ter with his august presence! Well,
but thesetimes had passed away, and
the teacher was always boarded at

 

 

 

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in

flat?"

   

 L

 

MY “REWARD OF MERIT.”

157

 

Squire Horn’s—the Squire happening
to live nearest the school-house.

Charley Raymond, a good-natured,
handsome young man of twenty-three,
had been the presiding genius of the
Wheatwold school for two winters,
and well had we all enjoyed ourselves
under Charley’s regime. If we saw
fit to climb in and out of the windows,
make pictures of each other on our
writing-book covers, or laugh. in Char-
ley’s facet Charley did n’t object, pro-
vided we were civil about it, and
did n’t make so much noise as to
alarm the neighbors, and make them
think the Indian war had broken out
anew. Did we recite our lessons im.
perfectly, Charley only said, smiling] y
under his mustache, “Ladies, you
must do better next time.”

As a matter of course, we all liked
Charley; and were really angry when
any one ventured to say a word
against his system of govern ment, or to
impugn his motives in allowing us to do
as we chose. The committee had re-
fused him the school for the coming
term because they said he keptno order;

and they had gone off into a neighbor-

ingState, and engaged this Mr. John
A. Forrester to tyrannize over us!
We had a right to be indignant; and
I, for one, made up my mind that if
the new “master” displayed his cloven
hoof at me, I’d make him sorry for it.
“ irls of seventeen are generally rather
shallow” creatures.

_ onday‘ morning found us all,
br‘ght and early, assembled in the
SChool-rol)m, waiting the advent of
the new teacher, We amused our-
selves by drawing pictures of Mr.
. . Forrester, as he existed in
0.“? Imagination, on our slates, and
comparingetlrem—each girl with an-
Other’s. Fine specimens of art they
Were, and exceedingly flattering to Mr.

Orl‘ester’s self-esteem, if he could
Emly have seen them. Noses a. foot
"I length, mostly like an elephant’s,
horns and ears of enormous dimen-
Sions—and all su sed to belong
to the Personnel opthe unfortunate
schoolmaster. Jim Goddard said he

 

knew the master’s eyes were like
coals of fire, and accordingly he made
a fancy sketch of him on a bit of
pasteboard, cutting eyes out of yellow
paper, and sticking them on the face.
We were all laughing heartin at the
effect of this drawing, when the sound
of a firm, decided step, in the entry,
aroused us. In an instant every eye
was turned in that direction; the door
opened noiselessly, and a stranger
came into the room, and walked up

to the teacher’s desk. Arrived there, i

he took off his hat, and facing the dis-
orderly group, he looked steadily at
us, for the space of perhaps five min—
utes, in utter sile ce.

He was tall, and strongly~built,
with a carriage at once powerful and
graceful; and his manner was digni-
fied and self-contained as that of the
king beast of the forest. Evidently
this Mr. John L. Forrester knew his
strength, and rejoiced in it. He was

not a handsome man—no stretch of a?

the imagination could have invested
him with the attributes of beauty;
but he was, without exception, the
most striking-looking person I had
ever seen. His features, like his
form, were large and strong; his
complexion rather pale than other.-
wise; his hair very dark, abundant,
and glossy; his forehead wide and
full; and his eyes like none that I
have ever looked into. It would be
useless for you ever to strive to de-
ceive him, for those eyes looked you

. through and through, before you could

frame the semblance of a lie! Then;
I thought them black; now,I know
that they were intense dark gray.
And this was Mr. John L. Forrester.
We had all ample opportunity to Ob-
serve him fully.

“ Children! ” he said, at length:
and his voice, though deeP and sono'
rous, was not unpleasant. “ T9 Your
seats! it is nine o’clock—SChOOI-tlmC! ”

(Charley had always called us “ladies
and gentlemen! ”) gWe hastened to
our seats, for there was no mistaking
the metal of which our teacher was
composed.

1i:

 

l
i
l
i
i

    

158

THE HOME.

 

. “I knowI shall hate him!” whis-
pered Jennie Harrison to me, as she
sat down by my side, for we had
always been seat-mates in all the
schools we had attended.

After reading in the Scriptures,
Mr. Forrester, with pencil and paper,
went over the room to ascertain the
names, ages, and intended courses of
study of his pupils. At last he came
to us.

“Your name, if you please '! ” he
said to me, in a cutie tone enough.

I gave it; an when he asked my
age, I 'gave that also, though Charley
had never dared upon the impolite-
ness of demanding the ages of his
young lady pupily. He turned to

enme.

“ Your name? ”

“ Jennie Harrison l,” she answered,
a little pertly.

“ Your age, Miss Jennie? ”

She did not reply, but smiled co-
quettishly, and tossed her bright
curls over her face. “Your age, if
you lease?” Still she was silent,
and r. Forrester, with a cold, un-
varying countenance, again repeated
his nestion.

“(in my teens! ” she replied, tartl y,

"for Jennie was willful, and did not
like to he teased.

“Ah! I regret that you do not

I know your age, and I will take an

early opportunity to learn it of your
mother. Then I will write it down
for you, and there will be no further
danger of your remaining in ign9-,
rance!” .

He went quietly to the next desk;

but you should have seen J ennic.
She was positively angry. Iier eyes
sparkled, and her cheeks glowed crim-
son; she WOUld have said something
disrespectful, but I caught her arm
and arrested her; for l knew by the
expression of Mr. Ferrester‘s face,
that she would not be spared on ac-
count of her beauty. ».
V “ Oh, Lizzie! how I do despise
him ! ” she said, in a choked whisper,
for she was on the point of giving up
to tears. “ I wish—”

 

She was cut short byrthe voice of
Mr. Forrester. “Miss Marsh and
Miss Harrison will sit separate for
the remainder of the term; Miss
Harrison will take the seat here by
the window, and Miss Marsh will re-
main whcre she is.” ,

We could not have been more as-
tonished if the floor had opened, dis-
closing ngcan depths at our feet!
Jennie and I, who had never sat apart
for fifteen minutes in the whole course
of our school life, to be tlius rudely
severed! We looked at each other
silently, in amazement. Jennie would
have rebelled, but I glanced at the
calm, unruiiied countenance of Mr.
Forrester, and read our fate there.

,“ Go, Jennie,” I said, in a whisper;
“ it will save trouble.”

Jennie arose, took her books, and
flinging herself into tile designated
seat, bowed her head, and sobbed bit-
terl y. Mr. Forrester never deigned
to turn his head in her direction, evi-
dently from his manner, he had for-
gotten her presence in the room.
Ie went on examining the primary
classes—arranging, giving out lessons
and“explanations with elearness, force.
and vigor. I must confess that I
never saw so much accomplished in
so little time by one person.

By and by it was eleven o’clock,
and the bell rang for recess. All the
girls went out, except Jennie and 1—-
she had not raised her head from the
desk, and I. remained to keep her

‘ C
company. Mr. l‘orrester observed
us, and remarked :

“Miss Marsh and Miss IIarrision,
it is recess.”

“1 am aware of it!” I returned,
saucily, for Iwas provoked and net—
tled by the calm ma‘tter-of—fact ,way
in which he did and said every thing.

“You will both go out i ” he said, ,
opening the door, with that unmistak-
able look of power on his fade.

We did go out, Spitefully enough,
I imagine, and- he closed the door
after us.

“The mean a dragon! How I

y do abhor him 2 ” cried J ennie,_to the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MY “REWARD OI" MERIT." 159

 

 

.sympathizing group of girls in the

entry.

“So do I; and I Wlsll he. was in
the bottom of the. Red Sea 1 ” said I,
impetuouslyg and looking lip, I saw
Mr. Forrester standing at the window

just over my.head, very quietly Solv-
‘ ing a problem for Jim Goddard.

“Goodness l Lizzie, he. heard you!”
exclaimed Mary While, in terror.
“Now We’ll ail catch it, I,“ Will‘-
rant!"” ' . O

“I don’t care if he did!" I Said:
stnrdily; “ he’s a tyrant, and I hate
him I”

Just then the hell rang, am} We
went into the school room. I fully
expected that Mr. I‘Im'l'ester would
call us to an account for our criticism
upon his character, but in thisl was
disappointed. Ile maintained the
same stollt‘l demeanor throughout the
entire day, never gentle, always stern,
though not unkind; and exacting to
the last (lt‘gl‘t‘tPlll having us give per-
fect recitations. He did not hesitate
to tell the first class in grammar, of
which Jennie and I had been hitherto
tic honored members, that we had
our lesson hadly prepared,-that we
recited in a had tone, and that we
must remain on the recitation seats
until we. could answer every question
profbnndcd in the exercise!

\Vcll, days passed on, much the
same as the first day. -()ur lessons

.were all thoroughly Committed, and

Mr. Forrester made extended expla-
nations upon each day,——explanations
which We could not hut allow were of
as much benefit to us as the knowl-
edge of the lesson itself. He ,had a
manner of interesting his listeners in
what he was saying, and at such times
I forgot my dislike of him, and drank
in every word which fell from his
lips eagerly and thirstily.

But Jennie and Ieould not forget
his harshness to us—f'er thus We
called it—and many and hitter Were
the vows we made, to he revenged on
him? But nothing seemed to present‘
itself by which we, could attain any
a'ZI‘fanmtg.'£3 over him, yet We waited

 

and watched diligently for an oppor-
tunity.

Mr. Forrester was very poor—rc-
port said—and an invalid mother and
young sister looked to him for sup-
port; and this, so far from exciting
our sympathy, only made us look
down upon our teacher. When we
are resolved to dislike a perSon, how
ready we are to turn every little cit-
cumstance to his disadvantage, and
how uncharitahle we grow toward
him for those n'iisfiirtunes over which
he has no control. So we often
laughed and joked ahout Mr. It‘orres
ter’s poverty, and proposed to get up
a subscription to buy him an over-coat,
as for the first week of his school, he
did not Wear that article, of clothing.
But: we were saved this, for on the
second week he made his- appearance
in a good, though coarse, outer coat
ot'dark gray.

This coat he hung up on a peg near
the stove; and at recess, while we
were warmng ourselves hy the fire,
a very wicked thought came. into my
head. Would u’t it be fine sport, and
a good revenge, to hurn that over-
coat, and allow Mr. Forrester to sup-
pose it was done by accident? A
flend told me to mention it to
Jennie, and l did so. No sooner
were the words out of my month,
then I repented them; but Jennie,
glancing around, and seeing Mr. For-
rester engaged'in writing copies, seized
the cent by the skirt, and dashed it
against the red-hot stove pipe. In a
moment, one entire side of the gar-
ment was burnt to a cinder. Clan.-
cing hurriedly behind me, I saw Mr.
Forrester’s eyes fixed full tfpon us—
he had seen all—and Ireally felt a
pang of remorse at the expressunrof
mingled sorrow and reproach WhICh
settled whitely over his face-

I could not endure that 1091‘. It had
too much of quiet suffering m it, and
I do believe that IshOUId have gone
out in the face f the Whole school
and confes'sed myself the cause of the
catastrophe, and implored Mr. For-
rester’s forgiveness, but Jennie pulled

 

 

 

‘uAm-‘wmm.\hfi..v_ .4 a c .. .- n -_
r - ‘ ’.

 

    

160

THE HOME.

 

me by the sleeve, and said, “We
must brave it out, Lizzie.”
So I hushed the gentle spirit of re-

pentance, and met the teacher’s gaze :

with a hard, stony countenance, which
had little of humility or regret about
it. I expected Mr. Forrester would
reprimand us sharply—perhaps inflict
some severe punishment upon us—
‘but he made no remark touching the
disgraceful affair. The day wore
on, and the school for the afternoon
was over, but still he made no allu-
sion to our crime, for [could regard
it as scarcely less. That which would
have been nothing to a son of wealth,
might be every thing to this man,
who was struggling hard with pov-
erty. That paltry coat might have
been purchased at the cost of com-
forts strictly necessary to his invalid

mother ;—-—perhaps his young sister ‘

had denied herself food that her bro-
ther might be protected from the in-
clement weather. I thought on the
subject until I had wrought myself up
to’ suchla remorse of feeling, that I
could almost have gone down on my
knees to have asked Mr. Forrester’s
pardon; but he gave me no oppor-
tunity of performing any such act of
self-abnegation.

The following day, though the air
was intensely cold, and a fine, cutting
frost drifted icily down from the
Northern mountains, Mr. Forrester
came to school without an over-coat;
and for all that long cold winter,
every day, stormy or not, he was ex-
.posed in the same unprotected con-
dition. It was evident he was too
poor to repair the loss. Jennie and l
were bo'th of us heartily ashamed of
the part we had played, and would
have gladly worked for a month, to
remedy the evil we had done, had the
thing been ossible. J enme proposed
teggive r. Forrester a coat as a

 Year’s present, but I fancied that
beneath a calm, cold exterior, our
teacher concealed g. seus'tive spirit,
and, of course, that {woul never do.
So Jennie and I repented in secret;
but we did not conquer our dislike of

ii

 

Mr. Forrester, and lost no opportu-.
nity of making him uncomfortable.
One day, when I had unwittingly
whispered with a. girl in the desk next
mine, Mr. Forrester di5covercd me
just as I was covering the act with
my atlas. He looked steadily at me,

evidently thinking to disconcert me"

by his gaze, but I Was desperate, and
kept on in my. disobedience,

“Miss Marsh!” said he, quietly,
“ whispering isforbidden ”

There 'was company in school that

afternoon—a Mr. Lovell and his __

sister, from New York—and the idea
of being thus corrected before stran-'
gers was a little too much for my
temper. I did not answer him, but I
felt the hot blood rush in a torrent to
my brow. He spoke again in the
same mild voice :

_“ Miss Marsh! ” I looked up sul-
lcnly. “Miss Marsh, when I first
came here as your teacher, I wrote
upon a card, and poSted it up in the
hall, ‘Whispering is forbidden.’ One
who transgresses this rule is to re.
ceive punishment.” His tones weg‘e
almost kind, and there was a grieved
expression in his face that sorely
puzzled me. “You knew this, did
you, Miss Marsh? ” ,

“I did, Mr. Forrester.”

“You will please come out upon
the platform.”

Iwas disgraced before the school,
the Visitors, and in my own eyes;
and well I knew the penalty acCorded
to a scholar caught whispering—six
blows from the ferule, and a? seat for
the ensuing half day on a rough block
of wood laced near the teacher’s
chair, and christened by us girls,
“The Culprit’s Throne.” The blows
I knew that I could endure without
flinching, but to be put on that block
in the face of a grinning troop of half-
grown boys and girls, and a score of
little urchins, was terrible to think
of.‘ But I arose, at last, and went
steadily down to Mr. Forrester-‘5 seat,
my eyes fixed upon that abomihable
“throne” all the way. He noticed
the direction of my thoughts, and for

 

 

 

 

 

 

Axe:-
.r

)

 

 

MY “REWARD or MERIT.” 161

 

a moment he seemed to consider.
Then he rose, and gave me his own
chair, without remark, other than,
“ You may sit here, for the present.”

I obeyed him, and for the remain-
der of the afternoon, I occupied the
seat of honor. But it was precious
little honor to me, for the girls
laughed slyly at me from behind
their books, and the boys shook their
heads in a knowing way, equivalent
to saying, “Guess you’ve ketched it!”

At night, Mr. Forrester dismissed
me with the others, for which act of
condescension on his part I felt im.
measurably thankful, for I had dread.
ing a “ talking to” most heartily,

Some days after this, my little bro-
ther Willie—a blue-ey ed, rosy-cheeked
five-year-old darling—teased to go to
school with “sissy,” and, after a great
deal of persuasion on my part, my
mother consented for him to accom-
pany me.

The little fellow behaved well, and
at noon as we were returning home
to dinner, Jennie and I arm in arm,
and Willie with his sled running be-
side us, the string of the sled got
knotted, and Willie stopped a mo-
ment to untie it, while Jennie and l,
engaged in animated conversation
about somebody or something, hur-
ried on.

Suddenly the sound of horses’ feet
and the harsh jingling of sleigh-bells
burst on the air, and turning hur-
“edly, I beheld a sight that transfixed
Ifle. Willie, my darling Willie, his
little eager hands busied in untying
tile- I‘Ope, while he sang merrily to
himself; and just upon him, tearing
down the road at a terrible rate, came

.8 coal-black horse, wild, mad, and

reckless, dragging behind him an
overturned sleigh, and casting the
white foam in great flakes fl'OIll his
mouth and nostrils. I COUld see it
all, realize it all in the few seconds
that were left me for thought; and I
knew the inevitable fate. Right in
the mad steed’s path, my blue-eyed

ilhe!-only a few yards of space
between my darling and the reckless

 

animal! Powerless and frozen I
closed my eyes, for I dared not he-
hold that which was to come.

I felt the furious rushing of the air
as the horse flew by me—heard the
grating of iron-shod hoofs upon the
sharp ice, and then, in trembling ter~
ror, I ventured to look. But, oh, joy!
not Willie, white and crushed, with
crimson stains on his golden hair, but
Willie, bright and rosy, in the arms
of Mr. Forrester.

I hardly understood it; but my
darling was alive, and eager to clasp
his living form once more,I flew to
the side of his preserver. ~

“ Is he hurt? ”

“ I think not; only frightened.”

The peculiar tone of Mr. Forres-
ter’s voice startled me, while his
words made peace in my breast. I
glanced over his face—it was pale
with suffering—and I noticed that he
used only his right arm in supporting
Willie, while his left hung down by ’
his side. Then, ‘I saw that his unoc-
cupied hand was red with blood, and

. still dripped brightly with the warm

current.

“Good Heavens, Mr. Forrester!
You are wounded!” Ieried; in my
terror and anxiety forgetting how
much I disliked Mr. John L.. For-
rester. '

“Do not alarm yourself; it is
nothing serious, I think—only a blow
from the hoof of the horse.”

He attempted to move his arm,
but the effort was useless, and I knew
by the contortion of his features, that
he was trying to keep his sufl'ering
from me. ‘

“Oh, dear!” I cried; “what shflll I
do? I, the careless cause of all of.1t!.”

“Tiss him, sissy, tiss him; If it
’adn’t been for ’im, ’ou ’Oifld'nt had
any Willie now ! ” said ’Wlule, 98-m-
estly; for his ideas of healing wereafl
connected with kissing.

Mr. Forrester attempted to smile,
and would perhaps have replied, but
Dr. Gray’s gig came up the street
just at that moment, and he went
into the doctor’s office to ask that

92%

 

 

im~.M-. no”..-  ..

     

162

THE HOME.

 

 

gentleman’s opinion of his hurt. The
doctor, fresh from a long, tiresome
ride in the country, was not very del-
icate in giving his declaration; the
arm of the schoolmaster, he said, was
broken above the elbow, and badly
crushed below. It had swollen rap-
idly, and the operation of “ setting”
and bandaging would be very painful.

I heard the decision, and then I
went home with Willie, very grateful
and very sorrowful. Somehow, I
could not-help thinking that I was
much to blame; for if I had not a1~
lowed Willie to have fallen behind
me, it would have all been well ; and
so I fretted, while Jennie in her en-
thusiajn at his bravery, forgot her,
aversion to Mr. Forrester, and dwelt
in glowing terms on the recklessness of
danger which he had displayed, and
the heroism with which he had borne
his misfortune.

My father felt toward the school-
master the most fervent gratitude,
and urged upon him the invitation to
make our house his home while his
injury kept him from school; but this
Mr. Forrester thankfully, but de-
cidedly, declined. -

There was no school for a week;
but at the end of that time, notwith-
standing Dr. Gray’s injunction to the
contrary, Mr. Forrester was again at
his post. He was only a. little paler,
and graver, and his arm was care-
fully fastened in a sling.

When he came slowly up the path
to the school-house door, I went out
to meet him, for I wished to tell him
how much my heart thanked him for
VVillie’s life. But somehow my words
died out, and I said, confusedly :

“Mr. Forrester.”

u We“;  Marsh.”

“1 want to thank you for saving

fl brother,”l Said, steadily; “and to

our forgiveness for all the trou-

’ i‘bl‘é‘ly have made you. Heaven help-

he me, I will make no more!”

He turned quickly, startled perhaps
by the intensity of my voice, looked
“affixineg into my face, wrung my
hand, and exclg‘med;

 

“ No more! I am satisfied.”

And so was I, though I could not
have told why; but I went to my
seat, feeling happier than I had done
for many a day. I tried my best to
be orderly and obedient, and I think
I succeeded. Jennie, too, partly be-
cause she admired Mr. Forrester’s
bravery, and partly in emulation of
my own behavior, was sedate and
quiet, studying with uncommon ap-
plication, and, in consequence, reciting
perfect lessons.

4: a at * £- a-

The winter wore away, and our
school drew to a close. Mr. Forres-
ter had won for himself an enviable
name as a strict disciplinarian, a co
gent reasoner, and a successful in-
structor. The committee—powerful
authority—said that there never had
been a man in VVheatond whose
name was worthy of a place on the
same page; whose mark had been
left for good so effectually on the con-
duct of his scholars. And they of.
fered to double his wages, if he would
remain in the same capacity toward
us through the Spring term, but he
steadily refused.

Mr. Forrester was a singular per.
son; this we haddiscovered long be.
fore. He sought no acquaintance
with any one—«rather shunned the so~
ciety of the village, and declined all
of. the many invitations which he re.
eeivcd to parties and merry-makings.
Night after night, Squire I-Iorn’s wife
said, he burnt his candle till long past
midnight, but how he was employed,
she could not guess, as he had care-
fully evaded all her skillful question-
ing concerning it.

In time, his manner toward his
pupils underwent a slight change.
Always grave, he was now, at times,
kind and gentle; and coming home
from school one dav, J ennie IIarrison
said : '

“ Lizzie, Mr. Forrester is handsome,
don’t you think so? ”

I hardly knew what l thought, but
I snapped the snow ofi‘ an alder-bush
which hung over the path, and thought

 

 

 

.. -  'v - _ «_-:-s.mt_’fi_‘ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MY “REWARD 0F MERIT.”

 

 

how softly he had said, “Good-night,”

to me, a few moments before.

Winter had gone, and March, with
its rough winds and snows, was upon
us. The. maple-sugar semen in its
full tide had come, and was, as usual,
almost a carnival to the young people
of Wheatwold. We had all received
an invitation to ride over to. Maple-
wood Island to the sugar camp—have
a bit of a social party, eat sugar, en-
joy ourselves, and return home by the
light ofa midnight moon.

Maplewood was an island of twenty
or thirty acres, situated in the bosom
of one of our Northern lakes, and the
ride thither was one of the standing
amusements of each succeeding sprinnr,
The distance was not greatL-only
three miles by land, and the remain-
ing four on the solid ice, which, at this
season of the year, covered the lake
in a funeral shroud.

For a week previous to the time of
which I write, heavy rains had fallen,
but as they were succeeded by fine,
frosty weather, we apprehended no
damage to the strength of the ice.
’Tis true, the old folks shook their
heads bodingl y, and said the breaking
up of the ice on the VVinnipiseogee
was not an affair to he trifled with;
but we laughed at them, and assured
them, we and over again, there could
be no possible danger.

The moon was young, but it would
shine till midnight, and if we should
by any chance over-stay our time, we
could easily find our way back by the
light of the stars. To our infinite
surprise, Mr. Fortr'stcl‘, on being
asked to accompany us, accepted the
proposition; and as he did not seem
ll‘lclmed to iake a lady with him,
rlhomas Shaw (an incorrigible old
bachelor, who liked to be in the com-
Pany of girls, provided they had no

 

claim on his money), offered him a
88312 in his sleigh.

 he day appointed for the excur‘
sion was fair and mild ; such a. day as
March sometimes condescends to give
ps, to show that nothing is all evil.
I‘nere was a breeze from the South, I

O

and withal, a dreamy softening of the
sky, which we often see in the latter
part of April, but rarely in the first
month of sprinrr. A pearly-white
frost ridged the trees with garnishing
of sichI‘ in the morning, but the first
touch of the warm sunshine melted it
away like dew; and toward sundown
a belt of purple haze, betokening a
storm not far off, ran along the north-
western horizon.

VVe set off in high spirits, about five
o’clock in the afternoon; there were
ten sleighs—two persons in each
sleigh. Charley Raymond took me,
and Jim Goddard Jennie HarriSon.

we arrived safely and speedily at
Maplewood, and received a cordial
welcome from the sturdy old forester
and his two sons who had the proprio
etorship of thepamp. To the terror of
the girls, and the apparent amusement
of the boys, the ice had in-places
shrunk' apart, leaving wide crevices
or “reefs ” of open water from shore
to shore, and across which we could
only pass by throwing huge blocks of
ice, cut from the lake, 'aeross as a
bridge. But after our arrival at the
camp, all this was forgotten in the
mirth and hilarity which prevailed.

Mr. F orrestcr appeared in a new'.
phase of character which I could
hardly understand. He was cheerful,
at times positively gay, and the life
of the company.

A sugar camp! who has had the
good fortune to visit one, on friendly
terms with the owner, and with a
carte blanche to do as he. cheeses?
Those who have enjoyed this rural
privilege, do not need us to quicken
their memories by describing Phe
huge stone fire-places, and the 1”}-
mense vats where the sweet saP ‘5
converted into sweeter syrup. and
afterward “ grained ” “.3150 sugar} the
wide, 10“- Gunps, With SldCS 0t tthkl)..
interlaced hemlock boughs, and roofs
of birch bark; the great piles of fag-
ots, and the red fires streaming
wimpy up their light and smoke to
the dark Sky “WW-

W'e partook of i,the syrup and

 

 

164

sugar; we.told stories; cracked such
jokes as we were able to invent; played
at Hunt the Slipper, Blind Man’s Buff,
etc., before the camp-fire; and listened
to wild tales of adventure from the
lips of the rough old “ sap-boiler.”

Mr. Forrester did- not join us in
the “ plays,” but he did not frown us
down into insignificance; and he smiled
kindly at the “oceans” of fun which
made the old bark roofs ring. Sud.
denly he went out of the camp, and as
suddenly he returned; but his face wore
a look of doubt and perplexity, which
at once put a step to our merriment.

“ What is the matter? ” queried a
dozen eager voices in chorus.

“ Do not alarm yourselves; but it
may be best for us to set out imme-
diately for home; a warm storm
from the south-east is in progress—
the rain feels like that of J uly—and
before morning the ice, if indeed there
be any left, will be impassable ! ”
V There was a loud murmur of - disap-
“'” pointment from the assembled group,

but Mr. Forrester, without heeding
it, passed on to the tide of the “ sap-
boiler.” “Islander,” he said, address-
ing the old man, who stood without
the door of the camp intently gazing
at the black, lowering sky, “what is

' your advice ‘l ”

.3'“ Get out your horses, and don’t spare
the whip until their hoofs touch the
mainland! There’ll be a time on the
VVinne before to-morrow’s sunrise!”
We took heed of the man’s warn-
ing, and made all haste to the sleighs,
and after bidding the islanders a hasty
ood-night, set off briskly for land.

‘he water, which was of the depth of

some inches already upon the ice,
aplashed over us at the tearing rate
we went, but we cared only for a
foothold upon term 
For the sake of keeping the track,
our sleighs were kept in a line, one
. behind the other, h'éaded by Calvin
Wheaten, a young man well ac-
quainted with every portion of the
Winnipiseogee. Charley and I were
In the yfialast sleigh, and Mr. For-
rester m t ne'xt before us.

 

THE HOME.

We had not proceeded half a mile,
when a thick fog came down from the
mountains, and what with the falling
rain, the splashing of the water, and
the fog, it was exceedingly difficult to
drive in the right direction.

I was shuddering and fearful—rip.
prehending I knew not what; Charley
strove to reassure me, and Mr. For-
rester continually looked around, and
essayed some encouraging word. I
had covered up my face in the buf.
falo-robes, resolving to see and hear

nothing, when a piercing shriek from , ,

some one of the forward sleighs
aroused me.

“The reef! the reef!”

I distinctly caught the words above
the terrible roar with which the whole
air seemed filled. Then there was a
crush, a plunge, a sound like the split-
ting of a thousand strong oaks by a
thunderbolt—the world before me
faded out; I felt myself going. down
somewhere; I was icy cold, and
pierced to the skin with moisture; I
strove to utter a cry, but it seemed
choked on my lips; I heard afar off
the frantic jingling of receding bells——
then there was a blank. I felt a
strong arm around me; I was lifted
to my feet, and drawn close up to
some living, breathing being. Thank
God! Iwas not alone! I thought it
was Charley, and I clung to him, cry-
lng out, “ O Charley! where are we?
——where? ”

“We are together, Miss Marsh,—
where, I can hardly tell you. Have
courage and hope.”

The voice was low and deep, and it
sent a strange, sweet thrill over me;
I trembled, but surely not with fear.

“Who are you?” I asked the.
question, but my heart had alreadv
told me its answer. .

“One who will die for you, if it
comes to that!”

I would have moved away fro
him, but he held me strongly
steadily as at first.

“Be quiet—your life, maybe, de-
pends on it! I know not how nar-
row a platform of ice we stand upon ;

 

H

u

l
i.
l

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

l
n I

n

..vm'c-w— -

 

MY “REWARD OF MERIT.” 165

 

perhaps but a span between us and
eternity. Our only safety is in keep-
ing together.” He clasped me closer
as he spoke, and my face was bowed
down on his shoulder.

“Tell me the worst!” I said, for I
knew he had kept that back.

“Can you bear it, darling ’9 ”

Oh, how impassioned were his
tones, and what a leap my heart gave
as that one endearing word fell on
my ear! Even in that hour of ex-
treme peril, I felt how completely
John Forrester reigned over .my life
and soul. The replyI made him, was
wrung from me by the agitation of
my heart—at another time, I would not
have spoken thus to him for worlds;

“Yes, I can bear any thing—any
thing if you are with me ! ” My
words seemed to fill him with a wild,
strange joy.

“God bless you, Lizzie Marsh!
Now, I am more than content. Yes,
I will tell you the whole extent of our
danger. The ice of the lake is break-
ing up. You were thrown from. the
sleigh by the runner’s catching against
a cake of ice already lying slantwisc;
I saw you, and I sprang out after
you.”

“ Why? oh, why did you come?
Why not have left me, without sacri-
ficing yourself? ”

“My child,” he said, slowly and
solemnly ; “life and death are the
Same to me without you! with you,
either is Heaven ! Tell me now, even
"1 the uncertainty of this moment,
shall we suffer life and death to-
gether .3 ”

His breath swept my lips ; I could
feel the burning of his eyes upon my
face; from my heart, which I had
9mg known but too well, I answered

“Am :

“Yes; we will go together! ”

Ie drew me up into his arms, and
pressed hot kisses upon my lips, and

. ed me names so sweet and sacred,
that I dare not write them down, lest
they lose their blessed significance.

“f1 I, in spite of all the terrible void
Whlch the future held for us, was

*.

 

 

happy. Happy that I had gained a
love for which I had thirsted, but
hopelessly as Tantalus of old for the
forbidden water. '

We were alone together on a little
floe of ice, drifting on amid the crash
of all that vast expanse of frigidity
which had covered, but a. few hours
ago, the broad Winnipisecgee. What
was to be our fate? What had been
the fate of our companions? But if
home and friends were to be mine no
more, he was with me! I should die
with him—our spirits would 0 to
the great Unknown tOgether. here
was a wild joy even in that thought,
and I gave myself up to it.

On and on we drifted'; the waters
howled hoarser over the crushed ice,
and the blinding rain fell in one wide
sheet from the dense clouds! Mr.
Forrester spoke but little, but oh how
dear were his words to me ! I grew
cold, very cold; my thin garments
were saturated with dampness, and,
frozen upon my flesh. Mr. Forres-
ter, in spite of all the remonstrances
I could offer, took off his coat, and
wrapped it around me.

“Lizzie,” he said, at length, “ you
pray sometimes, do you not? Let
us ask God to deliver us! It is our
right! ”

And he did pray—such a petition
have I never heard offered—and after
that I felt more of hope, but lost not my
resignation. By and by, the gloom
lessened a little; the rain fell only in .
scattering drops, and the fog cleared
up somewhat, giving us a view of our
situation. And that first view 81'
most palsied my heart with tart?”
We stood upon a frail block of ice,
not live yards square, which had ~
parted .from all company With 1‘5
kindred, and was bearing USP“ over
the dark, maddened waters Wlth fear-
ful velocity. I droPPed my face
upon Mr. Iv‘orrestel"s Shoume", for I
could not bear to 10"“ longer on the
frightful probability which menanced
us. A wild exclamation from his
lips made gne {If} up my head, anx-
iously and mqumngly. . .

 

  

  
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
  
  
 
 
   
   
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
  
   

3 16&

THE HOME.

 

“I may be mistaken—but I think
not. Will you look? perhaps your
eyes may aid me. What, think you,
is that dark line which shuts off the
view not half a mile below us? ”

I looked eagerly and wistfully, and

my heart leaped with something akin‘

to rapture. How strong a love of
life is implanted in the breast of eVery
human being ! .

“ God be thanked !~it is land !--
’tis Sandy Point! Will it save us '9 ”

“My darling! it may be that the
current. will hear us without it, but I
hope not. Let us be willing that
God should do as he sees best!”

My hand found its way trustingly
into his, and I said, “ Yes, I am will-
ing ! ” ,

Then we floated on; at one time
we seemed to be going directly on

 h’e Point; at another, an adverse

, V.
x ' V
.

ind struck us, and we were borne
far out—almost beyond hope itself.
But. at last, oh, joy! a faint .breeze
from the northwest. came down—an
angel of deliverance to us—and- in a

moment more, we were thrown with,

a violent shock upon the hard sand of
the Paint. v *

Mr. Forrester uttered no audible
prayer of thanks, but he lifted his
hands silently upward, and I knew
that his soul went out to Heaven in
one great oblation of gratitude.

The nearest dwelling was half a
mile distant, but what was that to us,

.who bore new hope and life in our

bosoms? II e would carry me in his
arms, (what a predicament for one
who despised a man by the name of
John!) and only relinquished his at.
tendance when I was safe in the mo.
therly care of Mrs. Smithson, the
lad y of the house. ' -

' The good lady put me in a warm
bath, gave me dry clothes, :1 soft bed,
and in fifteen minutes I was asleep,
forgetting all the danger through
Which I had passed.

Mn Forrester, they told me, did
nPt “3 down, but sat before the
kitM‘ifl‘ the remainder of the
night evidently; wrapt in pleasant

 

meditations. And in my dreams we
were together—ay, together, even as
we had agreed to be through all our
united lives !

Early the next morning, Mr. Smith-
son took us both into his sleigh, and
we set off for WheatWold. Never
did the sun shine more gloriously;
never was the sky bluer; never was
my heart happier than when, glancing
up at his face, I met the deep, earn-
est light which burnt like a watchfire
in his eyes.

We were received at home lil:
those from the dead.
wept over me as their love lamb re.
stored from shade-land, and my dear
little brother Willie again ordered
me to kiss the schoolmaster for bring-
ing me back. This time I did not
refuse.

But when we inquired for those
who had been our companions in that
fearful ride, a dark shade Went over
the faces of our friends. All had
come safely to land, except one!
Charley Raymond was lost-——and his
grave must be the waters of the lake!
No trace of him, or of his horse, was
ever afterward discovered, and we
mourned for long months over his
untimely death. Poor Charley! He
had a good heart, and at the reeolleeo
tion of his many virtues, my tears
even now, gush forth. ’

at at * * * *

Well, it all ended in a verv coni‘
men-place manner. I attended‘sclmol
the remainder of the term, and stud-
ied very hard to win the approbation
of the teacher. Commend me for this!

Jennie and lwcnt to Mr. Forres.
ter one day, and confessed the over-
coat plot, and very humbly and pen-
itently asked his forgiveness. Need
I say that it was given '9

When June spread her carpet of
flowers over the iields, l stood up on:
Sabbath morning in the old villa '
church, and the gmy-haired minis
made me the wife of John L. For.
rester.
husbard John, for his middfe name is
Louis—a name I have always loved.

My parents ‘

I am not obliged to call my '

I

 

my: -—v-

 

 

 

 -<   t

./

 

 

 

 

;.~.'5.. 

 

 

 

FASHIONABLE VULGARI’I‘Y. i‘ 57

About a year ago, it came out that
this Mr. Forrester did not burn the
midnight oil (tallow cadnles) for noth-
ing, all that long winter, in Mrs.
Horn’s spare chamber. He is now a
world-renowned inventor, and the
model, which won a patent at Wash-
ington, was conceived and fashioned
in those hours when \Vheatwold was
asleep. Wealth has come in to him,
and no longer does his invalid mother
——0ur motherinow—occupy a humble
house, and subsist upon scanty food,

' but a handsome suite of rooms in our

house is hers, and there are servants
to do her slightest bidding.

Jessie Forrester is to be married
next week to a member of Congress,
and we are anticipating much pleas-
ure from spending the coming winter
at the capital. - ‘

I am very, very happy! I told

u  Jennie Goddard so only yesterday;

and she laughingly reminded me of

“ our olden resolve to hate Mr. Forres-

ter l Jennie married James Goddard
two years since, and owns a bright,
I'OSy-cheeked daughter, four months
“id, Who rejoices in the name of Liz-
21e Forrester Goddard. Called after
Louis and I both, Jennie says.
Goodness! who would have thought
Should ever have married that ter-

. rillle schoolmaster?

 

 

FASHIONABLE VULGARITY.’

HERE is too much “ wit ” current
now-a-days which has for its p01 -
ulftrity a very weak basis—verbal
trickery. “ Sermons ” are read with
aVldlty, simply because an imaginary
Preacher is supposed to deliver them
as would a thick-lipped uneducated
nngro, or because they bid defiance in
vulgar smartness to orthodox rules of
‘grammar and rhetoric; stories have
{ix-eat run” in the newspapers, not
 ch because they are good stories,
as because they are written in mock-
. ankee slang; anecdotes have a rel-

. lsh because the words are spelled to

e pronounced as Irish brOgue; and
VOL. v11. 11

{k

 

 

verses are relished because “this ” is
written “ dish,” and “ good” is written
“goot,” as a German would speak
who was learning English pronun-
ciation. We have but little pa.
tience with this verbal trickery. We
detest it positively, as we do puns
which are mere tricks of words, unless
it has genuine Wit to redeem it, and
to be racy it requires keener wit, in
our opinion, than proper English.
Mechanical “wit” is one of the Shams
which we can heartily hate. There-
fore, to us, a majority of the puns
and conundrums which circulate in
conversation and in the newspapers
are detestable, and, we think, ought to
be to everybody. Mrs. Partington
may make an odd mistake in the use
of a word, from an analogy of sound
and an antithesis of meaning, which is
ludicrous, and with a dash of wit, but
the grotesqueness of" the thing must
be obvious and not too often repeated.
It may be, as the children say,
“funny,” for a boy to reverse the or-
der of words occasionally, and say,
“ waggage bagon” for “baggage wag-
on,” or “ tig whicket ” for “ whig
ticket,” but when a man or boy forms
such a love for this kind of somersault—
ing that he is continually turning his
words topsyturvy, he dcgenerates
into a trickster who is to be shunned.
The buflbonery of the circusring,
or the platform of' Ethiopian min-
strels, may aii‘ord appropriate occasion
for stale jokes which have no wit, but
when they are repeated in the social
eircle, may we not be there to heat.
It is lamentable that some young 18-
dies of respectable education, think it
“ smart” to interlard their conversa~
tion with “slang” which originates
among the bad associations of the
drinking-saloon. For the boys. thaf;
love the pit of a theater: there 13 Pl‘
quancy in the slang of a female Char-
acter, representing the reqqussness 0f
low life; but even there1t IS repre-
hensible. How then must any a
preach to it, away from the stage, be
regarded? ' ‘  .
Weoften think there is a procli " ,-

 

 

 

 

 

163 THE HOME.‘=

 

among our people to be lawless in the
use of language. Why should a well-
educated man or woman persist in
saying “ them” for “ those 2 ” Why
do we hear in genteel circles such
phrases repeated again and again, as
“he learned me” for “he taught me,”
“I expect he’s wicked” for “I sus-
pect he’s wicked,” “set down” for
“ sit down,” “ it lays yonder” for “it
lies yonder,” “ I seen it” for “I saw
it,” “it was him” for “it_was he,”
“he done it” for “he did it,” etc., etc.

These vulgarisms are perpetrated
through carelessness. The language
ought to be purged of them in famil-
iar conversation as well as in writing.
People who would never write them,
use them frequently'when speaking.
Parents should guard themselves and

watch their children, and teach the,

correct use of words in a manner
which would show them how the use
of grammar they learn at school,
ought to govern their language in con-
versation nnd writino'. '

An important caution which parents
should exercise religiously, is the se-
lection, so far aspossible, of associates

~ for their children. Ignorant and su-

perstitious young men and women,
who themselves must learn our lan-

, guage, may be fit guides for the foot-

steps of, but are never fit to give
lessons in language to, American chil-
dren. If they associate with them as
hourly attendants, we must expect
our Children, without checks or guards,
to speak the mother-tongue incor-
rectly. .

Bacon said writing makes the cor-
rect man. Parents should give more
heed to this fact. Every thing can not
be learned at school: composition
once a week is not all that is required.
With a very little trouble, mothers
may encourage their children to write
about familiar things, and they will
thereby learn. the use. of language as
they may not otherw1se learn it_at,
least, as they are not likely to learn
it early in life, if such Instruction be
u lected.

ere there more encouragement

> * -/.CIP9. aura-Nora. v « v -

 

given to writing, and recitation, and
narration, in families generally, there
would be fewer men and women who,
though they have had 'the advantages of
good schools, can not prepare a hand-
some and pleasing letter; there would

be less verbal trickery employed un-
der the semblance of wit, and conver-
sation would not be larded with
vulgarisms, as often as it now is, by
people who know better. w. 'r. o.

 

TWO WORLDS OF THE POET.

BY MARY RICHARDSON. '

IN two worlds the poet dwelleth : i
One, the never-changing Real, ,;
With its dull and weary routine— F *

One, the beautiful Ideal,

Where the streamiets flow in measures,
Breathing soft, delicious rhyme—

Where the wild flowers blush and linger
Fadeless onithc shares of time.

In a voice which thrills of love,
While the sky, all fair and glowing,
Smiles upon him from above.

And the birds of early spring-time
Greet him with a'tender song,

Till, within the poet’s bosom,
Echo doth the notes prolong.

Myths, the green trees whisper to him 

And the gorgeous tints of autumn
Paint themselves upon his brain—
Ohi their richness gathers round him,

Nor can leave his heart again !

Forms of rare and matchless beauty

From the mystic land of dreams, 
Float upon the wooing zephyr, ,.
Como upon the soft moon-beams— “

Come to lure the poet’s Spirit,
Woo it by their viewless art,

Till his soul yields t’ enchantment— .
Till they live within his heart. l

Thus the poet ever dweiieth
In two worlds: one is the Real,
With its dull and changeless routine—~_
One, the beautiful Ideal.

 

HOME.

HIS wee bit ingle, blinkin’ bonnily, .
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty ifiifie’s
smile, 1
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a’ his weary carking cares beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labor and
his toil. Beans.

 

 

W_.<,

CORN ELIA.

169

 

CORNELIA.

NE thousand years have passed;
the lapse of centuries carries us
from lthaea to Latium; we glide
from mythology into history, citing
Plutarch where we _ lately quoted
Homer; our theme no longer the
Greek Penelope, but the Roman Cor-
nelia, Scipio Africanus her father, and
the two Gracchi her sons.

Cornelia. was the youngest of the
four children of Scipio Africanus the
Elder and Emilia his wife. She was‘
born one hundred and eighty-nine
years before Christ. N 0 details have
reached us of her early life; we are
briefly informed that upon the death
of Scipio, the friends of the family, in
selecting a husband for the peerless
Cornelia, fixed their choice upon Ti.
berius Scmpronius Gracehus, a tribune
of the people, and until lately an en-
emy of Africanus. I Ic had, however,
in the crisis of Seipio’s fortunes, sep-
arated himself from his colleagues,
and forgetting his private resentment,
made a vigorous and, as the event
proved, successful effort in behalf of
his political foe. This graceful and
honorable act was rewarded bythe
hand of Cornelia, and the marriage
took place one hundred and sixty-nine
years before Christ, the bride being in
her twentieth year.

The union was a happy one, and
Cornelia was twelve times a mother.
Tiberius was once honored with the
censorship, and twice with the consul-
ate. The care of the household and
the education of the family devolVed
wholly upon Cornelia, and she ac-
quitted herself of the duties in a man-
ner which has elicited the admiration
of the world. She maintained in her-
self and transmitted to her sons the
grand and severe virtues of her father.
She had inherited from Scipio a love
{391‘ the arts and for literature, and her
10%83‘8, which were extant in the time
Of Quintilian—two hundred years af-
terward—were often cited with praise
by him and by.Cicero_

It has been intimated by the French

’ Opinion.

 

historian Rollin, that Cornelia did not
bear her honors meekly, and that she
placed an undue estimate upon herself
and her family. He cites a passage
from Juvenal as his authority for this
But it is apparent from the
text, that the satirist intended no such
insinuatiou :
“ Male Venusinam quam te, Cornelia, mater
Gracchorum. Hl, cum mnguis virtutibus, all'ers
Grande supercilium, et numeraa in date triuinphos,"
The meaning evidently is, that he
would prefer a Venusian village girl
to Cornelia, if, with her transcendent
virtues, the mother of the Graechi
brought a supereilious brow and beast-
ful tongue. Dryden’s paraphrase
clearly shows that J uvenal’s lines are
not to be understood in a reproachful
sense :

“Some country girl, scarce to a. courtsoy bred,
Would I much rather than Cornelia. wed

If. supercilious, haughty, proud, and vein, .
She fraught her father's triumphs in her train.”

Cornelia’s happiness was now vio-
lentl y interrupted. Tiberius, accord-
ing to a legend which Cicero and Plu-
tareh think not unworhy of record,
found, on awaking one morning;a pair
of serpents upon his bed. He nar-
rated the eircumstance to the sooth-
sayers, asking their interpretation of
the prodigy. They considered the
matter, and finally reported as fol-
lows: The serpents were, in their
opinion, prophetic, and their appear-
ance together could not be regarded
in any other light than that of an
omen. If Tiberius killed the male,
his death, they said, would be the con-
sequence: if he killed the female, he
would lose his wife Cornelia. With
that peculiar obtuseness which seems
to be a besetting and inevitable weak-
ness in the minds of those consult-
ing oracles or interpreting omens,
Tiberius did not perceive the p088!-
bility of releasing both the Serpents
and of killing neitherT—thus PPBSGPW
ing the life of his Wife ithout sacri-
ficing his own. Convinced, however,
of the existence of a dilemma, and
believing that an alternative alone
was left him, he thought within him-
self that he was much older than

 

 

170 7,

Cornelia, and consequently, in the or-
der of nature, nearer the close of his
career; he reflected that the children
had more need of their mother by
whom they had been reared, than of
'their father whom they rarely saw,
and concluded that it was more suita-
ble for him to die them for her. He
therefore killed the male serpent, and
soon after perished, leaving his twelve
sons and daughters to the care of Cor-
nelia. .
Though deeply bowed by this afflic-
., tion, the widow gave her whole soul
to the augmented duties which now
devolved upon her. In her prosper-
ity, she had excited admiration ; in
'her- adversity, she won the love and
respect of the nation. All who knew
her acknowledged that Tiberius had
acted wisely in choosing to die for so
excellent awoman. During her wid-
owhood she lost nine children by suc-
cessive bereavements, devoting herself,
however, with increased assicluity to
the instruction of those who remained.
She was left, at last, with one daugh-
ater,'_Sempronia, and two sons, Tibe-
.rius and Caius, She seems to have
.. concentrated upon these two boys the
v, tenderness which she had before shared
with their brothers, and to have be-
r stowed upon the culture of their minds
i. the most affectionate care; so that,*al-
~~though they possessed all the ad van-
rtvtages of an illustrious birth and name,
and were endowed with the happiest
gifts of genius and disposition, educa-
'.- tion was allowed to have contributed
more t0 their perfections than nature.
The historians of Rome have given
undue importance to Cornelia’s refusal
of a. crown, Whicb one of the Ptole-
mies of Egypt Offered her, together
with his hand and a seat upon his
throne. The Offer was not one which
..she would have been likely to accept,
-.as the king who made it_and who
can have beer‘io other than Ptolemy
Physco—was in every way unworthy
of her. He was one Of the most bru—
tal tyrants mentioned in history ; his
body was so swollen and bloated by
tinternperanee, that he was unable to

 

THE HOME.

walk, and never appeared before his
subjects, unless mounted upon a char-
iot and supported by trusses and
otheringeniousdeviccs. Corneliamust
be supposed to have been fully ac-
quainted with his infirmities, as Pub-
lius Scipio, afterward known as Afri—
canus the Younger, and the husband of
her daughter Sempronia, had been sent
by the Romans upon anembassy to
Alexandria, where he had dined in the
palace of the king, and had been a
daily witness of his excesses. It is
attributing an unreasonable influence.
to royal grandeur, to imagine it ca-
pable of perverting the judgment of a
woman like Cornelia, or to suppose
her to have exercised self-denial in
declining the proffered honor.

The reply of Cornelia to a wealthy
lady of Campania, who requested to

see her jewels, is the most memorable ‘

incident in her career. Ad roitl y turn-
ing the conversation upon subjects
likely to interest and detain her visitor,
till Tiberius and Caius came home
from school, she said, as they entered

the room, “These are my jewels!”

Probably no character was ever so
clearly drawn in so few words; no
delineation can possibly add to it; if
nothing were known of Cornelia but
this one speech, the historian would
still find it a sufficient basis upon
which to construct the whole charac-
ter. The three obscure lines in
which Valerius Maximus narrates the
anecdote, introducing it merely as an
incidental illustration of his subject
in his discourse De Paupertate, have
probably been as’gl'ten translated, as
widely repeated, and as deeply re-
flected upon, as any other three which
have been left us by the writers of
antiquity.

There was a difference of nine years
in the ages of Tiberius and Cains;
they attained their political ascendency,
therefore, at. different periods. Had
they flourished together and acted in
concert, their power would doubtless
have been irresistible. Their separa-
tion in time was a serious disadvan-
tage, and probably prevented their

 

 

a J:

 (‘

 

 

 

 

CORNELIA. 171

 

 

success. Tiberius enjoyed a high rep-
utation for virtue, sobriety, temper-
ance, at an age when youth is looked
upon as an excuse, or at least a palli-
ation, for idleness and vice. He was
adm tted to the college of AugurS, as
a compliment to his character rather
than in recognition of his birth. An
anecdote of the period shows in what
esteem he was held, and what fruits
the careful nurture of his mother had
already borne:

Appius Claudius, who had been
both censor and consul, and .whose
honorable discharge of his duties had
since raised him to the rank of Presi-
dent of‘ the Senate, was one evening
taking supper with the Augurs; he
conversed a long time with Tiberius,
and toward the end of the entertain-
ment, offered him his daughter Clau-
dia in marriage. Tiberius, who must
be presumed to have been acquainted
with the lady, accepted the proposal
with joy and alacrity. Appius went
immediately home to communicate
the tidings to his wife. “Antistia,
my love,” he said, on entering the
house, “I have contracted our daugh-
ter Claudia.” Autistia, surprised and
perhaps vexed at her husband's omis-
sion to consult her upon so moment-
ous a subject, exclaimed, “Why so
suddenly? I'ean not conceive why
you should act thus hastily, unless, in-
deed, Tiberius'Gracchus be the man
you have pitched upon! ” The worthy
matron was doubtless coneiliated by
the reply that it was no other than
Tiberius—a choice which neither re-
quired reflection on the part of the
mother, nor involved hesitation on
that of the daughter.

Cornelia had, in the mean time, mar-
ried her only daughter, Sempronia, to
Publius Emilianus, who bore, at a
later period, the title of Scipio Afri-
eanus the Younger, obtaining that of
SCiPlO by adoption into the family,
and that of Africanus by the destruc-
tion of Carthage. Tiberius served for
a tlme under him in Africa, and dwelt
beneath the same tent. He excelled
all of his age in valor, at the same

 

time bearing himself with such mod-
esty that none of his rivals could take
ofi'cnce. He was beloved by the
whole army, and universally regretted
when he quitted it.

Scipio’s glory and popularity being
continually upon the increase, a por-
tion of his fame was reflected upon the .
family which had adopted him. Cor-
nelia, the daughter of one Scipio, heard
herself styled, in eulogistic phrase,
the mother-in-law of another. Her
maternal pride ,was wounded at the
reflection that the glory of the father
had not been perpetuated in her sons,
but had been diverted into another
line, and she reproached Tiberius and
Caius that she was called the mother-
in law of Scipio, not the mother of the
Gracchi. Whether to this reproach
is to be attributed the rashness and
indiscretion of her sons, in their zeal
to achieve a hasty fame, it would be.
impossible now to decide; historians
have generally chosen to trace a con-
nection between the dissatisfaction of
Cornelia and the turbulent measures
which at once marked her sons’ acces-
sion to power and precipitated their
fall.

Upon the appointment of Tiberius
to the ofl‘iee of tribune of the people,
he embarked in an enterprise, having
for its object the restoration to the
poor of their share in the public lands.
It had formerly been the custom of
the Romans, when they acquired land
by conquest from their neighbors, to
add a part of it to the national do-
mains, and to let the remainder, at
low rates, to necessitous citizens. But
this custom had of late fallen into dis-
use, the rich having obtained a voice
in public affairs which enabled them
to exclude the poor, except upon the
payment of exorbitant sums- The
consequence was the ruin of the agri-
cultural classes, and a dearth, 0V0“ m.
the rich grazing distrifi 0f Tuscany,
of husbandmen and shepherds. The
land they should have tilled, was 00-
cupied by foreign Slaw? and barbari-
ans, who, after. the natives were dis-
possessed, cultivatcd it for the rich.-.

 

 

172.  THE HOME.

 

Tiberius, inflamed by the people’s en-
thusiasm in his behalf, by the writings
which they posted on the public mon-
uments, walls, and porticoes, urging
him to action, drew uptthe bill which
was to relieve them. It was simply
a revival of the Lex Licinia, which
prohibited any one from possessing
more than five hundred acres of land.
Its provisions were mild in the extreme;
those who had accumUlated more
land than was permitted, receiving in-
demnity on giving up their claims,
instead of incurring punishment -f'or
their infringement of the law. The

eople were content that no reprisals
should be taken for the past, if they
might be protected against future
usurpatiOns. I

The rich, and a large majority of
the senate, resisted the passage ot‘ the
law. They induced Tiberius’ col-
league in the tribuneship to oppose it.
Tiberius plead daily for the poor,
upon the rostrum, in persuasive lan-
guage. “The wild beasts of Italy,”
he said, “have their caves to retire
to, but the brave men who spill their
blood in her cause, have nothing left
but air and light. Without houses,
without any settled habitation, they
wander from place to place with their
wives and children; and their gener-
als do but mock them, when at the
head of their armies, they exhort their
men to fight for their sepulehers and
domestic gods ; for among the whole
vast number, there is not, perhaps, a
. Roman who has an altar that belonged
to his ancestors, or a sepuleher in
which their ashes rest.”

Incensed by the opposition of his
«colleague Octavius, Tiberius'dropped
:the moderate bill which he had hith-
rerto urged, and proposed another,
unore severe upon the rich, inasmuch
:as it required them immediately to
.abandon the l d5 Wthh they held in
«defiance of the nrepealed, though un-
enforced, Licinian law. He forbade

.all other magistrates to exercise their

‘ ‘.fun5tions till the agrarian laws were
passed. He put his own seal upon
the doors of the Temple of Saturn,

 

thus suspending the operations of the
public treasury. All the departments
of the government were at once
brought to a stand. The rich dressed
in mourning, that they might excite
the compassion of the public; failing
in this, they suborned assassins, and
plotted the murder of Tiberius.

The latter now resolved to remove
Octavius from the tribuneship; it was
evident the law could not otherwise
be passed. He first addressed him
in public, taking him by the hand, and
conjuring him to satisfy the legitimate
demands of the people. Octavius re-
fused to comply. Tiberius then said
it was evident that one of them must
be deposed, and suggested that Octa-
vius propose his—Tiberius’——removal
t0 the thirty-five tribes of voters;
promising to retire from office, if his
fellow-citizens so willed it. Octavius
refused; whereupon Tiberius pro-
posed the removal of his colleague.
When eighteen of the thirty-five tribes
had voted for his expulsion, Tiberius
ordered him to be dragged from the
tribunal. He filled the vacancy by
appointing on‘e Mutius, a man of little
note; the agrarian law was then
passed ; three commissioners were se-
lected to survey the lands in dispute,
and to superintend their distribution.

The senate and the patricians were
deeply exasperated by these proceed-
ings, while the people were no less
indignant at the senate’s dissatisfac-
tion. One of the friends of Tiberius
died suddenly, and malignant spots
appeared upon the body, suggesting
the presence of poison. This sus-
picion was confirmed .by what occur-
red at the burning of the corpse. It
burst, and emitted such a quantity of
vapor and corruption, that it extin-

guished the fire. Fresh wood \vas'

brought, but it Was with difficulty that
the body was consumed. Upon this,
Tiberius put on mourning, and lead-
ing his children to the forum, com-
mended them and their mother to the
protection of the people—thus intima-
{.ng that he gave up his own life for
0st. ‘

 

 

 

 

 

 

comma. 173

 

At this juncture, Attalus, king of
Pergamus, died, constituting the R0-
man people his sole heir. Tiberius,
seeking to avail himself of this inci-
dent, proposed that all the money
found in the treasury of Attalus,
should be distributed among the peo-
ple, to enable them to purchase tools
with which to cultivate the lands
lately assigned them. This still fur-
ther offended the senate, and one of
that body accused Tiberius of aspiring
to the title of king; and even asserted
that the messenger from Pergamus
had brought him the diadein of Atta-
lus, for his use when seated upon the
throne, Stung by this unjust charge,
Tiberius resolved to lower still fur-
ther the pride and authority of the
senate: he prepared and proposed
several laws in this View. The peo-
ple assembled in the capitol, and
l‘ibcrius, though much discouraged
by a dream and an omen, which
seemed to forebode disaster, set for-
ward to join them. On his arrival,
the people expressed their joy in
acclamations, forming a circle about
him to protect him from rough treat-
ment. Me 'as secretly informed that
the senators and others of the landed
interest had resolved upon his assas-
sination, and for that purpose had
armed themselves, their friends, and
slaves. Tiberius and his adherents
tucked up their gowns and prepared
for combat. Their friends, at a dis-
tance, not understanding the nature
of this movement, asked what it
meant. Tiberius lifted his hands to
his head, to indicate that his life was
in danger. His adversaries, inter-
preting this gesture to suit their own
purposes, ran to the senate, announ-
cing that he had demanded the crown.
The senators, headed by one Nasica,
and armed with tli labs and blud-
geons which their servants had
brought, made toward Tiberius, fell-
mg those who stood -in their way.
His friends being either killed or dis-
Persed, Tiberius fled, but in his flight,
stumbled over the prostrate body of
one Of his party. Upon attempting

 

to rise, he was struck by Publius
Satureius with the leg of a. chair;
the second and fatal blow was dealt
by Lucius Rufus, who afterward pub-
licly boasted of the exploit. Three
hundred persons perished in this se~
dition, the first in which Roman blood
had been shed since the expulsion of
Tarquin.

This digression, involving the fate
of Tiberius, is essential to our story,
showing, as it does, under what cir-
cumstances Cornelia was called upon
to part with her tenth child, and the
eldest of those whom she had styled
her jewels. She claimed the body of
her son, sending Caius to entreat the
senators that it might be secretly
taken away and buried in the night.
They refused the request, ordering
the corpse to be thrown into the Ti-
ber, with the carcasses-of the three
hundred traitors who had fallen in his
cause. The mother bore the dispen-
sation with a magnaniinity which en-
deared her more than ever to the
people; and upon the accession to
the tribunate of her last son, Cains,
they erected a statue to her, with this
inscription :

Constu, rim Momma or THE GRAGCHI.

Among the laws which Cains, as
tribune, caused to be passed for the
benefit of the people, was one regula-
ting the markets and the price of
breadstufi’s; another, relative to a dis-
tribution of public lands; and still
another, depriving the senatorial or-
der of the judicial authority, and in-
vesting the equestrian order with it
exclusively. As the people empow-
cred him to select the three hundred
judges himself, he became, in a man-
ner, possessed of the sovereign power-
He sent out colonies, constructed
roads, and built public granules-
Ile went about, foIIOWed by throngs
of architects, artificers, embassadors,
magistrates, and offilel‘s- The 86.118-
tors, who both hated and feared him,
could not refrain from admiring his
amazing industrytand the energy and
rapidity with which he cfi'ected his
reforms.

 

     

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, . w, m. V _ ,4 _  ,- ~ _ a... _ F”: ' I." . ‘ I _ _. V p, ‘ ‘_ .i ' ‘ . . '- x .  u‘ , _ p. x ' g .3

 

174

THE HOME.

 

 

The senate having decided upon the
rebuilding of Carthage, which had
been lately destroyed by Scipio,
Cains sailed to superintend the labor,
of reconstruction and colonization.
During his absence, his colleague,
Livius Drusus, who was in league
with the senate to weaken his hold
upon the people, made such conces-
sions to the multitude, taking pains to
assure them that they came from the
senate, that Caius, informed of the
scheme and of its probable success,
returned hastily from Africa. But
the people, cloyed with indulgence,
welcomed him with diminished favor,
and it was obvious that his influence
was already upon the decline.

Lucius Opimius was now elected
consul, and in his hatred of Cains, set
about repealing several of his laws and.
annulling his measures at Carthage,
hoping by these annoyances to incite
him to some act of violence which would
justify a sentence of banishment. He
bore this treatment for a long time
with patience, but at last, irritated
beyond endurance, he collected his

artisans, and prepared for resistance.
t is asserted that Cornelia encouraged
him in this course, and even enrolled
a large number of men and sent them
into Rome in the disguise of reapers.
Her letters which, as we have said,
were extant two hundred years after
her death, are said to have contained
enigmatical- allusions to this circum-
stance. _Both parties posted them-
selves in the capitol on the morning
of the day in which the vote was to
be taken upon the repeal of Caius‘
laws. An accidental: collision re-
sulted in the death of a. lictor, Quintus
Antyllius, Whose insolent conduct,
however, at $601! a period of excite-
ment, furnished a. sufficient motive for
his destruction. Caius deeply regret-

 ‘, ted the occurrence, being well aware
“th he had given his enemies the pre-

text they desired. Opimius rejoiced
at the opportunity, and foresaw an
efisy' triumph. A heavy ram kept
file, combatants for a time apart;
.Caius, as he returned home, stopped

 

before his father’s statue, giving vent
to his sorrow in sighs and tears.
Many of the people, moved to com-
passion, accompanied him to his house
and passed the night before his door,
keeping watch and taking rest by
turns.

His partisans assembled the next
morning upon the Aventinc IIill, un-
der the command of one-Fulvius, a
man of factious life, and for several
just reasons, offensive to the senate.
Cains was present in his toga, and un-
armed, except with a small dagger.-
An ambassador was sent to Opimius
in the forum, proposing terms of ac-
commodation. He returned with the
answer that criminals could not be
allowed to treat by heralds, but should
surrender themselves to justice before
they interceded for mercy. The same
herald was sent a second time, but as
he made proposals in all respects
identical with the first, he was de-
tained. Opimius now offered pardon
to all who should abandon Gruechus;
the unhappy tribune was gradually
deserted by his forces till he was left
defenseless and at the mercy of the
consul. Opimius led his men to the
Aventine, and fell upon the remnant
of the disaffected army with ungov-
crnablc fury. Three thousand Roman
citizens were slain upon the spot.
Cains took refuge with a single scr-
vaut in a grove sacred to the Furies;
the servant, yielding to his master’s
entreaties, pierced him with his sword,
and then killed himself at his side.
The enemy came up, and having cut
off the head of Gracchus, marched off

- with it as a trophy. Opimius had of-

fered a reward for his head ; the sum
to be paid was to depend upon its
weight. Septimuleius, one of Caius’
bosom friends, having obtained pos-
session of it 351 carried it home,
removed the br..ns, ppuring melted
lead into the cavity. The consul,
without testifying surprise at the un-
usual weight, a circumstance which
was hardly to be looked for even in a
son of Cornelia, paid the stipulated
sum in gold—seventeen pounds by the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LITTLE LUCY.

175

 

scales. With Cains Gracchus per-
ished the freedom of Rome. The Re-
public had long been verging to its
fall; one century more, and Augustus
Caesar mounted the imperial throne. '

By the death of' Cains, Cornelia. be-
came virtually childless; her only sur-
viving daughter, Sempronia, being, to
a certain extent, alienated by the dis-
approval,openl y expressed by her hus-
band Africanus, of the measures which
had brought ruin upon her brothers.
She took up her residence at Misenum,
upon a promontory overlooking the
lovely expanse of water now known
as the bay of Naples. She made no
change in her mode of life, keeping
her house always open, and her table
always ready for purposes of hospital-
ity. The kings in alliance with Rome
expressed their regard by the frequent
ofl'er ol‘prescnts. Shewassurrounded

RI men of letters, in whose society

e was glad to pass her declining

g’v‘Ji‘iyeai's. The alllictions and bereave-

incnts which she had suffered, so far
from being forbidden themes, were
the subjects upon which she best loved
to converse. She often spoke of her
father Africanus, delighting her lis-
teners by descriptions of his private
life and his domestic virtues. It was
he, she said, who first uttered the sen-
timent‘that he was never so much occu-
pied as when he had nothing to do, and
never in such good company as when
left to himself. She spoke of her sons
without a sigh or a tear; they had
been killed on consecrated ground,
and the spots upon which they fell
were monuments worthy of them.
She recounted their actionsand their
martyrdom, as if they had been he-
roes in ancient story. Her magna-
nimity and resignation passed with
many for insensibility and indifference;
they imagined, says Elutarch, that age
and the magnitude of her misfortunes
had deprived her of understanding.
But he adds, those who were of that

- opinion seem rather to have wanted

understanding themselves ; since they
knew not how muc‘i a noble mind
may, by a. liberal education, be en-

 

 

abled to sustain itself against dis-
tress.

Though two thousand years have
passed since the occurrence of these
events, the student of classic history
can hardly recur, in thought, to this
second period of the Roman annals,
without, as it were, invollmtarily re.
calling to mind, as types of its virtues
anduwitnesses to its greatness, the
members of the illustrious family
whose fortunes we have sketched—-
Scipio, Cornelia, and the Gracchi.

 

LITTLE LUCY.
BY ALICE CARY.

Sim took up life as easily
As if it were not new,—

Reaeh’d for the sunshine. on the grass,
And dabbled in the dew:

And grew acquainted with the rose
When Spring had trinnu’d her bowers,
As if she came to dwell with us,
.From out a. world of flowers.

She thought that by an unseen hand
The little birds were fed,

And that her blind lamb tenderly
Along his path was led.

She smiled at nightfall. and she smiled
To see the storm astir:

As ifwithin her father‘s house
No harm could come to her.

She only learn‘d the names of things
The brightest and mast sweet,

For ere she stay'd here long enough
The lesson to complete,

Death kiss‘d her eyelids, and she fell
Asleep without a fear,

Trusting our love to keep her safe
Till morn should reappear.

j

THY \VlLL BE DONE.

'l‘nY will be done'! In devious way

The hurrying stream of life may ’9" i

Yet still our grateful hearts shall say,
Thy will be done!

Thy will be'donc! Ifo’c!‘ us shine

A‘gladdening and a prpsperous .Sufl,

This prayer will make it more dinne—
Thy Wlu be done!

Thy will be done1 Though Shrouded o’er
Our path with gloom, one comfort—one
Is ours—to breathe, while we adore

Thy will be done! .

 

 

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THE HOME.

 

 

 

THE WRONG RIGHTED; OR, THE OLD HEART AND THE NEW.

BY HETTA VICTORIA VICTOR.

CHAPTER VI.

“ 0 Death ! l’ve sought thee far and long—
Wilt thou not come to me ?'
Sweet as the mother‘s cradle-song
-Thy welcome voice will be."

“ Nay. thou must bide thy destined time. s
Why weariest/thou of life?
Art thou all stain‘d with unknown crime
0r vex‘d with worldly strife 2' " -' '

“No crime is on my soul, though sin

Walks hand in hand with good ;

But all without me and within
Doth justify my mood.

Thou hast for me no vague alarms—
I seek thee with delight,

A's love doth seek for beauty's‘ arms
To cradle him at night.

If life is cruel, false, and fierce-—
Vexatious, dull, and base-

Why should I not the future pierce,
'And meet thee, face to face I’ "

“ With life being thus dissatisfied,
Ami mock'd by things which are,
How (lurst thou venture the untried
And unknown things to bear ? "

“ Because, be there a God of love, 0

Whose will runs not amiss,

There is no realm below, above,
More desperate than this!

My heart was like the violet meek,
Which smiles on earth and sky—

Now, no old statue of the Greek
Can be more cold than I.

Truths, bitten-er for than lies, there are,
And lies are bitter, too :—

Oh, take me, Death, and bear me far,—
I am not afraid of you i ”

“ Perchsnce thine eyes are charm'd with weeds
Which blind with pride and hate, .
Exsg crating evil deeds
An dwarfing man’s estate."

“ 01:99, when my heart ran o'er: like min

- hem roses fresh and young,

1 bless d the hand which gave me pain
And kiss d the lips which stung.

But I have seen such hopeless wrong
Irreconciled with right,

Why should I useless years prolong,
8 nos Earth withdraws her light 'r "

h u As summer more res lend

Afterltfimpestuous‘daysfnt beam,

80 Fait 1 n sunny splendor stream
Through Doubt's dissolving hues,

Go to i then know'st not to endure!

. But thou shalt live and learn 1

And when again 1 pass, be sure

Thou’it seek not my return."

 S time passed by, it became evi-

 dent to Mr. Livingstone that he

should not be able t0 raise the sum
he had hoped, especially as his enemy

' l-fiwas exceedingly suspicious, and had

learned by means of underhanded in-
quiries, of his attempts to dispose of
 valuable horses and carriage. No

 

sooner had Mr. Reynard ascertained
this to his satisfaction, than he began
to insist upon the fulfilment of the
contract. “Miss Martha. was in the
possession of her senses, 'and could
marry him as well now as any other
time. He shouldn’t seek to claim
her, nor take her away from home
till she was able to go. But he"
wanted the thing done. ‘There was
many a slip ’twixt the cup and lip ;’
and he didn’t like the way things
was going on. He was not the man
to be bamboozled.” So he avowed
himself, and so stood prepared to act,
with all that dogged pertinacity which
his physiognomy predicted. The
banker felt as if he had sold himse
to the devil. Undecided, and t .,
mented upon every side, he knew n

which way to turn. To add to his
indecision, his wife complained of the
ruin and want he 'had brought upon
her; of her inability to support her
proper station in society withoutjew-
els or carriage ; of the dread‘she had
of avowing to her friends the neces-
sity of their “coming down,” even if
no whisper of reproach was 'heard
against their good name. She thought
Martha ought to be willing to sacrifice
some of the. romantic fancies of youth,
rather than permit such misfortune to
the p ts who had made so much
of her.‘ She was afraid her child was
ungrateful. Jacob Reynard was al-
most an old man, and might die in a
very few years, leaving her a wealthy
widow, with only her own tastes to
consult. Ah! worldly-minded mo.
ther! death “hath all seasons for his
own,” and the fair flower may be
cut down before the withered fig-tree.
A wife who is really a friend and ad-
viser, strong and faithful in the hour
of need, her price is indeed beyond
rubies; but the extravagant woman
forever urging on to fresh display,
making fashion her standard of

  
 

 

 

 

THE WRONG RIGHTED.

    

177

 

happiness, and having only the gall
0f reproach and the wormwood of sar-
casm in time of trouble—what but a
wrong impetus can she give at the
moment when her hand touches the
balance?

Martha saw the turn affairs were
taking; and when her mother came
one morning, with soft voice and ex-
ceeding tenderness, to inquire If she
felt better, if her mind was any easier,
if she felt any more reconciled to
the idea of her marriage than she had
done—she knew what was expected
of her. When her father made her
his brief visit before going out to the
business of the day, her eyes asked
him more than her lips; but he avoid-
ed her questioning, and retired with a‘
brew of gloom. fihat very afternoon
there was a“'kneck at ‘her door, and
Mr. Reynard entered before the us-
ual hour of his call. His face was
flushed and angry. Martha could see
that his hands trembled with re-
pressed excitement; he motioned her
attendant to leave the room, and ask
Mrs. Livingstone to take her place.
The moment she disappeared, he be-
gan in a determined tone :

“There’s to be no more fooling,
Martha Livingstone. I don’t want to
harmyou nor alarm you, but I’m not
going to delay, when delays are dau-
gerous... You said you’d marry me,
if I would spare your father. Idid
‘Spare him, and brought him back
here when he was flying om his
country in disgrace. He’s fiig ad-
vantage ofthislittle sick spc o yousr
to make different arrangements, and
I expect you know all about it. Now
I’ll be blown if I’ll put up with it. I
shall bring a clergyman with me at
eight this evening. So you may
summon who you please to witness
the ceremony. I shall give you a
reasonable period to recover your
health, before I ask you to leave your
home, but I’m bound to see the
dockyments signed. That’s all I have
350 say, my dear, so put a little pink
mto your eheeks,.nd be ready.”
He chucked her under the chin with a

 

grim smile, as he said this, and turned
to leave, when meeting Mrs. Living-
stone at the threshold, he added,
“We’re to be married at eight this
evening. It’s all arranged between
Martha and me, and now I’m off to
invite my father-in-law to the wed-
ding.” 1*

“Is it all arranged?” asked her
mother, as he went out. Martha
bowed her head, without speaking.
“Well, my love, maybe it’s all for
the best. ‘Man proposes, but God
disposes;’ blessings often come out
of our trials.” '

“ What time is it mother? Three
o’clock? Perhaps I could sleep a
little, if I were left alone for an hour
or two.”

“That’s bravely said, my dear. I
admire your composure; it’s so much
better for you than to be so hysteri-
cal. When will you have your tea——
at seven?” Mrs. Livingstone afl'ee-
tiohately kissed the pure brow of her
daughter, dropping a tear upon it
as she did so.

Martha’s com ,osure was of a dan-
gerous kind. hen her mother left
the room, she shut her eyes, and lay
for a few moments with her hands
pressed over the lids. She was re-
solved upon suicide. When Mr. jte‘y-
nard chucked her under the chin with
that disagreeable smile, her maiden
soul revolted—he grew to her more
intense] y abhorrent than he had been . _
before. ~ '

“Our lives are not in our own '
hands, it is true. But if it be a sin .
to take my life in my hands, it is 8
larger, more fearful sin .to take a VOW
which I must break almillio'n times a
day, year after year. Five 11°F .the
strength to meet the seen}? Wh10h_l
shall evoke by refusing him at tins
late moment—the repl‘OaChca 0f f
mother, the ruin of my filthel‘w ‘ 7
God, forgive me, for I hardly know ' ’
what I do ! ” .

Arising, she stole with flutried
steps to the case Of medicines which
was in her. 1‘0011'1. She looked for’b
vial of laudanum which she the .1 ‘

  
  
   
  
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
  
    
  
  
  
   
  
  
   
 
 
 
 
 
   
   
   
  
  
   
 
   
   
   
         

     

178

THE HOME.

 

 

was there—a servant had taken it
away to relieve an aching tooth the
A 'V previous evening. Well! there was
' "f chloroform enough to put her into
i  that sleep from which there iS‘DO
?  earthly awakening—to send her to
, “ “that country from whose undiscov-
 7 ere‘bourne no traveler returns.”

1‘ She regained her pillow with the bot.
tle grasped tight in her hand.

In that involuntary pause which
comes before the commission of so
eventful an act as the one she con-
templated, suddenly there fell upon
3, her ear 9. voice. As sentences spoken
L in long-past years come back to the
-' memory of the drowning, the words
were uttered in her ear, and at first
she supposed that they were actually
breathed by some superhuman spirit
at her side, but afterward convinced
herself it was her own mind speaking
to itself: “Then said his wife unto
i _ him, ‘Dost thou still retain thine in-
: tegrity? Curse God, and die.’ But
'- he said unto her, ‘Thou speakest as

one of the foolish women speaketh.
What! shall we receive good at the
hand .of God, and shall we not re-
ceive evil?” In all this did not Job
sin with his lips.”

1 Nothing but good had Martha re-

infqeived at the hand of the Lord all her

“ life, and now at the first heavy pres-

sure of the chastening hand, she had
sinned with her lips—she was ready
1 E‘to curse God and die. . A vision of
‘ Job and his immortal sufferings,
borne with such sublimity of pa-
tience, and rewarded with such an ex-
ceeding great reward of glory, arose
and filled_her mind. She saw the
patriarch, clothed in sackcloth and
ashes, sitting apafut in his desolation,
with that pathetic grandeur which
" must have illummated his suffering
I  i ‘ ' and he lifted his wasted hand,
1 it upon her head, and whisper-
‘ Child, child, canst then not en
, 7, 6 even for a day 2” _
 éc'EWith an‘efi‘m; quickly, as if afraid
"i r ’   would yell OVGI'QODIG
 " "gr-the vial acrossthe ,I‘Oom,
_ : e away from the light,

«<';&«/~d"c"7'!' V

r. way -.~r ,

‘ a“ Au; - . a M "

 

   
  
  
  
  
  
   
   
  
    
   
     
 
  
 
    
  

  

    

 

burying it in the pillow. Prayer was
in her heart, and she prayed as she
had never before done. She prayed,
not selfishly for happiness, but earn-
estly for light to see her way clearly,
to choose aright, however rough and
narrow, might be the path. She no
longer desired the bitter cup to pass
from her, but only to know which
burden she was called upon to bear.
After two-hours of the severest self-
communion, she was certain that she
saw her duty plainly; to refuse to
take upon herself false vows, and con. ‘ -
taminate the finest essence of her
nature by binding herself in the close
and relations of marriage to an impure
depraved man whom her hear ab.
horred. She felt the full force of her
obligation to her parents, but retained
the divine right to the disposal of her
affections. She felt that it could not
be her duty to falsify herself to pro-
tect them from the consequences of
their imprudence. If her father had
sinned, he must expiate his sin—not
call upon her to bear the burden of
his misdoing, and cover it up with
further error. She piticd him with
a divine compassion. But while she
piticd, she felt that real mercy to him
was to be true to herself; .to help
him, by showing him humility and a
willingness to bear the consequences
of evil. Weak indulgence and not
earnest love would prompt to a cover-
ing up of 'faults and a return of the
good things be had forfeited. She
would rfdlly help him to bear his
load ame until humility and ex-
piatidn had changed it into a covering
of brightness. Her mother, too—she
would uphold her by her own hum-
ble example, help her to learn self-
denial—that it is better to be free and
poor, than rich and enthralled.

A.severe struggle was before her,
and she had. but little strength to pass
through the mental excitement of the
trial, but Ashe prayed fervently for aid
from above.

 

 

 

 

THE WRONG RIGHTED.

CHAPTER VII.
“ All things are sold : the very light of heaven

ls venal ; earth's unsparing gifts of love,

The smallest and most despicable things

That lurk in the abuses of the deep;

All objects of our life, even life itself,

And the poor pittance which the law allows

()fliberty, the fellowship of man,

'l‘hose duties which his heart of human love

Should urge him to perform instinctively,

Are bought and sold as in a. public mart.

I-lvcn love. is sold ; the solace of all W09

Is turned to deadliest agony, old age

Shivers in selfish beauty's loathing arms.

SHELLEY.

EIGHT o’clock struck, and the fam-
ily gathered in Martha’s chamber.
She had been helped up and partially
dressed by her vaiting-maid, and was
sitting in an arm-chair, wrapped in a
robe-de-chambre of azure silk, which
made her pale face look yet more
delicate in hue. Her hair was twisted
up carelessly at the back of her head,
and her hands, grown somewhat trans-
parent by sickness, were folded in her
lap; her eyes were closed. Mr.
Reynard and the clergyman entered
the room ; a slight Quiver passed
over her eyelids as she heard their
voices, but she did not make an effort
to welcome them. '

“You’d better give her a glass of
wine. It’s but a few words 'to be
said, and then it’ll be over, and she
can rest as much as she pleases,” said
the bridegroom to Mrs. Livingstone,
who was vainly endeavoring to re-
ceive the minister with her usual su-
perb ease.

“Those few words will never be
said by me to you,” spoke Martha in
a low but untremuhms voi press-
ing her hands hard together,“le her
clear eyes fixed themselves firmly
upon Mr. Reynard’s face.

“ VVhat’s this ’i more fooling '5.” and
her father turned sharply upon her.

He had never spoken to her in this
manner before, and .it was now the
impulse of a troubled, halfmaddened
temper which had been hunted until
it suddenly stood at bay.

The intended bridegroom saw in
the eyes that met his, clearly, as soul
to soul, that she meant all she said;
and he, as well a all others, was
amazed by the lighi, and color, and

 .

 

179

courage which shone out upon her
countenance, a moment ago so lifeless.
“Yes, more fooling, Mr. Living-
stone, and Iswear it is the last! I’ve
been bamboozled long enough by a
chit of a girl. Go omwith the cere-
mony, minister.”
“ How can I, if the lady chief”
“ She does not object—she are
not—or—” he’re J acobBeynard" for-
got the place and occasio far enough
to utter an oath. “I 1 see that.
she rcpcnts. She pro lid, of her
own free will, to marryi'ne, and this
is the second time she has got me up
here to make me ridiculous. Go on,
I say.” "
“ Mr. Reynard, I have had good and
sufficient reason for breaking a prom-
ise which was .extorted from me. I
shall never keep it. I would rather
bear all the consequences of your
malice which I doubt not will be se-
vere enough. But God has given me
strength to take this resolution. He
is my protector.”
lle looked a moment into the beau-
tiful face shining with firm faith, as
the wolf looks after the lamb escaped
from its clutches, then whirling on his
heel, and facing the few persons pres-
ent, he burst forth :
“Know then, all, who it is who re-
fuses the hand of the man who would
have saved her—the daughter of a
defaulter, whose name to-morrow--”
“ Martha, Martha, will you ruin 
us?” broke in her mother,almost’
with a shriek, as she laid hold Of Mr. 
leynard’s arm to silence him. “She
is sick, and full of freaks. I knOW
what she wishes,” and forcibly she
seized her daughter’s hand and placed
it in the fierce grip of the lover.
“Proceed with the ceremony, MP- - .
Brainley ; I authorize you t0.d0 30.” . ‘ +343”
The clergyman opened his 57‘  
the girl could no 1301'0 "5193 
hand from the savage grasp uP
than she could“ [Hove a: Inount
All was silent, exce the voice of m 2' '
minister, who began t 0 SOIemn words
of themarriage service. It'wentgg
__wha.t could she do, .wbut~ '

a; ' . M
, .
. .' ii ,_ -

    
   
    
   
   
  
 
   
 
   
  
   
   
 
   
   
  
   
  
  
   
   
 
  
   
   
  

  

180

 

THE HOME.

 

 

uiet-until the final moment came
when she could refuse to take this

man for her lawful wedded husband.
“If any one can show just cause
. ,. why these two shall not be joined to-
gether in the gioly bonds of matri-
" mony, let him now speak, or forever

af hold his peace.”

,, arcely were the words spoken,
before a ringing voice‘eplied, “I for-
bid the banns ! ” a _

... ‘ All turnfii to look at the speaker,
“and v' thrsurprise that it was a
sewihg-gir .ho had made .Martha’s
traveling-Qress, and had been doing
sewing at,the house, much of the
time, for the past month. Asked in

‘i
t

\.

“Vanuatu-d. <ma'wrs'»“""" ‘”

by the nurse, who passed through the “

ro where she was plying her
needle, she had remained standing an
unobserved observer of the scene.

   
   
   
  
    
  
   
   
  
  
   
 
 
   
   
  
     
   
 
    
 
 
 

simpler grandeur 3m she had uncon-
sclously- taken. ' er thin person was
raised to its full hieght; her eyes
flashed with a light as of a burning
brain within. Not tall, herfform yet
grew into majesty, as, poising herself,
with .her' slender arm pointing to
heaven, she cried again, “I forbid the

’ ' unholy banns—humanity forbids them
-—the God that is in heaven forbids

" them!” The room' was stilled to
the hush of death ; all felt that a fear-
ful power was there. Reynard drew
back, amazed beyond the power of
utterance : with all his brutal force of
character, he was yet a moral coward,
‘ésuperstitious and timid in the pres-
ence of an apparition like that before
him. “In the namelof God, 'whose
mercies and Judgments are over all,

I forbid Munholy ceremony! What

, would you do? Sacrifice a human
_ ;. hears—song. a human soul to clun-
‘ . . -" eons of espa1r—-wreck ha iness
 h  ver? Away With you, mIirlfister,
: h ,  e Christ, but Of the world ! ” she
"I advancing to the center of the
g r, while all present shrank away
' the wall, awed and stricken by the
' of her presence. “You
i  the sanctity of your
omce  \ffl‘ing this helpless woman

_ g2“ .~ 

 

  
 

. . '

  

v,

 

 

Rachel never struck an attitude of’

 

to a man she loathes.
to be our reward—ay, gold. Judas
sold hrist—why not you this poor,

helpless, pure-hearted girl to a life- .

long crucifixion? Away with your
cant and hypocrisy, lest your tongue
should be blasted forever!” It was
as if an Angel of Retribution had
dropped into the room. The minis-
ter answered not a word—rhis tongue
refused to do its office.

“ By all the truth of virtue, by the
strength which Christ gives to the

A rich fee is

weak, by the hate which comes from_

wrong, I pronounce you, sir, a seouni
drell” she exclaimed, advancing a.
step toward Reynard, pointing her
finger at him. He shrank still fur-
therlaway, clutching convulsiver the
back of a chair. “I have lived to
learn precious lessons from bitter ex-
periences, and if there is justice in
heaven, I would call it down upon

the man whose gold buys immunity.

for outrage upon female helplessness.
0. Mary, mother of Christ, hear
me; and if there is mercy at thy
throne, leave thy. wronged children
not alone with the destroyer!” was
said with upturned eyes and clasped
hands, while tears streamed down
over the face beaming with its un-
earthly pallor. Mrs. Livingstone
sank sobbing into a chair; Mr. Liv-
ingstone, trembling in- every limb,
gazed with a kind of terror upon the
girl; Reynard grew as white as
death, before the speaker’s burning
eyes, d turned to the minister a
look fimploratien; Martha sat up,
leaned forward; her eyes were dis-
tended; her face gleamed with the
conscious strength of her womanhood
which all went out in worship of that
strange guest of the chamber. You
might have heard the heart-throbs in
the silence of that moment.

“ When will this mockery be done
——these human sacrifices be past?”
she continued, with the air of an ora-
cle. “Never, so long as gold de-
mands them. Gold! Ah! it is more
powerful than truth, or goodness, or
love, for all thes’fall before it as the

&

 

 

 

 

 
 

   

tlnwors arc washml (lawn hy thv tlnml.
Man. that was lnaili‘ in lllk‘ iniagu ul'
his Creator, has lH‘t'UIHO thv hamil
thing «it angels fin‘ hi'~z win-ship nt‘
guhl. \Vhr) an! _\‘nn that has ilai‘wl
tn 'i'ms tho tln‘wshnlil nt' this «Inivt.
i-liaiiilwr.tnili<tnrhit<}u-:1(-i‘,tna1rwll-
in: its lli'ul‘tx', to hlast, its earthly
hnln-N.’ A man m“ gulilfla man «)t'
gulll l" she. ('i'iwl, “ith inn-llaliln :wmn
(lt‘IJlt'lt‘ll nlwn «wiry li-atin'c. "Thi-
angi-ls nf hvaVi-n turn away li'nin
adv/z a man, hill; the tlt‘lllUlH of hull
an: v\‘nin' t'i'ii‘ntls—ymn' _/)'ir'nr/.~:, l say.
int think nut. sir, him-anw- yun havw
a hwai't, as rt-li-ntli-ss as that “1' a sav-
agv, that, yun shall 5;!) (-nnilni-ring un
yuai' way uwr l'llllll‘tl lli':ll‘l\‘ anil sur—
mwing llt‘:ll'lll-Hi|tll(‘.\'2 SH sure a\' illt'l't‘
is an Ax'cnging l’uu'vr, shall “van
in wt, 2:13;: nit Zinni‘. 'ji!~ll1'\‘.“

'l‘hun l.llt'ill.ir;‘ iamn Mm. Living-
\‘lHlli‘. whrmo SHlN \Vt'l‘i‘ lltt‘t'\'.\'illtl anll
luail, shu- mntinnwl, ".\li'.<. Living-
it, ix' sni-h as you \x'hn ln'in;r
sni‘rmv npnn Ulll‘ svx, anil rnin npun
D'IHH' llHtISt'llHltl, 1901' Winn-[1.01% ynll
\Viblllll ltaw‘ plale _\'<>n1' lilltllt nlwn
llll‘. ttll.‘l[' Ul‘ llltllUl‘)’ tl(‘\ll‘l‘~li)t' ll'!.\;-
firm yun haw. liviwl lwynntl “\wnr hns-
lmnul'x‘ nn‘nns', anil thna [rlai-wl him in
tin- [mm-1‘ “1' that man ill-gwltl; what
to lw _\'Hllt‘ I’t‘\\':ll‘1l.) Ynn it!“
a 1m liw'xltlg' (‘lli'i\‘ti:ni. lutt \thrv
law-n this lm'ing (-nnxiilvi‘atinn
\\l1ll'l!:llltllHWUI‘Ul' (‘ln'ist :'
{awn-l tn nwn'.’ \Vlm h;
lllt‘, ln‘llt'l‘ ur happier ti)
l mu 1mm: haw lahui'i
eighti-va huin's a «lay t'
lllt'l'“ I’lllflllf't' Hf hrv
('vnnlulainml that n
ulay Wt'l'U tun m
taxtwl thn
nnw lli'l‘ gray ha
raw :1an tlvnial.
hnav a an angvl
x'n-t jtunr Sl't'thl
fr m: tll.‘tl1)ttl' \\‘
m0. l haw cat
and have Hut 0w:
nv‘ss annl insnlt
All this in a
huu-w! lamk a

sinnv.

(night

Ulli‘k‘

THE W IONG RIGIITEI).

 

   
   
    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
   
      
  
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
   
 
 
 
  

181

fawn annl hulan fly“, at, my l‘lll.‘l(‘l.‘ll(‘tl
tin'm——\\’hat, wwnnflnt snv'h a \\'l'\‘('l{,)
Survive. lin' Sllt'll :tw‘ _\'mi, \\'l;n HVt‘l'lflx'k
the nnprutm'tml li‘llltllt‘, aml pay lnr
1H1) lllllx‘, litl' llt‘l'
nanw. All! tllm‘u‘ :n‘v thnn-‘amls lilo-
llh‘. ax‘ t'nll nl' Sllll't'l‘ltl'j anul quilt «n-
tllll':lll"(‘, svrving t‘l'llt‘l \\'Htliwl|, \ahuxu

‘
l't‘\'i)4‘l‘l 'Utlt'. S'Htis.

sillm‘ anil ('lvqan‘u «wtal'li lll.lt'llli (ll)
Ii'lt I~~"‘IniL llli'lll in in: ('H!'*~illn'l';1l~' I‘l.
th-- \Vt'lllll'k' nl' llt" [WW Mining .girl «'1'
gHVI'I‘lli‘wN‘. szl" xhn Him], with
l':1l\‘"ll \mim an‘l (wt-itwl Inannwr,
" lllt‘, wry gin-4 up from it‘ll thwnvnnl
hv-avv hurts anll nnmm-tl-tin' SH‘. ln:
‘ 'l‘lllit‘t‘ is in» hull» tin' 1H, nu lalmi', no
ln'i'ml l’ .-\n«l7 with that, my nn thz-ii'
lipx‘. nniltitnllws nl' Inna; lining w.»
ltll‘ll l'llx‘ll lv)1llnsll‘w‘l\‘,llwl‘ing',l).\':L

lili‘ nt' shaniv, tn tln'jjl't, tlw pang: u‘
_ V I

lays“ -t' :17b l (will ll" ,. '
.  :1, It
law ‘11),() Hi\i ‘ilul ~. Ll.

Srltlilx‘ )‘vti l/H/N/ iln Si), 17
riut in lnxnrv in thr
4"Il\’, tho. gull] ul-
antt‘ hn<han<l<
thr‘, pmn‘ gii"
thw ninth I
lt' 14 1h.»
InHth'
llt'li“

182
further evil to him whose ruin can
advance you not one, jot in ‘riehes, in
happiness, or in the graee of God,
.whieh you so mneh Heed. And
hark l ”———-here. her voice, dropped into
a low, fia-ree utteranee, as it' the soul
was speaking from those eompressed
lips; “if you dare to press your
claims further upon this girl’s hand——
if you dare to proelaim Blr. Living-
stone’s disgran in the street, I shall
tell the story of a Woman’s wrongs,
of your infamous seheme, to every
worshiping (-ongregation of this city
——l shall have the ollieers of justice
on your trael; l'or Conspiraey and as-
sault. Meet that ordeal, if you dare,
sir l ”
The invalid rose in her chair, as if
) Clasp the poor girl to her heart.

""ort \Vas too great, and she
fallen to the floor, had
I '01/_// caught the fainting
fly on the l)(‘(]. She
‘Temesis of an un-

  
  
 
  
  
  
   
 
  
 
 
    

THE HOME.

 

holy rite, but an angel of' tenderness7
putting aside thy-y rieh hair from the
ten'iples ot' Marrha, and bathing them
with a mother’s solieitude. Une liy
one the (company lelt the ehamlwr,
silently, as persons in a dream. Mr.
and M rs. Livingstone turned to their
own room. He‘t'llul'd and the minis-
ter passed out into the darkness, elos.
ing. the door softly after them. The.
house was solemn with a stillness
like that which follows alter the «piiet
sea has swallowed up its dead. lu‘lea-
nor Strong:r was a spirit tln-re.1no\‘inq
noiselessly around the room in gentle
ministration. 3y and by, she, too,
went out into the night, to lind her
way to a mother’s heart, where. she
could weep and lind rest for her over-
taslged nerves a id l'm'ered Main. The
great house was alone to the sweetly-

sleeping invalid and to the deeply—
tonehed and contrite hearts of the
parents.

(To be continued.)

 

 

VERSES FOR 11—. 183

 

 

 

The northern breeze has hung
IIis wintery harp upon some giantpine,
And the pale stars among
I see the star I love to name as mine:
But toward the southI turn my eager eyes—
Beyond its flush’d horizon my heart lies.

The snow-clad isles of ice

Launch’d by Wild Boreas from the northern shore,
Journey the fvay my eyes

Turn with an env10us longing evermore ;—
Smiling back to the sky

Its own pink blush,—and, floating out of sight,
Bear south the softest dye

Of northern skies to fade in southern night;

My eyes but look the way my j0ys are gone,

And the ice-islands travel not alone. .

The untrod fields of snow

Glow with the rosy smile of parting day ;
And fancy asks if so

The snow is stain’d with sunset far away ;
And if some face, like mine,

Its forehead press’d against the window pane,
Peers northward, with the shine

0f pole star reflected in eyes’ rain ;

And my heart says it must be so,

And like a bound bird flutters hard 0.

Sad eyes that, blurr’d with rs,
Gaze into darknes§ gaze no mor 'n vain
VVhence no loved face appcfis,
And no voice comes to lull the heart’s fond pain !
Sad heart! restrain thy throbs,
F or beauty, like a presence out of heaven,
Rests over all and robs
Sorrow of pain, and makes earth seem forgiven :—
Twilight the fair eve ushers in with,grace,
And rose cloudswelt, for stars to take their place.
VOL. VII. 11

 

-pv‘l‘~ .dmr ..

“DJ-u ‘..“ is. .

.
.
r»
3
1
I

f
i"

 

,early an age.

    

184

THE HOME.

 

FEMALE DEVELOPMENT.

MON G the various subjects which

interest the public mind at the

present day, that of female education
occupies a prominent position.

As early as the year 1818, the
illustrious De Witt Clinton, then gov-
ernor of New York, recommended to
the legislature 'of that State some spe-
cial attention to the education of fe-
males. A law was enacted, the first

of the kind in the United States, mak:

ing public provision for the support
of academies and seminaries, in which
young ladies might be instructed in
the higher branches of literature.
Since that time, the interest felt on
this subject has been constantly in-
creasing; and female seminaries, acad-
emies, and boarding-schools have been
established in various parts of our
land “to diffuse the light of science
and the blessings of religion.”

Still, it is too often the case that
parents seek for their daughters an
ornamental rather thi a substantial
education—one which fit them to
shine rather than to b ful. I As a
consequence, hundreds of ung la-
dies leave our public i itutions
wholly unfittcd for the sternfi‘ealities
of life. They may, perhaps, be able
to converse with some degree of facil-
ity; to draw, paint, play the piano
with skill, and display a superficial
knowledge of French. But, such an
education, unaccompanied by more
substantial knowledge, will create dis-
relish. for domestic employments,
since 113 but partially fits woman to
perform the appropriate duties of her

\ sphere, as daughter, wife,and mother.

Another fault in present systems of

education iS, that many attempt to

complete a course of study at too
Young ladies, anxious
to enter society, Obtflin a diploma
when so young that It is impossible
for them to have that thorough knowl-
edge of the branches pursued, which
they would have obtained, had they
waited until a few more years of ex-
perience had given greater strength

 

of judgment and maturity of intel-
lect. ‘

Sufficient attention is not paid, in
most of our boarding-schools, to phys-
ical exercise; and, not unfrequently,
a young lady leaves them with a con-
stitution undermined and with the
seeds of a disease which will consign
her to an early grave. Whatever
else may be neglected, provision
should be made for daily exercise in
the open air, as essential both to bod-
ily and mental vigor.

The true object of an education‘is
twofold: to develop the mental fac-
ulties, and to bring them to subserve
to the glory of the Creator. .This
can not be effected without acourse
of thorough systematic training. Our
institutions for young ladies should
be furnished with competent and lib-
erally educated instructors, with libra-
ries, apparatus, and every thing neces-
sary to render the physical, mental,
and-moral culture, all what it should
be, thorough. The relation of woman
to ociety is, one of the reasons wh

.she should be so dealt with. The

power of her general influence can
hardly be estimated. The grace and
gentleness of her sex add a charm to
her words and actions which can not
be resisted. By employing her ef-
forts in the cause of truth, she may
be instrumental in calling into action
master-spirits, who will devote their
lives and talents to the good of man-
kind. ‘

Woman should be fully educated,
that she may be fitted to become an
instructor of the young. To train
the youthful mind properly, is a work
of great difficulty and importance:
and surely those who attempt it,
should possess well-balanced and am-
pl y-cultivated intellects.

But the most important reason
why woman should be educated, ex.
ists in her relations to the family.
As a sister, who can estimate the in-
fluence which She may exert over her
brothers? How important her char-

racter should-be so formed, that this
influence may be salutary !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GOT THE FEVER. 185

 

Upon her as a mother devolves the
'ast responsibility of training immortal
minds for eternity. The impressions
which she makes will be permanent.
Although she is not expected to oc-
cupy a seat in our legislative halls,

' yet she forms the characters of those

who are called to do so, tlius holding in
her hands the destinies of the nation.
Then let woman be physically,
morally, and intellectually developed,
that she may be qualified to fill with
dignity, with usefulness, with power,
whatever station in life she may be
called to fill. M.  n.

 

GOT THE FEVEl’.
AVE I got the “gold fever?”

No ! never had it, never hope to
have it; and I will tell you first how
[escaped it, and secondly, why I ex-

ect to escape it. First, then, I spend
but little time around stores, gro-
ceries, and bar-rooms, where the fever
is often caught. There are usually
lazy loungers about such places in-
fected with the disease, and, although
every new arrival of gold dust aug-
ments the fever, yet still they stay,
and talk, and sigh, and Communicate
the infection to others. Then again I
was never predisposed to the conta-
gion. Iwas never taught to believe
that the chief end of man was gold.
I remember to have read that “ the
love of money is the root of all evil,”
and this being so, for observation
confirmed the truth, I have preferred
to lavish my love on objects nearer,
dearer, and more lovely. And be-
cause I have thus placed my affections
on things of home,l expect to ever
escape the fever. Sickness may come,
and death, it may be, and dissolve the
ties which bind me here so strongly,
but against the love of gold I am
trebly protected. There is a pleas-
ant spot I call my home, where, how.
ever coldly the outer world may frown,
the home fire always burns bright.
Shall I leave this real, pleasant
home, for a lonely tent in the far
wxlds ’9. There is an eye which looks

<4

 

for my return through frosty pane or
open door, and a voice which ever
speaks in tones of love and cheerful-
ness. Would I find among the rough
miners, think you, a countenance dear
as hers whom I call by the pleasant
name of wife? Once more! When
the New Year's bells were ringing,
one bright, sunny day two years ago,
a little prattler, with eyes of mid-
night and wealth of dark brown hair,
came to our home to bind our hearts
together still more strongly.

Would I for gold take up my
lonely march in search of a shining
metal, and leave bright eyes to dim
with weeping, and childish tones to
ask in vain, “ Where is papa dorn? ”
No, dig your gold, ye feverish ones,
and look up only to watch for the
lurking red man. I will 'dig‘ the
golden soil, and plant it with fruits
and flowers, assured that the eyes
which watch my labors, are not those
of avarice, envy, or hatred, but of af-
fection. And while you in the dark-
ness dig deep beneath your hearth-
stone to bur your treasure, I will
sit by the cheerful fire-light of home,
surrounded by those whose worth
gold could never estimate, and say in
the fullness of my heart, “There are
treasures better than gold.”

MAURICE DELANCEY.

 

’I‘IIANKFULNESS.
BY I). A. BIBB.

Or the memories I cherish
Lonely moments to relieve,
One is of an infant kneeling
By his mother’s knee at eve,
Praying, “Father, make me thankful
For the blessings I receive."

It may be the words were taught him.
But my heart would fain believe.
His unsullied spirit‘s wisdom
Did the subtle truth achieve,
That we need but to be thankful
For the blessings we receive-

God doth watch o’er all his creatures,
He best knoweth what to give,
And we still shall be pursuing
Our best interest while we live,
If we strive but to be thankful
For the blessings we receive_

 

 

   

186 THE HOME.

 

MENTAL TRAINING or CI—IIL—
DREN.

BY DR. JOHN K. FRANCIS.

1R Charles Fox, visiting the Boston
schools in 1852, remarked to a
friend, “You seem to be training your
irls for a lunatic asylum.”
‘ He might have made the same re-
mark, after visiting nine tenths of the
“successful schools” in the land. Even
as we write, there rise 'up before us
the ghosts of playmates long since
gone to the grave, or there passes be-
fore us a train of pale faces and poor
bodies, with eyes unusually bright,
lit up with the intellectual fire which
is slowly consuming the flesh and
blood of their abused physical being:
they are the ghosts and the shadows
of those who went into the school room
bright and ruddy-checked children,
with health in their every action and
word. They soon imbibed the “spirit
of study,” which means, their vanity
to excel was so stimulated by their
teachers, that the body {was lost sight
of, was not cared for, was persecuted
into stooping, shoulders, dyspepsia,
weak eyes, paining forehead, con-
sumptive cough; and, though the in-
tellectual nature grew into precocious
development, and gratified the hearts
of parents and the conceit of teachers,
it was their life sacrifice which fol-
lowed. ‘3 The uncautious mariner, over-
anxious to reach port, spread the sails
of his trim little craft until ‘the unu-
sual strain and distension of sails bore
the hull down into the waters, never
to recover the course again. So the
fair child, started upon the great sea
of human thought, is crowded into a
speed and'Stl‘am which overpower its
little physwal powers, and the gay shal-
lop is soon the Wreck of a fair thing.

“ Though the strain'd ma“ lhould quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvaS, fluttering: ltrew the gals,
STILL unsr I 0N !

I wrote the poet; let it typify a mod.

ern scholar instead of a sailor boy,

and we have the figure of a good stu.

dent clearly characterized. a
Dr. Ray, in his address to the su-

 

perintendents of insane asylums, re-
marked: “ Children are put into
school almost as soon as they can go
alone, and kept there six hours a (lay,
and as they advance the work in-
creases. lf fortunate enough they
reach the age of twelve, uninjured,
then the great physiological evolution
in the system takes place, and renders
it more sensitive under the strain to
which it is subjected. They go into the
high- schools, where the sessions are
five or six hours long, and not for the
purpose of study alone ; some do not
study in school at all, the time being
occupied solely in recitation. Out of
school they are kept at their studies
frequently until ten or eleven o’clock
at night. Iam astonished every lit-
tle while at some new revelation re-
specting the extent of these practices.
A few weeks ago, I was informed that
many of the girlsattending the high
school in Providence—girls who ought
to be in bed by nine o’clock—were
up habitually until eleven or twelve
o’clock, getting up their exercises for
the next day.” '

Who does not see the truth in this
statement? Parent, look into your
own family circle! Do you see no
case in point? Are you not already
hurrying your child into the flood and
fever of “study?” Look into your
neighboring school-room, and see how
the “ successful teacher” is operating
upon the nerves and mind of the
“ bright” little one, who comes home,
day after day, languid and weary, not
to rest—only to study! study ! for
the morrow’s success. Do you not
see in its face the signs of an over-
stimulated brain? in its words and
thoughts the marks of precocious
growth? in its failing frame the evi-
dence of ill health? Do you see this,
and yet offer no word of objection to
suck a system of “ education?” You
deserve not to have children who will
thus immolate them upon the unholy
shrine of vanity, ambition, desire to
excel, or whatever name you choose
to give to the excuse for the ordeal
you choose for your little one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

’ MENTAL TRAINI

 

‘ What we think of our systems of
education, may be inferred by this
general disclaimer: they are injurious,
mentally, morally, and physically——
mentally, by over-straining and hot-
house development—moral]y, by ag-
gregating numbers of children to
hundreds under one roof, thus to taint
the impressible nature of the child
with the passions, and feelings, and
incipient vices inseparable from a
mixed crowd of young people—Physi»
cally,by ignoring calisthenics,gymnas-
tics, and exercise generally, as well
as the divine necessity of rest and re-
pose. We are prepared to show,
clear as the noon-day sun, the truth
of the position we assume, but we
surmise that proof is too apparent to
all close observers to call for its repe-
tition here. It has become so much a
necessity to laud-our common-school
systems, that it is dangerous for a
person to say Nay! very loudly; yet
we know that nine tenths of the intel-
ligence of the country does not ap-
prove of this movement for promis-
cuous intercourse of all conditions and
classes and sexes in the general school
rendezvous. That a general system
of public or free instruction is desira-
ble, is very true, and not to be gain-
sayed; but, that the system now so
generally adopted is the proper one,
can not be true so long as the objec-
tions, which we have urged above,
hold good against it.

From Dr. Ray’s admirable address
let us again quote: “ The number of
youth that break down in consequence

0f excessive cerebral activity, is count-
‘ less. The disease may pass under
§0me other name, even dysentery, as
In a case. that came under my notice
only last week. A lady informed
me' that her only child, a daughter
fourteen years old, had died at school
0f dysentery, though the disease
seemed light, and her physician had
declared, an hour or two before she
dled,_tliat there was no danger. i as-
cert‘mled, however, that she was one
Of those intellectual children who are
mild 0f Stl1dy,.and that she had-been

NG OF CHILDREN.

4

 

O

187

encouraged to use her brain to the
utmost extent, with none of those ex-
ercises and recreation which might
have checked the ruinous eti‘ect of such
a course. in this condition she was
attacked by a disease which, under
other circumstances, would not have
been serious, and she wanted the
nervous energy to resist it. This
case-illustrates an effect of excessive
cerebral exercise too much over-
looked. I mean the inability to bear
the least shock of diseases in any
other organ, as if the vital forces had
all been used up in supplying the de-
mands of the brain. The ordinary
manifestations of this condition are so
common that, in consequence of their
very commonness, they fail to make
an impression upon us.”

But why try to cite individual
cases? Space could scarce be as-
signed us in this journal to tell of
what has fallen under our single ob-
servation—of years out off from a
promising life; of broken constitu-
tions; of hopes crushed and ambi-
tions thwarted; all through the vi-
cious errors of the school-room of the
child. Let each reflecting parent sit
down and recall his or her own
knowledge of sad histories, and the
lesson we would impress upon their
minds is already before them.

What is the corrective? Most as-
suredly it is at hand. Fir t, never
place a child in school befoia seven
years of age, at least. Let its educa-
tion, up to that time, be found at the
home fireside.

plenty of vigorous exercise, plenty
of good, nourishing food, plentnyf
sleep upon a soft bed—all of whECh
will insure it health and fine bOdlly
development. When it is finally de‘
termined to place your budding r038
into the school-room Pot; .Place it
there under the severest lliJUHCthIlS
against the forcing prOQOSS; demand
for it light and Pure 8.”, and gentle
ministratiOns; protect 11: from rough
contact with gross and debilitating
plants: this will call it into its newer

See to it, at all times,’
that the child is happy, that it has .

I,“ .

 

 

 

    

188

THE HOME.

 

bloom with health on its cheeks,
strength in its limbs, and power in its
being for years of fruition and bless-
ing. Allow of no overtasking the
brain—let the progress be slow and
sure, rather than rapid and dangerous
to body and mind; make‘study a
pleasure, always—-a task, never; let
the number and choice of studies be
proportioned to strength, taste, and
ability, rather than force the number
and choice upon the child by a set-
tled and irrevocable “eo‘urse;” and,
throughout all the whole years of de-
votion to books, see to it that nature
is always first cared for, first catered
to, first developed. This simple ob-

“ servance of simple laws 'Will, in the

end, result vastly more favorably to
progress and rational development
than the present system of premature
and vicious “instruction,” public and
private.

 

STORIES FOR THE YOUNG.

THE SNOWDROP AND THE DAISY.

' OW I wish I was. any other
flower,” sighed a snowdrop, one
day in the early, bright spring.
“Why so?” asked a neighboring
daisy.
“ Why, because we are so insignifi-
cant,” answered the snowdrop; “we

flowers round us.”
“How can you say so? ” said the
contented daisy. “Surely there is no

'make n‘how among the bright spring

'flower in the garden, with which you

would change places ! ”

“ Is there not ’9 ” said the snowdrop
impatiently. “ only look at that gay
crocus yonder, Shining so brightly,
with its g‘flden OPP; it looks almost
like a little sun Itself. What a bril-
liant, beautiful colonit has! and the
dew on it sparkling like any diamond.
Oh, I wish I was a crocus l ”

“Surely you can 110$ mean,” said
the daisy, “that you would exchange
your pure whiteness for the glaring
yellow of that gaudy flower? It looks
very gay and bright, it is true, Just

 

so long as the sun shines on it, but
directly his warmth is withdrawn, its
on closes u , and it a ears uite
fadbd and dolie for.” pp q

“But then I am so unnoticed,” per-
sisted the snowdrop, in spite of all its
daisy friend’s remonstrances; “ the
crocus must always attract admiration
and notice, but I am so pale and
drooping because, my stem is so weak
and slight. I wonder why I may not
hold up my head,with other flowers.
VVhy'am I condemned always to hang
it, as if I was ashamed of being
seen ’9 ”

“ 011, do not talk so,” answered the
daisy; ‘.‘ be sure there is some good
reason: only wait a little while, and
you will understand why it is.”

That day was not far off ; the same
evening a dreadful storm arose, sleet
and hail fell in torrents, and the wind
raged fearfully. Large branches were
broken off the trees, and whirled
away by the hurricane, and even the
trees themselves were rooted up.
The frail stem of the crocus could not
for a moment stand against the fury
of the storm. The first blast that
assailed it snapped it off, and its
bruised and faded petals were blown
hither and thither. The daisy and
snowdrop bent almost to the ground,
and thewi-nd passing over their heads,
left them unharmed.

“I see, I see,” said the snowdrop,
“how ungrateful and repining l have
been, when I ought to have been
thankful that my stem was pliant
and bending.” And “the little daisy
looked up with its yellow eyes,”
brighter and more cheerful than ever,
and thankful that storms which would
destroy gayer and more showy flow-
ers, would pass over the head of one
so humble and insignificant.

at al- *- ’I: so *-

“Still,” murmured the snowdrop,
“I do not see that there can be any
good in my living, when I am not of
the least use to any one. Indeed,I
begin to think I blossom just at the
wrong time to do good. If I was a

little earlier, I should Jielp in adorn-

.".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LITTLE BETTIE.

189

 

ing the church at Christmas; or if I
had been later, I should be priZed and
sought for at Easter and \Vhitsuntide,
for the same purpose. How hard it
is to be so insignificant and small as
‘ to be of no use to any one.”

But there was a work for the snow-
drop to do: every one has their task
allotted to them, none can say they
are too mean and insignificant to be of
any use, or to do good, or that their
life is in vain. Their actions may
seem like drops to the ocean, but
though passed by and unnoticed by
all around thenr, “the hairs of their
head are all numbered by Him with-
out whose knowledge not a sparrow
can fall to the ground.” A day
passed, and the snowdrop was grow-
ing no longer in the garden “ uncared
for and unseen.” It had been woven
with others into a wreath for an in-
fant’s grave. And the mother dried
her tears on seeing them, saying:

“Those sweet flowers remind me
of my baby’s innocence.”

Had the snowdrop then lived in
vain? Oh, no! its sweet task had
been that of consolation.

 

LITTLE BETTIE.

“ HAND me some water, Buddy,
won’t you?” -

“ In a minute, Bettie. ”

And Bettie’s feverished cheeks were
pressed again to the pillow, and little
Harry’s hands went on as busily as
ever with the trap he was making, and
he at length entirely forgot the request.

“Please get it now, Buddy,” he at
last heard, and scattering knife, triggers,
and strings in his haste, he was soon

olding a cup to her crimson lips ; but
she turned her head languidly for it.
“ N 0t this, please, but some fresh
and cold from the well,” she said.

' “ Oh, don’t be so particular, Bettie;
this is fresh, and I am so busy I can’t
8° n0W. Won’t this do '9”

She no longer refused, but quietly
took the cup which he offered; and it
was the last, last time she ever called

 

upon her brother for an act of kindness.
Ere another day had passed she stood
beside the River of Life, and drank of
its cool waters, never to thirst again.
And of all who wept over that little
brown coffin, as it lay upon thetable
before the pulpit, there were none who
shed more bitter tears than that little
boy, who could not forget that he had
refused the last request of his little
sister.

Little children, are you kind to one
another? or are you cross, selfish, and
fretful? Remember, then, the time
may come when they will be beyond
your reach; and then, Oh! 'how gladly
would you give all you possess to have
them back again ! You might gather
all your books and toys—every thing
for which you are now so willing to
contend; but all you could do with
them would he to place them on the'
grave of one you had wronged. It
would not bring them back. Henry
was a kind-hearted boy, and dearly
loved his little sister; and she had only
been sick a little while, so that he did
not consider her dangerously ill. But
this was no comfort to him when she
was gone.

“ Oh, mother!” he would say, “if I
had "only brought that water for her,
I could bear it; but now she is where I
can never, never wait on her again ! ”

Think of this when you are tempted
to quarrel, to be selfish, or unkind ; for
do you know if one of you should die.
the rest would remember every act of
unkindness, everyc bitter woi‘d which
had fallen from your lips?  I D
it would be too late to recall i ' too

late to ask forgiveness. u ,

 

fr" .

MEN are not to bejudig‘ . their
looks, habits, or appeara ,. ' may
the character of their lives ‘and con-
versation, and by their WOrkS- It is”
better that a man’s 0Wn Works 
praise him than another man’s WOfids‘. L

THE most happy .mim is he who
knows how to bring Into relation the
end and beginning of his life.

 

 

— x-‘ it;

THE HOME.

 

EDITOR’S RETREAT.

APRIL.

“ The eglantine, the hawthorn bright,
The thyme, and pink, and jasmin white,
, Don their purest robes to be
Guests, fair April, Worthy thee."

Not yet are they here, those flowers, in
their “ purest robes,” to make beautiful our
Retreat; but, as “coming events cast their
shadows before,” we perceive, not their shad-
ows, but their heralds in the faint aromas of
the moist earth and the swelling buds—crim-
son buds of the maple, unfolded by the deli.
cate fingers of the wind; snowy buds of the
crocus timidly looking out of the frost. In
the gorgeOus bloom of summer we would
hardly deign to notice the fragile flowers,
with their pale green stems, which we now
cherish so tenderly. ‘

Thus, after the winter of adversity has
tried us, and all the weight. and darkness of
its tempests fallen upon us, how tenderly
dear, how unspeakany welcome are the first
pale blossoms of prosperity, the first golden
glimpses of returning happiness! With
gratitude we accept the tiny buds, the lovely
blooms, which, in the full and lavish sum-
mer of our joy, we disregard. And it is a
question, if these first modest offerings are
not more deeply appreciated than the be-
wildering splendors of a later, richer season.
A poet, who had been ill, once wrote that
there was no pleasure in the world like that
of convalescing: there was nothing in the
strength and exuberance of full health and
spirits to compare with the delicious sensa-
tion  filming life, the delicate perceptions
of < t mind and spirit, ministered to by
3e 8 made so etherial by the refining pro-

of sickness. Is there any thing like the

. ‘ thrill of conscious love? the first love-

letter? the first “season out ? ” the first tea-
drinking in “ a home of our own,” however
humble ? it‘And the“. the first work of art or
article of luxury, which With much self-de-

 it may be, we bring- into that little home

—-does any future prodigality 0f pictures or
rich furniture possess a charm like that ?

So the first showers, the first warmth, the
first green leaves, and brook-Side Violets of
April are very sweet—sweet in themselve

I and inthe promise which they give of com-

 

ing abundance. We know that the rainbows
which glorify the close of its musical storms,
will be reflected upon the earth in living
flowers—that the snow-drop is the usher
of .the rose—the robin the precursor of the
nightingale.

r n o v s: n B s .

The East, the ancient East of tradition,
where the world began its stately march, had
seven wise men in particular, and an infinite
number in general. We should want no
better proof of that wisdom which is pur-
chased by experience, than the many brief
and pithy proverbs which have become a
part of Oriental thought, conversation, and
literature—whole vessels ‘ full of sagacity
condensed into one little subtle drop of
elixir of life.

Fayaway, sitting indolently amid silken
cushions, opens her lazy little mouth, and
out melts a pearl of inestimable value—she
is a. “fairy, who speaks pearls,”——because
she quotes the poet Hafiz, having never read
any thing else—and he is full of delicious
couplets which compress a volume into two
sweet lines. A poor old beggar basks in the
sun, on the warm side of a ruined wall; he
is dirty, ragged, and disgusting; you address
him, and in reply, he flings at you a jewel
which would make a philosopher rich—he is
saying what he has heard his father say,
who learned of his ancestors—traditional
eloquence! The very children who pelt
you with rose-leaves of lisping speech, have
some drop of attar rolled up in the fragrant
morsel. But alas! we Can not think that
these Orientals live as wisely as they talk.
Their words are scntentious, brilliant, few—
their lives are lazy, aimless, monotonous.
“0' consistency, thou art a jewel!” Here,
in the new and busy Occident, we talk an
infinite quantity of meaningless nonsense—
but we act whole books-fall of proverbs.
Our words are as profuse as they are often-
times diffuse—but Our actions are full of
energy. “Gab!” said somebody recently,
more forcibly than elegantly, “is the ruin of
this age. Everybody talks, and the talk
comes to nothing.” We do not agree to
this. There is too much said and written, it

 

 

 

 
 
  
 
 
 

 

. ._ ch, 9

EDITOR’S RETREAT.

is true; but there is a great deal accom-
plished. By and by, .when we have done
all the work, so that our children’s children
have nothing to do but sit down and dream,
they will be very wise, too, upon our experi-
ence. Through the sieve of time will fall
the golden kernels of wheat, while all the
chaff will be blown away into oblivion, and
the future will gather them up as part of its
inheritance—but we will have been the real
owners, who planted and reaped, that they
might enjoy. “Proverbs,” small as they
are, are along time growing—crystallized
out of the dew of ages.

CONSOLATION.

We have a cherished friend, who, not
many months since, buried two beautiful lit-
tle chiler in one week—taken from her
by sudden illness. To hearts like hers, this
little poem will be peculiarly welcome; and,
as it is brief and sweet, we can afford it a
nook in our Retreat:

Till". LAMB.

The lambs, this winter night
So sternly bleak and cold,
Are gather’d, safe and warm,
Within the sheltering fold ;
And from my bosom warm,
Where rested mine, of old,
. My only one is laid
Beneath the church-yard mould.

My empty arms I reach
Out in the darkness dread,
To shelter from the cold
That dear, bright," curling head ; ,
For drifts the heavy snow
White o'er his little bed,
And, oh, I can not take
Him from the shrouded (lead l

Thus my sad, stricken heart
Its bitterness has told ;
Though well I know Ilcaven's gates
0f shining pearl and gold,
For such sweet, sinless ones,
Most joyfully unfold,
And angels welcome them.
Into that Upper fold.

noons‘I AND BELLES.

Women and books may be compared.
The most gaudily-bodnd, gilded, and costly
“"198 are usually those senseless annuals,
ed .to lie upon parlor-tables, and con.
- °nly a collection of vapid common.
[or sickly sweets ;—really original,
works are found in more modest

 

_ 191

bindings. So of the gayest-dressed and most
elabOrately ornamented women; they 10.01:
well in the drawing-room, which they are
especially designed to adorn, but there is
very apt to be found a lack of sterling worth
in the contents 'of their hearts and minds,
If depended upon to give relief to sorrow, or
add strength to our mental discipline, they
would disappoint—they are to look at; not
to be read.

a:

A N 1 N 01 n E N r .

Crossing the ferry, a few days ago, we,
along with the rest of the passengers in the
ladies‘ cabin, were surprised by a low, tremc
ulous, but not unmusical voice, breaking the-
silenec of the moment, by singing the well-
known strains of “ Home, Sweet Home.”
We looked around, and saw a German
woman, busy with her knitting, her fingers
flying as Only German fingers can fly with
the needle, her apron full of work, her hood
down close over her face, which was bent,
apparently, in utter abstraction,' low over
her task. Unconscious of the attention she
attracted, she sang on, with a quiver of the
voice which made us think there were tears
in her eyes, while occasionally the notes
would swell out clear and pathetic, as her
memories rushed back (or so we fancied)
more irresistibly to the “ fader-land,” recol-
lections of which were bringing those simple,
but heart.fclt words to her lips :

“ Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

People smiled, but mostly a sympathetic,
gentle smile, which proved the crowd, after
all, not indifferent to the incident",
thought this little touch of natural acting -
most equal to some of the artistic efl‘orts of

the charming prima donna, who makes her
audience smile and weep as she will.

“ One touch of nature makes the whole world kill"
and there doubtless arose a feeling of kin~
ship, trasicnt though it was, in.th hearts
of many, for the artless Germ“ woman,
whose sentiments had stolen IO unfidVi-‘Jedly
from her heart.

TnnccngnpnzN. .

Since it came in fashion for mothers and“
aunties to gather UP the Odd sayings 0f the.
little ones for the use of the editor of Old
Knick, and some other willing reporter of'

 

   
 

 

,..~ «MAJ-4M“ Hawaii ‘ ‘
‘ p A. v. “w ..._ 

"O

 

 

 

Av“ ,
’»

 

192
7
their pretty ways, it is astonishing to find
how cunning, and how bright, and how
original almost everyone‘s baby is. And we
mean this in earnest. Heaven has given the
little ones inquiring minds, and beautiful, in-
nocent ways. But, after the first three or
four years of babyhood, we would like to
know what becomes of the boys? What,
indeed! They have disappeared, vanished
entirely, become absorbed in a race of min-
iature men, small in person, small in wit,
small "in knowledge, small in virtue—but
great in extravagance, great in conceit, great
in impudence, great—very great, in their
own eyes. Instead of blowing soap bubbles,
they- are smoking cigars; instead of rejoi-

cing in jackets, they sport shanghais and

flirt little canes; instead of honoring their
fathers and their mothers, they look down
upon them in profound pity, if not contempt,
from the immense height which they have at-
tained in knowledge of the world and supe-
rior wisdom generally. In fact, it may be
suspected that they feel they have the power
of patronizing even their lady friends, who

can not but be very much “taken” with,
their airs of in difi'erent self-possession. What

if they should take a fancy to slight one of
these beautiful. women ? and the young gen-
tlemen fondle the chin “where the down
ought to grow.” We ask, too, where are
the girls? Where are the modest, sweet-
faeed, artless, heavenly little things who
used to teach the skeptical man of the world,
by their simple looks and actions, holy les-
sons of beauty and unconscious purity! Alas!
ere. are the charming little girls?

We see plenty of finified demoiselles, min-
iature patterns of mamma, elegance, and
fashion-plates. We meet them in the par.
lors,’With (Nick reply and coquettish man-
ner, skilled thus early in the arts and wiles
that worldlinss prize. craving for incense to
be ofi'ered to their vanity, feeling tiwnselves
already to be Women, anxious to enter upon
the stage where their graces and accomplish-

' ments will be called into display. We meet

them upon the street, with. the little curl of
assumed scorn or nonchalapce upon the lip——
the precise step, the affected air, all betray.
ing their melancholy initiation into the friv-
oiity, duplicity, and heartlessncss of society.

 

THE HOME.

We sigh at the promise this gives for the
future. If there is any thing lovely and de-
lightful under heaVen, it is the refreshing
innocence, faith, and unconscious grace of
children. When vanity, doubt, self~con~
sciousness, and duplicity take their place,
the spell is broken.

Where are the children? Where are the
dear boys and girls with their childish faults
and childish charms ? Where

" The little, limber elf,
Singing, dancing to itself,"
not for the admiration of others—happy in
its innocence, friendly with every thing, even
with the bugs and butterflies, or the bare-
footed beggar at the door?

THE TRUE EDUCATION.

Tastes will differ as education'and habit
differ. Some persons are alive to gentle
impressions and tender sentiment, while the
same objects and utterances will impress
others with no particular emotion. Where
one sees God and beauty in the world around
him, another only secs materiality and a
common-place reality. The difference is in
ed ation, not wholly, but yet in a very
great degree. Let, a child have a parent
whose heart is alive to impressions of beauty,
and it will surely have eyes to see and cars to
hear the perfection of life around it. But let
that parent be coarse, rude, vulgar, and just
so surely is her offspring only fit companion

“for the coarse and brutal. The best natures
are those that are alive to emotions of
beauty and holiness: the worst natures are
those in whose soul is no love for divinity as

'it is manifested in the reality around. How
earnestly then is the duty urged upon pa-
rents to school the child to love music, and
birds, and flowers—to “ see God in the
clouds, and hear him in the winds l ” How
does it become a necessity to direct the bud-
ding mind and dawning taste into the true
light—to remove it from the presence of as-
sociations which are vulgar, coarse, or de-
basing! Let every mother reflect that the
child is a pliable creature, to be moulded i
perfection or imperfection, just as her
directs, and her anxiety will, perhaps,
gest a way and means to teach her 0
of the Beautiful and True. ‘ .r “

\

 

 

 

~,,,;wOrk, and his tobacco, brandy, and rich din-

I-IOME HINTS

AND HELPS. 193

 

HOME HINTS

F one should start out on a long journey
with just gold pieces enough to pay his

Way to the end, and should know that there
was a hole in his purse, from which, at every
step, some portion of his treasure was dr0p-
ping away—if one should have a cask of
rare ambrosial wine, a beaker of which
each day would thrill him with renewed life
and energy, and which he could not have re-
filled, and should know that, drop by drop,
it was distilling through the «task and wasting
slowly hour by hour—if one should be upon
the broad ocean, with no prospect of the
land being reached for 'months, and should
avish fresh water from his small store, in
witless extravagance, fox' unnecessary pur-
poses, exhausting his supply while far out
upon the brackish waves, such a one would
be called improvident, if by no harsher
name. ,

Yet, how many do we see, day by day,
recklessly, foolishly, wickedly drawing upon
the store of health which God has given to
last them a lifetime; because the pieces are
small which slip away, they imagine they
will not be missed, and are bankrupt before
the journey is half ended; because the wine
ebbs away in drops, they flatter themselves
the cask will alwayshbe full; because cold
water is so simple and abundant a thing,
they fancy it can never come to an end.
They have no right to trespass upon our
sympathies in seeking solace for the ills thus
carelessly incurred; “waste not, want not,”
is in nothing more true than in health.
Each debt which we make with the future,
will be exacted with interest.

Many a woman knows that a daily walk in
the open air, during all sorts of weather, will
Prolong her youthfulneas for years, which
her present manner of living will burden with
Suffering; but she has not energy enough to
0V(Il‘come habit and indolence. Many a
man knows that his late hours, his undue

"first are making fearful draughts upon the
Pine, refreshing fountain of health, which
was glVen him to last him safely across the

 

ocean of life. But he allows the Stream l0

AND HELPS.

flow away neglected, and if he is burned by
parching thirst, withered in bloom and en-
ergy, and his voyage abruptly terminated by
such folly, who shall be called to account ?
Two thirds of the sickness in the world
could be prevented, by proper care ; as much
care, for instance, as a man would bestow
upon the increase and safety of his property;
and more than two thirds of 9‘ all the ills
that flesh is heir to ” are accumulated by our .
own imprudence.

The recipe for serofula, given below, is
equally good for ring-worm, which, we sup-
pose, is one form of that disease. The Gin- _
cinnati Commereial publishes the following
communication from Nicholas Longworth,
the great wine manufacturer of that city :

“ All the papers I had, giving the cure for
scrof‘ula, have been distributed to persons
sending for the remedy. I have never heard V
of a case where it did not effect a speedy
cure, and it can in no case do an injury. In
several instances, where it has been applied
to old sores, it has also speedily effected per.
feet cures. Put one ounce of aquafortis in
a bowl or saucer; drop in it two Copper
cents—it will effervesce—leave the cents in;
when the efl‘crvescence ceases, add two
ounces of strong vinegar. The fluid will be
a dark green color. It should and will
smart. If too severe, put in a little rain-
water. Apply it to the sore, morning and
evening, by a soft brush or raw. Before ap-
plying it, wash the sore with water. Its first
application known to me, was a poor girl,
sent to~ our city from Memphis, to have her
leg cut ofi‘, as it was feared she might not
live long enough to have it cut of in that
hot climate. She was refused admittance in
the poorhouse, and was lying Ofi‘w'llle Side'
walk, as she could not even Stand“?- From
her knee to her foot one third 0f the flC‘Sh
was gone, and all the skin, except a Strip
about two inches wide. She was laid on a
bed and the remedy Placed on a Chair-by
it. She could 'rise upnnd apply it. In a '
few days her peace of mind returned, ’
and she declared it was getting well. It

 

 

, 194

    

THE HOME.

 

was supposed it was a relief from the pain
Only; but, when examined, fresh flesh was
found growing, and skin over it. She was
soon running about, and would work, which
delayed the entire cure, leaving a small sore,
which was in a few months entirely healed.
A young girl, with scrofula in her neck, luv-
ing a large open hole, and deemed incurable,
came one month after entirely cured, and
recently married, with her husband on their
way to the East. I have never known 'a
case where it did not effect a cure.”

Srtvsn Gamma—We notice the fol-
lowing item in an exchange, and we would
make a Suggestion not contained in the par-
agraph, namely, that the ammonia should be
very weak—about two tea-spoonfuls of am-
monia to a tea-cup of water:

“ Housekeepers will, without doubt, thank
us for informing them that the black sulphide
of silver, which forms on plated and silver
wares,‘door plates and knobs, may at‘once
be removed by wiping the surface with a
rag wet with aqua ammonia, and without
the trouble of rubbing and securing with
polishing powders.

“It may be well also to inform them, that
this black film, which forms on silver ex-
posed to sulphide of hydrogen, is no evidence
that the silver is impure, for it forms as
quickly on fine silver as on that which is
alloyed'with copper._ We have known in-
stances of good silver plate having been re-
turned to the manufacturer, because it had
been wrapped up in flannel, and we had oc-
casion to explain that the sulphur came from
the flannel, and would act with equal read-
iness on the finest silver.

“ After rain, much sulphide of hydrogen is
disengaged from the soil of our streets, and
it then blackens silver door-plates very
quickly. This black film, as before observed,
is most readily removed by means of aqua
ammo ' (, The same agent will be found
very a  iacleaning gold chains and
jewelry,” 7
‘" Ax Iarsu Srsw.—-—One ponnd of meat, cut
in bits; three or four pounds of potatoes,
peeled and scolded; three or four large on-

. ions, chopped up; a table-sp00nful of salt;
. a tea-spoonful of pepper.; ,a quart of water,

or liquor from boiling'rneat; put in a sauce-

 

pan ;over the fire, sing careful to stir it
about, to prevent its burning; at the bot-
tom, put a layer of potatoes, then some of
the chopped onions, with salt and pepper,
then half the meat, and a little more season-
ing, then another layer of potatoes, then
seasoning and meat, and seasoning again,
then the rest of the potatoes, and, last of all,
the liquor; shut it closely down, and let it
boil moderately for at least an hour. This
is very good, done with parsnips instead of
potatoes, or part of each ; it makes a savory
dish, and requires very little bread.

Cornea PUDDING—One egg; one cup of
milk; two and one-half table-spoonfuls of
melted butter; one cup of white sugar; one
pint of flour; two tea-spoonfuls of cream of
tartar; one tea-spoonful of soda. To be
eaten with sauce. '

Passer.va Burma—A patent has been
secured by WV. Clark, of London, for the fol-
lowing method of preserving butterz—The
butter is first well beaten in the usual man-
ner after churning, then placed between
linen cloths and submitted to severe pressure
for removing whey and water. It is now
completely enveloped or covered with clean,
white paper, which is coated on both sides
with a preparation of the white of eggs, in
which fifteen grains of salt is used foreach
egg. This prepared paper is first dried, then
heated before a fire, or with a hot iron, just
prior to wrapping it round the butter. It is
stated that butter may be kept perfectly
sweet without any salt for two months,
when thus treated, if placed in a cool, dry
cellar. The submitting of butter to pressure,
as described, is a good plan, and one which
we recommend to all our farmers. They
can easily practice it with a small cheese-
press.

To Cons Rnsuusrisn.—Seeing in a late
number a call for a recipe for rheumatism, I
forthwith send one that is first best. Take a
large handful of Wild blue-flag root, and as
much black cohosh root (pounded fine), put
it into a quart of best brandy ; let it stand a
day or two, then take a tea-spoonful thred
times a day till nearly well. Then taper off
gradually to one day until cured. This is
also a preventive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDITOR'S TABLE.

195

EDITOR’S TABLE.

HE fashion magazines, and even the
busy, political daily papers are full of re-
ports of the spring fashions ; so that we are
certain our fair readers can inform them-
selves upon that subject fully, without our
filling our Table with it. We have observed
in the principal Broadway and Canal Street
shops nothing especially novel in shawls,
Spring mantles, the shapes of bonnets, or
the designs in silks. They are varied, and
chax-mi113,and costly as usual, but nothing
strikingly new—which is a very good thing
for those who wish to wear last year’s fincry,
without looking moire-antique than they
wish. A pretty pelit; novelty is the fan-
parasol, combining fan and parasol in one.
We have heard tell of, though we have not
beheld one with our own eyes, a dress to
consist of a double skirt, the lower one of
velvet, the upper of satin, in a lighter shade,
the sleeves and bodice also of the same
shade of satin. Well! the effect may be
very fine. One of our favorite flowers, the
modest yet elegant violet, has very much
such a robe; except that in its ease the
contrast is rendered greater by a difference
in color—its velvet robe being of royal pur-
ple and its satin one of yellow—yes! abso-
lute yellow, only toned down by little stripes
of purple trimming put on en tablier. And
who shall dare to gainsay the good taste of
the violet? We have been thinking that our
Table has as good right to promulgate the
fashions as certain foreign queens and em-
presses. We have, therefore, given the
subject some consideration, and now drop a
few hints, which we hope will be found sat-
isfactory. It is about to be considered vul-
gar, as well as indiscreet, to wear more than
a hundred thousand dollars worth of dia-
fmonds upon any one occasion. We advise
our, lady readers not to do it. At the late
Washington ball to Lord Napier, the lady
who were that amount of jewelry upon her
PerSOn, as also twelve thousand dollars worth
of old point-lace of a rare and antique pat-
tern» was afraid to move about, lest she
should be robbed, or have her fragile splen'
dors desecrated. She was fortunate enough,
“Weller. to secure a seat under the full

 

blaze of a. chandelier, where she remained
during the evening, as much of a fixture,
and almost as brilliant, as the chandelier it-
self. The managers were very much obliged
to her for her valuable aidin lighting the
apartment. The lustre of her appearance
may have been somewhat owing to the fact
that her husband made his money in the oil
business. For those who wear the bayadcres,
we would suggest that the circumference of
their hoops be limited to thirty feet, as it
must be very fatiguing to the stripes to run
around such an extent of pettieoat. The
pedal extremities should be limited to two
feet. The train of the skirt should be a
yard long for street wear in wet weather,
and should be richly fringed with little
sticks, straws, bits of paper, burrs, and
whatever other ornaments can be obtained
at the principal crossings. Marble mantles
are very much the style. Plain gold rings
are much sought after by young ladies.
Beanx are all the rage; and form a very
effective addition to a prettily-trimmed toi-
lette at opera, concert, or in the parlor, but
are almost too prononcé for church or shop-
ping. We should think sunflowers,’au na-
tural, would be very ornamental for head
dresses, and they would have the advantage
of “turning the young ladies’ heads ” in the
direction to them most desirable; it being
a well-known peculiarity of that flower
that it
“-—turns to its lord when he sets
The same look which it turn'd when he rose,"

of which Moore can be brought in proof, if
doubted; so that, whether sitting or stand-
ing, these lords would be constantly objects
of admiration. Half mourning should be
adopted for weddings.
amiss to read Bryant‘s “ Burial *9 Lime
Boy " as part of the cer y “are en'
velopes and letter-papers n "t 9 Style;
since husbands and fathers 0“ "0‘ Square
their accounts, the fair “ex arC'NSOIVed tv0
have all fair and film” as f“ as their Paper
is out_even their cards; which presents us
with the scientific imPOSSibillty of squaring
the fashionable circle. These few hints
must suffice for this month.

3'»

It would not be '

 

 

 

THE HOME.

 

——-What a month of horrors has just
past! It would seem as if the Angel of
Mercy had tarried somewhere, and given the
Angel of Destruction the baton. It makes
us doubt, at times, the redeeming power that
is in man—these daily and hourly tragedies;
but we try to see them in their true light as
fruits of a life that is not true to nature—a
life of ruin rather than of reason. The
Washington tragedy just lifts the vail, and
behind it we see the causes which wrought
the wreck of souls ; worship'at the shrine of
fashion, love of theaters and balls, passion
for gay company, trifling with truth: these
are the murderers, not the leaden ball! 0h,-
mothers! see in this the necessity for proper
associations of your young daughters. Teach
them love of pure things, horror of what is
impure in thought or deed, and you-may
be spared the remorse which will forever
haunt the fireside of the ruined home'on
Fourteenth Street.

——- A provoking contrast does the coun-
try now begin to offer to the city. Spring
birds, and buds, and grasses, and soft airs

' are starting up around the country blest, but

aroundthe denizen of the city only the roar
of ’busses, and,the shrieks of milk-men and
unlicensed pedlars. It is well we haVe a
spirit that can leave the body, and speed
away to the hills, and fields, and woods, else
our very being would grow like a Russ pave-
ment, and our countenances become assim-
ilated in expression to a granite wall. Oh,
for one good wild run in the woods, or by
the side of the sea, or over the hills, just to
give the b°dy the taste of the freedom which
it knows only through what once was!
Blessed are they who have not to cry for
that freedom, for they know not of prison-
bars and manacles more binding than iron.

..._.. What of the night? Ask the mother

53“- who is akened..every hour by her crying
childrk  racked by colic; of the
nurse 1': "g ‘50 410°? and Singing with the

lips, when we heart Within is (trying! The

night, to these, is not the one of which

' Longfenow sang: . -

, «mans night shall be fill'd with music,
 cares that infest the day
 their tents f the Arab!»
 "£31 ‘ as silentlysteal ” ;"
but rather of the fellow 0 has it:

 

 

And the night shall be double and twisted
With cries that might well dismay
An Arab, or Christian, or what not,
And compel him to halloo for day.
Reader, did you ever take care of baby?
Then you know just what we mean.

..——— Drake's “ Culprit Fay ” has been re-
published in the form of a very pretty little
volume, by Rudd & Carleton of this city, and
“ illustrated” by John W. Ehninger, as the
advertisement particularly announces, thOugh
what' the illustrations consist in we have
not found, except a very small, very com-
mon-place vignette at the beginning of the

a book.

This charming poem is the only fairy
poem, of any pretensions, belonging to this
side of the water. Our literature and our
traditions are sadly deficient in fairy lore;
our woods are all uninhabited, our glens un-
haunted, our roses and lilies forsaken of
these delightful beings. If Shakspeare had
chanced to be a Brother Jonathan, he
would never have written that most exqui-
site of all mortal creations of genius, “A
Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Our children do not thrill with mingled
terror and delight as they pass the twilight
nooks where these elfin creatures might
abide; nor do our tippling countrymen, in
their midnight journeys home from the too-
fascinatiug tavern, ever meet the fairy fid-
dler, who compels them to dance until day.
light, will-he, nill-he.

 

Speaking of illustrations, reminds us,
if any of 'our readers wish for a book that is
illustrated—a perfect gem of art, a hall of

dreams through which they can wander for

hours, haunted by visions of beauty now
hinted at and now revealed—let them send
for Redfield’s new edition of the poetical
works of the late Edgar A. Poe. It is one
of the most superb, as well as truly poetica§
volumes ever published in this country. The
designs are all Original, and by the first
artists of England and America. It is say-
ing all that need be said in their praise, to
state that they do not appear less beautiful
because of the highly imaginative poems
with which they are associated. It gives us
pleasure to speak of this recherche book, and
to recommend it to the tables of those who

 

 

q 

 

 

 

 

   
 
 

 

may

 

EDITOR’S TABLE.

‘

can afford it.
forever.”

——-“ Two'Ways to Wedlock” is the title
of a novel recently republished from the
N. Y. Home Journal. Only two ways?
There are a thousand! as every woman
knows. We will guess that the author is a
man, for men generally know of but two
ways to the altar, viz: through a gold ring
and through a love contract which includes
the word “obey.” Is it not so, dear sirs?

“ A thing of beauty is a joy

——“Make hay while the sun shines,”
used to mean something; now the saying
reads: “make haste,»and while the sun
shines, show your new bonnet.” At least
we should think this the truth, for ocular
demonstration, every sunny day, is not want-
ing. We wonder what will be the aggregate
cost of all the spring bonnets to the mothers
and daughters of 'New York State alone.
The true figures would cause a revolution!

———Contributions come in freely, for
which we sincerely thank our many corre-
spondents., We read with pleasure even
what we may not use, and use what seems
best adopted to the magazine’s wants. Many
articles not used are still entirely worthy of
being printed, but not being exactly
adapted for a Home monthly of neces-
sity laid aside. Such we will always return
(where stamps are remitted) stating the par-
ticular reasons of our inability to use the
contribution. ,

~The articles on tile for use comprise,
among others, the following: “Aunt Ruth,”
8. story, by Ellen'C. Lake; “ Roselawn,” a
story, by Clara Augusta; “The ClOuds," a
Poem, by the same; “Bread,” an Essq
on Household Economy and Chemistry;
“Freddy Grayson’s Angel,” 9. story, by Mrs.
Frances Fuller Barritt; “Sir Ma’am,” a,

Poem, by D. A. Bibb; “ Out in the Rain,” 1.

.' An article, “ Marriage, as a Means of
Human Happiness,” shall receive place in
our next, together with “some few remarks”
by the editor. It came too late to give the
them? a proper “airing” in this number.

E Those correspondents who ask “for
9‘ °°"espondence with the editor,” are in-
formed that the responsibilities already as-
sumed forbid any addition to her labors

 

197

which can consistently be avoided. A “lit-
erary correspondence ” is a pleasure where
it is not a burden—where it is such it, is not
desirable. -

 

“The Century” is among the ablesg
and most admirably ordered weekly news.
papers in the country. It is destined to a
large circulation, and well deserves it. To
any family looking for a paper to take, we
may safely commend “ The Century,” New
York. -

 

May-day migration. A four months’ experi-
ence in the metropolis, has convinced them
that fine, airy rooms on William Street are
preferable t0'close rooms on Broadway, and
like sensible men, they have resolved to have
a Home at 137 in said William Street.
Everybody has heard of Sands’ Sarsaparilla,
and a great many have paid for their knowl-
edge of it. Well, that sarsaparilla has built
a superb block of buildings, just 5’ pills
built the Brandreth House -- just as the
Phoenix Bitters built the Mofl'at Building-

just as Dr. Towusend's “original” compoun j r
of poor port wine and elderberries built a , »

princely residence oraFifth Avenue. In the
Sands building “The Home” has, hereafter,
its abiding place, among dignified trades-

men and busy power presses. To the new
quarters the publishers bid all t ends;
and there all correspondence e di-

rected. Matter designed for the Editor, may
be sent to their care, but all letters apporé
taining the business department, should
be directed to Beadle & Adams.

/
:“Cornelia,” by Frank BnGoodrich,
copied from “World-Noted Women,” by
permission: of the publishers, Messrs. Derby
& Jackson. It is a fine characterizatiOn Of
her whose memorable saying of her chil:
dren, “These be my jewels,” has rendered
her the model matron of all tjtfi
be read with pleasure and _ L
An April Shower?~ ,‘V‘ 1339 110$
been caught out in the rain? >1: .55 Snell &
treat as children know ho" to “.7031 even

 

 
 
  
 

 

though it frightens animus moi-11%, “d, 1

sends the washer’woman an extrnztsltirt '01-
two for “the fun.”~ We can well
experiences as ‘11 3m“ catcheslt'n' his

frontispiece to this number. Tbs ‘poets 

Q1“

 

Our publishers have resolved upon a

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31:! '

afi'

t will is  5

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rpm'

 

THE HOME.

 

 

 

   

have all sang of the April rain, forit is the
_ most musical of all rains—warm, invigora-
, ting; quickly passing, and followed by a sky
of great beauty. It woos the daisy, and vio-
let, and sweet forget-me-not into life and
glory; it coaxes the grasses to come forth
again and open their green lips for its kisses;

wildest, sweetest strain ; it makes the burst-
ing buds give forth their murmur of joy, in-
articulatc to all save fairy ears: these are
the offices of the April _ shower. What
wonder the poets all_love the fickle comer?
_;...We see Mrs. Osgood‘s exquisite song,
“ 0h,‘would I were a spirit of song,”
going the rounds, credited to Miss Libby
Higgins! Miss,Libby perpetrates a daring
theft to steal from such a source, and editors
are somewhat in want of a literary critic
,who will thus be imposed upon.

  
 
 
 
 
  
    
  
   
    
  
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

 

' ‘BOOK NOTICES.

Two Wars 'ro Wannocx; A Novellette.
;..New :York: RUDD & Cameron. 12mo.
v"This book is; reprinted from the Home
_ oumal weekly, where it appeared in chap-
   It has been forced into some notice,
.‘  by the extravagant praise of it by the edi-
,..TZ=  of the Journal, but we an to see in it
,‘  ‘ f marked and unusual excellence.
" #3:.

 
  

 

tures are confused and “fussy,”
 pan-have unduly drawn out, and its mo-
 commo'n-place. This is what may and
‘ f'mu‘ be said of fully. three {ourths of
‘ the mo'dern novellettes, so expected-to-be
commen‘place are-gthey. We are only sur-
' prised at the sale which such books find.
goes'to show that t? tastes of “ the many
have 110‘ Yet, Fenced the discriminating
. stage of develoiflént. So long as this want
~ 2,... a, A of proper; appreciationfprevails, Hawthorne,
‘ for ' fil‘esebm» 9" id omne genus, ,can

. r‘ i, . . I, . ” ‘
2%, 1  [I
p w ‘ I, h 3; cheap edition. 8vo. T.
, r N & BROTHERS, Philadelphia.
  bably the cheapest edition of

     
  

r
‘5‘
".

 

  

it challenges the birds and bees to their.

 

 

Sir Walter Scott which has yet been printed.
It gives, in twenty-six volumes, the whole
series, at two shillings per volume, or five
dollars for the complete set.‘ This places
them within the easy reach of  If young
folks (and, for that matter, old folks, too)
must read novels, there are none more ad-
mirable than Scott‘s matchless historical fic-
tions.

 

THE Mnrnomsr; or, Incidents and Charae- 3
ters from Life in the Baltimore Confer-
ence. By MIRIAM FLETCHER. With an
introduction by W. P. Srmcxunn, D. D.
2 vols., 12mo. New York: DERBY 8:
JACKSON. ‘
Although devoted to a description of a

life in the Baltimore Conference, these vol-

umes are as attractive as a romance. Itiner-
ant preachers have, as a general thing, as
much of adventure and singular experience
as fall to the lot of most men. “The Metho-
dist ” not only delineates this traveling-min-
ister experience, but gives, under the guise
of a story, a full and deeply interesting
insight into the Methodism of the early days

—of camp-meetings, class-meetings, love- , ~

feasts, watch-nights, protractc d-meetings, etc. ‘

Had the title of. the work been more popu.

lar, it must .have commanded a large circula.

tion amorg all classes, for it is well worthy
of such c1 ulation.

   
 
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
 
  
   

Tm: ROMANCE on ma Rrxc, and other Po-
ems, By JAMES NACK. New York: DEL-
LISSER & l’nocron. 12mo.

This volume is a specimen of neat typog-
raphy and binding. The poet is worthy -
such consideration. wHis use is one popu- 1
ar around firesides and in homes where the

ections have their abiding place. Though

ot tutored in “ the schools,” there. is that
in Mr. Nack’s, poetry which makes it‘ pleasant
to read. He is One of those“ village poets,"
u Whu-e gong gush'd from his heart
As drops from the clouds of summer, ‘ 0
Or tears from the eyelids start." '

Did space permit, "we would give one gm

of the poems most marked by the author’s

home feeling. ‘