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MARGARET
BY MART E. BRIAN.
Margaret Vane’s last pnpil had kissed her
white forehead with a reverent adien and with
drawn, leaving her alone, save for my silent
and unnoticed presence. The room was cool
and sweet with the faint perfume of Chinese ro
ses. and the shadows of the oak trees that shad-
ded it around, came in with the snnshine at the
window and lay trembling upon the floor. She
sat at the piano near the centre of the room, and
the sunset reached an arm of light through the
parted curtain and laid its hand in benediotion
upon the pure brow and the soft, brown hair
folded back in Madonna bands above it. She
was playing, and I at the open window with the
curtains falling half around me, was listening
and adoring; for Margaret Vane was my Baint,
and all that my soul possessed of nooility,of ge
nius and virtue, was laid at her feet.
Margaret Vane was one to be worshipped—like
a star—at a distance. Often as I came to look at
her, I had never touched the ‘spirit-small hand'
now invoking the spell of music from the ivory
and rose-wood home in which it slept; I had
never put to my lips one of the long, light curls
that she sometimes allowed to bathe her neck
with their shining ripples; never offered her
aught save the silent homage that revealed itself
in every look and motion. She seemed ever to
move iu an atmosphere of her own creating—an
atmosphere which she purified by her presence
and by the few words that dropped from her lips
and sweetened the air around her like incense
breathed from a censor.
And she sat there in her serene and stately
beauty, with the sunset crown upon her head,
and the sweet and solemn music that she played,
painting itself upon her face, and I knew that
she sat there for the last time. I knew that I
should never more listen while her soul gave
voice to its strange and beautiful thoughts in the
weird, yearning, melancholy symphonies she
improvised. It was the evening before her bri
dal. I had known of it all along; I had known
that this silent homage I laid at her feet was un
blessed by hope, and that it must all end in this.
But, like one who watches a beloved friend dy
ing gradually, almost imperceptibly, of the
withering blight of consumption, I had come to
regard the calamity as something far in the fu
ture, and almost uncertain, and even now, I
scarcely realized its nearness.
But 1 looked upon her with that earnest, pho
tographing gaze with which a mother regards
the face of her dead child, that the coffin lid will
soon shut forever from her tears and her kisses.
Not a feature, not a line of her beauty escaped
me. I saw even the blue veins wandering be
neath the transparency of her temples. I mark
ed the pearl-like paleness of her spiritual face,
the delicacy of its features, the whiteness and
the amplitude of the brow and the depths of the
•yes—clear, but fathomless—that were looking
out into vacanoy.
I watched the rising and falling of the white
rose on her bosom, and traced the outline of her
beautiful neck through the snowy muslin that
veiled it
She appeared unconscious of my presenoe,
for the soul that looked from her eyes seemed
wandering far over the hills and billowy woods
she saw from the window— far away into some
region of infinitude. She had greeted me as
she always did, with a placid smile, had receiv
ed my invariable gift of flowers, and had begun,
unasked—for she had ceased waiting for my re
quest—to play the dreamy German fantasias
which she knew I so passionately loved.
It had been a day for the soul to forget Earth
and dream of the Heaven it oame from—a day
full of halmiDess »nd beau.'; - , z siLiaao Jwe-
ken only by suoh sounds as deepened, not dis
turbed the feeling of solitude—the woodbird’s
fragment of song, the dove’s low cooing in the
pines, the soft rippling of the ctream over the
willows, whose long, green fingers played in its
cool waters. Now, the day was dying as tran
quilly as it had lived. I saw a few white clouds
near the horizon, floating slowly on to join the
rest at the burial of the sun. The full foliaged
poplars—half in light and half in shadow—
scarcely quivered, exoept when a breeze ran
over them, and left in its track a silvery gleam
where it had turned the white linings of the
leaves to the sunlight. The swallows were wheel
ing around in dizzy evolutions, like dead leaves
in the eddy of a stream, and afar—from the mel
ancholy pines that skirted the hills—came the
sound I had heard all day—the sweet, sad plaint
of the doves.
All these I marked minutely, as the dying man
notes every feature of the last sunset scene he
shall look upon, even though the melodies of
Heaven are faintly filling his ear. It seemed that
this day of dreamy loveliness was the last of my
life, for with its departing sun went Jail of the
hope and happiness my soul coveted. When
another sun should laugh in the blushing East,
she, who was my life's sole brightness, would
have left me forever. And so I watched the sun
set without, and the angel face within, while
that soft, mournful music floated around me
like the waves of a blue and moonlighted sea.
She was playing the Sophien waltz of Strauss,
who loved the prinoess Sophie and composed
for her bridal the sad, yearning, tender waltz
that bears her name, and that brings tears to
the eyes of the dancers, even with festive roses
on their bosoms and festive smiles on their lips.
It was played at the bridal of the high-born
lady so hopelessly loved, and the great oompos-
er stood aloof and watched her light form sway
and float to the wildering music, till overcome
—as the spectators thought—with fatigue, she
sank fainting to the floor.
All the sweetness of love, the sadness of re
proach, the wildness of despair, throb and pulse
through this music in which the lover alone dar
ed pour forth the smothered yearning of his soul.
It interpreted all I had felt and suffered, but
might not tell. Wave after wave it went over
me, and I thrilled and shuddered as though it
was my own heart-strings that trembled beneath
the white fingers of the player. It was more
than I could bear. There were words strug
gling up to my lips—a name that always rises
from the heart when it feels how powerless it is
to endure or to strive alone against the grief that
masters it
‘Oh, God!' I muttered as I bowed my head
upon the embrasure of the window among the
cool leaves of the ivy. There was a sound as
though a band had dropped upon the keys and
then the music oeased, and there was a light
step I knew too well, and I felt that Margaret
Vane stood beside me.
She bent down so near that her soft hair
touched my cheek and I heard the faint, irreg
ular beating of her heart She attempted none
of those commonplace consolations that are such
mockery to the heart in its moments of bitter
est emotion. She did not bid me remember
my manhood or call pride to my aid. She did
not say ‘be brave, be strong,’ nor tell me that
life might have other hopes and purposes. Her
refinement of feeling was too delicate for that.
‘Claude,’ she said, in her sweet, distinct tone,
‘is there nothing I can do for you ?’
It was the first time she had called me by that
name; indeed, onr intercourse had been a silent
and reserved one, and yet, I knew that she had
all along been oonscious of my love for her. No
man ever yet truly loved a woman and snooeed-
ed in concealing it from her. He may not be
tray it in word or glance, or scarce perceptible
pressure of the hand; yet, in some inexplicable
way it will mafco itself known to her. Marga-
Yane knew that the hours I had passed, sit-
by that ivied window listening to the mu
sic her touoh evoked, were the sweetest and dear
est of my life. She knew that every glance she
gave me—every smile that flitted over her lips
—every movement of her delioate figure—every
tremble of the curls on her white neok—was
something for me to dream over and remember
forever. And yet, she gave no outward token
of that knowledge. Her manner was simply
oalm and unoonscious.
She had asked me if there was any thing she
oould do for me, and her hand lay lightly as a
rose-leaf on my arm. I took it and raised it to
my lips.
‘Margaret,’ I said, 'I could bear this eter
nal parting—this giving you up to another, if
I knew that you ever had felt—that you do still
feel, kindly towards me.’
•More than that, Claude: my warm regard is
yours.’
‘And nothing more? Oh! Margaret, you give
that to many; is there not something more for
me—some feeling a little, only a little, deeper
and stronger than the friendship you have for
all?’
She stood for a moment in silence.
'Would it make you any happier to know that
thit was so, Claude ?’
‘Happier and better,' I said.
'Then believe it. Ah, Claude,’ and she bent
over me and put baok my hair with her slender
fingers—‘every curl of this soft, fair hair is dear
to me .’
She spoke the words slowly, with that deep,
low utterance that betrays strong and repressed
feeling. Ah! what new life and vigor those soft-
spoken words brought to me. I would have
caught her to my heart in a passionate embraoe,
but she put me baok gently, but firmly.
‘And yet,’ she went on, ‘I can never be more
to you than I now am. We must part to-night
and forever.’
‘Listen,’ see continued, as I attempted to speak,
‘and you shall know why. The hand you hold
was placed by a dying father in that of another,
while I promised and called upon Heaven to
witness it, that I would marry him—my fath
er's cousin—a good and learned man whom he
knew would be kind to his orphan child. Such
a vow cannot be broken, Claude. I was young —
almost a child when it was made—and half ador
ed my father. But that does not help it. A
vow like that must not be broken.’
1 knew it. The hope that had fluttered in
my heart, died «ut with a faint, sick feeling,and
my head, which was again pressed to the oool
ivy leaves, felt numb and strange.
‘God bless you Claude, my own Claude,’ said
the sweetest voioe under Heaven. ‘God bless
you and help yon to bear this. Bemember it
is not forever. You believe in the soul’s immor
tality: love is a part of the soul and is as undy
ing as the God who gave it. We shall meet again.’
Her lips thrilled upon my forehead. She
pressed them there long and tenderly, and then
glided from my side. I thought her gone, and
did not raise my head until a low moan startled
me. I looked up quickly and saw Margaret
Yane. She was leaning in the door frame, pale
as marble—paler even than was her wont, and
with both hands pressed tightly over her heart.
Then I remembered I had heard more than once
that Margaret had disease of the heart. It
was too large for its pericardium, the village
physician said, and the least excitement made
it flatter like a prisoned bird. He said, too,
that at any time, and suddenly, it might cause
her death. With a pang of self-reproach at hav
ing oiused her this suffering, I started forward
to her assistance, but she waved me back, smil
ed a faint, sweet smile, and murmuring it was
nothing, gathered her white scarf around her
and floated away through the shadows of the
poplar grove.
At the same moment, the last sunbeams faded
fri/LLi r?u j/iU e 4iir." .. 1 - IX .V irtr'XV 1 ui'r Ul'-
parting glory, and the day was done. I sat
there till the stars oame out and looked down
with their serious eyes, and the winds awoke and
shivered in the poplars and sang unutterable
things to the old pines in the distance. I sat
till the scene was glorified by the light of the
full orbed summer moon, and the air seemed
full of spirits and the silence was eloquent as
with the music that still played on in my soul.
When at last I left the plaoe, it was late, for
the Pleiades had tracked their way half up to
the zenith, searching for their lost sister. My
path did not lie near the home where Margaret
dwelt with h6r uncle,but I was possessed with a
feverish desire only fora while longer to breathe
the same air that she did.
And so, soaroe knowing what I did, I wan
dered on through the heavy dew of the clovery
path, with the sorrowful moon and stars look
ing down upon me, through the boughs over
head. There were lights flashing from the man
sion windows, a sound of many voices and forms
moving to and Iro in the illuminated rooms.
They were there to celebrate Margaret’s marriage.
I drew near to the scene of festivity —so near
that as I stood in the shadow of the acacia trees,
I could look in at the brilliant scene through
the window, whose curtains were swept aside.
Margaret stood in the centre of the room, fair
and pale and stately as the lillies on her brow.
I started at beholding the spiritual beauty of
her face. There was upon it nothing of anguish
or suffering, but an expression ineffably beau
tiful—something more than serenity—some
thing not of earth—an expression we sometimes
see on the face of infants, when they lie and
gaze into vacanoy. And there was in her eyes
that strange, far-away look we have seen in the
eyes of those who stand by the river of death,
and look with unobscured vision at the hither
Bhore.
She smiled and bowed with her accustomed
grace and sweetness to those who pressed around
her, and frequently she turned to speak to the
middle-aged, well-preserved, noble-looking man
beside her. And he was her husband.
I was glad to see that he seemed good and gen
tle; that he looked with grave tenderness upon
the woman at his side, whose beauty he might
admire, but whose rare loveliness of character,
whose delicaoy of heart and purity of soul, he
oould never appreciate or comprehend,
By-and-by, as I stood looking in at the win
dow, the music began with the gayest of mea
sures, and a dance was formed. Margaret plead
some excuse to one who requested her hand,
and then whispered a few words to her hus
band, who presently led forward her stately aunt.
Nearly all the guests were soon dancing, but I
did not watch their movements. I saw only Mar
garet, who was bending over a vase of tube-roses
that sat on the table, suffocating in the atmos
phere of their own fragrance.
After a little while she glided from the room,
walked to and fro in the colonnade for a few
times, Btood and played listlessly with the leaves
of a jessamine that garlanded one of the col-
ums, and then came out into the open air and
went past me, so near that a fold of her whits
dress almost touched me as I - tood leaning
against the acacia tree, with its feathery branoh-
es falling aronnd me.
As she passed, I caught sight of her face gleam
ing whitely in the moonlight, and its expres
sion filled me with dread. She went on through
the avenue lined with cape jessamines, now in
the fullness of their bloom, through the gate
way and into the same path that had just led
me to the house. I followed at a little distance,
her white-robed, swift-gliding figure that float
ed on through shadow and moonlight, like a
disembodied spirit At last she reached the pop
lar grove, the academy and then the music-
room. She hesitated a moment, went in, and
before I reached her, I heard the soft notes of a
prelude trembling through the silenoe of the
summer midnight I went in and sat down
in my aocustomed plaoe, by the ivied window.
As I entered, she merely raised her eyes, look
ed* at me a moment with no expression of sur
prise, and then fixed her gaze, as usual, on the
window opposite, and kept on with her playing.
And suoh music I never heard before, and
never shall again; an improvisation,in which the
pleadingB of an earthly love, so deep and sor
rowful and strong, that the air trembled at its
utteranoe, was blended with the sweetness of
resignation, the sublimity of faith and the ec
stasy of adoration. Gradually the latter expres
sion predominated. Love still sounded a sweet
and mournful refrain, but praise and aspiration
rose above it, and drowned its yearning voioe.
It seemed that the eagle soul was shaking every
dewdrop of earth from its wings, and was plu
ming itself for flight. I felt my own spirit ris
ing—up—borne upon the waves of that won
drous melody. The scene, the hour, the spir
itual moonlight, the scarcely trembling leaves
of the poplars, the stillness, so death-like, save
for that music that swelled and died and wailed
and exultechalternately—all these were enough
to make the soul lose consciousness of bodily
encumbrance, and dream itself free. I had not
once looked upon the face of her who played
that supernatural music. A feeling of awe was
upon me, as though I sat iu the presenoe of one
from another world, and felt the icy purity of
the atmosphere it had brought with it. Then,
too, my faculties were all absorbed in one. I
could only listen to that music which seemed
still to wind up and up, as a bird that soars
away into a summer Heaven, and scarcely casts
a glance at earth. Higher and higher it rose,
until at length there came the plaintive refrain,
and then a burst of rejoicing, triumphant mel
ody, and then a sudden cessation of the music
and a silence as of the grave.
1 sprang to my feet. Margaret’s head had
drooped forward and rested on the piano. 8he
was perfectly motionless. I was at her side in a
moment; I raised her head and it drooped on
my breast like a broken lily.fc.Her eyes were
closed, and the long lashes that lay upon her
cheek did not stir. I bent my ear to her lips,
but there was no sound of breathing. I laid my
hand upen her heart, but felt no motion. The
poor prisoned bird had ceased to flutter; it was
free at last. It had soared away on that final
strain of glorious, exulting musie. I held but
the alabaster lamp—the light that made it so
beautiful was extinguished. Oh, Margaret! Mar
garet !
*•***•
Years have passed since then—summers and
winters I know not how many, for I note the
seasons only by the flowers upon her grave. The
turf is greon upon it now, and while I write
these last lines, the lillies above it are folding
their white hands m their evening prayer, and
the forget-me-not’s are gazing at the twilight
stars, through the tears in their blue eyes. The
poplar leaves are silently quivering, as they did
on that unforgotten night—
‘That night of all nights in the year.’
I am a man of the world, now —a man of bus
iness, breathing the exhalations from musty
books, and the dust of crowded thoro’fares,com
ing daily in contact with all that is selfish and
base and unlovable in human niture. I have
lost much of my old love and trust in my fel
low-men, but the dust that has settled on my
heart has left one spot green and fresh—the
memory of the love that hallowed my existence.
I do not regret having once loved, though that
love was dashed with sorrow and hopelessness.
Earth has no gift that would buy its sacred
memory; all the glittering wealth of that island
beyond the sea, could not tempt me to part with
it. And the only hour when I ;ruly live, is,
when forgetting the sordid carej of the day, I
steal away through the grove^^hrough the
Evidently the sobjects got on the inside of
Julia ‘just right' further along—hence these
sentimental songs. We might as well have said
hence ‘these tears’ at once, for the Sweet Sin
ger's best grip is death. Her vigorous fancy and
fine mastery of language enable her to handle
all subjects with the most felioitous effect, but
it isn’t until you put her on a tombstone that
Julia is really at home. For instance, take those
exquisite verses on the fate of little Hi. Helsel
who—
‘was a small boy ot his age,
When lie was five years or so
Was shocked by lightning while to play
Which caused him not to grow.
No less shocking were the emotional circum
stances of Hiiam’s youth:
His parents parted when he was small
And both are married again.
How sad it was for them to meet
And view his last remains -
Nothing is said about his father's wife and his
mother’s husband, though we presume they
were present upon this harrowing mortuary occa
sion, for:
He was living with his father then,
As many a friend can tell;
'Tissaid his father’s second wife
That she did not use him well.
It is comforting to know that little Hi ‘was
lining with his father’ when the family assem
bled to view his remains.
But the most hair-lifting of all the death
scenes described by the Sweet Singer is that
which she recounts in the afflicting ballad of
‘Lois House,’ sung, so the legend states, in the
air of ‘Sophronia’s Farewell—and if anything
could be conspicuously dispiriting it must be
taking leave of a female named Sophronia. Our
person is now so clammy with tears that we
hardiv think we can pursue Miss House’s tak
ing off, but we’ll make a stagger at it if it costs
us a sleepless night. Miss House’s lover, who
takes the part of leading juvenile—the theatri
cal papers would call him the masher—in the
tragedy, is named Joe Morris, but the young la
dy alludes to him as ‘Joy.’ Thusly:
Joy laid her dying head on Ids bosom once more
Pressed her to his heart as he had oft done before,
Saying “Dear Lois, are you going to leave me?”
“Yes, Joy, I can no longer remain here with thee.
“Oh, Joy, can you give me up, dearest,” said she
“If you say yes, love, I can ieave in peace;
In heaven,love, I will be waitingfor thee
Be true to our Savior—you’ll soon follow me.”
But no, it is as we feared. We cannot go on.
The human heart has its limits. Suffice it to
say that Miss House was gathered to the angels,
leaving—
Her true lover on whom she could trust
To moulder her fair form awhile in the dust -
We have never been able to see why Mr. Mor
ris should have resorted to a plan so temporary
in its nature, but surely if it gave him any com
fort to moulder Miss House's fair though lifeless
form in the dust a while, we are the last to de
ny him that melancholy satisfaction.
We are, however forgetting ourselves, toying
with the memories the name of the Sweet Sin
ger has awakened and forgetting in the seduc
tive tenderness of the Sentimental Songs the no
less fascinating loveliness of the Later Poems. In
approaching these latter, we shall bear in mind
the melting appeal with which the gushing Ju
lia wound up her first warbling:
And now, kind friends, what 1 have wrote
I hope you will pass o’er
And not criticize as some have done
Hitherto here before.
It’s like snatobing your tongue away from a
frozen pump-handle, but we have it to do and
we shall up and do it Only one more quota
tion, like the last lingering dig at the jam when
we hear footsteps on the stairway—it is about
temperance this time, as if anybody oould be
temperate after reading Julia’s poetry! Julia
seems to have taken a hand in the Murphy
movement. She drums for the red ribbon while
Murphy canvasses for the blue, but they are af
ter tne same thing as you can see:
Ah! lay the flowing bowl aside
And pass saloons if you can,
And let the people see that you
Can be a sober man.
Go join the Temperance Army
And battle for the right
And light against the enemy
With all your mane and might.
If the Sweet Singer has gone in to fight with
all her mane, whiskey might as well save time by
throwing up the sponge at once, Murphy oould
do a regular water-works business by engaging
her to go aronnd the country and sing her own
songs at the doors of rum-shops.
The wrenoh has to come though. We can’t
dodge it. We’ve got to cut loose from Julia,
somehow. It would be base ingratitude to drop
the subjeot without a word of comment, howev
er, and we cannot do it. All we ask is that Ju
lia will remember that we have never oriticized
her hitherto herebefore,’ and therefore we do
not come within the terms of her reproach.
These poems of Mrs. Moore's have sprung into
such world-wide notoriety that no family news
paper can afford to ignore them even to oblige
the author. They are found to suit every taste
to meet every yearning of the human soul. They
act mildly and beneficently on the system,
without griping or other unpleasant effects, and
they are warranted not to lose their freshness.
If it be possible to find any objection to Julia’s
poetry—and on this point we are not wholly
satisfied —it may be that she rnns j ust a leetle
too much to death. The ‘worm that never dies'
seems to have lodged itself in Julia and to exert
rather an undesirable influence upon her
thoughts. It occurs to ns that a good solid
searching article of vermifuge is what she chief
ly needs. In closing we are happy to be able to
say that the painful doubts aroused by the por
trait of the author which accompanies every edi
tion of the Sweet Singer’s works have quite re
cently been set at rest by an interesting domes
tic event in the Moore household. Those who
have ‘herebefore’ been unable to decide whether
that wood cut represented, as it purported to
do, a Michigan female, or a Kaffir chieftain or
Jesse Pomeroy in a Figi Wig or Barnum’s Wild
Man of Borneo, may now set their torn and agi
tated minds at rest; for the Sweet Singer has
just presented the bewildered Mr. Moore with a
ten pound edition of her songs, bearing every
evidence of oeing genuine and covering with
just odium every doubt as to its origin. The
paternal Moore very probably reflects at times
that this latest music Is very late indeed, but
his sufferings are nothing to the relief which
this occurrence has brought to the harrowed and
suspicious public.—New Orleans Times. '
Receipts From “My Mother’s Cook-
Book.”
stillness oi tlie nigm, ana wOii«*f '.e stars are
holiest, the winds sweetest, and the moonlight
the most fair and tender, I open the piano,
around which something of her presence still
hangs, like perfume left by a faded flower, and
sitting down in the old, accustomed place, look
away to the dark pines in the distance, and
fancy I hear again the wondrous music, and the
voice so sweet and solemn that murmured, ‘We
shall meet again.’
Michigan’s
SWEET SINGER.
Twenty-five Cents Worth of
“Poetry.”
A Rich Review of a Rich Book*
Those who feared that the Sweet Singer of
Michigan would furl her song, and that the
world was about to lose the minstrel while one
happy Miohigander gained a wife and partner,
have just encountered the most delightful and
nplifting surprise of their lives, it was almost
more than one dared to hope—at least to put
into the form of words—but the consuming sus
pense is over at last and the ‘Later Poems of
Jnlia A. Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan,’
ar« nestling, as it were, in onr bosom. We
shonld have known that modest pamphlet in
the dark, on a desert island—so small, so thin,
so unostentatious, and yet so full of richness !
It carried us back a year, to the first wild agita
tion we experienced when Julia A. Moore bulg
ed in upon the public with her ‘Sentimental
Song Book’ and reached for the human heart
strings with her large and nervous hand. Ah !
with what a sweetly cathartic effect the name of
Julia A. Moore descends into the memory ! How
it penetrates to every remotest corner of the
heart and starts the sluggish currents of remin
iscence into violent activity ! Shall we ever for
get the emotions with which we first gazed up
on the frontispiece of the ‘Sentimental Song
Book’ where a speaking wood cut of the Sweet
Singer smears the fingers, with printer's ink
and turns the mind to thoughts oi Kaffir Chief
tains or female pirates or object lessons in Ly
on's Kathairon for the hair ? Never, never. We
may truly say of Julia’s physiognomy, as of her
poetry, its like was never seen on earth.
It is hard at such times as this to deny our
selves the incalculable luxury of looking back
at those sublime efforts of which these ‘later
poems’ are the supplement and scalp-lock. Ask
us not to make the sacrifice for we shall decline.
Even the most unselfish must draw a line some
where, and the Sweet Singer’s poetry is where
we have driven our stakes. It seems to us that
we could revel perpetually iu the gifted Julia’s
description of her childhood. Nothing more
exquisitely naive and yet powerfully graphic was
ever written:
My parents moved to Algoma
Near twenty-live years ago
And bought one hundred acres of land,
That’s a good-sized farm you know -
She does not state whether her parents had a-
that period evolved her from the nebular hyt
pothesis of the neighborhood, but she leaves it
to be inferred that they had, for she goes on to
say:
My heart was gay and happy
This was ever in my mind,
There is better times a coming
And I hope some day to And
Myself capable of composing.
It was my heart’s delight
To compose on a sentimental subject
When it came into my mind just right:
to the L iter Poems as well as to the Sentimental
Song Book, and our religious determination to
observe their moral is only second to the amaze
ment and horror it gives us to learn that any
one could have been so black a fiend as to crit
icize Julia ‘-hitherto here before.”
The most striking of the Later Poems are
those on Andrew Jackson and Byron. Though
descriptive of citizens who are alas ! now dead,
they are not couched in the same funeral strain
as the obituaries on Hiram Helsel and Lois
House. They take a rather heroic flight—grand,
epic, homicidal so to speak, and pulsate with
martial sounds, the trumpet's stirring blare, the
file's exhilarating throb. Speaking of A. J. she
says:
The dauntless energy of Jackson.
Oh, should never be forgot,
Or the battle of New Orleans
Where he diligently fought.
This picture of Jackson diligently fighting at
New Orleans is perhaps the boldest touch she
has ever put upon the canvas of her verse. We
can see old Hlokory, as plain as day, buckling
down to his work and making things red hot
for the Britishers.
Of Byron the Sweet Singer speaks more gin-
gorly, though with the feeling that is to be ex
pected of one great poet treating of another:
Lord Byron was an Englishman,
A poet I believe,
His first works in old England
Were poorly received.
How exact and perspicious and yet how wary!
She boldly states that he was an Englishman,
making herself responsible lor the truth of the
assertion; but when it comes to the qualifica
tion she diplomatically says ‘I believe.’ This
is genius. This is true poetry, if we know its
earmarks and we ought to—we bunked with one
four months in 62. Julia proceeds:
He was a sad child of nature
Of fortune and of fame;
Also sad child to society
For nothing did lie gain
But slanders and ridicule,
Througbout his native land;
Thus the ’poet of the passions,’
Lived unappreciated man.
How much better to be the poet of the heart
and the emotions like Julia, and thus escape
being a sad child of nature. Julia is not sad.
One glance at her wood cut assures you of that.
She looks as if she had taken an overdose of
calomel and had her doubts of the future state,
but she is not sad—oh, heaven, no! only
thoughtful, like.
Some of the poet’s remarks on the Chicago
fire are are in her finest vein. The fire was put
cut some years ago and has lost much of its ex
citing power, but as the Sweet Singer judicious
ly observes:
The great Chicago fire, friends,
Will never be forgot;
In the history of Chicago
It will remain a darken spot.
She is probably not aware that the burnt dis
trict has been rebuilt and that you can no lon
ger tell where it was; bat poets never conde
scend to these coarse details. Again:
Mothers with dear little infants
Some clinging to.theii - breast,
(Babies are notoriously eccentric in their
hoars for taking refreshments.)
People of every description
All laid down there to rest
With the sky as their covering
Ah, pillows they had none,
Sad, on sad, it must have been
For those poor homeless ones.
Sad indeed ! We know of nothing more mel-
anoholy than to sleep in October with only the
sky for covering and without a pillow. Our
tears well np again at the recollection of those
sufferings albeit nearly seven years have passed.
Bat we mast tear ourselves away from Julia.
Wafers.—Two cups of sugar, one cup of
butter, half a cap of milk, half a spoonful of
saleratus, flour to roll stiff and thin.
Molasses Drop Cake.—One oup of molasses,
half a oup of butter, three cups of flour, two
teaHpoonsful of ginger, one teaspoonful of soda;
beat the ingredients well together, and drop
1- Tfjth i 1 * fl ti»y hri^a firwlfl — * ..
Crispts. —Two cups of sugar, one cup of
butter, two eggs, half a cup of ginger, half a
cup of milk, not qufte half a teaspoonful of
soda, flour enough to roll t;ut thin; cut in small
cakes, and bake in a pretty quick oven.
Icing.—To one pound of powdered white
sugar, put the beaten whites of four eggs; beat
the whites very light, and stir iu the sugar by
degrees; flavor with lemon and spread with a
knife dipped into cold water.
Grape Butter.—Prepare your fruit the same
as tor preserves, allowing a pound of sugar to a
pint of vinegar to three pounds of sugar; add a
teasponful of cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and
allspice; boil until jellied, stirring it all the
time.
Canned Grapes.—Take the?Concord grape
when fully ripe, stemming them without break
ing any more than can be helped; allow a little
over a quarter of a pound of sugar to a pound
of fruit; make a syrup of about a quart of water
at a time, putting in fruit enough for only one
can; let your syrup, with the fruit in it just
come to a boil, putting them in the cans before
they erack open. Seal them up’
Frcit Pudding (cold).—Put a layer of any
kind of fruit (previously stewed with sugar,
and allowed to get cold) or jam into a deep glass
dish, mix three tablespoonfuls of cornflour
with a gill of milk, boil one pint of milk with
the thin rind of a lemon, with sugar to taste;
when well flavored with the lemon, pour the
boiling milk through a strainer on to the eorn-
flour, stir and return it to a saucepan; boil five
minutes, or until it thickens, and when cool
enough not to break the glass, pour on the fruit,
and leave it to get quite cold and set. Orna
ment according to fancy with jam, preserved
fruit, or angelica.
English Bread and Butte Pudding.—One
loaf of baker's bread, cut in thin slices and
buttered; butter the dish well; put a layer of
bread and of raisins, a little cinnamon, nut
meg, and sugar; then a layer of buttered bread,
and continue until the dish is full; make a
custard with a quart of rich milk and five eggs,
leaving out four whites. Flavor with lemon,
pour it ever the bread and batter, and other in
gredients, cover the dish down and set it in a
cool place. After it is well soaked, it should,
bake for about half or three-quarters of an hour.
Meanwhile beat the whites with powdered sugar
to a froth, pile it upon the padding, when
cooked, return it to the oven till it assumes a
light brown, then take it out, sprinkle it with
lamps of red currant jelly, and it is ready for
the table. No sauce needed.
Country Boys’ Revenge on a City
Belle.
A singular and an atrocious thing occurred at
Milton on the Hudson, New York, on the eve
ning of July 4. A young lady from Brooklyn,
Miss Louisa Henser, visiting a friend’s honse
came from an entertainment twenty minutes
before the rest of the party, and was alone in
the house for that length of time. Immediate
ly she entered, two masked men followed, seiz
ed and chloroformed her. They then deliber
ately stripped her of every article of clothing
except shoes and stockings and left her in that
condition, insensible. Her friends came in
time to hear the scoundrels escaping. _ No other
iuj ury was done the young lady, and it is thought
the men committed the outrage to shame and
humiliate the yonng lady, who had held her
self aloof from the ooantry people, not engag-
ing in their rural sports and pastimes. It was
certainly a carious way for the jilted country
swain to get ‘even’ with the city belle. ui
He who eats mince pie in a restnrant affords —
beautiful and teaching evidence of child-like
faith in his fellow-man.