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(BrantUy st»nor.
BY LADY GEOKOIANA FULLERTON.
[Continued.]
“And so she should be; she has al
ways been brought, up to it; and who
should have the lir.st place among us, if
it is not Margaret ? As to your vexing
yourself, my dear, about your filler's !
not being glad to see you, it is foolish,
rjally very foolish, becaus#—”
“ I did not say he was not glad to see
me, ” interrupted Margaret, with a
heightened color, for she did not always
bear with patience her grandmamma's
animadversions.
* l But, iny dear, how should he be glad
to see you ? It is only by proving peo
ple that we learn to love them," and she
glanced at Walter with a glimmering
notion that that last phrase had been in
his line ; “ I never loved my children
when I did not know them.”
“ And when was that ?” asked Marga
ret, somewhat cautiously, for it must be
confessed that her temper was a little
ruffled that day.
“ When they went to school, my dear.
I always said to my boys, ‘ Now, my
dears, I have done with you; 1 have
nothing more to say to you. No school
boys ever care for their mothers, so I
wash my hands of you. Don t talk to
me till you are grown up ; don’t let me
hear of you ; don’t come near me !’ ”
“ I do not remember,” remarked Wal
ter, “that John and Eustace obeyed
your instructions. They seemed to me
to stick close enough to you during the
holidays.”
“ Oh, they never minded a word I said
to them,” replied Mrs. Thornton. “ 1
always was a cipher, a nothing, a non
entity to them. They would follow me
about because I gave them sugar-plums,
but they did not love me, they did not
care for me; there was no link between
U3.”
Again she glanced at Walter, for that
last expression had been decidedly
poetical, and this time it, was not lost
upon him, for he smiled as he again
presented the candlestick to Margaret,
and was about to reply, when the sound
of carriage wheels, the barking of the
dogs, and the loud ringing of the bell,
announced the arrival of Colonel Leslie
to his home after ten years’ absence.
The doors were flung open, two dogs
rushed in, Margaret stepped forward,
Mrs. Thornton looked flurried; Mr.
Thornton, whose goe- prevented his
rising as rapidly as he Cufod have wished,
stretched out his hand, while on his fine
open venerable face a joyous smile said
“ Welcome,” better than any words
would have done. Walter looked graver
than usual. Colonel Leslie kissed Mar
garet on the forehead, shook hands with
Mr. and Mrs. Thornton, and then wrung
Walter’s in silence. And then there
followed one of those spaces of time
which are spent by every person present
lii trying to look very happy, and to feel
happy, while they can hardly resist the
consciousness that they are extremely
uncomfortable, and yet that it is impera
tive not to suffer themselves of others to
think so. Colonel Leslie, indeed, did
not seem to think it necessary to make
much effort. He sat down in an arm
chair and poked the fire. Mr. Thornton,
funded, took snuff, cleared his throat,
and then asked him (how difficult to find
a question to put to a man whom you
have not seen for ten years!) if he had
had a pleasant journey. Mrs. Thorn
ton, who seldom allowed anybody to
answer a question for themselves when
she was present, took the words out of
Colonel Leslie’s mouth, by asking in. re
turn, “How could it be a pleasant jour
ney, my dear ? How can you expect a
man who has travelled all over the
world like Leslie to see anything to ad
mire at home in our poor little coun
try ?”
“ Why, mv dear Mrs. Thornton,”
blurted out her husband, who had
through life persevered in ‘reasoning
with her, a practice which other people
bad generally droj pe 1, “you might
as well say that Leslie would have no
pleasure in seeing us all again, be
cause he has been used to a set of
queer foreign-looking faces.”
There was a dead pause; somehow
;-r other this last speech (teemed to have
disconcerted Colonel Leslie, and Mr.
Thornton to have felt the moment that
be had uttered it, that it would have
been better left unsaid. This re
doubled the embarrassment of the
whole party. Margaret, whose cheek
bad been deepening in color evenednee
> her father’s arrival, felt it was quite
incumbont upon her to speak. First
she looked at Walter, but he had sat
bimself down by the fire, his long face
onger than usual ; his long legs ex
* tended before him, beyond what ap
peared their natural size, and his eyes
fixed on the fire as if they would never
look on anything else again. At last,
by smne happy inspiration she seized
hi the front paws of ono of the tine
dogs which had come in with her
THE PACIFICATOR —A. CATHOLIC JOURNAL.
father, placed them on her knees with
out any regard for her white muslin
gown, and said timidly, as she glanced
at Colonel Leslie, “What a beautiful
creature this is, papa !”
lie started as if from a revery,
looked attentively at her, sighed deep
ly, and by a sudden impulse held out
his hand. Margaret seized it, drew
near to him, and from that moment a
considerable thaw took place in the
general aspect of things. Tea was
brought .in for the second time, and
Walter, who had perceived the affec
tionate look which Leslie had cast on
his daughter, and the renewed expres
sion of pleasure in those eyes in which
ho could never bear to see a cloud,
shook off his oppressive gravity. lie
and his friend began to talk of their
former haunts and old acquaintances ;
Mrs. Thornton, who, like the canary
birds, always chirped the louder when
others conversed, was encouraged to
hold forth again in her usual tone;
and her husband slowly recovered
from that painful shock, the conscious
ness of having said the wrong thing at
the wrong time. And now we must,
in another chapter, explain why Mr.
Thornton’s remark had better not have
been made, and how it came to add to
the embarrassment of the assembled
family at Grantley Manor.
cii.u’tku ii.
A short time after the death of his
wife, Henry Leslie had left England
in order to travel for a few months in
Italy. The change of scene and the
excitement of the journey, to a man
of twenty-three, who had never before
been out of his own country town, soon
roused him from the depression which
bad driven him from bis home to seek
health and amusements abroad ; and
by the time he had travelled through
France, and spent a few weeks at
Turin and at Milan, he was just in
that state of mind and of feelings
which most readily admits new im
pressions. The acuteness of grief had
subsided, and a vague desire for fresh
interests and new excitements had
taken its place. A latent taste for
painting and for poetry, for the artistic
and imaginative side of life, took
strong possession of Leslie's fancy as
he advanced into Italy. The influence
of its brilliant skies—the magic of its
natural beauties—the memories of the
past—its departed glory and its living
charm—operated more and more pow
erfully on his soul ; and for the time
being the quiet English country gen
tleman was transformed into a passion
ate admirer of that strange land whose
very name is a spell ; whose very de
fects are attractions; where desolate u
is bewitching, suffering poetical, and
poverty picturesque; where life re
sembles a dream—where the past is
almost more tangible than the present—
where an eternal vitality springs from
the bosom of -perpetual decay, like
pure flowers floating on the surface of
a dark and stagnant pool: life in its
brightest and most glowing colors—
death in its most poetical and soothing
form, meet each other at every turn.
With her cloudless skies and her tide
less seas—the unchanging gray of her
olive groves—the brilliant hues of her
mountains and of her streams —the
solemn silence of her cypress groves—
the noisy throngs of her joyous people—
her gorgeous churches, with their
myriads of living worshippers—her
gigantic tombs, with their countless
multitude of unknown tenants, Italy
is* at once and emphatically the land
of the living and the land of the dead.
This Leslie felt; he dd not seek so
ciety—he did not enter into noisy
amusements —he left his hours and his
days to take their natural course—he
floated down the current of life, while
Nature and Ait unrolled before him
visions of beauty and scenes of en
chantment which appear to those whose
souls they touch, not as novelties, but
as the realization of a presentiment or
of a dream. Have we not, some of
us, in our hours of sleep, known a
land, a spot, a home, which in our
dreams we recognise—which, in our
waking hours, we sometimes long to
visit again? Have we not at times,
in performing the commonest actions
of life, in opening a book, in shutting
a window, in meeting (for the hun
dredth time perhaps) with a person,
experienced a sudden, a strange, un
accountable feeling, which suggests to
us, in what appears a supernatural
manner, that we have done that action,
thought that thought', met that person
in the same manner before, and vet
the whole impression is independent
of the memory, and is more a sensa
tion than a thought? Sucb was the
effect that the first sight of the Cam
pagnaof Home produced upon Leslie:
he had lingered at Genoa and at
Florence ; he had become thoroughly
imbued with the order of ideas and of
taste, which creates in men a sort of
new sense and new perceptions. I
dwell much upon that change in the
whole intellectual being which is
caused by a series of impressions and
associations, which, but a short while
before, were as strange to the mind
they visit as colors to the born blind,
because it partly accounts for the sud
den fancy which soon after took pos
session of Leslie’s feelings.
As lie was standing one morning on
the steps of the church cf St. John
Lateral!, and gazing on the view be
fore him, lie exclaimed, half aloud :
“ This ix Rome, indeed! 1 recognise
her hero ! ”
A young man, who was sitting on
the stops with a drawing before him,
heard these words, looked up, and
while a bright sudden Italian smile
flashed on his dark countenance, with
out speaking lie nodded assent. This
silent gesture made them acquainted,
and a few words passed between them.
This young man was a painter, and as
Leslie glanced at his work, he was
struck with the extraordinary talent
which it evinced. The vague, myste
rious, melancholy beauty of the Cam
nagna—the contrast between the bril
liancy of its coloring and its utter deso
lation —was so truly rendered in the
hasty sketch before him, that, pointing
to it, he said in bad Italian, but with a
smile—
“ And this, also, is Rome !”
“Ah, not more like Rome,” ex
claimed the young artist, “than the
! creations of man are like the works of
nature ! What I can do with these,”
he added, hohling up his palette and
his brushes, “ is so unlike what I see
there (pointing to the Campagna), or
here, (touching his own forehead).
It is a great pain to conceive vividly,
I and to render faintly !”
This was said so earnestly and un
affectedly, that Leslie instantly felt
inclined to like and to know more of
the young painter. Words sometimes
affect us in a singular manner. A
phrase, a sentiment which we may
often have heard before, at times un
accountably arrests our attention ;
touches, perhaps, some chord which,
by a remote and’’scarcely perceptible
vibration, reaches our own heart, and
by a kind of magnetic power instanta
neously produces sympathy between
us and the speaker. In this case it
may have been that the Italian’s me
lancholy and passionate love of his
art, the disproportion which he simply
expressed in a few words between the
creations of bis fancy and the work of
his bauds, answered to the feelings of
olio, who like Leslie, under a cold and
quiet manner, hid a keen sensibility
and a lively imagination. To be a
poet in the very depths of his soul,
and to find no words in which to give
life arid form to the thoughts which
struggle within him ; to feel the might
of genius and the strength of inspira
tion ; to.be conscious of the fire which
consumes him in secret, and to have
no mould in which to cast the burning
torrent; to feel the sacred flame dying
away for lack of air and light to make
glad dr mournful music in his secret
soul, and never hear with his outward
ears one note of those mysterious
melodies vibrate through the air ; to
feel (Tliat he can love with passion, or
thrill with indignation, while'his voice
is mute, his hands weak, and his eyes
dim, is a pain that has, probably, been
experienced by many a shy and silent
man ; ono whom tho wayfaring man
and the fool, the babbler of many
words, or the scribbler of many pages,
has passed by with indifference or
gazed at with contempt; and it is to
such as these that one word, One look,
comes sometimes with a strange power,
and unlocks in an instant the' flood
gates which have been closed for
years.
The acquaintance which had com
menced on the steps of St. John Late
ran soon ripened into intimacy. Les
lie’s fiery and poetic nature, which the
quiet round of domestic duties and in
terests, and the mild light of an early
and unthwarted affection had not
■roused, now sprang into existence, or
rather became conscious of its own
strength, and in Leonardo Ferrari jie
found a companion whose character
and tastes were at this moment exactly
suited to his own. He was an enthu
siast and an artist. At once indolent
ami eager, simple in his character,
and impassioned in his language, he
was a true Italian. In his romance,
there was a nature ; in his passion, a
simplicity ; in bis eyes, a fire ; and in
his manner, a languor which charac
terizes that nation, and seems a type
of that country, which one of their
poets so mournfully addresses—
“ Ileh. tu fossi men bella, o nlmen pin forte,
Ond’aseai pill u paventasse o assai
’T’inna.ssi men.”
For two months- Leslie and Leonar
do spent such days together as can be
spent in Rome alone. Among the
ruins of departed glory, scattered as
natural ornaments among the fairest
and most fantastic scenes that nature
ever created; among the relies of a
stupendous human power; amidst the
memorials of a divine and eternal'
faith ; in tho catacombs, those dark
palaces of the glorious dead in the
matchless arena, where the blood of
martyrs has washed away the foul
stain's of heathen idolatry, and the
image of the Dying Gladiator fades
before that of the Saint who yielded
his body to the lions, and committed
his soul to his God ; in the aisles of St.
Peter’s, in the galleries of the \ at’ean,
in tho gardens of the \ ilia Doria, they
wandered together. Many a lonely
church, many a deserted villa, many a
silent pine-grove they visited in the
twilight hour; and in the day Leslie
was often in the studio, where Leonar
do worked with that religious devotion
to his art, which belonged more to a
past than to the present era, and re
called the days when an artist seldom
seized a pencil to trace on li is canvass
the image of our Lord, of his blessed
mother, or of the saints, without first?
kneeling to pour forth bis soul in
prayer. Leslie learned Italian, and
for the first time read the sublime
works in that language, as he sat on
the broken marble sarcophagus, which
formed the garden scat of Leonardo’s
studio. A few flowers grew in that
court—a small fountain played in the
centre, and two imprisoned birds sung
their wild notes over his head. The
Italian sun shed its intense light on
the walls of the studio, and Leslie’s
eyes often wandered from his book to
the canvass, to which the artist was
transplanting one of bis mental visions.
The subject lie had chosen was tho
resurrection of Jairus’s daughter, and
into this picture the painter had thrown
his whole soul: there was but one
figure in it. that of the maiden i-ising
from the bed of death. The expres
sion of her face, her attitude, told the
story (if ono may so speak) better than
if the figures of our Lord, of his
apostles, of her parents, and of the
scoffers who in that solemn hour be
came believers, had boon also depicted ;
and imagination portrayed them more
vividly, perhaps, than if the hand of
the artist had designed them. The
countenance of the little maiden was
so holy—there was at once such awe
and such serenity in the expression of
those large eyes, which an instant be
fore had been closed in death ; a vague
regret for the vision that was flown—a
dawning joy for the life that was re
gained ; on her brow the seal of another
world, whose threshold she had passed;
on her half-opened lips, a welcome for
that to which she was restored :—that
as Leslie gazed on this picture day
after day, his imagination was move
and more captivated by its divine and
its earthly beauty. He thought that
he had never seen anything so fair in
form,, or so angelic in expression, as
the maiden of Leonardo’s design.
[To le enittilined. J
I*. GIULIMAKTIM,
TM-ALER IN WOOL. HIDES, TALLOW
I ' AND WAX, 192 Congress street, second
door from Jefferson, Savannah, Ga. A
supply of the above articles constantly on
hand. All kinds of skins bought and sold.
oct22—2mos
J. J. BROOM. W. C. JONES.
BROOM & CO.,
COMMISSION MERCHANTS,
No. 2;IS Broad Street,
Oct. 10 Ainjini'n. Ga.
J. C. Ml! NEK. C. R. KEEN. T. COI.KMAN.
M ULSTER, REEST & CO.,
A UCTI.ON AND GENERAL COMMIX
II SION MERCHANTS, 274 Broad
Street, Augusta, Ga. Negroes, Real Estate,
Stock, Furniture and everything, bought
and sold on commission. Consignments
solicited and prompt returns made.
Oct. 15—2 m
Slew Tailoring Establish
ment.
TOHN KENNY, LONG AND FAVOR
'S ABLY known in connection with the
House of J. il. Newby A Cos., J. K. flora A
Cos. and Horn, Wise & Cos., has commenced
business on his own account, at the store of
Charles Catlin, opposite the Smthcrn States
Hotel, where he hopes to receive a share of
the public patronage heretofore so liberally
extended to him. Oct. 15
ARCANE.
IVT M. CAYCE A CO.. AUCTIONEERS
* - « and Commission Merchants, General
Agents. Negro and Real Estate Brokers,
formerly of Memphis, Tenn., late of Atlan
ta, Ga., can now be found in Augusta, Ga .
Broad street, opposite the Planters' Hotel.
Furniture. Merchandise and Stock of all
kinds receive due attention. Our success
for thirty years past in the trade induces
us to trust the future for success.
Remember the Arcade
When you wish to trade.
Oct. 35
TVOTICE.
The undersigned has this day
associated with him in the General
Commission Business, Mr. W. C. JONES.
The business will bo conducted in the name
of BROOM A CO., at the old stand, 238
Broad Street. J. J. BROOM.
Augusta, October 4,1864—12 t
W. A. RAMSEY &
A UCTION AND GENERAL COMMIS
IX SION MERCHANTS, No. 308 Broad
Street, opposite Union Bank, Augusta, Ga.
G. A. Parker, Auctioneer.
References.— Edward Thomas, Hon. It.
H. May, Alfred Baker, J. 11. Taylor, Flem
ing & -'Robinson, Henry Edmondson, Au
gusta; 11. C. Goodrich A Cos., Lawburu A
Kossett, David Hudson, Columbus: K.
Winsbip, Snulsbury A Pease, Macon ; W.
11. Stark, Savannah: C. N. Hubert, '3.
T. Burge, J. Purcell, Charleston: J. S. Lin
ton, R. L. Bloomfield* Athens; J. D. Pois
son, Geo. Myers. Wilmington ; B. 11. Micou,
If. ]), Browder, J. E. llukill, Montgomery ;
George E. W. Nelson, 3). Omahumlra, John
A. Bowen, Richmond, la. Get. lu—> ln
iTKITYSOIV & SIIEEDT,
A UCTIONEERS AND COMMISSION
IX MERCHANTS, Augusta, Ga.. will
giro prompt attention to all business en
trusted to them. Consignments respectfully
solicited.
References. —Jackson A Miller, Augus
ta, Ga.. J. T. Paterson A Cos., Augusta. Ga,,
Stockton A Cos., Augusta, Ga., Chichester
A Cos., Augusta, Ga, Walsh A Illume, Au
gusta, Ga, Geo. E. W. Nelson. Richmond.
Ya., T. D. Wagner. Esq, Charleston, S. C,
Maj. E. Willis, Charleston, S. 0, W. 11.
Stark, Esq, Savannah, Ga, Burke, Boykin
A Cos, Macon, Ga. Oct. B—4t
SEAL & WHITLOCK.
General agents and commis
sion MERCHANTS, for the sale of
Manufactured Tobacco, or any kind of Pro
duce, at No. 183 Broad Street, two door*
above the Express Office.
References —Edward Thomas, Presi-
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Bank, S. Wvatt, Merchant, Wilcox A
Hand, Merchants, Alfrecl Baker, Merchant,
James 11. Taylor, Merchant, Lainback A
Cooper. Out. B—St
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