Part 17
His sixty summers--what are they in truth? By Providence peculiarly blest, With him the strong hilarity of youth Abides, despite gray hairs, a constant guest. His sun has veered a point toward the west, But light as dawn his heart is glowing yet,-- That heart the simplest, gentlest, kindliest, best, Where truth and manly tenderness are met With faith and heavenward hope, the suns that never set.
HENRY TAYLOR.
DR. DODDRIDGE’S DREAM.
Dr. Doddridge was on terms of very intimate friendship with Dr. Samuel Clarke, and in religious conversation they spent many happy hours together. Among other matters, a very favorite topic was the intermediate state of the soul, and the probability that at the instant of dissolution it was not introduced into the presence of all the heavenly hosts, and the splendors around the throne of God. One evening, after a conversation of this nature, Dr. Doddridge retired to rest with his mind full of the subject discussed, and, in the ‘visions of the night,’ his ideas were shaped into the following beautiful form. He dreamed that he was at the house of a friend, when he was suddenly taken dangerously ill. By degrees he seemed to grow worse, and at last to expire. In an instant he was sensible that he exchanged the prison-house and sufferings of mortality for a state of liberty and happiness. Embodied in a splendid aerial form, he seemed to float in a region of pure light. Beneath him lay the earth; but not a glittering city or village, the forest or the sea, was visible. There was naught to be seen below save the melancholy group of friends, weeping around his lifeless remains.
Himself thrilled with delight, he was surprised at their tears, and attempted to inform them of his change; but, by some mysterious power, utterance was denied; and, as he anxiously leaned over the mourning circle, gazing fondly upon them, and struggling to speak, he rose silently upon the air; their forms became more and more distant, and gradually melted away from his sight. Reposing upon golden clouds, he found himself swiftly mounting the skies, with a venerable figure at his side guiding his mysterious movement, in whose countenance he remarked the lineaments of youth and age were blended together with an intimate harmony and majestic sweetness. They travelled through a vast region of empty space, until at length the battlements of a glorious edifice shone in the distance; and as its form rose brilliant and distinct among the far-off shadows that flitted across their path, the guide informed him, that the palace he beheld was for the present to be his mansion of rest. Gazing upon its splendor, he replied, that while on earth he had heard that eye had not seen, nor had the ear heard, nor could it enter into the heart of man to conceive, the things which God had prepared for those who love him but, notwithstanding the building to which they were then rapidly approaching was superior to anything he had ever before seen, yet its grandeur did not exceed the conceptions he had formed.
They were already at the door, and the guide, without reply, introduced him into a spacious apartment, at the extremity of which stood a table covered with a snow-white cloth, a golden cup, and a cluster of grapes, and there he said he must remain, for he would receive in a short time a visit from the Lord of the mansion, and that, during the interval before his arrival, the apartment would furnish him with sufficient entertainment and instruction. The guide vanished, and he was left alone. He began to examine the decorations of the room, and observed that the walls were adorned with a number of pictures. Upon nearer inspection, he found, to his astonishment, that they formed a complete biography of his own life. Here he saw, upon the canvas, that angels, though unseen, had ever been his familiar attendants; that, sent by God, they had sometimes preserved him from immediate peril. He beheld himself first as an infant just expiring, when his life was prolonged by an angel gently breathing into his nostrils. Most of the occurrences here delineated were perfectly familiar to his recollection, and unfolded many things which he had never before understood, and which had perplexed him with many doubts and much uneasiness. Among others, he was particularly struck with a picture in which he was represented as falling from his horse, when death would have been inevitable, had not an angel received him in his arms, and broken the force of his descent. These merciful interpositions of God filled him with joy and gratitude; and his heart overflowed with love as he surveyed in them all an exhibition of goodness and mercy far beyond all that he had imagined.
Suddenly his attention was arrested by a rap at the door. The Lord of the mansion had arrived. The door opened and he entered. So powerful and so overwhelming, and withal of such singular beauty, was his appearance, that he sank down at his feet, completely overcome by his majestic presence. His Lord gently raised him from the ground, and taking his hands led him forward to the table. He pressed with his fingers the juice of the grapes into the cup, and after having drank himself, presented it to him, saying, “This is the new wine in my Father’s kingdom.” No sooner had he partaken, than all uneasy sensations vanished. Perfect love had cast out fear, and he conversed with his Saviour as an intimate friend. Like the silver rippling of the summer sea, he heard fall from his lips the grateful approbation: “Thy labors are over; thy work is approved; rich and glorious is thy reward.” Thrilled with an unspeakable bliss, that glided into the very depth of his soul, he suddenly saw glories upon glories bursting upon his view. The Doctor awoke. Tears of rapture from this joyful interview were rolling down his cheeks. Long did the lively impressions of this charming dream remain upon his mind, and never could he speak of it without emotions of joy and tenderness.
Death can only take away the sorrowful from our affections. The flower expands; the colorless film that enveloped it falls off and perishes. We may well believe this; and, believing it, let us cease to be disquieted for their absence, who have but retired into another chamber. We are like those who have overslept the hour: when we rejoin our friends, there is only the more joyance and congratulation. Would we break a precious vase because it is as capable of containing the bitter as the sweet? No: the very things which touch us the most sensibly are those which we should be the most reluctant to forget. The noble mansion is most distinguished by the beautiful images it retains of beings passed away; and so is the noble mind.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
THE OLD PSALM-TUNE.
BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
You asked, dear friend, the other day, Why still my charméd ear Rejoiceth in uncultured tone That old psalm-tune to hear.
I’ve heard full oft, in foreign lands, The grand orchestral strain, Where music’s ancient masters live, Revealed on earth again:
Where breathing, solemn instruments, In swaying clouds of sound, Bore up the yearning, trancéd soul, Like silver wings around;--
I’ve heard in old St. Peter’s dome, When clouds of incense rise, Most ravishing the choral swell Mount upward to the skies.
And well I feel the magic power, When skilled and cultured art Its cunning webs of sweetness weaves Around the captured heart.
But yet, dear friend, though rudely sung, That old psalm-tune hath still A pulse of power beyond them all My inmost soul to thrill.
Those tones, that halting sound to you, Are not the tones I hear; But voices of the loved and lost Then meet my longing ear.
I hear my angel mother’s voice,-- Those were the words she sung; I hear my brother’s ringing tones, As once on earth they rung;
And friends that walk in white above Come round me like a cloud, And far above those earthly notes Their singing sounds aloud.
There may be discord, as you say; Those voices poorly ring; But there’s no discord in the strain Those upper spirits sing.
For they who sing are of the blest, The calm and glorified, Whose hours are one eternal rest On heaven’s sweet floating tide.
Their life is music and accord; Their souls and hearts keep time In one sweet concert with the Lord,-- One concert vast, sublime.
And through the hymns they sang on earth Sometimes a sweetness falls, On those they loved and left below, And softly homeward calls.
Bells from our own dear fatherland, Borne trembling o’er the sea-- The narrow sea that they have crossed, The shores where we shall be.
O sing, sing on! beloved souls; Sing cares and griefs to rest; Sing, till entranced we arise To join you ’mid the blest.
* * * * *
O, thus forever sing to me! O, thus forever! The green bright grass of childhood bring to me Flowing like an emerald river, And the bright blue skies above! O, sing them back as fresh as ever, Into the bosom of my love,-- The sunshine and the merriment, The unsought, evergreen content, Of that never cold time, The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went Through and through the old time!
J. R. LOWELL
THE LOST BOOKS OF LIVY.
[It is well known that all the books of the Middle Ages were written by monks, and preserved in manuscript; printing being then an unknown art. These patient scribes had plenty of leisure, and not unfrequently an eye for artistic beauty, especially in the gorgeous style. Hence many monastic manuscripts were richly illuminated, as the phrase is, with Initial Letters of silver or gold, often surrounded with quaint devices, painted in glowing tints of blue, crimson, and purple. Paper was not then invented, and parchment was scarce. Monks generally held Greeks and Romans in contempt, as heathen, and therefore did not scruple to supply themselves with writing material by erasing the productions of classic authors. Early in the nineteenth century it was announced that Signor Maio, an Italian librarian, had discovered valuable Greek and Latin fragments concealed under monkish manuscripts, and that, by chemical processes, he could remove the later writing and bring the ancient to the surface. In this way, “The Republic,” of Cicero, deemed one of his finest works, was brought out from under a Commentary of St. Augustine on the Psalms of David. Such parchments are called _Palimpsests_; from two Greek words, which signify erased and re-written. The discovery was very exciting to the scholastic world, and many learned men entered into it with absorbing interest. Several of the books of Livy’s lively and picturesque History of Rome are lost; and it was a cherished hope among scholars that they might be discovered by this new process. This explanation is necessary to help some readers to a right understanding of the following story, which is abridged and slightly varied from an English book, entitled, “Stories by an Archæologist.”]
My dear friend, Dubois d’Erville, whose talents might have rendered him remarkable in any walk of literature, allowed the whole of his faculties to be absorbed in days, nights, years of research, upon one special point of literary interest. At school, he had become imbued with a love for classic authors, which, with regard to his favorite Livy, kindled into a passion. He sought eagerly for accounts of discoveries of lost works in _palimpsest_ manuscripts. Finally, he relinquished all other objects of pursuit, and spent many years traversing Europe and Asia, visiting the public libraries and old monasteries, in search of ancient manuscripts. After a long time, when he was forgotten by family, friends, and acquaintances, he returned to Paris. Little was known of his wanderings; but there was a rumor that he formed a romantic marriage, and that his devoted wife had travelled with him among the monasteries of Asia Minor, encountering many hardships and dangers. No one but himself knew where she died.
When he returned to Paris, he brought with him an only child, a girl of nineteen. She had memorable beauty, and great intelligence; but these were less noticed than her simple manners, and tender devotion to her father, whom she almost adored. He took a suite of apartments in the third story of a house, which, before the Revolution, had been the hotel of a nobleman, and surrounded by extensive gardens. It was in the old and solitary Rue Cassette. The gardens had been let out to cow-keepers; but within the enclosure of the house remained some noble trees and flowering shrubs. These apartments had been selected by his daughter Marcelline, on account of the graceful branches of the old lime-trees, which reached close to the windows, and furnished a pleasant shade in summer, when birds chirped gayly among the green foliage. Even in winter, a robin would sometimes sing snatches of song, among the naked branches, as if in return for the crumbs which his pretty patroness never failed to place on the window-sill.
Beyond Marcelline’s chamber was a little sitting-room, and then came a rather large apartment, where Dubois pursued his studies, surrounded with piles of old vellum, and dusty and worm-eaten manuscripts of all descriptions. The floor was thus littered in all directions, except in a small semicircle near one of the windows, where an open space was preserved for a few chairs and a table.
They had but one servant, an old woman, who had been cook in Dubois’s family in the days of his boyhood, and whom he accidentally met when he returned to Paris. Old Madeleine formed a pleasant link between the present and the past. Often, when she passed through his study, he would remind her of some prank he had played in early days, and ask her if she remembered it, with such a frank, good-natured smile, that the old servant would smile too; though there was always a tinge of melancholy in her recollections of his boyish roguery. Often, when she left the room, she would shake her head, and mutter to herself, “Ah, young Monsieur Armand was so good, so kind, so gentle! Only to think that he should leave all his family and friends, and pass his life nobody knows where! Ah! it is very mysterious. And the bright, curly hair, that I used to pat with such fondness, to think that I should never see him again, till all that is left of it is a few silver locks about his temples!” She tried to gain from Marcelline some particulars about her mother; but the young girl had only a vague recollection of a form that used to press her to her heart, during journeys through strange countries, and who had long disappeared. She remembered something of a time when her father’s tall, upright figure suddenly bent under the weight of some great sorrow, from which it never rose erect again. Then, when she grew older, they lived for years in Italian cities, where there were great libraries; whence they came to Paris.
Nothing could be more delightful than the affectionate congeniality between father and daughter. Their favorite pursuits, though different, had a kind of affinity which rendered their quiet existence very pleasant. Marcelline had a taste for painting; and her father’s mania for old manuscripts furnished her with many opportunities for examining the exquisite miniatures and ornamental illuminations, with which monkish manuscripts were frequently enriched. When new manuscripts arrived, which they did almost daily, her first impulse was to examine whether they contained any illuminations worthy of note; and if so, to copy them with the utmost care and accuracy. She had thus formed a very beautiful collection, in which she felt an interest almost as enthusiastic as that of her father in his long pursuit of a treasure, which, like the horizon, seemed always in sight, but was never reached.
In the midst of the charming, harmonious routine of this little household, slight contentions would sometimes arise; but they were sure to end, like the quarrels of lovers, in a renewal of love. Sometimes a manuscript arrived which contained exquisite illuminations; but Dubois, thinking it might be a _palimpsest_, regarded the ornaments as so many abominations, concealing some treasure of classic literature. So the mediæval romance, with its matchless miniatures, and intricate borderings, glowing with gilding, purple, and crimson, would soon disappear beneath the sponge, soap, and acids of the indefatigable seeker after The Lost Books of Livy. These occasions were sad trials for Marcelline. She would beg for a week’s delay, just to copy the most beautiful of the illuminations. But if Dubois thought he could perceive traces of erasure under the gorgeous ornaments, he was as impatient as a miner who fancies he sees indications of a vein of gold. When Marcelline saw the sponge trembling in his hand, so eager to commence the work of obliteration, she would turn away with a painful sense of what seemed to her a cruel desecration. She felt that the sacrifice was due to the cause in which her father had enlisted all the energies of his life; but the ruthless destruction of all those quaint and delicately beautiful works of art caused her a pang she could not quite conceal. In spite of herself, a tear would glisten in her eye; and the moment her father perceived it, his resolution melted. He would place the manuscript in her hand, and say, “There, there, my child! a whole week if you want it; and then bring it to me, if you have quite done with it.” Then she would reply, “No, no, dear father. Your object is too important to be hindered by the whims of a foolish girl.” He would press it upon her, and she would refuse it; and as the combat of love went on, the old man’s eyes would fill with tears. Then Marcelline would give way, and take the proffered manuscript; and Dubois, with all the attentive politeness of a young lover, would arrange her desk, and her pieces of new vellum, and place the volume in a good light. Not till he had seen her fairly at work at her charming task, could he tear himself away; and then not without pressing her hand, and nodding to her, as though they were going to part for some long period. She would nod too; and then they both nodded together, smiling at their own affectionate folly, with tears glistening in their eyes. Then Dubois would go to his study, and among his heaps of manuscripts, bound and unbound, rolled or folded, he would soon be immersed in the intricacies of his old pursuit.
After a while, the even current of their happy life became varied by the visits of a third person. When old Madeleine came to live with them, Dubois often questioned her concerning the relatives and friends he had known in his boyhood. Her answer was, invariably, “Dead.” It seemed as if all the old he inquired for were dead, and all the young either dead or scattered. During one of these conversations, he said, “What has become of Uncle Debaye, who used to prophesy that I should be a member of the Academy, and one of the illustrious men of France? Ah, he was a pleasant specimen of the old bachelor and the _bon vivant_! Where is he?” “He is dead, too,” replied Madeleine; “but he did not remain an old bachelor and a _bon vivant_. He married, some two and twenty years ago, and gave up his old luxurious habits for the sake of supporting his pretty young wife. He even left off cigars and snuff, to supply her with little luxuries. She is dead, too. But they had a very pretty child, little Hyppolite, who is a young man now.” “Then it seems that I have one relative remaining,” said Dubois; “but I suppose he has gone off to America, or Australia, or somewhere.” “No, Monsieur,” rejoined Madeleine, “he is in Paris. He got a situation out by the Barrière du Trone, where he has two thousand francs a year, and apartments in the factory to live in besides. I often meet him on a Sunday, in the gardens of the Luxembourg, and many a forty sous has he given me.”
Dubois was pleased to find that he had one relative left, and Madeleine was commissioned to tell him that his father’s brother-in-law, his uncle by marriage, had returned to Paris, and would be glad to see him. The young man came soon after, and father and daughter were both pleased with their new-found kinsman. He was not very intellectual or learned; but he was lively, good-natured, and good-looking. He brought the living, moving world of the present into those secluded apartments, so entirely consecrated to the works and thoughts of ages long past. His free-and-easy conversation, without a single phrase smacking of libraries, or art-galleries, or any kind of learning, seemed a bright sparkling stream of young careless life. His uncle listened willingly to his gossiping anecdotes, told with a certain appreciation of the comic, in a clear, ringing voice, and with good-natured laughter. Hyppolite became a very welcome visitor; and, after a while, if he did not appear on the days when he was regularly expected, a shadow of disappointment was cast over the little household in the Rue Cassette.
Thus things went on for some time. Marcelline daily added to her collection of exquisite fac-similes, and her father labored diligently in the cause to which he had devoted his life. He did not obtain the result he so ardently desired; but his perseverance was not without reward. On two occasions he discovered works of great importance, in a literary point of view, covered over with a mass of old law transactions; and the sums he obtained for them enabled him greatly to increase his stock of manuscripts. He soon became so well known to all who dealt in such articles, that every new importation was offered to him, before it was shown elsewhere.
Meanwhile Marcelline received increasing pleasure from the visits of Hyppolite. She began to suspect that the trivial chat uttered in that fresh young voice, with occasional peals of ringing laughter, possessed for her a greater charm than the noble words of her father, always teeming with knowledge and interest of various kinds. She shrunk from admitting this to herself. She would not believe it, but she had an uneasy suspicion of it. As for Hyppolite, his walk of two or three miles, to visit his new-found relatives, became his greatest pleasure. He found innumerable opportunities of making the Rue Cassette the shortest cut to one or other of the distant quarters of Paris, where the business of his employers carried him, though in fact it was often miles out of his way. To gratify Marcelline’s peculiar taste, he frequently brought her ornaments cut from the pages of old illuminated manuscripts. When asked where he obtained them, he would merely laugh, and say he would bring some more soon. Dubois began to remonstrate against the barbarism of mutilating manuscripts in that way; but Hyppolite would point to the piles of manuscripts from which he had washed both ornaments and writing, and would put on such a comic look, and laugh so merrily, that his uncle could not help laughing, too.