than did the beauty and gentleness of Celina. But the lady herself had
some little inkling of the truth, for women seem to have a sort of
intuitive knowledge of the heart’s love. There were looks and tones and
casual words which needed no interpreter, or if they did, she soon found
one in her own feelings. She discovered that the visits of the clergyman
were only recurring pleasures to her, and she reflected upon the matter
till she came to the very natural conclusion, that, considering the warm
regard manifested by her benefactor to his young friend, it probably was
his wish that they should obey the command of the apostle to “love one
another.” Not long after she had arrived at this conclusion, one of
those lucky chances, which always favor lovers, revealed to her the fact
that Mr. Merwyn had precisely the same opinion. In short, if the
commandment already quoted had contained the sum of Christian duty, they
would certainly have been regarded as eminently excellent young persons.
Of course the elder Mr. Merwyn was soon made acquainted with his son’s
passion for Celina, and, following the honest old-fashioned mode of
transacting such affairs, he thought it best to be sure of his friend’s
approbation. Now it so happened that Mr. Waldie was at length coming to
a decision on the momentous subject which had so long occupied his
thoughts. He had made up his mind that, however reluctant he might feel
to assume the responsible duties of matrimony, a further delay would be
an act of cruel injustice to Celina. He thought over all her good
qualities, and, though he did not quite like her cowardice, he
determined that, rather than doom her to a life of celibacy, he would
celebrate his _fifty-fifth_ birth-day by a wedding. It cost him some
effort to make this decision; for, in addition to his natural indolence
which led him to dread any change in his mode of life, Mr. Waldie had
one secret which he could not bear to betray. It was one of his weak
points—nobody knew it, and he dreaded lest the familiar intercourse of
married life should reveal it. Nothing but a sense of duty towards his
ward could have induced him to overcome this last objection which seemed
to have gained new force with the progress of time. It was just at this
moment, when his heroic self-devotion had carried him to the verge of an
explanation with Celina, that Mr. Merwyn, with sundry nods, and winks,
and dry jokes, disclosed to him the wishes of the young people. Mr.
Waldie was thunder-struck. It seemed to him too preposterous for belief,
but it was sufficiently startling to determine him to judge for himself.
He shook off his abstraction long enough to discover that his old friend
was not very far wrong, and once assured of the fact, he fell into his
usual reverie before coming to any definite decision. He had sufficient
practical wisdom to keep his own counsel about his original plan, and he
reflected upon Celina’s incorrigible timidity—the many little troubles
which matrimony is apt to bring around one—his own bachelor
comforts—and, above all, his inviolable SECRET, until he was quite
disposed to believe that it was “all for the best.”
Mr. Waldie’s fifty-fifth birth-day was celebrated by a wedding; but Mr.
Waldie still enjoyed his celibacy and his secret. Celina became the wife
of Willington Merwyn. At the request of the eccentric but kind bachelor,
the happy pair took up their abode with him. He probably did not gain
much in the way of quiet by this arrangement, for in the course of a few
years a certain little rosy-cheeked De Courcy and his chubby sister
started the decorous echoes of the old house with the sounds of
baby-grief and baby-joy. However, there is a wonderful power of
adaptation in the human mind, and Mr. Waldie learned, after a while, to
allow them free ingress to his student’s den, while he often neglected
his speculative theories for practical illustrations of kindly
affections. Celina made quite as good a wife as if she had been brought
up in the usual lady-like ignorance of science. She shaped and sewed her
children’s garments, concocted puddings and pies, directed the mechanism
of her household, and was quite as useful in her sphere as the most
vehement declaimer against _learned women_ could have deemed necessary
to vindicate her character. Mr. Waldie never regretted the result of his
experiment. He lived in perfect harmony and peace with his now enlarged
family, and it was not until Celina had become a comely matron and her
children had grown up to love and reverence him, that the old man was
gathered to his fathers. But his secret had been discovered long before
his death, for he gradually lost his little personal vanity as soon as
he finally concluded to remain a bachelor, and he did not find any
decrease in Celina’s affection even when she learned that _he wore_ A
WIG.
* * * * *
SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES.
Though the ever-heaving ocean
Bear us from our forest-land,
Through the rising waves’ commotion,
To a far and foreign strand;
Still the heart, all space unheeding,
Firmly ’gainst our progress strives,
Leaves us, and with haste is speeding
To our sweethearts and our wives.
Ye may bind the eagle’s pinion,—
Check the deer’s impetuous course,—
Curb the steed to your dominion,—
Quell the torrent’s headlong force,—
But the spirit, fetters spurning
As our proud ship onward drives,
Leaves us, in its joy returning
To our sweethearts and our wives.
Noah’s freed and wand’ring raven
Toward the ark for safety flew;
Backward, to the spotless heaven,
Springs, at morn, the vesper dew.
Thus affection’s fond devotion,
Balm and solace of our lives;
Flies, like incense, o’er the ocean,
To our sweethearts and our wives.
P. E.
* * * * *
THE DUEL.
BY E. S. GOULD, ESQ. OF NEW YORK.
Harry Bradford sat musing by the window and was apparently lost in
thought, when a sudden knock at his door aroused him; but before he
could bid the applicant enter, Fred Stanley burst into the room.
“It’s all arranged, Harry,” said he with a glee in which, however, his
companion did not seem at all to participate.
“So I supposed,” replied Harry, quietly; “such an affair is not likely
to remain long unfinished in your hands.”
“And why should it, pray?” inquired Stanley, a little nettled at his
friend’s want of enthusiasm.
“Oh, it should not, of course,” said Harry; “such matters, after all,
are best done when soonest done. Where do we meet?”
“On the old battle-ground—Weehawken,” said Stanley; “no place like it.”
“No, none like it, indeed! What time have you appointed?” asked Harry.
“To-morrow, at sunrise,” replied Stanley.
“That’s rather prompt, too,” said Harry, “if one has to take leave of
his friends and make his peace with God.”
“Bah!” said Stanley, slightingly, “we must not think too much of these
things.”
“_I_ must not, certainly,” replied Harry, “if I would just now retain my
self-possession. We use pistols, I presume?”
“Yes, at ten paces;” said Stanley.
“A fearful proximity for men of approved courage and skill who are bent
on taking each other’s life!” rejoined Harry; then after a pause, he
added, “Wilson persists in his challenge, Fred?”
“Good G—!” exclaimed Stanley in dismay at what appeared to him a
prospect of losing his expected sport, “you are not afraid to meet him
Harry?”
“No, Stanley,” said Harry, “not in your sense of the word. So long as
consequences are limited to myself, I have little thought of fear. But,”
he continued—and he spoke in a low tone and with unwonted rapidity,
lest some tremulousness of the voice might betray his emotion—“there
are other interests, other fears, other considerations—”
“Forget them for heaven’s sake, until after to-morrow,” said Stanley,
interrupting him, “or you will never acquit yourself with honor. If you
have any little affairs to despatch, set about them at once, and don’t
fail to be abed and asleep before ten, or you won’t be up in season. I
would not have Wilson on the ground before us for the world. Good-bye; I
must prepare my pistols, for I see you will never give them a thought;”
and away went Fred Stanley as full of bravery, as solicitous for his
friend’s honor, and as indifferent about his friend’s distress of
mind—as seconds are wont to be.
Harry did not move for some minutes after Stanley left him; and when at
length he raised his eyes from the floor, his countenance bore an
expression of unutterable wo.
It was no wonder. He was the only child of a widowed mother, and the
affianced lover of the sweetest maid in the land. If he should fall, as
he well might, what would become of that mother and of Kate Birney?
He at length aroused himself saying—“I dare not see my mother: but
Kate—dearest, loveliest Kate! I promised to call on her at five; and
it’s five now; and, by heaven, there she stands at her parlor window
beckoning me to hasten; yes! and she holds up that bouquet of flowers.
It was but yesterday I gathered them for her—and what has not happened
since yesterday!” Here he paused, as if too much overcome by fond
recollections to proceed: he then added in a different tone—“these
follies come upon us, with both cause and consequences, as suddenly, as
fatally as the inevitable casualties of life! A day of promise is
changed to a life of mourning by the event of a moment; the act of an
instant destroys the happiness and poisons the memory of years! Those
flowers were gathered in hope; and before they—frail, perishing
mementos—can wither, he who bound them and she who wears them may be
lost in despair!”
With a heavy heart Harry repaired to his love’s rendezvous, where, full
of beauty and tenderness, Kate awaited him. They were to be married in a
week; and these interviews of the lovers now possessed an additional
witchery from the fact that their communings, as lovers, were so soon to
terminate forever.
The romance of passion is a bright episode in our youth. The hymenæal
sun, while he yet clambers toward the “misty mountain-tops” on the
morning of a wedding-day, spreads his promise over the broad firmament
in a thousand fantastical images of crimson and gold. We watch the
accumulating splendors of the sky and say, exultingly, if the dawn be so
gorgeous what will not the day bring forth? But as we gaze, the sun
heaves his broad disk above the horizon—the ephemeral imagery of vapor
disappears—and the calm, steady sunlight of every day-life succeeds to
the beautiful vision.
To Kate, this glowing blazonry of heaven was now at its culminating
point; but Harry felt, as he almost reluctantly approached her, that a
cloud—the more terrible from his uncertainty as to its dimensions and
progress—was gathering on that glorious sky.
As he approached, his lovely mistress hailed him with an arch reproof
for his delay; but when she reached out her hand to welcome him, she saw
that his face was flushed and his eye disturbed; and, changing her tone
of censure to one of solicitude, she inquired anxiously:
“Are you ill, Harry?”
The pressure of the hand—the eager look of inquiry—the tremulous tone
of affection which accompanied these few words startled Harry from his
self-possession; and he replied—
“No—no—not at all ill; I—I—”
“Harry! dear Harry!” exclaimed Kate with passionate earnestness, “what
has happened? Tell me, Harry! tell me _all_!”
It was instantly obvious to the young man that his engagement for the
morning—which he held himself bound in honor to fulfil—would in some
way certainly be interfered with by his mistress, if he allowed her to
be informed of it; for, whatever might be his notions of chivalric
obligations, and however imperiously he might demand her acquiescence in
them, he still knew that a dread of personal danger to himself would
overbear, in her mind, _all_ other considerations. He, therefore, felt
it necessary to equivocate and deceive her. This train of argument,
which of course went through his mind in far less time than is required
to note it down, resulted in his saying promptly—
“For heaven’s sake, Kate, don’t alarm yourself in this manner! Nothing
has happened.”
It is not to be supposed that this reply was altogether satisfactory,
but as Harry, in his attempt to mislead Kate had broken the spell of his
own forebodings, he was now able to regain his self command; and he then
soon succeeded in making a jest of her fears.
After an interview such as lovers know how to protract and no one knows
how to describe, they parted; Kate inspired with bright visions of
happiness, and Harry, in a state of wretchedness, the nature, but not
the extent, of which may be readily conceived. He hurried to his room
and without any preparation for the morrow cast himself on the bed where
his agony found poor relief in a fit of uncontrollable weeping.
In this condition, he fell asleep.
It often happens, by some strange contrariety of nature, that our dreams
have relation to the subjects _not_ nearest our hearts: what has
occupied our thoughts during the day usually gives place, in sleep, to
something of more remote interest—as if the soul, when momentarily
disencumbered of the cares of life, shook off its dependence on the body
and pursued the bent of its own fancy, regardless of the wants and woes
of this tabernacle of day to which it is ordinarily held in subjection.
But Harry’s experience did not, at this time, conform to the rule.
After he had slept awhile, he dreamed that he was hurrying, stealthily
and alone, to the scene of mortal strife. A little in advance of him was
an old man whom he had several times tried to avoid by changing his
route, but the stranger, without appearing to be conscious of Harry’s
motions, happened so exactly to regulate his course by that which Harry
took, that the impatient youth found it necessary to brush past him, at
the risk of being interrupted, if he would reach his destination in due
season.
He had just overtaken the old man, and was rapidly striding onward, when
the latter, with a promptness and vigor not to be expected in one of his
years, grasped Harry’s arm, saying—
“Hold a moment, young man; you are Harry Bradford, I believe?”
“That is my name, old gentleman,” replied Harry, with a stare of
astonishment, “but as I have not the pleasure of knowing you, I must beg
you to defer your civilities. I am in haste.”
“Stay a moment, nevertheless,” continued the stranger, “or,”—seeing
Harry about to move on in spite of him—“if you will not, at least walk
slower, that I may accompany you. I knew your father, Harry, and I can
surely claim of his son the privilege of a parting word just as he is
about to rush unbidden into eternity.”
“Who are you, then, and what would you say?” exclaimed Harry, not a
little startled to find that his purpose as well as his name was known
to the stranger.
“I am your friend,” replied the old man, “and my name is Common Sense.
Why are you determined to throw away your life?”
“Sir,” said Harry, “I am engaged in an affair of honor—a matter with
which, I fancy, you can have no concern.”
“I have little to do with honor as young men understand it; but I am
desirous to serve you. Tell me, therefore, what is your predicament?”
“A quondam friend and rival lover, jealous of my success with a lady,
insinuated something to her prejudice in the presence of gentlemen. I
struck him. He challenged me; and I am bound to fight him.”
“Why?”
“The laws of honor accord full satisfaction to an injured person.”
“Is he injured?”
“No, not in fact: he merely received a just chastisement for a wanton
insult.”
“Who says, then, that he is injured?”
“He says so.”
“And is it one of the articles of your code of honor that a party to a
quarrel is entitled, also, to be a judge of his own case?”
“That is immaterial. If a man chooses to consider himself aggrieved, he
can demand an apology, or, personal satisfaction. The apology being
refused—as in my case it must be—the challenge ensues: and to question
his right to issue it, provided he is recognised as a gentleman, is,
equally with a refusal to fight, equivalent to an admission of
cowardice.”
“An admission of one’s own cowardice is, truly, no alluring alternative.
But let us understand each other: what sort of cowardice do you mean?”
“I know of but one.”
“Indeed! Cowardice, speaking generally, is fear: what fear does a man
betray who declines to accept a challenge?”
“The fear—eh—that is—the fear of being shot.”
“Death, young gentleman, to one who believes in a future state of reward
and punishment, is a solemn event; and I apprehend that a brave man, or
a good man (to say nothing of a bad man) may fear to meet it without
suffering the imputation of cowardice: so that, thus far, your position
is none of the strongest. Does this cowardice comprehend nothing else
than the fear of death?”
“Nothing else.”
“Then we have all the argument on that side of the question. Let us look
a moment at the other. What induces a man to accept a challenge?”
“The fear of dishonor.”
“Ay? then _fear_ operates on both horns of the dilemma: and, for my own
part, if I were forced to act under the dictation of fear, I would
choose that course which promised the least disastrous result. But here,
again, we do not perhaps understand each other. What kind of _dishonor_
is this?”
“Disgrace, in an intolerable form! A man thus degraded would be driven
from society, branded with the stigma of cowardice, and blasted with the
scorn of all honorable men.”
“That, truly, were a fate to be deprecated; though a man of sober
judgment might urge that even such a fate is nothing compared to what
awaits those who throw themselves, uncalled and unprepared, into the
presence of their Maker. But is what you say _true_? Does such dishonor
involve such consequences?”
“Unquestionably it does!”
“Stop a moment. Let us consider this. You say the man would be driven
from society: tell me, by whom?”
“By public opinion.”
“And the same agent would brand him a coward and blast him with
universal scorn?”
“Even so.”
“This public opinion, I take it, is the united opinion of that class
whom you designate by the phrase _all honorable men_?”
“It is.”
“Very well. I wish now to ascertain the practical operation of public
opinion. Supposing you were this dishonored individual: who, as the
Scripture hath it, would cast the first stone at you? Who would take the
initiative in banishing, branding and scorning you—would your father
have done it?”
“No, certainly not.”
“Would your mother?”
“No.”
“Would the lady you love—or _any_ lady on the face of the earth?”
“No.”
“Would any of the old respectable inhabitants—your father’s companions
and equals?”
“No.”
“Would any of those who, by common consent, form the respectable and
estimable portion of the community?”
“No.”
“Would not, rather, all these to whom I have referred, applaud you for
refusing deliberately to give or receive a death-wound in a quarrel; and
honor you for daring to _practice_ what every sensible man has
_preached_ since the world began?”
“Perhaps they might.”
“Then will you tell me, identically, _who_ would inflict on you the
penalties of this imaginary dishonor? _Who_ would pronounce you
disgraced and point at you as a coward?”
“Why, Wilson, and Fred Stanly, and Jack Smith, and Jim Brown, and every
body.”
“What are they?”
“Gentlemen.”
“What is a gentleman?”
“One who has, or had, or expects to have a plenty of cash—who has no
particular vocation—who carries a rattan, wears long hair, and goes to
all the fashionable parties.”
“I have but two questions more to ask: supposing you are killed in this
duel: what would be the consequences _to others_?”
“My mother would die of a broken heart; and Kate—God knows what would
become of her!”
“Supposing, on the contrary, you should kill your antagonist?”
“If I were not arrested and hanged according to law, I should be obliged
to quit the country and bear, ever, in my bosom the remorse and on my
brow the mark of a murderer.”
“One thing more: are you not heartily ashamed of your present purpose?”
Before Harry could reply, Stanley stood at his side and awakened him by
saying:
“Come, Harry, you will be too late!”
The brotherly, disinterested zeal of a second is worthy of all
admiration. How dispassionately he tries the flint! How coolly he
squints along the barrel to ascertain if the sight is in order! How
carefully he graduates the powder, and with what a touching
connoisseurship he chooses a ball! Observe, too, with what a stately air
he paces off the ground—from the pride of his step you might imagine he
was a prince or a conqueror marching to receive the reward of his
greatness!—God in heaven! is that man arranging the ground where his
friend is to be shot—shot in cold blood—and he, a silent,
premeditating witness of the deed?
At the hour designated, the parties were all in attendance: the ground
was measured and the pistols were loaded.
Harry now interrupted the proceedings saying:
“Gentlemen this affair has gone far enough.”
“It is too late now, sir!” said Wilson’s second, haughtily: “my friend
refuses to accept an apology.”
“He had better wait,” said Harry, “until I offer it. I accepted his
challenge under a misapprehension of my obligations to my friends, to
society, and to what are called the laws of honor. I now retract that
acceptance. He insulted me and I struck him; the reckoning of revenge
was thus closed as soon as it was opened. If he dares to repeat the
offence, I shall repeat the punishment; without holding myself liable to
be shot at like a wild beast of the forest. You are all welcome to put
your own interpretation on my refusal to fight. My conduct will _justify
itself_ to all those whose opinions are truly worthy of regard; and as
for the bullying denunciation of those few miscreants whose highest
ambition is to be known as the lamp-lighters and candle-snuffers of
mortal combats—combats which the laws of God and man pronounce to be
murder—as for their denunciation, my now wishing you a good morning
shows how thoroughly I despise it.”
* * * * *
Was Harry Bradford a sensible man or a fool? Did he, in after years,
regret his refusal to fight a duel? And will anyone who reads this have
the good sense and manliness to do likewise?
* * * * *
ELEGY ON THE FATE OF JANE M’CREA.
BY THOMAS G. SPEAR.
When Genius, Valor, Worth, too soon decays,
The world sings vocal with posthumous praise,
And o’er the love that fate has sorely tried,
Oft have the hearts of pitying mortals sigh’d.
What then to thee, oh, hapless maid! is due,
Whose form was lovely as thy soul was true?
Who fell ere life hope’s promise could impart,
Or love’s fruition cheer thy constant heart?
As some sweet bird that leaves its nest to fly,
With sportive wings along the alluring sky,
’Midst greener scenes and groves of happier song,
To wake its wild notes with its kindred throng,
Feels the quick shot its gushing bosom smite,
Just when it seeks to ease its tiring flight,
And ere its glance can tell the ball is sped,
Finds the cold sod its blood-encrimson’d bed.
Ah, sad for thee! when life’s frail thread was shorn,
Few near thee wept, though many liv’d to mourn.
No arm was there to stay the savage deed,
That left thy form with gory wounds to bleed.
No mystic rites from holy tongues were thine,
In death’s cold sleep thy beauty to resign—
No hearse-drawn train, with mournful steps and slow,
Was nigh to yield the accustomed signs of woe,
But Peace was priestess o’er the virgin clay,
When Nature’s arms embrac’d thee in decay,
While duteous there a remnant of the brave,
Bent o’er thy dust, and form’d thy humble grave,
And ’neath the pine-tree’s unfrequented shade,
Lone and compos’d thy blood-stain’d relics laid,
Where from the boughs the wild-bird chim’d its song,
And gurgling leap’d the fountain’s stream along—
In earth’s green breast by warrior hands enshrin’d,—
Beauty in earth by Valor’s side reclined!
But unforgetful Grief her debt hath paid,
In sad remembrance of thy lovely shade;
And friendly hands have op’d this cell of sleep,
Thy dust to honor, and thy fall to weep,
And maiden trains from village hamlets nigh,
Have borne thy relics thence to where they lie,
There rear’d the slab that tells thy joyless doom,
Points to the skies, and shows thy hallow’d tomb.
Ne’er shall thy fate around thee fail to draw,
Hearts ever true to Nature’s kindliest law—
To trace the spot whereon thy bosom bled,
Where Guilt to Death Life’s sinless semblance wed—
Where startling shrieks in savage madness rose,
That rous’d the panther from his lair’s repose—
Where stood dismay’d the feeble hand that bore
Thy form where savage hands thy ringlets tore—
Where flows the fount, and still the pine-tree stands,
Notch’d by the bird’s beak, and the stranger’s hands,
Rocking its wide boughs to the shivering gale,
The time-worn witness of thy chilling tale.