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Page 23
Now contrast this mental disgust, which proceeds from mental debility,
with the sunny and soul-lifting exhilaration radiated from mental
vigor,--a vigor which comes from the mind's secret consciousness that it
is in contact with moral and spiritual verities, and is partaking of the
rapture of their immortal life. A spirit earnest, hopeful, energetic,
inquisitive, making its mistakes minister to wisdom, and converting the
obstacles it vanquishes into power,--a spirit inspired by a love of the
excellency and beauty of knowledge, which will not let it sleep,--such
a spirit soon learns that the soul of joy is hid in the austere form of
Duty, and that the intellect becomes brighter, keener, clearer, more
buoyant, and more efficient, as it feels the freshening vigor infused
by her monitions and menaces, and the celestial calm imparted by her
soul-satisfying smile. In all the professions and occupations over which
Intellect holds dominion, the student will find that there is no grace
of character without its corresponding grace of mind. He will find that
virtue is an aid to insight; that good and sweet affections will bear a
harvest of pure and high thoughts; that patience will make the intellect
persistent in plans which benevolence will make beneficent in results;
that the austerities of conscience will dictate precision to statements
and exactness to arguments; that the same moral sentiments and moral
power which regulate the conduct of life will illumine the path and
stimulate the purpose of those daring spirits eager to add to the
discoveries of truth and the creations of art. And he will also find
that this purifying interaction of spiritual and mental forces will give
the mind an abiding foundation of joy for its starts of rapture and
flights of ecstasy;--a joy, in whose light and warmth languor and
discontent and depression and despair will be charmed away;--a joy,
which will make the mind large, generous, hopeful, aspiring, in order to
make life beautiful and sweet;--a joy, in the words of an old
divine, "which will put on a more glorious garment above, and be joy
superinvested in glory!"
LOO LOO.
A FEW SCENES FROM A TRUE HISTORY.
SCENE I.
Alfred Noble had grown up to manhood among the rocks and hills of a New
England village. A year spent in Mobile, employed in the duties of a
clerk, had not accustomed him to the dull routine of commercial life. He
longed for the sound of brooks and the fresh air of the hills. It was,
therefore, with great pleasure that he received from his employer a
message to be conveyed to a gentleman who lived in the pleasantest
suburb of the city. It was one of those bright autumnal days when the
earth seems to rejoice consciously in the light that gives her beauty.
Leaving behind him the business quarter of the town, he passed through
pleasant streets bordered with trees, and almost immediately found
himself amid scenes clothed with all the freshness of the country.
Handsome mansions here and there dotted the landscape, with pretty
little parks, enclosing orange-trees and magnolias, surrounded with
hedges of holly, in whose foliage numerous little foraging birds were
busy in the sunshine. The young man looked at these dwellings with
an exile's longing at his heart. He imagined groups of parents and
children, brothers and sisters, under those sheltering roofs, all
strangers to him, an orphan, alone in the world. The pensiveness of
his mood gradually gave place to more cheerful thoughts. Visions of
prosperous business and a happy home rose before him, as he walked
briskly toward the hills south of the city. The intervals between the
houses increased in length, and he soon found himself in a little forest
of pines. Emerging from this, he came suddenly in sight of an elegant
white villa, with colonnaded portico and spacious verandas. He
approached it by a path through a grove, the termination of which had
grown into the semblance of a Gothic arch, by the interlacing of two
trees, one with glossy evergreen leaves, the other yellow with the tints
of autumn. Vines had clambered to the top, and hung in light festoons
from the branches. The foliage, fluttering in a gentle breeze, caused
successive ripples of sun-flecks, which chased each other over trunks
and boughs, and joined in wayward dance with the shadows on the ground.
Arrested by this unusual combination of light and shade, color and form,
the young man stood still for a moment to gaze upon it. He was thinking
to himself that nothing could add to the perfection of its beauty, when
suddenly there came dancing under the arch a figure that seemed like the
fairy of those woods, a spirit of the mosses and the vines. She was a
child, apparently five or six years old, with large brown eyes, and a
profusion of dark hair. Her gypsy hat, ornamented with scarlet ribbons
and a garland of red holly-berries, had fallen back on her shoulders,
and her cheeks were flushed with exercise. A pretty little white dog was
with her, leaping up eagerly for a cluster of holly-berries which she
playfully shook above his head. She whirled swiftly round and round the
frisking animal, her long red ribbons flying on the breeze, and then she
paused, all aglow, swaying herself back and forth, like a flower on its
stem. A flock of doves, as if attracted toward her, came swooping down
from the sky, revolving in graceful curves above her head, their white
breasts glistening in the sunshine. The a�rial movements of the child
were so full of life and joy, she was so in harmony with the golden day,
the waving vines, and the circling doves, that the whole scene seemed
like an allegro movement in music, and she a charming little melody
floating through it all.
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