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to be doubted;-in the language of impulses, inclinations, and burning wishes? Does not her will boil in your blood, and tremble in every nerve, and glow in every emotion? And who are you, to sit in judgement on her, and pronounce her wrong? What are you, who thus proudly scorn her, even at the price of self-denial, and self-torture,-nay, of others' sorrow and regret? Did not the voice of nature urge you to return the kiss? did not your will incline to it? and did you not grieve her by your disdain?"

I was but a boy of nineteen, and is it strange that his sophistry disturbed me? It was what I would have believed if I could; I had often endeavored to make it my creed, and perhaps my principles would have fallen before his attack, had not my mind been imbued with the lessons which parental lips had taught so faithfully, that now, in the hour of temptation, habit could supply the deficiency of judgement. I attempted to reply, however, and gained firmness as I spoke. I might tell you," said I, "that the law of our natures is to be subjected to the law of God; but lest you should venture to blaspheme that, I will reply from nature herself. If impulse pushes me towards gratification, there is in my character some principle, call it what you will, which tells me whether I ought to obey the impulse. So as I consult my own interest and happiness, and have seen that when I obey the impulse contrary to the dictate of the other principle, the pleasure is short, and my mental ease interrupted, and that, when I yield to the principle and resist the impulse, the pain of self-denial is short, and the approval of my conscience permanent and abiding; of course, regard to my own comfort will teach me to rebel against what you call the law of nature."

"Illustrious sage," said he, in the tone of irony, "may you never realise the prediction of Richard-" so wise, so young, they say do never live long." And so saying he turned back, and walked rapidly away.

Often afterwards did he meet me, at times when the strength of my principles was severely tested by the circumstances in which I was placed; and manifold were his modes of attack, and his devices to drive or seduce me from the path of duty. I will not now enumerate them-but, after naming some few others, leave him and them without farther remark.

I had, as he once told me, gold; but it took to itself wings. Fire and the bankruptcy of my insurers, together with the knavery of some other factors, reduced me to extreme narrowness of income; so that I, who had never wanted any thing but mastery over the future, was obliged to sell what I valued more than all else, my choice collection of books, and specimens in natural science, and apparatus; and to graduate with almost nothing but my intellectual acquisitions. My parents were dead; I was an only child, and, as they had emigrated from Europe, I was almost literally alone in this new world. The wide dull world was before me; and so little of sunshine or beauty was there in the prospect, that Hope sickened as she flew across it, and rested not her wing, till she reached the grave. Oh, how my heart sunk, as, the night after my graduation, I stole away from the merry meeting of my classmates at their last convivial party, and sought that old pine tree, whose shade, by noon or night, was my favorite haunt, and there, under a black and scowling heavens, looked forward to long

years of want, or dependence, or labors so unceasing, that the mind must be their sacrifice. I hoped to meet him-whose recent kindness and frequent visits had obliterated the thought of his evil principleshim, whom two years before, I had first seen on that same spot. Nor did he disappoint me. He came, and his gentle voice soothed the asperity of my feelings, while his words but barbed the arrow that was vibrating in my heart. "Your entrance into the free world of action is made on a day of storms, and under circumstances of deep sadness, my young friend. The years you have spent in effort for the display of to-day, how small their effect! how poor their result! Not thousands nor scarcely hundreds thronged to hear your graduating eloquence; clouds and vapors canopy the heavens; there are no lights in the expanse above us; and so dense is the evening mist, that your noisy town sheds not on us a single ray from its thousand lamps. The gold which gave you the means of intellectual gratification, and which reflected splendor on the talent and acquirements of its possessor, has gone to the treacherous elements, or been snatched from you by the more treacherous agents whom you trusted; your sun-shiny friends look as dull on you as the day on which you part from them; they miss not your laugh in the hall of their banquet; your hope of the future".

"Prophet of evil thou needest not be," replied I, goaded into anger by his recital of my miseries, "though thou art the croaker of present misfortunes. It is enough for me to paint in the dark colors of my own imagination the void before me."

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'I speak not of future evil. I speak of your prospects. You are intending to engage in that profession which thrives on the crimes of society; you have," and his voice was most keenly ironical," thickcrowded friends who will help you up the steep ascent that leads from poverty to competency; from unknown insignificance, to eminence; from the dark valley where you are either disregarded or trampled upon, to the summit, whose atmosphere is the chill breath of envy, malice and hatred,- -or the volcanic vapors of anger and revenge. You are loved, no doubt, by many, who will rejoice to smile on you-at a distance; whose hearts will be open to your advances, when it is for their own interest; and who will exult in your success when it brings golden showers on themselves. Do you not delight to contemplate the splendors of your coming destiny, and the loveliness of your future path?" "My hopes or my fears are in my own bosom. I care not for the past; I care not for the future. I have none to love, and none to live for, who love me. Why should I live?"

I asked the question without suspicion that his purpose was to goad me on to self-destruction; but the tone of his reply aroused me to a full perception of his design.

"Why should you live?" Because you dare not do otherwise? Why should you live? to bear the neglect or abuse of the rascals around you; to be the stock of laugh and sneer and insult; to be cheated by those whom you love; to grow more and more like the beasts with whom you must labor; to be heart-frozen by the cold element of the world, and die slowly through scores of years. Why should you live?' Because you are not Roman enough to die." How strangely did those words affect me! I had followed the dark

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windings of my gloomy thoughts until they led me to the verge of suicide, and I stood looking with calmness at the black gulf before me, meditating-not the consequences of my leap into it, but the leap itself. But when he joined me there, and pointed down into the abyss where I had been gazing, and urged my already upraised step,—the spell was broken; I was no longer alone; my mind swept forward to the world beyond, and as he poured his poison into my ear, the before forgotten influence of healthful principles returned upon me; I felt myself revolting from the deed at which I had so nearly arrived, and braced up to despise the cowardice which had made me tremble at life; and to resist the temptation. It was as if in dim twilight and dreamingly I had wandered to the precipice over which I could scarce stretch my sleepy vision, and whose dangers I thought not of, until the thunderbolt had roused me to wakefulness, and the glare of its flash revealed the full and tremendous peril of my position.

"I will live because it is the part of a coward to shrink in the hour of trial; because it is the part of manhood to contend bravely against and triumph over difficulty, and there is proud satisfaction in the victory; because the life I have is given, and must be taken by another and not myself; because the world shall feel that I have yet the power of doing good; because the great Lawgiver has said, "thou shalt not kill."

"Live on then !" said he, "till you have outlived the existence of all your hopes, of all your faculties, of all that renders life tolerable, and then-"

"Then' let me die-but not till then."

From that time I dreaded his appearance, as the messenger of evil; and in every hour of temptation or trial, trembled lest he might stand at my side and overcome my powers of resistance. I continued,— after an interval which I will not mention-my studies in this city, having but exchanged the exact sciences and the literature of the college, for the science on which is built the noblest of all professionsthe science of jurisprudence. The knowledge that I must depend entirely on my own efforts for professional success, and the strong determination to rise in whatever sphere I might be placed, made me industrious, and three years passed quietly over me. After entering the Bar, I was not entirely destitute of business, but did, notwithstanding spend considerable time in waiting for clients. I knew, however, that opportunity alone was wanting to make myself known, and after that I had no fear.

Meanwhile sundry acquaintances, of both sexes, whose intelligence and agreeable qualities of various kinds I appreciated, demanded of me now and then an evening. There was one little circle, in particuJar, in which I loved to visit; so quiet and domestic and social was it. One of the favorite family was several years my junior, with a most remarkable spirit of inquiry after knowledge, a loveliness of disposition, and a pshaw! I loved her, and that was enough. With her, what long moon-light rambles I made, and with what unchained freedom of hope did I look forward to a life of happiness! Having always considered the social affections, next to religion, the purest source of happiness, and having now found one on whom my affections

could centre, and would centre, there seemed given me a definite object of effort-a distinct purpose to accomplish, which was the aim of my every action, and which my conscience united with my choice in approving. Youth is said to be the reign of love, and middle life the age of ambition; but in my own case, the two principles were so interwoven, that they could not be analyzed, and I was governed conjointly by the tyrants of the two different periods of life.

I had been out under the balmy influences of a summer twilight and evening, with my young friend, and was returning slowly homeward with her, along the Beacon Mall, when, just as I had concluded painting a very pretty airy castle, in which she was the conspicuous figure, a form stepped suddenly from behind one of the trees, and, as it hurried by us, uttered, in a voice familiar and terrible to my ear, the simple word "Fool!" We both started at the suddenness of the occurrence, and both laughed heartily, (for even then I could so far rein in my emotions as to make alarm assume the shape of amusement) at its singularity. I dreaded parting from her that night, for I knew that he would meet me on my return, and that one emphatic monosyllable had taught me what to expect from him. However, bracing myself up to the task, and entrenching myself in strength of purpose and principle,

I left her and met him.

"I called you fool, and are you not such? With the steep hill of your profession to climb; which friends and fortune are absolutely necessary to make smooth, and which, with their aid, under common circumstances is nearly inaccessible, why have you fettered yourself with an engagement that makes your progress towards success doubly difficult? Why have you chained yourself down to the sphere in which you now move, instead of awaiting the time when you could choose from the highest circles of rank and wealth?" "Your pre

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mises," replied I, are false. Success in my profession must come— not from undeserved friendship-but from my own efforts and merit. If I have talent, I shall succeed at all events; if I have not, not all the friends in the universe could give me that success which I covet. If my path toward fortune be somewhat lengthened, by my attachment to one who has every thing but that to admire, it is most surely made more delightful;-nay, the final attainment, by honorable means, of fortune, is more certain;-for, as results correspond to greatness of efforts, and effort is measured by motive,-the stronger and pleasanter the motives, the stronger, more persevering and more successful will be the exertions."

"Argued like a lover. But if your ambition tower as high as formerly, you will need immense fortune to bear you onward; and the time which you have to spend in the accomplishment of subsidiary objects, if there be a means of saving it, is time thrown away; is so much subtracted from the probability of ultimate success. Your talents will enable you to command in matrimonial alliance the fortune which you need to reach your final object of aspiration. Leave then the boyish admiration of beauty,-the childish sentiment which sacrifices the substance for the shadows of life; be manly in action, shrewd and cool and calculating in principle and practice; take every measure to aid you forward in the bright and ascending path of your ambition; act, in short, like yourself. Do not let the inflamed imagination

which builds its castles on the inspirations of a fortuneless girl, lead you to self-sacrifice; but tear yourself from the siren who fascinates, and go forward boldly to success and eminence !"

"And leave my path strewed with the wreck of innocent and confiding affection; decorated with violated principles and broken hearts; while I am propelled by the remembrance of the misery I have caused, and the vengeance which slumbers awhile for me in the retributions of Providence! No! thank Heaven, my ambition is the ambition of social enjoyment; of producing happiness; of doing good; of making my fellow men rejoice that I am their brother; of a clear conscience. Thank Heaven, I have mind enough to appreciate the beauties of intellect, though ungilded by fortune; and heart enough to love moral excellence, though it shine not in wealth; and principle enough to make me adhere to the one whose affections I have sought and found; and whom, in joy or in sorrow, in calamity or good fortune, in youth or age, I know will be constant and true."

He detained me no longer in argument than to find me immoveably resolved on pursuing the course I had chosen, and then left me for the time. Again and again have I met him-but never under circumstances which gave me the least hope of discovering his real motives for thus persecuting me, or the secret of his power over my feelings. Should this meet his eye, he may laugh at the tortures which I confess he has inflicted; but let him also read my defiance of his extremest malice. NOEL.

RARE BEASTS.

Is it possible that no one in these parts has seen a Gopher? I have seen a thousand; and some other animals, too, that are not to be found in New-England; not even in Greenwood's Museum. I cannot bring them to you, reader, and, therefore, I must e'en carry you, in imagination, to them. Suppose yourself mounted on a good horse, and riding at my side, somewhere between the Mississippi and the Missouri, in about forty-four degrees, with a good rifle in your hand. ""T is but Fancy's sketch."

Let us ascend that hillock and look abroad upon the prairie. Did you think there was so much beef in the world? The land is alive with the creatures that naturalists call Bisons, but which we hunters call Buffaloes. There are, at least, twenty thousand in that herd. Hark, what a thundering noise they make! They do not bellow so in other seasons, but this is their May.

Look at that noble bull approaching. We have disturbed him, and he comes to reconnoitre. Fear not, he will not attack us; at any other time he would have made his escape at once. His beard might shame a Janizary; his head would be a treasure to a periwig-maker; the hair is so thick that you see no part of his physiognomy but his nose, his eyes, and the tips of his short, strong, black horns. Satan could not look more savage. Your horse trembles, and so should I, if I did not know the nature of the beast. Give him a shot. Ah, block

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