A WORD UPON CONCEITEDNESS. BY ELIZABETH OKES SMITH, AUTHOR OF "THE SINLESS CHILD," ETC. A WOMAN may pardon many errors in manhood, | absence of self; the possession of power, exercised but she will never pardon those that spring from to sustain; of power that becomes stronger, even that vanity nor conceitedness; any modification of these the true and the beautiful rely thereon. is, in her eyes, the "unpardonable sin" of a man, the "great gulf" lying between him and love, the "black flag" upon the high seas of society, which is entitled to no quarter. We will not go into analysis, such being the fact; but it may be that she has an innate consciousness that vanity is her own especial foible; the right and prerogative of her own sex; the little woman weakness half bordering upon a grace; the cloud that gives birth to the rainbow, so flexible, so amiable, so nearly engaging are the lighter manifestations of the fault. Spite of the cruelty, the cool malice of Shakspeare's Maria, every woman enters heartily into the real spirit of the saucy waiting woman, whereby she promises to make the steward "a common recreation," to "gull him into a nay-word," all because, in the fullness of his conceit, he has whispered, "Maria once told me she did affect me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion." Ah, foolish Malvolio, "Yonder, i' the sun, Practicing behavior to his own shadow." Maria is beholding thee, and already plotting to mortify thy self-love with which the gentle Olivia hath here "Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite." But conceitedness, that quality of combined selflove and vanity by which a man believes himself to be just the thing, killing, irresistible, the not-to-be-tofore reproached thee. withstood subduer of hearts, not only excites her contempt, but harmless spirit of revenge. Her pride of sex is aroused; she becomes a champion, the penalty she inflicts, however absurd or spiteful it may be, is administered in behalf of, and in the pride of womanhood. A man may be a worshiper of the sex; he may pour out his devotions before one, even till his best manhood, the majesty of his nature be half subverted, and he is yet a subject of interest; but let this idolatry become introversive, let a woman detect a complacent self-gratulation, a conceited fondness, and he may "Give his mind to form a sonnet quaint, Of Silvia's shoe-string, or of Chloe's fan, and it is all the same to him, no woman will "listen to We forget the redeeming traits of the poor steward, his honest zeal in behalf of his mistress, his indignant rebuke of her uproarious kinsman "Do you make an ale-house of my Lady's house? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time, in you?” and only remember Malvolio, the coxcomb, assured in his own mind of the favor of the ready-witted maid, and now presuming to look higher. Maria bethinks herself of all the courteous speeches she may have uttered that have been thus wrested from their intention; all the saucy witticisms devoured as the gravest truths; all the absurd nonsense demurely expressed; in short, all the mockery of female attractiveness that served but to swell the self-love of the conceited Malvolio; exulting in fun and mischief, confident of success, and full of resources, she exclaims, "Here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling." Malvolio.-"To be Count Malvolio!" "The Lady Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe." On this hint, Maria writes a letter, and leaves it in the pathway of the credulous steward, whereby the penmanship of her mistress is aptly imitated, and many ambiguous hints thrown out, as to his being beloved by one of superior estate. A course of conduct is recommended, and hints as to dress, all of which the deluded Malvolio obeys to the letter. Olivia is mourning the death of her brother, at the same time that her grief is not too absorbing to render her invulnerable to new wounds, coming in the shape of a pretty youth of her own sex, disguised in doublet and hose. She says "Where is Malvolio? he is sad and civil, And adapted to my fortunes." augmen Then cometh this sad and civil steward, "smiling more lines than are in the new map, with the: tation of the Indies," accoutred in "yellow stockings," and "cross-gartered." Olivia is amazed, and readily adopts the hint of the mischievous waiting maid, that "The man is tainted in his wits." Olivia.-"Smil'st thou ? I sent for thee upon a sad occasion." Malvolio replies, with much feeling, Malvolio is, at length, righted, but not till Maria has had him well punished for his foolish conceit and presumption. Love is always arbitrary; like the wind, it bloweth where it listeth. "Love gives itself, and is not bought." Thousands barter manhood, fame, glory, all the true and the beautiful that should appertain to humanity, and yet win but the semblance of love, perhaps not even that. Let the sex regard it as an axiom, that no man wins upon the regard of a true woman, by compromising his own manly self-respect; by adapting himself to her fancies, or, as Shakspeare hath it, by "I could be sad; this does make some obstruction in the wearing "yellow stockings," and going "cross-gar blood, this cross-gartering." tered," in the hope to please. THE MEETING. BY MRS. M. T. W. CHANDLER. On! Harry, don't ask me to go→ I really can scarcely refuse, And yet, it perplexes me so, I hardly know which way to choose. Though our meetings, by stealth, we now snatch, He always was hard to persuade, And now he's so cross with the gout, That pain and ill humor have made His denial just ten times more stoutBut, oh! I'm the only one left Of his children, to soothe his decayOf his daughter, dear Harry, bereft, How cheerless and dark were his way. Aunt says you are poor and too young, To Pa she has told the same things I wish she would just hold her tongue, For nothing but trouble she brings. But, oh if you only would wait A year, dearest Harry, or two, No change need you fear in your Kate, She'll ever be constant to you. Your miniature, Harry, I keep On the chain round my neck all the timeWith it pressed to my bosom I sleep, (Aunt would think it a terrible crime.) Don't fancy your pleadings I slight, But ask me no more, love, to rove, THE TOLL BRIDGE. BY T. B. READ. COME, Mary, rest thy hand in mine, Sit nearer to my side, I'll tell thee, love, what were my thoughts When crossing yonder tide. 'Twas solitary, long and cold, The bridge I trod to-night; Three half fed lamps shone ghostly pale The river moaned all sullenly, The yawning planks displayed, between, Grim figures moved beside me there But when I breathed thy name, my love, The echoes of my hurrying feet When gazing on the old man's face, I could but think of him who stands The bridge to the eternal shore OUR CONTRIBUTORS.-NO. IX. CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. WITH A PORTRAIT. THE Dublin University Magazine, for August, in a review of "The Poets and Poetry of America," published by one of us last year, speaks correctly of Hoffman as the best song writer of the United States. In the styles of Suckling, or Moore, or Beranger, no one excels him, to say nothing of the style of our contributor himself. "He is a true disciple of Christopher North, in his sporting propensities," says our overthe-water cotemporary, "and we are half inclined to like the fellow better than the whole Yankee crew of them. There runs through his dashing numbers an aristocracy of soul and sentiment, pleasing from its rareness: the cavalier's feather waves so gaily among the roundhead multitude that we hail the wearer as nearer our old world sympathies, by a 'gentleman-like distance."" Ditto to all but the transatlantic affinities. Had the author of "Charles O'Malley" been the poet's college chum and afterlife associate, he could not have read him in the main more correctly. the 25th of October, 1817, from which it appears, that while, with other lads, attempting the dangerous feat of leaping aboard a steamer as she passed a pier, under full way, he was caught between the vessel and the wharf. The steamer swept by, and left him clinging by his hands to the pier, crushed in a manner too frightful for description. This deprivation, instead of acting as a disqualification for the manly sports of youth, and thus turning the subject of it into a retired student, seems rather to have given young Hoffman an especial ambition to excel in swimming, riding, etc., to the still further neglect of perhaps more useful acquirements. At fifteen he entered Columbia College, and here, as at preparatory schools, was noted rather for success in gymnastic exercises than in those of a more intellectual character. His reputation, judging from his low position in his class, contrasted with the honors that were awarded him by the college societies at their anniversary exhibitions, was greater with the students than with the faculty, though the honorary degree of Master of Arts, conferred upon him under peculiarly gratifying circumstances, after out having graduated, clearly implies that he was still a favorite with his alma mater. Charles Fenno Hoffman is now about thirty-seven, though from his appearance one would think him younger by some dozen years. Inman's portrait-leaving the institution in his third or junior year, withadmirably copied by Dick-presents him to the life, in his sporting trim, as he returned a few years ago from the forests and the prairies. The name FENNO he derives from his maternal grandfather, a distinguished politician of the federal party in this city, during the administration of Washington. His father's family came to New York from Holland, before the days of Peter Stuyvesant, and have ever held an honorable position in the state. His father, in his younger days, was often the successful competitor of Hamilton, Burr, Pinckney, and other professional giants, for the highest honors of the legal forum, and his brother, the Hon. Ogden Hoffinan, still maintains the family reputation at the bar. When six years old, young Hoffinan was sent to a Latin grammar school in New York, from which, at the age of nine, he was transferred to the Poughkeepsie Academy, a seminary upon the Hudson, about eighty miles from the city, which at that time enjoyed great reputation. The harsh treatment he received here induced him to run away, and his father, finding that he had not improved under a course of severity, did not insist upon his return, but placed him under the care of an accomplished Scottish gentleman in one of the rural villages of New Jersey. During a visit home from this place, when about twelve years of age, he met with an injury which involved the necessity of the immediate amputation of his right leg, above the knee. The painful circumstances are minutely detailed in the New York "Evening Post," of Immediately after leaving college-being then eighteen years old-he commenced the study of the law with Harmanus Bleecker, of Albany, now Charge d'Affaires of the United States at the Hague. When twenty-one, he was admitted to the bar, and in the succeeding three years he practiced in the courts of the city of New York. During this period he wrote anonymously for the New York American—having made his first essay as a writer for the gazettes while in Albany-and soon after we believe became associated with Charles King in the editorship of that paper. Certainly he gave up the legal profession, for the successful prosecution of which he appears to have been unfitted by his love of books, society and the rod and gun, and since that time has devoted his attention almost constantly to literature. In 1833, for the benefit of his health, he left New York on a traveling tour for the "far west," and his letters, written during his absence and first published in the American, were afterward included in his "Winter in the West," of which the first impression appeared in New York in 1834, and the second soon after in London. This work has passed through many editions, and it will continue to be popular so long as graphic descriptions of scenery and character, and richness and purity of style, are admired. His next work, "Wild Scenes in the Forest and the Prairie," was first printed in 1837, and, like its predecessor, it contains many ad mirable pictures of scenery, inwoven with legends | thor, and not the man, is the prominent idea in your of the western country, and descriptive poetry. A new American edition of this popular book has recently been published in New York. It was followed by a romance entitled " Greyslaer," founded upon the famous criminal trial of Beauchamp, for the murder of Colonel Sharpe, the Solicitor-General of Kentucky-the particulars of which, softened away in the novel, are minutely detailed in the appendix to his "Winter in the West." "Greyslaer" was a successful work-two editions having appeared in New York, one in Philadelphia, and a fourth in London, in the same year. It placed the author in the front rank of American novelists. He describes in it, with remarkable felicity, American forest-life, and savage warfare, and gives a truer idea of the border contests of the Revolution than any formal history of the period that has been published. The Knickerbocker Magazine was first issued under his editorial auspices, and he subsequently became the proprietor of the American Monthly Magazine, (one of the ablest literary periodicals ever published in this country;) and during the long term of which he was the chief editor of this journal, he also for one year conducted the New York Mirror, and wrote a series of zealous papers in favor of international copyright, for the New Yorker, the Corsair and other journals. The last volume which Mr. Hoffman gave to the public is "The Vigil of Faith and other Poems," published about a year ago. His other recent compositions have all appeared in the pages of this magazine. The "Vigil of Faith" is a thrilling story of Indian life, the scene of which is among the Adirondack mountains, and it is related in rapid octosyllabic verse, of all kinds best adapted to the stirring border legend. A more complete and elegant edition of his poetical writings we understand will be published during the present autumn. How it happened we could never imagine-since public offices are in these days so invariably the reward of partisan service, and our contributor has as little to do with politics as demagogues have usually to do with letters-but he holds an important position in the Custom House, where he sits, day by day, as patiently as sat Charles Lamb at his desk in the India House. The following most graphic and truthful description of Hoffinan is from a private letter addressed by a common friend of our contributor and ourselves to a gentleman in Boston, and being shown to us during a recent visit in that city, we obtained permission to print it in this connection. It is one of the cleverest pieces of character-writing we have seen in a long time, and will make our readers as familiar with the man as they already are with the author. "So you want to know all about C. F. H? Well, I'll try to give you an idea of him, while, all unconscious of my limning, he is sitting at the receipt of customs, remitting certain duties, but not one, I'll be bound, claimed by fair woman or brave man.' I must premise, however, that you'll be sadly disappointed. It is evident, from your letter, that the au mind. From sympathizing in the vein of my friend's verses and enjoying his graphic descriptions of scenery, you have amused yourself by drawing an intellectual portrait, the fidelity of which you would have me acknowledge. Now, grieved as I am to mar your complacency, I shall do no such thing, for the very outline of your sketch is unjust to the original. He is not one to be so 'perked up.' It would be, indeed, a 'golden sorrow' to him to wear even a laurel crown. He is not one of your one-sided, self-absorbed beings who manage to thrust an incidental attribute between their manhood and the world. No; he pretends to nothing but humanity. He is content to be a man, and you can pay him no more equivocal compliment than by betraying any witless consciousness of his pen-craft. A lance would be quite as native to his hand as that little instrument of a tribe whose badge is sufferance.' He hath as cordial a preference for the living tree over the dead wood of the deck' as Elia himself. No lines (not even Moore's) are more to his fancy than the angler's. The rustling of forest leaves is quite as beguiling to him as that of quartos; and the beaming of a woman's eye far more winsome than the light of science. You have mistaken your man, my good friend. He looks not on life through the spectacles of an author, but according to the dictates of sympathy. His relish for nature, to one accustomed to observe character, gives a key to many other traits. It is a disposition usually found in combination with frankness and a certain noble enthusiasm of character. Whoever takes true delight in the outward world, and passes not unheeded the picturesque oak-clump or the sunny upland-whoever follows, with a glance of interest, the spring-bird's flight, or echoes with plaintive whistle his autumnal note, will generally be found superior to selfish art and conventional thraldom. Some recent phrenologist recognized an organ of rural taste. It must be large in Hofliman. Mark the pleasant detail with which his sketches of travel abound. Whether at the sources of the Hudson, in the far West, on lake or prairie, amid woodland or moor, observe how he dwells upon every feature and makes you see the verdant knoll and tangled brushwood-scent the crushed pine-leaves as you tramp the forest, and hear the plash of the startled deer as he gains the water. The beauties of the North River have found no more ardent chronicler, and a more cheerful loiterer never dreamed upon its banks. Were he monarch of the Empire state, like the Goth of old, he would choose a last resting-place in the bed of that noble stream. I confess it is delightful to me to find an American capable of genuine local attachment. The author of 'Greyslaer' was evidently inspired by the scene of his story; and the same Knickerbocker instinct doubtless led him, during the past winter, to rescue, in an able lecture, the memory of Jacob Leisler-one of New York's bravest and most calumniated patriots—from unmerited forgetfulness. It is this sympathy for native subjects which rendered 'A Winter in the Far West' and Wild Scenes in the Forest and Prairie' so acceptable in England. They not only give true pic tures, but are, for the most part, written con amore. Many of the peculiarities of our landscape and border life are mirrored with remarkable fidelity in their pages. It is always charming to be with an earnest companion-one whose heart is in his work. This is the true secret of successful authorship. Without it there can be no glow or life-like touches; and, for one, give me Charles Lamb to muse with over old English authors and actors-Bryant as an interpreter in the meditative air of twilight, when the 'Evening Wind' arises, and the lone Waterfowl' skims along the horizon-Byron and Rogers for cicerones in Italy; but, to cheer my way and guide my eye in a morning walk by my native groves and streamlets, I ask no more genial comrade than Hoffman. "Recognition is perhaps the rarest of blessings. Yet how ardently is it craved by the man of true feeling! To be known and felt as we are, to call forth a legitimate echo, to secure a hearty response-this it is which alike incites the lover and the bard. A great German writer says, but very few readers are capable of understanding the law of a production.' In the laudatory notices bestowed upon our own authors, the indiscriminate terms employed too plainly indicate how seldom it is deemed interesting 'to pluck out the heart of their mystery.' I have seen but one review of 'Greyslaer,' and that in a foreign journal, which recognizes the principle it illustrates in common with many of the author's prose writings-I mean that "There's a divinity that ever shapes our ends, It is true, however, that we instinctively demur at the hero's destiny in closing the romance, feeling that one so devoted to a lofty and absorbing sentiment richly deserved a better reward than the late and almost accidental possession of a bride, in loyalty to whom his deepest sentiment was so bravely expended. The union of manly faith with a gentle spirit, the intellectual with the genial, the fortiter in re with the suaviter in modo, strikes me as the prevailing idea which is variously manifested throughout the best production of Hoffinan, and, I may add, the most individual phases of his character. "Now, don't begin your usual homily upon my partial temper. I have a reason, if forsooth you must have one, for this preference. I sympathize chiefly with the spontaneous. None of your worked-up moral processes for me. I leave them all to men of creeds and systems. Let me repose beside the gushing spring, and you are welcome to vegetate in the formal neighborhood of any canal you like. The 'good creature I present to you' is spontaneous in mind, manner and feeling. Thence the greater part of his poetry consists of songs-some of them the best written in America. Has your blood never been stirred by the Myrtle and Steel,' or your heart won by 'Rosalie Clare? There is a lyrical flow about the man. From the abundance of his heart he speaks, -a kind of language growing daily more rare. You unfortunately enjoy not his discourse, which, I do assure you, is very limpid and cordial. His rhymes, however, are in the same direct and glowing vein. You have, for instance, in the course of your life, met a being who awakened your interest profoundly. You have yielded to the entrancing, yet fearful sentiment. It has borne your soul far from the domain of ordinary and self-possessed existence-in a word, you have loved, and a change of feeling in the object of your regard, or the intervention of some hopeless 'second thoughts,' has cast you, like an ocean-weed, from the wild sea of dreamy joy to the still, barren shore of cold reality. Awhile, desperation has swayed your thoughts, but time, reflection-'the star of the unconquered will'-have gradually induced a quiet mood. You learned to acquiesce and bear yourself nobly, like one descending a mount of sacrifice. Does not this strain echo the feeling at that hour? The conflict is over, the struggle is past, I have looked, I have loved, I have worshiped my last, Yet not in resentment my love I resign, Sparkling and bright in liquid light Does the wine our goblets gleam in, Which a bee would choose to dream in, As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim O if Mirth might arrest the flight Nor Love himself can hold the elf, As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim And break on the lips while meeting. "Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.' Probably my friend thinks her the most trustworthy mistress he can woo, for he is still a buoyant celibate; though even her charms he sometimes chides, with lover-like caprice, as in the following CHANSONNETTE. They are mockery all, those skies! those skies! |