There is no better literary _manner_ than the manner of Mr.
Paulding. Certainly no American, and possibly no living writer of
England has more of those numerous peculiarities which go to the
formation of a happy style.—_Edgar A. Poe._
His works are exclusively and eminently natural, and
his descriptions of natural scenery are often eminently
beautiful.—_London Athenæum._
TIME A DESTROYER.—I saw a temple, reared by the hands of man, standing
with its high pinnacle in the distant plain. The streams beat about it;
the God of nature hurled his thunderbolts against it; yet it stood firm
as adamant. Revelry was in the halls; the gay, the young, the beautiful
were there. I returned, and lo! the temple was no more. Its high walls
lay scattered in ruin; moss and grass grew rankly there; and, at the
midnight hour, the owl’s long cry added to the solitude. The young, the
gay, who had reveled there, had passed away. I saw a child rejoicing
in his youth, the idol of his mother, and the pride of his father. I
returned and the child had become old. Trembling with the weight of
years, he stood the last of his generation, a stranger amidst all the
desolation around him. I saw an old oak standing in all its pride upon
the mountain; the birds were caroling in its boughs. I returned and saw
the oak was leafless and sapless; the winds were playing at their pastime
through the branches. “Who is the destroyer?” said I to my guardian
angel. “It is Time,” said he. When the morning stars sang together for
joy over the new-made world, he commenced his course, and when he has
destroyed all that is beautiful on the earth, plucked the sun from his
sphere, veiled the moon in blood; yea, when he shall have rolled the
heavens and the earth away as a scroll, then shall an angel from the
throne of God come forth, and, with one foot upon the land, lift up his
hand toward heaven, and swear by heaven’s eternal, “time was, but time
shall be no more.”
[End of Required Reading for December.]