Labor is life!-'tis the still water faileth; Play the sweet keys wouldst thou keep them BONG SHE LOVES HIM YET. She loves him yet! That shadow her soul-lit cheek; A blush will be sure to speak. But deeper signs Than the radiant blush of beauty, Whenever his name is heard; Her young heart thrills, Forgetting herself-her dutyHer dark eye fills, And her pulse with hope is stirred. She loves him yet! The flower the false one gave her Is still with her wild tears wet. Howe'er his faith may waver, His favorite songs She will sing-she heeds no other; With all her wrongs, Her life on his love is set. Oh! doubt no more! She never can wed another; Till life be o'er, She loves-she will love him yet. TO A DEAR LITTLE TRUANT. When are you coming? The flowers have come! When are you coming? We've welcomed the Rose! Rose of the South! we are waiting for you! Do, darling, come to us!-'mid the dark trees, Spring should have waited till she could bring you! SEBA SMITH-ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH. THE maiden name of this lady was Prince. She is descended on both her father's and mother's side from distinguished Puritan ancestry, and was born in the vicinity of Portland, Maine. Miss Prince, at an early age, was married to Mr. Seba Smith, then editing a newspaper in Portland, who has since, under the "nom de plume" of Jack Downing, obtained a national reputation. In addition to the original series of the famous letters bearing the signature we have named, collected in a volume in 1833, and which are among the most successful adaptations of the Yankee dialect to the purposes of humorous writing, Mr. Smith is the author of Powhatan, a Metrical Romance, in seven cantos, published in New York in 1841, and of several shorter poems which have appeared in the periodicals of the day. He is also a successful writer of tales and essays for the magazines, a portion of which were collected in 1855, with the title Down East. In 1850 he published an elaborate scientific work entitled New Elements of Geometry. Mrs. Smith's earliest poems were contributed to various periodicals anonymously, but in consequence of business disasters in which her husband became involved, she commenced the open profession of authorship as a means of support for her family. She has since been a constant contributor in prose and verse to the magazines. The tree that stood where the soil's athirst, And the mulleins first appear, Hath a dry and rusty-colored bark, And its leaves are curled and sere; To the juicy leaf the grasshopper clings, The beetle's wing is folded mute, Where the steps of the idler pass, Mrs. Smith is also the author of The Roman Tribute, a tragedy in five acts, founded on the exemption of the city of Constantinople from destruction, by the tribute paid by Theodosius to the conquering Attila, and Jacob Leisler, a tragedy founded upon a well known dramatic incident in the colonial history of New York. She has also written The Western Captive, a novel, which appeared in 1842, and a fanciful prose tale, The Salamander; a Legend for Christmas. In 1851 she published Woman and her Needs, a volume on the Woman's Rights question, of which Mrs. Smith has been a prominent advocate by her pen, and occasionally as a public lecturer. Her last publication, Bertha and Lily, or the Parsonage of Beech Glen, a Romance, is a story of American country life. It contains some good sketches of character, and is in part devoted to the development of the author's social views. THE POET. Non vor sed votum. Sing, sing-Poet, sing! With the thorn beneath thy breast, Robbing thee of all thy rest, Hidden thorn for ever thine, Therefore dost thou sit and twine Lays of sorrowing Lays that wake a mighty gladness, Spite of all their sorrowing sadness. Sing, sing-Poet, sing! It doth ease thee of thy sorrow— 'Darkling" singing till the morrow; Never weary of thy trust, Hoping, loving, as thou must, Let thy music ring; Noble cheer it doth impart, Sing, sing-Poet, sing! Thou art made a human voice; Through thee are flowing- Sing, sing-Poet, sing! Join the music of the stars, Lift, oh lift thy wing- STRENGTH FROM THE HILLS. Come up unto the hills-thy strength is there. Too long amid the bowers and blossoms fair, Why dost thou tarry there? What though the bird The plough-boy whistles to the loitering herd, Yet come unto the hills, the old strong hills, And thou with denizens of power shalt dwell Composed upon his rock, 'mid storm and fell, Come up unto the hills--the shattered tree And flingeth out his branches wild and free, Come where no fear is known: the seabird's nest And thou shalt taste the gladness of unrest, Come up unto the hills. The men of old- Grew jubilant of heart, and strong, and bold, Where came the soundings of the sea afar, And nearer grew the morn and midnight star, CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. CAROLINE M. STANSBURY was born in the city of New York. Her grandfather was the author of several popular humorous verses on the events of the Revolution, which were published in Rivington's Gazette and other newspapers of the time. Her father was a bookseller and publisher of New York. After his death, the family removed to the western part of the state, where Miss Stansbury married Mr. William Kirkland.* After a residence of several years at Geneva, Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland removed to Michigan, where they resided for two years at Detroit, and for six months in the interior, sixty miles west of the city. In 1843 they removed to the city of New York. Mrs. Kirkland's letters from the West were so highly relished by the friends to whom they were addressed, that the writer was induced to prepare a volume from their contents. A New HomeWho'll Follow? by Mrs. Mary Clavers, appeared Mr. Kirkland was a cultivated scholar, and at one time a member of the Faculty of Hamilton College. He was the author of a series of Letters from Abroad, written after a residence in Europe, and of numerous contributions to the periodical press, among which may be mentioned, an article on the London Foreign Quarterly Review, in the Columbian, "English and American Monthlies "in Godey's Magazine. Our English Visitors" in the Columbian, "The Tyranny of Public Opinion in the United States" in the Columbian, "The West, the Paradise of the Poor" in the Democratic Review, and "The United States Census for 1880" in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine. In 1846 Mr. Kirkland, not long before his death, commenced with the Rev. H. W. Bellows, the Christian Inquirer, a weekly journal of the Unitarian denomination. in 1839. Its delightful humor, keen observation, and fresh topic, made an immediate impression. Forest Life, and Western Clearings, gleanings from the same field, appeared in 1842 and 1846. In 1846 Mrs. Kirkland published An Essay on the Life and Writings of Spenser, accompanied by a reprint of the first book of the Fairy Queen. In July, 1847, she commenced the editorship of the Union Magazine,—a charge she continued for eighteen months, until the removal of the periodical to Philadelphia, where it was published with the title of Sartain's Magazine, when Prof. John S. Hart, an accomplished literary gentleman of that city, was associated with Mrs. Kirkland in the editorship. CM. Karklund In 1848 Mrs. Kirkland visited Europe, and on her return published two pleasant volumes of her letters contributed to the magazine during her journey, with the title Holidays Abroad, or Europe from the West. In 1852 Mrs. Kirkland published The Evening Book, or Fireside Talk on Morals and Manners, with Sketches of Western Life, and in 1853, a companion volume, A Book for the Home Circle, or Familiar Thoughts on Various Topics, Literary, Moral, and Social, containing a number of pleasantly written and sensible essays on topics of interest in every-day society, with a few brief stories. In 1852 she wrote the letterpress for The Book of Home Beauty, a holiday volume, containing the portraits of twelve American ladies. Mrs. Kirkland's text has no reference to these illustrations, but consists of a slight story of American society, interspersed with poetical quotations. Mrs. Kirkland's writings are all marked by clear common sense, purity of style, and animated thought. Her keen perception of character is brought to bear on the grave as well as humorous side of human nature, on its good points as well as its foibles. Ever in favor of a graceful cultivation of the mind, her satire is directed against the false refinements of artificial life as well as the rude angularities of the back-woods. She writes always with heartiness, and it is not her fault if the laugh which her humorous sketches of character excites is not a good-natured one, in which the originals she has portrayed would do well to join with the rest of the world. MEETING OF THE "FEMALE BENEFICENT SOCIETY." At length came the much desired Tuesday, whose destined event was the first meeting of the society. I had made preparations for such plain and simple cheer as is usual at such feminine gatherings, and began to think of arranging my dress with the decorum required by the occasion, when, about one hour before the appointed time, came Mrs. Nippers and Miss Clinch, and ere they were unshawled and unhooded, Mrs. Flyter and her three children-the eldest four years, and the youngest six months. Then Mrs. Muggles and her crimson baby, four weeks old. Close on her heels, Mrs. Briggs and her little boy of about three years' standing, in a long tailed coat, with vest and decencies of scarlet circassian. And there I stood in my gingham wrapper and kitchen apron; much to my discomfiture and the undisguised surprise of the Female Beneficent Society. "I always calculate to be ready to begin at the time appointed," remarked the gristle-lipped widow. 66 So do I," responded Mrs. Flyter and Mrs. Muggles, both of whom sat the whole afternoon with baby on knee, and did not sew a stitch. "What! isn't there any work ready?" continued Mrs. Nippers, with an astonished aspect; "well, I did suppose that such smart officers as we have would have prepared all beforehand. We always used to at the East." Mrs. Skinner, who is really quite a pattern-woman in all that makes woman indispensable, viz., cookery and sewing, took up the matter quite warmly, just as I slipped away in disgrace to make the requisite reform in my costume. When I returned, the work was distributed, and the company broken up into little knots or coteries; every head bowed, and every tongue in full play. I took my seat at as great a distance from the sharp widow as might be,-though it is vain to think of eluding a person of her ubiquity, and reconnoitred the company who were " done off" (indigenous) "in first-rate style," for this important occasion. There were nineteen women with thirteen babies-or at least "young 'uns," (indigenous,) who were not above gingerbread. Of these thirteen, nine held large chunks of gingerbread, or dough-nuts, in trust, for the benefit of the gowns of the society; the remaining four were supplied with bunches of maplesugar, tied in bits of rag, and pinned to their shoulders, or held dripping in the fingers of their mammas. Mrs. Flyter was "slicked up" for the occasion in the snuff-colored silk she was married in, curiously enlarged in the back, and not as voluminous in the floating part as is the wasteful custom of the present day. Her three immense children, white-haired and blubber-lipped like their amiable parent, were in pink ginghams and blue-glass beads. Mrs. Nippers wore her unfailing brown merino and black apron; Miss Clinch her inevitable scarlet calico; Mrs. Skinner her red merino, with baby of the same; Mrs. Daker shone out in her very choicest city finery, (where else could she show it, poor thing?) and a dozen other Mistresses shone in their "'t other gowns," and their tamboured collars. Mrs. Doubleday's pretty black-eyed Dolly was neatly stowed in a small willow basket, where it lay looking about with eyes full of sweet wonder, behaving itself with marvellous quietness and discretion, as did most of the other little torments, to do them justice. Much consultation, deep and solemn, was held as to the most profitable kinds of work to be undertaken by the Society. Many were in favor of making up linen, cotton linen of course, but Mrs. Nippers assured the company that shirts never used to sell well at the East, and therefore she was perfectly certain that they would not do here. Pincushions and such like feminilities were then proposed; but at these Mrs. Nippers held up both hands, and showed a double share of blue-white around her eyes. body about her needed pincushions, and besides, where should we get materials! Aprons, capes, caps, collars, were all proposed with the same ill success. At length Mrs. Doubleday, with an air of great deference, inquired what Mrs. Nippers would recommend. No The good lady hesitated a little at this. It was more her forte to object to other people's plans, than to suggest better; but, after a moment's consideration, she said she should think fancy-boxes, watch-cases, and alum-baskets, would be very pretty. A dead silence fell on the assembly, but of course it did not last long. Mrs. Skinner went on quietly cutting out shirts, and in a very short time furnished each member with a good supply of work, stating that any lady might take work home to finish if she liked. Mrs. Nippers took her work, and edged herself into a coterie of which Mrs. Flyter had seemed till then the magnet. Very soon I heard, "I declare it's a shame!" "I don't know what 'll be done about it!" "She told me so with her own mouth!" "O, but I was there myself!" etc., etc., in many different voices; the interstices well filled with undistinguishable whispers" not loud but deep." It was not long before the active widow transferred her seat to another corner; Miss Clinch plying her tongue, not her needle, in a third, The whispers and the exclamations seemed to be gaining ground. The few silent members were inquiring for more work. "Mrs. Nippers has the sleeve! Mrs. Nippers, have you finished that sleeve?" Mrs. Nippers colored, said "No," and sewed four stitches. At length the storm grew loud apace." "It will break up the society "What is that?" asked Mrs. Doubleday, in her sharp treble. "What is it, Mrs. Nippers? You know all about it." Mrs. Nippers replied that she only knew what she had heard, etc., etc., but, after a little urging, consented to inform the company in general, that there was great dissatisfaction in the neighborhood; that those who lived in log-houses at a little distance from the village, had not been invited to join the society; and also that many people thought twenty-five cents quite too high for a yearly subBcription. Many looked aghast at this. Public opinion is nowhere so strongly felt as in this country, among new settlers. And as many of the present company still lived in log-houses, a tender string was touched. At length, an old lady, who had sat quietly in a corner all the afternoon, looked up from behind the great woollen sock she was knitting— "Well, now! that's queer!" said she, addressing Mrs. Nippers with an air of simplicity simplified. “Miss Turner told me you went round her neighborhood last Friday, and told that Miss Clavers and Miss Skinner despised every body that lived in loghouses; and you know you told Miss Briggs that you thought twenty-five cents was too much; didn't she, Miss Briggs?" Mrs. Briggs nodded. The widow blushed to the very centre of her pale eyes, but "e'en though vanquished," she lost not her assurance. "Why, I'm sure I only said that we only paid twelve-and-a-half cents at the East; and as to log-houses, I don't know, I can't just recollect, but I didn't say more than others did." But human nature could not bear up against the mortification; and it had, after all, the scarce credible effect of making Mrs. Nippers sew in silence for some time, and carry her colors at half-mast the remainder of the afternoon. At tea each lady took one or more of her babies in her lap and much grabbing ensued. Those who wore calicoes seemed in good spirits and appetite, for green tea at least, but those who had unwarily sported silks and other unwashables, looked acid and uncomfortable. Cake flew about at a great rate, and the milk and water, which ought to have quietly gone down sundry juvenile throats, was spirted without mercy into various wry faces. But we got through. The astringent refreshment produced its usual crisping effect upon the vivacity of the company. Talk ran high upon almost all Montacu tian themes. " "Do you have any butter now?" "When are you going to raise your barn?" Is your man a going to kill this week?" "I ha'n't seen a bit of meat these six weeks." "Was you to meetin' last Sabbath?" "Has Miss White got any wool to sell?" Do tell if you've been to Detroit?" Are you out of candles?" "Well, I should think Sarah Teals wanted a new gown!" "I hope we shall have milk in a week or two," and so on; for, be it known, that, in a state of society like ours, the bare necessaries of life are subjects of sufficient interest for a good deal of conversation. More than one truly respectable woman of our neighborhood has told me, that it is not very many years since a moderate allowance of Indian meal and potatoes was literally all that fell to their share of this rich world for weeks together. "Is your daughter Isabella well?" asked Mrs. Nippers of me solemnly, pointing to little Bell who sat munching her bread and butter, half asleep, at the fragmentious table. 46 Yes, I believe so, look at her cheeks." Ah, yes! it was her cheeks I was looking at. They are so very rosy. I have a little niece who is the very image of her. I never see Isabella without thinking of Jerushy; and Jerushy is most dreadfully scrofulous." Satisfied at having made me uncomfortable, Mrs. Nippers turned to Mrs. Doubleday, who was trotting her pretty babe with her usual proud fondness. "Don't you think your baby breathes rather strangely?" said the tormenter. Breathes! how!" said the poor thing, off her guard in an instant. 66 Come, we'll be off!" said Mr. Doubleday, who had come for his spouse. "Don't mind the envious vixen "-aside to his Polly. Just then, somebody on the opposite side of the room happened to say, speaking of some cloth affair, Mrs. Nippers says it ought to be sponged." "Well, sponge it then by all means," said Mr. Doubleday," nobody else knows half as much about sponging" and, with wife and baby in tow, off walked the laughing Philo, leaving the widow absolutely transfixed. Nobody spoke. "I am sure," continued the crest-fallen Mrs. Campaspe, with an attempt at a scornful giggle, "I am sure if any body understood him, I would be glad to know what he did mean." “Well now, I can tell you,” said the same simple old lady in the corner, who had let out the secret of Mrs. Nippers's morning walks. "Some folks call that sponging when you go about getting your dinner here and your tea there, and sich like; as you know you and Meesy there does. That was what he meant, I guess." And the old lady quietly put up her knitting and prepared to go home. There have been times when I have thought that almost any degree of courtly duplicity would be preferable to the brusquerie of some of my neighbors: but on this occasion I gave all due credit to a simple and downright way of stating the plain truth. The scrofulous hint probably brightened my mental and moral vision somewhat. Mrs. Nippers's claret cloak and green bonnet, and Miss Clinch's ditto ditto, were in earnest requisition, and I do not think that either of them spent a day out that week. HOSPITALITY. If every Like many other virtues, hospitality is practised in its perfection by the poor. If the rich did their share, how would the woes of this world be lightened! how would the diffusive blessing irradiate a wider and a wider circle, until the vast confines of society would bask in the reviving ray! forlorn widow whose heart bleeds over the recollection of past happiness made bitter by contrast with present poverty and sorrow, found a comfortable home in the ample establishment of her rich kinsman; if every young man struggling for a foothold on the slippery soil of life, were cheered and aided by the countenance of some neighbor whom fortune had endowed with the power to confer happiness; if the lovely girls, shrinking and delicate, whom we see every day toiling timidly for a mere pittance to sustain frail life and guard the sacred remnant of gentility, were taken by the hand, invited and encouraged, by ladies who pass them by with a cold nod-but where shall we stop in enumerating the cases in which true, genial hospitality, practised by the rich ungrudgingly, without a selfish drawbackin short, practisel as the poor practise it-would prove a fountain of blessedness, almost an antidote to half the keener miseries under which society groans! Yes: the poor-and children-understand hospitality after the pure model of Christ and his apostles. We can cite two instances, both true. In the western woods, a few years since, lived a very indigent Irish family. Their log-cabin scarcely protected them from the weather, and the potato field made but poor provision for the numerous rosy cheeks that shone through the unstopped chinks when a stranger was passing by. Yet when another Irish family poorer still, and way-worn, and travelsoiled, stopped at their door-children, household goods and all-they not only received and entertained them for the night, but kept them many days, sharing with this family, as numerous as their own, the one room and loft which made up their poor dwelling, and treating them in all respects as if they had been invited guests. And the mother of the same family, on hearing of the death of a widowed sister who had lived in New York, immediately set on foot an inquiry as to the residence of the children, with a view to coming all the way to the city to take the orphans home to her own house and bring them up with her own children. We never The nearest we recollect to have observed to this construction of the sacred injunction, among those who may be called the rich-in contradistinction to those whom we usually call the poor, though our kind friends were far from being what the world considers rich-was in the case of a city family, who lived well, and who always on a Christmas day, Thanksgiving, or other festival time, when a dinner more generous than ordinary smoked upon the board, took care to invite their homeless friends who lived somewhat poorly, or uncomfortably-the widow from her low-priced boarding house; the young clerk, perhaps, far from his father's comfortable fireside; the daily teacher, whose only deficiency lay in the purse-these were the guests cheered at this truly hospitable board; and cheered heartily -not with cold, half-reluctant civility, but with the warmest welcome, and the pleasant appendix of the long, merry evening with music and games, and the frolic dance after the piano. We would not be understood to give this as a solitary instance, but we wish we knew of many such. The forms of society are in a high degree inimical to true hospitality. Pride has crushed genuine social feeling out of too many hearts, and the consequence is a cold sterility of intercourse, a soul-stifling ceremoniousness, a sleepless vigilance for self, totally incompatible with that free, flowing, genial intercourse with humanity, so nourishing to all the better feelings. The sacred love of home-that panacea for many of life's ills-suffers with the rest. Few people have homes nowadays. The fine, cheerful, every-day parlor, with its table covered with the implements of real occupation and real amusement; mamma on the sofa, with her needle; grandmamma in her great chair, knitting; pussy winking at the fire between them, is gone. In its place we have two gorgeous rooms, arranged for company but empty of human life; tables covered with gaudy, ostentatious, and useless articles a very mockery of anything like rational pastime the light of heaven as cautiously excluded as the delicious music of free, childish voices; every member of the family wandering in forlorn loneliness, or huddled in some "back room" or "basement," in which are collected the only means of comfort left them under this miserable arrangement. This is the substitute which hundreds of people accept in place of home! Shall we look in such places for hospitality? As soon expect figs from thistles. Invitations there will be occasionally, doubtless, for "society" expects it; but let a country cousin present himself, and see whether he will be put into the state apartments. Let no infirm and indigent relative expect a place under such a roof. Let not even the humble individual who placed the steppingstone which led to that fortune, ask a share in the abundance which would never have had a be ginning but for his timely aid. "We have changed all that!" But setting aside the hospitality which has any reference to duty or obligation, it is to be feared that the other kind-that which is exercised for the sake of the pleasure it brings-is becoming more and more rare among us. The deadly strife of emula |