And because it is thus in the inward spirit, it is so in the outward world. Our very shawls bear ornaments found in Egyptian catacombs, and our sofas rest on the mysterious Sphinx; Caryatides, which upheld the roof of Diana's ancient temple, stand with the same quiet and graceful majesty, to sustain the lighter burden of our candelabras and lamps; and the water of modern wells flows into vases, whose beautiful forms were dug from the lava of longburied Herculaneum.

Truth is immortal. No fragment of it ever dies. From time to time, the body dies off it; but it rises in a more perfect form, leaving its grave-clothes behind it, to be, perchance, worshipped as living things, by those who love to watch among the tombs. Every line of beauty is the expression of a thought, and shares the immortality of its origin; hence the beautiful acanthus leaf is transferred from Corinthian capitals to Parisian scarfs and English calicoes.

It is said that the bow of a violin drawn across the edge of a glass covered with sand, leaves notes of music written on the sand. Thus do the vibrations of the Present leave its tune engraven on the soul; and in the lapse of time, we call those written notes the language of the Past. Thus art thou the child. of the Past, and the father of the Future. Thou standest on the Present, like the sea-bird on a rock, in mid ocean, with the immensity of waters behind him, ready to plunge into the immensity of waters before him.'

Art thou a Reformer? Beware of the dangers of thy position. Let not the din of the noisy Present drown the music of the Past. Be assured there is no tone comes to thee from the far-off ocean of olden time, which is not a chord in the eternal anthem of the universe; else had it been drowned in the roaring waves, long before it came to thee.

Reform as thou wilt; for the Present and the Future have need of this; but let no rude scorn breathe

on the Past. Lay thy head lovingly in her lap; and let the glance of her eye pass into thine; for she has been to thee a mother.

'I can scorn nothing which a nation's heart
Hath held for ages holy: for the heart
Is alike holy in its strength and weakness;
It ought not to be jested with nor scorned.
All things to me are sacred that have been.
And though earth like a river streaked with blood,
Which tells a long and silent tale of death,
May blush her history and hide her eyes,
The Past is sacred-it is God's, not ours;
Let her and us do better if we can.'

At no season does the thoughtful soul so much realize that it ever stands 'between two infinities,’— never does it so distinctly recognise the presence of vast ideas, that look before and after, as when the Old Year turns away its familiar face, and goes off to join its veiled sisterhood beyond the flood. It is true that every day ends a year, and that which precedes our birth-day does, in an especial manner, end our year; yet is there somewhat peculiarly impressive in that epoch, which whole nations recognise as a foot-print of departing time.

เ

The season itself has a wailing voice. The very sky in spring-time laughingly says, 'How do you do?' but in winter it looks a mute farewell. The year is dying away,' says Goethe, 'like the sound of bells. The wind passes over the stubble, and finds nothing to move. Only the red berries of that slender tree seem as if they would fain remind us of something cheerful; and the measured beat of the thresher's flail calls up the thought that in the dry and fallen ear lies so much of nourishment and life.'

Thus Hope springs ever from the bosom of sadness. A welcome to the New Year mingles with our fond farewell to the old. Hail to the Present,

with all the work that it brings! Its restlessness, if looked at aright, becomes a golden prophecy. We will not read its prose, and count our stops, as schools have taught; but the heart shall chant it; and tones shall change the words to music, that shall write itself on all coming time.

New-York welcomes the new year, in much the same style that she does every thing else. She is not prone, as the Quakers say, 'to get into the stillness,' to express any of her emotions. Such a hubbub as was kept up on the night of the 31st, I never heard. Such a firing out of the old year, and such a firing in of the new! Fourth of July in Boston is nothing compared to it. The continual discharge of guns and pistols prevented my reading or writing in peace, and I took refuge in bed; but every five minutes a lurid flash darted athwart the walls, followed by the hateful crash of fire-arms. If any good thing is expressed by that sharp voice, it lies beyond the power of my imagination to discover it; why men should choose it for the utterance of joy, is more than I can tell.

The racket of these powder-devilkins kept me awake till two o'clock. At five, I was roused by a stout Hibernian voice, almost under my window, shouting 'Pa-ther!' 'Pa-ther!' Peter did not answer, and off went a pistol. Upon this, Peter was fain to put his head out of the window, and inquire what was wanted. 'A bright New Year to ye, Pa-ther. Get up and open the door.'

The show in the shop-windows, during the week between Christmas and New Year's, was splendid, I assure you. All that Parisian taste, or English skill could furnish, was spread out to tempt the eye. How I did want the wealth of Rothschild, that I might make all the world a present! and then, methinks, I could still long for another world to endow. The

happiness of Heaven must consist in loving and giving. What else is there worth living for? I have often involuntarily applied to myself a remark made by Madam Roland.Reflecting upon what part I was fitted to perform in the world,' says she, 'I could never think of any that quite satisfied me, but that of Divine Providence.' To some this may sound blasphemous; it was however merely the spontaneous and child-like utterance of a loving and liberal soul.

Though no great observer of times and seasons, I do like the universal custom of ushering in the new year with gifts and gladsome wishes. I will not call these returning seasons notches cut in a stick, to count our prison hours, but rather a garlanding of mile-stones on the way to our Father's mansion.

In New-York, they observe this festival after the old Dutch fashion; and the Dutch, you know, were famous lovers of good eating. No lady, that is a lady, will be out in the streets on the first of January. Every woman, that is anybody,' stays at home, dressed in her best, and by her side is a table covered with cakes, preserves, wines, oysters, hot coffee, &c.; and as every gentleman is in honour bound to call on every lady, whose acquaintance he does not intend to cut, the amount of eating and drinking done by some fashionable beaux must of course be very considerable. The number of calls is a matter of pride and boasting among ladies, and there is, of course, considerable rivalry in the magnificence and variety of the eating tables. This custom is eminently Dutch in its character, and will pass away before a higher civilization.

To furnish forth this treat, the shops vied with each other to the utmost. Confectionary abounded in the shape of every living thing; beside many things nowhere to be found, not even among gnomes, or fairies, or uncouth merrows of the sea. Cakes were of every conceivable shape-pyramids, obe

lisks, towers, pagodas, castles, &c. Some frosted loaves nestled lovingly in a pretty basket of sugar eggs; others were garlanded with flowers, or surmounted by cooing doves, or dancing cupids. Altogether, they made a pretty show in Broadway-too pretty since the object was to minister to heartless vanity, or tempt a sated appetite.

But I will not moralize. Let us all have virtue, and then there will be no further need to talk of it, as the German wisely said.

There is one lovely feature in this annual festival. It is a season when all past neglect, all family feuds, all heart-burning and estrangement among friends may be forgotten and laid aside for ever. They who have not spoken for years may renew acquaintance, without any unpleasant questions asked, if they signify a wish to do so by calling on the first of January. Wishing all may copy this warm bit of colouring in our social picture, I bid you farewell, with my heart's best blessing, and this one scrap of morals: May you treat every human being as you would treat him, and speak of every one as you would speak, if sure that death would part you before next NewYear's Day.

LETTER XIII.

January 20, 1842.

Is your memory a daguerreotype machine, taking instantaneous likenesses of whatsoever the light of imagination happens to rest upon? I wish mine were not; especially in a city like this-unless it would be more select in its choice, and engrave only the beautiful. Though I should greatly prefer the green fields, with cows, chewing the cud, under shady trees, by the side of deep, quiet pools-still I would find no fault, to have my gallery partly filled with the palaces of our merchant princes,' built of the spark