sorrow to the heart, and how resolutely they refuse to part with it."

"They only refuse because they think it impossible to change," said I. " They must be taught, Miss Templeton, as children are taught to keep out of the fire, by painful experience.""

"But some will listen," said she, "some will profit by the experience of others; they see all things change about them; they must therefore learn that change is possible."

I was very cheerful and happy at the close of a much longer conversation than I generally allowed myself with any one. How light was my step, and with what a peaceful happiness my heart pulsated as I returned to my home, which many thought must be lonely and unhappy because it was a bachelor's home. I was weary, but happy, that night as I placed my two American comforts-a footstool and a rocking-chair-beside my table, with a bright light, (I always stipulate for light everywhere.) I drew Miss Templeton's poem from my pocket; and though I could not call her a poetess, 1 could give her credit for the deep feeling and clear perception which belongs to Genius. I give her poem, that my readers may at least see a brick from the building I am trying to describe.

LIFE ON THE EARTH.

Life hath its many moans, its many cares, Its clinging, withering shroud of firetooth'd wo;

There grow amid the wheat, as many

tares

And angels hover round us all the hours, And fan our fevered life with cooling wings;

And when the lurid storm cloud darkest lowers,

Beneath, beyond it, Heaven's own beauty springs.

The flowers, springing from our mother earth,

Make glad the temple of the living God.
They are the music, poetry, and mirth
Of the green world-the silent, senseless
clod

Is made all vocal with their joyous hymn,
In fragrance, breathing to the upper heaven.
Their beauty, not e'en sin could spoil or

dim.

A world where flowers can bloom must be forgiven.

The trees so grandly beautiful and strong, That give us fruit, and flowers, and cooling

shade;

Whilst

They image forth the perfect.
The trees, we grieve not that the flowers

among

must fade.

An idle, frivolous life brings us into idle and worthless associations; while a life of usefulness brings us into useful associations. New and valuable friends gathered around Miss Templeton, and at last one came who was, to the sober sanity of her sorrow-taught perception, more beautiful than the stuff that dreams are made of.

She had labored with wisdom and energy for the restoration of her health, material and spiritual, and she had been successful.

How mighty are a few years for good or for evil. Her new friend made for

1

her a Heaven in her health as Wentworth had made a Hell in her insanity and illness. But the question came, was she aught to him? and the warning of the past fell upon her spirit like a pall.

Eugene Herder was Wentworth's friend, his Mentor-and they were inseparable companions; but this did not hinder Caroline from making his acquaintance; for she now met Wentworth with as much indifference, apparently, as she met me. Wentworth looked upon her with wonder. He saw her as it were transfigured before him; no longer begging his love but commanding his admiration. The enthusiasm that kindled her eye and glowed upon her cheek; the springing life of her graceful step, and the queenly dignity of her whole bearing, were by no means lost upon Wentworth. But he never spoke of her to his friend. Herder saw her mostly through her writings-and he loved her as we love sunlight and the perfume of flowers, as a thing to be enjoyed; appreciated, but not possessed. Such a being can never be mine," said he many times in the day and night: and Caroline echoed the plaint as many times, "Such an one can never be mine." Herder had spent his life essentially alone, because he had found no one who approached the realization of his ideal.

"Would not a pic-nic on Laurel Hill be a fine affair one of these sultry afternoons," said Herder to Wentworth.

"Yes, if you want to be bored with gnats, and girls, and moschetoes."

"But we will only bargain for the girls."

"But you will get a shower thrown in, or else you will be thirsty where there is no water; or starved before the girls choose to open the baskets, and hungry after they are emptied; and the ugliest woman in the lot, with no brains to compensate for the lack of beauty, will be sure to fall to you; and then she will fall in love with you, and make a party when you are sick; and you will have to go and drink sour claret, or flat champaigne, or brandied madeira. Bah! these pic-nics cost too much unless you happen to be in love and in luck at the same time, two things which do not occur once in an age. Deliver me, say I, from going pleasure-hunting."

But Herder was in love, and a man in love can carry out a purpose. He knew what wires to pull to set certain puppets

in motion. He busied himself slightly for a day or two; a great many ladies became very busy, and the result was a pic-nic.

As fate would have it, for once there was plenty of nice edibles, very little dust, no rain, and no unusual supply of gnats, moschetoes, or other vermin. Herder secured the companion he wished, and life, and time, and the pic-nic were all rose-colored to him.

The dinner was excellent; the shade was delightful; the wit decidedly attic, and the laughers sufficiently accommodating to laugh at the dullest jokes. And then bits of paper and pencils were put in requisition, and verses and "crambo" were written, and the day passed most pleasantly; and Caroline found herself possessed of some lines which she had no wish to present to the company, and so she put them carefully in her bag, and read them again and again before retiring. I shall steal a copy, though I am very sure they will not make my readers as happy as they made her.

"When the imprisoned soul for years hath looked upon the world through bars of triple steel, catching only faint glimpses of the sunlight, how wildly overwhelmed the heart becomes when the warm, gushing tide of rich, red light flows in, and compasses and thrills through all our being. The sceptic heart cries out, it cannot be! God never made such light for me. Just so my doubting heart exclaims-it cannot be that love is mine. It is another dream amongst the many that have chased each other from my asking heart. A golden dream, 'tis true, but still a dream. And with this dreadful doubt sheathed in the core of my all-living heart, I wait for sober, waking certainty."

This from Herder, the man of whom her good maiden aunt Katy, who had lived three-quarters of a century, said, "He is better-looking than Lafayette, and almost as good-looking as Washington Ah! Carry dear, our first love is a love of fancy; our second is a love of judgment."'"

Caroline slept that night very sweetly, I dare say, and probably dreamed of roses and lilies, and a great many beautiful things.

The next time I called, she showed me some very happy poems and a large MS. tale, which she told me were all written since the pic-nic, only a few days; but affection had given the impulse to her pen,

and she wrote as rapidly as the happy moments flew past her.

What Cloudsley Wentworth became after years of stern struggle, when his genius was chastened and consecrated to progress, when the fiery folly of his youth had become a thing to be remembered and regretted-such was now the man who sought and obtained Caroline's love.

Another year of useful life, and I met a few beloved friends at the Templetons'. It was a bridal, where the angels of beauty and wisdom, and a world-wide benevolence, found a congenial sphere. The ceremony was impressive as a good and

true man could make it, and we felt that it cemented no hated contract, binding the indifferent or loathing, because interest or passion had led them to a bargain or an entanglement; but an outward and legal expression of a heavenly fact. The flowers that shed their perfume around us, were in accordance with the spirit of the scene. A chastened joy enlivened all; and when Mrs. Herder met Wentworth on her bridal eve, as the friend of her husband, I was well assured that he would not soon forget the hour when the gifted one whom his youthful folly had failed to blast, was given to his friend.

VERY narrow and imperfect is the common notion about novels, that they are fictitious narratives written to amuse. So far is this from being the case that we are persuaded no successful novelist ever wrote, or, at least, continued to write, without some ulterior aim-the advocacy of some principle or sentiment. A man of vivid imagination is generally, if indeed we must not say necessarily,) also, a man of strong personal feelings and partisan tendencies; and when he finds himself in the position of a moral agent can he help making his fiction the vehicle of truth, or what he conceives to be truth? To uphold certain schools of art, literature or politics; to further social reforms; to discourage prejudices, and expose abuses; to make one nation better known to, and therefore, better appreciated by, another; to influence popular opinion, and even modify national habits of thought-these are some of the novelist's aims-not merely as some suppose in their short-sightedness, to help boarding-school misses and silly boys to kill time. Great, indeed, is his power for evil; but mighty is it likewise for good, nor is he always, thank God, a servant of Darkness. If D'Israeli perverts his dexterous humor to the gratification of private pique, and the resuscitation of defunct fallacies, Miss Martineau inculcates lessons of charity and long-suffering that are better than many sermons. If the French Romancers do their best to create a hell upon earth, by way of compensation for their disbelief in one hereafter, our own great novelist presents that spectacle which has ever been the phi losopher's admiration-an individual who dares to tell the truth to a tyrant.

66

When Satanstoe," the first of the Littlepage Manuscripts, appeared, it excited in us feelings of unmitigated pleasure and lively expectation. The Chainbearer" did not alloy that pleasure, or disappoint that expectation. We were glad to see our distinguished countryman applying his talents and energies to the exposure and censure of that evil condition of things which is at once the danger and the disgrace of our State. We were glad that he had written a novel on the subject, not a pamphlet, or an essay, or a disquisition; for men will read

novels who will not read pamphlets and disquisitions and essays. We were glad (for the first times in our lives) that he was a "Democrat," for many men will listen to a Democrat who would not think of hearing a British Whig." Above all we were glad to find throughout these books abundant signs that their author aims at being a Christian as well. as a gentleman to meet with abundant recognitions of the Highest Authorityexpressed indeed, at times, with that disagreeable dogmatism which seems as if by some fatality to attend on all Mr. Cooper's opinions-but unmistakably genuine, and as such heartily refreshing in a time of infidel litterateurs, and infidel legislators.

"The Redskins; or Indian and Ingin" completes his proposed task. This book," we quote from the preface, "closes the series of the Littlepage Manuscripts which have been given to the world as containing a fair account of the comparative sacrifices of time, money and labor made respectively by the landlord and the tenants on a New York estate, together with the manner in which usages and opinions are changing among us; as well as certain of the causes of these changes." The present illustration of these developments involves none of those thrilling incidents for which Mr. Cooper is so famous. His story is entirely subordinated to his moral. The narrative contains few, or, to speak plainly, no points of particular interest. A young man and his bachelor uncle, both large landed proprietors, return from their travels in Europe to find their tenants in arms, and their own homes in actual danger. Disguised as German pedlers they visit the seat of war, are present at an anti-rent meeting, and observe the actions and motives of sundry parties concerned in the movement. Discovering themselves in a moment of excitement they are fairly besieged, and the rioters endeavor to make their house literally "too hot to hold them." But the arrival of some real Indians (on a visit to an old chief, a friend of the family) enables them to repel the "armed and disguised," or pretended "Ingins till the sheriff comes to the rescue. Of course there is a heroine who is neither