COLLECTED BY A VALETUDINARIAN. TRAVELING this year in search of some could lose myself in the pine woods, which gave Tang lost, i, en, health, and to appease a the northern part of the country whier gave, heart disquieted by grief, I revisited an old vil- "Through the windows I might see Of the dark, deserted house." At intervals an ox team dragged its slow length along the roads, or a dilapidated chaise rumbled by, or the butcher's cart rattled on. A child, a dog, a cat sometimes made themselves visible and brightened the scene; an occasional woman, shawl wrapped, now and then appeared; and a few men, either with or without business, moved here and there; a sailor, a carpenter, the doctor, an old man with a cane, and the young gentleman of the place in a smart dress and with a preoccupied air. How well I grand, and solitary expression. Who has written better on solitude, and the pleasures of the past, than the true Parisian authors-the fops and rakes of fashion and the court? But I brought no books; indeed a bookish reminiscence was a resuscitation, for it had been months since I had read a printed page. Yes, I had chosen the right spot; neither laws nor men could trouble a solitary stranger. lage of course I knew nothing. Feeling as I did, it was no regret that my contemporaries had passed away. The very house I was in proved that every body who might have any knowledge of me was either dead or moved into some other place. It had been built and occupied by a family with which my own had been connected in a commercial way. As a child I had visited the old family. The house was worse than a ruin now, in my opinion, for it had been "fixed up" by a vulgar taste, which dictated monstrosities in form and color; scroll patterns every where in red and yellow. Happily my room, on one side of the house, had not been retouched; the old paper was on the walls, a satin gray with pink dots, and the chimney-place had not been bricked up according to modern fashion for an ugly stove. Mr. Binks was astonished at my choice of a room, and still more astonished when I proposed having a wood-fire. Nobody had wood-fires in the whole place, he insisted. I persisted; I wanted to watch the blaze, and I wanted to arrange and disarrange the sticks and brands at my own good pleasure and that of the tongs. It was already May, warm enough on sunny days to go into the pastures where the anemone was blowing-spring's earliest flower this way-Of the present generation inhabiting the villovely with its feathery foliage and tinted blossom; and the stunted blue violet, just breaking through the cold, gray sod; curious grasses also were springing up beside the rivulets and ditches, almost flower-like in form and color. I engaged a room at the lonesome hotel-with an ignominious rear and an imposing Doric or Corinthian front-which was managed by Mr. Binks, a retired stage-driver. As I settled my belongings I attempted to make myself cheerful by recalling early associations, and testing them in a philosophical crucible. However old I had grown, and whatever my past had been, surely the material universe must have remained the same as of yore, and it ought to prove a resource to the seeker. I remembered the words of a sad and sensitive writer, Châteaubriand. "It is," he said "a natural instinct of the unhappy to seek to recall visions of happiness by the remembrance of their past pleasWhen I feel my heart dried up by intercourse with other men I turn away and give a sigh of regret to the past. It is in the midst of the immense forests of America that I have tasted to the full these enchanting meditations, these secret and ineffable delights of a mind rejoicing in itself. When I have found myself alone in an ocean of forests a change took place in me. I said, 'Here there are no more roads to follow, no more towns, no narrow houses, no presidents, no republics, or kings; above all, no more laws and no more men.' ures. Though neither oak nor maple leaf was unfolded, and the boughs were thin and brown, I "A willful woman must have her way," he said; "and I expect you are sick, and maybe won't stay long." So he gave way, and made my room cheerful with birch and hickory fires, and after a little owned that it was the neatest spot in the house. "It's dreadful dull out the window here," he remarked. "A crow or a robin is all you'll see." "Swallows, and the grass, and the sky over the fields, also, Mr. Binks, and the three tall pines yonder." "Well, I'll give up! You are too much for me, marm; them 'ere pines are about as aged as any thing since the flood." All necessity for exertion being over, no demand of any sort to be made upon me, I fell into a lethargy; thought nothing and felt nothing for several days; dozed over my fire, or stared vacantly at the fields. Mr. Binks had a housekeeper; but she remained in the dark and backward abysm of the kitchen, and he waited upon me with a magisterial air which dignified the tray he brought to my door three times a day, with a kind, set little speech. "Here is your meal, marm; may you relish it! The weather is softening; the wind is milder-more favorable for invalids. Sartinly you will be round by to-morrow." At last I did get round; that is, I crept down stairs, and Mr. Binks dragged his housekeeper into the parlor to look at me. "Didn't I say so, Mary Jane? Ain't she down stairs? She hasn't died on my hands, has she?" "Mr. Binks," said Mary Jane, "always looks on the bright side of things, and you must excuse him." If he was glad to have me down stairs, he was more rejoiced to have me sit at his table. There, to my surprise, I discovered another boarder, who bore a shadowy resemblance to myself, inasmuch as she was dressed in mourning, and looked delicate and feeble. When she saw a purpose of introduction in Mr. Binks's eye, she fluttered and turned her head, but in vain. In a loud voice he said: "This is Mrs. Hobson; been with me, off and on, nigh to six years-haven't you, Mrs. Hobson?-and going all the time." "Yes, Mr. Binks," she answered, gently inclining her head toward me, with a twinkle of humor in her eyes. "Birds of a feather flock together," added Mr. Binks. "By your looks I conclude you have them 'ere mysterious complaints which make women so unaccountable. My wife was the same; first and last, she cost me a couple of hundred in patent medicines. She would try every individual one." Mrs. Hobson and I exchanged looks, and both of us laughed; the laugh melted the frost between us, and we became friends. Take her for all in all, she was the most self-contained, heroic, patient creature I ever knew. She had come to that pass in life when nothing comes from nothing; consequently she reconstructed trifles into matters which filled up the hoursthose slow serpents to people who have exhausted or lived out all illusion and enchantment. She had learned, she told me, to be more interested in a flower-pot than in a garden; to derive more satisfaction in the chairs and tables in her own room than she had formerly felt in setting up a whole house. VOL. XLII.-No. 247.-7 "Every small thing tells," she said, "when one becomes isolated; the soul comes out of it under observation. As for change, that which is good for us we have; it is in the atmosphere its storms and sunshine; in the sky-its sunrise and sunset, its trailing clouds of glory and of gloom. In the sea too-so fixed and evervarying." Mrs. Hobson never told me her history; I never asked it. Having no wish to reveal mine, why should I demand hers? Mr. Binks, uneducated as he was, and as native as an oyster to the place which gave him birth, was delicate and refined in his care of her. He told me, soon after I made her acquaintance, that if ever there was a saint upon earth, she was one; that when she died she ought to have a monument equal to Washington's; that she had come to his house in the dead of winter, accompanied by a young man he thought to be a lawyer's clerk, and a great deal of baggage. In conclusion, he said: "Mrs. Sinclair, marm, I expect you have guessed I am an inquisitive man, but I never asked Mrs. Hobson a question, and I am never going to. She is as good as gold, and as sick as Lazarus. I don't mean that she has any irruption, for she hasn't. She gives fifty dollars every New-Year's to the poor, and pays me every Saturday, reg'lar as clock-work. She has property here." When I began to ramble about the country, Mrs. Hobson accompanied me. She professed gratitude for an opening in her accustomed ways; the small area of wood and field surrounding the village she had never explored. I taught her the names and habits of wild flowers; how to gather and preserve various delicate plants, and how to watch the various and minute laws which are opened to the eye of the student in the book of Nature, which I had learned from ennui. It was "Eliza" and "Helen" between us soon. One day, when perhaps infected by my enthusiasm at the discovery in the woods of a fragrant and delicious flower, she said: “Eliza, you should have known my cousin Alicia Raymond. Of all the persons I ever knew, you might have understood and aided her. I am foolish that I have never told you the chief reason of my coming to this wild place after my widowhood. Here for some years lived, and died, a woman of genius. Behind yonder point on which stands the lighthouse is an old house, belonging to me now, where she lived. To-morrow we will go there." "Alicia Raymond! surely I have heard the name. Is she not in some literary complication-a book of the time-or literary dictionary?" "I dare say; her father, Commodore Raymond, was proud of her, and published some of her childish performances. His house was frequented by all the distinguished people of his time; but when he died she was forgotten. Talk about Chatterton and Keats-if they did not live in their lifetime, they do now, while Alicia's memory only exists in mine and that of her brother. Mr. Binks continually says, one half the world does not know how the other half lives. I say, what a mockery the life of genius is! What half of a community and borders of desolate woods; on the right, the wide bay, with distant headlands and islands uprising in the air. The waves came from afar, spent in their sounding fury, and fell knows it? What does even the nearest neigh-in soft foam round the rocks and the pale boring soul know of it ?" smooth sand. The beautiful sea-swallow hovered near us, uttering its wild cry, and the little sand birds ran fearlessly before us. Helen's passion astonished me. A hectic flush rose in her check, and she gesticulated with vehemencé. "It is all luck," she cried. "After old Brontë had lived a starving life-and God knows what his wife passed through in suffering, aspiration, and contemplation!-and after the daughters had starved every way-most of all, starved for Beauty-fame came to them. Eliza, what a tragedy was the life of Charlotte Brontë! Do you know that I have a scrap of her handwriting? She did not have paper enough to scribble on-think of that! But I am convinced, from my own experience in this narrowish way of life, where there is nothing which may be called rank, where no one possesses fortune, where all the paraphernalia of living is limited to that which supplies bread and clothing, that this gifted woman, Alicia, discerned a world of beauty and truth that made an everlasting happiness for her great soul, as did Charlotte Brontë." "No wonder she lived here, Helen!" "I knew you would like the scene; we are almost there-see!" We had turned the point now on which the light-house stood, and I saw a large old-fashioned house standing in the middle of a natural lawn; two or three cherry-trees were in front of it, and a few fir-trees, indigenous to the soil, twisted and gnarled, but vigorous, were scattered over it. Helen took a key from her pocket as we went up a little path. "How thick the butter-cups are!" she said, gayly; but I saw that she was deeply moved. "Yes," I replied; "and the woodpecker is busy also; look at the hole under the eaves by the window-frame! How rank the flags are by the granite step! the ugly things flourish every where. No matter what happens, year after year their dull yellow flowers vulgarly blow." "Year after year," she repeated, turning the "So uniform was Alicia's life that it seemed eternal till it came to an end; then it was like a vision. Come in now; you will not see bats nor owls, for after a while it became my recreation to keep the house in order. I have given it sun and air; in the summer I pass half my time here. Has it not an occupied air?” "Dear Helen, how shall we idlers be taught key and opening the door. this ideal happiness?" "As soon as we can be made to believe that what is called material or positive happiness is no more truthful or exact than that named visionary or romantic happiness." Mr. Binks, without being aware of a sense of the comic, called us a "game pair," when he met us strolling the by-roads; and so we were to the ordinary eye, for who would have guessed that any fire burned in our ashes? We were a couple of faded, middle-aged women, clad in black garments. Why should such indulge in aspirations for happiness, or the expectation of doing any farther work in this gay world? In a day or two after Helen's mention of Alicia Raymond, on a calm, sombre afternoon, we took our way toward the light-house. It was a plain common house; on one side a small parlor, on the other a large one. There was little furniture in either room. A table, a few chairs, book-cases with wide gaps in the shelves, a sofa, a desk, and some portraits on the dingy walls of literary people. I was surprised, however, to see the excellence of said portraits-Raeburn's Scott, Holmes's portrait of Byron-the one Byron himself preferred— Severn's portrait of Keats, a fine engraving of George Sand by Calomme, one of the young Mozart, one of the boy Chatterton, and a few delightful water-colors. "We will go," said Helen, simply, "to the house Alicia last lived in. She gave it to me; the spot, worthless as it is, has chained me; the ground about it is barren; nobody would think of bringing it under cultivation, for it is a mix-friend Alicia was perfectly obscure ?" ture of swamp and sandy beach; mullein, briers, sedge, and the beach pea dispute pre-eminence. Suppose, Eliza"-and Helen brightened at the thought "that you and I should occupy the house?" "Do you mean to say," I asked, "that your "But we should have to leave out the genius which has made such an impression upon you, and, I confess, upon me also. I have a lively curiosity concerning this Alicia and her surroundings." "Except to a few men and women of letters with whom she corresponded. Look over this desk, please; you may comprehend her taste. She was happy without fame, I believe." "I might take her life for a text, and preach a sermon for these crusading days, when women assume so much, and so ardently desire that every assumption should be made public." "Do so, if you dare. Every day of Alicia's life was made beautiful for the sake of beauty. We toiled in silence among the coarse peb- She taxed all things for this purpose. A bit bles of the beach, and climbed over the boulders of moss, a bird's feather, an autumn leaf, a scattered here and there on our way. The vil-spray of grass served her. Her means went far lage grew distant, and the landscape solitary; to suit her artistic habits and tastes. She lived on the left were swampy pastures, wild thickets, here six years in all. Her only brother re turned from the East Indies with an obstinate | afternoon before the front of the house. Put up disease, and was ordered to pass a year or two our Mexican hammock between the door and in the country. He selected this, where his cherry-tree. Such a pretty view from said hammother was born." mock: the lawn running to the beach, which is in between two gravelly points, and looks quite smooth, for it is the edge of the cove rounding lake-like; near the shore it is blue and smooth, when outside it is gray and rough under the beating winds. "This desk is curious," I said; "have you examined it ?" "Only in a general way; but look over it. I think, now, I'll give up the place, having been long enough sentimental over it; and it is a trouble to fight with mould and moth." The waves curve in and fall upon the sand, leaving soft bubbles and silky weeds, bits of drift-wood, snowy and silvery shells, and all the mysterious débris of the sea, daily tossed upon a On each hundred shores by the relentless tide. I opened some little drawers; they were full of nick-nacks, ivory boxes, ornaments in agate and marble, pearl and shell carvings, paper-knives, gypsum figures, clay vases and box-side of this secluded, fairy-like cove are groups es, Chinese toys, bits of fine china, engravings, and a hundred other articles. One of the prettiest was a green crystal basket in a gold frame. A minute nest was in the basket, and several rose-colored eggs with chocolate spots; a bit of paper was tied to the handle, on which was written "Robbed May 20, '64." "They were a queer couple, this brother and sister," said Helen. Poking into the deep pigeon-holes of the ancient desk, I came upon a book with a brass lock; it was fastened, but on the cover was printed with a pen: "He who does not run may read.”. "I have it, and you may read the diary; I never have. Let us go back, it is nightfall nearly. Mr. Binks thinks my mind is unsettled about this house; he will come for us with a lantern if we wait." As we walked slowly homeward, Helen gave me some particulars of her cousin's life. If she had a mania, it was for composition; there were several manuscript volumes in existence, upon which months of labor had been bestowed. Her literary habits were as industrious and methodical as if her work had the market value of a Thackeray or a Dickens. But she had the most self-contained, self-sustaining soul that ever existed, requiring neither praise nor appreciation to feed an ambition perfectly pure and lofty in its aims. If she had lived, she might have given her work to the world. "Look over the little diary by yourself," Helen said, while we were at our supper, and beamed upon by the genial Binks. In my room I opened Alicia's volume, and soon felt its fresh, natural atmosphere. April 22, 1864.-House on the beach at Bront's Point just taken possession of by Brother Alton and myself, in the township where our beautiful mother died in our childhood. Nothing threatens recollection of our last city campaign. One Julia-sweet girl-may enter into his dreams; my vision will be disturbed by no apparition of tulle, Neapolitan ice-cream, or the waltz band. I know he left the pretty creature to be with me. Ten rooms, up stairs and down, every one shabby and delightful. The rude lawn is full of clover and blooming grasses, and under the lonely stone walls, old as Adam, nicest brambles grow. We pulled down the paling this But of richly stained rocks. Above all this sea and what civilized being ever sees a sunrise? The shore I can watch the sunrise and sunset. room with windows commanding this view I have named my own-this where I at this moment am. Funny gray paper on the walls, with sepia pictures-elegant fox-hunters on high-bred horses, hounds, whippers-in, a pleasant wood, and an impossible fountain. I have hung red curtains before the windows, and filled the mantel-piece with Indian china; matting is laid upon the floor, and the furniture is covered with Alton's Indian chintz-peacocks, parrots, birds of paradise, all so lively that I expect them to scream at any moment. A wood-fire burns in the chimney; Alton sits on the brick hearth beside it, a novel in his hand, his booted legs crossed, and he tugs at his mustache perfectly abstracted. "Julia," I cry, from some impulse of mischief. He starts, drops his book, and says: "Confound you, Alicia! Is she at the shutters? I thought I heard a woman whimper." "It is only the water lapping the shore, Alton; better music than that of a woman's tongue." Its scratching is an opiate. I dare say what you "Shut yours, then, and go on with your pen. write would prove a sleeping-draught to your reader." Sis Alicia, literary people, after all, are only coral worms. It takes a million to make a little reef in the ocean. "But the reef is there, Alton." minute structure!-weeds; all the refuse of the "Yes; and how much drifts to the patient violence of the deep; weary sea-birds, with seeds of plants in their crops; the tangle of strong currents from pole to pole-and a world is made! I have half a mind to call you Coralline." "Go to bed, my boy, or how shall I ever write a proper description of this house!" "I'll go, my love, and snore to the breakers of Bront's Point. The air is superb coming through the shattered panes. And I shall be so hungry in the morning. What have you in the larder?" "Nothing; I will watch for a fisherman." Exit Alton with a grimace and loud yawn. Yes, this room suits me at midnight-the present hour. Here is my new patent inkstand, which promises to be a failure, and a paperweight with a bird on it unlike any known species of bird, and my comfortable port-folio under the shaded lamp. I have filled up the china "She was alive and at home with every thing except human companionship; but I never understood her." "I dare say; no one understood her. Have you thought of that as a reason for her isolation? What should drive one into solitude, closet with illustrated books. Their gold, red, and green backs glisten behind the glass door. What friends they are! A dead author is better than a live friend: the one can not change nor fail, the other may. Rogers, Gray, Bloomfield, Goldsmith, Béranger, Tennyson, my goodly company! The last brand has fallen on the hearth, and the white ashes cover the coals. The bay gives tongue under the moon. A journal is a good thing to express that which is neither in the heart nor brain! By-the-way, in rummaging my brain to-day I believe that I thanked God for suddenly feeling virile; I mean that I emerged from my fog. Why is Alton tramping overhead? Pooh! what is the feeling of a rest-in-some unknown deity to govern them. I less heart? April 28.-East wind. The chimneys have smoked. We had trout for dinner to-day. Alton caught them in a brook a mile above us, on the other side of the high hill at the back of the house, where the sun seems to sit down and rags of clouds gather and hide. Spying inside and outside of myself for the fashion of my novel. The hero is vital. What name can I give him -Greek, Oriental, or English? Cleon, Hafiz, John! Come, let me clutch thee! Lonely old town this. Nobody comes to see us; evidently there is no social system in vogue. Somebody went by, though, to-day-a man with a horse, cart, and pitchfork; all went over our lawn straight to the beach. When I saw his purpose -that of gathering sea-weed-I went out and helped him; that is, I poked over the long green ribbons dashed up by the tide, and discovered shelly creatures on their first voyage from home, bright and smooth pebbles, and umber tufts of fat weeds. I hope Helen Hobson will visit us soon. So much of society as she can give I require. I laid the diary down and sought Helen. "I have left off at the mention of your name, Helen." "Do you wonder at my permitting you to read a private record? I shrink from it. Will you go through with it? Since you came I have decided to settle my affairs so far as that old place is concerned. When Alicia's papers are looked over and every thing removed, I will sell the house. When you leave the town I will go also, for I can no longer endure it. We will not precisely play Naomi and Ruth, but I trust we may not live far apart." "What about the brother Alton ?" "He will never return here. Nothing could induce him to look at any thing which might remind him of the lost Alicia, the sister he loved so wonderfully well. The delay is owing to him. Many letters have passed between us on the subject of Alicia's papers and possessions, and the house which she gave me. He has refused over and over again to have any thing to do with them, and at last, thanks to you, I have decided for myself. Read the fragmentary journal, and then give me your opinion whether any of her manuscript should be published." "I should not imagine her a solitary or eccentric person from the little I have read." if a lack of comprehension of one's sincerest feelings and motives can not? And then, what strange modes of expression pride of soul will take! There are those, even in this jostling, crowded world, whose virgin hearts take alarm at the least approach to or necessity for revelation. They wait for some other world to be developed like this Alicia; she has her own atmosphere. Maybe I am sent here to be aided by her.” Helen's eyes glistened. "Be, then," she exclaimed, "my atonement. Your mind is nearer hers than my futile, vacillating one was. Alicia is one of my dearest memories. Teach me to hope that she forgave me for every shortcoming of obtuseness, ignorance, and habit. What wretchedly imperfect, unfinished creatures we are! The flood did not wash us right, after all." Some occult influence led me the next calm, cloudy afternoon to the old house by the sea, Alicia's home. I was glad to be alone. The grass on the lawn waved me a welcome; butter-cups glistened in it; bees and butterflies hummed and hovered every where. The wind sounded a fitful melody round the eaves, and shook the tall cherry-trees before the door. I had Alicia's diary with me. Taking a seat on the granite gate-sill, I opened it; as I read, shadows flickered over the page, the wind fluttered the leaves, stalks and unripe cherries fell into my lap, and birds constantly twittered over my head. I was Alicia, or I was the dream of myself-which? I looked toward the vague, blue horizon where land and water blended, and should not have been surprised to see a colossal reflection of either uprising in the distance. May 6.-My birthday. Alicia, the child of an unhappy mother, is twenty-eight to-day. Sho! The gray water laps the paler sand, glimmers and trembles; the purple clouds glide by. Insidious Spirit of Beauty, dark or bright, you lurk every where. May 8.-Poor fellow! his grave is nameless. So shall mine be. May 10.-Happy again under this sky, before this sea. Is happiness atmospheric? Read Victor Hugo's novel, "The Toilers of the Sea." A Greek poem in French. Greek -a little distracted. May 15.-Happier perhaps for being wrapped in a cloud of illness. Civilized people for the most part have nurses when they are ill. The black woman in the kitchen does not care for me, and while I suffer Alton stays in the woods. There is a deep frown on his face; I know what it means. He does not know how to approach |