Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

perusal of romance, and on the absurdities of the fashionable life and Radcliffian schools of fiction then in vogue, and from thence passes to the proper scope and importance of fiction, maintaining throughout a lively and animated strain. The poem was printed in the North American Review for November, 1817.

Mary L. Ware, the wife of Henry Ware, Jr., survived her husband a few years, dying in April, 1849. She was a woman of great elevation of mind and active benevolence, qualities which have been commemorated in an admirable Biography by Edward B. Hall. This gentleman married a sister of Henry Ware, Jr., and holds a leading position among the Unitarian clergy.

WILLIAM, the brother of Henry Ware, Jr., was born at Hingham, August 3, 1797. He was fitted for college by Ashur Ware, the Rev. Dr. Allyne of Duxbury, and his father, and was graduated

[ocr errors][merged small]

from Harvard in 1816. The following year was passed as an assistant teacher in the school of his native town. He next devoted three years to the study of theology at Cambridge. He commenced preaching at Northborough, Massachusetts, and was afterwards settled in Brooklyn, Connecticut; Burlington, Vermont; and in the city of New York, where he commenced his labors December 18, 1821. In 1823 he married Mary, daughter of Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse of Cambridge.

In March, 1836, he published in the Knickerbocker Magazine the first of the Letters from Palmyra. These letters, the style of which has the air of a literal rendering, purport to be written by a young nobleman of Rome, who visits Palmyra during the latter portion of the reign of Zenobia. They are among the most successful efforts to restore to the modern reader the every-day life of the Roman Empire, and place the author in the foremost rank as a classical scholar and classic author.

In the October following he removed to Brookline, Massachusetts, where he took charge of a congregation during the winter, and prepared

the letters which had appeared in the Magazine, with others, for publication. The work appeared in July, 1837. În June of the same year he removed to Waltham, and again removed in the following April to Jamaica Plain, where, although holding no parochial charge, he occasionally preached. In June, 1838, he published a sequel to his former work entitled Probus, in which we are introduced into the Imperial city during the last persecution of the Christians which preceded the accession of Constantine. The scenes of trial and martyrdom are depicted with energy and feeling, while the work shares in its classical keeping and vein of reflection, combined with vivid description, the merits of its predecessor. The Letters from Palmyra is now known as Zenobia, and Probus as Aurelian, changes of titles which the author adopted from the English reprints.

He became about the same time the editor and proprietor of the Christian Examiner, a position he retained until 1844. In July, 1839, he removed to Cambridge, and in 1841 published Julian, or Scenes in Judea. In this he has depicted many of the scenes of our Saviour's life, the work closing with the Crucifixion.

In 1844 he accepted a call to a church in West Cambridge, where he remained until compelled, in July, 1845, to resign his charge in consequence of ill health. He then returned to Cambridge, where he occasionally preached, and resided until April, 1848, when he sailed for Europe. He remained a little over a year abroad, passing most of the time in Italy, and on his return prepared, from letters written during his tour, a course of lectures on the cities he had visited, which were delivered in Boston, New York, and other places, and in 1851 published in a volume with the title, Sketches of European Capitals. They abound in choice reflection, criticism, and description. He next commenced the preparation of a course of lectures on the Works and Genius of Washington Allston, and after their completion was about making arrangements for their delivery, when he was seized by a third attack of epilepsy, a disease to which he had long been subject. He died, after lying a few days in an unconscious state, on the nineteenth of February, 1852.

The Lectures on Allston were soon after published. Mr. Ware claims in these the highest rank for Allston. He compares his landscapes with Salvator's, his female heads with Titian's, his Jeremiah with Michael Angelo's Prophets. It is, however, as the portrayer of ideal female beauty that he considers him to have worked most in harmony with his tastes, and to have achieved his most successful works. Among these he gives the preference to The Valentine (in the possession of Mr. George Ticknor of Boston). All of Mr. Allston's works are, however, passed in review, and full, yet discriminating, meed of praise dealt to each. One of the five lectures is principally devoted to the Belshazzar.

[graphic]

DEATH OF PROBUS-FROM AURELIAN.

The long peal of trumpets, and the shouts of the people without, gave note of the approach and entrance of the Emperor. In a moment more, with his swift step, he entered the amphitheatre, and strode to the place set apart for him, the whole multitude

rising and saluting him with a burst of welcome that might have been heard beyond the walls of Rome. The Emperor acknowledged the salutation by rising from his seat and lifting the crown from his head. He was instantly seated again, and at a sign from him the herald made proclamation of the entertainments which were to follow. He who was named as the first to suffer was Probus.

When I heard his name pronounced, with the punishment which awaited him, my resolution to remain forsook me, and I turned to rush from the theatre. But my recollection of Probus's earnest entreaties that I would be there, restrained me, and I returned to my seat. I considered, that as I would attend the dying bed of a friend, so I was clearly bound to remain where I was, and wait for the last moments of this my more than Christian friend; and the circumstance that his death was to be shocking and harrowing to the friendly heart, was not enough to absolve me from the heavy obligation. I therefore kept my place, and awaited with patience the

event.

I had waited not long when, from beneath that extremity of the theatre where I was sitting, Probus was led forth and conducted to the centre of the arena, where was a short pillar to which it was customary to bind the sufferers. Probus, as he entered, seemed rather like one who came to witness what was there, than to be himself the victim, so free was his step, so erect his form. In his face there might indeed be seen an expression, that could only dwell on the countenance of one whose spirit was already gone beyond the earth, and holding converse with things unseen. There is always much of this in the serene, uplifted face of this remarkable man; but it was now there written in lines so bold and deep, that there could have been few in that vast assembly but must have been impressed by it as never before by aught human. It must have been this which brought so deep a silence upon that great multitude-not the mere fact that an individual was about to be torn by lions that is an almost daily pastime. For it was so, that when he first made his appearance, and, as he moved towards the centre, turned and looked round upon the crowded seats rising to the heavens, the people neither moved nor spoke, but kept their eyes fastened upon him as by some spell which they could not break.

When he had reached the pillar, and he who had conducted him was about to bind him to it, it was plain, by what at that distance we could observe, that Probus was entreating him to desist and leave him at liberty; in which he at length succeeded, for that person returned, leaving him alone and unbound. O sight of misery! he who for the humblest there present would have performed any office of love, by which the least good should redound to them, left alone and defenceless, they looking on and scarcely pitying his cruel fate!

When now he had stood there not many minutes, one of the doors of the vivaria was suddenly thrown back, and bounding forth with a roar that seemed to shake the walls of the theatre, a lion of huge dimensions leaped upon the arena. Majesty and power were inscribed upon his lordly limbs; and as he stood there where he had first sprung, and looked round upon the multitude, how did his gentle eye and noble carriage, with which no one for a moment could associate meanness, or cruelty, or revenge, cast shame upon the human monsters assembled to behold a solitary, unarmed man torn limb from limb! When he had in this way looked upon that cloud of faces, he then turned and moved round the arena through its whole circumference, still looking upwards upon those who filled the seats-not till he

had come again to the point from which he started, so much as noticing him who stood, his victim, in the midst. Then, as if apparently for the first time becoming conscious of his presence, he caught the form of Probus; and moving slowly towards him, looked steadfastly upon him, receiving in return the settled gaze of the Christian. Standing there, still, awhile each looking upon the other he then walked round him, then approached nearer, making suddenly and for a moment those motions which indicate the roused appetite; but as it were in the spirit of self-rebuke, he immediately retreated a few paces and lay down in the sand, stretching out his head towards Probus, and closing his eyes as if for sleep.

The people, who had watched in silence, and with the interest of those who wait for their entertainment, were both amazed and vexed at what now appeared to be the dulness and stupidity of the beast. When, however, he moved not from his place, but seemed as if he were indeed about to fall into a quiet sleep, those who occupied the lower seats began both to cry out to him and shake at him their caps, and toss about their arms in the hope to rouse him. But it was all in vain; and at the command of the Emperor he was driven back to his den.

Again a door of the vivaria was thrown open, and another of equal size, but of a more alert and rapid step, broke forth, and, as if delighted with his sudden liberty and the ample range, coursed round and round the arena, wholly regardless both of the people and of Probus, intent only as it seemed upon his own amusement. And when at length he discovered Probus standing in his place, it was but to bound towards him as in frolic, and then wheel away in pursuit of a pleasure he esteemed more highly than the satisfying of his hunger.

At this, the people were not a little astonished, and many who were near me hesitated not to say, "that there might be some design of the gods in this." Others said plainly, but not with raised voices, "An omen! an omen!" At the same time Isaac turned and looked at me with an expression of countenance which I could not interpret. Aurelian meanwhile exhibited many signs of impatience; and when it was evident the animal could not be wrought up, either by the cries of the people, or of the keepers, to any act of violence, he too was taken away. But when a third had been let loose, and with no better effect, nay, with less-for he, when he had at length approached Probus, fawned upon him, and laid himself at his feet-the people, superstitious as you know beyond any others, now cried out aloud, An omen! an omen!" and made the sign that Probus should be spared and removed.

Aurelian himself seemed almost of the same mind, and I can hardly doubt would have ordered him to be released, but that Fronto at that moment approached him, and by a few of those words, which, coming from him, are received by Aurelian as messages from Heaven, put within him a new and different mind; for rising quickly from his seat he ordered the keeper of the vivaria to be brought before him. When he appeared below upon the sands, Aurelian cried out to him,

[blocks in formation]

unless the general cry be taken for the truth, 'that the gods have touched them." "

Aurelian was again seen to waver, when a voice from the benches cried out,

"It is, O Emperor, but another Christian device! Forget not the voice from the temple! The Christians, who claim powers over demons, bidding them go and come at pleasure, may well be thought capable to change, by the magic imputed to them, the nature of a beast."

"I doubt not," said the Emperor, "but it is so. Slave! throw open now the doors of all thy vaults, and let us see whether both lions and tigers be not too much for this new necromancy. If it be the gods who interpose, they can shut the mouths of thousands as of one.'

At those cruel words, the doors of the vivaria were at once flung open, and an hundred of their fierce tenants, maddened both by hunger and the goads that had been applied, rushed forth, and in the fury with which in a single mass they fell upon Probus--then kneeling upon the sands-and burying him beneath them, no one could behold his fate, nor, when that dark troop separated and ran howling about the arena in search of other victims, could the eye discover the least vestige of that holy man. then fled from the theatre as one who flies from that which is worse than death.

I

Felix was next offered up, as I have learned, and after him more than fourscore of the Christians of Rome.

ZENOBIA, FAUSTA, AND PISO-FROM ZENOBIA.

A night scene on the Walls of Palmyra, Piso the narrator. As Fausta said these words, we became conscious of the presence of a person at no great distance from us, leaning against the parapet of the wall, the upper part of the form just discernible.

"Who stands yonder?" said Fausta. "It has not the form of a sentinel-besides, the sentinel paces by us to and fro without pausing. It may be Calpurnius. His legion is in this quarter. Let us move towards him."

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

"Then you do not love my honor?" said the Queen, taking Fausta's hand as she spoke.

"I love your safety better-no-no-what have I said-not better than your honor-and yet to what end is honor, if we lose the life in which it resides. I sometimes think we purchase human glory too dearly, at the sacrifice of quiet, peace, and security." "But you do not think so long. What is a life of indulgence and sloth. Life is worthy only in what it achieves. Should I have done better to have sat over my embroidery, in the midst of my slaves, all my days, than to have spent them in building up a kingdom?"

"Oh, no-no-you have done right. Slaves can embroider. Zenobia cannot. This hand was made for other weapon than the needle."

VOL. II.-12

"I am weary," said the Queen, "let us sit," and saying so, she placed herself upon the low stone block, upon which we had been sitting, and drawing Fausta near her, she threw her left arm round her, retaining the hand she held clasped in her own.

"I am weary," she continued," for I have walked nearly the circuit of the walls. You ask what makes me here? No night passes but I visit these towers and battlements. If the governor of the ship sleeps, the men at the watch sleep. Besides, I love Palmyra too well to sleep while others wait and watch. I would do my share. How beautiful is this! The city girded by these strange fires! its ears filled with this busy music. Piso, it seems hard to believe an enemy, and such an enemy, is there, and that these sights and sounds are all of death."

"Would it were not so, noble Queen. Would it were not yet too late to move in the cause of peace. If even at the risk of life I❞—

It

"Forbear, Piso," quickly rejoined the Queen, "it is to no purpose. You have my thanks, but your Emperor has closed the door of peace for ever. is now war unto death. He may prove victor. It is quite possible. But I draw not back-no word of supplication goes from me. And every citizen of Palmyra-save a few sottish souls-is with me. It were worth my throne and my life, the bare suggestion of an embassy now to Aurelian. But let us not speak of this, but of things more agreeable. The day for trouble, the night for rest. Fausta, where is the quarter of Calpurnius? Methinks it is hereabouts."

"It is," replied Fausta, "just beyond the towers of the gate next to us; were it not for this thick night, we could see where at this time he is usually to be found doing, like yourself, an unnecessary task."

"He is a good soldier and a faithful-may he prove as true to you, my noble girl, as he has to me. Albeit I am myself a sceptic in love, I cannot but be made happier when I see hearts worthy of each other united by that bond. I trust that bright days are coming, when I may do you the honor I would. Piso, I am largely a debtor to your brother—and Palmyra as much. Singular fortune!-that while Rome thus oppresses me, to Romans I should owe so much-to one, twice my life, to another, my army. But where, Lucius Piso, was your heart, that it fell not into the snare that caught Calpurnius?"

[ocr errors]

My heart," I replied, "has always been Fausta's -from childhood”

"Our attachment," said Fausta, interrupting me, "is not less than love, but greater. It is the sacred tie of nature-if I may say so-of brother to sisterit is friendship."

"You say well," replied the Queen. "I like the sentiment. It is not less than love, but greater. Love is a delirium, a dream, a disease. It is full of disturbance. It is unequal-capricious-unjust; its felicity, when at the highest, is then nearest to deepest misery-a step-and it is into unfathomable gulfs of woe. While the object loved is as yet unattained-life is darker than darkest night. When it is attained, it is then oftener like the ocean heaving and tossing from its foundations, than the calm, peaceful lake, which mirrors friendship. And when lost-all is lost-the universe is nothing. Who will deny it the name of madness? Will love find entrance into Elysium? Will heaven know more than friendship? I trust not. It were an element of discord there where harmony should reign perpetual." After a pause in which she seemed buried in thought, she added musingly,-" What darkness rests upon the future. Life, like love, is

I

itself but a dream-often a brief or a prolonged madness. Its light burns sometimes brightly, oftener obscurely, and with a flickering ray, and then goes out in smoke and darkness. How strange that creatures so exquisitely wrought as we are, capable of such thoughts and acts, rising by science, and art, and letters almost to the level of Gods, should be fixed here for so short a time, running our race with the unintelligent brute-living not so long as some, dying like all. Could I have ever looked out of this life into the possession of any other beyond it, I believe my aims would have been different. should not so easily have been satisfied with glory and power. At least I think so-for who knows himself. I should then, I think, have reached after higher kinds of excellence, such, for example, as existing more in the mind itself could be of avail after death-could be carried out of the worldwhich power-riches—glory—cannot. The greatest service which any philosopher could perform for the human race, would be to demonstrate the certainty of a future existence, in the same satisfactory manner that Euclid demonstrates the truths of geometry. We cannot help believing Euclid if we would, and the truths he has established concerning lines and angles, influence us whether we will or not. Whenever the immortality of the soul shall be proved in like manner, so that men cannot help believing it, so that they shall draw it in with the first elements of all knowledge, then will mankind become a quite different race of beings. Men will be more virtuous and more happy. How is it possible to be either in a very exalted degree, dwelling as we do in the deep obscure-uncertain whether we are mere earth and water, or parts of the divinity -whether we are worms or immortals-men or Gods-spending all our days in, at best, miserable perplexity and doubt. Do you remember, Fausta and Piso, the discourse of Longinus in the garden, concerning the probability of a future life?"

"We do, very distinctly."

"And how did it impress you?"

"It seemed to possess much likelihood," replied Fausta, "but that was all."

"Yes," responded the Queen, sighing deeply, "that was indeed all. Philosophy, in this part of it, is a mere guess. Even Longinus can but conjecture. And what to his great and piercing intellect stands but in the strength of probability-to ours will, of necessity, address itself in the very weakness of fiction. As it is, I value life only for the brightest and best it can give now, and these to my mind are power and a throne. When these are lost I would fall unregarded into darkness and death."

"But," I ventured to suggest, " 'you derive great pleasure and large profit from study-from the researches of philosophy, from the knowledge of history, from contemplation of the beauties of art, and the magnificence of nature. Are not these things that give worth to life? If you reasoned aright, and probed the soul well, would you not find that from these, as from hidden springs, a great deal of all the best felicity you have tasted, has welled up? Then-still more, in acts of good and just government-in promoting the happiness of your subjects-from private friendship-from affections resting upon objects worthy to be loved-has no happiness come worth living for? And besides all this-from an inward consciousness of rectitude! Most of all this may still be yours, though you no longer sat upon a throne, and men held their lives but in your breath."

66

"From such sources," replied Zenobia, some streams have issued, it may be, that have added to what I have enjoyed-but of themselves, they

would have been nothing. The lot of earth, being of the low and common herd, is a lot too low and sordid to be taken if proffered. I thank the Gods mine has been better. It has been a throne-glory -renown-pomp and power-and I have been happy. Stripped of these, and without the prospect of immortality, and I would not live."

With these words she rose quickly from her seat, saying that she had a further duty to perform. Fausta entreated to be used as an agent or messenger, but could not prevail. Zenobia, darting from our side, was in a moment lost in the surrounding darkWe returned to the house of Gracchus.

ness.

REPOSE FROM THE LECTURES ON ALLSTON.

All the pictures to which I have just referred, and many others, to which I shall presently turn your attention, are examples of that peculiar charm in art, styled by the critics repose. There is hardly a work from the hand of Allston which is not, either in the whole, or in some considerable part, an instance in point. The word Repose alone, perhaps, with sufficient accuracy, describes the state of mind, and the outward aspect of nature intended by it. It describes the breathless silence and deep rest of a midsummer day, when not a leaf moves, and the shadows fall dark and heavy upon the face of the clear water, which repeats every object near it as in a mirror; the cow on the bank, half asleep, lazily chewing the eud, and flapping away the flies from her side; and the only sound to break the silence, the sleepy drone of the locust; while a warm, misty atmosphere, through which you just catch the roofs of the neighboring village, wraps all things in its purplish folds. Or, it describes the weary foot-traveller sitting upon a stone by the brook-side, as he rests, watching the sheep as they nibble the short grass, or the falling of the autumn leaves, as they alight upon those which had fallen before; these the only sounds, save the gurgling of the water among the pebbles, and the distant Sabbath bell that echoes among the hills. The poets understand this deep repose, and paint no picture

oftener.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient, solitary reign.

And in the words of Bryant:

For me, I le Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf, Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun, Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind That still delays its coming.

And again:

The massy rocks themselves,
And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees
That lead from knoll to knoll a causey rude,
Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots,
With all their earth upon them, twisting high,
Breathe fixed tranquillity.

There is much that is closely kindred in the genius of Bryant and Allston. They both love, prefer, the calm, the thoughtful, the contemplative. Their pictures, in color and in verse, paint, oftener than any other theme, this silence, rest, deep repose of nature; the pictures of Allston full of poetry, the poems of Bryant gushing with life and truth.

As in these exquisite lines:

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no

more.

Here are music, poetry, and painting-like Canova's Three Graces, embracing each other-bound together in indissoluble union; beautiful apart, beautiful always, but more beautiful when knit together by such a bond. I may add of this hymn of Bryant, that, like the Elegy of Gray, the one hardly less perfect than the other, the pathos and the beauty are too deep for any one to trust his voice to read aloud.

CAROLINE GILMAN.

THIS lady, the wife of the Rev. Samuel Gilman, of Charleston, is the daughter of Samuel Howard, a shipwright of Boston, in which city she was born October 8, 1794. Her father died in her infancy, when her mother took her to reside in various country towns of Massachusetts. The story of her early life and of her literary development has been told by herself in a pleasing chapter of Autobiography, in Hart's "Female Prose Writers of America." When she was ten years of age, she followed her mother's remains to the grave at North Andover. She has noticed the early influences of her life at Cambridge. "Either childhood," she writes,

is not the thoughtless period for which it is famed, or my susceptibility to suffering was peculiar. I remember much physical pain. I recollect, and I think Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, describes the same, a deep horror at darkness, a suffocation, a despair, a sense of injury when left alone at night, that has since made me tender to this mysterious trial of youth. I recollect also my indignation after a chastisement for breaking some china, and in consequence I have always been careful never to express anger at children or servants for a similar misfortune.

In contrast to this, come the memories of chasing butterflies, launching chips for boats on sunny rills, dressing dolls, embroidering the glowing sampler, and the soft maternal mesmerism of my mother's hand, when, with my head reclined on her knee, she smoothed my hair, and sang the fine old song

In the downhill of life.

As Wordsworth says in his almost garrulous enthusiasm,

Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up,
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear;
Much favored in my birth-place.

I say birth-place, for true life is not stamped on the spot where our eyes first open, but our mindbirth comes from the varied associations of childhood, and therefore may I trace to the wild influences of nature, particularly to those of sweet Auburn, now the Cambridge Cemetery, the formation of whatever I may possess of the poetical temperament. Residing just at its entrance, I passed long summer mornings making thrones and couches of moss, and listening to the robins and blackbirds.

[blocks in formation]

seat of their parlor. It was Gesner's Death of Abel; I opened it, spelt out its contents, and soon tears began to flow. Eager to finish it, and ashamed of emotions so novel, I screened my little self so as to allow the light to fall only on the book, and, while forgotten by the group, I also forgetting the music and mirth that surrounded me, shed, at eight years, the first preluding tears over fictitious

sorrow.

I had seen scarcely any children's books except the Primer, and at the age of ten, no poetry adapted to my age; therefore, without presumption, I may claim some originality at an attempt at an acrostic on an infant, by the name of Howard, beginning— How sweet is the half opened rose! Oh, how sweet is the violet to view! Who receives more pleasure from them

Here it seems I broke down in the acrostic department, and went on

Than the one who thinks them like you?
Yes, yes, you're a sweet little rose,
That will bloom like one awhile;
And then you will be like one still,

For I hope you will die without guile.

The Davidsons, at the same age, would I suppose have smiled at this poor rhyming, but in vindication of my ten-year-old-ship I must remark, that they were surrounded by the educational light of the present era, while I was in the dark age of 1805.

[ocr errors]

My education was exceedingly irregular, a perpetual passing from school to school, from my earliest memory. I drew a very little, and worked the Babes in the Wood" on white satin, in floss silk; my teacher and my grandmother being the only persons who recognised in the remarkable individuals that issued from my hands, a likeness to those innocent sufferers.

I taught myself the English guitar at the age of fifteen from hearing a schoolmate take lessons, and ambitiously made a tune, which I doubt if posterity will care to hear. By depriving myself of some luxuries, I purchased an instrument, over which my whole soul was poured in joy and sorrow for many years. A dear friend, who shared my desk at school, was kind enough to work out all my sums for me (there were no black-boards then), while I wrote a novel in a series of letters, under the euphonious name of Eugenia Fitz Allen. The consequence is that, so far as arithmetic is concerned, I have been subject to perpetual mortification ever since, and shudder to this day when any one asks how much is seven times nine.

I never could remember the multiplication table, and, to heap coals of fire on its head in revenge, set it to rhyme. I wrote my school themes in rhyme, and instead of following "Beauty soon decays," and "Cherish no ill designs," in B and C, I surprised my teacher with Pope's couplet

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll,
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

My teacher, who at that period was more ambitious for me than I was for myself, initiated me into Latin, a great step for that period.

About this period I walked four miles a week to Boston, to join a private class in French.

The religious feeling was always powerful within me. I remember, in girlhood, a passionate joy in lonely prayer, and a delicious elevation, when with upraised look, I trod my chamber floo, "eciting or singing Watts's Sacred Lyries. At sixteen I joined the Communion at the Episcopal Church in Cam

Our residence was nearly opposite Governor Gerry's, and we were frequent visiters there. One evening I saw a small book on the recessed window-bridge.

« AnteriorContinuar »