THE
YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.

CONDUCTED
BY THE
STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE.

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

NO. VI.

AUGUST, 1836.

NEW HAVEN:
HERRICK & NOYES.

MDCCCXXXVI.

Contents.

THE
YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.

TURKEY AND GREECE.

“There is a connection [verbindung] among men, in which no one can work for himself without working for others.”—Fichte.

“The tie of mutual influence passes without a break from hand to hand, throughout the human family. There is no independence, no insulation, in the lot of man.”—Natural History of Enthusiasm.

There is a tendency to regard the commotions of society, which have taken place of late years, as the results of modern diplomacy, or of notions concerning human rights, which have received birth and risen to their present vigor within the last fifty years. Hence, it is argued, there is a liability to reaction. The bright lights may go out, and despotism triumph in the moral and political degeneracy. Yet this view of the matter is very superficial. It is regarding the trunk as the origin of the tree, overlooking the seed and the root. The truth is, the principles now developing have their origin with society. For, all sound political principles have a common foundation—the rights of man. His selfishness, especially his thirst for sway, aided by ignorance, has kept through force and fraud the true principles of human government from being understood and adopted. Still the ancient kingdoms, the world-empires and all, though now in their tombs, left inscriptions on their head-stones of diamond worth to the science of government. They are beacon-lights for the modern statesman. Their wisdom and their folly, both aid him to discover the true rules for human government, which have been buried up and concealed by folly and passion since the days of the Patriarchs, from whom all civil authority had its rise. Added to this light of experience, collected by by-gone nations, are other influences of a physical nature. The application of the magnet to purposes of navigation, was one of those master thoughts, which, from its vast importance, we are almost tempted to regard as an idea of directly divine origin. The influence of this on the whole family of man, can be best estimated by suffering one’s self to think what the state of the world would of necessity be, were it entirely unknown. Again, the application of steam to machinery, is not only changing the aspect of things in the New World and Europe, but this invention was a positive act for the moral and physical renovation of Asia and Africa—an act of such power as must hasten their new birth by centuries. British steamers are already on their way to explore the Niger. It is the operation and display of this vast physical force, which is to be a great means of starting into action the stagnated mind of this part of our race. These discoveries, it will readily be allowed, can never cease to operate. Entwined with political experience, they stand firm barriers to any relapse in the general well being of the human family; while, year after year, to these and others, which cannot be mentioned in the limits of a single article, are added the discoveries of physical and political science, as they occur, until their increasing light reveals to the common eye, one and another, and another, of the rights of man, which designing men, “tyrants, or tyrants’ slaves,” have striven to conceal. Almost every nation of the earth has had some of its dark places pierced by these accumulating rays. Despotic powers have been forced to yield up some part of the prerogatives of the crown, or to surround them with stronger guards. Constitutional governments have been compelled to adopt measures of reform, and to pursue a course of policy more uniformly liberal.

Amid these commotions, no nations have more attracted the attention of all classes, than Turkey and Greece. The politician has watched with no little anxiety the rapid dismemberment of that power, which has so long stood the great barrier between the East and West. The scholar has felt a new hope that the mother-land of mental light may be herself again. While the Christian is assured that the Almighty is thus shaking the nations for the accomplishment of his own high ends. He is but making straight the path of his servants.

The history of the Turks is remarkable and instructive—in the sudden rise of their empire—in its long continuance—and precipitate fall. The wild region of Mount Taurus and Imaus was their cradle. At once the most barbarous, the rudest, and the most enterprising of all the Saracen tribes, they penetrated to the banks of the Caspian Sea, and serving as mercenaries under the Caliphs, acquired great reputation for military prowess, and soon subjugated the contending Caliphats to their own sway. Palestine, with its capital Jerusalem, fell into their hands. Near the middle of the fourteenth century, they crossed into Europe, and possessed themselves of Adrianople. In a few years subsequent to this event, the city of Constantine, to adorn which he had lavished the treasures of his realm, was doomed to see their triumphant banner floating above her walls. Epirus soon suffered the fate of Constantinople; and the land of the orator and philosopher, which built a bulwark against Xerxes, received their chains. They marched victorious even to the walls of Vienna; but were finally driven back as far as Greece. European arms could avail no farther. In other directions this remarkable people were uniformly successful; until, in the sixteenth century, the Sultan was lord of thirty kingdoms, containing not less than eight thousand leagues of sea coast, and some of the fairest portions of the world. Not only those regions which have been rendered famous as the homes of the great masters of sculpture, song and philosophy, but the land of the Patriarchs, where were exhibited the thrilling scenes of the accomplishment of the covenant of God with man—Baghdad, the court of the science-loving Caliphs—Egypt—and the countries of Asia Minor, whose luxuriance not even Turkish thraldom and indolence has sufficed to destroy.

But this great empire was in itself radically defective. The government depended on extortion for its revenue—on physical force or a degrading imposture for obedience; neither of which, whatever may have been the case in other days, could be safely trusted, in the light which is breaking over the human family, and over the Turks as a part of it. The present Sultan found himself in the dilemma between reform on the one hand, in accomplishing which his throne, and perhaps his life would be jeopardized, and certain destruction on the other. In choosing the least of these evils, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, were severed from his empire. Mahomet Ali would have attacked him in his capital, but for the interposition of the Tzar, who was fearful of losing a prize which has ever been the object of Muscovite ambition, the throne of Constantine. But while the black Eagle of Russia spread his wings as a shelter for the Turk, he coolly seized in his talons the keys of the Dardanelles; thus rendering any further interposition on the part of England, who has so often balked the Tzar in his darling project, entirely futile. Since which event, the fall of Turkey has been pronounced as certain by all. What is to be its precise effect on the politics of Europe, is a question which only a Talleyrand or a Metternich could answer with any probability of truth. Yet the foregoing remarks exhibit facts from which consequences of high importance must follow.

They exhibit the empire of the Ottomans as once occupying a proud station among the greater powers—as forming a boundary and preserving a balance between the East and West—as a firm check on Muscovite ambition—and as, from her consequence, possessing great weight in the councils of nations; and it is apparent that she cannot fall without important political consequences.

They exhibit her with a religion, which has ever been a bane to all nobler sentiments or aspirations of the soul, brooding like night over some of the fairest portions of the earth, blasting by the baleful influence of her institutions the legitimate effect, both on mind and body, of her naturally fair plains, rich vallies, and brilliant skies, which, in other times, produced models for an Apollo Belvidere and a Venus de Medici, and nourished men who were masters of the earth and of mind; and it is evident that she cannot fall without important consequences to the beaux Arts and Literature.

They exhibit her, as the main support and promoter of the debasing, sensual tenets of Mahomet, in countries where the Apostles, and even Christ, toiled and suffered. They exhibit her, as the systematic opposer of the message of the Prince of Peace, to her distracted provinces—the only balm for their wounds—the only physician for their souls; and the effect of her fall on the highest of interests cannot be unimportant.

What then is to be the influence of the prostration of the Ottoman sway in these cradles of early knowledge, upon literature, science, and the beaux arts?

Winklemann, in his history of sculpture, assigns as a principal reason of the superiority of the Greeks in that sublime art over other nations, the circumstance of their inhabiting a land so surpassingly endowed by nature; and with much truth. Their bodies, neither chilled nor contracted by the long winters of the north, nor softened into lassitude and effeminacy by the tropical sun, but continually moving and breathing in the purest air, under the mildest and most brilliant of skies, whose loveliness was constantly exciting in the mind the most agreeable trains of thought, attained, in their fair proportions, to a harmonious keeping with the beauty around.

Close observation must convince every candid mind, that there is some truth in the grand outlines of Phrenology. Forms such as aided in the conception of those master pieces of ancient statuary, were never, and never will be, inhabited by inferior or grovelling spirits. Vitiated they may be by extraneous circumstances. Their noble faculties may be turned to unworthy purposes. Corrupted by long intercourse with the morally debased, they may, like the modern Greek, suffer the imputation of being worse than their examples. But this is the proof of the position. They are bad, but like Lucifer they are greatly so.

How long is this to be the case with Greece? Emphatically no longer. Already by the aid of the missionary and foreign science, she is realizing the fable of the renascent phenix; already are those whose beauty of person long years of servitude have been unable to destroy, renewing the moral beauty of the spirit within; already are they turning those powers which made them remarkable in depravity to their proper channels. And he, whose love for the human family, or reverence for the classic scenes of Greece, has led him to peruse the late accounts from thence: if he has observed the avidity with which they seek instruction, when they once taste of its sweets: if he has noticed their teachable spirit, rapid improvement, exhibitions of ingenuity and taste: his bosom has exulted in the sober certainty that Greece will be herself again. But why has this fair morn at last dawned over this singularly illustrious land? The answer is plain. Mahometan despotism and ignorance no longer hold sway within her borders. If this be so, what is to be the effect of the removal of Turkish intolerance and misrule, and the establishment of an enlightened and responsible government over the shores of the Levant, in the same parallels of latitude? Are the fields of Anatolia less rich than those of Greece, or her harbors less promising for commerce? or are the Greeks, scattered through those regions, who at least double the number of those in their father-land, less capable of moral improvement? Is the conclusion drawn from unfair premises, that the day of the deliverance of this country is near—that the angel of knowledge will again spread his wings over Anatolia, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, her ancient home? The conclusion is not, can not be false. The same physical influences operate now as in days of old, though the misrule of man may have marred their effects. The same high cast of mind is there which won immortality for their fathers: and why may not spring up in those regions, under a wiser government, and a purer religion, a people, in arts and science even superior to the ancients? Why may there not arise, under the auspices of virtue and wisdom, new models for a Venus or an Apollo? Why may not the Parian marble there rise into temples of as fair proportions as that of Olympus or of Minerva, reared for nobler purposes, dedicated to a far higher and holier worship?

The influence of the subversion of the greatest rival of the Christian church, is a subject replete with interest. When the mere politician, unswayed by the fond hope which might influence the Christian’s decision, publishes to the world as certain the prostration of Turkey—when the disciple of Jesus may at length point the startled infidel to the tottering fabric of Mahometanism, which he has impiously dared to name as co-enduring and co-equal with the pure Christian faith, and bid him look on, as column after column is torn away from the crumbling structure, as Immanuel is triumphing where Mahomet ruled—when the finger of the Almighty is writing as palpably the sentence of this unparalleled imposture as when it traced on the wall the doom of Babylon—what heart does not glow with deeper gratitude, overflow with more fervent thanksgivings, and pray with strengthened faith?

The time is to be when “nations shall be born in a day:” and from the ardent character of the east, it seems not improbable that it is to be witness of this latter as it was of the former triumphing of the cross.

It is an especial appointment of providence, that nations more advanced in civilization must necessarily labor for the improvement of those which are less so. So the East once labored for the West. Now the nations of the west, with their Institutions of Learning—their Presses—their Forges—their Dock Yards—working together for the perfection of human knowledge, and for facilitating its diffusion—pour light of constantly increasing brightness over the East. Still greater commotions must soon follow in these early inhabited regions. Their renovation must advance rapidly and steadily. There may and doubtless will be times of apparent retrogradation, but it will be like the flood-tide waves, which roll back from the shore only to mount still higher on their return. It may be said that these things are uncertain, because they are future; but it is not necessarily so. The diffusion of sound political principles, and the rising of the Sun of Righteousness over these nations, seem as clearly heralded by these events, as is the coming of the material sun when morning is breaking in the east, the night-damps leaving the earth, the clouds decking themselves in gold and purple, and all nature waking for the duties of a new day.

THOUGHTS ON THE DEATH OF AN AGED FRIEND.

I stood beside his death-bed, and a smile,

Like the last glance of the departing sun,

Played on his features; life was ebbing fast,

And death was creeping o’er him stealthily—

And yet he smiled, as the last hour came on.

We gathered round him, and his eye grew dim,

And his voice faltered, and the shortening breath

Came through his parted lips convulsively—

The last faint accents of a murmured prayer:

And then we turned us from his couch, and wept

That the dear ties were severed, which had bound

Our hearts in kindred intercourse:—We grieved

That he whom we had loved so tenderly,

Should pass away with the forgotten dead.

Oh, there is something saddening in the thought

Of death, whene’er it comes. To stand beside

The death-bed of a dear and cherished one;

To mark the tristful pangs, the hopes and fears,

To see the perishing form of loveliness,

And hear the last fond parting word—farewell!

And then to gaze upon the lifeless form,

To part the damp locks from the marble brow,

And wipe the death-dews which have gather’d there;

To lay the sleeper in his narrow house,

And leave him with the cold and listless dead,—

Oh, it is saddening!—and the tide of tears—

The warm, warm tears, that gush from feeling hearts—

Oh, they are holy!—And there is a bliss,

When the heart swells with anguish, and when grief

Chokes up the spirit in its agony—

Oh, there is something—and ’tis like the dew

Which evening sheds upon the summer flower,

And weighs it down, until it bows itself,

And pours the bright drops from its secret cell.

Oh, holy is the fountain of those tears,

And pure their gushing.  ’Tis a holy thing

To weep at such an hour.  ’Tis manliness

To yield the heart to feeling, and to loose

The shackles that so cramp its energies,

And bind it down to the unfeeling world.

Yet why thus mourn for those who die, when age

Has made existence but a weariness?

Why grieve that they should cast aside the coil

That binds them to the earth and wretchedness?

We do not weep at Autumn; when the leaves

Lie in the valleys—mortals never weep

When the tree casts its fruitage, or when flowers,

Blooming through the mild months, all fade away

In their appointed season: Then why weep

For those whose years have passed the destined bourne

Of man’s existence.—Rather let us weep

For the young flower that blossometh and dies,

Ere it hath seen the noon-day. Rather mourn

For those, the sweet and beautiful of earth,

Who die in youth’s bright morning.

Tears for the flowers, and the young buds of hope,

That wreathe Death’s altar:—let us weep for them.

But let us dash away the sorrowing tear,

That falls upon the aged sleeper’s grave;

And joy that he has left this sinful world,

And sought a purer and a happier sphere,

Where sorrow never comes, and where no care

Blanches the cheek, and makes the spirit sad;

Where sin hath never entered, to pollute

The perfect sense of happiness; where all

The great and good of earth for ever dwell,

In the soft sun-shine of Eternal youth.

H.

“THE OMNIBUS.”[1]

[1] An “Omnibus” (this explanation is one of pure politeness on our part, and for the sake of the uninitiated) is a substitute for an Album; in which, any thing, every thing, and nothing, are quartered heterogeneously, and made good friends—supposing all this time that the thing be kept within the pale of proprieties. They are with, or without covers—written in black or red ink—up or down—crossways or otherwise, just as it happens. They were first got up by a certain coterie of ladies, who had sense enough to see that “Albums” are very sentimental and very ridiculous, owing to the extreme nicety with which a man must scribble for them; and that by introducing a little more latitude in this respect, the evil might in a measure be remedied. The result, ’tis thought, has shown their wisdom.

I.

“Come, write in my ‘Omnibus,’” said a sweet girl to me, with an eye that made one’s heart bump, and a lip that made him dream dreams. I looked into that eye, and at that lip—they almost unmanned me, yet I shook my head.

She looked imploringly.

“Can’t,” stammered I at last, though it choked me to say so.

“Pray do,” and she laid her soft white hand on mine. Heavens and Earth! how the touch of that little hand thrilled through me—burnt along my arm—then down into my heart. Yet I remembered my resolution—I made it the day before—I swore by my happiness I’d never touch pen again. Still, there lay that hand—the long tapering fingers—I counted them one way, then t’other—how pretty they looked! I tried to look away—I looked at the four corners of heaven—some how or other, my eyes came right back again. Then I felt a soft pressure, those fingers contracted, they clasped—it was all over with me—the grasp of Hercules were nothing to it.

The first thing I did was to kiss them—the next, find my senses. She blushed, I fidgeted.

“Think out something”—the sound was like a brook in summer.

So I thought, and thought, and thought—

Thought I was by the ocean. Every body has stood by the ocean. Every body loves the ocean. They love it because ’tis beautiful. They love it because ’tis terrible. Who that could ever tell his passions, as he has seen the giant rouse himself—the black sky split by the thunder-bolt, and so brazen and fiery that it seemed crisping, and “about to roll away with a great noise”—the driving wind—the bellowing thunder—the crashing deck—the rattling cordage—the death shriek of the sea-shipped wretch as the wave went over him—the horror-like eye’s last glance upon you! But I don’t mean such an ocean. It wasn’t such an one that I was standing by. It was a pretty considerable, magnificent, almighty, great sheet of water as far as the eye went, with a sky above that made one’s heart leap to look at it—its depth of blue seeming to stretch away and away, field after field, without a mist or cloud in it to mar its beauty—one unbounded, unshadowed sweep of glory and magnificence. The winds, soft and balmy, went whirling and whimpering along its surface, curling and crinkling it into small white waves, that, racing and capering up the beach, sparkled and turned into bubbles, and were caught up by the sun beams. Here and there the waters break. The huge porpoise went plunging, and sousing, and weltering along his blue path, flapping his huge tail into the air, and grunting his happiness—the bright light refracted from his surface, came to the eye like a rainbow. Here and there the flying fish slipped from his element, and went careering away over the far waters, till with a light dash or slap, his white wings dipped again into the ocean. The distance had one sail, a single one, right on the horizon’s edge—type, methought, of a being shut from the world—a human heart cut loose from sympathy—on the black desert of man’s pilgrimage. Such was the scene. I felt it. I rose, and stood, and shouted, and—

II.

Thought I was down in the ocean—right on the bottom. Whew! what a place it was!—saw all sorts of things, living and dead—all colors, good and bad—all shapes, hateful and fascinating. Here I wandered through endless groves of coral. Aloft went the light shafts tapering away into the blue distance, then branching forth into a glorious canopy, through which came the broken light with a mellowed beauty, not unlike the sun’s beams through a polished fresco-worken slab of alabaster. The waves swung backwards and forwards through this submarine forest, and their rush made the tall shafts quiver like aspen boughs in the tempest wind; and the light coral twigs, here and there detached by the waters, fell thick and fast like star showers in wintry nights. Nor should I forget the sounds of those waters as they tossed up the shells which were scattered there, and witched from them a music, that tripped and tilted through the brain, like Mab and her melodies in moonlight vision. It changed! I was in a desert! Rocks and barren surfaces above, beneath, around me! Wild cliffs—rent fastnesses—deep chasms—yawning and gaping like the cleft jaws of Hell! They had wrecks, and ruins, and dead men, and skeletons, and skulls in them. Here were fragments of those mighty tenements, that once rode in triumph on the wave’s surface. There were those black engines, wont to belch forth “their devilish glut,” and flame, and thunder. Here were skeletons—some hugging in mortal conflict. They were grappled together, as when death overtook them—their jaws yet apart, as the last curse dwelt on them, the moment the bolt came. There were friends too, parent and child, husband and wife, lover and maiden—laid as they died, locked heart to heart, each on the other’s breast, the two a unity. I sickened, shuddered, gasped—

III.

Thought I was in a forest—a bright, a green, a glorious forest. My heart ached, and I had turned from the heated world and its miseries, and where the lofty branches had intertwined and woven a pleasant twilight dwelling place, I sat me down to meditate. Then I scribbled and scribbled—and thus, I scribbled—

This is indeed a sacred solitude,

And beautiful as sacred. Here no sound

Save such as breathes a soft tranquillity,

Falls on the ear; and all around, the eye

Meets nought but hath a moral. These deep shades—

With here and there an upright trunk of ash

Or beech or nut, whose branches interlaced

O’ercanopy us, and, shutting out the day,

A twilight make—they press upon the heart

With force amazing and unutterable.

These trunks enormous, from the mountain side

Ripp’d roots and all by whirlwinds—those vast pines

Athwart the ravine’s melancholy gloom

Transversely cast—these monarchs of the wood,

Dark, gnarl’d, centennial oaks that throw their arms

So proudly up—those monstrous ribs of rock

That, shiver’d by the thunder-stroke, and hurl’d

From yonder cliff, their bed for centuries,

Here crush’d and wedged—all by their massiveness

And silent strength, impress us with a sense

Of Deity. And here are wanted not

More delicate forms of beauty. Numerous tribes

Of natural flowers do blossom in these shades,

Meet for the scene alone. At ev’ry step,

Some beauteous combination of soft hues,

Less brilliant though than those which deck the fields,

The eye attracts. Mosses of softest green,

Creep round the trunks of the decayed trees;

And mosses, hueless as the mountain snow,

Inlay the turf. Here, softly peeping forth,

The eye detects the little violet

Such as the city boasts—of paler hue,

But fragrant more. The simple forest flower,

And that pale gem the wind flower, falsely named,

Here greet the cautious search—less beautiful

Than poets feign, though lovely to the eye.

These with their modest forms so delicate,

And breath of perfume, send th’ unwilling heart

And all its aspirations, to the source

Of Life and Light. Nor woodland sounds are wanting,

Such as the mind to that soft melancholy

The poet feels, lull soothingly. The winds

Are playing with the forest tops in glee,

And music make. Sweet rivulets

Slip here and there from out the crevices

Of rifled rocks, and, welling ’mid the roots

Of prostrate trees or blocks transversely east,

Form jets of driven snow. Soft symphonies

Of birds unseen, on ev’ry side swell out,

As if the spirit of the wood complain’d

Harmonious, and most prodigal of sound;

And these can woo the spirit with such power,

And tune it to a mood so exquisite—

That the enthusiast heart forgets the world,

Its strifes, and follies—and seeks only here

To satisfy its thirst for happiness.

IV.

Thought I was on an island—the brightest thing ever dancing in a poet’s vision, a perfect Eden-spot, an Elysium—

Ye of the pure heart, come to me!

List to a tale of Poesy;

List—for, for it, ye may better be—

So scorn not the minstrel’s minstrelsy.

Ye with a brow like the broken wave’s drift,

With an eye whose light is the first star of even,

When it streameth afar through the sky’s red rift,

The only and loveliest thing in heaven;—

Ye with a cheek like the marble fair,

Ye with a lip like the bright summer dew,

Ye with a softness and loveliness there

That Fancy never drew;—

Whose hands and whose hearts have been ever lent,

As spirits of mercy from Heaven sent:—

Ye have the pure heart—come to me!

List to a tale of poesy;

Give me your ear—give me your smile—

List to the lay of ‘The happy Isle.’

That Isle—so beautiful to view!

No poet’s fancy ever drew;

He had not dreamed of such a thing,

With all the beauty he could bring.

It lay upon the open sea,

It lay beneath the stars and sun—

A thing, too beautiful to be,

A jewel, cast that sea upon.

The winds came upward to the beach—

The waves came rolling up the sand—

Then backward with a gentle reach,

Now forward to the land,

Sparkling and beautiful—tossing there,

Then vanishing into the air.

The winds came upward to the beach—

The waves came upward in a curl—

Then far along the shore’s slope reach,

There ran a line of pearl.

And shells were there of every hue—

From snowy white, to burning gold—

The jasper, and the Tyrian blue—

The sardonyx and emerald;

And o’er them as the soft winds crept,

A melody from each was swept—

For melody within each slept,

Harmoniously blended;

And never, till the winds gave out,

And ceased the surf its tiny shout,

That melody was ended:

Morn, noon, and eve, was heard to be,

The music of those shells and sea.

The winds went upward from the deep—

The winds went up across the sand—

And never did the sea winds sweep

Over a lovelier land.

The northern seas, the southern shores,

The eastern, and the western isles,

Had rifled all their sweets and stores,

To deck this lovely place with smiles:

And mounts were here, and tipp’d with green,

And kindled by the glowing sun;

And vales were here, and stretch’d between,

Where waters frolic’d in their fun:

And goats were feeding in the light,

And birds were in the green-wood halls;

And, echoing o’er each hilly height,

Was heard the dash of waterfalls:

O! all was beauty, bliss, and sound;

A Sabbath sweetness reigned around;

All was delight—for every thing

Was robed in loveliness and spring—

Color, and fragrance, fruit, and flower,

Were here within this Island bower.

But purer, sweeter, brighter far—

Brighter than Even’s earliest star,

Was she, the spirit of the place,

The mortal with an angel’s face.

A form of youthful innocence,

With love, and grace, and beauty rife—

As erst, from ocean’s tossing foam,

Fair Venus sparkled into life.

Around her pale and placid brow,

By long and auburn ringlets hid,

A radiant flame ran circling,

And o’er her face a lustre shed.

Her eye, so full—a spirit nursed,

So blue—it seem’d a part of heaven,

So light—it was the sudden burst

Of meteors mid the stars of even.

A robe of azure pale she wore,

Her matchless symmetry concealing;

Save where her bodice oped before,

Her soft and snowy breast revealing.

And in her hand (her arms were free)

She bore a reed from ocean’s side;

Her feet were bare— * * *

* * * * * * *

V.

Thought I was in love. Heavens! what a creature she was! Her form was like a fairy’s; and her face, about which the flaxen ringlets fell long, and soft, and silky, was at once so arch and sweet, it witched the very soul out of me before I knew it. Her picture is before me.—Her head like Juno’s, when she walked before the Olympic Thunderer, and yet a woman’s; her brow, high, and white, and pure; eyes of heaven’s own coloring, and bright, and ustrous, and large, and full, in whose crystalline depths slept a soul such as—as—you must guess at, reader, I can’t think of a comparison; a cheek, the eloquent beauty of which melted away so gradually into the pure transparency of her temples, that the eye lost it, and was wandering away, up, and around them, before it became aware of its own vagaries; and her mouth—Heavens and Earth! it was altogether and absolutely, the sweetest, prettiest, pouting, come-kiss-me, little mouth, I ever looked at; and her voice—her voice—how clear and musical—there was nothing like her clear, happy laugh—it rung like an instrument—like the silvery bell in the Faery Tale; and when she prettily bade me sit at her feet, and look up into her clear bright eyes—pooh! I might as well have attempted to knock Destiny on the head at once, and steer the boat of life myself, as keep from doing her bidding; and her form, robed as she was in her white cymar, with a single rose in her hair—the neck—the full bust—the rounded arm—the graceful curvature and wavy sweep of her folded dress, as it swelled from her glittering zone and fell to her feet—dear me! dear me—I—but this will do for a description.

Her name was Fan.

One beautiful twilight—I shan’t forget it soon—one twilight, as the sun went, and right over his glorious resting place, the clouds of evening, like an enormous sweep of woven chrysolite, hung pinned by a single star to the blue wall of heaven—I sat and gazed at that star, then into her eyes; now into her eyes, and then at that star again; and—I grew silly.

Says I, “Fan!”

Says she, “Frank!”

“You are very pretty,” says Frank.

“You are very impudent,” says Fan.

She shook her head at me, and drew her mouth into the queerest pucker imaginable.

“Fanny,” said I seriously.

She sobered.

Some how or other, I got hold of her hand—’twas a pretty hand! I kissed it.

“Don’t be silly;” and she gave me a cuff that made me see stars.

“Fanny, I”—

She looked softly at me.

“Dearest Fanny, I”—

She pouted.

“I—I”—

She blushed.

“I—love you.”

She sprang into my arms.

Bending back her head, and shaking her long locks from her pretty brow, our lips—

Hillo! reader, you are not getting sentimental, are you? Don’t now; for I’ve no sympathy with you—no more sentiment than a horse.

But stop; here’s a bit, and written when things were tremendous. Ecce signum!

O Fanny, sweet Fanny,

I cannot tell why,

But I live in the glance

Of thy witching blue eye—

In the light of the spirit

And loveliness there: