that ever attempted to extract hard coin by the soft rhet oric of a heart-moving tale. 5 3. The wife of one whom he had known in better days pleaded before him for her sick husband and famishing infants. Jacob, on occasions like these, was a man of few words. He was as chary of them as of his money, and he let her come to the end of her tale without interruption. She paused for a reply, but he gave none. "Indeed, he is very ill, sir." "Can't help it." "We are very distressed." "Can't help it." "Our poor children, too." "Can't help that either." 4. The petitioner's eye looked a mournful reproach, which would have interpreted itself to any other heart but his, "Indeed, you can;" but she was silent. Jacob felt more awkwardly than he had ever done in his life. His hand involuntarily scrambled about his breeches' pocket. There was something like the weakness of human nature stirring within him. Some coin had unconsciously worked its way into his hand-his fingers insensibly closed; but the effort to draw them forth, and the impossibility of effecting it without unclosing them, roused the dormant' selfishness of his nature, and restored his self-possession. 5. "He has been very extravagant." "Ah, sir, he has been very unfortunate, not extravagant." "Unfortunate! Ah, it's the same thing. Little odds, I fancy. For my part, I wonder how folks can be unfortunate. I was never unfortunate. Nobody need be unfortunate if they look after the main chance.' I always looked after the main chance." "He has had a large family to maintain." "Ah, married foolishly! no offence to you, ma'am. But when poor folks marry poor folks, what are they to look for, you know? Besides, he was so foolishly fond of assisting others. If a friend was sick, or in jail, out came his purse, and then his creditors might go whistle. Now, if he had married a woman with money, you know, why then 6. The supplicant turned pale, and was near fainting. Jacob was alarmed; not that he sympathized, but a woman's fainting was a scene that he had not been used to: besides, there was an awkwardness about it; for Jacob was a bachelor. 7. Sixty summers had passed over his head without imparting a ray of warmth to his heart; without exciting one tender feeling for the sex, deprived of whose cheering presence the paradise of the world were a wilderness of weeds. So he desperately extracted a crown piece from the depth profound, and thrust it hastily into her hand. The action recalled her wandering senses. She blushed it was the honest blush of pride at the meanness of the gift. She courtesied; staggered towards the door; opened it; closed it; raised her hand to her forehead, and burst into tears. --- 1 PLŪTYS. The god of wealth among | STŎскs. Property or shares in a the ancient Greeks. 2 EL-E-MENT'A-RY. Relating to or explaining elements or first principles; here, of or belonging to one or more of the four elements, earth, air, water, fire. national or other public debt; also, shares in a corporation, such as a railroad company, a bank, &c. 5 CHAR'Y. Sparing; careful. 6 DÖR'MANT. Slumbering; sleeping; suspended. 8 SQUÂB-LOOK'ỊNG (lûk-). Short and MAIN CHANCE. That which best thick. serves one's own interest. [Washington Irving, author of "The Sketch Book," "Bracebridge Hall," "Astoria," "Life of Columbus," "Life of Washington," and various other well-known works, was born in the city of New York, April 8, 1783, and died November 28, 1859. Of all our writers, no one is so generally popular; and the universal favor with which his works are received is due, not merely to their great literary merits, their graceful style, rich humor, and unaffected pathos, but also to the fact that they are so strongly marked by the genial and amiable traits of the writer, which were conspicuous in his life, and made him beloved by all who knew him. The following extract is taken from "Wolfert's Roost," one of his late pub lications, consisting of narratives, essays, and sketches, most of which origi nally appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine.] 1. THE happiest bird of our spring, however, and one that rivals the European lark in my estimation, is the boblincon, or bobolink, as he is commonly called. He arrives at that choice portion of our year which, in this latitude, answers to the description of the month of May, so often given by the poets. middle of May, and lasts Earlier than this, winter 2. With us it begins about the until nearly the middle of June. is apt to return on its traces, and to blight the opening beauties of the year; and later than this, begin the parching, and panting, and dissolving heats of summer. But in this genial interval Nature is in all her freshness and fragrance: "the rains are over and gone, the flowers appear upon the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle1 is heard in the land." 3. The trees are now in their fullest foliage and brightest verdure; the woods are gay with the clustered flowers of the laurel; the air is perfumed by the sweet-brier and the wild rose; the meadows are enamelled2 with clover blossoms; while the young apple, the peach, and the plum begin to swell, and the cherry to glow among the green leaves. 3 4. This is the chosen season of revelry of the bobolink He comes amidst the pomp and fragrance of the season; his life seems all sensibility and enjoyment, all song and sunshine. He is to be found in the soft bosoms of the freshest and sweetest meadows, and is most in song when the clover is in blossom. He perches on the topmost twig of a tree, or on some long, flaunting weed, and as he rises and sinks with the breeze, pours forth a succession of rich, tinkling notes, crowding one upon another, like the outpouring melody of the sky-lark, and possessing the same rapturous character. 5. Sometimes he pitches from the summit of a tree, begins his song as soon as he gets upon the wing, and flutters tremulously down to the earth, as if overcome with ecstasy at his own music. Sometimes he is in pursuit of his mate; always in full song, as if he would win her by his melody; and always with the same appearance of intoxication and delight. 6. Of all the birds of our groves and meadows the bobolink was the envy of my boyhood. He crossed my path in the sweetest weather, and the sweetest season of the year, when all nature called to the fields, and the rural feeling throbbed in every bosom; but when I, luckless urchin! was doomed to be mewed up, during the livelong day, in a school room. It seemed as if the little varlet* mocked at me as he flew by in full song, and sought to taunt me with his happier lot. 7. O, how I envied him! No lessons, no task, no school; nothing but holiday, frolic, green fields, and fine weather. Had I been then more versed in poetry, I might have addressed him in the words of Logan to the cuckoo : "Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green; Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year. "O, could I fly, I'd fly with thee; 8. Further observation and experience have given me a different idea of this feathered voluptuary, which I will venture to impart for the benefit of my young readers who may regard him with the same unqualified envy and admiration which I once indulged. I have shown him only as I saw him at first, in what I may call the poetical part of his career, when he in a manner devoted himself to elegant pursuits and enjoyments, and was a bird of music, and song, and taste, and sensibility, and refinement. While this lasted he was sacred from injury; the very schoolboy would not fling a stone at him, and the merest rustic would pause to listen to his strain. 7 9. But mark the difference. As the year advances, as the clover-blossoms disappear, and the spring fades into summer, he gradually gives up his elegant tastes and habits, doffs his poetical suit of black, assumes a russet, dusty garb, and sinks to the gross enjoyments of common, vulgar birds. His notes no longer vibrate on the ear; he is stuffing himself with the seeds of the tall weeds on which he lately swung and chanted so melodiously. He has become a "bon-vivant," a "gourmand "0"; with him, now, there is nothing like the "joys of the table." In a little while he grows tired of plain, homely fare, and is off on a gastronomical" tour in quest of foreign luxuries. 10 13 10. We next hear of him, with myriads of his kind, banqueting among the reeds of the Delaware, and grown corpulent with good feeding. He has changed his name in travelling. Boblincon no more - he is the reed-bird now, the much-sought-for tidbit of Pennsylvania epicures 13, the rival in unlucky fame of the ortolan! Wherever he goes, pop! pop! pop! every rusty firelock in the country is blazing away. He sees his companions falling by thousands around him. 15 14 11. Does he take warning and reform? Alas! not he. Incorrigible epicure! again he wings his flight. The rice swamps of the South invite him. He gorges himself among them almost to bursting; he can scarcely fly for corpulency. He has once more changed his name, and is now the famous rice-bird of the Carolinas. Last stage of his career: behold him spitted, with dozens of his corpulent companions, and served up, a vaunted dish, on the table of some southern gastronome. |