SKETCHES FROM LIFE.

209

one beside him, in a phraseology peculiar to his caste, || catch the first approach of the boat in which the heart's "Now that takes my eye, to see that little skeery wo- best hopes are centred. There is a young woman at man a-starting to Orleans! Why I tuk her wunst this moment standing upon the verge of the water. A across the river here when a bit of a gale come up; moment or two since we saw her emerging from a misand she'd no more blood in her face than the white erable dwelling near us, bearing a bucket on her arm; caps popping about us." But were our honest ferry- but we noticed that her step was languid, and her look man something better versed in the mysteries of wo- as of one debilitated by long illness, and we felt that man's heart, and had he marked the glance of fond necessity had driven her to an exertion to which she and all-confiding reliance with which that young wife was unequal. But she is now standing absorbed in looked upon her husband, we should probably have lost some interest that makes all else forgotten. The bucket his most characteristic remark. of water, which she seemed to lift with painful effort And now our boats are at last unmoored. The from the wave, is standing beside her, and her eye is young men, with many a whispered promise of speedy upon the distant stretch of the descending river. Her return, and of many a gift, brought from the pleasant dress betokens poverty; and now, that we look upon south, have kissed the tears from the cheeks of their her face with more scrutiny, though much changed sisters, and received the kiss and blessing of their since we last beheld it, we recognize her. We know mother. Her voice has not yet faltered-its tones are something, too, of her little history. She is the wife full of encouraging assurance. Were she of Spartan of a young man who left here some four months since lineage she could do no more. The boats are round- as a boat "hand;" and we recollect, for we ourself witing out into the current-the men are at their oars-nessed, the simple pathos of their separation. They the "little skecry woman' is standing smiling in the had married very young-little more than childrenprow; and, though she presses her baby to her bosom and had begun life with literally nothing but their somewhat more closely, as she looks upon the glitter- hands. But they were full of hope and the joy of ing waves beneath her, yet doth she dream of no possi- health. To her the tie that had given her one whereon ble danger for herself from which the arm of her hus- to lean was especially a bond of flowers. Her childband may not shield her. We might smile at her hood had been spent in the most abject poverty-her weakness, yet in it we behold the law of her nature; riper years in servitude-and now a home-a home and in view of its merciful amelioration of her wo-where the voice of too often dissatisfied exaction would man's lot, we regard this unquestioning reliance as of no longer direct her labors-was to her, however humsomething holy.

And now they reach the current-they are floating rapidly on-they are melting into indistinctness. The mother has gazed upon them till her eye has grown dim. She turns slowly and in silence away-she draws her daughters with her, and ascends the bank. But tears, big tears, are now flooding her pale and worn face-she fears no longer to unman her boys. Nature at last asserts her supremacy, and her tribute may be withheld no longer. She hath sunk on the bank, and folding her weeping girls to her bosom, gives way to the long suppressed passion of a mother's tears. Yet we fear not for her. She who, from principle, hath at need held her feelings in so strong control, hath her help from above; and we doubt not that she will rise from that brief prostration tranqualized by prayer, and faith, and the full committal of her beloved ones to Him who shall hold them in the hollow of his hand.

But are there none but scenes of parting sorrow here to wake our interest? Does not the returning steamer, bearing back to the broken circle of home the object of nightly prayer, and of daily, hourly watchfulness, also touch our shore? And how many a rapturous welcome, how many a silent but “full-of-soul” embrace may be then witnessed! How often, among the crowds that from the various interests of labor, business, amusement, and curiosity, are scattered along the shore, may some lingerer be distinguished, whose eye, averted from all within its immediate vicinity, is bent with a fixed gaze upon the wave in the far distance, straining with trembling, perhaps vain expectancy, to VOL. III.-27

ble, a place of rest-of untried delight. Love, too, was in their hearts-young, warm, trusting love, and what was there for them to fear? So hope whispered. A few months in the dream of happiness passed, and reality began her bitter course of lessons. The autumn fever, so frequently prevailing in our western country, prostrated him for many weeks; and when he arose, the incubus of debts necessarily incurred in their progress was upon his efforts. The pressure of the times had narrowed the field of labor, and to go down the river as a "hand" was the only resource left him. He must leave his young wife, now a mother, alone and destitute; but the elastic spring of her woman's heart made of this but a light matter. She could surely manage to get along the few months he would be gone-she could get labor in a variety of ways. What though his own heart echoed but faintly the springing hopes of hers? Necessity overruled him, and the young mother turned back from the shore, where she long watched the receding oar at which he labored, to wrestle as she best might for her bread. But disease was now in her veins, also. The exposure to which she had been subjected during his illness, and her great efforts to procure him comforts, had told upon her nature. Chills and fevers settled upon her system; and little was she able, during their brief remittance, to labor for supplies for the winter that gathered around her. Still she struggled on; and so cheerful was her temperament, so averse was she to complaint, that few of her neighbors were aware of her lapsing health and strength. Ah, how little note does the vulgar eye ever

take of the silent tokens of uncomplaining suffering! the scene to her within that wretched dwelling. Where "She is a hardy little soul," said one in our hearing; is he whose presence we trust will soon restore life and "I often see her gathering driftwood from the river, health to the youthful sufferer? The ragged boy we when the shore is lined with ice." But had he marked have noticed is suddenly in advance of the crowd. He the heaviness of her eye or palor of her lip and cheek- is the first to greet the citizen, who steps with such buoyhad he followed her to her humble shelter, and watched ant spring upon the shore. Why does he falter? Why the convulsive shudder of her frame, as she bent, per- that sudden shade upon his animated countenance? haps a half hour after, in strong ague, over that wet But he has at last answered the queries of the boy, fuel-had he marked the anguish of her eye, as it and has passed on. He is surrounded by his familyturned upon her child, whose wants she might not re- he has forgotten the mournful intelligence he has given. lieve-but it needs not to elaborate the picture! Dis-But it has been caught by more than one ear-it passes guise poverty as we will by the cold interpretations of through the crowd. The young man is dead! He philosophy, or in the glittering frost-work of the poet, has died upon the passage, and they have given him a it is still, in the language of one who applied the term grave upon the shores of the Mississippi! A thrilling to a different draught of suffering, it is yet a bitter || shriek breaks upon the ear-it comes from that hut of drug. Poor thing! How would our own heart thrill if the boat, for which her sunken eye is fixed upon that vacant stretch of wave, were indeed visible! Yet must her husband arrive within a few hours. Letters from his employer have advised his family of their being on the way; and we take comfort to ourselves in the assurance. Yet hath she stood here too long. The paroxysm of a chill is upon her, and is shaking her whole frame. She looks as if her very heart were yielding to its icy curdle. How ghastly is the expression of her purple lip, as, turning with an eye of anguish from the river, she lifts it wistfully, as feeling herself unable to reach it, though so near to the house that affords her its poor shelter! A ragged boy, who we learn is her brother, has been playing near her, and we are glad to see him by her side, as with deep shiver she slowly reaches and enters it.

But a sudden revulsion of interest withdraws our gaze-a steamboat is in very earnest at hand. The jar of its mighty impulse, as it ploughs its path of strength against the current, is felt through the whole village. It is already within our view. How, with the speed of the leviathan, it comes over the waters! What a pageant it affords, with its rushing wheel ploughing our quiet river into turbulence and foam-its crowded deck-its volume of smoke! What an array of lifeof action-of power! But now it nears our shore. There are deeper interests in it than as a pageant. A crowd of our village citizens are springing down the bank. It is the boat so anxiously expected! It bears back to our village, from an absence of months, more than one of its native and familiar citizens. Whose blood so sluggish as not to be something quickened? Hats are waving, and signals are interchanged. A person is standing in the guard whom all seem to recognize with pleasure. It is the well known trader whose letters have advised of their approach. He is in all the flush of health and successful enterprise. Neighbors and friends crowd the wharf to greet him. At a little distance his family are gathered in a group, passive, and silent with deep gladness. Hath the scene no shadow? Upon the deck some two or three of those who accompanied him as "hands" are recognized; but where is the young husband? Our heart has turned again from the more cheerful interests of

sorrow! The boy has broken from those who would have compassionately detained him, and burst upon his sister, now feverishly slumbering upon her pallet, with the deadly stroke. And that scream of woe is followed by another, and yet another, curdling our heart with their prolonged agony, as if the poor sufferer would pour out her life in the succession of those wailing shrieks.

And this is reality! This, young sentimentalist, who hast accompanied us thus far, is a scene of common, real life. Hast thou no feeling to bestow upon its actors? We have given it no coloring to cheat thee of thy sympathies—we have thrown no fictitious spell over thy senses. The obscure and nameless sufferer we have brought before thee yet lives and suffers. Wouldst thou linger with us yet longer? But our half hour is elapsed. We claim for ourself no further courtesy. But for thine own sake, now that thou hast entered our sober garden, hasten not carelessly from its shades. Taste of its more precious fruits, and of those fountains of higher and holier truth which have been prepared for thee by skillful and hallowed hands.

TO-MORROW.

WHO can tell how much is embraced in this expression? Though but a few hours intervene between it and us-though it will soon commence its course-who is there that can read its single page and pronounce the character of its events?

To-morrow! Those who are now gay may be sad; those who are now walking the avenues of pleasure, led by the hand of hope, may be subjects of intense sorrow-prosperity may be changed into adversity; those who are now on the mountain summit may be in the valley; that rosy cheek may be overspread with paleness, the strong step may falter, death may have overtaken us. To-morrow! It may entirely change the course of our lives, it may form a new era in our existence. What we fear may not happen.

To-morrow! Away with anxiety. Let us lean on Providence. There is a being to whom all the distinctions of time are the same, and who is able to dispose every thing for our wise employment.

Original.

THE DUELIST'S GRAVE.

211

A MORNING IN THE NURSERY. My morning is to be spent with Willy. In his dimpled beauty he is playing about me, and his semblance of innocence is so sweet, that for a moment I almost forget that his heart is desperately wicked. But who has spent a morning in the nursery without sunshine and shade-nay more than that, without witnessing those risings and developments of evil passions which, if uncontrolled, lead man to slay his brother? though we can hardly realize, when the little bird-like voice is caroling about us, that pent within that breast is a "cage of unclean birds."

and his heart is so fully set to do evil, and his mind so dexterous in devising ways to accomplish its end, that at length he looks coaxingly at his mother, and with a winning smile he commits the same disobedience.

The lesson shall not be lost-for how like a child of God, who sins and then weeps over his sin, and seems to feel its heinousness, till a stronger temptation arises, and then, alas, often smiling at his former scruples, and treating it as a light matter, he sins more unrestrainedly against his heavenly Father. But my little boy once more leaves my side, and wanders to another part of the room with a vexed and pouting air. Another law of his mother's he is about to break. But why is the little head so often turned to look again and again on her countenance? It is to gather some assurance, if possible, from its expression, to transgress, or see perhaps how far the forbidding look or threat betoken severity of punishment. At length his love,and fear arrest him, and he turns to some other toy to tune his voice in glce.

THE DUELIST'S GRAVE. THAT I might escape from the noise, tumult, and the thousand nothingnesses that so continually call the attention in the midst of a city, I took little Adelia by the hand and turned my steps toward the grave-yard in its suburbs. The sun was declining, and the gentle breezes played delightfully around me. The foot-path was so shaded as to be almost impervious to the sight, and the soft green of the high grass grateful to the eye, and soothing to the mind. My little companion said, "I love to go to the grave-yard. My mamma and little brothers are there, and I sometimes gather flowers by My little Willy, now nestling by my side with playtheir graves." We soon entered this habitation of the ful confidence, and then happy with his playthings, human family, where all distinctions are lost, all con- betokens a sunny morning. But ere long a wish arises tentions cease, and where the king and the beggar has to touch some forbidden object, and while he knows each his allotted six feet of territory. My feelings how wrong is the disobedience, he still yields to the were chastened, but not saddened—a world of thought temptation, and smarts under the correction. He surely seemed rushing to my brain. No scene more power-will not go astray again! and yet but a little while passes fully than this impresses the truth of the Scripture observation, that Deity "maketh darkness his pavilion." Here was the grave of worth and intelligence, cut off in the midst of life, of usefulness, and fair fame. The next stone recorded the lovely maiden, rudely severed in the first blush of innocence and beauty, while surrounded by all the romance of life, and breathing an atmosphere where she knew not that a pestilential vapor could arrive; but the grim tyrant gathereth his harvest at all seasons-the ripe grain, the tender flower, and the worthless and poisonous weed, all, all, alike fall under his sweeping scythe. I passed on; but my eye was soon arrested, and my mind agitated by reading the name of one I had known in early life-a name characterized by genius of the first order, and by feelings so undisciplined that every thing with him was a passion. His education had not been systematic; and because his feelings were uncontrolled, he thought them uncontrollable. He was generous, noble, unsuspecting, and rated the world by his own high standard; but finding it fall short, lamentably short, of this high estimate, he became suspicious, and unjust, even toward his best friends. One of these, to whom he was bound by every tie of affection and worth, incurred the suspicion of having behaved dishonorably toward him, and in a moment of rashness, and in despite of the prohibition of that Being who, in his calmer moments, he invariably and meekly obeyed, he challenged him! His friend sought an explanation, and endeavored to reason him out of his error; but he would not listen. They met-they fought, and this friend fell, the victim of his madness! Reason and feeling instantaneously returned, but only to point the scorpion sting to his own bosom. He felt himself a murderer, and reason deserted her throne. He became the inhabitant of a mad-houseat times a perfect maniac, at others a melancholy enthusiast. But the frail bodily tenement could not long support this conflict of the soul, and his eye was soon closed on all this side the grave. His dust was resting there, but his deeds are to be retributed with those of the myriads that have gone before him.

H.

Again-how like a child of God about to deviate from the path of duty and tempted to stray-he is yet impelled by his love to the commands of his heavenly Father, and the voice of his conscience, to resort to the word of God to find some sanction there-then, restless and unquiet, he looks upward and beholds a frowning Parent. At length he banishes that which would have been as a "cloud between the mental eye of faith and things unseen," and with hearty obedience to God's will he now walks in the clear sunshine, and in the light of his Father's countenance, and sings his praises. Like the little child, he would now draw near his parent and know no will but his.

So my morning has not been spent in vain-for the waywardness of my boy has shown me a faint emblem of the waywardness of myself-but like as a "father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him."-Mother's Magazine.

MANY are taught with the briars and thorns of affliction that would not learn otherwise.

212

same.

Original.

AMIABILITY.*

AMIABILITY.

THE two persons referred to at the close of a former number were friends. From childhood they had been intimately associated. Their schools, their circle of acquaintances, and their course of life, were the In age they differed less than a twelve-month. They were, too, what is called cousins. And if the degree of consanguinity-their parents being just within the verge of traceable relationship-did not warrant the term, their intimacy, their faithfulness, and their continued good will for each other did. And so it wore on from childhood to adolescence.

process of time, was advanced to the post of friend and confidant to her protector. I do not retrace all the habits and leadings of their juvenile days. It was made evident in many ways that nature had wrought a great difference in their temperament and tendencies, as well as in their persons; yet none so great as that judicious training to both should not have rendered them equally happy, or, I should rather say, have left each equally content with her appropriate portion of enjoyment.

In personal advantages they might be deemed equal, according to the taste of the beholder. Annie possessed the more regular features and the finer coloring, In the web of life in which most young persons ex- whilst Sarah had decidedly a more engaging presence, patiate their new sensibilities, there may be much that and a more attractive frankness of look and eye. Yet is fallacious, without themselves being aware or con- Annie, ever timid, had, when known, a sweetness that scious that it is so. As it regards either the domestic was irresistible. She possessed also a good mind. If or the social life, the prescribed routine of reciprocal its range was not large, it had yet no tendency to betray duties being observed, and the noticeable treacheries the judgment or to depart from the proprieties of comavoided, the young girl believes herself correct, and, by mon sense. The mind of her friend was decidedly her own standard, she is so. But what, in the heyday superior in its natural capacity of perception and of of her career, shall save her from many an oversight acquirement. I have mentioned her frankness. Its from many commitments of the feelings of others- concomitant generosity had its seat in and emanated from encroachments on their privileges-from usurpa- from her heart. And had she been well trained, that is, tion of their rights in friendship or in-love? The vigilantly looked to, restricted, and governed, in those reader answers that a refined sensibility shall do this-years when the character, like the physical constitua good heart—a sense of truth—a sagacious and pene- tion, is forming itself, what a noble, what a valuable, trating mind! But no, no, no! the character at this what a happy woman had she become! date of life is merged in one confluent selfishness-no matter what the sensibilities may be-but so much deeper is the involvement, the sagacity acts not except in an occasional glinting upon the aggressions of another; and the heart—the heart—is overburdened with its own susceptibilities of self!

The circumstances which led to her opposite fate would, at a cursory glance, seem, in some measure, to explain, or to extenuate the peccant folly of those who controlled it; but a more sufficient reflection should convince us that the events and happenings of life are only fortunate or unfortunate, according to the use we make of them. Trials are not, perhaps, intended as punishments, and are not such, unless our own impatience reject the mission, and pervert the benefit. Hence, we see not only the piety but the wisdom of a resigned

So, then, the morning of life, with its innocence, its aspiration, its hope, and all its "blushing honors full upon it," has no resource from error, from impropriety, from injustice? Yes, it has the simplest and the safest―a bidable, amiable temper—the religion of life-spirit. shall save it from error, and from woe! But it is not for the young girl herself to know this at once, but for her parent-her care-taker. But if she have been well trained and fashioned she will even now be in the right way. Now one of our young cousins had had this advantage and the other had not.

Sarah was the eldest surviving child of five, each of which her parents had buried before they had attained the age of seven years. And this series of bereavements had seemed rather to admonish them not to withhold any indulgence within their power to bestow than to serve as a warning to prepare this surviving child Sarah D. was the elder of the two by the small dif- for the early death which they so naturally apprehendference which I have mentioned; and in very early ed for her. But amidst caresses, and the idolizing inchildhood she had at first taken her cousin by the hand || dulgences of her friends, enough almost to produce the at school in that sort of patronizing way which a child event they deprecated, she continued to grow and possessing certain traits is often seen to afford to another so very little smaller than herself that it stirs the merriment of the grown up looker on to see. Yet though the two may be very nearly equal in size and age, yet the act is always significant of a difference somewhere, and that difference is found in character. The helper is always more capable-the helped more docile than the other. And, in this case, so endearing was the dependence that Annie, the little protege, iner's endearments and her society-she felt the loneli

*Continued from page 158.

thrive. And she had arrived to the age of twelve years when her fond mother was taken away from her by a sudden fever-having never to realize that shock which her own distrust had shaped out and ever threatened upon her. Sarah, with the animated affection of her nature, grieved excessively for her mother. Yet she was by no means aware of what vast importance this event should prove to her. She missed her moth

ness of her home, and for a short time she sought to soothe her father's grief. But a short season, and she

had been the case, had there been any leading of that principal in its vitality instilled into her by precept, or embodied in the habits of her life; but there was none. True, she had been taught a verbal respect for the name of religion, and a formal and mechanical observance for some of its rites rather than of its duties. This were not enough in any case, and still less in a character where all other sentiments were so conscious and so strong.

dried her tears; and her buoyant spirit rejoiced in the || the liveliness of any other perception. And this surely elasticity of its rebound, and reaching forth to the opening future, her character, without either weakness or faithlessness, covered the past from her view, and contemplated its own career of action and of enjoyment. This state of feeling was perhaps not surprising, considering her relative condition, and her precise age. Had she been a little older, she had had a sense of the want of her mother as adviser and friend-had she been a little younger her grief had been unalleviated by the anticipation of coming events. She was an After the death of her mother, the bereaved state only daughter, without an elder sister to admonish, or of her father's feelings had tended still further to her perchance to dictate, or to prescribe duties to her in a injury. She was indulged not only in every possible less gentle way than had the buried mother; besides wish, but her very caprices were regarded by this affecher character was all left, as it were, to expatiate on tionate but weak parent as matters of imperative necesself. She had been so indulged, so excused, and sub- sity. It is not surprising, then, that, despite her faithjected to so little requirement that she had no sense of ful and affectionate tendencies, she came, in no long change in its dependences of duty or of performance. time, to be but a petulent and spoilt child. And her Let many an orphan, the senior of her young broth-father, amongst others, had soon himself to experience ers and sisters, console herself that the duties which the inconvenience of his mistaken fondness. It was have devolved upon her, if well and patiently per-upon the intimation of his being about to take a new formed, are salutary not to her character alone, but wife that her arbitrary will was first arraigned in oppothat their performance will eventuate to her benefit and sition to him. Though she did not attempt the contuadvantage of life and position, as well as of heart and macy of remonstrance, yet she moped and wept, and mind. Who does not contemplate such performances declared to her friends that she "could not forget her with respect?-who so dull as not to note the sacri- mother if her father could." Yet, in this movement, fice?-who so insensible as not to value the devotion there had been no indecorous haste-indeed, the husand the grace? And that man loves "wisely," and not band had evinced both feeling and memory for the "too well," who chooses such an one. His esteem dead. He had not merely conformed himself to a and his discretion are, at the same time, guaranty of "twelve-month and a day"-once in every season, his own merit. But Sarah was exonorated the duty, wherein to remember his lost companion, had not sufand debarred the advantage. Her two infant brothers ficed his heart; and three full years had elapsed before were still in the nursery, with the attached dependant he could wean himself from a sorrow so dear. Under who had superintended them from their birth. She all the circumstances of the case, the loneliness of his also managed the house. There was property enough house, and the reflection that when she should pass out in this family, if not to be called a very large fortune, of it, as she probably would, to the house of another, yet enough, with the liberal spirit of its owner, to sup- she would leave no other daughter to supply her place, ply every indulgence and every luxury to his house-made Sarah's rebellion against this step peculiarly imhold. The property was safe, too. Mr. D. had, from some peculiar circumstances of his affairs, retired permanently from business; and his property was vested in two valuable estates, one of which he occupied, and the other, being extensive warehouses, was rendered available by leases. And a very handsome moneyed property was vested in insurances, which at that date

were sure.

But for all these advantages of fortune and of circumstance she who was most considered in them, now that she had attained the age of womanhood and reflection, was not happy. We have seen that she possessed some noble natural dispositions; but these had been nullified and overruled, as it were, by the mismanagement of her training. The absence of religion, more than the doating fondness of her parents, was the ground of this mistake; for in a nature like hers, though misjudged indulgence should warp its generosity and its goodness, yet at some date of life, after unhappiness had supervened, she would not, with her perspicacity, have failed to find, that that was her resource and her comfort, had it stood a fair chance with

proper. But she had been so nurtured in selfishness that she could not at once see aright. She had the unkindness toward her father to appear at his wedding indulging in tears and sobs. And when the lady was actually introduced to the house, she received her almost with an air of defiance, and persisted in sulks and sullens even beyond the time when the amiable and conciliating temper of her mother-in-law had won upon her heart and confidence.

How, not only graceless but unwise, was this conduct! It was a departure from the frankness of her own spirit! Let each one cherish, in particular, her own virtues-the good tendencies of her own disposition; for if she do not, besides placing herself below the scale of comparative respectability, she is abetting the arch enemy who would rob her, and she is trampling on the Holy Spirit which should save her.

Sarah had indeed compunctious visitings of conscience, which, however, in the absence of all rebuke, were soon smothered under the smooth aspect of the outward surface. She went on her way unnoticed and uncorrected in specific instances, yet becoming less and