But even while he spoke, Daffydowndilly's eyes fell upon a person who seemed the laziest, and heaviest, and most torpid, of all those lazy, and heavy, and torpid people, who had laid down to sleep in the shade. Who should it be again but the very image of Mr. Toil! "There is a large family of these Toils," remarked the stranger. "This is another of the old schoolmaster's brothers, who was bred in Italy, where he acquired very idle habits, and goes by the name of Signor Far Niente. He pretends to lead an easy life, but is really the most miserable fellow in the family." "O, take me back-take me back!" cried poor little Daffydowndilly, bursting into tears. "If there is nothing but Toil all the world over, I may just as well go back to the school-house!" "Yonder it is, there is the school-house!" said the stranger; for though he and little Daffydowndilly had taken a great many steps, they had travelled in a circle instead of a straight line. "Come, we will go back to school together." There was something in his companion's voice that little Daffydowndilly now remembered; and it is strange that he had not remembered it sooner. Looking up into his face, behold there again was the likeness of old Mr. Toil; so that the poor child had been in company with Toil all day, even while he was doing his best to run away from him. Some people, to whom I have told little Daffydowndilly's story, are of opinion that old Mr. Toil was a magician, and possessed the power of multiplying himself into as many shapes as he saw fit. Be this as it may, little Daffydowndilly had learned a good lesson, and from that time forward was diligent at his task, because he knew that diligence is not a whit more toilsome than sport or idleness. And when he became better acquainted with Mr. Toil, he began to think that his ways were not so very disagreeable, and that the old schoolmaster's smile of approbation made his face almost as pleasant as even that of Daffydowndilly's mother. IT'S HAME AND IT'S HAME. It's hame and it's hame, hame fain would I be, O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree; There's an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain, As I pass through Annan-water with my bonnie bands again; When the flower is in the bud, and the leaf upon the tree, The lark shall sing me hame in my ain countree. It's hame and it's hame, hame fain would I be, O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree; The green leaf of loyalty's beginning now to fa', The bonnie white rose it is withering and a', But I'll water't with the blood of usurping tyrannie, And green it will grow in my ain countree. It's hame and it's hame, hame fain would I be, O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree; There's nought now frae ruin my country can save But the keys of kind heaven to open the grave, That all the noble martyrs who died for loyaltie May rise again and fight for their ain countree. It's hame and it's hame, hame fain would I be, O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree; The great now are gane a' who ventured to saveThe green grass is growing aboon their bloody grave, But the sun through the mirk blinks blythe in my ee,➡ "I'll shine on ye yet in your ain countree." ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, LEARNED WOMEN. Once on a time, a nightingale Who sung like others of her kind, Her fancy straight was on the wing: From that day forth she changed her note, Till everything That heard her sing, Would run away from her-as I from you. MARIA, NUN OF SANTA CLARA. Reader, if your whim or your necessities should lead you to Madeira, go, for my sake, to the nunnery of Santa Clara. It is at the western end of Funchal, and you may buy there the prettiest flowers for your sweetheart's hair, and the most ingenious toys in wax that are in the world. The nuns sell them very cheap, and all they get from you goes in real charity to themselves or their pensioners. Perhaps, also, you may see poor Maria, if she is not dead; if she comes, speak to her very kindly, and give my love to her; but you do not know me, or poor Maria either. Maria Clementina, the youngest child of Pedro Agostinho, was born in Madeira. Her parents had an unusually large family, and were labouring under some embarrassment, from the unfavourable termination of an important lawsuit. What unfortunate event coincided with her birth I know not, but Maria was disliked by her father and mother from the first years of her infancy. Her brothers neglected her, in obedience to their parents; and her sisters, who were very ugly, hated her for her beauty. Every one else in Funchal and the neighbourhood loved her, and she had many offers of marriage at thirteen years of age; which the little maiden laughed at, and forwarded to her elder sisters. The more she was petted abroad, the more was she persecuted at home. She was treated at length like Cinderella, with no chance of a fairy to help her. Amongst other arrangements for the purchase of commissions for two of his sons, and for giving portions to two of his daughters, Pedro Agostinho determined to sacrifice his best and sweetest child Maria. At eighteen she was placed as a novice in this nunnery; at nineteen she took the veil, and renounced the world for ever. At this time she was the most beautiful girl in the island; and, what is remarkable in a Portuguese, of a fair complexion, with a brilliant colour, blue eyes, and very long and glossy brown hair. A year after this the constitutional government was established in Portugal, and one of the first and wisest acts of the Cortes was to order the doors of all religious houses to be thrown open. Santa Clara was visited by friends and strangers, some to see the church and some to see the nuns. Amongst others, a Portuguese officer, at that time quartered in Funchal, saw and fell in love with Maria: he was a handsome youth, of a good family, and Maria returned his love with an earnestness which perhaps had as much a desire of liberty as female passion in it. A nun is emancipated from her parents, and the law declared the vow of celibacy null and void. The marriage was determined on, her hair permitted to grow again, her clothes prepared, and the weddingday fixed. Maria fell ill, and the physicians enjoined perfect quiet for some time. The wedding was fatally postponed to another day, and before that day arrived, his faithful majesty had dissolved his parliament, and fearful lest Heaven should lose one more of its daughters, had revoked the law of the Cortes, and despatched an express to notify as much to his subjects in Madeira. Maria rose from her bed of sickness to return to her cell and her rosary; her lengthening ringlets were again mercilessly shorn; the mob cap, the leathern corset, the serge gown, were laid before her; and some old Egyptians, who could not better themselves elsewhere, bade her return thanks to God that she had so narrowly escaped mixing again in the vanities of the world. On the 5th January, a few hours before we sailed from Madeira, I walked with a handsome and very agreeable Englishwoman to visit Santa Clara. I was very anxious to see Maria, whose story I knew. After a little hesitation on the part of two or three venerable ladies, who first presented themselves at the great door of the house, Maria was summoned. She came to us with a smiling countenance, and kissed my companion repeatedly. Her colour was gone, but she was still beautifully fair, and the exquisite shape of her neck, and the nobleness of her forehead, were visible under the disadvantages of a dress as ungraceful as was ever invented for the purpose of mortifying female vanity. She spoke her language with that pretty lisp which, I believe, the critics of Lisbon pronounce to be a vicious peculiarity of the natives of Madeira, but also with a correctness and an energy that indicated a powerful and ingenuous mind. I took half of a large bunch of violets which I had in my hand, and gave them to my friend to present to her. Flowers are a dialect of the Portuguese which is soon learned. She took them, curtsied very low, opened the folds of a muslin neckerchief, and dropped them loose on her snowy bosom. The vesper-bell sounded, the door was closed between the nun and the world, but she beckoned us to go into their church. We did so, it is one of the finest in the island, and very curiously lined with a sort of porcelain; attached to its western end is the chapel of the nuns, and a double iron grating to enable them 66 to hear and participate in the service of the mass. Maria came with some flowers in her hand, which she had been gathering in the garden. She took four of them from the rest, and gave them to me through the bars. "How old are you?" 'Twenty-one." "And your name is " "Maria." "And Clementina as well?" "Yes, in bygone days!" I leaned as close as I could, and spoke a few words in a low tone, which she did not seem to understand. "She does not understand," said I. "Yes, yes, I understand well; speak." "Are you happy, lady?" The abbess, who was engaged with my companion, turned her head, and Maria answered with an air of gaiety, "O yes, very happy." I shook my head as in doubt. A minute elapsed, and the abbess was occupied again. Maria put her hands through the grating, took one of mine, and made me feel a thin gold ring on her little finger, and then, pressing my hand closely, said, in an accent I still hear, "No, no; I have the heartache." The service began; the old nuns croaked like frogs, and the young ones paced up and down, and round about, in strange and fanciful figures, chanting as sweetly as caged canarybirds. I gazed at them for a long time with feelings that cannot be told, and when it was time to go, I caught Maria's eye, and made her a slight but earnest bow. She dropped a curtsey, which seemed a genuflection to her neighbour, raised a violet behind her servicebook to her mouth, held it, looked at it, and kissed it in token of an eternal farewell. Beseeching, imploring, A cry from afar off The voice of Saint John, "It is accepted, The angry defiance, But not with the weapons "Cross against corslet, "As torrents in summer, "So hearts that are fainting "Stronger than steel Is the sword of the Spirit; "Thou art a phantom, "The dawn is not distant, His faith shall not fail us; 77 THE OPIUM-EATER. BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY. inasmuch as it points to the true theory of musical effects. The mistake of most people is to suppose that it is by the ear they communicate with music, and, therefore, that they are purely passive to its effects. But this is not so: it is by the reaction of the mind upon the notices of the ear (the matter coming by the senses, the form from the mind) that the pleasure is constructed: and therefore it is that people of equally good ear differ so much in this point from one another. Now opium, by greatly increasing the activity of the mind generally, increases, of necessity, that particular mode of its activity by which we are able to construct, out of the raw material of organic sound, an elaborate intellectual pleasure. But, says a friend, a succession of musical sounds is to me like a collection of Arabic characters: I can attach no ideas to them! Ideas! my good sir? there is no occasion for them: all that class of ideas, which can be available in such a case, has a language of representative feelings. But this is a subject foreign to my present purposes: it is sufficient to say, that a chorus, &c., of elaborate harmony, displayed before me, as in a piece of arras work, the whole of my past life-not as if recalled by an act of memory, but as if present and incarnated in the music: no longer painful to dwell upon: but the detail of its incidents removed, or blended in some hazy abstraction; and its passions exalted, spiritualized, and sublimed. All this was to be had for five shillings. And over and above the music of the stage and the orchestra, I had all around me, in the intervals of the performance, the music of the Italian language talked by Italian women: for the gallery was usually crowded with Italians: and I listened with a pleasure such as that with which Weld the traveller lay and listened, in Canada, to the sweet laughter of Indian women; for the less you understand of a language, the more sensible you are to the melody or harshness of its sounds: for such a purpose, therefore, it was an advantage to me that I was a poor Italian scholar, reading it but little, and not speaking it at all, nor understanding a tenth part of what I heard spoken. The late Duke of used to say, "Next Friday, by the blessing of Heaven, I purpose to be drunk;" and in like manner I used to fix beforehand how often, within a given time, and when, I would commit a debauch of opium. This was seldom more than once in three weeks; for at that time I could not have ventured to call every day (as I did afterwards) for "a glass of laudanum negus, warm, and without sugar." No: as I have said, I seldom drank laudanum, at that time, more than once in three weeks: this was usually on a Tuesday or a Saturday night; my reason for which was this. In those days Grassini sang at the opera: and her voice was delightful to me beyond all that I had ever heard. I know not what may be the state of the opera-house now, having never been within its walls for seven or eight years, but at that time it was by much the most pleasant place of public resort in London for passing an evening. Five shillings admitted one to the gallery, which was subject to far less annoyance than the pit of the theatres: the orchestra was distinguished by its sweet and melodious grandeur, from all English orchestras, the composition of which, I confess, is not acceptable to my ear, from the predominance of the clangorous instruments, and the absolute tyranny of the violin. The choruses were divine to hear: and when Grassini appeared in some interlude, as she often did, and poured forth her passionate soul as Andromache, at the tomb of Hector, &c., I question whether any Turk, of all that ever entered the paradise of opium-eaters, can have had half the pleasure I had. But, indeed, I honour the barbarians too much by supposing them capable of any pleasures approaching to the intellectual ones of an Englishman. For music is an intellectual or a sensual pleasure, according to the temperament of him who hears it. And, by-the-by, with the exception of the fine extravaganza on that subject in Twelfth Night, I do not recollect more than one thing said These were my opera pleasures: but another adequately on the subject of music in all litera-pleasure I had, which, as it could be had only ture: it is a passage in the Religio Medici1 of Sir T. Brown; and, though chiefly remarkable for its sublimity, has also a philosophic value, 1 I have not the book at this moment to consult, but I think the passage begins-"And even that tavern music, which makes one man merry, another mad, in me strikes a deep fit of devotion, &c." on a Saturday night, occasionally struggled with my love of the opera; for, at that time, Tuesday and Saturday were the regular opera nights. On this subject I am afraid I shall be rather obscure, but, I can assure the reader, not at all more so than Marinus, in his life of Proclus, or many other biographers and autobiographers of fair reputation. This pleasure, I have said, was to be had only on a Saturday night. What then was Saturday night to me more than any other night? I had no labours that I rested from; no wages to receive: what needed I to care for Saturday night, more than as it was a summons to hear Grassini? True, most logical reader: what you say is unanswerable. And yet so it was, and is, that, whereas different men throw their feelings into different channels, and most are apt to show their interest in the concerns of the poor, chiefly by sympathy, expressed in some shape or other, with their distresses and sorrows, I, at that time, was disposed to express my interest by sympathizing with their plea sures. The pains of poverty I had lately seen too much of; more than I wished to remember: but the pleasures of the poor, their consolations of spirit, and their reposes from bodily toil, can never become oppressive to contemplate. Now Saturday night is the season for the chief, regular, and periodic return of rest to the poor: in this point the most hostile sects unite, and acknowledge a common link of brotherhood: almost all Christendom rests from its labours. It is a rest introductory to another rest: and divided by a whole day and two nights from the renewal of toil. On this account I feel always, on a Saturday night, as though I also were released from some yoke of labour, had some wages to receive, and some luxury of repose to enjoy. For the sake, therefore, of witnessing, upon as large a scale as possible, a spectacle with which my sympathy was so entire, I used often, on Saturday nights, after I had taken opium, to wander forth, without much regarding the direction or the distance, to all the markets, and other parts of London, to which the poor resort on a Saturday night, for laying out their wages. Many a family party, consisting of a man, his wife, and sometimes one or two of his children, have I listened to, as they stood consulting on their ways and means, or the strength of their exchequer, or the price of household articles. Gradually I became familiar with their wishes, their difficulties, and their opinions. Sometimes there might be heard murmurs of discontent: but far oftener expressions on the countenance, or uttered in words, of patience, hope, and tranquillity. And, taken generally, I must say, that, in this point at least, the poor are far more philosophic than the rich-that they show a more ready and cheerful submission to what they consider as irremediable evils, or irreparable losses. Whenever I saw occasion, or could do it without appearing to be intrusive, I joined their parties; and gave my opinion upon the matter in discussion, which, if not always judicious, was always received indulgently. If wages were a little higher, or expected to be so, or the quartern loaf a little lower, or it was reported that onions and butter were expected to fall, I was glad: yet, if the contrary were true, I drew from opium some means of consoling myself. For opium (like the bee, that extracts its materials indiscriminately from roses and from the soot of chimneys) can overrule all feelings into a compliance with the master-key. Some of these rambles led me to great distances: for an opium-eater is too happy to observe the motion of time. And sometimes in my attempts to steer homewards, upon nautical principles, by fixing my eye on the pole-star, and seeking ambitiously for a north-west passage, instead of circumnavigating all the capes and headlands I had doubled in my outward voyage, I came suddenly upon such knotty problems of alleys, such enigmatical entries, and such sphinx's riddles of streets without thoroughfares, as must, I conceive, baffle the audacity of porters, and confound the intellects of hackney-coachmen. I could almost have believed, at times, that I must be the first discoverer of some of these terræ incognitæ, and doubted whether they had yet been laid down in the modern charts of London. For all this, however, I paid a heavy price in distant years, when the human face tyrannized over my dreams, and the perplexities of my steps in London came back and haunted my sleep, with the feeling of perplexities moral or intellectual, that brought confusion to the reason, or anguish and remorse to the conscience. Thus, I have shown that opium does not, of necessity, produce inactivity or torpor; but that, on the contrary, it often led me into markets and theatres. Yet, in candour, I will admit that markets and theatres are not the appropriate haunts of the opium-eater, when in the divinest state incident to his enjoyment. In that state crowds become an oppression to him; music even, too sensual and gross. He naturally seeks solitude and silence, as indispensable conditions of those trances, or profoundest reveries, which are the crown and consummation of what opium can do for human nature. I, whose disease it was to meditate too much, and to observe too little, and who, upon my first entrance at college, was nearly falling into a deep melancholy, from brooding too much on the sufferings which I had witnessed in London, was sufficiently aware of the tendencies of my own thoughts to do all I could to counteract them.-I was, indeed, like |