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THE ABSENT HUSBAND.

WIFE, who in thy deep devotion,
Puttest up a prayer for one
Sailing on the stormy ocean-

Hope no more-his course is done!
Dream not, when upon thy pillow

That he slumbers by thy side, For his corse beneath the billow Heaveth with the restless tide.

Children, who, as sweet flowers growing, Laugh amid the sorrowing rainsKnow ye many clouds are throwing Shadows on your sire's remains? Where the hoarse, gray surge is rolling, With a mountain's motion on,

Dream ye that its voice is tolling

For your father-lost and gone?

When the sun looked on the water,
As a hero on his grave,
Tinging with the hue of slaughter
Every blue and leaping wave;
Under the majestic ocean,

Where the giant currents roll'd,
Slept thy sire without emotion-
Sweetly by a beam of gold.

And the violet sunbeams slanted,
Wavering through the crystal deep,
Till their wonted splendors haunted
Those shut eyelids in their sleep.
Sands, like crumbled silver gleaming,
Sparkled through his raven hair,
But the sleep that knows no dreaming
Bound him in its silence there.

So we left him; and to tell thee
Of our sorrow, and thine own,
Of the wo that then befel thee,
Came we weary and alone-
That thine eye is quickly shaded,
That thy heart's blood wildly flows,
That thy cheek's clear blood is faded-
Are the fruits of these new woes.

Children, whose meek eyes inquiring,
Linger on your mother's face,
Know ye that she is expiring?-

That ye are an orphan race?—
God be with you on the morrow!
Father-mother-both no more!
One within a grave of sorrow,

One upon the ocean's floor!

J. O. R.

LETTERS OF HORACE FRITZ, ESQ.

NO. I.

IMMEDIATELY after writing to you, my dear Tom, I left Albany in search of our old friend, Job Clark. After a tedious ride, in which nothing occurred worthy of occupying your time, I reached the village of -, where you know he has been, since leaving college, the town schoolmaster. He was overjoyed to see me, and, at first, I thought he was but little changed. His voice and his earnest manner, and the peculiar brightness of his small gray eye were the same as when we parted; but I did not observe, till his extravagant joy had subsided, that his cheek had grown hollow and his eye was sunken. The truth is, he has met with the usual difficulties of his trying and dispiriting occupation, and they have made sad inroads on his health. He coughs frightfully, at times, and there is a consumptive stoop in his shoulders and a flatness in his chest which are, I fear, alarming symptoms. I determined at once to take him with me on my loitering trip to the West, and, after overcoming some obstacles of delicacy, and visiting the school committee, (the village blacksmith and postmaster,) he was persuaded to consent. He began to look better at the mere prospect of a release. It is a sad slavery, Tom. Job has talked his troubles all over to me, and it is melancholy to think how his fine, sensitive nature has been tried and misunderstood, even in his brief experience of the world. He does not complain; but I can see that he has not been appreciated by the coarse people about him, and that his unlucky face and figure, and his utter simplicity, have had their full weight in the common estimate of his character. It was in hard contrast with the indulgence and intellectual respect which his fine scholarship and pure heart won for him in college.

I spent a day or two with the village tailor, trying to give him some idea of a coat; and, really, considering Job's figure, and the fellow's ordinary customers, our success was miraculous. Wheeler might have detected its etymology, perhaps, but there was an

expression about the flap and collar, (I cut them myself,) which was exceedingly imposing.

After getting Job decently dressed, and displacing the straw hat of his habitual wear for his best beaver (the very one you gave him in your tears at his valedictory, Tom-you should have seen the numerous envelopes by which its pristine glossiness has been preserved) we crossed to the canal, and floated on delightfully to Lyons, where we took wagon to Geneva. I had no idea a canal boat was so agreeable. Upon my word, I never travelled more to my mind. There is no dust, no noise, no perceptible motion. You sit in a well furnished parlor with windows looking out for a great part of the way on the exquisite scenery of the Mohawk-writing materials and a quiet table at your elbow, room to promenade either on board or on shore, conveniences for a nap, a good bar room, no smell of steam or the kitchen, and a progress of eighty miles a day! Could anything be more luxurious that is moveable? And then you are passing through the best farms of the country, and have, of course, an excellent table, and, as the lower orders take the freight boats universally, you are seldom annoyed, as in stages and steam boats, by noise or vulgarity. The captains of the packets, too, are exceedingly respectable men, and I never have met more proper treatment than on board these abused conveyances. I recommend them to you unhesitatingly.

I think one of the best situated and most beautiful towns I ever saw is Geneva. The lake stretches down majestically from the south, and terminates in a graceful crescent just below the town. On one side the hills lean over with a gentle declivity to the water, presenting a lifted map of cultivation and woodland as far as the eye can reach, and, on the other, Geneva stands, high and beautiful, a hundred feet above the lake, on a broad ridge, rising almost perpendicularly from the water. The principal street is a broad, level avenue, on the summit of the ridge, commanding a superb view of the opposite country, and ten or fifteen miles of the broad, silver sheet of the Seneca. It is built in rural taste, mostly of white wooden houses, shaded by trees, and has precisely the Arcadian look of New Haven. I was reminded of the similarity at every step, and could almost believe that our old flames were there, sitting behind. those Venetian blinds, with that provoking half turn to their moveable slips. (How delightfully perplexing it used to be, Tom, to see an indistinct figure through those green lattices, and model one's bow so that it would do either for the mother or the daughter!)

After a lounge about town, during which we saw the most gorgeous sunset I ever witnessed, (they are said to be singularly fine here, always; probably from local circumstances) we returned to our hotel, a large building on the public square, which I recommend to

you in your next summer's wanderings. We got our supper—a dry crust and tea for Job's dyspepsy, and the requisite provant for the glorious appetite engendered by a day's travel, and the lake air in your humble servant and then, as it was a delicious moonlight night, I proposed a walk. So

'Taking our hats in our hands, a remarkably requisite practice,'

as Mr. Southey says in Warreniana, we went out again, stopping a moment in the hall to insert our names in that usual accompaniment of a tavern in the West-a register of travellers. I like this custom. It is pleasant to know who has gone before you; and, as the destination is inscribed also, you may frequently, by a few hours additional travel, overtake a friend, or lie by to avoid an annoyance. In rainy days, too, or during unpleasant detention, you may kill the enemy' delightfully with a musing reverie upon its various handwritings and characters; not to mention the sympathy with your own feelings, agreeable or otherwise, which is expressed in the small annotations upon the margin.

But what a moonlight walk we had! It was a warm night, and the inhabitants were sitting in their open porches, or idling up and down in the sprinkled shadows of the walk, (the streets are lined with trees as in New Haven,) girls without bonnets, and men without cravats, in a primitive simplicity that would have made even Audrey' poetical.' We strolled up about half a mile to the end of the street and stopped to look off upon the water. You must get Job's journal and read his description of it. I have no talent that way, and should only mar my own recollection by the attempt. You cannot imagine, without seeing it, how exquisitely soft and dreamy the silvery whiteness of the moonlight is, when seen through the filmy exhalations that float up from a lake in a summer's evening. Such extreme beauty always seems to me unearthly. It gives me a stifling sensation at my heart that I never could analyze.

On our return, we were attracted across the street by the sound of a piano. The house from which it came had that look which the houses of people of taste always have, and which is easier detected than described. It was a low, white house, with a tasteful fence, vines, and shrubbery about it, not by any means the handsomest in the village, but the one in which, at a first glance, one would prefer to take his chance for acquaintance. Job did not propose directly to go over, but I knew by the slight pressure of his arm that he was suffering animal magnetism, and I indulged him. We stood in the shadow of the tree in front of the house an hour. The keys were touched with a quiet taste that pleased me. It was not very great execution, but just such playing as an invalid, or a home loving girl, or any lover of sweet natural melody would like to listen. Job

stood looking at the moon through a break in the tree, wholly lost. He did not stir for the hour. The invisible player went on, pleasing herself apparently, and gliding from one tune to another with little interludes which prevented abruptness, now and then hitting upon a favorite song of mine, but unconscious how much pleasure she was giving, and how long her chance music would be remembered. It is surprising how much one enjoys these relishes of pleasant thingshow much sweeter a snatch of a tune heard by the wayside is, than a better song for which one is expected to be grateful!_ _Among all my recollections of music, (we have some together, Tom, and it is not that I have forgotten the silver voice we wot of, that I prefer other music now,) I remember nothing like that hour of eaves-dropping. Job sits astride my travelling trunk at this moment, trying to catch upon his Jews-harp, the air of 'Meet me by moonlight alone,' which he avers is the sweetest song ever warbled, and which our incognita sung with a peculiar grace and feeling.

On reaching the hotel, we found the hall crowded with baggage, and, as I went to my room, a group of ladies stood looking over the register, and I caught a glimpse of a white hand holding the pen with the dainty awkwardness so peculiar to women in the management of that useful instrument. I could not see their faces, and I sent Job for the book when they were gone, in the hope of finding an acquaintance among them. There were no names added, but against my own was drawn a bracket enclosing a single word (I will whisper it in your ear when we meet, Tom,) shewing an acquaintance with my affaires de cœur which was not a little surprising. Here was matter for curiosity! Job had got on his Barcelona, but I sent him down to inquire the names of the new arrival. He returned without the intelligence, as no names had been entered, but brought a hand bill announcing that a steam boat would go up the lake on an excursion for pleasure the next morning. I determined instantly to go, and after sending Job once more, without success, to look at the travellers' trunks and pump the servants, I went to bed, allaying my curiosity with the hope that the advertisement would tempt them, and that we should have their company up the lake on the morrow.

At six o'clock we were on board. It was a small boat, and the deck was crowded with people of every description. The majority of them were evidently of the lower class, but two or three small parties of better dressed people were standing in the stern, as much apart as was possible with so little room and so many circumstances of equality. The boat was soon under way, and, leaving Job to ponder the wake of the water wheel, I made the tour of the deck, peeping under the bonnets and looking at the feet of the ladies with the impudence I acquired in your company. My observations were for a long time unsatisfactory. There were some bonnets among

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