The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844. Various
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make mountains of mole-hills or not? I knew what I was about, didn’t I?’
‘Alas, yes!’ replied the other, in a self-accusing tone, ‘and I did not; but oh! merciful Providence! is it too late now?’
‘Too late? Heaven knows, poor young lady! she’d have been better off if she’d been an ugly twelfth daughter, with no one to trouble themselves much about her, instead of a beautiful darling, that must have one particular sort of happiness and no other.’
‘Spare me! spare me, my friend!’ implored Mr. Lee.
‘I wish you had spared yourself,’ grumbled Dr. Kent.
The Doctor was, it must be allowed, a little rough; but he had been so thoroughly annoyed, after having, as he thought, with unparalleled cunning and discretion detected the difficulty and provided a remedy, to find his plans thwarted by an obstinate wilfulness, that he could not help boiling over a little: his kind feelings however soon got the ascendency; the deep contrition of the poor father touched his heart, and the lovely girl who had only increased his interest in her by making good his words, received from him the most attentive care; nor could he doubt that at length his advice was appreciated, when he heard Mr. Lee take every opportunity of mentioning Mr. Lillburgh’s name with approbation and kindness, always regretting that he had made such a mistake as to send him away the last time he had called at the house.
But who may venture to choose their own time for showing kindness? Who may, having refused to ‘do good when it was in the power of his hand to do it,’ resume at will the precious privilege? Dr. Kent, satisfied with his friend’s repentance, was willing to take any step which might avail to retrieve the mischief; but when this last would have lured back by civilities the repulsed lover, he was found to have left home the very day after his mortifying dismissal.
Let those who only by looking back can see the road by which misery might have been escaped, while before the vista seems quite closed up, conceive the deep and agonizing perplexity of the anxious father. His daughter, comforted no doubt by his frequent recurrence to the subject near her heart, and the manner in which he treated it, slowly raised her drooping head; but he, (the entire amende being still out of his power) hung over her night and day, oppressed by a constant sensation of guilt, scarcely aware of her partial restoration. For some days this ordeal lasted; there seemed a risk that the lover might in the bitterness of his disappointment prolong his stay indefinitely; what availed it then that the prejudice and ambition which had exiled him were now annihilated? The eagerly coveted-prize for which he would have sacrificed his daughter’s peace, had turned to ashes in his grasp.
But the door to returning happiness was not completely closed. Dr. Kent’s skill, aided no doubt by Lucy’s young confidence in her lover’s steadfastness, kept danger at bay, until one of those opportune accidents of life, which like many of the best things in it look threateningly until time takes off the veil, occurred in the shape of a fire on the premises of the wanderer; which news, forcing him to return, the indefatigable Dr. Kent at once offered to divert his mind from this untoward circumstance, by taking him to join the family dinner of his friend Mr. Lee. The sequel may be imagined; on the strength of this friendly invitation, aided no doubt by sundry blushes and smiles on Lucy’s part, Mr. Lillburgh ventured to resume his visits, and Lucy’s cheek always looked so particularly rosy on such occasions, that Mr. Lee soon became too entirely happy in the result, to cavil any longer at the cause of her renovated health and spirits. Sometimes, also, memory would recall for an instant that terrible period of anxiety, and then he would treat Mr. Lillburgh with such pointed cordiality, that before very long that young gentleman was emboldened to take advantage of his civility, and make some disclosure of his own plans for the fair Lucy’s happiness, according to the liberty of speech young gentlemen generally allow themselves when desirous of securing their own. Mr. Lee had gone too far to recede, and he soon found himself reduced to the necessity of resting all his hopes for the gratification of his favorite fancies and prejudices upon the anticipated course through life of another generation, whose future being happily so distant, promised him a long period of hope.
THE FRATRICIDE’S DEATH
A RHAPSODY
The following effort of a wild and maddened imagination, rioting in its own unreal world, is by the ‘American Opium-Eater,’ whose remarkable history was given in the Knickerbocker for July, 1842. The MS. is stained in several places with the powerful drug, to the abuse of which the writer was so irresistibly addicted. The subjoined remarks precede the poem: ‘This extravaganza is worthy of preservation only as ‘a psychological curiosity,’ like Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan,’ which was composed under similar circumstances; if that indeed can be called composition, in which all the images rose up before the writer as THINGS, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking, he appeared to have a distinct recollection of the whole: taking his pen, ink and paper, he instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. The state of corporeal sleep but intellectual activity, during the continuance of which the phenomenon above described occurred, was caused by a very large dose of opium, and came upon me while reading the ‘Confession of a Fratricide,’ published by the priest who attended him in his last moments. I should warn the reader that the fratricide, like the author, could not be said to possess the ‘mens sana in corpore sano,’ both having been deranged.’
The universe shook as the monarch passed
On the way to his northern throne;
His robe of snow around him he cast,
He rode on the wings of the roaring blast,
And beneath him dark clouds were blown.
His furrow’d and hoary brow was wreathed
With a crown of diamond frost;
Even space was chill’d wherever he breathed,
And the last faint smiles which summer bequeathed,
Ere she left the world, were lost.
The leaves which wan Autumn’s breath had seared
Stern Winter swept away;
Dark and dreary all earth appeared—
The very beams of the bright sun feared
To pursue their accustom’d way.
Mirth’s merry laugh at that moment fled,
And Pleasure’s fair cheek grew pale:
The living sat like the stony dead,
The rough torrent froze in its craggy bed,
And Heaven’s dew turned to hail.
The forest trees waved their heads on high,
And shrunk from the storm’s fierce stroke;
The lightning flash’d as from God’s own eye,
The thunderbolt crash’d through the startled sky,
As it split the defying oak.
The proud lion trembled and hush’d his roar,
The tigress crouch’d in fear;
The angry sea beat the shuddering shore,
And the deafening voice of the elements’ war
Burst terribly on the ear.
I stood by the bed where the prisoner lay;
The lamp gave a fitful light:
His soul was struggling to pass away;
Oh, God! how I pray’d for the coming of day!
Death was awful in such a night.
His cheek was hollow, and sunk, and wan,
And his lips were thin and blue;
The unearthly look of that dying man,
As his tale of horror he thus began,
Sent