"And the night grew faint with watching As the revel lasted long But the Baron stout and stalwart CXXXIII "By the hearth-stone's flickering embers, CXXXIV "Suddenly a low dull wailing, CXXXV "Then the chamber shook with shudders, CXXXVI "Shadows 'gotten of the fire-light CXXXVII "And the Baron's heart sank fainting, CXXXVIII "Then the misty shadows gathering CXXXIX "Thro' the tresses of the fair hair CXL "On its motionless still bosom Lay a blue and purple wound, While the dizzy air seemed dancing CXLI "And the shrunk lips pale and parted And that motioned word-' Despair! Among all the "lost arts" of our forefathers, we regret none so much as we do the employment of fairies. The "little people" were the fuctotums of former ages, and all our machinery will not supply their place. These it was that watched over the gentle maiden, helping her into and out of love scrapes innumerable,which in these degenerate days the darlings have to manage themselves; these it was that assisted the chivalrous knight through adventures incredible, even unto the daily conquering of four and twenty giants, not one of whom but could have served the knight without this supernatural assistance, very much as their brother in Rabelais was wont to do ;-put them in a hollow tooth until dinner time: these doubtless, (the fairies, we mean, and not the giants,) had Editors' Tables been current in those days, would have been called on, in cases of special emergency, to write them. Or if fairies be really and forever an "obsolete idea," what a priceless treasure would be a bottle of Sam Weller's "self acting ink!" This, at least, may be considered as in keeping with that most ardent of all spirits, just now, the "spirit of the age" and as likely to be realized as the discovery of perpetual motion, the predictions of our country's future greatness in Fourth of July orations, or the establishment of a true system of Metaphysics and Theology on the basis of Phrenology and Mesmerism. With such a friend as this, the life of an editor would be comparative Elysium: leaving others to toil on,racking their brains and blacking their fingers as we do now, we would rush into our biggest easy chair, put our Editorial boots on the top of the stove, and watch with supreme indifference or lazy curiosity the embodiment of brilliant ideas, soon to be recognized as our own, and to astonish our friends with the display of all the talent that we have hitherto been so successful in concealing. But unfortunately such ink is as far from actual existence as the other "chateaux en Espagne" above said: and pleasant as it may be to indulge in such visions for the while, it is "rather the other of the two" to awake and find the Table still unwritten, the end of the month approaching, and the "devil" not exactly to pay, but to choke, or in some other way to pacify. Of all such day-dreams, we may say, as did he who fell from the top of a steeple: "The comin' down was'nt so perticlerly onpleasant, but the fetchin' up was!" For some reason or other, all the aids or substitutes for writing that we ever heard or dreamed of have flitted before our eyes for this last half hour, while we sat biting our nails, and wondering" what on earth to say." Dean Swift we think it is who tells of a notable project by which words uttered through a trumpet were to record themselves. Ah, if this were but so, dear Reader, what a nice cosy chat would we have of it: for we feel just in the mood for talking, and could hold forth unlimitedly. "There is a time for all things," and these bright Spring days are a time for social intercourse, and not for solitary study. In the short days and long evenings of winter, is the time to read, and meditate, and write; even Editors' Tables may be concocted then with comparative comfort, if you have but a bright fire and a tea-kettle, that sings, (like some of the College Choir,) through its nose, and last and least, in point of importance, brains. But now, when all about you is bright and beautiful;—when all Nature seems waking from her long slumber, and even the woodchucks come forth from their winter retirement ;-in these pleasant Spring days, as we said before, we too cannot help feeling gregarious; we would fain throw aside the book and the pen, and roam through the green pastures and by the still waters of Freshman River, or sitting with some friend at our window, sweetly enjoy alike his confidence and his maple sugar. But here we must cease our Jeremiad to hear with all deference the criticisms of many a Junior, Sophomore or Freshman critic, that throws down his book at the end of the last paragraph with " This man is a bore! Why don't he write an easy. off hand chat, just as one would speak, and not take all this trouble that he complains of? If I were but Editor now"-Softly, my dear young friend, softly! If you were Editor we don't doubt that you would do infinitely better than any of those who occupy now that post: but whether you would do all that you now imagine, is a question "not sufficiently ascertained." Never was there a greater misconception than exists as to the case of this so called "off-hand" writing: never was a truer thing said than that in general "easy writing is confounded hard reading," and v. v. It's very easy to say, “write as you would talk:" but to do it? The stream of ideas that flows so freely in a friend's presence, becomes stationary in more senses than one, when committed to pen, ink, and paper. One feels sensitive about saying funny things when he knows they will be read by those over whose feeling at the time he has no such control as a tete-a-tete must always give, and who may consequently condemn all because they themselves are blue, or cross, or hungry at the time. (This, by the way, is the true reason why the Editors of the Indicator are so much less witty than they easily might be They know that a man who has flunked, because too much of a genius to get his lesson, or who has a week's headache in memory of a "glorious evening,"-is not in a state to appreciate joking, however well intentioned-and so like Dr. Holmes, they -"never dare to be So funny as they can!") Does not the best conversationist utter a score of platitudes, and even failures,in an hour, which would be perfectly unendurable in print? To write just as we speak, would make no flattering display of most of us: a great deal that passes for most excellent wit in the warmth of a gay chat, would become when colder, on paper, as heavy and untasteful as cold potatoes. Not a little of the art of making people laugh, too, consists in judiciously setting them the example: we have thought sometimes that it were a better accomplishment to start with tact a laugh at your |