An idea not unknown to ancient times has of late been revived, that,

in the metamorphoses of life, the soul assumes the form, first of Man,

then of Woman, and takes the chances, and reaps the benefits of either

lot. Why then, say some, lay such emphasis on the rights or needs of

Woman? What she wins not as Woman will come to her as Man.

That makes no difference. It is not Woman, but the law of right, the

law of growth, that speaks in us, and demands the perfection of each

being in its kind--apple as apple, Woman as Woman. Without adopting

your theory, I know that I, a daughter, live through the life of Man;

but what concerns me now is, that my life be a beautiful, powerful, in

a word, a complete life in its kind. Had I but one more moment to live

I must wish the same.

Suppose, at the end of your cycle, your great world-year, all will be

completed, whether I exert myself or not (and the supposition is

_false_,--but suppose it true), am I to be indifferent about it?

Not so! I must beat my own pulse true in the heart of the world; for

_that_ is virtue, excellence, health.

Thou, Lord of Day! didst leave us to-night so calmly glorious, not

dismayed that cold winter is coming, not postponing thy beneficence to

the fruitful summer! Thou didst smile on thy day's work when it was

done, and adorn thy down-going as thy up-rising, for thou art loyal,

and it is thy nature to give life, if thou canst, and shine at all

events!

I stand in the sunny noon of life. Objects no longer glitter in the

dews of morning, neither are yet softened by the shadows of evening.

Every spot is seen, every chasm revealed. Climbing the dusty hill,

some fair effigies that once stood for symbols of human destiny have

been broken; those I still have with me show defects in this broad

light. Yet enough is left, even by experience, to point distinctly to

the glories of that destiny; faint, but not to be mistaken streaks of

the future day. I can say with the bard,

"Though many have suffered shipwreck, still beat noble hearts."

Always the soul says to us all, Cherish your best hopes as a faith,

and abide by them in action. Such shall be the effectual fervent means

to their fulfilment;

For the Power to whom we bow

Has given its pledge that, if not now,

They of pure and steadfast mind,

By faith exalted, truth refined,

_Shall_ hear all music loud and clear,

Whose first notes they ventured here.

Then fear not thou to wind the horn,

Though elf and gnome thy courage scorn;

Ask for the castle's King and Queen;

Though rabble rout may rush between,

Beat thee senseless to the ground,

In the dark beset thee round;

Persist to ask, and it will come;

Seek not for rest in humbler home;

So shalt thou see, what few have seen,

The palace home of King and Queen.

15_th November_, 1844.

PART II.

* * * * *

MISCELLANIES.

AGLAURON AND LAURIE.

A DRIVE THROUGH THE COUNTRY NEAR BOSTON.

Aglauron and Laurie are two of the pleasantest men I know. Laurie

combines, with the external advantages of a beautiful person and easy

address, all the charm which quick perceptions and intelligent

sympathy give to the intercourse of daily life. He has an extensive,

though not a deep, knowledge of men and books,--his naturally fine

taste has been more refined by observation, both at home and abroad,

than is usual in this busy country; and, though not himself a thinker,

he follows with care and delight the flights of a rapid and inventive

mind. He is one of those rare persons who, without being servile or

vacillating, present on no side any barrier to the free action of

another mind. Yes, he is really an agreeable companion. I do not

remember ever to have been wearied or chilled in his company.

Aglauron is a person of far greater depth and force than his friend

and cousin, but by no means as agreeable. His mind is ardent and

powerful, rather than brilliant and ready,--neither does he with ease

adapt himself to the course of another. But, when he is once kindled,

the blaze of light casts every object on which it falls into a bold

relief, and gives every scene a lustre unknown before. He is not,

perhaps, strictly original in his thoughts; but the severe truth of

his character, and the searching force of his attention, give the

charm of originality to what he says. Accordingly, another cannot, by

repetition, do it justice. I have never any doubt when I write down or

tell what Laurie says, but Aglauron must write for himself.

Yet I almost always take notes of what has passed, for the amusement

of a distant friend, who is learning, amidst the western prairies,

patience, and an appreciation of the poor benefits of our imperfectly

civilized state. And those I took this day, seemed not unworthy of a

more general circulation. The sparkle of talk, the free breeze that

swelled its current, are always fled when you write it down; but there

is a gentle flow, and truth to the moment, rarely attained in more

elaborate compositions.

My two friends called to ask if I would drive with them into the

country, and I gladly consented. It was a beautiful afternoon of the

last week in May. Nature seemed most desirous to make up for the time

she had lost, in an uncommonly cold and wet spring. The leaves were

bursting from their sheaths with such rapidity that the trees seemed

actually to greet you as you passed along. The vestal choirs of

snow-drops and violets were chanting their gentle hopes from every

bank, the orchards were white with blossoms, and the birds singing in

almost tumultuous glee.

We drove for some time in silence, perhaps fearful to disturb the

universal song by less melodious accents, when Aglauron said:

"How entirely are we new-born today! How are all the post cold skies

and hostile breezes vanished before this single breath of sweetness!

How consoling is the truth thus indicated!"

_Laurie_. It is indeed the dearest fact of our consciousness,

that, in every moment of joy, pain is annihilated. There is no past,

and the future is only the sunlight streaming into the far valley.

_Aglauron._ Yet it was the night that taught us to prize the day.

_Laurie._ Even so. And I, you know, object to none of the "dark

masters."

_Aglauron_. Nor I,--because I am sure that whatever is, is good;

and to find out the _why_ is all our employment here. But one

feels so at home in such a day as this!

_Laurie._ As this, indeed! I never heard so many birds, nor saw

so many flowers. Do you not like these yellow flowers?

_Aglauron._ They gleam upon the fields as if to express the

bridal kiss of the sun. He seems most happy, if not most wealthy, when

first he is wed to the earth.

_Laurie._ I believe I have some such feeling about these golden

flowers. When I did not know what was the Asphodel, so celebrated by

the poets, I thought it was a golden flower; yet this yellow is so

ridiculed as vulgar.

_Aglauron_. It is because our vulgar luxury depreciates objects

not fitted to adorn our dwellings. These yellow flowers will not bear

being token out of their places and brought home to the centre-table.

But, when enamelling the ground, the cowslip, the king-cup,--nay, the

marigold and dandelion even,--are resplendently beautiful.

_Laurie_. They are the poor man's gold. See that dark, unpointed

house, with its lilac shrubbery. As it stands, undivided from the road

to which the green bank slopes down from the door, is not the effect

of that enamel of gold dandelions beautiful?

_Aglauron_. It seems as if a stream of peace had flowed from the

door-step down to the very dust, in waves of light, to greet the

passer-by. That is, indeed, a quiet house. It looks as if somebody's

grandfather lived there still.

_Laurie_. It is most refreshing to see the dark boards amid those

houses of staring white. Strange that, in the extreme heat of summer,

aching eyes don't teach the people better.

_Aglauron_. We are still, in fact, uncivilized, for all our

knowledge of what is done "in foreign parts" cannot make us otherwise.

Civilization must be homogeneous,--must be a natural growth. This

glistening white paint was long preferred because the most expensive;

just as in the West, I understand, they paint houses red to make them

resemble the hideous red brick. And the eye, thus spoiled by

excitement, prefers red or white to the stone-color, or the browns,

which would harmonize with other hues.

_Laurie_. I should think the eye could never be spoiled so far as

to like these white palings. These bars of glare amid the foliage are

unbearable.

_Myself_. What color should they be?

_Laurie_. An invisible green, as in all civilized parts of the

globe. Then your eye would rest on the shrubbery undisturbed.

_Myself_. Your vaunted Italy has its palaces of white stucco and

buildings of brick.

_Laurie_. Ay,--but the stucco is by the atmosphere soon mellowed

into cream-color, the brick into rich brown.

_Myself_. I have heard a connoisseur admire our own red brick in

the afternoon sun, above all other colors.

_Laurie_. There are some who delight too much in the stimulus of

color to be judges of harmony of coloring. It is so, often, with the

Italians. No color is too keen for the eye of the Neapolitan. He

thinks, with little Riding-hood, there is no color like red. I have

seen one of the most beautiful new palaces paved with tiles of a

brilliant red. But this, too, is barbarism.

_Myself_. You are pleased to call it so, because you make the

English your arbiters in point of taste; but I do not think they, on

your own principle, are our proper models. With their ever-weeping

skies, and seven-piled velvet of verdure, they are no rule for us,

whose eyes are accustomed to the keen blue and brilliant clouds of our

own realm, and who see the earth wholly green scarce two months in the

year. No white is more glistening than our January snows; no house

here hurts my eye more than the fields of white-weed will, a fortnight

hence.

_Laurie._ True refinement of taste would bid the eye seek repose

the more. But, even admitting what you say, there is no harmony. The

architecture is borrowed from England; why not the rest?

_Aglauron._ But, my friend, surely these piazzas and pipe-stem

pillars are all American.

_Laurie._ But the cottage to which they belong is English. The

inhabitants, suffocating in small rooms, and beneath sloping roofs,

because the house is too low to admit any circulation of air, are in

need, we must admit, of the piazza, for elsewhere they must suffer all

the torments of Mons. Chaubert in his first experience of the oven.

But I do not assail the piazzas, at any rate; they are most desirable,

in these hot summers of ours, were they but in proportion with the

house, and their pillars with one another. But I do object to houses

which are desirable neither as summer nor winter residences here. The

shingle palaces, celebrated by Irving's wit, were far more

appropriate, for they, at least, gave free course to the winds of

heaven, when the thermometer stood at ninety-five degrees in the

shade.

_Aglauron._ Pity that American wit nipped in the bud those early

attempts at an American architecture. Here in the East, alas! the case

is become hopeless. But in the West the log-cabin still promises a

proper basis.

_Laurie._ You laugh at me. But so it is. I am not so silly as to

insist upon American architecture, American art, in the 4th of July

style, merely for the gratification of national vanity. But a

building, to be beautiful, should harmonize exactly with the uses to

which it is to be put, and be an index to the climate and habits of

the people. There is no objection to borrowing good thoughts from

other nations, if we adopt the new style because we find it will serve

our convenience, and not merely because it looks pretty outside.

_Aglauron._ I agree with you that here, as well as in manners and

in literature, there is too ready access to the old stock, and, though

I said it in jest, my hope is, in truth, the log-cabin. This the

settler will enlarge, as his riches and his family increase; he will

beautify as his character refines, and as his eye becomes accustomed

to observe objects around him for their loveliness as well as for

their utility. He will borrow from Nature the forms and coloring most

in harmony with the scene in which his dwelling is placed. Might

growth here be but slow enough! Might not a greediness for gain and

show cheat men of all the real advantages of their experience!

(Here a carriage passed.)

_Laurie._ Who is that beautiful lady to whom you bowed?

_Aglauron._ Beautiful do you think her? At this distance, and

with the freshness which the open air gives to her complexion, she

certainly does look so, and was so still, five years ago, when I knew

her abroad. It is Mrs. V----.

_Laurie._ I remember with what interest you mentioned her in your

letters. And you promised to tell me her true story.

_Aglauron._ I was much interested, then, both in her and her

story, But, last winter, when I met her at the South, she had altered,

and seemed so much less attractive than before, that the bright colors

of the picture are well-nigh effaced.

_Laurie._ The pleasure of telling the story will revive them

again. Let us fasten our horses and go into this little wood. There is

a seat near the lake which is pretty enough to tell a story upon.

_Aglauron._ In all the idyls I ever read, they were told in

caves, or beside a trickling fountain.

_Laurie._ That was in the last century. We will innovate. Let us

begin that American originality we were talking about, and make the

bank of a lake answer our purpose.

* * * * *

We dismounted accordingly, but, on reaching the spot, Aglauron at

first insisted on lying on the grass, and gazing up at the clouds in a

most uncitizen-like fashion, and it was some time before we could get

the promised story. At last,--

* * * * *

I first saw Mrs. V---- at the opera in Vienna. Abroad, I scarcely cared

for anything in comparison with music. In many respects the Old World

disappointed my hopes; Society was, in essentials, no better, nor

worse, than at home, and I too easily saw through the varnish of

conventional refinement. Lions, seen near, were scarcely more

interesting than tamer cattle, and much more annoying in their gambols

and caprices. Parks and ornamental grounds pleased me less than the

native forests and wide-rolling rivers of my own land. But in the

Arts, and most of all in Music, I found all my wishes more than

realized. I found the soul of man uttering itself with the swiftness,

the freedom and the beauty, for which I had always pined. I easily

conceived how foreigners, once acquainted with this diverse language,

pass their lives without a wish for pleasure or employment beyond

hearing the great works of the masters. It seemed to me that here was

wealth to feed the thoughts for ages. This lady fixed my attention by

the rapturous devotion with which she listened. I saw that she too had

here found her proper home. Every shade of thought and feeling

expressed in the music was mirrored in her beautiful countenance. Her

rapture of attention, during some passages, was enough of itself to

make you hold your breath; and a sudden stroke of genius lit her face

into a very heaven with its lightning. It seemed to me that in her I

should find one who would truly sympathize with me, one who looked on

the art not as a connoisseur, but a votary.

I took the speediest opportunity of being introduced to her at her own

house by a common friend.

But what a difference! At home I scarcely knew her. Still she was

beautiful; but the sweetness, the elevated expression, which the

satisfaction of an hour had given her, were entirely fled. Her eye was

restless, her cheek pale and thin, her whole expression perturbed and

sorrowful. Every gesture spoke the sickliness of a spirit long an

outcast from its natural home, bereft of happiness, and hopeless of

good.

I perceived, at first sight of her every-day face, that it was not

unknown to me. Three or four years earlier, staying in the

country-house of one of her friends, I had seen her picture. The house

was very dull,--as dull as placid content with the mere material

enjoyments of life, and an inert gentleness of nature, could make its

inhabitants. They were people to be loved, but loved without a

thought. Their wings had never grown, nor their eyes coveted a wider

prospect than could be seen from the parent nest. The friendly

visitant could not discompose them by a remark indicating any

expansion of mind or life. Much as I enjoyed the beauty of the country

around, when out in the free air, my hours within the house would have

been dull enough but for the contemplation of this picture. While the

round of common-place songs was going on, and the whist-players were

at their work, I used to sit and wonder how this being, so sovereign

in the fire of her nature, so proud in her untamed loveliness, could

ever have come of their blood. Her eye, from the canvas, even, seemed

to annihilate all things low or little, and able to command all

creation in search of the object of its desires. She had not found it,

though; I felt this on seeing her now. She, the queenly woman, the

Boadicea of a forlorn hope, as she seemed born to be, the only woman

whose face, to my eye, had ever given promise of a prodigality of

nature sufficient for the entertainment of a poet's soul, was--I saw

it at a glance--a captive in her life, and a beggar in her affections.

_Laurie._ A dangerous object to the traveller's eye, methinks!

_Aglauron._ Not to mine! The picture had been so; but, seeing her

now, I felt that the glorious promise of her youthful prime had

failed. She had missed her course; and the beauty, whose charm to the

imagination had been that it seemed invincible, was now subdued and

mixed with earth.

_Laurie._ I can never comprehend the cruelty in your way of

viewing human beings, Aglauron. To err, to suffer, is their lot; all

who have feeling and energy of character must share it; and I could

not endure a woman who at six-and-twenty bore no trace of the past.

_Aglauron._ Such women and such men are the companions of

everyday life. But the angels of our thoughts are those moulds of pure

beauty which must break with a fall. The common air must not touch

them, for they make their own atmosphere. I admit that such are not

for the tenderness of daily life; their influence must be high,

distant, starlike, to be pure.

Such was this woman to me before I knew her; one whose splendid beauty

drew on my thoughts to their future home. In knowing her, I lost the

happiness I had enjoyed in knowing what she should have been. At first

the disappointment was severe, but I have learnt to pardon her, as

others who get mutilated or worn in life, and show the royal impress

only in their virgin courage. But this subject would detain me too

long. Let me rather tell you of Mrs. V----'s sad history.

A friend of mine has said that beautiful persons seem rarely born to

their proper family, but amidst persons so rough and uncongenial that

_their_ presence commands like that of a reproving angel, or

pains like that of some poor prince changed at nurse, and bound for

life to the society of churls.

So it was with Emily. Her father was sordid, her mother weak; persons

of great wealth and greater selfishness. She was the youngest by many

years, and left alone in her father's house. Notwithstanding the want

of intelligent sympathy while she was growing up, and the want of all

intelligent culture, she was not an unhappy child. The unbounded and

foolish indulgence with which she was treated did not have an

obviously bad effect upon her then; it did not make her selfish,

sensual, or vain. Her character was too powerful to dwell upon such

boons as those nearest her could bestow. She negligently received them

all as her due. It was later that the pernicious effects of the

absence of all discipline showed themselves; but in early years she

was happy in her lavish feelings, and in beautiful nature, on which

she could pour them, and in her own pursuits. Music was her passion;

in it she found food, and an answer for feelings destined to become so

fatal to her peace, but which then glowed so sweetly in her youthful

form as to enchant the most ordinary observer.

When she was not more than fifteen, and expanding like a flower in

each sunny day, it was her misfortune that her first husband saw and

loved her. Emily, though pleased by his handsome person and gay

manners, never bestowed a serious thought on him. If she had, it would

have been the first ever disengaged from her life of pleasurable

sensation. But when he did plead his cause with all the ardor of

youth, and the flourishes which have been by usage set apart for such

occasions, she listened with delight; for all his talk of boundless

love, undying faith, etc., seemed her native tongue. It was like the

most glowing sunset sky. It swelled upon the ear like music. It was

the only way she ever wished to be addressed, and she now saw plainly

why all talk of everyday people had fallen unheeded on her ear. She

could have listened all day. But when, emboldened by the beaming eye

and ready smile with which she heard, he pressed his suit more

seriously, and talked of marriage, she drew back astonished. Marry

yet?--impossible! She had never thought of it; and as she thought now

of marriages, such as she had seen them, there was nothing in marriage

to attract. But L---- was not so easily repelled; he made her every

promise of pleasure, as one would to a child. He would take her away

to journey through scenes more beautiful than she had ever dreamed of;

he would take her to a city where, in the fairest home, she should

hear the finest music, and he himself, in every scene, would be her

devoted slave, too happy if for every now pleasure he received one of

those smiles which had become his life.

He saw her yielding, and hastened to secure her. Her father was

delighted, as fathers are strangely wont to be, that he was likely to

be deprived of his child, his pet, his pride. The mother was threefold

delighted that she would have a daughter married so _young_,--at

least three years younger than any of her elder sisters were married.

Both lent their influence; and Emily, accustomed to rely on them

against all peril, and annoyance, till she scarcely knew there was

pain or evil in the world, gave her consent, as she would have given

it to a pleasure-party for a day or a week.

The marriage was hurried on; L---- intent on gaining his object, as

men of strong will and no sentiment are wont to be, the parents

thinking of the eclat of the match. Emily was amused by the

preparations for the festivity, and full of excitement about the new

chapter which was to be opened in her life. Yet so little idea had she

of the true business of life, and the importance of its ties, that

perhaps there was no figure in the future that occupied her less than

that of her bridegroom, a handsome man, with a sweet voice, her

captive, her adorer. She neither thought nor saw further, lulled by

the pictures of bliss and adventure which were floating before her

fancy, the more enchanting because so vague.

It was at this time that the picture that so charmed me was taken. The

exquisite rose had not yet opened its leaves so as to show its heart;

but its fragrance and blushful pride were there in perfection.

Poor Emily! She had the promised journeys, the splendid home. Amid the

former her mind, opened by new scenes, already learned that something

she seemed to possess was wanting in the too constant companion of her

days. In the splendid home she received not only musicians, but other

visitants, who taught her strange things.

Four little months after her leaving home, her parents were astonished

by receiving a letter in which she told them they had parted with her

too soon; that she was not happy with Mr. L----, as he had promised

she should be, and that she wished to have her marriage broken. She

urged her father to make haste about it, as she had particular reasons

for impatience. You may easily conceive of the astonishment of the

good folks at home. Her mother wondered and cried. Her father

immediately ordered his horses, and went to her.

He was received with rapturous delight, and almost at the first moment

thanked for his speedy compliance with her request. But when she found

that he opposed her desire of having her marriage broken, and when she

urged him with vehemence and those marks of caressing fondness she had

been used to find all-powerful, and he told her at last it could not

be done, she gave way to a paroxysm of passion; she declared that she

could not and would not live with Mr. L----; that, so soon as she saw

anything of the world, she saw many men that she infinitely preferred

to him; and that, since her father and mother, instead of guarding

her, so mere a child as she was, so entirely inexperienced, against a

hasty choice, had persuaded and urged her to it, it was their duty to

break the match when they found it did not make her happy.

"My child, you are entirely unreasonable."

"It is not a time to be patient; and I was too yielding before. I am

not seventeen. Is the happiness of my whole life to be sacrificed?"

"Emily, you terrify me! Do you love anybody else?"

"Not yet; but I am sure shall find some one to love, now I know what

it is. I have seen already many whom I prefer to Mr. L----."

"Is he not kind to you?"

"Kind! yes; but he is perfectly uninteresting. I hate to be with him.

I do not wish his kindness, nor to remain in his house."

In vain her father argued; she insisted that she could never be happy

as she was; that it was impossible the law could be so cruel as to

bind her to a vow she had taken when so mere a child; that she would

go home with her father now, and they would see what could be done.

She added that she had already told her husband her resolution.

"And how did he bear it?"

"He was very angry; but it is better for him to be angry once than

unhappy always, as I should certainly make him did I remain here."

After long and fruitless attempts to reason her into a different state

of mind, the father went in search of the husband. He found him

irritated and mortified. He loved his wife, in his way, for her

personal beauty. He was very proud of her; he was piqued to the last

degree by her frankness. He could not but acknowledge the truth of

what she said, that she had been persuaded into the match when but a

child; for she seemed a very infant now, in wilfulness and ignorance

of the world. But I believe neither he nor her father had one

compunctious misgiving as to their having profaned the holiness of

marriage by such an union. Their minds had never been opened to the

true meaning of life, and, though they thought themselves so much

wiser, they were in truth much less so than the poor, passionate

Emily,--for her heart, at least, spoke clearly, if her mind lay in

darkness.

They could do nothing with her, and her father was at length compelled

to take her home, hoping that her mother might be able to induce her

to see things in a different light. But father, mother, uncles,

brothers, all reasoned with her in vain. Totally unused to

disappointment, she could not for a long time believe that she was

forever bound by a bond that sat uneasily on her untamed spirit. When

at last convinced of the truth, her despair was terrible.

"Am I his? his forever? Must I never then love? Never marry one whom I

could really love? Mother! it is too cruel. I cannot, will not believe

it. You always wished me to belong to him. You do not now wish to aid

me, or you are afraid! O, you would not be so, could you but know what

I feel!"

At last convinced, she then declared that if she could not be legally

separated from L----, but must consent to bear his name, and never

give herself to another, she would at least live with him no more. She

would not again leave her father's house. Here she was deaf to all

argument, and only force could have driven her away. Her indifference

to L---- had become hatred, in the course of these thoughts and

conversations. She regarded herself as his victim, and him as her

betrayer, since, she said, he was old enough to know the importance of

the step to which he led her. Her mind, naturally noble, though now in

this wild state, refused to admit his love as an excuse. "Had he loved

me," she said, "he would have wished to teach me to love him, before

securing me as his property. He is as selfish as he is dull and

uninteresting. No! I will drag on my miserable years here alone, but I

will not pretend to love him nor gratify him by the sight of his

slave!"

A year and more passed, and found the unhappy Emily inflexible. Her

husband at last sought employment abroad, to hide his mortification.

After his departure, Emily relaxed once from the severe coldness she

had shown since her return home. She had passed her time there with

her music, in reading poetry, in solitary walks. But as the person who

had been, however unintentionally, the means of making her so

miserable, was further removed from her, she showed willingness to

mingle again with the family, and see one or two young friends.

One of these, Almeria, effected what all the armament of praying and

threatening friends had been unable to do. She devoted herself to

Emily. She shared her employments and her walks; she sympathized with

all her feelings, even the morbid ones which she saw to be sincerity,

tenderness and delicacy gone astray,--perverted and soured by the

foolish indulgence of her education, and the severity of her destiny

made known suddenly to a mind quite unprepared. At last, having won

the confidence and esteem of Emily, by the wise and gentle cheek her

justice and clear perceptions gave to all extravagance, Almeria

ventured on representing to Emily her conduct as the world saw it.

To this she found her quite insensible. "What is the world to me?" she

said. "I am forbidden to seek there all it can offer of value to

Woman--sympathy and a home."

"It is full of beauty still," said Almeria, looking out into the

golden and perfumed glories of a June day.

"Not to the prisoner and the slave," said Emily.

"All are such, whom God hath not made free;" and Almeria gently

ventured to explain the hopes of larger span which enable the soul

that can soar upon their wings to disregard the limitations of seventy

years.

Emily listened with profound attention. The words were familiar to

her, but the tone was not; it was that which rises from the depths of

a purified spirit,--purified by pain, softened into peace.

"Have you made any use of these thoughts in your life, Almeria?"

The lovely preacher hesitated not to reveal a tale before unknown

except to her own heart, of woe, renunciation, and repeated blows from

a hostile fate.

Emily heard it in silence, but she understood. The great illusions of

youth vanished. She did not suffer alone; her lot was not peculiar.

Another, perhaps many, were forbidden the bliss of sympathy and a

congenial environment. And what had Almeria done? Revenged herself?

Tormented all around her? Clung with wild passion to a selfish

resolve? Not at all. She had made the best of a wreck of life, and

deserved a blessing on a new voyage. She had sought consolation in

disinterested tenderness for her fellow-sufferers, and she deserved to

cease to suffer.

The lesson was taken home, and gradually leavened the whole being of

this spoiled but naturally noble child.

A few weeks afterwards, she asked her father when Mr. L---- was

expected to return.

"In about three months," he replied, much surprised.

"I should like to have you write to him for me."

"What now absurdity?" said the father, who, long mortified and

harassed, had ceased to be a fond father to his once adored Emily.

"Say that my views are unchanged as to his soliciting a marriage with

me when too childish to know my own mind on that or any other subject;

but I have now seen enough of the world to know that he meant no ill,

if no good, and was no more heedless in this great matter than many

others are. He is not born to know what one constituted like me must

feel, in a home where I found no rest for my heart. I have now read,

seen and thought, what has made me a woman. I can be what you call

reasonable, though not perhaps in your way. I see that my misfortune

is irreparable. I heed not the world's opinion, and would, for myself,

rather remain here, and keep up no semblance of a connection which my

matured mind disclaims. But that scandalizes you and my mother, and

makes your house a scene of pain and mortification in your old age. I

know you, too, did not neglect the charge of me, in your own eyes. I

owe you gratitude for your affectionate intentions at least.

"L---- too is as miserable as mortification can make one like him.

Write, and ask him if he wishes my presence in his house on my own

terms. He must not expect from me the affection, or marks of

affection, of a wife. I should never have been his wife had I waited

till I understood life or myself. But I will be his attentive and

friendly companion, the mistress of his house, if he pleases. To the

world it will seem enough,--he will be more comfortable there,--and

what he wished of me was, in a great measure, to show me to the world.

I saw that, as soon as we were in it, I could not give him happiness

if I would, for we have not a thought nor employment in common. But if

we can agree on the way, we may live together without any one being

very miserable except myself, and I have made up my mind."

The astonishment of the father may be conceived, and his cavils;

L----'s also.

To cut the story short, it was settled in Emily's way, for she was one

of the sultana kind, dread and dangerous. L---- hardly wished her to

love him now, for he half hated her for all she had done; yet he was

glad to have her back, as she had judged, for the sake of appearances.

All was smoothed over by a plausible story. People, indeed, knew the

truth as to the fair one's outrageous conduct perfectly, but Mr. L----

was rich, his wife beautiful, and gave good parties; so society, as

such, bowed and smiled, while individuals scandalized the pair.

They had been living on this footing for several years, when I saw

Emily at the opera. She was a much altered being. Debarred of

happiness in her affections, she had turned for solace to the

intellectual life, and her naturally powerful and brilliant mind had

matured into a splendor which had never been dreamed of by those who

had seen her amid the freaks end day-dreams of her early youth.

Yet, as I said before, she was not captivating to me, as her picture

had been. She was, in a different way, as beautiful in feature and

coloring as in her spring-time. Her beauty, all moulded and mellowed

by feeling, was far more eloquent; but it had none of the virgin

magnificence, the untouched tropical luxuriance, which had fired my

fancy. The false position in which she lived had shaded her expression

with a painful restlessness; and her eye proclaimed that the conflicts

of her mind had strengthened, had deepened, but had not yet hallowed,

her character.

She was, however, interesting, deeply so; one of those rare beings who

fill your eye in every mood. Her passion for music, and the great

excellence she had attained as a performer, drew us together. I was

her daily visitor; but, if my admiration ever softened into

tenderness, it was the tenderness of pity for her unsatisfied heart,

and cold, false life.

But there was one who saw with very different eyes. V---- had been

intimate with Emily some time before my arrival, and every day saw him

more deeply enamored.

_Laurie._ And pray where was the husband all this time?

_Aglauron._ L---- had sought consolation in ambition. He was a

man of much practical dexterity, but of little thought, and less

heart. He had at first been jealous of Emily for his honor's

sake,--not for any reality,--for she treated him with great attention

as to the comforts of daily life; but otherwise, with polite, steady

coldness. Finding that she received the court, which many were

disposed to pay her, with grace and affability, but at heart with

imperial indifference, he ceased to disturb himself; for, as she

rightly thought, he was incapable of understanding her. A coquette he

could have interpreted; but a romantic character like hers, born for a

grand passion, or no love at all, he could not. Nor did he see that

V---- was likely to be more to her than any of her admirers.

_Laurie._ I am afraid I should have shamed his obtuseness. V----

has nothing to recommend him that I know of, except his beauty, and

that is the beauty of a _petit-maitre_--effeminate, without

character, and very unlikely, I should judge, to attract such a woman

as you give me the idea of.

_Aglauron._ You speak like a man, Laurie; but have you never

heard tales of youthful minstrels and pages being preferred by

princesses, in the land of chivalry, to stalwart knights, who were

riding all over the land, doing their devoirs maugre scars and

starvation? And why? One want of a woman's heart is to admire and be

protected; but another is to be understood in all her delicate

feelings, and have an object who shall know how to receive all the

marks of her inventive and bounteous affection. V---- is such an one;

a being of infinite grace and tenderness, and an equal capacity for

prizing the same in another.

Effeminate, say you? Lovely, rather, and lovable. He was not, indeed,

made to grow old; but I never saw a fairer spring-time than shone in

his eye when life, and thought, and love, opened on him all together.

He was to Emily like the soft breathing of a flute in some solitary

valley; indeed, the delicacy of his nature made a solitude around him

in the world. So delicate was he, and Emily for a long time so

unconscious, that nobody except myself divined how strong was the

attraction which, as it drew them nearer together, invested both with

a lustre and a sweetness which charmed all around them.

But I see the sun is declining, and warns me to cut short a tale which

would keep us here till dawn if I were to detail it as I should like

to do in my own memories. The progress of this affair interested me

deeply; for, like all persons whose perceptions are more lively than

their hopes, I delight to live from day to day in the more ardent

experiments of others. I looked on with curiosity, with sympathy, with

fear. How could it end? What would become of them, unhappy lovers? One

too noble, the other too delicate, ever to find happiness in an

unsanctioned tie.

I had, however, no right to interfere, and did not, even by a look,

until one evening, when the occasion was forced upon me.

There was a summer fete given at L----'s. I had mingled for a while

with the guests in the brilliant apartments; but the heat oppressed,

the conversation failed to interest me. An open window tempted me to

the garden, whose flowers and tufted lawns lay bathed in moonlight. I

went out alone; but the music of a superb band followed my steps, and

gave impulse to my thoughts. A dreaming state, pensive though not

absolutely sorrowful, came upon me,--one of those gentle moods when

thoughts flow through the mind amber-clear and soft, noiseless,

because unimpeded. I sat down in an arbor to enjoy it, and probably

stayed much longer than I could have imagined; for when I reentered

the large saloon it was deserted. The lights, however, were not

extinguished, and, hearing voices in the inner room, I supposed some

guests still remained; and, as I had not spoken with Emily that

evening, I ventured in to bid her good-night. I started, repentant, on

finding her alone with V----, and in a situation that announced their

feelings to be no longer concealed from each other. She, leaning back

on the sofa, was weeping bitterly, while V----, seated at her feet,

holding her hands within his own, was pouring forth his passionate

words with a fervency which prevented him from perceiving my entrance.

But Emily perceived me at once, and starting up, motioned me not to

go, as I had intended. I obeyed, and sat down. A pause ensued, awkward

for me and for V----, who sat with his eyes cast down and blushing

like a young girl detected in a burst of feeling long kept secret.

Emily sat buried in thought, the tears yet undried upon her cheeks.

She was pale, but nobly beautiful, as I had never yet seen her.

After a few moments I broke the silence, and attempted to tell why I

had returned so late. She interrupted me: "No matter, Aglauron, how it

happened; whatever the chance, it promises to give both V---- and

myself, what we greatly need, a calm friend and adviser. You are the

only person among these crowds of men whom I could consult; for I have

read friendship in your eye, and I know you have truth and honor.

V---- thinks of you as I do, and he too is, or should be, glad to have

some counsellor beside his own wishes."

V---- did not raise his eyes; neither did he contradict her. After a

moment he said, "I believe Aglauron to be as free from prejudice as

any man, and most true and honorable; yet who can judge in this matter

but ourselves?"

"No one shall judge," said Emily; "but I want counsel. God help me! I

feel there is a right and wrong; but how can my mind, which has never

been trained to discern between them, be confident of its power at

this important moment? Aglauron, what remains to me of happiness,--if

anything do remain; perhaps the hope of heaven, if, indeed, there be a

heaven,--is at stake! Father and brother have failed their trust. I

have no friend able to understand, wise enough to counsel me. The only

one whose words ever came true to my thoughts, and of whom you have

often reminded me, is distant. Will you, this hour, take her place?"

"To the best of my ability," I replied without hesitation, struck by

the dignity of her manner.

"You know," she said, "all my past history; all do so here, though

they do not talk loudly of it. You and all others have probably blamed

me. You know not, you cannot guess, the anguish, the struggles of my

childish mind when it first opened to the meaning of those words,

Love, Marriage, Life. When I was bound to Mr. L----, by a vow which

from my heedless lips was mockery of all thought, all holiness, I had

never known a duty, I had never felt the pressure of a tie. Life had

been, so far, a sweet, voluptuous dream, and I thought of this

seemingly so kind and amiable person as a new and devoted ministrant

to me of its pleasures. But I was scarcely in his power when I awoke.

I perceived the unfitness of the tie; its closeness revolted me.

"I had no timidity; I had always been accustomed to indulge my

feelings, and I displayed them now. L----, irritated, averted his

mastery; this drove me wild; I soon hated him, and despised too his

insensibility to all which I thought most beautiful. From all his

faults, and the imperfection of our relation, grew up in my mind the

knowledge of what the true might be to me. It is astonishing how the

thought grow upon me day by day. I had not been married more than

three months before I knew what it would be to love, and I longed to

be free to do so. I had never known what it was to be resisted, and

the thought never came to me that I could now, and for all my life, be

bound by so early a mistake. I thought only of expressing my resolve

to be free.

"How I was repulsed, how disappointed, you know, or could divine if

you did not know; for all but me have been trained to bear the burden

from their youth up, and accustomed to have the individual will

fettered for the advantage of society. For the same reason, you cannot

guess the silent fury that filled my mind when I at last found that I

had struggled in vain, and that I must remain in the bondage that I

had ignorantly put on.

"My affections were totally alienated from my family, for I felt they

had known what I had not, and had neither put me on my guard, nor

warned me against precipitation whose consequences must be fatal. I

saw, indeed, that they did not look on life as I did, and could be

content without being happy; but this observation was far from making

me love them more. I felt alone, bitterly, contemptuously alone. I

hated men who had made the laws that bound me. I did not believe in

God; for why had He permitted the dart to enter so unprepared a

breast? I determined never to submit, though I disdained to struggle,

since struggle was in vain. In passive, lonely wretchedness I would

pass my days. I would not feign what I did not feel, nor take the hand

which had poisoned for me the cup of life before I had sipped the

first drops.

"A friend--the only one I have ever known--taught me other thoughts.

She taught me that others, perhaps all others, were victims, as much

as myself. She taught me that if all the wrecked submitted to be

drowned, the world would be a desert. She taught me to pity others,

even those I myself was paining; for she showed me that they had

sinned in ignorance, and that I had no right to make them suffer so

long as I myself did, merely because they were the authors of my

suffering.

"She showed me, by her own pure example, what were Duty and

Benevolence and Employment to the soul, even when baffled and sickened

in its dearest wishes. That example was not wholly lost: I freed my

parents, at least, from their pain, and, without falsehood, became

less cruel and more calm.

"Yet the kindness, the calmness, have never gone deep. I have been

forced to live out of myself; and life, busy or idle, is still most

bitter to the homeless heart. I cannot be like Almeria; I am more

ardent; and, Aglauron, you see now I might be happy,"

She looked towards V----. I followed her eye, and was well-nigh melted

too by the beauty of his gaze.

"The question in my mind is," she resumed, "have I not a right to fly?

To leave this vacant life, and a tie which, but for worldly

circumstances, presses as heavily on L---- as on myself. I shall

mortify him; but that is a trifle compared with actual misery. I shall

grieve my parents; but, were they truly such, would they not grieve

still more that I must reject the life of mutual love? I have already

sacrificed enough; shall I sacrifice the happiness of one I could

really bless for those who do not know one native heart-beat of my

life?"

V---- kissed her hand.

"And yet," said she, sighing, "it does not always look so. We must, in

that case, leave the world; it will not tolerate us. Can I make V----

happy in solitude? And what would Almeria think? Often it seems that

she would feel that now I do love, and could make a green spot in the

desert of life over which she mourned, she would rejoice to have me do

so. Then, again, something whispers she might have objections to make;

and I wish--O, I long to know them! For I feel that this is the great

crisis of my life, and that if I do not act wisely, now that I have

thought and felt, it will be unpardonable. In my first error I was

ignorant what I wished, but now I know, and ought not to be weak or

deluded."

I said, "Have you no religious scruples? Do you never think of your

vow as sacred?"

"Never!" she replied, with flashing eyes. "Shall the woman be bound by

the folly of the child? No!--have never once considered myself as

L----'s wife. If I have lived in his house, it was to make the best of

what was left, as Almeria advised. But what I feel he knows perfectly.

I have never deceived him. But O! I hazard all! all! and should I be

again ignorant, again deceived"----

V---- here poured forth all that can be imagined.

I rose: "Emily, this case seems to me so extraordinary that I must

have time to think. You shall hear from me. I shall certainly give you

my best advice, and I trust you will not over-value it."

"I am sure," she said, "it will be of use to me, and will enable me to

decide what I shall do. V----, now go away with Aglauron; it is too

late for you to stay here."

I do not know if I have made obvious, in this account, what struck me

most in the interview,--a certain savage force in the character of

this beautiful woman, quite independent of the reasoning power. I saw

that, as she could give no account of the past, except that she saw it

was fit, or saw it was not, so she must be dealt with now by a strong

instalment made by another from his own point of view, which she would

accept or not, as suited her.

There are some such characters, which, like plants, stretch upwards to

the light; they accept what nourishes, they reject what injures them.

They die if wounded,--blossom if fortunate; but never learn to analyze

all this, or find its reasons; but, if they tell their story, it is in

Emily's way;--"it was so;" "I found it so."

I talked with V----, and found him, as I expected, not the peer of her

he loved, except in love. His passion was at its height. Better

acquainted with the world than Emily,--not because he had seen it

more, but because he had the elements of the citizen in him,--he had

been at first equally emboldened and surprised by the ease with which

he won her to listen to his suit. But he was soon still more surprised

to find that she would only listen. She had no regard for her position

in society as a married woman,--none for her vow. She frankly

confessed her love, so far as it went, but doubted as to whether it

was _her whole love_, and doubted still more her right to leave

L----, since she had returned to him, and could not break the bond so

entirely as to give them firm foot-hold in the world.

"I may make you unhappy," she said, "and then be unhappy myself; these

laws, this society, are so strange, I can make nothing of them. In

music I am at home. Why is not all life music? We instantly know when

we are going wrong there. Convince me it is for the best, and I will

go with you at once. But now it seems wrong, unwise, scarcely better

than to stay as we are. We must go secretly, must live obscurely in a

corner. That I cannot bear,--all is wrong yet. Why am I not at liberty

to declare unblushingly to all men that I will leave the man whom I

_do not_ love, and go with him I _do_ love? That is the only

way that would suit me,--I cannot see clearly to take any other

course."

I found V---- had no scruples of conscience, any more than herself. He

was wholly absorbed in his passion, and his only wish was to persuade

her to elope, that a divorce might follow, and she be all his own.

I took my part. I wrote next day to Emily. I told her that my view

must differ from hers in this: that I had, from early impressions, a

feeling of the sanctity of the marriage vow. It was not to me a

measure intended merely to insure the happiness of two individuals,

but a solemn obligation, which, whether it led to happiness or not,

was a means of bringing home to the mind the great idea of Duty, the

understanding of which, and not happiness, seemed to be the end of

life. Life looked not clear to me otherwise. I entreated her to

separate herself from V---- for a year, before doing anything

decisive; she could then look at the subject from other points of

view, and see the bearing on mankind as well as on herself alone. If

she still found that happiness and V---- were her chief objects, she

might be more sure of herself after such a trial. I was careful not to

add one word of persuasion or exhortation, except that I recommended

her to the enlightening love of the Father of our spirits.

_Laurie_. With or without persuasion, your advice had small

chance, I fear, of being followed.

_Aglauron_. You err. Next day V---- departed. Emily, with a calm

brow and earnest eyes, devoted herself to thought, and such reading as

I suggested.

_Laurie_. And the result?

_Aglauron_. I grieve not to be able to point my tale with the

expected moral, though perhaps the true denouement may lead to one as

valuable. L---- died within the year, and she married V----.

_Laurie_. And the result?

_Aglauron_. Is for the present utter disappointment in him. She

was infinitely blest, for a time, in his devotion, but presently her

strong nature found him too much hers, and too little his own. He

satisfied her as little as L---- had done, though always lovely and

dear. She saw with keen anguish, though this time without bitterness,

that we are never wise enough to be sure any measure will fulfil our

expectations.

But--I know not how it is--Emily does not yet command the changes of

destiny which she feels so keenly and faces so boldly. Born to be

happy only in the clear light of religious thought, she still seeks

happiness elsewhere. She is now a mother, and all other thoughts are

merged in that. But she will not long be permitted to abide there. One

more pang, and I look to see her find her central point, from which

all the paths she has taken lead. She loves truth so ardently, though

as yet only in detail, that she will yet know truth as a whole. She

will see that she does not live for Emily, or for V----, or for her

child, but as one link in a divine purpose. Her large nature must at

last serve knowingly.

_Myself_. I cannot understand you, Aglauron; I do not guess the

scope of your story, nor sympathize with your feeling about this lady.

She is a strange, and, I think, very unattractive person. I think her

beauty must have fascinated you. Her character seems very

inconsistent.

_Aglauron_. Because I have drawn from life.

_Myself_. But, surely, there should be a harmony somewhere.

_Aglauron_. Could we but get the right point of view.

_Laurie_. And where is that?

He pointed to the sun, just sinking behind the pine grove. We mounted

and rode home without a word more. But I do not understand Aglauron

yet, nor what he expects from this Emily. Yet her character, though

almost featureless at first, gains distinctness as I think of it more.

Perhaps in this life I shall find its key.

THE WRONGS OF AMERICAN WOMEN. THE DUTY OF AMERICAN WOMEN.

The same day brought us a copy of Mr. Burdett's little book,--in which

the sufferings and difficulties that beset the large class of women

who must earn their subsistence in a city like New York, are

delineated with so much simplicity, feeling, and exact adherence to

the facts,--and a printed circular, containing proposals for immediate

practical adoption of the plan wore fully described in a book

published some weeks since, under the title, "The Duty of American

Women to their Country," which was ascribed alternately to Mrs. Stowe

and Miss Catharine Beecher. The two matters seemed linked to one

another by natural parity. Full acquaintance with the wrong must call

forth all manner of inventions for its redress.

The circular, in showing the vast want that already exists of good

means for instructing the children of this nation, especially in the

West, states also the belief that among women, as being less immersed

in other cares and toils, from the preparation it gives for their task

as mothers, and from the necessity in which a great proportion stand

of earning a subsistence somehow, at least during the years which

precede marriage, if they _do_ marry, must the number of teachers

wanted be found, which is estimated already at _sixty thousand_.

We cordially sympathize with these views.

Much has been written about woman's keeping within her sphere, which

is defined as the domestic sphere. As a little girl she is to learn

the lighter family duties, while she acquires that limited

acquaintance with the realm of literature and science that will enable

her to superintend the instruction of children in their earliest

years. It is not generally proposed that she should be sufficiently

instructed and developed to understand the pursuits or aims of her

future husband; she is not to be a help-meet to him in the way of

companionship and counsel, except in the care of his house and

children. Her youth is to be passed partly in learning to keep house

and the use of the needle, partly in the social circle, where her

manners may be formed, ornamental accomplishments perfected and

displayed, and the husband found who shall give her the domestic

sphere for which she is exclusively to be prepared.

Were the destiny of Woman thus exactly marked out; did she invariably

retain the shelter of a parent's or guardian's roof till she married;

did marriage give her a sure home and protector; were she never liable

to remain a widow, or, if so, sure of finding immediate protection

from a brother or new husband, so that she might never be forced to

stand alone one moment; and were her mind given for this world only,

with no faculties capable of eternal growth and infinite improvement;

we would still demand for her a for wider and more generous culture,

than is proposed by those who so anxiously define her sphere. We would

demand it that she might not ignorantly or frivolously thwart the

designs of her husband; that she might be the respected friend of her

sons, not less than of her daughters; that she might give more

refinement, elevation and attraction, to the society which is needed

to give the characters of _men_ polish and plasticity,--no less

so than to save them from vicious and sensual habits. But the most

fastidious critic on the departure of Woman from her sphere can

scarcely fail to see, at present, that a vast proportion of the sex,

if not the better half, do not, _cannot_ have this domestic

sphere. Thousands and scores of thousands in this country, no less

than in Europe, are obliged to maintain themselves alone. Far greater

numbers divide with their husbands the care of earning a support for

the family. In England, now, the progress of society has reached so

admirable a pitch, that the position of the sexes is frequently

reversed, and the husband is obliged to stay at home and "mind the

house and bairns," while the wife goes forth to the employment she

alone can secure.

We readily admit that the picture of this is most painful;--that

Nature made an entirely opposite distribution of functions between the

sexes. We believe the natural order to be the best, and that, if it

could be followed in an enlightened spirit, it would bring to Woman

all she wants, no less for her immortal than her mortal destiny. We

are not surprised that men who do not look deeply and carefully at

causes and tendencies, should be led, by disgust at the hardened,

hackneyed characters which the present state of things too often

produces in women, to such conclusions as they are. We, no more than

they, delight in the picture of the poor woman digging in the mines in

her husband's clothes. We, no more than they, delight to hear their

voices shrilly raised in the market-place, whether of apples, or of

celebrity. But we see that at present they must do as they do for

bread. Hundreds and thousands must step out of that hallowed domestic

sphere, with no choice but to work or steal, or belong to men, not as

wives, but as the wretched slaves of sensuality.

And this transition state, with all its revolting features, indicates,

we do believe, an approach of a nobler era than the world has yet

known. We trust that by the stress and emergencies of the present and

coming time the minds of women will be formed to more reflection and

higher purposes than heretofore; their latent powers developed, their

characters strengthened and eventually beautified and harmonized.

Should the state of society then be such that each may remain, as

Nature seems to have intended, Woman the tutelary genius of home,

while Man manages the outdoor business of life, both may be done with

a wisdom, a mutual understanding and respect, unknown at present. Men

will be no less gainers by this than women, finding in pure and more

religious marriages the joys of friendship and love combined,--in

their mothers and daughters better instruction, sweeter and nobler

companionship, and in society at large, an excitement to their finer

powers and feelings unknown at present, except in the region of the

fine arts.

Blest be the generous, the wise, who seek to forward hopes like these,

instead of struggling, against the fiat of Providence and the march of

Fate, to bind down rushing life to the standard of the past! Such

efforts are vain, but those who make them are unhappy and unwise.

It is not, however, to such that we address ourselves, but to those

who seek to make the best of things as they are, while they also

strive to make them better. Such persons will have seen enough of the

state of things in London, Paris, New York, and manufacturing regions

everywhere, to feel that there is an imperative necessity for opening

more avenues of employment to women, and fitting them better to enter

them, rather than keeping them back.

Women have invaded many of the trades and some of the professions.

Sewing, to the present killing extent, they cannot long bear.

Factories seem likely to afford them permanent employment. In the

culture of fruit, flowers, and vegetables, even in the sale of them,

we rejoice to see them engaged. In domestic service they will be

aided, but can never be supplanted, by machinery. As much room as

there is here for Woman's mind and Woman's labor, will always be

filled. A few have usurped the martial province, but these must always

be few; the nature of Woman is opposed to war. It is natural enough to

see "female physicians," and we believe that the lace cap and work-bag

are as much at home here as the wig and gold-headed cane. In the

priesthood, they have, from all time, shared more or less--in many

eras more than at the present. We believe there has been no female

lawyer, and probably will be none. The pen, many of the fine arts,

they have made their own; and in the more refined countries of the

world, as writers, as musicians, as painters, as actors, women occupy

as advantageous ground as men. Writing and music may be esteemed

professions for them more than any other.

But there are two others--where the demand must invariably be immense,

and for which they are naturally better fitted than men--for which we

should like to see them better prepared and better rewarded than they

are. These are the professions of nurse to the sick, and of the

teacher. The first of these professions we have warmly desired to see

dignified. It is a noble one, now most unjustly regarded in the light

of menial service. It is one which no menial, no servile nature can

fitly occupy. We were rejoiced when an intelligent lady of

Massachusetts made the refined heroine of a little romance select this

calling. This lady (Mrs. George Lee) has looked on society with

unusual largeness of spirit and healthiness of temper. She is well

acquainted with the world of conventions, but sees beneath it the

world of nature. She is a generous writer, and unpretending as the

generous are wont to be. We do not recall the name of the tale, but

the circumstance above mentioned marks its temper. We hope to see the

time when the refined and cultivated will choose this profession, and

learn it, not only through experience and under the direction of the

doctor, but by acquainting themselves with the laws of matter and of

mind, so that all they do shall be intelligently done, and afford them

the means of developing intelligence, as well as the nobler, tenderer

feelings of humanity; for even this last part of the benefit they

cannot receive if their work be done in a selfish or mercenary spirit.

The other profession is that of teacher, for which women are

peculiarly adapted by their nature, superiority in tact, quickness of

sympathy, gentleness, patience, and a clear and animated manner in

narration or description. To form a good teacher, should be added to

this, sincere modesty combined with firmness, liberal views, with a

power and will to liberalize them still further, a good method, and

habits of exact and thorough investigation. In the two last requisites

women are generally deficient, but there are now many shining examples

to prove that if they are immethodical and superficial as teachers,

it is because it is the custom so to teach them, and that when aware

of these faults, they can and will correct them.

The profession is of itself an excellent one for the improvement of

the teacher during that interim between youth and maturity when the

mind needs testing, tempering, and to review and rearrange the

knowledge it has acquired. The natural method of doing this for one's

self, is to attempt teaching others; those years also are the best of

the practical teacher. The teacher should be near the pupil, both in

years and feelings; no oracle, but the eldest brother or sister of the

pupil. More experience and years form the lecturer and director of

studies, but injure the powers as to familiar teaching.

These are just the years of leisure in the lives even of those women

who are to enter the domestic sphere, and this calling most of all

compatible with a constant progress as to qualifications for that.

Viewing the matter thus, it may well be seen that we should hail with

joy the assurance that sixty thousand _female_ teachers are

wanted, and more likely to be, and that a plan is projected which

looks wise, liberal and generous, to afford the means, to those whose

hearts answer to this high calling, of obeying their dictates.

The plan is to have Cincinnati as a central point, where teachers

shall be for a short time received, examined, and prepared for their

duties. By mutual agreement and cooperation of the various sects,

funds are to be raised, and teachers provided, according to the wants

and tendencies of the various locations now destitute. What is to be

done for them centrally, is for suitable persons to examine into the

various kinds of fitness, communicate some general views whose value

has been tested, and counsel adapted to the difficulties and

advantages of their new positions. The central committee are to have

the charge of raising funds, and finding teachers, and places where

teachers are wanted.

The passage of thoughts, teachers and funds, will be from East to

West--the course of sunlight upon this earth.

The plan is offered as the most extensive and pliant means of doing a

good and preventing ill to this nation, by means of a national

education; whose normal school shall have an invariable object in the

search after truth, and the diffusion of the means of knowledge, while

its form shall be plastic according to the wants of the time. This

normal school promises to have good effects, for it proposes worthy

aims through simple means, and the motive for its formation and

support seems to be disinterested philanthropy.

It promises to eschew the bitter spirit of sectarianism and

proselytism, else we, for one party, could have nothing to do with it.

Men, no doubt, have oftentimes been kept from absolute famine by the

wheat with which such tares are mingled; but we believe the time is

come when a purer and more generous food is to be offered to the

people at large. We believe the aim of all education to be to rouse

the mind to action, show it the means of discipline and of

information; then leave it free, with God, Conscience, and the love of

Truth, for its guardians and teachers. Woe be to those who sacrifice

these aims of universal and eternal value to the propagation of a set

of opinions! We can accept such doctrine as is offered by Rev. Colvin

E. Stowe, one of the committee, in the following passage:

"In judicious practice, I am persuaded there will seldom be any very

great difficulty, especially if there be excited in the community

anything like a whole-hearted and enlightened sincerity in the cause

of public instruction.

"It is all right for people to suit their own taste and convictions in

respect to sect; and by fair means, and at proper times, to teach

their children and those under their influence to prefer the

denominations which they prefer; but further than this no one has any

right to go. It is all wrong to hazard the well-being of the soul, to

jeopardize great public interests for the sake of advancing the

interests of a sect. People must learn to practise some self-denial,

on Christian principles, in respect to their denominational prejudices

as well as in respect to other things, before pure religion can ever

gain a complete victory over every form of human selfishness."

The persons who propose themselves to the examination and instruction

of the teachers at Cincinnati, till the plan shall be sufficiently

under way to provide regularly for the office, are Mrs. Stowe and Miss

Catharine Beecher, ladies well known to fame, as possessing unusual

qualifications for the task.

As to finding abundance of teachers, who that reads this little book

of Mr. Burdett's, or the account of the compensation of female labor

in New York, and the hopeless, comfortless, useless, pernicious lives

of those who have even the advantage of getting work must lead, with

the sufferings and almost inevitable degradation to which those who

cannot are exposed, but must long to snatch such as are capable of

this better profession (and among the multitude there must be many who

are or could be made so) from their present toils, and make them free,

and the means of freedom and growth in others?

To many books on such subjects--among others to "Woman in the

Nineteenth Century"--the objection has been made, that they exhibit

ills without specifying any practical means for their remedy. The

writer of the last-named essay does indeed think that it contains one

great rule which, if laid to heart, would prove a practical remedy for

many ills, and of such daily and hourly efficacy in the conduct of

life, that any extensive observance of it for a single year would

perceptibly raise the tone of thought, feeling and conduct, throughout

the civilized world. But to those who ask not only such a principle,

but an external method for immediate use, we say that here is one

proposed which looks noble and promising; the proposers offer

themselves to the work with heart and hand, with time and purse. Go ye

and do likewise.

GEORGE SAND.

When I first knew George Sand, I thought to have found tried the

experiment I wanted. I did not value Bettine so much. She had not

pride enough for me. Only now, when I am sure of myself, can I pour

out my soul at the feet of another. In the assured soul it is kingly

prodigality; in one which cannot forbear it is mere babyhood. I love

"abandon" only when natures are capable of the extreme reverse. I know

Bettine would end in nothing; when I read her book I knew she could

not outlive her love.

But in _"Les Sept Cordes de la Lyre,"_ which I read first, I saw

the knowledge of the passions and of social institutions, with the

celestial choice which rose above them. I loved Helene, who could hear

so well the terrene voices, yet keep her eye fixed on the stars. That

would be my wish also,--to know all, and then choose. I even revered

her, for I was not sure that I could have resisted the call of the

_now_; could have left the spirit and gone to God; and at a more

ambitious age I could not have refused the philosopher. But I hoped

much from her steadfastness, and I thought I heard the last tones of a

purified life. Gretchen, in the golden cloud, is raised above all past

delusions, worthy to redeem and upbear the wise man who stumbled into

the pit of error while searching for truth.

Still, in "Andre" and "Jacques," I trace the same high morality of one

who had tried the liberty of circumstance only to learn to appreciate

the liberty of law;--to know that license is the foe of freedom; and,

though the sophistry of Passion in these books disgusted me, flowers

of purest hue seemed to grow upon the dark and dirty ground. I thought

she had cast aside the slough of her past life, and begun a new

existence beneath the sun of a new ideal.

But here, in the _"Lettres d'un Voyageur,"_ what do I see? An

unfortunate, wailing her loneliness, wailing her mistakes, _writing

for money!_ She has genius, and a manly grasp of mind, but not a

manly heart. Will there never be a being to combine a man's mind and a

woman's heart, and who yet finds life too rich to weep over? Never?

When I read in _"Leon Leoni"_ the account of the jeweller's

daughter's life with her mother, passed in dressing, and learning to

be looked at when dressed, _"avec un front impassible,"_ it

reminded me of ---- and her mother. What a heroine she would be for

Sand! She has the same fearless softness with Juliet, and a sportive

_naivete_ a mixture of bird and kitten, unknown to the dupe of

Leoni.

If I were a man, and wished a wife, as many do, merely as an ornament,

a silken toy, I would take ---- as soon as any I know. Her fantastic,

impassioned and mutable nature would yield an inexhaustible amusement.

She is capable of the most romantic actions,--wild as the falcon,

voluptuous as the tuberose; yet she has not in her the elements of

romance, like a deeper or less susceptible nature. My cold and

reasoning ----, with her one love lying, perhaps never to be unfolded,

beneath such sheaths of pride and reserve, would make a far better

heroine.

---- and her mother differ from Juliet and _her_ mother by the

impulse a single strong character gave them. Even at this distance of

time there is a light but perceptible taste of iron in the water.

George Sand disappoints me, as almost all beings do, especially since

I have been brought close to her person by the _"Lettres d'un

Voyageur."_ Her remarks on Lavater seem really shallow, _a la

mode du genre feminin._ No self-ruling Aspasia she, but a frail

woman, mourning over her lot. Any peculiarity in her destiny seems

accidental; she is forced to this and to that to earn her bread,

forsooth!

Yet her style--with what a deeply smouldering fire it burns! Not

vehement, but intense, like Jean Jacques.

FROM A NOTICE OF GEORGE SAND.

It is probably known to a great proportion of readers that this writer

is a woman, who writes under the name, and frequently assumes the

dress and manners, of a man. It is also known that she has not only

broken the marriage-bond, and, since that, formed other connections,

independent of the civil and ecclesiastical sanction, but that she

first rose into notice through works which systematically assailed the

present institution of marriage, and the social bonds which are

connected with it.

No facts are more adapted to startle every feeling of our community;

but, since the works of Sand are read here, notwithstanding, and

cannot fail to be so while they exert so important an influence

abroad, it would be well they should be read intelligently, as to the

circumstances of their birth and their tendency.

George Sand we esteem to be a person of strong passions, but of

original nobleness and a love of right sufficient to guide them all to

the service of worthy aims. But she fell upon evil times. She was

given in marriage, according to the fashion of the old regime; she was

taken from a convent, where she had heard a great deal about the law

of God and the example of Jesus, into a society where no vice was

proscribed, if it would only wear the cloak of hypocrisy. She found

herself impatient of deception, and loudly appealed to by passion; she

yielded, but she could not do so, as others did, sinning against what

she owned to be the rule of right and the will of Heaven. She

protested, she examined, she "hacked into the roots of things," and

the bold sound of her axe called around her every foe that finds a

home amid the growths of civilization. Still she persisted. "If it be

real," thought she, "it cannot be destroyed; as to what is false, the

sooner it goes the better; and I, for one, would rather perish by its

fall, than wither in its shade."

Schiller puts into the mouth of Mary Stuart these words, as her only

plea: "The world knows the worst of me, and I may boast that, though I

have erred, I am better than my reputation." Sand may say the same.

All is open, noble; the free descriptions, the sophistry of passion,

are, at least, redeemed by a desire for truth as strong as ever beat

in any heart. To the weak or unthinking, the reading of such books may

not be desirable, for only those who take exercise as men can digest

strong meat. But to any one able to understand the position and

circumstances, we believe this reading cannot fail of bringing good

impulses, valuable suggestions; and it is quite free from that subtle

miasma which taints so large a portion of French literature, not less

since the Revolution than before. This we say to the foreign reader.

To her own country, Sand is a boon precious and prized, both as a

warning and a leader, for which none there can be ungrateful. She has

dared to probe its festering wounds; and if they be not past all

surgery, she is one who, most of any, helps towards a cure.

Would, indeed, the surgeon had come with quite clean hands! A woman of

Sand's genius--as free, as bold, and pure from even the suspicion of

error--might have filled an apostolic station among her people with

what force had come her cry, "If it be false, give it up; but if it be

true, keep to it,-- one or the other!"

But we have read all we wish to say upon this subject lately uttered

just from the quarter we could wish. It is such a woman, so

unblemished in character, so high in aim, so pure in soul, that should

address this other, as noble in nature, but clouded by error, and

struggling with circumstances. It is such women that will do such

others justice. They are not afraid to look for virtue, and reply to

aspiration, among those who have _not_ dwelt "in decencies

forever." It is a source of pride and happiness to read this address

from the heart of Elizabeth Barrett:--

TO GEORGE SAND.

A DESIRE.

Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man,

Self-called George Sand! whose soul amid the lions

Of thy tumultuous senses moans defiance,

And answers roar for roar, as spirits can,--

I would some wild, miraculous thunder ran

Above the applauding circus, in appliance

Of thine own nobler nature's strength and science,

Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan,

From the strong shoulders, to amaze the place

With holier light! That thou, to woman's claim,

And man's, might join, beside, the angel's grace

Of a pure genius, sanctified from blame,

Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace,

To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame!

* * * * *

TO THE SAME.

A RECOGNITION.

True genius, but true woman! dost deny

Thy woman's nature with a manly scorn,

And break away the gauds and armlets worn

By weaker woman in captivity?

Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry

Is sobbed in by a woman's voice forlorn:--

Thy woman's hair, my sister! all unshorn,

Floats back dishevelled strength in agony,

Disproving thy man's name; and while before

The world thou burnest in a poet-fire,

We see thy woman-heart beat evermore

Through the large flame. Beat purer, heart! and higher,

Till God unsex thee on the spirit-shore,

To which, alone unsexing, purely aspire!

* * * * *

This last sonnet seems to have been written after seeing the picture

of Sand, which represents her in a man's dress, but with long, loose

hair, and an eye whose mournful fire is impressive, even in the

caricatures.

For some years Sand has quitted her post of assailant. She has seen

that it is better to seek some form of life worthy to supersede the

old, than rudely to destroy it, heedless of the future. Her force is

bending towards philanthropic measures. She does not appear to possess

much of the constructive faculty; and, though her writings command a

great pecuniary compensation, and have a wide sway, it is rather for

their tendency than for their thought. She has reached no commanding

point of view from which she may give orders to the advanced corps.

She is still at work with others in the breach, though she works with

more force than almost any.

In power, indeed, Sand bears the palm above all other French

novelists. She is vigorous in conception, often great in the

apprehension and the contrast of characters. She knows passion, as has

been hinted, at a _white_ heat, when all the lower particles are

remoulded by its power. Her descriptive talent is very great, and her

poetic feeling exquisite. She wants but little of being a poet, but

that little is indispensable. Yet she keeps us always hovering on the

borders of enchanted fields. She has, to a signal degree, that power

of exact transcript from her own mind, in which almost all writers

fail. There is no veil, no half-plastic integument between us and the

thought; we vibrate perfectly with it.

This is her chief charm, and next to it is one in which we know no

French writer that resembles her, except Rousseau, though he, indeed,

is vastly her superior in it; that is, of concentrated glow. Her

nature glows beneath the words, like fire beneath ashes,--deep, deep!

Her best works are unequal; in many parts written hastily, or

carelessly, or with flagging spirits. They all promise far more than

they can perform; the work is not done masterly; she has not reached

that point where a writer sits at the helm of his own genius.

Sometimes she plies the oar,--sometimes she drifts. But what greatness

she has is genuine; there is no tinsel of any kind, no drapery

carefully adjusted, no chosen gesture about her. May Heaven lead her,

at last, to the full possession of her best self, in harmony with the

higher laws of life!

We are not acquainted with all her works, but among those we know,

mention "_La Roche Maupart_," "_Andre_," "_Jacques_," "_Les Sept Cordes

de la Lyre_," and "_Les Maitres Mosaistes_," as representing her higher

inspirations, her sincerity in expression, and her dramatic powers.

They are full of faults; still they show her scope and aim with some

fairness, which such of her readers as chance first on such of her books

as "_Leone Leoni_" may fail to find; or even such as "_Simon_," and

"_Spiridion_," though into the imperfect web of these are woven threads

of pure gold. Such is the first impression made by the girl Fiamma, so

noble, as she appears before us with the words "_E l'onore_;" such the

thought in _Spiridion_ of making the apparition the reward of virtue.

The work she is now publishing, "_Consuelo_" with its sequel,

"_Baroness de Rudolstadt_," exhibits her genius poised on a

firmer pedestal, breathing a serener air. Still it is faulty in

conduct, and shows some obliquity of vision. She has not reached the

Interpreter's house yet. But when she does, she will have clues to

guide many a pilgrim, whom one less tried, less tempted than herself

could not help on the way.

FROM A CRITICISM ON "CONSUELO."

* * * * *. The work itself cannot fail of innumerable readers, and a

great influence, for it counts many of the most significant pulse-beats

of the tune. Apart from its range of character and fine descriptions,

it records some of the mystical apparitions, and attempts to solve some

of the problems of the time. How to combine the benefits of the

religious life with those of the artist-life in an existence more

simple, more full, more human in short, than either of the two

hitherto known by these names has been,--this problem is but poorly

solved in the "Countess of Rudolstadt," the sequel to Consuelo. It is

true, as the English reviewer says, that George Sand is a far better

poet than philosopher, and that the chief use she can be of in these

matters is, by her great range of observation and fine intuitions, to

help to develop the thoughts of the time a little way further. But the

sincerity, the reality of all he can obtain from this writer will be

highly valued by the earnest man.

In one respect the book is entirely successful--in showing how inward

purity and honor may preserve a woman from bewilderment and danger,

and secure her a genuine independence. Whoever aims at this is still

considered, by unthinking or prejudiced minds, as wishing to despoil

the female character of its natural and peculiar loveliness. It is

supposed that delicacy must imply weakness, and that only an Amazon

can stand upright, and have sufficient command of her faculties to

confront the shock of adversity, or resist the allurements of

tenderness. Miss Bremer, Dumas, and the northern novelist, Andersen,

make women who have a tendency to the intellectual life of an artist

fail, and suffer the penalties of arrogant presumption, in the very

first steps of a career to which an inward vocation called them in

preference to the usual home duties. Yet nothing is more obvious than

that the circumstances of the time do, more and more frequently, call

women to such lives, and that, if guardianship is absolutely necessary

to women, many must perish for want of it. There is, then, reason to

hope that God may be a sufficient guardian to those who dare rely on

him; and if the heroines of the novelists we have named ended as they

did, it was for the want of the purity of ambition and simplicity of

character which do not permit such as Consuelo to be either unseated

and depraved, or unresisting victims and breaking reeds, if left alone

in the storm and crowd of life. To many women this picture will prove

a true Consuelo (consolation), and we think even very prejudiced men

will not read it without being charmed with the expansion, sweetness

and genuine force, of a female character, such as they have not met,

but must, when painted, recognize as possible, and may be led to

review their opinions, and perhaps to elevate and enlarge their hopes,

as to "Woman's sphere" and "Woman's mission." If such insist on what

they have heard of the private life of this writer, and refuse to

believe that any good thing can come out of Nazareth, we reply that we

do not know the true facts as to the history of George Sand. There has

been no memoir or notice of her published on which any one can rely,

and we have seen too much of life to accept the monsters of gossip in

reference to any one. But we know, through her works, that, whatever

the stains on her life and reputation may have been, there is in her a

soul so capable of goodness and honor as to depict them most

successfully in her ideal forms. It is her works, and not her private

life, that we are considering. Of her works we have means of judging;

of herself, not. But among those who have passed unblamed through the

walks of life, we have not often found a nobleness of purpose and

feeling, a sincere religious hope, to be compared with the spirit that

breathes through the pages of Consuelo.

The experiences of the artist-life, the grand and penetrating remarks

upon music, make the book a precious acquisition to all whose hearts

are fashioned to understand such things.

We suppose that we receive here not only the mind of the writer, but

of Liszt, with whom she has publicly corresponded in the "_Lettres

d'un Voyageur_." None could more avail us, for "in him also is a

spark of the divine fire," as Beethoven said of Ichubert. We may thus

consider that we have in this book the benefit of the most electric

nature, the finest sensibility, and the boldest spirit of

investigation combined, expressing themselves in a little world of

beautiful or picturesque forms.

Although there are grave problems discussed, and sad and searching

experiences described in this work, yet its spirit is, in the main,

hopeful, serene, almost glad. It is the spirit inspired from a near

acquaintance with the higher life of art. Seeing there something

really achieved and completed, corresponding with the soul's desires,

faith is enlivened as to the eventual fulfilment of those desires, and

we feel a certainty that the existence which looks at present so

marred and fragmentary shall yet end in harmony. The shuttle is at

work, and the threads are gradually added that shall bring out the

pattern, and prove that what seems at present confusion is really the

way and means to order and beauty.

JENNY LIND,

THE "CONSUELO" OF GEORGE SAND.

Jenny Lind, the prima donna of Stockholm, is among the most

distinguished of those geniuses who have been invited to welcome the

queen to Germany. Her name has been unknown among us, as she is still

young, and has not wandered much from the scene of her first triumphs;

but many may have seen, last winter, in the foreign papers, an account

of her entrance into Stockholm after an absence of some length. The

people received her with loud cries of homage, took the horses from

her carriage and drew her home; a tribute of respect often paid to

conquerors and statesmen, but seldom, or, as far as we know, never to

the priesthood of the muses, who have conferred the higher benefit of

raising, refining and exhilarating, the popular mind.

An accomplished Swede, now in this country, communicated to a friend

particulars of Jenny Lind's career, which suggested the thought that

she might have given the hint for the principal figure in Sand's late

famous novel, "Consuelo."

This work is at present in process of translation in "The Harbinger,"

a periodical published at Brook Farm, Mass.; but, as this translation

has proceeded but a little way, and the book in its native tongue is

not generally, though it has been extensively, circulated here, we

will give a slight sketch of its plan.

It has been a work of deepest interest to those who have looked upon

Sand for some years back, as one of the best exponents of the

difficulties, the errors, the aspirations, the weaknesses, and the

regenerative powers of the present epoch. The struggle in her mind and

the experiments of her life have been laid bare to the eyes of her

fellow-creatures with fearless openness--fearless, not shameless. Let

no man confound the bold unreserve of Sand with that of those who have

lost the feeling of beauty and the love of good. With a bleeding heart

and bewildered feet she sought the truth, and if she lost the way,

returned as soon as convinced she had done so; but she would never

hide the fact that she had lost it. "What God knows, I dare avow to

man," seems to be her motto. It is impossible not to see in her, not

only the distress and doubts of the intellect, but the temptations of

a sensual nature; but we see too the courage of a hero and a deep

capacity for religion. This mixed nature, too, fits her peculiarly to

speak to men so diseased as men are at present. They feel she knows

their ailment, and if she find a cure, it will really be by a specific

remedy.

An upward tendency and growing light are observable in all her works

for several years past, till now, in the present, she has expressed

such conclusions as forty years of the most varied experience have

brought to one who had shrunk from no kind of discipline, yet still

cried to God amid it all; one who, whatever you may say against her,

you must feel has never accepted a word for a thing, or worn one

moment the veil of hypocrisy; and this person one of the most powerful

nature, both as to passion and action, and of an ardent, glowing

genius. These conclusions are sadly incomplete. There is an amazing

alloy in the last product of her crucible, but there is also so much

of pure gold that the book is truly a cordial, as its name of Consuelo

(consolation) promises.

The young Consuelo lives as a child the life of a beggar. Her youth is

passed in the lowest circumstances of the streets of Venice. She

brings the more pertinacious fire of Spanish blood to be fostered by

the cheerful airs of Italy. A vague sense of the benefits to be

derived, from such mingling of various influences, in the formation of

a character, is to be discerned in several works of art now, when men

are really wishing to become citizens of the world, though old habits

still interfere on every side with so noble a development.

Nothing can be more charming than the first volume, which describes

the young girl amid the common life of Venice. It is sunny, open, and

romantic as the place. The beauty of her voice, when a little

singing-girl in the streets, arrested the attention of a really great

and severe master, Porpora, who educated her to music. In this she

finds the vent and the echo for her higher self. Her affections are

fixed on a young companion, an unworthy object, but she does not know

him to be so. She judges from her own candid soul, that all must be

good, and derives from the tie, for a while, the fostering influences

which love alone has for genius. Clear perception follows quickly upon

her first triumphs in art. They have given her a rival, and a mean

rival, in her betrothed, whose talent, though great, is of an inferior

grade to hers; who is vain, every way impure. Her master, Porpora,

tries to avail himself of this disappointment to convince her that the

artist ought to devote himself to art alone; that private ties must

interfere with his perfection and his glory. But the nature of

Consuelo revolts against this doctrine, as it would against the

seclusion of a convent. She feels that genius requires manifold

experience for its development, and that the mind, concentrated on a

single object, is likely to pay by a loss of vital energy for the

economy of thoughts and time.

Driven by these circumstances into Germany, she is brought into

contact with the old noblesse, a very different, but far less

charming, atmosphere than that of the gondoliers of Venice. But here,

too, the strong, simple character of our Consuelo is unconstrained, if

not at home, and when her heart swells and needs expansion, she can

sing.

Here the Count de Rudolstadt, Albert, loves Consuelo, which seems, in

the conduct of the relation, a type of a religious democracy in love

with the spirit of art. We do not mean that any such cold abstraction

is consciously intended, but all that is said means this. It shadows

forth one of the greatest desires which convulse our age.

A most noble meaning is couched in the history of Albert, and though

the writer breaks down under such great attempts, and the religion and

philosophy of the book are clumsily embodied compared with its poesy

and rhetoric, yet great and still growing thoughts are expressed with

sufficient force to make the book a companion of rare value to one in

the same phase of mind.

Albert is the aristocratic democrat, such as Alfieri was; one who, in

his keen perception of beauty, shares the good of that culture which

ages have bestowed on the more fortunate classes, but in his large

heart loves and longs for the good of all men, as if he had himself

suffered in the lowest pits of human misery. He is all this and more

in his transmigration, real or fancied, of soul, through many forms of

heroic effort and bloody error; in his incompetency to act at the

present time, his need of long silences, of the company of the dead

and of fools, and eventually of a separation from all habitual ties,

is expressed a great idea, which is still only in the throes of birth,

yet the nature of whose life we begin to prognosticate with some

clearness.

Consuelo's escape from the castle, and even from Albert, her

admiration of him, and her incapacity to love him till her own

character be more advanced, are told with great naturalness. Her

travels with Joseph Haydn, are again as charmingly told as the

Venetian life. Here the author speaks from her habitual existence, and

far more masterly than of those deep places of thought where she is

less at home. She has lived much, discerned much, felt great need of

great thoughts, but not been able to think a great way for herself.

She fearlessly accompanies the spirit of the age, but she never

surpasses it; _that_ is the office of the great thinker.

At Vienna Consuelo is brought fully into connection with the great

world as an artist. She finds that its realities, so far from being

less, are even more harsh and sordid for the artist than for any

other; and that with avarice, envy and falsehood, she must prepare for

the fearful combat which awaits noble souls in any kind of arena, with

the pain of disgust when they cannot raise themselves to

patience--with the almost equal pain, when they can, of pity for those

who know not what they do.

Albert is on the verge of the grave; and Consuelo, who, not being able

to feel for him sufficient love to find in it compensation for the

loss of that artist-life to which she feels Nature has destined her,

had hitherto resisted the entreaties of his aged father, and the

pleadings of her own reverential and tender sympathy with the wants of

his soul, becomes his wife just before he dies.

The sequel, therefore, of this history is given under the title of

Countess of Rudolstadt. Consuelo is still on the stage; she is at the

Prussian court. The well-known features of this society, as given in

the memoirs of the time, are put together with much grace and wit. The

sketch of Frederic is excellent.

The rest of the book is devoted to expression of the author's ideas on

the subject of reform, and especially of association as a means

thereto. As her thoughts are yet in a very crude state, the execution

of this part is equally bungling and clumsy. Worse: she falsifies the

characters of both Consuelo and Albert,--who is revived again by

subterfuge of trance,--and stains her best arrangements by the mixture

of falsehood and intrigue.

Yet she proceeds towards, if she walks not by, the light of a great

idea; and sincere democracy, universal religion, scatter from afar

many seeds upon the page for a future time. The book should be, and

will be, universally read. Those especially who have witnessed all

Sand's doubts and sorrows on the subject of marriage, will rejoice in

the clearer, purer ray which dawns upon her now. The most natural and

deep part of the book, though not her main object, is what relates to

the struggle between the claims of art and life, as to whether it be

better for the world and one's self to develop to perfection a talent

which Heaven seemed to have assigned as a special gift and vocation,

or sacrifice it whenever the character seems to require this for its

general development. The character of Consuelo is, throughout the

first part, strong, delicate, simple, bold, and pure. The fair lines

of this picture are a good deal broken in the second part; but we must

remain true to the impression originally made upon us by this charming

and noble creation of the soul of Sand.

It is in reference to _our_ Consuelo that a correspondent

[Footnote: We do not know how accurate is this correspondent's

statement of facts. The narrative is certainly interesting.--_Ed_.]

writes, as to Jenny Lind; and we are rejoiced to find that so many

hints were, or might have been, furnished for the picture from real

life. If Jenny Lind did not suggest it, yet she must also be, in her

own sphere, a Consuelo.

"Jenny Lind must have been born about 1822 or 1828. When a young

child, she was observed, playing about and singing in the streets of

Stockholm, by Mr. Berg, master of singing for the royal opera. Pleased

and astonished at the purity and suavity of her voice, he inquired

instantly for her family, and found her father, a poor innkeeper,

willing and glad to give up his daughter to his care, on the promise

to protect her and give her an excellent musical education. He was

always very careful of her, never permitting her to sing except in his

presence, and never letting her appear on the stage, unless as a mute

figure in some ballet, such, for instance, as Cupid and the Graces,

till she was sixteen, when she at once executed her part in 'Der

Freyschutz,' to the full satisfaction and surprise of the public of

Stockholm. From that time she gradually became the favorite of every

one. Without beauty, she seems, from her innocent and gracious

manners, beautiful on the stage and charming in society. She is one of

the few actresses whom no evil tongue can ever injure, and is

respected and welcomed in any and all societies.

"The circumstances that reminded me of Consuelo were these: that she

was a poor child, taken up by this singing-master, and educated

thoroughly and severely by him; that she loved his son, who was a

good-for-nothing fellow, like Anzoleto, and at last discarded him;

that she refused the son of an English earl, and, when he fell sick,

his father condescended to entreat for him, just as the Count of

Rudolstadt did for his son; that, though plain and low in stature,

when singing her best parts she appears beautiful, and awakens

enthusiastic admiration; that she is rigidly correct in her demeanor

towards her numerous admirers, having even returned a present sent her

by the crown-prince, Oscar, in a manner that she deemed equivocal.

This last circumstance being noised abroad, the next time she appeared

on the stage she was greeted with more enthusiastic plaudits than

ever, and thicker showers of flowers fell upon her from the hands of

her true friends, the public. She was more fortunate than Consuelo in

not being compelled to sing to a public of Prussian corporals."

Indeed, the picture of Frederic's opera-audience, with the pit full of

his tall grenadiers with their wives on their shoulders, never daring

to applaud except when he gave the order, as if by tap of drum,

opposed to the tender and expansive nature of the artist, is one of

the best tragicomedies extant. In Russia, too, all is military; as

soon as a new musician arrives, he is invested with a rank in the

army. Even in the church Nicholas has lately done the same. It seems

as if he could not believe a man to be alive, except in the army;

could not believe the human heart could beat, except by beat of drum.

But we believe in Russia there is at least a mask of gayety thrown

over the chilling truth. The great Frederic wished no disguise;

everywhere he was chief corporal, and trampled with his everlasting

boots the fair flowers of poesy into the dust.

The North has been generous to us of late; she has sent us _Ole

Bull_. She is about to send _Frederika Bremer_. May she add

JENNY LIND!

CAROLINE.

The other evening I heard a gentle voice reading aloud the story of

Maurice, a boy who, deprived of the use of his limbs by paralysis, was

sustained in comfort, and almost in cheerfulness, by the exertions of

his twin sister. Left with him in orphanage, her affections were

centred upon him, and, amid the difficulties his misfortunes brought

upon them, grew to a fire intense and pure enough to animate her with

angelic impulses and powers. As he could not move about, she drew him

everywhere in a little cart; and when at last they heard that

sea-bathing might accomplish his cure, conveyed him, in this way,

hundreds of miles to the sea-shore. Her pious devotion and faith were

rewarded by his cure, and (a French story would be entirely incomplete

otherwise) with money, plaudits and garlands, from the by-standers.

Though the story ends in this vulgar manner, it is, in its conduct,

extremely sweet and touching, not only as to the beautiful qualities

developed by these trials in the brother and sister, but in the

purifying and softening influence exerted, by the sight of his

helplessness and her goodness, on all around them.

Those who are the victims of some natural blight often fulfil this

important office, and bless those within their sphere more, by

awakening feelings of holy tenderness and compassion, than a man

healthy and strong can do by the utmost exertion of his good-will and

energies. Thus, in the East, men hold sacred those in whom they find a

distortion or alienation of mind which makes them unable to provide

for themselves. The well and sane feel themselves the ministers of

Providence to carry out a mysterious purpose, while taking care of

those who are thus left incapable of taking care of themselves; and,

while fulfilling this ministry, find themselves refined and made

better.

The Swiss have similar feelings as to those of their families whom

cretinism has reduced to idiocy. They are attended to, fed, dressed

clean, and provided with a pleasant place for the day, before doing

anything else, even by very busy and poor people.

We have seen a similar instance, in this country, of voluntary care of

an idiot, and the mental benefits that ensued. This idiot, like most

that are called so, was not without a glimmer of mind.

His teacher was able to give him some notions, both of spiritual and

mental facts; at least she thought she had given him the idea of God,

and though it appeared by his gestures that to him the moon was the

representative of that idea, yet he certainly did conceive of

something above him, and which inspired him with reverence and

delight. He knew the names of two or three persons who had done him

kindness, and when they were mentioned, would point upward, as he did

to the moon, showing himself susceptible, in his degree, of Mr.

Carlyle's grand method of education, hero-worship. She had awakened in

him a love of music, so that he could be soothed in his most violent

moods by her gentle singing. It was a most touching sight to see him

sitting opposite to her at such tunes, his wondering and lack-lustre

eyes filled with childish pleasure, while in hers gleamed the same

pure joy that we may suppose to animate the looks of an angel

appointed by Heaven to restore a ruined world.

We know another instance, in which a young girl became to her village

a far more valuable influence than any patron saint who looks down

from his stone niche, while his votaries recall the legend of his

goodness in days long past.

Caroline lived in a little, quiet country village--quiet as no village

can now remain, since the railroad strikes its spear through the peace

of country life. She lived alone with a widowed mother, for whom, as

well as for herself, her needle won bread, while the mother's

strength, and skill sufficed to the simple duties of their household.

They lived content and hopeful, till, whether from sitting still too

much, or some other cause, Caroline became ill, and soon the physician

pronounced her spine to be affected, and to such a degree that she was

incurable.

This news was a thunder-bolt to the poor little cottage. The mother,

who had lost her elasticity of mind, wept in despair; but the young

girl, who found so early all the hopes and joys of life taken from

her, and that she was seemingly left without any shelter from the

storm, had even at first the faith and strength to bow her head in

gentleness, and say, "God will provide." She sustained and cheered her

mother.

And God did provide. With simultaneous vibration the hearts of all

their circle acknowledged the divine obligation of love and mutual aid

between human beings. Food, clothing, medicine, service, were all

offered freely to the widow and her daughter.

Caroline grew worse, and was at last in such a state that she could

only be moved upon a sheet, and by the aid of two persons. In this

toilsome service, and every other that she required for years, her

mother never needed to ask assistance. The neighbors took turns in

doing all that was required, and the young girls, as they were growing

up, counted it among their regular employments to work for or read to

Caroline.

Not without immediate reward was their service of love. The mind of

the girl, originally bright and pure, was quickened and wrought up to

the finest susceptibility by the nervous exaltation that often ensues

upon affection of the spine. The soul, which had taken an upward

impulse from its first act of resignation, grew daily more and more

into communion with the higher regions of life, permanent and pure.

Perhaps she was instructed by spirits which, having passed through a

similar trial of pain and loneliness, had risen to see the reason why.

However that may be, she grew in nobleness of view and purity of

sentiment, and, as she received more instruction from books also than

any other person in her circle, had from many visitors abundant

information as to the events which were passing around her, and

leisure to reflect on them with a disinterested desire for truth, she

became so much wiser than her companions as to be at last their

preceptress and best friend, and her brief, gentle comments and

counsels were listened to as oracles from one enfranchised from the

films which selfishness and passion cast over the eyes of the

multitude.

The twofold blessing conferred by her presence, both in awakening none

but good feelings in the hearts of others, and in the instruction she

became able to confer, was such, that, at the end of five years, no

member of that society would have been so generally lamented as

Caroline, had Death called her away.

But the messenger, who so often seems capricious in his summons, took

first the aged mother, and the poor girl found that life had yet the

power to bring her grief, unexpected and severe.

And now the neighbors met in council. Caroline could not be left quite

alone in the house. Should they take turns, and stay with her by night

as well as by day?

"Not so," said the blacksmith's wife; "the house will never seem like

home to her now, poor thing! and 't would be kind of dreary for her to

change about her _nusses_ so. I'll tell you what; all my children

but one are married and gone off; we have property enough; I will have

a good room fixed for her, and she shall live with us. My husband

wants her to, as much as me."

The council acquiesced in this truly humane arrangement, and Caroline

lives there still; and we are assured that none of her friends dread

her departure so much as the blacksmith's wife.

"'Ta'n't no trouble at all to have her," she says, "and if it was, I

shouldn't care; she is so good and still, and talks so pretty! It's

as good bein' with her as goin' to meetin'!"

De Maistre relates some similar passages as to a sick girl in St.

Petersburgh, though his mind dwelt more on the spiritual beauty

evinced in her remarks, than on the good she had done to those around

her. Indeed, none bless more than those who "only stand and wait."

Even if their passivity be enforced by fate, it will become a

spiritual activity, if accepted in a faith higher above fate than the

Greek gods were supposed to sit enthroned above misfortune.

EVER-GROWING LIVES.

"Age could not wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety."

So was one person described by the pen which has made a clearer mark

than any other on the history of Man. But is it not surprising that

such a description should apply to so few?

Of two or three women we read histories that correspond with the hint

given in these lines. They were women in whom there was intellect

enough to temper and enrich, heart enough to soften and enliven the

entire being. There was soul enough to keep the body beautiful through

the term of earthly existence; for while the roundness, the pure,

delicate lineaments, the flowery bloom of youth were passing, the

marks left in the course of those years were not merely of time and

care, but also of exquisite emotions and noble thoughts. With such

chisels Time works upon his statues, tracery and fretwork, well worth

the loss of the first virgin beauty of the alabaster; while the fire

within, growing constantly brighter and brighter, shows all these

changes in the material, as rich and varied ornaments. The vase, at

last, becomes a lamp of beauty, fit to animate the councils of the

great, or the solitude of the altar.

Two or three women there have been, who have thus grown even more

beautiful with age. We know of many more men of whom this is true.

These have been heroes, or still more frequently poets and artists;

with whom the habitual life tended to expand the soul, deepen and vary

the experience, refine the perceptions, and immortalize the hopes and

dreams of youth.

They were persons who never lost their originality of character, nor

spontaneity of action. Their impulses proceeded from a fulness and

certainty of character, that made it impossible they should doubt or

repent, whatever the results of their actions might be.

They could not repent, in matters little or great, because they felt

that their notions were a sincere exposition of the wants of their

souls. Their impulsiveness was not the restless fever of one who must

change his place somehow or some-whither, but the waves of a tide,

which might be swelled to vehemence by the action of the winds or the

influence of an attractive orb, but was none the less subject to fixed

laws.

A character which does not lose its freedom of motion and impulse by

contact with the world, grows with its years more richly creative,

more freshly individual. It is a character governed by a principle of

its own, and not by rules taken from other men's experience; and

therefore it is that

"Age cannot wither them, nor custom stale

Their infinite variety."

Like violins, they gain by age, and the spirit of him who discourseth

through them most excellent music,

"Like wine well kept and long,

Heady, nor harsh, nor strong,

With each succeeding year is quaffed

A richer, purer, mellower draught."

Our French neighbors have been the object of humorous satire for their

new coinage of terms to describe the heroes of their modern romance.

A hero is no hero unless he has "ravaged brows," is "blase" or "brise"

or "fatigue." His eyes must be languid, and his cheeks hollow. Youth,

health and strength, charm no more; only the tree broken by the gust

of passion is beautiful, only the lamp that has burnt out the better

part of its oil precious, in their eyes. This, with them, assumes the

air of caricature and grimace, yet it indicates a real want of this

time--a feeling that the human being ought to grow more rather than

less attractive with the passage of time, and that the decrease in

physical charms would, in a fair and full life, be more than

compensated by an increase of those which appeal to the imagination

and higher feelings.

A friend complains that, while most men are like music-boxes, which

you can wind up to play their set of tunes, and then they stop, in our

society the set consists of only two or three tunes at most That is

because no new melodies are added after five-and-twenty at farthest.

It is the topic of jest and amazement with foreigners that what is

called society is 'given up so much into the hands of boys and girls.

Accordingly it wants spirit, variety and depth of tone, and we find

there no historical presences, none of the charms, infinite in

variety, of Cleopatra, no heads of Julius Caesar, overflowing with

meanings, as the sun with light.

Sometimes we hear an educated voice that shows us how these things

might be altered. It has lost the fresh tone of youth, but it has

gained unspeakably in depth, brilliancy, and power of expression. How

exquisite its modulations, so finely shaded, showing that all the

intervals are filled up with little keys of fairy delicacy and in

perfect tune!

Its deeper tones sound the depth of the past; its more thrilling notes

express an awakening to the infinite, and ask a thousand questions of

the spirits that are to unfold our destinies, too far-reaching to be

clothed in words. Who does not feel the sway of such a voice? It makes

the whole range of our capacities resound and tremble, and, when there

is positiveness enough to give an answer, calls forth most melodious

echoes.

The human eye gains, in like manner, by tune and experience. Its

substance fades, but it is only the more filled with an ethereal

lustre which penetrates the gazer till he feels as if

"That eye were in itself a soul,"

and realizes the range of its power

"To rouse, to win, to fascinate, to melt,

And by its spell of undefined control

Magnetic draw the secrets of the soul."

The eye that shone beneath the white locks of Thorwaldsen was such an

one,--the eye of immortal youth, the indicator of the man's whole

aspect in a future sphere. We have scanned such eyes closely; when

near, we saw that the lids were red, the corners defaced with ominous

marks, the orb looked faded and tear-stained; but when we retreated

far enough for its ray to reach us, it seemed far younger than the

clear and limpid gaze of infancy, more radiant than the sweetest beam

in that of early youth. The Future and the Past met in that glance,

O for more such eyes! The vouchers of free, of full and ever-growing

lives!

HOUSEHOLD NOBLENESS,

"Mistress of herself, though China fell."

Women, in general, are indignant that the satirist should have made

this the climax to his praise of a woman. And yet, we fear, he saw

only too truly. What unexpected failures have we seen, literally, in

this respect! How often did the Martha blur the Mary out of the face

of a lovely woman at the sound of a crash amid glass and porcelain!

What sad littleness in all the department thus represented! Obtrusion

of the mop and duster on the tranquil meditation of a husband and

brother. Impatience if the carpet be defaced by the feet even of

cherished friends.

There is a beautiful side, and a good reason here; but why must the

beauty degenerate, and give place to meanness?

To Woman the care of home is confided. It is the sanctuary, of which

she should be the guardian angel. To all elements that are introduced

there she should be the "ordering mind." She represents the spirit of

beauty, and her influence should be spring-like, clothing all objects

within her sphere with lively, fresh and tender hues.

She represents purity, and all that appertains to her should be kept

delicately pure. She is modesty, and draperies should soften all rude

lineaments, and exclude glare and dust. She is harmony, and all

objects should be in their places ready for, and matched to, their

uses.

We all know that there is substantial reason for the offence we feel

at defect in any of these ways. A woman who wants purity, modesty and

harmony, in her dress and manners, is insufferable; one who wants them

in the arrangements of her house, disagreeable to everybody. She

neglects the most obvious ways of expressing what we desire to see in

her, and the inference is ready, that the inward sense is wanting.

It is with no merely gross and selfish feeling that all men commend

the good housekeeper, the good nurse. Neither is it slight praise to

say of a woman that she does well the honors of her house in the way

of hospitality. The wisdom that can maintain serenity, cheerfulness

and order, in a little world of ten or twelve persons, and keep ready

the resources that are needed for their sustenance and recovery in

sickness and sorrow, is the same that holds the stars in their places,

and patiently prepares the precious metals in the most secret chambers

of the earth. The art of exercising a refined hospitality is a fine

art, and the music thus produced only differs from that of the

orchestra in this, that in the former case the overture or sonata

cannot be played twice in the same manner. It requires that the

hostess shall combine true self-respect and repose,

"The simple art of _not too much_,"

with refined perception of individual traits and moods in character,

with variety and vivacity, an ease, grace and gentleness, that diffuse

their sweetness insensibly through every nook of an assembly, and call

out reciprocal sweetness wherever there is any to be found.

The only danger in all this is the same that besets us in every walk

of life; to wit, that of preferring the outward sign to the inward

spirit whenever there is cause to hesitate between the two.

"I admire," says Goethe, "the Chinese novels; they express so happily

ease, peace and a finish unknown to other nations in the interior

arrangements of their homes.

"In one of them I came upon the line, 'I heard the lovely maidens

laughing, and found my way to the garden, where they were seated in

their light cane-chairs,' To me this brings an immediate animation, by

the images it suggests of lightness, brightness and elegance."

This is most true, but it is also most true that the garden-house

would not seem thus charming unless its light cane-chairs had lovely,

laughing maidens seated in them. And the lady who values her

porcelain, that most exquisite product of the peace and

thorough-breeding of China, so highly, should take the hint, and

remember that unless the fragrant herb of wit, sweetened by kindness,

and softened by the cream of affability, also crown her board, the

prettiest tea-cups in the world might as well lie in fragments in the

gutter, as adorn her social show. The show loses its beauty when it

ceases to represent a substance.

Here, as elsewhere, it is only vanity, narrowness and self-seeking,

that spoil a good thing. Women would never be too good housekeepers

for their own peace and that of others, if they considered

housekeeping only as a means to an end. If their object were really

the peace and joy of all concerned, they could bear to have their cups

and saucers broken more easily than their tempers, and to have

curtains and carpets soiled, rather than their hearts by mean and

small feelings. But they are brought up to think it is a disgrace to

be a bad housekeeper, not because they must, by such a defect, be a

cause of suffering and loss of time to all within their sphere, but

because all other women will laugh at them if they are so. Here is the

vice,--for want of a high motive there can be no truly good action.

We have seen a woman, otherwise noble and magnanimous in a high

degree, so insane on this point as to weep bitterly because she found

a little dust on her picture-frames, and torment her guests all

dinner-time with excuses for the way in which the dinner was cooked.

We have known others to join with their servants to backbite the best

and noblest friends for trifling derelictions against the accustomed

order of the house. The broom swept out the memory of much sweet

counsel and loving-kindness, and spots on the table-cloth were more

regarded than those they made on their own loyalty and honor in the

most intimate relations.

"The worst of furies is a woman scorned," and the sex, so lively,

mobile, impassioned, when passion is aroused at all, are in danger of

frightful error, under great temptation. The angel can give place to a

more subtle and treacherous demon, though one, generally, of less

tantalizing influence, than in the breast of man. In great crises,

Woman needs the highest reason to restrain her; but her besetting sin

is that of littleness. Just because nature and society unite to call

on her for such fineness and finish, she can be so petty, so fretful,

so vain, envious and base! O, women, see your danger! See how much you

need a great object in all your little actions. You cannot be fair,

nor can your homes be fair, unless you are holy and noble. Will you

sweep and garnish the house, only that it may be ready for a legion of

evil spirits to enter in--for imps and demons of gossip, frivolity,

detraction, and a restless fever about small ills? What is the house

for, if good spirits cannot peacefully abide there? Lo! they are

asking for the bill in more than one well-garnished mansion. They

sought a home and found a work-house. Martha! it was thy fault!

"GLUMDALCLITCHES."

This title was wittily given by an editor of this city to the ideal

woman demanded in "Woman in the Nineteenth Century." We do not object

to it, thinking it is really desirable that women should grow beyond

the average size which has been prescribed for them. We find in the

last news from Paris these anecdotes of two who "tower" an inch or

more "above their sex," if not yet of Glumdalclitch stature.

"_Bravissima!_--The 7th of May, at Paris, a young girl, who was

washing linen, fell into the Canal St. Martin. Those around called out

for help, but none ventured to give it. Just then a young lady

elegantly dressed came up and saw the case; in the twinkling of an eye

she threw off her hat and shawl, threw herself in, and succeeded in

dragging the young girl to the brink, after having sought for her in

vain several times under the water. This lady was Mlle. Adele

Chevalier, an actress. She was carried, with the girl she had saved,

into a neighboring house, which she left, after having received the

necessary cares, in a fiacre, and amid the plaudits of the crowd."

The second anecdote is of a different kind, but displays a kind of

magnanimity still more unusual in this poor servile world: