Seeing that Fleda would not "budge," the as full as possible of fun," Mr. Carleton wants little girl left her, and asked Mr. Carleton to to know if you will come and ride with him take her for a "ride," by which it appears she | this afternoon. I told him I believed you were meant a "drive." Having consented, Mr. in general shy of gentlemen who drove their own Carleton suggested that the carriage would horses; that I thought I had noticed you were; but I would come up and see." hold three, and Edith requests Fleda to take the third place. Mr. Carleton himself seconds this proposal very earnestly; but Fleda having refused to accompany Mr. Thorn in a similar excursion that same day, is compelled to refuse. In answer, therefore, to Mr. Carleton's question, "Has that piece of canvas any claims upon you which cannot be put aside for a little?" she replies, “No, sir, but I am sorry" I have a stronger reason that must keep me at home." We proceed with our extract: "No, no; " said Mrs. Evelyn coming up, and with that smile which Fleda had never liked so little as at that minute; not every other day, Edith; what are you talking of? Go, and don't keep Mr. Carleton waiting." ་་ "Mrs. Evelyn! you didn't tell him that?" he didn't say so." "He did, upon my word," said Mrs. Evelyn, speaking with great difficulty; "he said she was very charming, and it might be dangerous to see too much of her." "You made him say that, Miss Evelyn," said Fleda, reproachfully. "Well, I did ask him if you were not very charming; but he answered without hesitation," said the lady. "I am only so afraid that Lot will make his appearance." Fleda turned round to the glass, and went on arranging her hair with a quivering lip. "Lot, mamma!" said Constance, somewhat indignantly. Fleda worked on, feeling a little aggrieved. Mr. Carleton stood still by her table watching "Yes," said Miss Evelyn, in ecstasies; "beher, while his companions were getting them-cause the land will not bear them both. But selves ready; but he said no more, and Fleda did Mr. Carleton is very much in carnest for his not raise her head till the party were off. Flo- answer. Fleda, my dear, what shall I tell him? rence had taken her resigned place. You need be under no apprehensions about going; he will perhaps tell you that you are charming, but I don't think he will say anything more. You know he is a kind of patriarch; and laughed when I asked him if he did n't think it might -to some people; so you see, you are safe." "I dare say the weather will be quite as fine to-morrow, dear Fleda," said Mrs. Evelyn, softly. 66 I hope it will," said Fleda, in a tone of resolute simplicity. "I hope it will not bring too great a throng of carriages to the door," Mrs. Evelyn went on in a tone of great internal amusement; "I never used to mind it, but I have lately a nervous fear of collision." "To-morrow is not your reception day?" said Fleda. "No, not mine," said Mrs. Evelyn, softly; "but that doesn't signify it may be one of my neighbor's." "Fleda pulled away at her threads of worsted, and wouldn't know anything else." "I have read of the servants of Lot and the servants of Abraham quarrelling," Mrs. Evelyn went on, in an undertone of delight, "because the land was too strait for them. I should be very sorry to have anything of the sort happen again, for I cannot imagine where Lot would go to find a plain to suit." "Lot and Abraham, Mamma," said Constance from the sofa, "what on earth are you talking about?" "None of your business," said Mrs. Evelyn; "I was talking of some country friends of mine that you don't know." Constance knew her mother's laugh very well; but Mrs. Evelyn was impenetrable. The next day Fleda was dressing, assisted by Constance, when Mrs. Evelyn entered: "My dear Fleda," said she, her face and voice | "Mrs. Evelyn, how could you use my name so?" said Fleda, with a voice that carried a good deal of reproach. "My dear Fleda, shall I tell him you will go? You need not be afraid to go riding, only you must not let yourself be seen walking with him." "I shall not go, ma'am," said Fleda, quietly. "I wanted to send Edith with you, thinking it would be pleasanter; but I knew Mr. Carleton's carriage would hold but two, to-day; so what shall I tell him?" "I am not going ma'am," repeated Fleda. "But what shall I tell him? I must give him some reason. Shall I say that you think a seabreeze is blowing, and you do n't like it; or shall I say that prospects are a matter of indifference to you?" Fleda was quite silent, and went on dressing herself with trembling fingers. "My dear Fleda," said the lady, bringing her face a little into order, "won't you go? I am very sorry." "So am I sorry," said Fleda. "I can't go, Mrs. Evelyn." "I will tell Mr. Carleton you are very sorry," said Mrs. Evelyn, every line of her face drawing again, "that will console him, and let him hope that you will not mind the sea-breezes by and by, after you have been a little longer in the neigh turbed brow, but recovering herself after a little, though not readily, she bent forward, and bent her lips to it, in a kind fashion. Fleda did not look up, and saying again, " I will tell him, dear Fleda," Mrs. Evelyn left the room. pugnant to pseudo-philosophers) felt so powerfully, and expressed with so much difficulty and obscurity in his immortal "Analogy," seems to be an ordinary inheritance of the religious mind in America. borhood of them. I will tell him you are a good | sincerity with which she dwells upon and derepublican, and have an objection at present to scribes, in its minutest details, the farm-life in an English equipage; but I have no doubt that America are very delightful, and quite new in is a prejudice that will wear off." She stopped their way, which is wholly unsentimental and to laugh, while Fleda had the greatest difficulty not to cry. The lady did not seem to see her dis- truly national. But the highest qualities of this lady's mind, as shown in her works, are, first, the heartiness of her religion, notwithstanding the mistakes we have noticed; and, secondly, the clear understanding, which, having once apprehended Christianity, not as a mere logical conclusion, but as a fact of expeElizabeth Wetherell, like Mrs. Stowe, is rience and a living presence, is not for an sincerely and powerfully Christian in her instant to be puzzled by any seeming contrawritings; but, unlike Mrs. Stowe, and like al-diction. This clear-sightedness, and the power most all other female writers of religious of expressing it so as to impress others, is a very novels, the cause of Christianity often suffers, remarkable and unspeakably valuable quality in her hands, from ill-judged and untimely of the American mind in matters of religion. displays of it. The novelist who, in professing Of all religious writers, the Americans are to depict human life, dispenses altogether with those who have the firmest footing upon this Christian agency, is leaving Hamlet out of the unassailable ground of personal experience play with a vengeance; but the opposite fault and the actual facts of nature; and what our of violating the modesty of religious feeling, great Christian philosopher Butler (a name by an unseasonable foisting of it in the faces that will always be as dear to Christians, as reof those who do not comprehend it, is even worse than a merely negative neglect. It is the greatest immodesty that can be perpetrated. All modesty, if analyzed, proves to be nothing more than the reluctance of a pure heart to having its feelings bared to the gaze of an im- To Mr. Longfellow's "Hyperion" and "Kaperfect sympathy; and the higher and deeper vanagh," we regret that we cannot award the the feeling, the greater the indecency and ruin- unqualified praise which many of his admirers ous wrong of exposing it. It is the hearty think that they deserve. The faults which we sense of this which causes many noble and lately exposed in this writer's verse are equally most earnest minds to fortify themselves against visible in his prose. In neither does the writer impertinent inspection, by a chevaux de frise seem sincere in his dealings with nature. He of wit and amiable irony, whenever a matter cares rather to say "fine things" than true they feel much about is approached in common ones. Of course we do not mean that he is conversation. It would be far better that there consciously insincere; but this desire to be should be no occasion for such weapons; but" effective" and "striking," obscures his eye there always will be, while so many persons, es- for the truth; and it is precisely when Mr. pecially among women, so notably misappre- Longfellow imagines that he is saying his best hend the duty of being instant in and out of things, that he is least worth attending to. He season in their recommendations of religion. has a subtle power of observation, a very graceTo an English reader, the effect of many ful fancy, and considerable general information, portions of "Queechy" must be particularly and these qualities, when the author by happy ludicrous and painful in this regard. For ex- chance forgets himself, and lives in his subject, ample, Mr. Carleton, a man of ancient and combine to produce some very pleasant "light noble family, is not only a methodist and theo- reading," though, at best, there is an air of flipretically a republican, which men of ancient pancy and sentimentality, which seems to be and noble English families scarcely ever hap- inseparable from his style. It would be difficult pen to be, but he carries his religion into the to justify this charge by any short extracts. ball-room, and discourses of the one thing The fault lies in the general tone rather than needful to his partner in the dance; which in any particular passages. The only extract men of ancient and noble English families we shall make from Mr. Longfellow's prose is never do: for, in external behavior at least one which we select for the merit of shrewdthey are always gentlemen, and would always ness, and for its bearing closely upon the subshun the ungentle and unnecessary shock of ject of American literature in general. It is heterogeneous elements. from the pleasing little novel called "Kavanagh." We trust that the authoress of the "Wide Wide World" and of "Qeechy" will take He announced himself as Mr. Hathaway. these remarks in good part, and as not imply-Passing through the village, he could not deing any want of appreciation of the great ny himself the pleasure of calling on Mr. merits of her writings. The heartiness and Churchill, whom he knew by his writings in the periodicals, though not personally. He wish-modes of thought differ from those of other naed, moreover, to secure the coöperation of one tions. Now, as we are very like the Englishalready so favorably known to the literary-world, are in fact, English under a different sky-I do in a new magazine he was about to establish, in not see how our literature can be different to order to raise the character of American litera- theirs. Westward from hand to hand we pass ture, which, in his opinion, the existing reviews the lighted torch, but it was lighted at the old and magazines had entirely failed to accomplish. domestic fireside of England." A daily increasing want, or something better was felt by the public; and the time had come for the establishment of another periodical as he proposed. After explaining, in rather a florid and exuberant manner, his plan and prospects, he entered more at large into the subject of American literature, which it was his design to foster and patronize. "I think, Mr. Churchill," said he, "that we want a national literature, commensurate with our mountains and rivers - commensurate with Niagara, the Alleghanies, and the great lakes?" "Oh!" "We want a national epic that shall correspond to the size of the country; that shall be to all other epics, what Banvard's Panorama of the Mississippi is to all other paintings-the largest in the world." "Ah!" "Then you think our literature is never to be anything but an imitation of the English?" "Not at all. It is not an imitation, but, as some one has said, a continuation." "It seems to me that you take a very narrow view of the subject." "On the contrary, a very broad one. No literature is complete until the language in which it is written is dead. We may well be proud of our task and our position. Let us see if we can build in any way worthy of our forefathers." "But I insist upon originality." "Yes; but without spasms and convulsions. Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air. I was about to say, also, that I thought our literature would, finally, not be wanting in a kind of universality." * * "If that is your way of thinking," said the visitor, “you will like the work I am now en "We want a national drama in which scope enough shall be given to our gigantic national ideas, and to the unparalleled activity and pro-gaged upon." gress of our people." "Of course." "What is it?" "A great national drama, the scene of which "In a word, we want a national literature alto-is laid in New Mexico. It is called Don Serafin, gether shaggy and unshorn, that shall shake the earth like a herd of buffaloes thundering over the prairies." 66 or the Marquis of the Seven Churches. The principal characters are Don Serafin, an old Spanish hidalgo; his daughter, Descada; and Fra Serapion, the curate. The play opens with Fra Serapion at breakfast; on the table a game cock, tied by the leg, sharing his master's meal. Then follows a scene at the cock-pit, where the Marquis stakes the remnant of his fortune-his herds and hacienda-on a favorite cock, and Precisely," interrupted Mr. Churchill, "but excuse me; are you not confounding things that have no analogy? Great has a very different meaning when applied to a river, and when applied to literature A man will not necessarily be a great poet because he lives near a great mountain; nor, being a poet, will he neces-loses." sarily write better than another because he lives nearer Niagara." "But what do you know about cock-fighting?" demanded rather than asked the astonished and half-laughing schoolmaster. "I was not very well informed on that subject, and I was going to ask if you could not recom mend some work." "But, Mr. Churchill, you do not, surely, mean to deny the influence of scenery on the mind?" "No, only to deny that it can create genius. At best it can only develop it. Switzerland has produced no extraordinary poet; nor, as far as I "The only work I am acquainted with," repliknow, have the Andes, or the Himalaya moun-ed Mr. Churchill, "is the Rev. Mr. Pegg's essay tains, or the Mountains of the Moon in Africa." upon cock-fighting among the ancients; and I "But, at all events," urged Mr. Hathaway, "let hardly see how you could apply that to the Mexus have our literature national. If it is not na- icans." tional, it is nothing." "On the contrary, it may be a great deal. Nationality is a good thing to a certain extent, but universality is better. All that is best in the great poets of all countries is not what is national in them, but what is universal." "But you admit nationality to be a good thing?" "Yes, if not carried too far; still I confess it rather limits one's views of truth. I prefer what is natural. Mere nationality is often ridiculous. Every one smiles when he hears the Icelandic proverb, "Iceland is the best land the sun shines upon." Let us be natural, and we shall be national enough. Besides, our literature can be strictly national only so far as our character and "Why they are a kind of ancients, you know I certainly will hunt up the essay you mention, and see what I can do with it." * ** * * * "The subject is certainly very original, but it does not strike me as" Prospective, you see," said Mr. Hathaway, with a penetrating look. "Ah, yes; I perceive you fish with a heavy sinker-down far into the future-among posterity, as it were." "You have seized the idea. Besides, I obviate your objection, by introducing an American circus company from the United States, which enables me to bring horses on the stage, and produce great scenic effect." "That is a bold design. The critics will be out upon you without fail." "Do you mean to pay your contributors ?" "Not the first year, I am sorry to say; but af "Never fear that. I know the critics, root and ter that, if the work succeeds, we shall pay handbranch- -out and out—have summered and win- somely-and of course it will succeed, for we tered with them -in fact, am one of them my-mean it shall, and we never say fail. There is self. Very good fellows are the critics; are they not?" "Oh yes; only they have such a pleasant way of talking down upon authors." "If they did not talk down upon them, they would show no superiority; and, of course, that would never do." "Nor is it to be wondered at that authors are sometimes a little irritable. I often recall the poet in the Spanish fable, whose manuscripts were devoured by mice, till at length he put some corrosive sublimate into his ink, and was never troubled again..... And what do you mean to call this new magazine ?" inquired Mr. Churchill. "We mean to call it the "Niagara." Why that is the name of our fire-engine! why not call it the "Extinguisher? That is also a good name; but I prefer the Niagara, as more national. And I hope, Mr. Churchill, you will let us count upon you. We should like to have an article from your pen for every Number." no such word in our dictionary. Before the year is out, we mean to print 50,000 copies; and 50,000 copies will give us at least 150,000 readers; and, with such an audience, any author might be satisfied." In concluding this hasty notice, we must congratulate our brothers upon the cided and really, because unconsciously, indedevery pendent ground they have taken of late in fictional literature. The works which we have now noticed, with many others whose merits we have not been able, through want of space to consider, are far more in their promise than in their performance, though that is by no means trifling. We can scarcely hope too much from the writers of America, if they will only be careful to remember that their language is, or ought to be, English. THE TREE OF TEN THOUSAND IMAGES.-It the tree and its branches, which resemble that of is called Kounboum, from two Thibetian words, the plane-tree, are also covered with these charsignifying Ten Thousand Images, and having acters. When you remove a piece of old bark, allusion to the tree which, according to the le- the young bark under it exhibits the indistinct gend, sprang from Tsong-Kaba's hair, and bears outlines of characters in a germinating state; a Thibetian character on each of its leaves. It and, what is very singular, these new characters will here be naturally expected that we say some- are not unfrequently different from those which thing about this tree itself. Does it exist? Have they replace. We examined everything with the we seen it? Has it any peculiar attributes? closest attention in order to detect some trace of What about its marvellous leaves? All these trickery, but we could discern nothing of the questions our readers are entitled to put to us. sort, and the perspiration absolutely_trickled We will endeavor to answer as categorically as down our faces under the influence of the sensapossible: Yes, this tree does exist, and we had tions which this most amazing spectacle created. heard of it too often during our journey not to More profound intellects than ours may, perhaps, feel somewhat eager to visit it. At the foot of the be able to supply a satisfactory explanation of mountain on which the Lamasery stands, and not the mysteries of this singular tree; but as to us, far from the principal Buddhist temple, is a great we altogether give it up. Our readers possibly square enclosure, formed by brick walls. Upon may smile at our ignorance; but we care not, so entering this, we were able to examine at leisure that the sincerity and truth of our statement be the marvellous tree, some of the branches of which not suspected. The Tree of the Ten Thousand had already manifested themselves above the Images seemed to us of great age. Its trunk, wall. Our eyes were first directed, with earnest which three men could scarcely embrace with curiosity, to the leaves, and we were filled with outstretched arms, is not more than eight feet an absolute consternation of astonishment at high; the branches, instead of shooting up, spread finding that, in point of fact, there were upon out in the shape of a plume of feathers, and are each of the leaves well-formed Thibetian charac- extremely bushy; few of them are dead. The ters, all of a green color, some darker, some light- leaves are always green; and the wood, which is er than the leaf itself. Our first impression was of a reddish tint, has an exquisite odor, somea suspicion of fraud on the part of the Lamas; thing like that of cinnamon. The Lamas inbut, after a minute examination of every detail, formed us that in summer, towards the eighth we could not discover the least deception. The moon, the tree produces large red flowers of an characters all appeared to us portions of the leaf extremely beautiful character. They informed itself, equally with its veins and nerves; the po- us, also, that there nowhere exists another such sition was not the same in all; in one leaf they would be at the top of the leaf; in another, in the middle; in a third, at the base, or at the side; the younger leaves represented the characters only in a partial state of formation. The bark of DIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. IV. / 5 tree; that many attempts have been made in vas rious Lamaseries of Tartary and Thibet to prop agate it by seeds and cuttings, but that all these attempts have been fruitless.-Huc's Travels in. Tartary and Thibet. From the North British Review. John de Wycliffe, D. D.: A Monograph. By THERE is no more interesting form of literary exercise than that which, under the name of Monograph, has recently become common amongst us. In these days of superabundant authorship, abstract disquisitions have not the best chance of being read, and even formal biographies of the old stamp are apt to prove wearisome. The Monograph meets this emergency. It is a kind of compromise between the regular biography and the historical or philosophical essay. In the regular biography the attention is fastened from first to last on the life of the individual who is the subject of the memoir, and the interest is supposed to lie in the actions and experiences of this individual as constituting a story in themselves. In the Monograph, on the other hand, the motive of the author may be, either a preconceived interest in the individual for his own sake, or an interest in certain ideas, and views which may be conveniently expounded in connection with the life of the individual, or an interest in the general history of the age to which the individual belonged. In any case, he allows himself larger scope, assumes more of the didactic or expository spirit, and narrates facts chiefly with a view to the interpretations which may be made to flow from them. One of the advantages of this form of literary production is that it may be of any length. It may be restricted to the limits of a lecture or a review article, as in the biographic papers of Macaulay, the lectures of Emerson on Representative Men, and the hundreds of similar essays and sketches which are perpetually streaming from the press; or it may swell out to the orthodox limits of a biography, as exemplified in some of the works of Neander and other writers of writer to go so far out of the beaten and easy track of authorship, and to impose upon himself, as the condition of literary distinction, the toil of so much severe and original research as was required for the correct delineation of a man of the fourteenth century. Even this qualification, however, would seem to have grown in the author since he first aspired to supply the English public with what till then had been a desideratum - a complete and accurate life of Wycliffe. Years and continued activity in very various departments have since raised Dr. Vaughan to the place he holds in the public eye as one of the chiefs and ornaments of English Dissent, and one of the most liberal Christian thinkers, and effective Christian writers of the time. Now, though his activity during these years must necessarily have swelled out his mind beyond its dimensions at the time when the character of Wycliffe first caught his regards and occupied his pen, and though, as all know, he has since been engaged in many a controversy and many a speculation such as Wycliffe and the fourteenth century never dreamed of, yet whoever knows anything of Dr. Vaughan must know that, by reason of some of his own leading tendencies and convictions in social and ecclesiastical matters, he is the very man to be still attracted to Wycliffe as a biographer ought to be, and to evolve from the story of his life its full modern meaning. He seems himself to have felt this, and to have been loth to risk the alienation of a subject which he had already, as it were, made his own property. Accordingly returning to it with all that enlargement of view and increased experience in literary art which he has acquired since he first dealt with it, he has superseded his former by the present work, in which the old materials have been wholly recast, and the entire story of Wycliffe's life carefully rewritten. We congratulate him and the public on so successful a performance. The Very conspicuous among larger literary ef- work as it is now put forth, is in the form of a forts of this kind is Dr. Vaughan's Life of single small quarto volume, handsomely and Wycliffe. It is, as most of our readers must massively bound in a sombre antique style, be aware, no hasty production got up to satisfy beautifully printed, and illustrated with enan immediate demand of the market. It is gravings. Corresponding with this exterior nearly a quarter of a century since Dr. Vaugh- are the contents, which we would characterize an, then a very young man, gave to the world, as exhibiting a rare combination of the solid as the fruit of much labor and research, a work with the artistic. In the former work there which has ever since been regarded by all com- was abundant evidence that the author had petent authorities, both at home and on the spared no pains in making himself acquainted Continent, as the only thorough and satisfactory with all the necessary materials, and in buildaccount of the life and opinions of the Eng- ing these materials together into a substantial lish Proto-Reformer. Even then he must have piece of English ecclesiastical history. This possessed that most essential of qualifications merit of solidity, of conscientious labor spent in a biographer-strong and enthusiastic sym- in thoroughly overcoming the difficulties of pathy with the man whose life he had under- his task, will still attract the notice of the taken to write. Nothing less than a real personal affection for Wycliffe, and a conviction of the value and permanence of much that Wycliffe taught, could have prompted a young note. reader; but the author has succeeded, in this new performance, in imparting a charm of color and picturesqueness which renders the whole work more light, and capable of producing a |