he was to know the Emperor. But his search was in vain; the Emperor could not be among them. At this moment his glance fell upon his companion, and behold! this one still wore his hat. The youth was astonished, confused. He looked long at his companion, and said, taking off his own hat, "Salaam Aleikam, Petit Caporal. Thus much I know, that I am not the sultan of the Franks, and it does not therefore become me to keep my head covered; but thou art he who wears the hat. Petit Caporal--thou art the Emperor !" "Thou hast guessed it," answered the former; "and besides this, I am thy friend. Do not ascribe thy misfortunes to me, but to an unhappy complication of circumstances. Be assured thou shalt with the first ship be sent back to thy native land. Return now to my wife, and relate to her of the Arabian professor, and all that thou knowest. I will send the herring and salad to the doctor, but thou shalt reside in my palace.” Thus spoke the man who was emperor, but Almanzor fell down before him, kissed his hands and prayed forgiveness that he had not known him; he certainly had not seen it in his face that he was the sultan. “Thou art right,” replied the former, laughing; "when one has been emperor for a few days only, he cannot have it written upon his brow." Thus he spoke, and motioned him to retire. Since this day Almanzor lived happily and in joy. He was permitted to visit the Arabian professor a few times, but the doctor he never saw again. After a few weeks, the emperor summoned the youth, and announced to him that a ship lay at anchor, in which he would send him to Egypt. Almanzor was beside himself with joy; a few days sufficed for preparation, when, with a heart full of gratitude, and richly laden with gifts, he took leave of the emperor, travelled toward the sea, and embarked. But Allah would still longer prove him, would still longer steel his courage by misfortune, and did not yet permit him to see the coast of his native land. Another Frankish people, the English, at that time carried on a war against the Emperor upon the sea. They took away all the ships which they could conquer, and it so happened that the vessel in which Almanzor had emVOL. XVI.-NO. LXXIX. 5 barked, was surrounded and attacked by those of this people; it was forced to surrender, and the whole crew were transferred to a smaller ship, which sailed on with the rest. But upon the sea it is not less unsafe than in the desert, where robbers fall unawares upon a caravan, and kill and plunder. A corsair out of Tunis attacked the small vessel, which had been separated by a storm from the others; it was captured, and all the crew carried into Algiers and sold. Almanzor, it is true, came not into such hard slavery as the Christians, for he was a true believing mussulman, but still all hope of seeing his home and his father again disappeared. He lived there five years with a rich man, and was obliged to water the flowers, and cultivate the garden. When his master died, his possessions were divided, his slaves separated, and Almanzor fell into the hands of a slave merchant, who had fitted out a ship, to sell his slaves elsewhere at a better price. I myself was a slave of this merchant, and was placed in the same ship with Almanzor; there we became known to each other, and there he related to me his singular fortunes. As we came to land also, I was witness of the most wonderful providence of Allah-it was the coast of his native country where the boat landed, it was the market-place of his native city where we were publicly offered for sale, and, oh, my lord! it was his own, his dear father who purchased him." The Sheik Ali Banu had sunk in deep reflection over this narration; it had carried him along involuntarily with itself; his breast heaved, his eyes glowed, he was often on the point of interrupting the slave, and now the end of the story seemed not to satisfy him. "He would now be one and twenty years old, thou said'st?" thus he began to question him. My lord, he is of my age, from one to two and twenty years." "And what city did he name as the place of his birth? that thou hast not said.” "If I err not," answered the former, "it was Alexandria." "Alexandria!" exclaimed the Sheik, "it is my son-where is he? what keeps him? said'st thou not he was called Kairam? has he dark eyes and brown hair ?" "He has, and in mournful hours he called himself Kairam, and not Almanzor." "But-Allah, Allah! tell me-his father purchased him before thine eyes said'st thou ? said he it was his father? then he is not my son." The slave answered, "he said to me," 'Allah be praised, after such long unhappiness this is the market place of my native city.' After awhile a distinguished personage turned the corner, and he exclaimed, 'What a dear present from Heaven are the eyes! I once more see my revered father! The man stepped up to us, examined this and that one, and purchased at last him to whom all this happened. He then called upon Allah, uttered a prayer of thanks, and whispered to me, I go again into the hall of happiness; it is my own father who has purchased me.'" "Then it is not my son, my Kairam," exclaimed the Sheik, moved with anguish. The youth could no longer restrain himself, tears of joy burst from his eyes, he threw himself before the Sheik, and exclaimed," and still it is your son Kairam-Almanzor, for it is you who have bought him." "Allah! a miracle, a great miracle !" exclaimed all present, and thronged around him; but the Sheik stood speechless, and looked in wonder upon the youth, who raised his beautiful face to him. 'My friend Mustapha," he said to the old Dervish, "a veil of tears hangs before mine eyes, and I cannot see whether the features of his mother, which my Kairam bore, are engraved upon his face; step hither, and look upon him." The old man drew near, and looked upon him long, laid his hand upon the forehead of the young man, and said: "Kairam, what was that sentence which I repeated to thee in the camp of the Franks, on that day of misfortune?" My dear teacher," answered the youth, drawing the hand of the old man to his lips, "it ran, He who loves Allah and has a good conscience, is not alone in the desert of misfortune, for he has two companions who walk at his side consoling him!" Then the old man raised his eyes thankfully toward heaven, drew the youth to his breast, gave him to the Sheik, and said, " Take him; as certainly as thou hast mourned ten years for him, so certainly is he thy son Kairam." The Sheik was lost in joy and rapture; he gazed again and again upon the features of his newly-found son, and undeniably he saw the image of his child again as he had lost him. All present participated in his delight; for they loved the Sheik, and it was to each one as if a son had on this day been returned to him. Song and mirth now filled the hall, as in the days of happiness and joy. The youth must once again and more circumstantially relate his history, and all praised the Arabian professor and the emperor, and every one who had been kind to Kairam. They were together until night, and when they separated the Sheik gave rich gifts to each of his friends, that they might ever remember this day of joy. But the four young men he presented to his son, and invited them always to visit him; and it was a settled matter, that he should read with the scribe, make short travels with the painter, that the merchant should share with him song and dancing, and the other prepare for them all their pleasures. They also were presented with rich gifts, and stepped joyfully from the house of the Sheik. "Whom have we to thank for all this?" they said to each other, "Whom else than the old man? Who would have thought this as we stood here before the house, and prated so idly about the Sheik ?" "And wonderful! Was it not here where we uttered our wishes aloud?" said the scribe. "One would travel, the other sing and dance, the third enjoy good company, and I-read and hear tales and histories. And are not all our wishes fulfilled? Am not I permitted to read all the books of the Sheik, and to purchase what I will?” "And I, as often as my heart desires, listen to singing and playing, and behold dancing, may I not go there and demand it of his slaves?" "And cannot I too oversee his table, and take orders for all his finest pleasures, and be myself present?" said the other. "And I," exclaimed the painter, "before this day, I was poor and could not set foot out of the city, and now I can travel whither I will." "Yes," said they all, "it was good that we followed the old man; how different might have been our fortunes!" Thus they spoke, and went happily and joyfully home. PERIODICAL READING. BY THE AUTHOR OF "A NEW HOME," &c. THE prodigious amount of periodical reading at the present day, makes the question of the utility of such reading one of no little moment. If the effect be good, immense benefit must accrue to those in all classes of life whose minds feed on this sort of aliment. If evil, it would be impossible to compute the amount of that evil. Hundreds of thousands read nothing else; and of these multiplied thousands how few begin with any judgment in the selection of their reading, or a single wish that it shall be anything but amusing? Where, then, are they to acquire that judgment? Whence shall arise a desire for such reading as may instruct and enlarge the mind while it affords a delightful occupation for the time? By the continued perusal of what is most truly called "light" reading? We fear not. We have thought that useful reading was becoming less and less popular; and that instead of complaints as to the utter emptiness of the inflated nothings which build up the reputation of some of the periodicals, the only cry is for something more exciting, even though it be as empty and as unnatural as those. If any one venture to recommend anything of a more solid character, the reply is, "Oh! those things do not go down now-a-days! A thing must be piquant and exciting, or it will not be read!" A "piquant" treatise on natural philosophy, or an "exciting" essay on some important question in morals, being still a desideratum, the time seems far-distant when anything but love-stories shall be considered readable by the great body of those who constitute our reading population. We are told that the style and matter of these things must be adapted to the taste of readers, since it is impossible to fit or force the inclinations so that they shall prefer what is better. This we deny as a whole, though_we may admit it to be partly true. The duty of those who write for the public is to aim at raising the standard of taste, and improving, in every possible way, the powers of those who read. Nobody has a right, morally speaking, to send forth in print that which has no good aim. It is impossible that anything ap-J pearing with the advantages of the press, should be simply indifferent in its tendency. If not written by an idiot, it must have some meaning, and that meaning must have some moral. We may be told that this endless round of vapid love-stories has no harm in it; but we must deny this. They are usually free from intentional evil, but we contend that they may still cause an immense amount of incidental harm. If they foster a mawkish sensibility; if they teach young people that what they describe as love is the business of life, and as such is to be pursued in the very face of duty and of prudence; if they exalt wealth and its appendages, by gorgeous description, to the utmost pitch of attractiveness, while they inculcate, in various ways, a course of conduct which would inevitably prevent the honest acquisition of them; if they represent duelling as a venial transgression, arising only from a fatally high sense of honor; if, in short, they palliate evil, or inculcate, directly or indirectly, false maxims of life, they must be the instruments of incalculable harm in any community like ours where everything depends upon the ability of the people for self-government A democracy in which the people are systematically irreligious, or even ge nerally frivolous and empty, must, in time, become a state of things in comparison with which the worst despotism under which Russia or Austria ever suffered would be a blessed relief. It is bad enough, anywhere, when those to whom the pen and the press have been entrusted use them for evil and not for good; but for the American who misleads, through selfishness or carelessness, the minds of his countrymen. the peine forte et dure of the ancient torture would be scarcely too severe a punishment. Some of the British Monthlies, which have been rendered very popular among us by the dashing brilliancy of their style, are far from exerting a healthful influence on American mind; but they are read by a comparatively small portion of our people; and those of a class better able to judge of and guard against their unfavorable tendencies, than that which chiefly patronizes our own periodicals. Their morality is often scarcely strict enough for our Puritan notions; they represent duelling as something to say the least-more fashionable than virtue; seduction as admitting of many excuses on both sides; capital punishment and all severe penal laws, as the very vital principle of the moral world. And besides all this, and much more that is contrary to our better views, their flings at the political maxims which we are bound to hold most sacred, must be far from encouraging, in our young people, a respect and affection for their native land. They hold up wealth and fame, or some species of worldly prosperity, as the proper and sufficient rewards of virtuous conduct; not only presenting, in most cases, a delusive standard of merit, since the virtues they praise are of a very ordinary or quite dubious cast, but a false and pernicious standard of reward, false in fact as in philosophy, yet fatally fascinating to youthful and undiscriminating minds. We should characterize the British Monthlies as being more thoroughly imbued with what, for want of a better term, we may call a worldly spirit, than anything of the kind on this side the water. But, as we have observed, the influence of these attractive publications is limited, generally, to that of the extracts which are commended to some of our diligent collectors by their wit, humor, or better qualities. Blackwood we take whole; but its toryism is, perhaps, too laughable to be injurious; and the vigorous and sprightly style of its articles, though less striking now than formerly, might be imitated with advantage, by some of our own writers of the same class. The Quarterlies, the work of the ripest minds and most practised pens in the United States, and in England, embody a fund of information on almost every subject worth understanding, and we fear it is for this very reason that they are comparatively neglected. We do not as a people read for information, but for amusement-excitement. An essay full of the most stinging satire, by Macaulay; a slashing review of some popular author; or an article on no matter what subject, in which is lugged in, apropos des bottes, unmeasured abuse of this country, introduced for the sole purpose of cutting to the quick our national sensitiveness, is tolerably sure of readers. In such things we can find that piquancy for which a satiated imagination is ever seeking. But unless a Review come thus recommended-if it offer only just and dispassionate criticims, condensed accounts of all that is new and useful, elegant essays upon any variety of subjects,-it may lie on many a table with its leaves uncut, or perhaps, be suffered to remain quietly slumbering on the bookseller's counter, while thousands of pages of wretched balderdash, injurious alike to the morals and the taste, are being devoured by those whose minds must need furnishing with elegant or practical knowledge. The lamentable poverty of conversation observable in most circles, is proof enough of the need of useful reading; and since there is certainly a great deal of reading done among us, we fear the conclusion is unavoidable that much of that reading is to say the best we may-absolutely useless. We are not disposed to suspect our countrymen of a taste for vicious reading, although we are not of the number of those who could learn to think the Mysteries of Paris and other kindred translations and transfusions from foreign presses which obtained high popularity among us, likely to improve the morality of the public. We think that same gentle public apt to be dazzled by false lights;-to be misled by the representations of venal critics, who can consent to cater for whatever may be, or seem to be, the public taste, without any consideration higher than the most sordid self-interest. People do not enough consult their own spontaneous, instinctive judgment in these matters; they give way too readily to false shame from within and clamor from without. The practice of reading solely for amusement, is, of itself, likely to blind the judgment, and deprive the taste of all discrimination. We should not be apt to employ a habitual whiskey-drinker in the selection of fine wines; and we ought as little to expect purity and delicacy of literary relish in a reader to whom excitement has become the only criterion. To taste with confident acuteness, we must "live cleanly." To obey the suggestions of a vitiated pal ate is as unsafe in morals as in nature. Our daughters will decide between right and wrong with all the more distinctness, from never having had their natural perceptions warped by the perusal of fictions in which those boundaries are artfully or stupidly confounded. It is a mooted question in intellectual philosophy what may be the actual effect, upon the powers of the mind itself, of so much periodical reading. Coleridge says, "the habit of perusing periodical works may be properly added to Averrhoe's catalogue of weakness of memory." He will not dignify such "pass-time or rather kill-time" with the name of reading."Call it rather," he says, "a sort of beggarly day-dreaming, during which the mind of the dreamer furnishes for itself nothing but laziness and a little mawkish sensibility; while the whole matériel and imagery of the doze is supplied, ab extra, by a sort of mental camera obscura, manufactured at the printing-office; which, for the time, fixes, reflects, and transmits the moving phantasm of one man's delirium, so as to people the barrenness of a hundred other brains, afflicted with the same trance or suspension of all comL mon sense and all definite purpose.” He classes this sort of amusement with gaming; swinging on a chair or gate; smoking; snuff-taking; tête-a-tête quarrels after dinner between husband and wife; conning, word by word, all the advertisements in a newspaper; the habit of reading tombstones, and many other equally improving modes of mental dissipation; which catalogue, he declares, is susceptible of a sound psychological commentary. But, not to quote many high authorities which bear out this view of the effects of desultory reading, we cannot doubt that the most pernicious consequences to the memory do actually result from a constant flying from one subject to another, without any balance in the shape of continuous and systematic study. We remember to have heard a lady of the soundest intellect and the most cultivated understanding, say, after having been tempted to read, day after day, in a Cyclopedia, that the effect upon her mind had been such as to convince her that to persist in such a course would lead to absolute derangement. We are quite aware that our strictures may very possibly be met by the assertion, that many among us who read periodicals only, would, if there were none of those, read nothing at all; and that intellectual amusement, even of the poorest kind, is better than some other things that might be mentioned. This much we might grant, but why must it be thus? The shortness of life is a valid argument against the undertak ing of many things-why not against attempting to swallow all the nonsense of the day? Nine-tenths of the magazine stories, so popular among us, have nothing to do with this life, and no reference to that which is beyond it; and fiction which has no relation to what has been, or what is to be, must be both vapid and valueless. Why exhaust life's precious hours in trying to convert into nourishing food the miserable nosubstance which is the result of the efforts of ten thousand blundering alchemists, to turn lead and feathers into gold? Having thus briefly touched upon the things we would not have, it can hardly be necessary to attempt an elaborate description of what we would have in the matter of periodical reading. We shall not be suspected of a desire to discourage all reading of this kind. We would allow it its due place; but as ministering servants of the great literary temple, we feel bound to protest against a complete oblivion of history, morals, criticism, and even poesy divine, in favor of what is just so far worse than blank paper, as a thing spoiled is worse than a thing unused. We would remind the "reading world" (so called), that its capacity, though immense, is not infinite; and that for everything absolutely trashy and worthless, which is read, there is some subduction of time which might be used to better purpose, while the habit of being content with such reading is completely destructive alike of the wish and the ability for improvement. If we have misunderstood this matter-if we have been conjuring up bugbears and spectres, let it be shown by argument and examples. If this be fairly proved, we shall be quite willing to see these ghosts of our imagination laid, like other unreal mockeries-in the Read-Sea. C. |