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Forth* Son them Literary Gazette.
STANZAS TO KATE.
We have not called each other long
By the sweet name of friend ;
No hallowed childhood mem’ries throng,
With present scenes to blend.
We met as thousands meet, nor knew,
‘hat we should meet again :
The doubt, perchance, to me or you,
find brought no sense of pain.
1 know not how, indeed, it came,
I only know ’tis true,
['h ,t Friendship’s spark to kindling flame,
VV ithiu our bosoms grew.
fed by all tender thoughts and true,
riright glows the sacred tire ;
And Y outh it childhood must renew,
lire its warm rays expire.
Its radiance shall 111 it the <
nr'-'iinllgm on tTiewav. ;
One moment bright as Fancy’s dream,
The next, sunk in its grave !
Steadfast as stars on Sapphire height,
And as their shining pure ;
Defying change shall Friendship’s light
Within our hearts endure ! ITiilomei..
(Dripal Cases.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
OUR CHEROKEE HOME;
OR. lachrymosa, the beautiful.
11V SEM SOUTHLAND.
CHAPTER 1.
1 never until ! was fairly out of my
t ens. ventured to bring any of my
‘ literai v productions” before the read
inn public; but not a few of my school
uirl intimates were quite notorious as
‘•authoresses,” and figured under va
rious romantic and poetic appellations,
in the small village newspaper, which
happened to be printed in a dingy,
tumble-down, barn-like edifice, in the
immediate vicinity of our “female col
lege.
It was a rule in the school (hat we
wrote “compositions” once a week, and
manv of the pieces thus brought out
were truly worthy the attention they
attracted. One girl more particularly,
far excelled us all, both in the style
and the variety of her weekly contri
butions. She wrote without any trou
ble to herself, and would fill a half
quire in less time than some of the
girls took to manufacture ascantily cov
ered sheet. In fact, it required little
or no effort for her .to do any thing
which she undertook—do what she
would, she did it with ease, and it was
only necessary for her teachers to give
her a hint of what was to be required
of Iter, to have it accomplished with a
speed and elegance of finish peculiarly
her own. Was a difficult piece of mu
sic to come in as “grand finale” to our
monthly concert —T’lora mastered it
iu the shortest space of time, and had
it ready for performance long before it
was needed. Was a painting to be
hung in the reception room before
“ the examination ” came on—Flora
had it finished and framed before
the rest of us had fairly begun.—
Was poetry to be recited —were gar
lands to be woven —was a room to be
decorated? In all these, Flora excel
led, and withal was so winningly grace
ful and lovely, that there was not a
girl in the school whose heart did not
b. at towards her with more than ordi
nary kindness. To add to all this, she
“as surpassingly beautiful —so beauti
ful that all the professed beauties who
have since passed before my eyes, have
seemed, in the comparison, tame and
ordinary.
If 1 were to describe her as she real
ly was, she would pass for the creature
of my own brain, and not for the every
day lleslt and blood mortal that she ac
tually purported to be. But her graces
and charms were marred by one se
rious defect in her mental organiza
tion, which, trilling as it then seemed
to our young eyes, was viewed with
decided disapprobation and regret by
the older and more sagacious of her
friends.
Gifted and intelligent as she was,
nd with everything to fit her for prac
ticalusefulness and influence,she achiev
><! comparatively nothing. She was a
lave to her own imagination; she lived
so to speak in a world of her own cre
ating, and her sympathies,thoughts and
feelings were more or less absorbed in
sen-\|ess visions and dreams.
A fide of sorrow, a pathetic love
story, to even a few touching lines of
poetry, would make her weep until
eyes, nose and chin w ere as rosy as j
her cheeks; xml when she sat down to I
write off a fabrication of her own, the
tears streamed so invariably, that at
last half in love, half in fun, we nick- j
named her “Lachrymosa,” a name
which she went by, as long as she re
mained at school. Meantime, while
wasting her tears so profusely over
imaginary sorrows, she too often seem
'd wholly unconscious of the unpre
tending sufferings of common-place,
unromantic people. The struggles of
the poor with poverty, of the rich with
ffliction, and of the feeble with inca
pacity and disease, were all passing
visions to her, and dreams were her
A FAMftI IflMIMa, wmm TO jUTiIMWM. T2I MIS AM ‘mmm, lie TO SIMML IHTMGM.
realities. Having known nothing but
prosperity and happiness herself, she
seemed to take it for granted that all
real people were equally fortunate,
and I have seen Iter gaze unmoved
on scenes which, properly portrayed on
paper, would have awakened her warm
est sympathies. A strange, fascina
nating creature she was —one whom it
was impossible not to love, and equal
ly impossible sometimes to understand.
Not long before our final examination,
an evidence of her indifference to the
actual occurred, which excited the in
dignation of some, and the admiration
and envy of'others.
Among the acquaintances which she
had formed, at the house of a relative
who resided, in that neighbourhood,
was a young manof uncommon ‘Am th.
ilna no fivery body
admired and spoke well ot him—not
a little to say of any man who has
spent a large portion of his life in an
isolated country town —Flora alone
seemed quite insensible to his attrac
tions, and 1 sincerely believe that she
was utterly insensible to the power
which she was fast gaining over him.
Be this as it may, a time came when
she must have seen—had she not been
stone blind to realities—that one word
from her had blasted his happiness for
ever, and sent him a broken-hearted
wanderer to travel over the rude earth
iu search of temporary forgetfulness.
He had no brothers or sisters, his on
ly surviving parent cared little or noth
ing about him, and with wealth at his
command, talents that any ordinary
man might have envied, and a heart
made to love and to be loved, he went
forth to seek oblivion in those hourly j
dissipations of thought and time, which
many more frivolously constituted find
alone sufficient for their happiness.
Flora saw him as he passed her a
few evenings after she had refused him,
! and she knew that he lingered there
because he could not yet tear himself
away from the spot that still held all
that was dear to him on earth, but she
bowed to him as coldly as if nothing
had happened, and returned to her
room to weep until midnight, over
some love-lorn hero who never, in all
probability existed, except in the ima
gination af the author.
The day that sheleft the village to go
go back to her own happy home, her lov
er left his father’s stately, but silent man
sion, on his way to Europe, there to
brave the numberless temptations
which beset all, and which even those
far advanced in years and wisdom, and
with every thing to endear them to
life, sometimes find it hard to with
stand. What wonder if, with none to
I love him, and none to guard, he had
I afterwards been transformed into a
truth-hating, God-deriding “man of the
world,” and then come home, as too
many have done, to disseminate doc
trines and ideas which have already
revolutionized other countries, and
would seem now to be about to infi
delize ours.
But a better lot was in store for
him. His gentle mother had died con
signing her child to the care of One
who wateheth over all, and through
those long years of peril and desola
tion, to which one woman’s careless
ness had condemned him, went as a
safeguard, the memory and the faith
of that sainted mother, who had watch
ed like a guardian angel over his early
years. *********
I thought when Fiora and myself
parted on the steps of the school-house,
that it was more than likely we never
should meet again. She was going
back to the wild woods of Cherokee,
and 1, returning to the lowlands from
whence I came; and it was not until
after my arrival at home, that I learn
ed, to my surprise, that my father had
purchased a farm in the neighbourhood
of Flora’s father, Mr. Warren, and
that we were all to remove thither in
the spring, there to reside for the re
mainder of our days. None of us
much liked the change at first—the
Cherokee country had just been vaca
ted by the Indians, and was at the time
rapidly filling with emigrants from a
warmer and less salubrious clime ;
nevertheless, we one and all, regarded
the move as a sort of self-banishment
to solitude, and discomfort, and nothing
but the rapid decline of my father’s
health, could have induced us to go
willingly, however cheerful and oblig
ing we might have tried to appear.—
As it was, my brother Frank, w ho had
just taken his diploma in a Medical
Institute, set out, instanter, to walk the
hospitals iu Paris, and Harry, who
was several years younger, petitioned
to be sent to college, so that 1 (except
six “interesting infants,” the oldest not
ten years old) was the only child left
to accompany my invalid father, and
his scarcely less invalid wife, to their
exile home.
Os course I was not a little delighted
to hear that Flora was to be our neigh
bour, and she, on her part, (to judge
from her letters on the subject) seemed
equally well pleased. All things con-
I sidered, we patiently concluded that it
might have been much worse, and that
we had best do as many wise people
bad done before us, i. e., make the best
of an extremely bad bargain. We
little dreamed that ere many years
were passed, our love for the new home
would almost equal if not surpass our
love for tlie old. Yet so it was—the
charms of country life, in a region
where winter and summer are alike
healthy, where the unpeopled hills
give one unbounded freedom, and
where the water is ever clear and
sparkling, and the breezes ever fresh
and invigorating, wind around us a fas
cination which it is very hard to break
from ; and I, for one, would now soon
er give up our old paternal mansion,
with its ii.MMst oil ancestral) oak, and ir
shoals of oyster banks, than part for
aye with our beautiful home among
the high hills of Cherokee.
This, however, none of us could then
foresee, and ottr preparations for de
parture were made w ith heavy hearts,
and oftimes with tearful eyes. It is
no light thing to break away from ail
the cherished associations of former
years, even w hen the change is to a
community and mode of life similar to
that which we had all along been ac
customed. But when the change is
from the seaboard to the backwoods,
from social life to solitude, and from
luxury to discomfort, it required no
little amiability to do the thing grace
fully and without grumbling. As for
our servants, they openly rebelled,
and came into the house in a body to
know—
“ Wliaffu mossa been gwine lib
j among dem cracker V
My father pacified them in a mea
sure, by telling them his physician had
said “his life depended on our going,”
and they departed to the kitchen less
vociferous than they came, hut such
long faces as they all wore for a full
week after, would have led any one not
well acquainted with Ethiopian pecu
liarities, to suppose that they were
each and every one, in hourly expec
tation of being hanged. My old mom
ma was perfectly inconsolable.
“She knew,” she said, “mossa was
just carrying me up there to marry
some of dem red face buckra men,
that come to town wid four horse wag
gins; and what could anybody call to
dat! after all the trouble she had had
to bring me up like a lady ; she ’spect
ed she’d see me yet going to market
mounted atop a waggin load of pump
kins and horse-redish. She knew for
certain,”she said, “that if I ebber come
down to see my relations, I’d say ‘thar,’
and ‘char,’ and ‘get along honey,’ and
all sorts of outlandish talk, that would
make people stare at me, and laugh
behind my back.”
I told her, “of course I expected all
that, and she might as well make tip
her mind to it at once,” and to pre
vent her indulging any doubts on the
subject, added the information that we
were to spend the summer in a log
house with three rooms, and that she
would have to climb up a high ladder,
into the roof, every time she wanted
to go to the store-room.”
The poor old soul ejaculated “Ki!”
and asked with uplifted hands, “where
all the nice new mahogany furniture
was to go ?”
Her dismay on learning that it was
all to be left behind, so completely un
nerved her, that she seated herself on
a newly packed trunk, and rocked to
and fro in silent despair, as she used to
do when any of the children were des
perately ill.
Neither she however, nor any of the
household proposed to leave us in our
day of adversity, and we set out, on
May Ist, 1842, for the home which we
would not now exchange for the rich
est princedom oil earth.
CHAPTER 11.
Late on the afternoon of our seven
days’ travel, we arrived weary and
worn on the outskirts of my father’s
farm. Curiosity, or some more pow
erful impulse, waked us all up as we
entered the gate opening into our own
domains, and caused some of us to de
sert our vehicles, aud take to the use
of our feet; while others, less enthu
siastic, were content to put out their
heads and look anxiously about them.
Nor had we proceeded very far inland,
ere we discovered quite enough to war
rant the shouts of ecstacy with which
our new home was hailed.
The road upon which we had enter
ed, was lined with trees of various
sizes and kinds, some already ladened
with rich, ripe fruit, others'giving pro
mise of a la*er, but most abundant har
vest. We who had been used to buy
such luxuries by the plateful, felt as
Aladdin must have done when transport
ed to the garden under ground; and
the clear horizon fit by the last rays of
the departing sun, lent to this strange
scene ol enchantment, an outer view
of surpassing loveliness.
Look in what direction we W'ould,
as we reached the summit on which
CHARLESTON. AUG. 2. 1861.
our diminutive house stood—thebroad
green valleys lay at our fe.-t, encased
by shadowy hills rising lik. waves of
a far off sea one above the other. We
j were on an elevation in the centre of
a glorious amphitheatre, and in the
woods to our right, separated from
us only by an intervening “low ground,”
with its Kalmia bordered stream, was
a picturesque dwelling, which seemed
to bear an air of perfect isolation, und
wliieh we at once concluded must be the
residence of our neighbour, Mr. War
ren and his romantic daughter, I\’’ru.
Our doubts on the subject, if we had
j any, were soon done away with, by
[the appearance of a young lady on
horseback, coming over towards us at
lull speed, and followed moi'e^eliber-
V *■.’ 1 yby to .1-1.-I- -i-.-iy ‘and^'offfu
man similarly mounted. They came !
to insist that we should forthwith pro
ceed to their house, there to remain
until our own was ready for use, and
my poor mother, worn out with her
long, wearisome journey, was only too
glad to have a temporary respite from
the cares and responsibility of house
keeping. \\ e stopped for a moment
to take one look into our future abode,
and then, without unpacking the car
riages, turned our horses heads, and
lumbered the six children back into
limbo. My mother and father also
re-imprisoned themselves, while Flora,
mounting me on her horse, sprang up
behind, and in a few- minutes was can
tering down the hill-side, at a rate
that would make my low country
friends stare. Our seniors and juniors
came on more cautiously in the rear.
“Look at that river, Sem!” cried
Flora, as our horses feet first struck
level ground, “how many nice walks
we shall have along its banks, and
“bat beautiful herbariums we s:.all
gather among its flowers. Oh! it is
delicious to sit there and read all day
long, and never to trouble yourseltljiy
more about the world, and its
than if they were not in existence^^
“But where is the bridge?” cried I,
as we came suddenly upon the watt ’s
edge, and found no bridge there, k
“Bridge!” exclaimed she, with a mer
ry laugh. “There is not a respectable
bridge within twenty miles—give An
nie the rein, and she ll carry you
over.”
I obeyed orders mechanically, but
bow we got to the othe ,sidejs c, ininy.
cle to me ; my head grew dizzy before -
we had gone half way in, and I could
not have told whether we swam to
wards the shore, or the shore towards
us; w hichever it was, “Annie carried us
safe over,” and I never have tried the
same experiment from that day to this.
Fiora was perfectly amazed at my
terror, and instead of sympathising,
laughingly pointed baek, as we clam
bered up the hill, to “the only bridge
in that neighbourhood.” It was a iong
pine tree felled on one bank, and bare
ly reaching the other—no hand-rail, no
branches, and elevated some thirty feet
above the water! This 1 learned af
ter a while to go cautiously over—
but Flora crossed it when she pleased,
and let it be wet or dry, ran over it as
fearlessly as a wood-nymph.
A five minutes canter landed us at
the “stile” in front of the house, where
to my surprise, a woman received our
horses.
“La ! bless you honey!” cried she,
quite struck with my look of amaze
ment ; “I reckon you never see the
like afore? Yen’s the young lady
what rites sich nice letters, haint you ?
How’s your black folks?”
I told her they were “pretty well,”
and asked “how she was ?”
“Middling, I thank you,” she re
plied, and a little while after 1 saw her
“currying down” the horse we had so
queerly resigned.
I took it for granted, from her free
and sociable manner, that she was a
favourite and particularly indulged ser
vant, but no such thing, they were all
alike in the matter of sociability, and
a much at their ease with the “white
folks’ company,” as the white folks
themselves were. Our own servants
accustomed to see their owners treat
ed with considerable more deference,
did not for a long time, know w hat to
make of it, and old mom J udy had
not been twenty-four hours in our hos
pitable neighbour’s yard, before she
was heard to declare—
“Dese up country nigger is de im
pudentest black people 1 ebber see!”
We all, however, after a while, be
came accustomed to this (what to us
then seemed) disagreeable familiarity,
and I now infinitely prefer the cordial
ity and good will existing between the
up-country negroes and their owners,
to any amount of decorum and good
breeding, without it. The two things
however, arc not incompatible, and
not a few of my acquaintances, in both
regions of country, seem to understand
blending them. Would that all did;
our Southern homes would then fall
very little short of perfection.
Abolitionists may rave of despotism
as they will, and bad housekeepers
! jiPy fret about “lazy, dishonest ne
j i>oes” till doomsday ; but where own
■ e amiable, und know hole to man
a southern household, is one of the
floppiest and most orderly communi
ties on the face of the eartli; and with
0M and good management,
I 3.y people to be even comjbrtable
aife where.
• Our family had been remarkable
fpugh several generations, for the
ing attachment existing between
O Ut slaves and their owners, and no
jrijjiter proof, that the bond was still
a -.erful* could be given, than the fact
tli aiqjjpon as they discovered that
,i)’s fife Wd depending on his
‘Jinnee t* tj.j u.uek woods, they
grumbling forthwith, and took
* Neither our servants however, nor
the. Warren’s less deferential “black
folks,” could exactly he called “slaves,”
nor do 1 believe that the term in its
true import, is generally applicable to
our coloured population. As tar as my
own observation goes,the liberty of our
“slaves” is not half so much infringed
upon as is the personal freedom of our
army and naval officers ; and, in point
of actual labour, l doubt whether there
is any part of the world where ser- j
vants are expected to do so little.
It is a common saying among North- j
erners when they come South, that j
“One Northern servant will do ten j
times the work of a Southern.”
Good friends, let me whisper one
word in your ear— A Southerner would
not require it.
A gentleman of our State was not
long since entertained by a Northern
lady, with a rather boastful account of
the smallness of heir yearly expendi
tures. Among other things, she said :
“\N hen I was at the South, I could :
not get a shirt made for less than • ixty
two and a half cents, here, I can get I
as many shirts as my family require,
made at twelve and a half!”
“Mae am!” replied he, his indigna- j
tion getting the better of his good !
breeding, “I would not wear a shirt
made at that price.”
1 don’t mean to say that all South
erners are equally considerate, nor do
mean to say that all Northerners are
so selfish and cruel —but the anecdote
G of the two, as a peo
-4 “£anyone_ doubts it, he^has
if ura to tife columns of a North- \
eru newspaper, and ask the first South
erner who comes to hand, what he
thinks of the facts lie finds stated
there.
Old mom Judy’s comment, on once
accidentally getting hold of one of
these said columns, was—
“l wish anybody would come to me
to make shirt at dat! Ibe bound dey
get out ob de house faster dan dey
come in.”
But I have wandered too far from
my story, and must go back to descri
bing Mr. Warren’s pretty residence,
and the surrounding scene.
The unpretending wooden house,
with its flower-garden in front, out
buildings in the rear, and a dense wood
in the back ground, stood on a pro
montory, formed by the windings of
the river we had just crossed in com
ing over. The fields to the south, were
our neighbour’s—to the north, our own,
and the little farms scattered about—
which had been invisible from my
father’s place, but were here plainly
discernible—were the property of dif
ferent poor families who had settled in
the country before it was deserted by
the Indians, and were now, as Mr. War
ren informed me, in a fair way of be
coming comfortable, thriving farmers.
We remained as long as it was light
enough to see, in the piazza, gazing
about us, and making well satisfied
comments, and then, when too late to
use our eyes out of doors, went to take
a look within.
Fiora carried me directly to her room,
whfSh; as 1 had expected, was arranged
and decorated after the most peculiar
and original manner. It stood on the
ground floor, and had been, in former
days, a dining room general to the fami
ly; but was now—by dint of cutting into
an adjoining pantry, and blocking up
the door into the front parlour—trans
formed into a commodious and retired
bed-room. The quondam pantry serv
ed as an “alcove,” in which was placed
a bedstead of French extract, but na
tive growth, i. e., the form was French,
but the wood was “common pine,”
varnished to resemble satin wood. In
looking about the room, 1 discovered
that wardrobe, bureau, book-case, ta
ble, couch, and wash-stand were all
made of the same rich material. Ex
pressing mj surprise at this new and
pretty style of furniture, Flora inform
ed me that it was all the work of a
servant of her father’s, who employed
his “own time” in making such things,
for which he was, of course, well paid,
and highly commended.
The “alcove” containing the bed,
opened by glass folding doors on a
balcony—once the back entrance of the
house, hut now used only as a recepta
cle to Flora’s numerous jar plants.—
Another small folding door opened
from the main room into a grassy path
leading directly down towards “the pre
cipice” on the bank ot the river : and
a third door, less conspicuous, opened
between two pieces of furniture, into
a little dark entry, the only passage by
which the room communicated with
the rest of the house.
Thus far, 1 have in a measure con
veyed some idea of Flora’s rarely in
truded upon sanctum, but to give an
accurate sketch of the style in w hich
the apartment was decorated, is quite
beyond the power of my pen.
1 here were Vases and flower-pots,
I cabinets and shell ornaments, paintings
ann cur. Mes, Micks ami K.-rti, i.-ios,
writing-desks and work-boxes, rooking
chairs and lounges; in short, look
which way I would, I found dozens of
things to look at, and every thing to
elicit comment. Neatly assorted and
arranged was the whole; and looking
rather too unceremoniously into pri
vate drawers, and out of the way pla
ced, I at length discovered that this
was no less than the apartment of a
regular authoress, and that my friend
Flora, whose scribblings had been the
admiration of the little town of 1) ,
was now merged into the well known
“Agnes,” of current newspaper litera
ture, and spent whole mornings in pre
paring essays, stories, poetry, and ar
ticles in general, for the press.
Before supper bell rang, we had
seen all that was to be seen within
doors—talked over old school davs—
arranged our plans for the future, and
settled it to our own satisfaction, that
we were to have the happiest and most
romantic lives imaginable, spend our
evenings together, write notes daily, j
and serenade our elders at all hours of!
the night, by starlight or by moonlight;
as the case might be. In short, we de
liberately made our arrangements to j
waste existence, after the most approv
ed plan of novel writers in general; j
no dreams of usefulness entered into
our visions, or mingled themselves
with our various schemes. We had
not yet learned that the happiest life
must have some aim beyond amuse
ment and selfish diversion, and that to
give zest even to the most fascinating
pursuits, we must feel that at least a
small portion of our time is devoted to
a pTaetiftU anfl 'prot)fessft'e *<**cTCiSe of
our every day qualifications and facul
ties.
Providence had given us both edu
cation, with mind sufficient to make
our acquirements available, and had I
set us in the midst of an unlettered
and ignorant people, to impart to them
a share of what we had ourselves re
ceived, but we, like children, were for
engrossing ourselves with playthings
and trifles, and leaving our less favour
ed fellow mortals to take care of them
selves, and get along as best they
could.
and hat Flora should be unmindful of
the claims of her poorer neighbours
upon her time and purse, was not so
remarkable—she had been all her life
accustomed to doing just what she
pleased, without regard to any thing
but the promptings of her own unto
ward fancies, but that I, the child of
parents remarkable for their active be
benevolence and judicious charities,
should have been so regardless of some
of the most important relative duties,
is a thing to be accounted for, only by
the fact that we all have to learn to
think over what we have been taught,
before we learn to act upon it. For
tunately there were wiser heads, and
less selfish hearts at work ; and when
we joined the family at tea in the pi
azza, we found that my father had al
ready obtained a list of all the poor
families of the neighbourhood, and that
my mother, like her own amiable self,
had offered her only parlour, to be
used on Saturdays and Sundays, as a
school room for any number of clay
footed children who might happen to
present themselves for instruction.
Flora and myself entered into their
scheme as eagerly as we had done up
on our own, and before many weeks
had elapsed, had carried them into
practice so effectually, that we had ta
ken twenty-seven romantic rambles,
read an iucredible amount of poetry,
begun sonnets, essays and stories innu
merable, and taught at least seventy
five individuals—old and young —a
large portion of their alphabet.
Thus began life in our Cherokee
home.
CHAPTER 111.
“And you really are of opinion, Flo
ra 1” said my father, coming unexpect
edly behind us, as we sat resting our
selves one beautiful morning, after a
long ramble along the banks of the
stream before mentioned —“You real
ly are of opinion, that scribbling is a
harmless amusement; and that you
and Sem are, to say the least of it,
spending the three or four hours a day,
which are regularly devoted to your
pen, very innocently 7 V’
FOURTH VOLUME—NO. 14 WHOLE NO. 106
Flora smiled, and coloured as she
looked up at him, and with the air of
one quite surprised at being overheard,
replied—
“ Yes, sir, 1 really am of that opin
ion, have you any tiling to say to the
contrary ?”
My father seated himself upon the
rough bench running along our rustic
porch, and looking out upon the beau
tiful prospect by which we were sur
rounded, seemed to think a moment,
and then said, pondering as lie spoke.
“Scribbling may or may not be a
harmless amusement to yourselves.
It depends somewhat upon how you
write, and to what end; but when we
think of the weight which a single
word sometimes carries, and remem
ber thatsyn ;l -- *V. -
ideas which may, at any moment, take
root and spring into life, wherever
they may happen to fall; it becomes
us to make sure, that in amusing our
selves, we are not running a risk of
injuring some unsuspecting and inno
cent fellow creature. It is no light
thing to aid in promulgating error, and
they who speak to the world through
the medium of the press, never know
how wide the range of their influence
may be, and should be careful how
they publish their sentiments before
their judgments and principles are ma
tured, and their fancies brought under
proper control.”
VV e were both listening attentively,
any my father after a short pause pro
ceeded.
“Jt is beyond the reach of human
sagacity, to estimate the vastness of
the mischief wrought by such writers,
as Voltaire, Gibbon, Hume and others
of their stamp. Not to speak of the
individual victims that daily fall into
their trammels almost before our
eyes—w hole nations have been infidel
ized, and revolutionized by their wri
tings. 1 have no fear that you will
ever rival such wholesale destroyers of
human virtue and happiness, but what
I want to impress upon you is, that no
writer, is too insignificant to do mis
chief, and that if you would avoid run
ning the risk, you must, at least, make
up your minds to write more delibe
rately, think more, read more, and re
vise more.
“You are both gifted with some tal
ent for more particu
4fll “... I. j:.... j,.,, .-V■ l -i 1• *■. —?* <4 ■ .
caution, yoiß. sp cultivate your natu
ral tastes, without injury to yourselves
or others, but you are young and
thoughtless as yet, full of visionary
ideas of life, un uncustomed to distin
guishing between the nice shades of
right and wrong, and if you will take
my advice, before you send any of
your productions to the press, you w ill
submit them to the judgment of some
older, and more sober head.”
Flora blushing, said that, “unluckily
she had published not a few already,”
and now she said, “that you make me
think of it, I know- very well, that
pieces which 1 published three years
ago, I am now fairly ashamed of ever
having written. One story I remem
ber particularly, the title was ‘Love
t riumphant over obstacles,’ and it w as
the veriest pack of nonsense that you
ever read.
“1 drew a picture of a young couple
falling in love, (nobody could tell why
I am sure,) persecuted of course, but
w ho persecuted them, I can’t distinct
ly remember, and 1 expect they would
have found it a hard matter themselves
to tell—after passing through oceans
of imaginary troubles, they at last
runaway and get married, and end by
decamping for some unknown country,
where they must have managed to
live on an extraordinary small amount
of food, for I don’t remember supply
ing them w ith any, or allowing them
any pocket money either. I think they
went off together on one horse, (don’t
you think the poor animal must have
had a hard time of it?) and if I am
right, they managed to transport along
w ith themselves, a huge wedding-cake,
which probably served them for the
remainder of their days. At any rate,
they managed not only to exist, but to
lead a most happy and contented life,
on an amount of bodily sustenance,
that would have starved any respecta
ble, well bred cat!”
She ended her narrative with a mu
sical laugh, and tossing back the clus
tering curls from her face, leaned .her
beautifully formed head agginst the
balustrade, and looked up into the
clouds, as if tracing her old time vis
ions there.
My father looked grave—no beauty
or manner, however fascinating, could
blind him to realities. He was one
who sought in every thing, to check
the grow th of error, and promote the
advancement of things excellent,wheth
er it was in thought, or in the less
hidden varieties of deed, and while I
gazed almost entranced at Flora, and
saw nothing but the dreamy, soul-in
spired creature before me, he was look
ing into the depths of things, and cal
j culating her actual capacities, as an in
| strument of good or of evil, to those
; with whom she might, either through
her writings or otherwise, come into
contact.
lie was doing more than this—he
was watching anxiously to discover the
different small traits of her peculiar
character, that he might know how and
when to use the influence which he
was fast gaining over her.
His cogitations were, however, in
terrupted before he had spoken, by the
appearance upon the opposite hills, of
our little negro boy Jack, who had
been despatch ed to the village, seven
miles oft’, for letters, and was now ir
turning at full speed, lasL'ng his m#ie
as he came along. *” I he utmost height
“Just look at that boy V'exclaimed
my father, springing to his feet, his
brow knit with benevolent wrath. —
“llow is a man to prevent cruelty,
who has negroes to deal with ? con
found the scamp !”
And quite oblivious of his usual
placidity, he was about hurrying forth,
vihen the nmle, finding herself in full
view of the family mansion, and know
ing very well that such merciless pro
ceedings were not authorized by her
owners, stopped short on the brow of
the hill, and began to kick, letting her
hind feet fly up at such a mte, that in
a very short space of time, Jack was
seen turning somersets down the hill,
followed by his letter-bag, to the infi
nite gratification of his sable charger,
who set up a loud and prolonged bray
of triumph, and then started for the
corn house at a brisk pace, switching
its cars and tail as it came along.
“Well done donkey !” cried my fath
er, quite restored to bis usual good
humour by seeing Jack scramble up
in the midst of his evolutions, and af
ter stopping a minute to scratch his
head, go hunting after the letter-bag.
“Well done! you have saved me
the trouble of giving that fellow a
thrashing, which he richly deserved.”
And he went out to the wood for
the express purpose of giving Balaam
a good patting, and an extra feed of
corn.
Never was girl blessed with such a
father as mine—the very mule loved
him, and stopped to receive his greet
ing.
“ITow considerate your father is of
.tit*’ meanest of his dependents,” said
Flora in a low voice, and following
him as she spoke with her eyes, “and
how many schemes for the good of his
fellow creatures, lie has set afloat in the
short time that lie has been here—l
feel it as a reflection upon myself —I
have everything that he has, to fit me
for usefulness, and health besides, and
yet, what have 1 ever done, but waste
my time on trifles that yield no return l
More than half my life has been spent
in the clouds.”
1 left, her to her reverie, and went to
assist my mother in arranging the
breakfast-table, and seeing after the
children. A little while after, Jack
came in with the letters and papers,
looking very sheepish, and somewhat
battered with bis tumbles among the
rocks, and we all had cpiite enough to
do to possess ourselves of the contents
of the, packet.
There were letters from Frank in
Paris, from Harrv at college, from
friends in the low country, and last,
not least, from several of our school
mates ; these, Flora and myself read
together, and wc had finished tea,
and were sitting around a cleared
table before our budget was completed.
People who live in the city, cannot
form any idea of the sensation which
a weekly country mail creates in homes
holding no othei communication with
the outer world. Like midshipmen on
a far off station, we each read, not on
ly all of our own letters, but the let
ters of all.
Thus the short summer evening was
pretty 7 well advanced before we bad
even opened the newspapers, and my
mother was just about proposing that
the bell should be rung lor prayers,
when father, looking over his first
newspaper at us, said—
“ Here is something which expresses
what we were talking about before tea,
in a style better suited to the taste of
two young ladies, than any thing I can
say.”
And he read aloud some lines by
Charles Mackay, beginning—
‘‘A traveller through a dusty road.
Strewed acorns on the lea.”
Among which were the following—
“A dreamer dropped a random thought,
‘Twas old and yet was new—
A simple fancy ot the brain.
But strong in being true.
’ It shone upon a general land,
And lo ! its light became
A lamp of life, a beacon ray,
A monitory flame.
The thought ‘twas small— its issue great,
A watch fire on the hill,
It sheds its radiance far adown,
And cheers the valley still.”
After he had finished, Flora sat mu
sing with her head upon her hand.—
New and bitter thoughts were awaken-