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young Count. He told how he had hastened
io the castle to deliver the unwelcome tidings,
but that the eloquence of the Baron had in
terrupted him in every attempt to tell his tale.
How the sight of the bride had completely
captivated him, and that to pass a few hours
near her, he had tacitly suffered the mistake
to continue. How he had been sorely per
plexed in what way to make a decent retreat,
until the Baron's goblin stories had suggested
his eccentric exit. How, fearing the feudal
hostility of the family, he had repeated his
visits by stealth —had haunted the garden
beneath the young lady’s window —had woo
ed —had won —had borne away in triumph—
and, in a word, had wedded the fair.
Under any other circumstances, the Baron
would have been inflexible, for he was tena
cious of paternal authority, and devotedly ob
stinate in all family feuds ; but he loved his
daughter; he had lamented her as lost; he
rejoiced to find her still alive; and, though
her husband was of a hostile house, yet,
thank Heaven, he was not a goblin. There
was something, it must be acknowledged,
that did not exactly accord with his notions
of strict veracity, in the joke the knight had
passed upon him of hi.s being a dead man;
but several old friends present, who had serv
ed in the wars, assured him that every strat
agem was excusable in love, and that the
cavalier was entitled to especial privilege,
having lately served as a trooper.
Matters, therefore, were happily arranged.
The Baron pardoned ihe young couple on the
spot. The revels at the castle were resumed.
The poor relations overwhelmed this new
member of the family with loving kindness;
he was so gallant, so generous —and so rich.
The aunts, it is true, were somewhat scan
dalized that their system of strict seclusion,
and passive obedience, should be so badly
exemplified, but attributed it all to their neg
ligence in not having the windows grated.—
One of them was particularly mortified at
having her marvelous story marred, and that
the only spectre she had ever seen should
turn out a counterfeit; but the niece seemed
perfectly happy at having found him sub
stantial flesh and blood —and so the story
ends.
(Eclectic of tl)it.
From the London Charivari.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BORROWING.
You ask me to supply you with a list of
books, that you may purchase the same for
your private delectation. My dear boy, re
ceive this, and treasure it for a truth : no
wise man ever purchases a book. Fools
buy books, and wise men —borrow them.
By respecting, and acting upon this axiom,
you may obtain a very handsome library for
nothing.
Do you not perceive, too, that by merely
borrowing a volume at every possible oppor
tunity, you are obtaining for yourself the
reputation of a reading man; you are inter
esting in your studies dozens of people who,
otherwise, would care not whether you knew
A, B, C, or not % AYith your shelves throng
ed with borrowed volumes, you have an as
surance that your hours of literary medita
tion frequently engage the thoughts ofalike,
intimate and casual acquaintance. To be a
good borrower of books, is to get a sort of
halo of learning about you not to be obtained
by laying out money upon printed wisdom.
For instance, you meet Huggins. He no
sooner sees you than pop, you are associated
with all the Caesars; he having —simple Hug
gins!—lent you his Roman History, bound in
best historic calf. He never beholds you but
be thinks of Romulus and Remus, the Tar
peian Rock, the Rape of the Sabines, and ten
thousand other interesting and pleasurable
events. Thus, you are doing a positive good
to Huggins by continually refreshing his
mind with the studies of his thoughtful
youth; whilst, as I say, your appearance,
your memory, is associated and embalmed by
him with things that “ will not die.”
Consider the advantage of this. To one
man you walk as Hamlet; why ? You have
upon your shelves that mans best edition oi
Shakspeare. To another you come as the
archangel Michael. His illustrated Paradise
Lost glitters among your borrowings. To
this man, by the like magic, you are Robin
son Crusoe; to this, Telemachus. I will not
multiply instances; they must suggest them
selves. ‘ Be sure, however, on stumbling up
on what seems a rare and curious volume, to
lay your borrowing hands upon it. Ihe
book may be Sanscrit, Coptic, Chinese; you
m ay not understand a single letter of it; for
which reason, be more sternly resolved to
carry it away with you. The very, act of
borrowing such a mysterious volume implies
that you are, in some respects, a deep fel*
§®©lTEllß{&ia iUIf&IEAiBY ®&8B IF T l§.
low—invests you with a certain literary dig
nity in the eyes of the lending. Besides, if
you know not Sanscrit at the time you bor
row, you may before you die. You cannot
promise yourself what you shall not learn ;
or, having borrowed the book, what you shall
not forget.
There are three things that no man but a
fool lends—or having lent, is not in the most
hopeless state of mental crassitude, if he ev
er hope to get back again. These three
things, my son, are —books, umbrellas, and
money! I believe, a certain fiction of the
land assumes a remedy io the borrower; but
I know” no case in which any man, being suf
ficiently dastard to gibbet his reputation as
plaintiff in such a suit, ever fairly succeeded
against the wholesome prejudices of socie
ty-
In the first place, books being themselves
but a combination of borrowed things, are not
to be considered as vesting even their authors
with property. The best man who writes a
book, borrows his materials from the world
about him, and therefore, as the phrase goes,
cannot come into court with clean hands.—
Such is the opinion of some of our wisest
law-makers; who, therefore, give to the me
chanist of a mouse-trap a more lasting pro
perty in his invention than if he had made an
Iliad. And why'! The mouse-trap is of
wood and iron : trees, though springing from
the earth, are property; iron, dug from the
bowels of the earth, is property : ) r ou can
feel it, hammer it, weigh it: but what is call
ed literary genius is a thing not ponderable,
an essence (if, indeed, it be an essence,) you
can make nothing of, though put into an air
pump. The mast, that falls from beech, to
fatten hogs, is property -; as the forest laws
will speedily let you know, if you send in an
alien pig to feed upon it; but it has been
held, by wise, grave men in Parliament, that
what falls from human brains to feed human
souls, is no property whatever. Hence, pri
vate advantage counsels you to borrow all
the books you can; whilst public opinion
abundantly justifies you in never returning
them.
I iiave now to speak of umbrellas. Would
you, my son, from what you have read of
Arab hospitality—would you think of count
ing out so many penny-pieces, and laying
them in the hand of your Arab host, in re
turn for the dates and camel’s milk that,
when fainting, dying with thirst, hunger, and
fatigue, he hastened to bestow upon you 1
Would you, I say, chink the copper coin in
the man’s ear, in return for this kindly office,
which the son of the desert thinks an “in
strumental part of his religion ‘!” If, with
an ignorance of the proper usages of society,
you would insult that high-souled Arab by
any tender of money, then, my son —but no !
I think j'ou incapable of the sordidness of
such an act —then would you return a hor
10wed umbrella!
Consider it. What is an umbrella but a
tent that a man carries about with him—in
China, to guard him from the sun—in Eng
land, to shelter him from the rain ? Well, to
return such a portable tent to the hospitable
soul who lent it—what is it but to offer the
Arab payment for shelter; what is it but to
chaffer with magnanimity, to reduce its great
ness to a mercenary lodging-housekeeper and
Umbrellas may be “ hedged about” by cob
web statutes; 1 will not swear it is not so ;
there may exist laws that make such things
property; but sure I am that the hissing con
tempt, the loud-mouthed indignation of all
civilized society, would sibilate and roar at
the bloodless paltroon, who should engage
law on his side to obtain for him the restitu
tion of a—lent umbrella!
We now come to — money. I have had, in
my time, so little of it, that I am not very
well informed on monetary history. I think,
however, that the first Roman coin was im
pressed with a sheep. A touching and sig
nificant symbol, crying aloud to all men,
“Children, fleece one another.” My son, it
is true, that the sheep has vanished from all
coin; nevertheless, it is good to respect an
cient symbols: therefore, whatever the gold
or silver may bear—whatever the potentate,
whatever the arms upon the obverse, see with
your imaginative eye nothing but the sheep;
listen with your fancy’s car to nought but—
“fleece,” “fleece!”
I am aware that a prejudice exists amongst
the half-educared, that borrowed money is as
money obtained by nothing; that, in fact, it
is not your own : but is only trusted in your
hands for such and such a time. My son,
beware of this prejudice; for it is the fruit of
the vilest ignorance. On the contrary, look
upon all borrowed money, as money dearly,
richly earned by your ingenuity in obtaining
it. Put it to your account as the wages of
your intellect, your address, your reasoning
or seductive powers. Let this truth, my son,
be engraven upon your very brain-pan. To
borrow money is the very highest employ
ment of the human intellect; to pay it back
again, is to show yourself a traitor to the ge
nius that has successfully worked within
you.
You may, however, wish to know how to
put ofl your creditor; how to dumbfound him,
should the idiot be clamorous. One answer
will serve for books, umbrellas and money.
As for books, by the way, you may always
have left them in a hackney-coach. (This
frequent accident of book-borrowers, doubt
less, accounts for the literary turn of most
hackney-coachmen.) Still, 1 will supply you
with one catholic answer.
Hopkins once lent Simpson, his next-door
neighbor, an umbrella. You will judge of
the intellect of Hopkins, not so much from
the act of lending an umbrella, but from his
insane endeavor to get it back again.
It poured in torrents. Hopkins had an ur
gent call. Hopkins knocked at Simpson’s
door. “I want my umbrella.” Now, Simp
son also had a call in a directly opposite way
to Hopkins; and with the borrowed umbrella
in his hand, was advancing to the threshhold.
“I tell you,” roared Hopkins, “I want
my umbrella.”
“ Can't have it,” said Simpson, at the same
time extending the machine dedicated to Ju
piter pluvius.
“Why, J want to goto the cast-end, it
rains in torrents; what”—screamed Hopkins—
“what am I to do for an umbrella !”
“Do!” answered Simpson, darting from
the door; “doas I did—borrow one!”
©mural ©clcctif.
THE SUFFERINGS, PERSEVERANCE
AND TRIUMPH OF GENIUS.
There is at present in England an Ameri
can, who went to that country to endeavor to
interest the capitalists in anew bridge which
he has constructed. He is a native of Vir
ginia. An account of his progress is given
by himself, in the following letter to the late
Dixon H. Lewis, and is published in Hunt's
Merchants’ Magazine:
Stafford, England, August 15, 1848.
Mi) Dear Sir , —l should have written
sooner, but that I had nothing pleasant to
say. I reached London on the Ist of Janua
ry, 1847, without money or friends, which
was just the thing I desired when I left Amer
ica, and just the thing, I assure you, 1 will
never desire again. I commenced operations
at once, on the supposition that in this over
grown city I would at least enlist one man.
But Englishmen are not Americans. An
Englishman will advance any amount on an
absolute certainty, but not one penny where
there is the slightest risk, if he got the whole
world by it. I spent the first five months
looking for this man, with unparalleled per
severance and industry, living for less than
three pence per day.
I am convinced that few persons in London
know so much of that incomprehensibly large
city as myself. But, alas! my wardrobe
was gone, to supply me with wretchedly
baked corn bread, on which I lived entirely.
I slept on straw, for which I paid a half pen
ny per night. I became ragged and filthy,
and could no longer go among men of busi
ness. Up to this time, my spirits never sunk,
nor did they then; but my sufferings were
great —my limbs distorted with rheumatism,
induced by cold and exposure —my face and
head swelled to a most unnatural size, with
cold and tooth-ache ; and those who slept in
the same horrid den as myself were wretched
street-beggars, the very cleanest of them lit
erally alive with all manner of creeping
things. But I was no beggar. I never beg
ged, nor ever asked a favor of any man since
I came to England. Ask George Bancroft,
whom I called upon two or three times, if ev
er I asked the slightest favor, or even presu
med upon the letter you gave me to him. I
did write him a note, asking him to come and
witness the triumph of opening the Bridge at
the Gardens, and delivered the note at his own
house myself; although Prince Albert came,
I never got even a reply to my note. If Ban
croft had come, and been the man to have on
ly recognised me, in my rags as I was, it
would have saved me much subsequent suf
fering. I will not believe that Bancroft ever
saw my note, for his deportment to me was
very kind.
The succeeding three months, after the first
five, 1 will not detail, up to the time I com
menced to build the bridge. I will not har
row up my feelings to write, nor pain your
heart to read, the incidents of those ninety
days. My head turned grey, and I must have
died but for the Jew*, who did give me one
shilling down for my acknowledgment of
£lO, on demand. These wicked robberies
have amounted to several hundred pounds,
every penny of which I had to pay subse
quently ; for, since my success at Stafford,
not a man in England who can read, but
knows my address. It cost me £lO to ob
tain the shilling with which I paid my admit
tance into the Royal Zoological Gardens,
where I succeeded, after much mortification,
in getting the ghost of a model made of the
bridge. The model, although a bad one, as
tonished every body. Every engineer of ce
lebrity in London was called in to decide
whether it was practicable to throw it across
the Lake. Four or five of them, at the final
decision, declared that the model before them
was passing strange, but that it could not he
carried to a much greater length than the
length of the model.
This was the point of life or death with
me. I was standing amid men of the suppo
sed greatest talents, as civil engineers, that
the world could produce, and the point deci
ded against me. This one time alone were
iny energies ever aroused. I never talked be
fore—l was haggard and faint for want of
food—my spiritssunk in sorrow of my mourn
ful prospects —clothes I had none—yet, stand
ing over this model, did I battle with those
men. Every word I uttered came from my
inmost soul, and was big with truth—every
argument carried conviction. The effect on
these men was like magic—indeed, they must
have been devils not to have believed under
the circumstances. I succeeded. My agree
ment with the proprietor was, that I should
superintend the construction of the bridge
without any pay whatever, but during th#
time of the building I might sleep in the Gar
dens ; and if the bridge should succeed, it
should he called “ Remington’s Bridge.”
I lodged in an old lion's cage, not strong
enough for a lion, but, by putting some straw
on the floor, held me very well, and, indeed,
was a greater luxury than I had had for sev
eral months. The carpenters that worked on
the bridge sometimes gave me a part of their
dinner. On this I lived, and was compara
tively happy. It was a little novel, howev
er, to see a man in rags dircctinggentlemanly
looking head carpenters. The bridge tri
umphed, and the cost was £B, and was the
greatest hit ever made in London. The mo
ney made by it is astonishingly great; thou
sands and tens of thousands crossing it, pay
ing toll, besides being the great attraction to
the Gardens. Not a publication in London,
but what has written largely upon it. Al
though I have never received a penny, nor
never will, for building the Bridge, I have no
fault to find with Mr. Tyler, the proprietor,
for he has done all fully that he promised to
do—that is, to call it “ Remington’s Bridge.”
The largest wood-cut, perhaps, ever made
in the world is made of the Bridge. Every
letter of my name is nearly as large as my
self. The Bridge, to this day, is the promi
nent curiosity of the Gardens. You can’t
open a paper but you see Remington's Bridge.
Soon after it was built, L have frequently
seen hundreds of men looking at the large
picture of the Bridge at the corners of the
streets, and envying Remington, when I have
stood unknown in the crowd, literally starv
ing. However, the great credit of the Bridge
gave me some success with a tailor. I got a
suit of clothes and some shirts—a clean shirt.
Any shirt was great, but a clean shirt—o,,
God, what a luxury ! Thousands of cards
were left for me at the Gardens, and men
came to see the Bridge from all parts of the
Kingdom. But with all my due-bills in the
hands of the hell-born Jews, of course I had
to slope, and come down to Stafford.
I first built the mill, which is the most pop
ular patent ever taken in England. The cof
fee-pot, and many other small patents, take
exceedingly well. The drainage of Tixall
Meadows is the greatest triumph I have yet
had in England. The carriage-bridge of Earl
Talbot is a most majestic and wonderfully
beautiful thing. Dukes, Marquises, Earls,
Lords, &c., and their ladles, are coming to
see it from all parts. I have now more or
ders for Bridges from aristocracy than I can
execute in ten years, if I would do them.
Indeed, I have been so much among the aris
tocracy of late, that, what with high living,
being so sudden a transition from starving, I
have been compelled to go through a course
of medicine, and am just now convalescent.
Os course, anything once built precludes the
possibility of taking a patent in England, but
its merits and value are beyond all
lion.
A permanent, beautiful and steady Bridge,
may be thrown across a river half a mile
wide, out of the reach of floods, and without
anything touching the water, ata most incon
siderable expense. The American patent is
well secured at home, 1 know. I shall con
tinue to build a few more Bridges of larger
and larger spans, and one of them a rail-road
Bridge, in order that I may perfect myself in
235