Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power.

"It is the raw material out of which the intellect moulds the most spendid products. A strange process too, this, by which experience is converted into thought, as a mulberry leaf is converted into satin. The manufacture goes on at all hours.

"The actions and events of our childhood and youth, are now matters of calmest observation. They lie like fair pictures on the air. Not so with our recent actions -with the business which we now have in hand. On this we are quite unable to speculate. Our affections as yet circulate through it. We no more feel or know it, than we feel the feet, or the hand, or the brain of our body. The new deed is yet a part of life-remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life. In some contemplative hour, it detaches itself from life, like a ripe fruit, to become a thought of the mind. Instantly, it is raised, transfigured; the corruptible has put on incorruption. Always now it is an object of beauty, however base its origin and neighbourhood. Observe, too, the impossibility of antedating this act. In its grub state, it cannot fly, and cannot shine-it is a dull grub. But suddenly, without observation, the selfsame thing unfurls beautiful wings, and is an angel of wisdom. So is there no fact, no event in our private history, which shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive inert form, and astonish us by soaring from our body into the empyrean. Cradle and infancy, school and play-ground, the fear of boys, and dogs, and ferules, the love of little maids and berries, and many another fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already; friend and relative; profession and party, town and country, nation and world, must also soar and sing."

And again:

"The mind now thinks, now acts; and each fit reproduces the other. When the artist has exhausted his materials-when the fancy no longer paints-when thoughts are no longer apprehended, and books are a weariness-he has always the resource to live. Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function-living is the functionary. The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. Does he lack organ or medium to impart his truths? He can still fall back on this elemental force of living them. This is a total act. Thinking is a partial act. Let the grandeur of justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of affection cheer his lowly roof. Those "far from fame" who dwell and act with him, will feel the force of his constitution in the doings and passages of the day, better than it can be measured by any public and designed display. Time shall teach him that the scholar loses no hour which the man lives. Herein he unfolds the sacred germ of his instinct-screened from influence. What is lost in seemliness, is gained in strength. Not out of those on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Berserkins, come out at last Alfred and Shakespeare.

"I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labour to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labour is every where welcome; always are we invited to work-only be this limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action."

66

From the means of the scholar's education, the orator then proceeds to his duties. They are such," he says, "as become manthinking. They may all be comprised in self-trust. The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men, by showing them facts amid appearances.

We will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. Then shall man no longer be a name for pity, for doubt, and for sensual indulgence. The dread of man, and the love of man, shall be a wall of defence and a wreath of love around all; and a nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the divine soul which inspires all men."

THE SPIRIT OF PEACE.

Spirit of Peace, sweet vision, come again
Alluring phantom-stay thy wayward flight!
Forever distant must thy form remain,

Or fondly haunt, to vanish from my sight-
Yet I will watch, and in the hour of prayer
Spirit, may hope to feel thy influence there.
Is it in dreams that thou art only found,

When the tossed mind is sunk in tranquil rest,
That thy far shadow floats in brightness round,

And for a moment soothes the tortured breast!
Yes, yes, sweet spirit, beautiful thou art,
When thus in dreams thou steal'st upon the heart!

There is a light falls on the distant sea,

From midnight stars that o'er its billows shine;
A music in the wild waves' melody,

That seems the breathings of thy voice divine;
I gaze, and fancy pictures thee afar,

In every silvery cloud, and Heaven illuming star.

I hear thy step up on the grassy mound;

I feel thee in the zephyr murmuring by;
The gush of waters, with their fresh'ning sound,
And the deep glory of the twilight sky.

No, not with pomp or splendor dost thou dwell;

Thy home, the lonesome wood, the mountain and the dell.

Spirit of Peace-once more my weary eyes

Turn to those fields that stretch beyond my sight;

To those dim hills that melt in golden skies,

And image there, thy wings of radiant light;
See thee in passing clouds, and catch the gleam
Of thy bright shadow in the glassy stream.

C. E. da P.

[blocks in formation]

At the close of an autumnal day in 1668, a troop of horse might have been seen winding their way southwardly along a forest-path, by the banks of the Connecticut river. At its head, side by side, rode two cavaliers. The elder was about thirty-five years of age, of a noble presence and a dignified and soldierly air. The visor of a helmet shaded the upper portion of his face, though it did not conceal the fire of a pair of piercing blue eyes, over which square and massive brows were sternly and habitually bent. His complexion had once been fair, if we might judge from the light flaxen locks flowing abundantly over his shoulders after the fashion of the period. Exposure to many climates had now robbed his skin of the blond, and given it a brown hue-a shade more befitting a warrior's cheek. A well-trimmed beard, extending from ear to ear, swept his breast-plate. His upper lip was graced by a handsome mustache, a thought darker than his hair. It nearly hid his mouth,-which, so far as it could be discovered, was finely shaped, with the lips pressed together with an air of determination. When he spoke, however, it wore a more agrecable expression, with which his full and manly voice harmonized; yet, nevertheless, there was something in his countenance that repelled confidence. His person was protected by the demiproof armour of that day; the period when the mailed knight, in a state of chrysalis, was merging into the modern officer. Over his breast-plate, which was indented, but highly burnished, was passed a broad buff belt, to which was appended a serviceable sword; from his holsters also protruded the butts of a richly ornamented pair of Spanish pistols, then in as much repute as the Damascus blade a few centuries earlier. He was well mounted on a large brown English horse; and, as he paced along, he sat like a man to whom the saddle is a familiar seat. Although, from time to time he would interchange thoughts with his companion, his general manner was taciturn and grave.

The other was a youth who had not yet numbered quite twenty summers. His figure was slight and elegant; his manners careless, but graceful, and an air of rank and high breeding was evident in every movement. His cheek was dark as the Italian's; his eyes

were black and brilliant; by turns piercing or tender, indolent or flashing. His raven and luxuriant hair fell about his neck in natural curls, lifting in the evening wind, and waving and flowing like the wanton tresses of a young girl. A slight mustache darkened his upper lip, but did not hide his fine mouth. He wore a plain, but rich suit of mourning. His breast-plate and scabbard were also of the same sable hue. He rode a snow white horse, with a long, sweeping tail, and with the eye and limb of an Arabian barb; which, as it ambled by the side of the larger steed, picked its steps as daintily as if it had been shod with the slippers of Cinderella. The general tone of his manner was a graceful indolence and an elegant nonchalance, though altogether divested of any, even the least grain of foppery. With a face as strongly marked with intelligence and good sense, as that of his older companion, and a look indicating a still haughtier spirit, his whole appearance was strikingly in contrast with his; inviting confidence and friendship in men,-in women, love. The two seemed to be, however, on the most familiar terms of intimacy, notwithstanding their opposite characters and the additional disparity of their years. Near them rode a black servant in a gorgeous livery, upon which he evidently prided himself.

Behind these cavaliers rode two more gentlemen-one of them was a large, heavy man, apparelled much like the elder cavalier above mentioned; the other, save a sword at his side, and pistols in his holsters, wore the black dress of a citizen. The former had a bold look and unpleasant eye. The latter was a man of a milder cast. They conversed together while they rode along, as if deeply interested in their subject, addressing each other respectively as Randolph and Dudley; the last name being applied to the citizen. In the rear of these, riding two abreast, came a lengthened column of horse, consisting mostly of mounted grenadiers, with perhaps, half score of dragoons-a band of rough, stalworth looking warriors. Their brows were covered with iron helmets, crested with horsehair, and they wore heavy breast and thigh pieces. They all had broadswords hanging at their belts, and cumbersome matchlocks swung across their backs. With their huge proportions, warwora visages, grizzly beards and fierce mustaches, they presented altogether a very truculent and formidable appearance. They trotted along in good order; some in stern silence, and as immovable in their saddles as statues; others in most unmilitary ease, jesting with a comrade; and one or two with their usual position reversed, seated with their backs to their horses' heads, talking and laughing with those behind. A small party of Indians brought up the rear; two of whose number, we should have mentioned before, acted as guides, and ran at an untiring pace, a little in advance of the two cavaliers, balancing in their right hand tomahawks, secured to long poles, which served them as weapons of defence against wild beasts,

and assisted them in crossing ravines, scaling precipices, and clearing obstacles from the path of the horsemen. While the cavalcade are slowly trotting through the wood, we will turn to the two cavaliers. They have been riding for sometime without interchanging a word; the younger studying like an amateur the fine animal action of one of the half-naked, athletic Indian guides; the other busied in severe, and apparently far from agrecable, reflections.

"Mehercule!" said the younger, breaking silence, “I would enter that fellow on the right hand, against the best Athleta of the best days of Greece. Pity the old Romans had not known of the existence of this continent-they could have matched their arena then against the world. By Jove! Andross, we must pit two of these most supple heathens against each other, when we bivouac tonight. By the by! I should like to behold this fair mistress of thine. If report do not belie her, she has beauty. Think you she will not play you false in this Charter scheme? These women are the devil. There is no dependence to be placed in one of them. A man might tell as readily what's o'clock by a church vane, as a woman's mind by her tongue."

"You are severe, Trevor," said the other smiling; "Helen is not to be weighed in the scale of other women."

"Thou art a true lover, which doth put his mistress before all the world, an she were a black-a-moor," said the younger, laughing and whisking his horse over the ears, by way of pastime, with an ivory riding whip, terminating in a green silk tassel.

"Her attachment to his Majesty's Government," continued the former, "is from principle."

"And her attachment to your knightly self."

"Hist, boy!" he said, in an impatient, half-pleased tone.

"Boy! By my manhood! an' thou dist wear a broadsword some four inches shorter than thou dost, I would quarrel with thee on that argument."

"Discretion is the only part of valor of which thou has any knowledge, Trevor. Cherish it. "Twill do thee service yet.”

"Gramercy for that! Thy wits brighten as thy love warms. "Twill be at a white heat when you reach Hartford-then heaven save the mark! Your wit will flash and crackle like thorns under a pot,' as these puritans would phrase it."

[ocr errors]

"Humph! You should mount cap and bells, Edward. The sun is low," he added, changing his tone. "We must be near Hartford."

"Judging from the temperature of thy wit 'twere not quite a league."

"A truce to this folly," said Sir Edmund Andross, with a slight shade of pique in the tone of his voice; "can you be serious?"

"As a puritan," replied Trevor, smoothing his features. "But,"

« AnteriorContinuar »