The Tell-Tale Heart - The Pioneer, January 1843 — reading text

with dreary moan Drifts the helpless blossom seaward, Through the breakers all alone. IS 6 Stands a maiden on the morrow, Musing by the wave-beat strand, Half in hope and half in sorrow Tracing words upon the sand. 2. ‘¢ Shall I ever then behold him Who hath been my life so long, — Ever to this sick heart fold him, — Be the spirit of his song?  THE ROSE. 3 ‘¢ Touch not, sea, the blessed letters I have traced upon thy shore, e Spare his name whose spirit fetters Mine with love forevermore ! ”’ 4 Swells the tide and overflows it, But, with omen pure and sweet, Brings a little rose and throws it Humbly at the maiden’s feet. 5 Full of bliss she takes the token, And, upon her snowy breast, Soothes the ruffled petals broken With the ocean’s fierce unrest. 6 ‘¢ Love is thine, oh heart, and surely Peace shall also be thine own, For the heart that trusteth purely Never long can pine alone.”’ In his tower sits the poet, Mi Blisses new and strange to him Fill his heart and overflow it With a wonder sweet and dim. 9 we Up the beach the ocean slideth With a whisper of delight, And the moon in silence glideth Through the peaceful blue of night. 3. Rippling o’er the poet’s shoulder Flows a maiden’s golden hair, Maiden-lips with love grown bolder, Kiss his moonlit forehead bare. 4. ‘* Life is joy, and love is power, Death all fetters doth unbind, Strength and wisdom only flower When we toil for all our kind. 5. ‘* Hope is truth, — the future giveth More than present takes away, And the soul forever liveth Nearer God from day to day.”’ 6. Not a word the maiden uttered, Fullest hearts are slow to speak, But a withered roseleaf fluttered eee “Seay > Down upon the poet’s cheek. ee ee 6 .-wer. oe a pe - -  i4 42 THE PIONEER. LITERARY NOTICES. oe — ae > HawTuHorne’s Historica TALEs For Youtu. Two Formerly, the mind was reached through the body, volumes. Boston: Tappan and Dennett, 1842. 2d and many a hapless urchin had good cause to wish edition. himself at all points physically the cherub which the When a man of acknowledged genius gives himself eS. —T partiality of maternal fondness had often metaphori- to the task of writing books for children, we know cally designated him, This was far better than not whether to feel more surprise or grateful delight. reaching the body through the soul, and making it That one whose pen always commands the loving ad- precise and patternlike, when it should have revelled Se Queer miration of his countrymen, should quietly turn aside in that healthy boisterousness which it was the aim from the alluring road which was leading him right and end of elaborate Goodyism and Mrs. Barbauldism onward to the height of ambition, to do a work of to repress. We copy here “ the description of a good humble charity, whose silent consciousness must be boy,” being the twenty-third lesson in the “ Youth’s its only reward, is a rare thing, and as purely beauti- Instructor,” a manual] printed at Boston in 1762. The ful as itis rare. But we are used to look for beautiful enticing garb of verse in which our great-grand fathers things from the author of “ Twice Told Tales.” arrayed their instruction, will amuse our readers. It has too long been a vulgar error, more deadly than any which the wise Sir Thomas Browne rooted “ The boy that is good Does mind book well, out, that no elderly male or female (of good charac- And if he can’t read, ter) could be too stupid to write a book for children. Will strive for to spell. While the quantity of a child’s imagination was as yet hypothetical, it was ingeniously supposed that it had * His school he does love, none at all, and, while romance was sternly outlawed And when he is there, For plays and for toys from the nursery, pedantic commonplace and mathe- No time can he spare. matical morality, inculcated till dulness and virtue grew in the childish mind to be convertible terms, ‘‘ His mind is full bent On what he is taught, reigned paramount there. Even that mysterious rep- He sits in his school resentation of a supposed female with a helmet As one full of thought. (whether Minerva or Joan of Arc was problematical) who directed the gaze of a very curly headed neophyte ae —_ not as @ mope Who quakes out of fear to where in the proud temple of fame, upon a neigh- The whip or the rod boring eminence, sat the “good boy,” studiously pe- May fall to his share. rusing Worcester’s First Lessons, while below, the “naughty boy” lay idly under a tree (probably a * But like a good lad Who aims to be wise, birch, prophetic as Dodonian oak to the initiated) — He thinks on his book even this was banished by the blighting progress of And not on his toys. improvement. Nay, that enticing portraiture of the tree of knowledge, loaden with ruddy apples (which “ His mien will be grave, sad experience afterwards detected as crabs) and Yet if you would know, He plays with an air, wickedly suggestive of orchards and green fields, which hen a dunce dare not so. erewhile fronted the title-page of spelling-books, with the cabalistic word “ frontispiece ” engraven thereun- * His aim is to learn, der, was torn out. As if learning, with which the His task is his play, And when he has learned, fancy and imagination (most active in those unmatter- He smiles and looks gay.” of-fact days) were forbidden to meddle, could be any- thing better than irksome and disgusting. Thank Compare this with the following instructive para- heaven, that the tales of Joseph and his brethren, ble. “Lesson xxxiv. The Fasre of a stubborn of Ruth, and of the Prodigal Son were still open in boy. In verse.” the Holy Book — perpetual springs where the thirsty “ A boy that once to school was sent young soul might drink in this Sahara of sandy plati- On plays and toys was so much bent, tudes! Better give a child Jack Sheppard to read, That all the art of man, they say ” — than let its imagination, the pure spring of all reli- (Mark the happily implied doubt in this “ they say,” gious feeling and aspiration, and all the fair benigni- as if the author could not bring himself to believe ties of its nature, pine for lack of food. Better leave that the existence of such a boy was anything more a child to mere nature than make it a cyclopedia of than traditional.) barren commonplaces. Better (to quote once more Lord Brougham’s hackneyed phrase) let the school- “Could not once make him say great A. master be forever abroad, or anywhere else, than have His friends that saw him in these fits, him haunt his young martyrs on the playground, Cried out, for shame, leave off thy tricks; Be not so dull, make it thy play turning their game of ball into a lesson in gravity, To learn thy book: come, say great A. and their “hop-scotch” ground into a geometrical The dunce then gaped, but did no more, diagram. Great A was then a great eyesore. —— :$ 3 4 LITERARY NOTICES. ; 43 The next ay jog him; sure, say they, life among animals ; and though the finer touches of ’*T is not so hard to say great A. character in the faces are necessarily lost, those in the No, no, but