BAYARD TAYLOR. 1825-. (Manual, pp. 505, 523, 531.)

No one can be in Monterey a single night, without being startled and awed by the deep, solemn crashes of the surf, as it breaks along the shore. There is no continuous roar of the plunging waves, as we hear on the Atlantic seaboard; the slow, regular swells — quiet pulsations of the great Pacific's heart-roll inward in unbroken lines, and fall with single grand crashes, with intervals of dead silence between. They may be heard through the day, if one listens, like a solemn undertone to all the shallow noises of the town ; but at midnight, when all else is still, those successive shocks fall upon the ear with a sensation of inexpressible solemnity. All the air, from the pine forests to the sea, is filled with a light tremor, and the intermitting beats of sound are strong enough to jar a delicate ear. Their constant repetition at last produces a feeling something like terror. A spirit worn and weakened by some scathing sorrow could scarcely bear the reverberation.

221. APPROACH TO SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.

SUNSET came on as we approached the strait opening from Pablo Bay into the Bay of San Francisco. The cloudless sky became gradually suffused with a soft rose-tint, which covered its whole surface, painting alike the glassy sheet of the bay, and glowing most vividly on the mountains to the eastward. The color deepened every moment, and the peaks of the Coast Range burned with a rich vermilion light, like that of a live coal. This faded gradually into as glowing a purple, and at last into a blue as intense as that of the sea at noonday. The first effect of the light was most wonderful; the mountains stretched around the horizon like a belt of varying fire and amethyst, between the two roseate deeps of air and water; the shores were transmuted into solid, the air into fluid gems. Could the pencil faithfully represent this magnificent transfiguration of Nature, it would appear utterly unreal and impossible to eyes which never beheld the reality. It lingered, and lingered, changing almost imperceptibly and with so beautiful a decay, that one lost himself in the enjoyment of each successive charm, without regret for those which

were over.

NOVELISTS AND WRITERS OF FICTION.

CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 1771-1S10. (Manual, pp. 478, 505.)

From "Ormond."

222. THE YELLOW FEVER IN PHILADELPHIA.

As she approached the house to which she was going, her reluctance to proceed increased. Frequently she paused to recollect the motives that had prescribed this task, and to reënforce her purposes. At length she arrived at the house. Now, for the first time, her attention was excited by the silence and desolation that surrounded her. This evidence of fear and of danger struck upon her heart. All appeared to have fled from the presence of this unseen and terrible foe. The temerity of adventuring thus into the jaws of the pest, now appeared to her in glaring colors.

She cast her eye towards the house opposite to where she now stood. Her heart drooped on perceiving proofs that the dwelling was still inhabited. The door was open, and the windows in the second and third story were raised. Near the entrance, in the street, stood a cart. The horse attached to it, in his form, and furniture, and attitude, was an emblem of torpor and decay. His gaunt sides, motionless limbs, his gummy and dead eyes, and his head hanging to the ground, were in unison with the craziness of the vehicle to which he belonged, and the paltry and bedusted harness which covered him. No attendant nor any human face was visible. The stillness, though at an hour customarily busy, was uninterrupted, except by the sound of wheels moving at an almost indistinguishable distance.

She paused for a moment to contemplate this unwonted spectacle. Her trepidations were mingled with emotions not unakin to sublimity; but the consciousness of danger speedily prevailed, and she hastened to acquit herself of her engagement. She approached the door for this purpose, but before she could draw the bell, her motions were arrested by sounds from within. The staircase was opposite the door. Two persons were now discovered descending the stair. They lifted between them a heavy mass, which was presently discerned to be a coffin. Shocked by this discovery, and trembling, she withdrew from the entrance.

WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 1779-1843. (Manual, pp. 504, 510.)

223.

From "Monaldi."

IMPERSONATION OF THE POWER OF EVIL.

-

THE light (which descended from above) was so powerful, that for nearly a minute I could distinguish nothing, and I rested on a form attached to the wainscoting. I then put up my hand to shade my eyes, when - the fearful vision is even now before me I seemed to be standing before an abyss in space, boundless and black. In the midst of this permeable pitch stood a colossal mass of gold, in shape like an altar, and girdled about by a huge serpent, gorgeous and terrible; his body flecked with diamonds, and his head, an enormous carbuncle, floating like a meteor on the air above. Such was the Throne. But no words can describe the gigantic Being that sat there-the grace, the majesty, its transcendent form - and yet I shuddered as I looked, for its superhuman countenance seemed, as it were, to radiate falsehood; every feature was in contradiction - the eye, the mouth, even to the nostril—whilst the expression of the whole was of that unnatural softness which can only be conceived of malignant blandishment. It was the appalling beauty of the King of Hell. The frightful discord vibrated through my whole frame, and I turned for relief to the figure below. But I had turned from the first, only to witness in the second object, its withering fascination. I beheld the mortal conflict between the conscience and the will ― the visible struggle of a soul in the toils of sin.

on

From his "Letters."

224. ON A PICTURE BY CARRACCI.

THE subject was the body of the virgin borne for interment by four apostles. The figures are colossal; the tone dark, and of tremendous color. It seemed, as I looked at it, as if the ground shook at their tread, and the air was darkened by their grief.

225. ORIGINALITY Of Mind.

AN original mind is rarely understood until it has been reflected from some half dozen congenial with it; so averse are men to admitting the true in an unusual form; whilst any novelty, however fantastic, however false, is greedily swallowed.

JAMES K. PAULDING. 1779-1860. (Manual, p. 510.)

From "Westward Ho."

226. ABORTIVE TOWNS.

ZENO PADDOCK and his wife Mrs. Judith, departed from the village, never to return. Such was the reputation of the proprietor of the Western Sun, that a distinguished speculator, who was going to found a great city at the junction of Big Dry and Little Dry Rivers, made him the most advantageous offers to come and establish himself there, and puff the embryo bantling into existence as fast as possible. He offered him a whole square next to that where the college, the courthouse, the church, the library, the athenæum, and all the public buildings were situated. Truth obliges us to say, that on his arrival at the city of New Pekin, as it was called, he found it covered with a forest of trees, each of which would take a man half a day to walk round; and that on discovering the square in which all the public buildings were situated, he found, to his no small astonishment, on the very spot where the court-house stood on the map, a flock of wild turkeys gobbling like so many lawyers, and two or three white-headed owls sitting on the high trees listening with most commendable gravity. . . Zeno set himself down, began to print his paper in a great hollow sycamore, and to live on anticipation, as many great speculators had done before him.

227.

BEVERLEY TUCKER.' 1784-1851.

From "The Partisan Leader."

COMPARISON OF VIRGINIA AND THE NORTH.

"IN the way of commerce, nature has done nothing for the one, and everything for the other. But the conversation you have heard is a proof that the sand which chokes the waters of the Sound is a trivial obstacle, in comparison with the legislative barriers which have shut out prosperity from the noble Chesapeake. Look at your rivers and bay, and you will see that Virginia ought to be the most prosperous country in the world. Look at the ruins which strew the face of your lower country, the remains of churches and the fragments of tombstones, and you will see that she once was so. Ask for the descendants of the men whose names are sculptured on those monuments, and their present condition will tell you that her prosperity has passed

1 An earnest political writer of Virginia, of the State Rights school, who here conveys his views under the form of the novel.

away. Then ask all history. Go to the finest countries in the world - to Asia Minor, to Greece, to Italy—ask what has laid them desolate, and you will receive but one answer, 'misgovernment.'"

"But may not the fault be in the people themselves?" asked Douglas.

"The fault of submitting to be misgoverned, certainly. But no more than that. Let the country enjoy its natural advantages, and they who are too ignorant or too slothful to use them will soon give place to others of a different character."

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 1789-1851. (Manual, pp. 478, 495, 506.)

From "The Pilot."

228. LONG TOM COFFIN.

THE seaman who was addressed by this dire appellation arose slowly from the place where he was stationed as cockswain of the boat, and seemed to ascend high in air by the gradual evolution of numberless folds in his body. When erect, he stood nearly six feet and as many inches in his shoes, though, when elevated in his most perpendicular attitude, there was a forward inclination about his head and shoulders, that appeared to be the consequence of habitual confinement in limited lodgings. One of his hands grasped, with a sort of instinct, the staff of a bright harpoon, the lower end of which he placed firmly on the rock, as, in obedience to the order of his commander, he left the place, where, considering his vast dimensions, he had been established in an incredibly small space.

The hardy old seaman, thus addressed, turned his grave visage on his commander, and replied with a becoming gravity,"Give me a plenty of sea-room, and good canvas, where there is no occasion for pilots at all, sir. For my part, I was born on board a chebacco-man, and never could see the use of more land than now and then a small island, to raise a few vegetables, and to dry your fish I'm sure the sight of it always makes me feel uncomfortable, unless we have the wind dead off shore."

. . "I am more than half of your mind, that an island now and then is all the terra firma that a seaman needs."

"It's reason and philosophy, sir," returned the sedate cockswain ; "and what land there is, should always be a soft mud, or a sandy ooze, in order that an anchor might hold, and to make soundings sartin. I have lost many a deep-sea, besides hand-leads by the dozens, on rocky bottoms; but give me the roadstead where a lead