Miscellany [pp. 20-23]

THE CR OWN UiVWO-.-MISCELILA[TY.
you must build your own hut, and supply
yourself with food and fuel. One of our com panions set the prairie on fire, and the sight
fully equaled any of the accounts I have read
of such a scene. I should like you to have
seen it-you have such enthusiastic power
of admiration that it would have given you
double enjoyment. I hope you will be so very
kind as to answer me. I shall spend Christ mas in New York; afterward I may possibly
join my mother in Scotland; but I hope to be
with you again by the end of Janluary, and to
find you as blooming as when I left you. I
hope you do not suffer much from cold. I
may stay longer next time, may I not? Will
you present my compliments to Madame La
Peyre, and
"Believe me,
"Your true friend,
" GEORGE BRAND."
I need not have blushed; why, except that
one little sentence about staying longer next
time, the whole letter might be put in a news paper.
Ahb, how different from Eugene's letters!
But, then, he loves me. Well, I don't want
Captain Brand to be in love with me, so why
should I wish his letter to be different?
I turned round to Madame La Peyrp "From Captain Brand," I said, carelessly,
and I gave her the letter to read.
"I am not awake yet; I think I will go
up-stairs."
She is reading the letter, and does not
hear me. But I do not care; I want to get
out without Ang6lique's surveillance. I want
to see old Samuel. That dry, stiff letter has
made me long more than ever for one from
Eugene, and, if one comes, he will send it up
to the house, as he did this one.
How can I answer Captain Brand? There
is nothing to answer.
On the stairs I meet Ang6lique, who delays me with questions about a gown she is
making for me; then, as I pass through the
kitchen on my way out, the little blue-eyed
child holds up its mouth to be kissed, and I
stop and play with it.
I feel very impatient by the time I reach
Samnuel's cottage.
I went in at the door, and walked straight
into his office.
"It be you, be it, missy?." He scarcely
turned his head.
"Good-morning," I said, stiffly; "why did
you send my letter up to the house?"
He went on writing in an old brass-cornered book; I spoke again, in a louder voice:
"Why did you send me a letter this
morning? I told you I should call for my
letters."
I grew very impatient. At last he stuck
his pen behind his ear:
"So you did; so you did, missy "-Samuel turned slowly round on his stool to look
at me with bland benevolence. I wish he
did not remind me of the white-haired old
gentleman who sold the spectacles to Moses
Primrose-" and I should ha' kept'em for'ee;
but this was an oversight; it were along of
Madam Angelick a-comin' in as hur were
passin' for they letters, and she gets argufyin' about the rheumatics; hur never had
they, so I says hur can't know how to physic
they; my stomick is a English one, and madam's physic be furrin'; stands to reason
them can't suit. Madam Angelick may be a
good nuss; nussin' is mostly for women, but
doctorin's for men-like most what is sensible; so, missy, as I was saying, I were worritted, and I ketches up the letters-they
hadn't long been brought in, and there they
was "-he pointed to his desk-" and I gives
'em to Madam Angelick in a lump, and never
give yourn a thought till liur were out of
sight."
"Very well; I hope you will be more
careful," I said, gravely; and then I added
what I had been longing to ask before:
"then no other letter has come for me before
that one?"
Samuel grinned; then he got up stiffly,
went to a cupboard just behind me, and came
back with a letter in his hand.
Is it all right, missy? "
I saw at once that this was from Eugene.
I looked at Samuel, and my eyes fell at
once; he looked so insufferably conscious
that I had a secret.
I hardly know what I said; but I got
away as quickly as I could, went home, and
shut myself in my bedroom before I took the
letter out of my pocket.
THE CROWN UNWON.
C X W HOSO endureth to the end,"
So, long ago, the word was spoken:
Hearts fail, and bowed heads earthward bend.
Yet who shall say the pledge is broken?
Brave eyes may read the promise still,
Though writ in lines of pain and loss;
The path lies onward up the hill,
Though every mile-stone be a cross.
Long time ago my soul and I
Converse and counsel held together,
When clear and bright youth's morning sky
Flushed rosy in the summer weather;
"Soul," said I, " many a pathway fair,
Waiting thy choice, before thee lies;
Think long, choose well, then proudly dare
Thine utmost might to win the prize."
And so we looked, my soul and I,
And many a fair, false joy refusing,
Beheld at last, serene and high,
The crown of her supremest choosing;
And on it fixed our steadfast gaze,
While the bright, joyous wizard, Hope,
Through all those bounteous summer days,
Drew one delicious horoscope.
But summer hours fade fast away,
And that dear crown, above my winning,
Here in the twilight of my day,
Gleams far, as in my bright beginning;
And now Hope's eyes are dim and sad,
And Doubt and Grief walk close beside,
And many a joy that erst I had
In this long toil has drooped and died.
And yet I know my soul's true good
Lies still, lies ever, there before me;
I could not turn me if I would,
Though clouds and darkness gather o'er me.
And, though I fail and though I die
Far from my goal, my crown unwon,
No meaner star can tempt the eye
That once has known the steadfast sun.
I So on I press up that steep slope,
Behind whose brow that sun is setting;
I walk with Faith, and not with Hope,
Despairing not and not forgetting;
But, when the last brief breath is sped,
I shall not grieve if this men write:
"lHe strove-he failed-and he is dead,
True always to his highest light."
BARTON GRrY.
MISCELLANY.
MINOR ORIGINAL ARTICLES, TRANSLA TIONS, AND SELECTIONS.
VICTOR EMMiANVEL AT IIOXE.
(From the German for the JOURNAL.)
HE name of Victor Emmanuel will belong
for all time to history. What none of his
predecessors were able to accomplish, despite
all their exertions and all the useless blood
they shed, has been compassed during his
prosperous reign. He has united all Italy,
from the Alps to Calabria, from sea-washed
Venice to proud Palermo, in one kingdom.
He has freed the entire soil of Italy from
foreign dominion, and at last has firmly es tablished his government in the Eternal City.
These are proud deeds-deeds such as
few monarchs can boast of having per formed, andi comparatively little of their
glory is due to King Victor Emmanuel per sonally. The cry " Italia fara da se!"
("Italy will take care of herself! ") has
a very sonorous sound in the mouth of a
hot-blooded Italian, but it is only an emlpty
phrase, having, in reality, never been made
good; for, but for the victories of Napoleon
III. in 1859, and of King William of Prussia
in 1866, and again in 1870, King Victor
Emanuel would, there is little room to doubt,
still have his residence in Turin; Milan aind
Venice would to-day hardly be his, and the
Italian tricolor would not have floated, in his
day at least, over the domes of old Rome.
But the Re Galantuomo, as the Italians
are wont to call their king, has one merit
which no one denies him: that of possessing
great personal courage, which frequently
prompted him to expose his life in defense
of his crown, and in the contests for the enlarging of his dominions.
And this is the reason why Victor Emmanuel retains his popularity, and, in a measure,
is the symbol of Italian unity. Dissatisfied
as the inhabitants of some of the newly-annexed provinces are, and as heartily as the
Neapolitans hate the Piedmontese, still no
Italian thinks of finding fault with the king;
on the contrary, he is always blameless, and
they hold the government respecrsible for
every thing.
The king is no statesmnan, or savact, orpoet, or art-connoisseur, nor does he pretend
to be proficient in any thing. The fact is,
his acquirements are very limited; his education, in his youth, was sadly neglected,
and even now there is nothing he does not,
prefer to any kind of mental labor. His is a
frank, honest nature; nothing is more uncongenial to him than the ceremony and restraint of court-life; the life of the soldier
and sportsman alone seems to have any real
charms for him.
In the struggles of 1848 and 1849, althoughin many respects they were not agreeable
to him personally, and he had not the slightest ambition to wear the crown to which he
was the heir, he nevertheless acquitted himself in the field most creditably. The army
points to him with pride as the courageous
captain, who always led them into the thickest of the fight, exposing himself when the
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[JULY 47