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Dcootcb to Literature, Science, ani> tl)c Sons of temperance, ©bb Yellowsl)ip, iilasonrn, anb (general intelligence.
VOLUME I.
PROSPECTUS!
& mimimmi tuna.
A WEEKLY SOUTHERN NEWSPAPER,
DEVOTED TO
literature, science and art, foreign and
DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE, MASONRY, ODD
FELLOWSHIP, AND THE SONS OF TEMPER
ANCE.
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are aware that it is customary to make large pro
mises in advance of performance, but we prefer
to perform first, and refer to it afterwards.
It may not be deemed presumptuous, however,
to say, that it is our intention to make as interest
ing a sheet as possible; knowing, as we do, the
more interesting it is, the more liberal will be the
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shall be in receipt of the latest Foreign Intelli
gence, and our patrons may depend upon receiv
ing the latest intelligence in regard to the staple
products of the Southern country, as well as a
cordial and hearty support of the interests of the
South, and its peculiar institutions.
The Masonic Fraternity, Odd-Fellows, and
J 9 9
Sons of Temperance, will always find such gen
eral information as may be deemed interesting
under their appropriate heads.
t s r m §;
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All communications to be addressed (post
paid) to
E. J. PURSE, Savannah, Ga.
BE KIND TO EACH OTHER.
BY CHARLES SWAIN.
Be kind to each other!
The night’s coining on,
When friend and when brother
Perchance may be gone !
- Then ’midst our dejection,
How sweet to have earned
The blest recollection
Os kindness — returned !
Y hen day hath departed,
And Memory keeps
Her watch, broken hearted,
Where all she loved sleeps !
Let falsehood assail not,
Nor envy disprove—
Let trifles prevail not
Against those ye love !
° r o h u nge w,t h to-morrow.
Should fortune take wing,
i>ut the deeper the sorrow,
... , Tlle . closer IU cling!
Oh, be kind to each other,
The night’s coming on,
W hen friend and when brother
1 erchance may be gone !
To clean Kid Gloves. —Lay them flat on white
paper or, still better, fix them on a wooden hand
t en, with a flannel dipped in pure oil of tur
y ntln e (Camphine,) rub until the dirt is re
the i P art ially dry, by means of flannel,
a roorr L before the fire, until the
lerao °* tur P en b ne is dissipated. Essence of
*° n ma 3 7 be used instead of turpentine, but it
,S more
sir & m ss
THE FIRST VIOLET.
BY THOMAS MILLER, BASKET MAKER.
“But ever and anon, of grief subdued,
There comes a token like a scorpion’s sting.
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued ;
And slight withal may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside forever : it may be u sound —
A tone of music—Summer’s eve or Spring—
A flower—the wind—the ocean —which shall wound
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound.”
„ Childe Harold.
Our thoughts tread strange labyrinths, windings
intricate, and mazes unknown even to the will.
They are indeed the only free denizens that roam
unchecked down the dark slopings which lead to
the untrodden avenues of the past. They alone
dare to climb the clould-clothed battlements that
look over the distance of the Future; they see
the mist, the dense gathering, the faint gold-burst
ing that announces sunshine, of the blackness that
heralds the thunder-storm. Restless when the
body sleeps, they wing away through the pale
starlight of memory; they traverse dreary shores,
wildernesses, desolate and wild places, peopled
with the distorted shadows of wilder realities.—
When awake, like restless steeds, they start aside
at objects that rear up on every hand, and bound
away over immeasureable plains, sweeping earth,
air, and sky, and even daring to heed the vapory
track over which Time has hurried.
We find monitors in every thing around us.—
The slow pacing silvery cloud, as it glides, spirit
like, over the blue fields of heaven, brings before
our eves the white-robed idol of our youth, and
we sigh to.see it vanish like the object we adored.
The murmuring river, sweeping along in liquid
music between its willow-waving banks, rolls
away like our cherished hopes, and is lost amid
the forgetfulness of the ocean. Even music is
heard with a sigh ; though it awakens the echo of
the eternal hills, it dies heavily upon the heart,
like the sweet voices that have forever faded
away from our hearth. The dancing leaf falls
on our footpath, and its green beauty is soon worn
away, like the happiness of childhood. Flowers
wither, and friends grow cold. The hojie of
Spring too soon bursts into the reality of Summer;
then comes the staid Autumn, solemnly demure,
and her heavy eyes are fixed upon the darkness
of Winter. Still there are patches of sunlight
in our path —tiny glades, which no gloomy um
brage overhangs —spots in the unfathomable
dreariness of the forest, where we in ay sit down
for a moment and smile ere we resume our jour
ney through the deep solitudes.
I was born at the foot of the green hills. The
silence of woods and the overhanging of antique
boughs were but a little distance from my home.
The song of the cuckoo often rang above my roof
tree. Meadows, rainbow colored with flowers,
spread out near my dwelling. The silver Trent
wound along past my door. The crown-rose of
the whole wreath has not to me charm enough to
inspire a sonnet. But last Spring, heavy with care,
bowing beneath the cypress, which now binds the
poet’s brow in place of the laurel, I emerged
from the dusty din of the metropolis, and wan
dered among those few green fields which yet
spread like solitary oasis around its environs.—
Many a dreary day had glided by bearing its
leading links along, since I had seen a budding
hawthorn. Oh! how sweetly came the fragrance
of that morning air ! The birds that sang around
tne felt not a greater thrill of delight than that
which gushed silently from my heart; I gazed up
on the clear sky, and the young green that car
peted the earth ; and wondered how, amid so
much beauty and brightness, Sorrow dared to set
her bleeding feet on such a lovely world.
Wandering along by an old hedge, stunted and
ivied, (just such a hedge as the black-bird wou u
select, in a more retired place to build its firm
nest,) I discovered a wila violet. By a mossy
SAVANNAH, GA.. THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1849.
b ink it grew; the dead leaves lay around it, soli
tary and blue, and beautiful; not another com
panion near it, it stood alone amidst the bursting
of young leaves and the decay of the old ones.
I sat down beside it. A little brook funded at
my feet—a low faint melody, just audible—not
the triad singiii” of the hill-brook, but a mounful
murmur—a sound that well accorded with mv
solitary violet. Had there been a bed of those
lovely flowers, I should have wished for the sing
ing voice of a river, all silver and sunshine; but
the brook had a low sound, and there was but one
violet. I satin silence and gazed upon it; I won
dered if the deep alleys in Somerbywood yet con
tained those sweet flowers. * * *
A solitary flower, a sweet violet, how small a
key opens the door of memory ! how the vie!
rolled from the face of time, the gray, the forgot
ten years moved before me! I became a vouth ;
—Park—house—fields—rose upon my sight; a
lovely girl hung upon my arm—she bore a basket;
now her face was hidden bv the stem of a mighty
tree, again her white kirtle faintly glanced be
tween the thick underwood, as she flew from my
sight in search of violets; anon she emerged from
behind the broom covered bank, then stood like
an antrel of light between me and the skv. And
then I closed the leaves on Comus, and we listen
ed in the old wood for another voice,
“To smooth the raven down of darkness till it smiled.”
And trees started into enchanters, and spirits sung
in the brook. We saw their long hair wave in the
water-flags. Then we grew bold and threaded
o o
“lanes and alleys green.” Then I stole away, not
far, just so far as to see her lovely figure hurrying
to and fro, and calling upon my name ; then she
sat down in despair on the green moss, her white
drapery
“Made sunshine in a shady place,”
and I thought of Una. A knot of wild lilies of the
valley shot up beside her, like a milk-white lamb.
Then I stole gently up to her—“ How could you
leave me.” 1 looked on her sweet face, on her
gentle eyes as they were uplifted in kind reproach,
just reaching the margin of tears, and my heart
reproached me, and 1 wondered how I could leave
her for a moment; and I bound our violets in lit
tle bundles,and she soon forgave me ;Oh ! I could
have hidden myself behind the trees again, to be
so sweetly forgiven ! But she* left me—death
stole her—howl have hated him ever since!—
And the dead leaves that were strewn around my
violet, seem neat emblems for a thing so lovely—
for then I thought of her. No, these bright leaves
that glittered around the stalk of my little flower,
were not so sunny as her silken locks ; nay, the
blue of her eye would shame the flowers’s radi
ance, and her lips —so exquisite ! and to die so
young ! and with her heart filled with love ! Oh !
1 would sooner that Spring had withheld its flow
ers for ever ! The sweetest violet that ever blow
ed withered when she died —the woods will never
bear such another !
A little flower had assumed the reins of my
thoughts;—how feeble a charioteer can drive the
fancy ! Within one short hour I had visited the
old forest of Sherwood. Robin Hood in his garb
of Lincoln green, followed by his many outlaws
had swept before me. The bugle had sounded
through the glimmerihg glades, and rude drinking
horns were seen waved to and fro by powerful
arms, keeping chorus to the loud “Derry Down”
that rang beneath the greenwood tree.
The dark groves of Newstead had again risen
before the Arcady of England, where the mighty
minded Byron had so often trod. Again I trav
ersed those violet scattered solitudes, again paced
the long oaken galleries, rugged with the dregs of
the blood-red wine, seeing the smooth lakes on
whose surface he loved to ride, or within their
sullen depths to plunge. The ruined window
with its eternal ivy ; the old fountain, with its
quaint imaginary, the solemn cloisters, the rusted
armor, the satyrs partly covered with the green
moss —his impressive portrait above the wide fire
place—had all risen before me as distinctly as
when i first saw them.
That simple violet brought the velvet vallev of
Sneinton before my mind’s eve, the rocky hermi
tage, the flowery banks, on which 1 loved to sit and
angle in the sunshine of morning, or thegrav twi
light of eve. The finny tribe had but few charms
tor me, unless it was to see them leap up and:
scatter the loosened silver spray of the river, like
fairy stars in the sunshine, then glide away be
neath the clear water. The dreaming trees, the
distant hills basking in their variegated beauty,
the rustling of slender Hags, the rising and falling
of the water-lilies, the breeze sweeping across the
long grass, the tall willows bending to their own
shadows in the river, the slow clouds mirrored be
low—ail these were sights and sounds thataccorded
well with my varying moods. Then those dead
leaves so closely surrounding an object of beauty ;
Oh, how like past pleasure they seemed —the
dark night closing upon a sunny day, the grave
surmounting a flower-bed, the bier placed in a
ball-room, the funeral bell knelling homeward the
wedding party, the slow muffled footsteps of death
stealing mournfully behind us !
What changes had taken place since I last saw
a violet. Could I forget the dark room, the nar
row window of which the sunbeams beat not, lest
they should become prisoners. Hope had whis
pered me away from my green hills. Ambition
had allured me from my quiet woods; and they
had all lorsaken me—even Patience grew wearied,
and bent over the pale paper her pale cheek. —
But memory went not away; she still recognised
the blue sky and the bright sunshine, and sighed
when she thought on such mornings. How fair
the primroses grew in Clifton Grove, what a gush
ing song there was then in the green woods ; how
the sunshine slept upon the river ; how the happy
breezes were laden with the perfume of violets.—
Then rose the blossoming hawthorn, the hill-side
white with daisies, the golden glow of king-cups,
the gaudy beds of crocuses ; —all these still exis
ted. And even their light hearts and merry voices
were ringing through the haunts of the dove—
Dryads fair as those which peopled the-forests of
poesy. Perchance they were singing the songs
which I had woven in my happier days.
And could they think of me! wish me seated
on the well known bark, beneath the old oak ‘{ —
There was pleasure in the thought—the dingy
couch, the torn dictionary, the neglected candle,
that had burned down unwatched in the moments
of wandering thought; the expiring fire with its
dying embers ; the low chilly feeling that follows
a sleepless night; the pile of papers, showing
confusedly its rows of scribbled lines; voices in
the streets; the sun struggling through a murky
atmosphere ; —from gloomy contrasts to the little
window in which the woodbine peeped When
free from care and refreshed with slumber, the
lark awoke us with its song, when the woods
emerged from their misty canopy, and the early
breeze brushed the gentle dew from the leaves;
when contentment smoothed our pillow, and the
white wings of peace wafted us into slumber;
when we heard not a mournful sound in the brook
and sorrow came not at the sight of the first
violet.
Innocently popjnng the Question. —“Charles,” said
a young lady to her lover, “there is nothing in
teresting in the papers to-day, is there dear?” “No,
love; but I hope there will, one day, when we
both shall be interested.” The lady blushed and
said, of course, “For shame, Charles /” ‘
To remove stains and marks from Books . — A solu
tion of oxalic acid, nitric acid, or tartaric acid, is
attended with the least risk, and may be applied
upon the paper and prints without fear of dam
age. These acids taking out writing ink, and not
touching the printing, can be used for restoring
books where the margins have been written upon,
without attacking the text.
NUMBER 3.