About The sunny South. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1875-1907 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 2, 1875)
[For The Sunny South.] OVL.V A BIT OF RIIIBOV. creek. They were not inspecting the log, hut looking toward the Indian village, and after a moment they disappeared in that direction. They might be members of another tribe, or they might be from the village and in search of the scout; he had no way of making sure. They were warriors at any rate, and had they caught sight of him, his death would have been certain. They held no conversation, but seemed to be listening, and this rather went to show that they were from camp and on his trail, which he had hidden when he entered the creek. Naturally, there would have been as much shouting over the finding of the second body as the first, but it did not follow that even one shout should be uttered. By refraining from all excitement, the Indians thought to lure their unknown foe into the belief that his work had notyet been brought to light. The sun was just setting, and the forest had been almost without sound for two hours, when Will lowered himself from the tree and on hands and knees crept along the bank of the creek toward the village. The woods began to grow dark and gloomy before he had progressed far, and while yet there was a little light, Will • changed the color of his face and hands by staining them with berries and then rubbing on dirt. He might not stand inspection by day light,- but under the flicker of the camp-lire he would pass muster as an Indian in war-paint. It was fully dark before the scout reached the outskirts of the village, which he found almost as much excited as on the previous night. War riors were running about, squaws and children were replenishing the fires and carrying water, and all was bustle and confusion. Will had an irresistible desire to see if the body of the old squaw had been removed, and he cautiously crept to the spot, guided by that wonderful in stinct which made the names of the pioneers so famous. The body was there ! He crept near enough to see that it was in the same position he had left it, and then he retreated. He could not see TI .. 11T , , . them for the darkness, but he felt that the dead Will Boss had said to himself that the Indians ]j a g’ 8 eyes were wicle open and staring into his ! It is only a knot of a ribbon That I bold in the twilight gloom. With a tint of rosy color Like her own cheeks' peachy bloom. She untied this knot from her tresses. And bound it around my hands, And laughing said she had chained me A captive in silken bands. 1 press it to lips and to bosom, And sweet are the visions that rise Of my darling's girlish graces, And the laughing light in her eyes. Gently I seem to clasp her; She yields me a timid embrace; I feel the quick throbs of her bosom, I see the Boft blush on her face. For a moment our heartB beat together— For a moment her lips cling to mine! Then swiftly passes the vision, Leaving my Bpirit to pine. Only a bit of a ribbon Has called up this vision to-night. That memory's fairy fingers Have painted in hues of light. [Written for The Sunny South.] Callie Carson’s Lovers; OR, FLAT-BOAT, RIVER ANI> RIFLE. BY M. (U'AD. CHAPTER XIX. could not follow liis trail from the spot where he had left the naked body of the Indian, but when he heard their shouts, he knew that they were going to try. The village was soon in an uproar, and the dead Indian's squaw set up a howling and lamenting which coiild be heard half a mile away. The Indians must have been sorely puz zled over the killing. It could not have been accidental, and if they believed that a white man had been prowling around, it would be hard to account for his presence there. He could not have come from the boat, and all cabins for twenty miles up and down the river were de serted. The scout could tell nothing except by sense of hearing, but he made out that a number of Indians had scattered through the woods in search of his trail. They presently found a track 'or trace, ami the shouts and yells grew louder. They lost the trail after a moment, and their shouts died away. When an hour had passed without a near alarm. Will felt easier, and he turned his attention to a new excitement in the village. The red-skins had come after Callie to carry out the renegade’s programme of making her the bearer of a message to her father and friends. The squaws raised their sharp voices to such a pitch that he made out that the girl was to be taken out of the village. While it was certain that they felt revengeful, it was not likely that they would sacrifice her until the flat-boat had either floated off the bar or been captured. Pru dence warned him to remain where he was until he knew that the girl was in danger, but love and anxiety forced him out of the thicket. He heard a crowd leaving the village, and he passed through the forest on a run, rifle at a trail, to head them off. His wits returned as he was speeding through the woods. It flashed upon him that the Indians were going to make a cat’s- paw of the girl to aid them in getting possession of the boat, and he halted in his tracks. Callie would doubtless be back before noon. If so, he would remain quiet and make no move until night. If not, he would soon ascertain the in tentions of her captors regarding her. The scout retraced his steps, calculating to enter the thicket again; but he was not yet within thirty rods of it when he ran across an old hag from the village. She was down on her knees digging roots, and he almost stumbled over her before he was aware of her presence. The old woman sprang up with an angry snarl, and the instant she caught sight of Will’s face she uttered a fearful howl. He had the dead Indian’s garments on, but his face and hands were white, and it needed but a glance to show any one that he was in disguise. He started to run, but as the old hag screamed again, he wheeled, dropped his rifle and bounded upon her. Grasping her throat with his strong fingers, he strangled her in a moment. Her sharp nails tore his face and hands, but he did not relax his ' hold until she was dead. The affair occupied but a moment, and fearing that her screams had been heard in the village, the scout picked up his rifle and ran at his best speed. It would not do to hide in the thicket again, the body being so near, and Will passed it and hurried on through the dense forest be yond. Striking a creek, ho entered its shallow bed and kept it for half a mile. Coming then to a tree which had fallen across the banks, he pulled himself out, followed the trunk to the left bank, and ascended a thick-limbed tree, which offered a capital place of concealment. It might be that the old hag's body would re main undiscovered until next day, but the chances were that it would be found before night. Securing a comfortable position among the limbs, he gave all his attention to listening, expecting to hear a furious shouting if the body was discovered. Noon came, and soon after this hour, reports of rifles came from up the river. The strange flat-boat had come to the assistance of old Carson and his crew, and the Indians were seeking to prevent a rescue of the grounded craft. Will was much excited while the tiring lasted, or while it was heaviest. He at first supposed that it was another attack on Carson's boat, and he had no doubt of the result, knowing how well armed his friends were. When the volleys ceased and the scattering shots came fainter and fainter. Will suspected that the boat had drifted off the bar and that the Indians were following her down the river The hours dragged after that. There had been no alarm from the camp to show that the body of the old squaw had been discovered, but there was yet plenty of time for such discovery to be made before sundown. It would not be safe to invade the village before night, or to leave the tree until sundown. Along about four o’clock, Will’s limbs ached so that he decided to find a hiding-place on the ground. Having no suspicion of danger, yet prompted by prudence, he bent his ear to listen for sounds that any one was moving in the neighborhood. Not a sound reached him during the two or three minutes, and he was about to move, when his eyes caught sight of a rabbit dashing past the tree at full speed. Something had frightened the little animal. What was it ? A long minute passed, and then an Indian, step ping carefully and glancing around him, ap peared under the tree, almost halted, and then passed on and gave place to another, and that one to another, until seven warriors, rifles at a trail, had passed under the tree. They had come without a sound — they disappeared as noiselessly as shadows. Moving his head a few inches, Will saw the standing in a row on the log crossing the CHAPTER XX. Will knew that Callie was in the village, and he knew that he must enter it in order to carry out his plans of rescue. In his disguise, he stood a chance of escaping detection, but the errand was one requiring great nerve and coolness. Believing that the boldest way was the best way, and considerably strengthened by the fact that the old hag's body had not been found, the scout walked straight into the village, as if re turning from the river bank. More than a dozen ■small fires were burning, as the squaws were cooking the evening meal, and old men, boys, children, papooses, and now and then a warrior, were collected around the fires. Hardly turning aside for any one, Will walked to the centre of the village and sat down near one of the fires. A squaw was cooking meat on the fire, but she gave him no attention as he sat down, partly in the shadow, and began working at the lock of his gun, as if it needed repairing. He bent his head to hide his face as much as possible, and worked away for ten minutes be fore daring to steal a glance around him. His boldness had disarmed suspicion, or it rather prevented suspicion. Men and boys passed him without a word, and a dog sprang over his feet and yet did not scent the fact that he was a white man and an enemy. In a short time VVill was possessed of the knowledge that Carson’s flat-boat had been pulled off the bar by another boat, and that the warriors had followed both boats down the river, hoping to make a cap ture during the night. He heard the name of Laskins tliesrenegade mentioned, but it was half an hour before he knew for a certainty that Callie was in*the village. The men had nothing to say about the girl, but the squaws were very bitter, and seemed impatient to <see her tortured. The lodge in which she was a prisoner was within fifty feet of where the scoiji sat down, and when he had lo cated it, he satv that one of the old men sat at the do ,r as a guard. Seeking to secure some plan by which he might approach the lodge, Will had almost forgotten his situation, when he found that the squaw on the other side of the fire was attentively regarding him. His heart gave a gr§at bound as he thought of the danger of dis covery, but he forced himself to return her gaze and ask: “Is the meat cookedV I am hungry.” He could speak the Indian tongue as if he had no other language, and his voice would not be tray him. Drawing herself up and flashing a look of con tempt at him, the woman replied: “I do not cook meat for cowards !” Lifting his rifle in a menacing manner, he in quired : “Dare you call me a coward?” “You are not with the warriors,” she answered. “When our chief commands, do not his war riors obey?” he asked. “And can a wounded warrior run through the thickets ?” She made no reply, but swinging the kettle off the fire, she plunged a stick down among the pieces of meat, secured a large piece, and walked around the fire and presented it to him without another word. She must have known that he did not belong in the village, but the tribe, split into three villages, had just been called together at that encampment and she could not say that he did not belong to the tribe. Will ate away at the meat, and the squaw soon entered a lodge, leaving him alone. The firing at the block-house down the river was so far away that no reports reached the camp, and about nine o’clock there were signs that the village would be quiet during the night. The women and children retired to the lodges and the men stretched out before the fires, and their conver sation flagged. Would the old man on guard at the lodge-door remain there all night ? Or would some of the others take his place after a time ? There was but one way for the scout to ascertain,—ask the guard himself. Bracing himself for the inter view. he rose up and limped over to where the old man sat. “Is not my father weary of his task?” he asked, as he sat down at the sentinel’s feet. “I am not a boy!” replied the old man, his tone betraying that his feelings were injured. “Far from it; but when the roots of the stout tree are weakened by age, the tree cannot help but tremble a little.” answered Will. He carelessly looked into the lodge, but the darkness prevented him from seeing the girl. The sentinel made no reply, and after a moment Will continued: “My wound makes me restless and uneasy, and as I cannot sleep, I will take your place for the night.” “No one can take Big Bear's' place,” stiffly re plied the sentinel. “Neither my ears nor my eyes will sleep before another night.” Will realized that his plan was a failure. He could not insist, and he must be careful not to arouse suspicion. After a short period of silence, he said: “Big Bear is wise; he knows everything; nothing is too deep for his mind. I should like to tell him of my dream last night.” “Big Bear will listen,” replied the old In dian, in a softened voice, as if flattered by the scout’s words. “I dreamed.” continued Will, “that I stood looking into a black cave in the side of a great mountain. I heard a strange voice. It spoke the Indian tongue, and it spoke the white man's language.” “What did it say?” asked the old man, as Will paused. “In the Indian tongue it said: ’Tell your great chief that his tribe shall gather hundreds of scalps.’ Then the tone changed, and speak ing like a white man, the strange voice said: •Callie, lam here and planning to rescue you !’” It was a bold game, and Will's heart jumped into his throat as he ceased speaking. If the old man understood the English language, he would see through the trick in an instant. When tell ing what the voice said in English, Will resumed his natural tone, and Callie would instantly rec ognize his voice. "What more did the voice say?” asked the old man. He had not pricked the plot, and Will contin ued: “It said: ‘The white men shall be driven from the forest as leaves are driven before the wind.’ Then, speaking like a white man, it said: ‘Callie, the camp will soon be asleep: then you can creep from the lodge, and I will be ready to join you.’ ” There was a movement within the lodge, showing that the girl heard and understood. “ And was that all ?”• asked the old man. “No; again the voice spoke: ‘Yourtribe shall have a great prophet; he is an old man: one finger is missing from his left hand. He shall become the greatest prophet the world ever saw.’ Then, speaking like a white man, the voice said: ‘Callie, be brave: follow my directions, and all will be well!’ ” “ Is that all ?” “Then I awoke.” “It is a singular dream,” continued the old man. “ I never heard of such a dream, and I think it will come to pass. ” He was the old man with the missing finger, and he was flattered by Will’s words. If he had been pressed to give up his post for the night, he would probably have relinquished it; but fearing to excite suspicion, Will soon moved away, limping heavily, as if wounded in the leg. As soon as out of sight of the lodge, he made a circuit and returned to within a few feet of its rear, where he lay down, and was soon, to all appearances, fast asleep. If Callie had the nerve to raise the bottom of the lodge and roll out, he would be there to help her away. Half an hour passed away, and then the camp was entirely quiet. Every one seemed asleep, and the fires had- burned so low that the village was full of dark shadows. It was time for Callie to move. If she could but leave the lodge, there was every hope of both safely leaving the camp. Lifting his head from his arm. Will watched and listened. CHAPTER XXI. The Indians seemed satisfied with the victory they had won in burning the boats. They had cut the pioneers off from any escape from the : block-house, and were content to rest for the ! balance of the night. Not a rifle was fired after the boat drifted out of sight, and while some of | them slept, others crept close to the walls and watched to prevent any of the defenders from leaving the fort. The pioneers heard them mov ing softly around, but no shots were fired and no alarm given. The breaking of day was hailed with satisfac tion by those whose eyes and ears had been vig ilant through the long hours of night. The men felt assured of the strength of their position, and the}' believed that no such great danger as the burning of the flat-boats could menace them again. Not an Indian was to be seen, but no one ar gued that the siege had been raised. The block house was the only defense standing for fifty miles up or down the river, and the red-skins would not leave it until days and nights had convinced them that the place could not be de stroyed or its defenders starved into surrender ing. During the forenoon, the men moulded bul lets, cleaned their rifles, and made ready for what might happen, while the women looked : over the provisions and planned to make them : last as long as possible. There was no alarm up to noon, and the afternoon was half gone before the silence was broken’. Then a rifle was fired as a signal to attract attention, and the renegade stepped into the clearing, in full view of the block-house, having a flag-of-truce in his hand. Some of the men wanted to shoot him down at once, but the majority decided to let him come forward and hear what he had to say. Waving his flag around his head, he advanced to within thirty feet of the logs, and then halted and called out: “I want to hold a talk !” “ Go ahead !” shouted old Carson from one of the loop-holes; “but talk fast, as the boys are hungry to send a bullet into yer carcass !” “I want to say to you,” continued Laskins, “that every post and settlement on the river clear down to Cincinnati has been captured. Your boats are gone, there is no hope of aid, and I come to ask a surrender. I solemnly promise that every life shall be spared!” “ Ye are throwing yer time away !” replied the old man. “We can hold the block-house agin all the red devils in four States, and we mean to do it!” • “I’m sorry,” called the renegade. “I’ve done all I could to save Callie's life, but if you do not surrender, the Indians will burn herat the stake within an hour alter sundown !” It was a threat which made the father turn pale, but he'called back: “She must die then ! Ye’ll never git into this fort while there's a bullet left!” The renegade retired, and a volley was ex pected, but did not come. The clearing was as silent as before, and not an Indian could be seen from any of the loop-holes. “.I smell deviltry of some kind agin,’’saidold Carson, as the men wondered at the silence. He made the round of the building, peering from each loop-hole, and coming to the river side, he uttered an exclamation which called all the men to his side. The depth of the water in the creek was about three feet when the boats were run in, but the old man, to his great amaze ment, found the water down to a few inches. “They are building a dam above us,” he ex plained, “hoping to cut the supply and drive : us to surrender.” In ten minutes more the bed of the creek was bare, the water having ehtirely ceased running. Every utensil in the house which would hold water was full, and the supply would last a whole week for drinking and cooking; but if the waters of the creek could be forced in another direction, it would be a staggering blow to the pioneers. That was not the plan of the Indians. Dam ming the creek half a mile above the house, they started a new channel down through the soft soil and helped the water into a natural depres sion and headed it for the fort, hoping it would undermine the foundations. Such a volume of water accumulated at the dam that the new route was quickly opened. From the loop-holes, the men saw the water creeping into and across the clearing, coming straight for the logs. If it struck them, it would eat its way under and around, and in ten minutes the fort would be without a foundation, or topple over into the j bed of the creek. Not a word was spoken as the men watched the water coming. It was a stream ten feet wide and a foot high, stealing along like some great serpent. It halted an instant as it struck a log, but gaining force, it would climb over or creep around. Jt passed to the right or left of stumps, rushed over the black spot where one of the burned cabins had stood, and still the men spoke not a word. Concealed behind the large trees at the further side of the clearing, the In dians uttered yells of exultation. Nearer crept the stream, but it was not to de stroy the pioneers. Coming to a sandy spot, the water disappeared as if pouring into a cave. Thus for a moment or two. and then it tore its way through the soft soil and followed the strata directly to the bank of the creek, into which it poured and dashed along past the wall as before. The defiant cheer from the block-house told the Indians what had happened, and in a short time the dam was removed, or gave way, and the cur rent was back in its old bed. In revenge for their disappointment, the savages opened a hot fire on the block-house and maintained it for a whole hour, throwing away a vast amount of am munition. When sundown came, old Carson had a talk with the men, telling them that he intended leaving the house some time during the night. He knew that Callie was at the Indian village up the river, and his anxiety was so great that he must make an effort to aid Will in accomplish ing her rescue. The Indians would doubtless plan and execute some new movement during the night, but if the pioneers were vigilant, they could checkmate it. Night came on with every appearance of a storm, and within an hour after darkness had enveloped the clearing, a slow, steady rain began to fall. The women and children were no sooner asleep than Carson made preparations to leave. The entrance on the side facing the clearing had been permanently secured, and he must be lowered into the creek. The lights all extinguished, the door was opened, a rope made ready, and when the old man had secured his rifle over his shoulders, four or five men seized the rope and carefully lowered away until a sig nal-jerk informed them that he had touched the water. Standing with the water up to his hips, he let go of the rope and carefully picked his way down stream, hugging the wall. Reaching the end of the house, he crossed to the opposite bank and made his way down the river, knowing that it would not be safe for him to leave water until far below the clearing. The current ran so swiftly and had such strength that the old man could hardly keep his feet under him, and his progress was very slow. He could not see a foot from his face, and the sigh ing of the wind in the trees above his head, with the steady pour of the rain, would have dead ened the sound of any footstep on the bank. He was just fairly out of the creek, and was 1 feeling along step by step, when his outstretched hand fell upon an Indian’s shoulder. His hand had scarcely touched the damp buckskin when his situation flashed across him, and the fingers shot forward and clutched the red-skin’s throat. It was not an instant after the hand touched the Indian before the fingers were fastened in his throat. There was no cry, but as old Carson sought to pull him down, the savage grasped his hair, and a fearful struggle took place. (TO BE CONTINUED.) [For The Sunny South.] THE LONELINESS OF GENIUS. BY 51. C. T. There is something pathetic in the isolation of any being from its kind. The prisoner in his dreary cell, cut off from all intercourse with his fellow-man; the settler in his lonely cabin on the frontier of some new country—the advance guard of the civilization that is to follow; the man or woman cast out from society for their misdeeds, shunned and dreaded by all; even the fierce animal, taken from the jungles of his native land and confined in a narrow cage that is to be his home until death shall come to set him free, are objects that excite the pity of every heart not totally devoid of sensibility. And yet there is a loneliness more pathetic, I more painful because more complete, than any I of these. This is the perfect isolation of the I true genius from the crowd that he meets and passes day by day, who look upon him in the body, while his soul is as far away from them as is the cloud-encompassed summit of Mt. Blanc from the traveler who stands at its base, and as invisible to their dull eyes as are the gold-paved : streets of the celestial city to the lost spirits who dwell forever in the dominions of Pluto. For every gift that God has bestowed upon man a penalty has been added, and he whose mind has been created to soar beyond the com prehension of the majority of his fellow-crea tures, must be content to stand aloof from their common joys and pleasures, for in them, for him, there can be no compensation. The spirit borne aloft on the pinions of genius and inspiration, after basking in the full light i of the sun, cannot return and mingle with the common herd, for he would be as incapable of descending to their level and being interested in their pleasures and pursuits, as would they of understanding his grandest thoughts and ap- f preciating his most, beautiful ideas. Of all men to whom it has been given to as- : cend to those bright realms “ Where Fancy’s golden orbits roll,” none have perhaps more fully understood and accepted this penalty attached to genius than that “bard of brief days and deathless fame,” the “ unhappy White;” and none have resisted ! it more bitterly or fought againstit more fiercely t than Lord Byron. The former, recognizing the fact that he had been “placed upon an eminence above the crowds who pant below in the dusty tracks,” feeling his superiority, did not seek pleasure or congeniality in their companion ship; but the life of the latter was one long struggle with destiny— a fruitless search for spirits such as could understand the heighth and depth of a mind that could call into exist ence a Manfred holding communication, on the wild and lonely mountain, with beings from the j shadowy world qf hereafter, or a Sardonapalus lighting his own funeral pyre. In youth, he vainly thought to satisfy this hunger of his soul, this longing for congeniality with love. His unrequited affection for Mary Chaworth has been said to have been the cause of his giving to the world such a poem as “Childe Harold,” but it was only the effect of that vague, j unsatisfied desire for mental companionship that proclaimed him one set apart from his fel low-men, the possessor of a rare and unsurpassed : genius. Would he have been a happier man if this pre cocious affection had been gratified by a union with its object ? Could the mind that could cre ate such companionship for itself as that of Man fred, Cain, Sardonapalus. and that counterpart of his own stormy and defiant nature, the Cor sair, have found any congeniality, any affinity of soul in one of such coarse mental calibre as Miss Chaworth? No: no more than it did later in life, when he sought it in friendship that he cast recklessly aside, in the love of a wife whom his harshness drove from his home, or in the abysses that he sank into afterwards, from which he shrank back at times, seeking, and finding in a degree., society in inanimate nature, as he tells us in some of his most beautiful lines: come noted for their domestic troubles as well as for their offerings to the fabled Nine. Yet when we think of these men and women as returning to the petty jars and trivialities of their households after long hours spent in asso ciation with and contemplation of the beautiful ideals of their own creation, we can scarcely wonder at them for turning away from it all with disgust -perhaps a hasty word, that rankles in the heart of husband (or wife) and children long after they, happy once more, lost in the realm of fancy, have forgotten all about it. Of the scores of men who have made of them selves shining lights to the world of literature, science and art, Sir Walter Scott possessed per haps the best balanced mind, the most perfect character. Though the greatest novelist of his time, and one of the most admired, he yet had that rare tact and adaptability which made it possible for him to descend from his haunt on the Pierien hill, and mingle with his friends and family, as bright and cheery as a child. The same mind that could revise all the gray old tra ditions of the hoary past, and invest them with such a peculiar charm: that could leave to pos terity such fiction as “Ivanhoe,” and such po etry as the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” could also find pleasure in the society of the Scotch peasantry, or even in playing with his favorite dogs as he rambled over the heath-covered moors,— “ Finding tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” His compatriot, Burns, though endowed with a goodly amount of the same keen Scotch humor that characterized his more gifted countryman, did not possess this faculty. Following his plow over the unfertile farm at Mossgiel, wrapped in his own beautiful yet sometimes crude imag inings, he was as completely isolated from all intellectual companionship as is the hopeless prisoner in his cell. Ah ! “ Lament not ye that humbly steal thro’ life, That Genius visits not your lowly shed,” for of all great gifts, the penalty attached to this is the surest and yet the hardest to bear. What thought or feeling did Milton have in common with those by whom he was surrounded? Standing within the portals of the sublime tem ple of inspiration, while before him passed an gels whose garments were bright with the glory emanating from the presence of the Most High,— the grand and God-like yet fallen Lucifer, ser aphs and cherubs, beings only to be created by a mighty and God-given genius,—could he have left that beautiful province, over which he had been made king and ruler, and found the level of the gay cavalier and close-shaven puri tan? Why should he have done so when, by turning away from them, he could stand face to face with such angels as Raphael and Michael; or could evoke from his brain Ithuriel with his spear, or see, with his sightless eyes, Uriel descending from heaven on the slanting beams of the sun ? One by one, from every age and country, rise before me types of this mental isolation. The blind old bard of Scio’sisle: the gifted Italian who has left us such a record of his mighty ge nius and of his stern defiance of his exile and loneliness, in the “Divine Comedia;” the great master of art, at the wave of whose creative wand the domes and spires of St. Peter’s sprang up as if by magic; Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, wrapped in the divine strains that seemed emanating from the choirs that strike their golden harps beside the river of life; Bruno, the martyred philosopher, who, like the Chaldean of old, . “ Had watched the stars, Till he had peopled them with beings bright As their own beams;” Napoleon, following the laurel-crowned spectre . of glory until the sun that arose in such cloud less splendor at Austerlitz, set in defeat and blood at Waterloo; the unhappy boy Chatterton, whose soul scorned the narrow prison walls that held his body, and whose hand “ Rashly dared to stop his vital breath;” and those two, who sleep their last long sleep in the little Protestant burying ground under the shadow of the walls of the imperial Roman city, far away from the blue skies of their native land, are one and all but a sorrowful illustration of the fact that those to whom God has given the glorious heritage of genius, must perforce accept with it the loneliness and isolation that the gift brings. Time, standing far back in the shadow of for gotten ages, while one by one through his with ered fingers drop the golden links of the passing years, assures us through history that it has ever been thus since the days of the earliest philoso phers; and as we are told history only repeats itself, we may conclude that it will thus con tinue until Time has ceased “and the wide fir mament is rolled up like a scroll.” Is there then “no balm in Gilead ?” Can man, the creature, imagine a life more perfect, a com panionship purer and more ennobling than God, the creator, can give him ? Is there no compen sation to be made for these lonely lives—these sad, untimely deaths? Perhaps our best and only answer to these questions that will intrude themselves upon us lies in the one word, “Im mortality.” A Wooing Not Long a Doing. It is told that Abernethy, while attending a lady for several weeks, observed those admirable qualities in her daughter which he truly esteemed to be calculated to render the married state happy. Accordingly, on a Saturday, when taking leave of his patient, he addressed her to the following purport: “You are now so well that I need not see you after Monday next, when I shall come and pay you my farewell visit. But in the mean time, I wish you and your daughter to seriously consider the proposition I am about to make. It is abrupt and unceremonious, I am aware; but the excessive occupation of my time by my pro fessional duties, affords me no leisure to accom plish what I desire by the more ordinary course of attention and solicitation. My annual receipts amount to , and I can settle on my wile; my character is generally known to the public, so that you may readily ascertain what it is. I have seen in your daughter a tender and affec tionate child, an assiduous and careful nurse, and a lady-like member of a family; such a person must be all that a husband covets, and I offer my hand and fortune for her acceptance. On Mon day, when I call, I shall expect your determina tion; for I really have not time for the routine of courtship. ” In this humor the lady was wooed and won; and, we believe we may add, the union was felicitous in every respect. “ There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes,— By the deep sea, and music in its roar.” The main causes of happiness, as far as human relations are concerned, is association with those who can sound the depths of our intellects, un derstand the workings of our inmost hearts, and sympathize with ns in all our joys and sor rows as our equals; in fact, a perfect congeni ality. Perhaps this may partially explain the note worthy and lamentable fact that talented men and women hre apt to live unhappily in the state of marriage. Shakspeare, Milton, Byron. Shelly, Bulwer, Dickens. Mrs. Hemans, and L. E. L., are only a few of those whose names have be- Persons with weak eyes must not stop off at Rio Janeiro if they happen not to have their goggles with them. A letter in the New York Post says: “The light in Rio Janeiro is from the sun, which often you do not see, but from everywhere. It is all-pervading, subdued, but diffused, and it makes everything beautiful. If the weather be fine, the clouds are simply rolled up into round, fleecy masses of an intense bril liancy and a perfect whiteness, and these in turn pour down a mild, mysterious light which as yet the eye is hardly able to bear. Some times, when one of these illuminated clouds hangs over a narrow street, blotting out the shadows and blurring the outlines with its strange white glare, I feel like the live creatures in the box of a microscope, subjected to the action of a powerful condenser. In fact, I sup pose that is just what these illuminated clouds are.” The man who blushes when a lady acquaint ance sees him coming out of a saloon is not en tirely lost; he may be found most any time after ward going into the back door of a saloon.
