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lon without seeming to see the solemn, silent, ewelled, patent-leathered Molle de Boeuf, languishing for the Boulevards and the amenities of Paris.

But this is partly digressive. I left myself coming down to breakfast. A boarding-house breakfast is-but no matter. "It's of no consequence."

Breakfast over, I brushed my hat, put on my gloves, took a final survey of the general effect of Andrew Cranberry in the square mirror, over the high mantel, upon which stood two solemn spectral old candlesticks, that seemed to have only officiated as light-givers at funerals, evening meetings, and other melancholy occasions, and did not at all suggest brilliant festivity, clouds of flounced muslin, French flowers, music, perfume, smiles, and all the delicious jam and crush of an evening party. Poor old candlesticks! I suppose they are there yet, summing up in themselves the dreariness of the house, and presiding, in severe stiffness, over the desolation of those dingy parlors.

Thank Heaven! we are now about stepping into the sunshine.

1 opened the door. How warm and kindly streamed the sun against mehearty, broad and cordial as Carlo's welcome upon my annual visit to him. It put me in gay good humor directly:

"Never, believe me,

Appear the immortals,
Never alone,"

whispered I to myself, as I stepped briskly down the street, enjoying a good deal of joking and laughing with myself at my own expense, for harping so constantly upon the lines.

"Andrew," said I jocosely, but confidentially, "Cranberry, you unconscionable wretch! you know that you expect something to come out of this little incident of the poem-you know perfectly well, that you are on the look-out for adventures."

"Not at all," said I, with the air of a man delighted that his secret is discovered, but too proud to own it.-"It has happened a thousand times before. I often wake up with the fragment of a tune in my mind, and go on humming and singing it, all day long. Oh no! it's a pleasant little incident, that's all. shows that Blackstone and Chitty and the Admiralty practice, and all the rest of that preposterous rubbish heaped up in little stout calf covers, and called Law, has not driven poetry out of my head."

It

"I should rather say not," said Mr. Andrew Cranberry, Attorney-at-Law, quietly smiling at his own thoughts.

At that moment a dark object fell flut

tering at my feet. It was a black lace veil, which I lost no time in picking up, and looking about for the owner. Nobody could have dropped it but a woman of slight figure, and dressed in black, whom I saw hurrying along the street, and who must have unconsciously dropped it as she passed me. Of course, I instantly matured a theory of the perfect youth and beauty of the slight lady in black, and hurried after her with the most gallant of bland smiles upon my face,

"Permit me, madam," said I, accosting her, and holding my hat a little removed from my head, as College Professors hold theirs when they pass in between the students to the Commencement Dinner-"is this, possibly, your veil ?"

A pair of surprised black eyes answered me with a glance so expressive that my hat came quite off in my hand, and I ended my address with a most respectful bow. "Thank you, it is mine;" was all the response I received, and the next moment the dark slight figure was floating along as before, and Andrew Cranberry stood alone upon the sidewalk.

But for a moment only. To jeer at myself for stopping and staring, instead of investigating further the history of the surprised black eyes, was the business of a fleeting instant-to follow and proffer courteous attentions was the inspiration and the action of the next.

Fair reader! be not alarmed, nor fear that when you chance to drop your veil, you therefore expose yourself to the insults, or the attentions, of any chance Cranberry; not at all. I simply followed the invitation of the eyes, in following that slight figure floating along the street; and if you, Moelle De Bœuf, or any other French-minded man, dares suppose that those eyes might not have been the pure orbs of Rosamund Gray herself, you do foul wrong to a maiden, and to the character of an irreproachable Attorneyat-Law.

No, no. The invitation was entirely involuntary and unconscious upon the part of the lady, but it was of that character which permitted me directly to accept it. Had the lady -O floating figure, forgive the word,-winked, in acknowledgment of my handing the veil, I should instantly have hailed an omnibus, or rushed into the Bowery to take the

cars.

I rapidly gained upon ber. I reached her side. It was a lonely part of the street, and there were no noisy carriagewheels to drown the sound of my voice

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with their roar. Then, with all the respect of a Crusader kneeling to the image of his lady upon his shield, I said"Madam, may I hope that the little service I have rendered you is but the beginning of

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She turned toward me. I saw again the surprised black eyes fixed full upon me. You, Moelle De Boeuf, would have withered in that glance, because it was not alone surprise but indignation. I too should have trembled and shrunk away, if I had not been full of the fairest intentions. Meaning nothing but what the Chevalier Bayard, without fear and without reproach, might have meant, I stood my ground manfully, and continued,

"I am perfectly aware how singular, and preposterous this conduct may seem, but I may never see you again, and-and, and I want to know you," said I, trusting to Providence.

“It is singular, sir,” said a low sweet voice, "to accost a lady whom you do not know in this way, and in the street. You are mistaken, sir. I will wait until you retire."

She stood still, but I could see a little mournfulness in her eyes, as if she were grieved that a man whose aspect had pleased her (I knew that immediately), should disappoint her, and prove to be only a Moelle De Boeuf, after all.

Madam," said I, "you do me a great wrong, if you fancy that I have any thought which you would not honor. I have indulged a whim in speaking to you, but I do most solemnly assure you, it was the result of a genuine wish to know you." And I pulled out my card-case, and handed her a card, Mr. Andrew Cranberry.

"Mr. Cranberry," replied the lady, "I am willing to believe what you say; and, looking in your face, I do believe it. Yet I do not know why you should wish to know me, whom you have never before seen, and whom you could hardly expect to see again. Propriety, Mr. Cranberry, the usage of the world, &c., &c.," continued she with a slight smile, "would require me to order your instant departure; but I am able to take care of myself, and I am confident you mean no wrong."

So saying, the lady resumed her walk, and I accompanied her. She had that subdued, sweet manner, which implies a latent grief-a sorrow that has become a habit. The quiet self-possession revealed a character moulded by actual contact with the world, a manner more beautiful to me than the conventional reserve and timidity of the daughters of my Twentieth Avenue friend, Mrs. Parr Venoo. Our

conversation fell upon obvious topics, but in all she said there was a maidenly wisdom which was no less new than fascinating. I do not very distinctly remember what we said. It was that glancing talk by the way, of which the spirit, the tone and the feeling are so much more than the words.

I only remember this, that with every step of the way, I went whole leagues into love. She belonged to no "set" with which I was familiar. She knew none of the fashionable ladies. She had no gossip. The walk with her was like a warm day in winter-like a summer week in the country to a tired Pearlstreet Jobber. She knew the poetry of the poets I loved, the music of the composers most dear to me. But in all she said, and in all I asked, there was no allusion to her situation in life,-nothing which informed me with whom I was speaking.

Suddenly-it was somewhere in the Twenty-second Avenue-she paused before the door of a small house in a poor block. There was a sign under the front windows "Madame Beignet de Pomme, Milliner from Paris." She went up the steps leaving me standing upon the sidewalk.

"I thank you for a very pleasant walk," said she, as she rang the bell. "Is this your home?" inquired I. "Yes, for the present," answered she. "You are a milliner ?" "I am a milliner."

"You are not Madame De Pomme?" "I am not Madame De Pomme."

It was evident that she did not choose to be questioned further in that direction, and I said no more.

"Will you allow me to come and see you sometimes ?" asked I.

She did not immediately answer, but stood looking on the ground and thinking, at length she said; "Mr. Cranberry, I am quite alone in this city; in fact, I have scarcely a friend. You will understand, therefore, how easy it is for people to speak ill of me. Yet I am not willing to lose all the pleasure of such society as I most enjoy (and which I rarely meet), because evil tongues wag so readily. If I consent to see you, I shall do so at a great sacrifice."

As she spoke, a fiery gloom gathered in her eyes, like jealous passion in the eyes of a Spanish girl. "It is a wicked world," she continued; "that will not let me see a friend, without slandering my reputation. But if you will sometimes come to see me, I shall not hesitate to receive you."

She said it with a firm emphasis, as if

forcing down the suggestions of timidity and pride.

66

Good morning, Mr. Cranberry," said she as the door opened, and she passed into the house.

Andrew Cranberry, Attorney-at-Law, went down to his office, and did a very confused day's work. I do not think he said any thing to any body that had not the strictest relation to business. In the intervals of work he looked into the little court beneath his window, in which the prospect consisted of the iron shutters and dingy brick wall of the stores opposite, and where the sunshine looked pale and sickly, and dead; and saw nothing there but June days in a pleasant country, with broad acres of wild flowers, and waving grain, and the edges of green woods, and a gentle lawn sloping to a river. He saw a house too, as he looked into the dead sunlight of the court, an easy, rambling, wooden country-house, with a piazza, and vines wreathing the columns, and pots of flowers in the windows. Upon the piazza, as he still looked, in the softest of summer days, sat a figure quietly sewing, and he thought he heard the murmur of a low song. If the deep dark eyes of that figure had ever been sad, they were so no longer,—if the sweet and noble manner had ever seemed to betray a habit of grief, it had utterly

lost it now, there was pure summer in the sky, summer on the landscape, summer in those eyes and in the repose of that figure. But even while he gazed, two or three smaller figures came bounding up the gentle lawn from the river, with a huge shaggy black Newfoundland dog. He was sure he heard the loud and happy shouts of children.-he was sure the figure, quietly working, raised the black eyes not surprised, but with a tranquil and maternal delight-and, wildest vision of all-he was sure that in the window of a library opening upon the piazza, and watching that group with eyes moist with happiness, stood, in a loose coat and slippers, and leaning against the side of the window, with his forefinger in a book, Andrew Cranberry, Attorney-at-Law. And, by Jove! as he looked into that pale, sickly sunshine of the court, he was sure he heard that figure speak to the lady, and say

"Never, believe me, Appear the immortals, Never alone!"

-Whether all this had any thing to do with a certain card that was ordered to be engraved within six months of the day that the veil was picked up, is a curious inquiry. That card ran thus:

Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Cranberry.

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ᎪᏞ

THE HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS.*

LI BABA, when he entered the Cave

of the Forty Thieves, could not have been more amazed by the wealth of its contents, than some people will be when they first read the title of this book; for it flies in the face of two very ancient and quite sacred traditions.

It implies, firstly, that the ambiguous class of men called authors, may be in the possession of Homes,-consequently of wealth, social position, and respectability; and, secondly, that among the three thousand American writers who pretend to the name, there are some at least who are really authors, by which is meant, literary creators or men of genius. Are not both of these, assumptions which the general mind will regard as extremely hazardous?

The records of literary adventure have produced the impression the world over, that authors are a peculiar and exceptional class, a race of shiftless, seedy and improvident individuals, who, unable to live by any of the recognized methods of society, have betaken themselves to the expedient of living by their wits. It is understood that they reside, when they reside any where, in some vacant corner of a garret, like grubs in a hole; that they pass their days in a pot-house or in lurking out of the way of bumbailiffs and landladies; and that, after leading lives of vicissitude, poverty, neglect, and sorrow, when they come to die, they revenge their long quarrel with mankind by bequeathing to it certain inestimable treasures of poetry, wit, or profound thought, over which it will gloat and glow for ever.

Who cannot recall a multitude of essays that has been written on the hapless lot of the poet who "learned by suffering what he taught in song?" How often have literary men bewailed the cruel injustice of society to their order? What sighs have not been exhaled and tears wept over the pitiful stories of misconceived and unrewarded genius? Nor have these lamentations been wholly without foundation. The sad experiences of Savage, the miserable death of Otway, and the more miserable death of Chatterton, "the sleepless boy who perished in his pride," the miscarriages of Burns, the indigence of Coleridge, the protracted struggles of Hook and Hood, the suicide of Blanchard, and a thousand other mournful histories have been a staple product of the literary memoirs. Have not the calamities of authors furnished the indefatigable Disraeli with the

materials for a volume ? Or is there any possibility of our forgetting those lines of Moore, how

Bailiffs will seize his last blanket to-day,
Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow.

While the pretty fable of Schiller is ap-
propriate,—the fable in which he repre-
sents Jupiter as dividing all the wealth of
the world among the different classes of
his creatures. To the kings he gives taxes
and tolls, to the farmers lands, to the
merchants trade, and to the abbots and
monks most excellent wine; but after
having disposed of all, he espies a poet
wandering away from the rest, destitute
and alone. "What ho! my good fellow,"
exclaims the father of men, where wert
thou when the general distribution was
going forward?" The bard modestly re-
plied, "Mine eyes were drunk with the
glory of thy coming, and mine ears filled
with the harmonies of heaven!" When
the monarch of the gods, apparently no
less open to delicate flattery than any
mortal,-to him thus: "Well, it's a sad
case, my boy! I have nothing left on the
earth to give you, but as a compensation,
you shall have, after death, the topmost
round on my throne in the skies." The
poet was doubtless pleased, and went
away, and ever since, this has been the
inheritance of his tribe. We may ob-
serve of it, that though a good reversion
for the next life, it is not one on which
money could be raised in Wall-street.

Well, incidents and memories such as these have given rise to the unfavorable estimate of authorship as a profession, to which we allude, so that in the minds of many, the writing of sonnets is equivalent to going shirtless, and the perpetration of a romance the next thing in its social consequences, to the perpetration of crime. And although the distinguished successes of a few individuals, the facts, for instance, that Scott could build a baronial castle, and Dickens live like a lord, and Disraeli achieve the chan- . cellorship, and Bancroft get to be a foreign ambassador, &c., have partially corrected the opinion, there is reason to believe that a majority of the world still looks upon literature as no better than a miserable and desperate dernier resort. Only the other day, Mr. William Jerdan, himself pretending to be one of the literary Corapheii of Great Britain, wrote a book which is one long wail over the unhappy conditions and prospects of writers as a class, and an earnest appeal to

*The Homes of American Authors, &c. &c. G. P. Putnam & Co. New-York: 1853.

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young men to avoid the professional pursuit of letters as they would avoid any temptation of the devil. "Let no man,' he says, "be bred to literature, for as it has been less truly said of another occupation, it will not be bread to him. Fallacious hopes, bitter disappointments, uncertain rewards, vile impositions, and censure and slander from the oppressors, are his lot as soon as he puts pen to paper for publication, or risks his peace of mind on the black, black sea of printers' ink. With a fortune to sustain, or profession to stand by him, it may still be bad enough; but without one or the other, it is as foolish as alchemy or desperate as suicide."

This is the old story, but we think there is a great deal of misconception in it; at least we ought not, from Mr. Jerden's failure, which, as a late foreign review proves, is to be ascribed to his own want of capability and prudence-we must not infer the inevitable fate of the whole circle of authors; and, we cordially agree with that periodical further, that literature is as lucrative and promising as any other profession, to men who are really qualified to discharge its exacting and lofty functions. One reason why it records the disastrous rout of so many of its followers is, that so many rush into it without the requisite capacities, and then their defeats are chronicled, if not by themselves, by others, and so heralded to the world. Hardly a shiftless Corydon fails in walks of art that demand the loftiest endowments of the mind-and what crowds of such are there every year -that he or his friends do not parade him as another example of melancholy shipwreck, as if he deserved or could fairly have anticipated any other end. If the same note were taken of the miscarriages in law, medicine and divinity, if every briefless barrister, every physician without a patient, and every clergyman without a cure, could make his griefs the talk of the town, as authors manage to do theirs, the disadvantages of their vocations would swell into the magnitude and enormity of those of letters, and literature would no longer stand solitary in its aggravations.

For, it is not true that literature is a peculiarly unkind and unnatural mother. Her favors to those children that are worthy of her, if not exuberant, are yet not stinted. It is true, that writing is not so productive of money as cotton spinning or merchandise, because, as the Review we have just quoted well argues, the conditions of literary and of ordinary commercial labor, are very different. The latter supplies a constant want, the former ministers only to an intellectual

luxury, or to wants that do not wear out the supply with such rapidity as to keep up a high and incessant demand. Both must be regulated, to some extent, by the vulgar law of supply and demand, and their profits, by the same law, cannot be forced beyond the natural level of cost and competition. "The latter combines the joint action of capital and labor; it feels a continual competition; it is not dependent upon the humor or the accidents of the time; no prosaic transition of the public taste converts its productions, like poetry, into a drug; however people may become indifferent to books, they are never likely to dispense with shirts, or to decline the advantage of the steam engine; and although the writer to whose merits the age is insensible, or whose merits are of no utility to the age, may be left to starve, the manufacturer will thrive. Is it reasonable to protest against a state of things which has been inevitable from the beginning of the world, and which will continue to be inevitable, so long as the material wants of the world must be served, let its intellectual wants shift as they may? The aims of the two classes are essentially different, and each has its own reward. The literary man has a glory which is denied to the manufacturer, nor could he envy the latter his wealth, if he knew how to appreciate his own position at its true value. He has fame, if he deserves it,-honor, if he merits it; nor need he doubt of achieving the highest social distinctions, if he asserts his right to them as he ought, and maintains them with integrity and self-respect; while the other may be left to the unenvied possession of wealth and obscurity."

This is well said, and is true; but it should also be admitted, in behalf of literary men, to explain and excuse, if not to justify their complaints, that with most of them, the difficulty is not so much the insufficiency of their incomes, as the liberality of their outgoes. A thousand peculiar temptations, springing partly from those mental susceptibilities which difference them from others, and partly from their social eligibility, beset them to spend more than they make. The very qualities which form their greatest glory, are those often which lead them into the deepest pain and humiliations. If they were as hard, as unimaginative, as careful of the main chance, as the cotton spinner or the merchant, they would grow rich like the cotton spinner or the merchant; but they are not so constructed. That delicacy of organization, which makes them alive to those finer perceptions out of which literature comes, renders them keenly sensi

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