overwhelming spiritual depression. The loftiest minds that have ever gemmed the canopy of fame, wept most over suffering humanity and blighted hopes. A distinguished editor, adverting to her misfortune, says: "Humanity must view the change with weeping surprise and wonder at the ways of Providence. Surely angels of pity must hover around her, and the blessed in heaven drop a tear of sympathy at the necessity of a sacrifice so deplorable for the admonition of the world."

But her ever active mind, richly stored with the choicest treasures of science, could not long thus recoil upon itself, and pine over irretrievable misfortunes. Soon after her melancholy privation, through the influence of kind and official friends, she obtained permission to spend a term of one year at the New York Institution for the Blind, hoping there to dissipate, in the pursuit of knowledge, the bitter sorrows that oppressed her heart. But her former opportunities having advanced her far beyond the literary pale of this Institute, it could but serve as an altar or tower of retreat from the cold world, until she could collect her scattered powers and concentrate them upon some object, in the pursuit of which she could provide for herself the necessaries of life. The chaste, elegant, and magic eloquence of her literary composition, was not long in recommending her to public favor, and she soon hit upon the happy expedient of publishing a book, and enga ging personally in its sale.

Her modest and highly intelligent appearance, and the laudable object for which she toiled, secured friends and public patronage beyond her most sanguine hopes. We cannot better do her justice, in this connection, than by copying the following summary editorial :

"How few who may read this paragraph, would think it possible for them, entirely without means, to get up a book, transact all the business contracts and operations necessary, and then, without a single ray of light to guide their steps, go out personally to sell it, day after day, patiently ferreting out dark, lonely streets, and climbing winding stairs; thereby to secure food and raiment. Such enterprise is worthy of praise, and deserves the encouragement of every patron of honest industry. This looks to us like the ambition of Napoleon crossing the Alps, or gathering his scattered army after his discomfiture at Moscow.

The purpose of this blind lady is, to secure for herself "a little cottage and a little plat," which she may call her home. Her cottage must be built. Every book sold, piles one stone on its walls, and all who enjoy a good home, and who can look upon its dear and loved inmates, cannot better add to the zest of its enjoyments than by mingling with them the consciousness of having contributed to provide the same for one who is eminently qualified to enjoy and ornament domestic life, and upon whom has fallen this unparalleled succession of bereavements, thus de

scribed in her own words: "I was in one short month a bride, a widow, and blind.”

Such men as our late President Taylor, Mr. Clay, General Waddy Thompson, Senator Dawson, Mr. Burt, General Greene, Rev. Dr. Nott, and Dr Turner of New York, and his excellency, Governor Floyd of Virginia, and many other distinguished individuals, both of the clergy and laity, together with the prin cipal editors of New York, Washington, Charleston, S. C., Boston, Salem, Portland, and other places, have lent their influence to this work; and, moreover, Mrs. DeKroyft brings with her letters from many of the most gifted ladies of our land, one of whom, from Washington, says: "That Mrs. DeKroyft is a lady of more than ordinary interest, we need say only to those who have not had the pleasure of listening to her graceful conversation, or reading one of her charming letters in 'A Place in Thy Memory,' which we are happy to say, ornaments almost every drawing-room in Washington City. It is a book which may be read with profit by the most talented, as well as the most common reader. It occurs to us that this book is really one of the most interesting and useful Gift Books for the season. It is no fiction from this flood' of literature that is now upon us, but a true, an interesting, and a peculiar phase of real life, that will do good wherever it is read and pondered. The book is embellished with an engraving of the author, and the New York Institution for the Blind."

6

We will not anticipate with further detail, the me

moirs of her life, with which we hope she will at some time favor the public. A true history of her trials and triumphs, in her own magic style, would stimulate forcibly those under similar privations, to shake off the fetters of dependence, and grapple successfully with the difficulties of their situation.

The following is an example of her composition, which, in point of majesty and sublimity of thought, we think, is seldom excelled in the English language:

PRAYER TO LIGHT.

Oh, holy light! thou art old as the look of God, and eternal as his breath. The angels were rocked in thy lap, and their infant smiles were brightened by thee. Creation is in thy memory; by thy torch the throne of Jehovah was set, and thy hand burnished the myriad stars that glitter in his crown. Worlds, new from His omnipotent hand, were sprinkled with beams from thy baptismal font. At thy golden urn, pale Luna comes to fill her silver horn, and Saturn bathes his sky-girt rings; Jupiter lights his waning moons, and Venus dips her queenly robes anew. Thy fountains are shoreless as the ocean of heavenly love; thy center is everywhere, and thy boundary no power has marked. Thy beams gild the illimitable fields of space, and gladden the farthest verge of the universe. The glories of the seventh heaven are open to thy gaze, and thy glare is felt in

the woes of lowest Erebus. The sealed books of heaven by thee are read, and thine eye, like the Infinite, can pierce the dark vail of the future, and glance backward through the mystic cycles of the past. Thy touch gives the lily its whiteness, the rose its tint, and thy kindling ray makes the diamond's light; thy beams are mighty as the power that binds the spheres; thou canst change the sleety winds to soothing zephyrs, and thou canst melt the icy mountains of the poles to gentle rains and dewy vapors. The granite rocks of the hills are upturned by thee, volcanoes burst, islands sink and rise, rivers roll, and oceans swell at thy look of command. And oh, thou monarch of the skies, bend now thy bow of millioned arrows, and pierce, if thou canst, this darkness that thrice twelve moons has bound me. Burst now thine emerald gates, O morn, and let thy dawning come. My eyes roll in vain to find thee, and my soul is weary of this interminable gloom. My heart is but the tomb of blighted hopes, and all the misery of feelings unemployed, has settled on me. I am misfortune's child, and sorrow long since marked me for her own.