xt77h41jhn41 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt77h41jhn41/data/mets.xml Warfield, Catherine A. (Catherine Ann), 1816-1877. 1876  books b96-8-34456955 English T.B. Peterson, : Philadelphia : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Sea and shore  : a sequel to "Miriam's memoirs" / by Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield... text Sea and shore  : a sequel to "Miriam's memoirs" / by Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield... 1876 2002 true xt77h41jhn41 section xt77h41jhn41 





SEA



A ND\r 1)



S H O RE.I ,



A



         SEQUEL TO "MIRIAM'S MEMOIRS."





    BY MRS. CATHARINE A. WARFIELD.

                       AUThOr ii OF

         " THE HOUSEHOLD OF BOUVERIE,"
"MONFORT HALL," "MIRIAIM'S Ml::OIES," "HESTER       HOWARD'S TEMPTATION,"
         "A DOUBLE WEDDING; OR, HOW SHE WAS WON," ETC.







             "No fears hath she! Her giant forn&
               Majestically calm would go
               O'er wcrathful surge, through blackening storai,
               'Mfid the deep darkness, white as snow l
             So stalely her bearing, so proud her array,
             The main she will traverse forever and aye I
             Many ports shaU exult in the gleam of her mast-
             Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer, this hour is her lasi!"







                    PHILADELPHIA:
        T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS;
                306 CHESTN"UT STREET.

 


              Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by
                         T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
            In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.



MRS. C. A. WARFIELD'S                                NEW          WORKS.

         Each Book is in One Volume, Xorocco Cloth, price 1.75.

SEA AND SHORE.
      MIRIAM'S MEMOIRS.
           MONPORT HALL.
                THE HOUSEHOLD OF BO UVERIE.
                     A DO UBLE WEDDIYG; or, How She was Won.
                           HESTER HOWARD'S TEMPTATION.
                  Prom Gail Hamdlton, author of "Gala Days," etc.
  "'The Household of Bouverie ' is one of those books that pluck out all your teeth, and
then dare you to bite them. Your interest ia awakened at once in the first chapter, and
you are whirled through in a lightning-express train that leaves you no opportunity to
look at the little details ,f wood, and lawn, and river. You notice two or three little
peculiarities of style-one or two 'bits' of painting-and then you pull on your seven-
leagued boots, and away you go."
From George Ripley's Review of "The Household of Bourere " in farper'a Magazine.
"'The Household of Bouverie' betrays everywere a daring boldness of conception,
singular fertility of illustration, and a combined beauty and vigor of expression, which it
would be difficult to match in any recent works of fiction. In these days, it is somewhat
refreshing to meet with a female novel-writer like Mrs. Warfield. M ho displays in her works
the unmistakable fire of genius, however terrific its brightness."
           From Marion Harland, author of "Alone,"  Hidden Path," etc.
  "'The Household of Bouverie,' by Mrs. Warfield, is a wonderful book. I have read it
twice-the second time more carefully than the first-and I use the term 'wonderful,'
because it best expresses the feeling uppermost in my mind, both while reading and thinking
It over. As a piece of imaginative writing, I have seen nothing to equal it sinle the days of
Edgar A. Poe, and I doubt whether he could have sustained himself and the reader through
a book half the size of the ' Household of Bouverle.' I was literally hurried through it by
my intense sympathy, my devouring curiosity-It was more than Interest. I read every-
where-between the courses of the hotel-table, on the boat, in the cars-until I had
swallowed the last line. This is no common occurrence with a veteran romance reader
like myself."

  ,"- Above Books are for sale by all Booksellers at 81.75 each, or 810.60 for a complete
set of the six volumes, or copies of either one or more of the above Books, or a complete set of
the six volumes, will be sent at once, to any one, to any place, postpaid, or free of freaght,
on remitting their price in a letter to the Publishers,
                             T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
                                         i0 CUsaTNLT STUELT, UHI'LADLLIPEI&, PA.

 



"No fears hath she! Her giant form
     Majestically calm would go
  O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm,
     'Mid the deep darkness, white as snow!
  So stately her bearing, so proud her array,
     The main she will traverse forever and aye!
 Many ports shall exult in the gleam of her mast-
     Hush ! hush! thou vain dreamer, this hour is her last!"
                                    WILSON, "d Isle of Palms."



                 "Then hold her
      Strictly confined in somnbre banishment,
      And doubt not but she will ere long, full gladly,
      Her freedom purchase at the price you name."



                   " No, subtle snake!
        It is the baseness of thy selfish mind,
        Full of all guile, and cunning, and deceit,
        That severs us so far, and shall do ever."



    "Despair shall give me strength-where is the door
      Mine eyes are dark! I cannot find it now.
      O God I protect me in this awful pass ! "
                       JOANNA BAILLIE, Tragedy of " Orra."

 This page in the original text is blank.

 


  SEA AND SHORE.


         BY  MRS. C. A. WARFTELD.
    AUTHOR OF " THE HOUSEHOLD OF BOUVERIE."


                  CHAPTER I.

   IT was a calm and hazy morning of Southern summer
that on which I turned my face seaward from the " keep "
of Beauseincourt, never, I knew, to see its time-stained
walls again, save through the mirage of memory. There
is an awe almost as solemn to me in a consciousness like
this as that which attends the death-bed parting, and my
straining eye takes in its last look of a familiar scene as
it might do the ever-to-be-averted face of friendship.
   The refrain of Poe's even then celebrated poem was
ringing through my brain on that sultry August day,
I remember, like a tolling bell, as I looked ray last on the
gloomy abode of the La Vignes; but I only said aloud,
in answer to the sympathizing glances of one who sat
before ine-the gentle and quiet Marion-who had sud-
denly determined to accompany me to Savannah, nerved
with unwonted impulse:
   "Madame de Stael was right when she said that
'nevermore ' was the saddest and most expressive word
in the English tongue " (so harsh to her ears, usually).
"I think she called it the sweetest, too, in sound; but to
                                      (21)

 
SEA AND SHORE.



me it is simply the most sorrowful, a knell of doom, and
it fills my soul to-day to overflowing, for ' never, never
more' shall I look on Beauseincourt 1 "
   "You cannot tell, Miss Harz, what time may do; you
may still return to visit us in our retirement, you and
Captain Wentworth," urged Marion, gently, leaning for
ward, as she spoke, to take my hand in hers.
   " ' Time the tomb-builder'" fell from my lips ere
they were aware. " That is a grand thought-one that I
saw lately in a Western poem, the New-Year's address of
a young editor of Kentucky called Prentice. Is it not
splendid, Marion  "
   " Very awful, rather," she responded, with a faint
shudder. " Time the 'Icomforter,' let us say, instead, Miss
Miriam-Time the 'v eil-spreader.'"
   "Why, Marion, you are quite poetic to-day, quite
Greek! That is a sweet and tender saying of yours, and
I shall garner it. I stand reproved, my child. All hon-
or to Time, the mYerciful, whether he builds palaces or
tombs ! but none the less do I reverence my young poet
for that stupendous utterance of his soul. I shall watch
the flight of that eaglet of the West with interest from
this hour! May he aspire ! "
   "Not if he is a Jackson Democrat" broke in the
usually gentle Alice Durand, fired with a ready defiance
of all heterodox policy, common, if not peculiar, to that
region.
   " Oh, but he is not; he is a good Whig instead-a
Clay man, as we call such."
   " Not a Calhoun man, though, I suppose, so I would
not give a snap of my fingers for him or his poetry I
It is very natural, for you, Miss Harz," in a some-
what deprecating tone, "b to praise your partisans.  I



22

 

SEA AND SIJORE.



would not have you neutral if I could, it is so contempt-
ible."
    A little of the good doctor's spirit there, under all
that exterior of meekness and modesty, I saw at a glance,
and liked her none the less for it, if truth were told.
And now we were nearing the gate, with its gray-stone
pillars, on one of which, that from which the marble ball
had rolled, to hide in the grass beneath, perchance, until
the end of all, I had seen the joyous figure of Walter La
Vigne so lightly poised on the occasion of my last exodus
from Beauseincourt. A moment's pause, and the diffi-
cult, disused bolts that had once exasperated the patience
of Colonel La Vigne were drawn asunder, and the clank-
ing gates clashed behind us as we emerged from the shad-
owed domain into the glare and dust of the high-road.
   Here Major Favraud, accompanied by Duganne, await-
ed us, seated in state in his lofty, stylish swung gig (with
his tiny tiger behind), drawn tandem-wise by his high-
stepping and peerless blooded bays, Castor and Pollux.
Brothers, like the twins of Leda, they bad been bred
in the blue-grass region of Kentucky and the vicinity of
Ashland, and were worthy of their ancient pedigree, their
perfect training and classic names, the last bestowed when
he first became their owner, by Major Favraud, who,
with a touch of the whip or a turn of the hand, controlled
them to subjection, fiery coursers although they were!
   Dr. Durand, too, with his spacious and flame-lined
gig, accompanied by his son, a lad of sixteen, awaited our
arrival, and served to swell the cavalcade that wound
slowly down the dusty road, with its sandy surface and
red-clay substratum. A few young gentlemen on horse-
back completed our cortage.
   Major Favraud sat holding his ribbons gracefully in



2.J

 

SEA AND SHORE.



one gauntleted hand, while he uncovered his head with
the other, bowing suavely in his knightly fashion, as he
said:
   " Come drive with me, Miss Harz, for a while, and
let the young folks take it together."
   " Oh, no, Major Favraud; you must excuse me, in-
deed ! I feel a little languid this morning, and I should
be poor company. Besides, I cannot surrender my posi-
tion as one of the young folks yet."
   "Nay, I have something to say to you-something
very earnest. You shall be at no trouble to entertain
me; but you must not refuse a poor, sad fellow a word
of counsel and cheer. I shall think hard of you if you
decline to let me drive you a little way. Besides, the
freshness of the morning is all lost on you there. Now,
set Marion a good example, and she will, in turn, enliven
me later."
   So adjured, I consented to drive to the Fifteen-mile
House with Major Favrand, and Duganne glided into the
coach in my stead, to take my place and play vi'84-vi8 to
Sylphy, who, as usual, was selected as traveling-compan-
ion on this occasion, " to take kear of de young ladies."
   " I am so glad I have you all to myself once more,
Miss Harz I I feel now that we are fast friends again.
And I wanted to tell you, while I could speak of her,
how much my poor wife liked you. (The time will come
when I must not, dare not, you know.) But for circum-
stances, she would have urged you to become our guest,
or even in-dweller; but you know how it all was I I need
not feign any longer, nor apologize either."
   "It must have been that she saw how lovely and
Upirituelle I found her," I said, " and could not bear to be
outdone in consideration, nor to owe a debt of social



24

 
SEA AND SHORE.



gratitude. She knew so little of me. But these affini-
ties are electric sometimes, I must believe."
   "Yes, there is more of that sort of thing on earth,
perhaps, ' than is dreamed of in our philosophy '-antago-
nism and attraction are always going on among us uncon-
sciously."
   "I am inclined to believe so from my own expe.
rience," I replied, vaguely, thinking, Heaven knows, of
any thing at the moment rather than of him who sat
beside me.
   " Your mind is on Wentworth, I perceive," he said,
softly; after a short pause, "now give up your dream for
a little while and listen to this sober reality-sober to-
day, at least," he added, with a light laugh. " By-the-
way, talking of magnetism, do you know, Miss Harz, I
think you are the most universally magnetic woman I
ever saw All the men fall in love with you, and the
women don't hate you for it, either."
   " How perfectly the last assertion disproves the first !"
I replied; " but I retract, I will not, even for the sake of
a syllogism, abuse my own sex; women are never envious
except when men make them so, by casting down among
them the golden apple of admiration."
   " I know one man, at least, who never foments discord
in this way I Wentworth, from the beginning, had eyes
and ears for no one but yourself, yet I never dreamed the
drama would be enacted so speedily; I own I was as much
in the dark as anybody."
   I could not reply to this badinage, as in happier mo-
ments I might have done, but said, digressively:
   "By-the-by, while I think of it, I must put down on
my tablet the order of Mr. Vernon. He wants 'Long-
fellow's Poems,' if for sale in Savannah. He has been
permeating his brain with the ' Psalms of Life,' that have
      2



25

 

SEA A ND SHORE.



come out singly in the Knickerbocker AMagazine, until
he craves every thing that pure and noble mind has
thrown forth in the shape of a song."
   And I scribbled in my memorandum-book, for a mo-
ment, while Major Favraud mused.
   "Longfellow I" he said, at last, "Pihcebus, what a
name I " adding affectedly, " yet it seems to me, on reflec-
tion, I have heard it before. He is a Yankee, of course !
Now, do you earnestly believe a native of New England,
by descent a legitimate witch-burner, you know, can be
any thing better than a poll-parrot in the poetical line"
   "Have we not proof to the contrary, Major Favraud "
   "What proof   Metre and rhyme, I grant you-long
and short-but show me the afflatus! They make verse
with a penknife, like their wooden nutmegs. They are
perfect Chinese for ingenuity and imitation, and the re-
semblance to the real Simon-pure is very perfect -xter-
nally. But when it comes to grating the nut for negus,
we miss the aroma! "
   "Do you pretend that Bryant is not a poet in the
grain, and that the wondrous boy, Willis, was not also
' to the manner born ' Read ' Thanatopsis,' or are you
acquainted with it already  I hardly think you can be.
Read those scriptural poems."
   "A very smooth school-exercise the first, no more.
There is not a heart-beat in the whole grind. As to Wil-
lis-he failed egregiously, when he attempted to 'gild
refined gold and paint the lily,' as he did in his so-called
'Sacred Poems.' He can spin a yarn pretty well, and
coin a new word for a make-shift, amusingly, but save me
from the foil-glitter of his poetry-" I
  ' It need not for one moment be supposed that the opinions of the author
are represented through the extremist Favraud. To her Mr. Bryant stands
forth as the high-priest of American poetry.



26

 

SEA AND SHORE.



   " This is surprising! You upset all precedent. I
really wish you had not said these things. I now begin
to see the truth of what my copy-book told me long ago,
that ' evil association corrnpts good manners,' or I will
vary it and substitute ' opinions.' I must eschew your
society, in a literary way, I must indeed, Major Favraud."
   " Now comes along this strolling Longfellow minstrel,"
he continued, ignoring or not hearing my remark, " with
hi8 dreary hurdy-gurdy to cap the climax. Heavens !
what a nasal twang the whole thing has to me. Not an
original or cheerful note! ' Old Hundred' is joyful in
comparison! "
   " You shall not say that," I interrupted; "you shall
not dare to say that in my presence. It is sheer slander,
that you have caught up fromn some malignant British
review, and, like all other serpents, you are venomous in
proportion to your blindness I I am vexed with you, that
you will not see with the clear, discerning eyes God gave
you originally."
   " But I do see with them, and very discerningly, not-
withstanding your comparison. Now there is that 'Skel-
eton in Armor,' his last effusion, I believe, that you are
all making such a work over-fine-sounding thing enough,
I grant you, ingenious rhyme, and all that. But I know
where the framework came from! Old Drayton fur-
nished that in his 'Battle of Agiucourt.'"  Then in a
clear, sonorous voice, he gave some specimens of each, so
as to point the resemblance, real or imaginary.
   " You are content with mere externs in finding your
similitudes, Major Favraud! In power of thoughts beauty
of expression, what comparison is there  Drayton's verse
is poor and vapid, even mean, beside Longfellow's."
   " I grant you that. I have never for one moment dis-



27

 
SEA AND SHORE.



puted the ability of those Yankees. Their manufacturing
talents are above all praise, but when it comes to the
'God-fire,' as an old German teacher of mine used to say,
our simple Southern poets leave them all behind-' Beat
them all hollow,' would be their own expression. You
see, Miss Harz, that Cavalier blood of ours, that inspired the
old English bards, wi tell, in spite of circumstances."
   "But genius is of no rank-no blood-no clime I
What court poet of his day, Major Favraud, compared
with Robert Burns for feeling, fire, and pathos  Who
ever sung such siren strains as Moore, a simple Irishman
of low degree  No Cavalier blood there, I fancy! What
power, what beauty in the poems of Walter Scott! By-
ron was a poet in spite of his condition, not because of it.
Hear Barry Cornwall-how he stirs the blood I What
trumpet like to Campbell! What mortal voice like to
Shelley's the hybrid angel! What full orchestra sur-
passed Coleridge for harmony and brilliancy of effect
Who paints panoramas like Southey Who charms like
Wordsworth  Yet these were men of medium condi-
tion, all-I hate the conceits of Cowley, Waller, Sir John
Suckling, Carew, and the like. All of your Cavalier type,
I believe, a set of hollow pretenders mostly."
   " All this is overwhelming, I grant," bowing deferen-
tiallv. " But I return to my first idea, that Puritan
blood was not exactly fit to engender genius; and that
in the rich, careless Southern nature there lurks a vein of
undeveloped song that shall yet exonerate America from
the charge of poverty of genius, brought by the haughty
Briton! Yes, we will sing yet a mightier strain than
has ever been poured since the time of Shakespeare! and
in that good time coming weave a grander heroic poem
than any since the days of HomerI Then men's souls



28

 

SEA AND SHORE.



shall have been tried in the furnace of affliction, and
Greek meets not Greek, but Yankee. For we South-
erners only bide our time! "
   And he cut his spirited lead-horse, until it leaped for-
ward suddenly, as though to vent his excitement, and,
setting his small white teeth sternly, with an eve like a
burning coal. looked forward into space, his whole face
contracting.
   "The Southern lyre has been but lightly swept so far,
Miss Harz," he continued, a moment later, " and only
by the fingers of love; we need Bellona to give tone to
our orchestra."
   I could not forbear reciting somewhat derisively the
old couplet-
           "'Sound the trumpet, beat the drum,
             Tremble France, we come, we come I'
   "Is that the style Major Favraud " I asked. " I
remember the time when I thought these two lines the
most soul-stirring in the language-they seem very bom-
bastic now, in my maturity."
   He smiled, and said: " The time is not come for our
war-poem, and, as for love, let me give you one strain of
Pinckney's to begin with; " and, without waiting for per-
mission, he recited the beautiful " Pledge," with which
all readers are now familiar, little known then, however,
beyond the limits of the South, and entirely new to me,
beginning with-
               "I fill this cup to one made up
                  Of loveliness alone,
                A woman of her gentle sex
                  The seeming paragon "-
continuing to the end with eloquence and spirit.
   "Now, that is poetry, Miss Harz! the. real afflatus is
there; the bead on the wine; the dew on the rose; the



29

 

SEA AND SHOR1E.



bloom on the grape! Nothing wanting that constitutes
the indefinable divine thing called genius! You under-
stand my idea, of course; explanations are superfluous."
   I assented mutely, scarce knowing why I did so.
   " Now, hear another." And the woods rang with h-
clear, sonorous accents as he declaimed, a little too scan-
ningly, perhaps-too much like an enthusiastic boy:
             "Love lurks upon my lady's lip,
                His bow is figured there;
              Within her eyes his arrows sleep;
                His fetters are-her hair! "
   "I call that nothing but a bundle of conceits, Major
Favraud, mostly of the days of Charles II., of Roches-
ter himself-" interrupting him as I in turn was inter-
rupted.
   " But hear further,") and he proceeded to the end of
that marvelous ebullition of foam  and fervor, such as
celebrated the birth of Aphrodite herself-perchance in the
old Greek time; and which, despite my perverse inten-
tions. stirred me as if I had quaffed a draught of pink
champagne. Is it not, indeed, all coullkur de ro8e
Hear this bit of melody, my reader, sitting in supreme
judgment, and perhaps contempt, on your throne apart:
          'Upon her cheek the crimson ray
              By changes comes and goes,
            As rosy-hued Aurora's play
              Along the polar snows;
            Gay as the insect-bird that sips
              From scented flowers the dew-
            Pure as the snowy swan that dips
              Its wings in waters blue;
            Sweet thoughts are mirrored on her face,
              Like clouds on the calm sea,
            And every motion is a grace,
              Each word a melody '"



30

 

SEA AND SHORE.



   " Yes, that is true poetry, I acknowledge, Major Fa-
vraud," I exclaimed, not at all humbled by conviction,
though a little annoyed at the pointed manner in which
he gave (looking in my face as he did so) these conclud-
ing lines:
             "Say from what fair and sunny shore,
                Fair wanderer, dost thou rove,
              Lest what I only should adore
                I heedless think to love I "
   "The character of Pinckney's genius," I rejoined, " is,
I think, essentially like that of Praed, the last literary
phase with me-for I am geological in my poetry, and
take it in strata. But I am more generous to your South-
ern bard than you are to our glorious Longfellow! I
don't call that imitation, but coincidence, the oneness of
genius! I do not even insinuate plagiarism." My man-
ner, cool and careless, steadied his own.
   " You are right: our ' Shortfellow' was incapable of
any thing of the sort. Peace be to his ashes ! With all
his nerve and vim, he died of melancholy, I believe. As
good an end as any, however, and certainly highly respect-
able.  But you know    what Wordsworth says in his
'School-master '-
          "' If there is one that may bemoan
              His kindred laid in earth,
            The household hearts that were his own,
              It is the man of mirth.'"
   He sighed as he concluded his quotation-sighed, and
slackened the pace of his flying steeds. " But give me
something of Praed's in return," he said, rallying sudden-
ly; " is there not a pretty little thing called ' How shall
I woo her I "' glancing archly and somewhat impertinently
at me, I thought-or, perhaps, what would simply have



31

 

SEA AND SHORE



amused me in another man and mood shocked me in him,
the recent widower-widowed, too, under such peculia
and awful circumstances! I did not reflect sufficiently
perhaps, on his ignorance of many of these last.
   How I deplored his levity, which nothing could over-
come or restrain; and yet beneath which I even then
believed lay depths of anguish! How I wished that in-
fluence of mine could prevail to induce him to divide his
dual nature, " To throw away the worser part of it, and
live the purer with the better half!" But I could only
show disapprobation by the gravity of my silence.
   "So you will not give me 'How shall I woo her'
Miss Harz" a little embarrassed, I perceived, by my
manner. " I have a fancy for the title, nevertheless, not
having heard any more, and should be glad to hear the
whole poem. But you are prudish to-day, I fancy."
   "No, there is nothing in that poem, certainly, that
angels might not hear approvingly; but it would sadden
you, Major Favraud."
   " I will take the chance of that," laughing. " Come,
the poem, if you care to please your driver, and reward
his care. See how skillfully I avoided that fallen branch
-suppose I were to be spiteful, and upset you against
this stump "
   Any thing was preferable to his levity; and, as I had
warned him of the possible effect of the poem he solicited,
I could not be accused of want of consideration in recit-
ing it. Besides, he deserved the lesson, the stern lesson
that it taught.
   As this could in no way be understood by such of my
readers as are unacquainted with this little gem, I ven-
ture to give it here-exquisite, passionate utterance that
it is, though little known to fame, at least at this writing:



32

 

SEA AND SHORE.



           "'How shall I woo her I will stand
               Beside her when she sings,
            And watch her fine and fairy hand
              Flit o'er the quivering strings !
              But shall I tell her I have heard,
              Though sweet her song may be,
            A voice where every whispered word
               Was more than song to me 

          "'How shall I woo her I will gaze,
              In sad and silent trance,
            On those blue eyes whose liquid rays
              Look love in every glance.
            But shall I tell her eyes more bright,
              Though bright her own may beam,
            Will fling a deeper spell to-night
              Upon me in my dream  "I

   I hesitated. "Let me stop here, Major Favrraud, I
counsel you," I interpolated, earnestly; 'but be only re-
joined :
   "No, no! proceed, I entreat you ! it is very beautiful
-very totlching, too! " Speaking calmly, and slacking
rein, so that the grating of the wieels among the stems
of the scarlet lychni8, that grew in immense patches on
our road, might not disturb his sense of hearing, which,
by-the-way, was exquisitely nice and fastidious.
   "As you please, then;" and I continued the recita-
tion.
          "'How shall I woo her I will try
              The charms of olden time,
            And swear by earth, and sea, and sky,
              And rave in prose and rhyme-
            And I will tell her, when I bent
              My knee in other years,
            I was not half so eloquent;
              I could not speak-for tears! "
                 3

 

SEA AND SHORE.



   I watched him narrowly; the spell was working now;
the poet's hand was sweeping, with a gust of power, that
harp of a thousand strings, the wondrous human heart!
And I again pursued, in suppressed tones of heart-felt
emotion, the pathetic strain that he had evoked with an
idea of its frivolity alone:
           "'How shall I woo her I will bow
              Before the holy shrine,
            And pray the prayer, and vow the vow,
              And press her lips to mine
            And I will tell her, when she starts
              From passion's thrilling kiss,
            That memory to many hearts
              Is dearer far than bliss V"'
   It was reserved for the concluding verse to unnerve
him completely; a verse which I rendered with all the
pathos of which I was capable, with a view to its final
effect, I confess:
           "'Away! away I the chords are mute,
              The bond is rent in twain;
            You cannot wake the silent lute,
              Or clasp its links again.
            Love's toil, I know, is little cost;
              Love's perjury is light sin;
            But souls that lose what I have lost,
              What have they left to win  "'
   "What, indeed" he exclaimed, impetuously-tears
now streaming over his olive cheeks. He flung the reins
to me with a quick, convulsive motion, and covered his
face with his hands. Groans burst from his murmuring
lips, and the great deeps of sorrow gave up their secrets.
I was sorry to have so stirred him to the depths by any
act or words of mine, and yet I enjoyed the certainty of
his anguish.



34

 
SEA AND SHORE.



   I checked the horses beneath a magnolia-tree, and sat
quietly waiting for the flood of emotion to subside as for
him to take the initiative.  I had no word to say, no
consolation to offer. Nay, after consideration, rather did
I glory in his grief, which redeemed his nature in my es-
timation, though grieved in turn to have afflicted him.
For, in spite of all his faults, and my earlier prejudices,
I loved this impulsive Southron man, as Scott has it,
" right brotherly."
   At last, looking up grave, tearless, and pale, and re-
suming his reins without apology for having surrendered
them, he said, abruptly:
   " All is so vain I Such mockery now to me! She
was the sole reality of this universe to my heart! I
grapple with shadows unceasingly. There is not on the
face of this globe a more desolate wretch. You under.
stand this! You feel for me, you do not deride me! You
know how perfect, how spiritual she was! You loved her
well-I saw it in your eyes, your manner-and for that,
if nothing else, you have my heart-felt gratitude. So few
appreciated her unearthly purity. Yet, was it not strange
she should have loved a man so gross, so steeped in sen-
suous, thoughtless enjoyment-so remote from God as I
am-have ever been   But the song speaks for me"-
waving his gauntleted hand-" better than I can speak:

            "'Away I away! the chords are mute,
              The bond is rent in twain.,"
   " I shall never marry again-never! Miss Miriam, I
know now, and shall know evermore, in all its fullness,
and weariness, and bitterness, the meaning of that terri-
ble word-alone! Eternal solitude. The Robinson Cru-
soe of society. A sort of social Daniel Boone. ' Thus



35

 
SEA AND SHORE.



you must ever consider me. And yet, just think of it,
Miss Harz ! "
   " Oh, but you will not always feel so; there may come
a time of reaction." I hesitated. It was not my purpose
to encourage change.
   " No, never! never! " he interrupted, passionately;
"don't even suggest it-don't I and check me sternly if
ever I forget my grief again in frivolity of any sort in
your presence. You are a noble, sweet woman, with
breadth enough of character to make allowances for the
shortcomings of a poor, miserable man like me-trying to
cheat himself back into gayety and the interests of life.
I have sisters, but they are not like you. I wish to
Heaven they were I There is not a woman in the world
on whom I have any claimon whose shoulder I can
lean my head and take a hearty cry. And what are men
at such a season Mocking fiends, usually, the best of
them! I shall go abroad, Miss Harz. I am no anchor-
ite. You will hear of me as a gay man of the world,
perhaps; but, as to being happy, that can never be again !
The bubble of life has burst, and my existence falls flat to
the earth. Victor Favraud, that airy nothing, is scarcely
a ' local habitation and a name' now ! "
   "Let him  make a name, then," I urged. "With
militarv talents like yours, Major Favraud, the road to
distinction will soon be open to you. Our approaching
difficulties with France-_"
   "Oh, that will all be patched up, or has been, by this
time. Van Buren is a crafty but peace-loving fox I Some-
thing of an epicurean, too, in his high estate. What grim
old Jackson left half healed, he will complete the cure of.
Ah, Miss Harz, I had hoped to flesh my sword in a nobler
cause! "



36

 

SEA AND SHORE.7



   I knew what he meant. That dream of nullification
was still uppermost in his soul-dispersed, as it was,
in the eyes of all reasonable men. I shook my head.
" Thank God ! all that is over," I said, gravely, fervent-
ly; '"and my prayer to Him is that he may vouchsafe to
preserve us for evermore an unbroken peop