'He went away,' added my companion, with a tone of despair I can never forget, 'and this is the last day of my life.' He then walked to the glazed door looking out on the park (it was open), and he exclaimed:
'Oh God! I shall see no more this beautiful sky, these green lawns, these sparkling waters; I shall never again breathe the balmy air of the spring! Madman that I was! I might have enjoyed for twenty-five years to come these blessings God has showered on all, blessings whose worth I knew not, and of which I am beginning to know the value. I have worn out my days, I have sacrificed my life for a vain chimera, for a sterile glory, which has not made me happy, and which died before me… See! see there!' said he, pointing to some peasants plodding their weary way homeward; 'what would I not give to share their labors and their poverty!.. But I have nothing to give, nothing to hope here below … nothing … not even misfortune!'… At this moment a sunbeam, a May sunbeam, lighted up his pale, haggard features; he took me by the arm with a sort of delirium, and said to me:
'See! oh see! how splendid is the sun!.. Oh! and I must leave all this!.. Oh! at the least let me enjoy it now… Let me taste to the full this pure and beautiful day … whose morrow I shall never see!'
He leaped into the park, and, before I could well comprehend what he was doing, he had disappeared down an alley. But, to speak truly, I could not have restrained him, even if I would… I had not now the strength; I fell back on the sofa, confounded, stunned, bewildered by all I had seen and heard. At length I arose and walked about the room to convince myself that I was awake, that I was not dreaming, that…
At this moment the door of the boudoir opened, and a servant announced:
'My master, Monsieur le Duc de C – .'
A gentleman some sixty years old and of a very aristocratic appearance came forward, and, taking me by the hand, begged my pardon for having kept me so long waiting.
'I was not at the chateau,' said he. 'I have just come from the town, where I have been to consult with the physicians about the health of the Count de C – , my younger brother.'
'Is he dangerously ill?'
'No, monsieur, thank Heaven, he is not; but in his youth visions of glory and of ambition had excited his imagination, and a grave fever, from which he has just recovered, and which came near proving fatal, has left his head in a state of delirium and insanity, which persuades him that he has only one day longer to live. That's his madness.'
Everything was explained to me now!
'Come, my young friend, now let us talk over your business; tell me what I can do for your advancement. We will go together to Versailles about the end of this month. I will present you at court.'
'I know how kind you are to me, duke, and I have come here to thank you for it.'
'What! have you renounced going to court, and to the advantages you may reckon on having there?'
'Yes.'
'But recollect, that aided by me, you will make a rapid progress, and that with a little assiduity and patience … say in ten years.'
'They would be ten years lost!'
'What!' exclaimed the duke with astonishment, 'is that purchasing too dearly glory, fortune, and fame?.. Silence, my young friend, we will go together to Versailles.'
'No, duke, I return to Brittany, and I beg you to accept my thanks and those of my family for your kindness.'
'You are mad!' said the duke.
But thinking over what I had heard and seen, I said to myself: 'You are the same!'
The next morning I turned my face homeward. With what pleasure I saw again my fine chateau de la Roche Bernard, the old trees of my park, and the beautiful sun of Brittany! I found again my vassals, my sisters, my mother, and happiness, which has never quitted me since, for eight days afterward I married Henrietta.
THE CHAINED RIVER
Home I love, I now must leave thee! Home I love, I now must go
Far away, although it grieve me, through the valley, through the snow.
By the night and through the valley, though the hail against us flies,
Till we reach the frozen river – on its bank the foeman lies.
Frozen river, mighty river! – wilt thou e'er again be free
From the fountain through the mountain, from the mountain to the sea.
Yes; though Freedom's glorious river for a time be frozen fast,
Still it cannot hold forever – Winter's reign will soon be past.
Still it runs, although 'tis frozen – on beneath the icy plain,
From the mountain to the ocean – free as thought, though held in chain.
From the mountain to the ocean, from the ocean to the sky,
Then in rainy drops returning – lo the ice-chains burst and fly!
And the ice makes great the river. Breast the spring-flood if you dare!
Rivers run though ice be o'er them – God and Freedom everywhere!
HOW THE WAR AFFECTS AMERICANS
At the outbreak of the present terrible civil war, the condition of the American people was apparently enviable beyond that of any other nation. We say apparently, because the seeds of the rebellion had long been germinating; and, to a philosophic eye, the great change destined to follow the rebellion was inevitable, though it was then impossible for human foresight to predict the steps by which that change would come. Unconscious of impending calamity, we were proud of our position and character as American citizens. We were free from oppressive taxation, and enjoyed unbounded liberty of speech and action. Revelling in the fertility of a virgin continent, unexampled in modern times for the facilities of cultivation and the richness of its return to human labor, it was a national characteristic to felicitate ourselves upon the general prosperity, and boastingly to compare our growing resources and our unlimited and almost spontaneous abundance, with the hard-earned and dearly purchased productions of other and more exhausted countries. Our population, swollen by streams of immigration from the crowded continents of the old world, has spread over the boundless plains of this, with amazing rapidity; and the physical improvements which have followed our wonderful expansion have been truly magical in their results, as shown by the decennial exhibits of the census, or presented in still more palpable form to the eye of the thoughtful and observant traveller. Since the fall of the Roman empire, no single government has possessed so magnificent a domain in the temperate regions of the globe; and certainly, no other people so numerous, intelligent, and powerful, has ever in any age of the world enjoyed the same unrestricted freedom in the pursuit of happiness: accordingly, none has ever exhibited the same extraordinary activity in enterprise, or equal success in the creation and accumulation of wealth. It was unfortunately true that our mighty energies were mostly employed in the production of physical results; and although our youthful, vigorous, and unrestricted efforts made these results truly marvellous, yet the moral and intellectual basis on which we built was not sufficiently broad and stable to sustain the vast superstructure of our prosperity. The foundations having been seriously disturbed, it becomes indispensable to look to their permanent security, whatever may be the temporary inconvenience arising from the necessary destruction of portions of the old fabric.
When the war began, the South was supplying the world with cotton – a staple which in modern times has become intimately connected with the physical well-being of the whole civilized world. At the same time, the Northwest was furnishing to all nations immense quantities of grain and animal food, her teeming fields presenting a sure resource against the uncertainty of seasons in those regions of the earth in which capital must supply the fertility which is still inexhaustible here. While such were the occupations of the South and the West, the North and East were advancing in the path of mechanical and commercial improvement, with a rapidity beyond all former