ENLIGHTEN OUR DARKNESS. In this notice we have dealt exclusively with the Latter-Day Pamphlets," but we must not take leave of the author, after handling so rudely these latest born of his literary You tell us oft of a land of blissprogeny, without some mention, however slight Purer and holier far than this, Teach us, of his great merits-as they are here appaoh teach us the way to win That happy land, where they cease from sin, rent. In these papers, as throughout his enWhere the presence of 'Him,' the 'Ancient of Days,' tire works, Carlyle, the man, stands prominent-Fills every bosom with songs of praise; a bold, earnest, iuflexible, conscientious thinker! And cause us to know of the hope that is given, Truth, he maintains, is the great want of the The inheritance sure, of that promised heaven. world at present, and a lie in thought, or word, And who are the heirs of that far-off shore or deed, almost as hateful as all the rest of the Where sorrow and suffering come no more? Can the son of apostacy enter there? sins put together. Whatever Carlyle advances, If his heart be steeled against faith and prayer, the world may take as his earnest, true, belief. Can the leprous being, who dwells in wo, There is no shifting or evasion, no apology, how-To that fountain of grace and healing go? ever monstrous his tenets, for what he says. He Or the worldling vain-whose idol gold is thoroughly and wholly in earnest. This earStains every sense with its earthly mould, Can he find entrance at those bright gates nestness, which we fully agree with him, is the Where the wingéd 'Seraphim' ceaseless waits→ one thing needful, in all acting, speaking, and And the ransom'd myriads throng around, thinking, is joined to a mind by nature most pow- Mingling their anthems, 'the lost is found?' ful and original. This originality which seems say, ye heralds of Gospel love, to grow with time, consists, we have always thought, more especially in an intense power of imagination. The "History of the French Revolution" places him beside his own Teufelsdröckh, who narrated far off olden things "as though he had been an eye-witness." The whole catalogue of great men who have come under his notice-Goethe, Richter, Voltaire, Diderot, Mirabeau, Cagliostro,—are most vivid and striking pictures, if not indeed portraits. The excess of his exuberant imagination creates that grotesque humour which "turns all things into jest," and throws a blaze like that of fireworks, ou his style-a humour as unique as it is genuine, as bold as it is subtle. All these qualities of mind are apparent in the Latter-Day Pamphlets. They will add greatly to Carlyle's reputation. Although as we have seen, the theories are such as never before affronted common sense, and the style, like the rest of the author's writings, a strange mixture of Germanisms, inverted English and straining after effect-yet these pamphlets bear on their face the impress of a mind of power in its best mood. This is the cream of the author's thoughts. The ideas are distinct and consistent throughout, and are enforced by every device in his power-argument, denunciation, ridicule, indignation, are all used by turns. "Sartor Resartus," and "Past and Present," were pictures wherein great forms and the far-off images of great ideas, rose up-but all was indistinct. Here the outline is sharp and clear-there is no hinting or allegory. If these pamphlets find political sponsors, then truly may we exclaim with Cagliostro "Reality rests on Dream !"'* **Carlyle'sMis: vol. 4. Ye who would lure us to worlds above. Oft have we said with Prophetic word, That' He' whom we serve with untiring zeal, Ah! well did the seer of Israel deem That life was a shadow-and manhood a dream. And the vale's pale' lily,' whose purity yields Ye say, that yon Heaven is so bright and fair While you tell us the grass with its spires so gay All these-ah how oft have we told them to you, How fleeting life's glories-how short-lived the stay THE SELDENS OF SHERWOOD. CHAPTER XXX. De la tige detachée Ou va tu? Je n'en sais rien- of ever fulfilling it, but that he feared it might prove an obstacle to his success with Virginia Selden,) Clara was mourning in hopeless sorrow by the dying bed of her father. To lose an only parent, is in almost all cases an irreparable loss, but when the bereaved child is left isolated upon earth, united to no human being by the ties of kindred, or the still stronger bands of friendship, founded on esteem and congeniality, can we wonder that such a one should lose all heart and hope beneath the stroke. Mr. Kaufman's illness was of short duration, and his sufferings were so great, as almost to deprive him of the power of reflection, but in every interval of ease, his thoughts rested mournfully upon Clara, and his glances were often fixed with such intense sadness and tenderness upon her, that she would often be obliged to turn aside her head and weep. It would have been vain to attempt to utter the many sad thoughts and feelings that crowded upon him, nor would he have inflicted one more wound on the bleeding heart of his child, but when he looked on his idol, his treasure, and thought of the desert wilderness in which he was leaving her, when the withering doubt came across him, whether there was indeed a land where those who loved should meet again, and whether if such a blissful land really existed, his spirit would be admitted there, pains unspeakably more severe, than physical tortures rent his soul. It was well for Clara that she could not fathom the depth of his anguish. Life had been to him an intellectual feast, his But turn we now to a dark and sad page in desires had been simple, his passions unawakenthe History of Human Life. Alas! how many ed, and he had found sufficient happiness, and there are, the darker, the sadder, when they are unfailing interest in exploring the mines of sciwritten in the spring-time of existence, when the ence, and adding continually to his literary treabuds of Hope are bursting forth, and the young sures. He found delight enough in the investiheart dreams of an earthly Paradise. The blight gation of the new fields of knowledge, extendis killing, which falls on young and tender hearts ing indefinitely as he advanced, and sought not when it comes from faithlessness in those whom to lay up either earthly or heavenly treasures. they have loved and trusted, unless they have His mind was devoted to scientific pursuits, and learned to look with the eye of Faith and the heart of Hope to Heaven, or turning their eyes downwards to earth, determine since their fairest dreams of happiness have vanished, to seek, if not enjoyment, at least interest and occupation, in the grovelling pleasures of sense, or the glittering lures of mammon. The stroke is unspeakably heavy which falls on the unshielded, unsustained, orphaned heart, still bleeding from recent bereavement, and on few did it ever descend with more crushing force than that of poor Clara. his heart to Clara, he withdrew entirely from a world which had no charms for him, to give himself up to those objects, and he had wanted both leisure and inclination to investigate the great truths of religion. Nothing had ever roused him to a sense of their importance, for he had grown up without religious instruction, his father had been a sceptic, and his mother died during his early childhood. And now all was darkness and confusion; life was fleeting like a dream: he was passing away, without having added a mite to the sum of huDuring the time Augustus was in Virginia, man knowledge: he had been constantly amassabsorbed in a new love affair, and remembering ing treasures for some great future work, the very Clara only to execrate his own folly in ever having idea of which must perish with him; a few days, suffered himself to become entangled in an en-hours perhaps, and this wonderful machinery, if gagement with her, (not however, that he dreamed the mind were indeed material, would have perished for ever, and all its strivings, all its acqui-lighted in rendering homage with a blind idolasitions, would slumber with the clods of the val- try to the object of its worship. She clung with ley, but if his frame was animated by an immor- increasing fondness to the memory of Augustus, tal spirit, given by God, how should it appear be- as the prop had been torn away, on which she fore its great Creator to render up its account as had leaned, for hers was a nature that must cling a creature formed for love, obedience, and ado-to something, and yielding merely to the impulse ration! of feeling, she determined to confide the whole history of her love and engagement to Miss Wood, and persuade her to lend her assistance in the wild plan she had hastily formed. All these agonizing conflicts he had the firmness to conceal, but Clara saw so plainly the anguish that overwhelmed her father, and the confusion of his thoughts, that she durst not commu- A few days after Mr. Kaufman's death, Clara nicate to him her engagement with Augustus had addressed a few hurried lines to Augustus. Vernon, as she knew he would disapprove acquainting him with her misfortune, expressing of her having entered into it clandestinely. Yet her sense of desolation, and the consolation her heart smote her for the concealment, when which she derived from her assurance of his unher father called her "his dear, good Clara." "My child," said Mr. Kaufman, in a faint tone, as he felt that his end was approaching, now that it is too late, I see that I have withdrawn myself too much from the world, and I look around in vain, for one who shall be your friend when I am gone." His voice faltered, for poor Clara could not suppress the sobs that convulsed her whole frame, "For my sake, my dear child," he added in an almost suffocated tone, "compose yourself; I have left you a peaceful home, and you will make friends I trust, when changeable love, the only consolation, she added, which she could then take to heart. Could she have known the whole truth, her young spirit would have been crushed beneath the blow, but the ways of God are in nothing more merciful, than in the gradual revelation of truth, as we are able to bear it. Week after week passed away, and Clara became alarmed at hearing nothing from Augustus Vernon. This alarm did not arise however from the faintest suspicion of his truth and love, for she could as soon have doubted her own existence, as to suspect that a time would ever come when Augustus would cease to Ah, what a sense of the coldness, the desola- love her; and now when he was her all, she felt tion of the world to which he was leaving Clara, assured that she would be dearer to him than of the uncertainty, the awfulness of the state on ever, for she had little knowledge of any other which he was about to enter, of separation per- heart than her own, and by this she judged her haps eternal from his child, came over the heart lover. Yet he might be sick or dying, and his of the poor father, as he sank back exhausted on friends, even if acquainted with their engagement, his pillow. Delirium succeeded this state of ex-might not choose to inform her. citement, and then he only murmured from time This thought haunted her, and no longer able to time, incoherent words, now calling upon to support the state of suspense that tortured her, Clara's name, now repeating fragments of prayers he had learned from his mother in childhood, and thus his soul passed away-leaving poor Clara emphatically alone. Clara was left now indeed without a friend upon earth, except Miss Wood, a distant female relative, who had resided with Mr. Kaufman ever since the death of his wife, a simple-minded and affectionate creature, though ignorant and credulous as a child. and the intolerable sense of desolation, which Miss Fordays after her father's death, Clara gave her- Mr. Kaufman had left no will, and but a self up to grief. She had loved him with a depth small sum of money, which Miss Wood knew and tenderness of devotion, of which few minds would be quite insufficient to defray the necescan even form an idea, and she wept in wild sary expenses of remaining for any length of despair, heightened by remorse for having con- time in a city, and Clara and herself began to cealed from him her engagement to Augustus, devise ways and means for procuring a reasonand for having taken such a step unsanctioned able allowance. The first acquaintance with by him. But after the first violence of her grief the uses and necessity of money, is one of the had in some measure subsided, her thoughts bitterest fruits of the tree of knowledge, to those turned to Augustus with all the fondness of a who like Clara have grown up like the lilies of pure, true, first love, which had never been chill- the field without care or thought for the mored by even momentary suspicion, and which de-row. of coming into contact with strangers, and had she not been so entirely occupied with grief for the loss of her father, and love for Augustus, a thousand vague fears and anxieties would have possessed her imagination, but her heart was now too full to allow her fancy to operate. the dust and noise of the city, and she sighed for the singing of birds, the perfume of flowers, the rustling of the wind amongst the leaves, and felt oppressed and bewildered, almost as if she had lost her personal identity. Clara could think of no other expedient than as they arrived in Philadelphia; to Clara it was to apply to Mr. Hopkins, one of the few neigh- a matter of perfect indifference, the world was bors with whom she had some acquaintance. all strange to her, she shrank from the necessity He readily consented to raise the sum which she wished, though he had some misgivings of conscience in doing so, as he rightly judged that Clara was about to take some very imprudent step, and he was well aware that it was of the utmost importance to her to preserve the home her father had left her, but he had often looked Yet, absorbed as she was in her own feelings, at Rosendale with a longing eye, and he could Clara could not but be sensible of the changes of not resist the opportunity which offered itself of the external world by which she was surrounded. entangling Clara in a web, from which she could She had never before realized that light, fresh air, not extricate herself, without giving him posses- sunshine, flowers, streams, and woods, insensibly sion of the place he had so long coveted. blend their influence with an existence such as Occupied solely by the idea of ouce more see-hers had been, so as to form a necessity of its ing Augustus, and of being guided implicitly by nature. She pined in Mrs. Nelson's dark and his advice as to her future course, Clara left the confined rooms, furnished in the cheapest and home of peace and love, where her days of child-most gaudy style, (for Mrs. Nelson loved show, hood and early youth had flown, in a life free and though she could afford nothing expensive,) amid happy as that of the bird of the green wood and almost as careless of the future. The day fixed for their departure arrived; it was a damp, heavy morning, the clouds hung in dark, leaden masses, which seemed to shut out all the joy and light of the creation, and the very air hung with opBut Clara's mind still dwelt with almost fepressive weight on the respiration. Clara dared verish pertinacity on the sole object of interest not trust herself to remain more than a few min-which she felt in life, and by the aid of bribery, utes in her father's study, where she had gone Miss Wood obtained an agent who was to diswith that feeling of inexpressible longing, which cover whether Augustus had returned. Clara's almost cheats us into the belief of the possibility heart sickened when she learned he was still in of its gratification, to hold some communion Virginia; she lingered on, and daily saw their with the spirits of our departed friends, in those little funds diminish with a rapidity, that at places which they had most loved and frequented length became alarming even to her. The idea upon earth. But here, indeed, was desolation of making money had never occurred to her imcold," the half written paper lay on the desk, agination as a possibility, nor had she thought the pen beside it, books were lying open that even of its uses. All household cares Miss her father had been using in reference, his gown Wood had voluntarily undertaken, for Mr. Kaufhung on the back of his chair. Clara fell pros-man and herself agreed in wishing Clara to entrate by the side of the chair, hid her face in his joy fully the sunny days of existence, and both gown and wept aloud. She did not raise her heart in prayer, for she did not feel that she had a Father in Heaven, but she wept wildly and without restraint, yet the very violence of this burst of grief, in some measure relieved her oppressed feelings, and with the passive submission of a child, she yielded to Miss Wood's entreaties to linger no longer, and suffered her to lead her forth; alas! how little did she forbode what fate awaited her. 66 of them, even after she reached womanhood, continued to regard her as a child who should not be burdened with the cares and toils of life. The gulf of poverty now yawned before Clara's dismayed eyes, and as she looked helplessly around her, Augustus came not, and she bega to feel that withering of the heart, which renders exertion almost impossible. Miss Wood procured some plain work secre ly, for she was not at all willing to diminish Miss Wood had a cousiu in Philadelphia, with Clara's importance in Mrs. Nelson's estimation, whom she had always maintained some inter- by the knowledge of the necessity which existed, course, and who kept a small boarding house, that something should be done for her support. Mrs. Nelson, for such was the name of this It was with great reluctance, that she allowed cousin, had long been almost the only link of Clara to assist her in her labors, and with tearful these isolated beings with the living world, from eyes she would look at her darling, for whom she time to time executing necessary commissions thought there was scarcely any thing in the for them. Miss Wood determined that they world good enough, in her plain mourning dress, would at once take lodgings with her, as soon hemming or stitching most assiduously, while the involuntary sighs, which escaped her from her true heart to conceive that any one could be time to time, showed but too plainly the oppres- faithless to Clara, yet the opposition of Augussion of her heart. tus Vernon's friends, might delay the fulfilment At such times, Miss Wood would think of the of their engagement, and she trembled to see sweet and peaceful home they had left, would how entirely the happiness of Clara was at recall Clara's bright image but a few months stake. When Clara could compose herself sufago, and the fondness with which she was cher- ficiently, she wrote a few hurried lines, acquaintished by her father, and inwardly lament that ing Augustus with all she had suffered, expressAugustus had ever crossed their threshold, or ing in the most touching manner her implicit that Clara had ever left Rosendale. Yet she reliance on his love, and telling him where she knew that Clara still clung to the hope that might be found. She gave the letter to Miss her lover would return soon, and how difficult Wood, who undertook to have it safely conveyed and painful it would be to induce her to return to him. Clara then began to count the hours without seeing him. Each day she determined and the minutes; with every noise in the street, to commence the attack, but deferred it until the every knock at the door, the blood rushed to and morrow, for she wanted resolution to urge Clara from her heart with sickening violence, for she to take any step to which she knew she was so expected to see Augustus enter. reluctant. But this day and the next wore away and Though "Delay has danger," is hourly exem- Augustus came not, and though the messenger plified in innumerable instances, it is one of the assured Miss Wood, he had given the note into lessons we are slowest to learn, and while Miss the young gentleman's own hands, Clara could not Wood was procrastinating, and vainly endeavor- believe it. The third morning was Sunday, and ing to conceal from Mrs. Nelson the reduced all the family, except Clara, went to church, but state of their finances, a letter arrived from Mr. she found it impossible to calm herself sufficientHopkins, which overwhelmed Clara and her ly to accompany them. She sat alone in the friend with consternation. He said that he found little dark parlor, having passively received Miss he should soon be compelled to trouble Clara Wood's kiss and assured her she was very well, for the repayment of the sum she had borrowed and promising to remain quiet until she returned, from him, but that if she would consent to rent gave herself up to bewildering, despairing trains Rosendale to him, which would be a highly ad- of thought. The only relief to her situation, vantageous arrangement likewise to herself, he was the conviction of being alone. Soon a low would endeavor to raise the money he wanted knock was heard at the street door. An instinct in some other way, and could then wait some at once told her from whom it proceeded, and months longer for repayment. Clara's tears fell Clara rose to admit the visiter, but her limbs rewarm and fast upon the letter, her heart yearned fused to do their office, and when Augustus found towards her peaceful home, athough it was his way into the parlor, she could not advance left to her desolate, but she could not bear the towards him, but sunk into his arms when he idea of abandoning the last hope of seeing Au-approached her, and wept such tears as few ever gustus, to which she clung as to life itself. How shed but once. cruel and sordid do these pecuniary necessities appear to the young and unworldly heart, when it first begins to realize them! nothing but custom and experience can reconcile us to the idea, that love, health, life, all that we hold most precious, except virtue, may depend on mouey. CHAPTER XXXI. Was mir fehlt? Mir fehlt ja alles Tyrolese Melody. Clara felt herself compelled to acquiesce in the proposal of Mr. Hopkins to rent Rosendale, Augustus Vernon had fully resolved to give though it was with a bitter pang, that she shut the deathblow to Clara's hopes, and to take efherself out from the Eden, in which her early fectual measures to prevent any knowledge of days of happiness had been past. Mr. Hopkins their engagement from reaching the ears of his made a great merit of enclosing a small sun of friends. But though he possessed all the hardmoney in his next letter to Clara, which he said, was a payment of part of the rent in ad vance. ness of heart, that belongs to effeminate selfishness, and inordinate vanity, it was scarcely in human nature, at his time of life, to behold the At length, Miss Wood's messenger brought tears of Clara unmoved; not, however, that her the welcome intelligence that Augustus Vernon tears, her love, her generous and unsuspecting had arrived, and Clara received the information confidence, or her future situation, induced him with an intensity of emotion that alarmed her simple friend; though it had never entered into to waver for a moment, with regard to the course of action he had resolved to pursue towards her, |