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he carefully drank from each segment of the rim, so that no portion of the consecrated surface should escape his touch. Inspired by a similar idea, he bestowed numberless kisses upon the bowl of his teaspoon, and the tines of his unconscious fork. Thus he drank in love, as it were, with each draught of tea, and, whereas, by reason of the expedients which I have mentioned, he neglected the solids of the meal, but perspiration starting from every pore in imbibed a most unusual quantity, it will be readily believed that when at last he rose from the table, with the his face, he was, like Solomon of old, full of love.

After tea the laborers came in from the fields to their supper, and the boys drove the cows in from pasture. John took his pail and went out to the barnyard, but no sooner had he seated himself on a three-legged stool beside a stately red cow, and the streams of milk had begun to patter upon the bottom of the pail, than Lucy and Ellen appeared at the gate, and came tripping towards him, holding their frocks so high that John, who, though one of the most modest young men in the worldas I have said before-was, after all, no hermit, could not help again observing the fashion of Lucy's dainty ankles.

The red cow pricked up her ears, stopped chewing her cud, and gazed steadfastly at the unwonted visitors.

"So, so, boss!" said John soothingly. "Stand still, now."

"Oh! oh! that's Cherry !" cried Lucy; "Cherry, my own heifer, that I taught to drink out of a pail when she was a little speck of a calf! I've helped to milk her many a time. Let me try now, cousin John, to see whether I've forgotten how!"

"I wouldn't, Lucy, you'll spoil your nice dress;" remarked prudent little Ellen.

"And soil your hands," added John, looking at Lucy's white, taper fingers, sparkling, like every school girl's just returned home, with many keepsake rings; and as Cherry herself remonstrated with an angry toss of the head, and a start forward that came near upsetting the milk-pail, Lucy was forced to relinquish the attempt. So she contented herself with looking on, standing with Ellen as near to John as Cherry would permit, and talking with him while he continued his task.

"Cherry is like all the rest of the

world," said Lucy, pouting in the most bewitching manner. "She forgets her friends after a little time of absence."

"They've only just taken away her calf," said Ellen, "and it makes her cross, poor thing."

"She is usually very gentle," added John.

"She is my own heifer," said Lucy. "She was born on my birth-day, six years ago, and papa gave her to me for my own."

Ellen thought this circumstance a most wonderful matter, and John was conscious of an increased esteem for his favorite cow.

"When I am married, papa says I am to have Cherry as a part of my setting out," said Lucy; at which remark John's hand trembled so that he milked all over his knees.

"Maybe Cherry will be a very old cow by that time," said Ellen.

"Oh, no! I fear not," replied Lucy with a rueful laugh (if one may say so). "Dear me! Don't you think papa told me the other day, that I am to be married next Thanksgiving day!"

"To Joab Sweeny, I suppose?" said Ellen, while John held his breath and tightened his gripe on Cherry's teats.

"Yes, to cousin Joab," replied Lucy, with a shrug and grimace. "It's been a settled thing, you know, for ever so many years; and papa is set upon it. But, just to think of it-to marry my cousin! It's just as if I should marry you, John!"

John thought he could perceive a distinction, not without a difference, between the two cases; but held his peace and kept on milking.

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"I wouldn't marry Joab Sweeny for a thousand dollars," remarked Ellen; no, not for the whole world!" she added in a positive tone, after a pause. "Hush! Nelly !" murmured poor John.

"And I am sure," cried Lucy, passionately, as she remembered, with a shudder the odious, leering simper with which Joab had uttered his gallant speech, on the occasion of Andrew's wedding; "and I am sure I wouldn't, if I could help myself. God knows I don't wish to marry him, for I hate him as I do a snake. And mamma, tooI truly believe she would be glad if the match could be broken off without making papa outrageous. She never liked Aunt Axy, nor Joab either; and what papa sees to like in him is more than I can tell. Cousin John! I'll take

back what I said. Marrying Joab would not be like marrying you. I'd rather have you a thousand times!" she added, impetuously, at which John looked up from his pail for an instant, and Lucy's flashing eyes fell as they met his glance, and the glow of excitement on her cheek deepened into a crimson blush.

At this moment, Susan appeared at the gate, and delivered a message from the matrons in the house, admonishing the young ladies of the lateness of the hour, and that the dew was beginning to fall. So Lucy bade John good-night, and gave Cherry a timid pat on the side, which the ungrateful brute resented with a whisk of her tail that knocked John's hat over his eyes, and effectually prevented his watching Lucy's retreat, as she ran laughing towards the gate.

The most trivial circumstance sometimes has a momentous influence upon the destinies of men and of nations. I cannot stop here to cite instances of this truth; and, indeed, it would be needless, for everybody knows that it is so. Now, if it had not been for the untying of the knot of Susan's garter, I verily believe that Lucy Manners would have been to-day Mrs. Deacon Joab Sweeny. For, as Susan was crossing the yard, while on her way to do the errand wherewith she was charged, she suddenly felt her garter slip. So, first having glanced quickly about in every direction, lest some of the men might be within eye-shot, she stooped, and modestly lifting her skirts, tightened the piece of listing that encircled her plump and shapely limb, and went upon her way. But the brief delay caused by this lucky accident gave Lucy time to reply to Ellen, as is hereinbefore set forth. If that reply had never been uttered, or if Lucy and John had not exchanged glances in the way I have just described.-But I must not anticipate. I fear I shall never learn to tell a story according to the rules of the art.

When, that night, John went up into his little chamber in the attic of the widow's gable-roofed cottage, there was not, I am very sure, in any one of the United States of America, a young man more thoroughly in love than he. Though he was a plain, unsophisticated young farmer, bred in the wilds of the Genesee country, and unaccustomed to read novels and romances, or the poetry of my Lord Byron, I dare take it upon

myself to say that, throughout the length and breadth of the Republic, there was not a dry-goods clerk or eke a college student more intensely or heartily in love. Instead, therefore, of going straight to bed, as was his habit at this busy season of the year, or, as was sometimes his wont, when not too weary with the toils of the day-sitting down by the side of his table to read awhile until he grew sleepy, he at once blew out his light, drew the curtain of his narrow, eight-paned, dormer window, and seated himself beside it, on the foot of his humble bed. For awhile, the tumult of his thoughts was too violent to permit reflection. The blissful consciousness of being so entirely in love filled his soul completely. The accustomed sway of reason was suspended. Once only in a lifetime does the lover experience the delicious emotions with which John Dashleigh was overwhelmed. After the. first passionate ecstasy of new-born love, came doubts, and fears, and jealousies. The lustre of the new life becomes dimmed, like the brightness of metal. Once only in a man's life, then, is he completely happy, happy without alloy, when, forgetting the fear of misfortune, pain, and disease, and the ever-present dread of death, he remembers only that the world contains the beloved one, and so is better and brighter than even the abodes of the angels.

John's nerves had not yet ceased to thrill with the rapture of Lucy's kiss, and once he was at the pains even to re-light his candle, and go to the little looking-glass that hung against the chimney, where he gazed for the space of five minutes at the reflection of his own lips, which, that day, had met those of his cousin Lucy in that memorable salute. Then he again put out his candle and resumed his post at the window. There was a light in one of the chambers of the big house over the way. It shone in Lucy's room, and on the muslin curtains of the window he could perceive the shadow of a slight form, which sometimes seemed to move about the room, and then anon, for awhile, would stand at rest. He could even guess, with great precision, what, from time to time, Lucy was doing. Now he felt convinced that she was standing at the mirror, arranging her hair. After that, it was evident that she was tying on her night-cap. Presently, she came to the window, and, drawing the curtain

a little to one side, peeped out, while John, watching intently, forgot even to breathe, and came very near breaking a pane of glass with his nose. Then, careless girl, she went into her closet with the candle, as the glimmer through the curtain testified. If she should drop a spark there, and in the dead hours of the night the house should burst forth in flames, John thought how he would rush through the blazing windows, and bear the dear incendiary forth in safety, or perish with her in his arms. Then, for a brief space, the light burned steadily upon the table, and the shadow did not fall upon the curtain. Lucy was, doubtless, kneeling at her prayers. At last, she rose, peeped once more from the window, so that John was sure he caught a glimpse of one cheek, and the ruffle of her nightcap, and the next moment all was dark.

It was a warm and balmy spring night. The gentle breeze, laden with the fragrance of lilac shrubs and blossoming orchards, seemed like the very breath of May, as it stirred the leaves of the big buttonwoods with a quiet, whispering rustle. The frogs in the river piped a melodious treble, and the roar of the mill-dam in the gorge came down upon the wind, softened to a deep undertone of harmonious bass. The plaintive notes of a whip-poor-will sounded faintly in the distance. There was a soft glow in the sky beyond the eastern hills, that announced the rising of the moon.

John was not insensible to the gentle influence of the time. The fever of his excitement abated. He was able to think with comparative calmness, to reason with himself concerning the state of his feelings, and to form resolutions and plans with respect to his future conduct. It was a grave question that he presently put to himself; and three long midnight hours did he give to its consideration. Seated upon the foot of his bed, with the moonlight streaming in on his pale face, he pondered whether it was his duty to crush the sweet hopes that so lately had sprung up in his heart, and with them crush the heart in which they grew withal.

Easy as it may seem to write or to read about it, this was. nevertheless,

stern and terrible trial, for the result was at times very doubtful, and upon that result, John knew, depended his hopes of earthly happiness. Had his conscience, sitting in judgment, decided against his inclination, the decree would have been executed.

The conclusion to which he at last arrived, as the stroke of one, from Walbury steeple, came vibrating through the silent air, he expressed aloud. "If she loved him," said he, CC or even regarded him with indifference, I wouldn't try to thwart the will of my good, kind uncle, in the matter of his long cherished plan. I would tell him all; leave my mother and sister to his care; and never return until I could endure the misery of seeing Lucy the wife of another man. But she does not love him; she even dislikes, hates him. And who can wonder at it? To think of her being the wife of such a fellow! She never could be happy! He hasn't heart enough to love her; and I-I have loved her from childhood. When I first met her in Hartford, the reason why I did not know her was, that I had cherished the image of her, as I had seen her last, so faithfully. But my heart knew its mistress! Then I struggled to overcome what I deemed to be a hopeless passion. But now I cannot believe that duty and honor require me to forego the effort to win that without which I can never be happy. So help me God, then, I will win her if I can-though I serve for her fourteen years, as Jacob did for Rachel!"

Having thus settled the matter in his own mind, John looked out of the window to see if all was safe across the way, and then, discerning no signs of danger, he quickly undressed himself and went to bed, and in spite of his passion he was fast asleep in ten minutes afterwards.

So it came to pass, that the next Sunday night, when young Joab Sweeny went down to call upon his cousin Lucy, and to open his courting campaign, by repeating to his intended bride certain speeches and sayings which his mother had instructed him were proper and pertinent to the occasion, he had. without suspecting it, a most dangerous and determined rival.

(To be continued.)

EDITORIAL NOTES.

LITERATURE.

AMERICAN.-We

confess to considerable pride, in the fact that our Monthly, though still in the bloom and freshness of her youth, is already the nursing mother of a goodly family of children. One after another they have gone forth from her maternal care, into the struggling world, to set up for themselves, and acquire, if they can, a respectable position. Nor have their efforts been wholly unavailing. The first of the flock, it is true, was somewhat of an erratic genius, and devoted himself with too much enthusiasm-honest, however-to the cause of a certain "Lost Bourbon," who was supposed to have straggled off into the woods, and was afterwards actually picked up among the Caughnewaga Indians; but his success was unequivocal while he lived, and many sincere weepers have mourned his untimely death. His eldest sister, the lively and ingenuous "Mrs. Potiphar," was of a more worldly turn, and contrived, by her agreeable manners and graceful wit, to win a friendly welcome into all the first mansions of the Fifth avenue, as well as into several very quiet country homes. The third, the student of the Family, a "Shakespeare's Scholar," as he was modestly named, after establishing an intimacy in the most cultivated circles of his own land, went abroad, to make a tour of Europe, where he is now domiciled among the eminent literary critics, as an especial favorite. He has just been followed by a brother of more rollicking disposition-the one who went to Spain, and now talks so pleasantly of Cosas de Espana-and is destined, as we have elsewhere intimated, to shake the cobwebs from the ribs of all who manage to get into a chat with him. The youngest of the tribe is named "Israel Potter," the earnest, indomitable, free-hearted, much suffering Israel, who having just made his bow to "his Highness, the Bunker Hill Monument," is about to make a patriotic progress, like a new President, over the nation. May he be everywhere received according to his deserts!

Thus, we repeat, within the brief period of two years, no less than six of the intellectual offspring of the Monthly have gone VOL. V.-35

forth, to challenge the love and admiration of the world, or at least to conquer for themselves an independent, influential, and well-to-do place among their fellow-citizens. Nor will the "procreant bed and cradle" of their young mother refuse us other pledges of her affection. If reports be true, she promises to bless us soon with other fruits of travail. "Titbottom" is putting on his white cravat, preparatory to an introduction into society; the burlyheaded, two-fisted "Politician," who smashes Presidents and parties, with such gusto, threatens a descent into the ring :-our ever popular "Philosopher," who sets Nature in motion, may soon gather up the folds of his garments to walk abroad, to say nothing of a bevy of young poetical fledgelings, who seem eager to try their wings outside of the native homestead.

We say that we take considerable pride in these facts, because we doubt whether they are paralleled in the history of periodical literature. A good many excellent books, it is true, have been gathered out of the pages of Blackwood, and a few out of Fraser; but then Blackwood and Fraser are both patriarchs in the literary world, and have a right to a numerous progeny, whereas Putnam is a mere chicken,-scarcely more than a green and tender sproutand to have leaved and flowered so soon and so luxuriantly, shows unusual pith and vigor. In short, it is a result-to blurt out our whole vanity at once-which demonstrates two important things, firstly, that there are a good many good writers amongst us, and, secondly, that Putnam knows how to bring them out! Of course, the books to which we allude would probably have seen the light without the careful nursing of the Magazine, but could they have got so handsome a start into the world without its aid? With this ancestral pat upon the head, therefore, we wish all our children "God speed."

-We shall not take the liberty of discussing the subject involved in Mr. HENRY JAMES's Inquiry into the Nature of Evil, because we are not sure that we quite apprehend his argument; and, if we did, we do not esteem this the place for ventilating our private opinions in theology. At the same time, there is no reason why we

should not speak of it as a literary performance. It is the last of some two dozen replies, which have been made to that remarkable specimen of Calvinistic felo de se, Dr. Beecher's "Conflict of Ages," and, in many respects, it is the ablest. Mr. James, however, does not confine himself to the question as stated in Dr. Beecher's work, viz.: how God can be shown to be just in the condemnation of the sinful creature, but endeavors to show how the existence of sin itself is compatible with the Divine perfections, which he regards as a deeper and broader question. Taking for granted the fundamental or traditional truths of the Church, as the great and undeniable facts of life, i. e., the sovereignty of God, the fall and corruption of man, the need of an incarnation, and the necessity of a regenerate life, in order to the attainment of peace on earth, and bliss in heaven, he gives a new philosophy, or a new intellectual statement of those truths, founded upon Swedenborg, and more in accordance, as he supposes, with the demands of the heart and the understanding. Both the theology and philosophy of the old Church, he argues, are submerged in a gross naturalism, and until they are rescued from it, and placed on the vantage-ground of a truly spiritual perception, they will depart more and more from genuine Christianity, and lose themselves, either in the mists of a purely metaphysical, or in the bogs of animal indulgence. He refers, in proof of this danger, to the later developments of both Theology and Philosophy in Germany, which are the legitimate outgrowth or flowering of the naturalistic root, from which orthodoxy, as now interpreted, springs. With what success Mr. James has accomplished his task, the readers of his book will judge; and we leave it, therefore, to them and to the strictly religious journals to say.

We are free to confess, however, to a strong admiration of Mr. James's rhetorical endowments. He is a master of sinewy, idiomatic English, and a most fresh and graceful style. Abstract as his speculations are, from the very nature of his subject, he always contrives to invest them with a genial and lively interest. One is often conscious of reading whole pages, even without understanding them, from the simple charm of the manner. But when you do understand them, as you may

[May,

by a little study,-while the whole mind, perhaps, bristles up in almost angry opposition to his doctrines-he quite disarms your malice by the pleasant music of the words, his concealed mirth, his sweetness of temper, and his racy, smacking sincerity. In frequent passages, too, he rises into the purest eloquence, in which a robust strength is married to a stately yet easy grace. We should like to cite some of these passages, as specimens of decorous controversy, as well as of persuasive teaching, but our space will not permit.

What the generality of readers will complain of, in Mr. James, they will call a tendency to mysticism, but which, in reality, is not any obscurity in his thought, so much as a habit of too rapid generaliza tion. Entirely familiar himself with the region in which he travels, he is apt to forget that to others it is quite unknown ground. Statements, or reasonings, consequently, which are as clear to him, and to those who adopt his methods, as the noonday, lie in the twilight and shadow to other minds. Indeed, in more than one instance, we have heard his speculations denounced as meaningless, and that, too, by persons who ought to be able, if they are not, to follow his course of thought. We can assure all such, however, that they are full of meaning, and that if they will have the patience to take up the links of association, sometimes inadvertently dropped out between two important assertions, they will discover that his movements are wholly logical, not leaps, as they appear, but regular progressions. At the same time, it would be absurd to expect, that a treatise on spiritual religion, which is a matter of inward experience and life, and not of formal logic, will adapt itself as readily to the understanding as a discussion in natural sciences, or an essay on the belles lettres.

In remarking, that we should leave the doctrines of Mr. James to the strictly religious periodicals, we meant to suggest that we should like to see him thoroughly reviewed. We have a curiosity to see in what way so vigorous and trenchant an opponent of the orthodox formulas is to be met. It is clear, that a book of such manifest vitality and talent should not be wholly ignored. It will make a profound impression among earnest and cultivated men, many of whom have neither the time,

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