SECTION XV.

The daughter of the rich man was carried to her grave upon the shoulders

of the rich, followed by a crowd of worshipers; and as the body was

borne into the Chapel of the Departed, and the procession flowed in, and

filled the aisles, the choristers chanted the _Requiem_ for the dead.

Dies iræ, dies illa

Solvet secium in favilla,

Teste David cum Sybilla.

“My daughter, oh! my daughter; why wouldst thou die?”

Quantus tremor est futurus,

Quando Judex est venturus,

Cuncta stricte discussurus.

“Return, oh! return, return again to me.”

Tuba mirum spargens sonum

Per sepulchra regionum,

Coget omnes ante thronum!

“and thou shalt make me what thou willest.”

Mors stupebit, et natura,

Cum resurget creatura,

Judicanti responsura.

“The shining gold is thine, and houses, and lands, and all the glory of

life.”

Liber scriptus proferetur,

In quo totum continetur,

Unde mundus judicetur.

“My daughter, oh! my daughter, return again to me.”

Judex ergo cum sedebit

Quidquid latet apparebit,

Nil inultum remanebit.

“Thy suitors call thee; the music, the dance, the revelry of joy.”

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?

Quem patronum rogaturus,

Cum vix justus sit securus?

“No voice, no word, no whisper for my ear.”

Rex tremendæ majestatis,

Qui salvandos salvas gratis,

Salva me, fons pietatis.

“Cold, cold, cold in death!”

Recordare, Jesu pie,

Quod sum causa tuæ viæ,

Ne me perdas illa die.

“Strike up—louder—louder yet.”

Quærens me sedisti lassus,

Redemisti crucem passus,

Tantus labor non sit cassus.

“She loved the noise of trumpets, of sounds harmonious, the bustle of

the earth.”

Juste Judex ultionis,

Donum fac remissionis,

Ante diem rationis.

“Louder, louder—no voice, no word, no whisper for my ear.”

Ingemisco tamquam reus,

Culpa rubet vultus meus:

Supplicanti parce, Deus.

“Gone, gone—thus runs the world away!”

Qui Mariam absolvisti,

Et latronem exaudisti,

Mihi quoque spem dedisti.

“Poor, poor, poor Anne!”

Precos meæ non sunt dignæ,

Sed tu, bonu, fac benigne,

Ne perenni cremer igne.

“In the grave is sleep and rest.”

Inter oves locum præsta,

Et ab hœdis me sequestra,

Statuens in parte dextra.

“Cold sleep, cold rest.”

Confutatis maledictis,

Flammis acribus addictis,

Voca me cum benedictis.

“Pass on, sweet spirit, to thy waking; if waking there may be.”

Oro supplex, et acclinis;

Cor contritum quasi cinis,

Gere curam mei finis.

“Our father, which art in heaven.”

Lacrymosa dies illa

Qua resurget ex favilla.

“Hallowed be thy name.”

Judicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce Deus.

“Amen.”

We buried Anne, and upon the tablet which marks the place where she is

laid I caused to be cut her last words—“We shall spring upward from the

ground, winged, and with a power which will bear us swiftly to the

throne which endureth forever and forever.”

* * * * *

THE DESERTED.

BY MISS MATTIE GRIFFITH.

Why didst thou leave me thus? Had memory

No chain to bind thee to me, lone and wrecked

In spirit as I am? Was there no spell

Of power in my deep, yearning love to stir

The sleeping fountain of thy soul, and keep

My image trembling there? Is there no charm

In strong and high devotion such as mine

To win thee to my side once more? Must I

Be cast forever off for brighter forms

And gayer smiles? Alas! I love thee still.

Love will not, cannot perish in my heart—

’Twill linger there forever. Even now

In our own dear, sweet sunset time, the hour

Of passion’s unforgotten tryst, I hush

The raging tumult of my soul, and still

The fierce strife in my lonely breast where pride

Is fiercely struggling for control. Each hue

Of purple, gold and crimson that flits o’er

The western sky recalls some by-gone joy,

That we have shared together, and my soul

Is love’s and memory’s.

As here I sit

In loneliness, the thought comes o’er my heart

How side by side in moonlight eves, while soft

The rose-winged hours were flitting by, we stood

Beside that clear and gently-murmuring fount

O’erhung with wild and blooming vines, and felt

The spirit of a holy love bedew

Our hearts’ own budding blossoms. There I drank

The wild, o’ermastering tide of eloquence

That flowed from thy o’erwrought and burning soul.

There thou didst twine a wreath of sweetest flowers

To shine amid my dark brown locks, and now

Beside me lies a bud, the little bud

Thou gav’st me in the glad, bright summer-time,

Telling me ’twas the emblem of a hope

That soon would burst to glorious life within

Our spirit’s garden. The poor fragile bud

Is now all pale and withered, and the hope

Is faded in my lonely breast, and cast

Forever forth from thine.

They tell me, too,

My brow and cheek are very pale—Alas!

There is no more a spirit-fire within

To light it with the olden glow. Life’s dreams

And visions all have died within my soul,

And I am sad and lone and desolate;

And yet at times, when I behold thee near,

A something like the dear old feeling stirs

Within my breast, and wakens from the tomb

Of withered memories one pale, pale rose,

To bloom a moment there, and cast around

Its sweet and gentle fragrance, but anon

It vanishes away, as if it were

A mockery, the spectre of a flower;

I quell my struggling sighs and wear a smile;

But, ah! that smile, more eloquent than sighs

Tells of a broken heart.

’Tis said that thou

Dost ever shine the gayest ’mid the gay,

That loudest rings thy laugh in festive halls,

That in the dance, with lips all wreathed in smiles,

Thou whisperest love’s delicious flatteries;

And if my name is spoken, a light sneer

Is all thy comment. Yet, proud man, I know

Beneath thy hollow mask of recklessness

Thy conscious heart still beats as true to me

As in the happy eves long past. Ah! once,

In night’s still hour, when I went forth to weep

Beneath our favorite tree, whose giant arms

Seemed stretched out to protect the lonely girl,

I marked a figure stealing thence away,

And my poor heart beat quick; for oh! I saw,

Despite the closely-muffled cloak, ’twas thou

Then, then I knew that thou in secrecy

Had’st sought that spot, like me, to muse and weep

O’er blighted memories. Thou art, like me,

In heart a mourner. In thy solitude,

When mortal eyes behold thee not, wild sighs

Convulse thy bosom, and thy hot tears fall

Like burning rain. Oh! ’twas thy hand that dealt

The blow to both our hearts. I well could bear

My own fierce sufferings, but thus to feel

That thou, in all thy manhood’s glorious strength

Dost bear a deep and voiceless agony,

Lies on my spirit with the dull, cold weight

Of death. I see thee in my tortured dreams,

And even with a smile upon thy lip,

But a keen arrow quivering deep within

Thy throbbing, bleeding heart. Go, thou may’st wed

Another; but beside the altar dark

My mournful form will stand, and when thou see’st

The wreath of orange blossoms on her brow,

Oh! it will seem a fiery scorpion coiled

Wildly around thine own.

I’m dying now;

Life’s sands are failing fast, the silver cord

Is loosed and broken, and the golden bowl

Is shattered at the fount. My sun has set,

And dismal clouds hang o’er me; but afar

I see the glorious realm of Paradise,

And by its cooling fountains, and beneath

Its holy shades of palm, my soul will wash

Away its earthly stains, and learn to dream

Of heavenly joys. Farewell! despite thy cold

Desertion, I will leave my angel home,

Each gentle eve, at our own hour of tryst,

To hold my vigils o’er thy pilgrimage,

And with my spirit’s-pinion I will fan

Thy aching brow, and by a holy spell,

That I may learn in Heaven, will charm away

All evil thoughts and passions from thy breast,

And calm the raging tumult of thy soul.

* * * * *

THE LOST DEED.

A LEGEND OF OLD SALEM.

BY E. D. ELIOT.

(_Concluded from page 195._)

Mr. Fayerweather and Madam were seated at breakfast before a blazing

fire, one very cold morning in January. John had already finished, and

had gone to Mr. Wendell’s office, in which he was studying his

profession. Vi’let following Scipio, who had entered with some warm

toast, came up to the table and said—

“It’s a terrible cold morning, Misser Fayerweather—I ’spect Primus

han’t got no wood—he’d only jist three sticks yesterday; he’s sick with

the rheumatis, too—mayn’t Scip carry him over some?”

This meant not wholly for the benefit of Primus, but also as a wholesome

discipline of Scip himself, whose health Vi’let thought in danger for

want of exercise. Scip glouted at her but did not dare speak.

“Yes, carry him over a good load Scipio, the moment you have swallowed

your breakfast. Such a morning as this without wood.”

Madam added—“And you shall carry him some stores to make him

comfortable. That makes me think of poor Cluff—I am afraid he is out of

every thing by this time—he must have suffered last night. I ought to

have seen to him before—poor creature! how could I have neglected him

so? I might have known it was coming on cold, from its being so warm

yesterday.”

Mr. Fayerweather endeavored to persuade her that Cluff could scarcely

have consumed the provisions she sent him on Christmas, but she

continued to reproach herself until he told her that he was obliged to

go out in the sleigh as soon as breakfast was over, and that he would go

down himself and see that the old man was comfortable and was well taken

care of.

The worthy gentleman finished his meal and the sleigh was ordered out,

but the hard cough of the old horse as the cutting air struck him on

being led out of his warm stable, reached his kind master’s ear and

found its way to his heart.

“Poor old Moses!” he said, “it would be hard to take you out such a day

as this, it might be your death—I’ll walk. I shall be all the better

for it.” So saying, he lost no time in hurrying on his roquelaure, and

set out on a brisk pace, to avoid the expostulations of his wife, who

had gone to look out some flannels to send Primus. As he passed by Mr.

Wendell’s, his niece having seen him from the window, was at the door to

accost him.

“Why, uncle! where are you going this bitter morning? Do come in.”

“Don’t stop me now, child, I’m in haste; perhaps I’ll drop in as I come

back,” he said; then as he shook his finger at little Will, who was

hanging on his mother’s apron, he gave them both a look so brimful of

kindness and affection and something beyond both, as went to her very

heart. That look Amy never forgot.

The cold was intense, but Mr. Fayerweather proceeded on his way. The air

felt like solid ice to his face, where it was not entirely muffled with

the roquelaure, the cape of which was soon thickly frosted with his

breath. Some shivering, blue-nosed school-boys made their manners as

they passed. “Run quick, my boys,” he said, “or old Jack Frost will have

fast hold of you. See that you keep a warm school-room to-day.” A pipkin

of water was thrown after them from a shop door—it was that of Nanny

Boynton’s new residence—it froze as it fell, and rattled like pebbles

on the snowy crust. When he reached the market-place (it was not a

market-day,) one solitary load of wood was on the stand. As Mr.

Fayerweather came up, the patient beasts which drew it, turned up their

broad faces and looked wistfully at him beneath the wreaths of snow

formed by their breath as it issued from their nostrils. The owner was

thrashing himself very energetically with his arms, to induce a

sensation of warmth. Mr. Fayerweather bought the wood and told the man

to carry it up to his house and tell madam he sent him, this being

tantamount with telling him to go and make himself comfortable by a good

fire, with a good luncheon for himself and his cattle. Mr. Fayerweather

then proceeded on his way. Dr. Holly’s thermometer stood at 18 below 0.

The table was laid for dinner when he returned home. His wife met him

with as severe reproaches as she knew how to frame, for walking out on

such a day.

“Don’t scold, my dear,” he replied, good-humoredly, “you are growing a

perfect shrew, I declare. If you take to scolding, I shall certainly

take to drinking. I am going to take some brandy now.” Then he went to

the buffet, and taking from a liquor chest which stood in the lower part

of it, a case-bottle of brandy, that had reposed there undisturbed, time

out of mind, and unstopping it, he continued:

“I found Cluff very comfortable, in no want of any thing. I went to two

or three other places, but hadn’t time to call and see Judith as I

intended—but let us have dinner, for my walk has made me so hungry I

could eat a trooper, horse and all.”

Madam went into the kitchen herself to hasten in dinner. She remained a

moment, to see Vi’let dish up the turkey, and was, with her own hands,

adding more spice to the gravy, when the sound of some heavy body

falling, hurried her back to the parlor, followed by all four servants.

She found her husband extended on the floor. She flew to assist him,

supposing he had been tripped up accidentally by the carpet, but he was

without sense or motion. “Quick, run for the doctor, Scip, he’s faint;”

and madam took the sal volatile from her pocket to apply to his

nostrils. Vi’let looked at him and felt his pulse, then clasping her

hands, exclaimed—

“God Almighty, mistress!” She suddenly checked herself, and told Flora

and Peter to run for Mrs. Wendell and Madam Brinley.

Dr. Holly on his arrival found madam in strong convulsions, requiring

both her sister and niece to hold her, while Mr. Wendell and John,

assisted by Vi’let, were endeavoring to revive Mr. Fayerweather, who was

still on the floor. On examining him attentively, the Doctor shook his

head hopelessly, but made an immediate attempt to take blood from the

arm. It was in vain—Mr. Fayerweather was dead. His death, Dr. Holly

gave it as his opinion, was accelerated by exposure to the cold and the

long walk, the disease being a hardening of vessels about the heart;

adding that if he could have taken the brandy (which stood on the table

in a tumbler, apparently untasted,) it might have saved him. The grief

of the family and friends of the excellent man may be imagined, but

cannot be dwelt upon here.

The funeral was the longest that ever had been known in Salem, for never

was any inhabitant of it more beloved and respected. As soon as madam

was sufficiently composed, after the funeral, the ebony cabinet was

searched and a will was found, dated the day before George’s departure.

It gave the widow the homestead, which had become very valuable,

together with the whole of the property she had brought; after several

bequests, a large one to Mr. and Mrs. Wendell jointly, the remainder of

the property was divided between the two sons. Mr. Wendell was named as

executor. The estate was perfectly clear and unincumbered and little

time was requisite to settle it.

A few weeks subsequent to the funeral of Mr. Fayerweather, the

inhabitants of Salem were called together by an alarm of fire; an

occurrence so very unusual as well as alarming, that it caused a great

stir and commotion in the quiet and orderly town. The fire broke out in

the office of the Register of Deeds, but was soon put out, doing, as was

at first supposed, but little damage. Upon examination, however, it was

discovered that several books of valuable records were destroyed, and

others much injured. Mr. Wendell having ascertained that the one

containing the copy of the Boynton quit-claim of the Fayerweather

property was among the burnt, as well as that of a date many years

prior, thought best to lose no time in having these important documents

newly registered. Accordingly he looked into the cabinet, which had been

put into his possession, for the originals.

Upon a thorough search with John Fayerweather, no trace of these papers

was to be found in the cabinet; nor, to the astonishment and

consternation of both, in any desk, trunk, drawer or closet in the

premises of the deceased. The only conjecture madam or John could form

in regard to the disappearance of these papers was, that either through

accident or mistake, they had been left in their original place of

deposit, and were now in the elder son’s possession in the little trunk.

In the first vessel which sailed for London, therefore, intelligence was

dispatched to Mr. Haliburton of the melancholy death of his old friend,

and of the missing papers, that he might find means to convey notice to

George, sooner than could be done from Salem.

The destruction of the records came to the knowledge of Jemmy Boynton as

soon as to that of Mr. Wendell, and the delay of the latter to have the

deeds recorded anew, did not escape her notice. Jemmy was ever on the

alert to seize upon every circumstance which might possibly involve the

risk or loss of property to others, in the well-grounded hope, which he

rarely failed to realize, of in some way or other turning it to his own

benefit. Accordingly the old fox was not slow to suspect some

substantial reason for such delay or apparent neglect on the part of so

careful a man of business as Mr. Wendell was well-known to be, and he

did not stop till he had found out the true cause. To arrive at

certainty, he thought it would be best to make a visit of condolence to

the widow, judging from her well-known simplicity, she would give him

all the information he desired. And he was not mistaken.

He took care to make his visit at a time when he felt pretty sure Madam

Fayerweather would be alone. It was on a fine morning in June that Jemmy

sallied forth. He had dressed himself in the best his wardrobe afforded;

a suit of fine claret-colored broadcloth, which had been left in pawn to

him years before by a needy French prisoner on his parole, and which had

never been redeemed; a white satin waistcoat, grown somewhat yellow with

age, and white silk hose with gold clocks, fitting tight to his spindle

legs; all belonging to the same pledge. Possibly the finery of the

jaunty Frenchman might have inspired him with some undefined notions of

gallantry; for Jemmy was going to make a call upon a rich widow just six

months in weeds. But if any airy visions fluttered about his heart and

occasioned the smirk upon his withered physiognomy as he bent his way to

her house, they were speedily put to flight on entering the parlor of

madam, who manifested such unqualified discomfiture on seeing him, that

the compliment which he had been framing during his walk, perished

before its birth, and he felt called upon to account for his visit by

the phrase of condolence he had previously conned over with much care.

“Madam, I come to condole with you on your bereavement—’twas a

sorrowful bereavement.”

The tears came into the eyes of the widowed lady, but she felt so much

relieved at finding Jemmy was not come to demand possession of the

estate, as she at first had supposed, but was only making a friendly

call in kindness, that it was not in her nature to take it otherwise

than kindly. Her countenance resumed its usual benevolent expression,

though much saddened of late, as she thanked him and inquired after

“Miss Nancy’s health.”

“Thank ye kindly, madam, Nanny’s but poorly with the rheumatis; she

sends her humble sarvice to you, and hope I see you well.” Then Jemmy

proceeded in his most insinuating manner, to ask if there was nothing

that he or Nanny could do to “sarve” her, and really appeared so

friendly, that madam was taken by surprise, and out the secret came; for

she thought it would be a fine opportunity to ask him for a new

quit-claim of the whole property, which, from the great good-will he

manifested, she could not doubt he would readily give.

His object so fully attained, Jemmy, in his elation became airy, and at

length quite softened to the tender. Placing his brown forepaws upon his

knees, he looked down upon his golden clocks, which he thought had

helped him to win the day, and evading madam’s request, he turned the

subject to her husband’s death.

“Your worthy spouse, madam, died of an arterplax, (apoplexy?) I take

it—a-a-hm—well.” The compliment was now revived. “A fat sorrow is

better than a lean one—he’s left you well to do in the world, and sich

a parsonable woman as you will find enough ready to supply his place.”

The smirk which had been frightened away on his entrance, again returned

to adorn his lanthern jaws, giving Madam Fayerweather, in indignant

amazement, some reason to imagine he contemplated offering himself as a

candidate for the place he alluded to, with small doubts of being a

favored one. She rose, and all the Borland blood mounted to her face.

The bell-rope was jerked with a violence wholly unnecessary, for Scipio

made his appearance before the bell could sound in the kitchen; he and

Vi’let having, on Jemmy’s first entrance, stationed themselves in the

passage between the parlor and kitchen, and had heard through the

keyhole all which had passed. The guest, however, thought good to make a

precipitate retreat without waiting for the ceremony of being shown the

door. As he passed by the side-gate, Vi’let stood ready to salute him

with a ladleful of some liquid, taken from a kettle on the kitchen

hearth, which all the plates and dishes, as they had come from the

table, had passed through to restore them to their native purity,

leaving behind them their impurities floating on the top; and as the

rich compound splashed over the skirts of his coat and his silken hose,

with gold clocks, she cried after him:

“You want to take Misser Fayerweather’s place, do ye! ye old

skinflint—well, see how you like a sup of Vi’let’s broth.”

Stung with his unceremonious dismission; his legs smarting with the

scalding liquor, Vi’let’s insult was more than he could bear. Turning

round in a rage, he called out, doubling up his fist and shaking it at

her—

“Tell your proud jade of a mistress she wont hold her head so high long,

on other people’s ground! And as for you! ye nigger”—he made use of an

epithet which would not appear polite here—“I’ll have you up to the

whipping-post!”

Vi’let answered him with a scornful laugh, as she slammed the gate after

him. Poor madam was overwhelmed with mortification and chagrin at her

own folly, of which she was fully sensible as soon as she had committed

herself.

As Jemmy proceeded home, his keen sense of indignity wore off in the

exulting thought of vengeance in full prospect. He and his precious

sister, however, had one great drawback to their satisfaction; the

necessity of opening their purse-strings sufficiently wide to draw

therefrom a fee large enough to induce any man of the law to undertake

the case against Mr. Wendell, who was regarded throughout the province

as the head of the profession. But a lawyer was at length found at the

distance of twenty miles, who was willing to engage in the cause for a

moderate share of the profits, if successful, and to lose his fee if

not; and the trial was prepared to come on at the annual November court.

It occasioned a great sensation at the bar, from the amount of property

involved, and the respective characters of the plaintiffs and defendant;

the latter being Mr. Wendell, as executor to the deceased. He determined

to plead the cause himself, assisted by a friend as junior counsel. At

the first trial, little difficulty was found in having it postponed a

year, to give time to hear from Captain Fayerweather; much to the

disappointment of the plaintiffs.

The most intense anxiety was now felt by the Fayerweather family, and

all connected with it, to hear from George; but as it was known he was

to embark from Europe on a voyage of discovery in the South sea, small

hopes were entertained of receiving letters from him for many months.

To return to a more pleasing subject—Judith was the darling of all. As

her character became more matured with her person, both increased in

loveliness, and both received a new charm from the cultivation of her

intellect, which proved of no common order. George’s presents to her

were chiefly of books; for though his active life prevented him from

being a great reader himself, the whole atmosphere in which he had been

born and educated, the circle of which he was the pride when at home,

being intelligent, he was anxious that deficiency in this point should

not be found in Judith. No deficiency of any kind, however, was

discovered in her by his family. John regarded her with an affection

scarcely less than George’s; and though the idea of supplanting his

brother, or of Judith’s ever being more to him than a sister, never

crossed his mind, he formed no other attachment.

Captain Stimpson, now grown somewhat stiff in his limbs, gave up his

lookout in the cupola to Judith, and was at some expense to have it

fitted up for her with cushions and curtains, and a spy-glass for her

particular use. Her sleeping apartment opened directly at the foot of

the stairs which led to it; and here with her books and her Eolian harp,

she passed all the time which she felt to be exclusively her own. Her

prospect was that of the harbor, opening into the ocean, under every

aspect a noble one—with Baker’s island, and its light-house in the

distance, on one side, and several hamlets at different distances on the

other; the town, with its then few streets and scattered dwellings, and

the level country beyond. The view offered little of the beautiful, the

romantic or the picturesque; but all that was wanting its fair

beholder’s imagination could supply; and it may be questioned whether a

view of the bay of Naples even, with all its magnificence of scenery,

could give rise to conceptions of more beauty in some minds, than were

formed in Judith’s by the ordinary one of Salem harbor.

Time went on, and it was now near the end of the summer preceding the

November, when the cause was to come on at the Ipswich court. Letters

had twice been received from Captain Fayerweather, but of a date prior

to his leaving Europe, and arrivals were looked for every day, which

were expected to bring answers to the information that had been

dispatched to him of all which had occurred to his family since his

departure. One fine evening, Judith, having finished all her domestic

tasks for the day, below stairs, ascended to her observatory, thinking

she should not be missed; her father having set out on his daily visit

to the rope-walk—_en amateur_, for the captain had retired from

business—her grandfather was quietly reposing in his chair, and her

mother holding sweet communion with her dearly beloved Nanny

Dennis—Mrs. Brayton.

On reaching her airy retreat, the fair maiden took the spy-glass, and

adjusting its tube, strained her vision over the ocean, hoping to espy

the mast of some vessel coming into port. In vain—the curve of the wide

horizon was unbroken even by a speck. A gentle sigh escaped her as she

spoke; “Not yet; well, it must come before long.” She then took her

book, and was soon luxuriating in the fairy-land of poetry. From time to

time her eyes wandered from the page, to cast themselves over the

expanse of waters before her, glowing beneath the sky of twilight, and

scarcely dimpled by a breath of wind, as the tide still advanced to fill

the broad basin, and broke in low ripples on its now brimming edge.

Darkness at length came on, and being no longer able to distinguish its

characters, she laid aside her book, and turned her eyes and thoughts to

the scene without. Insensibly almost to herself, her ideas arranged

themselves in measure, and she repeated in a low whisper:

“The winds have folded their tired wings

And sunk in their caves to rest;

The Evening falls, for Day is gone

Far down in the purple West.”

She stopped, feeling almost like a culprit detected in some flagrant

misdemeanor; but as new images rose in her mind unbidden, and seemed to

plead for a permanent existence, she continued,

“And yonder the star of Evening gems

The brow of the pale young Moon

That journeys on in sadness and tears,

To finish her course so soon.”

Gathering courage, she proceeded:

“She’s gone—and deep the falling shades

Close over the quiet plain;

While shore and hamlet, and grove and field,

Resign them to Night’s calm reign.”

Thinking whether she should ever dare confess her enormity to George,

she went on:

“The ocean’s dark breast is dimly seen

By the stars as they glimmer near,

Where the waves dash low—while a far-off roar

From the distant beach[6] I hear.

A spark from yon low isle in the East,

Now twinkles across the bay!

And now it steadily flames, to guide

The mariner on his way.

Oh, dear to me is thy distant beam!

Lone dweller of the night waves.”—

“Judy! Judy!” roared her father’s voice, “come down directly!—here’s

letters from Captain Fayerweather.”

She sprang, and was down stairs, almost before the last syllable had

left her father’s lips. He stood with the packet in his hand, which he

told her came by the way of Beverly. On carrying it to the light, it was

discovered to be directed to John Fayerweather. Judith felt something a

little like disappointment, though she had no reason to expect it would

be directed to herself. “But how was she to get her own letter

to-night—if there was one for her.” This, if not on her lips, was in

her thought.

Her father took the packet from her hand; “Here, I’ll take it up in town

myself; I should like to be the one to give it to them, and you shall

have your own letter to-night.” Without waiting for an answer, off he

set, and his sturdy stump—stump—stump, was heard the whole length of

the street, until he turned the corner. Judith almost quarreled with the

feeling of delicacy which had forbade her accompanying him.

The town clock struck ten as Captain Stimpson reached Paved street, and

with a louder and quicker stump—stump—stump, he hastened on. Just

before he reached the Fayerweather mansion, he met Mr. and Mrs. Wendell

coming from thence, and on learning his errand, they turned back with

him. The eagerness with which John seized the packet, and the beating of

the heart which all felt as they gathered round him while he opened it,

may be readily imagined. It contained but two letters, his own and one

to Judith. He handed the latter to her father, who immediately departed

with it.

The first opening of John’s letter proved a bitter disappointment to

all, for the date was only a week subsequent to that of the packet,

which had been last received. In that one George had not written to his

brother, and to supply the omission, he appeared to have seized upon

another opportunity which occurred directly after, by a different route.

This letter was a very long one, and bore marks of the strong affection

which subsisted between the two brothers. One passage in it, however,

had a strong negative bearing upon the lost papers. It ran thus: “My

father’s little trunk, which I took with me, to hold the letters I

expected to receive from home, is still _empty_; not one have I received

since I left Salem.” This, Mr. Wendell said, was _prima facie_ evidence

that the deeds were not in their original place of deposite.

The next morning another thorough search was made, which proved as

fruitless as the preceding ones, leaving Mr. Wendell and John in a state

of perplexity scarcely to be imagined; the former, however, resisting

all internal misgivings as to the final issue of the cause, and

maintaining his conviction that the papers would be found in time to be

produced on the trial. Captain Fayerweather was not expected home until

the next spring. Throughout the whole affair his mother had discovered a

strength of mind scarcely expected from her, and assisted in all the

researches with great energy. A spirit had been roused in her by

Boynton’s insult, as she felt it, which proved a radical cure for all

disorders on her nerves; she never had a fit of hysterics after.

The autumn advanced, but brought no new arrivals. November came, the

court sat at Ipswich, and the cause of Boynton versus Wendell was third

on the list. The anxiety of all concerned may be imagined. It would

scarcely be supposed that at this time an object could exist of

sufficient interest to divert, for a moment, the thoughts of Madam and

John from the issue of this trial, which might, and the probability was

now strong that it would, drive them from the home of their happiest

days, with the loss of an estate, half of which had been twice paid for.

Such an object was, however, found in old Jaco. He had been declining

for some time, and all the care of the family had been directed to

keeping him alive until his master’s return. As the weather grew colder,

Vi’let had been prevailed upon to allow him to stay in the kitchen; and

much softened in her nature by her master’s decease, she made a bed for

him behind the settle, and gave him warm milk several times a day with

her own hand, without once debating the question of his having a soul,

and the sinfulness of making him comfortable, if he had not, as she

might have done years agone.

One afternoon, some days before the cause was to be tried, John received

a hurried note from Mr. Wendell, who was at Ipswich on business; the

note was dated the day before, and expressed some fears, which he had

never allowed to appear before, as to the issue of the trial. “His

hopes,” the note said, “still predominated, but he thought it would be

best for John not to allow his mother to be buoyed up by them, but to

endeavor to prepare her for the worst.” The student, with a heavy heart,

left the office and went home to seek his mother. He felt relieved on

finding she had lain down after dinner, and had at length fallen asleep,

after having passed several wakeful nights. He would not awaken her, but

went out to see old Jaco.

The poor brute lay panting, and was now evidently drawing near his end.

At John’s approach he turned his head toward him, feebly wagged his

tail, and gave a low whine. After a while he rose on his feet, and

staggered to the door, which John opening, the dog made out to reach the

middle of the yard, when he fell and lay gasping. His master bent over

him, and gently patting him, spoke soothingly; at which Jaco opened his

eyes and made a feeble attempt to lick the kind hand which caressed him.

At this instant a light breeze swept by; and as John felt it wave the

hair on his brow and flutter for a moment on his cheek with the feeling

of the balmy spring, it was singularly associated with recollections of

his brother, whose image it brought to his side with all the vividness

of reality. As, like a light breath, it passed to Jaco, the dying animal

started suddenly and rose on his haunches, snuffed eagerly in the air

three times—stopped—then gave one long-protracted howl, when he fell,

quietly stretched himself out to his full length—and poor Jaco lay

stiffening in death. John watched him for a minute or two, when a low

sob might have been heard from him as he turned away, and took his

course through the garden and fields to the water side.

Judith, on this afternoon, felt a weight on her spirits, wholly unknown

to her before. She could not entirely conceal her depression from her

parents, and they were not surprised at it, in the present juncture of

affairs in the Fayerweather family. She, however, could not have given

this as the cause of her depression, had it been inquired of her, for

this day her mind had been less occupied with the trial, and its

probable issue, than it had been for a week previous, and she felt

unable to account for the sadness which oppressed her. Her father, at

length, went out to see if he could not pick up some news, and Judith,

after in vain attempting to rally herself, went up to her little cupola.

She looked from her window, but the aspect of all without seemed in

accordance with her feelings. The sky of one leaden hue, looked as if no

sun had ever enlivened it, and the sea beneath of a darker shade, heaved

and tossed as if sullenly brooding over some storm in recollection. The

wind whistled through the bare branches of the trees before the house,

and drove a few withered leaves to and fro on the terrace, then found

its way within doors, and moaned through the passages. Some groups of

boys, as they went from house to house, to gather a few pence for their

bonfire (it was the fifth of November), at another time, might have

seemed to add some little liveliness to the scene; but to Judith, their

voices as they reached her ear from below, had a melancholy tone, as

they chanted their rhymes, and the tinkling of their little bells

sounded doleful.

She placed her harp in the window; for a minute or two the strings were

silent, and she repeated her accustomed little invocation—

“Ye winds that were cradled beyond the broad sea,

Come stoop from your flight with your errand to me;

And softly the strings of my harp as ye blow,

Shall whisper your tidings of weal or of wo.”

The wind appeared to answer her summons but fitfully at first, the

strings jarring without music, as it swept over them. The blast

increasing in strength, the tones became for a while loud, harsh, and

discordant; then, as it blew more steadily, they gradually blended into

harmony, and at length, sent to her ear a strain of such deep

melancholy, as struck despair into her heart. Suddenly there was a

crash, succeeded by the _tolling of a distant bell_. So profound was the

illusion of the spell-bound hearer, that she did not perceive the

snapping of a string, which, by the striking of its loose fragment over

the others, produced the sounds so full of wo, to her saddened spirit.

They ceased, and the harp was silent.

Again its tones were heard, faintly, and as from afar; but gradually

drawing nearer, as a gentle gale passed over the chords to the dejected

girl. It fluttered round her, soft as the breath of a summer evening,

kissed her fair brow and delicate cheek, and waved each golden curl

which hung round her white throat, while a solemn strain arose, and

softening by degrees to a melody of more than earthly beauty, as it

seized upon her entranced senses, dispelled every cloud from her

spirits, and poured into her soul peace and joy. Then as the breeze

which bore it appeared to depart, and wing its way back over the ocean,

the tones seemed to syllable the word, farewell, repeated each time with

more sweetness, until the sounds were lost in distance. When Judith

descended, her parents were rejoiced to see the dark shade dispelled

from her brow.

Mr. Wendell sat up late on the preceding night, preparing a defense in a

case, in which all the vigor of a powerful intellect was called forth,

aided by profound legal learning. He retired to rest, weary, but not

dispirited, confident that a few hours repose would fully restore him.

But after sleeping heavily until late the next morning, he awoke, not

refreshed with slumber, as was his wont, but feeling a languor wholly

unknown to him before. He, however, would not succumb to the feeling,

but rose, determined to conquer it; took a walk, and used violent

exercise, which was of benefit, for when he returned he ate his

breakfast with a good appetite, and then sat down to examine his notes.

The seat of his indisposition was now apparent, for on his first attempt

to read, he felt a pressure on his brain, and a confusion of ideas,

which rendered his mind wholly incapable of following any train of

argument, and scarcely able to take in the sense of what he had written.

The only course now remaining to him, he adopted, which was to leave

this case in the hands of the junior counsel, to have it, if possible,

continued over to the Spring term; after doing which, he mounted his

horse and proceeded homeward, leaving word that he would return in time

for the Fayerweather case. For the first time in his life he felt gloomy

and depressed. The exercise of riding was grateful to him, and he felt

refreshed. After riding an hour or two, his spirits rose to their

accustomed buoyancy, though his ideas still remained confused, when he

attempted to pursue a train of thought.

He arrived in Salem about three o’clock in the afternoon—the same

afternoon the poor dog Jaco died. At he was proceeding through the main

street, or reaching the one which turned down to the wharves, his horse

suddenly snorted and became restive. He patted and soothed his old

servant, and then looked round to discover the occasion of so unwonted a

freak, when he saw a powerfully built man in the garb of a seaman, who

appeared to be advancing toward him. He stopped his horse with great

difficulty, and the stranger came within a few yards of him. What was

his surprise and joy on seeing George Fayerweather?

His exclamation was stopped short by the horse giving a plunge, which,

if Mr. Wendell had not sat well in his saddle would have thrown him.

Captain Fayerweather’s countenance discovered marks of alarm and

distress as he drew nearer, and while he spoke to Mr. Wendell, the horse

snorted and again plunged fearfully, and at length reared, and stood

nearly upright; but his master sat firm as if glued to the saddle, while

he listened to George’s hurried account of where the deed was. As

Captain Fayerweather finished, he turned away quickly, and the animal

again put his fore-feet to the ground. As Captain Fayerweather turned

the corner, Mr. Wendell called after him, and then finding all endeavors

to make the horse follow him, vain, he dismounted and gave the bridle

into the hands of a man whom he knew, and who at this juncture came up.

He then turned the corner too, but George was gone. His communication,

however, in spite of the restiveness of the horse, had reached the ears

of Mr. Wendell, and now absorbed all his faculties, as he hastened home

with a rapid pace.

On this afternoon, Mrs. Wendell sat at work in her parlor, her mind full

of the event of the trial, and revolving over many plans for her aunt,

on its now probable issue. She was thinking over her Aunt Brinley’s

proposal, that the three families should make but one, and should occupy

her house, which was sufficiently large; when some one opened the front

door, and came immediately into the room. It was her husband, looking

excessively pale, and his whole appearance betokening hurry and

agitation. Scarcely heeding her, he went to a large closet in the room,

where he kept books and papers, and where her uncle’s ebony cabinet was

placed.

To her questions of surprise and alarm she could only obtain in reply—

“I cannot answer you now, my love, wait.”

He went to the cabinet, and proceeded to take out the three small

drawers of the centre, which he placed on the floor, and then narrowly

examined the vacancy they left. Unable to restrain her curiosity, she

looked over his shoulder. As he knelt, he just made out to discover a

small projection at the back, to which he applied two of his fingers,

and the whole partition slipped down, and discovered a narrow cavity in

the very centre of the cabinet. Two papers appeared, tied together with

red tape; one of which was discolored as if with age. He clapped his

hands with a joy strangely contrasted with his pallid countenance, and

both exclaimed at once—she with a scream—“Here they are! the deeds!

the deeds! found at last!”

Mr. Wendell then mentioned to his wife his meeting with George, who he

supposed had just landed; and might have gone to see Judith before he

went home. Mrs. Wendell expressed her joy at her cousin’s return, and

then again remarked her husband’s paleness, and anxiously inquired the

cause; but he made light of it.

“O, I am well enough,” he said, “but I sat up late last night—and

perhaps,” he said, with a faint smile, “it was the fright my horse gave

me, while George was speaking. He nearly threw me, and prevented my

saying a word until George was gone—but I must return immediately to

Ipswich; these papers must be produced in court to-morrow. I little

thought when I came away, of returning in such triumph; but, good-bye,

my love; I cannot stop a moment;” and off he hurried.

Mrs. Wendell immediately flew into her aunt’s, whom with John she found

in utter ignorance of George’s return. When informed of it, and of the

discovery of the lost papers, her joy almost overcame her. In her

impatience to see him, she thought Judith was almost unkind to detain

him so long.

“She might come with him,” she said, and John started up, and set off to

bring them both. On his way, he met Captain Stimpson, who, he found, had

neither seen nor heard any thing of his brother, though just returned

from home. He, however, was laden with tidings of high import, and was

coming up in town to tell his news.

A vessel had that afternoon put in at Beverly with government

dispatches; and staying only long enough to send them on shore, had set

sail for Quebec. The dispatches were of so much importance, that an

express was immediately sent off with them to Boston, and it was

supposed they were the forerunners of peace. The vessel was expected to

return to Salem in a month. This was the rumor which Captain Stimpson

brought, for it was but a rumor, of which every one down in town was

full; but of which, no one appeared to know either the origin or

grounds. The name of the vessel, or of its master, could not be

ascertained. The worthy relator accompanied John home, and the four

there assembled, concluded with one voice, and almost one feeling of

deep disappointment, that the Captain of the vessel must have been

George, and that being under orders to proceed to Quebec, with the least

possible delay, he would not trust himself to come home, or to see

Judith, for fear of being detained too long. His not explaining himself

to Mr. Wendell was accounted for, Mrs. Wendell said, by the restiveness

of the horse, which probably did not allow him to say more than was

barely sufficient for the finding of the papers.

The next day, the cause at Ipswich was decided at once, by Mr. Wendell’s

producing the deeds. And heavy were the costs which fell upon the

plaintiffs; their counsel retaining no recollection—there being no

witnesses to it—of the agreement to lose his fees, should he fail to

gain the cause; he expressing at the same time a high-minded indignation

at having been taken in to engage in a case, in which so much knavery

was concerned.

“Poor Jaco! I ’clare it makes me sithe to think on him.” And Vi’let

sighed audibly, when Peter removed his mat from the kitchen. Poor Jaco’s

remains were respectably interred in the garden, under his absent

master’s favorite tree, with a stone to mark the spot, setting forth his

useful life and many virtues.

Pleasantly passed the month in Paved street, in anticipation of George’s

return: the smiles returning to his mother’s countenance, which had

seldom visited it since his father’s death. And pleasantly glided by the

hours to Judith; but how—in her eyrie, watching the waves which were

soon to bear her lover to her, and invoking the winds to speed his

course? Not she—she taxed herself with selfishness, in having already

spent so much time, engrossed by her own feelings, and not in

administering to the happiness of others; and she resolutely determined

not to go up into the cupola, take the spy-glass into her hand, nor even

to consult the golden fish, which surmounted the highest peak of Captain

Brayton’s house as a weathercock—which latter she could do by only

looking out of the east-room window—until she had made up for lost

time, and finished several pieces of work she had on hand.

Mr. Solomon Tarbox, seeing there was no hope for him with Judith, had

paid his addresses to Miss Ruthy Philpot, the daughter of a

ship-chandler in the neighborhood, and their nuptials were near at hand.

Judith had set up a patch-work quilt in the summer, as a bridal present.

“And it was high time it was completed,” she said. So every afternoon,

after her household cares for the day were over, she sat herself at her

patch-work in the sitting-room, and with her lively chatter shed the

sunshine of her own happy spirits over her parents and grandfather. At

the end of three weeks the quilt was completed.

“And a beauty it was,” Ruthy said, when Judith surprised her with it,

and taking it from the arms of the boy who brought it, unfolded it

before her admiring eyes. “And the pattern of the quilting, too, in

shells—so much genteeler than herring-bone—it was the handsomest

present she had had yet; but her thanks should be paid when Judith

should be in the same case; which would be before long, no doubt.”

As Judith returned home, how beautiful every thing appeared to her. The

first snow had fallen the night before, and spread over the ground its

pure white mantle, the hue of her own bright spirit; and blithe as a

young snow-bird she flitted along, so lightly, that one had almost

wondered to see the print of her fairy foot. As she looked up into the

clear blue sky, how could she help the dazzling of her eye by the golden

fish, when it was directly before her, and the sun shone full upon it;

and how was it possible for her not to see that it’s head pointed due

east? At the sight, who can tell what sudden thought sent a brighter

flush to her cheeks, already glowing with spirits and exercise, and

quickened her footsteps homeward? On reaching the house, before

disarraying herself of her scarlet cloak, she bounded up to her cupola,

and took the spy-glass into her hand.

The glass was adjusted to her eye, and slowly turned to every point of

the eastern horizon; but the line marking the meeting of the bright blue

heaven and the dark blue sea remained whole and unbroken. But no!—is

not that a speck? It is—and it increases and nears! Her start sent the

glass from her hand; when again adjusted, she could plainly perceive

three masts rising from the waves; and now the swelling sails emerge,

and now the dark hull.

“Judy! do you see that sail?” called Captain Stimpson from below, in the

voice of a speaking-trumpet.

“I do, sir,” answered Judith from aloft. And now the whole ship was

visible, gracefully moving over the waters, and proudly and beautifully

she bore herself. The father and daughter watched her progress from the

first speck they could discern in the bay, until she cast anchor in the

harbor, Mrs. Stimpson having indulgently delayed tea for them, to which

they now sat down; it being so dark they could see no longer. After tea,

Judith sat down to her work, and endeavored to be tranquil. “It was

wholly uncertain,” she said to her father, “whether this were Captain

Fayerweather’s vessel or not;” and she really tried to persuade both him

and herself, that she thought in all probability it was not. Her ears,

however, would perversely listen to every noise from without, which her

imagination mischievously converted into the voices of the busy crew

from the vessel, plainly distinguishing a well-known one among them,

though far out in the harbor. Captain Stimpson was sure it was the

vessel, and that they should see George that evening; and so thought

Mrs. Stimpson. Their daughter very undutifully said, “It was not at all

probable, even if he had come—and she felt almost sure he had not—that

he would be willing to leave his mother so soon, even if she would let

him.”

The evening wore on, and the little group were undisturbed. Judith could

not repress a gentle sigh at thinking how rightly she had judged. Her

father at length started up, and said, “He’d make certain whether the

chap had come or not;” and accordingly put on his galoches, and was

going for his cloak—(his daughter usually brought it for him, but she

did not do it just then)—when footsteps were heard on the terrace.

Judith disappeared from the room. There was a loud knock at the door,

and Captain Stimpson went to it. On his opening it, Mrs. Stimpson heard

his hearty and vociferous, “How are you, my lad?” and hastened to give

her welcome with voice, hand, and tears, to the tall, stout man whom her

husband ushered in. Her joyful greeting was received in silence, and

with no answering marks of recognition.

“This cannot be Captain Fayerweather,” she said, turning to her husband.

“Captain Fayerweather? No, madam, my name is Brown,” said the stranger,

gravely. He seated himself, as invited, and there was a pause which

neither Captain nor Mrs. Stimpson felt able immediately to break. At

length the stranger said, “I am mate of the Dolphin, Captain Richard

Seaward, master; and he desired me to tell you, he would himself have

brought the intelligence I am to give you, but he is sick, and was

obliged to take to his bed as soon as he came ashore.” Mr. Brown stopped

and cleared his voice.

He resumed. “You took me for Captain Fayerweather; what I have to say is

concerning him. Captain Fayerweather took passage from London in the

Dolphin; and he told Captain Seaward that he had just arrived from the

Cape of Good Hope, where he had found letters from home, which rendered

it necessary that he should return with all possible dispatch; and that

finding a vessel at the Cape ready to sail for London, he had left his

own, which had a consort, to the charge of the second officer and an

experienced crew, to proceed into the Pacific, and had taken passage in

the one to London, hoping there to find some opportunity of going to

America. We set sail from London on the third of November—”

Captain Stimpson interrupted him. “On the third of November, did you

say—and with Captain Fayerweather on board? That can’t be true, sir—he

was here on the fifth.”

The stranger answered gravely, “Sir, the business Captain Seaward sent

me upon, is any thing but trifling. The Dolphin certainly sailed from

London the third of November, and with Captain Fayerweather on board;

all the crew will testify to this. But did I understand you rightly to

say, he was here on the fifth? How—at what time? Who saw him—did you?

There must have been some mistake.”

Captain Stimpson, much surprised, replied, “I did not see him myself,

but his cousin, Squire Wendell, did. He met him in the street between

three and four in the afternoon. There could have been no mistake, for

he told the squire something of great importance to his family, that

nobody but himself could have known. The vessel we supposed he came in,

put in at Beverly; she staid only long enough to deliver some dispatches

for government, and sailed directly for Quebec, intending to return here

in a month. We supposed fully that your vessel was the one, and we were

expecting Captain Fayerweather when you came.”

While the captain spoke, Mr. Brown showed marks of astonishment and

agitation. He was silent a few moments, though his lips moved, and he

appeared to be making some calculations. At length he spoke, in a voice

apparently from the depths of his chest, slowly and distinctly, but

turning pale as he proceeded. “On the fifth of November, two days sail

from London, about eight o’clock in the evening, which, allowing for

difference of longitude, corresponds to between three and four here, in

a raging storm, Captain Fayerweather fell from the mast-head into the

sea, and was lost!”

Judith’s shriek was heard from the inner-room, but before her parents

could reach it, she had fallen senseless on the floor. Her father took

her in his arms, while her mother bathed her temples. On reviving, she

held up her clasped hands imploringly to her mother, and asked if she

had heard aright, and if her ears had not deceived her. Poor Mrs.

Stimpson was incapable of answering her, excepting by tears; and her

father could only clasp her more closely. “Oh! he’s gone then;—let me

go, too;” and she struggled to free herself. “But where! where shall I

go?—what shall I do? Why did you bring me to?—it would have been

better for me to have died. I do not wish to live! Why did you not let

me die? I will die!—I will not live!”

Her father now blubbered outright. “And would you leave your poor old

sir, and your ma’am, that have their lives bound up in you, and that

would die, too, without you? Have you no love left for them?”

“I do love you both,” she cried; “but now—oh, George! I wish I was in

the depths of the sea with you.”

“Hush! sinful child,” sternly said her grandfather, who had left his

chair and now stood before her, his trembling, withered hand held up in

reproof; “receive this dispensation of the Lord as a massy; he has taken

from you your idol, that was a robbing him of your heart; turn to him on

your bended knees, and implore His pardon for your sin.”

As she heard him, she appeared by a strong effort only, to suppress a

scream. “Oh! spare me now, grandfather,” she cried; and she threw

herself on the floor, where she lay with her arm over her face, whilst

sobs convulsed her whole frame.

“You are too hard upon her, grandsir,” cried her mother, with some

asperity, and smarting for her child; “you forget she is young flesh and

blood; but you are such a saint, and you live so much for another world,

that you make no allowance for a poor young creature’s feelings in this,

when her heart is almost torn out of her body.”

“Child,” said the old man, trembling, “you ere cutting on me with a

sharp knife! I, a saint! oh, you don’t know nothing of the wickedness of

this old heart; that it was my own sinfulness I was a rebuking, when I

was so harsh with this dear child; for I confess it—and it is with

shame and confusion—that I have thought more of her being among the

grand of the airth, of her riding in her chariot, dressed in vain attire

of silks and satins, and adorned with pairls and jewels of fine goold,

than of the welfare of her immortal soul. And I verily believe,” he

continued, the tears which had long been strangers on his usually placid

face, now running down his furrowed cheek, and his whole countenance

working with distress, “I verily believe for my sin, this has fallen

upon us all; and oh! that this old white head had it all to bear.”

Mrs. Stimpson was entirely subdued by this humble confession of her

father-in-law, whom she had always regarded as so near perfection, and

so much above all human weakness, that her affection for him had been

chilled by a feeling partaking of awe. “Oh, grandsir!” she said, “how

cruel I’ve been to you; but I never knew how tender-hearted you were

before.”

“No, child, you have always been good to me,” returned the old man; “and

better than I desarve; but let us pray that this affliction may be

sanctified to us all, and wean us from the perishing things of this

airth—myself above all, who can’t have much longer to stay; and this

dear child, that she may feel it as a goolden thread a drawing on her

easy like to heaven.” He then knelt down, his son and daughter-in-law by

his side, and offered up an humble and fervent prayer over Judith, who

was lying before them.

Meanwhile the paroxysms of her grief appeared to abate by degrees, and

during her grandfather’s prayer her lips moved as if accompanying him;

her sobs became less frequent, and at length were heard no longer; her

slow and regular breathing showing that she had fallen into a profound

sleep. Her father brought a pillow and tenderly placed it beneath her

head. She slept heavily for more than an hour, when, it being long after

midnight, her parents, fearing she would take cold, removed her into

their own bed—this room being their sleeping apartment in the winter

season. As she moaned on being disturbed, her mother soothed and

caressed her; and then placing herself by the side of her child, she

folded her in her arms, and lulled her to sleep, as if again an infant,

while her father placed himself in the easy-chair, and watched until

sleep overpowered him.

The next morning, as the anxious parents were bending over their

darling, she opened her eyes, and a beautiful smile spread itself over

her features. “Oh! I have seen him to-night,” she said, “and he was

among the blessed; he told me to live for your sake and his mother’s,

and he would watch over me until we met in heaven.” When thoroughly

awakened from her dream, she looked fondly on her father and mother, and

clasping the hands of both, said, “Oh! how wicked and ungrateful I was

to you last night! Can you forgive me? and henceforth I will only live

to please you, and will have no wish but yours.”

“You, dear child, you never did any thing but please us; you never had

any other wish but ours,” both answered with streaming eyes.

Judith then arose and dressed herself; her trembling limbs and pale

countenance sufficiently betraying the shock her frame had received. She

went out of the room and busied herself even more than was her wont in

domestic details, and throughout the day endeavored by redoubled

attention and affection to her grandfather, to make amends to him for

her impatience the night before.

The fine weather of the preceding day had been succeeded in the night by

a driving snow-storm, which had increased to such violence by morning,

as to prevent any communication with the Fayerweather family during the

day. Toward evening the wind shifted to the south, bringing a rain which

lasted till the next day, melting the great quantity of snow which had

fallen, and rendering the streets impassable. Judith’s sense of duty,

aided by active and unremitting occupation, had so far enabled her to

struggle against any further indulgence of her grief. Her parents were

surprised at the composure she maintained, while she sat down this

afternoon, as was frequently her wont, on a low stool by her

grandfather’s side. She had a large basket by her, filled with new cloth

of different kinds, which her mother and she had cut out, and had

already begun to make into various articles, in preparation for her own

housekeeping. She selected a damask table-cloth from the basket, and

turning the hem, began to sew. After taking a few stitches, her wonted

smile flitted over her countenance and raised her drooping eyelids; her

dimples began to play, and her voice broke forth, like the first robin

of the spring, in a lively little Scotch song.

The sound of her own voice in singing restored her to her

recollection—she threw down her work and exclaimed with a scream, “What

am I doing?” then laid her head sobbing on her grandfather’s knee. “Oh,

grandfather! I cannot help it,” she cried.

“Don’t try to help it, dear,” said her mother, her own eyes streaming;

“you have put force enough upon yourself.”

The old man placed his withered hands fondly upon her head, and said—

“Yes, weep, my child, for you may; but not without hope; He that wept at

the tomb of Lazarus sees you, and in his own good time will turn your

weeping into joy.”

The unusual sound of wheels was at this moment heard, and the

Fayerweather chariot drove up to the terrace. Dr. Holly and Mrs. Wendell

alighted, but Judith feeling herself unable to meet them, retreated from

the room before they were ushered in. Mrs. Wendell was so much overcome,

that for a few moments she was unable to speak, and it fell to Dr. Holly

to tell their errand. He made very particular inquiries in regard to

Judith’s health, and how she had sustained the shock of the late

afflictive intelligence, and then proceeded to mention that Madam

Fayerweather was in a very alarming state, having neither changed her

position, eaten or slept, since the evening before the last, and that he

had accompanied Mrs. Wendell to see if Miss Judith could feel herself

equal to returning with them, in the hope that the sight of her might

have a favorable effect on madam, in whom if a change could not speedily

be induced, he felt himself called upon to say, the worst might be

apprehended.

Mrs. Stimpson immediately replied—“She would answer for her daughter,

that she would feel it a solace to her own feelings to see Madam

Fayerweather, even if she could not be instrumental in restoring her.”

Mrs. Wendell then said—“The sight of Judith would, if any thing could.”

Mrs. Stimpson left the room, and in a few minutes returned with her

daughter. At sight of Mrs. Wendell, who fondly kissed her, Judith’s

tears burst forth, but she made no hesitation in accompanying her home.

As the chariot drove through the street the contrast of her present

feelings with those with which she had passed it two days before, struck

her forcibly, but she resolutely turned her thoughts from herself to the

stricken one whom she was going to see. When they arrived at the house,

John came out and assisted them to alight; he pressed Judith’s hand but

could not speak. Dr. Holly was desirous to try his experiment without

delay; they therefore proceeded immediately to the apartment of his

patient.

On seeing Madam Fayerweather Judith’s strength suddenly failed her and

she came near falling; but recollecting how much might depend on her

retaining in some degree her self-possession, she made a strong effort

over herself, and went forward to the easy-chair, where sat the bereaved

mother. The latter was, in truth, not an object to be looked upon

without emotion, even by a stranger.

So rigid and motionless was her countenance, that it appeared as if

changed into stone; her eyes were fixed; and her hair which, before this

last blow, had retained all its gloss and beauty, was turned to an ashen

hue, giving a strange and unearthly appearance to her pallid features.

“Sister,” said Madam Brinley, who sat by her, “here’s your dear child,

Judith—will you not look at her and speak to her?”

Judith, from a sudden impulse, threw herself on her knees before the

bereaved mother, clasped both her hands in her own and bathed them with

her tears, but endeavored in vain to speak. Sobs were heard from all

present. Madam raised her head, and as she did so, her eyes falling upon

Judith, immediately showed a sense of her presence; their fixed and

glassy look was changed to one of intelligence, the muscles around her

mouth then moved, and she appeared as if endeavoring to articulate. At

length she spoke, but in a voice hollow and strange—“We’ve had sad

tidings, my child!”

Her whole countenance now appeared working; the frozen fountain of her

grief was at length softened, and burst forth in a torrent of tears and

sobs and groans.

In the state of exhaustion succeeding this outbreak, she was prevailed

upon to take some food which Judith brought her; after which she fell

asleep and was carried to her bed, from which she did not rise for

several weeks. She had suffered a severe paralytic shock, which affected

her limbs and speech for many months, though she finally recovered.

Judith, in the meanwhile, divided her time between this, her second

mother, and her own family.

* * * * *

What were the sensations of Mr. Wendell on hearing the appalling

tidings, that at the moment in which his senses had figured to him

George Fayerweather face to face, and whose voice he still felt burnt as

it were into his brain—at that very moment, thousands of miles distant,

the spirit of his young friend was in the act of departing in a death so

fearful! Had such an incident been related to Mr. Wendell, from a source

however authentic, he would either have totally disbelieved it, or have

considered it an instance of singular coincidence of an illusion,

occasioned by bodily indisposition, occurring at the same moment with

the death of another at a great distance. But the feeling which even now

raised the hair on his head, which curdled his blood and blanched his

cheek anew at the bare recollection of that meeting, as it recalled

sensations which his mind was too intent upon its important subject to

heed at the time, gave the lie to his reason whenever he attempted so to

argue.

Mr. Wendell, however, never spoke upon the subject himself, and by the

family it was avoided altogether; each one feeling it of too awful and

sacred a nature to admit, not only of discussion, but even of allusion

to it in conversation. But as might be supposed, so remarkable an

occurrence occasioned no little sensation throughout the town and its

neighborhood. It was noted down, with its date, in many a private

memorandum as the extraordinary event of the year in which it happened,

with remarks upon it, either devout or philosophical, or both, according

to the different characters of the minds which severally dictated them.

When all danger for the life of Madam Fayerweather was over, and Judith

ceased to have in her an immediate object of care and anxiety, her own

health, no longer sustained by extraordinary stimulus to exertion, at

length gave tokens of the injury it had itself received. She fell into a

state of languor and debility, which threatened to end in consumption,

had not her strength of mind, aided by a deep sense of religion, enabled

her to exert all her energies to struggle against the foe and finally to

subdue it—her own melancholy. Her religious duties, those which she

owed to her parents and those to society, she had always faithfully

discharged, and now finding them insufficient to engross her mind and

prevent it from preying upon itself, she had recourse to the cultivation

of her taste and the higher powers of her fine intellect. In this she

was assisted by John, already an elegant scholar, and she became a

highly accomplished woman, as well as the most beautiful in the

province.

Time passed on, and in its course saw Mr. Wendell presiding on the bench

as chief-justice, his place as head of the bar filled by John

Fayerweather.

It is not surprising that years of devotion from the latter, combined

with all the affection of his mother for her departed son, now resting

on Judith, should at length have prevailed upon her to be united to them

by stronger ties; after having refused many offers, and among the first,

one from Mr. Lindsey, who had returned to America as soon as the

intelligence of George’s death reached him.

In Judith’s becoming the wife of John, there was no infidelity in either

to the memory of his brother; it was cherished by both during life, and

by each in the heart of the other.

-----

[6] Nahant beach, the roar of which is distinctly heard in Salem on a

still evening.

* * * * *

THE BABES OF EXILE.

BY EFFIE FITZGERALD.

“To roam o’er heaving waters bright,

By heaven’s own moonbeam’s made

To find our own a path of light,

Where all beside is shade.”

Fond babes of exile we here claim thine eye,

To cheer thy sadness in this exile drear;

We raise the veil of memory with a sigh,

And seek our welcome in a silent tear.

We fain would come with sunlight on our wings,

For our sweet embassy is one of love;

We hurl no stone from out our baby-slings,

Save that commission come, too, from above.

Souls sunk in ice-holes, or in gilded shine,

May call us wild, fantastic, if they will;

We know our birth-place was another clime—

We come a different mission to fulfill.

We dare the smoke-wreath on the crater’s verge;

We look, undaunted, on the lava-flame;

From the tornado’s whirl we safe emerge;

To thee we come, in gentle childhood’s name!

Enough of tempest—earthquake—has been thine;

Enough of grief has dimmed thy sky-ward eye;

We come to pour the fragrant oil and wine;

We come to bless, and be blest, ere we die.

Die? No! We take from thee an angel-wing;

We fly—we mount—away from earth we soar;

Keep thy gaze upward from the mountain-spring,

Wrapt in white mist-robes we move on before.

Or if despair thy strong-heart will assail,

Beneath the oaks, in the old wind-flower grove,

We light to kiss thy shadow, lone and pale.

And bid thee turn thy drooping eye above.

This our pure mission—babes of memory!

Give us thy blessing ere these lives depart;

These shadowy forms, all consecrate to thee—

That faintly breathe the incense of the heart.

We heed no danger in a path like this:

A Faith that with the Good was ne’er at war;

We know Earth’s sorrows pilot Heaven’s bliss—

Keep, then, thy gaze upon the cloud and star.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Illman & Sons

BEAUTY’S RETREAT.

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.]

* * * * *

BEAUTY’S RETREAT.

A LEGEND OF GRANADA.

[WITH A STEEL ENGRAVING.]

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT.

It was the evening of a sultry summer’s day, while the sun was yet

hanging suspended, as it were, in a wreath of lustrous, gauzy vapor

scarce a hand’s-breadth above the horizon. The skies were perfectly

cloudless; and, but for that rich, golden haze which floated in the west

about the sloping day-star, there was not a speck of mist to be seen

over the whole expanse of the firmament, which, glowing, as it was, with

the warm light of that soft southern region, resembled more a vault of

exquisitely shadowed gems than the unfathomable depths of ether. All to

the westward, the horizon was deluged with a flood of golden glory, too

soft to be called intense, yet so vivid that the eye could scarcely

brook it; melting as it streamed upward toward the zenith, by

imperceptible degrees, into the radiance of the living sapphire; and

thence deepening, through the azure tints of the Lapis Lazuli, into the

darkest cærulean blue to the eastward, against which rose distinct,

glittering with the last reflected sunbeams, the distant summits of the

Cordoran mountains. Above these, soaring slowly upward, and momently

gathering fresh brilliancy as the sun faded in the west, the full, round

moon had already risen, with the evening-star at her side, a diamond

spark beside an orient pearl.

Nor was the earth below less gracious than the heaven above it; for the

scene, over which that cloudless sun was setting so serenely, was no

other than the lovely vegas of Granada, watered with its sparkling

rivulets, tributaries to the broad and fair Xenil; waving with its

almost tropical luxuriance of foliage, odorous with the sweets of ten

thousand gardens—verily the paradise of earth surrounding, as with a

girdle of immortal beauty, the loveliest of earthly cities, crowned by

the wonder of wonders, the glorious Alhambra. So much has been already

written in many tongues, both in prose and verse, of the glories of this

inimitable spot—still inimitable, even under the indolent and careless

culture of the Spaniard, yet how unlike to what it was under its Moorish

masters—above all so eloquently has it been described by the graceful

pen of Irving, that all the details of its scenery, nay! of its

architecture and internal decorations, are, it may be presumed, as

familiar to the mind of the reader, as many places which he has actually

seen with his own eyes. To dwell longer, therefore, on the features of

that sweet, mountain-girdled plain on which the sunbeams lingered, as

though they loved it, would be superfluous at least, if not impertinent.

Not so, to depict one who gazed across that plain under that lovely

sunset, soft herself as the genial clime, serenely bright as the calm

eventide—the Lady Ayesha, a princess of the unmixed race, a visitor

from the distant walls of Mequiñez to the kindred royalty, which in the

person of the unfortunate but as yet unconquered Boabdil, still sat

sublime on the fairy towers of the Alhambra.

She sat alone in a small octagonal apartment in the very summit of one

of the loftiest of the palace turrets, overlooking and commanding a view

so extensive, that the eye swam dazzled or ere it reached the hills,

which bounded it on every side. Walled, vaulted, floored with pure

snow-white marble, all wrought and pierced with that exquisite arabesque

tracery, which made the cold, hard stone resemble the finest and most

delicate lace-work; lighted on each of its eight sides by a tall window,

headed by the peculiar horse-shoe arch of Moorish architecture, and

surrounded a little lower down the turret by a balcony, filled as a

hanging garden with every loved and lovely plant and flower, no happier

retreat could be devised for Southern beauty; none half so beautiful,

half so luxurious, is dreamed of in her most voluptuous musings by the

most famed fair one of our utilitarian days and country.

Notwithstanding the extreme height of the tower, which rose full a

hundred feet above the inferior buildings of the royal residence, it yet

possessed its fountain, fed from a reservoir in the roof, itself

supplied by the aid of machinery from the sources of those silver

rivulets of the Xenil and Darro, which might be seen glittering in the

level plain almost a thousand feet below; and the constant merry plash

of its sparkling waters, as they leaped and fell in a shower of diamonds

into their alabaster basin, together with the waving of the broad,

fan-like palm-leaves in light coming air around the open casements, and

the rich clusters of clematis, passion-flower and jessamine which hung

their blossoms around every traceried column, rendered it difficult to

conceive that so great a distance intervened between that bower of

beauty and the solid earth, with all the choicest charms of which it was

environed and invested.

Half-seated, half-reclining on a broad, low step of marble, which ran

all around the apartment, covered with rich cushions and foot-cloths of

brocade, such as would now be cheaply purchased at its weight in gold,

with her shoulders supported by the low parapet of the window

immediately behind her, gazed the Lady Ayesha over the glimmering

landscape, all as she untwined with the rosy, henna-tinted tips of her

small, slender fingers the thick plaits of her luxuriant raven hair. For

in truth, and for once, the epithet _raven_ was not misapplied to those

soft, silky, glistening masses, which were not of the cold and hueless

black, but of that nameless and indescribable hue which is never seen

but in the hair of women of Moorish or Irish blood—and in the latter

probably as originated of the former—black indeed, but black warmed and

glowing with a rich metallic purplish lustre, unlike any thing on earth

but the changeful hues that dance on the dark plumage of several of the

feathered tribes. But though her long, languid eyes of that perfect

almond form, so much prized by the beauty-loving Moors, fringed with

lashes so long and dark as to require no aid of that Arabian dye to set

off the liquid lustre which they curtained, were riveted with a serene

and steady fixedness on a remote spot in the plain, it was by no means

evident that they took note of that on which they lingered; nor did she

even appear conscious of her occupation, as wave after wave of her soft

tresses fell disentwined into her lap. For there was too much of

tranquillity, approaching even to abstraction, in the fixedness of her

eye, in the statue-like immobility of her perfectly regular features,

and in the whole pose of her figure, to accord with any thoughts so

frivolous as those of the mere decoration of the person, how beautiful

soever it might be.

As one gazed on her—had there been any there to gaze—it was impossible

not to perceive that, within that fair form and under those impassive

features, there was—what with Oriental women is not at all times the

case—a sentient and intellectual soul, and that soul at this time

engrossed in some deep and powerful strain of meditative thought.

And oh! how beautiful she was. The perfect oval of her regular face, the

straight, Grecian outline of her chisseled features, the dark clearness

of her pure, transparent complexion, through which, though ordinarily

colorless, every transient motion of the blood mantled in crimson, the

slender, yet exquisitely rounded figure, the soft curves of her plump

and shapely arms, were all as nearly perfect as mortality can approach

to perfection.

The dress, moreover, which she wore—as far removed as possible, by the

way, from the ungraceful and hideous monstrosity which a set of crazy

notoriety-mongers have been striving to introduce among us as the

costume of Oriental ladies—set off her foreign-looking charms by its

own foreign eccentricity, no less than by the barbaric splendor of its

materials.

A low, flat Fezzan cap of rich crimson velvet, superbly embroidered in

gold and pearls, was set lightly, a little on one side, upon her

luxuriant black tresses, and from it depended a long tassel, exquisitely

wrought of grains of native gold and seed-pearls, down to her left

shoulder, contrasting in strong relief the glossy darkness of the hair,

by the brilliancy of its white and gold. Immense pendants of pearl hung

from the roseate tips of each small ear, and a string of the same

inestimable gems, not one of them inferior in size to a large currant,

formed four distinct necklaces upon her chest, beside a fifth and longer

coil, which hung down almost to her waist. A _jellick_, as it was

called, or, as we should term it now, a chemisette of the finest Indian

muslin, wrought as its name indicates at Mosul on the Tigris,

embroidered with threads of gold, alone covered her glowing bosom; but

above it she wore an open, sleeveless Dymar of gorgeous green brocade,

with hanging filigree buttons of gold; and shrouding all her lower

limbs, to the very tips of the small, slippered feet, as she lay

half-crouched on her divan, an under robe or tunic of blush-colored

Persian silk with broad, perpendicular stripes of dead gold, the sleeves

of which, close to the elbow, fell thence downward, open like those of

the modern gown worn by bachelors of arts. No appearance of trowsers, no

marked cutting line, nothing tight or definite or rigid, nothing harsh,

stiff or masculine was to be discovered on the nearest scrutiny. A

superb Cashmere shawl was wound about her waist at the junction of the

under robe and chemisette, and its loose ends blended admirably with the

floating draperies and harmonized with the wavy ease which was the

principal characteristic of the dress, the attitude, the pose, the

woman.

To complete the picture, a Moorish Bernoose, or mantle of scarlet

woolen, almost as fine as gauze, with borders of golden lace, lay heaped

behind her; and nestled in its folds, a filigree jewel-case with boxes

and bottles of perfumes and cosmetics, and half-open drawers of

glittering gems and ornaments befitting her high rank; while on the

parapet, beside her head, stood a huge vase of superb porcelain filled

with the dark, glossy leaves and snow-white blossoms of the gold-eyed

lotus, the perfume of which would have been too strong for endurance but

for the free circulation of the balmy air on every side, and the cool

freshness of the dashing water, which mingled with its overpowering

fragrance and dissipated its intensity.

Such was the Leila Ayesha, the daughter of the Sultan of Mequiñez, the

great Muley Abderahman, the best and bravest of his race; who in this,

almost the last extremity of his kinsman, Boabdil of Granada, had sent

an embassy with compliments and splendid gifts, accompanying and

conveying his fair child, the best loved of all his children, on her

visit to the heroic mother of the last Moorish king of Granada.

By many, however, of those who might be supposed the best informed on

state affairs, both of those at Mequiñez and those at Granada, it was

whispered that, under the cover of a mere complimentary embassy and

friendly visit something of deep policy, and that of the highest import

to both sovereigns, was intended. Indeed it was the general opinion that

the object of the Sultan of Morocco in thus sending his fair

daughter—in whom it was well-known that wise and enlightened prince

placed far more confidence than is usually extended to the sex among the

Moors—was to bring about, should it be pleasing to the beautiful

Ayesha, a union between the two royal houses, in which case he would

himself come to the aid of Granada with such a force of Moslem, backed

by such hordes of the wild Berbers as Ali Ibn Tarih himself never led to

conquest—such, in a word, as should soon compel the proud and

encroaching Ferdinand to look to the safety of his own throne and the

integrity of his own dominions, rather than to the invading of the

dominions of his neighbors.

Be this as it may, it was all a new world to the Leila Ayesha, for the

Moors of Spain during their many centuries of occupation, aggrandisement

and decline, had adopted many ideas, many customs from their Christian

neighbors, at one time their foes, at another in long intervals of

truce, their neighbors and almost their friends.

Nor had the Spaniards failed in the same degree to profit by the

vicinity of the intellectual, polished and industrious Moors, until the

bigotry of these and the fanaticism of those had given way to more

rational and intelligent principles, and the two nations met, whether in

war or peace, on a common ground of mutual self-respect and decorum.

Thus the Moors had not only laid aside long since their fanatical

war-cry of “The Koran or the Sword!” but had adopted many of the usages

of chivalry, no longer holding the Christians as dogs, and slaughtering

them without quarter given or taken, but setting them at honorable

ransom, and even treating them while prisoners on parole as guests on

terms of equality, entertaining them at their boards, and holding sacred

to them all the rights of hospitality.

In no respect, however, had a wider change occurred in the habits of the

nation than in the treatment of their women, who, although not certainly

admitted to the full liberty of Christian ladies, were by no means

immured, as in their native land, in the precincts of the Harem, “to

blush unseen, and waste their sweetness on the desert air,” but were

permitted, still under the guardianship of duennas, and with their

trains of Indian eunuchs, and further protected by their veils from the

contamination of unholy glances, to be present at festivals, at

tournaments, nay! even at banquets, when none but the members of the

family or guests of high consideration were expected to be present.

It is not, by the way, a little singular that almost in exact proportion

as the Moors enlarged the liberty of their women, by the example of the

Spaniards, did the Spaniards contract that of their own bright-eyed

ladies, by the example of the Moors; and for many years the rigor of the

Spanish duenna was scarcely inferior to that of the Raid of a Moorish

harem, or the ladies under charge of the one much more obvious to the

gaze of the profane, than the beautiful slaves of the latter.

Did not, therefore, the beautiful Leila Ayesha rejoice and exult in the

comparative freedom which she enjoyed among the liberal Moors of Spain,

which as fitted to enjoy as the favorite child of a wise father,

enlightened far beyond the prejudices of his nation or his time? In his

own younger days he had been a traveler, had visited Venice and even

Madrid, in both of which cities he had been a sojourner in the character

of ambassador, and had thus, like the wily Ulysses, “seen the cities of

many nations and learned their understandings.” Their languages he spoke

fluently: he even read their works, and, although a sincere and faithful

Mussulman, he had learned to prize many of the customs, to appreciate

the principles, and in some instances to adopt in his heart at least the

practices of the Christians.

Too wise openly to offend the prejudices of his people—and nothing

would have done so, more decidedly or more dangerously than any

infringement of the sanctity of the harem—he had not dared, absolute as

he was, to grant to his daughter that full liberty founded upon the

fullness of trust which he had learned to admire in Venice. Still he had

done all that he could do without offending prejudices or awakening

angry opposition. He had made Ayesha, from her earliest years, the

companion of his leisure hours; he had educated her in all that he

himself knew, he had consulted her as a friend, he had confided in her

as a human soul, not treated her as the mere pet and plaything of an

hour.

And now as she grew up from an engaging child to a fair marriageable

maiden, accomplished, intellectual, thoughtful, not an irresponsible

being, but a responsible human creature, with the beauty, the impulsive

nature, the passionate heart of the Moorish girl, but with the reason,

the intellect, the soul of the Spanish lady—Muley Abderrahman, who was

waxing into years, began to doubt whether he had done wisely in training

up the child of Mequiñez, the offspring of the desert, to the arts, the

accomplishments, the hopes, and the aspirations of the free Venetian

_dama_—began to look around him anxiously to see where he might bestow

the hand of her whom he had learned to cherish and esteem even above his

people or his power. He saw none, on that side of the Mediterranean,

with whom she could be other than a slave—the first and mistress of the

slaves, indeed, but still one of them—a beautiful toy to be prized for

beauty, while that beauty should yet endure; if faded, to be cast aside

into the sad solitude of neglect for a newer plaything, perhaps to be

imprisoned—as a discrowned and discontented queen, and therefore

dangerous—in some distant and dim seraglio on the verge of the great

burning desert.

And was this a fate for the bright, the beloved, the beautiful, the sage

Ayesha?

Thence was born the idea of the embassy to Boabdil. He knew the kings of

Granada civilized and cultivated far before those of Tetuan or Tafilet,

or even Mequiñez or Mecca—he knew that they had adopted, in many

respects, the usages of the Christian cavaliers, and not least among

these, their chivalrous courtesy and graceful respect for the fair

sex—he knew them powerful and wealthy, and possessed of a land the

fairest on the face of the earth, the glorious kingdom of Granada. At

this time, although the war had commenced between Ferdinand and the

Moorish princes, which was to terminate at no very distant day in the

total overthrow of the Saracenic empire in Spain, it as yet lagged

indecisively along, with no preponderance of this or the other force;

nor could there be any doubt that a declaration on the part of the

Sultan of Mequiñez, backed by the reinforcement of a Moorish and Berber,

and an active naval warfare along the coasts of Spain, would not only

secure Granada from any risk of dismemberment, but even wrest a

permanent acknowledgment and durable peace from the Christian kings of

the Spanish provinces.

Boabdil was at this time formally unwedded, although, like every other

prince or magnate of his people, he had his wives, his concubines, his

slaves innumerable. He was notoriously a leaner to the soft side of the

heart, a fervent admirer of beauty, and was, moreover, a kind-hearted,

gracious and accomplished prince. That he would be captivated by the

charms of the incomparable Ayesha, even apart from the advantages which

her union would bring to himself and to his people, could not be

doubted; and should such an union be accomplished Muley Abderrahman felt

well assured that he should have obtained for the darling of his heart

all that he desired, freedom of life, a suitable partner, and security

for her enjoyment of all her cherished tastes and respected privileges.

Still Muley Abderrahman, wiser than any Moslem father of that age, wiser

than most Christian parents of any age, was not inclined to set down his

own idea of what should be her good, with his absolute yea! as being her

very good. He had, strange thing for a Moor! an idea that a woman has a

soul—strange and unorthodox thing for a father! an idea that his

daughter had a heart; and that it might not be such a bad thing after

all for her ultimate happiness that her heart should be in some degree

consulted.

She went, therefore, fancy free and untrammeled even by the knowledge of

her father’s wishes, on a visit to her kinsfolk of Granada, entirely

unsuspicious that any secret of state policy was connected with the

visit to that land of romance and glory, of beauty and adventure, which

was to her one long holyday. Of all her train, indeed, there was but one

who was privy to the Sultan’s secret wishes old Hadj Abdallah Ibn Ali,

the eldest of the sovereign’s councillors, like some, himself a

traveler, and like himself, imbued with notions far more liberal than

those of his time or country. To him it was entrusted, therefore, while

seemingly inattentive to all that was passing, to observe strictly every

shadow which might indicate whence the wind was about to blow—to take

especial note of Boabdil’s conduct and wishes, and, above all, to omit

no opportunity of discovering how the fair Ayesha might stand affected

toward her royal cousin.

Gaily and happily had passed the days, the weeks, the months—it was

still truce with the Spaniard, and days and nights were consumed in

tilts, in tournaments, in hawking-parties on the beautiful green meadows

of the Vega, beside the bright and brimful streams, adjuncts so

necessary to that royal pastime, that it was known of old as the

“Mystery of Rivers”—hunting-parties in the wild gorges of the Alpuxawa

mountains, banquets at high noon, and festivals beneath the glimmering

twilight, beneath the full-orbed moon, that life was, indeed, one long

and joyous holyday. Boabdil was, in truth, of a man a right fair and

goodly specimen—tall, finely formed, eminently handsome, graceful and

affable in manners, kindly in heart and disposition, not untinctured

with arts and letters, nor deficient in any essential which should

become a gentle cavalier—as a monarch, when surrounded by his court,

and seated in his place of state in the Hall of Lyons, of a truth he was

a right royal king—as a warrior, in the tilt-yard his skill, his

horsemanship, his management of all weapons, were the admiration of all

beholders. In the field his gallantry and valor were incontestable.

What, then, was wanting that Boabdil was not a perfect man, a real

cavalier, a very king? Purpose, energy, will—will that must have its

way, and cannot be denied, much less defeated.

A prince of a quiet realm, in tranquil times he had lived honored and

happy, he had been gathered to his fathers among the tears of his

people, he had lived in the memory of men as a good man, an admirable

king, the father of his people.

Fallen upon evil times, thrust into an eminence for which he not only

was, but felt himself to be unfit, unequally matched against such an

enemy as Ferdinand, the one weak point outweighed all the fine qualities

and noble virtues; and he lived, alas! to be that most miserable, most

abject of all human things, a dethroned, exiled, despised king!

And did Ayesha, from beneath the screen of girlish levity, while

seemingly steeped to the lips in the rapturous enjoyment of the liberty,

the life of the present moment, did Ayesha see and foresee all this? At

least, when Hadj Abdallah Ibn Ali wrote to his friend and patron the

Sultan, and that but shortly after their arrival, that Boabdil was so

evidently and obviously enamored of his mother’s lovely guest, that he

would not only too eagerly court the alliance, backed as it was by

advantages so kingly, but that he verily believed he would woo her to

his throne, were she the merest peasant’s child. He wrote nothing of

Ayesha!

Again he wrote that he could not doubt she had perceived her royal

cousin’s love, and that her manner toward him was so frank, so free, so

unrestrainedly joyous and confiding, that he was well assured that all

went well, and that she returned the affection of Boabdil, and rejoiced

in his love.

But Muley Abderrahman, shook his head and knit his brow, as he read the

letter, and muttered through his thick moustache, “Ay! he is a good

man—a good man is the Hadj Abdallah, and a wise one, but he knows

nothing of a woman’s heart—how should he?”

When he sent the next dispatches to his old friend and counsellor, there

was a brief private note attached. “Is the Leila Ayesha,” he asked,

“never grave, never abstracted, never shy, and almost sad—does she

never flee from the gayety of the festival, the tumult of the chase,

into privacy and solitude—does she never fail to hear when addressed,

to see when encountered—does she never weep nor sigh when alone—in a

word, is she in nowise changed from what she was at Mequiñez?”

And the reply came, “Never. Wherefore should she? Is she not the apple

of all eyes, the idol of all hearts? Her laugh is as the music of the

soul, her eye-glance the sunbeam that enkindles every heart. She is the

star of the Alhambra, the loadstone of the king’s soul. Wherefore should

she weep or sigh? I have questioned her handmaids—never! Yes—the Leila

Ayesha is changed. In Mequiñez, she was as a sunbeam thrown on still

waters. Here in Granada, she is the sunbeam thrown on the dancing

fountain, reflecting happy light on all around her. In Mequiñez, she was

as a sweet song-bird, feeding her soul on her own harmonies in silence.

Here in Granada she is as the sweet song-bird, enrapturing all within

her sphere by the blithe outpourings of her joyous melodies. Yes—the

Leila Ayesha is changed. My Lord Boabdil loves the Leila Ayesha; the

Leila Ayesha knows it, and is glad.”

Then Muley Abderrahman shook his head, and pondered for a while, and

muttered—

“She loves him not—She loves him not. The Hadj Abdallah is good and

wise with the wisdom of men—but of the hearts of women, he knows

nothing—how should he? for he never saw a woman.”

And the old king, far distant, saw more of what was passing in the fair

girl’s heart than the wise councillor who was present—but he judged it

best to tarry and abide the event—and he tarried, but not long.

Had he been present on that sultry summer’s evening, and looked upon his

lovely child as she sat gazing out in such serenity of deep abstraction

over the sunny Vega—over the fragrant orange groves and glowing

vineyards, toward the glistening hill-tops of the Spaniards—his

question would have answered itself, and at the first glance he would

have seen that she loved.

The child had discovered that it had a heart—the creature had divined

that it had an immortal soul—the child had become a woman—a very

woman.

With all a woman’s smiles and tears,

And fearful hopes and hopeful fears,

And doubts and prayers for future years.

Leila Ayesha loved—but whom? At least not Boabdil! Happily, not

Boabdil.

Even as she gazed, the orb of the gorgeous sun sank behind the distant

hills, and at once—clear, shrill, and most melodious—up went the voice

of the Muezzins, from every minaret throughout the gorgeous city, “To

prayer, to prayer. There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his prophet.

Faithful, to prayer, to prayer!”

And instant at the cry every sound ceased through the royal

residence—every sound through the splendid city—every sound through

the wide Vega. Every turbaned head was bowed in prayer, and a sabbath

stillness seemed to consecrate the bridal of the earth and sky.

Ayesha rose from her divan, and while her lips murmured the words of

devotion, and her fingers ran rapidly over the beads of her Comboloic or

Moorish rosary, a strange, faltering flush ran over her fair brow. Her

orisons ended, she caught some of the spray of the fountain in the palm

of one of her fairy hands, and scattered it thrice over her long, dark

tresses, on which it glistened in the soft moonbeams; for the moon now

alone occupied the heavens, on the fragrant hills of the black hyacinth.

Again she resumed her attitude on the divan, but not her occupation; for

the mood of her mind was altered, and for a while she hummed the burthen

of an old, melancholy Moorish ballad—an old Moorish love-song, the

words of which corresponded in no small degree to our own, “Oh! willow,

willow”—since the proverb still holds good of burned Morocco or bright

Spain, as of green, merry England—

“For aught that I did ever hear—

Did ever read in tale or history,

The course of true love never did run true.”

Ere long from the city gates far distant was heard the din of martial

music—first, the deep clang of the kettle-drums and atabals alone, and

the clear flourish of the silver trumpets which announced the presence

of the king, and these only at intervals above or between the trampling

of hoofs, the clash of armor, and the cheering of an excited multitude.

Anon nearer and nearer came the sounds, with the clash of cymbals and

the soft symphonies of lutes, and the clear, high notes of flutes and

clarionets among the clangor of the trumpets, and the brazen rattling of

the drums.

Nearer and nearer yet—and it is now at the Alhambra gates.

She started to her feet, and leaned far out of the embrasure commanding

all the city, but her eye marked one object only, the royal train filing

into the palace gates, from the royal sports on the Vega ended—and in

that train, on but one person.

It was no turbaned head or caftaned form on which that ardent eye was

fixed, now kindled into all a Moresca’s ecstacy of passion; it was on a

tall Spanish crest and lofty plume. And, as if by a secret instinct, as

her gaze was bent downward to the horse-shoe arch of the Alhambra gate,

his glance soared upward to the airy turret’s top, and readily detected

what would have escaped a less observant watcher, the dark eyes of his

fair Ayesha gleaming through the palm-leaves and passion-flowers; their

passionate fire half quenched by the tears of tenderness and hope.

His Ayesha—his—the Conde of Alarcos, proudest grandee of Spain—the

favorite child of the Spaniard’s deadliest foe, the Sultan of Morocco.

The Hadj Abdallah Ibn Ali’s next dispatch contained much important

tidings concerning a twenty years’ truce to be concluded between the

King Boabdil, of Granada, and the King Ferdinand, of Spain—and much

graver gossip of the noble Conde of Alarcos, Ferdinand’s ambassador; of

his high feats of arms, and gentle feats of courtesy—of how all the

court admired him, and how the Lady Ayesha shunned him, and how she was

less frequent at the falconry, less frequent at the chase, less frequent

at the festival, less frequent at the royal banquets—and how her

hand-maidens reported that their mistress sighed all the time and often

wept, and sat long hours gazing upon nothing, and played no more upon

her lute, nor sung the songs of Islam—and how she was—he feared—ill

at ease, and pining for her native land.

And when Muley Abderrahman read the letter he shook his head, and

muttered—

“Ay, she loves now, but it is the wrong one—a Nazarene, a dog,” and he

tore his beard and wept. That night a royal courier rode hard from

Mequiñez to Saleè, and the next day a fleet galley scoured the way

across the narrow seas to the fair shores of Granada.

The embassy should return at once to Mequiñez. Now hour of delay—too

late.

The embassy had returned the preceding day, but it was the Spanish

embassy: and it had returned, not to Mequiñez, but to Cordova. And ere

his master’s mandate had stricken terror to the soul of the Hadj

Abdallah, the Spanish bells were chiming for the wedding of a Moorish

maiden, now a Christian bride; and the Leila Ayesha, of Mequiñez, was

the wife of the noble Conde De Alarcos: nor have I ever heard that she

rued either of the changes.

Again Muley Abderrahman tore his beard, and this time from the very

roots. But his wonted philosophy still consoled him, and after a little

while he muttered—

“Allah, assist me, that I thought myself so wise—yet know not the heart

of a woman! How should I?”

* * * * *

WRITE THOU UPON LIFE’S PAGE.

BY GRENVILLE GREY.

Leave thou some light behind thee,

Some mark upon thine age;

Let not a false fate bind thee—

Write thou upon life’s page,

Some word of earnest meaning,

Some thought, or else some deed,

On which thy brother leaning,

Unto better may succeed.

For none may tell what beauty,

What endless good there lies,

In some little nameless duty,

Whose remembrance never dies.

Leave thou some light behind thee,

Some token of thy way;

Let not a false ease bind thee—

Thou art not wholly clay.

There is something noble in thee,

Let it speak and not be mute;

There is something that should win thee

From a kindred with the brute.

Thou art not, oh! my brother,

Wholly impotent for good;

Thou may’st win or warn another

From the wrongs thou hast withstood.

Leave thou some trace behind thee—

In life’s warfare, go, engage;

Let no more a false fate bind thee—

Write thou upon life’s page.

* * * * *

LINES ON A VASE OF FLOWERS,

(FOUND UPON MY DESK.)

BY ESTELLE ANNA LEWIS.

I came upon these simple flowers

As something I revere;

They grew in Love’s enchanted bowers—

And love hath placed them here.

I kiss their cheeks of virgin bloom,

I press their dewy lips,

While my wrapt soul of their perfume,

Inebriated sips.

I look into their violet eyes,

And feel my heart grow calm,

And fancy I’m in Paradise,

Inhaling Eden’s balm.

There in ecstatic dreams I rove

Among celestial bowers,

Weaving a garland for my Love,

Of beatific flowers.

* * * * *

DEATH.[7]

BY SAMUEL HENRY DICKSON, M. D.; PROFESSOR IN THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OF SOUTH

CAROLINA.

As the word Life is employed in a double sense to denote the actions or

phenomena by which it is developed, and the cause of these phenomena, so

the old English word Death is used familiarly to express two or more

meanings. The first of these is the transition from the living to the

lifeless or inanimate state—the act, that is, of dying; the second, the

condition of an organized body which has ceased to live, while

organization yet remains, and symmetry still displays itself, and the

admirable structure of its parts is not yet destroyed by decomposition,

or resolved into the original and primary elements from which it was

moulded,

“Before Decay’s effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.”

We occasionally speak of “dead matter” in the sense of inorganic; but

this is merely a rhetorical or metaphorical phrase. That which has never

lived cannot properly be said to be dead.

In the following essay, I shall use the word chiefly in the first of the

senses above indicated. It will often be convenient to employ it in the

second also; but in doing so, I will be careful so to designate its

bearing as to avoid any confusion. The context will always prevent any

misunderstanding on this point.

Death may be considered physiologically, pathologically, and

psychologically. We are obliged to regard it and speak of it as the

uniform correlative, and indeed the necessary consequence, or final

result of life; the act of dying as the rounding off, or termination of

the act of living. But it ought to be remarked that this conclusion is

derived, not from any understanding or comprehension of the relevancy of

the asserted connection, nor from any _à priori_ reasoning applicable to

the inquiry, but merely _à posteriori_ as the result of universal

experience. All that has lived has died; and, therefore, all that lives

must die.

The solid rock on which we tread, and with which we rear our palaces and

temples, what is it often when microscopically examined, but a congeries

of the fossil remains of innumerable animal tribes! The soil from which,

by tillage, we derive our vegetable food, is scarcely any thing more

than a mere mixture of the decayed and decaying fragments of former

organic being; the shells and exuviæ, the skeletons and fibres and

exsiccated juices of extinct life.

The earth itself, in its whole habitable surface, is little else than

the mighty sepulchre of the past; and

“All that tread

The globe are but a handful to the tribes

That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings

Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound

Save his own dashings—yet, the dead are there;

And millions in these solitudes, since first

The flight of years begun, have laid them down

In their last sleep: the dead reign there alone.”

Four millions of Egyptians cultivate the valley of the great river on

whose banks, amidst the fertilizing dust of myriads of their

progenitors, there are calculated still to exist, in a state of

preservation, not less than from four hundred to five hundred millions

of mummies. The “City of the Tombs” is far more populous than the

neighboring streets even of crowded Constantinople; and the cemeteries

of London and the catacombs of Paris are filled to overflowing. The

trees which gave shade to our predecessors of a few generations back lie

prostrate; and the dog and horse, the playmate and the servant of our

childhood, are but dust. Death surrounds and sustains us. We derive our

nourishment from the destruction of living organisms, and from this

source alone.

And who is there among us that has reached the middle term of existence,

that may not, in the touching phrase of Carlyle, “measure the various

stages of his life-journey by the white tombs of his beloved ones,

rising in the distance like pale, mournfully receding milestones?”

“When Wilkie was in the Escurial,” says Southey, “looking at Titian’s

famous picture of the Last Supper in the refectory there, an old

Jeronymite monk said to him, ‘I have sat daily in sight of that picture

for now nearly threescore years; during that time my companions have

dropped off one after another—all who were my seniors, all who were my

cotemporaries, and many or most of those who were younger than myself;

more than one generation has passed away, and there the figures in the

picture have remained unchanged. I look at them, till I sometimes think

that _they_ are the realities, and we but shadows.’”

I have stated that there is no reason known to us why Death should

always “round the sum of life.” Up to a certain point of their duration,

varying in each separate set of instances, and in the comparison of

extremes varying prodigiously, the vegetable and animal organisms not

only sustain themselves, but expand and develop themselves, grow and

increase, enjoying a better and better life, advancing and progressive.

Wherefore is it that at this period all progress is completely arrested;

that thenceforward they waste, deteriorate and fail? Why should they

thus decline and decay with unerring uniformity upon their attaining

their highest perfection, their most intense activity? This ultimate law

is equally mysterious and inexorable. It is true the Sacred Writings

tell us of Enoch, “whom God took and he was not;” and of Elijah, who was

transported through the upper air in a chariot of fire; and of

Melchisedek, the most extraordinary personage whose name is recorded,

“without father, without mother, without descent: having neither

beginning of days, nor end of life.” We read the history without

conceiving the faintest hope from these exceptions to the universal

rule. Yet our fancy has always exulted in visionary evasions of it, by

forging for ourselves creations of immortal maturity, youth and beauty,

residing in Elysian fields of unfading spring, amidst the fruition of

perpetual vigor. We would drink, in imagination, of the sparkling

fountain of rejuvenescence; nay, boldly dare the terror of Medea’s

caldron. We echo, in every despairing heart, the ejaculation of the

expiring Wolcott, “Bring back my youth!”

Reflection, however, cannot fail to reconcile us to our ruthless

destiny. There is another law of our being, not less unrelenting, whose

yoke is even harsher and more intolerable, from whose pressure Death

alone can relieve us, and in comparison with which the absolute

certainty of dying becomes a glorious blessing. Of whatever else we may

remain ignorant, each of us, for himself, comes to feel, realize and

know unequivocally that all his capacities, both of action and

enjoyment, are transient and tend to pass away; and when our thirst is

satiated, we turn disgusted from the bitter lees of the once fragrant

and sparkling cup. I am aware of Parnell’s offered analogy—

“The tree of deepest root is found

Unwilling most to leave the ground;”

and of Rush’s notion, who imputes to the aged such an augmenting love of

life that he is at a loss to account for it, and suggests, quaintly

enough, that it may depend upon custom, the great moulder of our desires

and propensities; and that the infirm and decrepit “love to live on

because they have acquired a habit of living.” His assumption is wrong

in point of fact. He loses sight of the important principle that Old Age

is a relative term, and that one man may be more superannuated, farther

advanced in natural decay at sixty, than another at one hundred years.

Parr might well rejoice at being alive, and exult in the prospect of

continuing to live, at one hundred and thirty, being capable, as is

affirmed, even of the enjoyment of sexual life at that age; but he who

has had his “three sufficient warnings,” who is deaf, lame and blind;

who, like the monk of the Escurial, has lost all his cotemporaries, and

is condemned to hopeless solitude, and oppressed with the consciousness

of dependence and imbecility, must look on Death not as a curse, but a

refuge. Of one hundred and thirty-three suicides occurring in Geneva

from 1825 to 1834, more than half were above fifty years of age;

thirty-four, from fifty to sixty; nineteen, from sixty to seventy; nine,

from seventy to eighty; three, from eighty to ninety; in all sixty-five.

The mean term of life in that city being about thirty-five to forty,

this bears an immense proportion to the actual population above fifty,

and exhibits forcibly an opposite condition of feeling to that alleged

by Rush, a weariness of living, a desire to die, rather than an anxiety,

or even willingness to live.

I once knew an old man of about one hundred and four who retained many

of his faculties. He could read ordinary print without glasses, walked

firmly, rode well, and could even leap with some agility. When I last

parted with him, I wished him twenty years more; upon which he grasped

my hand closely, and declared he would not let me go until I had

retracted or reversed the prayer.

Strolling with my venerable and esteemed colleague, Prof. Stephen

Elliott, one afternoon, through a field on the banks of the river

Ashley, we came upon a negro basking in the sun, the most

ancient-looking personage I have ever seen. Our attempts, with his aid,

to calculate his age, were of course conjectural; but we were satisfied

that he was far above one hundred. Bald, toothless, nearly blind, bent

almost horizontally, and scarcely capable of locomotion, he was

absolutely alone in the world, living by permission upon a place, from

which the generation to which his master and fellow-servants belonged

had long since disappeared. He expressed many an earnest wish for death,

and declared, emphatically, that he “was afraid God Almighty had

forgotten him.”

We cannot wonder, then, that the ancients should believe, “Whom the gods

love, die young,” and are ready to say with Southey, himself,

subsequently, like poor Swift, a melancholy example of the truth of his

poetical exclamation,

“They who reach

Gray hairs die piecemeal.”

Sacred history informs us that, in the infancy of the world, the

physiological tendency to death was far less urgently and early

developed than it is now. When the change took place is not stated; if

it occurred gradually, the downward progress has been long since

arrested. All records make the journey of life from the time of Job and

the early patriarchs, much the same as the pilgrim of to-day is destined

to travel. Threescore and ten was, when Cheops built his pyramid, as it

is now, a long life. Legends, antique and modern, do indeed tell us of

tribes that, like Riley’s Arabs and the serfs of Middle Russia, and the

Ashantees and other Africans, live two or three centuries, but these are

travelers’ stories, unconfirmed. The various statistical tables that

have been in modern times made up from materials more or less authentic,

and the several inquiries into the general subject of longevity, seem to

lead to the gratifying conclusion that there is rather an increase of

the average or mean duration of civilized life. In 1806, Duvillard fixed

the average duration of life in France at twenty-eight years; in 1846,

Bousquet estimates it at thirty-three. Mallet calculated that the

average life of the Genevese had extended ten years in three

generations. In Farr’s fifth report (for 1844), the “probable duration,”

the “expectation of life” in England, is placed above forty; a great

improvement within half a century. It is curious, if it be true, that

the extreme term seems to lessen as the average thus increases. Mallet

is led to this opinion from the fact, among others, that in Geneva,

coincident with the generally favorable change above mentioned, there

has not been a single centenarian within twenty-seven years; such

instances of longevity having been formerly no rarer there than

elsewhere.

Birds and fishes are said to be the longest lived of animals. For the

longevity of the latter, ascertained in fish-ponds, Bacon gives the

whimsical reason that, in the moist element which surrounds them, they

are protected from exsiccation of the vital juices, and thus preserved.

This idea corresponds very well with the stories told of the

uncalculated ages of some of the inhabitants of the bayous of Louisiana,

and of the happy ignorance of that region, where a traveler once found a

withered and antique corpse—so goes the tale—sitting propped in an

arm-chair among his posterity, who could not comprehend why he _slept_

so long and so soundly.

But the Hollanders and Burmese do not live especially long; and the

Arab, always lean and wiry, leads a protracted life amidst his arid

sands. Nor can we thus account for the lengthened age of the crow, the

raven, and the eagle, which are affirmed to hold out for two or three

centuries.

There is the same difference among shrubs and trees, of which some are

annual, some of still more brief existence, and some almost eternal. The

venerable oak bids defiance to the storms of a thousand winters; and the

Indian baobab is set down as a contemporary at least of the Tower of

Babel, having probably braved, like the more transient, though

long-enduring olive, the very waters of the great deluge.

It will be delightful to know—will Science ever discover for us?—what

constitutes the difference thus impressed upon the long and short-lived

races of the organized creation. Why must the fragrant shrub or gorgeous

flower-plant die immediately after performing its function of continuing

the species, and the pretty ephemeron languish into non-existence just

as it flutters through its genial hour of love, and grace, and

enjoyment; while the banyan, and the chestnut, the tortoise, the

vulture, and the carp, formed of the same primary material elements, and

subsisting upon the very same resources of nutrition and supply, outlast

them so indefinitely?

Death from old age, from natural decay—usually spoken of as death

without disease—is most improperly termed by writers an euthanasia.

Alas! how far otherwise is the truth! Old age itself is, with the rarest

exceptions, exceptions which I have never had the good fortune to meet

with anywhere—old age itself is a protracted and terrible disease.