Kitabı oku: «Graham's Magazine, Vol XXXIII, No. 6, December 1848», sayfa 4
"Robert Lindsay! Alfred Lindsay!" were the exclamations of Captain Sydney, in a voice full of passion, as those well-remembered names fell upon his ear for the first time in many years; "boy – did you say that Alfred Lindsay was her parent? Then be assured that never, while life lasts, will I give my consent to your marriage with the daughter of him who was the enemy of my unprotected youth!"
"Father – what mean you?" asked Harry, in tones of amazement, for the tale whose memory had so sudden an effect upon his companion, had never been breathed to him. And suddenly recalled to a sense of his son's ignorance upon the subject, Captain Sydney now hurriedly sketched the history of the past.
"It is very strange," said Harry, musingly; "but they never mentioned that they were related to me. It is probable that Ida's father, if aware of the fact, concealed it from her knowledge."
"Or rather that he instigated her to keep it a secret, that in the end she might reap the benefit of his injured cousin's wealth," was the rejoinder.
"Oh, no, father!" replied the young man, warmly. "I could not wrong Ida by a suspicion of that kind. She is too good and pure-hearted to countenance deception, and," he added, after a moment's hesitation, "I cannot give her up and wreck both her own happiness and mine, for the sake of her parent's faults."
These words aroused Captain Sydney's indignation. He accused his son of want of spirit in refusing to resent the occurrences that clouded his youth; and when Harry responded that he felt them deeply, but could not on their account brand himself with dishonor, by breaking the troth already plighted to Ida Lindsay, his father parted from him in anger, declaring that if his son married Ida, he might never expect his blessing.
The thought of uniting his son by indissoluble ties to the child of his early foe, was, indeed, repugnant to the heart of Captain Sydney; and while he remembered his resolve uttered on the night when he went forth from his uncle's roof a desolate, friendless and dishonored being – dishonored through the machinations of his cousin Alfred – he was determined that it should be fulfilled, even though in so doing he thwarted the earnest wishes of the one dearest to him.
A few days afterward Captain Sydney departed upon one of his accustomed voyages, and was absent several months. On his return he found his son just recovering from a lingering fever, brought on, as the physician averred, by distress of mind. He looked very pale and thin, and his father could scarcely help feeling a sensation akin to reproach, as he gazed upon that colorless cheek and wasted form. He knew that this indisposition was occasioned by the manner in which he had treated his son's engagement, for, through the medium of a friend, he had learned that Ida Lindsay had nobly refused longer to encourage attentions, which, as she learned from Harry, were tendered in opposition to his father's desires. Alfred Lindsay, too, had died a few weeks before, and the object of his resentment being no more, Captain Sydney began to feel less reluctant to the match which he had at first looked upon with such violent disapprobation. Conscience told him he had acted cruelly in thus casting a blight over his child's sweetest hopes, and he was determined that he would now do all in his power to further them. And when Harry grew strong enough to bear a conversation upon the subject, he communicated the change in his feelings. Both startled and appalled was he at his son's reply.
"My father, would you mock me with this show of kindness, when it is too late to profit by it? Know you not that she is now dying of consumption? I was sure that she was too delicate to endure the steady occupation necessary for her support – and my presentiment has been verified. Yes, Ida Lindsay is dying! I would have saved her – I would have borne her to a more genial clime, where she might, perhaps, have revived; but she refused to give me a right to be her guardian, for it was against the will of my parent, without whose sanction, she said, our union would never prosper."
He bowed his face, while for an instant his frame shook with emotion. Hastily his father drew nearer to him, but he turned shudderingly from those words of penitence and self-reproach, and dashing aside the extended hand, rushed from the apartment.
It was, indeed, too true – Ida Lindsay was dying! The constant confinement called for by her continued exertions to obtain a livelihood, had proved too much for a constitution by no means strong – and it was his anxiety for her failing health which had caused the illness of Harry Sydney. Oh! what would not the erring father have given for power to recall the past; but it was too late – too late! A few hours after the interview with his son the intelligence of Ida's death was received, and during the whole of the succeeding evening Captain Sydney could plainly distinguish the sound of Harry's footsteps as he wildly paced his chamber, and each echo sent a thrill of remorse to his soul. Little did the repentant and sorrowing parent then think it was the last time that footfall would ever resound in his dwelling – for that night Harry Sydney departed from his home, leaving no trace of his destination. Days, weeks, months passed on, and the heart of his father grew dark with the anguish of despair, for he felt most surely that he should behold his son no more. Whither the latter had gone was a mystery he tried in vain to solve, though sometimes he remembered Harry's predilection for a mariner's life, and blighted as he had been in his affections, might he not now have followed the yearnings of former times, as the only means of gaining oblivion of his sorrows? So, night after night, Captain Sydney sat alone at his deserted hearth – a father, and yet childless, with a host of dark recollections pressing heavily upon his spirit. And at last he sought forgetfulness of his errors in the sparkling wine-cup, whose draught he drained with an intense eagerness, for it enabled him to mock at his misery.
And so five more years passed on, during which period his mind was seldom free from the delirium produced by the practices to which he had resorted; and having, in utter recklessness of spirit dissipated his property, deprived, through his own weakness, of his rank as captain, he was at length forced to lower himself to the grade of a common sailor, for the purpose of obtaining the means of subsistence. Then a severe illness, caused by free indulgence in intoxicating liquors, overtook him – and with sickness came reflection, and he resolved to yield no longer to the voice of the tempter. He recovered from his dangerous indisposition, but remaining fearfully weak, the physician declared that his constitution was completely shattered, and that he was no longer fit for service. At first he insisted upon resuming his wonted occupation, for he had no other way of maintaining himself. The physician seemed to comprehend his reluctance to obey his command, and he now reminded his patient of an institution in the vicinity of New York, where the indigent mariner might find a home.
It was then that Captain Sydney – for so let me still continue to call him – sought the peaceful shades of "the Harbor," where for two years he had, indeed, found all the external comforts of a home, and but for the voices of the past he would have had no cause to repine.
About a twelvemonth after his arrival at "the Harbor," a new inmate was admitted there, in the person of an invalid sailor, who was said to be in a deep decline. He seldom left the apartment allotted to him, save now and then of a warm sunny day, when he would go forth, leaning upon the arm of an attendant, and seating himself upon a bench in the garden beneath the shade of a tree, remain there for hours, gazing silently upon the blue waters of the bay before him. Regarded by all as in a dying state, no one strove at these times to disturb his reverie. His situation had excited universal sympathy, and frequently the other sailors would steal to his side and softly deposit there a small basket of fruit, or some little delicacy which they knew would prove acceptable to him on whom it was bestowed.
Habitually reserved, and cultivating but little intercourse with those around him, it was scarcely a matter of surprise that for some weeks Captain Sydney took but little notice of the sailor of whom I have been speaking. But chance at length brought him more fully beneath the scope of his observation. While one day walking in the garden, buried in thought, almost unconsciously he neared the spot generally occupied by the invalid. But he heeded not the vicinity till startled by the sound of a hollow cough, and looking hastily up, he met the gaze of the feeble stranger. A half-suppressed cry burst from the latter, and springing quickly forward, Captain Sydney caught him in his arms, while the words, "Harry! my son – my son!" came in a tone of agony from his lips. But he heeded not the caresses – he answered not the words of mingled endearment and reproach which his parent murmured as he bent wildly over him; and when at length the stricken father became calm enough to summon assistance, they told him that the spirit of his child was at rest.
Such, my dear cousin, was the old man's history; and as he ceased, his head leaned droopingly upon his hand, while his whole attitude betokened the most intense mental suffering. For some moments there was silence between us, for I felt that words were insufficient to console him. But suddenly the stillness was broken by the sound of lively voices approaching, and I recognized the tones of my long-absent companions, and knew that they were close at hand. In a few seconds more, they appeared near the stone-fence, which I have once before alluded to. The old sailor evidently wished to avoid them, for their gayety was discordant to his feelings. Rising from his seat, he now drew closer to the spot where I was stationed.
"Farewell, young lady," were his parting words, as he clasped my extended hand, and for a moment that pale, sad face, looked so mournfully into mine, that tears of the deepest commiseration sprung involuntarily to my eyes, "we may never meet again, and I trust you will forgive me, if the repetition of my sorrows has cast a shadow upon your heart. Remember me in your prayers, if you will, and ask that I may soon be borne to my last repose in the little grave-yard yonder, where my son lies sleeping. Farewell."
An instant more and he was gone – and for some moments I remained seated where he had left me, patiently awaiting the approach of my friends, and meanwhile musing earnestly and sadly upon the Sailor's Life-Tale.
THE MOURNERS
Where'er I wander forth I view the mournful ones of earth:
They tread no more, with buoyant feet, the radiant halls of mirth;
Around their trembling frames are drawn the weary weeds of wo;
Their sighs, like cold November rains, with saddened cadence flow;
From the dead hopes and faded joys of bright departed years,
They twine a garland for the brow, impearled with many tears;
Upon the graves of buried loves they sit awhile and sigh,
Then, mid the ruin-mantled waste of time, lie down to die.
They close their weary eyes upon God's calm and holy light;
They dwell girt round with misery as with a starless night;
They fold a thick and icy shroud their care-worn bosoms round,
And rest beneath the baleful charm like streams by winter bound;
They nurse their sorrow till of all their thoughts it grows a part,
And, like a cold and mighty snake, twines round the bleeding heart;
And then its hissing tones descend in drops of fiery rain,
And scathe, as lightning flashes blast, the weak and wandering brain.
The mourners chant, with voices low, a sweet and sighing strain,
That moans, as on a rocky shore, the solemn sounding main:
It breathes alike when summer fades and when the violets spring;
It mingles with the morning light and evening twilight dim.
This is the burden of that faint and melancholy lay:
"The cloud of wo hath hid the smiles and beauty of the day;
The glow of earth, the radiant gleam, the bliss of life is o'er;
The rose of human love may bloom for us no more —no more."
Arise, be strong, O, mournful ones! The Future is your own;
There Love may weave her rosy nest, there Joy erect a throne.
Though youth's pale buds in early Spring were blighted and laid low,
Thine yet may be the peerless bloom of life's rich summer glow.
The blissful ones, the glorified, build up their own bright state.
Let but the slumbering spirit learn "to labor and to wait,"
Then, like a bird of tireless wing, 'twill rise above the storm,
And bathe its flashing pinions in the glory of the morn!
REV. T. L. HARRIS.
REFLECTIONS
ON SOME OF THE EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1848
BY JOSEPH R. CHANDLER
Annus Mirabilis
We are approaching the close of the year – a year marked by greater vicissitudes in the affairs of nations than any in which we have lived – any indeed of which we have read. History gives us accounts of the rapid march and equally rapid conquests by ambitious kings, who seemed only happy in the unhappiness of others, and only proud of destroying that which constituted the pride of others. From time to time ambitious men have exhibited themselves in the great theatre of the world, and their greatness has been measured by the extent of misery they have produced; and their claims to permanent fame have rested upon the rapidity that marked their destruction of cities, kingdoms and empires. While between the epochs which are distinguished by these promoters of extensive mischief, there have at all times been humble imitators of their crimes, whose limited power of doing confined their actions to provinces, and compelled them to be ministers of local vengeance, and the enjoyers of that petty infamy which results from numerable murders and calculable crime. It is but too evident that order has had its antagonists, at all times and in all degrees, and if history has been employed with the works of those whose extensive scale of action gives larger consequence to their movements, it cannot be doubted that society has been convulsed at its centre by the restless and the bad, who have been as efficient in their sphere of wrong doing as have been those who occupied a larger space. The latter struck the elevated, and disturbed public relations; the former sent home its weapon to the humble, and brought disturbance and misery into the more limited circle, reaching social life and stabbing even to the heart of domestic peace.
Such great events have marked epochs, or made them; and such small occurrences have been the characteristics of almost all times; so that the wars of the present century may be considered but as continuations of the belligerent movements of other times, modified indeed by the improvement of the present age, but still of the same spirit and from the same motives. But the events of the past year are of another kind. The disturbances that have distinguished the history of Europe in that time are not the result of the mad ambition of a conqueror to add to his possessions, and subjugate kings and kingdoms as a means of gratifying ambition; foreign conquest and invasion from abroad are not now the occurrences which European rulers fear or anticipate. The convulsions that distinguish every empire from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, has nothing to do with the ambition of other rulers but are referable to the rising spirit of their own people. No longer do the States of Germany combine to repel the assaults of the ruler of France. Each member of the nominal confederacy is looking to itself as possessing the active means of revolution, and each leans toward a combination that shall sustain the rights of the people and put a specific limit to the power of princes.
No longer do men startle at the grasping avarice of the upper powers demanding new possessions and the recognition of enlarged prerogative; no longer is the peace of nations disturbed by the attempts of an ambitious ruler to extend his domains and enlarge his power. The convulsions that are everywhere in Europe felt, come from the up-heaving of the lower masses; deep down in the bosom of empires is heard the voice of multitudes crying out for newly understood rights. Up from that stratum comes a convulsive heave, that is toppling down the thrones that have rested upon the hearts of the people, and not outside the national limits, not at the terminal portions, not at the "outer walls" of the capital is the movement felt – but within, at the heart of the nation, within the shadow of the palace, along the quays where business is pursued, in the narrow walks of trade, over the bench of the artisan, or in the boudoir of beauty, is planned the movement that is subverting thrones and leveling up society. For nearly a century past have there been at work the elements of such convulsion. The struggle of the antagonistic powers has been such that results were postponed – only postponed – while the injurers lost power, and the injured gathered strength. Premonitory movements were observed, and in some instances seconded, as in France, in others allayed by power or concessions, as in Austria and Great Britain. But when the whole is only a right, the acquisition of a part is only a prelude to a struggle for more, and this has been seen in every nation where concession was made to the people, or wrung by force from the rulers.
But there was reserved for the present year the great assertion of human rights. The annunciation was first made in France, where tyranny galled the sensitive portions of the people, or where a taste of temporary freedom had created an appetite for constant enjoyment. The flight of Louis Philippe seemed sudden – startling – almost without a cause; and if nothing but the émeute in Paris is regarded, certainly the effect was entirely disproportioned to the cause. But the revolution of the 22d of February was a natural consequence of the pre-existing state of things. The fall of the leaf in autumn is not a more natural result of a waning season than was the fall of Louis Philippe a consequence of exhausted monarchy. The spirit of the people had come up to that point at which monarchy must either assume the form of absolutism, and rule by fear alone, or must yield to the upward pressure of the people, and its possessors seek to escape the opposing principle which they could not withstand. Louis Philippe tried the former – it was too late – the army, that last hope of tyrants, the sword and the bayonet hired to defend the throne became the people's support – failing in the effort to fix his power by blood, Louis Philippe fled to save his life; a common movement of French monarchs.
France may or may not establish republican institutions. Love of monarchy will not prevent the fulfillment of her people's hopes – difference of opinion as it regards degrees of freedom, and want of self sacrifice, we mean the sacrifice of personal views, (there will never be a want of self sacrifice of human life in France,) will do more to retard the establishment of republicanism in France than all the lingering attachments to monarchy that can be hunted up in the Faubourg de St. Germain, or in all the isolated châteux of the interior of the country. The habits, not the affections of the mass of the French people may also be regarded as one obstacle to true republicanism – a constantly diminishing obstacle, it is true, but still a formidable obstacle.
The revolution in France was the signal (not the preconcerted signal, as it should have been,) for a general insurrectionary movement, and no sooner had the press announced the departure of Louis Philippe, than forthwith Poland gave signs of life – Austria heaved with the workings of the under stratum – Hungary demanded independence – Prussia was in an insurrectionary state – a voice was heard from Russia – and Italy from the Alps to the Straights of Otranto began to try the strength of those fetters which indolence, ignorance and ease had allowed to be fastened upon her. The history of the revolutionary movements on this peninsula has yet to be written; it is full of interest, and if presented impartially, with a correct reference to causes, both of tyranny and insurrection, must prove deeply moving and instructive. We cannot do more than refer to the fact that Italy has been aroused; that tyranny has received a blow from which it can never wholly recover, and that there, as well as elsewhere, the rights of man have been proclaimed – proclaimed in part – proclaimed with doubts, with erroneous conceptions, with false views and an unchastened spirit, but still proclaimed, and what is more, openly admitted – admitted with purer views of property, more definite ideas of practicability, chastened wishes and paternal feelings. All is right in its tendencies. The false perceptions are owing to the suddenness of the light recently admitted. The inclusiveness of demands spring from a want of knowledge of the sacrifices which order requires from the friends of liberty – success will correct these views, and experience show the path which true patriotism opens.
Regarding, as we do, all movements as effects of Providential direction, we cannot forbear to consider the election of Pius IX. to the papal throne as an important part of that providence, in regard to the Peninsula of Italy in particular, and, perhaps, to the whole world. The correctness of the doctrine which makes that prelate a spiritual chief, or the propriety of uniting temporal with spiritual power, are questions to be settled elsewhere. Both exist, and both have an influence on the movements of nations; and the character of the new administrator of the Papal See, had at once an effect on his own subjects and upon all the people of Italy, and, through the people, upon the rulers. The new Pope seemed to have stepped forward a century from the line occupied by his predecessor, and to have stood in the front ranks of the reformers of the age. He was young, no old habits of yielding retarded his movements. He was young, none of the nervous tremulousness of age, that is shocked at the proposition of change, made him deaf to the demands of the time. He was young, and he had not yet been hardened into that unyieldingness of age that distinguishes the veteran church-man, who mingles the necessity of faith in divine doctrines with the necessity of non-resistance to human precepts. He knew and sympathized in the feelings which had animated the Italians: he was not ignorant that the prisons had been filled by men charged with crimes which the oppression of Austria provoked, and which the espionage of Austria detected and caused to be punished. He felt that his own temporal power was abused by the overawing influence of Austria, and he pardoned those who had offended only a foreign potentate, and were suffering under the condemnation of their own rulers. He would have led the movement to a peaceful and desirable result, but, alas! the oppression of centuries had made the many mad; and their limbs had been so galled with the manacles of political oppression that they became restive under the wholesome restraints that order and appropriate government demand; dragged forward by these eccentric bodies, and restrained by the timidity and prejudices of some of his legitimate advisers, Pius has felt that his triple crown was the means of triple sorrow; but he has also shown that he understood the maxim, that "he only is fitted to rule who knows how to sacrifice."
The arms of the Italian States and the influence of the Pope have been successful against Austria, and even though that overgrown and tumid empire should reconquer all her late possessions in Lombardy, and be as omnipotent in Venice as she is in Triest or Vienna, still the prestige of power is gone, and she can no longer extend an influence over the human mind that tends upward in its views. The taste of independence has been enjoyed – the tree of knowledge has yielded some of its fruits – and hereafter there can be no rest, no quiet, without something of liberty, much of science.
The question has been raised as to the existence of the power of the Pope deprived of his temporalities. That is, can the Pope yield up the government of the Papal States to a secular ruler, and maintain the full amount of spiritual power which he now exercises, and which he and those of his creed deem a necessary portion of his official life.
We are noways concerned in the settlement of that question, beyond its bearing upon the condition of Italy, and through her upon many other portions of the earth. We do not know that there is now any probability that the Papal States will pass under another ruler than the Pope; but we entertain no doubt that the Pope could exercise all the functions of Bishop of Rome, with all the supremacy which he claims for that office over other bishoprics, as well without the appanages of temporalities as with them. There is nothing in the office, or all that is claimed for it, that renders direct temporal power necessary. Bishops of Rome existed for centuries with all the spiritual supremacy now claimed, but as destitute of temporal power as the bishops of any other city. And the custom which rendered concurrent the temporal rule – or admitted of extraordinary pomp – has never been deemed more than a concurrence – never a necessity. And it is a fact that when the invasion of a foreign power has stripped the Pope of his territories, and made even Rome the home of invaders, attention has been at once turned to the separation of spiritualities from temporalities, and means adopted to drop the machinery of secular government, and keep active and useful that of the church alone.
It is, we believe, an admitted fact, that among the papers of the Cardinal Prime Minister of Pius VII., who was carried away and kept a prisoner in France by Napoleon, were found plans for carrying on the spiritual offices of the Pope without the least connection with temporal power; and Rome was to be to its bishop no more than Philadelphia to either of the bishops who reside therein, and administer the dioceses committed to their care.
We mention these things, and dwell upon them, because speculation is, and has been, active with regard to the effect of the revolution in Italy, some movements of which evidently looked to the transfer of all temporal power to laymen; and extraordinary effects were supposed to be the necessary results of such a change. The change seems to us very probable, and not very remote; but it does not appear to us that the spiritual functions (proper) of the Pope will be essentially disturbed by any such movement.
We dwell longer on Italy than its geographical dimensions would warrant, but that peninsula is deeply interesting to the world, not only on account of the religious relations to which we have referred, but from the fact that for centuries a foreign arm has held it down; and while half of the world beside was rising into consequence, by the science and scientific men that Italy sent forth, Italy alone of all the geographical divisions of the earth seemed to be without profit from her own great men. Because she did decay, men believed that the elements of her prosperity were exhausted; because she ceased to hold the preeminence which she once possessed, it was deemed that the seal of ruin was set upon her. These suppositions are wrong; and the new movements in that peninsula show that the spirit of man is yet active, and now active to man's great good. What Italy needed was concert. What other nations practiced were constant attempts to foment jealousies among her different States, and create a demand for foreign interference and the presence of foreign troops. At present a dream of the ancient republic is the animating cause (or rather perhaps a sense of the capabilities of Italy for the new republicanism of the time) with leaders; who appeal to the recollections of the past because a sense of the present is not to be depended on in the many; and the shout for the old federative republics of past centuries awakens the pride of those whose patriotism might not be strong enough to lead them to the sacrifices which the object demands.
There seems to be necessary to the Italian mind a hope of regaining something that has been lost, and if this is rightly used there can be no doubt that the people will attain to something they need. The republics of elder Italy are no more the proper object for Italian enterprise, than would be the old colonial dependencies for the efforts of Americans. But Italy must be aroused; she must be called up to some general object; her great men must be stimulated to useful efforts, and her humbler citizens must be enticed away from insurrectionary movements to revolutionary action, and that cry which the soonest rouses and unites them is the true watchword of independence. Some proper hand, some well endowed mind must lead them in the right path – must set their faces and direct their efforts toward the proper object. The alarm cry may be the same, though the object of rising be opposite to that announced. The same bells and the same peels would call up the citizens of Florence to withstand or divert an inundation of the Arno which would be used to arouse them to check the destructive progress of a conflagration.
Italy, however, must not be kept too long in chase of the past republics. She needs the confederation of modern democracy, and, when once aroused, must be early directed to the true object. The Italian who spends his power, his wealth and his influence in attempts to restore the ancient confederacy is like the man who starts westward at evening to overtake the departed sun. But the Italian who, roused to a proper sense of the capability of his country, determines to secure to her the best good that other nations now enjoy, is like the man who, starting at dawn, proceeds in an easterly course to meet the sun in his rising. There is a necessity laid upon both – failure is certain for the former, success inevitable to the latter.
