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largest liberty in perambulating the streets of
the city, but protests against the same privi
lege being granted too freely, in favor of leo
pards, tigers, and similar gentry. Did we not
occasionally stumble over a porker, we should
fear the extinction of our aldermanic defend
ers. Nevertheless, too much of a good thing
is objectionable, and to see the leopard, would
be worse than seeing the elephant —even the
threat “Rajah,” recently despatched, m Eng
land, for killing his keeper, in resentment of
ill-treatment. Think of the old chap’s merely
coughing a little when they gave him prussic
acid enough to destroy a respectable army,
and merely shaking his sides, after receiving
a volley of fifteen musket balls! The mur
dering of the poor fellow was about as sensi
ble as the breaking of a chair, over which
one may have stupidly bruised his shins. —
His keeper abused him and he resented the
affront. ’Twas not what a Christian elephant
would have done, to be sure, but then ’twas
natural. The government should have taken
him in charge and prejudiced his mind against
the chartists. What an efficient “ special
constable” he would then have made in the
next “demonstration!” Had the incident oc
curred within the jurisdiction of our tender
hearted Governor of New York, the sentence
would surely have been commuted to impris
onment for life!
On Friday last, the semi-annual examina
tion of the pupils of the Blind Asylum took
place, to the great delight of the visitors, and
the credit of all concerned in the institution.
Many interesting papers were read by the pu
pils, and some pretty original songs were
.sung; among the latter a sweet poem upon
the Restoration of Peace, by Miss Crosby,
the laureate of the establish
ment. The Blind Asylum is among the most
valuable institutions, and is one of the great
points of interest to all strangers who visit the
city.
A meeting which was to have been held the
other evening, in commemoration of the taking
of the Bastile, has been postponed, in conse
quence of the late intelligence from Paris.
The returned New York Volunteers, who
are encamped near Fort Hamilton, are said to
be in a state of extreme destitution. Some
measures are on foot for their relief. Mr.
Bennett of the Herald , in urging their claims
upon the public sympathy and aid, offers to
head a subscription, with the liberal donation
of one hundred dollars.
A distinguished literary friend has kindly
furnished me with the following interesting
items of intelligence in the book world:
Literature is almost driven from the public
mind, by the more exciting details of the
newspaper press, just as the the theatres are
closed in Paris, by the more imposing specta
cles of the streets. But irrespective of Revo
lutions, one or more of which is served up
every morning with one’s breakfast, literature
has been of late “off” her high library pe
destal; the wit and philosophy of the day
seeking immediate audience in Punch or the
Times. It is a tendency which might have
been looked for in connection with railways
and telegraphs. Eveiy form of literature is
absorbed in the Press. A few books how
ever. are announced abroad. Anew and en
larged edition of the works of Lord Bacon,
to be edited by Cambridge scholars, is in pre
paration ; the philosophical and literary
works under the charge of Robert Leslie Ellis
and James Spedding; those relating to law in
the hands of Douglas Denon Heath; these
departments, it is calculated, will be ready for
press in about two years. The “occasional
works” will be diligently sought for, and
many will be now got together for the first
time. The long expected History of England,
by Macaulay, is to be immediately forthcom
ing. Mrs. Jamison’s new book on Art, is
promised for July. Two new volumes of
Charles Lamb*6 Letters, will be issued this
season, under the editorship of Serjeant Tal
fourd. Monkton Milnes’ Life and remains of
SOHSITSISIBIBI flainr-Bl&&&¥ iBASSirVg.
Keats, “dainty books” is also just ready.
At home, the new revised edition of Ir
ving’s works, is the most agreeable thing we
hear of. Knickerbocker’s History of New
York, with anew preface, and additional
chapters , is to appear soon. The illustrations
of the series by Darley are capital.
Kernot, the favorite bookseller of the Up
per Ten Thousand, fashionable or literary, is
mysterious over the “ forthcomings” of the
next season. The publishers are not idle, and
the result will be seen in due time. I owe
Kernot, by the way, acknowledgements for
two pamphlets, an anniversary poem by Mr.
St. John, before the Philolexican Society of
Columbia College, quite of the standard order
of cleverness of those satirical productions,
and anew publication, a narrative of adven
tures in the Pacific, by a party of fugitives
from a whaler, written by James A. Rhodes.
It is another version of the stories so well told
by Herman Melville, though in a different
style, and reads with interest on the old un-
w r earable stock of Robinson Crusoe.
Now, my dear sir, I think that in the length
of this epistle, I have atoned for the brevity
of my latter sheets, and that you will be ready
to exclaimin Shakspearian measure, “ Hold!
enough!” FLIT. .
<El)c (Kssatjist.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
TALE READERS AND TALE WRITERS.
BY THOMAS W. LANE.
While the tale readers of the present day
may be justly congratulated on their good
fortune in having such a number and variety
of tales at their disposal, the tale writers, pen
ny-a-liners, who fill the emptiness of their
stomachs by increasing the emptiness of the
magazines, deserve a large share of our pity,
and sympathy. Every interesting situation
in which two lovers can be placed has been
described —every distressing scene in which
widow's, and orphans in a state of semi-nudi
ty, could figure, has been pictured forth—Ev
ery weakness of poor human nature has
been pointed out; every hair-breadth escape,
every interesting incident, act, event, and prod
igy, that nicely or awkwardly, legitimately or
illegitimately, could be woven into the thread
of a story, has been worked in, and the looms
must soon stop for the want of more raw ma
terial. The tale writer’s profession is gone;
he must serve anew apprenticeship, and in
stead of inventing as formerly, must learn to
metamorphose—to change time, incident, and
locality—to plagiarize without detection —in
short, to glean from the great fields, whose
crops have long ago been garnered, and by a
skilful putting together of fragments compose
a tolerable whole. Some of the shrewder
writers have already found this out, and
our most popular modern tales are but mo
saics, so ingeniously put together too, that
the best read man, though he may be con
scious of having seen the tale before is not a
ble to say when or where it first met his
eyes.
We have love stories by thousands, all fra
grant with the odor of flowers, and silver
ed with moonshine, holding up to public
gaze some bewhiskered hero upon his knees
on a perfumed handkerchief in the parlor, or
mounted on a coal black steed, whereby
the heads of half the girls in the land are
turned, and they are left to sigh away an ex
istence, in hunting for just such a hero for a
husband, as Mr. Augustus Adolphus Hamil
ton ; while their highest aim, and dearest
wish is to assimilate themselves with Mr. A.
A. ITs sweet-heart. Young men too, are
equally injured by reading these milk-and
water stories. Hours upon hours are wasted
in tying a cravat, arranging the hair, or in
giving that exquisite curl to the moustache ,
which made Mr. Howard (the hero of the
last new novel,) such a lion among the la
dies. They are brought to consider spotless
hands, more desirable than spotless characters,
and instead of exerting themselves for fame,
or fortune, are doing their best to make “love
fly out at the window,” by a romantic elope
ment, to be followed by a failure of the “ pot
to boil.”
We have sea-stories full of nautical terms,
and eulogiums on “ the sea! the sea!” writ
ten to show the privations of sailors; assum
ing that they are not ihe detestable objects
they are represented to be, that they all do
not swear like sailors, &c. &c. These tales
are interspersed with interesting descriptions
of how the ocean looked on certain evenings
in the year 18 , together with the longi
tude and latitude, in which an imaginary sea
captain found himself on those occasions, and
the depth of the ocean at those precise spots.
We have Revolutionary stories depicting the
horrors of war, and describing the unpleasant
feelings of a deserter, who on a fine morning
in May, reluctantly consented to act as bulls
eye to a dozen blundering fellows who imag
ine a man's heart to lie in his legs, and aim
accordingly. Fairy land has been rifled of
all its mysteries, and the fairies themselves
sitting upon mushrooms, or reclining in half
open roses, are exposed to the vulgar gaze of
boys and girls, by certain enterprising pub
lishers for the sum and consideration of
twenty-five cents for every such exposure.
Domestic tales are written in which authors
vie with each other in their efforts to describe
in the most charming manner, the order in
which cups and saucers, or pots and kettles
should be kept—how Mrs. B. hung up her
curtains, and at what hour of the night Mr.
B. ought to come home in order to preserve
the happiness and peace of the family. Nay,
a certain celebrated writer has even gone into
the counting-house, and there among day
books, and ledgers, written a long-winded
story to prove that if the out-goings exceed
the in-comings, a man will never become
rich, and is in a fair way to become poor.
It was within the limits of supposition
however to imagine that when the tale wri
ters, starting from the top, had penetrated to
the bottom of society, and had sketched all
the intermediate classes, they would be de
barred from all further progress, but they
have gone down, down, lower, and up high
er and higher. The most startling events
that once excited the imagination are become
dull and stale—life is no longer a chequered
scene, but a dull common place—the world
is not now a stage, nor are men and women
players, but the scene, must now be laid out
of this miserable planet. Nothing will now
please the vitiated taste of the tale devourers
unless it be a story, either mysterious, diabol
ic, amphibious, or anti-mundane, to prove
which we need only state that the most pop
luar book of the day is, “ Revelations by a
Clairvoyant,” in which are described the
manners and customs of one of the planets
(we forget which, but think it is Jupiter,)
that do our pitiful planet the honor to keep
it company around the sun.
Tales ’were once written to tickle the fan
cy, and charm the imagination —they merely
served to chronicle the tricks of Cupid, or
the exploits of adventurers, but they are now
used as vehicles for conveying a moral, or a
maxim—a sort of gilding to make the pill
more easily swallowed. Mankind are led to
virtue and wisdom, by short and easy stages
over a level turnpike, instead of jogging a
long in those dry dull conveyances in which
they were wont to ascend those rugged
mounts. Sir Robert Peel, it is said, has learn
ed some lessons in diplomacy, and statesman
ship, by the perusal of a modern novel, while
a certain learned pontiff has not thought it
beneath him to give his attentive considera
tion to the pages of the “ Wandering Jew.”
There must soon be an end, if not to book
making, at least to tale-writing. The tale
writer will soon be merged iuto the poet, who
§i!*, t “ . k *w£r
“gives to airy nothings a local habitation
and a name,” or else, they must treat old
tales, as milliners do old bonnets, alter, re
model, and hide the seams beneath heavy
masses of ribbon and flowers.
Sketches of £ifc.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
THE LISTENER,—NO. V.
NOT BY CAROLINE FRY.
OLD MAIDS.
Whatever I may here say about that class
of community, whom we are wont to call
“old maids,” l wish it well understood that
I would not for the world throw contempt on
the sisterhood, for in their number are some,
whom I love and respect equally with the
most amiable and honorable people in the
world. She who is to be the principal object
of this sketch, has indeed gained a right by
her peculiarities, to the title of “old maid,” in
the somewhat opprobious sense of the phrase;
but did we know the whole history of her
long life, doubtless we should find that many
apologies might be made for her, distorted as
her humanity has become.
In truth, even in her worst aspect, an old
maid is as much to be pitied as censured.—
Her heart is most generally a sealed book,
into which few are permitted to look, even
were they inclined to do so. Well be it for
her happiness and her reputation, if the cher
ished memories there preserved, are those of
tenderness and true affection. Well —if there
is no cankering disappointment—no sourceof
bitterness turning her heart against those
whose lot is happier than her own. It must
indeed, be a gentle nature and a loving spirit,
which can resist the influence of a memory of
injustice done to the treasures of love poured
out upon an unworthy object.
Again, the unselfish devotion of a wife,
more than repaid by the love and confidence
of the being who calls it forth, never has a
roused her, from the dream of her own com
fort and well-being; the deep fountains of a
mother’s love, so fertilizing and enriching, has
never flowed over the heart, keeping it fresh
and genial. Can we then wonder if she is
apt to be harsh and uncharitable in her judge
ment of the world ! Can we wonder that
when her own affairs terminate in so limited
a circle, she officiously employs herself with
those of her friends and acquaintances! She
must be supplied with some object of interest,
or she would stagnate in the midst of a busy
world. It is therefore that the stream of her
existence blends with others, and the mingling
being met with resistence, the waters of both
become turbid, and the “old maid,” the cause
of all this trouble, is soon looked upon with
distrust and aversion—poor soul!
The lives of some, have been very different
from this pitiable state. I well remember pas
sing a month or two, when a child, at the
house of Miss Mary Alford, a true “old
maid,” if forty years of single life could
make her such, but her heart was as young
as that of a girl in her teens —and oh ! how
much richer in its wealth of love —how much
nobler in its well directed purposes for the
good of others! I was in poor health, and
needed country air and exercise; now was
she not good to burden herself with an in
dulged, and therefore spoiled—a sickly, and
therefore ill-tempered child. I know now the
reason why she did it, and that knowledge
adds much to my reveience for the woman
capable of such an act. My mother had been
the dearest friend of her girlhood, and my fa
ther was the 011I3’ man who had ever moved
her heart to love; she had sacrificed herself
to the happiness of those so dear to her, and
found her own in their blessedness. For
their sakes she was willing to give me a mo
ther’s tenderness and care.
How vividly I can call to mind the firft
time I ever saw her. After a ride of twenty
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