Harris was sent to school up to Perkins's;
couldn't stay; run away, and _borrowed_ a boat, and came home again;
afraid of his father, and hid in the barn. Dug a well in the hay,
and they used to lower him down things to eat, and water to drink in
scooped-out water-melon rinds."
* * * * *
THE SONG OF FATIMA.
On, sad are they who know not love,
But, far from passion's tears and smiles,
Drift down a moonless sea, and pass
The silver coasts of fairy isles!
And sadder they whose longing lips
Kiss empty air, and never touch
The dear warm mouth of those they love,
Waiting, wasting, suffering much!
But clear as amber, sweet as musk,
Is life to those whose lives unite:
They walk in Allah's smile by day,
And nestle in his heart by night!
SOMETHING ABOUT HISTORY.
There is no kind of writing which is undertaken so much from will and so
little from instinct as History. It seems the great resource of baffled
ambition, of leisure, of minds disciplined rather than inspired, of men
with pecuniary means and without professional obligations. Sympathy
with or opposition to an author prompts those thus situated to write
criticism; a dominant sentiment inspires poetical composition; and
usually an impressive experience suggests adventure in the field of
fiction: but we find educated men, in independent circumstances, not
remarkable for sensibility to Nature, acute critical perception, or
dramatic talent, whose literary aspirations are vague, and who desire
to be occupied eligibly, turn to History as the most available
vantage-ground, busy themselves with wars and councils that happened
ages ago,--with kings and soldiers, institutions and adventures,
politics and dynasties, so far removed from the associations and
interests of the hour, that only a scholar's enthusiasm or ambition
could sustain the research or keep alive the enterprise thus voluntarily
assumed.
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