CHAPTER LXXXV.-MISCELLANEOUS.

Three Days.

I. Yesterday.

What shall I haste to lay upon thy bier,
O Yesterday! thou day forever dead?

With what strange garlands shall I crown thy head, Thou silent One? For rose and rue are near

That thou thyself didst bring me; heart's-ease clear,
And dark in purple opulence, that shed

Rare odors round; wormwood and herbs that fed
My soul with bitterness,-they all are here.
When to the banquet I was called by thee,

Thou gavest me rags and royal robes to wear:
Honey and alocs mingled in the cup
Of costly wine that thou didst pour for me:

Thy throne, thy footstool, thou didst bid me share,
On crusts and heavenly manna bid me sup.

II.-To-Day.

Thou art no dreamer, O thou stern To-Day!
The dead past had its dreams: the real is thine.
An armored knight in panoply divine,

It is not thine to loiter by the way,

Though all the meads with summer flowers be gay,
Though birds sing for thee, and though fair stars shine,
And every god pours for thee life's best wine:
Nor friend nor foe had strength to bid thee stay.
Gleaming beneath thy brows with smouldering fire,
Thine eyes look out upon the eternal hills

As forth thou ridest with thy spear in rest.
From the far heights a voice cries, "Come up higher!"
And in swift answer all thy being thrills,

When, lo! night falls, thy sun is in the west.

III.-To-Morrow.

But thou, To-Morrow! Never yet was born
In earth's dull atmosphere a thing so fair,—
Never yet tripped, with footsteps light as air,
So glad a vision o'er the hills of morn.
Fresh as the radiant dawning, all unworn

By lightest touch of sorrow or of care,
Thou dost the glory of the morning share,
By snowy wings of hope and faith upborne.
O fair To-Morrow! what our souls have missed
Art thou not keeping for us somewhere still?—
The buds of promise that have never blown;
The tender lips that we have never kissed;
The song whose high, sweet strain eludes our skill;
The one white pearl that life hath never known!
Julia C. R. Dorr.

The foregoing is an allegorical representation of Life, under the personification of the dead Yesterday, the living present To-Day, and the hoped-for To-Morrow.

I. Meaning of the metaphor "my bier"?-What hidden meaning is embraced in the metaphorical allusions to “ rose and rue," heart'scase, ," "wormwood," " honey and aloes"? Point out the promises of Yesterday, as compared with their scanty fulfilment, and the antitheses employed.

II. Explain the antithesis embraced in the first two lines. The metaphor in the third line,-and its continuation. Meaning of the metaphor "life's best wine"? Why riding forth "with thy spear in rest"? Meaning embraced in "a voice cries, 'Come up higher! Meaning of the metaphor "night falls," etc.?

III. Meaning hidden under the metaphors "a thing so fair,"footsteps light as air,"-" buds of promise," etc.?

CHAPTER LXXXVI.-CHARLES DICKENS.-1812-1870.

I.-Biographical.

1. This most popular writer of fiction was born at Portsmouth, England, and was brought up by his father to be a Parliamentary reporter. While thus engaged, in the pay of the Morning Chronicle, young Dickens began writing Sketches of Life and Character under the name "Boz." The great popularity of these sketches led a London. publisher to engage Mr. Dickens to write a humorous. book concerning cockney sportsmen. Such was the origin of the Pickwick Papers. Mr. Dickens's work disclosed a talent for a mirthful and benevolent humor, which was welcomed with avidity by the public, and these early writings were speedily followed by Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Master Humphrey's Clock, and Barnaby Rudge.

2. Mr. Dickens's earlier works, including such novels as Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, and Bleak House, are full of incident, animation, and pathos. His later works, like Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual Friend, evince more of the mechanism and verbal prolixity of the professional author. Mr. Dickens twice visited America,--once in 1842, and again in the year before his death. The rather excessive hospitality lavished upon him during his first visit he requited, immediately on his return to England, by the publication of his American Notes, in which our peculiarities were handled with grotesque exaggeration. To the resentment manifested by a hypersensitive people, Dickens replied with the story of Martin Chuzzlewit, in which Mark Tapley, whose scheme of life it is to be jolly under difficulties, finds in America not one circumstance or condition to lower the buoyancy of his heart. On his second visit to America Mr. Dickens came with a mellower and kindlier disposition, to be received by a more self-reliant

people, with the esteem and attention that his talents deserved.

3. In addition to book-making, Mr. Dickens edited a weekly periodical entitled Household Words, and was the founder of a newspaper called The Daily News. He also published stories under the captions of Christmas Tales, The Chimes, and The Christmas Carol, and A Child's History of England. In his novels Mr. Dickens worked a new vein of life in a new spirit. His characters are not people of fashion, nor statesmen, nor men of rank; they are the odd people of humble birth and narrow social circles. In his hands their oddities grow whimsical and ludicrous, but he can scarcely be called a satirist, although he has drawn odious caricatures of wicked persons. The motive of his writings is to teach human sympathy with the obscure and the suffering. He assailed institutions like the Workhouse, the Private Country School, the Chancery Court, and the Prisons, with a view to the reformation of their abuses. He portrayed no professedly religious character in attractive form, and for this his works have been unfavorably criticised; but his heroes and heroines seem to be good by natural endowment, and his knaves are such by environment.

4. Mr. Dickens's sympathy with childhood is overflowing and beautiful. The account of the death of little Nell, found in that division of Master Humphrey's Clock entitled "The Old Curiosity Shop," is the most pathetic and touching of the author's serious passages; and it is said that not without tears did he pen the description. Little Nell is represented in the novel as the constant attendant of her grandfather, an affectionate old man, whose passion for gambling grows stronger as he approaches the grave. "She glides like a sunbeam of grace through many a troubled scene; but the burden of life is too heavy for her delicate spirit, and she thus gently lays it down."

II.-The Death of Little Nell.

1. She was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at The solemn stillness was no marvel now. No sleep

rest.

so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived, and suffered death. Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. "When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always." These were her words.

2. She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bird-a poor, slight thing, which the pressure of a finger would have crushed-was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless forever. Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings and fatigues? All gone. Sorrow was dead, indeed, in her; but peace and perfect happiness were born, imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose.

3. And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. Yes; the old fireside had smiled on that same sweet face which had passed like a dream through haunts of misery and care. At the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon the cold, wet night, at the still bedside of the dying boy, there had been the same mild, lovely look. So shall we know the angels, in their majesty, after death.

4. The old man held one languid arm in his, and kept the small hand tight folded to his breast, for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smilethe hand that had led him on through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now; and, as he said it, he looked in agony to those who stood around, as if imploring them to help her.