Quite plainly; yet what means that trickling tear

That, glowing, steals adown the bride's flushed cheek As, hand in hand, the lasting bond they seal, And feelings burst that pride cannot conceal?

For like a stream that peaceful glides along
Had been the love for parents in that bride,
But now there comes another, and more strong
The love she bears the being at her side;
And so, like confluent streams, that turmoil make,
These passions meeting make her bosom quake.

But through yon door the future channel lies,
Two little rills, as one, become a stream
That is to sweep amid both smiles and sighs,

Through gorges dark, or where the sun may gleam, Until they empty in that endless wave,

And earth and heaven do those waters lave.

The one scene more 's a melancholy show:

The dismal tread of those who bear the bier, The train of mourners coming after slow,

The black array, and 'neath each veil a tear Steals out the reddened eye, below to fall, Like hopes still coming, and to perish all.

Before the altar rests the coffined dead,

The mourners stand within the nearest pews,
While, further off, are passers, who were led

By feelings that the heart could not refuse;
Looking in silence, with a constant gaze,
They hear the sighs, and what the preacher prays.

This service done, the coffin-lid is oped,
Grating its hinge to send a shudder deep

Within the breasts of those who long had hoped
For years of joy to come, but now must weep

To see within that winding-robe of Death,

Who once breathed pleasure as he breathed his breath.

And now they part: the mourners go before;
The bier is raised, with dreary creak; the pall
Is lifted, and the heavy tread once more

Resounds and dies along the senseless wall,
Just as the confines of our earthly lot
Can echo names awhile, which soon are not.

Enough! enough! so here we are alone:
Without we hear the jars of busy sounds,
Only the wind gives forth a dying moan

Among the firs that top the grave-yard mounds;
For all is else attuned to notes of life,

The tramp of men, the call, the shout, the strife.

The Sabbath peal shall summon from their home
An equal concourse, dressed as for a play;
And rustling silks shall sound beneath this dome
With all the flutter of a gala-day,

Enough to show the altar of true praise
Is still at home, away from public gaze.

To isolate ourselves were worship best,

But once a week 't is well to go to church,
And sing a hymn at least among the rest;
Society will leave one in the lurch,
Unless he bears a sermon for her sake:
So go; provided you can keep awake!

If one must sleep, 't were better sleep at home,
One's sofa's softer than a straight-backed pew;
E'en if our fancies through a novel roam,

Perchance we get a pious hint or two:

But church-dreampt dreams of merchandise and stocks Can bring but anxious spouse's elbow-knocks.

You give a yawn, your eyes persist to droop,
You feel a sharp fan-handle in your side;
Just then an urchin somewhere gives a whoop,

Or heavy psalm-book from some lap doth slide;
Enough to wake you quite in time to go;
Your legs are rather weak from cramping, though.

So home you wend, and home is ever home;
Good dinner, fine segar, and easy couch,
Upon your lap you spread the holy tome;

But still, it may be, I shall dare to vouch

The evening bells can pour their chiming sound
O'er heedless senses, if in slumber bound.

Well, well! Beside your bed there's place to kneel, Where none but those you wish may gather, too;

One moment here, perhaps, can better seal

The heart from evil, than an hour can do

In public pomp; for prayer, like much on earth,
Perchance lies less in quantity than worth.

LETTERS TO ELLA.

NUMBER ONE.

Now you are gone far from me, my daughter, I know for the first time the full extent of your hold upon me. My heart goes out after you, and reaches and gropes, but comes back empty. You were my first-born; and when you came to me I knew not well how to find food and raiment for another. But the bread for your little mouth, and the raiment for your rounded form were ever to me blessed food and raiment. If you had been near, I could almost have lived upon your happiness without touching morsel myself. You first taught me the bliss of going quite out of myself and living for another. You were to me the first evangel, which brought to my whole nature the glorious practical happiness of unselfishness. I myself thenceforth became, in my own eyes, a secondary consideration, almost as nothing. I would have you to be blooming and happy. I would spread pleasantness in your path, and between you and harm stand, a shield and a shelter. Whatever storm might threaten, I would be as a rock of refuge. My pain was, not to be able to suffer for you. When you have been sick, my eyes have known not the setting nor the rising of the sun. The hours flew rapidly away, and brought exhaustion without desire for rest, until returning beams of health once more rested upon your loved features. And I knew not, my dear child, how my thoughts fore-ran the years, and became as a cunningly-woven web inwrought with your future. Prosperity and plenty smiled upon me, but chiefly from your bright face. Money I counted for what it would buy for you. It would lift your future above the spirit of dependence. I would repel from you the coarse companionship of hunger and want, and be a panoply against the still more gross and humiliating patronage of the vulgar rich.

It was no great pain to imagine for you a humble and modest life, sustained by an honest toil, and surrounded by those whose lot in life was not in its most favored walks; but to imagine your gentle and appreciative character subjected to being looked down upon and patronized by the vulgar kindness which not unfrequently attends the rapid accumulation of wealth, was misery indeed. And the greatest misery of it was, that it might have some tendency to weaken your self-respect, and your trust in GoD, and lead you unconsciously to make compromises with natures essentially grovelling.

That independence which arises from the possession of property is chiefly valuable for the protection it affords from a consciousness of being regarded as inferior or unfortunate. So far as I am concerned, it has not been won without self-denial and care. But the sweet promise of your noble and womanly character has been my abundant reward. And now that you are distant, I think it will not be unpleasant to receive these expressions which it is my happiness to make. They are the overflowings of a cup more than full. If I could not make them

known, it would be to me as if you were dead; and it is my pride and my glory that you are worthy of them, and can be trusted with them. Other children have been born to me, whose promise is not less fair, and for whom my love is not smaller; but you, my daughter, are the only first-born, and those thick-coming fancies which first learned to group themselves around you continue to attend you from habit, and will form for you, while I live, a halo, so that you will be to me as no other. You have not received the dangerous gift of physical beauty, but, in lieu of it, a modest and benign presence, which opens the hearts of strangers to you. Your not uncomely person and countenance carry with them a certain breadth and fulness of expression which is of the soul, and will never fail you in winning sympathy and companionship.

your

You left us a daguerreotype, but it seemed insufficient. The eye and the heart were both unsatisfied with so diminutive a reflection of the largeness of our affections for you. The painter has tried his art, and likeness now of life-size fixes its calm and happy gaze upon us from the parlor-wall. The portrait was drawn with the touch of a master, but without the time to give it a perfect finish. The softness of touch which might have been expected from the artist is now obtained by framing it with a covering of glass. Nothing has been spared to it which tender love could bestow. It compensates, after all, but poorly for the original. I gaze upon it by the hour, and my eyes fill as I think to myself: She is absent.' The artist was fortunate in fixing upon it that expression which most distinguished you from all others. It is as you looked when receiving well-earned praise; when about to visit some dearly-loved companion; or when being introduced to some stranger whom it was an honor to know. Your friends supposed it to be an expression of slight embarassment, but we who knew you better recognized it as a voluntary restraint put upon the expression of a large and abounding joy. The portrait hangs opposite a large mirror, and you are thus always looking in the glass. The painting is still further softened when seen by its reflection from the mirror, and thus beheld, I think nothing earthly can be more beautiful. The glass which covers it and the mirror which reflects it perform the same office for the painting which my partiality performs for the original. My heart does not desire, my fancy does not conceive any thing more lovely. You are the young moon of my sky; neither the sparkling brilliance of any star, nor the sovereign effulgence of the sun, so wins me and draws up my spirit toward it as the mild and dreamy light which emanates from your sweet and hopeful orb. When I sit at the table I see the vacant seat. I watch the early birds and flowers of spring, and think how you would have cherished them. The dog-handled pitcher of milk with which you used to amuse yourself recalls your playful concern at the hopeless condition of that poor earthen dog which seems always about to reach over the brink of the pitcher and find milk, but never reaches it. He is as far from it as ever.

My heart rejoices in the other children, but it always says: 'She was the crowning glory and the flower of the flock; she was my companion and my friend.' I reach forward and strive to prefigure your destiny. I seem to see you in the bloom and glory of young life, opening your eyes

upon all new scenes. I picture to myself your advent into gay society as a young lady. I watch your wayward fancies, and seek gently to chasten and guide them. I seem to see you full of all genial and pleasant ways, winning golden opinions alike from young and old. I picture to myself the approaches of a noble youth of the other sex, worthy of your love, and your happiness in bestowing it. I see you the happy mother of children, honoring and honored by the husband of your choice. I go yet forward to the time when experience and trial shall have sprinkled your hair with the signs of approaching age, when your thoughts shall have been fixed immovably upon the habitations of the just, and when you shall move down the gentle slope of a serene old age. I shall then be no more in sight. The turf will have grown old over my resting-place; but it may be that you will plant flowers there, and visit the spot with tender recollections. Perhaps it will be said: 'He was her father, and there was great love between them.' And if it be permitted, my child, for the spirits of the departed to re-visit the earth, I will be ever near you.

This is my news. I can tell you no other. It has been told a thousand times, but my pen runs pleasantly in rehearsing the same old story. I desire only to build up for you a great happiness. And to accomplish this, I would be glad to lead you pleasantly over some of the rough places, the secrets of which I have at least partially learned by having stumbled over and been bruised upon them. In order that you may see in what direction my thoughts concerning you tend, I will add a paragraph to this letter, already, perhaps, too long.

Frankly, then, I think you have some genius. I think you have the capabilities to win much praise and gain a brilliant career. I think you should avoid the ordinary avocations of life and look high for your destiny. My most particular ambition is, that you should shine as an artist. I am sure you have some natural taste that way, and, with the assiduity essential to any great success, I believe that you can produce a piece majestic in outline as the best of Michael Angelo, with a sweetness of finish equal to Rubens. I prefer, however, that you should work upon a more delicate and susceptible material than stone or canvas. It has happened rather seldom that the spirit and genius of an artist have engaged themselves upon the material which I will presently point out; and when this has happened, results of the most rare, sweet, and famous nature have been achieved. The material I speak of is human character, and that character your own. An actual and faithful searching out of the defects of one's own character a patient, modest, and hopeful study to develop from it a true conception of the noble and the beautiful, are among the most uncommon studies of our kind. It opens up the most inviting field of ambition, and a career for your sex so much the more beautiful, as the material upon which you work is of a finer texture than is found elsewhere this side of heaven. You must form your own ideal, but may in the mean time practise yourself upon the study of such features and parts as must necessarily enter into the composition of all great productions. By-and-by I will explain to you some of the effects of such an ambition, and disclose to you a great secret. More than ever, my dear daughter, I hold you to my bosom, and kiss you devoutly. O my child! my child! you must never forget to love me