nap in the afternoon, my waking eyes were greeted by a swallow on the bed-post; in the summer twilight, they flew about the sitting room in search of flies, and sometimes lighted on chairs and tables. I almost thought they knew how much I loved them. But at last they flew away to more genial skies, with a whole troop of relations and neighbours. It was a deep pain to me, that I should never know them from other swallows, and that they would have no recollection of me. We had lived so friendly together, that I wanted to meet them in another world, if I could not in this; and I wept, as a child weeps at its first grief. There was somewhat, too, in their beautiful life of loving freedom which was a reproach to me. Why was not my life as happy and as graceful as theirs! Because they were innocent, confiding, and unconscious, they fulfilled all the laws of their being without obstruction. 'Inward, inward to thy heart, Kindly Nature, take me; Lovely, even as thou art, Full of loving make me. Thou knowest nought of dead-cold forms, Knowest nought of littleness; Lifeful truth thy being warms, Majesty and earnestness.' The old Greeks observed a beautiful festival, called 'The Welcome of the Swallows,' When these social birds first returned in the spring-time, the children went about in procession, with music and garlands; receiving presents at every door, where they stopped to sing a welcome to the swallows, in that graceful old language, so melodious even in its ruins, that the listener feels as if the brilliant azure of Grecian skies, the breezy motion of their olive groves, and the gush of their silvery fountains, had all passed into a monument of liquid and harmonious sounds, LETTER XXI. June 16, 1842. If you want refreshment for the eye, and the luxury of pure breezes, go to Staten Island. This béautiful little spot, which lies so gracefully on the waters, was sold by the Indians to the Dutch in 1657, for ten shirts, thirty pairs of stockings, ten guns, thirty bars of lead for balls, thirty pounds of powder, twelve coats, two pieces of duffil, thirty kettles, thirty hatchets, twenty hoes, and a case of knives and awls. This was then considered a fair compensation for a tract eighteen miles long and seven broad; and compared with most of our business. transactions with the Indians, it will not appear illiberal. The facilities for fishing, the abundance of oysters, the pleasantness of the situation, and old associations, all endeared it to the natives. They lingered about the island, like reluctant ghosts, until 1670; when, being urged to depart, they made a new requisition of four hundred fathoms of wampum, and a large number of guns and axes; a demand which was very wisely complied with, for the sake of a final ratification of the treaty. On this island is a quarantine ground, unrivalled for the airiness of its situation, and the comfort and cleanliness of its arrangements. Of the foreigners from all nations which flood our shores, an immense proportion here take their first footstep on American soil; and judging from the welcome Nature gives them, they might well believe they had arrived in Paradise. From the high grounds, three hundred feet above the level of the sea, may be seen a most beautiful variety of land and sea, of rural quiet and city splendour. Long Island spreads before you her vernal forests, and fields of golden grain; the North and East rivers sparkle in the distance; and the magnificent Hudson is seen flowing on in joyful freedom. The city itself seems clean and bright in the distance-its deformities hidden, and its beauties exaggerated, like the fame of far-off heroes. When the sun shines on its steeples, windows, and roofs of glittering tin, it is as if the Fire Spirits had suddenly created a city of fairy palaces. And when the still shadows creep over it, and the distant lights shine like descended constellations, twinkling to the moaning music of the sea, there is something oppressive in its solemn beauty. Then comes the golden morning light, as if God suddenly unveiled his glory! There on the bright waters float a thousand snowy sails, like a troop of beautiful sea birds; and imagination, strong in morning freshness, flies off through the outlet to the distant sea, and circles all the globe with its wreath of flowers. Amid these images of joy, reposes the quarantine burying-ground; bringing sad association, like the bass-note in a music-box. How many, who leave their distant homes full of golden visions, come here to take their first and last look of the promised land. What to them are all the fair, broad acres of this new world? They need but the narrow heritage of a grave. But But every soul that goes hence, apart from friends and kindred, carries with it a whole unrevealed epic of joy and sorrow, of gentle sympathies and passion's fiery depths. O, how rich in more than Shaksperean beauty would be the literature of that quarantine ground, if all the images that pass in procession before those dying eyes, would write themselves in daguerreotype! One of the most interesting places on this island, is the Sailor's Snug Harbor. A few years ago, a gentleman by the name of Randall, left a small farm, that rented for two or three hundred dollars, at the corner of Eleventh-street and Broadway, for the benefit of old and worn-out sailors. This property increased in value, until it enabled the trustees to purchase a farm on Staten Island, and erect a noble stone edifice, as a hospital for disabled seamen; with an annual income of nearly thirty thousand dollars. The building has a very handsome exterior, and is large, airy, and convenient. The front door opens into a spacious hall, at the extremity of which flowers and evergreens are arranged one above another, like the terrace of a conservatory; and from the entries above, you look down into this pretty nook of 'greenery. The whole aspect of things is extremely pleasant with the exception of the sailors themselves. There is a sort of torpid resignation in countenance and movement, painful to witness. They reminded me of what some one said of the Greenwich pensioners: They seem to be waiting for death.' No outward comfort seemed wanting, except the constant prospect of the sea: but they stood alone in the world-no wives, no children. Connected by no link with the ever-active Present, a monotonous Future stretched before them, made more dreary by its contrast with the keen excitement and ever-shifting variety of their Past life of peril and pleasure. I have always thought too little provision was made for this lassitude of the mind, in most benevolent institutions. Men accustomed to excitement, cannot do altogether without it. It is a necessity of nature, and should be ministered to in all innocent forms. Those poor old tars should have sea-songs and instrumental music, once in a while, to stir their sluggish blood; and a feast might be given on great occasions, to younger sailors from temperance boarding-houses, that the Past might have a chance to hear from the Present. We perform but a half charity, when we comfort the body and leave the soul desolate. Within the precincts of the city, too, are pleasant and safe homes provided for sailors; spacious, wellventilated, and supplied with libraries and museums. After all, this nineteenth century, with all its tur moil, and clatter, has some lovely features about it. If evil spreads with unexampled rapidity, good is abroad too with miraculous and omnipresent activity. Unless we are struck by the tail of a comet, or swallowed by the sun meanwhile, we certainly shall get the world right side up, by and by. Among the many instrumentalities at work to produce this, increasing interest in the sailor's welfare is a cheering omen. Of all classes, except the negro slaves, they have been the most neglected and the most abused. The book of judgment can alone reveal how much they have suffered on the wide, deep ocean, with no door to escape from tyranny, no friendly forest to hide them from the hunter; doomed, at their best estate, to suffer almost continued deprivation of home, that worst feature in the curse of Cain; their minds shut up in caves of ignorance so deep, that if religion enters with a friendly lamp, it too frequently terrifies them with the shadows it makes visible. Religious they must be, in some sense, even when they know it not; for no man with a human soul within him, can be unconscious of the Divine Presence, with infinite space around him, the blue sky overhead, with its million world-lamps, and every where, beneath and around him, 'Great ocean, strangest of creation's sons! That rolls the wild, profound, eternal bass In Nature's anthem, and makes music such Thus circumstanced, the sailor cannot be ignorant, |