THE
YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.

CONDUCTED
BY THE
STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE.

“Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque Yalenses Cantabunt Soboles, unanimique Patres.”

NO. V.

JULY, 1836.

NEW HAVEN:
HERRICK & NOYES.

MDCCCXXXVI.

CONTENTS.

THE
YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.

ON THE SIMPLICITY OF GREATNESS.

Great men are always simple—strikingly so; simple in their thoughts and feelings, and in the expression of them. Nor is this an unimportant characteristic. For to one who reflects how few artless men there are—how much there is that is factitious, in the character of almost every one whom he meets; most of all, in the character of those who ape this same simplicity; how much many men consult fashion, custom, and mode for their thoughts and feelings, instead of their own hearts and minds, till they almost cease to have any of their own; and when it is not so, how much rules of thinking and of feeling insensibly influence us;—to such a one, true simplicity will appear worthy the name of a rare virtue, and further, of an important one—especially, if he considers how much even the smallest act of cunning or affectation impairs the honesty and high-mindedness of him who allows it. As such, we might express our admiration of it in the great man, and derive from thence a strong recommendation.

But it may bring out more important results to ask why, especially by what peculiar mental habits it is, that minds which might, with the best reason, make a parade of their powers, are apparently so utterly unconscious of them, and so thoroughly simple. A chief reason is, that a great mind is completely absorbed in the objects before it, to the entire forgetfulness of self. The objects must be great certainly, thus to fill the mind; there must also be great powers to grasp them. Both these things are supposed in the truly great man. But the peculiar feature of his mind is this complete absorption in the objects of contemplation. It is carried forth beyond the cares and complexities of what most men call self, and for a time, at least, identifies itself with its object. His own powers, as things of selfish pride, are the last to concern his thoughts, and are only instruments of bringing before him the truth. In this he approaches what may be regarded as perfect mental action. For what are these powers but instruments? And what is the mind in itself apart from its objects? Truths so plain seem to be forgotten by those who idolize mental power in themselves and others, more than they revere the truth, on which it is, or should be employed.

To this it may be added, that the great mind is generally absorbed by single objects. The one truth which absorbed the mind of Newton, was that of the law of universal gravitation. All the energies of Bacon’s mind were active in the elucidation of the single truth, that facts are at the foundation of reasoning. The same has been true of those who have made plain great moral truths. Indeed the end of every mind which acts to purpose is more or less definitely the perception of unity. But many minds mistake the single truth which explains the whole subject, or assuming that which is false, or taking up minor relations, or seeking complication for the love of it, go a-raving amid cycles and epicycles, extent of knowledge only making the confusion greater.

You shall see men disquieting themselves in vain, and plunging into hot and endless debate, all for the overlooking of some single truth which puts an end to all question. It is this tendency towards unity dimly seen in ordinary minds, which is brought out into a distinct habit, in minds of a higher order, and gives them their peculiar oneness and simplicity.

But we have not spoken of that which leads to this absorption of the mind in its objects. It is the love of truth—of all truth. Not that other minds have none of it, but it lies mixed, often insensibly, with other desires which reflect upon self, or reach out towards some foreign end, and thus mar its simplicity. There is the love of favor, the ambition of rivaling some admired forerunner or competitor, the desire of seeming superior to the vulgar crowd, the love of victory in discussion. More laudable than these, there is the desire of success in some pursuit or project, or a desire of acquiring what may be useful. More nearly affecting the mind’s operations, there is the love of novelty for novelty’s sake, the love of system, and the desire of bringing forth to the world something new. Besides these there are a thousand prejudiced feelings, aside from the simple love of the truth, which influence men in forming their opinions and in searching after truth. It is easy to see how all these differ in their nature from love of truth for the truth’s sake, and, of course, when blended with it destroy its simplicity. It is not a sense of duty even which mainly influences the great mind in its pursuit of truth. The love of it in such a mind is a passion, an appetite, which asks simply the reception of its natural food; an appetite ever enlarging itself, “growing by that it feeds on.” From these peculiar habits of mind, namely, absorption in its objects, and for the most part in single objects, guided by a simple love of the truth, there arises further, great simplicity in the feelings with which the truth is contemplated when it is discovered. There is nothing of a feeling of arrogance in the great mind—a feeling that it has established a separate domain, about which it alone is competent to legislate, and which none but itself may touch or enter. Nor is there any thing like envy in such a mind. On the contrary, he is ready to welcome with the hand and the heart of a brother, and with warm gratitude, any who shall make new revelations of that which he most loves and adores. Nor has he any such love of system as would lead him knowingly to overlook any one truth. Still less is there a feeling of triumph after discussion, except as the triumphs of truth are his own. Least of all is there a feeling of pedantry, the self satisfied glee with which little minds chuckle over their small apartment in the world of mind, ready to give battle to any one who shall dispute that it is a magnificent temple. The feelings of a great mind are as different from these as possible. His is the simplicity of reverence. He gazes upon some truth, till it rises before him in its full dimensions, and to it he pays humble adoration. Inspired by this feeling he forgets himself, and comes forth with simplicity to deliver his message to others, seeking not their praise, and caring not for their censure. He needs not, and does not comprehend the arts which others use to attract applause, for he can afford to be simple.

His again is the simplicity of wonder. “Nil admirari” is a maxim of none but common minds, who can contrive to wrap themselves up in self-sufficiency of intellect, while they trust in it and laugh at the absurdity and childishness of him who finds any thing at which to wonder. Thus such an one will exultingly go forth in the full pride of scientific attainment, esteeming all things as certain when he has ascribed them to the laws of nature; not thinking of the mysterious agency ever at work to maintain those laws. Such a mind has no wonder, because it has no powers to carry it forward into the mysterious and illimitable in the universe. Another feeling of the great mind in view of great objects, is that of simple ignorance. It has gone forth, and seen its own narrow limits, and then it pauses and is humble, conscious how like a child it is. Such are some of the features which a great mind exhibits, and such the results to which it tends, the expression of which is marked by that simplicity of which we have spoken.

G.

CONTENTMENT.

Give me a heart with all its wants supplied,

And those wants few—and I will ask no more;

For thus, I’m at so proud an altitude

On Fortune’s ladder, that I can look down

Upon the proudest monarch of the globe.

THE HEART.

ADDRESSED TO MISS ——.

“A lady asks the Minstrel’s rhyme.”

The Minstrel hears—for his the prime

When words are sweet as sweet bells’ chime,

If Beauty calls;

And Love keeps sentry for the time,

In Faery halls.

And Love peeps o’er the Minstrel’s shoulder—

Love makes the Minstrel’s spirit bolder—

And Love sighs that he is not older—

Else he, apart,

Would weave a wreath of flowers, and fold her

Into his heart.

And Love is in his hey-day dress,

And Love has many a soft caress;

And laughing cheek, and glossy tress,

And dimpled hand,

Glance in the Minstrel’s eye, and bless

His dreaming land.

And softly swells, and sweet accords

The melody that earth affords—

Glee, life, the melody of birds,

And things that come

Into the heart, like childhood’s words,

Nestling at home.

Then should the Minstrel mark the tone—

The look, the tongue would half disown—

The heart, when its disguise is thrown

Freely away—

And chant his sweetest fytte, and own

His lady’s sway.

Soft was the melody it gave—

Soft, as a wind-dissevered wave—

Soft, as the melody the brave

Hear, soothing, deep,

When in the patriot’s earth-wept grave,

They sink to sleep.

Yet softer far than each, and all—

Than note of bird in forest hall—

Than angel hymns when patriots fall,

Now be the lay;

For Love must answer Beauty’s call,

And we obey.

And yet, the theme—the heart! strange thing,

And worthy of a nobler string!

Varied as is a zephyr’s wing

The lyre should be,

That sings as ever lyre should sing,

O, heart! of thee.

Thine are the thoughts that bring and bless,

Thine are the feelings that distress,

Thine are the passions that oppress

And wake our fears,

Man’s curse, and yet man’s happiness—

Man’s joys and tears.

And wonderful thy power that flings

O’er all, its moods and colorings,

Turns joy to gloom—gives grief the wings

Of Fays that, free,

Revel about the forest springs,

Or haunted tree.

The light—when morn and music come,

The bird—within its forest home,

The house-bee with its rolling drum,

Aye! and each flower,

And winds, and woods, and waters dumb—

These by thy power,

Become distinct and separate images,

Link’d to the mind by closest ties—

A treasure-house where gather’d lies

Food for long years,

When after life the spirit tries

With toils and tears.

And thus, insensibly, we feel

A soothing passion o’er us steal,

Binding for aye, for “wo and weal”

Our souls to Nature,

Till, like a mirror, they reveal

Her ev’ry feature.

And then, when comes adversity,

And loves grow cold, and friendships die,

And aches the heart, and clouds thy eye,

Shadows of pain—

The mind can on itself rely,

And live again.

And thus—above earth’s petty things,

Its gorgeous gauds, and glitterings,

Its camps, and courts, and crowds, and kings,

Castle and hall—

The mind can ruffle its proud wings

And scout them all.

Grandeur and greatness—what are they!

Playthings for fools: the king to day,

To morrow, is a lump of clay;

And yet, elate,

We worry through Life’s little way—

To rot in state.

And what is fame? Ask him who lies

Where cool Cephissus winding hies;

Ask him who shook Rome’s destinies—

Shatter’d her state!

There’s not a dungeon wretch that dies,

But is as great.

What’s the world’s pride! What it hath been—

A thing that’s groveling and unclean—

A spur to lust—a cloak of sin—

Seemingly fair;

Yet when the damp grave locks us in,

How mean we are.

What’s the world’s love! An empty boon,

Witness it, Bard of “Bonny doon.”

Witness it, He with “Sandal shoon,”

And Abbotsford—

A light burnt to its socket, soon

A quip—a word.

And then, as seeks the wounded bird

The deepest shades to moan unheard,

The heart turns from each friendly word,

And comfort flies—

Feels the full curse of “hope deferred,”

Despairs, and dies.

And such the heart’s bad passions. Let

Its greener laurels flourish yet—,

Hope, friendship, ne’er let earth forget

How sweet they are;

For the poor heart’s not desolate

When love is there.

Love—tis earth’s holiest principle!

From every thing we catch its spell!

But more, from the sweet thoughts that dwell

In woman’s breast—

Friendship and faith immutable

By her possess’d.

Then, lady! be it all thy care,

To be as wise as thou art fair;

Be wary—think each smile a snare—

Shun pleasure’s lure;

Farewell! thou hast the Minstrel’s prayer—

Be good—be pure.

THE SISTER’S FAITH.

‘Our affections are

Heaven’s influences, that by the good they do,

Betray their origin.

‘So I have seen

A frail flower that the storm has trampled on—

Lovely in ruins; for though broken quite

With its affliction, ’twas a flow’ret still,

And ask’d from me affection.’

The allotments of providence are as various as are our several necessities. To one is granted wealth, to another talents, to a third family; every man, however humble, finds himself the possessor of some separate good the which has not been equally vouchsafed to all, and in that particular good whatsoever it be is treasured his individual sum of human happiness. It is a beautiful thing that this is so, for hence a greater degree of comfort among men, as each is pleased with his own; and to a thinking man it is fraught with deep and powerful truths, that tell greatly both upon the understanding and the heart. In it is seen the kind plan of an ever present, ever watchful Deity, studious for our comforts; and the mind is at once fired with a nobler energy, and the heart is quickened with newer faith to works of obedience, and taught to look with renewed confidence and an unclouded eye through sorrows here, and rest on that star of hope beyond the grave.

Among the blessings of providence, there is none which exceeds the rich love of a sister. He who has been blessed with such, whether he knows it or not, has ever had near him a fountain of sweet thoughts and gentle sympathies, that could have made the darkest day cheerful. Especially has he been blessed, if circumstances have contrived to break him from all other ties of consanguinity, and in joys and sorrows he has witnessed the development of those beautiful principles which enter so largely into the composition of her character, for the development of those principles must have been attended by such love and considerateness on her part, as only served to make them more beautiful, and bring them nearer the attributes of angels.

A sister’s love is disinterested, and therefore invaluable. No one has ever doubted but that the female heart generally is richer in feelings than a man’s; that among our sweetest consolations when earthly ties are sundered, and ‘thick coming fancies’ crowd in upon the brain till it is black with sadness, are placed those alleviations which her tenderness and her solicitude can offer. But yet the love of another than a sister, from the very grounds of such preference and its means of perpetuity, cannot be other than a selfish and mixed passion. It is far more the result of circumstances; these have power to modify it, and they are eternally changing. With a sister there is nothing of this; with her it is the involuntary promptings of nature, and to call such a selfish or mixed passion, is to call truth falsehood. There is no chilling calculation, no selfish wish for a reciprocate sympathy, and a latent purpose within to be ruled by this in the degree of her own affection. She never thinks to ask if there is a chance of the better feelings of her heart’s running to waste; nor can she lean to the side of an overweening prudence, and coolly measure out her love in just proportion to the worth of him to whom she gives it. No! she can do none of these;—on the contrary, the most eminent instances of her warmest devotion are found, where the recipients of it were the least worthy. Cases innumerous might be cited, in which, against difficulties to daunt other than her, her love has seemed to grow purer and more enduring, even as a green and luxuriant vine seems to take newer beauty, as it clambers about a scathed oak or melancholy ruin.

A sister’s love is pure, and therefore invaluable. No truth is more obvious than this, that those who have been favored with the sweet sympathies and affections of a sister, and educated in that unrestrained intercourse so favorable to the development of domestic virtue, possess a softness of character and purity of feeling, to which other men are strangers. I know it has been objected to this, that such a character is effeminate, and altogether unfitted for the sphere to which men are called. Now were the charge of effeminacy admitted, we have yet to learn that true fortitude is not equally the property of gentle as well as rugged natures, and that the manifestation of it in one person more than another, is not traceable altogether to other and opposite causes. But we do not admit it; the characteristic above referred to is not effeminate; it is too sacred not to be a treasure, and it is too beautiful to be an error. It is a spirit like His who stood upon the waves, passing over and stilling the angry waters of human passion; a breath of spring sent upon the world calling the moss and ivy to their high dwellings, and scattering the flowers upon the slopes and in the vallies; a beam of sunshine thrown down from a summer sky, casting into shade the roughness of the landscape, and softening all into beauty. A character matured under the circumstances referred to, need lose nothing of its firmness by the process. On the contrary, the native energies of the mind may expand with greater freedom (for many of those things which usually retard it are removed) and it can ruffle its wings with a wider sweep, and stoop for the quarry with a nobler vision. As for the charge, that our capacities for misery are increased in an increased ratio by that refinement of feeling which is induced by feminine intercourse, we hardly think it worth the refutation. The fact that that French fool, Rousseau, could start a question which involves this, has not succeeded in raising it above contempt; and we shall quit the subject therefore with the simple statement of our own belief, viz.—that Heaven never endowed man with any superfluous faculties, that at every successive stage of moral and mental culture there is more than a proportionate increase of positive happiness, and that it is only when every power of the mind is in requisition and each taxed to its extreme capacity, that the mind approaches its perfection.

A sister’s love is eternal, and therefore invaluable. Much ink has been wasted on the subject, of the power of female affection—for which subject we have the current phrases of ‘dying for love,’ ‘broken hearts,’ ‘Cupid’s achievements,’ and other such classical appellatives. Poets have worn the matter thread-bare, and novelists have picked up the shreds to patch garments for their heroes. One gentleman less scrupulous than another, has dared raise a doubt of the matter, somewhat withholding from the ladies the exclusive privilege of dying thus heroically; another conceiving this a challenge to his gallantry, has most manfully seized the crab-stick and fallen to work pell-mell on the other side. Now amid such a clash of fire arms as this we suppose it behoves us to walk circumspectly, and somewhat question whether the fair bevy of our acquaintance would not cry us heretic, did we call in question this same right, viz., of dying for this or that thing just as suits them without asking leave of judge or jury. But the truth of it is we have a belief on the matter, and sorry are we to say that for lack of something better we feel called upon to divulge it, deprecating however from our souls every intention of making any unpleasant expositions, and professing a love for the truth and nothing but the truth. To begin then;—we boldly make the remark, that many a woman has gone to her grave from ill-requited affection. The man who denies this, has either never mingled in society, or has kept his eyes shut while there, or is a fool. But—and here is the rub—whether the passion which resulted in the breaking of this or that heart was an unmixed one, a thing which of itself destroyed the heart, this I say ‘puzzles the will,’ and is a sad problem for solution. We make the following remarks: any one who looks closely at society, and looks at the little springs which operate on this side and on that to keep the whole machinery in operation, will be wonderfully struck with the great discrepancy betwixt real truths and those admitted as such by the world. He will see that to trace an act to its cause, to find that principle and trace it into generalities, is to frighten him at the artificiality of society and the extreme ignorance of the human race. Effects which he had been accustomed to assign to certain causes as things of course, he finds are traceable altogether to other causes. The strangest phenomena does he meet with; causes producing effects as opposite to their apparent tendencies as possible; causes misnamed effects; effects taken for causes; in short, terms misapplied and jumbled together with most admirable confusion. Now to apply these remarks, we beg leave to add—that men may have made a mistake in reference to the subject in question. For ourselves we have known a case of misplaced affection—a lovely girl, fair as the first star that peeps through the net-work of twilight, and gentle as the bonniest May flower of the season. And yet she died; and when the first burst of a generous indignation had passed off and space was given for reflection, for the life of us we could not make other conclusion, than that the pity of the world and her extreme susceptibility to ridicule were enough of themselves to destroy her. The truth of it is, it is one of the subtlest passions of our nature, yet not the most powerful; and though it gain the same end, first subjecting the other powers to itself and thus breaking down the spirit, it does this rather by its extreme cunning than by any energies of its own. But a sister’s deep faith, what alloy find we here! what sentiment that the pure heart might not offer at the throne of God! This is that star which brightens and brightens as it comes up from the horizon and pours its undimmed beauty upon the world! It is one of those flowers that sometimes spring up by the path-way of life to tell us how bright was the primitive world, and give us a glimpse of the brightness and profusion of the one to come! And the eye brightens, the heart expands, and the soul bounds exultant on its heavenward mission as we gaze upon it, till the veil seems rent in twain, and we think and see and feel our certain immortality!

A circumstance fell under my observation not many years since in a part of the state of New York, with which I shall close these remarks—indeed, it forms not an inappropriate conclusion. It made a great impression on me at the time, and the reader perhaps will thank me for rescuing from oblivion one of those touching incidents in real life which sometimes occur, and cast into shadow the wildest dreams of fiction.

Any one who has visited the little town of P—— in Ulster County, remembers well enough that there’s no way of entering it from the west, save through a long defile cut as it would seem by art through the heart of a mountain, and he also remembers what a scene of beauty is presented as he emerges from the pass and sends his gaze before him. A common of about half a mile square, surrounded by neat and in some instances very elegant dwellings, in the center of which with its neat bow windows and little spire, is the only church of the village. The village has an air of life and business; a stream tumbles off from the hills on the north supplying a large factory on the lower grounds, and from the more elevated parts may the eye catch the bends of the lordly Hudson in the distance, and in clear still mornings may the ‘yo-heave-yo’ of sailors or the clatter of steam boats be faintly heard, as they pass and repass on the river.

It was into this little village that I jogged with a quiet pace one warm afternoon, and began to look around for an inn. It was the heat of summer, and for no less than forty good English miles had myself and horse stumped it since morning, and over as dusty a road withall as one would like to travel on; and my horse seeming to feel his necessities as well as myself began to move a little faster, and by a sort of instinct, point his ears straight towards a large sign board swinging directly over the road, on which was a rampant lion large as life his fiery tongue lolling part way from his mouth, and a sort of dare-devil threat in his eye that he was about to leap down on the passengers. This however was yet a good half a mile off; and as I passed along, the village church-yard lay upon the left. I had come nearly to the end of this, when a light form sprang over the wall, and running up to me seized my horse by the bridle, while it said—

“O, sir, do come—they’ve left him all alone there, and I’ve called to him and sung to him, and he wont hear me—do come, sir, won’t you?”—and it pulled gently by the bit as it spake, and my horse stopped.

I was thunder-struck. The creature before me was a faded girl, and as I should think in the last stages of the consumption. She must have been exceedingly beautiful once, for her form was still symmetry itself, and her features were as regular as if shaped with a chisel. Her face however was very pale. The blue veins were traceable on a forehead of silver by the ridges they made, though almost as white as the skin about them. Her eye-brows were regular as if struck out with a compass, and beneath them her eyes large, dark, and full, flashed as bright and as wild as stars in a wintry night. Her lip was as thin as paper. Her dress lay loose and low, and surely no lovelier neck and bosom (though they were shrunken) ever came into a poet’s vision, than that which rose and sank there painfully rapid as she stood waiting my answer. The hand which still lay on my bridle-bit was so thin and attenuated, that actually the sun shone through it almost as easily as if it were a piece of glass; and her small feet and ankles which were without covering, gave equal evidence of sorrow and abandonment. The only thing about her which still retained all its former beauty, was her hair, long, dark, and silky—that ornament of woman which death cannot destroy—which she still possessed, and in thick masses of luxuriant brown it hung about her with all the grace of a Madonna.

I know not but nature has given me an undue quantum of sensibility, but I was melted to tears by this poor creature before me. I have described her features—these the reader will see; but the whole expression, the thing which cannot be conveyed to paper, that must be imagined. Its wo, its extreme wo; the circumstances too, so near a populous village, and yet alone; the church yard at hand, and the few incoherent words dropped from her lips; these at first came over me with a sort of sickening fear, and I trembled lest the figure before me should, like the witches that met Macbeth on the heath, ‘change into the air.’

Just at that moment a dull dolt of a farmer came along the common, cracking his whip and bellowing most lustily. Seeing me stopped in the road, the girl by my bridle gently pulling it and eyeing me with a beseeching look, he cried out, “Hillo, you Luce! what the d—l are you at there with that gentleman’s bridle? out of the way ye’—using a term I shall not repeat—‘and let me get by, wont ye?” Seeing my cheek burning with an indignation that tempted me to knock the rascal down, he said as he drove by and in a much softer tone, “It’s only Luce Selden, the mad gal—don’t mind her, sir.”

I turned towards her thus designated—poor creature! she had sunk down at my horse’s feet like a young flower which the wind has passed over too roughly, her long hair disheveled in rich masses on the turf, and her hand grasping a few dead flowers she had brought with her. Springing to the ground I lifted her delicate form in my arms, and bearing her to a runnel of water which wimpled near, I cast some of it upon her face and bosom. Slowly opening her eyes she seemed at once to feel my kindness, and wreathing her emaciated arms about my neck, her pent heart poured itself forth into my bosom.

O never tell me of the equal distribution of happiness in this world! Let the mad dreamer preach it if he list to those equally mad, and for his own sad purposes; but let not man, immortal man, man gifted with reason and obedient to the voice in every enlightened one’s soul, herald such a monstrous absurdity! What had this young and faded creature gained—what joy—what blessing—what blissful moments had been hers—what bright dream had she dwelt in—what fond hallucination had enrapt her young being in her few brief days of infancy and childhood, that now just bursting into the pride and prime of woman, such a cloud should come over her fair sky, and with its folds, its thick folds, shut from her gaze every star of hope forever! Dwelt she in a fairy-land—where bright wings glanced hither and thither, touching and retouching its soft airs—its mellow sunsets—its streams and golden fountains with a newer beauty! and had her life like an unshadowed current in Eastern fable, moved on in one unbroken flood of happiness! Had fancy been hers—and imagination—and the dangerous gift of poesy—and the faculty to shape out her own existence unmoved by the realities of life—and her being been lifted up in high revel and communion with the great and good of former days, and the far remote treasures of purer existences! Had such blessings been hers! and in return for them must the wick of the lamp thus early burn to its socket—must society cast this flower from its bosom—must reason lose her dwelling place—and her young life just opening upon her with its flowers, and feelings, and passionate thoughts, and innocent gushes of tenderness, turn out a blank, a dead letter, and at one fell blow be cut off—and she like a useless weed or wreck tossed up by Ocean, be thrown out from her proper sphere—scorned—crushed—slandered—an insulted yet still beautiful thing—a mark for the rabble’s jeers, the clown’s coarse brutality, and the damning pity of a mock-charity close-fisted world! Let her unambitious story give answer.

Luce Selden was a twin child. Her mother died in giving her birth, leaving her and a beautiful boy to their remaining yet now broken hearted father, and a victim to those sad crosses which motherless children must meet with from the very nature of the case—though that father was all in all to them, and though it was his pride to watch over and nourish these beautiful blossoms of a love, as pure as it was imperishable. He had married in New York, and came to P—— while a young man and just starting in life, and by industry and very fine talents had by the time he reached the meridian of life, amassed a splendid fortune. His talents and wealth forced the meed of praise from the rich, and his very uniform disinterested and noble charities won the blessings of the poor, and fortune seemed to have nothing to do but shower down her favors on his head.

But prosperity cannot always last. No! let the prosperous man ever tremble at any long succession of blessings; for it is then that sorrows are nearest, and those sorrows the worst and heaviest. If it is not so in reality—if the reverses which we witness here and there coming upon the rich and the fortunate—if they are not worse than those which overtake other men, they are so at least to all intents and purposes, for the hackneyed adage is a true one despise it who may, ‘prosperity unfits us for adversity.’ The noble scorn with which this or that man learns to look upon a run of ill luck, or the heroism and devotedness of woman, may take a charm when hallowed by the pen of Irving, but they are after all but as the creations of the poet, mere creations having no parallel in real life. That there is philosophy enough in the human soul even this side of stoicism, to enable a man to look unmoved on the changes about him, we do not doubt; but that the philosopher has yet risen who has discovered the treasure, of this we do as unhesitatingly declare a disbelief.

If it is so, Mr. Charles Selden had never learned it, and it was at the demise of his wife that he began to date the commencement of his ill fortunes, which like rising waves seemed heavier and heavier as the shattered bark was less and less able to endure their fury. This was the first blow, the death of his wife—and he bent beneath it. Yet his character seemed to have that elasticity, that springiness in it which recovers itself again; and he once more mingled with men, pursued his profession, and smiled with the same cheerfulness. Yet there were times when his language seemed too light, too rapid, too artificial, so to speak, for a perfectly happy man; and his friends sometimes whispered to their own hearts that all was not as it should be, that there was something wrong within, that that fine and delicate organization, his mind, did not act as formerly; and they sometimes marked a kind of perverse vehemence, which did not tally well with that uniform sound sense and remarkable discrimination which had characterized the efforts of his earlier years. Ah! they guessed well—there was something wrong. There was a fountain in his heart which had been chilled, and which kept bubbling up its cool waters to remind him continually of his wretchedness; and there were moments, when withdrawn from business and the world shut out, he gave himself up to that deadly yet sweet sorrow which sooner or later saps the springs of existence.

Grief should never be alone. It is one of the most selfish of our passions. The man of sorrows should be forced into the world—into the bustle, and roar, and change, and activity of life, where against himself outward and passing events shall catch his eye, and force him off if but for a moment from his wretchedness. It will finally loose the grasp of the disease, and thought by degrees may be turned into other channels, and the heart beat with its accustomed excitation.

But even this did not save the bereaved husband. Perhaps it might had no other ills assailed him; but he had become reckless—had risked much—had entered largely into the excitements and speculations of the day; and every thing working against him, losses succeeding losses, the poor man sank under it and died—a bankrupt.

But the saddest of my story is yet to come.

There are some men in this world from whom nature seems to have withholden the commonest feelings of our race—men who have no humanity about them—men who despise and disclaim every thing like sympathy as troublesome and out of place, and who would as lief dwell in a desert or on an island shut out from the whole world, as any where else—save perhaps that they should not have their fellow creatures to prey on. In short, your cool, calculating, miserly souls, whose feelings all begin in self and end in self, and who can like Judas or Shylock, coolly set off so much suffering and so many ounces of human blood against so much money, with the same callousness that they could barter dog’s flesh.

It was into the hands of such a wretch, a Mr. Saxelby, that these orphan children fell now entering upon their twelfth year, and their privations it may be relied on were proportionate to his wickedness. The little that had been saved from the wreck of their once splendid fortune he contrived to sink by one means and another, and by the time they were sixteen it was formally announced that their means were exhausted, and that master Lyle Selden and his sister—must either work or starve.

It was like a thunder clap. The brother had hoped to study his father’s profession; his talents were commanding, his industry unexampled, and he had proudly looked forward to the moment when he should redeem that father’s lost reputation, and lift his lovely, ah, how lovely sister! into the station which her exceeding beauty seemed so eminently to fit her for, and of which she would become such a witching ornament.

This brother was a marked character. His person was manly, his voice firm, and his countenance the index of a soul that showed plain enough he was not born to be overlooked in the world. He was sensitive and exceedingly proud, yet a nobler heart never knocked against the ribs of mortality. But such a character as this is not calculated to gain friends. He was too open—gave his opinions too freely—and his talents were altogether too commanding and brilliant. Your popular fellows are your middling ones. Lyle Selden was no middling fellow—you would find it out by the first word that fell from him though he were half asleep at the time, and though the subject were as trite as those about which we witness the first volitation of your incipient poetasters. He was an original—a marked man—and his opinions though they might be sneered at, had nevertheless more weight than half the school put together. As he was sensitive so was he often unhappy, and though he met the taunts brought to his ears by his few real friends, with ‘I care not,’ yet he did care—his heart inly bled, and his lonely hours were often embittered. As he was proud, this got him into difficulties; for though it was quite the reverse of vanity and self was the last one he thought of, yet it made his character a complex one which none understood unless he chose to enlighten them, and this save to a few his pride would not descend to. Hence he was thought callous and distant, when in reality his heart was the seat of every gentler feeling; and to those that had skill to look beneath the surface, he was linked by a friendship as unyielding as it was noble. But these were few, and his character is best told in one sentence,—he was respected and disliked.

His sister was an opposite character. She scarcely ever thought for herself, and in person she was rather lovely than beautiful, and had that touching feminineness about her which is rather to be felt than told of. She was too gentle to be independent, one of those rare specimens of loveliness that are shaped by associations, that can be moulded into any thing by the energies of a master mind. In short, she was too trusting, and had a spice of that credulous confidence in her composition, which, if fortune does not try it sorely, makes a woman a perfect nympholepsy and a vision.

Such were these orphan children, and in a world as we well know not famous for its charities. It will be taxing my reader’s patience—who is anxious I see to come to the end of my story—to trace their lives minutely through the two or three following years. Their lot was a hard one. Thrown out of a station to which their birth entitled them, the trials to which they were exposed had the same effect on them as it does upon every body else under similar circumstances, viz. made young Selden suspicious and fretful, soured his temper, and took from him even the little amiableness which the world had ever allowed was in his composition. While his sister, his too gentle sister, like the vine round the tree which supports it and moves with it as that is moved by the forest wind, so she changed with her brother though winning still, for in her any thing like harshness was softened down by a sweetness which nothing could destroy.

What I am now about to lay before the reader, is one of those black passages in the catalogue of human suffering that may well make me shudder as I write, and if the facts are doubted as here laid down, my authority for them shall be given hereafter.

Lyle Selden, despised and trampled on by the world, neglected and contemned by those that had abundant reasons for loving him, opposed by fortune in every shape, and seeing that all his best and most strenuous exertions to win his way availed not, but served only to heap up greater difficulties, committed a forgery, and that too under the signature of his guardian. That he was in a measure justified in taking some means to gain back the fortune stolen from him, may be admitted by all; but the law is not supposed to make any distinction in favor of such circumstances, and its dread sentence now hung over him, with nothing but the selfish griping hand of Saxelby to stay the blow. The event was not yet public, and here only was the last desperate hope of mercy.

The agony of Luce’s mind at this dread climax of suffering, must be imagined, not written. Every means was thought of—every compromise was proffered—every suggestion that a tender and delicate girl almost maddened by the threatening evil could suggest, was resorted to, but they availed not. The hard hand of Saxelby could not yield—his ear could not catch the voice of mercy—his heart responded not to any cry—he must have justice.

Luce was in the prisoner’s dungeon, and worn with watching and grief and suffering, hung clinging to the neck of that brother who had wept and toiled for her so many years. She saw that brother broken down, the high purpose had flagged at last, the spirit had quailed, the spring had broken, and the heart that had beat so true and firm for her was now at her feet, and the storm had beaten it nigh to its death. Was there no hope? Could she do nothing? Was there nothing left for a brain on the brink of madness? No dreadful, desperate, damning resort? Ah! there was—it smote her like lightning—she lingered a moment—rose—clasped her brother—kissed him—and with a wild look burst from the prison.

In a moment she was at the door of Saxelby, in the next at his feet. There she poured out her soul—proffered him all—all that woman values, life, soul, honor—it was accepted.

It broke her brother’s heart.

She became a maniac.

Such is a story of facts, and the half dead creature I held in my arms was that same unfortunate sister. I conveyed her to the inn of the village where I learned that she was a great trouble to the place, and to one or two excellent families who treated her with every affection. They were obliged to confine her. Yet she always baffled them and resorted immediately to her brother’s grave, where she would spend night and day sitting on the turf, and singing some little ditty of former days. I learned also to my eternal indignation, that save these two or three families, the village thought her little better than a wanton—for Saxelby had died, and the facts were known. Oh, cursed, and doubly cursed be this queasy prudery of the world! Cursed be the spirit that casts out the repentant lost one, who craves our forgiveness! Cursed be they who rant so noisily of virtue, and prate of self-government! Tremble, and be merciful!—ye have not been tried.

The story of this girl made an impression on me never to be forgotten, and having so well as I was able made arrangement for her future comforts, I left the village.

I afterwards passed through the place and learned that she was dead. She had continued as formerly to spend her time at the church yard, pulling the flowers from this or that mound to scatter them over her brother, singing her little songs and talking half-reasonable and half-wild to every chance passenger. Thus she continued until late fall, when she was found one cold morning stiff upon his grave—one arm bent beneath her and her lips softly apart, as if the last words that passed them was her brother’s name.

*

TO ********* ******.

I love to watch the twilight sky

When in it glows the star of even,

For then it seems that Love’s own eye

Is looking kindly down from heaven;

But oh, more deeply love I far,

Than twilight sky or evening star,

The soul-reflecting beam to view,

That sweetly lights thine eye of blue.

I love to watch the waving grain

When o’er it floats the summer breeze;

I love to view the rippling plain

When winds are sporting on the seas;

Yet love I more the smile divine

Which flits across that face of thine,

When o’er thy soul doth gently move

The breathing joyousness of love.

I love to read in Eastern lore,

About the goddess-queens of old,

So fair that Nature never more

Could forms of equal beauty mould;

Yet, more than all, I love to know

There is not on this earth below,

Nor in the deep, nor in the air,

A form that can with thine compare.

I love to hear the gentle swell

Of music on the midnight air;

I love to tread the lonely dell—

I love the torrent-music there;

But oh, more charming far to me

Than music’s sweetest notes can be,

Is that confiding, trembling tone,

Which hangs upon thy lips alone.

METRICAL TRANSLATIONS OF A LATIN STANZA.

On the cover of the Magazine is a picture of old Governor Yale, with two lines of Latin poetry beneath it. These lines are part of an inscription sent to the College at an early period by the Governor, and are written beneath an engraving which now hangs in the Trumbull Gallery. The engraving, we understand, was for many years mislaid, and was at last discovered, so much injured that it could scarcely be deciphered. The inscription is as follows:

Effigies clarissimi viri D. D. Elihu Yale,

Londinensis Armigeri.

En vir! cui meritas laudes ob facta, per orbis

Extremos fines, inclyta fama dedit.

Aequor arans tumidum, gazas adduxit ab Indis,

Quas Ille sparsit munificante manu:

Inscitiæ tenebras, ut noctis luce coruscâ

Phoebus, ab occiduis pellit et Ille plagis.

Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque Yalenses

Cantabunt Soboles, unanimique Patres.

Here is a translation in the old Spenserian stanza:

Behold the man whose honored name enrolled

On Fame’s proud tablet ever ought to stand,

For deeds illustrious through the world extolled.

His riches, brought from India’s distant land,

He scattered widely with a liberal hand.

The night of Ignorance from the West he drove

As morning rays the clouds from Ocean’s strand.

While gratitude exists, still with their love

Yale’s generous deeds shall Sons and Sires unite to approve.

Again:

Behold the man to whom praise well deserved

Illustrious fame has given for actions wrought

In Earth’s remotest regions. Wealth, preserved

In India, o’er the boisterous seas he brought,

And lavished wide from hands with bounty fraught.

The shades of Ignorance, as the sun the night

From western climes he drove, by Justice taught.

While gratitude exists Yale’s glory bright,

And spotless name, shall Sires and Sons to praise unite.

We will bid farewell for the present to Spenser, for after all, the intricacies of his stanza are least of all adapted to the mere translator. We will now take the common ten syllable verse, and endeavor to give as accurate a line-for-line and word-for-word translation, as is consistent with the measure.

Behold the man whose deeds illustrious claim

Through Earth’s extremest bounds the meed of fame;

His Indian wealth o’er swelling seas he bore,

Then freely shared it, from this Western shore

To drive the clouds of Ignorance away,

As flies the night at Phœbus’ dawning ray.

Let Sires and Sons, till gratitude shall fail,

Together sing the praise and name of Yale.

Again:

Behold the man whose fame illustrious stands

For deeds performed in Earth’s remotest lands;

Ploughing the deep, from India wealth he bore,

And scattered widely from a bounteous store;

The clouds of Ignorance he banished far,

As flies the night before the morning star.

While grateful hearts remain, the name of Yale

Let Sons and Sires with praises join to hail.

There is a difference in the translation of a part of the first two verses in these two stanzas;