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About Southern literary gazette. (Charleston, S.C.) 1850-1852 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 25, 1852)
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. 299
