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passion. In common with ambition, with avarice, with all the other passions, its life is fire; a fire which brightens while it burns. And in its strength lies the ridicule. Its efforts seem absurdly dispro portionate to its ends. Not that they are, but that they appear so. Every one knows for himself that there is no holier nor happier state than to love and be loved; that life has nothing like unto it; but he ceases to be himself when he mixes with the world. The communion of hearts, with all its beauty, is not tangible; it is not a thing that the world either sees or worships. Man struggling for fame, or toiling in privation for wealth, are spectacles the world witnesses at least with respect. To be famous is to be worshipped; to be rich is to be powerful. Such ends seem worthy of toil, of care, of restless nights, of any sacrifice. But to waste one healthful moment for love, is something the world, as a world, cannot understand. The sight of a full-grown giant expending all his strength to capture a shadow would not be one-half so ridiculous. If, during his efforts he stumble into a quagmire, the picture is complete.

There was a time, when by its association with deeds of lofty daring and of high renown, love-making was a popular pursuit, or rather it was a pursuit that commanded popular respect. In the days of chivalry love ruled the court, the camp, the grove.' The king and the peasant, the lord and the retainer, were all, each in his way, gallants. No knight appeared without a gage upon his lance; no page without a pledge; no squire without a token. The spirit of love reigned at the gay and costly tournament at home, and sent its influence with the soldier on the long and toilsome journey into Palestine. It was his angel in sickness and in sorrow. It cheered him in the hour of battle; and it was only when he had done his knightly devoir in the service both of GOD and his lady, that he could lie down composedly to die.

Alas! those brilliant times have passed away, and the sentiments they fostered have departed with them! The world no longer bows to the conqueror of hearts. So far from it, that in these, our days, to escape ridicule, a courtship must be conducted sub rosa. This is but natural. Love has many features provocative of mirth, that can only be subdued by associating it with something that the world reverences.

The prominent and most comical of its attributes is blindness. The earnestness with which the lover asserts the existence of mental and physical beauty in his mistress, oftentimes, in the very face of fact, has been considered fit subject for the jest, the cavil and the sneer. Many a poor fellow has witnessed the mirth of his friends, when for his life he could not see what it was about.

There is a simile in one of the letters already referred to that may serve to illustrate my meaning. I think it pretty, and written under any other circumstances, might pride myself upon it. But as it is, the pathos is too much. It is this: The future is as dull, and cold, and dark as the grave of an hundred years ago; and yet there comes a gleam of hope like twilight creeping over the tomb-stone. Is it the twilight of the morning or the night?'

Now I know that the lady to whom it was addressed can read; but that she understood, much less appreciated it, is beyond my credulity. I thank my stars that I live to edit myself. I may possibly yet die rich, and, unexplained, it is enough to break any will in Christendom. The verdict of a judicial tribunal, however delicately worded, might be comprised in the words, non compos mentis. This was not so plain to me at the time: but the world knew it, if I did not; and I dare say that the only tears ever elicited on its perusal were the result of mirth; the lady laughing at my sentiment, and the others more maliciously at its application. Can I blame them? Assuredly not; for now when I come to see it in the proper light, I am forced to laugh too; fortunate perhaps that the order is not reversed.

I refer to this case, as an instance of the strangest infatuation, and the most pitiable folly I have ever been short-sighted enough to engage in; but I cannot in fairness expect my readers to feel its humiliation as keenly as I do; and it will be well added that there is no depth of delusion love may not lead into; no contortion of sense it may not induce.

Such being the case, lovers frequently present mental attitudes as much more laughable than the physical postures of a harlequin, as the mind is more pliant and capable of subtle disposition than the body. There is no earthly power, (if we except fear and respect,) that can control the risible muscles, and men will laugh when they see any thing to laugh at. So it is very certain that until love is either looked upon as an aberration of mind, which is possible, or becomes entitled to fear or respect in some more complimentary way, which is improbable, the world will continue to be merry at its

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VOL. XXX.

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HAST ever watched a bed of blushing roses,
When here and there along the summer sky
Soft, pearly clouds were winging gaily by,
Shading the beam that on the leaf reposes,
And ever varying the beauty there,
As if wild spirits, in a merry chase,

Shook loveliness transparent on the air,
And kissed new life upon each rose's face?

E'en so the beauty of ASENTHE's cheek,
And love-lit eye, are ever varying;
And if to mark some sweetness there you seek,
Like startled bird it takes itself a wing,

While one as lovely follows to its place,
Laughs there a moment, and renews the race.

She starts to know each bright expression there,
Turns it to wonder, wonders at the change,
Till brilliant thoughts, evoked by Fancy rare,
Laden with beauty o'er her features range,
Chasing each other hastily away,

Like smiling cherubs in their wayward play.
Such living loveliness doth seem a breath

Of heaven, light-trembling on an angel wreath,
Around whose blossoms shines love's spiritual ray.

ELLENE.

EVER laughing thou art, ELLENE,
Like a sunny, warm spring-day,

And that archer eye of thine is seen

Aiming its arrows out between

The long, dark, silken fringe, that trembles
Above its cloudless ray,

And in its waving soft resembles

A mimic raven's wing at play.

Ever laughing thou art, and bright;
Like a rosy ray of western light,
A blush steals over thy cheek,
And lingers around thy lip in a smile,
As if like a bee 't would seek

To sleep in a rose's bosom awhile.

Thou hast roamed away with the morning hours,
In the dewy fields, to catch the flowers,

Ere their freshness was kissed away;

And I see bright blossoms in thy hair,
Which thou hast transferred with a roguish hand
From the bank whereon they lay,

To be half-hid by the tresses there
Wild-waving and marred by no golden band:

5

Roxbury, (Mass.)

Thou hast roamed by the brook trees, and hast heard
The song of the ever-joyous bird,

And he has filled thy heart

With happy thoughts of the gladsome earth;
And the springs of thy spirit start

With an innocent flow of waywardness
That gives to that speaking look its birth,

And thy soul with its rippling music doth bless.

Ever laughing thou art, ELLENE,

Like a sunny, clear spring-day,
And the archers of thine eye, unseen,
Are aiming their arrows out between
The lashes that o'er them play;
Those arrows are passing sharp, I ween,
Let them aim not at my heart, I pray!

THE DEAF AND THE DUMB.

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR

Loss of speech so often accompanies a lack of the hearing faculty, that deafness' and 'dumbness' have come to be employed almost as synonymous terms. At least they are so nearly allied to each other that it seems hardly proper to separate the victims of these two maladies into two distinct classes, as we would the lame and the blind, for instance. I shall, therefore, in referring to some characteristics of these our unfortunate fellow-beings, speak of them in that intimate connection by which the stern law of adversity has united them into a closer fellowship than springs from the great bond of humanity, or the ordinary ties of misfortune.

Under this general head of the deaf and dumb may be enumerated several varieties, according to the complete or partial loss of either faculty, and producing a corresponding variation of character, as the natural result of such deprivation.

First in order are those upon whom both these forms of misfortune have fallen most heavily; those who are entirely deaf and dumb. From them all communication with the outward world, by the common forms of conversation, is withheld. The flood-gates of their own souls are also shut; a barrier is opposed to all those impulsive emotions which are constantly bubbling up in an active mind, and which fall so pleasantly from a nimble tongue. It is true that the power of giving vent to their thoughts by writing is not denied them; yet how much inferior is this power, in its ordinary bestowal, to the noble gift of speech! Their substitute for conversation is but a dumb show; mere symbols of words, conveying only the outline of the thought they would express, not its depth of feeling. It is painful to witness their abortive attempts to speak, when,

after vainly striving to express themselves by signs, the struggling thought seems to rush at the closed door of speech, and demand utterance. It is not the fact that they cannot understand or speak our language which pains us; that would be simply an inconvenience; but that human beings, endowed in other respects like ourselves, should be deprived of two of the most important physical qualities-should pass through life in complete silence, unable to utter even an intelligible sound-this is indeed hard to think upon. The lack of speech in dumb animals, (as we are pleased to call them,) does not awaken our pity. They can speak; if not to us, to their own kind. We can look upon them as foreigners, whose dialect, although it may excite our curiosity, seldom stirs any deeper feeling. But the jargon of the dumb man bears with it no meaning; he has no language; and the want of it is plainly discernible in that vacant look which invests his face on the failure of an attempted expression.

There is something too in the loss of hearing which is truly sad. When we think what a glorious world of happy sounds, the lowbreathing tones of nature, the rich melody of art, the soul-entrancing music of friendly voices and fire-side notes of cheer, is forever closed against one of our number, a deep feeling of grief fills the heart. This feeling is unavoidable, nor should we wish to shun it. It is the true impulse of human sympathy and brotherly love. Yet why look only upon the dark side, when there is a brighter to which we may turn?

Adversity may be represented as a demon with grim visage and uncouth form, wrapped in a dark mantle, under whose folds lurks a cherub, with beaming eye and gentle words, soothing his rage and healing the wounds he inflicts. At his first approach we shudder, for we see nothing but his own terrors; but on a nearer view the jewel in his mantle charms our gaze, and we tread his gloomy pathway unresisting. It is an old saying that 'misfortunes seldom come singly.' It would be a truer one, that misfortune never comes alone. An attendant angel is always by its side, bearing the oil and wine of consolation; and while we writhe under the blows of the one, our wounded spirits are refreshed by the gentle ministrations of the other. So in this instance. We pity him upon whose ear no sound has ever fallen to awake pleasant echoes within his soul, or whose lips have never syllabled one human tone; yet when our ears are stunned by the clamor of a discordant world; when custom forces our unwilling lips to utter unmeaning commonplaces, to be answered by hollow echoes from the stupid blocks of fashion; we are fain to turn a half-envious eye at the poor mute, whose silence had before awakened our sympathy. We have commiserated his hard fate in being denied the delight of hearing earthly sounds, forgetting the higher harmony which mingles with all his being. We have wished for him the power of expression, that he might hold sweet converse with friends, unmindful of those holier communings with his own heart. Can we believe that an all-wise CREATOR, who has so admirably adapted the laws of our being to the external circum

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