The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862

A BRIDAL

 
I ride along the lonely sands,
Where once we rode with clasping hands.
 
 
The wild waves sob upon the beach,
As mournful as love's parting speech.
 
 
Those cruel waves, close-clasped they hold
My lost love, with his locks of gold.
 
 
Here, while the wind blew from the south,
He kissed me with his tender mouth.
 
 
Oh, sun of hope, in dark eclipse!
Oh, aching heart, and unkissed lips!
 
 
On, on I ride, faster, in vain,
I cannot hush the cry of pain
 
 
In my sick soul. But, hark! how clear
That voice of voices fills my ear!
 
 
'Why waitest thou beside the sea?
Canst thou not die, and come to me?'
 
 
Soul-king, I come! Alas! my need
Was great. Press on, my faithful steed.
 
 
Deep, deep into the sea I ride:
There my love's hero waits his bride.
 
 
The longing billows of the sea
With happy welcome smile to me.
 
 
They touch my foot, they reach my knee:
Darling! they draw me thus to thee.
 
 
They kiss thy picture on my heart;
Love of my life! no more we part.
 
 
The rushing waters still my breath:
Oh! have we dared to fear thee, Death?
 

Ebenezer Stibbs died, near Lewisburg, O., a martyr to his country's cause, October 14th, 1862, in the seventy-first year of his age. His death was a violent one, though he fell not upon the field of strife; for many of the soldiers of our country have never been enrolled, never promoted, never praised for their gallantry, but, far away from the tented field, in their lonely homes, are going down to their graves without sound of drum or salute of musket, unnoticed and unknown.

And this brave old man was one of them. Residing for a number of years on a farm with his son, he had long been excused, on account of the infirmities of age, from active service on the farm, and even from the numerous little tasks about the house and barn involved in the care of the family and the stock. His son was drafted, and now, 'who shall look after things about the place?' 'Go,' said the brave old hero, 'and serve your country, and I'll attend to matters here.'

He set about the work in good heart, and seemed likely to succeed admirably; but one day, while pushing some hay over the edge of the mow, he lost his balance, plunged forward, falling a distance of some ten or twelve feet, and, striking his head on the hard threshing floor, was so stunned as to become entirely insensible. A member of the household soon after entered the barn and found him bleeding and helpless. Medical aid was immediately summoned, but he survived his injuries only a couple of hours, and died without speaking a word. When this dreadful war shall have ended, and tall white columns shall spring up like an alabaster forest all over the land, to commemorate the glories of the departed brave, let one, at least, of the noble shafts, without legend or inscription, stand as the representative of those who have fallen in obscurity, like the soldiers cut off in the forest, unnoticed and unknown.

A Buckeye correspondent sends us the following, which is too good to keep:

THE DEACON AND HIS SON

Some years agone, old Deacon S– kept a corner grocery in the village of B–. Deacon S– had a son, who officiated in said grocery. Deacon S– professed to be very pious—so did Deacon S.'s son.

Whether the Deacon and his son were what they professed to be, I will leave the reader to judge from the following conversation, which took place between them, one Saturday night, just before closing the store:

'Jacob!'

'Sir?'

'Dit you charge Mr. T– mit te ham?'

'Yes, father.'

'Vell, so dit I.'

A pause.

'Jacob!'

'Sir?'

'You had petter charge him again, so you won't forget him.'

'Yes, father.

Another pause.

'Jacob!'

'Sir?'

'Now you can water te vinegar, sand te sugar, and close te store, un den we vill haf family worship, un go ter ped!'

'Yes, father.'

'Law is,' to use the frequent phrase of a Gothamite contemporary, 'a cu'ros thing;' and not the least curious phase which it presents is the difference between what people say before juries and what they think; as is fully illustrated in the following, by Frank Hackett:

'Gracchus,' as the town called him, was a broken-down lawyer, who, as he got old, had prostituted the talents of his early days to the meanest kind of pettifogging and rascality. Everybody did their best to keep out of his clutches, and his 'make up' was seedy enough; yet he managed to keep in court half a dozen 'cranky suits,' in which, to be sure, he figured as a party himself, on one side or the other. The circumstances of one of them, which have just come to our memory, are perhaps worth jotting down:

For some quarters, Gracchus had not paid any rent, and his landlord made repeated requests of him to move out. Even a promise to cancel all arrears would not make him stir. A writ of ejectment would have delighted this 'legal spider;' but Mr. R. knew 'when he was well off,' and refused to resort to that. ' My dear sir, you must go,' said he one day, annoyed at the fellow's obstinacy; 'I have a man coming in right away, who will pay me a good tenant's rent, and I am going to have the office repaired for him. So just make up your mind to quit this afternoon.'

As Mr. R. turned to go out, he examined the window nearest him, and poked his cane through the decayed sash and crumbling glass in two or three places, with the remark: 'A pretty condition this for a business man's office to be in!' Nobody was surprised to hear that evening that a suit had been brought against Mr. R. for damages in trespass.

Mr. R.'s counsel told him that the best thing he could do would be to go to trial as soon as possible, and if he got out of it with a small sum for damages and no further annoyance, he would be lucky. Gracchus had secured 'Squire Sweet to argue the case to the jury—probably 'on shares.' To hear Sweet 'warm up' before the panel, you would have sworn that the 'palladium of justice' and the other 'fixtures' had their salvation staked on the success of his client. And if there was anything he thought himself competent to 'operate largely' on, it was a damage suit. On this occasion, the vivid picture he drew of an unwarrantable intrusion upon this aged and indefatigable servant of the public, the injury inflicted upon his 'valuable health,' and his generous conduct in contenting himself with the paltry sum of eighty dollars by way of damages, was to be set down as the 'Squire's best effort.

The jury went out just as the court was on the point of adjournment, and received orders to seal up their verdict for the morning. Each man had to 'chalk' what in his judgment was a sufficient sum for damages. They ranged all along in the neighborhood of three or four dollars, except one or two individuals, who had believed the whole of the plaintiff's complaint, and went in for something more than nominal damages. One in particular, who always swore by Sweet, aimed so high that the average came above the $13.33 that was necessary to carry costs.

After they had determined upon a verdict, our high-priced friend, with one or two others, went around to the hotel to retire for the night. As they went in, the clerk of the court met them with a pack of cards in his hands, with which a party had just finished playing whist. 'It didn't take us half so long to agree on that case. Sweet and the rest of us marked around on that verdict, just before we finished the last game, and we made it out—two dollars and twenty-five cents.' 'The d– you did,' replied our astonished friend. 'Why, how much did 'Squire Sweet mark, himself?' 'Uncommon high. He said he thought five dollars was about the fair thing.' 'Five dollars!' gasped the juryman; 'Squire Sweet put down only five dollars, when he went and told the jury that eighty dollars wasn't nothin' to it. Look a-here, can't I go back and change that figure of mine, afore the verdict comes in?'

It was decided pretty unanimously that—he couldn't.

Our readers will recall the author of the following poem, as a writer who has more than once given us poems indicating much refinement of taste, based on sound old English scholarship:

NO CROSS, NO CROWN

BY HENRY DUMARS

 
No mortal yet e'er gained the golden crown
Who did not in his search the cross upbear;
For heaven he need entertain no care
Who fears to sinfulness the Devil's frown,
And lays, if once espoused, his burdens down,
Because so many of his followers have no burden there.
 
 
And thus it is so many are awrong;
'Tis easier, they deem, the crown to gain
With limbs at will and shoulders free from pain,
Than bearing this great burden still along:
Besides, will not my brothers be among
The crowned ere I, unless I free my loins again?
 
 
Columbia doth seek the crown,—and sooth
No nation of the earth deserves it more;
But, ah! she is unwise as lands before
In hoping thus, what time she quits the Truth,
And showing unto enemies more ruth
Than even God doth show to us, weak worldlings sore.
 
 
Where once against the heavens men rebelled,
And forced the Prince of Peace to deadly war,
Did not He spread a deluge deep and far,
Not sweeping them alone, but all they held?
When they His awful earnestness beheld,
Were not they penitent, though vain, as bad sons are?
 
 
And why should we but lighten through a spell
These murderous madmen in our country here,
Their craziness to come or far or near
Anew, as more they learn of prompting hell?
Must not we now the CAUSE forever quell,
As Hercules did one time slay a source of fear?
 
 
If Truth is mighty, 'tis not so alone;
There's more availability in Error;
That end's not gained that's gained alone With terror:
The way of Right but leadeth to the crown;
Who conquer perfectly, peace-seed have sown;
Reform's remaining ill usurps at last the furrow.
 

A Correspondent, who is interested in education and not uninterested in humanity, sends us the following bona fide advertisement, specifying the qualifications and accomplishments expected from the lady teachers of a certain Western community:

'When employing a lady as teacher in our Public Schools, we desire, in addition to a thorough education, to secure the following qualifications;

'1st. Ease of address, modest and attractive personal appearance, and habits of neatness and order.

'2d. A uniformly kind and generous disposition, entire self-control, with unyielding perseverance and energy.

'3d. A spirit of concession and adaptability, that will enable her to conform to the general rules and regulations of the schools, and to harmonize her plans and efforts with those of the other teachers.

'4th. A moral and religious character, that will cause her to feel the full responsibility of her position, and make her guard with a watchful eye the habits and principles of the children under her charge.

'5th. Such dignity of person and manners as will secure the deference of pupils, and the respect and confidence of parents. A freedom, both from girlish frivolities, and old-maidish crabbedness and prudery.

'6th. Correct social habits, a well cultivated literary taste, and a mind richly stored with general information.

'Applicants for places as teachers in our Public Schools will be examined in the following branches of study, or others, the study of which would furnish an equal amount of mental discipline: Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Mensuration, Trigonometry, Mechanical Philosophy, Geography, Physiology, Zoology, Natural Philosophy, Meteorology, Botany, Chemistry, Geology, Astronomy, Orthography, Reading, Penmanship, English Grammar, History, Bookkeeping, Political Science, Moral Science, Mental Philosophy, Logic, Rhetoric, Evidence of Christianity, Elements of Criticism.

'Yours, Respectfully,

—– –

'Sup't of Public Schools.'

'Where, oh, where is she?' Tell us, if you can, what worlds or what far regions hold this paragon of damsels.

 
'Where bides upon this earthly ball
A maid who so embraceth all.'
 

And where does–,' Superintendent of Public Schools,' find these Perfections, or Maids of Munster?

It must be a wealthy community that, which expects to hire such teachers. And 'to begin with,' they must have 'an attractive personal appearance.' The rogue of a Superintendent!

'Physiology!' Reader, did you ever fairly master even a test book on the subject—say, John Dalton's—and acquire with it the anatomical knowledge essential to a merely superficial comprehension of the subject? Did you ever dissect any, and attend the usual lectures? The Young Lady in question must have done more than this.

'Political Science!'

'Chemistry!' That is rather a heavy draft, too. We have been closely under old Leopold Gmélin in our time, and worked a winter or so hard at the test glasses, and had divers courses of lectures under divers eminent professors, and read Liebig and Stöckhardt and others more or less—just enough to learn that to honestly teach chemistry, even in the most elementary manner, months and years of additional work were requisite.

'Botany!' Botany is rather a large-sized object to acquire—even to become the merest amateur. A year's lectures from Dr. Torrey and some hard work over Gray and De Candolle and the rest, are not enough even for this. It was but yesterday and to us that a gentleman whose special pleasure is botany, who has devoted thousands of dollars and years to the pursuit, ridiculed the suggestion that he was qualified to teach it.

'Zoology, Astronomy, Rhetoric, Meteorology, and—History!'

Don't be alarmed, reader. Very possibly the young lady in question will not be too strictly examined in all these branches– neither will she be required to impart more than the mildest possible of knowledge to her pupils. Very possibly, too, she will teach Chemistry—think of it, ye brethren of the retort!—without experiments!! For just such atrocious and ridiculous humbug have we known to be passed off on children, in 've-ry expensive' 'first-class' ladies' schools in Philadelphia and in New York, for instruction in Chemistry. The young brains were vexed and wearied day after day to acquire by vague description and by rote the details of an almost purely experimental science.

And, 'a mind richly stored with general information!'

It is a pity that magic is out of date. Something might be done for our Superintendent with the ghost of Hypatia!

Will our friends and readers during the approaching book-buying and holiday presenting times be so kind as to occasionally bear in mind the fact that 'Sunshine in Thought,' by Charles Godfrey Leland, has just been published? As the work in question, while publishing in a serial form, was very warmly and extensively praised by the press, and as high literary authority has declared that 'it presents many bold and original views, very clearly set forth,' we venture to hope that our commendation of it to the public will not seem amiss.—Edmund Kirke.

Our lady readers wanting a constant and most commendable companion for the work-basket, would do well to obtain the daintily bound Ladies' Almanac for 1863, issued by George Coolidge, 17 Washington street, Boston, and sold by Henry Dexter, New York. It is an almanac; contains a blank memorandum for every day in the year, recipes, music, and light reading—and is altogether an excellent subject for a small and tasteful gift.

A Letter from a brave and jolly friend of ours, now i' the field, says, that during the Maryland battles,

'We bolted dinner almost at a single mouthful, with shot singing around us. Jim had the knife knocked out of his hand by a bullet.'

The Continental does not wonder that the dinner in question was finished in one course. Under such very warlike circumstances, we hardly see how it could have been disposed of in the usual piece-meal manner.

COMFORTED

 
Then she arose with solemn eyes,
And, moving through the vocal dark,
Sat down, with bitter, ceaseless sighs,
The river tones to hark—
Deep in the forest dark.
 
 
Sick, sick she was of life and light—
She longed for shadow and for death;
And, by the river in the night,
Thus to her thought gave breath—
Her hungry wish for death:
 
 
'Shall I not die, beloved, and free
My weary, hopeless, breaking heart?
Shall I not dare death, love,' said she,
'And seek thee where thou art?
Life keeps our souls apart!'
 
 
'So weak, my darling, couldst thou be?'
A far voice stirred the pulseless air:
'Thus vainly wouldst thou seek for me—
My heaven thou couldst not share:
Such death were love's despair!'
 
 
Then through the long, lone night she prayed;
At last, 'How weak my dream!' said she.
'I'll meet the future unafraid;
I will grow worthy thee—
I will not flinch,' said she.
 
 
'I will not leave both souls so lone:
Where thou art, cowards cannot be;
I will not wrong our love, mine own;
At last I shall win thee.'
I will be brave,' said she.
 
 
Then she arose with patient eyes,
And, turning, faced the incoming day.
'There, love, the path to meet thee lies,'
Said she; 'I went astray.
But now I know the way.'
 

The following pleasant bit of gossip is from our 'Down-East correspondent:'

As I sit down to cover a few slips of paper with a thought or two (spreading it thin, is it?) for the readers of'Old Con.,'—

By the way—a delicious phrase that same 'by the way,' that lets a man turn in from the dusty road a brief while and enjoy a 'rare ripe' or a juicy 'south side'—you ask me, in a genial note, Mr. Editor, what I think of 'Old Con' as the 'family nickname.' Capital! The only objection in the world that I have is, that it reminds me of 'Old Conn,' the policeman, who used to loom up around corners with his big, ugly features, to the terror of the small boys, when I was 'of that ilk.' These huge, overgrown, slow hulks almost always 'pick on' the boys; the real hard work of the force is done by your small, wiry fellows, who step around lively, and don't stop to see whether a man is 'bigger nor they.' Old Conn, though, was a pretty good-hearted man after all, despite unpopularity among the juveniles; and so I say, let us christen the youngster 'Old Con,' by all means—old in the affections of a host of friends, if not in years.

But revenons à nous moutons, as the scribblers say, whose mouton we dare say is less often 'material' than we could wish it were.

As I set about penning a rambling thought, then, and—

En passant, did you never notice how a tendency to ramble will sometimes almost completely control a man? A candidate for Congress, for instance, comes round to your town to talk to you 'like a fa-ther'about what? To tell you that he has made all his arrangements to go to Washington? and could go just as well as not if you would like to have him? and that, on the whole, he wants to go awfully? No, indeed; nine cases out of ten the poor fellow forgets himself, and wanders off into the 'glorious Constitution as our fathers framed it,' and the 'eternal principles,' ' sacrifices' that one's constituency require, and a full assortment of such phrase. Just as some of the speakers, at the 'war meetings' this summer, get up a full head of patriotic steam, and in the excitement of the moment 'don't remember' all about mentioning that they are going themselves. Inclined to ramble!

But this wasn't what I meant to observe at the outset. Let us change the subject, as they say at the medical college.

What I was about to remark originally was—and I don't know as it is original, either. The fact is, there is very little now-a-days that is strictly original—except war-correspondence, and of course nobody but old maids reads that. There is a fellow who writes for the 'Daily–,' and signs himself 'Wabash.' Well, what of it? Nothing; only some people think it ought to be spelt, 'War bosh.'

As I was saying: As I sit down to cover a few slips—it seems to me that I have already filled out one slip of the paper; and, by the by, that reminds me of a bright thing that Ben Zoleen,⁵ a bachelor friend of mine, allowed himself to be the father of, the other day. Ben likes to 'take something,' and about a month ago he took the 'enrolment.' An Irishman, after laying claim to the usual disability—lameness somewhere, and besides 'he was all the man that his wife Joanna had to work for the family'—swore that all the property he had in the world was a big porker, and he had broken out and run away 'the divil knows where,' the day before. 'Well, Mike,' said Ben, with a sympathizing tear, 'yours is not the first fortune that's been lost in this country by a mere slip of the pen' Whist! d'ye hear that?

The thought that first presented itself was the inquiry whether a man—

'Not that man, but another man,' interrupted me just then by coming into the office and communicating the startling, yet not entirely unexpected intelligence that 'they had begun to draft here in P.' 'No,' said I. 'Yes,' said he, going out in a hurry; 'up at the brewery.'

–Whether a man ought to write anything else than a love letter, in the frame of mind that Voltaire said that document should be composed in: 'Beginning without knowing what you are going to say, and ending without knowing a word of what you have said.'

What do you think about it? I think so, decidedly.

Hibbles.

We have heard of many an instance where the expression was not that exactly of the idea that was intended; but in the following 'the idea, the expression,' and everything else, are about as thoroughly mixed up as one could well conceive. We were questioning a young lady as to the standing of a clergyman in the town where she lived. 'Oh,' said she, 'he is too popular to be liked very much.' Identical! A favorite, we are told, 'has no friends;' when a poor fellow gets to be popular in the town of C–, we pity him.

Dick Wolcott, of the Tenth Illinois—which has seen no little service since the war began—hath written unto us a letter, from which we pick out the following. A great gossip is this same Dickon of ours, and a rare good fellow:

'We have in our company a number of Germans—brave and 'bully' soldiers all who know better how to handle the arms than the tongue of the land of their adoption; and their staggers at the language furnish us much amusement. I know that they are sensitive on the subject, and ought not to be laughed at; but as they probably will not see this, or if they do, will have forgotten the circumstance, I offer for the 'gossip' the following fair specimen. On the day we crossed the Mississippi and captured the rebels, who had adopted the skedaddling policy of the Fleet-Footed Villain Floyd, we were drawn up in line of battle three times, and three times ye rebs right-faced and 'moseyed.' The last time it was just at dusk, and we were standing in the edge of an opening, expecting to be opened upon by artillery from the other side, which it was too dark for us to see distinctly. As we were not fired upon, a party was sent forward to reconnoitre, and returned with the intelligence that they had again evacuated. On learning this, one of our fellows, brief in stature, but of prodigious red beard, spluttered through his moustache: 'Der tam successionish! dey left vor un-parts known! Donner-wetter!!'

Here is another of Dick's, which dates from the days 'before Corinth'—for he was one of those to whom it was licet adire Corinthum:

'Let me tell you a 'goak' that General Pope got off on us, and which we take as quite a compliment. Our colonel commanding brigade asked permission to take two days' rations, as we were going out to 'clean out' a rebel force that was in a swamp, keeping our men from repairing the road and building a bridge for the passage of artillery, and he didn't know how long we would have to be gone. 'My God! Colonel,' said General Pope, 'when you take one day's rations, you are gone four. If I let you take two, I wouldn't see you again this side of Memphis.'

We are indebted to a brother of the press for the following jotting down:

Our magazine contemporaries, who appear like Neptune among the Tritons, i. e., with the Sea Sons, are sometimes funnily miscomprehended. Thus, the publishers of the Methodist Quarterly Review say that a brother writes to them complaining that he has not received the February, March, and May numbers of the Review!

About as touching was the complaint of another 'Constant Reader,' who wrote to the editor of similar quadrennial, complaining that, although it was a quarterly review, the agent made him pay a half a dollar for it!

Do you, excellent and all remembering reader, recall an article in our August number entitled, 'Friends of the Future'? One of those 'friends' comes afterward in these quaint lines: