صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

other shots either put out the candle or cut it immediately under the light.

Of the feats performed by the Kentuckians with the rifle, I could say more than might be expedient on the present occasion. In every thinly-peopled portion of the state, it is rare to meet one without a gun of that description, as well as a tomahawk. By way of recreation, they often cut off a piece of the bark of a tree, make a target of it, using a little powder wetted with water or saliva for the bull's eye, and shoot into the mark all the balls they have about them, picking them out of the wood again.

After what I have said, you may easily imagine with what ease a Kentuckian procures game, or despatches an enemy, more especially when I tell you that every one in the state is accustomed to handle the rifle from the first time when he is first able to shoulder it until near the close of his career. That murderous weapon is the means of procuring them subsistence during all their wild and extensive rambles, and is the source of their principal sports and pleasures.

LVI. THE FROST.

MISS GOULD.

[The poems of Miss Hannah Flagg Gould, now (1856) residing in Newburyport, Massachusetts, are characterized by truth, and feeling, and liveliness of expression. They are deservedly popular with young persons.]

THE frost looked forth one still, clear night,
And whispered, "Now I shall be out of sight;
So through the valley, and over the height,
In silence I'll take my way.

I will not go on like that blustering train,
The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,
Who make so much bustle and noise in vain,
But I'll be as busy as they."

Then he flew to the mountain, and powdered its crest;
He lit on the trees, and their boughs he dressed
In diamond beads; and over the breast

Of the quivering lake he spread

A coat of mail, that it need not fear
The downward point of many a spear
That he hung on its margin, far and near,
Where a rock could rear its head.

He went to the windows of those who slept,
And over each pane, like a fairy, crept;
Wherever he breathed, wherever he stepped,
By the light of the morn were seen

Most beautiful things: there were flowers and trees,
There were bevies of birds and swarms of bees;
There were cities with temples and towers; and these
All pictured in silver sheen.*

Bnt he did one thing that was hardly fair:
He peeped in the cupboard, and finding there
That all had forgotten for him to prepare,
"Now just to set them a-thinking
I'll bite this basket of fruit," said he ;
"This costly pitcher I'll break in three;
And the glass of water they've left for me
Shall 'tchick!' to tell them I'm drinking."

LVII.-THE LIGHTHOUSE.

MOORE.

THE scene was more beautiful far to my eye
Than if day in its pride had arrayed it;

The land breeze blew mild, and the azure-arched sky
Looked pure as the Spirit that made it.

* Sheen, bright,

The murmur rose soft as I silently gazed

On the shadowy wave's playful motion,

From the dim distant hill till the lighthouse fire blazed
Like a star in the midst of the ocean.

No longer the joy of the sailor boy's breast
Was heard in his wildly breathed numbers:
The sea bird had flown to her wave-girdled nest,
The fisherman sunk to his slumbers.

One moment I looked from the hill's gentle slope;

All hushed was the billows' commotion,

And methought that the lighthouse looked lovely as hope,
That star on life's tremulous ocean.

The time is long past, and the scene is afar
Yet, when my head rests on its pillow,
Will memory sometimes rekindle the star
That blazed on the breast of the billow.

In life's closing hour, when the trembling soul flies,
And death stills the heart's last emotion,

O, then may the seraph of mercy arise,
Like a star on eternity's ocean.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

THE longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination. A purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. That quality will do any thing that can be done in this world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will make a twolegged animal a man without it.

EVIL COMPANY.

Sophronius, a wise teacher, would not suffer his grown-up son and daughters to associate with those whose conduct was not pure and upright. "Dear father," said the gentle Matilda to him one day, when he forbade her, in company with her brother, to visit the volatile Lucinda, “dear father, you must think us very childish if you imagine we could be exposed to danger by it." The father took in silence a dead coal from the hearth, and reached it to his daughter. "It will not burn you, my child; take it." Matilda did so, and behold her beautiful white hand was soiled and blackened, and, as it chanced, her white dress also. "We cannot be too careful in handling coals," said Matilda, in vexation. "Yes, truly," said the father; "you see, my child, that, even if they do not burn, they blacken: so it is with the company of the vicious."

INDOLENCE AND OVERWORK.

FREEMAN HUNT.

There are two evils that require to be corrected; one is laziness, and the other is overwork. The amount of necessary labor in the world may be done easily and with comfort. All that seems requisite to accomplish it agreeably, is to make each person do his share and no more. Moderate labor is the virtue; indolence and slavery the opposite vices. The complete man is he who has not sold himself to any calling or profession, who works and plays by turns, keeps a corner in his heart for friendship, the affections, and humanity; and, through all and over all, consecrates his activity, capacities, and powers to the great Invisible from whom he has derived them, and to whom he is accountable for their use or abuse,

LEDYARD'S PRAISE OF WOMEN.

I have always remarked that women in all countries are civil and obliging, tender and humane; that they are ever

inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest; and that they do not hesitate, like men, to perform a generous action. Not haughty, nor arrogant, nor supercilious, they are full of courtesy and fond of society. More liable, in general, to err than men ; but, in general, also more virtuous, and performing more good actions. To a woman, whether civilized or savage, I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With men it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, and frozen Lapland, over rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so. And to add to this virtue, these actions have been performed in so free and kind a manner, that, if I was dry, I drank the simplest draught, and if hungry, I ate the coarsest meal, from the hand of a woman with the sweetest relish.

[ocr errors]

VULGARITY.

Miss Anne Scott, Sir Walter Scott's second daughter, happened to say of something that " she could not abide it; that it was vulgar." "My love," said her father, "you speak like a very young lady. Do you know after all, the meaning of this word vulgar? 'Tis only common. Nothing that is common, except wickedness, can deserve to be spoken of in a tone of contempt; and when you have lived to my years, you will be disposed to agree with me in thanking God that nothing really worth having or caring about in this world is uncommon."

VIRTUE NOT ALWAYS REWARDED IN THIS LIFE.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Temporal prosperity is not the recompense which Providence has deemed worthy of suffering merit; and it is a

« السابقةمتابعة »