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her, and knew his own baseness. At last smiling through her tears, she kissed him passionately, and told him,

The usual pretty nothings, no doubt. And here, I, who have been to this point a rather inefficient chorus, become the Messenger, and play my part, if not as gracefully, with as much success as did the clown who pointed out to Jocasta of old a son and husband, in the swell-footed Lord of Thebes.

I had not heard from Boynton for some time; but, knowing that he was at Gloucester, I determined to go after him and bring him back to us, his old companions. I found him strangely altered, and joked him on his Methodism. Nor did I know the cause of his transformation, until one morning he told me, as we were seated on the hotel-piazza, of his love. I had been his bosom friend; such love there was between us as has been sung in the sturdy strains of "Calamus." Now I had not seen my friend for two years. I had heard that he was behaving queerly, but had no idea that he was prepared to settle down to a life of domestic insipidity. I did not know, to be sure, who his idol was. She might be a paragon, and she might be a dowdy. Now did I, if ever, prove the friend. I used every argument in my power to dissuade him from his course. I sneered, I cursed, and, finally, disgusted, I sulked.

We had been sitting in silence for some time, when I noticed a change in the atmosphere; a storm-cloud was hurrying directly over the village. In front of the hotel five men were talking. Without a moment's warning there was a blinding glare and sharp, quick crash. Stunned for a minute, having recovered myself, I looked around. The bolt had singled out one of the group and he was lying prostrate with shirt thrown open. His face, breast and hands were a ghastly blue-black. Then did one of the three remaining, brother to the dead man, throw himself down, and venting wild cries, shaking his fist at the now silent heavens, press his lips to the livid mouth of the corpse. His horrible prayers and wild gesticulations, following as they did the thunder-peal, called

the inmates of the neighboring houses to the doors and windows. Happening to look up across the way, I saw to my utter amazement her whom a year go I had cast off. I jogged Boynton's elbow and pointed to the window, telling him about her. But the woman's face! a face of despair, such as painted Jezebel might have worn when, looking out of the casement, she saw the approaching horses of Jehu. Margaret had recognized me, saw me call Boynton's attention, and with a lover's intuition perceived that he knew all. For the moment I could not account for Boynton's actions on receiving my little bit of information; but the truth came upon me, and

"I saw as from a tower the end of all."

I walked away leaving my friend to himself, and on my return I did n t find him.

Then did Boynton in his room revolve strange thoughts in his troubled mind. He had fallen in love, even now adored a woman whom he had thought pure and stainless; for her he had lived a new life; he had almost been persuaded with Agrippa of old; and this woman all in all to him, was what? A cast-off mistress of his friend. What if she had repented? He, who had prided himself upon his blood, could he marry such a creature? Might not her repentance be feigned? And the story of Lamia came up to him with a fearful distinctness. But in spite of the fact staring him in the face, in spite of the terrible suspicions which suggested themselves to him, he loved her, loved her with a love "which mocked time and space; that was day and night; that was sun and moon and stars." After all, had he the right to cast a stone at her? What had been his life before he knew and loved her? Even now, he thought, he was unworthy of her. Her's was indeed a true repentance. Had not her life at Gloucester shown it? Truly was she Magdalene Repentant. She had sworn on the cross to be his, and he was now about to desert her after his oaths and protestations; after he had told her he cared not who she was or what her life had been,

At last he had decided. To forsake her was out of the question; without her life would be impossible. He would marry her at once; brave the world's censure; or, take her to some distant land, where they might live together, mindful only of each other,

"The world forgetting, by the world forgot."

Such was Boynton's determination. He at once went to Margaret's house, but the smirking landlady told him that she had about twenty minutes before gone out; no doubt he would find her near the Fort.

It was fast approaching the hour of sunset. To Boynton on the way to his love, the earth seemed Eden. The tide was coming in slowly; the town was deserted, and nothing was heard but the gentle swash of the sea on the sandy shore. As he reached a turn in the path, the Fort being but a few steps onward, there suddenly came to his ears a wild chant, a burden such as the maids of Scotland might have sung, bereft of their lovers at Flodden. At first soft, then rising in note and intensity until it reached its height, then with a Banshee-like scream it died away, and rose again. Boynton stopped, disquieted; but looking in the direction of the song, saw only the factory-girls of the town returning from their work, singing as they walked. He hurried on. He went around the Fort, and saw Margaret, as he had expected, seated on Devil's Rock, looking out upon the sea, her back towards him. A moment, and he stooped over and kissed her lips, which were cold as those of a corpse. There was a faint odor upon them, the sickening odor of almonds. Looking down he saw a vial; the truth flashed upon him. There she sat; never so fair as then; at last she had found rest; her face was as the face of one who was at peace. So looks to-day Rahab in Paradise. The wild song of the factory-girls was no longer heard. Boynton was alone with the dead.

PARNASSUS.

this on in

ID not Emerson contemplate publishing a collection

Society and Solitude? This is a question which must suggest itself to every reader who compares the preface to Parnassus with the former essay. The preface is in its form a mere fragment, more fitted to be part of a larger whole than to stand separately by itself; in short, it would seem abrupt and incomplete if placed anywhere but at the beginning of such a collection. But, what is still more to the purpose, there is a corresponding void in the essay on Books, which needs just such a fragment to fill it. No one, I think, can have read this essay without noticing, that while the author states strongly and at some length his ideas concerning classical and foreign books, and concerning English prose literature also, the department of English poetry-exactly what we should expect him to dwell upon most fully-is left entirely untouched. Add to this the remarkable similarity of style and compass in the two pieces, and we shall hardly avoid the conclusion that they once formed parts of a single whole. If this be the case-if the two were originally one work, and afterwards separated, the chasm left in the essay has been most ingeniously bridged over; but all Mr. Emerson's skill could not prevent the part taken out, from being still a part and not a whole.

But, however this may be, this collection is at any rate a natural development of the essay. He said five years ago, "The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professor of books; and, I think, no chair is so much wanted." Now, by publishing this volume, he has constituted himself, in some sense, professor of books, or at least, of a very important part of the domain of books; and that too not for a college only, but for the whole reading public. A professor he is indeed, for his opinion has so much weight that it will have with most readers a personal authority, and will be looked upon in the light of instruction as well as suggestion,

son.

In this respect the book differs widely from its predecessors in the same field. They have generally been the work of rather ordinary men, who applied to this field much the same kind of effort that they would have employed in making a dictionary. Or, even if they tried to make their selections with judgment and taste, their poetical insight was not deep enough to give their compilations more than a superficial value. And even when these collections were published under the name of distinguished men, as for instance, Bryant's Library of Poetry and Song, the actual compilation, though it forms the very gist of the work, has been disdained as so much drudgery, and left to inferior hands. Not so with Mr. EmerWith him the selection of pieces has been a pleasure. As he says in his preface, the book originated in his habit of collecting in blank books such poems as particularly struck him. He has not chosen these poems because he thought they would suit the public, but because they pleased him. This one fact is enough to distinguish the book from its predecessors. It does not make it its object to satisfy the people, but to educate them. This gives the book a personal interest, like an autobiography or diary; it forms a kind of index of the mental habits and feelings. It at the same time quite disarms criticism; for since he professedly made the collection to please himself, we have as little right to say what he ought to have put in it, as to prescribe what events he shall make the subjects of his diary. It is a book, therefore, to be studied rather than criticised, and interesting not merely for what it contains, but also for the insight it gives us into the tastes and feelings of the compiler.

To the ordinary reader, the most noticeable point will be the large number of selections from the earlier English poets. It is not Mr. Emerson's intention to have in his book anything of merely temporary value; and he has a strong partiality for those pieces that have stood the test of time. In the case of the lyric poets this is the most noticeable, because they are the least read and known in our time. Now a days, even in the case of a man who is

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