GEMS FROM LATE READINGS.

BY E. L. BULWER.

The soul really grand is only tested in its errors. As we know the true might of the intellect by the rich resources and patient strength with which it redeems a failure, so do we prove the elevation of the soul by its courageous return into light—its instinctive rebound into higher air—after some error that has darked its vision and soiled its plumes.

BY G. H. BOKER.

You tread on dangerous ground,

A mental bog that quakes beneath your feet.

These words would seem to come from humbleness,

And low opinion of yourself and man,

Yet are engendered by the rankest pride,

Arrayed in robes of meek humility—

Stop! the next step is infidelity!

Contempt for man begets contempt for God;

He who hates man, must scorn the source of man,

And challenge, as unwise, his awful Maker.

The next step, doubt—and then comes unbelief;

Last, you raise man above all else beside,

And make him chiefest in the universe.

So, from a self-contempt grows impious pride,

Which swells your first-thought pigmy to a giant,

And gives the puffed up atom fancied sway.

God is! Philosophy here ends her flight!

This is the height and term of human reason;

A fact that, like the whirling Norway pool,

Draws to its centre all things, swallows all.

How can you know God’s nature to Himself?

How learn His purpose in creating man?

Enough for you to know that here you are—

A thought of God made manifest on earth.

Ah, yet His voice is heard within the heart,

Faint, but oracular, it whispers there;

Follow that voice, love all, and trust to Him.

BY MRS. D. ELLEN GODMAN.

I never see a fairy girl, with health’s glow upon her cheek, and love’s light in her beaming eye; I never hear her silvery laugh, and listen to the echo of her sweet voice, but I think of the darkness of coming years. I have seen so many a beautiful thing wither and fall to the grave; I have watched the overthrow of so many earthly schemes, and noted the death of so many earthly hopes, that I tremble for the trusting, warm heart, which I know must ere long bleed over some faded dream or withered idol. I have stood by the low, calm resting-place of age, where the aged man, with his snowy locks, was sweetly sleeping; but I shed no tear over his fate. For must it not be pleasant, after a long life of care and toil, and it may be of suffering, to lie down at last in the grave, to bid adieu to a changing world, and welcome the joys of everlasting life? But my tears have watered the fresh sod beneath which slumbered the young, the gay, the beautiful. I have wept, Heaven knows how bitterly, over the blighting of youthful loveliness—over the faded wreath of earthly love. But amid all the gloom, all the decay around, there comes a soft, sweet whisper—a low, gentle breathing, as from an angel’s lips, soothing the heart, and pouring into the bleeding bosom the balm of consolation.

The following beautiful poem is taken from a volume recently published in London, entitled, “Poems by a Sempstress,” and has never been reprinted in this country. It possesses great merits, and if the authorship be authentic, is certainly a remarkable production.

THE DREAMER.

Not in the laughing bowers,

Where, by green twining arms, a pleasant shade,

A summer-noon is made;

And where swift-footed hours

Steal the rich breath of the enamored flowers;

Dream I—nor where the golden glories be,

At sunset paving o’er the flowing sea,

And to pure eyes the faculty is giv’n

To trace the smooth ascent from earth to heaven.

Not on the couch of ease,

With all appliances of joys at hand;

Soft light, sweet fragrance, beauty at command,

Viands that might a god-like palate please,

And music’s soul-creative ecstasies;

Dream I—nor gloating o’er a wide estate,

Till the full, self-complacent heart, elate,

Well satisfied with bliss of mortal birth,

Sighs for an immortality on earth:

But where the incessant din

Of iron hands, and roar of brazen throats,

Join their unmingling notes;

While the long summer day is pouring in,

Till day is done, and darkness doth begin;

Dream I—or in the corner where I lie,

On winter nights, just covered from the sky;

Such is my fate, and barren as it seem,

Yet, thou blind soulless scorner! yet, I dream.

And, yet, I dream—

Dream what, were man more just, I might have been!

How strong, how fair, how kindly and serene,

Glowing of heart, and glorious of mien,

The conscious crown to Nature’s blissful scene;

In just and equal brotherhood to glean,

With all mankind, exhaustless pleasure keen:

Such is my dream.

And, yet, I dream—

I, the despised of fortune, lift mine eye,

Bright with the lustre of integrity,

In unappealing wretchedness on high,

And the last rage of destiny defy;

Resolved, alone to live—alone to die,

Nor swell the tide of human misery.

And, yet, I dream—

Dream of a sleep where dreams no more shall come;

My last, my first, my only welcome home!

Rest, unbeheld since life’s beginning stage,

Sole remnant of my glorious heritage

Unalienable, I shall find thee yet,

And in thy soft embrace, the past forget!

Thus do I dream.

BY JOHN KEATS.

MILTON AND WORDSWORTH.

From “Life and Literary Remains of Keats,” by R. M. Milnes.

With your patience, I will return to Wordsworth—whether or no he has an extended vision or a circumscribed grandeur—whether he is an eagle in his nest or on the wing; and, to be more explicit, and to show you how tall I stand by the giant, I will put down a simile of human life, as far as I now perceive it; that is, to the point to which I say we both have arrived at. Well, I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me. The first we step into we call the infant or thoughtless chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think. We remain there a long while, and notwithstanding the doors of the second chamber remain wide open, showing a bright appearance, we care not to hasten to it, but are, at length, imperceptibly impelled by the awakening of the thinking principle within us. We no sooner get into the second chamber, which I shall call the chamber of maiden-thought, than we become intoxicated with the light and the atmosphere. We see nothing but pleasant wonders, and think of delaying there for ever in delight. However, among the effects this breathing is father of, is that tremendous one of sharpening one’s vision into the heart and nature of man, of convincing one’s nerves that the world is full of misery and heart-break, pain, sickness, and oppression; whereby this chamber of maiden-thought becomes gradually darkened, and at the same time, on all sides of it, many doors are set open—but all dark—all leading to dark passages. We see not the balance of good and evil; we are in a mist, we are in that state, we feel the “Burden of the Mystery.” To this point was Wordsworth come, as far as I can conceive, when he wrote “Tintern Abbey,” and it seems to me that his genius is explorative of those dark passages. Now if we live, and go on thinking, we too shall explore them. He is a genius and superior [to] us, in so far as he can, more than we, make discoveries and shed a light in them. Here I must think Wordsworth is deeper than Milton, though I think it has depended more upon the general and gregarious advance of intellect than individual greatness of mind. From the “Paradise Lost,” and the other works of Milton, I hope it is not too presuming, even between ourselves, to say, that his philosophy, human and divine, may be tolerably understood by one not much advanced in years. In his time, Englishmen were just emancipated from a great superstition, and men had got hold of certain points and resting-places in reasoning which were too newly born to be doubted, and too much opposed by the rest of Europe, not to be thought ethereal and authentically divine. Who could gainsay his ideas on virtue, vice, and chastity, in “Comus,” just at the time of the dismissal of a hundred social disgraces? Who would not rest satisfied with his hintings at good and evil in his “Paradise Lost,” when just free from the inquisition and burning in Smithfield? The Reformation produced such immediate and great benefits, that Protestantism was considered under the immediate eye of heaven, and its own remaining dogmas and superstitions then, as it were, regenerated, constituted those resting-places and seeming sure points of reasoning. From what I have mentioned, Milton, whatever he may have thought in the sequel, appears to have been content with these by his writings. He did not think with the human heart as Wordsworth has done; yet Milton, as a philosopher, had surely as great powers as Wordsworth. What is then to be inferred? Oh! many things: it proves there is really a grand march of intellect; it proves that a mighty Providence subdues the mightiest minds to the service of the time being, whether it be in human knowledge or religion.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “MARY BARTON.”

The woes that cannot in any earthly way be escaped, are those that admit least earthly comforting. Of all trite, worn-out, hollow-mockeries of comfort that were ever uttered by people who will not take the trouble of sympathizing with others, the one I dislike the most is the exhortation not to grieve over an event, “for it cannot be helped.” Do you think, if I could help it, I would sit still, content to mourn? Do you not believe that as long as hope remained I would be up and doing? I mourn because what has occurred cannot be helped. The reason you give me for not grieving, is the very and sole reason of my grief. Give me nobler and higher reasons for enduring meekly what my father sees fit to send, and I will try earnestly and faithfully to be patient. But mock me not, or any other mourner, with the speech, “Do not grieve, for it cannot be helped. It is past remedy.”

What a single word can do!

Thrilling all the heart-strings through,

Calling forth fond memories,

Raining round hope’s melodies,

Steeping all in one bright hue—

What a single word can do!

What a single word can do!

Making life seem all untrue,

Driving joy and hope away,

Leaving not one cheering ray,

Blighting every flower that grew—

What a single word can do!

BY G. P. R. JAMES.

There are certain classes of passions and vices which people often find an excuse for indulging by persuading themselves that they are invariably connected with some great or noble feeling. Now, of this character is revenge, which men are apt to fancy must be the offspring of a generous and vehement heart, and a fine, determined, and sensitive mind. But this is a mistake. Revenge, in the abstract, is merely a prolongation throughout a greater space of time, of that base selfishness which leads us to feel a momentary impulse to strike any thing that hurts or pains us either mentally or corporeally; and the more brutal, and animal, and beast-like be the character of the person, the greater will be his disposition to revenge. But we must speak one moment upon its modifications. Revenge always proceeds either from a sense of real injury, or a feeling of wounded vanity. It seldom, however, arises from any real injury; and when it does, it would (if possible to justify it at all,) be more justifiable; but in this modification, a corrective is often found in the great mover of man’s heart, and vanity itself whispers, it will seem nobler and more generous to forgive. The more ordinary species of revenge, however, and the more filthy, is that which proceeds from wounded vanity—when our pride or our conceit has been greatly hurt—not alone in the eyes of the world, but in our own eyes—when the little internal idol that we have set up to worship in our hearts, has been pulled down from the throne of our idolatry, and we have been painfully shown that it is nothing but a thing of gilt wood. Then, indeed, revenge, supported by the great mover of man’s heart, instead of being corrected by it, is insatiable and everlasting. But, in all cases, instead of being connected with any great quality, it is the fruit of a narrow mind, and a vain, selfish heart.

Oh, if people would but take as much pains to do good as they take to do evil—if even the well-disposed were as zealous in beneficence, as the wicked are energetic in wrong—what a pleasant little clod this earth of ours would be for us human crickets to go chirping about from morning till night.