"She's mad, don't you see," said the one who had not addressed her. The other cursed deeply, saying that as they had given part payment, they would get their errand, or their money back again. At this a gleam of recollection crossed Mrs. Carson's mind, and she informed them that her son had mentioned about something they had purchased, which was in his room. She thought at the instant that perhaps he had disposed of one of his manuscripts at last, though she wondered at the appearance of the purchasers of such an article. "That's it," cried the men; "shew us the way to the room fast; it's all quiet now." Anxious to get rid of the men, Mrs. Carson proceeded hastily to her son's room, followed closely by the men. The first object she saw, on opening the door, was Andrew leaning on his desk; the little desk stood on the table, and Andrew's head and breast were lying on it, as if he was asleep. There was something in his fixed attitude which struck an unpleasant feeling to his mother's heart. "Andrew," she said, "Andrew, the men are here." All was silent. No murmur of sleep or life came from Andrew. His mother ran to his side and grasped his arm; there was no sound, no motion. She raised his head with one hand whilst at the same time she glanced on an open letter, on which a few lines were scrawled in a large hurried hand. Every word and letter seemed to dilate before her eyes, as in a brief instant of time she read the following: "Mother, I have taken poison. I have sold my body to a doctor for dissection; the money I gave you is part of the price. You have upbraided me for never making money; I have sold all I possess my body, and given you money. You have told me of the stain on my birth; I cannot live and write after that; all the poetical fame in this world would not wash away such a stain. Your bitter words, my bitter fate, I can bear no longer; I go to the other world; God will pardon me. Yes, yes, from the bright moon and stars this night there came down a voice, saying, God would take me up to happiness amidst his own bright worlds. Give my body to the men who are waiting for it, and so let every trace of Andrew Carson vanish from your earth." With a lightning rapidity Mrs. Carson scanned each word; and not until she had read it all did a scream of prolonged and utter agony, such as is rarely heard even in this world, of grief burst from her lips; and with a gesture of frenzied violence she flung the money she had kept closely grasped in her hand at the men. One of them stooped to gather it up, and the other ran towards Andrew, and raised his inanimate body a little from its recumbent position. He was quite dead, however; a bottle, marked "Prussic Acid," was in his hand. The two men, having recovered the money, hurried away, telling Mrs. Carson they would send immediate medical aid, to see if any. thing could be done for the unfortunate young man. Mrs. Carson did not hear them; a frenzied paroxysm seized her, and she lay on the floor screaming in the wild tones of madness, and utterly incapable of any exertion. She saw the money she had received with such rapture carried away from before her eyes, but she felt nothing-money had become terrible to her at last. Her cries attracted a watchman from the street. A doctor was soon on the spot; but Andrew Carson was no more connected with flesh, and blood, and human life; he was away, beyond recall, in the spirit-world. An inquest was held on the body, and a verdict of temporary insanity returned, as is usual in such cases of suicide. The young poet was buried and soon forgotten. Mrs. Carson lingered for some weeks; her disease assumed something of the form of violent brain-fever; in her ravings she fancied perpetually that she was immersed in streams of fluid burning gold and silver. They were forcing her to drink draughts of that scorching gold, she would cry-all was burning gold and silver-all drink, all food, all air, and light, and space around her. At the very last she recovered her senses partially, and calling, with a feeble but calm voice, on her only beloved child, Andrew, she died. BY JONATHAN FREKE SLINGSBY. Carrigbawn, July 20, 1850. THIS is a glorious summer day, dear Anthony. The mists of morning have rolled away from the hill-tops, and the sun shines down, hot and dazzling, in the still, fervid noon. Not a cloud floats to chequer the azure with its whiteness, or the earth with its shadow. Nature is teeming with its wondrous riches. The corn scarce waves its loaded head; the sheared meadows are bleaching in the sun; the white blossoms of the potato are fading, while the green leaves of the turnip and the mangold-wurzel relieve the eye with their freshness. All around is the promise of abundance; and the heart feels, in the words of our own poet, M'Carthy "The summer is come! The summer is come! With its flowers and its branches green; Where the young birds chirp on the blossoming boughs, And the sunlight struggles between." Is not all this enough to make the soul glad and thankful? Doubtless it is. And yet with me the intensity of a summer noontide ever brings a sentiment of pensive contemplation, that if not sadness, is nearly allied to it. I am not philosopher enough to account for this feeling; I can only attest the fact. It may be a divine appointment, that in moments when the heart is filled with the material beauty of the lovely world, a feeling, as of satiety, creeps upon it; a monition that everything of earth is fleeting and transitory; a conviction that "all that's bright must fade;" a fear that the blight or the storm may wither or devastate the teeming fields and the burthened garden, and that the rank stench of pestilence may succeed the sweet odours of herb and flower: or, haply it may be that the body is relaxed and enervated, and the spirits dissipated by the heats of summer, which, in the sharp cold of a clear and frosty winter day, are braced and buoyant. But be this as it may, I am disposed to consider the feeling as neither unwise nor unhealthy. If it be well, in the hour of gloom and sorrow, that the soul should rebound with the hope of brighter days in store, it is surely not unsalutary that, in moments of plenitude and prosperity, thoughts of change and trial should chasten and moderate the exuberance of our pleasure; and so, by a gra cious dispensation of Him who ordereth all things aright, induce, under all circumstances, an equable and moderated frame of mind. I love not altogether the ethics either of the laughing or the crying philosopher; but I deem him most wise, as well as most happy, who can temper his joy with sobriety, and chase away his tears with a smile. Thinking somewhat as I have endeavoured to detail to you, I strayed this morning up the hill-side that rises behind my sylvan retreat, and sought shelter from light and heat in the wood that clothes it to the summit. There is no place so suited for meditation as the dark shadows of the woodlands-no hour inore fitting in such a place than the noon of summer. The change from the sultry blaze of the sun, and the boundless prospect of life and nature, to the cool, silent, shady denseness of the dark and tangled wood, acts with a sudden revulsion of feeling on the spirits, and disposes the mind to the not unpleasing, though melancholy, contemplation of the unseen realities of man's state and nature. And so it was that thoughts of life,-its trials, its tribulations, its uncertainty, the memory of the past-the prospect of the future-crowded on my mind. I cannot better express the train of my musings, than in the eloquent estimate of life given by one who had well known its sins, its sorrows, and its trials, and yet who was enabled to extricate himself from its allurements and follies, to repose on those high and heavenly hopes which have never failed man in his extremity. You must pardon me for giving you a long quotation in Latin, without marring its power and pithiness by translation. Thus writes St. Augustine, in his commentary on St. James, iv. 14, "For what is your life" :"Vita hæc est vita dubia, vita cœca, vita ærumnosa, quam humores tumidant, dolores extenuant, ardores exsiccant, æera morbidant, escæ inflant, jejunia macerant, joci dissoluunt, tristitiæ consumunt, sollicitudo coarctat, securitas hebetat, divitiæ jactitant, paupertas dejicit, juventus expollit, senectus incurrat, infirmitas frangit, mæror deprimit, et post hæc omnia mors interimit, universis gaudiis finem imponit.” This is a sad, yet a most true picture of human life; still, amidst all its tribulations and trials, there is "a light shining in darkness"-the conviction that they were sent for a wise and loving purpose, by HIM who is Wisdom and Love. This it is that has inspired dying martyrs with songs of exultation, and "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has perfected praise," which, in the beautiful language of one of the ancient fathers of the church, "gives a joy in affliction which is like a song in the night.' The gloomier reflections which at first occupied my mind were suddenly arrested by a simple incident, which turned my musing into a cheerier course. Deep in the shadiest recesses of the grove some wood-pidgeons had made their nest, and their soft and plaintive cooing proclaimed the presence of that mysterious and holy feeling which permeates life, in all its gradations and forms, from the lowliest of God's creatures. And so I traced it upwards reverently to its adorable source, where it is no longer an attribute, but an essence; and then my spirit was awed and admonished, and my querulous thoughts were rebuked, for I felt all must be wisely ordered, when ordered by DIVINE LOVE; that He who has ordained that the bruised herb shall yield a balm, and the broken flower an odour, has, by the same loving economy, decreed that trial shall sanctify the soul, though sin may convert the medicine into poison. And so, dear Anthony, I mused and meditated, till at length I sallied forth into the bright sunshine, in harmony with all that was good and beautiful around me, and cast my meditations into rhyme, which I place at your service. I owe you some apology for this very egotistical introduction to so trifling a composition; but the only one which I believe can be truly offered, in such a case, is, that when one discourses of mental impressions, he can only do so experimentally from his own knowledge, and must inevitably speak of self, whether the form of speech be personal or impersonal. |