The Indian Fairy spirit heard the din,

And first to patience strove them both to win,

Sent the cool breeze to fan the burning brow,

Volcanic fires to die by flakes of snow.

In war incessant, still the clamor rose,

Still Katy did, and didn't, and fierce blows.

At last the spirit took their souls away,

And in their cottage lay their lifeless clay;

Their bodies changed--and insects they became--

Green as the grass--but still their cry the same.

Hence in all trees, we hear in starry night,

The contradiction, and the wordy fight.

We hear John Jones, and his unhappy wife,

And all their brood forever in a strife:

And Katy did, and Katy didn't still

Are sounds incessant as a murmuring rill.

V.

_THE IMAGE-MAKER._

DWELLER ON EARTH.

Thou dwellest here, beneath this dome,

A Pilgrim, far from thine own home.

Where is thine heart, and where thy land?

Thou longest for some distant strand.

We have thy love and gentle care,

Thou bearest blessings every where.

Yet day and night, and light and shade

Shall with less labor one be made,

Than thou in sympathy be one

With us, who through our course will run,

Laden with cares, with pleasures worn,

Children of hope to sorrow born.

Thou hast our speech, our garb, our toil,

Well known, yet stranger on our soil.

Some deeper hidden life is thine,

As if we saw the tortuous vine

'Mid veiling branches intertwine;

Swinging in air its precious fruit,

While the deep mould has hid its root;

From view its highest honors lost,

'Mid the oak leaves in murmurs tost,

A secret work thy endless task,

Thy endless care, of that we ask.

PILGRIM.

I seek to form an Image here.

DWELLER ON EARTH.

Thou art a Sculptor! Yet our ear

Doth catch no sound of chisel stroke,

No hammer clang--no marble broke.

PILGRIM.

The silence of Eternity

Around my work doth ever lie.

When marbles into dust shall fall,

And human art no fame befall,

The sun no more its beams shall give

To statues seeming half to live,

Beauty no more on genius wait,

Which copying seemeth to create;

When heaven and earth shall pass away,

When breaketh everlasting day,

Then shall the Image that I form,

Appear 'mid nature's dying storm.

The Image that no human skill

Could fashion, or Archangel's will;

No angel mind the model give

Of that which shall forever live.

At that great day it shall be known,

The Image of the Eternal One.

VI.

_THE CLOUDS._

The clouds that drift, are slowly drawn

To that glorious sun at dawn.

Darkened mists, and now so bright,

Resplendent in the morning light;

In borrowed glory,--spreading flame,

God's fiery pillar still they frame.

So I,--in dark night once astray

Through boundless grace have found my way,

To thee,--the Sun of Righteousness,

Whose wings are healing in distress.

From thee I trust, the dawning gleam

Hath made me more than I can seem;

Hath made me thine, in joy, in tears,

Thy pardoned one,--one all whose fears

Are silenced in thy cross-wrung groan,

Buried beneath thy tomb's vast stone,

Which angels' hands alone can move.

Earth has this pure work for their love.

Oh let thy glory shine on me,

Armed in thy purest panoply.

My shield, the Lamb, the cross it bears,

Let me not weep its stain with tears!

The gathering waters fill each cloud;

The mountain's burnished tops they shroud.

They spread o'er valley, over plain,

Rich with God's blessings in the rain;

On good and evil both they fall,

In the vast care of God for all.

So Lord, thy servant thus prepare,

To bear thy mercies everywhere.

When in the grave mine ashes sleep,

When o'er it, sad a friend may weep,

Thou wilt not suffer it be said,--

His life was scarce accredited

By Him who sits upon the throne,--

By Him who bore our sins alone,

Who wills our holy walk on earth,

As sons of God, of heavenly birth,

Who will have none disciples here

Unless their cross with zeal they bear.

Life without Christ! That is but death.

Prayer without Christ!--but idle breath:

And love for man, but vanity

Save at the cross 'tis learnt by me.

Oh help thy branch, thou heavenly Vine.

Union with thee is life divine,

And clustered fruits are ever mine,

If from beneath alone we gaze,

Thy providence a darkened maze.

Rise on wings of faith and prayer,

And then what love and wisdom there!

So brightness of unbroken day

Upon those clouds doth heavenward lay

Though we can trace no single ray,

Who look from earth. Yet angels see

The glory as a silver sea.

VII.

_THE PROTECTOR DYING._

Dread hour! nearing, nearing fast.

Yet I cannot wish thee past.

Death! Oh! but a dream till nigh,

With night cold from eternity.

That cold night doth around me creep

In which immortals never sleep.

The cloud its mighty shade doth fling,

Like a mantle for a king,

On the mountain's awful form,

Scarred through battles with the storm.

So thy darkness falls on me,

Darkness, such as cannot be,

But to those whose soul is life,

To a nation in its strife,

That its wrongs for ever crushed,

The cries of slaves forever hushed,

And every chain forever gone,

Man tremble before God alone;

That man's true right, so long betrayed,

On truth and justice shall be laid;

That Freedom's martyr's work begun

In blood, and fire, and hidden sun,

Shall culminate in triumphs won;

And the world's changing channels trace

A course of hope for all our race.

Oh! how they as the humblest die,

Who part from kingly majesty

To stand before Him!--nothing there

But as His image we may bear;

The image by the humblest borne;

The kings of the eternal morn.

The lowliest man, most void of power,

To stand the trial of that hour!

To come from life in quiet shade,

From humble duties well obeyed.

Ah! if this be a solemn thing,

What then for one in might a king!

To meet the trial of that day

From gorgeous wrongs in false array,

Where false praise gilds the every deed,

Where few warn one that will not heed;

The man whom Weird-like hands have shown

The weary pathway to the throne.

Oh! thou gory-crowned head

Haunting here my dying bed!

Was it not necessity?

Moulding deed that was to be!

Oh! king so false--away--away--

Leave me at least my dying day.

Is there no refuge? Hated face!

Come with the looks of thy cold race.

Look thou as when thy soiled hand gave

The Earl, thy vassal to the grave.

Gaze thou on me in that worst pride

As kingly honor was defied.

Look thus on me--but not as now,

That patient sorrow on thy brow.

I can but gaze. Forever near

Thy dreaded form is my one fear.

A boy, I sit by running stream,

The humble life my daily dream:

Some lowly good--some wrongs redrest,

A noiseless life, its peaceful rest.

As that stream calm my life shall be;

As placid in its purity.

The humble stone shall tell the tale

When life began--when strength did fail.

An humble race shall bear my name

Blest by a few not rich in fame.

Oh! king, thine eye! It says, but then

Thy hand had not the guilty stain.

Hark! how the marriage-bells are ringing!

Voices fill the air with singing.

Waves of light are now the beating

Of my heart, and the repeating

Seems no weariness of pleasure,

Only increase of its treasure.

Ah! dear wife! thy look hath sped

Many a sorrow. But this head!

E'en at the hearth, and by thy side

This kingly blood-stained form doth glide.

The quiet house of God,--the prayer

Rising as incense in the air.

I breathe the still and mighty power,

I catch the glory of the hour.

Am I not pure, and armed for strife

With England for her better life?

Thou gory head! my prophecy,

In that loved church told not of thee.

Look as if heaven changed thy face,

Let pardon there at last have place:

Before me, on this awful sea,

Some gleam of heaven reflected be.

VIII.

_THE INDIAN DREAM-CELL._

In Pearl-run valley, not far from the noise and crowded streets of our

great Metropolis, the original forests, and a few unsightly rural

dwellings, have given place to a large number of those pleasant homes,

which citizens of wealth or of comfortable means, have erected for their

summer abodes. Hence the hills around are dotted with costly mansions,

and unpretending cottages.

It is a sight inspiring happiness to look on these dwellings in the

spring. You have evidence that so many families, released from the city

are rejoicing in the pure invigorating air, in the sunshine and shadows,

in the rooms associated with so much ease and tranquility.

Can it be that any one can be found who is void of all sympathy with the

natural world? All who seek these rural homes, at the established

season, are supposed--if we are the correct exponents of common

opinion,--to take wings from the city, for those cool and shady nests,

under the influence of love for the country?

Of course, when the spring arrives, all who have led a fashionable

career for the winter, have a sudden and marvellous restoration to their

senses. Like those whom some friendly magician has freed from the

enchantments of an evil genius, they are restored to a healthy judgment.

They then perceive the folly of the life which they have led. The

absurdity of denominating as society, crowded assemblies, where

conversation bears the relation to interchange of thought, such as

becomes intelligent creatures, which wilted and fallen leaves sustain to

those of the beautiful and nutritious plant from which they have been

torn,--where trifles and external polish are accepted in the place of

the best qualities which can commend others to our esteem,--where

friendships are formed, not links of human creatures with affectionate

qualities to one another, but to fashion, whose representatives they

are,--friendships to be dissolved, as easily as the melting of the

Pyramids of frozen cream, all these facts become, as soon as the air is

heated in spring, some of the most clear of all possible demonstrations.

Then they long for a more reasonable life. All that true poets or wise

moralists have taught of the rural home, asserts its power over the

memory. All vulgar glare becomes utterly distasteful. Simplicity of

life, amid a nature that summons man to cast off artificial follies,

has a powerful fascination. They have been poor city puppets too long.

Let them now be true men and women, where all things are so true and

real. Hence they hasten to the country.

Let us be thankful that any influences, even those of fashion, draw so

many of our citizens from the towns to the country-places. Let us be

thankful, that the great river of city-life,--hurrying on so madly, and

tossing its stained waves crowned with bubbles that pain the eye, has

its side eddies, and throws off great branches for far away shades,

where the waters are at rest, and where innumerable small streams unite

their efforts to purify that which has so long been so turbid.

Minds and hearts will touch one another in the rural scene. The limited

number of associates will foster some more depths of mutual interest.

The Sunday in the country, the rural church, the gathering of the

congregation from green lanes, and winding roads, and not from streets

sacred to pomp and vanity, to business, and to glaring sin, God so

visible in all his glorious works, perhaps a Pastor trained by his

labors among plain people during the winter, to speak the Word with

greater simplicity, these are not influences which exist only in

appearance. Men ask why make life such a vain and foolish dream? I trust

the day will come, when many families of cultivated minds, will reside

all the year in our country-places. From such social circles influences

must go forth, to transform no inconsiderable portion of what is called

the society of the town. The necessary association of the two classes,

will prove of inestimable benefit to each.

If you passed along Pearl-run valley, and left the more cultivated

region, which we have described, the scene changed, and you found

yourself in wild places.

There were steep cliffs, with endless masses of broken stone beneath, as

if a Giant McAdam, ages ago had been meditating the formation of a great

road, like that we pigmies build on a smaller scale, in these degenerate

days. And there were mountains where you could scarcely detect any proof

that the hand of man had disturbed the primeval forests.

These you could ascend by winding paths, and attain elevations, where

half the world seemed to lie beneath your feet. Well do I remember such

an ascent with a sister, who had been a few hours before, with me in the

crowded city.

Our time was limited. What we could see of the glorious scenes around

us, must be accomplished late in the afternoon. The sun had gone down

while we were climbing up the side of the mountain. We had never been in

such deep shadows. For the first time in our lives, we knew what was the

awful grandeur of solitude. Our existence seemed more sublime for the

solemn awe.

As we hastened on to reach a vast rock, from whose summit we were

assured, the view was one of surpassing beauty, we met some children,

wild in appearance, barefooted, seeking cattle that found pasturage in

an open space, scarcely perceptible to the eye, that, at a distance,

could take in the whole aspect of the mountain. But one of these little

creatures in her kindness added, with surpassing power the effect of the

wilderness.

"Take care," she said, "you may be lost." We, in the vast mountain where

we could be lost!

What a sound for ears so lately filled with the noise of the crowded

city! Oh child! what human study could have taught the greatest genius

in our land, to speak and add to the solemn power, of that most

memorable time, of two awed and enthusiastic wanderers!

How strange it is that the intense excitement of the soul, among such

scenes, is such a healthy peace--never the over-wrought exertion of the

mind! The intense activity within us does not _subside_ into

tranquility. It is elevated to a peace. If you would have true enjoyment

there, God,--the Infinite Father,--our immortality--the world our

Redeemer has promised us, must be placed side by side with every

impression.

Our forests are strangely primeval solitudes, when you reflect what

tribes of Indians have resided in them. That wild people have left there

no traces of their existence. You often seem to be one of a few, who

alone have ever disturbed the Sabbath rest of very holy places.

Why did not the aboriginal inhabitants leave us in letters carved on the

rocks, traditions, which our learned and ingenious men could interpret?

We know not what we have lost in our deprivation of wonderful mysteries.

We wander by great oaks, and stony places unconscious of powers that

linger there. The lore of demons and of spirits that plagued or

comforted the Indians is lost to us.

Yet, let us not be unjust as though the civilization which has

superseded the rude Indian life, had given us no romantic substitutes

for these powers which agitated the barbarian. And especially let us be

just to the genius of those who came over from the wilds of Germany, as

well as those who had their intellect brightened by the illumination of

Plymouth Rock. The imaginations of the two, were, indeed, very diverse

in their nature. They differed as the stiff gowns and ample pantaloons,

all so quaintly made, from the paint and skins which made the array of

the savage.

I am by no means insensible to the poetry which speaks to us in the

horse-shoe, nailed to the door to keep away witches, whose fears were

the more suggestive, because no one ever described the full power of the

mischief they were able to accomplish; and to the mysterious art

medicinal, rivalling in wisdom many of the celebrated systems of the

schools, whereby the muttering of strange words could cure a fever and

ague,--and where a nail that had pierced the foot was safely wrapped up

and laid up the chimney as a preventive of lock-jaw. The world is not so

prosaic as some would imagine.

I am happy, however, in being able to rescue one important tradition

from oblivion.

In one of the mountains of which I have spoken, which has been courteous

enough to retain its place, and ancient habits, notwithstanding the airs

and encroachments of the adjoining settlements, was a spot--well known

to some favored few of the Indian tribes. It was a mysterious place.

At the side of a large rock was a small cell. It was hollowed on its

stony side almost as if it had been a work of art. A little ledge that

stood across it, afforded a rude seat.

Tradition goes back to the wife of an Indian king, centuries ago, who

first acquired a knowledge of the virtues of the place, and availed

herself of the acquisition in a very happy manner.

It is a comfort and a sorrow to know how human nature has been the same

in all ages. Wives and husbands have had many virtues and failings in

common, whether they dwelt in primeval days in the Alleghany Mountains

or in Broadway in New York.

The Indian Queen had, it appears, great difficulty in preserving a

salutary discipline in the wigwam. Her lord--yet not her master--she had

never assented to that peculiar precedence in the marriage contract, had

been inclined to low company--that is to company that might be good

enough in itself, but was entirely too low for the royalty of the realm.

These fellows, white traders, who would prowl about to waylay his

Majesty, keeping respectfully out of sight of the Queen, were by no

means school-masters abroad for the benefit of the red man.

Even the queen, for some reason which it is difficult to conjecture, did

not object to the introduction of large quantities of fire-water into

the palace. She always took charge of it, however, and for that reason,

no doubt, felt that it would be used in a judicious manner.

But at last the king was unwise enough to set up as a reformer; not

under the instigation of the white men,--but indirectly, through their

influence. There is nothing new under the sun. We now abound in men and

women, who are in advance of their age. A man of mere genius, in these

days, is a helpless creature; sure to be laid up like old lumber in a

house, in some out of the way place of deposit. But if he should only

have a moderate disorder of the brain,--have circumstances to occur,

which would produce the effect which according to Bishop Warburton was

the result of the earthquake in his day, "widening the crack in old Will

Winston's noddle,"--then particularly if he can be mad after a method,

he is sure to form a society, and to be well fed and famous.

There was also in our kingly Indian reformer, one disagreeable

quality,--by no means unknown in an enlightened philosophical head of

associations. In all his projects, he was himself a central object. He

differed from some of our reformers in one respect. He was not crazy for

notoriety.

Among other things which he learnt from these good-for-nothing white

scamps, who were in such disfavor with the queen, fellows who had

traveled all around the world to little purpose,--sifting with wonderful

skill all useless and bad knowledge from the good, and casting away the

good as chaff, was a piece of information concerning the social

relations of some of his royal cousins in distant lands.

They gave him a glowing picture of a great chief who had a great host of

wives. Our king had informed one of his friends, that he thought that

the introduction of this custom on our American strand, would be a most

desirable improvement. And one day, under the influence of fire-water,

which in opening his heart, proved how good a fellow he was, he

suggested the theory to the queen.

It is said, that the wary queen, in her distress and perplexity at this

theory, sought for one of the wonder-workers of her tribe, and learnt

from him the secret powers of this cell. There she placed her royal

spouse, who slept until he was sober enough to dream a wise dream. The

consequence was his reformation. After this, it is also said, that the

queen attained such domestic power, that a warrior who slept under their

roof one night, was heard to inquire of one of his tribe, whether in

case the people should go out on the war-path, the woman would be the

great warrior.

It is also reported, that the spirit of the Indian queen often haunts

the cell, and has some secret power to allure chosen way-farers there to

rest, and have the dreams which belong to the place. The great

peculiarity of the mysterious power here exerted on the dreamer, was

this,--that he was compelled in his dreams, to follow a course contrary

to his habits and nature, and to learn some of the results of a new

course of conduct.

Over the cell were jutting rocks, which threw down as the sun was over

them, strange shadows, making the most mysterious letters. Curious wild

vines, with grotesque leaves, grew above it, having a fragrance like

that of poppies, but of greater intensity. Some fir trees near, blended

their murmurs with the hum of the wild-bees, and with a rill whose

waters passed over a rock, covered with green weeds, and fell into a

small dead pool, whose issues crept silently away amid innumerable

roots. Opposite, on a mountain, was a circle composed of various

objects, which, as you gazed seemed to move round with ever increasing

rapidity, and to exercise a mesmeric power in causing tranquility, and a

state of repose in which you were prepared for a control, extraneous to

your own mind. The sides of the cell receded slightly inwards, in gentle

curves, in such a way that you were tempted to recline, and lean your

head for rest on the moss-covered hollows of the rock.

One of the inhabitants of our valley, whose name was Eugene Cranmer, had

left the hill-side where he had a luxurious mansion, and had wandered

into the wild region, that contained this mysterious cell.

He was well pleased to see the general air of comfort, as he strolled

along; for it disquieted him to look on men who were very poor, inasmuch

as he had a vague sense that he was called on for some exertion in their

behalf. The poor seemed to him to mar the general aspect of the world,

as some unfortunate error in the taste of an artist, will mar the

general beauty of his picture. He wished all to be at peace, and have

enough to eat and put on; for the world, in such a state, seemed to be a

suitable place for a man who had attained great prosperity; and who had

the undefined impression that his life would be extended a few hundred

years, before he would be under the unhappy alternative of passing to a

good place in a better country. He provided well in his house for

himself; and of course he felt that such a care was all that was

essential for the comfort of his family.

His mother in his early life had indulged him to excess, and acted on

the principle, that all who came near him, would regard it as the most

reasonable thing in the world, that it must be their study and highest

happiness to gratify his inclination.

Our hero,--for it is pleasant thus to designate him, and to recognize

the superiority of such a man,--had climbed the ascent of the mountain,

and reached the place of the mystic cell. A peculiar agitation of the

vines above it, and sounds as of a bird complaining of an intruder near

its rest, drew his attention to the recess. He determined to seat

himself and rest awhile, before he returned to his home. No sooner had

this been attempted, than he wondered at the luxury of the sheltered

nook. He had an undefined feeling, that after all, the natural world,

providing on such an occasion such a place for his rest, was perhaps,

not so inattentive to human wants, as he had frequently imagined. The

walk he had enjoyed, the exhilarating air of the mountain, and the

composing influences around him, had thrown him into a state of more

than common good humor. He had fewer thoughts about himself; some dreamy

recollections, and he went rapidly to sleep.

Then he dreamed dreams. First he saw a strange reptile crawl along the

paths by which he had ascended to the cell. An odious object, deformed,

it looked as if it bore deadly venom in its fang. It was also obvious

that the creature had faculties to be developed. At one moment it seemed

ready to put forth its strength to attain the new gifts,--to call into

exercise powers that slumbered in its frame.

Its indolence, and anger at the stirring of inward strife by nature,

caused it to assume a torpid indifference.

Suddenly a stream of quivering light fell upon it. A bright dove

descended, and the radiance increased as it drew nigh, with silver

wings; and part of the lustre of its plumage was as of wrought gold. It

hovered over the creature, whom all its resplendent rays could not

render even less repulsive.

Then came a strange transformation. On a sudden all that repelled the

eye was gone. The creature glorified, assumed a place amid the objects

of beauty that adorn the world.

And what was a cause of surprise, he who saw all in the vision, and

witnessed the transformation, had now no other sentiment toward the

transformed and glorious, but love. No association existed in his mind,

to recall, with any disgust, what it once had been. His thoughts ever

rested on the dove and its pure rays, on the indescribable beauty of the

creature as he now beheld it, new-created in excellence. The deepest

darkness of oblivion, spreading as far as the east is from the west,

interposed between what it had been, and was now, could not have blotted

out the disgust of the former unsightly appearance more thoroughly from

his impressions. He could gladly have placed it in his bosom. Its

beauty, he felt sure, would be perpetual memories, each ever being a new

joy like a star rushing on into its place of brightness in the evening,

gladdening all on which its beams can rest.

Then there came to him a voice which said, Thou too must be changed from

evil to a glorious state. At first he bitterly opposed the suggestion.

Change! What then would life be to him? Thoughts would be his, and

views, and desires forever, whose very shadow touched him, to cause

pain, and to assure him of their contrariety to his nature. He who had

made slaves of all, to be the loving servant of all!

Then the influence that abode in the mystic cell began to exert its

power over him. It was as if a fever had passed away, and a sweet quiet,

as of an infant going to its rest had pervaded his frame. Resistance to

the good desires passed from him. He began to wish for a glorious

transformation.

And now the dream was changed. It was late at night. He drew near his

home. The lumbering stage, full of drowsy passengers, had left him at

his gate.

He was not compelled to linger long upon his porch. The door was quickly

opened by one, whose form glided swiftly along through the hall,

summoned by the sounds of the stage. It was his pale and weary wife, a

gentle, uncomplaining woman, bearing all his oppressions as void of

resistance, and as submissively as the stem, the overgrown bulb, the

work of insects deforming the bud or flower, whose weight bends as if it

would break it. He entered the dwelling and saluted her, as if her

watching was the least service she could render.

And then, though he perceived that she was pale and faint, he imposed on

her tasks for his present comfort. The servants were at rest, and she

must arrange for his evening meal, and go from room to room to procure

the least trifle he might desire.

And again there came over him the spell of the Indian dream-seat.

Just as he was about to pour upon his serving wife the vials of his

wrath, because she had misunderstood some one of his multitude of

directions, there suddenly was exerted over him a power which gave all

his thoughts a bias, and ruled his words and manner as the wind sways

the frail reed.

He began to speak to her words of tender commiseration. He insisted that

she was in need of his assiduous aid for her present comfort. For her

the wine and viands must be procured. She never again should keep these

watches for his sake--watches after midnight. Nay, more; with a torrent

of glowing words, he promised that all his future conduct should undergo

a perfect transformation.

In his struggle, our hero acquired an almost preturnatural quickening of

the memory. All thought, however, ran in one single course--in the

demonstration of his selfishness. He uttered confessions of his deep and

sincere repentance. He enumerated a long series of petty annoyances of

which he had been guilty towards his wife, and which had made up the sum

of much misery. One confession of a wrong deed revived the remembrance

of another. If the chain seemed at an end, as link after link was drawn

into light, there was no such termination.

He had no time to observe the effect of this his sorrow and confession.

His internal wrath at this departure from his ordinary habits, from all

the course which he, as a reasonable being could pursue, from all the

rules he had ever prescribed for his family,--from all that could make

the time to come consistent with the comfortable care he had taken of

himself in the past, caused such an agitation, that he thought for a

moment he must die. His golden age in the past to be supplanted with

this coming age of iron! Would he die? A great earthquake had crowded

all its might into a mole-hill. It was as if a storm-cloud was just on

the eve of being rent asunder, to tear the hills below with its awful

bolts, and some angelic messenger was sent to give it the aspect of a

quiet summer-cloud, and cause it to send down a gentle rain on all the

plants.

He knew well from experience the sense of suffocation. His throat had

seemed incapable of allowing a breath to pass to the lungs. But now he

had, as it were, a sense of suffocation in every limb. His whole frame

had sensations as if pressed to its utmost tension by some expanding

power, as by some great hydraulic press.

What was to be the result? Was he to undergo some external

transformation like the reptile which he had seen in the plain?

To his horror, he began, in his rhapsody of the dream to recall a huge

frog, which he had watched as a boy--swelling--swelling--and about to

burst through its old skin, and come out in the sunshine in a new and

fashionable coat and a pair of elastic pantaloons, with water-proof

boots to match. Then his imagination recalled a snake which he had seen

when he sat once by the brook with a fishing-rod in his hand, the hook

in the sluggish stream, and the fish, no one could tell where. Thus was

it passing through a similar process with the frog--preparing to present

itself in the court of the queenly season, making his new toilette as if

he had been fattening off the spoils of office, and had ordered his new

garb from the tailor without regard to cost.

In his heart there came again a tenderness for his wife and children.

And with that deep emotion came peace--for suddenly a golden cup was at

his lips, and cooling water, such as he had never tasted. An angel's

hand--oh how like the hand of his wife in its gentle touch--was laid

upon his head, and all its throbbing misery was gone. The same Being

waved his wings, and a cool air, with waves murmuring in some music from

a far off, blessed space, and with fragrance that lulled the disturbed

senses to repose, passed over him,--and he felt that all his fever and

distress had departed from him.

Then he appeared to be surrounded by his wife and children, who were

wrapped in a deep sleep. He gazed on them, meditating offices of love in

time to come. One and another, in dreams, uttered his name with

unspeakable tenderness. His tears fell freely. The great night around

him--that used to seem so unsympathizing--and to throw him off far from

all its glory, as a poor worthless atom, now entered into accordance

with the new found life within. The gleaming stars said to him, we take

your purpose into one great mission of reflecting light. All spoke of

hope. He was used to the feeling of loneliness and painful humiliation,

when in the darkness under the great unchanging canopy. Now was he

lowly; but he felt that man was great, as one who bore the relation of a

spirit to the Maker of all things. He had never thought, that as great

peace dwelt among all the human family, as now pervaded his own heart.

Again the dream was changed. He was in the city. He was seated in the

old dusty counting-room. He was the former selfish man. The men in the

place, were to him a sea of a multitude of living waves. All that he had

to do was to count all created for him, and he for himself; and in that

sea he was to seek to gain the pearls which he coveted. As men passed

by, he had no blessing in his heart for those tried in life, and to meet

death, or be tried still more. That God cared for them was no thought

that made an impress on his nature.

As he sat before his table covered with his papers, witnesses of his

gains, there was a sound of approaching feet. Then men entered and bore

along with them a mummy,--the dead form in its manifold wrappings, as

the mourners had left it in the days when Abraham dwelt in the land of

promise.

They placed the form on which it was borne in the centre of the room,

and then with grave deliberation proceeded to unroll its many

integuments.

In a short time they had spread out all the folds of the cloth, and

there lay the form which it was difficult to imagine had once been a

living man--a being of thoughts, emotions, hope, with ties to life, such

as are ours at the present day.

Our hero looked upon the extended covering of the dead. One of those

men, of a far distant clime and age, who had belonged to the silent

procession that thus presented the mortal remains to the eye, drew from

the folds of his dress a stone of exquisite beauty.

He held it before the cloth, and rays of an unearthly light fell upon

it, emitted from that precious gem. In a moment, that which had been so

dark, became a piece of exquisite tapestry. On it were a series of

representations, an endless variety of hieroglyphics.

As the rich merchant gazed on these, he read a history of a life, that

strangely condemned his own.

And then the Egyptian Priest came forth from the midst of his

associates.

He held in his hand an immense concave mirror in a frame of gold. Taking

his position between the window and the dead form, he first gazed upon

the sky. A cloud had obscured the sun.

As soon as it had been swept away, and the noon-day beams streamed

forth, he held up the mirror, and concentrating the rays of light, threw

all the blinding radiance on the dead form.

In a little while it began, under the power of that wonderful glory, to

assume the appearance of a living man. Breath came. It moved. It rose.

The one thus revived from the power of death gazed on the cloth, and

traced out for himself a plan of a beneficent life. He was to live to do

good. Tears were to be dried, the hungry to be fed, the heart was to

have its perpetual glow of good will, to speak words of blessing, and of

peace, of hope to all.

As our rich man gazed on all this scene,--mysterious hands seemed to be

unwinding countless wrappings from the soul within, dead to the Creator,

dead to the love of man.

A light was poured upon him. A new life was given him. He was preparing

to unlock his treasures, to share his possessions with the poor. The

home of sorrow became a place of attraction. He was to seek all means of

lessening the sin and misery of the human family.

Thus far had his discipline proceeded. The dreams had given activity to

the mind. They had bent the spirit of the man in glad submission to a

yoke of obedience; and in this submission to all that was pure, he found

how the great service was perfect freedom. Holy truths, which had never

been great realities, but certainties that were among his deepest

convictions, many of them like seeds still capable of life, but floating

on the sea in masses of ice, perhaps to be dropped on some island

forming in the deep, and there to germinate, now began to be living

truth, and to struggle with the soul that it might live. He bowed before

the august presence,--now that the great veil that had concealed the

kingly visitants was torn away. Now they were not like the magnetic

power, affecting dubiously, and without a steady control, the needle of

the seaman as he drew near to the coast. They had become the

all-pervading power in the needle itself, affecting each particle, and

turning all in attraction towards the one star, that is before every

bark freighted with the precious trusts, which he now felt to be so

grand a responsibility. Are not these sealed with a seal that no enemy

can cause to be forged or broken?

A slight change in his dream, and the temptations began to reappear,

crowding as the gay tares wind among the eddying wheat heads, and are

tossed by the wind and arrest the eye. There was a sense of slight fear

and doubt.

Then was he borne onward, and placed on the green sward beneath great

overhanging rocks. Their awful majesty was tempered by the endless

vines, laden with fruits and flowers that crept along their sides, and

waved, as crowns upon their summits.

A lake spread its waters before him. As he looked far off upon its

unruffled surface, he saw clouds, now dark, now radiant, floating

rapidly in the sky. The wind that impelled them came in great gushes of

its power, as their changing shapes, and rapid motion gave full

evidence. And when the winds thus swept on, they gave not the slightest

ripple to the great blue expanse of the waters. Yet they were no dead

sea, but pure and living, from streams on innumerable fertile

hill-sides, whose threads of fountain-issues glittered in the sun.

And the great shadows that fell from these floating masses in the air,

did not reach to the surface of the lake. They wasted themselves between

the clouds and the atmosphere of tranquil light, that rested on the

placid, sky-like depths of the blue expanse.

Even at his very feet, these waters seemed in depth ocean-like. His eye

was never weary as he gazed into their abyss, and the sight never

appeared to have looked down into them, and to have found the limit of

its power to penetrate their immeasurable profundity.

Great peace again took possession of his mind! Then he felt the

mysterious hand upon him, and he was lifted up from the borders of this

lake, for other scenes. He could not but feel regret. He was however

convinced, that any new prospect opened before him, would be one that he

might earnestly desire to look upon.

The motion of the wings of the angel, as he transported him through the

air, was as silent as the calm of the great lake.

They entered into a cave, so vast, that its roofs and sides were at such

distance from them, that no object could be distinguished in the evening

twilight. But soon he saw before him a high archway, lofty as the summit

of the highest mountain, by which they were to emerge into the light.

They passed it, and found that it opened into a deep valley.

A plain was here the prospect, and near to him the side of a precipitous

hill. It had great sepulchral inscriptions on the surface of the rocks.

There was a slight earthquake. Its power caused the sides of the hill

to tremble, and revealed the bones of men buried in the sands and

crevices.

He proceeded--and soon he saw grave-stones on the plain. Drawing near,

he attempted to read the names inscribed upon them. Soon he discovered

that they recorded those of his wife and children. Foes, as he imagined,

as his eyes rested on objects around, moving to and fro, lurked in the

shadows.

And now his sorrow assumed a form, different from all the former remorse

of his dream. A vague idea that all was a dream came to his relief.

Tears fell, bitter regret for the past continued, but he had a joyous

and undefined conviction, that his family were not beyond the reach of

his awakened love.

A gentle hand was then laid upon his eyelids. It pointed to the mountain

near--on whose summit an eternal light rested. Such light, he thought,

must have been seen on the mount of the transfiguration.

He discovered that he had the power to look into the depths of the great

mountain. As his eye penetrated those great hidden ways, he found that

all was revealed there, as if the earth and rocks were only air more

dense than that which he breathed.

His attention was soon arrested by a rock in the centre of the mountain.

It became the sole object to which he could direct the eye.

There imbedded were evil forms, on which he looked to feel new sorrow,

and to torture himself with self-upbraiding.

These forms were his work. It was evident that they should have been

created in exquisite beauty. The material of which they had been

made,--so precious--was a witness that this could have been

accomplished. The marks of the chisel were a proof that there had been

capacity--skill--which could readily have been exercised in creating

that which was beautiful, and which had been perverted and abused in the

production of the shapes by which he was repelled. And it was also

evident, that they had been fashioned in a light, which would have

enabled him to judge truly of every new progress of his toil, and under

a sky where true inspirations would be fostered. My work! my work! he

said--but he added, there is hope for the future.

As his new-found tenderness subdued him, the power that transported him

from scene to scene, bore him away.

Soon he found himself standing before another mountain, which was in the

process of formation.

It was made of the clearest crystal, and the light was in all its height

and breadth. Angels were there, and waiting with a placid but

unutterable happiness for labors that were to occupy them.

He could not rest. He must put forth into action the aims, the

aspirations to fashion forms of immortal glory. As he moved, in his

great ambition from his place, he saw that his dwelling was near at

hand--close beneath this great mound of crystal, and that its light was

reflected upon it.

He entered the house. His gentleness was the happiness of all. He was

now the unselfish and loving husband and parent. He marvelled that so

many little acts of love could be done day by day. He marvelled to see

how little acts of love made up such a vast sum of happiness, and what

moulding influences, whose value could not be estimated, were united

with his deeds.

He found that forms were ever taken by the angels and borne away. They

reverently bore them--reverencing the beauty, and above all reverencing

them as the work of One who had given him aid to think of their

creation, and to embody them according to the pure conception. They

carried them first to a fountain of waters that flowed from a smitten

rock. A crown of thorns, and nails, and a spear, were sculptured there.

Washed in this stream every particle was cleansed. Afterwards they held

up the form in the most clear light, brighter than the light of any sun,

and the beauty became far more perfect.

The angelic laborers then carried each to the mountain of crystal.

There it was imbedded,--but in a radiance which was to shine forever,

and forever.

And then to his great joy, he found that vast numbers of men came to a

summit of an adjoining hill; caring not for the ascent by a narrow and

arduous way. They looked into the mountain, and were entranced by the

forms that they beheld. He had no thought that they would turn to him in

admiration. All that he exulted in, was, that he loved them, and that

they turned away to labor to make like forms, for the angelic

hands,--for the waters of the cleansing fountain,--for the inexpressible

light that purified,--for the place in the mountain, where they should

shine eternally.

Just at this moment, a bird perched on the vines around the cell. It

poured forth a rich melody of song close to the ear of the sleeper. It

awoke him gently from the profound sleep. The first sound which he heard

was that of the sweet bell of his village church. Its gushes of sound

rolled along the valley, and up the side of the great hills.

He felt that the impressions of his dream were durable. So deeply was he

affected, that he scarcely thought of the visions in which the truth had

been represented. He descended his path another man. Another man he

entered his home. The house was a changed house that day. No one more

subdued in spirit than himself, knelt in the church. No one with more

determined purpose, heard that day, of the One who "pleased not

himself."

IX.

_WILD FLOWERS GATHERED FOR MY WIFE._

Though these sweet flowers are in their freshest bloom,

They had a beauty as I gathered them

Which thine eye sees not. For with every one

New lustre in the varied colors shone,

A purer white melted beneath the eye,

A sweeter fragrance came from dew-gemmed leaves,

Advanced in beauty as I thought of thee.

Thou seest that they grew wild in wood and fields

Teachers of love and wisdom. Some I found

In deep pine shades, where the sun's straggling beams

Through bending boughs may reach them.

Holier rays

Through deeper shades can reach the broken heart,

Through deeper shades can foster heavenly growth

Of beauty for the everlasting fields;

Through more dense shades can reach the good unknown

To human fame, yet left to bless the world.

These flowers and leaves that ripen unobserved

But for our eyes, had withered with the frost,

And none had blessed God for their loveliness.

They give their little power unto the wind

To purify for men the air they breathe,--

Air wafted far by every rising breeze.

And so a myriad of the little deeds,

Done by the men that walk in Christ's blest steps,

Add health unto the living atmosphere

Where men breathe for the strength of highest life.

Deeds go out on a sea of human life,

And touch a myriad of the rolling waves,

Send the great sea a portion of unrest,

Which saves its surface from the mould of death.

These flowers are memories that I had of thee

During my wandering to the distant home,

Where sickness was, and many an anxious care,

Where there was need that Christ's work should be done.

Oh! if these paths we tread with our soiled feet,

On this world far from scenes where all is pure,

Our feet not yet in laver cleansed from soil,

In wave by angel stirred and all so bright,

Where gleams are on the waves from his own sun,

Are skirted with these fragrant beauteous forms,

What shall surround our path in Paradise?

Flowers have a language; so they choose to say.

Each speaks a word of pure significance.

Thus in the fields of nature we can print,

Where flowers shall be the type, a beauteous book--

With joyful eye can read the beauteous book.

With all my love of flowers, here is a lore

Which is to me unknown. I have to turn

Over the pages of that pictured book

To spell each letter as a little child.

But this I know, that none can e'er mean ill.

Flowers are too pure, as angels sowed their seed

On earth in pity for a burdened race.

And where their smiles have rested there came forth

These witnesses that men are not alone.

And also this is lore from nature's school--

That speak they as they may--whate'er they mean

Of faith to be unshaken through our life,

Of love that never wanes, true as the star,

They cannot speak of faith or tender love,

Which I--flower-bearer--do not speak to thee

In this my offering of far-gathered spoils.

X.

_RIVERSDALE._

It was my good fortune to dwell for some years on the banks of the

Delaware, with a sturdy old yeoman, who was quite a character in his

day. Manly, honest, hospitable, of a dignified bearing as of one who

respected himself, and who had no false pride, it was a treasure to have

known him.

His nature had been moulded, as far as earthly influences gave their

impress by a life spent chiefly on a farm, in days that are called

"primitive;" that being one of the words which hold in unfixed solution,

some true but very vague impressions. A few years which he spent in the

naval service of his country, had no doubt added some lines to the mould

that shaped him as he was.

I have said that his characteristics were very prominent. Therein he

differed from the mass of the country people. They are like a knoll,

where you see at once all the outlines. You must look attentively, to

discover more than the eye has taken in at its first glance. He was like

one of our rugged hills, having bold varieties of shape, records of time

and of great convulsions, of the violence of storms, of changes wrought

by other and varied influences.

He had thriven in the world far beyond all his expectations. His life

had been one of untiring industry, decision, and ingenious energy. At

the time of his marriage, almost every penny was exhausted by the humble

fee. As days rolled on, the Creator added to his store, and he purchased

the farm on which his father had resided. By a manly appeal to the sense

of justice, he prevented a rich neighbor from competing with him at the

sale of these broad acres.

In after days he also became the possessor of the farm, called

Riversdale. There he spent his last years of life. He lived there in the

affluence of a rich farmer. It was strange to see him and his faithful

wife so utterly unchanged by prosperity, and by the alterations in the

habits of society.

At Riversdale he had a spacious dwelling. There was here a degree of

elegance within and without. It had been the country residence of a rich

merchant. His furniture was plain, but abundant, and all for use.

Among the curiosities of our house was the old clock, on whose face the

sun and moon differed from their prototypes in the heavens, inasmuch as

they had a far more distinct representation of the ruddy human

countenance, and as they did not rise or set,--for their mechanism had

become distracted.

And then there was the famous old gun,--taken from a Hessian at the

battle of Princeton, and which had done great service in the deer hunts

in the Pocano Mountains, and amid the pines of New Jersey.

Those deer-hunts were great circumstances in the course of the year. He

used to narrate with great pleasure, the events that occurred at such

excursions in the forests.

Once as he told me, he was alone in the woods with a guide. The darkness

was coming apace. He had wounded a deer. The cry of the dogs indicated

that they were close upon it. It became evident that the man wished to

lead the hunters out of the way; and to disappear in the darkness, that

he might appropriate the prey to himself. But all his mean plans were

soon baffled. "If you," said the old yeoman, "can run faster than the

buck-shot in my gun, slip away in the dark." Never guide, I venture to

say, adhered more closely to his party.

His education, like that of so many of the old Pennsylvania farmers, had

been very limited. His sympathies were not broad; though a small degree

of sentiment pervaded a vein of tenderness which wound its way through

the rugged nature of his soul. Sometimes it appeared so attenuated, that

few influences seemed to be willing to work for the precious ore.

I remember that we were once walking along the avenue which led to the

house, and I quoted to him a line of poetry which he did heartily

appreciate. The scene around had little power to prepare his mind for

the impression. Two huge old cherry trees were near us. These were

gradually withering away; as if to remind him, as he continually passed

them, that the days of his full strength were gone, and that infirmities

of old age were creeping upon him.

Had I perused all our volumes of poetry, I could not have selected a

sentence, which he could relish more than the one which I repeated. It

was the well-known line of Cowper, that God made the country, but man

made the town.

It was really curious to observe how this arrested all his mind. It

seemed as if his soul was deeply impressed with a sense of the goodness

of God, in giving man this beautiful green world, on which he does not

labor in vain. He appeared also to have respect for the poet who could

utter such a truth. Had all the tribe of bards risen from their graves,

been capable of participating in our earthly food, and come to us that

day, Cowper would have been treated to Benjamin's portion.

His histories proved to me how his nature was the same in early life,

and in age, as to fearlessness, and to a rough opposition to those by

whom he was excited.

Once his step-mother, during the strife of the revolution, and while his

father was absent from home in the service of his country, sent him with

a claim to a British officer. He was to demand payment for some produce

which the soldiers of the king had taken from the farm.

He found him seated at a table, at a place not far from Bustleton, and

presenting himself made known the object of his visit.

"Where is your father?" said the officer.

The boy was shrewd enough to know that discretion was now the better

part of valor. But mingled emotions overcame his wisdom. The British

soldiers around him were the oppressors of his country.

Regardless of the wrath which he would assuredly awaken, and scattering,

manifestly, all hope of success in his mission to the wind, he saucily

replied, "Why, he is at the camp with General Washington; where he ought

to be." Perhaps he also regarded this as a defence of his father. A

grasp at a sword, an angry oath,--an assurance that he was a vile little

rebel, and must quickly vanish, were the evidences that he had given his

receipt in full for all that had been taken as spoils from the farm.

I have said that he was a man of the most sterling honesty. His extreme

care to ascertain that all his accounts were correct, was actually a

trouble to the vestry of the church, while he was treasurer of the body.

He was above the least meanness in all his dealings with men. As he was

rather too suspicious of others, sometimes imagining that they had some

evil design, where they had none, it was the more remarkable that he had

no cunning in his own heart, was open in all his aims, and free from

those arts which entangle weak consciences.

He had manners which were a study. Few men are not, in some degree

affected by their dress. He was the same man in self-respect and

courtesy, whether you met him in his soiled working-clothes, or in his

best array. Summoned suddenly from the work in the field, or from the

barn, with chaff and dust upon him, his calm courtesy in receiving any

guest, whatever his station in life, the utter absence of all apology

for his appearance, his entire devotion to the attentions due to his

visitors, elicited your decided admiration. Not in his conduct, to his

guests, but in some slight expression, when we were alone, could any of

us detect that he felt any peculiar pleasure, when any of our most

aristocratic inhabitants had called to see him and his household,

manifesting their respect. I have never seen him more devoted and kind

to any visitor, than to a poor friend,--one who had lagged far behind

him, in the ascent of the hill of fortune.

It could not be expected that his wild portion of the country would be

exempted from those rude scenes of violence, where men take the laws

into their own hands. Nor can it be surprising, that with his physical

strength, boldness, and wild life at sea and on land, he should

sometimes be prominent in these wars on a little scale.

I remember how I heard one of his narratives with mingled interest and

sorrow, when he told of a victory fought and won.

It was a contest with a party of butchers, who had come from a distance

and taken possession of the tavern, maltreating some of the country

people, who had, to say the least, a better right to the injurious

comforts of the inn.

He was summoned from his sleep, and became the leader of the avenging

party. When they reached the scene of noisy revelry, he proved that he

did not rely on physical strength alone, but summoned a "moral effect"

to his aid. A pretended roll was to be called. Many names of persons not

present, perhaps not in existence, were, by his order, pronounced; and

their "Here," was heard clearly uttered in the night air. The effect of

this act of generalship soon became apparent. Silence, indicative of

dismay reigned in the place of the former noisy laughter. The rough

fellows were sorely thrashed, and taught that there was a high law which

the quiet dwellers in the field could put in force.

In after days my old friend would have deprecated the recurrence of such

scenes. There is always a tendency to law and order, and to gentle

virtues where a man has a great fondness for children--and this love for

little ones he possessed in a great degree.

It would have been a good scene for a painter, when they gathered round

the white-haired man and elicited his attention and his smile. The large

form sinking into its most quiet repose, as if there was no need that it

should be braced now as if prepared for any struggle of life, and the

rough features softened to gentle sympathy, would have been worthy of

lasting perpetuation on the canvass. I have no doubt that the passage of

Scripture recording the benediction of the children by our Lord, touched

his heart powerfully, and allured him the more to the One who bore our

nature in the perfection of every excellence.

If an able painter, I would strive to represent our Redeemer, as I could

fancy that He appeared in the scene to which I have referred. Who can

attempt to satisfy even the least imaginative disciple, by any picture

of the countenance of our Lord? How difficult even to unite the infinite

tenderness with the determination of the perfect man, whom nothing

could move from his true purpose, because holiness was the necessity of

a heart without sin? One shrinks, in some degree, from a multitude of

representations of Him, as if they, failing to meet the inspiration of

the soul, were not reverent. Might we not more easily conceive of his

blended love and dignity, if he was painted among those who could not

trouble him, whom He would not have sent away, whom he took in his arms,

and on whom he caused to rest a blessing, that ever waits now to descend

on the children of those who diligently seek him.

Some of the quaint narratives of the old man have proved, as I have

repeated them, a source of much amusement to the young.

For instance, he said that he was returning from a journey of some miles

into the interior of the country. He had taken his heavy wagon, and

aided a neighbor who was removing his goods to a new home.

The night had overtaken him as he returned. Just as he crossed a small

stream, he heard a voice of one in great distress, calling for aid. "Oh!

come here,--come here,"--were the piteous cries from an adjoining field.

Stopping his horses, and clambering a bank, he soon secured a

"reconnoissance" of a field of strife.

By the dim light of the moon, he saw a scene sufficiently ludicrous,

but demanding immediate activity. He had not come a moment too soon. A

small man, a shoemaker, the one who cried for aid, and sadly in need of

it had, it seems, been crossing a field, when an ugly-tempered bull

rushed upon him, and would have gored him to death but for his presence

of mind and dexterity. The poor fellow had skill enough to dodge the

assault; and as the animal, missing his aim, rushed by him, he caught it

by the tail. The vicious brute made every effort to reach his

disagreeable parasite. In doing this he ran around in endless circles,

very wearying to the little legs of the little man, and exhausting his

strength.

As my old friend had come and seen, what had he to do but conquer? He

hastened to the side of the living whirligig. The shoemaker was wearing

out his shoe-soles more rapidly than any of his customers.

Seizing also the tail of the bull, he informed the exhausted man that he

might now let go.

The animal continued the same tactics, but his foe-man was armed with

his heavy whip, and this was wielded by a powerful right hand. A few

blows, and the victory was won. The hero was left alone in his glory;

for the rescued had vanished as soon as he could release his hold on the

tail, and he did not return to see the result of the strife. Let us hope

that he was grateful, although I doubt the gratitude of one who could

thus run away, and leave all the battle to his deliverer. A benefactor

in things small and great, who has a noble mind, though wounded by

insensibility to his kindness, may receive benefit from the unthankful;

for he may learn more deeply the example of the Lord, and he may free

his heart the more to do good, and look for no return--learn to do good

to the unthankful and the evil.

I have represented the farmer at Riversdale as openness and honesty

itself in all his dealings. Men will be men. In country life, as in the

city you will find a sad abundance of mean and tricky persons.

It is not a little curious to see our city friends come into the

country, and take for granted that the sojourners there are all

simple-minded and honest men. That is a weakness which is soon

dissipated. The wisdom is purchased with the loss of gold and silver.

They find that they are charged by many, probably the obtrusive ones,

the most extravagant prices for all things. The more free they are with

their money, the more they are required to pay. The value fixed on the

substance offered for sale, is all that can possibly be extorted from

any one who is imprudent enough to buy, and make no inquiries. There

comes a danger of reaction. They change the theory concerning men of the

field, which they have learned from poets and novelists, and are tempted

to imagine that they all are like these thieves. I thank God, that I

know well to the contrary.

Some men of large means imagine that if they are very free in spending

their money, and allow those whom they employ, to take advantage of

them, to extort unfair prices, that they will thereby cultivate good

feeling, a grateful regard. This is an entire mistake. The man who

cheats you never will be grateful. He comes to you, in all his relations

to you, with meanness of soul. That is no soil for good will. He also

fears, that at any time, you may be conscious of the fraud. He expects

therefore an hour when you will be angry, and despise him. He judges of

your coming enmity, by his own lasting bitterness and revengeful mind,

toward any one who has overreached him. He has also some contempt for

you, because you have been less cunning than himself.

Pay fair generous prices. When a man gains from you more than the fair

price, let it be a gift. Do not expect anything from the man, who does

in two days the labor that should be accomplished in one. Alas, as we

reflect on the want of truth and gratitude towards us, we have to

remember that we can apply these lessons to ourselves, as we labor in

the vineyard where we have been sent to toil!

I have spoken of the hospitality of the house at Riversdale. This never

could have been exercised as it was, but for the admirable arrangements

of the good wife and excellent daughters. I look back, and marvel how

all could be done in that house and farm, and yet time be found for the

entertainment of so many guests.

I am deeply grieved to look back to those bachelor days, and find that I

had a senseless conviction, that a house pretty much took care of

itself. It was a delusion which must often have caused me to be

troublesome, when I had not any idea that I was in the way. I now honor

the statemanship which adorns domestic affairs, and hope I no longer am

found at any time, a wheel out of place in the machinery of any house.

Never too late to mend. A good proverb, friends. But as we apply its

hopefulness, let us take care to remember that when the present time

shall have become the past, and we have done wrong in things small and

great, it is too late to mend the sin and error. We cannot mend the evil

of the past.

I see the good old mother of the household now. Always neat in her

dress,--erect in form,--kind,--thoughtful, self-possessed. You could not

know her long, and not perceive that she was a pre-eminent

representative of the wife and parent. Her love for others had its true

source, the love of God. Thence it flowed gently a stream of tenderness

for her family, and then spread freely far and wide to all others. Her

religion was of a very grand character. She knew, in all the trials of

life, what it was to have her Creator for her Rock,--to have His rod and

His staff. Real to her indeed, the divine love which brought our

Redeemer to our form from Heaven, and caused Him to expiate our sins on

the cross.

Once we were speaking hopelessly, of some reprobate. The opinion was

advanced, or implied, that he was never to be reformed. I never forgot

the sorrow she manifested, and her heart-felt but gentle reproof, while

she corrected us in the abiding spirit of the hope in Christ for any one

who yet lives. While the lamp holds out to burn, she asked, could not he

return?

She was one of the most unpretending Christians, and therefore her deep

piety could not be concealed. When she was unconscious of the

revelation, she taught us in a living subject of the Lord, the power

that can be given for holiness in this scene, where all gold can be well

tried in the fire.

She was ever busy. In hours of ease she had her knitting-needle. How

pleasant it was to see her at her work, in the warm days of summer, as

she sat in her high-backed chair on the piazza which overlooked the

River. With the steamboats, then beginning their course, she was never

satisfied. "The boats with sails," she said, "glided away so natural

like: but with the steamboats it was all forced work." No doubt she

often regarded these different vessels, as emblematic of those who moved

under gentle and approved agencies, and those who were out of harmony

with nature around us,--the working of the hands that are infinite in

power,--those who cared only for hire, and needed, in order to their

activity, some of those goads which happily abound for the idle.

The aged woman came to us what she was, to remind us what endless

influences are ever ready to mould us to increasing piety, and love for

others. To the sick and sorrowing out of her household she had been an

angel of charity. Her life had been a golden cord. He had strung it for

her with jewels from the mine. Is that mine exhausted? The glories we

know lie near at hand for all that will gather them.

Well can I realize after the lapse of years, the sorrow of the aged wife

when it was manifest that my old friend must soon close his eyes on the

world for ever. There he lay, his strong form promising hope, which the

decision of the physician denied. Could he be dying, who was bound to

the scene around him by so many ties? As he had gained these fields by

such a life of labor, and held them so firmly in his grasp, as every

tree seemed so surely his, as you felt the impress of his firm and

undisputed will in all the arrangements of his broad farm, you might ask

can all these bonds which bind him here be sundered? But God sunders

all, as he will, in a moment.

And now he was on the verge of the world to come. In infancy his life

had hung by the most attenuated thread. Was it better for him that he

was to die an old man, one who had passed through life's trials, had

received such endless mercies, had so many calls to so many duties? Or

would it have been better for him that he had died in infancy, passing

to the ineffable joy, but to less glory and honor than those who have

borne the cross, endured in true manly toil, the burden and heat of the

day in the vineyard of the Master?

It was in a quiet house, quiet as one so soon to be forsaken of its

owner, that we assembled to receive with him the precious emblems of the

great sacrifice made for us, in infinite love. If he received

consolation, it was indeed given also to the aged wife. Her quiet

sorrow, without a tear, was reverent, and full of submission. Its

evenness,--not rising or falling with every hope or fear,--was a seal of

its great depth. You read in her fixed countenance that she had the past

with all its memories, and the future with all its solitude clearly

before her. She was henceforth to be as the shattered vase, just waiting

some small trial of its strength, to fall to pieces. But the lamp within

was to burn on, and fed with ever increasing supplies of aliment for its

flame, to glow with increasing radiance. Such lights in the temple of

God never go out.

My aged friends! your ashes lie where you hoped that your mortal remains

would find their resting-place. Years have passed, and yet I recall you

to remembrance more affectionately, than when I stood by your opened

grave. One cause of this, is, I presume, that the more I become

acquainted with men, the more I learn to value those who have risen in

their integrity, above the low level of ordinary character.

Changed is your dwelling. A vast and costly pile occupies the place

where once it stood. But could you, the former inhabitants, of that

which has undergone such alteration, reappear among us, we should

recognize what is eternal in its nature. What is of earth, alters and

passes away. But love, and truth, and faith, all the nobleness given by

the Redeemer,--these endure. These are extended and glorified in the

world to come.

XI.

_DR. SAMUEL STANHOPE SMITH AND THE HAUNTED HOUSE._

When I was at Princeton College, Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith was its

president. A learned and able man, and an eloquent preacher, blameless

in his life, his influence was great, not only over his college, but far

and wide over the surrounding country.

I trust that it is one of the merits of our Republic, that truly great

and good men will always have this influence and respect. Surely we have

cast off those impediments to human progress which exist in other lands,

where tributes due to real merit are paid to men for their accumulation

of riches. Our offices in the states will almost always be bestowed on

the deserving. The tricks of the politician will be generally unknown,

because our people will hold them in abhorrence. In the old countries

legislative bodies have felt the force of bribes. But I will boldly turn

prophet here, and say, that no such practices will ever be known in such

deliberative bodies in New Jersey. I can imagine the shame which the

pure-minded people of this common-wealth must be ready to visit on one

proven guilty of such a detestable enormity. Indeed he would incur the

risk of being burnt alive at the stake.

The influence which Dr. Smith attained by the purest means, he exercised

for the public good. His mind was of a philosophic cast, and he abhorred

all superstition. Hence he was always eager to dispel the errors of the

ignorant, and to remove the fears excited by diseased imaginations.

One day I was plodding over a page of Sophocles. No doubt it contained

beauties whose discovery would repay toil. I was, however, unable to

say, as I pondered it, lexicon by my side, with the Frenchman, "hang

these ancients, they are always anticipating our bright thoughts," for I

was not yet able to compare the idea of the Greek with the

scintillations of genius which had flashed through my mind, and which

were laid up for the future edification of the world, because I could

not determine what the old dramatist had intended to say to us.

While I was in this state of most unpleasant perplexity, there was a

knock at my door. I knew it at once to be that of our tutor. He informed

me that the great doctor wished to see me and the rest of my class at

his study.

We were thus invited,--that is, we had as strict a summons as any

soldiers could receive from their commander,--to appear at his

residence, the famous house under whose roof so many illustrious men

have found shelter. Long may it stand!

It could not take much time to collect the designated young gentlemen

together. Before we met, each individual brain was greatly exercised

with speculations, concerning the cause of our being thus summoned to

the study of our venerable head. When we were a collective body the

various streams of conjecture being thrown in a torrent together, the

effervescence exceeded all my powers of description.

It was a trying hour when any one of us had to come face to face with

Dr. Smith.

We were not aware that any evil deed had been committed of late in the

college. We all felt a bold conviction of individual innocence. Indeed,

all college fellows are innocent always, until they are proved to be

guilty.

One poor fellow, whose shaggy head could never be reduced to smooth

order by comb or brush, more than the tossing waves are subdued to a

placid mirror by the shadows of passing clouds, with a nose that always

reminded you of a sun-dial, and an eye, which sometimes gave him the

nickname of Planet, from its ceaseless twinkling,--had indeed some

troubles of conscience concerning a duck which had been killed, cooked,

and eaten in his room a few nights before, after he had taken a long

rural ramble in the evening. He had some reasonable fear that he could

not produce the bill of its sale for the scrutiny of the President,

should it be demanded. Still, on the whole, we were calm. All felt the

necessity of a general sunshine of countenances. It was our wisdom to

look as if we expected some compliment from the head of the college.

Indeed, one fellow, who had a manly, harmless wildness in him, whom all

loved and confided in, who was a good and kind adviser of us all,--whose

intense life was a good element for the formation of the noble minister

which he afterwards became,--was audibly preparing a reply to the

doubtfully anticipated commendation of the President. It contained the

most ludicrous assertion of our great modesty, and sense of

unworthiness,--in which he said, we all most cordially concurred,--while

in the presence in which we stood. Curiosity was in every mind. No one

had the slightest clue, which appeared to guide us satisfactorily one

step in the darkness.

But we reached the door of the study. One of the most respectful knocks

ever given proclaimed our presence,--or rather inquired if we could be

admitted. The fine, manly voice which we so well knew, called on us to

enter. We were received with that courteous dignity which characterized

the doctor. All scanned the noble head, and no thunder-clouds were

there. It is something to have seen Dr. Smith in the pulpit, in the

class-room, or in the study. He was somewhat taller than men in general,

and had a frame of fine proportions. His countenance easily kindled with

intelligence. A large blue eye seemed to search your secret

thoughts--and yet in all manliness of inquiry--promising cordial

sympathy with all that was elevated, and a just indignation at the

contemplation of any moral evil. His brow was spacious. His whole face

spoke of hard study--polish of mind--of patient thought--of one who

walked among men as a king. His voice was full and harmonious. His

address was dignified and urbane. The stranger must trust him, and his

friends confided in him, not to discover that he ever could forsake

them.

Before he spoke we were at our ease. Our surprise took a new channel as

he entered on the business of the hour.

"Gentlemen," said he, "I have sent for you, that I might have your

co-operation in a plan, which may greatly benefit a worthy farmer, and

remove superstitious fears from some ignorant minds.

"Mr. Hollman, who has a farm about two miles from the college, cannot

persuade any of the laboring families to reside in a lonely stone house

on his property. It is a dwelling that should be a comfortable, happy

home. The situation is rather picturesque; standing, as it does, near

the shade of a thick wood, and on the bank of a small stream which

empties into our classical run. The people say that the house is

haunted. Family after family has forsaken it in dread. I have not had

patience to listen to the various narratives told concerning it. One man

who is quite intelligent, and evidently honest, declares that he will

take his oath that he has heard terrible noises at midnight, and has

smelt strange fumes.

"Now this short story must be put an end to. Such superstition must not

exist under the shadow of an institution celebrated for its learning. I

should regard it as a blot on our fair reputation.

"I have been engaged in devising a plan for the refutation of this

folly. It is this. I propose that you, gentlemen of the senior class,

shall spend a night in the house. This will soon be known over the

neighborhood. There has been much expenditure of words, over the silly

narratives of people alarmed at less than their own shadows. All who

have talked of the ghost, will talk of your act as having cast shame on

those who pretend to see supernatural sights. You will soon have the

pleasure of finding that the deserted house has become the home of some

worthy family. You will do much to put an end to the belief in

ghosts--for the history of your act will be narrated far and wide. Mr.

Hollman will be a debtor to you for securing him from loss, and from

great inconvenience. You have no fear of ghosts. In all probability you

will hear no sounds to disturb you, or call for investigation. If you

hear any peculiar noise, you will be assured that it is caused by some

designing person,--who avails himself of the credulity of the ignorant

to gain his corrupt or foolish purpose. I leave this matter in your

hands. I am confident that the trust that I repose in you will be

attended with the result that I desire."

We, one and all, became the personification of delight. The president

was informed that it was a most agreeable adventure which he thus

proposed. One fellow, who was awfully alarmed, and who had late at night

told stories of ghosts who appeared in Virginia, until some of his

companions were afraid to separate, was the loudest in expressing his

readiness to go with the rest. He became pale with fright, when one of

his class-mates suggested that it would have more effect if one stayed

all night in the house alone, and that he should be selected for that

solitude.

It was agreed that we should say nothing about our plan in the college.

Hence, on our return from the doctor's study, our mysterious conduct,

and sundry vague hints caused some eyes to be opened so wide, that one

might question how they would ever close again. In vain every attempt to

discover what had happened in the study of the great divine and

philosopher.

Late in the afternoon a deputation from our class waited on Mr. Hollman.

I had the honor to be appointed on this committee. The estimable man, a

well-educated farmer, and having that simple address which enables a

benevolent heart to declare itself through its courtesy, expressed great

pleasure on hearing of our proposition, and uttered his thanks to us,

and to the venerable doctor.

He corroborated the remark of our president, that if we put an end to

the ghost story connected with the house where we were to spend the

night, we should also, simultaneously, succeed in preventing the growth

of superstition elsewhere. "All true--very true," he said; "I always

notice that the doctor's remarks on all subjects run on alike, each of

value like the other, like links in a gold chain. There is danger that

this fear of ghosts will spread. I have some symptoms of it already in

my household. The woman who attends to the milk, begins to look round

her, and hurry home from the milk-house in the dusk of the evening with

a very rapid pace, and to the neglect of some of her duties. And I think

that Pompey has a decided seriousness at times,--as of a man destined to

see something terrible. Perhaps this will occur on his first lonely

drive at night by the grave-yard at our village beyond us. Tell me what

I can do to make you comfortable to-night. I will see that the house is

warmed at once, and provided with lights."

We walked with him over to the haunted dwelling. On our way he gave us

some good practical advice, as we conversed on various subjects. It came

from a practical spring of knowledge which he had acquired by reflection

on all that he saw of men, and on the affairs that transpired. Indeed

Saner, a lazy fellow, who smelt the instruction so amply spread for us

at the literary table of Nassau Hall, but who never tasted or digested

one crumb or other fragment, said to us, as we returned home

afterwards--and that with a malicious sense of triumph over Latin,

Greek, Philosophy, mental and moral,--Algebra, and like kindred

venerable foes,--"You see a man can get sense of more real value out of

the world than out of books."

"Saner," said I, "my dear fellow, is this worthy man possessed of the

widely-extended sense of Dr. Smith? And do you think that any one to

whom Providence has given the opportunity of collegiate education, and

who will turn out an ignorant blockhead, will ever learn anything from

observation? Besides our class,--or at least the deputation to the house

of the ghost,--have their minds enlightened by our instruction. Now, I

want to know whether this has not prepared us to glean instruction from

the sensible remarks of Mr. Hollman? Do you think that the ignorant men

who work for him, learn of him in a year what we do, or some of us do,

in a day?"

But this is a digression.--To return to our survey of the dwelling.

Unfortunately there was nothing very romantic in the structure. The

frowning shadows of larch, and other forest trees; the massive walls

were not there to call forth associations with some of the descriptions

of castles which were the scenes of ghosts and of banditti--such as were

common in the novels of the day.

The house looked desolate only because it was deserted, and had a dark

history. There were two rooms on the first floor; one was a kitchen of

considerable size. The other the sitting-room,--stove-room,--or

parlor,--as it might happen to be called by the inmates. This was an

apartment opened a few times in the year for company on great State

occasions. Yet it gave all the year round,--a fact which weak critics

often overlook when they talk about a useless room, and laugh in their

dreaded but unproductive way,--gave all the year round a sense of ample

accommodation and dignity to the mansion. From the kitchen a winding

staircase ascended to the upper rooms. The small landing-place rested on

the back wall of the house. Small garrets were over these rooms. The

cellar was of the size of the dwelling, and afforded no hiding-place,

nor any means of access to the interior from without, which we could not

easily secure. A small shed rested against the back of the house, from

the inside of which there was no door by which you could enter either

room. It was obvious, from the pathway to this shed from the kitchen

door, that the access of the family to it, was in the open air.

The most desolate thing to me was the well. It was one of those still

seen in the little State--so elbowed by its big brothers of New York and

Pennsylvania, and able to bear a great deal of such pressure. It was

lorded over by that huge apparatus of the great long scale-beam, with a

pole and bucket on one end, and a great weight on the other. A vine had

crept up the pole, which must be torn away before water could be drawn.

When had the matron called the good man to draw water from the deep and

damp abode of truth? when had the children, returning from school,

slaked their thirst from the bucket, covered in places by the green

moss?

We could discover no manner by which any one disposed to disturb the

inmates of the house, could secretly enter. It was amusing to notice how

some of the students, had no conception of pranks to be played upon us

in any other way than those known among collegians. However, we all

agreed that our regulations for self-defence must be very simple. We

had to wait for the demonstrations of the enemy, before we could do

more than draw up our forces in a simple line for attack or defence.

The night, of course, came on. The whole class entered the house. We had

good fires in the two rooms below, and in one above. Mr. Hollman sent

chairs and tables, and a good stock of solid provisions. Lights had been

provided, and we had with us a number of lanterns--two of which were to

be kept burning all night. Some excellent cider had been sent to us; and

if any had desired it, we would not have permitted the introduction of

stronger drink. Our honor was concerned; Dr. Smith having reposed such

entire confidence in our proceedings. There was an implied contract

between us, and there were men in the class who would see that it was

complied with, not only in letter, but in spirit. It was also obvious

that if we had any intoxicating beverage among us, and should report

strange sights, men would account for it in their own way. Indeed, if

the young gents had engaged in a noisy revel, and their intellects had

become clouded, we should have tempted some mischievous creature to try

and create an alarm.

We soon were a lively party. The house was cheerful with its blazing

fires and lights. But as that noble-hearted K----k, who became in

aftertime so eloquent a preacher in the Presbyterian church--and

M----r, for so many years a representative of his district in

Congress--and H----t, afterwards a distinguished Bishop, took their

seats by the fire in the kitchen--they soon drew around them the whole

of our little army. We became so joyous and free from care, that we

regretted that there were not other haunted houses requiring our aid. We

had no more thought that our talk would be exhausted before morning,

than the bird that its song will cease before the season for its melody

is over. It was put to the vote by the leanest fellow in the class that

we should not have our supper until we had passed the midnight hour.

All remained quiet for a long time, when a dismal sound near one of the

windows arrested us, and caused a strange silence. It was the common

opinion, that it was the visit of an owl. Before midnight a scraping

noise was heard, and as we moved about, R----k insisted that he heard a

sound of moving boards, as if some one had climbed hastily over the

garden fence.

All soon subsided into silence. Our animated conversations proceeded. I

ought to say, that almost the whole evening had been spent in the

discussion of metaphysical questions. In those days these were unfailing

topics. We did wonderfully well, considering that the German school had

not yet thrown open its gates, and let in its flood of waters, not

muddy, but stained with all sorts of dyes, so that the eye is dazzled

on the surface in place of penetrating the mass before you. The doctrine

of the freedom of the will, as expounded by the great President Edwards,

was a sure mountain of gold for every adventurer. I always observed that

all who pretended to argue at all, could argue fluently on this subject.

I also noticed that no student ever hinted that he did not understand

what his opponent had said, and that none of us ever complained that

those who replied to us, had misunderstood us,--a wonderful proof of the

clear manner in which we all reasoned. And indeed there was so much

genius among us for this branch of disputation, that it did not appear

to matter whether a student had in any degree mastered the great

treatise, of which a celebrated Scotchman, no profound judge to be sure,

has said that it never had been refuted.

As we were thus arguing these great subjects, and saying things which

Locke, Malebranche, Leibnitz, and Reid could never have said, K----k

amused us by a story,--for the actual truth of which he gave us his

word. He said that in a part of the country where he had spent many

years, the people had a debating club. It was held in a school-house

during the winter evenings, and drew large audiences. On one occasion

the topic of debate was the free agency of man.

A stone-mason who had attended the meeting during the discussion gave an

animated account of the scene. The teacher of the school was his

particular hero. He acknowledged that the opponent had merit,--was, in

country parlance, "a smart man." But little Charlie the teacher was too

much for him,--he was still "smarter." It had been a long argument. The

little teacher held that man was not a free agent. The evening was

passing away. The friends of each champion were much perplexed. Would it

be a drawn battle? Just at the happy time, the little teacher thought of

a happy argument. "Man," he said, "could not be a free agent; for if he

was, he would never die." "That settled it," was the comment. Man would

never die, if he was a free agent. So we gave him the vote. He is an

"uncommon smart man." We laughed,--and Thompson said that a story was

not an argument, and was preparing for a new onset, when the lean

student,--whom some called, improperly, Bean-pole,--interposed with the

assurance, that it was time for our repast. Some said not yet,--but he

who argued on the side of the lean one, had one vast advantage; that is

to say, his statements, particularly his reference to the tender ham,

and tempting bread and butter, created an appetite even in his

opponents. So the night was carried,--and we soon arranged our viands.

The metaphysical discussions ceased,--probably from the instinctive

conviction that such severe exercise of the mind was unfavorable to

health, when one was making a hasty repast.

While we were engaged in this agreeable duty, one of our number,

Shockford, a fellow of the kindest disposition, but always saying things

in a grumbling way, declared that he had some scruples of conscience, as

to the nature of our present occupation. What business had we to

interfere with ghosts? They had never done any harm to us. He used to

groan over the dull, unimaginative brains of the people of his

neighborhood. One day a weight of lead was taken off from his mind. He

sang his triumph in the best Latin and Greek which he could summon. He

thought that his neighborhood was about to improve. Could it be

credited, some of the people had seen a ghost. He knew a part of the

country where the inhabitants were too mean ever to have seen a spirit.

Lonely places, awful shadows by the woods, grave-yards, bridges in dark

hollows, were all thrown away upon them.

And no man ever heard of a generous thought that originated there, or,

being sent there, found a hospitable reception. They are as dry in their

natures as the old posts in their fences. They never saw anything in the

grand old woods, which are rapidly disappearing, those majestic trees

with their deep shades, that elevated their souls higher than the

furrows, which they turn over year by year. The trees are but so much

fire-wood, so much material for lumber,--so many posts and rails. All

the beauty of the harvest, is submerged in the expectation of the silver

for which it could be sold. Is it any marvel that such clods are

despised by the ghosts? If you were one, and had your own way, would you

appear in such a dreary society? Would you go before the stupid eye,

that never gleamed at the glorious unfolding of the stars, or rolled, in

some little transport, as the autumnal clouds drifted towards the

sunset, and were so radiant in the beams of the setting orb, that they

were too grand a canopy, for a world on whose surface men do so many

deeds contrary to the holy will of the Great Ruler of the universe?

Happy he was to say that he knew other parts of the country where the

sojourners are a people of different characteristics. Many ghosts were

seen in the favored spot. What was the consequence? The young ladies

are, as it might naturally be expected, much more attractive in their

personal appearance, of gentler voices, of more sympathizing manners,

and form husbands on a much more elevated plan. Of course there is much

variety in their descriptions of the ghosts which they have seen. One

most commendable trait which I have observed among them, is that the

sights which they have witnessed enhance their social respectability.

There are slight grades in rank among the ghost-seers. Those who have

seen a spirit at midnight, are superior to those who have beheld one

early in the evening. Those who have seen one near the graves, rank

above those who have met one only in the fields. But the crowned head of

all is my old neighbor, who begins apparently to tell you an awful

history,--his manner indicating that he can give strange circumstantial

evidence of the truth of the event which he is about to narrate,--and

all at once the blood, which began to cool, flows freely, as he cuts

short his tantalizing narrative, with the information that he shall

never inform any soul what he saw that night. No one of our neighbors

dares to think that he has ever approached such a transcendent vision.

The shake of the head with which the old man concludes his last

sentence, is too impressive for the most presumptuous man, having a

tendency to a doubt.

After our meal, and many a hearty laugh, a number composed themselves in

the different rooms for a good sleep. It was determined that three of

the class should sit up awake before the fire in case of emergency. I

must say that there was an undefined doubt over our minds whether

something very exciting would not happen before morning. I felt this

even in the gayety of the room. The young men laughed and talked as if

their minds were wrought up to an unnatural state.

The hours sped on,--rapidly for those who slumbered, and heavily for

those who did duty as waking guards before the fire. Now and then some

one would awaken, as if from a dream, and ask in bold speech whether the

ghost had yet come.

I remember that it was my turn to be off guard, and to join the

sleepers. The fires were kept up brightly, and gave a cheerful light to

all the apartment. I was watching the flickering of the flames, and had

forgotten almost entirely the place and position which we occupied, and

was philosophizing on the nature of sleep, and recalling some

observations I had read on the happy state of healthy little children

who are sinking to their sleep. I recalled the evidence I had received

of that kind arrangement of Providence, in the case of the little ones

at home, smiling on you in such perfect benignity and peace, as you drew

near them in their little beds. This, of course, recalled the home. As I

was bringing loved faces and scenes before me, the whole house was throw

into a sudden commotion,--just like that which you may imagine to occur

when a whole ship's crew, having been devoid of fear, is suddenly

startled with the report, communicated as by some mysterious power from

man to man, that an iceberg is near at hand, or breakers, or that the

good vessel has been subjected to some shock which endangers the common

safety.

A loud sound was heard, evidently in the centre of the house, and all

agreed that it was occasioned by the discharge of a large pistol. The

dwelling was shaken by the report, and the windows rattled. In a moment

all was activity. By a common impulse all above and below gathered at

the staircase. We distinctly smelt the fumes of the powder, and holding

up lights, were satisfied that we detected the lingering smoke.

Then commenced a new and perfect scrutiny of the building.

Notwithstanding the evidence that earthly elements had entered into the

cause of the shock, some were rather awed.

All our search was in vain. There are more things in heaven and earth

than are dreamt of in our philosophy. Yet, in this instance, we looked

on the earth for that which we could not find.

Not the slightest trace could be discovered to throw us on the true path

of investigation. We could form no possible conjecture as to the manner

in which the pistol had been discharged. After daylight we re-examined

the house. But all was in vain. The external and internal scrutiny gave

us not a hint as to the manner in which the deed could have been

accomplished.

I must confess that we returned to Princeton in no enviable mood. We all

dreaded an interview with Dr. Smith. We sought him at once,--as nature

inclines us often to go through a painful duty as soon as we can, and

to have it over.

But the President listened to our story in a manner which relieved us of

our apprehensions. He did not seem greatly surprised; and his remarks

satisfied us that we had not been made ridiculous, and we were prepared

to face the world, or rather the worst part of it,--with reference to

our present condition,--the college.

"Gentlemen," said he, "some effort to continue this imposition was to

have been expected. I presumed that such a series of inmates would not

have been driven from the house, had not some skill been shown in the

manner of causing alarm. Now, the affair is more serious than ever. If

you allow this to rest here, the fate of the house is sealed. Ghosts

will be seen all around the land. Perhaps we shall even have one to

disturb the college. Malicious and designing men will be able to torture

their victims, and often render the property of those whom they hate,

perfectly worthless. You must continue to sleep in this building until

you unravel this mystery. For my own part, I would say to you, do not be

discouraged. You have made an advance. It is now evident that the noises

heard in the house, perhaps sudden flashes that have been seen, are not

the work of imagination. A pistol fired there, gives you a clear

indication that some man is to be detected. Go there again. Let a

portion of the class go to the house, and take possession. Have your

fires and lights. At a later hour let another body of these gentlemen go

quietly in the dark, and secrete themselves outside of the dwelling, so

that they can watch it during the night. Place yourselves so as not to

intercept the most natural approaches to the house. Do not let any one

know of your plans. I shall wait to hear from you again, and am sure

that you will succeed."

Before the evening had arrived we had proof that Dr. Smith was correct

in his judgment as to the necessity for the prosecution of this

adventure. Night promised to become hideous to the surrounding country.

It was already reported on the most indisputable evidence; nay, some of

the narrators had heard it directly from the lips of the students

themselves, that as we were assembled in the dwelling, the lights

suddenly became dim, the fires ceased to blaze, and then an awful

stately lady, with the famous red ring around her throat, indicating

clearly that a murder had been committed on the premises, walked through

the rooms and looked on us, and seemed to enjoin on us the duty of

bringing the men who had stained their hands with her blood to justice,

and then suddenly withdrew with a terrific noise. Another report was to

the injury of an unpopular man, who had owned the property before it

was purchased by Mr. Hollman. Its version of the affair was, that the

ghost disclosed a secret place in the house where some papers were

concealed,--proving that the property had in former times been acquired

by the most wicked means. Great satisfaction was intimated that the man

would be exposed, and attain his deserts,--a prison having long been

supposed to be his appropriate destination.

In the evening we followed the injunctions of the president. The late

party left the college one by one, issuing in the dark from the basement

of the building, so that no one watching us could know of their

departure. They crept along over fields, and by the skirt of the woods.

They hid themselves under a thicket, through which no one would attempt

to pass to the house.

The midnight came on. I was one of those in the interior of the

building. About the same time of the night we heard the strange pistol

again. I also thought I heard an additional sound, but could not imagine

its cause. Our chief trust was in those without. And we were not

disappointed. A moment after the discharge of the pistol, we heard a

rush of feet, and many cries. Then there arose a noise of unmistakable

triumph.

The noise, and a flash revealed to the watchers without, the direction

they must pursue. They surrounded the shed, back of the building. There

they seized a form, a base--unspiritual--rough form. It was that of a

young negro man, who was brought into the light in the house, and

subjected to investigation.

He confessed that his design was to obtain vengeance of Mr. Hollman, who

had given him some offence. It seems that above the shed on the back of

the house, where he was secured, there was a small trap-door, opening

into the interior. It was so cut out of the boards, and so often

white-washed within and without, that we had never observed it. He had

once lived in the house, and knowing of this small opening, had availed

himself of it, for the success of his wicked design. Climbing up the

shed, he lifted the door, held the large horse-pistol deeply loaded, as

far as he could over the landing of the winding staircase, and then

discharging it, dropped the door, slid from the shed, and was soon far

off, and free from all suspicion.

He had heard from the people at Mr. Hollman's, that we were to attempt

to satisfy the public mind, that the house was not haunted, and that any

family might reside on the premises in peace. Hence he resolved to alarm

us all, and drive us away.

Some of the class were for summary vengeance on the fellow. We

determined to take him into Princeton, and hand him over to the

magistrate. You may imagine that we entered our town on the following

morning, with an air of triumph,--which was quite a contrast to our

looks on the preceding day. We went in figuratively speaking, with

banners flying, and drums beating. And we had some literally blowing

their trumpets.

The ghost attracted some curiosity, and some said that as we looked for

something in white, we were disappointed.

Dr. Smith was as well pleased as we were, with our success. The house

was soon reoccupied. I went there some time after our adventure, and

found it the home of a respectable family, who treated me with special

consideration, and a satisfactory portion of a large pie, when they

heard that I was one of the celebrated party that caught the ghost.

Ghosts in troops forsook Princeton. They found their occupation gone.

Men and women, boys and girls, darkies of all ages, saw shadows in the

evening, mists, indistinct lights, flickering candles, passed by graves,

and grave-yards, and had no longer any special dread. And had any ghost

in fact, dared to appear anywhere around, I have no doubt that our class

would have been summoned to do, what daylight always does, send the

wandering and terrible spirit to the regions where such dwell,--far from

all human cognizance. May Nassau Hall ever have such success in all her

laudable enterprises! May all her classes, be as great victors over all

that can cause dread to a student, as we were over the ghost at

Hollman's.

XII.

_MRS. DIGBY'S ECONOMY._[1]

"Father," said one of Mr. Digby's children, just let loose from school,

and fluttering about as if on the eve of a great flight of

play,--"father, look at my copy-book."

The face of the one thus appealed to, which generally bore a care-worn

look, relaxed into an attentive and gentle interest. He gave the labored

page the appropriate scrutiny. When the right of criticism was thus

justly earned, he bestowed due meed of praise. In line after line he

read, ECONOMY IS WEALTH.

The children soon left him, and he turned down a path leading to the

gate. All the way he repeated in various intonations of voice, the tones

changing with various trains of thought, economy is wealth.

He said to himself, "Who was the great inventor of that most absurd of

proverbs? Economy is wealth. Nonsense! The man who first spoke that

sentence, never had a saving wife. Economy wealth! Pooh! Pooh! I say,

economy is poverty.

"Our house is full of economy. The more it becomes a bank full of that

article, so ridiculously misrepresented, the more poor I am. We have a

great linen-closet, never opened for use, full of economy. We have a

garret where economy is packed away. There are things ancient and

modern, big and little, shining and rusty, known and unknown, bought as

bargains, and patiently waiting under loads of dust to become useful,

and to save us several fortunes. There is a huge chest of economy in the

entry near the spare room door. It contains plated ware, spoons, urns,

tea-pots, toast-racks, branches for candle-sticks, all ready for use

some fifty years hence, when we shall give parties to the fashionable

people in our village, increased from eight or ten to one hundred.

"And there is the fat boy in the kitchen, who was to save me from the

cost of hiring a man to cut my wood, and dig the garden, and who was to

wear my old clothes. Now he is so corpulent that he cannot get into my

coats or pantaloons. If there be a tide which takes out everything, and

brings in nothing, then it is economy. Yes. Economy is wealth."

Now Mrs. Digby was a great domestic statesman. Her husband had been

leading a life of married astonishment. There seemed to be no end to the

resources of her diplomacy. Her reasons for any departure from her

ordinary expenditures, were versatile and profound.

One principle behind which the good lady invariably entrenched herself,

was the impregnable one, that she never bought anything unless it was

under the promptings of a strict necessity. "I never buy anything not

strictly necessary, Mr. Digby," was the oil she poured on the troubled

waters of the mind of her husband.

Now the man whose intellect was not able to comprehend the curious

principles that regulated his household, declared that he never saw

anything so comprehensive as this theory of necessity. It appeared to

him to be the only law on the earth or among the stars which had no

exceptions. And all these necessities, were a great perplexity under

another aspect. They were all matters of life and death. If the coat of

the little girl faded in a slight degree, a new one--if Mrs. Digby said

so--was so necessary, that it was evident that an earthquake would come,

or the sun turn aside from his path, with consequences of unending

disaster, unless her will was transformed into actual ribbons, and

merino, or silk, or velvet. And what was equally surprising, it

sometimes happened, that before one necessity could thus be removed,

another arose; and the first was forgotten. The earthquake was somehow

prevented. The sun did not alter his course. It was a strange mystery.

* * * * *

It happened after they had been married a short time, that Mrs. Digby

expected a visit from some friends.

"My dear," she said, "you will be so pleased with them. I would not

think of treating them with any great ceremony, if it was not that they

have never seen our house. First impressions are very strong. I never

forget the pitcher, towels, and basin in the room where I slept, when I

made a visit to the Elders. Nothing could ever eradicate from my mind

the belief, that she is not as good a house-keeper as she should be. No,

it would not change my mind on that point, if I was to see her in a

house, where everything was cut out of newly fallen snow.

"Now, my dear, as these friends are to form their first impressions of

my house, I am under the necessity of having everything very nice for

them. I shall go to the expense of buying a few articles. And then our

meals must be a little more particular than when we are alone. But we

will make all up by increased economy. Yes, we will save all the

increased expense in various ways. First impressions are so powerful.

The first impressions of these friends must be favorable."

This all seemed to be very natural to Mr. Digby. But his surprise was

great when he discovered that this theory of first impressions on the

part of visitors, went on for years. The great portion of those who came

to see them, were persons who were to receive first impressions. The

Nobbs, the Stowells, the Campbells, the Lambs, and a host of others

came, and all were to receive their first impressions. After ten years

the theory was still in existence. As soon as Mr. Digby heard of a new

comer, then the theory was the first thing in his mind.

And when any of the friends repeated a visit, Mrs. Digby had a pleasant

piece of information to impart to her lord and master. She had heard

that Mrs. Snobbs, for instance, had said, that their house was kept in a

state of perfection. She had been in ecstacies over the appearance of

the furniture, and thought the table such as would tempt one to eat who

had lost all appetite. Of course, it would never do to allow her to

come, and have the first impressions changed. That would be coming down

to a most painful extent. It could never be. Some old furniture must

therefore be displaced by some new purchases. And then their table must

be a little more richly served. Indeed, it would be rather advantageous

to have things a little better than in former times. Former impressions

would lead her to expect some advance.

* * * * *

----this time Mr. Digby was again much perplexed. His wife received a

present of three hundred dollars from an aunt. The good lady was quite

triumphant, and now appeared to think, that anything but economy was not

practicable. The old theory of necessity now came in like a torrent. The

good husband had read of crops which sprang up in some portions of the

earth, in a wonderful manner. He had heard of the plants in some of our

warm climes which grew under a few suns in certain seasons, in a way

which seems incredible to us who live in this northern land. But never

did he imagine that anything could ever equal the sudden growth of

necessities in his house, since the good aunt had sent the present.

Necessity met you everywhere. It haunted you in every room. You trod

upon it when you stepped upon the old carpet, or the old oil-cloth. You

could not come near the window but it met you.

We must have new curtains for our parlor-windows.

But, Mr. Digby suggested, daring to run a tilt, madman as he was,

against necessity, that irresistible giant, who has a perfect covering

of impenetrable mail,--the expense. Think of my present, said the lady,

offering terms as a conquering general would offer them to a prostrate

foe. I will give of my present a great part of the expense.

So the curtains were bought. They were put up, and Mrs. Digby was as

happy as Mr. Digby was dejected and miserable.

Then the good lady discovered that the porch must be taken down, and a

piazza erected. Her lord said it was impossible. Here again was he

foolish enough to place his impossibility as an opponent to her

necessity. She would pay for a portion of the cost out of the money

which was sent her by her aunt. But Mr. Digby said that he had several

debts to pay, and knew not how to meet them.

Poor man! He here made a most disastrous movement of his forces. The

able general opposed to him, was too much gifted with military genius to

lose sight of the proffered advantage.

Did he expect that she was to pay his debts out of the present made her

by her aunt? No such thing. Her dear aunt manifestly intended that the

money should be spent for her special comfort. She could read him the

letter. She intended, as that kind epistle taught, that her niece should

expend it in some way that would personally gratify herself. She never

intended that it should be swallowed up in the ordinary expenditures of

the house.

So she ingeniously carried her day, for discomfiting Mr. Digby, on the

ground that he had proposed to her that she should pay his debts, which,

however, it will be observed he had not done,--for he had only

remonstrated against new expenditures before his old debts were

expunged,--she wisely made the two questions one. As he had to retire

from the field on the question of battle, as insisted on by her, despite

of all his pleas to the contrary,--she took for granted that the subject

of the new piazza was involved in the one issue. So the piazza was

erected.

Some time after this, one of her friends wished to dispose of a new

carriage, or one almost as good as new. Mrs. Digby described it in

glowing terms. And then she said that she could have it at a great

reduction in the price. If the fish knew that the hook was near, as well

as Mr. Digby knew that the cord and hook were dangling around to secure

him for a prey,--no fish would ever be caught.

It was astonishing what an eloquence Mrs. Digby could throw into such a

statement. It was not merely that she was eloquent when she described

the carriage. The picture she drew of the comfort in which she and her

lord would appear,--nay their increased elegance and respectability, was

one which could not have been surpassed. Then there was a happy contrast

presented between the proposed new equipage, and their present homely

wagon, in which they had of late years jogged along in a contented way,

which proved that their ideas of what was desirable were in need of

improvement.

The master-power of her eloquence did not, however, here appear in its

highest manifestations. No, it was revealed when the simple description

of the carriage, conveyed to the mind of the hearer, the idea that if he

did not most earnestly desire to purchase it, he must be a man fit for

treason, stratagems, and spoils. The reproof was carried to the heart

through terrors, which in themselves seemed incapable of any such power.

Those who are ignorant of such feminine power, would as soon expect the

rays of the sun to bring with them the food needful for their

sustenance. And when she referred to the old carriage, Mr. Digby felt as

if his conscience was indeed disturbed. There were two statements

addressed to him. One referred to the homely nature of the wagon. The

other said, if you could allow a woman who has been a faithful wife,--a

woman who has shared your fortunes for fifteen years,--who has never

spared herself to order her household well,--who is the mother of seven

children of whom you are very proud,--to crown all,--who has practised

for fifteen years in your house, in the most untiring manner the most

exact, and even unreasonable economy,--buying only what she has been

forced to do under the pressure of necessity,--if you could allow such a

woman to go in that old wagon, when this new and pleasant carriage could

be purchased, and that too when she is willing to give part of the money

which was sent her by her affectionate aunt, that aforesaid money having

been intended for her own personal benefit,--why then you are one of

those of whom the world may well say, that it is fortunate that you are

not placed in a situation where you could become a pirate.

After all this moving eloquence, one passage was repeated in express

words. Mr. Digby was told that if he would agree to the purchase of the

carriage and the harness which appropriately belonged to it, she would

expend in paying for it the three hundred dollars sent her by her aunt.

In that case he would have to advance but one hundred dollars, and by

that insignificant outlay, insignificant of course she meant in

comparison of that which they would gain, for economy is wealth, and she

could not throw away a dollar on any account, he would secure this

invaluable vehicle, and prove himself a man who had some regard for his

wife.

Mr. Digby suggested that some of this money, sent by the aunt was to

have paid for the window-curtains. He intended to add in order, some

other purchases, all of which were to have a partial payment from the

same treasured notes. But this suggestion only brought upon him a storm

of virtuous indignation. Nothing could be more unreasonable than to

expect that her money should be devoted to such purposes. All that she

could say, was, that the curtains were necessities. And what would they

have done if the aunt had not sent the money? If the present had not

come, he would never have thought that she would be the one who ought to

supply the money for such necessary expenses.

So the carriage was bought, and at last the money of the aunt was

expended.

Mr. Digby made a calculation, and found that the three hundred dollars

of the aunt, had been expended in part payment for purchases which cost

him about one thousand dollars. He uttered the fervent hope that the

good aunt would not send any more of her precious gifts.

Note. The manuscript here again becomes illegible. As far as I can

gather from a word which can be distinguished here and there, Mr. Digby,

after much suffering, and a severe illness from mental excitement, found

that his good lady, who was really a woman of affectionate nature,

changed all her views. Some one, at the close of the manuscript, appears

to be inquiring of him, how it is that he has attained great peace of

mind. The reply seems to be to the effect, that all the old theories are

exploded from their domestic arrangements, and that in place of all

other questions, the one consideration now is, what their income will

enable them to purchase. And there also seems to be an assertion, that

he no longer feels as if he was in danger of ruin, when any of their

relatives sends his wife a present. There further appears to be some

apology to the proverb, which he so greatly despised in former times,

that economy is wealth.

[Footnote 1: This paper was so much injured by time, that the editor

could decipher only some portions. But he has concluded to publish these

fragmentary hints, which may be of utility, and open some eyes, as they

reveal some similar weaknesses, of a propensity to live beyond one's

income, which modern progress has not yet perfectly removed from all

minds.]

XIII.

_TO MY WIFE._

The lapidary day by day

Brightened the sparkling gem,

And then that diamond flashed each ray

Fit for a diadem.

So in this trusting heart of mine

Increaseth love for thee;

A love whose rays shall brighter shine

When earth shall close o'er me.

The lapidary knoweth nought

But diamond-dust alone,

By which full glory may be wrought

Upon that precious stone.

So day by day increaseth love

By my true love alone;

The love that trial shall approve

A measure of thy own.

XIV.

_FADING AWAY._

From morn to night, thine eye, my dying-boy

Is on those autumn leaves that ever wave,

A sea of leaves on that great forest oak;

Each wave of that wide sea a wave of fire.

Ah! boy! before those tinted leaves are sear,

And fallen with light crush upon the earth,

Thou wilt be gone. Oh! glorious canopy

Around thy dying bed! All nature seems

To yield a triumph conqueror ne'er received,

When all the world knew that he entered Rome,

To the Redeemer's little one who waits

Just at the gate of life.

Blest is that tree

That lulls thy quiet. 'Tis one beauteous flame

Less glorious only than the burning bush,

When God was present in the wilderness.

Is He less present to thy spirit now?

Soon, soon a change will come, and thou wilt see

The angels round thee. They will glow in light

From the Redeemer's presence. Then how dim

All earth's great transport round us in this scene!

Why hast thou lived, my boy? Thy little life

Has all been sorrow: all but some few smiles

To thy dear mother, and to me, to him

Thy brother here unconscious of his loss,

And to thy faithful nurse who never knew

Her care was trouble, sorrowing but for thee.

But thou hast lived because thou art redeemed:

Because a life was here begun for heaven.

Thou livest to say, love not this passing world.

'Tis not our home, or surely such as thou

Would be exempt from sorrow. All is well.

Yea, blessed is the family where death

Enters to take an infant. Without fear

All look unto the world where it has rest.

No gentler sorrow falls on all than this.

No gentler sorrow nurtures mutual love.

O easy faith to know that it is gone

By the bright pathway to eternal realms

Which He first opened, when he left the cross,

The earth he blessed, and so ascended there,

Where with Him all the blessed at death have rest!

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's Papers from Overlook-House, by Casper Almore