be forgiven if I, in the way which seems to me right, seek my happiness?' and I clung to his knees, and bathed his hands with the scalding tears, as I clasped them to my bosom, But coldly he cast me from him, and left me stretched lifeless upon the floor. It was the slow and cruel torture compared with which murder would have been merciful, oh! how merciful!

When I awoke, the moon-beams were struggling through the thick branches which shaded the window, bathing with their pale, cold, light the cheeks still wet with tears, and the hair which fell in dishevelled masses upon the floor. I was chilled, and could scarcely drag myself across the floor, but succeeded in finding something in which to wrap myself, and sank again into a heavy slumber, from which I awoke with a scream, wondering if day would never dawn, and then followed a disturbed and dreamy sleep, in which I was upon the verge of frightful precipices or trembling before yawning gulfs, or the fangs of monstrous serpents were fastened in my vitals, while I was writhing in their slimy folds.

What the day revealed to others I knew not. When consciousness returned, many weeks had passed, which brought only the indistinct recollection of having been cast into some horrible pit, where I groped in darkness among rocks or sank in miry sloughs, treading upon vipers whose hisses were continually in my ears. My hair seemed changed to snakes, which were dangling about my neck and temples, with their fiery eyes and forked tongues glaring before me.

Then came the scarcely less painful remembrance of the reality, from which there was no recovery, no escape. But there came with it new views of life, of duty, of immortality, and with these, new strength. The soul awoke from its lethargy, and was clothed with a new righteousness, which emancipated it from servility, and prepared it not only for endurance but for action.

I recovered; that is, I walked about, and visited and talked, and assumed a gayety I had never before known; but henceforth there was a blight upon the spirit, for which life had no remedy. I could hide it, but it never ceased to corrode.

In some way the knowledge of my illness reached him who departed so blithe of heart; and many weeks after my recovery there came a letter telling me how he ventured into my father's presence, and begged to see me, promising that it should be the last time: he would not speak, he never would write again, might he only be permitted to look upon my face once more. But the boon was denied; and ere he reached his home, a burning fever prostrated him; and for many weeks he was hovering between life and death. Now,' he said, 'I will bid you farewell for ever. Το you I could kneel and implore, but I cannot thus humble myself to a man; and, conscious as I am of my unworthiness to possess the treasure I covet, I cannot understand the objections a man can make to my pretensions. Farewell. To continue our acquaintance is only torture to yourself and me. We will be strangers henceforth, though in the thought there is a sting sharper than any death-pang. What is in the future I cannot tell. I may marry. I do not believe in living alone. I can never love another as I have loved

you. GOD grant I never may but I may love another well enough to be happy-happier than in utter desolation. Farewell; farewell.'

To this I made no reply. I had not strength; and it was useless. In another year I heard he was married to one whom I had seen, and knew to be good and beautiful. He was happy for myself— no matter!

The mother heard the quick, discordant shriek,

And, spreading wings, dashed downward like the light:
Now hovering, caught her young with harmless beak,
And bore it upward in her airy flight:

Released again, the eaglet in amaze,

Renewed in strength, each spreading pirion tries,
While, lest it fall, the mother round it plays,
And cheers it on until at length-it flies!

New-York, May 9th, 1856.

BALEN.

This wide-spread earth is unto thee
A guarded court and darkened cell,
Yet in its dreary spaces are

The waters of the mystic well,

Which cleanse the garments of thy soul,

Until in white-robed calm it stands,

Waiting until the iron gates

Are opened by thy FATHER'S hands. WALTER M. LINDSAY

READER, did you ever spring into an omnibus at the head of Wallstreet, with a resolution to seek a more humanizing element of life than the hard struggle for pecuniary triumphs? Did you ever come out of a Fifth-Avenue palace, your eyes wearied by a glare of bright and varied colors, your mind oppressed with a night-mare of upholstery, and your conscience reproachful on account of an hour's idle gossip? Did you ever walk up Broadway, soon after meridian, and look into the stony, haggard, or frivolous countenances of the throng, listen to the shouts of omnibus-drivers, mark the gaudy silks of bankrupts' wives, and lose yourself the while in a retrospective dream of country-life, or a sojourn in an old deserted city of Europe? A reaction such as this is certain, at times, to occur in the mood of the dweller in this kaleidoscope of New-York; and as it is usually induced by an interval of leisure, we deem it a kindly hint to suggest where an antidote may found for the bane, and how the imagination may be lured, at once, into a new sphere, and the heart refreshed by a less artificial and turbid phase of this mundane existence. Go and see the artists. They are scattered all over the metropolis: sometimes to be found in a lofty attic, at others in a hotel; here over a shop, there in a back-parlor; now in the old Dispensary, and again in the new University: isolated or in small groups, they live in their own fashion, not a few practising rigid

be

and ingenious economies, others nightly in elite circles or at sumptuous dinners; some genially cradled in a domestic nest, and others philosophically forlorn in bacheloric solitude. But wherever found, there is a certain atmosphere of content, of independence, and of originality in their domiciles. I confess that the ease, the frankness, the sense of humor and of beauty I often discover in these artistic nooks, puts me quite out of conceit of the prescriptive formalities of Upper-Tendom. Our systematic and prosaic life ignores, indeed, scenes like these; but the true artist is essentially the same everywhere a child of nature, to whom a thing of beauty is a joy for ever;' and therefore a visit to the New-York studios cannot fail to be suggestive and pleasing, if we only go thither, not in a critical, but in a sympathetic mood.

Many of our cherished artists-Allston, Greenough, and Cole, are no more: many, like Doughty, have in a great measure retired from public view, and not a few are abroad. Powers is at Florence, executing his unrivalled busts: Crawford is at Rome at work on the Virginia monument, the horse for which was cast not long ago at Munich, and won enthusiastic admiration while the statues of Patrick Henry and of Jefferson, already at Richmond, are acknowledged masterpieces the Beethoven, too, now in Boston, proved a complete triumph: Paige, called the modern Titian, is deemed there the greatest of portrait-painters; Chapman, his neighbor, is etching Roman peasants in a manner no one can excel: Freeman, near by, is studiously evolving a masterly work, and Thompson has made the most perfect copy of the Beatrice seen for years; while Ives models better than ever, and Miss Lander handles the clay and modelling stick with progressive aptitude and high promise.

One of the most familiar faces among our Roman artist-friends may be seen triennially in our own busy thoroughfares, and not seldom at an evening party up-town.' Terry seems to have preserved intact his native ways amid the vagaries of Italian life: the same kindly, sensible fellow as if he had never thrown bon bons at the Carnival or joined in the chorus at a pic-nic at Ostia. He was ever an attentive cicerone to his countrymen, and especially, country-women; and now that he has reëstablished himself in a handsome studio of the Eternal City, very comfortable are his artistic receptions, where rides to the Appian Way, a party to witness the illumination of St. Peter's, or join in a ball at Torlonia's, are talked over by fair visitors to their hearts' content. Weir is at West-Point, every now and then sending to Williams and Stevens, a domestic or religious picture marked by a Flemish exactitude of detail, a fine disposition of light and shade, or an attractive tone of feeling. Morse has put his artist fire into a locomotive shape, and writes with electric fluid instead of painting in oil. His last picture hangs in the drawing-room of Locust-Grove,' his beautiful domain on the Hudson; and while it testifies too much skill and feeling for the lover of art not to regret his withdrawal from the field, it also symbolizes the domestic enjoyment, which with science and a great public economy, now more than fills the deserted sphere of his youth it is an admirable full-length portrait of his daughter. Leutze is busy upon American historical subjects, at Dusseldorf; and his grand