time seemed long to him, and the inward tumult was quieted; he became more gentle, and the mighty urging within him grew gradually to be a still but strong trait, wherein his whole soul dissolved. A great many years seemed to have passed. Now the country appeared also again richer and presented more variety of scenery, the air became warmer and blue, and the road smoother; green bushes allured him into their inviting shades, but he did not understand their language; they seemed not to speak to him, and nevertheless they filled his heart with green colors and a cool quiet sensation. That sweet language kept growing within him, the leaves became broader and sweeter, the birds and the beasts more noisy and merrier, the fruits more balmy, the sky darker, the air warmer and his love more ardent. Time flew by quickly as if hastening to its goal. One day he met a crystal clear well and a number of flowers which were coming down into a valley between dark pillars that reached to the skies. They greeted him friendly with intimate words. 66 My dear countrymen," he said, "where can I find the sacred dwelling of Isis? It must be somewhere near here, and you are probably better acquainted here than I am." "We are only passing through here," answered the flowers, "a family of spirits is also on the journey, and we are preparing the way and quarters for them; still we heard her named a short while since, as we were passing through a certain country. Keep on to where we came from, and you will soon learn more." He The flowers and the well laughed; as they said this they proffered him a refreshing drink and continued their journey. Hyacinth followed their advice, continued to make inquiries, and came at last to that dwelling he had sought for so long. It was hidden under palm trees and other costly plants. His heart beat with an inexpressible longing, and the sweetest anxiety penetrated him while in this dwelling of the eternal seasons. fell asleep amidst the odors of heavenly incense, for dreams alone were fit to lead him to the very holiest existence. In the dream he was guided along strangely through never-ending halls full of curious things, whilst charming sounds and changing chords bore him onward with ecstacy. Everything seemed so familiar to him, and yet he had never seen such splendor; now the last earthly sense passed away, as if vanished into air, and he stood before the heavenly virgin. Then he raised the light glittering veil and- -Rosyposy fell in his arms. A distant music surrounded the mystery of the meeting of the lovers and their out-pourings of longing, and shut out everything foreign from this charming place. Hyacinth lived a long while after this with Rosyposy among his parents and companions, and a large number of grand-children thanked the old curious woman for her advice and her fire. * * * * * This allegory is a fair exponent of the writings of Novalis. A mind like his dwelt either entirely in him or out of him; it certainly had no communion with his flesh. To understand this child requires some practice, much more to get at the deep significance that lies in every sentence, hidden to the uninitiated, but open to the true searcher. The allegory is told by a merry young bypasser to one of the pupils at Sais, who had wandered out in search of the philosopher's stone, or of the perfect knowledge and comprehension of nature in its relation to the spirit, that arranges the discrepant parts of nature into comprehensive unities, which in the allegory is embodied in Isis, the holy goddess or the veiled virgin; and when mortals are nearest to this perfect knowledge or comprehension is when hearts melt into one another in the ardor of youthful love; then we have the highest knowledge of heaven, and at once catch at least a glimpse of the great idea-love-universe-all in one; a certain fullness of soul that is nowhere else-God. Each one, however, must interpret the allegory to suit his own fancy, for an allegory like a genuine symphony has many sides. Hyacinth may be regarded as a representative of the immortal spirit, urged by the feeble light it already has within, to seek for more light. He looks upon nature as something that has meaning, not dead lifeless lumps of matter. The eternal sympathy that unites all things with a common tie is set forth, and this unison, if perfect, is the grand completion of the whole enigma of life, when all things become one, or a perfect unity; but though beasts and birds try to dispel Hyacinth's gloom, and the rose and the ivy use their charms to instil new life into him, and the lizard by its merry thoughtlessness endeavors to please him, all is in yain; he learns however something-Rosyposy enters to charm him, and for a time he seems to have arrived at a summit of bliss, his destiny seems completed. But now the second era enters; hitherto he has been familiar with but a small part of nature; the old man lays open a new unexpected field to his mind; he pants to know the meaning of all this; his late happiness is forgotten and he rushes forth fully to satisfy his soul by learning the whole meaning of all these new objects in nature. Here the struggle of life is represented in striking figures; he is in valleys, (begins to see bounds to life) in wildernesses, (all confusion again) on mountains, (can at once seize upon many ideas, as the eye from a high mountain can see several landscapes almost at once) on rivers, (life is never stationary, but a stream, in ceaseless motion.) Clouds and fogs come and are dispelled, as doubts and fears come and overwhelm us till we overwhelm them. He meets others, and finds their directions valuable; at last he comes to the dwelling of Isis; he wanders about in the palace. A dream. In dreams now as in olden times we can hold converse with God. In this dream he finds the heavenly virgin, draws aside the veil, and-love, our highest knowledge of heaven, is his. Here the search ends, for here is the summit of all we in this tumultuous life can learn. That at least seemed to be so to the merry young bypasser. Perhaps a naturalist will insist that the word young should be in italics. Novalis died young. The translator is also young. THE GERMAN BOY. She comes, the noble ship! and on her deck, But hearts more sanguine chase all fears away, They see, they near, their blest, their native strand. Yon speck is not thy own, thy fatherland. Thou hast not roved in curious pilgrimage Stained with the dark tints of their loathsome crimes. And drove him from his blissful Eden-home, Is graven on thy youthful, sunburnt face; But tyrant man, not Angels, bids thee roam. No mother waits thee on the coming shore, Thou com'st not there with many a witching tale Till cheeks of kindred turn, with interest, pale. These are not thine, but toil and bitter tears The noble spirit of the German boy. Cheer up the heaving of that vigorous breast Our forest home is fair, be not distressed- No tribute to his storehouse shalt thou bring; And thine to deeply quaff the cup of joy! E. A. C. SCENES FROM ACTUAL LIFE.-No. I. THE NORWEGIAN EMIGRANT. BY THE EDITOR. KEEN blew a northwest wind over the brown hills and through the valleys, where a line boat lay on the Erie canal, shut in by ice, one morning in November. A sleety rain had closed in snow on the previous day, fol lowed by gusty breezes from the plains of Canada, and when the sun had set mid rolled up clouds of purple and gold with an orange green sky glit. tering behind, and stars flashing bright overhead, the boatmen had muffled themselves in their warmest coats, while the shivering boy whipped up his horses, anxious passengers clustered on deck, and the captain as he saw the ice fibres shoot over still spots of water, muttered, "'tis our last trip this season." Midnight had settled calm over the leafless woods and white capped summits, and plains where the dry grass rustled; ice had formed fast on the narrow line of the canal, and the crowded inmates of the boat had heard a crackling and hissing as she broke her way. An hour or two after there had been a call from the shore, the helmsman had summoned the captain, the half waked sleepers looking out of the doors and windows had seen the lamps gleam in long lines over the frozen surface, and all hands had turned in for a quiet nap; the boat was fast. And now it was morning. Welcome day, may be to the crew, who through the summer months had smothered in narrow bunks under their low roofed boat, sluggishly journeying to and fro over the same monotonous way, and who could now find change of labor in familiar places. Welcome day may be to the captain, sleeping late in dreams over his summer's gains and his winter speculations. But a most unwelcome day to the poor emigrants, who friendless, moneyless, houseless, without place in society or work before them, with no intelligible speech to make known their wants or ask their way, found themselves on the verge of winter about to be turned on shore amid the woods some half day's journey fromThe hearts of those strangers were chill as they heard the summons of men made hard by familiarity with similar scenes of distress to leave the boat, which, uncomfortable as it was, still seemed to have some warmth of home. But leave the boat they plainly must. And a few hours saw them, men and boys on foot, women and children on trunks and bundles in country wagons, making their way to the next inland city. What lessons of a true order of society might this tendency of the poor to cluster in crowds teach us. Among them was Ulric, of Norway, with his wife, an infant born some three weeks before, and five older children. Poor Ulric! It needed a heart as brave and patient as thine, to be kind and gentle and thoughtful, that day, amidst thy multiplied anxieties. Ulric had left Norway in the early summer with some score of his neighbors to settle in lowa, with money enough in his purse from hard earnings to buy him a small farm, and with good hope of getting a shelter over the heads of his family before cold weather. But the oft repeated, only sadder because frequent tale, of imposition and outrage upon emigrants, had been true of him. A drunken captain in a leaky water-logged ship spun out their voyage to a most unexpected length; their store of provision was exhausted; famine, bad air, a closely packed crowd, the heat of calms, and above all, care and trouble, bred fever on board, and late in August he landed sick at quarantine. Recovery was slow; expenses, necessary and unnecessary of all kinds eat up his means; the du plicity of a fellow lodger when they had actually reached New York lessened still more his little capital; in a dirty, crowded inn, amidst filth and noise his baby was born; his companions more fortunate had gone a month and more before him; he paid to a cheating agent who assured him that he could reach the far west his full fare round the lakes, with a company of Germans who did not speak his language, as he did not theirs, had he left Albany; and now where and how thought he, as with little Fritz's hand in his he trudged over the frozen ruts, where and how were he and his to winter. Pious parents had taught Ulric in maxims, written into his very heart, that the Providence which tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, counts the very hairs of the head of the humblest and poorest. And but for faith in this law of divine love which shines warm in adversity, his prospect in life would have seemed more cheerless and bleak than the bare trees and heathery hills of this strange land. But Fritz! what was hardship to a boy? He picked up the glossy chesnuts which the wind had shaken from the open burrs, laughed at the squirrels which chippered as they ran on the fences and hid, and echoed the caw of the crows as they flew southward overhead. What bankrupts in happy love would grown men be in this hard world, were it not for the treasure of joy which youth stores in the heart. Weeks past, and December with its fogs and rains, and January with its snows and thaws had come, Ulric gaining as he could with the saw, for which he paid the last dollar, small sums amidst many rival applicants for the poor privilege of earning an honest livelihood by humble toil, when at last his goods were pawned, his funds exhausted, and one evening he found himself standing in the street holding his baby, while the children warmed their feet by stamping on the sloppy pavement, and their mother was for the first time in her life begging bread. The lamps shone on the sad group. Many stopped for a moment and muttering "emigrants," hurried on to comfortable houses. But at length a gentleman rather advanced in life, with a lady several years younger leaning on his arm, in the countenances of each of which a kindly smile lingered as if from pleased recollection of the visit of mercy from which they were returning, came to where they stood, and did not pass, but pressed poor Ulric's hand and patted the wet shoulders of the children, and drew from their imperfect words the story of their sufferings. "What can we do for them, Mary; is not the room where the Carey's lived empty now? There is a bed chamber adjoining, and a stove, and I think they will do very well. Let us get them there at once." To procure a cart, to place the children upon it, to find the mother, and give the driver his directions, was for this benevolent couple the work of a few moments; and then with Ulric they followed. It was an hour beyond their usual time of taking their evening meal, and it carried them far from their course through the melting snow and mud; but kindness was to them as daily food; the needy were ever their nearest kin, and love made the "longest way round their shortest road home," as they had often and often proved. Did not the face of Fritz, glowing red as he blew the fire, and the gentle form of the sick mother as sitting on the floor she rocked to sleep her infant, and the half bashful, half confiding group of the children hungrily eating their supper, and Ulric's courteous thanks, as cap in hand he bowed them from the door, mingle pleasantly in their dreams that night? II. And who were Mr. and Mrs. White? If you had asked of the poor ofthey would have said, "Who are they? why they are honest employers who pay a dollar when wages are six shillings, and liberal counsel who give best advice without a fee. Who but he filled his house, parlors and chambers, and all with Irish families when the great fire burned the square in street? Who but he, old as he is and sometimes sick, |