A CONTRAST.

BY MISS SEDGWICK.

what happens in the vegetable world, where, from the seeds deep laid in the earth's bosom, one set of productions follows another, so with him in the pro

The

THE contrasts and disparities of life beset us at every step. We are startled by them, and we try to soften the pain they produce by the reflection that the inner does not answer to the outer world, by repeat-gression of years and occasions, comes the virtue ing, as we survey the gorgeous pomps and pampering luxuries that surround one condition, "all is not gold that glitters," and saying to the "meagre lead" of the patient poor "here I choose!" And when the case is beyond this trite aphoristic comfort, our faith lays hold on the reverses of another life to solve the mysteries of this. Still there is an unsolved mystery after all that observation, reason and hope have done to aid us. The distance between man and man is frightful, even in the most favored parts of our favored country, where the institutions of government and the habits of society do what they can to equalize condition. The scale does not run quite so high nor so low here as in the old world, where art is chained to the car of the rich and high-born, and industry and ingenuity exhaust their power to satisfy wants happily unknown to us. But here some are born to affluence, to moral training and virtuous restraint, while others inherit poverty and vice, and all manner of abjectness. Some are endowed with an intelligence that ensures them progress; they are forever mounting upward on untiring wings, all life is bright to them. Others are imbecile from their births, feebly struggling, always disheartened, clogs to others and burdens to themselves. One, with strong muscles and elastic step, bounds onward, while a brother, heavily following on his crutch, gazes after him with a misty eye. One sister has an eye that can look at the sun, and another sits in darkness which the sun never enlightens, and so it goes-the shades of being are infinite.

We cannot envy those who are unconscious of these contrasts, or insensible to them; and to those who are too sensitive to them we would recommend, instead of letting their sympathies run into repining, and despondency, to convert them into means of lessening these disparities into smiles, and gentle words, and kind deeds-into the generous concession of their own privileges to the wants of others. The experiment of extracting sun-beams from cucumbers failed in the physical world, but in the moral world there is no material too stubborn to produce them, and no limit to their production-if we set about their manufacture in the right way. I made a short excursion up the Hudson, the other day, with a friend who has a kind of instinct for this manufacture. He is no political haranguer-he is no agrarian, nor transcendentalist, nor partisan of Fourier-he is not even a professor of any of the noted philanthropies, but the seeds of whatever is best in their theories were sown in his nature, and, with some resemblance to

suited to them. There is an ease and grace in his virtue that marks its origin. The arts of education produce, after all, but a clumsy imitation of that which the breath of the Almighty infuses. goodness of rule and training and effort is very serviceable, but it is but an artificial light which may go out at any moment, and, at best, enlightens but a small and limited sphere, while a ray from the central sun is ever burning and all penetrating. But it was not with the intention of eulogizing my friend that I began, but to record one of those strong contrasts in life, which we observed together. We were on our way to visit a friend, who has one of the loveliest villas on the river. We had left dear friends who were impatient for our return, and we felt that agreeable kind of self-consequence natural to those who leave behind, and go to something kinder than the kindest welcome of an inn. It was not a genial afternoon. The cold north wind came gustily down the river, threatening to blight the blossoming orchards that were now in their spring beauty along the banks, but we had plenty of coats, cloaks, and shawls, and, not caring for the caprices of the weather, we paced the deck, enjoying the freshness of the breezes, and marking the improvements on the very beautiful borders of the river. Here we observed new cottages, built with well-instructed taste, and there old ones repainted in softened colors harmonizing with green trees and gray rocks. There were various reformations and adornments that indicated the progress of landscape taste; and that art was beginning to study and follow nature. And surely she deserves such service here, where in every variety of mountain, rock, and woodland she is prepared for man's embellishment and enjoyment. An observer of the banks of the Hudson for the last three or four years, must notice a striking change and advance in its rural embellishments. The glaring white of the houses is giving place to colors healing to the eye. Instead of the hideous incongruities which money, without taste, produced in the hotelish-looking houses that seemed to have been erected to glorify the painter and glazier, we have the graceful cottage, suggesting ideas of home, peace and contentment; and, in place of the wooden-Grecian colonnades, we have edifices springing up that remind one of the light and joyous Italian villa. The landscape and flower garden are surrounding these residences, and remind us of a beautiful remark of Mr. Downing (to whom we believe is mainly owing this sudden improvement) in

his introduction to "Landscape Gardening." "As the first man was shut out from the garden," he says, "in the cultivation of which no alloy was mixed with his happiness, the desire to return to it seems to be implanted by nature more or less strongly in | every heart." Truly it seems to be Mr. Downing's blessed mission to arouse and direct this love, and he must be dull indeed who should read this gentleman's very elegant works on landscape gardening and rural architecture without feeling it to be his duty as well as happiness to embellish the patrimony Heaven has bestowed on him, whether that patrimony be a principality or a half acre. Some of these thoughts occurred to us as my friend and myself steamed up the Hudson, fenced against the too rude visitation of the winds, seeing and enjoying, going from one form of social comfort and happiness to another. And now for the "contrast" to which I have alluded. There was an Irish woman cowering down in the most sheltered place she could find on the deck. She had a teething baby in her arms, who, fevered and restless, was throwing its arms and legs out of the blanket shawl-the only comfort the poor mother seemed to possess-which she had taken from her own shoulders to wrap around the child. Her face was swollen and bound up for a growling tooth-ache, and whenever she could pacify the fretting child, her thoughts evidently reverted to herself, and she became conscious of what Burns calls

"The hell o' a' diseases."

grants from a country rightly called a "father land." The amenity and kindliness of the man's countenance attracted me. It brought to my mind many a face that had cheered me when I was a stranger in his land, where the humanities pervade all classes. But, poor fellow, he had lost the cheerful look-the sun light that beams there from prince and peasant. He looked sadly weather-stained by the adverse storms of life. The atmosphere of this foreign land is apt to be a little agueish to the poor emigrant. Our new acquaintance talked English tolerably, and, as we manifested some interest in him, he soon told us his story. There was nothing very strange or startling in it, but whoever will listen patiently to the true story of these poor seekers of a new home among us, will, we believe, cease to feel hostility to them.

Strass, for that was his name, had been bred to the trade of porcelain pipe making, as sure a trade in Germany as a shoemaker's is with us, for there every body smokes, and the pipe, being an article of general necessity as well as luxury, employs great numbers in its manufacture and vending. It is a work of fine art too; a German gentleman is as dainty in his pipe as a lady in her china. The principle of division of labor-austere in the old countries-utterly unfits persons, bred in some branches of manufacture there, for earning a living here. A poor Englishman, trained, as his father and grandfather were before him, to making the hinges of watch-cases, came here to ply his trade. The fashion of watch-cases passed away, and with it went the poor man's living. His and his progenitor's intellect, skill, and all had been worked into hinges. He could make hinges admirably, but nothing else, and this is the country for men of such flexible art as the Western genius, who was farming it one month, school-keeping the next, and, liking neither, took to engineering on board a Mississippi steamer. How soon it exploded we did not learn.

But, to return to our friend, Strass. We will let him tell his story in his own words, they being simpler and more forcible, and rather less liable to digres sion. In reply to my question (a hospitable question, let John Bull growl at it as he will) of how he liked our country, he replied-" Well-it is not home-the people are kind—but it is not home.”

She took it, however, more meekly than he did, for, instead of kicking "the wee stools owre the mickle," she merely manifested her suffering by weaving to and fro, and moaning in a low voice. Her husband bore her miseries-as husbands sometimes do their wives-philosophically. He sat at some distance from her, smoking and cracking jokes with a comrade, now and then tossing a pea-nut to the child, which the poor thing threw off loathingly. The mother did not utter an impatient word, but, casting a glance toward her husband and his boon companion, she said to me, "The men has it pleasanter traveling as the women does-don't you think so, ma'am?" But "there's a difference in men-that 's a fact," as I once heard oracularly remarked, and my friend, whose nerves vibrated smypathetically to the poor woman's, had gone in search of relief for her, and returned from the steward's stores with laudanum, camphor and what not. The kindness at least was remedial. She was pleased and grateful. As we turned from her, we observed a little pilgrim from another land, a German boy, who had crept away from his mother and was picking up the pea-nuts the sick child had rejected. The father, who had a younger child in his arms, reproved the little urchin's pilfering, and drew him back to his mother's side, a sturdy German wo-only her feelings-that's the way with young people, man, who looked rather amused than disturbed by her you know, ma'am. She offered me all she had if I would boy's misdemeanor. In this conjugal partnership, it leave my girl with her-that one there-then my only was evident the husband did not monopolize the one, but I could not. So we came-it's now three pleasant times," but took his fair part in the burden years last fall. Many a night, as I lay in the ship that of parental life. My heart warms to the German ac- brought us, I cried from night till morning, and when cent as readily as His Grace of Argyle's did to the I got a moment's sleep I was at home again, and sorry Tartan, and I involutarily approached these poor emi- | enough to wake from it—my wife has a stouter heart,

"How came you to leave your home?"

"Why, my brother had come before me, and he wrote begging me to come after him, and telling how easy a good living might be got here, and how every body was free in the United States. It was just as I had been doing seven years' soldier's duty-had been seven years away from my wife, and here I thought I would be free to follow my trade, and ask no man's leave. My mother tried to keep me, I thought it was

more than half a mile distant, for my legs moved heavily. Oh what a sight is that little far shining candle when it comes from one's own house-or a friend's house-or if it be in one's own village, or country even; but, in a strange land, it's these pleasantest home things that give us most pain, I think."

Strass paused to hush the baby, wakening in his arms, and to say he feared his little boy, John, who was picking at some flowers in my lap, tired me. I assured him that neither John nor his story tired me, and he proceeded.

"Well, ma'am, I came to the house, which looked something neater than the common farm-houses. The dew was on the honey-suckles and roses, and they smelled sweetly about the door. I felt as if the sweet scent were God's welcome, and I stopped a minute on the door step, and knocked somehow with a lighter

next room,

thank God, and she laughed at me. My only comfort was thinking of my brother, and how glad he, poor fellow, in this strange land, would be to see us— but when we got to New York he was not there. I could not speak a word of English. I got the cheapest place I could find, expecting the little money left would last me till I got into business. But I soon found that was not coming in a hurry to poor Strass. Nobody uses porcelain pipes here-they smoke in nothing but clay pipes, that cost a penny a piece-it is a pity to my mind-but there is no help for it. It was a hard winter in the city-more workers than workmy wife lying in with my second baby, that died, and I taken with a fever that came from a failing heartour little money was every day less. I would not let my wife go out begging with a basket, for I knew we should soon be ruined that way, so we kept on till spring. Then came my brother, thank God, and, find-heart. A little lad opened the door for me, and with ing me not fit for any kind of work, he said I should be a pedler. So he sent me off with a well-filled pack, and, as I could not yet speak any English, he wrote on a sheet of paper such phrases as he thought would be needful for me. I came in a steamer to Newburgh, and then struck back into the country. For three days I did well. I kept my English paper in the German bible my mother gave me, and it answered all the purpose. There was no question I had to ask or answer, my brother had not thought of. It is strange, when one only says what's necessary, how very little is wanted. It seemed to me a wild wilderness land, being used, as you, ma'am, that have seen my country, know, to seeing villages as thick as the bunches of grapes on our vines. But I tried to keep up a good heart-the people were kind, -I have always found the Yankee people so. I got my meals and lodging for a trifle, at the farm-houses, and paid out of my goods. The fourth day, I began to feel I had gone beyond my strength-I had never quite got back my health from the fever-I had no luck that day-I traveled on and on, and found few houses and fewer buyers. At night I arrived, weary and chilly, my bones aching, and my heart aching worse, at a farm-house, where there were three youngish women, and nothing of mankind about the house. They looked shy of me. I opened my pack to get out my tongue, as I called it, meaning to tell them I was not well, and to ask leave to stay there. opened the bible and the paper was gone-I emptied my pack-I shook out my goods, but no paper could be found it was gone forever. My heart sunk, I folded up my goods, and tried to make the girls understand by signs. I offered them money, a sign that is easiest understood, but it would not do. I afterward learned there had been a story in the newspaper I hope my readers will pardon Strass' oath, as I of a German murdering a whole family in New Jer- did. It seemed to burst from his lips as the name of sey, and the girls thought all Germans would do the a father at the memory of a sudden and great joy. It like-so the more I urged the more they shook their is hardly worth while to detail the farther particulars heads and pointed to the door, and when I signed to of his story. His new friend re-wrote his paper for the barn, they looked one at the other and shook their him. He had since pursued his peddling career heads more than ever-poor foolish things! So I took with moderate success, and with singular honesty, as up my pack and went tremblingly on my way. II inferred from his being now on his way to settle his soon saw a candle light from a house down in a little nook between the hills, a mile, or it might not be

such a pleasant voice bid me walk in that I understood perfectly; and when I came inside his mother, who was sitting there with her little folks, motioned to me to sit down, and, seeing that I looked pale and faint, she told her children to drag my pack into the and in five minutes she had made me a cup of tea, for the tea-kettle was waiting for her husband, and set a nice supper before me. My tears spoke my thanks plain enough—I had no need of my paper then. When my supper was finished, she opened a door from the kitchen into a little bed-room, and showed me I might sleep there. The children were like the mother-so kind. It seemed they could not do enough for me-a little girl even set a rockingchair for me, and put a cushion under my head. I should have been a new man, but that the thoughts of my lost paper weighed heavily on my mind. But surely the sight of such a family was a cure for the heart-ache, and just such a sight is not I think to be seen out of your country. A mother with six children about her, the oldest not more than ten, the youngest a baby in the cradle, living without a servant of any kind, and her house as neat as if she had a dozen of them, and she sitting down, with books and maps and pictures, instructing her children, and with a voice and manner fitting a prince's daughter. No-it's only in your country, ma'am, that the women can go from the bottom to the top of the ladder. I did what I could to please the little people-I opened my pack and showed them all that was in it. I tried to sing them a merry German song, but merry it would not be, for the morrow was before me without my paper, and I was going to bed, to worry all night about it, when the father came home. And he could speak German. By God! I was rich then!"

family in one of the western counties, at the earnest persuasion of a neighborhood which he had supplied

NEWPORT TABLEAUX.

BY MRS. FRANCES S. OSGOOD, AUTHOR OF "THE CASKET OF FATE," ETC.

"EVELINE, allow me to present my cousin, Mr. | and delighted him too, as much as if he were a second Gardner-Miss Willis, Howard."