That fired his Highland blood with mickle | Familiar in thy bosom-scenes of life? And dwells in daylight truth's salubrious skies glee; And England sent her men, of men the chief, Who taught those sires of empire yet to be To plant the tree of life, to plant fair Free dom's tree. Here was not mingled in the city's pomp Judgment awoke not here her dismal tromp, Nor mourned the captive in a living tomb. One venerable man, beloved of all, Sufficed, where innocence was yet in bloom, To sway the strife that seldom might befall, And Albert was their judge in patriarchal hall. How reverend was the look, serenely aged, He bore, this gentle Pennsylvanian sire, Where all but kindly fervors were assuaged, Undimmed by weakness' shade or turbid ire! And though, amidst the calm of thought entire, MY SPIRIT. Some high and haughty features might MY spirit, be thou me, impetuous one! betray A soul impetuous once, 'twas earthly fire That fled composure's intellectual ray, As Etna's fires grow dim before the rising day. I boast no song in magic wonders rife, Drive my dead thoughts over the uni verse Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth, Be through my lips to unawakened earth But yet, O Nature, is there naught to The trumpet of a prophecy. prize PERCY B. SHELLEY. SELECTIONS FROM "SHIRLEY." CAROLINE'S REFLECTIONS ON BECOMING AN OLD MAID. HE said to herself: "I have to live, perhaps, till seventy years. As far as I know, I have good health; half a century of existence may lie before me. How am I to occupy it? What am I to do to fill the interval of time which spreads between me and the grave?" She reflected. "I shall not be married, it appears," she continued. "I suppose, as Robert does not care for me, I shall never have a husband to love, nor little children to take care of. Till lately I had reckoned securely on the duties and affections of wife and mother to occupy my existence. I considered, somehow, as a matter of course, that I was growing up to the ordinary destiny, and never troubled myself to seek any other, but now I perceive plainly I have been mistaken. Probably I shall be an old maid. I shall live to see Robert married to some one else some rich lady. I shall never marry. What was I created for, I wonder? Where is my place in the world?". may "Ah! I see," she pursued, presently; that is the question which most old maids are puzzled to solve: other people solve it for them by saying, 'Your place is to do good to others, to be helpful whenever help is wanted.' That is right in some measure, and a very convenient doctrine for the people who hold it; but I perceive that certain sets of human beings are very apt to maintain that other sets should give up their lives to them and their service, and then they requite them by praise: they call them devoted and virtuous. Is this enough? Is it to live? Is there not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, craving, in that existence which is given away to others for want of something of your own to bestow it on? I suspect there is. Does virtue lie in abnegation of self? I do not believe it. Undue humility makes tyranny; weak concession creates selfishness. Each human being has his share of rights. I suspect it would conduce to the happiness and welfare of all if each knew his allotment and held to it as tenaciously as the martyr to his creed. Queer thoughts these that surge in my mind; are they right thoughts? I am not certain. Well, life is short, at the best: seventy years, they say, pass like a vapor, like a dream when one awaketh; and every path trod by human feet terminates in one bourne-the grave, the little chink in the surface of this great globe, the furrow where the mighty husbandman with the scythe deposits the seed he has shaken from the ripe stem; and there it falls, decays, and thence it springs again when the world has rolled round a few times more." NEVER DIE OF LOVE. against our bodies; there is a period of civil war; if the soul has strength, it conquers and rules thereafter. ROBERT AND CAROLINE. Caroline was not unhappy that eveningfar otherwise; but as she gazed she sighed, and as she sighed a hand circled her and rested quietly on her waist. Caroline thought she knew who had drawn near she received the touch unstartled: "I am looking at Venus, mamma. See! she is beautiful. How white her lustre is, compared with the deep red of the bonfires!" The answer was a closer caress, and Caroline turned, and looked, not into Mrs. Pryor's matron-face, but up at a dark manly visage. She dropped her watering-pot and stepped down from the pedestal. A week or two passed; Caroline's bodily and mental health neither grew worse nor better. She was now precisely in that state when, if her constitution had contained the seeds of consumption, decline or slow fever, those diseases would have been rapidly developed, and would soon have carried her quietly from the world. People never die of love or grief alone, though some die of inherent maladies which the tortures of those passions prematurely force into destructive action. The sound by nature undergo these tortures, and are racked, shaken, shattered; their beauty and bloom perish, but life remains untouched. They are brought to a certain point of dilapidation; they are reduced to pallor, debility and emaciation. People think, as they see them gliding languidly about, that they will soon withdraw to sick-beds, perish there, and cease from among the healthy and happy. This does not happen: they live on; and, though they cannot regain youth and gayety, they may regain strength and serenity. The blossom which the March wind nips, but fails to sweep away, may survive to hang, a withered apple, on the tree late into autumn; having braved the last frosts of spring, it may also brave the first of winter. We can get nothing in this world worth keeping-not so much as a principle or a conviction-except out of purifying flame or through strengthening peril. We err, we fall, we are humbled; then we walk more carefully. We greedily eat and drink poison out of the gilded cup of vice or from the beggar's wallet of avarice; we are sickened, degraded; everything good in us rebels-yes, look at me well is the despair of against us; our souls rise bitterly indignant parting legible thereon?" "I have been sitting with 'mamına hour," said the intruder; "I have had a long conversation with her. Where, mean time, have you been? Caroline, I have sought you to ask an audience. Why are those bells ringing?" "For the repeal of your terrible law-the orders you hate so much. You are pleased, are you not?" 66 'Yesterday evening at this time I was packing some books for a sea-voyage: they were the only possessions, except some clothes, seeds, roots and tools, which I felt free to take with me to Canada. I was going to leave you.” "To leave me? To leave me?" Her little fingers fastened on his arm; she spoke and looked affrighted. "Not now-not now. Examine my face She looked into an illuminated counte- I have made her suffer, all that long pain I nance whose characters were all beaming, have wickedly caused her, all that sickness though the page itself was dusk; this of body and mind she owed to me? Will face, potent in the majesty of its traits, she forget what she knows of my poor amshed down on her hope, fondness, delight. bition, my sordid schemes? Will she let me expiate these things? Will she suffer me to prove that, as I once deserted cruelly, trifled wantonly, injured basely, I can now love faithfully, cherish fondly, treasure tenderly?" 44 Will the repeal do you good-much good, immediate good?" she inquired. "The repeal of the orders in council saves me. Now I shall not turn bankrupt; now I shall not give up business; now I shall not leave England; now I shall be no longer poor; now I can pay my debts; now all the cloth I have in my warehouses will be taken off my hands, and commissions given me for much more. This day lays for my fortunes a broad, firm foundation on which, for the first time in my life, I can securely build." His hand was in Caroline's still; a gentle pressure answered him. "Is Caroline mine?" "I will prize her. The sense of her value is here, in my heart; the necessity for her society is blended with my life; not more jealous shall I be of the blood whose flow moves my pulses than of her happiness. and well-being." Caroline devoured his words; she held his moves hand in hers; she drew a long breath: You are saved? Your heavy difficulties. are lifted?" "I love you too, Robert, and will take faithful care of you." "Will you take faithful care of me? Faithful care! As if that rose should promise to shelter from tempest this hard gray stone! But she will care for me in "And I also, for your sake." She looked her way; these hands will be the gentle up devoutly. ministrants of every comfort I can taste. I know the being I seek to entwine with my own will bring me a solace, a charity, a purity, to which of myself I am a stranger." "Now I can take more workmen, give better wages, lay wiser and more liberal plans, do some good, be less selfish. Now, Caroline, I can have a house-a homewhich I can truly call mine, and now-" He paused, for his deep voice was choked. SHIRLEY'S INTERVIEW WITH HER UNCLE "And now," he resumed-" now I can think of marriage, now I can seek a wife.' This was no moment for her to speak: she did not speak. Will Caroline, who meekly hopes to be forgiven as she forgives-will she pardon all AFTER HER REJECTION OF SIR PHILIP. Mr. Sympson had been out to while away an anxious hour in the society of his friends at De Walden Hall. He returned a little sooner than was expected; his family and Miss Keeldar were assembled in the oak and returning to his customary wordy, confused, irritable style-"I mean to have a thorough explanation. I will not be put off. I-I shall insist on being heard, and onon having my own way. My questions must be answered. I will have clear, satisfactory replies. I am not to be trifled with. Silence! It is a strange and an extraordinary thing-a very singular-a most odd thing! I thought all was right-knew no other; and there! the family are gone. "I suppose, sir, they had a right to go." Sir Philip is gone!" with emphasis. Shirley raised her brows. "Bon voyage!" said she. "I have been to De Walden Hall," said ma'am." Mr. Sympson. He paused. Miss Keeldar's eyes were on the pretty white-and-green carpet. That information required no response; she gave none. "I have learned," he went on, slowly"I have learned a circumstance which surprises me.' Resting her cheek on her forefinger, she waited to be told what circumstance. "It seems that Nunnely Priory is shut up, that the family are gone back to their place in shire. It seems that the baronetthat the baronet-that Sir Philip himself has accompanied his mother and sisters.' "Indeed!" said Shirley. "I mean-I mean-" pursued Mr. Sympson, now fidgeting in his chair, quitting his hitherto brief and tolerably clear phraseology, He drew his chair forward; he pushed it back; he looked perfectly incensed and perfectly helpless. "Come, come, now, uncle!" expostulated Shirley; "do not begin to fret and fume, or we shall make no sense of the business. Ask me what you want to know. I am as willing to come to an explanation as you; I promise you truthful replies." "I want-I demand to know, Miss Keeldar, whether Sir Philip has made you an offer." He has.' "You avow it?" "I avow it. But now go on; consider that point settled." "He made you an offer that night we dined at the Priory?" "It is enough to say that he made it. Go on." "He proposed in the recess-in the room. that used to be a picture-gallery-that Sir Monckton converted into a saloon?" |