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TEN MINUTES TOO LATE:

OR, THE MISERIES OF A FATALIST.

BY DIONYSIUS DOLORES.

ALAS! I am a man of many miseries; fated to disappointment, sorrow, and disgrace. I say fated, because my evil genius has beset me from a date anterior to the shriek of terror that I uttered on the auspicious occasion of drawing my first breath. My mother has often told me that she had prefixed the time of my birth on the 28th day of February, in the year 18—. By what mysterious calculation she arrived at this estimate of my anticipated advent, I know not, nor is it a matter of any importance to the reader; suffice it to say, my mother had fixed her heart on that day, as one that should mark upon the calendar of time the setting forth of a soul and body on their pilgrimage of mortality.

Unhappily for me, the particular month of February that my mother had fixed upon, occurred upon a leap year. Now, had she said the last day of February, instead of fixing the numeral with such rigid pertinacity, every thing would have gone well enough; but although frequently urged to change the phraseology of her prediction to that effect, she persisted that, having said the twentyeighth, she would not alter the almanac, and the twenty-eighth it should be.

In due course of time, the morning of that fatal day arrived. I shall never forget it; for, although I was not then present, its disappointments have followed me like ogres to the present time; and I verily believe they will continue to haunt me till, by the delay of either parson or undertaker, I shall be buried at last, ten minutes too late. There was a harvest of mishaps sown on that day that I shall never be able to garner, in this life at least. The morning came, and with it, the prognostic of my mother was made,

as she said, doubly sure. There was, as I have been informed, every indication that her prophecy would be fulfilled; but still the day wore away by degrees, and yet no consummation. Night arrived before my father was dispatched to summon that important auxiliary on such occasions, the M.D. of the family; and he, poor soul! had already two cases of the same nature on his tablet for that very evening; and being a man who acted upon the principle of "first come, first served," would not deviate from his rule; in consequence of which, my mother asserts, two promising youths got the start of me in the race of life. He came at last, however, just as the clock on the mantel struck twelve; and I was ushered into the world exactly ten minutes too late to fulfil the prediction of my mother.

My mother urged that the time was so near, it ought to be considered as occurring on the day that she had named; but my father was rigidly conscientious in such matters, and down I went on the Family Record, " Dionysius Dolores: born February 29th, 18-," in a large staring text. This was my first misfortune; and since I have been old enough to realize my misery, I have never had the heart to read a chapter in that old Bible, between whose rusty covers the event stands chronicled. I may not be accounted very old myself, it is true, having not yet seen my eighth birth-day; but, n'importe pas, as the Frenchmen say; I am, for all that, old enough to know myself miserable.

Before I had cut my first teeth, I was subjected to innumerable inconveniences and perils, in consequence of the tardiness of those about me. Every thing done on my

behalf came on behind time; and ten minutes to the stomach of a hungry baby, is no small grievance, I can assure you. I remember distinctly that on the first Christmas morning of which I had any conception of the visitations of Santa Claus, my brothers and sisters got ten minutes the start of me before I awoke, during which time my suspended stocking was rifled of its precious contents, and I became a dependent upon those who had stolen my portion of the annual sweets of the season, and received what they were pleased to bestow, with a sensation of ill-satisfied humility. At school, I fared no better; my evil genius clung to me, in spite of all my efforts to shake it off; that eternal "ten minutes too late" made me the scape-goat of my class; and if there was a flogging to come off, it was sure to fall on my shoulders.

I remember that on one occasion a grand festivity was in preparation among the teacher and scholars, girls and boys. I think it was about the holidays, and, in consequence of an extraordinary run of good luck, I had outstripped my classmates in our studies, and was therefore chosen to act, in concert with the smartest young lady in the female department, as the juvenile dignitaries, or presiding magnates of the occasion. My young heart was full of exultation, and I looked forward to the hour of my distinction and authority with all the palpitating eagerness of a Meccaän devotee on his pilgrimage. I had written a short but grandiloquent speech to be delivered on the occasion, and spent hour after hour with my beautiful consort, rehearsing our several and conjunctive duties. The morning of the auspicious day arrived; at 9 o'clock the queen of the festivity was to receive a crown, composed of pasteboard, wire, and artificial flowers, from my hands; the juniors of the locality were all astir at an early hour, dressed in their best suits, and my heart was palpitating with triumphant throes.

At 8 o'clock my dress for the occasion had not arrived from the tailor's. I felt uneasy, but there was time enough yet.

Half past 8, and still no dress; a servant was sent half a mile to inquire the cause of the delay. He returned, saying the dress would be sent in a few minutes. Nine o'clock came, and with it the dress. I jumped into it and hastened to the school, arriving ten minutes too late. Another had been substituted in my place, and, seeing me enter, he very coolly sent to me, to ask the loan of a copy of my speech! Vexed beyond endurance, I told him in reply that he might make his own speeches and be hanged; and, with tears streaming from my eyes, I sneaked out of the room, and hid myself at home the remainder of the day.

As I grew up towards manhood, it was my luck to become enamored of a lovely girl, whom my better fate threw in my way at least so I thought at the time; but even that eventually proved to be only another source of torment, invented by my accursed star. Having succeeded in ingratiating myself completely in her good esteem, a rival presented himself: he provoked me; I insulted him; he challenged me; I accepted; the time and place of meeting were arranged, and every thing was going on finely, when, through the laziness of my second, we were ten minutes too late in arriving at the ground. My rival had been there, waited five minutes, and left; and I had the satisfaction of seeing myself posted as a coward. The young lady heard of it, refused to see me again, and soon after married my rival.

To say that I felt like the "wandering Jew," or the "last man," would be superfluous. I could have prayed for blessings on the blow that would have taken away my life; but even in this my fixed and evil destiny was against me. I resolved to leave the place where I had been both defeated in my love and disgraced in the defeat; so, packing up my duds, I called a cab, and directed the driver to convey me to a steamboat that was about to leave for a distant city. On the road, our vehicle was brought to a stand-still by the loss of a wheel, and, in consequence of the delay

occasioned in finding another conveyance, I was ten minutes too late for the boat; a mile from the wharf, I could see her steaming away in grand style; and, to add to my mortification, the next morning's gazettes announced that she had burst her boilers, and killed almost every person on board. I could only mourn over the opportunity thus lost of escaping from life without the disagreeable necessity of committing suicide. Not long after this event, the two-penny postman handed in the following laconic note from a superannuated maiden aunt: "DEAR NEPHEW:

"The doctors say I can't live long. I shall make my will to-morrow morning; and I want you to be here at ten o'clock, that you may be remembered.

LYTTLETON BLACKSTONE.

"From your loving aunt Jerusha.
"By Attorney.
"Tuesday morning."

It was precisely ten o'clock on Wednesday morning when I received this note. The old lady, who was as rich as Croesus, had often said that she would make me her heir, and the moment had already arrived at which my presence at her bedside was demanded, for the purpose of consummating this important intention. Clapping my hat on my head wrong side foremost, and upsetting a boy in my haste, I rushed into the street, and flew toward the residence of my dying aunt. I had a mile and a half to go, and at length arrived, almost breathless, at her princely mansion up town. The will had been signed and sealed ten minutes before, and, in consequence of my apparent indifference and slight, the old lady had given the bulk of her fortune to some tenth cousin, who lived somewhere in the region of the north pole; and on my arrival she had sunk into a state of imbecility, which rendered it impossible to obtain a recognition, much less an alteration of the will; and in the course of the same day, the poor, foolish old woman was gathered to her fathers. My evil genius had evidently beset the path of the postman, and so cheated me out of a fortune, by bringing the missive ten minutes too late.

This was a sad blow to my anticipations, because, as every thing went wrong with me

in business, I had fondly looked forward to the expected bequest of my aunt as the means of fortifying myself against the most vindictive animosity, even of fate itself. I became desperate, surly, morose. I could have drunk molten lead to quench my passion, or torn an elephant piecemeal, like a chicken. I had been robbed of my mistress, my fortune, and every thing essential to happiness, by an accursed evil genius which, having fastened upon me like a vampire at my birth, was pertinaciously following me to my grave. I resolved to endure it no longer; to shake off the incubus; to rid myself of my tormentor by some desperate measures, or perish in the attempt, and thus at one stroke rid myself of my misery, and cheat the demon of his victim.

What was to be done? Ah! that was

the question which puzzled me; and while cogitating over it, my brain became cool again. What an arrant fool I was to think of contending with fate! I might as well have attempted to blow out the north star with a blank cartridge. So I concluded to grin and bear it; take the world as it goes, wind up my watch regularly, set it ten minutes ahead, and act up to time.

Ridiculous! There is no use in trying. Ten years have I struggled under this last resolution, and yet there is no change in my favor. It is destiny, fate, or whatever you choose to call it. Industry has failed to avert it; resolution is futile; philosophy cannot solve it; and time brings no relief. Therefore I resolve to strive no more. I am in the hands of evil angels, who, unseen, flit about me, and cast their diabolical shadows in my path. I am a nonentity; a passive, soulless, powerless thing, useless alike to others and myself; a mere bramble in the fair fields of nature. I have tried to live like other men, and find it impossible. I have longed for death, but in vain; and I am now firmly fixed in the belief that when the appointed hour for the grim messenger's approach arrives, he will be ten minutes too late, and I shall be compelled to live on until the final dissolution of the great globe itself.

DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN.

BY URIAH H. JUDAH.

Farewell! thy like again we may not know;
Farewell! to die untainted was thy lot;
Farewell-farewell! Although we are below,
And thou in heaven, thou shalt not be forgot.

"MOTHER, dear mother, please hand me a drink," exclaimed a beautiful little girl, as she lay in the agony of pain upon her dyingcouch, gasping and gasping for breath; and she, that afflicted one, who had watched over and kept midnight vigil through many an anxious eve around that bed of suffering, lifted-ay, lifted tremulously-to the parched and fevered lips of her only child, that by which her burning thirst could be quenched. "Thank you kindly, dear mother. Now please close the curtains, that I may be refreshed by a little sleep; for I inwardly feel that my stay on earth will be very short. But, mother, do take some rest yourself. I shall not die to-night; therefore you need not watch me so intensely. Kiss me again, and then again, and again, for 'good night; and when the morning sun shines for the last time in my window, take your accus tomed seat at my bedside."

Behold, in fancy behold the doting parent impress on the sweet and snow-like lips of her dying child, that pure and holy kiss of love which mothers alone can feel. And now she retireth to her own chamber. But could she close her eyes in the consciousness that her only child, ere many suns illuminated this inferior world, would be enclosed within the final resting-place of mortality, the tomb of childhood and of age?

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The sufferer! Nay, not thus, for the little girl is calmly resigned, and no groans escape those lips. She hath been early taught to look beyond the nothingness of earth, and well knoweth, as she gasps for breath in the feebleness of the dying hour, that angelic spirits are calling her HOME, and that the portals of heaven have opened at their bidding.

And on such a death-bed there can be no suffering, no regrets while gliding awaypassing, I should say, most beautifully into eternity. In Holy Writ there is a sweet and charming expression in regard to little children, which impresses the cultivated mind with the idea, that

"Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

One by one have the countless lights of night glided thus singly from this fallen and inferior world, and become lost to the eye of mortality; and the moon, having alike accomplished her evening task, has hied to rest in placid loveliness and tranquil beauty, cloudless and in splendor. Oh! now 'tis morn! 'tis morn! See! see! yon bright and golden harbinger of day in triumph ascends the blue and clear and sparkling sky, and the gentle air comes refreshingly through the open casement, freighted richly with the savory odors of the balmy spring, and that meek child, icy cold and snow-like pale, lies on her couch ASLEEP. The girl is dead!

Rest in peace, thou gentle spirit,
Throned above;

Souls like thine with GoD inherit
Life and love!

And thus, O Heavenly Father, do we return unto THEE, to whom it properly belongs, the spirit of childhood, in all the purity, in all the grandeur of its primitive state. Oh! 'tis sweet, 'tis more than sweet, to send it back to heaven ere the heart has

grown familiar with the paths of sin, and when the first warm sunbeam of spring sown, to garner up its bitter fruits. looks into your secluded dell, the pale violet and the white snowdrop shall bloom over your resting-place."

Death, O death! why wilt thou, ever and anon, blast the fond hopes of the doting parent, stamp thy dark signet on the marble brow of beauty, and blur the glossy tincture of the skin? See! see! thou hast shrouded my dear little friend for the cold and silent tomb, in robes of spotless white, laid the pale rose on her coffin, (emblem of innocence,) and lowered her into the earth, as the fast-flowing tears of the bereaved mother moistened the hallowed ground. Oh, yes! hallowed is the spot where repose in dreamless sleep the remains of beauty and of worth. Time, ever on the glide, (oh, how quickly it passes!) has rolled onward and onward to its eternal goal, and five years have gone to "the tomb of the Capulets," since the event herein, not eloquently, but truthfully recorded, and the good mother has been entombed in the same grave with the subject of this sketch; she sank under the intensity of grief, for her sufferings were far greater than she could bear. In a secluded spot, in the beautiful "Cemetery of the Cypress Hills," a lofty monument has been erected to the memory of the mother and her first-born. A portion of the inscription is in the following words, traced in golden letters:

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Reader, this is no fancy sketch. I have not, to wile away an idle hour, portrayed to you a tale of fiction. Death is too serious a subject to dilate on upon trivial occasions. There has been more than one mother who has gone down in sorrow to the grave, crushed in spirit, and bleeding at heart at the early departure of a beloved daughter. The contemplation of such an event is agonizing beyond description, and should summon to the breast of humanity each noble feeling of the soul, each generous sentiment of the heart. That which afflicts your neighbor to-day, and fills his manly eyes with tears, bowing him in sorrow to the earth, in humble submission to the DECREE of Heaven, to-morrow may overwhelm you, my friend, in the deepest agony of grief. The loss of an only child-THE DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN-is peculiarly distressing to those who have anticipated great joy and pleasure from the companionship of their darling child, as she increased in growth and progressed in years; and when death sips the honey from her lips, sucks away the breath of life, contracts the elasticity of her limbs, and renders motionless her fragile form, ah! then, indeed, the heart of the mother, who made her breast the pillow of her infancy, will gradually yield to despair, and soon, very soon, will she forget her troubles in that sleep which is dreamless

"By these silver lakes ye may make your bed in peace; along these peaceful valleys the hum of earth's distracting cares will never come. The sweetest zephyrs shall make music from waving boughs around your home, and the wild-bird shall pour out its requiem strain over your pillow; and the sleep of the grave.

SONNET: SOLITUDE.

BY S. F. FLINT, AN ILLINOIS LAD.

NoT in the cloistered pride of marble walls,
Where sordid Wealth his yellow visage shows,
But, distant, in dear Nature's rural halls,

Where babbling to itself the streamlet flows;
There, in some low green glen or forest shade,
Where the fringed floweret blossoms all alone,
And, waving listless in the fragrant shade,

Sighs to the katydid's low, twittering tone;
If 'twas the lightly waving bough you saw,
Know that the songster stoopeth from on high,
His small wing drooping to his clinging claw,

Scanning thee, envious, with his dewy eye;

O Solitude! such are thy simple charms, divine;
Thrice happy if those sacred charms be mine.

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