The Portland Sketch Book Part 10

One of these things must be true, if we may reason from their own language. If they do possess the high faculties of the soul, and can do nothing for their cultivation, it cannot be that they have their dwelling-place upon a world belonging to the magnificent empire of G.o.d.

There can be no sun blazing down upon them, flooding the earth with his glory, and giving fresh life and beauty to every living thing. The evening can reveal to them no myriads of stars, burning with holy l.u.s.tre beyond the clouds of heaven. They can see no mountains towering to the skies; no green valleys, spangled with the flowers of the earth, smiling around them. They can hear no anthem sounding from the depths of the ocean. They can see no lightnings flas.h.i.+ng in the broad expanse,--nor hear the artillery of heaven thundering over the firmament, as if it would shake the very pillars of the universe. If they could see and hear this, with minds awake to the most n.o.ble objects of contemplation, and hearts susceptible of the loftiest impulses, they would inquire about the earth they tread upon, the beautiful things scattered in such profusion around them, and the sun and the ever-burning stars above them. And they would not stop here. They would search into the mysteries of their own nature. They would look into the wonders of that upper life, where the sun of an eternal kingdom burns in its lofty arches, where the rivers of life flow from the everlasting mountains, and where the pure spirits of the earth shall s.h.i.+ne like the stars forever.

But, however paradoxical it may seem, these men do dwell in the grand universe of G.o.d--and they do possess inexhaustible minds: and they have been compelled to quench the brightest flames and to prevent the swelling of the purest fountains of their existence, in order to descend to the condition of which they complain. The Creator doomed them to no such degradation. The truth is, they know nothing of themselves. They do not understand their relations to the creation that surrounds them. They do not comprehend the great purpose to which all their labors should tend. They waste those hours which might be devoted to the elevation of their being, in practices that render them insensible to the glories of the universe in which they dwell, and to the sublime destiny for which they were created. They deny themselves to be the workmans.h.i.+p of G.o.d.

THE VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL.

By Henry W. Longfellow.

The sultry heat of summer always brings with it, to the idler and the man of leisure, a longing for the leafy shade and the green luxuriance of the country. It is pleasant to interchange the din of the city, the movement of the crowd, and the gossip of society, with the silence of the hamlet, the quiet seclusion of the grove, and the gossip of a woodland brook.

It was a feeling of this kind that prompted me, during my residence in the north of France, to pa.s.s one of the summer months at Auteuil--the pleasantest of the many little villages that lie in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis. It is situated on the outskirts of the _Bois de Boulogne_--a wood of some extent, in whose green alleys the dusty cit enjoys the luxury of an evening drive, and gentlemen meet in the morning to give each other satisfaction in the usual way. A cross-road, skirted with green hedge-rows, and over-shadowed by tall poplars, leads you from the noisy highway of St. Cloud and Versailles to the still retirement of this suburban hamlet. On either side the eye discovers old chateaux amid the trees, and green parks, whose pleasant shades recall a thousand images of La Fontaine, Racine, and Moliere; and on an eminence, overlooking the windings of the Seine, and giving a beautiful though distant view of the domes and gardens of Paris, rises the village of Pa.s.sy, long the residence of our countrymen Franklin and Count Rumford.

I took up my abode at a _Maison de Sante_; not that I was a valetudinarian,--but because I there found some one to whom I could whisper, "How sweet is solitude!" Behind the house was a garden filled with fruit-trees of various kinds, and adorned with gravel-walks and green arbours, furnished with tables and rustic seats, for the repose of the invalid and the sleep of the indolent. Here the inmates of the rural hospital met on common ground, to breathe the invigorating air of morning, and while away the lazy noon or vacant evening with tales of the sick chamber.

The establishment was kept by Dr. Dent-de-lion, a dried up little fellow, with red hair, a sandy complexion, and the physiognomy and gestures of a monkey. His character corresponded to his outward lineaments; for he had all a monkey's busy and curious impertinence.

Nevertheless, such as he was, the village aesculapius strutted forth the little great man of Auteuil. The peasants looked up to him as to an oracle,--he contrived to be at the head of every thing, and laid claim to the credit of all public improvements in the village: in fine, he was a great man on a small scale.

It was within the dingy walls of this little potentate's imperial palace that I chose my country residence. I had a chamber in the second story, with a solitary window, which looked upon the street, and gave me a peep into a neighbor's garden. This I esteemed a great privilege; for, as a stranger, I desired to see all that was pa.s.sing out of doors; and the sight of green trees, though growing on another man's ground, is always a blessing. Within doors--had I been disposed to quarrel with my household G.o.ds--I might have taken some objection to my neighborhood; for, on one side of me was a consumptive patient, whose graveyard cough drove me from my chamber by day; and on the other, an English colonel, whose incoherent ravings, in the delirium of a high and obstinate fever, often broke my slumbers by night: but I found ample amends for these inconveniences in the society of those who were so little indisposed as hardly to know what ailed them, and those who, in health themselves, had accompanied a friend or relative to the shades of the country in pursuit of it. To these I am indebted for much courtesy; and particularly to one who, if these pages should ever meet her eye, will not, I hope, be unwilling to accept this slight memorial of a former friends.h.i.+p.

It was, however, to the _Bois de Boulogne_ that I looked for my princ.i.p.al recreation. There I took my solitary walk, morning and evening; or, mounted on a little mouse-colored donkey, paced demurely along the woodland pathway. I had a favorite seat beneath the shadow of a venerable oak, one of the few h.o.a.ry patriarchs of the wood which had survived the bivouacs of the allied armies. It stood upon the brink of a little gla.s.sy pool, whose tranquil bosom was the image of a quiet and secluded life, and stretched its parental arms over a rustic bench, that had been constructed beneath it for the accommodation of the foot-traveller, or, perchance, some idle dreamer like myself. It seemed to look round with a lordly air upon its old hereditary domain, whose stillness was no longer broken by the tap of the martial drum, nor the discordant clang of arms; and, as the breeze whispered among its branches, it seemed to be holding friendly colloquies with a few of its venerable contemporaries, who stooped from the opposite bank of the pool, nodding gravely now and then, and ogling themselves with a sigh in the mirror below.

In this quiet haunt of rural repose I used to sit at noon, hear the birds sing, and "possess myself in much quietness." Just at my feet lay the little silver pool, with the sky and the woods painted in its mimic vault, and occasionally the image of a bird, or the soft watery outline of a cloud, floating silently through its sunny hollows. The water-lily spread its broad green leaves on the surface, and rocked to sleep a little world of insect life in its golden cradle. Sometimes a wandering leaf came floating and wavering downward, and settled on the water; then a vagabond insect would break the smooth surface into a thousand ripples, or a green-coated frog slide from the bank, and plump! dive headlong to the bottom.

I entered, too, with some enthusiasm, into all the rural sports and merrimakes of the village. The holy-days were so many little eras of mirth and good feeling; for the French have that happy and suns.h.i.+ne temperament--that merry-go-mad character--which makes all their social meetings scenes of enjoyment and hilarity. I made it a point never to miss any of the _Fetes Champetres_, or rural dances, at the wood of Boulogne; though I confess it sometimes gave me a momentary uneasiness to see my rustic throne beneath the oak usurped by a noisy group of girls, the silence and decorum of my imaginary realm broken by music and laughter, and, in a word, my whole kingdom turned topsyturvy, with romping, fiddling, and dancing. But I am naturally, and from principle, too, a lover of all those innocent amus.e.m.e.nts which cheer the laborers'

toil, and, as it were, put their shoulders to the wheel of life, and help the poor man along with his load of cares. Hence I saw with no small delight the rustic swain astride the wooden horse of the _carrousal_, and the village maiden whirling round and round in its dizzy car; or took my stand on a rising ground that overlooked the dance, an idle spectator in a busy throng. It was just where the village touched the outward border of the wood. There a little area had been levelled beneath the trees, surrounded by a painted rail, with a row of benches inside. The music was placed in a slight balcony, built around the trunk of a large tree in the centre, and the lamps, hanging from the branches above, gave a gay, fantastic, and fairy look to the scene. How often in such moments did I recall the lines of Goldsmith, describing those "kinder skies," beneath which "France displays her bright domain,"

and feel how true and masterly the sketch,--

Alike all ages; dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore, Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore.

I was one morning called to my window by the sound of rustic music. I looked out, and beheld a procession of villagers advancing along the road, attired in gay dresses, and marching merrily on in the direction of the church. I soon perceived that it was a marriage festival. The procession was led by a long orangoutang of a man, in a straw hat and white dimity bob-coat, playing on an asthmatic clarionet, from which he contrived to blow unearthly sounds, ever and anon squeaking off at right angles from his tune, and winding up with a grand flourish on the guttural notes. Behind him, led by his little boy, came the blind fiddler, his honest features glowing with all the hilarity of a rustic bridal, and, as he stumbled along, sawing away upon his fiddle till he made all crack again. Then came the happy bridegroom, dressed in his Sunday suit of blue, with a large nosegay in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and close beside him his blus.h.i.+ng bride, with downcast eyes, clad in a white robe and slippers, and wearing a wreath of white roses in her hair. The friends and relatives brought up the procession; and a troop of village urchins came shouting along in the rear, scrambling among themselves for the largess of sous and sugar-plums that now and then issued in large handfuls from the pockets of a lean man in black, who seemed to officiate as master of ceremonies on the occasion. I gazed on the procession till it was out of sight; and when the last wheeze of the clarionet died upon my ear, I could not help thinking how happy were they who were thus to dwell together in the peaceful bosom of their native village, far from the gilded misery and the pestilential vices of the town.

On the evening of the same day, I was sitting by the window, enjoying the freshness of the air and the beauty and stillness of the hour, when I heard the distant and solemn hymn of the Catholic burial-service, at first so faint and indistinct that it seemed an illusion. It rose mournfully on the hush of evening--died gradually away--then ceased.

Then it rose again, nearer and more distinct, and soon after a funeral procession appeared, and pa.s.sed directly beneath my window. It was led by a priest, bearing the banner of the church, and followed by two boys, holding long flambeaux in their hands. Next came a double file of priests in white surplices, with a missal in one hand and a lighted wax taper in the other, chanting the funeral dirge at intervals,--now pausing, and then again taking up the mournful burden of their lamentation, accompanied by others, who played upon a rude kind of horn, with a dismal and wailing sound. Then followed various symbols of the church, and the bier borne on the shoulders of four men. The coffin was covered with a black velvet pall, and a chaplet of white flowers lay upon it, indicating that the deceased was unmarried. A few of the villagers came behind, clad in mourning robes, and bearing lighted tapers. The procession pa.s.sed slowly along the same street that in the morning had been thronged by the gay bridal company. A melancholy train of thought forced itself home upon my mind. The joys and sorrows of this world are so strikingly mingled! Our mirth and grief are brought so mournfully in contact! We laugh while others weep, and others rejoice when we are sad! The light heart and the heavy walk side by side, and go about together! Beneath the same roof are spread the wedding feast and the funeral pall! The bridal song mingles with the burial hymn! One goes to the marriage bed, another to the grave; and all is mutable, uncertain, and transitory.

THE PAST AND THE NEW YEAR.

By Prentiss Mellen.

The close of the year, whose last knell has just been heard, amid the chills and gloom of winter, when all around reminds us of our departed friends and the loss we have sustained, is peculiarly adapted to arouse us from our inattention to the lapse of time, and impress on our hearts the solemn truth that life itself is but a vapor. Many, it is true, when they look into the grave of the year, may experience a rush of bitter feeling, as they fondly recollect how many cherished hopes they have been called upon to bury in the tomb, during the lapse of the year: how many friends have proved false or ungrateful--how many of their suns have gone down in the gloom of solitude, or amidst scenes of sickness and poverty, or of sighing and sorrow. All this is true, and such ever has been and ever will be the complexion of human life. But though thousands are thus educated in a school where such is the salutary discipline, yet millions have been spending the year in peace and joy--in health and abundance. Their journey has been gladdened with suns.h.i.+ne, and their course has been through fields of beauty and beside "the still waters of comfort." It is useful--it is a species of _grat.i.tude_ thus to look back and trace the course we have been pursuing. If it has been delightful or smooth and peaceful, our hearts should melt in tenderness while we look to the _fountain_ of all our blessings. If our course has been wearisome through fields of sterility, or melancholy and companionless, we should remember that Wisdom and Goodness preside over our destinies, whether we are breasting the storm, or calmly beholding the rainbow of promise. The year that has bidden us adieu, was pleasant in its course, and its decline gradual and beautiful. An unusual degree of softness distinguished its autumn, resembling the last years of the life of man, when the agitation of the pa.s.sions has in a great measure subsided; when his feelings have become tranquilized, and all around him peaceful and serene, if he has been careful to regulate his conduct, on life's journey, by the principles of justice and the commands of duty--if in his social intercourse his pa.s.sions have been preserved in due subjection to the gentle influences of a benevolent heart, displaying itself in acts of mercy like the good Samaritan.

"Sure the last end Of the good man is peace. How calm his exit!

Night dews fall not more gently on the ground Nor weary, worn-out winds expire so soft."

The new year to which we have just been introduced is, in one sense, a perfect stranger, though we have long been intimate with the _family_ to which it belongs, and of course have some general acquaintance with certain features of its character, leading us to antic.i.p.ate its promises and its failure to perform them in many instances,--its smiles and its tears--its flatteries and its frowns--its gaieties and hopes--its gradual decline--decay and dissolution:--but we have abundant reason too for indulging the belief that we may enjoy thousands of blessings, if we are disposed to cherish proper feelings--to be kind and courteous and obliging, and ever on our guard to avoid unnecessarily wounding the feelings of others; ever ready to acknowledge the favors we receive, and render a suitable return. How easily all this may be done! How often is it grossly neglected! He who consults _his own_ ease and comfort cannot in any manner attain the desired result so readily and certainly, as by habitually consulting the ease and comfort of others, with whom he is in the habit of a.s.sociating: and this is true politeness also. A man who is dissatisfied with himself and those around him, and laboring under the darkening influence of disturbed or morose feelings "may travel from Dan to Beersheba and say it is all barren;"--to him it will appear so; and the effect would be the same if his journey lay amidst the most delightful scenes of rural beauty. The seasons of the year all give their annual _lessons_ for instruction: It is our wisdom to regard them carefully. _Spring_ summons us all to cheerful activity, with a.s.surances that our labor will not be in vain. _Summer_ performs what _Spring_ had promised, and shews us the advantage of listening to early instruction and wisely improving it. Ten thousand songsters are filling the branches with their animating strains of music and grat.i.tude, and teaching us to enjoy, as they do, the countless blessings and bounties of nature; _their_ music is never failing--nor do we see it ending in _discords_.

Let us all, as we journey onward together through the year, learn to tune our _hearts_ as they do their _voices_, and pa.s.s the fleeting period in harmony, and in that _cheerfulness_ which the excellent Addison has honored with the name of a _continual expression of grat.i.tude to Heaven_. In Germany the _study_ and _practice_ of music are general among the people. Besides other advantages resulting from making music a part of common education, it is not romantic or utopian to observe that it teaches how easily music--pure and surpa.s.sing music--may be made on the _same_ instrument, which under an ignorant or purposed touch will send forth discords in prodigious varieties. He who has become _acquainted_ with the instrument, though not a _master_ of it, well knows how to _avoid_ those combinations of sound which are painful to the ear, and often tend to disturb feelings and pa.s.sions.

What tones are sweeter than those produced by the gentle breeze of heaven in pa.s.sing over the strings of the aeolian Harp? The reason is, those strings are so attuned as that their vibrations will not respond except in notes of harmony: but only disorder the strings, by increasing the tension of some and decreasing that of others, and the sweetest zephyr will produce nothing but the vilest discords, resembling angry pa.s.sions. Let us then, in our journey through the year on which we have entered, acquire as much as possible a knowledge of the _science_ and the _art_ of social and domestic _moral music_. Let us learn to measure our _time_ with care, to cultivate our _voices_, that they may lose all harshness: let each attend to _his own part_, and strive to excel in that. Let us consider our _feelings_, _pa.s.sions_ and _dispositions_, as the _strings of the Harp_; and the _ordinary events of life_ as the _breezes_ which give vibration to the strings: if these strings--our feelings, pa.s.sions and dispositions--are in proper tune--under due regulation, and preserving a just relation, each to all the others, we have then all the elements of moral music, domestic and social, and in a few weeks, by due regard to all the principles and arrangement above mentioned, we shall soon be good scholars, _giving_ and _receiving_ all that pleasure which harmony can afford; and as the sober _autumn_ advances, our _tastes_ for this kind of music will be more and more ripened towards perfection; and when the cold _decemberly_ evenings shall arrive, we can listen to the _angry music_ of the elements abroad, full of discordant strains, sweeping by our peaceful homes, while _within_ them all may be the music of the heart, in its gentlest movements.

It is a melancholy truth that we ourselves manufacture seven eighths of what we are disposed to term our _misfortunes_ in this world. Want of precaution mars our arrangements: want of prudence exposes us to dangers which we might easily have avoided--want of patience often hurries us into difficulties, and disqualifies us to bear them with calmness or decency. Indulgence in follies and fas.h.i.+ons often plants the seeds of wasting disease. Intemperance in our pa.s.sions always is followed by unwelcome sensations, and sometimes with a sense of shame. Stimulants are succeeded by debility, and when they are used to excess, we know and daily witness the dreadful results--if death is not one of them--either the death of the offender, or of some other destroyed by his hand in the tempest of infuriated pa.s.sions--we are too often compelled to mourn over the desolation they occasion--presenting in one view,

"Hate--grief--despair--the family of pain."

THE RUIN OF A NIGHT.

STANZAS SUGGESTED ON VIEWING THE GROUND OF THE GREAT FIRE IN NEW-YORK.

By Grenville Mellen.

It was still noon--and Sabbath. The pale air Hung over the great city like a shroud-- And echo answer'd to a footstep there, Where late went up the thunder of a crowd!

I wander'd like a pilgrim round the piles That Ruin heap'd about the wildering way-- And as I pa.s.s'd, I saw the withering smiles That did on faces of dull gazers play, As they stood round the ashes of that grave Of all that yesterday rose there, so broad and brave!

I mus'd as I went thro' the shadowy path Of broken, blacken'd walls, and pillars high, Which had surviv'd that visiting of wrath, And now lean'd dim against the lurid sky-- I heard the rude laugh break from ruder hearts, Those ruffian exclamations of lost souls, At which a better spirit wakes and starts-- The revelry of demons o'er their bowls-- Until I felt how faint rebuke may fall Over a people, tho' it come in sword and pall!

There was no lesson in that mighty pyre-- Or, if it rose, it faded with the flame; And crime, relentless, from that smouldering fire Would lift, at night, its stealthy arm the same On the lone wanderer, as, amid the crowd, It glided oft before, to filch its gold, When the great voice of rivalry was loud, And onward the deep tide of commerce roll'd!

I thought how idle was the darkest ban, Fate, in her fiercest eloquence, can pour on man!

I thought how quick the seal of nothingness Is set on man's best glory--and how deep!

How soon the Greatest grovels with the Less, And they who shouted bravest, bow to weep!

How quick the veriest triumph of our years, Fulfill'd by a dim life of toil and pain, Is chang'd to one sad festival of tears-- When Time is but a storm--and visions wane!

How quick Destruction can make cla.s.sical The crowded, golden ground, where her fell footsteps fall!

The ground that yesterday was consecrate To the wild spirit-power of Gold and Gain-- Where riches, like some thing of wors.h.i.+p sate, And Worth of Wealth ask'd precedence in vain!

Where the hard hand was busy with the dust With which it soon must mingle--though it gleam Often with jewels--splendid, but accurst, That make the trappings of this Life's poor dream!

And where, too, Bounty, like a fountain, sprung, In streams, though not unfelt, in shadow, and unsung!

Alas! that pillar'd pile! how, as I gaz'd Upon the blacken'd shafts, did I recall The sculptur'd marble there, whose brow was rais'd So like a G.o.d's, within that shadowy hall!

Immortal HAMILTON!--though crumbled deep In the red chaos of that billowy night, It needs no chisel's memory to keep Thy spirit's n.o.bler outline vast and bright!

No Time--no element can mar the fame, Gather'd, like fadeless sunlight, round thy spotless name!

COURTs.h.i.+P.

By Wm. L. McClintock.