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LITERARY.
WILLIAM W. MANN, Editor.
SATURDAY, DEC. 31, 1859.
TRAVELING AGENT.
Jobs L. Stockton, of this city, is General Traveling
Agent for the Field and Finrsinr. and the Coxsrrrr-
TIOSAI.IST.
— —
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
We do not send receipts by mail for subscriptions re
mitted. The receipt of The Southern Field and
Fireside, after the money is remitted, will be evi
dence to each subscriber that his money has been re
ceived and his name duly entered on the mail book.
£gs= Correspondents, literary and other, will
please take notice that all business communica
tions to the office of the Southern Field and
Fireside should be addressed to Mr. James
Gardner, proprietor; and all Literary , Agricul
tural and Horticultural communications to the
respective editors, by name.
—
TO CORRESPONDENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS.
We have received during the week the follow
ing contributions:
Spirit Darkness. By B. E. The author s
name and address must be communicated, or
the communication will not be read.
Popular Astronomy. By Lamkin.
A Song of Gratitude. By a Minister's Wife.
(Accepted.)
Q. Q. Q. must send his name with his next
“bundle of crackers," or his “crackers” will
never explode in the columns of the Field and
Fireside. If the name is sent, we will prompt
ly determine whether to put Are to them, or
them into the fire.
We take this opportunity to state that
numerous articles, offered last spring in compe
tition for our prizes, and which were returned
to this office by the committee of decision after
its labors were over, still remain on our hands.
Many of these articles—tales, essays, and poems
—we would probably, upon perusal, be glad to
insert in our columns, if the permission, of
authors can be obtained. This permission
might be presumed, perhaps, as the MSS. have
been so long unclaimed; but in the doubt which
has existed, they have not 'even been read by
us. We would now notify the writers of these
articles, that we shall hold their productions
during the month of January next, subject to
their order. If they remain unclaimed, we
shall, after that date, consider that we have
permission to use for our columns such of the
MSS. as we may find suitable and valuable. —
The rest will be destroyed. Several articles,
prose and poems, which contended unsuccess
fully for the prizes, have, by consent of the
authors, already adorned our pages.
—
THE NEW YEAR.
We should not fail—TnE Field and Fireside,
perhaps, of all papers in the South —to Improve
the opportunity offered by the incoming of an
other year, to carry to the ten thousand firesides
which we endeavor weekly to amuse and cheer,
the expression of our grateful sense of the kind
welcome we have received, and the utterance of
our hearty wish for a happy New Year! At
each and all of them, when these lines shall be
read, may a happy hew Year —a happier year
than any of the past—have commenced its
course. At all of them may there be abundantly
experienced, consolation at sight of vacant seats
—how many /firesides will show them! —of
dear friends who have been buried—at thought
of cherished hopes that have vanished, during
the year that is now drawing to its close. May
the memory of both lose its bitterness, and the
young hopes that are already springing up and
occupying the place of those that have depart
ed, lie more fully realised 1 A happy New Year,
and many returns, to all our friends!
OUR PARIS CORRESPONDENCE.
Paris, December 8, 1859.
The result has been so clear from the outset,
that is any time since last July, that even the
permitted vanity of an “own correspondent”
hardly justifies me in boasting oft the fulfillment
of my persistent prophecy that a Congress would
meet and that England would be represented.
It is now a known fact. As to the doings of the
Congress, which will probably commence here
in Paris next month, and their result I venture
no prophecy. Nor do I think that any of the
abundant vaticination on the subject uttered by
newspaper oracles, shows the slightest proofs of
clear vision. For the present let it pass. The
state of Italy is on the whole not essentially differ
ent from what it has been for a month. The
organization of the Central States grows daily
more complete; their right and competence to
govern themselves more and more approve
themselves; their purpose of being annexed to
Sardinia seems unchanged and their practical as
similation, meantime, to her institutions, is com
pleting itself. How far all that strengthens their
chance of having their wishes approved or even
not disregarded by the Congress, I will not to
day trouble you with guessing. The most im
portant new fact in their favor is, that Cavour is
to be the Sardinian representative in the Con
gress—if that is a fact. It is so currently re
ported and believed. He is the ablest advocate,
if not of Italian liberty, at least of Italian inde
pendence on Austria, that will appear in that as
sembly.
Austria is full of trouble, in Italv, in the Ty
rol, in Hungary and in Vienna itself. In Hun
gary, above all, the national feeling and, of
course, the national discontent, are manifested
in every possible way left open to the Magyars.
An armed revolution is not imminent, for it is
hardly possible; but the agitation is universal.
The central government is attentive to and alarm
ed by the symptoms, but has as yet proposed no
remedy for the deep-seated disease. The Hun
garians would apparently be satisfied for the
present with a restoration and recognition of
their nationality as it existed before 1848 ; Aus
tria is not likely to grant Jhis nor nearly this —
XKR 80VXKSRB WXXUt MMB BXJUKSIBK.
prefers medicating the symptoms, granting par
tial temporising reforms, which are practically
no reforms, and abiding the risk of a revolution
of the Kossuth sort.
I was speaking last week of the safety of rail- !
way traveling in Franco, as being greater than i
with us. The statistics of other continental Eu
ropean countries furnish terms for an equally un- j
favorable comparison. In Germany serious ac- |
cidents are almost unknown. The reason is that ;
in these European countries regulations for rail- I
road officers and passengers are ordered by gov- !
emment and enforced by penalties. If you pur- j
pose going to Brussels to-night, you must have
bought vour ticket, had your baggage weighed
and labelled and paid for, and lie yourself in the
waiting room five minutes before the hour fixed
for the starting of the cars. Into this room and
on the platform none but the officers and em
ployes of the road and passengers are admitted.
Handshakings, kissings, and the other gyrnuas- i
tics of adieu must all be done with before enter
ing this room. When the doors are opened let
ting from the waiting room to the platform, you
have three or four minutes to take your seat;
then all the doors of the cars are shut and fast
ened : then the inspector sees that all is right;
and then the train starts. As you pass along,
you will notice that when you cross an ordinary
road, you either pass under it or over it; or if
occasionally and exceptionally the rail and car- j
riage road are on the same level, that the latter i
is closed on either side by gates, which were \
shut five minutes before the arrival of the train,
remain shut all the time that the train stops, if it
do stop, and are not opened till the train is fairly
out of sight; and if, instead of being a passenger
by rail, you were a passenger by horse or a-foot
behind one of those gates, aud your house with
nine children and your wife were all burning up
just the other side of the opposite gate, you
would not be permitted to cross till the gates
were opened. From the moment you enter that
waiting room until you reach Brussels, you are
under the control of the railway company. If
you stop at away station to lunch, so many min
utes are allowed to you; silfpass the limit, hurry
out with both cheeks full of unswallowed vic
tual, you find the car doors shut, which you are
not to open; though the cars may not movoffor
the next ten seconds, when they do move they
loave you standing on the platform with a ticket
to Brussels, now and henceforth become useless,
a monument of impatience fuming with grief
over the veracity of French reglements. This is
but a specimen, a sample end of the spirit of re
gulation existing in all the railroad system,
which, in its turn, may be regarded as a speci
men of the general spirit of regulation that per
vades all the system of French society. Every
thing, every act is regulated.
So far as railway traveling is concerned, I have
come to like it. Having read the printed regu
lations, being ticketed and paid for, I find it
pleasant to be relieved of all care for myself, to
consider myself as a piece of irresponsible bag
gage, for whose safe delivery at Brussels a highly
respectable corporation is answerable. And so
it is pleasant enough living here in Paris, to be
so well taken care of; to know that over three
thousand policemen, besides commissaires and
other magistrates, are taking care of one; to
know that, whatever is to be done, will be done
by some officer appointed for that purpose: that
you are pretty much relieved of doing anything.
This is all very well, if you are only a passenger.
But the grave error, into which too many of our
countrymen passing here, fall, is to confound
what is pleasant for them with what is good for
citizens.
Paris is undoubtedly one of the best policed,
best regulated towns in the world. I do not
know a street within its walls where, with the
present organization of the police, a sense of
bodily danger would seriously prevent me from
passing, alone, between the hours of 11 and 12
P. M., for the next three hundred and sixty-five
days. I do not know a street that I cannot
cross in this muddy, dirty, drizzly last three
days, without destroying the polish that Madame
Martin gave to my upper leathers this morning.
(To prevent misconception, it should be stated
that Madame Martin is your correspondent’s con
cierge, and not, as the last sentence might lead
the reader to suppose, relict of the late estimable
Mr. Martin of the celebrated firm of Day and dit
to.) You can tell better than I how New York
is now, but the last time I was in that city,
Broadway could be safely crossed in the daytime
only in thick boots, so deep was the slush and
mud; while at night the passenger through that
and many other streets of the metropolis ran
grave danger of an attack in the head or an af
fection of the throat from a garrotter. That was
in February and March of 1851. There were,
during that year, sixty homicides in New York
city, and arrests to a number that I hesitate to
repeat here, although I am assured that the fig
ures are official. Suffice it to say, that they are
double those of Paris for the same year, although
Paris has a population nearly double thatol New
York. And for all that, New York is a vastly
better place for a man to grow up and live in
than Pans—surely not because it is so ill-regu
lated, but because it is not over-regulated—bet
ter for his whole manly growth. lam loth to
believe that democracy must be fierce; that there
is a necessary antagonism between self-govern
ment and good police; but if there be, then let
us by all means renounce the good police. It
is the lesser sacrifice of the two. We Parisians
are so well taken care of, that we have lost (hav
ing no exercise for) the faculty of taking care
of ourselves; we have lost the faculty of inde
pendent action, letting our individuality be ab
sorbed, as it were, in a system.
An accident that occurred here only last
week, though rather extraordinary even for
Paris, offers an apt illustration and complement
to these propositions. As the story is curious
in other respects, you will pardon me for narrat
ing it somewhat in detajj. A man named C—,
who had fallen from a better position to
that of simple hired workman, and, to
soften the fall, had taken to drinking,
came home the other evening under the in
fluence of barriere wine. His wife received him
with deserved reproaches, to which he replied :
“Don’t scold, my dear, I shall not trouble you
any more, I am going to hang myself.” The
poor woman had heard similar talk too often to
be alarmed by this. The man went into the
next room and shut the door. For a few min
utes his wife heard him moving about, and then
all was still. The silence seemed strange to her,
and opening the door, she saw her husband, as
she thought, standing in one corner of the room.
It was too dark for her clearly to distinguish
what he was doing there, but he was making
such strange motions that she went down stairs
for the porter’s wife. Returning with her, the
poor woman went up to her husband, and taking
him by the hand, said kindly: “Come, come, no
pouting; go to bed, you will be better there
than here.’ ’ As she drew him by the hand, she
perceived that his body swung towards her.
The porter's wife cried out: “Why, he has hung
himself; but he does not seem to be quite dead.
I’ll run and tell the landlord.” “And I,” said the
wife, “I cannot stay here; I’ll wait on the stairs.”
They both went out, leaving the poor wretch in
his last convulsions. The porteress found the
proprietor, who considered the matter of enough
importance to be examined personally, and re
paired to the chamber, accompanied by an escort
of lodgers, who had caught something of the
story. 'Tie breathes yet," remarked one of the
latter: "suppose we cut him down ?” "A pretty
business you would make for us,’’ exclaimed the
landlord. "Don’t you know that it is against the
law to touch a man that has hung himself till
the comrnissaire of police comes ? I’ll go and
let him know right away." Just at the street
door the landlord ran upon a Sergent de ville:
“ There is a man who has hung himself in the
house." ‘‘How long ago?” "Only a little
while.” Have you cut him down ?” “ Not I!
Am going now for the commissary.” The Ser
gent ck ville, without wasting more words, dash
ed up stairs and, to the great scandal of the pro
prietor of the house—who followed him—made
haste to take down the drunkard’s body, which,
by this time, as you may well imagine, no lon
ger showed any signs of life. The policeman
then went and informed the commissary of the
quarter, who, when he came, severely reproach
ed the bystanders for their silly notions of the
law, which had prevented them from cutting
down the man C— , and thus, in all probability,
saving his life. The commissary was unreason
ably severe.
The notion of the proprietor was undoubtedly
erroneous, but not exactly silly—was, on the
contrary, a very natural, not to say logical, no
tion for a Frenchman, ignorant of the definite
particularities of the law, to entertain. It was
an accidentally wrong application of the gene
ral notion which the theory ahd practice of
French law and government teach and enforce
—that you and your neighbors are to be taken
care of by law and government and their offi
cers, and that you are not to take care of your
self or your neighbors.
Let me give two instances within my own
personal experience, of the danger of an indi
vidual's acting out from his sense of natural
right. My worthy concierge, k pere Martin, a
most pacific man and tailor by profession, heard
one day last autumn, a great noise in the court
yard. He unreefed liis legs and hurried thither,
where he found an ill-conditioned fellow abusing,
in the grossest language, his wife, the worthy
Madame Martin. Martin, though a tailor, is a
man, a very loving husband, and has been a
soldier. lie caught up the first thing within
reach of his indignant hands. It chanced to be
a stout-handled broom, with the which he dealt
a proper blow at the ill-conditioned fellow’s head,
hit the same, and started a drop from blood on it
—only a drop. And for this,despite the certifi
cates of his peacefid disposition and good nature,
furnished by all the old lodgers, despite the
proofs of the excessive provocation, Martin was
condemned to a month’s imprisonment and a
fine of 300 francs, his earnings for a year. Now
had Martin sent for the commissary, and listen
ed legally meanwhile to the fellow’s abuse of
Madame, the penalties would have been laid
upon the scoundrel, who, as it was, escaped not
only scot free, but with a gain of 300 francs.
Some while ago, an American, a passing trav
eler, died here. A friend of his and mine, Mr.
11., after his death, sent home to his family his
trunk, containing the ordinary baggage of a sim
ple traveler, of the value, to any one but his
family, of say S2O, at the outside. For this act
of common friendship, Mr. 11. learns that he has
made himself liable to a serious fine and other
troubles.
But to return to the story of our suicide. The
commissary asked for the rope by which he
hung himself, and was handed a piece only a few
inches long. “ But it is not possible that he
could have hung himself with that; it would
not go half round his neck 1" And thereupon
the bystanders looked at each other and finally
began drawing from their pockets each one a
piece of the cord of the same length. They had
shared it among themselves with scrupulous
care; for it is a valuable talisman, sure to bring
good luck, the rope with which a man has been
hung. And this in the middle of the nineteenth
century, in the most enlightened capital of the
most spirituelte nation of the world 1 And all
these incidents really befel, as I have narrated
them, in a street not far from the Pantheon
where repose the remains of Voltaire ! If that
American friend Mr. H., with his odious bump
of comparison, did not remind me of Mormon
ism and certain other isms now flourishing in
the country of a contemporary of Voltaire, the
late Ben Franklin, I should be tempted to be se-
J vere on France.
There is somewhere in your State, a famous
collector of autography. Os his collection I
have often heard. It has often excited my envy.
With the charitable purpose of exciting his, I
mention here, on the authority of the official
Journal of Constantinople , an authority to be re
lied on in this case, that the Grand Vizier has
just purchased from two Italians, Signori Roban
di and Maucini, the autograph letter written by
Mahomet, in the year 3, of the Hegria, address
ed to the Macancaj of Egypt, in which he ex
horts the Copts to accept the faith of Islam.—
The authenticity of this MS. of the eighth cen
tury of our era, has been certified by the ablest
French archeologues and orientalists.
—
What is a Lady? —The term lady is an abbre
viation of the Saxon word “ Leofday,” which
means bread giver. The “ Lady of the Manor,”
was accustomed once a week to move among the
poor as alms giver, enriching their tables, and
bearing away their blessings. She moved in
queenly beauty, and to her queenly robe clung
the children of the lowly, looking atlierasif
there little eyes could never be satisfied with
seeing—
“ Their little hearts could never ntter,
How well they loved her bread and butter."
But they loved her smiling face more. They
needed not that any tell them how priceless is a
smile. It was May-day with them whenever she
came among thefti with smiles and bread, and al
ways May-day with her, for the poor loved her,
and crowned her queen of all the year.
Reader, are you a lady?
Smoking Tested. —The Dublin Medical Press
asserts that the pupils of the Polytechnic
School in Paris, have recently furnished some
curious statistics bearing on tobacco. Dividing
the young gentlemen of that college into two
groups—the smokers and the non-smokers—it
shows that the smokers have proved themselves,
in the various competitive examinations, far in
ferior to the others. Not only in the examina
tions on entering the school are smokers in the
lower rank, but in the various ordeals that they
have to pass through in a year, the average rank
of the smokers had constantly fallen, and in
considerably, while the men who did not smoke
were found lo enjoy a cerebral atmosphere of the
clearest kind.
—
Glass Coffins. —Mr. J. R. CanoD, of New Al
bany, Ind., lias just obtained a patent for glass
coffins. Bodies placed in these coffins may be
preserved in their natural state for all time to
come, and when placed in vaults, can always
be accessible to the gaze of those left behind.
[For the Southern Field and Fireside.]
THE FAITHFUL WRITER.
BY MBS. M. A. M'< KIMMOX.
The poet Goethe has a saying to the effect
that the life of the most insignificant man, faith
fully written, would prove interesting to the
highest.
Who doubts it ? The human soul is a royal
guest, even in the meanest tenement, and its
love, joy and sorrow being heaven-boro, appeal
to our sympathies wherever found. But in the
contemplation of our own inner life, we are too
apt to forget that the faculty of possessing and
enjoying this inner life, is a common boon. We
each have a little sanctum hid away in our heart,
where we can retire from the world ; watch the
lovely images along its walls; listen to soft mu
sic murmuring there, and hold communion with
spirits all unseen without. This is one of our
most precious enjoyments—this hidden shrine —
so sweet, because it is owe men —eur holy haunt
ed hall, where no one can intrude. And of the
pictures there, hallowed by time and memory,
our hearts contain the only copies, for our fancy
colored them just as she would.
But while wo glory in our treasure, and feast
upon it, miser like, at midnight hour, let us not
forget that others are equally as blest. Yon
toiling man may not be gifted with the power to
tell his inner life, but it is not less real, for all that.
Could we but tear away the unattractive veil
that hides it from our view, we would step noise
less on the threshhold, awed into reverence at
the revelation. Scenes as lovely as our dreams;
incense as fragrant as our own ; and music’s
echo, low and sweet as fairy bells, would be re
vealed. Astonished at the unexpected view,
we would grasp a brother’s hand. How wide
is, then, the bond of brotherhood ! All who love,
and mourn and hope as we, are of the band.
The faithful writer holds this veil aside, dis
closing this common characteristic which proves
that all of our human race are brother men.
But who is equal to the task? He alone who
knows the human heart and loves it. This is the
great requisition. A love for others is the key
that unlocks to us the great truths of the inner
life. The metaphysical process embraced in tins
idea we will not now seek to untold. The idea
itself is enough—that the faithful delineator of
the heart of man requires in the delineator warm
and extended sympathies. If self is his idol, he
can have no conception of the hidden drama
around him—no glimpse of the beautiful scenes
behind its veil; the soft strains that fall on char
ity’s ear, are all unheard by him, and the per
fume of human violets (gentle, modest worth,)
touches not his sense. Love is like light, un
seen itself, and yet revealing beauties unnnm
bered*and indescribable.
It is with writing as with painting. The ar
tist looks without for his inspiring themes. Ho
toils to imbue his mind with nature’s truths;
studies the masters not so much as nature in her
varied loveliness. The true artist blends togeth
er the beautiful and plain, the grand and simple,
as it is found in life. His imagination may shade
and color it, but the grond-work is laid in truth,
and the universal heart responds to what is true.
It is the part of genius to detect and possess it
self of delicate simple truths, which the common
mind overlooks. For this, men yield to genius
the willing tribute of their gratitude and ad
miration. We bless the hand that brings us
gems we passed, unheeded, by, and such are
the true artist and the faithful writer. They
bring out the moral beauty to what we saw as
only common things, and not suspecting the
deepest hidden meaning, till they discovered the
meaning and their hands removed the veil.
But the dauber in the art divine, contents
himself with gleaning from his more gifted breth
ren. Too listless, or too dull to woo at Na
ture’s shrine, he gathers here and there, until he
gets together a bundle of nice things, about as
much a work of art, as the merchant’s fashion
form is a living, breathing woman. And so with
tho commonplace writer—he gathers the tinsel
from the crown that Genius wears; lie scorns
the flowers that grow in wild simplicity, and
plucks exotics from rich boquets, wilted and cast
aside —leaves the sweet, fresh violet, for a grand
japonica with its perfume all breathed out He
must give us something beautiful; so he arrays
a jackdaw in the peacock’s plumes, and dresses
out a goose as a bird of paradise.
Judge Longstreet’s “Master Mitten,” is a life
faithfully written. The outline is clearly marked;
the shading delicate and true. Each actor (to
change the figure) moves upon the board in his
proper character; and each character is strong
ly marked. There is no confusion in the scenes;
no crowding or mistaking the hero for tho clown,
but all is simple, and true, and lifelike. Con
trast it with many of the fictions we are expect
ed to read, where characterless characters are
distinguished alone by their dress and mode of
living. See the Duke and his man Friday, ex
ulting in an equal amount of sense, wit, and
meanness. Look at the scores of little beggars,
ala Hot Corn—faint reflections of a bright ori
ginal. What is the matter with them ? Their
originals are to be met with daily. Yes, but the
original never sat for those pictures. The first
daguerreotypes might have been good, but these
second and third impressions are vague and dim.
Poetry is the medium that reflects most per
fectly the inner life ; hence it requires a finer
order of mind to write good poetry, than prose.
'"'By poetry, I do not mean mere rhyme and meas
ure, but the subtle, exquisite thoughts, and del
icate crayon touches, which make the soul of
poetry.
The poets have ever been wont to glean from
one another—Homer and Shakspeare excepted,
who, giant-like, drew strength from God alone.
Even Virgil borrowed from Homer, and Tasso
and Dante from Virgil; but they impressed the
stamp of their own genius upon the borrowed
thought, and colored it with their glowing fancy.
Some one has said of Milton, that "he borrowed
his ideas, but he improved and beautified what
he borrowed—as if he had borrowed your coat,
and returned it to you a more elegant coat than
when he got it.” But all borrowers do not so
well. They often beriddle the borrowed coat—
stick it over with feathers, flowers, and tinsel
finery, till the owner would not know it.
The sublime simplicity of “ God said let
there be light and there was light,”would be en
tirely too tame to suit the taste of many versifi
ers. They would prefer the modern improve
ment : "The sovereign Arbiter of Nature, by
the potent energy of a single word, commanded
the light to exist.” Among this class was the
young gentleman who announced in a “society”
meeting at college, that he had made an im
provement on the celebrated lines:
“ Ah, who C!UI tell how hard it Is to climb
I he steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar ?”
Having tho reputation of a poet among his
companions, he was requested to read his
amendment, when it appeared that ho had
changed the second line to read:
“Where Fame’s temple dazzles at a distance.”
The society decided that Beattie’s simplicity
suited their taste better than the more pretend
ing emendation, but the r oung poetaster persist
ed in his opinion, and believed that his critics
were envious of Itis genius, or bad not sufficient
taste to appreciate his rare talents. This cir
cumstance was told me by an eye-witness, a
number of years ago, long enough to have for
gotten it, if Iliad not been so often reminded of
it by the “ poet’s comer’’ of my family news
paper.
The rude couplet:
“• Not every one can be a poet.
No more'n a sheep can be a goct,"’
contains a truth which no one will deny, but
still there are rules by which those who belong
to the favored class may improve in the glorious
art. “ Poeta nascitur ” is very true, but as their
health and growth depend on circumstances
subsequent to their birth, it may be well to con
sider what would lie most favorable to the de
velopment of the “divine afflatus.” Patience
and labor are the two things needful. Patience,
to let a thought grow and ripen; and labor, to
sift the chaff from the wheat. A painter goes
over a picture many times before he gives it to
the world. Even after the figures are all brought
out, he continues to touch and retouch—a touch
here, a line or shade there, until it glows upon
the canvass like a thing of life. Pen painting,
to reach its highest perfection, should be done
just so. Never exhibit the first sketch, but
touch slowly and with a delicate hand; lay it
aside and let it rest; then take it out, re-write
and re-touch. Thus you will finally produce an
article that will deserve and obtain applause,
unless you are utterly ignorant of the rules of
sound literarj' criticism. If you are thus igno
rant, your labor would be lost. A rough coun
try cobbler cannot by ten years’ assiduous toil
produce from his stall a beautiful French boot.
Though we may study nothing about it in the
meantime, yet the mind is insensibly at work,
and we will find a vast improvement in our
thoughts and expressions occurring to us when
we resume the work.
This is another one of those nice ideas which I
will not try to explain; but it is true, as all may *
prove by making the experiment.
AH great things are of slow growth. Gibbon
was twenty years writing the great work that
immortalized his name. Tom Moore sometimes
spent a week on a verse, which, when comple
ted, seemed so simply and natural, one would
have thought it flowed impromptu from his pen.
Benjamin West was seventeen years painting
that noble picture “ Christ healing the sick.’’—
He painted the head of Christ eleven times, before
he produced that heavenly countenance that will
ever stand as the crowning effort of Ins great
genius. Seventeen years of toil, to give his
bright conception form and life upon the glow
ing.canvass—seventeen years of hard study, with
the New Testament as his daily guide, to em
body each character in each face, till we need
no guide to point out the life-like personages.
Seventeen years may seem long, but who would
not strive seven times seven to accomplish such
a work ?
The sum of it all seems to be, that what action
is to oratory, so is intelligent labor to excellence
in writing. The faithful and able writer must
be no idler; he must love his calling, and give
it the best powers of his mind and heart. The
ride our teacher used to give us about learning,
would, with a slight change, be a good one for
writers —it was this, “Learn but little and learn
that little well,” (meaning but little at a time,
of course). Write but a little, and write that
little well, would be a good rule, at least for
young writers. It is also a lamentable fact that
some of the oldest and best living writers have
run dry, and the cry is— still they m ite. It is a
good thing to know when to stop, and when to
rest and recuperate—so suiting the action to the
word, I close for the present.
——- ♦» » I
Execution of Col. Hayne.— Among the dis
tinguished men who fell victims during the war
of the Revolution, was Col. Isaac Hayne, of
South Carolina ; a man who, by his amiability
of character and high sentiments of honor and
uprightness, had secured the good will and af
fection of all who knew him. He had a wife
and six small children, the oldest a boy of thir
teen years of age. His wife, to whom he was
tenderly attached, fell a victim to disease ; an
event hastened not improbably by the inconve
niences and suffering incident to a state of war,
in which the whole family largely participated.
Col. Hayne himself was taken prisoner by the
British forces, and in a short time was executed
on the gallows, under circumstances calculated
to excite the deepest commiseration. A great
number of persons, both English and American,
interceded for his life. The Indies of Charles
ton signed a petition in Ins behalf; his mother
less children were presented on their bended
knees as humble suitors for their beloved father
but all in vain.
During the imprisonment of the father, the
eldest son was permitted to stay with him in
prison. Beholding his only surviving parent, for
whom he felt the deepest affection, loaded with
irons and condemned to die, he was overwhelm
ed with consternation and sorrow. The wretch
ed father endeavored to console him, by remind
ing him that the unavailing grief of the son tend
ed only to increase his own misery; that we
came to this world merely to die, and he could
even rejoice that his troubles were so near at an
end. “To-morrow,” said he, “ i set out for im
mortality. You will accompany me to the place
of execution; and when lam dead, take my body
and bury it by the side of your mother.” • The
youth here fell on his father's neck, crying, “Oh.
my father! my father 1 I will die for you! I
will die with you!” Colonel Hayne, as he was
loaded with irons, was unable to return the em
brace of his son, and merely said to him in reply:
“Live, my son; live to honor God by a good
life; live to serve your country; and live to take
care of your brother and little sisters.”
The next morning Col. Hayne was conducted
to the place of execution, llis son accompanied
him. Soon as they came in sight of the gallows
the father strengthened himself and said:
“ Now, my son, show yourself a man! That
tree is the boundary of my life, and all my life’s
sorrows. Beyond that, the wicked cease from
troubling and the weary are at rest. Don’t lay
too much at heart our separation ; it will be but
short. To-day I die, and you, my son, though
but young, must shortly follow me.” “Yes,
my father,” replied the broken-hearted youth,
“ I shall shortly follow you, for, indeed, I feel
that I cannot live long.” And his melancholy
anticipation was fulfilled in a manner more
dreadful than is implied in the mere extinction
of lifo. On seeing his father in the hands of the
executioner, and then struggling in the halter,
he stood like one transfixed and motionless
with horror. Till then he had wept incessantly:
but soon os he saw that sight, the fountains of
his tears wero staunched, and he never wept
more. He died insane; and in his last moments
often called upon his father in terms that brought
tears from the hardest hearts. — Philadelphia
Press. *
The Lincoln Times says: Itis not improbable
that Newstead Abbey, formerly the residence
of Lord Byron, will shortly pass into the hiands
of Mr. Charles Seely, of Heighington Hall, who
is in treaty for this interesting property.