Evenings at Donaldson Manor; Or, The Christmas Guest. Maria J. McIntosh
with a smile at his eagerness.
"Then why, dear Aunt Nancy, did you keep the engraving?" asked Annie.
"I might answer, because of my interest in the scene it depicts—a scene in which religion seems to shed its sanctifying influence over the tenderest affection and the homeliest duties of our common life; but I had another reason."
"Ah! I knew it," exclaimed Annie.
"I first saw this print in company with a very cultivated and interesting German lady, to whose memory the sleeping baby recalled a cradle song written by her countryman, the brave Körner. She sang it for me, and as the German is, I am grieved to say, a sealed book to me, she gave me a literal translation of the words, which—"
"Which you have put into English verse, and written here at the back of the engraving in the finest of all fine writing, and which papa will put on his spectacles and read for us."
"No; I commission Mr. Arlington to do that," said the Colonel, "without his spectacles."
"First," said I, "let me assure you that the original is full of a simple, natural tenderness, which I fear, in the double process of translating and versifying, has entirely escaped."
Mr. Arlington, taking the paper from Annie, now read—
THE CRADLE SONG;
A FREE TRANSLATION FROM KÖRNER.
| I. |
| Slumberer! to thy mother's breast So fondly folded, sweetly rest! Within that fair and quiet world, With downy pinions scarce unfurl'd, Life gently passes, nor doth bring One dream of sorrow on its wing. |
| II. |
| Pleasant our dreams in early hours, When Mother-love our life embowers;— Ah! Mother-love! thy tender light Hath vanished from my sky of night, Scarce leaving there one fading ray To thrill me with, remember'd day. |
| III. |
| Thrice, by the smiles of fav'ring Heaven, To man this holiest joy is given; Thrice, circled by the arms of love, With glowing spirit he may prove The highest rapture heart can feel, The noblest hopes our lives reveal. |
| IV. |
| The earliest blessings that enwreathed His infant days, 'twas Love that breathed. In Love's warm smile the nursling blooms, Nor fears one shade that o'er him glooms, While flowers unfold and waters dance In joy, beneath his first, fresh glance. |
| V. |
| And when around the youth's bold course Clouds gather—tempests spend their force— When his soul darkens with his sky, Again the Love-God hovers nigh; And on some gentle maiden's breast Lulls him, once more, to blissful rest. |
| VI. |
| But when his heart bends to the power Of storm, as bends the summer flower, 'Tis Love that, as the Angel-Death Wooes from his lips the ling'ring breath, And gently bears his soul above, To the bright skies—the home of Love. |
"Poor Körner!" said Mr. Arlington, as he concluded reading this song—if indeed it may claim that name in its English dress—"I can sympathize, as few can do, with his mournful memory of mother-love."
This was said in a tone of such genuine emotion, that I looked at him with even more pleasure than I had hitherto done.
"Such tenderness touches us particularly when found, as in Körner, in union with manly and vigorous qualities—perhaps, because it is a rare combination," said Mrs. Dudley.
"Is it rare?" I asked doubtfully. "The results of my own observation have led me to believe that it is precisely in manly, vigorous, independent minds that we see the fullest development of our simple, natural, home-affections."
"You are right, Aunt Nancy," said Col. Donaldson; "it is only boys striving to seem manly and men of boyish minds, who fail to acknowledge with reverence and tenderness the value of a mother's love."
"So convinced am I of this," I replied, "that I would ask for no more certain indication of a man's nobility of nature, than his manner to his mother. I remember a striking illustration of the fidelity of such an indication in two brothers of the name of Manning, with whom I was once acquainted. The one was quite a petit-maître—a dandy; the other, a fine creature—large-minded and large-hearted. The first betrayed in every look and movement, that he considered himself greatly his mother's superior, and feared every moment that she should detract from his dignity by some sin against the dicta of fashion; the other did honor at once to her and to himself, by his reverent devotion to her. They were a contrast, and a contrast which circumstances brought out most strikingly. Ah, Mr. Arlington! I wish you could have seen them—a sketch of them from your pencil would have been a picture indeed."
"We will take your word-painting instead," said Mr. Arlington.
"A mere description in words could not present them to you in all their strongly marked diversity of character. To do this, I must give you a history of their lives."
"And why not?"—and—"Oh, yes, Aunt Nancy, that is just what we want," was echoed from one to another. They consented to delay their gratification till the evening, that I might have a little time to arrange my reminiscences; and when "the hours of long uninterrupted evening" came, and we had
"——stirr'd the fire and closed the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheeled the sofa round,"
and disposed ourselves in comfort for talking and for listening, I gave them the relation which you will find below under the title of
THE BROTHERS;
OR, IN THE FASHION AND ABOVE THE FASHION.
"Some men are born to greatness—some achieve greatness—and some have greatness thrust upon them." Henry Manning belonged to the second of these three great classes. The son of a mercantile adventurer, who won and lost a fortune by speculation, he found himself at sixteen years of age called on to choose between the life of a Western farmer, with its vigorous action, stirring incident and rough usage—and the life of a clerk in one of the most noted establishments in Broadway, the great source and centre of fashion in New-York. Mr. Morgan, the brother of Mrs. Manning, who had been recalled from the distant West by the death of her husband, and the embarrassments into which that event had plunged her, had obtained the offer of the latter situation for one of his two nephews, and would take the other with him to his prairie-home.
"I do not ask you to go with me, Matilda," he said to his sister, "because our life is yet too wild and rough to suit a delicate woman, reared, as you have been, in the midst of luxurious refinements. The difficulties and privations of life in the West fall most heavily upon woman, while she has little of that sustaining power which man's more adventurous spirit finds in overcoming difficulty and coping with danger. But let me have one of your boys; and by the time he