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time; with his breath, they sighed with his sighs, they weptbrothers and sisters were proud of him, and-better than all-a mother was not ashamed of him. All thought him a prodigy and each strove to make him so.

"They were not mistaken in his intellect. It was strong.

From

the time when he began his letters until he took his degree in college, he was first of his class wherever he chose to be. I have known him, in four days, astonish his preceptor by reciting what his class had labored upon for three weeks during his absence. And when he had done it, he threw by his books, and went to sleep as if he had nothing else to do in the world, but to dream away the residue of a life, worth little to himself and less to his friends.

But

"At this time his master was proud of him, and ashamed of him, praised him and blamed him, complained of him and thanked him. He was urged on from class to class-sometimes to help him, oftener to disgrace him. But from whatever cause it happened, he took the lead, and no time found him lagging behind any other one. he indulged himself in every species of amusement-with money enough from the kindest mother and the most partial friends, he sold his books that he might get more to squander upon vices that exceeded his years, and purchase pleasures that were beyond his capacity of enjoyment.

"He left the academy distinguished alike for talents and folly; for vice and virtue. And various were the sage prognostications that wise ones made as to his future success in life. Some there were that foretold his downfall; that saw, (as they supposed with unerring ken,) the very rock on which heaven had predetermined that he should be shipwrecked. They were mistaken. And you may rely upon it, that if he sinks at all, he will go down with colors flying. He would rather sink with a flag at the top, than float dismasted.

"But to return to his life. He left the academy with a character for talents, no character for morals-and very much of a character for disobedience and rebellion.. Yet he deserved neither, that is, he deserved neither in the degree in which it was bestowed upon him.

"As to his talents his reputation was half deserved, and the other half was the creature not of partiality, but of a kind of wonderment that had nothing of friendliness in it, and consisted merely in an abstract desire to worship, and those who had no God, thought it necessary to make an idol.

"In his moral character he was never vicious from natural depravity of heart, but he erred, if I may so call it, from necessity. There were none with whom he could associate-none to appreciate his heart and feelings-none to pardon the frailties of his nature. His quick sensibilities were made the subjects of jesting, and the romance of his imagination became a matter for every-day ridicule. It is no wonder then, that reared as he had been, with a tenderness

which exceeded even a mother's love, he should turn away with disgust from the heartlessness of the world around him. The contrast was too overpowering, and as a relief from his sorrows he fled to dissipation.

"But the general tenor of his life and character was correct, and under all circumstances it is not surprising that Alonzo's vanity was made somewhat dropsical. He was puffed up beyond a faithful measurement. Still be withheld himself, and during his collegiate course he kept a steady curb upon his feelings; yet, suffering them and his imagination with them, to run as fast and as far, as sound judgment could whistle them back; sometimes, perhaps, a little farther.

In

"When he entered College, he measured his classmates, and found none as tall when standing as he himself was when sitting. Knowing, therefore, that he could look over their heads without the exertion of rising, he seldom took the pains to get up. He determined at once what rank to take in the class-and he took it. dustry toiled after him in vain; genius started on eagle-pinion, but her flight was below him, and he looked laughing down on fluttering talent and panting labor, in the full consciousness that neither the one nor the other could approach near enough to breathe upon the the skirts of his garments.

"The knowledge of his own strength and an almost unbounded confidence in it, prevented its regular exertion. He needed no experiment to convince himself of his power, and he saw that others already felt and acknowledged it. Finding how easily he could win the race, he stopped to amuse himself with the flowers that grew in the hedges, and trusted to speed to bring him in first at the winningpost. Thus while friends grieved and enemies rejoiced in the belief that he was loitering away his time by the way-side, competitors were suddenly astonished to find that he had distanced them.

"This part of his character has been little understood, and less by himself than by others. In its consequences it has nearly destroyed him. His natural indolence was indulged by such a remission of labor; time enough was given to confirm the dreamy languor of his life; his pride was gratified in feeling that he could leap the whole course at a single bound; his vanity was flattered in showing it, and he found an additional source of amusement in the gaping wonder of those who gazed upon him, as if his performances were little less than miraculous. All these feelings conspired to make his course erratic. He never revolved in any regular orbit; but coming occasionally into the system like a comet, he was running at one time nearly on the disk of the sun, and at the next, perhaps, he flew away to an almost returnless distance from the regions of light.

"But this mode of life could not last forever. The hunger of the mind, the cravings of the heart, require more substantial food than air. And even vanity herself, will in the end become tired and sickened with the gaping of fools.

"What then was to be done? Courted and caressed by all-though understood by none; laughed with for wit he never had, because it was the fashion to believe he had it; admired for sagacity that was nothing more than a set of lucky blunders; praised for courage, that was only the courage of fools who rush in where "angels fear to tread;" looked up to for information that was in truth a mere patchwork, made by culling here and there a shred that the poorest beggar in literature would have cast away; sought after as the genius of conviviality, but found an untimely preacher of morals; the very essence of mirth, and yet the constant cause of sorrow, what should Alonzo have done?

"The wide world was before him; all the varieties of happiness stood within his reach; he had but to choose and take. Pity it is he chose so ill. Friends wept and foes sneered as he pushed off his little bark into what he thought an ocean of delight. Caution offered to stand at the helm; wisdom would have furnished him with a chart; but no-curiosity impelled-beauty smiled-pleasure beckoned and he launched upon the waters, reckless of tempests and fearful only of a calm. Many and many a year has he been tossing about in alternate elevation and depression; now on the sparkling summit of the wave and now sinking in its abyss. His voyage has been a voyage of discovery as well as of traffic. He has coasted the whole ocean of iniquity-not an island rises on its surface, not a promontory juts into its sides, not a bay recedes from the lash of its waters, that he has not often visited, and at each visit thrown ashore a portion of his conscience. He is now seeking to return, and as one just awakened from sleep by the cry of fire, gazes about him, half in anxiety and half in stupor, so he looks out into the darkness, with the vain hope of descrying that peaceful shore, which, in a thoughtless, not a guilty moment, he abandoned; vain hope! The ocean is trackless; his boat is crazy; the winds and the waves are against him; he is without chart and without compass; the only reckoning that he has kept is an enumeration of follies and crimes upon the little scrap of his conscience that is left, and he has not one friend on shore to throw a signal rocket into the sky to direct his course-poor fellow! I fear he is lost.

"Such is the man you have admired; such is the man the public has envied; such is the man whom friends have loved and foes have feared; such is the man who substituted his fancy for his reason, and worshipped himself instead of his God. Now what is he? The owner of a broken constitution, a rusty mind, and a rotten heart. The intellect that once coruscated with flashes that showed their own quality, while they lightened up surrounding objects, is now obscured and cloudy; the imagination that peopled the kingdom of his mind with brighter creations than poets dream of, has left his cold bosom for some more congenial region; the heart that once throbbed responsively to every thing that was good, like the Eolian

harp that whispered music to the softest breeze, now hardly wakens at the loudest cry of conscience, and never starts but at the scorpion sting of remorse.

"Do you envy that man? Look into his bosom! See how many hours he spends in unavailing regret, how often he wastes the present in thinking of the past, how many times and how long he ponders on good advice neglected, salutary admonitions disregarded, tender mercies refused, solemn warnings scoffed at. Every hour of his life he sows the seeds of repentance, but never produces the fruit of amendment. Thus he goes on from sin to remorse and from remorse to sin. At this moment he is tired of sin. Satiety has begotten disgust and he strives to reform in part for the sake of variety.

"Is such a man to be respected? Yet you admire him. I do not wonder at it. At the moment when you saw him, his soul had broken out of his bosom to gambol in the purer air of virtue, with more than the delight of a devil escaped from hell. You have seen what he is! You cannot even imagine what he might have been. Tell me not of his genius-his genius has destroyed his happiness. Talk not to me of his talents-his talents have undone his heart. He is alone and sad, wearied with the tumult of life and sick of its cares and sorrows. The days of his youth-the friends of his youth -the feelings of his youth are gone. The mother whose tender care watched over the years of his infancy-the father whose counsels guided his early life-the sisters who shared his sports-all are gone. He is alone and sad."

**

*

*

And thus ends his story. He set out in life with as ardent aspirations after virtue as ever entered the heart of man, and cherished hopes as high as ever he had who reached the " topmost round of young ambition's ladder," yet he was neither virtuous nor successful, for he never took a right view of life, but always lived in the fairy world of his own creation; and when he had dreamed out his dream, and attempted to turn his eyes upon human nature, as it is, he found that his vision was too enlarged for the dull realities of life, and that the earth-bound creatures of our sphere were beings far less beautiful and feeling than the bright conceptions of his own imagination.

And he died-far from the home of his childhood-with no friend to soothe his dying hours-no loving hand to smooth his pathway to the tomb-but strangers wept for him, and in the grave perhaps he found that peace which on earth he denied himself.

No train of senseless mourners followed him to his home,-no proud mausoleum decks the earth where his dust reposes,-but the winds of heaven sweep their solemn requiem over his grave and the tears of friends have hallowed the spot where lie his ashes.

273

A SISTER'S DREAM.

(Waking.)

"It is my sister's voice-No, no, a dream
Has waked its echo, in my lonely heart;
And like the dungeon's solitary beam,

That bids the tears in captive eyes to start,
It calls to mind the joys that now are past,
Too bright, too heavenly pure, on earth to last.

(Trying to sleep.)

"Oh! let me hear that silver voice again,
If only in the dreamer's fancied sound;
Let me but hear its melody, and then

In sweetest ecstacies of pleasure drowned,
I'll sleep away the hours, nor wish to wake,
And thus its fairy tones of music break."

(Sleeps.)

Again has sleep with soft oblivious hand,
Shut down the silken lashes of her eyes;
And thoughts all beautiful, serene and bland,
Pass as the sun-lit clouds o'er summer skies,
Causing her ruby lips a smile to bear,
Such as angelic beings love to wear.

Her bosom heaves-a gentle sigh is heard,
And murmuring words fall softly on the air,
As downy plumage from a wandering bird,
Or dying beauty's fondly-whispered prayer.
She speaks in slumber, (whilst there falls a tear,)
'Oh Mary, Mary, sister! art thou here?'

GAMMA.

THE REAL OBJECT OF PHILOSOPHY.

THE character and usefulness of philosophy, as it has existed in the world, have been so changing and doubtful that the attentive student yields cautiously to its deductions, and the man of mere practical experience suspects its most imposing inferences. Truth has ever been the professed end of the philosopher's search, and the object of his pure devotion. He has sought it for its intrinsic beauty and glory, alledging at the same time, that this beauty was its being essentially eternal and immutable. And yet, philosophy, the boast

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