University of Virginia Library

Third Reverie.
A Cigar three times Lighted.

OVER HIS CIGAR.

I DO not believe that there was ever an Aunt
Tabithy who could abide cigars. My Aunt
Tabithy hated them with a peculiar hatred. She was
not only insensible to the rich flavor of a fresh rolling
volume of smoke, but she could not so much as
tolerate the sight of the rich russet colour of an
Havana-labelled box. It put her out of all conceit
with Guava jelly, to find it advertised in the same
tongue, and with the same Cuban coarseness of
design.

She could see no good in a cigar.

“But by your leave, my aunt,” said I to her, the
other morning,—“there is very much that is good in
a cigar.”

My aunt who was sweeping, tossed her head, and
with it, her curls—done up in paper.

“It is a very excellent matter,” continued I,
puffing.

“It is dirty,” said my aunt.

“It is clean and sweet,” said I; “and a most
pleasant soother of disturbed feelings; and a capital
companion; and a comforter—” and I stopped to
puff.

“You know it is a filthy abomination,” said my
aunt,—“and you ought to be—,” and she stopped
to put up one of her curls, which with the energy of
her gesticulation, had fallen out of its place.

“It suggests quiet thoughts”—continued I,—“and
makes a man meditative; and gives a current to his
habits of contemplation,—as I can show you,” said I,
warming with the theme.

My aunt, still fingering her papers,—with the pin
in her mouth,—gave a most incredulous shrug.

“Aunt Tabithy”—said I, and gave two or three
violent, consecutive puffs,—“Aunt Tabithy, I can
make up such a series of reflections out of my cigar,
as would do your heart good to listen to!”

“About what, pray?” said my aunt, contemptuously.

“About love,” said I, “which is easy enough
lighted, but wants constancy to keep it in a glow;—

or about matrimony, which has a great deal of fire
in the beginning, but it is a fire that consumes all
that feeds the blaze;—or about life,” continued I
earnestly,—“which at the first is fresh and odorous,
but ends shortly in a withered cinder, that is fit only
for the ground.”

My aunt who was forty and unmarried, finished her
curl with a flip of the fingers,—resumed her hold of
the broom, and leaned her chin upon one end of it,
with an expression of some wonder, some curiosity,
and a great deal of expectation.

I could have wished my aunt had been a little less
curious, or that I had been a little less communicative:
for though it was all honestly said on my part,
yet my contemplations bore that vague, shadowy, and
delicious sweetness, that it seemed impossible to put
them into words,—least of all, at the bidding of an
old lady, leaning on a broom-handle.

“Give me time, Aunt Tabithy,”—said I,—“a good
dinner, and after it a good cigar, and I will serve you
such a sun-shiny sheet of reverie, all twisted out of
the smoke, as will make your kind old heart ache!”

Aunt Tabithy, in utter contempt, either of my
mention of the dinner, or of the smoke, or of the old
heart, commenced sweeping furiously.

“If I do not”—continued I, anxious to appease
her,—“if I do not, Aunt Tabithy, it shall be my last

cigar; (Aunt Tabithy stopped sweeping) and all my
tobacco money, (Aunt Tabithy drew near me) shall
go to buy ribbons for my most respectable, and worthy
Aunt Tabithy; and a kinder person could not have
them; or one,” continued I, with a generous puff,
“whom they would more adorn.”

My Aunt Tabithy gave me a half-playful,—half-thankful
nudge.

It was in this way that our bargain was struck;
my part of it is already stated. On her part, Aunt
Tabithy was to allow me, in case of my success, an
evening cigar unmolested, upon the front porch,
underneath her favorite rose-tree. It was concluded,
I say, as I sat; the smoke of my cigar rising gracefully
around my Aunt Tabithy's curls;—our right
hands joined;—my left was holding my cigar, while
in hers, was tightly grasped—her broom-stick.

And this Reverie, to make the matter short, is
what came of the contract.

I.
Lighted with a Coal.

I TAKE up a coal with the tongs, and setting the
end of my cigar against it, puff—and puff again;
but there is no smoke. There is very little hope of
lighting from a dead coal;—no more hope, thought
I,—than of kindling one's heart into flame, by contact
with a dead heart.

To kindle, there must be warmth and life; and I
sat for a moment, thinking,—even before I lit my
cigar,—on the vanity and folly of those poor, purblind
fellows, who go on puffing for half a lifetime,
against dead coals. It is to be hoped that Heaven,
in its mercy, has made their senses so obtuse, that
they know not when their souls are in a flame, or
when they are dead. I can imagine none but the

most moderate satisfaction, in continuing to love,
what has got no ember of love within it. The Italians
have a very sensible sort of proverb,—amare, e
non essere amato, è tempo perduto:—to love, and not
be loved, is time lost.

I take a kind of rude pleasure in flinging down a
coal that has no life in it. And it seemed to me,—
and may Heaven pardon the ill-nature that belongs
to the thought,—that there would be much of the
same kind of satisfaction, in dashing from you a luke-warm
creature, covered over with the yellow ashes
of old combustion, that with ever so much attention,
and the nearest approach of the lips, never shows
signs of fire. May Heaven forgive me again, but I
should long to break away, though the marriage bonds
held me, and see what liveliness was to be found elsewhere.

I have seen before now a creeping vine try to grow
up against a marble wall; it shoots out its tendrils in
all directions, seeking for some crevice by which to
fasten and to climb;—looking now above and now
below,—twining upon itself,—reaching farther up,
but after all, finding no good foothold, and falling
away as if in despair. But nature is not unkind;
twining things were made to twine. The longing
tendrils take new strength in the sunshine, and in the
showers, and shoot out toward some hospitable trunk.

They fasten easily to the kindly roughness of the bark,
and stretch up, dragging after them the vine; which
by and by, from the topmost bough, will nod its blossoms
over at the marble wall, that refused it suceour,
as if it said,—stand there in your pride, cold, white
wall! we, the tree and I are kindred, it the helper,
and I the helped; and bound fast together, we riot
in the sunshine, and in gladness.

The thought of this image made me search for a
new coal that should have some brightness in it.
There may be a white ash over it indeed; as you
will find tender feelings covered with the mask of
courtesy, or with the veil of fear; but with a breath
it all flies off, and exposes the heat, and the glow that
you are seeking.

At the first touch, the delicate edges of the cigar
crimple, a thin line of smoke rises,—doubtfully for a
while, and with a coy delay; but after a hearty respiration
or two, it grows strong, and my cigar is fairly
lighted.

That first taste of the new smoke, and of the fragrant
leaf is very grateful; it has a bloom about it,
that you wish might last. It is like your first love,—
fresh, genial, and rapturous. Like that, it fills up
all the craving of your soul; and the light, blue
wreaths of smoke, like the roseate clouds that hang
around the morning of your heart life, cut you off

from the chill atmosphere of mere worldly companionship,
and make a gorgeous firmament for your
fancy to riot in.

I do not speak now of those later, and manlier passions,
into which judgment must be thrusting its cold
tones, and when all the sweet tumult of your heart has
mellowed into the sober ripeness of affection. But I
mean that boyish burning, which belongs to every
poor mortal's lifetime, and which bewilders him with
the thought that he has reached the highest point of
human joy, before he has tasted any of that bitterness,
from which alone our highest human joys have
spring. I mean the time, when you cut initials with
your jack-knife on the smooth bark of beech trees;
and went moping under the long shadows at sunset;
and thought Louise the prettiest name in the wide
world; and picked flowers to leave at her door; and
stole out at night to watch the light in her window;
and read such novels as those about Helen Mar, or
Charlotte, to give some adequate expression to your
agonized feelings.

At such a stage, you are quite certain that you are
deeply, and madly in love; you persist in the face of
heaven, and earth. You would like to meet the individual
who dared to doubt it.

You think she has got the tidiest, and jauntiest

little figure that ever was seen. You think back
upon some time when in your games of forfeit, you
gained a kiss from these lips; and it seems as if the
kiss was hanging on you yet, and warming you all
over. And then again, it seems so strange that your
lips did really touch hers! You half question if it
could have been actually so,—and how you could have
dared;—and you wonder if you would have courage
to do the same thing again?—and upon second
thought, are quite sure you would,—and snap your
fingers at the thought of it.

What sweet little hats she does wear; and in the
school room, when the hat is hung up—what curls—
golden curls, worth a hundred Golcondas! How
bravely you study the top lines of the spelling book
—that your eyes may run over the edge of the cover,
without the schoolmaster's notice, and feast upon
her!

You half wish that somebody would run away with
her, as they did with Amanda, in the Children of the
Abbey;—and then you might ride up on a splendid
black horse, and draw a pistol, or blunderbuss, and
shoot the villians, and carry her back, all in tears,
fainting, and languishing upon your shoulder;—and
have her father (who is Judge of the County Court,)
take your hand in both of his, and make some eloquent
remarks. A great many such re-captures you

run over in your mind, and think how delightful it
would be to peril your life, either by flood, or fire,—to
cut off your arm, or your head, or any such trifle,—
for your dear Louise.

You can hardly think of anything more joyous in
life, than to live with her in some old castle, very far
away from steamboats, and post-offices, and pick wild
geraniums for her hair, and read poetry with her,
under the shade of very dark ivy vines. And you
would have such a charming boudoir in some corner
of the old ruin, with a harp in it, and books bound in
gilt, with cupids on the cover, and such a fairy couch,
with the curtains hung—as you have seen them hung
in some illustrated Arabian stories—upon a pair of
carved doves!

And when they laugh at you about it, you turn it
off perhaps with saying—“it isn't so;” but afterward,
in your chamber, or under the tree where you
have cut her name, you take Heaven to witness, that
it is so; and think—what a cold world it is, to be so
careless about such holy emotions! You perfectly
hate a certain stout boy in a green jacket, who is forever
twitting you, and calling her names; but when
some old maiden aunt teases you in her kind, gentle
way, you bear it very proudly; and with a feeling as
if you could bear a great deal more for her sake.
And when the minister reads off marriage anonuncements

in the church, you think how it will sound one
of these days, to have your name, and hers, read from
the pulpit;—and how the people will all look at you,
and how prettily she will blush; and how poor little
Dick, who you know loves her, but is afraid to say so,
will squirm upon his bench.

—Heigho!—mused I,—as the blue smoke rolled
up around my head,—these first kindlings of the love
that is in one, are very pleasant!—but will they last?

You love to listen to the rustle of her dress, as she
stirs about the room. It is better music than grownup
ladies will make upon all their harpsichords, in
the years that are to come. But this, thank Heaven,
you do not know.

You think you can trace her foot-mark, on your
way to the school;—and what a dear little foot-mark
it is! And from that single point, if she be out of
your sight for days, you conjure up the whole image,
—the elastic, lithe little figure,—the springy step,—
the dotted muslin so light, and flowing,—the silk
kerchief, with its most tempting fringe playing upon
the clear white of her throat,—how you envy that
fringe! And her chin is as round as a peach—and
the lips—such lips!—and you sigh, and hang your
head; and wonder when you shall see her again!

You would like to write her a letter; but then people
would talk so coldly about it; and beside you are

not quite sure you could write such billets as Thaddeus
of Warsaw used to write; and anything less
warm or elegant, would not do at all. You talk about
this one, or that one, whom they call pretty, in the
coolest way in the world; you see very little of their
prettiness; they are good girls to be sure; and you
hope they will get good husbands some day or other;
but it is not a matter that concerns you very much.
They do not live in your world of romance; they are
not the angels of that sky which your heart makes
rosy, and to which I have likened the blue waves of
this rolling smoke.

You can even joke as you talk of others; you can
smile,—as you think—very graciously; you can say
laughingly that you are deeply in love with them, and
think it a most capital joke; you can touch their
hands, or steal a kiss from them in your games, most
imperturbably;—they are very dead coals.

But the live one is very lively. When you take
the name on your lip, it seems somehow, to be made
of different materials from the rest; you cannot half
so easily separate it into letters;—write it, indeed
you can; for you have had practice,—very much private
practice on odd scraps of paper, and on the flyleaves
of geographies, and of your natural philosophy.
You know perfectly well how it looks; it seems to
be written indeed, somewhere behind your eyes; and

in such happy position with respect to the optic
nerve, that you see it all the time, though you are
looking in an opposite direction; and so distinctly,
that you have great fears lest people looking into your
eyes, should see it too!

For all this, it is a far more delicate name to handle
than most that you know of. Though it is very
cool, and pleasant on the brain, it is very hot, and
difficult to manage on the lip. It is not, as your
schoolmaster would say,—a name, so much as it is an
idea;—not a noun, but a verb,—an active, and transitive
verb; and yet a most irregular verb, wanting
the passive voice.

It is something against your schoolmaster's doctrine,
to find warmth in the moonlight; but with that
soft hand—it is very soft—lying within your arm,
there is a great deal of warmth, whatever the philosophers
may say, even in pale moonlight. The beams
too, breed sympathies, very close-running sympathies,
—not talked about in the chapters on optics, and altogether
too fine for language. And under their influence,
you retain the little hand, that you had not
dared retain so long before; and her struggle to recover
it,—if indeed it be a struggle,—is infinitely less
than it was;—nay, it is a kind of struggle, not so
much against you, as between gladness and modesty.
It makes you as bold as a lion; and the feeble hand

like a poor lamb in the lion's clutch, is powerless,
and very meek;—and failing of escape, it will sue for
gentle treatment; and will meet your warm promise,
with a kind of grateful pressure, that is but half
acknowledged, by the hand that makes it.

My cigar is burning with wondrous freeness; and
from the smoke flash forth images bright and quick
as lightning—with no thunder, but the thunder of
the pulse. But will it all last? Damp will deaden
the fire of a cigar; and there are hellish damps—
alas, too many,—that will deaden the early blazing
of the heart.

She is pretty,—growing prettier to your eye, the
more you look upon her, and prettier to your ear, the
more you listen to her. But you wonder who the
tall boy was, who you saw walking with her, two days
ago? He was not a bad-looking boy; on the contrary,
you think,—(with a grit of your teeth)—that
he was infernally handsome! You look at him very
shyly, and very closely, when you pass him; and turn
to see how he walks, and to measure his shoulders,
and are quite disgusted with the very modest, and
gentlemanly way, with which he carries himself.
You think you would like to have a fisticuff with him,
if you were only sure of having the best of it. You
sound the neighborhood coyly, to find out who the

strange boy is; and are half ashamed of yourself for
doing it.

You gather a magnificent bouquet to send her, and
tie it with a green ribbon, and a love knot,—and get
a little rose-bud in acknowledgment. That day, you
pass the tall-boy with a very patronizing look; and
wonder if he would not like to have a sail in your
boat?

But by and by, you find the tall boy walking with
her again; and she looks sideways at him, and with a
kind of grown up air, that makes you feel very boy-like,
and humble, and furious. And you look daggers
at him when you pass; and touch your cap to
her, with quite uncommon dignity;—and wonder if
she is not sorry, and does not feel very badly, to have
got such a look from you?

On some other day, however, you meet her alone;
and the sight of her makes your face wear a genial,
sunny air; and you talk a little sadly about your
fears and your jealousies; she seems a little sad, and
a little glad, together;—and is sorry she has made
you feel badly,—and you are sorry too. And with
this pleasant twin sorrow, you are knit together again
—closer than ever. That one little tear of hers has
been worth more to you than a thousand smiles.
Now you love her madly; you could swear it—swear
it to her, or swear it to the universe. You even say

as much to some kind old friend at night-fall; but
your mention of her, is tremulous and joyful,—with
a kind of bound in your speech, as if the heart worked
too quick for the tongue; and as if the lips were
ashamed to be passing over such secrets of the soul,
to the mere sense of hearing. At this stage, you
cannot trust yourself to speak her praises; or if you
venture, the expletives fly away with your thought,
before you can chain it into language; and your
speech, at your best endeavor, is but a succession of
broken superlatives, that you are ashamed of. You
strain for language that will scald the thought of her;
but hot as you can make it, it falls back upon your
heated fancy, like a cold shower.

Heat so intense as this consumes very fast; and
the matter it feeds fastest on, is—judgment; and
with judgment gone, there is room for jealousy to
creep in. You grow petulant at another sight of that
tall-boy; and the one tear, which cured your first
petulance, will not cure it now. You let a little of
your fever break out in speech—a speech which you
go home to mourn over. But she knows nothing of
the mourning, while she knows very much of the
anger. Vain tears are very apt to breed pride; and
when you go again with your petulance, you will find
your rosy-lipped girl taking her first studies in dignity

You will stay away, you say;—poor fool, you
are feeding on what your disease loves best! You
wonder if she is not sighing for your return,—and if
your name is not running in her thought,—and if
tears of regret are not moistening those sweet eyes.

— And wondering thus, you stroll moodily, and
hopefully toward her father's home; you pass the
door once—twice; you loiter under the shade of an
old tree, where you have sometimes bid her adieu;
your old fondness is struggling with your pride, and
has almost made the mastery; but in the very moment
of victory, you see yonder your hated rival, and
beside him looking very gleeful, and happy—your perfidious
Louise.

How quick you throw off the marks of your struggle,
and put on the boldest air of boyhood; and what
a dexterous handling to your knife, and a wonderful
keenness to the edge, as you cut away from the bark
of the beech tree, all trace of her name! Still there
is a little silent relenting, and a few tears at night,
and a little tremor of the hand, as you tear out—the
next day,—every fly leaf that bears her name. But
at sight of your rival,—looking so jaunty, and in such
capital spirits, you put on the proud man again.
You may meet her, but you say nothing of your
struggles;—oh no, not one word of that!—but you
talk with amazing rapidity about your games, or what

not; and you never—never give her another peep
into your boyish heart!

For a week, you do not see her,—nor for a month,
—nor two months—nor three.

—Puff—puff once more; there is only a little
nauseous smoke and now—my cigar is gone out
altogether. I must light again.

2. II.
With a Wisp of Paper.

THERE are those who throw away a cigar, when
once gone out; they must needs have plenty
more. But nobody that I ever heard of, keeps a cedar
box of hearts, labelled at Havanna. Alas, there is
but one to light!

But can a heart once lit, be lighted again? Authority
on this point is worth something; yet it should
be impartial authority. I should be loth to take in
evidence, for the fact,—however it might tally with
my hope, the affidavit of some rakish old widower,
who had cast his weeds, before the grass had started
on the mound of his affliction; and I should be as
slow to take, in way of rebutting testimony, the oath
of any sweet young girl, just becoming conscious of
her heart's existence—by its loss.

Very much, it seems to me, depends upon the
quality of the fire: and I can easily conceive of one
so pure, so constant, so exhausting, that if it were
once gone out, whether in the chills of death, or under
the blasts of pitiless fortune, there would be no re-kindling;—simply
because there would be nothing
left to kindle. And I can imagine too a fire so
earnest, and so true, that whatever malice might urge,
or a devilish ingenuity devise, there could no other
be found, high or low, far or near, which should not
so contrast with the first, as to make it seem cold as
ice.

I remember in an old play of Davenport's, the
hero is led to doubt his mistress; he is worked upon
by slanders, to quit her altogether,—though he has
loved, and does still love passionately. She bids him
adieu, with large tears dropping from her eyes, (and I
lay down my cigar, to recite it aloud, fancying all the
while, with a varlet impudence, that some Abstemia
is repeating it to me)—

—Poor Abstemia! Lorenzo never could find
such another,—there never could be such another, for
such Lorenzo.

To blaze anew, it is essential that the old fire be
utterly gone; and can any truly-lighted soul ever
grow cold, except the grave cover it? The poets all
say no: Othello, had he lived a thousand years
would not have loved again;—nor Desdemona,—nor
Andromache,—nor Medea,—nor Ulysses,—nor Hamlet.
But in the cool wreaths of the pleasant smoke,
let us see what truth is in the poets.

—What is love,—mused I,—at the first, but a
mere fancy? There is a prettiness, that your soul
cleaves to, as your eye to a pleasant flower, or your
ear to a soft melody. Presently, admiration comes
in, as a sort of balance-wheel for the eccentric revolutions
of your fancy; and your admiration is touched
off with such neat quality as respect. Too much of
this indeed, they say, deadens the fancy; and so retards
the action of the heart machinery. But with a
proper modicum to serve as a stock, devotion is
grafted in; and then, by an agreeable and confused

mingling, all these qualities, and affections of the
soul, become transfused into that vital feeling, called
Love.

Your heart seems to have gone over to another
and better counterpart of your humanity; what is
left of you, seems the mere husk of some kernel that
has been stolen. It is not an emotion of yours,
which is making very easy voyages towards another
soul,—that may be shortened, or lengthened, at will;
but it is a passion, that is only yours, because it is
there; the more it lodges there, the more keenly you
feel it to be yours.

The qualities that feed this passion, may indeed
belong to you; but they never gave birth to such an
one before, simply because there was no place in
which it could grow. Nature is very provident in
these matters. The chrysalis does not burst, until
there is a wing to help the gauze-fly upward. The
shell does not break, until the bird can breathe; nor
does the swallow quit its nest, until its wings are tipped
with the airy oars.

This passion of love is strong, just in proportion as
the atmosphere it finds, is tender of its life. Let that
atmosphere change into too great coldness, and the
passion becomes a wreck,—not yours, because it is
not worth your having;—nor vital, because it has lost
the soil where it grew. But is it not laying the reproach

in a high quarter, to say that those qualities
of the heart which begot this passion, are exhausted,
and will not thenceforth germinate through all of your
life time?

—Take away the worm-eaten frame from your
arbour plant, and the wrenched arms of the despoiled
climber will not at the first, touch any new trellis;
they cannot in a day, change the habit of a year.
But let the new support stand firmly, and the needy
tendrils will presently lay hold upon the stranger;
and your plant will regain its pride and pomp;—
cherishing perhaps in its bent figure, a memento of
the Old; but in its more earnest, and abounding life,
mindful only of its sweet dependance on the New.

Let the Poets say what they will, these affections
of ours are not blind, stupid creatures, to starve under
polar snows, when the very breezes of Heaven are
the appointed messengers to guide them toward
warmth and sunshine!

—And with a little suddenness of manner, I
tear off a wisp of paper, and holding it in the blaze
of my lamp, relight my cigar. It does not burn so
easily perhaps as at first:—it wants warming, before
it will catch; but presently, it is in a broad, full
glow, that throws light into the corners of my room.

—Just so,—thought I,—the love of youth,
which succeeds the crackling blaze of boyhood,

makes a broader flame, though it may not be so easily
kindled. A mere dainty step, or a curling lock, or a
soft blue eye are not enough; but in her, who has
quickened the new blaze, there is a blending of all
these, with a certain sweetness of soul, that finds
expression in whatever feature or motion you look
upon. Her charms steal over you gently, and almost
imperceptibly. You think that she is a pleasant
companion—nothing more: and you find the opinion
strongly confirmed day by day;—so well confirmed,
indeed, that you begin to wonder—why it is, that she
is such a delightful companion? It cannot be her
eye, for you have seen eyes almost as pretty as
Nelly's; nor can it be her mouth, though Nelly's
mouth is certainly very sweet. And you keep
studying what on earth it can be that makes you so
earnest to be near her, or to listen to her voice.
The study is pleasant. You do not know any study
that is more so; or which you accomplish with less
mental fatigue.

Upon a sudden, some fine day, when the air is
balmy, and the recollection of Nelly's voice and
manner, more balmy still, you wonder—if you are
in love? When a man has such a wonder, he is
either very near love, or he is very far away from it;
it is a wonder, that is either suggested by his hope,

or by that entanglement of feeling which blunts all
his perceptions.

But if not in love, you have at least a strong
fancy,—so strong, that you tell your friends carelessly,
that she is a nice girl,—nay, a beautiful girl;
and if your education has been bad, you strengthen
the epithet on your own tongue, with a very wicked
expletive:—of which the mildest form would be—
`deuced fine girl!' Presently, however, you get
beyond this; and your companionship, and your
wonder, relapse into a constant, quiet habit of unmistakeable
love:—not impulsive, quick, and fiery,
like the first; but mature and calm. It is as if it
were born with your soul, and the recognition of it
was rather an old remembrance, than a fresh passion.
It does not seek to gratify its exuberance, and force,
with such relief as night-serenades, or any Jacqueslike
meditations in the forest; but it is a quiet, still
joy, that floats on your hope, into the years to come,—
making the prospect all sunny and joyful.

It is a kind of oil and balm for whatever was
stormy, or harmful; it gives a permanence to the
smile of existence. It does not make the sea of your
life turbulent with high emotions, as if a strong wind
were blowing;—but it is as if an Aphrodite had
broken on the surface, and the ripples were spreading

with a sweet, low sound, and widening far out to the
very shores of time.

There is no need now, as with the boy, to bolster
up your feelings with extravagant vows: even should
yeu try this in her presence, the words are lacking to
put such vows in. So soon as you reach them, they
fail you: and the oath only quivers on the lip, or tells
its story by a pressure of the fingers. You wear a
brusque, pleasant air with your acquaintances, and
hint—with a sly look—at possible changes in your
circumstances. Of an evening, you are kind to the
most unattractive of the wall-flowers,—if only your
Nelly is away; and you have a sudden charity for
street beggars, with pale children. You catch yourself
taking a step in one of the new Polkas, upon a
country walk: and wonder immensely at the number
of bright days which succeed each other, without
leaving a single stormy gap, for your old melancholy
moods. Even the chambermaids at your hotel, never
did their duty one half so well; and as for your man
Tom, he is become a perfect pattern of a fellow.

My cigar is in a fine glow; but it has gone out
once, and it may go out again.

—You begin to talk of marriage; but some
obstinate Papa, or guardian uncle think that it will
never do;—that it is quite too soon, or that Nelly is
a mere girl. Or some of your wild oats,—quite

forgotten by yourself,—shoot up on the vision of a
staid Mamma, and throw a very damp shadow on
your character. Or the old lady has an ambition of
another sort, which you, a simple, earnest, plodding,
bachelor, can never gratify;—being of only passable
appearance, and unschooled in the fashions of the
world, you will be eternally rubbing the elbows of the
old lady's pride.

All this will be strangely afflictive to one who has
been living for quite a number of weeks, or months,
in a pleasant dream-land, where there were no five
per cents, or reputations, but only a very full, and
delirious flow of feeling. What care you for any
position, except a position near the being that you
love? What wealth do you prize, except a wealth of
heart, that shall never know diminution;—or for
reputation, except that of truth; and of honor? How
hard it would break upon these pleasant idealities, to
have a weazen-faced old guardian, set his arm in
yours, and tell you how tenderly he has at heart the
happiness of his niece;—and reason with you about
your very small, and sparse dividends, and your
limited business;—and caution you,—for he has a
lively regard for your interests,—about continuing
your addresses!

—The kind old eurmudgeon!

Your man Tom has grown suddenly a very stupid

fellow; and all your charity for withered wall-flowers,
is gone. Perhaps in your wrath the suspicion comes
over you, that she too wishes you were something
higher, or more famous, or richer, or anything but what
you are!—a very dangerous suspicion: for no man
with any true nobility of soul, can ever make his
heart the slave of another's condescension.

But no,—you will not, you cannot believe this of
Nelly;—that face of hers is too mild and gracious;
and her manner, as she takes your hand, after your
heart is made sad, and turns away those rich blue
eyes,—shadowed more deeply than ever by the long
and moistened fringe;—and the exquisite softness, and
meaning of the pressure of those little fingers;—and
the low, half sob; and the heaving of that bosom, in
its struggles between love, and duty,—all forbid.
Nelly, you could swear, is tenderly indulgent, like the
fond creature that she is, toward all your short-comings;
and would not barter your strong love, and
your honest heart, for the greatest magnate in the
land.

What a spur to effort is the confiding love of a true-hearted
woman! That last fond look of hers, hopeful,
and encouraging, has more power within it to
nerve your soul to high deeds, than all the admonitions
of all your tutors. Your heart, beating large
with hope, quickens the flow upon the brain; and

you make wild vows to win greatness. But alas, this
is a great world—very full, and very rough;

Hard, withering toil only can achieve a name; and
long days, and months, and years, must be passed in
the chase of that bubble—reputation; which when
once grasped, breaks in your eager clutch, into a
hundred lesser bubbles, that soar above you still!

A clandestine meeting from time to time, and a
note or two tenderly written, keep up the blaze in
your heart. But presently, the lynx-eyed old guardian—so
tender of your interests, and hers,—forbids
even this irregular and unsatisfying correspondence.
Now you can feed yourself only on stray glimpses of
her figure—as full of sprightliness and grace, as ever;
and that beaming face, you are half sorry to see from
time to time,—still beautiful. You struggle with your
moods of melancholy, and wear bright looks yourself—
bright to her, and very bright to the eye of the old
curmudgeon, who has snatched your heart away. It
will never do to show your weakness to a man.

At length, on some pleasant morning, you learn
that she is gone,—too far away to be seen, too

closely guarded to be reached. For a while you
throw down your books, and abandon your toil in
despair,—thinking very bitter thoughts, and making
very helpless resolves.

My cigar is still burning; but it will require constant
and strong respiration, to keep it in a glow.

A letter or two dispatched at random, relieve the
excess of your fever; until with practice, these random
letters have even less heat in them, than the
heat of your study, or of your business. Grief—
thank God!—is not so progressive, or so cumulative
as joy. For a time, there is a pleasure in the mood,
with which you recal your broken hopes; and with
which you selfishly link hers to the shattered wreck;
but absence, and ignorance tame the point of your
woe. You call up the image of Nelly, adorning other
and distant scenes. You see the tearful smile give
place to a blithesome cheer; and the thought of you
that shaded her fair face so long, fades under the sunshine
of gaiety; or at best, it only seems to cross
that white forehead, like a playful shadow, that a
fleecy cloud-remnant will fling upon a sunny lawn.

As for you, the world with its whirl and roar, is
deafening the sweet, distant notes, that come up
through old, choked channels of the affections. Life
is calling for earnestness, and not for regrets. So
the months, and the years slip by; your bachelor

habit grows easy and light with wearing; you have
mourned enough, to smile at the violent mourning of
others; and you have enjoyed enough, to sigh over
their little eddies of delight. Dark shades, and delicious
streaks of crimson and gold colour lie upon your
life. Your heart with all its weight of ashes, can yet
sparkle at the sound of a fairy step; and your face
can yet open into a round of joyous smiles,—that are
almost hopes,—in the presence of some bright-eyed
girl.

But amid this, there will float over you from time
to time, a midnight trance, in which you will hear
again with a thirsty ear, the witching melody of the
days that are gone; and you will wake from it with a
shudder into the cold resolves of your lonely, and
manly life. But the shudder passes as easy as night
from morning. Tearful regrets, and memories that
touch to the quick, are dull weapons to break through
the panoply of your seared, eager, and ambitious
manhood. They only venture out like timid, white-winged
flies, when night is come; and at the first
glimpse of the dawn, they shrivel up, and lie without a
flutter, in some corner of your soul.

And when, years after, you learn that she has returned—a
woman, there is a slight glow, but no
tumultuous bound of the heart. Life, and time
have worried you down like a spent hound. The

world has given you a habit of easy and unmeaning
smiles. You half accuse yourself of ingratitude and
forgetfulness; but the accusation does not oppress
you. It does not even distract your attention from
the morning journal. You cannot work yourself into
a respectable degree of indignation against the old
gentleman—her guardian.

You sigh—poor thing!—and in a very flashy
waistcoat, you venture a morning call.

She meets you kindly,—a comely, matronly dame
in gingham, with her curls all gathered under a high-topped
comb; and she presents to you two little boys
in smart crimson jackets, dressed up with braid. And
you dine with Madame—a family party; and the
weazen-faced old gentleman meets you with a most
pleasant shake of the hand,—hints that you were
among his niece's earliest friends, and hopes that you
are getting on well?

—Capitally well!

And the boys toddle in at dessert—Dick to get a
plum from your own dish; Tom to be kissed by his
rosy-faced papa. In short, you are made perfectly
at home; and you sit over your wine for an hour, in
a cozy smoke with the gentlemanly uncle, and with
the very courteous husband of your second flame.

It is all very jovial at the table; for good wine, is
I find, a great strengthener of the bachelor heart.

But afterward, when night has fairly set in, and the
blaze of your fire goes flickering over your lonely
quarters, you heave a deep sigh. And as your
thought runs back to the perfidious Louise, and calls
up the married, and matronly Nelly, you sob over
that poor dumb heart within you, which craves so
madly a free and joyous utterance! And as you lean
over with your forehead in your hands, and your eyes
fall upon the old hound slumbering on the rug,—the
tears start, and you wish,—that you had married
years ago;—and that you too had your pair of prattling
boys, to drive away the loneliness of your solitary
hearth stone.

—My cigar would not go; it was fairly out.
But with true bachelor obstinacy, I vowed that I
would light again.

3. III.
Lighted with a Match.

I HATE a match. I feel sure that brimstone
matches were never made in heaven; and it is
sad to think, that with few exceptions, matches are all
of them tipped with brimstone.

But my taper having burned out, and the coals
being all dead upon the hearth, a match is all that is
left to me.

All matches will not blaze on the first trial; and
there are those, that with the most indefatigable
coaxings, never show a spark. They may indeed
leave in their trail phosphorescent streaks; but you
can no more light your cigar at them, than you can
kindle your heart, at the covered wife-trails, which
the infernal, gossipping, old match-makers will lay
in your path.

Was there ever a bachelor of seven and twenty, I
wonder, who has not been haunted by pleasant old
ladies, and trim, excellent, good-natured, married
friends, who talk to him about nice matches—`very
nice matches,'—matches, which never go off? And
who, pray, has not had some kind old uncle, to fill
two sheets for him, (perhaps in the time of heavy
postages) about some most eligible connection,—`of
highly respectable parentage!'

What a delightful thing, surely, for a withered
bachelor, to bloom forth in the dignity of an ancestral
tree! What a precious surprise for him, who
has all his life worshipped the wing-heeled Mercury,
to find on a sudden, a great stock of preserved, and
most respectable Penates!

—In God's name,—thought I, puffing vehemently,—what
is a man's heart given him for, if not to
choose, where his heart's blood, every drop of it is
flowing? Who is going to dam these billowy tides of
the soul, whose roll is ordered by a planet greater
than the moon;—and that planet—Venus? Who is
going to shift this vane of my desires, when every
breeze that passes in my heaven is keeping it all the
more strongly, to its fixed bearings?

Beside this, there are the money matches, urged
upon you by disinterested bachelor friends, who
would be very proud to see you at the head of an

establishment. And I must confess that this kind of
talk has a pleasant jingle about it; and is one of the
cleverest aids to a bachelor's day-dreams, that can
well be imagined. And let not the pouting lady
condemn me, without a hearing.

It is certainly cheerful to think,—for a contemplative
bachelor,—that the pretty ermine which so sets
off the transparent hue of your imaginary wife, or the
lace which lies so bewitchingly upon the superb
roundness of her form,—or the graceful boddice,
trimmed to a line, which is of such exquisite adaptation
to her lithe figure, will be always at her command;—nay,
that these are only units among the
chameleon hues, under which you shall feed upon her
beauty! I want to know if it is not a pretty cabinet
picture, for fancy to luxuriate upon—that of a sweet
wife, who is cheating hosts of friends into love, sympathy
and admiration, by the modest munificence of
her wealth? Is it not rather agreeable, to feed your
hopeful soul upon that abundance, which, while it
supplies her need, will give a range to her loving
charities;—which will keep from her brow the
shadows of anxiety, and will sublime her gentle nature,
by adding to it the grace of an angel of mercy?

Is it not rich, in those days when the pestilent humours
of bachelorhood hang heavy on you, to foresee in
that shadowy realm, where hope is a native, the quiet

of a home, made splendid with attractions; and made
real, by the presence of her, who bestows them?—
Upon my word—thought I, as I continued puffing,—
such a match must make a very grateful lighting of
one's inner sympathies; nor am I prepared to say,
that such associations would not add force to the most
abstract love imaginable.

Think of it for a moment;—what is it, that we
poor fellows love? We love, if one may judge for
himself, over his cigar,—gentleness, beauty, refinement,
generosity, and intelligence,—and far above
these, a returning love, made up of all these qualities,
and gaining upon your love, day by day, and month
by month, like a sunny morning, gaining upon the
frosts of night.

But wealth is a great means of refinement; and it
is a security for gentleness, since it removes disturbing
anxieties; and it is a pretty promoter of intelligence,
since it multiplies the avenues for its reception;
and it is a good basis for a generous habit of
life; it even equips beauty, neither hardening its
hand with toil, nor tempting the wrinkles to come
early. But whether it provokes greatly that returning
passion,—that abnegation of soul,—that sweet
trustfulness, and abiding affection, which are to clothe
your heart with joy, is far more doubtful. Wealth
while it gives so much, asks much in return; and

the soul that is grateful to mammon, is not over
ready to be grateful for intensity of love. It is hard
to gratify those, who have nothing left to gratify.

Heaven help the man who having wearied his soul
with delays and doubts, or exhausted the freshness,
and exuberance of his youth,—by a hundred little
dallyings of love,—consigns himself at length to the
issues of what people call a nice match—whether of
money, or of family!

Heaven help you—(I brushed the ashes from my
cigar) when you begin to regard marriage as only a
respectable institution, and under the advices of staid
old friends, begin to look about you for some very
respectable wife. You may admire her figure, and
her family; and bear pleasantly in mind the very
casual mention which has been made by some of
your penetrating friends,—that she has large expectations.
You think that she would make a very
capital appearance at the head of your table; nor in
the event of your coming to any public honor, would
she make you blush for her breeding. She talks
well, exceedingly well; and her face has its charms;
especially under a little excitement. Her dress is
elegant, and tasteful, and she is constantly remarked
upon by all your friends, as a `nice person.' Some
good old lady, in whose pew she occasionally sits on a
Sunday, or to whom she has sometime sent a papier

maché card-case, for the show-box of some Dorcas
benevolent society, thinks,—with a sly wink,—that
she would make a fine wife for—somebody.

She certainly has an elegant figure; and the marriage
of some half dozen of your old flames, warn you
that time is slipping and your chances failing. And
in the pleasant warmth of some after-dinner mood,
you resolve—with her image in her prettiest pelisse
drifting across your brain—that you will marry.
Now comes the pleasant excitement of the chase;
and whatever family dignity may surround her, only
adds to the pleasurable glow of the pursuit. You
give an hour more to your toilette, and a hundred or
two more, a year, to your tailor. All is orderly,
dignified, and gracious. Charlotte is a sensible woman,
every body says; and you believe it yourself.
You agree in your talk about books, and churches,
and flowers. Of course she has good taste—for she
accepts you. The acceptance is dignified, elegant,
and even courteous.

You receive numerous congratulations; and your
old friend Tom writes you—that he hears you are
going to marry a splendid woman; and all the old
ladies say—what a capital match! And your business
partner, who is a married man, and something
of a wag—`sympathizes sincerely.' Upon the whole,
you feel a little proud of your arrangement. You

write to an old friend in the country, that you are to
marry presently Miss Charlotte of such a street,
whose father was something very fine, in his way;
and whose father before him was very distinguished;
—you add, in a postscript, that she is easily situated,
and has `expectations.' Your friend, who has a wife
that he loves, and that loves him, writes back kindly
—`hoping you may be happy;' and hoping so yourself,
you light your cigar,—one of your last bachelor
cigars,—with the margin of his letter.

The match goes off with a brilliant marriage;—at
which you receive a very elegant welcome from your
wife's spinster cousins,—and drink a great deal of
champagne with her bachelor uncles. And as you
take the dainty hand of your bride,—very magnificent
under that bridal wreath, and with her face lit
up by a brilliant glow,—your eye, and your soul, for
the first time, grow full. And as your arm circles
that elegant figure, and you draw her toward you,
feeling that she is yours,—there is a bound at your
heart, that makes you think your soul-life is now
whole, and earnest. All your early dreams, and imaginations,
come flowing on your thought, like bewildering
music; and as you gaze upon her,—the admiration
of that crowd,—it seems to you, that all that
your heart prizes, is made good by the accident of
marriage.

—Ah—thought I, brushing off the ashes again,—
bridal pictures are not home pictures; and the hour
at the altar, is but a poor type of the waste of years!

Your household is elegantly ordered; Charlotte
has secured the best of housekeepers, and she meets
the compliments of your old friends who come to dine
with you, with a suavity, that is never at fault. And
they tell you,—after the cloth is removed, and you
sit quietly smoking in memory of the old times,—
that she is a splendid woman. Even the old ladies
who come for occasional charities, think Madame a
pattern of a lady; and so think her old admirers,
whom she receives still with an easy grace, that half
puzzles you. And as you stand by the ball room
door, at two of the morning, with your Charlotte's
shawl upon your arm, some little panting fellow will
confirm the general opinion, by telling you that
Madame is a magnificent dancer; and Monsieur le
Comte, will praise extravagantly her French. You
are grateful for all this; but you have an uncommonly
serious way of expressing your gratitude.

You think you ought to be a very happy fellow;
and yet long shadows do steal over your thought;
and you wonder that the sight of your Charlotte in
the dress you used to admire so much, does not scatter
them to the winds; but it does not. You feel
coy about putting your arm around that delicately

robed figure,—you might derange the plaitings of her
dress. She is civil towards you; and tender towards
your bachelor friends. She talks with dignity,—adjusts
her lace cape,—and hopes you will make a
figure in the world, for the sake of the family. Her
cheek is never soiled with a tear; and her smiles are
frequent, especially when you have some spruce
young fellows at your table.

You catch sight of occasional notes perhaps, whose
superscription you do not know; and some of her admirers'
attentions become so pointed, and constant,
that your pride is stirred. It would be silly to show
jealousy; but you suggest to your `dear'—as you
sip your tea,—the slight impropriety of her action.

Perhaps you fondly long for some little scene, as a
proof of wounded confidence;—but no—nothing of
that; she trusts, (calling you `my dear,') that she
knows how to sustain the dignity of her position.

You are too sick at heart, for comment, or for
reply.

—And is this the intertwining of soul, of which
you had dreamed in the days that are gone? Is this
the blending of sympathies that was to steal from life
its bitterness; and spread over care and suffering, the
sweet, ministering hand of kindness, and of love?
Aye, you may well wander back to your bachelor
club, and make the hours long at the journals, or at

play—killing the flagging lapse of your life! Talk
sprightly with your old friends,—and mimic the joy
you have not; or you will wear a bad name upon
your hearth, and head. Never suffer your Charlotte
to catch sight of the tears which in bitter hours, may
start from your eye; or to hear the sighs which in
your times of solitary musings, may break forth sudden,
and heavy. Go on counterfeiting your life, as
you have begun. It was a nice match; and you are
a nice husband!

But you have a little boy, thank God, toward
whom your heart runs out freely; and you love to
catch him in his respite from your well-ordered nursery,
and the tasks of his teachers—alone;—and to
spend upon him a little of that depth of feeling,
which through so many years has scarce been stirred.
You play with him at his games; you fondle him;
you take him to your bosom.

—But papa—he says—see how you have tumbled
my collar. What shall I tell mamma?

—Tell her, my boy, that I love you!

Ah, thought I—(my cigar was getting dull, and
nauseous,)—is there not a spot in your heart, that
the gloved hand of your elegant wife has never
reached:—that you wish it might reach?

You go to see a far-away friend: his was not a
`nice match:' he was married years before you: and

yet the beaming looks of his wife, and his lively
smile, are as fresh and honest as they were years
ago; and they make you ashamed of your disconsolate
humour. Your stay is lengthened, but the
home letters are not urgent for your return: yet
they are marvellously proper letters, and rounded
with a French adieu. You could have wished a little
scrawl from your boy at the bottom, in the place of
the postscript which gives you the names of a new
opera troupe; and you hint as much—a very bold
stroke for you.

Ben,—she says,—writes too shamefully.

And at your return, there is no great anticipation
of delight; in contrast with the old dreams, that a
pleasant summer's journey has called up, your parlour
as you enter it—so elegant, so still—so modish—
seems the charnel-house of your heart.

By and by, you fall into weary days of sickness;
you have capital nurses—nurses highly recommended—nurses
who never make mistakes—nurses who
have served long in the family. But alas for that
heart of sympathy, and for that sweet face, shaded
with your pain—like a soft landscape with flying
clouds—you have none of them! Your pattern wife
may come in from time to time to look after your
nurse, or to ask after your sleep, and glide out—her
silk dress rustling upon the door—like dead leaves

in the cool night breezes of winter. Or perhaps
after putting this chair in its place, and adjusting to a
more tasteful fold that curtain—she will ask you, with
a tone that might mean sympathy, if it were not a
stranger to you,—if she can do anything more.

Thank her—as kindly as you can, and close your
eyes, and dream:—or rouse up, to lay your hand
upon the head of your little boy,—to drink in health,
and happiness, from his earnest look, as he gazes
strangely upon your pale and shrunken forehead.
Your smile even, ghastly with long suffering, disturbs
him; there is no interpreter, save the heart, between
you.

Your parched lips feel strangely, to his flushed,
healthful face; and he steps about on tip-toe, at a
motion from the nurse, to look at all those rosy-colored
medicines upon the table,—and he takes
your cane from the corner, and passes his hand over
the smooth ivory head; and he runs his eye along the
wall from picture to picture, till it rests on one he
knows,—a figure in bridal dress,—beautiful, almost
fond;—and he forgets himself, and says aloud—
`there's mamma!'

The nurse puts her finger to her lip; you waken
from your doze to see where your eager boy is looking;
and your eyes too, take in much as they can of

that figure—now shadowy to your fainting vision—
doubly shadowy to your fainting heart!

From day to day, you sink from life: the physician
says the end is not far off; why should it be?
There is very little elastic force within you to keep
the end away. Madame is called, and your little
boy. Your sight is dim, but they whisper that she
is beside your bed; and you reach out your hand—
both hands. You fancy you hear a sob:—a strange
sound! It seems as if it came from distant years—
a confused, broken sigh, sweeping over the long
stretch of your life: and a sigh from your heart—
not audible—answers it.

Your trembling fingers clutch the hand of your
little boy, and you drag him toward you, and move
your lips, as if you would speak to him; and they
place his head near you, so that you feel his fine hair
brushing your cheek.—My boy, you must love—
your mother!

Your other hand feels a quick, convulsive grasp,
and something like a tear drops upon your face.
Good God!—Can it be indeed a tear?

You strain your vision, and a feeble smile flits
over your features, as you seem to see her figure—
the figure of the painting—bending over you; and
you feel a bound at your heart—the same bound that
you felt on your bridal morning;—the same bound

which you used to feel in the spring-time of your
life.

—Only one—rich, full bound of the heart;—
that is all!

—My cigar was out. I could not have lit it
again, if I would. It was wholly burned.

“Aunt Tabithy”—said I, as I finished reading,—
“may I smoke now under your rose tree?”

Aunt Tabithy who had laid down her knitting to
hear me,—smiled,—brushed a tear from her old
eyes,—said,—“Yes—Isaac,” and having scratched
the back of her head, with the disengaged needle,
resumed her knitting.