The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844

SONG OF THE NEW YEAR

BY MRS. R. S. NICHOLSI have come, I have come from a shadowy clime,An heir of the monarch Earth’s children call Time;With years yet unborn, I have stood in the hallThat was reared by our sire, awaiting his call:Last eve, as I lay on his bosom at rest,I saw slowly rise a white cloud in the west;Now through the blue ether, through regions of space,It floated up softly, with fairy-like grace,And paused ’neath the light of the white-shining stars,Whose rays pierced its centre, like clear silver bars;The winds revelled round it, unchecked in their mirth,As it hung, like a banner, ’mid heaven and earth.The soft fleecy folds of the clouds swept aside,The winds ceased their revels, and mournfully sighed;A car slowly rolled down the pathway of Time,A bell slowly tolled a funereal chime:A sound in the air, and a wail on the breeze,Swift as wave follows wave on tempest-tossed seas;Thin shadows swept by in that funeral train,As glide o’er old battle-grounds ghosts of the slain.I saw the dim spectres of long-buried years—The Seasons close followed, in mourning and tears.Arrayed in his armor, death-darts in his hand,The grim King of Terrors strode on with the band,While cold, stark and ghastly, there lay on his bierThe death-stricken form of the hoary Old Year!How bent was his figure, how furrowed his brow,How weary he looked from his pilgrimage now!The phantoms of Passion, of Hope and Despair,With dark, waving plumage, encircled him there;The Months stood around, and the bright dancing HoursOn spirit-wings floated, like birds among flowers.A voice sweet as music now smote on my ear:‘Go forth in thy beauty, thou unspotted Year!The old Year hath died ‘mid rejoicings and mirth,That rocked the stern heart of the rugged old Earth!The midnight is passing; away to thy car!Thou’lt sail by the lustre of morning’s bright star;Away!’ And I rose from the bosom of Time,And fled through the gates of that shadowy clime;My car sped along on the wings of the wind,While Winter, old man! tottered slowly behind.The sky’s eastern portals impeded my flight,When Morning rose up from the arms of the Night;The dawn faintly glowed, and I saw the old Earth,And sailed in my kingdom, a monarch at birth!‘Then give me wild music, the dance and the song,For ever!’ I shouted, while whirling along:‘I have come, I have come from a shadowy clime,A breath of the monarch Earth’s children call Time!’Cincinnati, December, 1843.

ON COLOUR

Full angel-like the birdis sang their hours1Within their curtains green, within their bowers        Apparelled with white and red, with bloomys sweet.Enamell’d was the field with all coloùrs:The pearlit drops shook as in silver showers,        While all in balm did branche and leavis fleit.2        Depart fra’ Phœbus did Aurora greit;Her chrystal tears I saw hing on the flowers    Which he, for love, all drank up with his heat.Dunbar.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

1. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

2. He leadeth me beside the still waters; He restoreth my soul.

A Psalm of David.

As I walk over the surface of this fair Earth, an erring and a wayward being, at times dejected by the trials of a solitary and an almost abortive life, or sustained or elevated by its prosperous incidents; I sometimes think that no one other blessing of existence hath ever comforted my heart and restored my soul so much, as the pleasures and delights of Colour. It is my wealth, my joy, my faculty, my fountain!

The recreative pleasure that others find in Music, although this is not denied is less to me than to them, a restorative and a balm. Music excites, arouses me; melts me into weakness, or animates me into passionate exertion; but it is in the green pasture and beside the still waters, in bowers apparelled with white and red; it is in the tints with which autumn is bedecked, and Day expires; that I feel I shall not want, and that God restoreth my soul! And it is among huge and solitary mountain masses of grey castellated rock, in the crevices of which the stinted pine, and the cedar with its brown and tattered trunk, struggle out a hard and scanty existence and are yet covered with never-fading verdure—mountains to which the Saviour of mankind might have retired to meditate and pray—that I feel that the Lord is my Shepherd, and shall bring me to the green pastures, and lead me beside the still waters; my Rock! my fortress! and my high tower!

Sometimes my heart takes a fancy altogether for brown hues; and as you cannot at all times command these in the country, I seat myself down quietly in front of a precious Cuyp with which God hath endowed me, and that (except the sky and water) is composed entirely of them in every gradation and shade; and when I rise up from the contemplation of it, I feel that it is in brown hues that God restoreth my soul.

Sometimes I dwell upon the silvery trunk of the birch-tree, or upon the darker hue of the beech. Sometimes my soul drinks the full beauties of the umbrageous chestnut; or revels in the golden berries, and the graceful branches that seem overladen with them, of the mountain-ash. As I grow old I wave often in the grey pendulous mosses of the South, or stand in thought under the gigantick branches of the live oak, with all its leaves of laurel, and its heroick gesture. Good God! I say, when I think that we might all have been born, ate, drank, smoked, grown up, built, propagated, and died, as thoroughly and effectually as we now do, and all these precious objects of our sight and joy been made for us—out of the one desolate colour of an old pipe!

And Water—that element of Life, that upon the plaintain-leaf looks so like a molten mass of diamond that you can hardly persuade yourself it is aught else, might as well have been created of a mere drab quaker-colour; or not even as bright as a bit of Quartz Rock! and yet have satisfied our thirst as well as if it had gushed forth from the limpid sources of the Croton; or been drawn from the transparent body of Lake George; or from those mountain streams of sparkling chrystal that, in alternate shade and gleams of light of tropical brilliancy, bound and gush and dance their way downward from rock to rock to the sound of their own musick, and make themselves into rivers of joy as they descend along the Grand Etang of the Island of Grenada!

And Wine, that God hath sent to make glad the heart of man, and hath blessed it in the cup; and which might perhaps have had the same hilarious effect, though it were of the dingy colour of the ashes of the grate by which I sit; but which, for our more perfect happiness, He hath made to outvie the Topaz and the Ruby, in its lustre and its varied hue!

There are many of us who have this one quality, the love of colour, in common with the magnificent David, whose precious inspiration I have quoted at the head of my Essay, and who in a thousand passages interweaves it like a golden thread amid his works; but as in the minds of many others, it may be a blessing only half appreciated, I have thought that a few words upon this subject might fall not unfruitfully upon the heart, perchance of some one young Reader of this article, just opening to the knowledge of this peculiar work of the great Master of mankind, Colour.

Even Music, although itself an occupation revealed to us as of the Angels of Light, is, except perhaps as they enjoy it—with whom poetry and modulated sound adapted to the thought are inseparably one—even music is less refined, less gentle, perfect, unobtrusive. For the enjoyment of Colour involves no possible interruption of another’s tastes; no outbreak upon the quiet stillness of the day; no intrusion on ‘the ear of night;’ nor yet any expression, that by pouring abroad the sensations, might diminish the deep earnestness of the soul; which, all sight, all ear, becomes the Recipient. The enjoyment of colour is the Spirit within us listening to the language of God! to the mute expression of His unspeakable Love! Colour—the conception He hath chosen for His bow of promise in the Heavens! by which He decorates the Earth, and tells of Himself in the ocean, and in the sky, and by which He restoreth the Soul of man!

And in that state of celestial existence which attends the redeemed Soul disenthralled from ‘the body of this death,’ is it to be doubted, that among the joys that ‘the eye hath never seen, nor the heart conceived,’ there exist colours beautiful beyond all earthly wealth of imagination; beyond the poet’s fancy and the painter’s dream? There where the pure gold of which the city is constructed, is transparent as glass, and each gate is one pearl, and the very foundations of the walls are of jasper, and chalcedony, sapphire, emerald, ruby, amethyst and topaz; and the glory of God is the light that lightens it!

But it is not to another world that the joys of colour are postponed, nor even to another climate that we need look for the precious satisfaction that they impart. We have not the carpets of flowers of rainbow tints, that spread themselves over whole prairies of Texas and Mexico, but what a gem upon the bosom of Earth when it is unexpectedly found among us is the blue campanula! And the small white lily of the valley, sheltered and concealed in its green leaves like a hidden tear of Joy, and almost as rare! And the bright and graceful lobelia cardinalis that loves the neighbourhood of the still waters. And the fringed gentian of a tint so cerulean that our true poet derives it from the firmament; as his own spirit, if left to approach its kindred element, might claim affinity with the overshadowing expanse of celestial life!3

I speak not to thee of the gorgeous sunsets and of those piles of massy clouds of living and ever-varying colours on which the Day pillows himself to rest in a luxurious repose; but open thine heart upon the Eastern bank of the Hudson at the grey of morning, and look with the Sun upon the opposite shore; and as the mists arise and are dispelled from before thee, there shall come change after change of colour neutral and calm and slowly warming into beauty, until a violet haze shall rest upon the hill-tops and the cliffs that might outvie the golden haze of Italy, and that shall raise thy thoughts in silent thankfulness, and educate thee to enjoy the untold treasuries of colour that glow in upper Heaven; and hope shall spring forth renewed within thee; and sorrow shall fade from thy widowed, or thy childless heart; the peace which passeth understanding shall come over thee; and God even thine own God shall bless thee; and to thine eyes, now opened to the wonders of His goodness, all the ends of the Earth shall shew forth His praise!

John Waters.

STANZAS

SUGGESTED BY GLIDDON'S LECTURES ON THE ANTIQUITIES OF EGYPT

MISS H. J. WOODMANSublime hath been thy conquest o’er the past,    Stemming Oblivion’s torrent by thy might,Reading symbolic records long o’ercast    By the deep shadows of unbroken night;Tracing with reverent finger names of kingsThat long had slumbered with forgotten things.The mists that deeply veiled historic rays,    Thou art dispelling with resistless hand;And dynasties that flourished ere the days    When Abraham forsook the promised land,No longer noteless, nameless, boldly claimTheir lofty tablet in the arch of fame.Thy curious finger with a magic key    Unlocked the store of ages, and the light,Flooding the pass of time, sublime and free,    Decks ruined temples in its vesture bright:These are the relics of thy grandeur flown,Land of the Pharaohs and their prostrate throne.Ere the white stranger’s land had trodden been    By foot of pilgrim, Egypt sat supreme,Queen of the nations, and her realm within    Wealth, learning, power convened—a full, deep stream!The bulwarks of her throne were safely rearedIn hearts by which her greatness was revered.And now, with Science for his trusty guide,    The stranger comes to read her mystic lore,Tread her deserted cities, stand beside    Her sculptured temples, eloquent once more;Not with man’s voice, but with the nobler speechOf days beyond our spirit’s utmost reach.And those proud monuments of youthful time,    The pyramids, whose lofty sides have borneThe storms of centuries in that fierce clime,    And seeming still to smile in speechless scorn,When bow the everlasting hills with age,Then shall they vanish from the world’s bright page.A mournful ruin to thy utmost bound,    A type of glory long since passed away,The statue voiceless whence the thrilling sound    Of gushing music hailed the rising day;Thus art thou now, oh Egypt! but the flameOf new-born Science gilds thine ancient name.And from the dust shalt thou arise once more,    Not by thine own degenerate sons upreared,But strangers who have sought thy verdant shore    Shall hail thy fallen greatness, still revered;Until among the kingdoms of the earthThou shalt appear renewed—a second birth!

THE QUOD CORRESPONDENCE

Harry Harson

CHAPTER NINETEENTH

Notwithstanding his having made what most persons would have considered a hearty meal at Harry Harson’s, Mr. Kornicker had nevertheless such perfect reliance on his own peculiar gastronomic abilities, that he did not in the least shrink from again testing them. Leaving Michael Rust’s presence with an alacrity which bordered upon haste, he descended into the refectory with somewhat of a jaunty air, humming a tune, and keeping time to it by an occasional flourish of the fingers. Having seated himself, his first act was to shut his eyes, thrust his feet at full length under the table; plunge both hands to the very bottom of his breeches-pockets, where they grasped spasmodically two cents and a small key, and laugh silently for more than a minute, occasionally breaking in upon his merriment to gossip to himself in the most profound and mysterious manner.

‘A queer dog! a very queer dog! d–d queer, old Michael is! Well, that’s his business, not mine.’

As soon as this idea had fully impressed itself upon him, he sat up, became grave, and looked about in search of the waiter. In doing so, he encountered the eyes of a short fat man at a table near him, who at the first glance seemed to be reading a newspaper, but at the second, seemed to be reconnoitering him over it. Mr. Kornicker observing this, not only returned his glance, but added a wink to it by way of interest. The man thereupon laid down his paper, and nodded.

Mr. Kornicker nodded in reply; and said he hoped he was well, and that his wife and small children were equally fortunate.

The face of the stranger was a round, jolly face, with two little eyes that twinkled and glistened between their fat lids, as if they were very devils for fun; and his whole appearance was cozy and comfortable. His chin was double; his stomach round and plump, with an air of respectability; and he occasionally passed his hand over it, as if to say: ‘Ah ha! beat that who can!’ But notwithstanding his merry look, at this last remark his face grew long; and with a melancholy shake of his head, he pointed to his hat which hung on a peg above him, and was swathed in a broad band of crape, terminating in two stiff skirts projecting from it like a rudder, and giving it the appearance of a corpulent butterfly in mourning, at roost on the wall.

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Kornicker, looking at the hat, ‘that’s it?’

‘Yes,’ replied the stranger, with a deep sigh, ‘that’s it.’

‘Father?’ inquired Mr. Kornicker, nodding significantly toward the hat.

‘No—wife,’ replied the other.

‘Dead?’ inquired Mr. Kornicker.

‘Dead as a hammer.’

‘Was it long or short? consumption or fits?’ asked Mr. Kornicker, drawing up his feet and turning so as to face the stranger, by way of evincing the interest which he felt in his melancholy situation.

The man shook his head, and was so affected that he was troubled with a temporary cold in his head; which, having alleviated by the aid of his handkerchief, he said: ‘Poor woman! She undertook to present me with a fine boy, last week, and it proved too much for her. It exhausted her animal natur’, and she decamped on a sudden. She was a very fine woman—a very fine woman. I always said she was.’

‘And the child?’ inquired Kornicker; ‘I hope it’s well.’

‘Quite well, I thank you. It went along with her. They are both better off; saints in heaven, both of ’em; out of this wale of tears.’

Mr. Kornicker told him to cheer up. He said that every man had a crook in his lot. Some men had big crooks, and some men had little crooks; and although this crook made rather a bad elbow in his lot, that perhaps all the rest was square and straight, and he could build on it to advantage, especially if it was twenty-five feet by a hundred, which was the ordinary width and length of ‘lots in general.’

Having delivered himself of this rather confused allegory, Mr. Kornicker, by way of farther consolation, drew out his snuff-box, and stretching out as far as was possible without falling from his chair, tendered it to the stranger, who in return leaning so far forward as slightly to raise his person from the chair, gently inserted his fingers in the box, and helped himself to a pinch, at the same time remarking, that it ‘was a great comfort, in his trying situation, to find friends who sympathized with his misfortunes. That he had found it so; and that Mr. Kornicker was a man whose feelings did credit to human natur’.’

Kornicker disclaimed being any thing above the ordinary run of men, or that his feelings were more than every other man possessed, or ought to possess. But the stranger was vehement in his assertions to the contrary; so much so, that he rose from his seat, and drawing a chair to the opposite side of Kornicker’s table, proposed that they should breakfast together.

Kornicker shook his head:

‘It’s against the agreement,’ said he; ‘it can’t be done.’

‘But it can, Sir—it shall, Sir! A man of your sympathies is not to be met with every day, and must be breakfasted with, whether he will or not—agreement or no agreement. Don’t agreement me!’ said the stranger, lifting up his chair and setting it down opposite Kornicker, with great emphasis. ‘What’s the natur’ of this agreement?’

Mr. Kornicker assumed a very grave and legal expression of countenance, and without replying, asked:

‘What’s your name?’

‘Ezra Scrake.’

‘I, Edward Kornicker, forbid you, Ezra Scrake, from breakfasting with me, telling you that it is contrary to a certain agreement, referred to but not set forth; and I now repeat the request, that you forthwith retire to another table, and that I be permitted to take my meal by myself.’ He threw himself back in his chair, and looked Mr. Scrake full in the face.

‘And I, Ezra Scrake, say that I won’t leave this table, and that I will breakfast with a fellow whose benevolence might warm the witals of a tiger.’

‘Very well, Sir,’ said Kornicker, relaxing from his former severe expression; ‘I’ve done my duty. Old Rust can’t blame me. The breach of contract is not on my part. I’m acting under compulsion. Just recollect that I desired you to leave me, in case it gets me into hot water, and that you refused; that’s all. Now old fellow, what’ll you take? Only recollect, that each man rides his own pony.’

The stranger nodded, and said that of course he would ‘foot his own bill.’

These preliminaries being settled, the boy, who had been standing at their elbow in a state of ecstatic delight at the proceedings of Mr. Kornicker, with whom he had become familiar, and whom he regarded as a gentleman of great legal acumen, and in all other respects as rather a ‘tall boy,’ was desired by the stranger to hand him the bill of fare, and not to keep him waiting all day. Having been gratified in this respect, Mr. Scrake commenced at the top and deliberately whispered his way to the bottom of the list.

‘Beef-steak; shall I say for two?’ asked he, looking up at Kornicker.

‘Yes, but always under protest, as to our breakfasting together,’ said Mr. Kornicker, winking at him. ‘Don’t forget that.’

‘Of course. Now, my son, what trimmings have you got?’ said he to the boy.

‘’Taters.’

‘Are they kidneys, blue-noses, or fox?—and will they bu’st open white and mealy?’

‘They’m prime,’ replied the boy.

‘Bring one for me; or, stop—are they extra?’

‘We throws them in with the steak, gratis.’

‘Then bring a dishful, with coffee, bread, and whatever else adds to the breakfast, without adding to the bill.’

The boy, having no other interest in the establishment than that of securing his own wages and meals, was highly delighted at this considerate order of Mr. Scrake, and forthwith disappeared to obey it.

In the meanwhile Mr. Scrake, after having deliberately re-perused the bill of fare, and not observing any thing else which could be got for nothing, laid it down, and looking at Mr. Kornicker, who was gazing abstractedly at the table-cloth, said that he hoped he (Mr. Scrake) was not going to be impertinent; and as Mr. Kornicker made no other reply than that of looking at him, as if he considered it a matter of some doubt whether he was or was not, he elucidated the meaning of his remark, by inquiring who Michael Rust was.

‘The old gentlemen that caters for me,’ replied Kornicker, carelessly.

‘And does he make you eat alone?’

‘If I dine double, he’ll stop the prog, that’s all.’

‘A sing’lar bargain—quite sing’lar; very sing’lar, in fact. Does he keep a tight eye over you?’

Mr. Kornicker did not exactly know what kind of an eye a tight eye was, but he replied: ‘Sometimes he does, sometimes he don’t. He’s nigh enough to do it. His office is overhead.’

‘Lawyer, I suppose?—must be,’ said Mr. Scrake, drumming carelessly on the table.

‘You’re out, old fellow. I’m with him, and should know something of him; and he isn’t.’

‘Ah!’ said the stranger, leaning back and yawning, and then sharpening his knife on the fork. ‘What is he then?’

Mr. Kornicker raised his finger gently to his nose, winked so violently at Mr. Scrake that he caused that gentleman to stop short in his performance to look at him; after which he shut both eyes, and gave vent to a violent inward convulsion of laughter.

‘What is he?’ repeated Kornicker, in a tone of high surprise; then sinking his voice, and leaning over the table, he whispered confidentially in Mr. Scrake’s ear: ‘He’s hell.’

‘No! he isn’t though, is he?’ said Mr. Scrake, dropping his knife and fork, and sinking back in his chair.

‘Yes he is,’ repeated Mr. Kornicker; ‘and if you was a certain gentleman that I know, you’d find it out. He will some day, I rather think.’

‘Are you that individual?’ inquired Mr. Scrake, with an air of deep interest.

‘No, I ain’t, but I suspect some one else is. But come,’ said he, ‘there’s the breakfast, so let’s be at it, and drop all other discussion.’

This remark found an answering echo in the stomach of Mr. Scrake, who resumed the sharpening of his knife, as the breakfast entered the room, and did not desist until the steak was on the table, when he immediately assaulted it.

‘Shall I help you? What part will you take?’

‘Any part,’ replied Kornicker, carelessly.

‘Well, it’s sing’lar; I never could carve. I’ll help you as I would help myself,’ said Mr. Scrake, in his ignorance depositing on Mr. Kornicker’s plate an exceedingly tough piece of dry meat, and upon his own a cut which was remarkably tender and juicy.

‘Do you always help yourself as you have helped me?’ said Mr. Kornicker, snuffing with great deliberation, and eyeing his portion with no very contented eye.

‘Always, always.’

‘Then you do yourself d–d great injustice.’

‘Ha! ha! good—very good; sheer ignorance on my part, upon my soul. But you were telling me about this man, this Rust,’ said Mr. Scrake, mashing his potatoes, and entombing a lump of butter in the heart of a small pyramid of them. ‘You said he was hell, or the devil, or something of that sort. What then? Eh?’

Kornicker, though not at all pleased with the ignorance of his companion, in the particular branch in which it had just displayed itself, was not of a sulky disposition, and was easily won into a communicative mood, particularly as Mr. Scrake begged him, with tears in his eyes, to tell him which was the best part of a beef-steak, so that he might avoid in future the mortification of being guilty of a similar error.

As the coffee went down, and the beef-steak followed, Mr. Scrake seemed to relax, and to forget that his hat hung over his head, commemorative of the recent retirement of Mrs. Scrake from this ‘wale of tears,’ and became quite jocular on the subject of the fair sex, congratulating Kornicker upon his looks; calling him a lucky dog, and telling him that if he were him, he’d ‘make up to some charming young woman with a fortune, and be off with her.’ He then went into a detail of his own juvenile indiscretions, relating many incidents of his life; some of which were amusing, some ridiculous, some tragic, some pathetic, and not a few quite indecent. It was wonderful what a devil that fat-cheeked, little-eyed, round-stomached fellow had been. Who could resist the influence of such a man? Not poor Kornicker; it gradually had its effect upon him, for he in turn grew communicative; talked freely of Rust, and of every man, woman and child of his acquaintance. He grew merry over the rare doings which had taken place in Rust’s den. He then descanted upon the peculiarities of the old man; his fierce fits of passion, his cold, shrewd, caustic manners, his coming in, and his going out; how long he was absent; how profoundly secret he kept himself, his doings, his whereabouts, and his mode of life. ‘And,’ said he, in conclusion, ‘I know nothing of him. He’s a queer dog, a wonderfully queer one. It would take a long time to fathom him, I can tell you. I’ve been with him for a long time; and am his confidential adviser, his lawyer, and all that sort of thing; and yet I’ve never done but two things for him.’