The cause of education would be indefinitely furthered, if, in addition

to formal means, there were but this principle awakened in the hearts of

the young, that what they have they must bestow. All are not natural

instructors, but a large proportion are; and those who do possess such a

talent are the best possible teachers to those a little younger than

themselves. Many have more patience with the difficulties they have

lately left behind, and enjoy their power of assisting more than those

farther removed in age and knowledge do.

Then the intercourse may be far more congenial and profitable than where

the teacher receives for hire all sorts of pupils, as they are sent him

by their guardians. Here he need only choose those who have a

predisposition for what he is best able to teach. And, as I would have

the so-called higher instruction as much diffused in this way as the

lower, there would be a chance of awakening all the power that now lies

latent.

If a girl, for instance, who has only a passable talent for music, but

who, from the advantage of social position, has been able to gain

thorough instruction, felt it her duty to teach whomsoever she knew that

had such a talent, without money to cultivate it, the good is obvious.

Those who are learning receive an immediate benefit by an effort to

rearrange and interpret what they learn; so the use of this justice

would be twofold.

Some efforts are made here and there; nay, sometimes there are those who

can say they have returned usury for every gift of fate. And, would

others make the same experiments, they might find Utopia not so far off

as the children of this world, wise in securing their own selfish ease,

would persuade us it must always be.

We have hinted what sort of Christmas box we would wish for the

children. It would be one full, as that of the child Christ must be, of

the pieces of silver that were lost and are found. But Christmas, with

its peculiar associations, has deep interest for men, and women too, no

less. It has so in their mutual relations. At the time thus celebrated,

a pure woman saw in her child what the Son of man should be as a child

of God. She anticipated for him a life of glory to God, peace and good

will to man. In every young mother's heart, who has any purity of heart,

the same feelings arise. But most of these mothers let them go without

obeying their instructions. If they did not, we should see other

children--other men than now throng our streets. The boy could not

invariably disappoint the mother, the man the wife, who steadily

demanded of him such a career.

And man looks upon woman, in this relation, always as he should. Does he

see in her a holy mother worthy to guard the infancy of an immortal

soul? Then she assumes in his eyes those traits which the Romish church

loved to revere in Mary. Frivolity, base appetite, contempt are

exorcised; and man and woman appear again in unprofaned connection, as

brother and sister, the children and the servants of the one Divine

Love, and pilgrims to a common aim.

Were all this right in the private sphere, the public would soon right

itself also, and the nations of Christendom might join in a celebration,

such as "kings and prophets waited for," and so many martyrs died to

achieve, of Christ-Mass.

MARIANA[33]

Among those whom I met in a recent visit at Chicago was Mrs. Z., the

aunt of an old schoolmate, to whom I impatiently hastened, to demand

news of Mariana. The answer startled me. Mariana, so full of life, was

dead. That form, the most rich in energy and coloring of any I had ever

seen, had faded from the earth. The circle of youthful associations had

given way in the part that seemed the strongest. What I now learned of

the story of this life, and what was by myself remembered, may be bound

together in this slight sketch.

At the boarding school to which I was too early sent, a fond, a proud,

and timid child, I saw among the ranks of the gay and graceful, bright

or earnest girls, only one who interested my fancy or touched my young

heart; and this was Mariana. She was, on the father's side, of Spanish

Creole blood, but had been sent to the Atlantic coast, to receive a

school education under the care of her aunt, Mrs. Z.

This lady had kept her mostly at home with herself, and Mariana had gone

from her house to a day school; but the aunt being absent for a time in

Europe, she had now been unfortunately committed for some time to the

mercies of a boarding school.

A strange bird she proved there--a lonely one, that could not make for

itself a summer. At first, her schoolmates were captivated with her

ways, her love of wild dances and sudden song, her freaks of passion

and of wit. She was always new, always surprising, and, for a time,

charming.

But, after a while, they tired of her. She could never be depended on to

join in their plans, yet she expected them to follow out hers with their

whole strength. She was very loving, even infatuated in her own

affections, and exacted from those who had professed any love for her,

the devotion she was willing to bestow.

Yet there was a vein of haughty caprice in her character; a love of

solitude, which made her at times wish to retire entirely; and at these

times she would expect to be thoroughly understood, and let alone, yet

to be welcomed back when she returned. She did not thwart others in

their humors, but she never doubted of great indulgence from them.

Some singular ways she had, which, when new, charmed, but, after

acquaintance, displeased her companions. She had by nature the same

habit and power of excitement that is described in the spinning

dervishes of the East. Like them, she would spin until all around her

were giddy, while her own brain, instead of being disturbed, was excited

to great action. Pausing, she would declaim verse of others or her own;

perform many parts, with strange catch-words and burdens that seemed to

act with mystical power on her own fancy, sometimes stimulating her to

convulse the hearer with laughter, sometimes to melt him to tears. When

her power began to languish, she would spin again till fired to

recommence her singular drama, into which she wove figures from the

scenes of her earlier childhood, her companions, and the dignitaries she

sometimes saw, with fantasies unknown to life, unknown to heaven or

earth.

This excitement, as may be supposed, was not good for her. It oftenest

came on in the evening, and spoiled her sleep. She would wake in the

night, and cheat her restlessness by inventions that teased, while they

sometimes diverted her companions.

She was also a sleep-walker; and this one trait of her case did somewhat

alarm her guardians, who, otherwise, showed the same profound stupidity,

as to this peculiar being, usual in the overseers of the young. They

consulted a physician, who said she would outgrow it, and prescribed a

milk diet.

Meantime, the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated nature was

constantly increased by the restraints and narrow routine of the

boarding school. She was always devising means to break in upon it. She

had a taste, which would have seemed ludicrous to her mates, if they had

not felt some awe of her, from a touch of genius and power, that never

left her, for costume and fancy dresses; always some sash twisted about

her, some drapery, something odd in the arrangement of her hair and

dress; so that the methodical preceptress dared not let her go out

without a careful scrutiny and remodelling, whose soberizing effects

generally disappeared the moment she was in the free air.

At last, a vent for her was found in private theatricals. Play followed

play, and in these and the rehearsals she found entertainment congenial

with her. The principal parts, as a matter of course, fell to her lot;

most of the good suggestions and arrangements came from her, and for a

time she ruled masterly and shone triumphant.

During these performances the girls had heightened their natural bloom

with artificial red; this was delightful to them--it was something so

out of the way. But Mariana, after the plays were over, kept her carmine

saucer on the dressing table, and put on her blushes regularly as the

morning.

When stared and jeered at, she at first said she did it because she

thought it made her look prettier; but, after a while, she became quite

petulant about it--would make no reply to any joke, but merely kept on

doing it.

This irritated the girls, as all eccentricity does the world in general,

more than vice or malignity. They talked it over among themselves, till

they got wrought up to a desire of punishing, once for all, this

sometimes amusing, but so often provoking nonconformist.

Having obtained the leave of the mistress, they laid, with great glee, a

plan one evening, which was to be carried into execution next day at

dinner.

Among Mariana's irregularities was a great aversion to the meal-time

ceremonial. So long, so tiresome she found it, to be seated at a certain

moment, to wait while each one was served at so large a table, and one

where there was scarcely any conversation; from day to day it became

more heavy to her to sit there, or go there at all. Often as possible

she excused herself on the ever-convenient plea of headache, and was

hardly ever ready when the dinner bell rang.

To-day it found her on the balcony, lost in gazing on the beautiful

prospect. I have heard her say, afterwards, she had rarely in her life

been so happy--and she was one with whom happiness was a still rapture.

It was one of the most blessed summer days; the shadows of great white

clouds empurpled the distant hills for a few moments only to leave them

more golden; the tall grass of the wide fields waved in the softest

breeze. Pure blue were the heavens, and the same hue of pure contentment

was in the heart of Mariana.

Suddenly on her bright mood jarred the dinner bell. At first rose her

usual thought, I will not, cannot go; and then the _must_, which daily

life can always enforce, even upon the butterflies and birds, came, and

she walked reluctantly to her room. She merely changed her dress, and

never thought of adding the artificial rose to her cheek.

When she took her seat in the dining hall, and was asked if she would be

helped, raising her eyes, she saw the person who asked her was deeply

rouged, with a bright, glaring spot, perfectly round, in either cheek.

She looked at the next--the same apparition! She then slowly passed her

eyes down the whole line, and saw the same, with a suppressed smile

distorting every countenance. Catching the design at once she

deliberately looked along her own side of the table, at every schoolmate

in turn; every one had joined in the trick. The teachers strove to be

grave, but she saw they enjoyed the joke. The servants could not

suppress a titter.

When Warren Hastings stood at the bar of Westminster Hall; when the

Methodist preacher walked through a line of men, each of whom greeted

him with a brickbat or a rotten egg,--they had some preparation for the

crisis, and it might not be very difficult to meet it with an impassive

brow. Our little girl was quite unprepared to find herself in the midst

of a world which despised her, and triumphed in her disgrace.

She had ruled like a queen in the midst of her companions; she had shed

her animation through their lives, and loaded them with prodigal favors,

nor once suspected that a powerful favorite might not be loved. Now, she

felt that she had been but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those

whose hearts she never had doubted.

Yet the occasion found her equal to it; for Mariana had the kind of

spirit, which, in a better cause, had made the Roman matron truly say of

her death wound, "It is not painful, Poetus." She did not blench--she

did not change countenance. She swallowed her dinner with apparent

composure. She made remarks to those near her as if she had no eyes.

The wrath of the foe of course rose higher, and the moment they were

freed from the restraints of the dining room, they all ran off, gayly

calling, and sarcastically laughing, with backward glances, at Mariana,

left alone.

She went alone to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the

floor in strong convulsions. These had sometimes threatened her life, as

a child, but of later years she had outgrown them. School hours came,

and she was not there. A little girl, sent to her door, could get no

answer. The teachers became alarmed, and broke it open. Bitter was their

penitence and that of her companions at the state in which they found

her. For some hours terrible anxiety was felt; but at last, Nature,

exhausted, relieved herself by a deep slumber.

From this Mariana rose an altered being. She made no reply to the

expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind,

but undiscerning comments of her teacher. She did not name the source of

her anguish, and its poisoned dart sunk deeply in. It was this thought

which stung her so.--"What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of

trial, to take my part! not one who refused to take part against me!"

Past words of love, and caresses little heeded at the time, rose to her

memory, and gave fuel to her distempered thoughts. Beyond the sense of

universal perfidy, of burning resentment, she could not get. And

Mariana, born for love, now hated all the world.

The change, however, which these feelings made in her conduct and

appearance bore no such construction to the careless observer. Her gay

freaks were quite gone, her wildness, her invention. Her dress was

uniform, her manner much subdued. Her chief interest seemed now to lie

in her studies and in music. Her companions she never sought; but they,

partly from uneasy, remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked

her much better now that she did not oppress and puzzle them, sought her

continually. And here the black shadow comes upon her life--the only

stain upon the history of Mariana.

They talked to her as girls, having few topics, naturally do of one

another. And the demon rose within her, and spontaneously, without

design, generally without words of positive falsehood, she became a

genius of discord among them. She fanned those flames of envy and

jealousy which a wise, true word from a third person will often quench

forever; by a glance, or a seemingly light reply, she planted the seeds

of dissension, till there was scarce a peaceful affection or sincere

intimacy in the circle where she lived, and could not but rule, for she

was one whose nature was to that of the others as fire to clay.

It was at this time that I came to the school, and first saw Mariana. Me

she charmed at once, for I was a sentimental child, who, in my early ill

health, had been indulged in reading novels till I had no eyes for the

common greens and browns of life. The heroine of one of these, "the

Bandit's Bride," I immediately saw in Mariana. Surely the Bandit's Bride

had just such hair, and such strange, lively ways, and such a sudden

flash of the eye. The Bandit's Bride, too, was born to be

"misunderstood" by all but her lover. But Mariana, I was determined,

should be more fortunate; for, until her lover appeared, I myself would

be the wise and delicate being who could understand her.

It was not, however, easy to approach her for this purpose. Did I offer

to run and fetch her handkerchief, she was obliged to go to her room,

and would rather do it herself. She did not like to have people turn

over for her the leaves of the music book as she played. Did I approach

my stool to her feet, she moved away, as if to give me room. The bunch

of wild flowers which I timidly laid beside her plate was left there.

After some weeks my desire to attract her notice really preyed upon me,

and one day, meeting her alone in the entry, I fell upon my knees, and

kissing her hand, cried, "O Mariana, do let me love you, and try to love

me a little." But my idol snatched away her hand, and, laughing more

wildly than the Bandit's Bride was ever described to have done, ran into

her room. After that day her manner to me was not only cold, but

repulsive; I felt myself scorned, and became very unhappy.

Perhaps four months had passed thus, when, one afternoon, it became

obvious that something more than common was brewing. Dismay and mystery

were written in many faces of the older girls; much whispering was going

on in corners.

In the evening, after prayers, the principal bade us stay; and, in a

grave, sad voice, summoned forth Mariana to answer charges to be made

against her.

Mariana came forward, and leaned against the chimney-piece. Eight of the

older girls came forward, and preferred against her charges--alas! too

well founded--of calumny and falsehood.

My heart sank within me, as one after the other brought up their proofs,

and I saw they were too strong to be resisted. I could not bear the

thought of this second disgrace of my shining favorite. The first had

been whispered to me, though the girls did not like to talk about it. I

must confess, such is the charm of strength to softer natures, that

neither of these crises could deprive Mariana of hers in my eyes.

At first, she defended herself with self-possession and eloquence. But

when she found she could no more resist the truth, she suddenly threw

herself down, dashing her head, with all her force, against the iron

hearth, on which a fire was burning, and was taken up senseless.

The affright of those present was great. Now that they had perhaps

killed her, they reflected it would have been as well if they had taken

warning from the former occasion, and approached very carefully a nature

so capable of any extreme. After a while she revived, with a faint

groan, amid the sobs of her companions. I was on my knees by the bed,

and held her cold hand. One of those most aggrieved took it from me to

beg her pardon, and say it was impossible not to love her. She made no

reply.

Neither that night, nor for several days, could a word be obtained from

her, nor would she touch food; but, when it was presented to her, or any

one drew near for any cause, she merely turned away her head, and gave

no sign. The teacher saw that some terrible nervous affection had fallen

upon her--that she grew more and more feverish. She knew not what to

do.

Meanwhile, a new revolution had taken place in the mind of the

passionate but nobly-tempered child. All these months nothing but the

sense of injury had rankled in her heart. She had gone on in one mood,

doing what the demon prompted, without scruple and without fear.

But at the moment of detection, the tide ebbed, and the bottom of her

soul lay revealed to her eye. How black, how stained and sad! Strange,

strange that she had not seen before the baseness and cruelty of

falsehood, the loveliness of truth. Now, amid the wreck, uprose the

moral nature which never before had attained the ascendant. "But," she

thought, "too late sin is revealed to me in all its deformity, and

sin-defiled, I will not, cannot live. The mainspring of life is broken."

And thus passed slowly by her hours in that black despair of which only

youth is capable. In older years men suffer more dull pain, as each

sorrow that comes drops its leaden weight into the past, and, similar

features of character bringing similar results, draws up the heavy

burden buried in those depths. But only youth has energy, with fixed,

unwinking gaze, to contemplate grief, to hold it in the arms and to the

heart, like a child which makes it wretched, yet is indubitably its own.

The lady who took charge of this sad child had never well understood her

before, but had always looked on her with great tenderness. And now love

seemed--when all around were in greatest distress, fearing to call in

medical aid, fearing to do without it--to teach her where the only balm

was to be found that could have healed this wounded spirit.

One night she came in, bringing a calming draught. Mariana was sitting,

as usual, her hair loose, her dress the same robe they had put on her at

first, her eyes fixed vacantly upon the whited wall. To the proffers and

entreaties of her nurse she made no reply.

The lady burst into tears, but Mariana did not seem even to observe it.

The lady then said, "O my child, do not despair; do not think that one

great fault can mar a whole life. Let me trust you, let me tell you the

griefs of my sad life. I will tell to you, Mariana, what I never

expected to impart to any one."

And so she told her tale: it was one of pain, of shame, borne, not for

herself, but for one near and dear as herself. Mariana knew the

lady--knew the pride and reserve of her nature. She had often admired to

see how the cheek, lovely, but no longer young, mantled with the deepest

blush of youth, and the blue eyes were cast down at any little emotion:

she had understood the proud sensibility of the character. She fixed her

eyes on those now raised to hers, bright with fast-falling tears. She

heard the story to the end, and then, without saying a word, stretched

out her hand for the cup.

She returned to life, but it was as one who has passed through the

valley of death. The heart of stone was quite broken in her, the fiery

life fallen from flame to coal. When her strength was a little restored,

she had all her companions summoned, and said to them, "I deserved to

die, but a generous trust has called me back to life. I will be worthy

of it, nor ever betray the truth, or resent injury more. Can you forgive

the past?"

And they not only forgave, but, with love and earnest tears, clasped in

their arms the returning sister. They vied with one another in offices

of humble love to the humbled one; and let it be recorded as an instance

of the pure honor of which young hearts are capable, that these facts,

known to forty persons, never, so far as I know, transpired beyond those

walls.

It was not long after this that Mariana was summoned home. She went

thither a wonderfully instructed being, though in ways that those who

had sent her forth to learn little dreamed of.

Never was forgotten the vow of the returning prodigal. Mariana could not

resent, could not play false. The terrible crisis which she so early

passed through probably prevented the world from hearing much of her. A

wild fire was tamed in that hour of penitence at the boarding school

such as has oftentimes wrapped court and camp in its destructive glow.

But great were the perils she had yet to undergo, for she was one of

those barks which easily get beyond soundings, and ride not lightly on

the plunging billow.

Her return to her native climate seconded the effects of inward

revolutions. The cool airs of the north had exasperated nerves too

susceptible for their tension. Those of the south restored her to a more

soft and indolent state. Energy gave place to feeling--turbulence to

intensity of character.

At this time, love was the natural guest; and he came to her under a

form that might have deluded one less ready for delusion.

Sylvain was a person well proportioned to her lot in years, family, and

fortune. His personal beauty was not great, but of a noble description.

Repose marked his slow gesture, and the steady gaze of his large brown

eye; but it was a repose that would give way to a blaze of energy, when

the occasion called. In his stature, expression, and heavy coloring, he

might not unfitly be represented by the great magnolias that inhabit the

forests of that climate. His voice, like every thing about him, was rich

and soft, rather than sweet or delicate.

Mariana no sooner knew him than she loved; and her love, lovely as she

was, soon excited his. But O, it is a curse to woman to love first, or

most! In so doing she reverses the natural relations; and her heart can

never, never be satisfied with what ensues.

Mariana loved first, and loved most, for she had most force and variety

to love with. Sylvain seemed, at first, to take her to himself, as the

deep southern night might some fair star; but it proved not so.

Mariana was a very intellectual being, and she needed companionship.

This she could only have with Sylvain, in the paths of passion and

action. Thoughts he had none, and little delicacy of sentiment. The

gifts she loved to prepare of such for him he took with a sweet but

indolent smile; he held them lightly, and soon they fell from his grasp.

He loved to have her near him, to feel the glow and fragrance of her

nature, but cared not to explore the little secret paths whence that

fragrance was collected.

Mariana knew not this for a long time. Loving so much, she imagined all

the rest; and, where she felt a blank, always hoped that further

communion would fill it up. When she found this could never be,--that

there was absolutely a whole province of her being to which nothing in

his answered,--she was too deeply in love to leave him. Often, after

passing hours together beneath the southern moon, when, amid the sweet

intoxication of mutual love, she still felt the desolation of solitude,

and a repression of her finer powers, she had asked herself, Can I give

him up? But the heart always passionately answered, No! I may be

wretched with him, but I cannot live without him.

And the last miserable feeling of these conflicts was, that if the

lover--soon to be the bosom friend--could have dreamed of these

conflicts, he would have laughed, or else been angry, even enough to

give her up.

Ah, weakness of the strong! of those strong only where strength is

weakness! Like others, she had the decisions of life to make before she

had light by which to make them. Let none condemn her. Those who have

not erred as fatally should thank the guardian angel who gave them more

time to prepare for judgment, but blame no children who thought at arm's

length to find the moon. Mariana, with a heart capable of highest Eros,

gave it to one who knew love only as a flower or plaything, and bound

her heartstrings to one who parted his as lightly as the ripe fruit

leaves the bough. The sequel could not fail. Many console themselves for

the one great mistake with their children, with the world. This was not

possible to Mariana. A few months of domestic life she still was almost

happy. But Sylvain then grew tired. He wanted business and the world: of

these she had no knowledge, for them no faculties. He wanted in her the

head of his house; she to make her heart his home. No compromise was

possible between natures of such unequal poise, and which had met only

on one or two points. Through all its stages she

"felt

The agonizing sense

Of seeing love from passion melt

Into indifference;

The fearful shame, that, day by day,

Burns onward, still to burn,

To have thrown her precious heart away,

And met this black return,"

till death at last closed the scene. Not that she died of one downright

blow on the heart. That is not the way such cases proceed. I cannot

detail all the symptoms, for I was not there to watch them, and aunt Z.,

who described them, was neither so faithful an observer or narrator as I

have shown myself in the school-day passages; but, generally, they were

as follows.

Sylvain wanted to go into the world, or let it into his house. Mariana

consented; but, with an unsatisfied heart, and no lightness of

character, she played her part ill there. The sort of talent and

facility she had displayed in early days were not the least like what is

called out in the social world by the desire to please and to shine. Her

excitement had been muse-like--that of the improvisatrice, whose

kindling fancy seeks to create an atmosphere round it, and makes the

chain through which to set free its electric sparks. That had been a

time of wild and exuberant life. After her character became more tender

and concentrated, strong affection or a pure enthusiasm might still have

called out beautiful talents in her. But in the first she was utterly

disappointed. The second was not roused within her mind. She did not

expand into various life, and remained unequal; sometimes too passive,

sometimes too ardent, and not sufficiently occupied with what occupied

those around her to come on the same level with them and embellish their

hours.

Thus she lost ground daily with her husband, who, comparing her with the

careless shining dames of society, wondered why he had found her so

charming in solitude.

At intervals, when they were left alone, Mariana wanted to open her

heart, to tell the thoughts of her mind. She was so conscious of secret

riches within herself, that sometimes it seemed, could she but reveal a

glimpse of them to the eye of Sylvain, he would be attracted near her

again, and take a path where they could walk hand in hand. Sylvain, in

these intervals, wanted an indolent repose. His home was his castle. He

wanted no scenes too exciting there. Light jousts and plays were well

enough, but no grave encounters. He liked to lounge, to sing, to read,

to sleep. In fine, Sylvain became the kind but preoccupied husband,

Mariana the solitary and wretched wife. He was off, continually, with

his male companions, on excursions or affairs of pleasure. At home

Mariana found that neither her books nor music would console her.

She was of too strong a nature to yield without a struggle to so dull a

fiend as despair. She looked into other hearts, seeking whether she

could there find such home as an orphan asylum may afford. This she did

rather because the chance came to her, and it seemed unfit not to seize

the proffered plank, than in hope; for she was not one to double her

stakes, but rather with Cassandra power to discern early the sure course

of the game. And Cassandra whispered that she was one of those

"Whom men love not, but yet regret;"

and so it proved. Just as in her childish days, though in a different

form, it happened betwixt her and these companions. She could not be

content to receive them quietly, but was stimulated to throw herself too

much into the tie, into the hour, till she filled it too full for them.

Like Fortunio, who sought to do homage to his friends by building a fire

of cinnamon, not knowing that its perfume would be too strong for their

endurance, so did Mariana. What she wanted to tell they did not wish to

hear; a little had pleased, so much overpowered, and they preferred the

free air of the street, even, to the cinnamon perfume of her palace.

However, this did not signify; had they staid, it would not have availed

her. It was a nobler road, a higher aim, she needed now; this did not

become clear to her.

She lost her appetite, she fell sick, had fever. Sylvain was alarmed,

nursed her tenderly; she grew better. Then his care ceased; he saw not

the mind's disease, but left her to rise into health, and recover the

tone of her spirits, as she might. More solitary than ever, she tried to

raise herself; but she knew not yet enough. The weight laid upon her

young life was a little too heavy for it. One long day she passed alone,

and the thoughts and presages came too thick for her strength. She knew

not what to do with them, relapsed into fever, and died.

Notwithstanding this weakness, I must ever think of her as a fine sample

of womanhood, born to shed light and life on some palace home. Had she

known more of God and the universe, she would not have given way where

so many have conquered. But peace be with her; she now, perhaps, has

entered into a larger freedom, which is knowledge. With her died a great

interest in life to me. Since her I have never seen a Bandit's Bride.

She, indeed, turned out to be only a merchant's. Sylvain is married

again to a fair and laughing girl, who will not die, probably, till

their marriage grows a "golden marriage."

Aunt Z. had with her some papers of Mariana's, which faintly shadow

forth the thoughts that engaged her in the last days. One of these seems

to have been written when some faint gleam had been thrown across the

path only to make its darkness more visible. It seems to have been

suggested by remembrance of the beautiful ballad, _Helen of Kirconnel

Lee_, which once she loved to recite, and in tones that would not have

sent a chill to the heart from which it came.

"Death

Opens her sweet white arms, and whispers, Peace;

Come, say thy sorrows in this bosom! This

Will never close against thee, and my heart,

Though cold, cannot be colder much than man's."

DISAPPOINTMENT.

"I wish I were where Helen lies."

A lover in the times of old,

Thus vents his grief in lonely sighs,

And hot tears from a bosom cold.

But, mourner for thy martyred love,

Couldst thou but know what hearts must feel.

Where no sweet recollections move,

Whose tears a desert fount reveal!

When "in thy arms bird Helen fell,"

She died, sad man, she died for thee;

Nor could the films of death dispel

Her loving eye's sweet radiancy.

Thou wert beloved, and she had loved,

Till death alone the whole could tell;

Death every shade of doubt removed,

And steeped the star in its cold well.

On some fond breast the parting soul

Relies--earth has no more to give;

Who wholly loves has known the whole;

The wholly loved doth truly live.

But some, sad outcasts from this prize,

Do wither to a lonely grave;

All hearts their hidden love despise,

And leave them to the whelming wave.

They heart to heart have never pressed,

Nor hands in holy pledge have given,

By father's love were ne'er caressed,

Nor in a mother's eye saw heaven.

A flowerless and fruitless tree,

A dried-up stream, a mateless bird,

They live, yet never living be,

They die, their music all unheard.

I wish I were where Helen lies,

For there I could not be alone;

But now, when this dull body dies,

The spirit still will make its moan.

Love passed me by, nor touched my brow;

Life would not yield one perfect boon;

And all too late it calls me now--

O, all too late, and all too soon.

If thou couldst the dark riddle read

Which leaves this dart within my breast,

Then might I think thou lov'st indeed,

Then were the whole to thee confest.

Father, they will not take me home;

To the poor child no heart is free;

In sleet and snow all night I roam;

Father, was this decreed by thee?

I will not try another door,

To seek what I have never found;

Now, till the very last is o'er,

Upon the earth I'll wander round.

I will not hear the treacherous call

That bids me stay and rest a while,

For I have found that, one and all,

They seek me for a prey and spoil.

They are not bad; I know it well;

I know they know not what they do;

They are the tools of the dread spell

Which the lost lover must pursue.

In temples sometimes she may rest,

In lonely groves, away from men,

There bend the head, by heats distressed,

Nor be by blows awoke again.

Nature is kind, and God is kind;

And, if she had not had a heart,

Only that great discerning mind,

She might have acted well her part.

But O this thirst, that nought can fill,

Save those unfounden waters free!

The angel of my life must still

And soothe me in eternity!

It marks the defect in the position of woman that one like Mariana

should have found reason to write thus. To a man of equal power, equal

sincerity, no more!--many resources would have presented themselves. He

would not have needed to seek, he would have been called by life, and

not permitted to be quite wrecked through the affections only. But such

women as Mariana are often lost, unless they meet some man of

sufficiently great soul to prize them.

Van Artevelde's Elena, though in her individual nature unlike my

Mariana, is like her in a mind whose large impulses are disproportioned

to the persons and occasions she meets, and which carry her beyond those

reserves which mark the appointed lot of woman. But, when she met Van

Artevelde, he was too great not to revere her rare nature, without

regard to the stains and errors of its past history; great enough to

receive her entirely, and make a new life for her; man enough to be a

lover! But as such men come not so often as once an age, their presence

should not be absolutely needed to sustain life.

SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS.

MEDITATION FIRST.

"And Jesus, answering, said unto them, Have faith in God."--_Mark_

xi. 22.

O, direction most difficult to follow! O, counsel most mighty of import!

Beauteous harmony to the purified soul! Mysterious, confounding as an

incantation to those yet groping and staggering amid the night, the fog,

the chaos of their own inventions!

Yes, this is indeed the beginning and the end of all knowledge and

virtue; the way and the goal; the enigma and its solution. The soul

cannot prove to herself the existence of a God; she cannot prove her own

immortality; she cannot prove the beauty of virtue, or the deformity of

vice; her own consciousness, the first ground of this belief, cannot be

compassed by the reason, that inferior faculty which the Deity gave for

practical, temporal purposes only. This consciousness is divine; it is

part of the Deity; through this alone we sympathize with the

imperishable, the infinite, the nature of things. Were reason

commensurate with this part of our intellectual life, what should we do

with the things of time? The leaves and buds of earth would wither

beneath the sun of our intelligence; its crags and precipices would be

levelled before the mighty torrent of our will; all its dross would

crumble to ashes under the fire of our philosophy.

God willed it otherwise; WHY, who can guess? Why this planet, with its

tormenting limitations of space and time, was ever created,--why the

soul was cased in this clogging, stifling integument, (which, while it

conveys to the soul, in a roundabout way, knowledge which she might

obviously acquire much better without its aid, tempts constantly to vice

and indolence, suggesting sordid wants, and hampering or hindering

thought,)--I pretend not to say. Let others toil to stifle sad distrust

a thousand ways. Let them satisfy themselves by reasonings on the nature

of free agency; let them imagine it was impossible men should be

purified to angels, except by resisting the temptations of guilt and

crime; let them be _reasonably_ content to feel that

"Faith conquers in no easy war;

By toil alone the prize is won;

The grape dissolves not in the cup--

Wine from the crushing press must run;

And would a spirit heavenward go,

A heart must break in death below."

Why an _omnipotent_ Deity should permit evil, either as necessary to

produce good, or incident to laws framed for its production, must remain

a mystery to me. True, _we_ cannot conceive how the world could have

been ordered differently, and because _we_,--beings half of clay; beings

bred amid, and nurtured upon imperfection and decay; beings who must not

only sleep and eat, but pass the greater part of their temporal day in

procuring the means to do so,--because WE, creatures so limited and

blind, so weak of thought and dull of hearing, cannot conceive how evil

could have been dispensed with, those among us who are styled _wise_ and

_learned_ have thought fit to assume that the Infinite, the Omnipotent,

could not have found a way! "Could not," "evil must be incident"--terms

invented to express the thoughts or deeds of the children of dust. Shall

they be applied to the Omnipotent? Is a confidence in the goodness of

God more trying to faith, than the belief that a God exists, to whom

these words, transcending our powers of conception, apply? O, no, no!

"_Have faith in God!_" Strive to expand thy soul to the feeling of

wisdom, of beauty, of goodness; live, and act as if these were the

necessary elements of things; "live for thy faith, and thou shalt behold

it living." In another world God will repay thy trust, and "reveal to

thee the first causes of things which Leibnitz could not," as the queen

of Prussia said, when she was dying. Socrates has declared that the

belief in the soul's immortality is so delightful, so elevating, so

purifying, that even were it not the truth, "we should daily strive to

enchant ourselves with it." And thus with faith in wisdom and

goodness,--that is to say, in God,--the earthquake-defying,

rock-foundation of our hopes is laid; the sun-greeting dome which crowns

the most superb palace of our knowledge is builded. A noble and

accomplished man, of a later day, has said, "To credit ordinary and

visible objects is not faith, but persuasion. I bless myself, and am

thankful, that I lived not in the days of miracles, that I never saw

Christ, nor his disciples; then had my faith been thrust upon me, nor

could I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced upon those who believe

yet saw not."

I cannot speak thus proudly and heartily. I find the world of sense

strong enough against the intellectual and celestial world. It is easy

to believe in our passionless moments, or in those when earth would seem

too dark without the guiding star of faith; but to _live_ in faith, not

sometimes to feel, but always to have it, is difficult. Were faith ever

with us, how steady would be our energy, how equal our ambition, how

calmly bright our hopes! The darts of envy would be blunted, the cup of

disappointment lose its bitterness, the impassioned eagerness of the

heart be stilled, tears would fall like holy dew, and blossoms fragrant

with celestial May ensue.

But the prayer of most of us must be, "Lord, we believe--help thou our

unbelief!" These are to me the most significant words of Holy Writ. I

_will_ to believe; O, guide, support, strengthen, and soothe me to do

so! Lord, grant me to believe firmly, and to act nobly. Let me not be

tempted to waste my time, and weaken my powers, by attempts to soar on

feeble pinions "where angels bashful look." In _faith_ let me interpret

the universe!

MEDITATION SECOND.

"Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath

hedged in?"--_Job_ iii. 23.

This pathetic inquiry rises from all parts of the globe, from millions

of human souls, to that heaven from whence the light proceeds. From the

young, full of eager aspirations after virtue and glory; with the glance

of the falcon to descry the high-placed aim,--but ah! the wing of the

wren to reach it! The young enthusiast must often weep. His heart glows,

his eye sparkles as he reads of the youthful triumphs of a Pompey, the

sublime devotion of an Agis;[34] he shuts the book, he looks around him

for a theatre whereon to do likewise--petty pursuits, mean feelings, and

trifling pleasures meet his eye; the cold breeze of selfishness has

nipped every flower; the dull glow of prosaic life overpowers the

beauties of the landscape. He plunges into the unloved pursuit, or some

despised amusement, to soothe that day's impatience, and wakes on the

morrow, crying, "I have lost a day; and where, where shall I now turn my

steps to find the destined path?" The gilded image of some petty victory

holds forth a talisman which seems to promise him sure tokens. He rushes

forward; the swords of foes and rivals bar the way; the ground trembles

and gives way beneath his feet; rapid streams, unseen at a distance,

roll between him and the object of his pursuit; faint, giddy and

exhausted by the loss of his best blood, he reaches the goal, seizes the

talisman; his eyes devour the inscription--alas! the characters are

unknown to him. He looks back for some friend who might aid him,--his

friends are whelmed beneath the torrent, or have turned back

disheartened. He must struggle onward alone and ignorant as before; yet

in his wishes there is light.

Another is attracted by a lovely phantom; with airy step she precedes

him, holding, as he thinks, in her upward-pointing hand the faithful

needle which might point him to the pole-star of his wishes. Unwearied

he follows, imploring her in most moving terms to pause but a moment and

let him take her hand. Heedless she flits onward to some hopeless

desert, where she pauses only to turn to her unfortunate captive the

malicious face of a very Morgana.

The old,--O their sighs are deeper still! They have wandered far, toiled

much; the true light is now shown them. Ah, why was it reflected so

falsely through "life's many-colored dome of painted glass" upon their

youthful, anxious gaze? And now the path they came by is hedged in by

new circumstances against the feet of others, and its devious course

vainly mapped in their memories; should the light of their example lead

others into the same track, these unlucky followers will vainly seek an

issue. They attempt to unroll their charts for the use of their

children, and their children's children. They feed the dark lantern of

wisdom with the oil of experience, and hold it aloft over the declivity

up which these youth are blundering, in vain; some fall, misled by the

flickering light; others seek by-paths, along which they hope to be

guided by suns or moons of their own. All meet at last, only to bemoan

or sneer together. How many strive with feverish zeal to paint on the

clouds of outward life the hues of their own souls; what do not these

suffer? What baffling,--what change in the atmosphere on which they

depend,--yet _not_ in vain! Something they realize, something they

grasp, something (O, how unlike the theme of their hope!) they have

created. A transient glow, a deceitful thrill,--these be the blisses of

mortals. Yet have these given birth to noble deeds, and thoughts worthy

to be recorded by the pens of angels on the tablets of immortality.

And this, O man! is thy only solace in those paroxysms of despair which

must result to the yet eager heart from the vast disproportion between

our perceptions and our exhibition of those perceptions. Seize on all

the twigs that may help thee in thine ascent, though the thorns upon

them rend thee. Toil ceaselessly towards the Source of light, and

remember that he who thus eloquently lamented found that, although far

worse than his dark presentiments had pictured came upon him, though

vainly he feared and trembled, and there was no safety for him, yet his

sighings came before his meat, and, happy in their recollection, he

found at last that danger and imprisonment are but for a season, and

that God is _good_, as he is great.

APPEAL FOR AN ASYLUM FOR DISCHARGED FEMALE CONVICTS.

The ladies of the Prison Association have been from time to time engaged

in the endeavor to procure funds for establishing this asylum.[35] They

have met, thus far, with little success; but touched by the position of

several women, who, on receiving their discharge, were anxiously waiting

in hope there would be means provided to save them from return to their

former suffering and polluted life, they have taken a house, and begun

their good work, in faith that Heaven must take heed that such an

enterprise may not fail, and touch the hearts of men to aid it.

They have taken a house, and secured the superintendence of an excellent

matron. There are already six women under her care. But this house is

unprovided with furniture, or the means of securing food for body and

mind to these unfortunates, during the brief novitiate which gives them

so much to learn and unlearn.

The object is to lend a helping hand to the many who show a desire of

reformation, but have hitherto been inevitably repelled into infamy by

the lack of friends to find them honest employment, and a temporary

refuge till it can be procured. Efforts will be made to instruct them

how to break up bad habits, and begin a healthy course for body and

mind.

The house has in it scarcely any thing. It is a true Lazarus

establishment, asking for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's

table. Old furniture would be acceptable, clothes, books that are no

longer needed by their owners.

This statement we make in appealing to the poor, though they are,

usually, the most generous. Not that they are, originally, better than

the rich, but circumstances have fitted them to appreciate the

misfortunes, the trials, the wrongs that beset those a little lower than

themselves. But we have seen too many instances where those who were

educated in luxury would cast aside sloth and selfishness with eagerness

when once awakened to better things, not to hope in appealing to the

rich also.

And to all we appeal: to the poor, who will know how to sympathize with

those who are not only poor but degraded, diseased, likely to be hurried

onward to a shameful, hopeless death; to the rich, to equalize the

advantages of which they have received more than their share; to men, to

atone for wrongs inflicted by men on that "weaker sex," who should, they

say, be soft, confiding, dependent on them for protection; to women, to

feel for those who have not been guarded either by social influence or

inward strength from that first mistake which the opinion of the world

makes irrevocable for women alone. Since their danger is so great, their

fall so remediless, let mercies be multiplied when there is a chance of

that partial restoration which society at present permits.

In New York we have come little into contact with that class of society

which has a surplus of leisure at command; but in other cities we have,

found in their ranks many--some men, more women--who wanted only a

decided object and clear light to fill the noble office of disinterested

educators and guardians to their less fortunate fellows. It has been our

happiness, in not a few instances, by merely apprising such persons of

what was to be done, to rouse that generous spirit which relieved them

from ennui and a gradual ossification of the whole system, and

transferred them into a thoughtful, sympathetic, and beneficent

existence. Such, no doubt, are near us here, if we could but know it. A

poet writes thus of the cities:--

Cities of proud hotels,

Houses of rich and great,

A stack of smoking chimneys,

A roof of frozen slate!

It cannot conquer folly,

Time, and space, conquering steam,

And the light, outspeeding telegraph,

Bears nothing on its beam.

The politics are base,

The letters do not cheer,

And 'tis far in the deeps of history,

The voice that speaketh clear.

Trade and the streets insnare us,

Our bodies are weak and worn,

We plot and corrupt each other,

And we despoil the unborn.

Yet there in the parlor sits

Some figure of noble guise,

Our angel in a stranger's form,

Or woman's pleading eyes.

Or only a flashing sunbeam

In at the window pane,

Or music pours on mortals

Its beautiful disdain.

These "pleading eyes," these "angels in strangers' forms," we meet, or

seem to meet, as we pass through the thoroughfares of this great city.

We do not know their names or homes. We cannot go to those still and

sheltered abodes and tell them the tales that would be sure to awaken

the heart to a deep and active interest in this matter. But should these

words meet their eyes, we would say, "Have you entertained your leisure

hours with the Mysteries of Paris, or the pathetic story of Violet

Woodville?" Then you have some idea how innocence, worthy of the

brightest planet, may be betrayed by want, or by the most generous

tenderness; how the energies of a noble reformation may lie hidden

beneath the ashes of a long burning, as in the case of "La Louve." You

must have felt that yourselves are not better, only more protected

children of God than these. Do you want to link these fictions, which

have made you weep, with facts around you where your pity might be of

use? Go to the Penitentiary at Blackwell's Island. You may be repelled

by seeing those who are in health while at work together, keeping up one

another's careless spirit and effrontery by bad association. But see

them in the Hospital,--where the worn features of the sick show the sad

ruins of past loveliness, past gentleness. See in the eyes of the nurses

the woman's spirit still, so kindly, so inspiring. See those little

girls huddled in a corner, their neglected dress and hair contrasting

with some ribbon of cherished finery held fast in a childish hand. Think

what "sweet seventeen" was to you, and what it is to them, and see if

you do not wish to aid in any enterprise that gives them a chance of

better days. We assume no higher claim for this enterprise. The dreadful

social malady which creates the need of it, is one that imperatively

demands deep-searching, preventive measures; it is beyond cure. But,

here and there, some precious soul may be saved from unwilling sin,

unutterable woe. Is not the hope to save here and there _one_ worthy of

great and persistent sacrifice?

THE RICH MAN.

AN IDEAL SKETCH.

In my walks through this city, the sight of spacious and expensive

dwelling-houses now in process of building, has called up the following

reverie.

All benevolent persons, whether deeply-thinking on, or deeply-feeling,

the woes, difficulties, and dangers of our present social system, are

agreed that either great improvements are needed, or a thorough reform.

Those who desire the latter include the majority of thinkers. And we

ourselves, both from personal observation and the testimony of others,

are convinced that a radical reform is needed; not a reform that rejects

the instruction of the past, or asserts that God and man have made

mistakes till now. We believe that all past developments have taken

place under natural and necessary laws, and that the Paternal Spirit has

at no period forgotten his children, but granted to all generations and

all ages their chances of good to balance inevitable ills. We prize the

past; we recognize it as our parent, our nurse, and our teacher; and we

know that for a time the new wine required the old bottles, to prevent

its being spilled upon the ground.

Still we feel that the time is come which not only permits, but demands,

a wider statement and a nobler action. The aspect of society presents

mighty problems, which must be solved by the soul of man

"divinely-intending" itself to the task, or all will become worse

instead of better, and ere long the social fabric totter to decay.

Yet while the new measures are ripening, and the new men educating,

there is still room on the old platform for some worthy action. It is

possible for a man of piety, resolution, and good sense, to lead a life

which, if not expansive, generous, graceful, and pure from suspicion and

contempt, is yet not entirely unworthy of his position as the child of

God, and ruler of a planet.

Let us take, then, some men just where they find themselves, in a mixed

state of society, where, in quantity, we are free to say the bad

preponderates, though the good, from its superior energy in quality, may

finally redeem and efface its plague-spots.

Our society is ostensibly under the rule of the precepts of Jesus. We

will then suppose a youth sufficiently imbued with these, to understand

what is conveyed under the parables of the unjust steward, and the

prodigal son, as well as the denunciations of the opulent Jews. He

understands that it is needful to preserve purity and teachableness,

since of those most like little children is the kingdom of heaven; mercy

for the sinner, since there is peculiar joy in heaven at the salvation

of such; perpetual care for the unfortunate, since only to the just

steward shall his possessions be pardoned. Imbued with such love, the

young man joins the active,--we will say, in choosing an

instance,--joins the commercial world.

His views of his profession are not those which make of the many a herd,

not superior, except in the far reach of their selfish interests, to the

animals; mere calculating, money-making machines.

He sees in commerce a representation of most important interests, a

grand school that may teach the heart and soul of the civilized world to

a willing, thinking mind. He plays his part in the game, but not for

himself alone; he sees the interests of all mankind engaged with his,

and remembers them while he furthers his own. His intellectual

discernment, no less than his moral, thus teaching the undesirableness

of lying and stealing, he does not practise or connive at the falsities

and meannesses so frequent among his fellows; he suffers many turns of

the wheel of fortune to pass unused, since he cannot avail himself of

them and keep clean his hands. What he gains is by superior assiduity,

skill in combination and calculation, and quickness of sight. His gains

are legitimate, so far as the present state of things permits any gains

to be.

Nor is this honorable man denied his due rank in the most corrupt state

of society. Here, happily, we draw from life, and speak of what we know.

Honesty is, indeed, the best policy, only it is so in the long run, and

therefore a policy which a selfish man has not faith and patience to

pursue. The influence of the honest man is in the end predominant, and

the rogues who sneer because he will not shuffle the cards in _their_

way, are forced to bow to it at last.

But while thus conscientious and mentally-progressive, he does not

forget to live. The sharp and care-worn faces, the joyless lives that

throng the busy street, do not make him forget his need of tender

affections, of the practices of bounty and love. His family, his

acquaintance, especially those who are struggling with the difficulties

of life, are not obliged to wait till he has accumulated a certain sum.

He is sunlight and dew to them now, day by day. No less do all in his

employment prize and bless the just, the brotherly man. He dares not,

would not, climb to power upon their necks. He requites their toil

handsomely, always; if his success be unusual, they share the benefit.

Their comfort is cared for in all the arrangements for their work. He

takes care, too, to be personally acquainted with those he employs,

regarding them, not as mere tools of his purpose, but as human beings

also; he keeps them in his eye, and if it be in his power to supply

their need of consolation, instruction, or even pleasure, they find they

have a friend.

"Nonsense!" exclaims our sharp-eyed, thin-lipped antagonist. "Such a man

would never get rich,--or even _get along_!"

You are mistaken, Mr. Stockjobber. Thus far many lines of our sketch are

drawn from real life; though for the second part, which follows, we

want, as yet, a worthy model.

We must imagine, then, our ideal merchant to have grown rich in some

forty years of toil passed in the way we have indicated. His hair is

touched with white, but his form is vigorous yet. Neither _gourmandise_

nor the fever of gain has destroyed his complexion, quenched the light

of his eye, or substituted sneers for smiles. He is an upright, strong,

sagacious, generous-looking man; and if his movements be abrupt, and his

language concise, somewhat beyond the standard of beauty, he is still

the gentleman; mercantile, but a mercantile nobleman.

Our nation is not silly in striving for an aristocracy. Humanity longs

for its upper classes. But the silliness consists in making them out of

clothes, equipage, and a servile imitation of foreign manners, instead

of the genuine elegance and distinction that can only be produced by

genuine culture. Shame upon the stupidity which, when all circumstances

leave us free for the introduction of a real aristocracy such as the

world never saw, bases its pretensions on, or makes its bow to the

footman behind, the coach, instead of the person within it.

But our merchant shall be a real nobleman, whose noble manners spring

from a noble mind, whose fashions from a sincere, intelligent love of

the beautiful.

We will also indulge the fancy of giving him a wife and children worthy

of himself. Having lived in sympathy with him, they have acquired no

taste for luxury; they do not think that the best use for wealth and

power is in self-indulgence, but, on the contrary, that "it is more

blessed to give than to receive."

He is now having one of those fine houses built, and, as in other

things, proceeds on a few simple principles. It is substantial, for he

wishes to give no countenance to the paper buildings that correspond

with other worthless paper currency of a credit system. It is thoroughly

finished and furnished, for he has a conscience about his house, as

about the neatness of his person. All must be of a piece. Harmony and a

wise utility are consulted, without regard to show. Still, as a rich

man, we allow him reception-rooms, lofty, large, adorned with good

copies of ancient works of art, and fine specimens of modern.

I admit, in this instance, the propriety of my nobleman often choosing

by advice of friends, who may have had more leisure and opportunity to

acquire a sure appreciation of merit in these walks. His character being

simple, he will, no doubt, appreciate a great part of what is truly

grand and beautiful. But also, from imperfect culture, he might often

reject what in the end he would have found most valuable to himself and

others. For he has not done learning, but only acquired the privilege of

helping to open a domestic school, in which he will find himself a pupil

as well as a master. So he may well make use, in furnishing himself with

the school apparatus, of the best counsel. The same applies to making

his library a good one. Only there must be no sham; no pluming himself

on possessions that represent his wealth, but the taste of others. Our

nobleman is incapable of pretension, or the airs of connoisseurship; his

object is to furnish a home with those testimonies of a higher life in

man, that may best aid to cultivate the same in himself and those

assembled round him.

He shall also have a fine garden and greenhouses. But the flowers shall

not be used only to decorate his apartments, or the hair of his

daughters, but shall often bless, by their soft and exquisite eloquence,

the poor invalid, or others whose sorrowful hearts find in their society

a consolation and a hope which nothing else bestows. For flowers, the

highest expression of the bounty of nature, declare that for all men,

not merely labor, or luxury, but gentle, buoyant, ever-energetic joy,

was intended, and bid us hope that we shall not forever be kept back

from our inheritance.

All the persons who have aided in building up this domestic temple, from

the artist who painted the ceilings to the poorest hodman, shall be well

paid and cared for during its erection; for it is a necessary part of

the happiness of our nobleman, to feel that all concerned in creating

his home are the happier for it.

We have said nothing about the architecture of the house, and yet this

is only for want of room. We do consider it one grand duty of every

person able to build a good house, also to aim at building a beautiful

one. We do not want imitations of what was used in other ages, nations,

and climates, but what is simple, noble, and in conformity with the

wants of our own. Room enough, simplicity of design, and judicious

adjustment of the parts to their uses and to the whole, are the first

requisites; the ornaments are merely the finish on these. We hope to see

a good style of civic architecture long before any material improvement

in the country edifices, for reasons that would be tedious to enumerate

here. Suffice it to say that we are far more anxious to see an American

architecture than an American literature; for we are sure there is here

already something individual to express.

Well, suppose the house built and equipped with man and horse. You may

be sure my nobleman gives his "hired help" good accommodations for their

sleeping and waking hours,--baths, books, and some leisure to use them.

Nay, I assure you--and this assurance also is drawn from life--that it

is possible, even in our present social relations, for the man who does

common justice, in these respects, to his fellows, and shows a friendly

heart, that thoroughly feels service to be no degradation, but an honor,

who believes

"A man's a MAN for a' that;"--

"Honor in the king the wisdom of his service,

Honor in the serf the fidelity of his service,"--

to have around him those who do their work in serenity of mind, neither

deceiving nor envying him whom circumstances have enabled to command

their service. As to the carriage, that is used for the purpose of going

to and fro in bad weather, or ill health, or haste, or for drives to

enjoy the country. But my nobleman and his family are too well born and

bred not to prefer employing their own feet when possible. And their

carriage is much appropriated to the use of poor invalids, even among

the abhorred class of poor relations, so that often they have not room

in it for themselves, much less for flaunting dames and lazy dandies.

We need hardly add that, their attendants wear no liveries. They are

aware that, in a society where none of the causes exist that justify

this habit abroad, the practice would have no other result than to call

up a sneer to the lips of the most complaisant "milor," when "Mrs.

Higginbottom's carriage stops the way," with its tawdry, ill-fancied

accompaniments. _Will_ none of their "governors" tell our cits the

AEsopian fable of the donkey that tried to imitate the gambols of the

little dog?

The wife of my nobleman is so well matched with him that she has no need

to be the better half. She is his almoner, his counsellor, and the

priestess who keeps burning on the domestic hearth a fire from the fuel

he collects in his out-door work, whose genial heart and aspiring flame

comfort and animate all who come within its range.

His children are his ministers, whose leisure and various qualifications

enable them to carry out his good thoughts. They hold all that they

possess--time, money, talents, acquirements--on the principle of

stewardship. They wake up the seeds of virtue and genius in all the

young persons of their acquaintance; but the poorer classes are

especially their care. Among them they seek for those who are threatened

with dying--"mute, inglorious" Hampdens and Miltons--but for their

scrutiny and care; of these they become the teachers and patrons to the

extent of their power. Such knowledge of the arts, sciences, and just

principles of action as they have been favored with, they communicate,

and thereby form novices worthy to fill up the ranks of the true

American aristocracy.

And the house--it is a large one; a simple family does not fill its

chambers. Some of them are devoted to the use of men of genius, who need

a serene home, free from care, while they pursue their labors for the

good of the world. Thus, as in the palaces of the little princes of

Italy in a better day, these chambers become hallowed by the nativities

of great thoughts; and the horoscopes of the human births that may take

place there, are likely to read the better for it. Suffering virtue

sometimes finds herself taken home here, instead of being sent to the

almshouse, or presented with half a dollar and a ticket for coal, and

finds upon my nobleman's mattresses (for the wealth of Croesus would

not lure him or his to sleep upon down) dreams of angelic protection

which enable her to rise refreshed for the struggle of the morrow.

The uses of hospitality are very little understood among us, so that we

fear generally there is a small chance of entertaining gods and angels

unawares, as the Greeks and Hebrews did in the generous time of

hospitality, when every man had a claim on the roof of fellow-man. Now,

none is received to a bed and breakfast unless he come as "bearer of

despatches" from His Excellency So-and-so.

But let us not be supposed to advocate the system of all work and no

play, or to delight exclusively in the pedagogic and Goody-Two-Shoes

vein. Reader, if any such accompany me to this scene of my vision, cheer

up; I hear the sound of music in full band, and see the banquet

prepared. Perhaps they are even dancing the polka and redowa in those

airy, well-lighted rooms. In another they find in the acting of

extempore dramas, arrangement of tableaux, little concerts or

recitations, intermingled with beautiful national or fancy dances, some

portion of the enchanting, refining, and ennobling influence of the

arts. The finest engravings on all subjects attend such as like to

employ themselves more quietly, while those who can find a companion or

congenial group to converse with, find also plenty of recesses and still

rooms, with softened light, provided for their pleasure.

There is not on this side of the Atlantic--we dare our glove upon it--a

more devout believer than ourselves in the worship of the Muses and

Graces, both for itself, and its importance no less to the moral than to

the intellectual life of a nation. Perhaps there is not one who has _so_

deep a feeling, or so many suggestions ready, in the fulness of time, to

be hazarded on the subject.

But in order to such worship, what standard is there as to admission to

the service? Talents of gold, or Delphian talents? fashion or elegance?

"standing" or the power to move gracefully from one position to another?

Our nobleman did not hesitate; the handle to his door bell was not of

gold, but mother-of-pearl, pure and prismatic.

If he did not go into the alleys to pick up the poor, they were not

excluded, if qualified by intrinsic qualities to adorn the scene.

Neither were wealth or fashion a cause of exclusion, more than of

admission. All depended on the person; yet he did not _seek_ his guests

among the slaves of fashion, for he knew that persons highly endowed

rarely had patience with the frivolities of that class, but retired, and

left it to be peopled mostly by weak and plebeian natures. Yet all

depended on the individual. Was the person fair, noble, wise, brilliant,

or even only youthfully innocent and gay, or venerable in a good old

age, he or she was welcome. Still, as simplicity of character and some

qualification positively good, healthy, and natural, was requisite for

admission, we must say the company was select. Our nobleman and his

family had weeded their "circle" carefully, year by year.

Some valued acquaintances they had made in ball-rooms and boudoirs, and

kept; but far more had been made through the daily wants of life, and

shoemakers, seamstresses, and graziers mingled happily with artists and

statesmen, to the benefit of both. (N.B.--None used the poisonous weed,

in or out of our domestic temple.)

I cannot tell you what infinite good our nobleman and his family were

doing by creation of this true social centre, where the legitimate

aristocracy of the land assembled, not to be dazzled by expensive

furniture, (our nobleman bought what was good in texture and beautiful

in form, but not _because_ it was expensive,) not to be feasted on rare

wines and highly-seasoned dainties, though they found simple

refreshments well prepared, as indeed it was a matter of duty and

conscience in that house that the least office should be well fulfilled,

but to enjoy the generous confluence of mind with mind and heart with

heart, the pastimes that are not waste-times of taste and inventive

fancy, the cordial union of beings from all points and places in noble

human sympathy. New York was beginning to be truly American, or rather

Columbian, and money stood for something in the records of history. It

had brought opportunity to genius and aid to virtue. But just at this

moment, the jostling showed me that I had reached the corner of Wall

Street. I looked earnestly at the omnibuses discharging their eager

freight, as if I hoped to see my merchant. "Perhaps he has gone to the

post office to take out letters from his friends in Utopia," thought I.

"Please give me a penny," screamed a half-starved ragged little

street-sweep, and the fancied cradle of the American Utopia receded, or

rather proceeded, fifty years, at least, into the future.

THE POOR MAN.

AN IDEAL SKETCH.

The foregoing sketch of the Rich Man, seems to require this

companion-piece; and we shall make the attempt, though the subject is

far more difficult than the former was.

In the first place, we must state what we mean by a poor man, for it is

a term of wide range in its relative applications. A painstaking

artisan, trained to self-denial, and a strict adaptation, not of his

means to his wants, but of his wants to his means, finds himself rich

and grateful, if some unexpected fortune enables him to give his wife a

new gown, his children cheap holiday joys, and his starving neighbor a

decent meal; while George IV., when heir apparent to the throne of Great

Britain, considered himself driven by the pressure of poverty to become

a debtor, a beggar, a swindler, and, by the aid of perjury, the husband

of two wives at the same time, neither of whom he treated well. Since

poverty is made an excuse for such depravity in conduct, it would be

well to mark the limits within which self-control and resistance to

temptation may be expected.

When he of the olden time prayed, "Give me neither poverty nor riches,"

we presume he meant that proportion of means to the average wants of a

human being which secures freedom from pecuniary cares, freedom of

motion, and a moderate enjoyment of the common blessings offered by

earth, air, water, the natural relations, and the subjects for thought

which every day presents. We shall certainly not look above this point

for our poor man. A prince may be poor, if he has not means to relieve

the sufferings of his subjects, or secure to them needed benefits. Or he

may make himself so, just as a well-paid laborer by drinking brings

poverty to his roof. So may the prince, by the mental gin of

horse-racing or gambling, grow a beggar. But we shall not consider these

cases.

Our subject will be taken between the medium we have spoken of as answer

to the wise man's prayer, and that destitution which we must style

infamous, either to the individual or to the society whose vices have

caused that stage of poverty, in which there is no certainty, and often

no probability, of work or bread from day to day,--in which cleanliness

and all the decencies of life are impossible, and the natural human

feelings are turned to gall because the man finds himself on this earth

in a far worse situation than the brute. In this stage there is no

ideal, and from its abyss, if the unfortunates look up to Heaven, or the

state of things as they ought to be, it is with suffocating gasps which

demand relief or death. This degree of poverty is common, as we all

know; but we who do not share it have no right to address those who do

from our own standard, till we have placed their feet on our own level.

Accursed is he who does not long to have this so--to take out at least

the physical hell from this world! Unblest is he who is not seeking,

either by thought or act, to effect this poor degree of amelioration in

the circumstances of his race.

We take the subject of our sketch, then, somewhere between the abjectly

poor and those in moderate circumstances. What we have to say may apply

to either sex, and to any grade in this division of the human family,

from the hodman and washerwoman up to the hard-working, poorly-paid

lawyer clerk, schoolmaster, or scribe.

The advantages of such a position are many. In the first place, you

belong, inevitably, to the active and suffering part of the world. You

know the ills that try men's souls and bodies. You cannot creep into a

safe retreat, arrogantly to judge, or heartlessly to forget, the others.

They are always before you; you see the path stained by their bleeding

feet; stupid and flinty, indeed, must you be, if you can hastily wound,

or indolently forbear to aid them. Then, as to yourself, you know what

your resources are; what you can do, what bear; there is small chance

for you to escape a well-tempered modesty. Then again, if you find power

in yourself to endure the trial, there is reason and reality in some

degree of self-reliance. The moral advantages of such training can

scarcely fail to amount to something; and as to the mental, that most

important chapter, how the lives of men are fashioned and transfused by

the experience of passion and the development of thought, presents new

sections at every turn, such as the distant dilettante's opera-glasses

will never detect,--to say nothing of the exercise of mere faculty,

which, though insensible in its daily course, leads to results of

immense importance.

But the evils, the disadvantages, the dangers, how many, how imminent!

True, indeed, they are so. There is the early bending of the mind to the

production of marketable results, which must hinder all this free play

of intelligence, and deaden the powers that craved instruction. There is

the callousness produced by the sight of more misery than it is possible

to relieve; the heart, at first so sensitive, taking refuge in a stolid

indifference against the pangs of sympathetic pain, it had not force to

bear. There is the perverting influence of uncongenial employments,

undertaken without or against choice, continued at unfit hours and

seasons, till the man loses his natural relations with summer and

winter, day and night, and has no sense more for natural beauty and joy.

There is the mean providence, the perpetual caution to guard against

ill, instead of the generous freedom of a mind which expects good to

ensue from all good actions. There is the sad doubt whether it will

_do_ to indulge the kindly impulse, the calculation of dangerous

chances, and the cost between the loving impulse and its fulfilment.

Yes; there is bitter chance of narrowness, meanness, and dulness on this

path, and it requires great natural force, a wise and large view of life

taken at an early age, or fervent trust in God, to evade them.

It is astonishing to see the poor, no less than the rich, the slaves of

externals. One would think that, where the rich man once became aware of

the worthlessness of the mere trappings of life from the weariness of a

spirit that found itself entirely dissatisfied after pomp and

self-indulgence, the poor man would learn this a hundred times from the

experience how entirely independent of them is all that is intrinsically

valuable in our life. But, no! The poor man wants dignity, wants

elevation of spirit. It is his own servility that forges the fetters

that enslave him. Whether he cringe to, or rudely defy, the man in the

coach and handsome coat, the cause and effect are the same. He is

influenced by a costume and a position. He is not firmly rooted in the

truth that only in so far as outward beauty and grandeur are

representative of the mind of the possessor, can they count for any

thing at all. O, poor man! you are poor indeed, if you feel yourself so;

poor if you do not feel that a soul born of God, a mind capable of

scanning the wondrous works of time and space, and a flexible body for

its service, are the essential riches of a man, and all he needs to make

him the equal of any other man. You are mean, if the possession of money

or other external advantages can make you envy or shrink from a being

mean enough to value himself upon such. Stand where you may, O man, you

cannot be noble and rich if your brow be not broad and steadfast, if

your eye beam not with a consciousness of inward worth, of eternal

claims and hopes which such trifles cannot at all affect. A man without

this majesty is ridiculous amid the flourish and decorations procured

by money, pitiable in the faded habiliments of poverty. But a man who is

a man, a woman who is a woman, can never feel lessened or embarrassed

because others look ignorantly on such matters. If they regret the want

of these temporary means of power, it must be solely because it fetters

their motions, deprives them of leisure and desired means of

improvement, or of benefiting those they love or pity.

I have heard those possessed of rhetoric and imaginative tendency

declare that they should have been outwardly great and inwardly free,

victorious poets and heroes, if fate had allowed them a certain quantity

of dollars. I have found it impossible to believe them. In early youth,

penury may have power to freeze the genial current of the soul, and

prevent it, during one short life, from becoming sensible of its true

vocation and destiny. But if it _has_ become conscious of these, and yet

there is not advance in any and all circumstances, no change would

avail.

No, our poor man must begin higher! He must, in the first place, really

believe there is a God who ruleth--a fact to which few men vitally bear

witness, though most are ready to affirm it with the lips.

2. He must sincerely believe that rank and wealth

"are but the guinea's stamp;

The man's the gold;"--

take his stand on his claims as a human being, made in God's own

likeness, urge them when the occasion permits, but never be so false to

them as to feel put down or injured by the want of mere external

advantages.

3. He must accept his lot, while he is in it. If he can change it for

the better, let his energies be exerted to do so. But if he cannot,

there is none that will not yield an opening to Eden, to the glories of

Zion, and even to the subterranean enchantments of our strange estate.

There is none that may not be used with nobleness.

"Who sweeps a room, as for Thy sake

Makes that and th' action clean."

4. Let him examine the subject enough to be convinced that there is not

that vast difference between the employments that is supposed, in the

means of expansion and refinement. All depends on the spirit as to the

use that is made of an occupation. Mahomet was not a wealthy merchant,

and profound philosophers have ripened on the benches, not of the

lawyers, but the shoemakers. It did not hurt Milton to be a poor

schoolmaster, nor Shakspeare to do the errands of a London play-house.

Yes, "the mind is its own place," and if it will keep that place, all

doors will be opened from it. Upon this subject we hope to offer some

hints at a future day, in speaking of the different trades, professions,

and modes of labor.

5. Let him remember that from no man can the chief wealth be kept. On

all men the sun and stars shine; for all the oceans swell and rivers

flow. All men may be brothers, lovers, fathers, friends; before all lie

the mysteries of birth and death. If these wondrous means of wealth and

blessing be likely to remain misused or unused, there are quite as many

disadvantages in the way of the man of money as of the man who has none.

Few who drain the choicest grape know the ecstasy of bliss and knowledge

that follows a full draught of the wine of life. That has mostly been

reserved for those on whose thoughts society, as a public, makes but a

moderate claim. And if bitterness followed on the joy, if your fountain

was frozen after its first gush by the cold winds of the world, yet,

moneyless men, ye are at least not wholly ignorant of what a human being

has force to know. You have not skimmed over surfaces, and been dozing

on beds of down, during the rare and stealthy visits of Love and the

Muses. Remember this, and, looking round on the arrangements of the

lottery, see if you did not draw a prize in your turn.

It will be seen that our ideal poor man needs to be religious, wise,

dignified, and humble, grasping at nothing, claiming all; willing to

wait, never willing to give up; servile to none, the servant of all, and

esteeming it the glory of a man to serve. The character is rare, but not

unattainable. We have, however, found an approach to it more frequent in

woman than in man.

THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE.

During a late visit to Boston, I visited with great pleasure the Chinese

Museum, which has been opened there.

There was much satisfaction in surveying its rich contents, if merely on

account of their splendor and elegance, which, though fantastic to our

tastes, presented an obvious standard of its own by which to prize it.

The rich dresses of the imperial court, the magnificent jars, (the

largest worth three hundred dollars, and looking as if it was worth much

more,) the present-boxes and ivory work, the elegant interiors of the

home and counting-room,--all these gave pleasure by their perfection,

each in its kind.

But the chief impression was of that unity of existence, so opposite to

the European, and, for a change, so pleasant, from its repose and gilded

lightness. Their imperial majesties do really seem so "perfectly

serene," that we fancy we might become so under their sway, if not

"thoroughly virtuous," as they profess to be. Entirely a new mood would

be ours, as we should sup in one of those pleasure boats, by the light

of fanciful lanterns, or listen to the tinkling of pagoda bells.