Newspaper Page Text
1852.]
ing me and thee. Let me kiss thee and
adieu !”
As fuli of unfaltering and unquestion
ing faith in him, the girl sat motionless
and heard him out. Then silently rose
and turned her boundlessly confiding
brow to him. He kissed it thrice, and
without another syllable left the place.
TO TIME.
BY W. H. TIMROD.
They slander thee “Old Traveller !”
Who say that thy delight
Is to scatter ruin far and wide,
In thy wantonness of might;
For not a leaf that talleth,
Before thy restless wings,
But thou ehangest,in thy rapid flight,
To a thousand brighier things.
Thou passest o’er the battle-field,
Where the dead lie stiff and stark,
And naught is heard save the vulture’s scream,
And the gorged wolf’s angry bark:
But thou hast caused the grain to spring
From the blood-enriched clay,
And the waving corn-tops seem to dance
To the rustic’s merry lay.
Thou has strewn the lordly palace
In ruin o’er the ground,
And the dismal screech of the owl is heard
Where the harp was wont to sound :
But the self-same spot thou coverest
With the dwellings of the poor,
And a thousand happy hearts enjoy
What one usurped before.
’Tis true thy progress layeth
Full many a loved one low,
And for the brave and beautiful
Thou hast caused the tear to flow.
But always near the couch of death,
Nor thou, nor we can stay,
And the breath of thy departing wings
Dries all our tears away.
FACTS FOR THE NEXT EDITION
OF UNCLE TOM'S CABIN.
There died lately in the lower county
of Virginia, a mulatto man who was man
unfitted by his master, and was, under
our law, permitted to remain in Virginia,
llis master had, with his liberty, left him
a respectable property, and this man, by
iudustry, accumulated an estate of twen
ty five thousand dollars. He had pur
chased his wife, who was a slave; and
his children were therefore his own prop
erty, as well as his wife.
Falling into bad health, he went to
Philadelphia sometime during this last
summer, for medical advice, but learn
ing from the best physicians that his
health was worse than he thought, and
he could not live, he wrote to a relative
of his old master to come on for him,
which this gentleman did, and stayed
with him, and brought him back to Vir
ginia at his request, lie died shortly
after his return, not long since ; and by
his last will left all his estate to this gen
tleman, as vvell as his wife and children,
who are thus the slaves of his friend —
SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE.
trusting, of course, that he would care for
for them, and provide for them.
Here was an intelligent, wealthy man,
who knew the condition of the coloured
people in the Northern States, that pre
ferred to leave his wife and children, and
all his property to a white man, to send
ing them out of the State, to live as
free persons with a line estate.
These are notorious and recorded facts,
and can be proved if denied; and there
are many such occurrences among our
our coloured people which might be made
public to put to shame the exaggerated
fictions of Mrs. Stowe and her adherents,
if there was any possibility of substitu
ting in the Northern mind fact for fiction
—reason for imagination—and charity in
the place of sectional prejudice.
[Martinsburg, ( Fa.) Gazette.
THE MYSTERY OF THE SPHINX.
On this subject, Mr. St. John has an
opinion of his own, which he puts forth
as follows:—“What the Egyptians sig
nified by this symbolical figure, seems
not to be exactly decided, I think it was
the type of womanhood, in which power
is engrafted on beauty and gentleness.
This they represented by a woman’s face,
neck and bosom, terminating in the body
of a lioness, not in fierce or violent action,
but in eternal repose. This is the nature
of the passive principle, which receives
within itself the germs of life, and quick
ens and brings them to perfection, with
out any external manifestation of ener
gy. Possibly, also, the Egyptians meant
to insinuate that though the female sex
is placed as our companion upon earth,
it is never understood by us, but will re
main, like the sphinx, an enigna to the
day of doom. However this may be, 1
take it for granted that the approxima
tion of sphinx and pyramids was not al
together accidental, The stranger and
the traveller who approach, might learn
from the mystic figure beneath the rocks,
that around him all was symbol and al
legory, and that if he could not read the
riddle of its existence, he could scarcely
expect to interpret the most abstruse of
all symbols on the sacred mount. In all
ages there has been an esoteric philoso
phy, a doctrine and language confined to
the few ; and even now, they who, as tra
vellers, journey over the surface of the
earth, must veil a portion of their aiscov-,
eries behind an obscure terminalogy.
When perfect, the sphinx, in all likeli
hood, formed the crown of Egyptian art.
There is something inexpressibly majestic
in the dusky head, suggesting the idea of
a buried goddess, emerging from beneath
the sands ; and if we contemplate the
outline of the features, and restore what
centuries havo mutilated and marred, we
shall probably have a perfect tyge of the
beautiful as it existed in the mind of the
Egyptians.”
NAPOLEONS HEARD
When Bonaparte died at St. Helena,
it is well known that his heart was ex
tracted with the design of being pre
served. The British physician who had
charge ot that wondrous organ, had de
posited it in a silver basin, among water,
and retired to rest, leaving two tapers
burning beside it in his chamber, lie
often confessed to his friends, while nar
rating the particulars, he felt nervously
anxious as to the custody of such a de
posit, and although he reclined he did not
sleep. While laving awake, he heard du
ring the silence of the night, first a rust
ling noise, then a plunge among the wa
ter of the and then sound of an ob
ject falling, with a rebound on the floor
—all occurring with the quickness of
thought. Dr. A., sprang from his bed,
and the cause of the intrusion on his re
pose was soon explained. It was an enor
mous rat, dragging the heart of Bonaparte
to his hole. A few moments more, and
that which before had been too vast its
ambition to be satisfied with the sover
eignty of continental Europe, would have
been found even in a more degrading po
sition than the dust of Ciesar stopping a
beer barrel.
A WONDERFUL CLOCK.
Towards the end of the sixteenth cen
tury, Jaquet Droz, a Swiss clock-maker,
carried to Ferdinand the Catholic, King
of Spain, a clock which was the wonder
of all Europe. The king paid the large
sum of five hundred thousand louis (or
about two thousand two hundred dollars)
for it, and when it arrived, gathered his
most illustrious noblemen to look at its
marvellous works. The clock represented
a landscape, and when it struck the hour,
a shepherd issued from behind some rock
and played six different tunes upon his
flute, while his dog naturally fawped upon
him. To show the king that the dog was
faithful, as well as affectionate, Droz told
him to touch the fruit in a basket by the
side of the shepherd. The king laid hold
of an apple, and the dog at once sprang
at his hand, barking so naturally, that a
spaniel in the room replied with great te
rocity s and showed signs of fight. At this
all the court left, crying out, “Sorcery !”
and there was only left the king and the
minister of the naw. The king asked
the shepherd what time it was? The
clock-maker told him that he did not un
derstand Spanish ; but if he would ask
him in French he would reply. The king
then put his question in French, when
the shepherd instantly replied. This was
too much for the minister of the navy,
and he instantly ran away. The poor
clock maker was in danger of being burnt
for a sorcerer, bet he explained the won
der to the grand inquisitor, who was con
vinced that, instead of being the work of
evil spirits, it was only great ingenuity.
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