Various

My friend, Ralph Willinton, is a man of adventures. More strange things have happened to him than to any dozen people I ever heard of, in what are called “the common walks of life.” Ralph is by no means an extraordinary individual. If the North River waited for him to set it on fire, it might flow on through the Highlands unscorched forever. He was not born to greatness; he will never achieve greatness, nor will greatness be thrust upon him. But do not misunderstand me: Ralph, as the gentleman felicitously remarked of Shakespeare, “is no fool.” On the contrary, he is a fellow of parts. He never dazzled in conversation by a coruscation of mother-wit; but when he has heard a happy rejoinder, he remembers it, and has the skill to use it to advantage.

Ralph is the happiest mimic in these Untied States, as they may sooner or later be called. There never appeared an actor in any one of our theatres whose voice and manner he cannot imitate with marvelous verisimilitude. Moreover he sings a very good song, though with no very powerful or melodious voice. He can write Magazine articles on music, composes occasionally himself, and writes love ditties, such as they are. Add to these accomplishments a manner irresistibly winning, and tones in speaking as sweet as those which the author of Guy Mannering gives to Rashleigh Osbaldistone, and you are possessed of the sum total of Ralph’s recommendations. The sum total do I say? when I have but obscurely hinted at his extraordinary gift or faculty of story-telling, by which, like Hamlet’s Yorick, he can set the whole table on a roar. In sooth, he is the most diverting of dinner-table companions. He richly earns his invitations, of which no man has more. You can bear to listen to those stories of his (which are nothing when any one else tells them) a hundred times. They are “ever charming, ever new.” Age cannot mar nor custom stale his infinite variety. His profession is the law, and his practice is amusement.

Ralph is, in fine, a capital fellow. It is a pity that he should have a capital propensity. He is the hero of all his romances. Had he been Macbeth, he never would have exclaimed, “Thou canst not say I did it!” He would rather have had the credit of murdering Duncan himself than have been thought to have no hand in the “bloody business.” Ralph is the most ubiquitous of mortals. To have effected an iota of what he attributes to his own talents, valor and industry, to have done one in fifty of those deeds of which he asserts “quorum pars magna fui,” he must have been in a very considerable number of places at once. Nevertheless and notwithstanding Ralph Willinton is a glorious good fellow. Reader, did you ever meet with Ralph Willinton?

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A VOICE FROM THE WAYSIDE:

ABOUT A GENIUS.

———

BY CAROLINE C——.

———

We wither from our youth, we waste away,

Sick, sick, unfound the boon—unslaked the thirst.

Byron.

In summer time there are few things more delightful than an occasionally wet day to “out-of-towners.”

Then we of the country, in our almost noiseless homes, may delight and rejoice in the strange and pleasant quietness attending a still, steadily-falling rain; we can watch with admiring eyes how the fields and the well-draperied woods grow bright and cleanly, ’neath the hand of that pattern housekeeper, Dame Nature; we can listen undisturbed by the multitudinous noises which infest a city, to the dear wild-birds, who, impatient of the long-continued weeping of the skies, occasionally break forth into the merriest songs, as if questioning each other as to how they stand the charges of the elements.

And then there is the generous Sun King, (I acknowledge, however, he does not shine for country-people only,) glancing out at intervals from between the heavy clouds, smiling upon us joyously, and looking for all the world as though he would say if he could, “never mind, children, the storm will soon be passed!” And then the after-part of a summer shower! the freshened fragrance of the flowers—the purified atmosphere—the bright blue sky—the increased glory of the setting-sun—the rainbow in the east—the drops of water glistening on the flowers and on the grass, so pure and bright, that one might almost imagine them the tears of spirits—the glad songs of innumerable birds—the groups of children exhibiting in various ways their nautical daring on and about the newly-formed lakelets in the roads and fields—the many evidences of life awakened out of doors—then the holy calmness of the ensuing summer night—the soft light of the stars—and after that the trembling glory of the new moon! Oh, beautiful, beautiful summer! with thy rain-storms and thy sunshine, hasten to us again!

But—a rainy day in winter! its horrors encircle me at this moment; I forbear entering into its details. However much you may delight in a day like unto this, oh, listen to the humble voice now emerging from the way-side, I have no courage to speak even of the stubborn, hard-headed, cheerless figure Nature presents when she stands gazing in such mute dismay upon her domicil.

It is in human nature, at least in mine, and I claim to be human, to be always looking for a something better, and despite all this dreariness without, my heart is even now continually singing, “Spring is coming! spring is coming!” but a few weeks! and then, instead of the dismal trappings of winter, how beautiful and bright all without and around us will be! the very thought is enough to make every soul shout, “Hasten the time! Amen!”

There is such a desolateness in the court of the white-headed old king which people very naturally shrink from as they grow older in years!

Looking back into childhood, these stony-hearted months when frost and snow reign king and queen over earth, seem, indeed, the most joyous—and not without reason. For then the “Christman” and the youth so full of promise, the bright New Year, are never-failing guests by the mid-winter fire-side. There is joy for the child on the ice-bound hill, on the glassy, frozen lake, in the gurgling, merry sound of the sleigh-bells, in the sight of the cheerful home-fire, in the bracing out-door air, in the huge snow-drifts—everywhere, everywhere there is joy for the child!

And why? Because of bounding hopes and joyous dreams, and the careless yielding up of oneself to every passing enjoyment—because of freedom from labor—because of ignorance of the worth and supremacy of gold—because of utter innocence of the strict “proprieties” of life! There is joy for the child, because he has not yet learned much of disappointments; he does not know how uncomfortable is the close-fitting garment of manhood. He is not wise enough to see in the winter storms, in the driving blasts in which he so much delights, the type of what assuredly awaits him. He does not know that the life-storms with which he will have to struggle, will come suddenly and furiously upon him—that he will, perforce, then fling aside his mittens and grapple open handed with his foes. And it must certainly be at the warm and genial hearth-fire of truth and honesty, and no stifling stove-heat by which he must keep his heart, and its hopes and affections warm and in health, else they will die away suddenly and utterly, even as the fire of the “patent air-tight” dies!

Hark! now I hear the flapping of wings; and lo, here, almost close beside my window, are passing pigeons—snow-white pigeons; and, where could it have streamed from, there is a ray of sunlight on their wings! and since I have begun writing, the clouds seem to have “spent their fury,” they are less dull and dreary—they are slowly breaking away.

The view from the window by which I am writing is not especially charming. In one direction there are sheds, and barns, and barren trees, and a little farther on, the spire of an unpretending church, and sundry chimney-tops, together with the roofs of a few loftier buildings meet my eye. These are all certainly very suggestive scenes, and might make so many important heads of a very interesting discourse; but, in another direction from this same window there are great fields, and farther on, woods and hills, and between them and me, there are two points in the landscape on which very often my eyes rest, and many are the recollections, bitter and sweet, they awaken. One is a village school-house, the other a thickly-populated grave-yard.

Over those hills, and through the woods, and by the sandy shores of our beautiful lake, I was once a frequent wanderer, and with me invariably in all those rovings, was a child of somewhere near my own age, to whom, good reader, you may now consider yourself introduced.

When the week, with its disappointments, and hopes and joys has passed, and Saturday afternoon, the child’s holyday the world over, comes round again, how often my thoughts have turned back to her, and to the time when we also were young; oh, how much of meaning there is in that word, youth!

But looking back into the past is not an over-pleasant business at any time. There are very many reasons why people, for the most part, dread the rolling up of that curtain within which lies buried much of destroyed confidence, and happiness that died of fearful wounds; but I am willing to trespass on my own feelings at this present, that you may know something of Lily Reeve.

People said she was a genius. They said rightly—she was. And to complete the interest attachable to her therefor, Lily was poor—very poor, and had been all the days of her life.

When the Reeve family moved among us they had no acquaintance or relative in our village—and their circumstances and business were not such as attached any importance or attracted any notice to them. Had it not been for Lily they would probably have remained long enough in our midst, unknown and uncared for. The mother was a middle-aged woman, a widow; of the children I knew not much, save that with much appropriateness their name might have been “legion.” Lily was the eldest child—not beautiful—and far from being even interesting, personally.

Why her parents had bestowed on her so decided a name as Lily was always a mystery—for very far from a resemblance, even the slightest, to that graceful flower, was she. Neither was she a brunette, but of complexion rather dark, hair very black, and always curled, which gave her a decidedly Mrs. Hemanish look at times. Her features were irregular—oh, certainly, she was far from beautiful, and yet there was much sweetness of expression in the mouth, and much of vigor and determination perceivable in her dark eyes.

It was a good many years ago, but I remember distinctly the first time I ever saw Lily. With a number of juveniles I was returning from a very long walk—all our foot-jaunts were long in those days—when, on passing by an old-fashioned frame-house, brown with age, and poor and disconsolate in its outward appearance, one of the group said, “Let’s go into that house; there’s a girl living there who paints.”

And we went in. One of the more confident of our number said to the woman who received us, “Will you show us some of the pictures your daughter has painted?”

With a smile of satisfaction, as though she were pleased that even we children should have heard of her daughter, the woman bade us sit down; and then she brought from an old chest a handful of papers, and spread them on the table before us. Some of these were pictures of warriors on their steeds, others landscapes, and some were heads. There was one which more than all the others attracted my attention—it was a portrait of a sleeping child. We asked if this were one of her children, or only a fancy sketch.

“That was her little brother who died,” replied the woman, with a sigh. “Lily drew it when he was dead.” There was something so sad in the mother’s voice as she said this, that it checked our gay spirits, and tended to subdue our loud expressions of admiration. While we yet stood there turning over the papers, and gazing in wonder on the productions of a girl no older than the youngest among us, the subject of our thoughts and curiosity came into the room.

When she saw what was our object there, she came up to the table, and putting her arm around me, as though confident she was with friends, she asked if we liked her drawings. I remember well the thrill which passed over me at this simple act of hers, for I had begun to regard the girl as something quite extraordinary, and almost more than human. From that day I date a friendship I am proud to have formed, one which, while it lasted, delighted me more than any similar tie I have ever known.

It was very easy to see that the heart of the mother in those days was full of hope—that the mind of the daughter teemed with ambitious desires, and a determination, apparently invincible, to accomplish great things. About that time there were many people who turned prophets, and looking into the future, they saw a great name added to America’s illustrious daughters of song—the name of Lily Reeve. Do you think their prophecy has proved true?

In the old school-house, (which I heartily regret to say has been of late abandoned, and its former inmates have taken possession of a more stately edifice up-town,) in that little old brick building, we in the years long, long gone by, were wont to assemble—and Lily joined us there. And although on the humdrum route of learning we were quite in the advance, she soon very far outstripped us, and moved on with most rapid strides through all the first branches of education. It was impossible for us dullards to see her strange advancement, and not feel a little envious of her ability, notwithstanding we liked Lily so well. In one short year she had acquired nearly all the instruction it was possible for our teacher to impart, and as may be supposed for his part, he was watching her progress with somewhat of anxiety. But his honor as a teacher was not destined to be sacrificed to the young girl’s genius.

One afternoon, when school was dismissed, Lily said to me, “You and I will go home by the other street. I have something to tell you, and the way will be longer. Besides, I want to be away from these rough boys and girls.”

So we crossed the road, and entered a path which led us by a long way home. When we had reached the bridge, which crossed a deep, rapidly running brook, we sat down on the bench, placed in the shade of an old tree, which from “time immemorial” has stood there, with the most of its tangled roots buried in the water; then Lily spoke again, for the first time since we went out from the school-house.

“Do you know they are going to send me to the other school—they think I can learn more there, and have teachers in the higher branches, and in the languages. Oh, dear!”

“But why that ‘oh, dear!’ Lily? I only wish I were ready to go there too, but I am such an ignoramus, and you know every thing!”

“Not quite every thing. I should be glad to go—and there are a great many reasons why. I have the greatest desire to learn, and I’m sure if I have a little more education, I can make my way easily in the world; but—but—in short, they are rich people who are going to send me, and they will expect miracles from me, you may depend upon it—I know. Because I am poor, and can write pretty well, and paint, and sketch likenesses, they have taken an interest in me; but I tell you before hand, and you will see before long I speak rightly; I shall have to work like a slave to keep up with their expectations. Isn’t it enough to make any body say, ‘oh, dear?’”

“No—I don’t think so, Lily. You can’t help equaling their expectations, and they have such nice teachers at the other school, and no great rude boys go there.”

“That makes no difference at all. One can learn as well in one place as another. If it were not that mother felt so glad when the ladies made her the offer to send me there, I’d never go. You don’t know any thing about what it means to be dependent; you can’t think what a heavy load seems resting on me, ever since so many people have seemed to take an interest in me. I really begin to doubt my own powers. It seems to me as though I ought not to be forced like a plant in a hot-bed. I almost wish I never had any particular gifts.”

“And you say this, Lily Reeve, when all the girls in town are envying you! Now just be firm, for I’m sure if you only make up your mind you will do a thing, you can do it!”

“Do you believe it?” she asked, so suddenly, that I was startled and began in some trepidation to bethink my words.

“Certainly,” I answered at last; “I heard our minister say the other day your verses were excellent; and you know your pictures sold well at the fair. How can you doubt yourself so?”

“I don’t know,” said Lily, thoughtfully, “perhaps they are nearer right than I dare to think them—but I cannot explain it to you. I am never satisfied with any thing I do. My verses always sound so rough when compared with the melody in my brain—and my pictures, when I begin them, my fingers almost fly, I think I will surpass myself—and when they are finished, they always look so rude and rough, that I am tempted often to burn them every one.”

“Never mind,” said I, confidently, “you will see the day yet when all will be brighter to you—and you know the teacher says every day ‘practice makes perfect;’ and he always looks at you when he says it—you ought to have learned that by this time.”

“I’ll learn it now from you,” said Lily; “we’ll go now to the woods, I want to get some flowers to take to mother.”

Just beyond the woods to which we then bent our steps, there was a large field, in the upper portion of which, early in the season, we always found multitudes of purple flowers and white lilies; our first business that night was to fill our aprons with these treasures, and then we went into the woods, and sat down by a stream in a most romantic place, and began to arrange our huge bunches of flowers. Lily made hers into small bouquets, one for each of her family, while I twined mine into a wreath, and laid it on her head. But soon the fast increasing shade in the woods warned us it was time to be returning home. The thought of the obligation she was about to incur evidently still troubled my companion’s mind, for she spoke but little, and her words, when she did speak, were desponding, and even the bright flowers with which her hands were filled, failed to attract her usual attention, or awaken the delight they were wont to.

We were about crossing the stile that was placed at the entrance of the wood, when Lily suddenly flung the beautiful green moss she had gathered in a damp place, with violence from the bosom of her dress, where she had laid it. And when I looked with amazement at the excited girl, she exclaimed, “Look there! I had a snake in my bosom!” Truly enough, there was a tiny, striped, infant snake, creeping out leisurely from the bunch of moss she had flung upon the ground. A thought darted through my mind—I grasped her arm and said,

“You shall hear the moral of this before you go a step further, Lily Reeve. I’m no genius, but I’ll teach you a plain lesson. You have thrown the snake away from you; don’t, don’t ever take it back again. Don’t doubt those who mean to do you kindness; only just do what nature intended you should, and all who know you will be satisfied! When you come to be very famous, the people who help you now will think you did them a favor in letting them aid you. Mother says perseverance will work wonders, and I believe it—you can prove it.”

When I had finished my oration, I stood somewhat astonished at my own audacity, but after a moment’s silence Lily said,

“Thank you—thank you, for you have learned me two lessons—I’ll not forget them; no, I will never take the serpent back, you may depend on that.”

A few days after Lily was established at the larger school, dwelling with other boarders in the family of the principal, the wonder of all the scholars, and the pet pupil with the teachers.

The hopeful expectations of her family were kept up by her progress, and by her own increasing courage and cheerfulness. And in reality it seemed no unfounded expectation, that which they cherished, that the young girl would soon be able to support them all by dint of her genius. Her efforts became daily more worthy and more promising, now that she possessed these superior advantages; fortune seemed really determined to work good things for the rich peoples’ protÉgÉ.

Lily was not yet seventeen, but her poems had many of them attracted much attention; injudicious praises were lavished upon her; by their attentions and flattery, the proud, and the rich, and the learned seemed to have conspired to spoil a girl—a school-girl—poor “from her youth up.” They did not take it into consideration that it was quite possible for them to raise her hopes and self-appreciativeness too high; they did not give heed to the fact that it might require years of struggling and disappointment for her to produce any thing worthy the reward and honor they would fain believe were rightfully hers even then.

But soon enough they had cause to regret this course they adopted.

“A change came o’er the spirit of her dream.” Self-confidence rapidly usurped the place of a befitting humility, which had once characterized her. Instead of comparing herself with the great masters of song and painting, Lily seemed to think that in outstripping all her schoolmates, and in being considered a prodigy among teachers, she was rapidly filling the measure of her greatness; and the laudations which good-will prompted others to speak, instead of being listened to and valued at their worth, came at last to be considered as quite true and well-deserved.

It is said that more strength of mind is requisite to bear composedly a sudden favorable turn of fortune than is necessary calmly to endure reverses. Having never had occasion to test the truth of the proposition, I, of course, have only a right to suppose there is somewhat “more of truth than poetry” in the idea; at all events, that is a very easy way to account for Lily’s derelictions.

It was the wish of her “patrons,” as well as of the kind lady teacher to whose care she was chiefly commended, that Lily should finish the course of studies apportioned to each scholar previous to graduating. But there was a growing willfulness, an increasing confidence in her own attainments, that tempted her to set at naught these desires. Her impulsive nature longed to be free from restraint; she would fain throw aside all bondage, together with the loathed idea of dependence, and labor for herself in the way she was best fitted to labor. She wished to begin at once to reap the reward of her years of study, and thus to alleviate the wants of her home. Alas! the serpent had crept back into Lily’s breast!

So, despite all the remonstrances and the pleadings of those who began to see their mistake in their dealings with the young girl, Lily left the school, and returned to her own home. I shall never forget her as she was at that time; the passions, hopes, desires and resolution of mature years seemed to have even then a full development in her. In feeling she had grown too old, in will too decisive, to submit patiently to the judgment of other minds. But soon enough the lesson was forced upon her that poetic efforts are rarely capable of being changed at once for food, and fuel, and raiment.

“I have sent a poem of some length to —— ——,” she said to me one day, naming a distinguished writer and editor, “and you know I am superstitious—if he accepts it, and will pay me for it, I shall take it as a good omen for my future; but if he does not—” she hesitated.

“Well, if he does not, Lily?”

“Then those horrid doubts will come back to me with renewed force! Oh, they tormented me so once!”

When I saw my friend again there was no need to ask her what her reception at the “editor’s table” had been. It was a freezing cold winter night, and feeling somewhat disconsolate on my own account, as well as rather curious in regard to Lily’s progress, I sought her in her own home.

I found Lily there seated at the centre-table—yes, it was such, for it did occupy the central portion of the apartment—but it was not of polished mahogany, or marble-surfaced, gentle reader, but a miserable, old, broken affair, that had seen its best days long before it came into the possession of its then owners. Scattered about the room were the numerous boys and girls of the family; there was little temptation even for the boys without that night, it was so cold and stormy. The room in which they lived was the upper story of a small building, the first floor of which was occupied as a mechanic’s shop; it was partitioned by a curtain of cloth, which was all the separation between the sleeping apartments and the place where they cooked, and ate, and lived.

There was a deep silence in the room when I entered. Lily was occupied with her drawing, lighted by two tapers burning in a cup half-filled with oil. There was none of that cheerful hope beaming in her fine eyes that usually filled them when she welcomed me. And all the faces in the room looked doleful enough—some rebuff they had certainly met with from some quarter.

“I am drawing this for you,” she said, when I sat down beside her and looked at her work, “it is for a parting gift.”

“Parting!” I exclaimed; “what are you going to do now, were you successful in your letter to Mr. ——?”

“Read it and see,” she said, producing a letter,

And I read as follows:

It was with difficulty I could repress my grief, as I looked about that cheerless room, and on the young girl whose disappointment I knew must be so keen; but calmly, and apparently undisturbed, Lily continued her drawing.

“What will you do now, Lily?” I asked, anxious to at least break the embarrassing silence.

“We are going west next week!”

“West! where—how?”

“To Illinois. I have borrowed the money—we cannot stay here and starve. I am going there to take a school. If I cannot get a living by writing, there are many other ways—and I will try them at least.”

Had she told me her immediate intention of taking a journey to the South Pole, I should have felt my powers of credulity very little more taxed than they were at that moment, so wild and perfectly impracticable seemed the scheme. But Lily had spoken so seriously, and with so much determination, I was constrained to believe her.

The picture she was engaged upon—I have it yet—was an imaginative and a striking one. It was a moonlight scene. Beside the water’s edge, among wild rocks, a girl was standing alone—the figure was a likeness of herself—and a very perfect one it was, too. The expression of the sketch was touching in the extreme.

“She is looking for peace and rest there,” said Lily, in explanation. “She has sought it so often, but has not found it—and she never will.”

“Does she seek it in the right way, Lily?”

“I don’t know. Every thing seems changed to me of late. I am bewildered. It seems to me as though I had lost myself. Since that letter came I doubt my powers more than ever. To think of one in my situation having to practice before I can work successfully! There is little time to practice, I think, when eight human beings are wondering where their next meal is to come from—when their wood-yard is in such a state of depression and emptiness as ours is!”

The mother sighed heavily as Lily said this, but did not speak.

“But you certainly can do something here,” I cried. “Don’t go and bury yourself in the back-woods. I’m sure you can be a teacher in our school if you’ll only ask. It’s perfectly wild in you to think of going this winter! traveling, you know, at this time of year is a very costly business, dear Lily, besides being so cheerless!”

“There is no use talking about it; I should have loved to live here, for my own part, all my life, but I have engaged a school in the town we are going to, and they wish it to be opened early in the spring. There’s no help for it—we must go.”

And they went.

From that day until within a few months I heard nothing in regard to the Reeve Family. Lily had promised to tell us her experience in the west, of her success in this new attempt at securing a livelihood; but her promise was unfulfilled, and we could not but fear lest despondency had utterly crushed all the aspirations of her genius, that if she yet lived, poverty and hopelessness had come to be her only portion.

Still, though her name had never reached us through the medium talents like hers choose for their utterance—the press—there was always with me a lingering hope and belief that Lily had, under some assumed name, made herself famous. Knowing so well her ability, the more I thought of this the more I became strongly convinced that it was so. At last, when I had dreamed of her night after night, and thought much of her in my waking hours, it became absolutely necessary to my own peace of mind that I should write to her once more—a thing I had not done in many years—in order to discover if she were actually dead or alive—famous or unknown to the world. It was with much anxiety, as all my lady readers will believe, I awaited her reply—for an answer I felt convinced I should receive. It came at last; and as people such as she are regarded by the world as a species of public property, as regards their thoughts, words, and deeds, I have little scruples in laying Lily’s epistle open for public inspection, knowing that her words will awaken the hope and renewed efforts of the despairing, and excite the admiration and commendation of all good people.

“I have but just received your letter, dear friend of by-gone days, and believe me, it has given me no little satisfaction to think that you remember me, and with interest still. I am inclined to laugh, and weep, and wonder, when I think of myself as I was in the days long ago, when we lived among you so very poor and dependent; but there is a feeling of gratitude living in my heart stronger than every other emotion now excited in my breast by the freshened remembrance of my old home.

“You ask me to tell you what I have been doing, and wish to know under what name I have immortalized myself. You will not believe I left behind me all my ambitious desires when we made our abode here in the west! Have you ever chanced to hear of ——? It is the name I chose to adopt in my appearance before the public. Perhaps you may have seen it, and read verses accompanying it, but I am confident you never recognized in those merry strains the voice and the heart-tune of your once poverty-stricken and desponding friend.”

(The reader may imagine my astonishment and amaze on reading these words—for my correspondent, Lily Reeve, was none other than one of the most beloved and popular of writers!)

“I feel conversational to-day, besides, I know it is but just to assure those who were so generous in my days of adversity, that their money and sympathy were not altogether thrown away. I was very far from being forgetful of those who in my earlier years rendered me such efficient and valuable aid; but I thought it better even at the risk of being esteemed ungrateful, to be unknown to them and to you, until I should be able to reflect some little credit upon them. I shall soon publish a book which is dedicated to those friends of former days, through that I hope to relieve myself from any charge of forgetfulness or coldness they may have justly brought against me.

“It is only ten years since we first made our home in this western world; but I have grown gray in feeling since then, and looking back into my childhood, the road to it seems to be one of interminable length. Decidedly as our fortunes have brightened, we have had our struggles and heart-sorrows here also; and we have had much of sickness too, which seems to await almost every settler in the west; but there is so much more for which we have occasion to be thankful, that it seems almost a sin even to revert to our first trials and vexations. My mother, thank Heaven! now that she is old, may rest; her latter years are not harassed with the thoughts of a dependent, impoverished family; my brothers are in a way, all of them, to support themselves, and my young sisters are being educated in such a way that they will never have to rely on others for their support. And for all this I pray we may be ever thankful as we ought.

“When we first came to this place all things were decidedly new. The inhabitants, men, women and children, truly seemed to us to have reflected in their own natures the marvelous greenness and freshness of the close surrounding forests; the village was poor, like all new places, and not one quarter its present size. Indeed, we call it a city now.

“But you never can think what a house of refuge it was to us poor people! I was glad from my heart that there were none rich, none powerful here; that all was one grand level, above which wisdom and strength of mind, and superior goodness alone might rise. I was glad, I say, for despise it as you may, I am bold to acknowledge there was something awfully repelling to me in the thought of looking up to people because they happened to be rich, or occupy by birth a high station. Even the notice taken of me in my young days, in the place where I sojourned, was galling to me. It savored too much of condescension, which, child as I was, even then I despised and hated. There were many children here even in those days; for some years mine was the only school—how well it was patronized I need not say. I prospered, and was contented. Oh, it was such a joy to look on our own comfortable home; to know what a cheerful fire and plenty of food meant in one’s own house! There is something so exhilarating in the thought of independence and reliance on one’s own exertions, that for a whole year after our removal here I altogether abandoned my pencil and my pen; I thought I would never labor with them again. But I was mistaken in myself, as many times before I had been. I knew not the wants and necessities of my own nature.

“The second winter I had continually a restless yearning for higher and nobler pursuits than the mere business of school-teaching; that supplied our natural wants and necessities admirably, it is true, but there were longings of my mind that it became as necessary for me to supply. And so once more in the long winter evenings I resumed my pencils and pen, and I worked with them. It is impossible for me to express to you the intense satisfaction following these labors; it seemed as though I had found suddenly an Aladdin’s lamp, and that it dispelled the darkness and gloom of undefined yearning, and showed me a true and a great end that I could accomplish! I did not then immediately force my new productions upon the editors, but remembering well that one salutary lesson I received long ago, I strove hard to perfect myself. It would be wearisome for you to listen to the narration of my progress till I had gradually mounted up into the notice of the noble people of the west; how kindly and charitably they hailed my writings; how encouraging were the letters which, from many sources unexpected and unsought, I received, I will leave you to imagine—I felt then as though I were truly working out my destiny. Words crowded to my lips for utterance; thoughts pleaded in my brain to be heard; I longed to speak words of encouragement and strength to others—such words as from my own experience I knew full well many an overburdened soul needed. I spoke them, and I humbly hope they found acceptance and regard in many a heart.

“You will ask if I then was wholly satisfied? You will ask if notoriety pleased me? If I cared for no other and humbler good after I had attained that—in short, if I did not yearn for other love than that lavished on me by my own kin. In all calmness and confidence now, I can answer, yes! there were hopes unsatisfied, desires unfulfilled. Admiration was not all I craved—commendation not all I coveted. But years passed on, and with them the time when I could have rejoiced in loving and in being loved. The wild dream that haunted my mind of a perfect happiness on earth, of another kind of affection than I had yet received or given, went by. Coldness, and I am almost constrained to think at times, heartlessness, have usurped the place once occupied by the winged god; the altar which needed but a word to be enkindled and wrapped in flame, is torn away—a calm, immovable spirit occupies its place. I am not lonely or unhappy, only I feel strangely changed. I feel old in spirit; there may be no cloud, but there certainly is no sunshine; passionless now, and without the least craving for human love, my years glide on. I am satisfied in having helped to make the happiness of those for whom I have labored, and yet, true to woman’s belief, I must say, I am well aware that I have missed life’s highest good; I have passed by, in my eager search for a something that has not satisfied, that bright possession which the poorest of earth’s children, equally with the most exalted have extended to them by the hand of our beneficent Father. Do you think I am strangely confiding with one whom for ten years I have not known by thought, or word, or deed? But we were children together; and I remember how that you more than all I left behind me knew the thoughts and desires of my inner life. Doubtless, since we have come to be women, we have both much changed, but at this hour I will believe you sympathize with me as in the days of old.

“Not long ago there came one to me, a man gifted with noble intellectual faculties, and rich in heart-wealth; he has wished me to be his wife; but knowing as I do what a very pauper I am in all that is best calculated to make his a happy home—you will understand I am not speaking of fortune or beauty now—I have declined his suit. I cannot regard him as I could have a few, but a few short years ago. I do not love him as my imagination tells me that woman can and should love. For a moment when I read his words, my heart beat wildly—I was happy; but that passed quickly; I distrust myself; I do not wish now that any one should intrust to me a charge of their happiness through life; it would be madness, and no less than foul wrong in me to wed with one whose affection I could make but such a paltry return. I give to you the answer I sent him; it is the sum total of my thoughts on this subject—and I would ask you as you read them, do you not think that there is but little to envy in one who has flung away a diamond, for a trifling but more brilliant gem?

“And now, being quite sure that I have outwearied you, and believing that you will gladly let the remainder of your interrogatories to-day pass unanswered, I will conclude, with the earnest hope that you may never be tempted to barter the sacred affections of your heart for any more alluring, but less, oh, far less satisfying prize—in the name of our childhood.

“Always yours,

“Lily Reeve.”

Dear reader, it may be proper to state, that despite this most emphatic disclaimer on the part of Lily, a western paper I have recently received, contains a notice of the marriage of the distinguished poetess, Lily Reeve, with the Hon. —— ——. Had it not been for this, one other proof of what is called the fickleness of woman’s nature, you perceive I should have been enabled to end my story without a marriage; but you will bear in mind that this repetition of the almost invariable climax, is not my fault!

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BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.

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[SEE ENGRAVING OF MAY MORNING.]

DRAWN BY PASTORINI
MAY MORNING.