Was I not borne on the wings of the morn From the jungles of Jessore, Over the plain of the purple main To the far Mauritian shore? To the isles which sleep on the sun-bright deep Of a coral-pavèd sea, Where the blue waves welter beneath the shelter From the womb of the waters, athirst for slaughters, isles are graves Their beauty is desolate! in the waste of the waves, From the wide Erythrean the noise of my.pæan Rolled on the southern blast Eternal Taurus made answering chorus, From his glaciers lone and vast! Did I not pass his granite mass, over frost-chained lands, Borne at my own wild will? Then hark to the beat of my hastening feet, Thou shrined in the sea Where are thy dreams that the ocean-streams Awaken! awaken! my wings are shaken Athwart the troubled sky Streams the red glance of my meteor lance, And the glare of mine eager eye! The light of thy festal cheer; In thy storm-rocked home, on the northern foam- LESSON CXXXV. Thoughts on Letter-writing.-BLACKWOOD'S ED. MAGAZINE. EPISTOLARY as well as personal intercourse is, according to the mode in which it is carried on, one of the pleasantest or most irksome things in the world. It is delightful to drop in on a friend without the solemn prelude * of invitation and acceptance to join a social circle, where we may suffer our minds and hearts to relax and expand in the happy consciousness of perfect security from invidious remark and carping criticism; where we may give the reins to the sportiveness of innocent fancy, or the enthusiasm of warm-hearted feeling; where we may talk sense or nonsense (I pity people who cannot talk nonsense), without fear of being looked into icicles by the coldness of unimaginative people-living pieces of clock-work, who dare not themselves utter a word, or lift up a little finger, without first weighing the important point, in the hair-balance of propriety and good breeding. It is equally delightful to let the pen talk freely, and unpremeditatedly, and to one by whom we are sure of being understood; but a formal letter, like a ceremonious morning visit, is tedious alike to the writer and receiver - for the most part spun out with unmeaning phrases, trite observations, complimentary flourishes, and protestations of respect and attachment, so far not deceitful, as they never deceive any#body. O the misery of having to compose a set, proper, wellworded, correctly-pointed, polite, elegant epistle!-one that must have a beginning, a middle, and an end, as methodically arranged and portioned out as the several parts of a sermon under three heads, or the three gradations of shade in a school-girl's first landscape! For my part, I would rather be set to beat hemp, or weed in a turnip-field, than to write such a letter exactly every month, or every fortnight, at the precise point of time, from Pron. prěl'ude. the date of our correspondent's last letter, that he or she wrote after the reception of ours as if one's thoughts bubbled up to the well-head, at regular periods, a pint at a time, to be bottled off for immediate use. Thought! what has thought to do in such a correspondence? It murders thought, quenches fancy, wastes time, spoils paper, wears out innocent goose-quills 'I'd rather be a kitten, and cry mew! than one of those same " prosing letter-mongers. 66 Surely in this age of invention something may be struck out to obviate the necessity (if such necessity exists) of so tasking degrading the human intellect. Why should not a sort of mute barrel-organ be constructed on the plan of those that play sets of tunes and country-dances, to indite a catalogue of polite epistles, calculated for all the ceremonious observances of good breeding? O the unspeakable relief (could such a machine be invented) of having only to grind an answer to one of one's "dear five hundred friends! Or, suppose there were to be an epistolary steam-engine -ay, that's the thing steam does everything nowadays Dear Mr. Brunel, set about it, I beseech you, and achieve the most glorious of your undertakings. The block-machine at Portsmouth would be nothing to it-that spares manual labor - this would relieve mental drudgery, and thousands yet unboru But hold! I am not so sure that the female sex in general may quite enter into my views of the subject. Those who pique themselves or the elegant style of their billets, or those fair scribblerinas* just emancipated from boarding-school restraints, or the dragonism of their governess, just beginning to taste the refined enjoyments of sentimental, confidential, soul-breathing correspondence with some Angelina, Seraphina,* or Laura Matilda; to indite beautiful little notes, with long-tailed letters, upon vellum paper, with pink margins, sealed with sweet mottoes, and dainty devices, the whole deliciously perfumed with musk and attar of roses The i, here, has the sound of long e. young ladies, who collect "copies of verses," and charades - keep albums - copy patterns - make bread seals -- work little dogs upon footstools, and paint flowers without shadow O, no—the epistolary steam-engine will never come into Vogue with those dear creatures -they must enjoy the "feast of reason, and the flow of soul," and they must write Ye gods! how they Do write! - But for another genus of female scribes unhappy inno cents! who groan in spirit at the dire necessity of having to hammer out one of those aforesaid terrible epistles - who, having in due form dated the gilt-edged sheet, that lies outspread before them in appalling whiteness-having also felicitously achieved the graceful exordium, "My dear Mrs, P." or "My dear Lady V." or "My dear anything else," feel that they are in for it, and must say somethingO, that something that must come of nothing! those bricks that must be made without straw! those pages that must be filled with words! Yea, with words that must be sewed into sentences! Yea, with sentences that must seem to mean something; the whole to be tacked together, all neatly fitted and dove-tailed, so as to form one smooth, polished surface! What were the labors of Hercules to such a task The very thought of it puts me into a mental perspiration; and, from my inmost soul, I compassionate the unfortunates now (at this very moment, perhaps) screwed up perpendicular in the seat. of torture, having in the right hand a fresh-nibbed patent pen, dipped ever and anon into the ink-bottle, as if to hook up ideas, and under the outspread palm of the left hand a fair sheet of best Bath post (ready to receive thoughts yet unhatched), on which their eyes are riveted with a stare of disconsolate perplexity, infinitely touching to a feeling mind. To such unhappy persons, in whose miseries I deeply sympathize Have I not groaned under similar horrors, from the hour when I was first shut up (under lock and key, I believe) to indite a dutiful epistle to an honored aunt? I remember, as if it were yesterday, the moment when she who had enjoined the task entered to inspect the performance, which, by her calculation, should have been fully completed -- I remember how sheepishly I hung down my head, when she snatched from before me the paper (on which I had made no further progress than "My dear ant"), angrily exclaiming, "What, child! have you been shut up here three hours to call your aunt a pismire?" From that hour of humiliation, I have too often groaned under the endurance of similar penance, and I have learnt, from my own sufferings, to compassionate those of my dear sisters in affliction. To such unhappy persons, then, I would fain offer a few hints (the fruit of long experience), which, if they have not already been suggested by their own observation, may prove serviceable in the hour of emergency. Let them or suppose I address myself to one particular sufferer - there is something more confidential in that manner of communicating one's ideas as Moore says, "heart speaks to heart"-I say, then, take always special care to write by candlelight, for not only is the apparently unimportant operation of snuffing the candle in itself a momentary relief to the depressing consciousness of mental vacuum, but not unfrequently that trifling act, or the brightening flame of the candle, elicits, as it were, from the dull embers of fancy, a sympathetic spark of fortunate conception.When such a one occurs, seize it quickly and dexterously, but, at the same time, with such cautious prudence as not to huddle up and contract in one short, paltry sentence, that which, if ingeniously handled, may be wire-drawn, so as to undulate gracefully and smoothly over a whole page. For the more ready practice of this invaluable art of dilating, it will be expedient to stock your memory with a large assortment of those precious words of many syllables, that fill whole lines at once; "incomprehensibly, amazingly, decid * Pron. pizmire. |