Newspaper Page Text
THE SOUTHERN SENTINEL
IS PUBLISHKt)
EVERY FRIDAY MORNING,
BY
T. LOMAX & CO.
TENNENT LOMAX, Principal Editor.
Office on Randolph street.
Citcvimj Department.
Conducted by CAROLINE LEE HENTZ.
[WRITTEN FOR TIIE SENTINEL.]
THE MIDNIGHT INVOCATION.
In the darkness and stillness,
The lonenew and chillness,
Tho gloom of the midnight,
Thy presence I feel—
The darkness grows deeper,
It’s round tlie pale weeper,
Invisible forms, like the wind-spirit-, steal.
Oh, holy of holies,
And glory of glories,
Great being of beings,
That presence is thine—
Thirie too are the angels,
That breathing evangels,
Keep over the sleeper, their vigils divine.
With heart wildly throbbing,
The silence absorbing,
I learn through the shadows,
Thy breathings to hear—
They come faint and lowly,
Yet grandly arid holy—
Eternity’s echoes—deep, solemn and clear.
The burden, the mystery,
Os life's thrilling hi-tory,
The clouds ot the future,
Down, down on me weigh—
More fearful than dying,
To live thus reiving
On pillars of mist, that in tears melt away.
To live thus surrounded
By shadows, and bounded
By limits, that ever
Though near, seem remote—
Where the feast-lights are beaming
A sharp word is gleaming—
N\ here the rev<# is gayest, the death-vapors float.
Oh, God of salvation—
As God of creation—
Have pity, have pity ;
Wo are weak—we are lost;
Be strength to our weakness—
Be light to our blindness—
Save, save us—vve pe.~L.-h—on wild billows to s’d.
C U 11.
Quincy, Flu., June 12, 1832.
[written for the sentinel.]
MAGNOLIA LEAVES.
We wish the breeze that wafts oar frail
leaves away from us, would bring us back a
token that they have been gathered by some j
friendly hand, and preserved in some lierba- j
riurrt, where heart-blossoms and leaflets are
tenderly cherished. Our thoughts, like the
Arctic dove, go forth, in search of some green
pledge of sunshine, and oft come back, with
out iiuding rest or the blooming olive. Wby
this feeling comes over us, we cannot tell;
perhaps our task is too saddening. We fear
we make others sad, and yet there is a fas
cination in it, that hinds us down to the spot,
where stands the open trunk with the packets
scattered around. We were here weeks ago,
and here vve linger still. We can realize the
charm which led old VJortality to the burial
ground of the covenanters, that he might
clear away the mossy veil which covered their
monuments, and lift up the daisy and the hare
bell, that drooped beneath its shade. It is
true, the memories awakened here are of re
cent date. The moss and rank growth of
time have not obscured the traces on the ta
blet ; but when we look back to the past, the
irrevocable, even if the glance has only
months or days to travel over, the view seems
receding, and we turn to memory’s lamp
and feed it with the oil of meditation. Here
are some fugitive poems, written by the sol
dier poet, the elder brother of the one who
formed the subject of our last sketch. He
was accustomed to twine with the laurels of
war, the flowers of fancy and the myrtle of
love. They were like other flowers, mostly
ephemeral; but some of them are too sweet
to wither away, like the grass of the field,
unnoticed and unregretted. These stanzas
were written on the eve of battle, and are de
scriptive of the character of the writer, who,
through the densest smoke of carnage, could
feel some gleam of sunshine in his heart:
When far from his friends and his dear native home,
The soldier to fight for his country doth roam ;
How sweet the lefleetion, though far he has strayed,
That still he is dear to some beautiful maid,
Whose fears fondly follow his steps to the field—
Whose prayers ask of Heaven his bosom to shield.
At night, when encamped on the dewy cold ground,
He dreams that her spirit is hovering around ;
Her image, which fancy delights to portray,
Enlivens his march through the wearisome day—
And even in battle he thinks of the fair.
Whose hand for his brow shall the laurel prepare.
His love for music was a passion. It filled
him with divine emotions. At the close of a
short poem, we find the following heart
gushfng strain, after speaking of the influence
of music :
If e’er I live to see the day
When age hath made me hoar—
W hen pleasures gliding swift away
Delight my heatt no more—
Oh! may l have a daughter fair,
A slave to music’s power,
Whose art shall blunt the edge of care,
And soothe my dying hour—
And when she strikes the harmonious strings,
To sweet delusion given,
My soul shall mount on music’s wing,
And fancied soar to Heaven.
Many such gems as these, lie hid in the
casket, hoarded by affection and considered
as sacred relies. Some have been given to
the world. It was his destiny as a soldier, to
be stationed far from all social privileges and
enjoyments, his only companions being the
soldiers of his camp, and the red warriors of
the ivilderness.
“I write,” he says, “by the roar of the
cataract, anti the murmurs of the forest.”
lie who had been accustomed to shine in
the circles of fashion, a bright, ascendant star,
the “observed of all observers,” the gayest of
the gay, as the most graceful, elegant and
fascinating of men, strung his lyre on the wild
banks of the Mississippi, and sighed not,
though there were none to listen to its num*
VOL. 111.
bers. He found a charm in intellectual pur
suits, which beguiled solitude of its weari
ness, and made him independent of circum
stance and place. In the long and bloody
Mexican campaign, they were his solace and
recreation. And Itere he attained a prouder
I distinction than he had won in earlier years,
as the star of fashion and flower of chivalry.
He was known throughout the camp as the
Christian soldier, for the crowning glory of
; religion was now added to his virtues and
graces, and the cloud which rested over the
tents of Israel hovered over his own. We
feel constrained to record a beautiful incident
which occurred during the battle of Monterey,
| where for three days lie fought by the side of
the gallant Taylor. Towards the close of
the terrible strife, while the dead and the dy
! ing strewed the ensanguined earth, through
the cannon’s breath, his glance fell upon a
little delicate flower, a Morning Glory , bloom
ing by the wayside, and lifting up its
I sweet and fearless brow to the God of battles
; At sight of this little flower, a vision of home,
of pure, home-born joys and affections, pass
:ed instantaneously before him. The brave
heart which had been so dauntlessly opposed
to a vindictive foe, melted to all a woman’s
tenderness, and tears gathered in the soldier’s
flashing eye. 11 is thoughts flowed, without
any volition of his own, into the melody of
poetry, and that night, when retired to his
tent, after unbuckling his blood-stained sword,
he committe 1 to paper a poem, called the
“Morning Glory, of the fields of Monterey.”
We look iti vain among these papers for
the beautiful lines—for this flower, born of
; blood and carnage—this Picciolu of the bat
tle field. Oli, brave and tender, pure and lio
i ly heart, art thou indeed still and pulseless?
Has the indwelling Deity departed, leaving
the noble temple to crumble into dust ? Yes!
He who had passed unscathed through the
lightnings of war, was suddenly smitten by
the angel of Deatii on a peaceful homeward
journey-. Instantaneously as the elec trie flash,
the bolt descended, and the warrior bowed to
man’s last enemy. He fell, as the oak of the
forest falls, firm and stately to the last—fell
as the tree falls, when a strong wind sweeps
over it, or the lightning blasts it. Is not such,
a glorious death to die? To be spared the
humiliating process of dependence and de
cay, the gloomy passage through the valley
of the shadow of death, the cold wading of
the waters of Jordan ; the pains, the agonies,
the expiring conflict; to be one moment on
earth, the next in heaven; to gaze one mo
ment on the mild features of a beloved wife—
the next upon that glory of glories, whose
very thought annihilates the faint reaching
spirit ? He was prepared for the conqueror’s
coming. Though the joys of earth were
sweet, heaven was sweeter still, and with it he
had long held close and divine communion.
There were loved ones there, who had gone
before, whom bis spirit longed to embrace.
The parents whom next to his God he reveren
ced, the children who were taken from him in
the innocencv and beauty of early childhood,
and the brother he had so much loved. Not
till the dark, dark hour, had he deferred the
work of preparation. There was a daily
sanctity in his life, that anointed him for the
sacrifice of death.
Man has been compared to a ruined tem
ple, whose pillars of original beauty and sym
metry are broken and defaced, stamped with
the genius of the divine Architect, but incapa
ble of being restored to their pristine gran
deur. But he seemed a temple with all its
fair proportions unmarred and unchanged;
no trace of ruin was there. Firmness, digni
ty, simplicity and truth, were the Doric col
umns that supported it—tenderness, sensi
bility and grace, its Corinthian ornaments —
and religion, the sun-gilt dome that crowned
and perfected the noble fabric. There was
an altar within that temple, where the incense
of prayer and praise was ever ascending, and
the threshold was sprinkled with the blood
of the eternal sacrifice.
He is gone. His memory is honored
among men. He had attained the highest
military honors, the most enviable social dis
tinctions- But others will fill the high milita
ry station made vacant by bis death, and it is
easy for society to find new idols in place of
those it has lost. But there are hearts which
feel a vacuum which must forever ache—
places, which, knowing him no more, wear
the sadness and desolation of the tomb. Ilis
death is the shadow which rests upon the
homestead. How deep the chill upon its
warm, affectionate hearts! The aspect of
nature is changed. The wind, which made
an anthem of praise among the boughs of
the elm trees, now wails with dirge-like mel
ancholy through the foliage, and the moon
itself shines with a sickly lustre, as if mourn
ing for a departed worshipper.
Ah! how true it is, that the more love,
the more sorrow! It is a fearful thing to love
intensely, when our hold on those we love
is more slender than the silk-worm’s thread.
Yet who would live unloving, that they may
live unsorroiring ? \Y ho, even after time
has assuaged the first agonies of bereave
ment, would exchange the memory for the
hope of joy ? Joys remembered, are still our
own—dearer in retrospect than in possession
—ours by a security the future cannot know,
and a holy seal that belongs only to the past.
“Hand, keep ray memory green,” is the deep
prayer of humanity, “Blot out, if it must
be, the remembrance of pleasure, but let that
of happiness remain; and if that, too, must
fade away, sweep not away the recollection
vtljc JoouHjccn Sentinel.
of suffering, the purifier and glorifier of the
soul.”
It is by contemplating the character of de
parted friends, that we keep “their memory
green in our souls.” It is by dwelling on
their virtues, that their image becomes indel
ibly imprinted on our hearts. The mere
act of recording the feelings awakened by
these letters, deepens and strengthens them.
What! burn these papers, mementoes of the
noblest, best and purest of human beings—
these breathings of affection and these over
flowings of intellect! Mingle them with the
rubbish and waste tilings of life—consign
them to ashes and oblivion! No! if we
could give them to the flames, it would be as
the Romans conn: itted their dead to the bur
ning pyre—sacredly, religiously—and after
having seen them pass through the fiery pro
cess, collect the dust into an urn, and clasp it
to our hearts as a holy deposit.
We pity those who have never felt the
thrill which penetrates the whole being, when
brought into sudden communion with the
spirits of departed friends. It is an earnest
of future, unending intercourse, of immortal
ity, of eternity. When we write, the
thought that the characters we are drawing,
will survive the hand that traced them, should
make us rejoice and tremble—rejoice, that
the echo of our souls may be beard through
distant years to come —tremble, lest it repeat
what may give us immortal regret.
Lord Littleton bestowed on Thomson the
greatest praise ever given to man, w hen he
said, liis works contained “no line which dy
ing, he could wish to blot.’’
C. L. H.
[WRITTEN EXPRESSLY FOR THE SOUTHERN SENTINEL.]
THE FATE OF
THOMAS GILES & CO.,
Wholesale and Retail Grocers.
CHAPTER 11.
When Mrs. Wiusby turned from her con
ference with Giles to enter her apartment,
she sank from sheer exhaustion into the first
chair that offered. Worn out with fatigue,
and grown acutely nervous from protracted
and anxious watching at the couch of her
sick husband, the sudden confirmation of her
worst apprehensi ms, and the distinct appre
ciation of her wretched condition, induced
an hysterical trepidaney, that, with all her
efforts at restraint, pervaded her frame with
irrepressible agitation. She felt such an ut
terness of desolation stealing into her heart,
such a thorough conviction of the conse
quences that were staring her in the face,
that her brain reeled under the accumulated
load of suffering. She was soon to be
houseless in the midst of ten thousand habit
ations, —to be homeless in the centre of a city
of homes,—to be penniless, an outcast, star
ving, a waif to and fro on the gieat sea of
misery,—with the partner of her bosom, just
returned to her from the very gates of eterni
ty, unable to leave his bed, yet to be cared
for, and nourished into health Such were
some of the overwhelming forebodings that
flashed across her mind during the brief pe
riod she sat listless and helpless in her chair.-
With a sob of anguish, she flung herself up
on her knees ; and with the tears streaming
down her face, in tremulous accents she
poured forth her agony in an earnest, urgent
appeal to the mighty Ruler of all the earth,
for help in that time of terrible necessity.—
As she arose from her posture of devotion,
leaning her broken spiiit upon God, a calm
gradually succeeded the tempest w ithin her
soul. Taking her Bible, she opened to some
passages that were full of consolation to
those under affliction; and seating herself
beside the window’, through which streamed
the rays of departing day, she soon became
absorbed in their perusal.
The room she called home, although not
so large as might have been desired—al
though cheaply, and even somewhat scanti
ly furnished, yet wore an air of neatness and
of unobtrusive simplicity. The scrupulous
taste exhibited in the adjustment of each ar
ticle of furniture ; the snowy curtains which
shaded the two windows ; and the carefully
whitewashed walls, communicated a look of
considerable comfort to the apartment, not
withstanding some unmistakeable evidences
of straitened circumstances. It was notice
able, also, that the mantle over the old-fash
ioned fire-place, was decorated with shells
and with little curiosities from beyond the
sea; while, above them, in a frame against
the chimney, hung a single, elaborate paint
ing of a ship in a storm ; all of which
were occasional presents from a beloved
brother, whose floating abode was upon the
tempestuous Atlantic.
As she sat at the window, deeply engross
ed with her Bible, a low moan from the
couch of her sick husband, stirring the very
depths of her womanly tenderness and af
fection, brought her in anxious haste to his
side. He had just awakened out of a refresh
ing slumber, over which, before the interrup
tion ‘of Giles, she had been hanging with
hopeful solicitude. Until within a few days
his painful malady had banished sleep from
his eyelids ; so that now its occasional com
ing stole over his wearied frame like a deli
cious coolness. She laid her hand soothing
ly and caressingly upon his pale, emaciated
brow; and asked him how he was? in that
sweet undertone of utterance, which affords
a glimpse at the untold wealth of love and
devotedness, that lies hoarded in the speak
er’s heart.
COLUMBUS, GEORGIA, FRIDAY MORNING, JULY 16, 1852.
“A great deal better, Nelly. That pain in
my head has gone away now entirely.”
“O ! I’m so glad of it! Four forehead is
covered with a slight moisture, too. Let me
tuck you up close and warm, and give you
the rest of that medicine the doctor left for
you. I’m so glad you’re getting better fast!
I could almost cry for joy !”
“I have had a sad time of it, havn’t I, Nelly ?
It makes my heart ache to see you looking
so pale and thin. You must not stay shut up
in the house so much, darling. You must go
outoftener into the fresh air, and coax back
the roses to your cheeks.”
“Never mind ; they w ill be there again soon,
now that you are growing stronger. That
would be enough to bring them back, if noth
ing else would. But you know the doctor
said I must not let you talk much for several
days. You must be good and keep quiet.”
So saying, she pressed the hand she was
lidding tenderly to her lips; and smiling a
look of unutterable affection, leaned back in
iier chair to meditate on the best steps for
her to take, with reference to the approach
ing exigency’.
She had not acquainted her husband with
their appalling circumstances. As lie was
manifestly in no condition, either bodily or
mentally, for making the disclosure subserve
an important purpose ; and as such an unex
pected revelation must have resulted in high
neivous excitement, inducing, from the very
nature of things, a corresponding reaction
which he was then ill fitted to endure, and
upon which a relapse of his malady might
supervene ; she had scrupulously withheld
from him every intimation of the impending
vicissitude. But the absence of his sympa
thy for her afflictions—the necessity of keep
ing her sorrows pent w ithin her own bosom—
had made the burden doubly hard to bear.
And now, as she sat back in her chair, with
her whole toul thrown into the earnest sclf
iiiquirv. \vas there any plan she could adopt
to avert the calamity at hand ? it was w ith a
sickening heart, she set herself to work out
the answer.
To satisfy the first demands of her pres
sing extremity, she had sold among her
neighbors such articles of furniture as she
could make shift to spare. But having al
ready exhausted that method of replenishing
her resources, she w r as compelled to turn her
reluctant hopes in another direction. The
character of her landlord for intolerance and
oppression, was too well established, and too
thoroughly appreciated, to afford the shadow’
of an expectation that an appeal to his sym
pathies would not receive an unfeeling re
pulse. In addition to these discouragements,
she had little more than a dollar with which
to meet the approaching emergency. Still,
she felt it useless to indulge in repinings; for,
while they could alleviate no anxiety, they
w’ould not fail to plunge her mind into deeper
distress. Though her situation was a pecu
liarly trying one, she well knew that only a
prompt and judicious scheme, vigorously put
into execution,could save her and all she loved
from the jaw’s of ruin. She accordingly resol
ved, faint and wearied as she was, to employ
all her energies in devising, if possible, some
means of relief. But after spending half an
hour intensely pondering the subject, with
out finding the labyrinth of her difficulties
any less intricate, she almost felt disposed to
make no further effort. At length, having
elaborated several plans, and, on better con
sideration, having abandoned them as im
practicable, and just as she was on the point
of giving up in despair, she suddenly be
thought herself of some jewelry, the occa
sional presents of her generous-hearted sail
or brother, made at the close of his long voy
ages, from which he never returned without
a keepsake for his sister.
Profuse liberality, amounting to absolute
munificence, is a marked trait in the charac
ter of the noble sons of the ocean. But ac
companying this habitual free-heartedness, is
a strange perversity of taste, w hich the jolly
tar never fails to display in his affectionate
donations. Whenever Jack selects a gift for
a woman, it is almost sure to be wholly un
suited to the purpose he had in mind. Does
it happen to he a ring? It might be made to
answer for a bracelet, were it only somewhat
larger. Is it a breast-pin? The figure and
the dimensions will not fail to intrude upon
you the conception of his favorite constella
tion, the Southern Cross. Nor had the
brother forgotten, in the present instance, to
illustrate this striking peculiarity of his class.
His first keepsake was a large, overgrown,
old-fashioned gold chain ; a sort of metaphor
ical cable, that was to hold her heart to his.
I he second was hardly better, being a mas
sive, odd-looking, emblematical belaying-pin
for her shawl. YV ith a sailor’s irenerous ar
dor, that disdains denial, he had thrust them
into her hands during visits at the completion
of long voyages. Utterly unable to make
any earthly use of them, yet valueing them
beyond measure for the sake of their donor,
she had laid them carefully away in her
trunk, stealing an occasional peep at them,
particularly when it blew great guns on land,
under the vague apprehension that it might
also be blowing great guns at sea, and that
her dear brother was tossing in the storm.
She knew that money was frequently rais
ed on like articles by carrying them to a
pawn broker; but the first suggestion of this
idea set her heart to fluttering at the thought of
parting, in such a manner, with presents so
highly estimated; and from one who, con
stantly exposed, as he was, to the perils of
! the tempestuous Atlantic, might never more
| return to her. Crushing back these prompt
ings of alFection with the consideration that
he, if knowing her necessities, would approve
the act, she set herself diligently about devi
sing the next step of her scheme. With no
personal experience in such matters; with
her whole knowledge on the subject consist
ing of what she had heard at various times
concerning the dictatorial bearing, the low
cunning, and the avaricious exaction of these
money-lenders ; she was full of solicitude and
perplexity as to what course was best adap
ted to her circumstances. Nor could she
just then think of any person to whom she
could apply for the desired information. At
length she brought to mind the young physi
cian who attended her husband. She distinct
ly recollected his gentlemanly demeanor, and
the habitual sympathy which beamed from his
luminous grey eyes. Nor would it have
been easy for her to forget his kindness in
consenting, when he discovered her limited
means, to await her own convenience for the
payment of his fees.
With the resolve to obtain his judgment of
her plan before putting it into execution, she
hastily prepared and swallowed a morsel of
supper, to strengthen herself for the task of
immediately calling upon him; for she was
all eager impatience to know whether the
trembling hope that had nestled in her heart,
like a wearied dove, was to be driven relent
lessly from its shelter, or cherished where it
was. Hurrying through with the prelimina
ries of throwing on her shawl and adjusting
her bonnet, she stopped a moment at the bed
side of her husband.
“Dear,’’ said she, “I am going away for a
little while. Wouldn’t you rather have Sally
come in and sit with you for company until
I come back ? You know she kindly offered
to do so any time I might find it necessary to
leave you. She can bring her lamp with her,
and sew, too, just as well here as in her own
room.”
“Why, Nelly, you are not going out after
dark all alone, are you ?”
“Only a short distance, dear. I won’t be
gone long. I must buy some more of that
medicine for you. You took the last there
was at sunset.”
“Very well. Wrap up warm, and be care
ful of yourself.”
She dallied some brief moments over his
couch, toying with his hair, and smoothing it
back caressingly; then imprinting a fond kiss
upon his emaciated brow, she noiselessly
withdrew from the room. Rapping at the
neighboring apartment, she requested the
fiiend she had spoken of, to remain with her
husband during her absence, which was
cheerfully promised.
On reaching the street, tiie shrill wind,
which had been playing every sort of mad
prank during the afternoon—such as whiffing
away gentlemen’s hats, or banging against
the windows they sheltered, all the shutters
people wished to have open—now darted upon
iier in so fierce a gust, (just as if it had been
impatiently waiting for her the live long day,)
tossing and whirling into her face such a
cloud of dust, that she was forced to catch
her breath, and turn her back to its fury.—
Having vented its spite upon her, it swept
away, moaning and groaning as it swagger
ed around the corner, like a human being in
mortal agony, but stopped at the chimneys
of a high house in the neighborhood’ where
some little children had just gone to bed, to
mumble and grumble in a way that set their
hearts to trembling, and made them snuggle
closer to one another for mutual protection.
The night was cold, dark and dismal. The
city lamps, glimmering in solitude from their
respective localities, though they could not
fail to shed some light on the surrounding
obscurity, yet served little better purpose
than to amplify the dreariness, and render it
more apparent; while the occasional foot
steps of stray pedestrians, hooted and cloak
ed to suit the moody weather, echoing along
the silent pavement, deepened her impression
of the loneliness and unusual desertion of the
streets, and awakened in her breast an invol
untary feeling of corresponding desolation.
Shrinking with womanly timidity from the
thought of pursuing unprotected her gloomy
walk, she felt almost induced to defer it until
the morrow; but the sudden recollection of
her destitute circumstances, with a full ap
preciation that she must depend upon her
own efforts to avert the impending calamity,
nerved her to the task. Accordingly, breath
ing a mental prayer to the Father of all mer- |
cies, to preserve her from evil, she hurried on
her way.
A few squares brought her to her destina
tion. Rapidly ascending a flight of stairs,
and advancing several paces along a narrow
entry, she rapped gently at the door of the
young physician. Receiving no answer, she
redoubled her summons, but without effect.
Just as she was turning away, with a heavy
heart, under the impression that he must be
on a visit to someone of his patients, and
that her errand had proved abortive, the op
posite apartment opened, and she was ad
dressed in a female voice, spiced with the
richest brogue:
“Is it afther wanting to see the Doctor, ye
are, ma’am ?”
She briefly replied in the affirmative.
“Sure, and the darlint young gintleman
isn’t here now', ma’am. Och, indade! in
dade! but he has a heart big enough intirely
for inny nobleman born; and it’s his own
su’ate silf that has no fool’s hid on his shoul
ders at all, at all. When he dies, may ivery
hair of it be a candle to light him into glory,
the generous-hearted soul!”
“How soon do you think he will be back ?”
she asked, in an undertone of disappoint
ment. .
“Niver a bit more, bliss you, ma’am. He
wint away altogether and intirely two wakes
agone. But ho left a small thrifle here to
say where he wint to. Pathrick, me jewel,
bring the leddy that mimerandum and the
candle in a jifTy wid ye. Here it is, ma’am,
sure.”
She took the small scrap of paper held to
wards her, and found it to be a brief state
ment in writing, of the physician’s change of
residence, with directions where he might be
found. Handing it bark to the good-natu
red, accommodating Irish woman, she said :
“He has removed to a place called Je
rusalem Buildings. Is it a long ways from
here ?”
“Throth, and it jist is. Pathrick, ye little
bogrotting sarpint, make haste wid ye, and
pint out the Buildings to the leddy. Won’t
you walk in, ma’am, and be afther warmin’
yesilf till he gits ready ?”
Thankfully accepting the offer, she suc
ceeded in thoroughly warming herself by the
glowingfire, under an incessant vollev of shy
glances from a whole family of the rising gen
eration, by the time the hopeful Patrick was
prepared to make his exit. Returning a grate
ful acknowledgment for the mother’s manifold
kindness, which, in the peculiar languaee of
her nation, was declared to be “nothing at
all, at all, sure,” she presently found herself
again in the street, industriously wending
her way towards the completion of her
errand.
Feeling even the presence of her little
guide an important protection, she clung
closely to his side, holding his hand in hers
As they approached the business quarter of
the city, the streets began to glare and glit
ter with the flickering, unquiet lights of the
shop-windows; and the pavements, before
so silent and deserted, to swarm with pedes
trians. Presently they came upon Broad
way—that great artery of all the thorough
fares and by ways—that huge aorta, through
which, day after day, pulsates the life-blood
of New York. The clattering of the omni
buses; the rumbling of carriages; the noise,
the tumult, the vast stream of human beings
pouring along the sidewalk ; the hoarse, in
cessant murmur; the flashing diadein of
lamps; the apparently inextricable confusion
—all struck her, for several momenta, with a
degree of bewilderment. Yet, feeling greater
security in the midst of the crowd than in
the lonely streets, she mingled with the cur
rent until her route necessarily changed.
She was truly surrounded by a promiscu
ous company. Every station in life was
abundantly represented—all the innumerable
varieties of form, face, feature, dress, deport
ment, gait, and expression of countenance.
Here was the scrupulously dressed dandy,
flirting his cane, and peering impudently into
the bonnets of lady passers. There was the
business man, with knit brow, and head
slightly inclined with the weight of financial
| speculations and deep thought. Yonder
| flaunted adown the pavement the female vam
i [>ire, lost to herself, to society, and to every
| throb of benevolent sympathy; begrimmed
1 with paint; appareled in purple and fine lin
j en; a simper on her lips, a canker at her
! heart, degradation in every feature, and infa
| my in every step. Further on, was a rich
banker—then a talented attorney —here, a
thriving tradesman—there, a Jew pedler, with
hawk eyes—yonder, a swaggering drunkard,
with bloated, sensual face—and yonder, a
distinguished artist, just from his studio—and
mingled and intermingled with all, gamblers
and pickpockets—the miser and the prodigal
—wan, emaciated invalids, with the hand of
death heavily upon them, and beauty, sweet
ly mantling with the flush of health, setting
the grave at defiance—the loathsome beggar,
tottering in rags, and the satined, jeweled
woman of fashion—the rich and the poor—
the learned and the ignorant—the oppressed
and the oppressor--the lovely and the defor
med—the loafer and the exhausted laborer—
all thronged together, wavering, jarring, jos
tling, and struggling on, in two dense, con
tinuous tides of population ; while, towering
far above all, just made visible by the excess
of light below, were the lofty pinnacles of the
consecrated temples of God, like index-fin
gers, pointing, with moral energy of signifi
cation, an avaricious and unhappy world,
from the perishing objects of time and sense,
to that “habitation not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens.”
As she passed on by the Broadway Thea
tre, with its row of astral lamps flaunting from
its iron balcony, and heard the fitful snatches
of music that breathed from the orchestra,
and saw ascending the steps gay, fashiona
ble groups, flashing with costly attire, she
could not restrain the mental exclamation,
“O! for the price one party of pleasure will
pay to-night for its transient amusement!”
At length, turning down a cross-street, a
few minutes’ additional walk brought her to
the new residence of the physician. His
present office was much more conspicuously
and eligibly situated than his former one;
being a front room on the ground floor, easy
of access, and wearing an air of considera
ble comfort; a feature which, in his case, in
dicated the upward tendency of initial pros
perity. Her gentle summons brought him
immediately to the door.
“Ah! is this you, Mrs. Winsby?” ho ex-
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claimed, cordially extending his hand. “Y our
husband is not worse, 1 hope?”
“Thanks to you, doctor,” she replied, “on
the contrary he is much better. But I have
ventured calling upon you to-night for an
other purpose than that of medical assist
ance.”
“I shall be happy to serve you in any way
in my power,” lie warmly responded. “But
I keep you standing; pray, be seated. Whom
have we here?” he continued, turning ab
ruptly, yet recognizing, as he did so, his old
friend Patrick, who, having escaped observa
tion, was intently regarding, with quizzical
look, the fitful fire-light’s exaggerated shad
ow of the tongs on the wall, into a straddling
giant, pertinaciously’ bobbing his head against
the ceiling.
After some further immaterial conversa
tion, she proceeded briefly to detail the cir
cumstances which had induced her visit; her
destitution, her apprehensions, her plans; her
extreme disappointment on discovering his
change of residence; her obstinate perseve
rance in searching him out; ending with an
urgent appeal to his sympathies, for advice
how to act under this, her trying emergency.
“I would be happy, Mrs. Winsby ” he be
gan in reply 7, “to assist you personally were
it in my power; but, in so lately removing
my office to this more profitable quarter of
the city, l have drawn upon my resources to
an extent that precludes my affording you ma
terial aid at present. Still, I compassionate
you from the bottom of my heart; and if any
advice of mine can benefit you, you shall have
it most cordially. 1 have had some tolerably
rough times with the world myself, and per
haps I could not serve you a better purpose,
than to relate a little incident of my own expe
rience in pawning articles. I had just taken
my degree, and having selected New Y'ork as
the scene of my operations, I took an office,
hung out my sign, and supposed, foolishly
enough, that I was going to rush at once in
to a lucrative practice. I soon found myself
sadly mistaken. Patients, especially paying
ones, were a rare luxury. Y et, as I could
not live altogether ’Without expenses, my
pocket began to- grow less and less plethoric,
until, finally, the outgoes being considerably
larger than the income, it became thorough
ly emptied. Without friends; that is, without
friends in need, and of course, in deed; with
debts accumulating upon my hands, and
threatening to accumulate upon my head; I
resolved, in my emergency—not knowing
what else to do—to pledge a magnificent
gold watch, for which, in my harem-scarem
days, l had been so extravagant as to pay
one hundred and eighty dollars. Not that
its true value fell short of so large an esti
mate ; but that, at the time it came into my
possession, it was wholly unsuited to my
comparatively restricted means and statiou
of life. Taking it for granted, in the simplic
ity’ of my’ unsuspecting trustfulness, that pawn
brokers were as honest and benevolent as
other classes of society, I did not much trouble
myself to make a choice among them. With
a casual recollection of having, some weeks
previously, noticed a place of this kind in a
neighboring street, I sauntered carelessly
down it, reading the signs as I went along,
(for I felt a degree of shame at the idea of in
quiring the whereabouts of such a locality,)
until I unexpectedly came upon one of them,
into which I immediately hurried. As I
stood within the door, my first sensation, ari
sing probably from complete ignorance of its
uses, w'as extreme surprise at finding the
counter partitioned off, on the outside, into a
succession of what reminded me, more than
anything else, of stalls in a livery stable.
Making my way into one of these, I obser
ved, a moment after, that several others wero
! occupied. Feeling a natural diffidence about
pawning my watch, inasmuch as it betrayed
my straitened circumstances; besides, wish
ing, for many reasons, to avoid publicity; I
beckoned to a clerk, who, standing alone;,
with his hands in his pockets, and with a pen
behind his ear, appeared to be disengaged.
But beyond a patronizing glance that called
the hot blood into my face, he did not stir.
I waited several minutes impatiently and per
plexedly ; but just as I was becoming thor
oughly ashamed of myself, though scarcely
understanding why, he condescended to ad
dress me. Listening to my elaborate state
ment of cost and value with a look of delib
erate incredulity, he received the watch with
assumed indifference; scrutinized it in a va
riety of lights; pronounced it to be misera
bly out of order; to be unfashionable in
shape, making it consequently unsaleable,
if forfeited; together with a dozen other
ifs and buts detracting from its W'orth; and
finally concluded by proposing to advance
upon it the miserable pittance of twenty dol
lars—an offer which I rejected with instant
indignation. Finding he had proceeded too
far, he increased the sum, after considerable
haggling, to forty dollars. As I was utterly |
disgusted, as well as wearied out, with the |
fellow’s unscrupulous conduct, and unwilling
to run the gauntlet of a second series of in
sults at some other place, where I might not,
after all, succeed in obtaining even the price
now tendered, I concluded to accept that
amount. A fortunate run of practice ena
bling me to redeem my watch at an early
period, I hastened to return it into my pos
session, for I had missed it sadly. But I soon
found something was the matter with it. It
kept wretched time, and frequently put me to
serious inconvenience. I accordingly carried
it to a jeweller, who discovered that some
of the parts had been removed aod others