For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not –and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, […]

Of course I shall not pretend to consider it any matter for wonder, that the extraordinary case of M. Valdemar has excited discussion. It would have been a miracle had it not—especially under the circumstances. Through the desire of all parties concerned, to keep the affair from the public, at least for the present, or […]

Qui n’a plus qu’un moment à vivreN’a plus rien à dissimuler. Quinault—Atys. Of my country and of my family I have little to say. Ill usage and length of years have driven me from the one, and estranged me from the other. Hereditary wealth afforded me an education of no common order, and a contemplative […]

THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could ; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At lengthI would be avenged ; this was a point definitively settled […]

What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad ! He hath been bitten by the Tarantula. —ALL IN THE WRONG MANY years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. […]

IN THE consideration of the faculties and impulses—of the prima mobiliaof the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally overlooked by all the moralists who have preceded them. In the pure arrogance of the reason, we have […]

Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio. —Seneca. At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18—, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet, au troisiême, No. 33, Rue Dunôt, Faubourg St. Germain. For […]

And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will. —Joseph […]

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond allconjecture. Sir Thomas Browne. THE mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other […]

Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit. Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro, Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent. [Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to he erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris. ] I was sick—sick unto death with that long […]

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal — the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body […]

True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am! but why willyou say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I […]

1839 Son cur est un luth suspendu ; Sitôt qu’on le touche il rèsonne. [[résonne. ]] De Béranger. DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract […]

What say of it? what say of CONSCIENCE grim, That spectre in my path? Chamberlayne’s Pharronida. LET me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. The fair page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real appellation. This has been already too much an object for the scorn — for the horror […]

It was a chilly November afternoon. I had just consummated an unusually hearty dinner, of which the dyspeptic truffe formed not the least important item, and was sitting alone in the dining-room with my feet upon the fender and at my elbow a small table which I had rolled up to the fire, and upon […]

I. How shall the burial rite be read? The solemn song be sung ? The requiem for the loveliest dead, That ever died so young? II. Her friends are gazing on her, And on her gaudy bier, And weep ! – oh! to dishonor Dead beauty with a tear! III. They loved her for her […]

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! My spirit not awak’ning, till the beam Of an Eternity should bring the morrow: Yes! tho’ that long dream were of hopeless sorrow, ‘Twere better than the dull reality Of waking life to him whose heart shall be, And hath been ever, on the chilly earth, […]

1 Thy soul shall find itself alone ‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone – Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy: 2 Be silent in that solitude Which is not loneliness – for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In […]

In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed — But a waking dreams of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted. Ah! what is not a dream by day To him whose eyes are cast On things around him with a ray Turned back upon the past? That holy dream — […]

ROMANCE, who loves to nod and sing, With drowsy head and folded wing, Among the green leaves as they shake Far down within some shadowy lake, To me a painted paroquet Hath been – a most familiar bird – Taught me my alphabet to say – To lisp my very earliest word While in the […]

DIM vales – and shadowy floods – And cloudy-looking woods, Whose forms we can’t discover For the tears that drip all over Huge moons there wax and wane – Again – again – again – Every moment of the night – Forever changing places – And they put out the star-light With the breath from […]

IN spring of youth it was my lot To haunt of the wide earth a spot The which I could not love the less — So lovely was the loneliness Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall pines that tower’d around. But when the Night had thrown her pall Upon that […]

‘TWAS noontide of summer, And midtime of night, And stars, in their orbits, Shone pale, through the light Of the brighter, cold moon. ‘Mid planets her slaves, Herself in the Heavens, Her beam on the waves. I gazed awhile On her cold smile; Too cold-too cold for me– There passed, as a shroud, A fleecy […]

I THE happiest day-the happiest hour My seared and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown. Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween But they have vanished long, alas! The visions of my youth have been But let them pass. III And pride, what have I […]

A dark unfathom’d tide Of interminable pride – A mystery, and a dream, Should my early life seem; I say that dream was fraught With a wild, and waking thought Of beings that have been, Which my spirit hath not seen, Had I let them pass me by, With a dreaming eye! Let none of […]

Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodius I WREATHED in myrtle, my sword I’ll conceal Like those champions devoted and brave, When they plunged in the tyrant their steel, And to Athens deliverance gave. II Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam In the joy breathing isles of the blest; Where the mighty of old have their home […]

“In Youth I Have Known One” How often we forget all time, when lone Admiring Nature’s universal throne; Her woods–her wilds–her mountains-the intense Reply of Hers to Our intelligence! I IN youth I have known one with whom the Earth In secret communing held-as he with it, In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth: […]

SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled […]

O ! NOTHING earthly save the ray (Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty’s eye, As in those gardens where the day Springs from the gems of Circassy – O ! nothing earthly save the thrill Of melody in woodland rill – Or (music of the passion-hearted) Joy’s voice so peacefully departed That like the murmur […]

KIND solace in a dying hour! Such, father, is not (now) my theme – I will not madly deem that power Of Earth may shrive me of the sin Unearthly pride hath revell’d in – I have no time to dote or dream: You call it hope – that fire of fire! It is but […]

HELEN, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, The weary way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And […]

Once it smiled a silent dell Where the people did not dwell; They had gone unto the wars, Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, Nightly, from their azure towers, To keep watch above the flowers, In the midst of which all day The red sun-light lazily lay. Now each visiter shall confess The sad valley’s restlessness. […]

IN Heaven a spirit doth dwell “Whose heart-strings are a lute;” None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell) Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute. Tottering above In her highest noon The enamoured moon Blushes with love, While, to listen, the red […]

1 The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see The wantonest singing birds Are lips – and all thy melody Of lip-begotten words – 2 Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrin’d Then desolately fall, O! God! on my funereal mind Like starlight on a pall – 3 Thy heart – thy heart! – I wake […]

I HEED not that my earthly lot Hath-little of Earth in it– That years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute:– I mourn not that the desolate Are happier, sweet, than I, But that you sorrow for my fate Who am a passer-by.

FAIR river! in thy bright, clear flow Of crystal, wandering water, Thou art an emblem of the glow Of beauty – the unhidden heart – The playful maziness of art In old Alberto’s daughter; But when within thy wave she looks – Which glistens then, and trembles – Why, then, the prettiest of brooks Her […]

I SAW thee on thy bridal day – When a burning blush came o’er thee, Though happiness around thee lay, The world all love before thee: And in thine eye a kindling light (Whatever it might be) Was all on Earth my aching sight Of Loveliness could see. That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame – […]

FAIR isle, that from the fairest of all flowers, Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take How many memories of what radiant hours At sight of thee and thine at once awake! How many scenes of what departed bliss! How many thoughts of what entombed hopes! How many visions of a maiden that is […]

AT morn – at noon – at twilight dim – Maria! thou hast heard my hymn! In joy and wo – in good and ill – Mother of God, be with me still! When the Hours flew brightly by And not a cloud obscured the sky, My soul, lest it should truant be, Thy grace […]

BY a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule – From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE – out of TIME. Bottomless vales and boundless floods, […]

THERE are some qualities — some incorporate things, That have a double life, which thus is made A type of that twin entity which springs From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade. There is a two-fold Silence — sea and shore — Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places, Newly with grass […]

LO ! ’tis a gala night Within the lonesome latter years! An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre, to see A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes fitfully The music of the spheres. Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble […]

IN the greenest of our valleys By good angels tenanted, Once a fair and stately palace — Radiant palace — reared its head. In the monarch Thought’s dominion — It stood there! Never seraph spread a pinion Over fabric half so fair. Banners yellow, glorious, golden, On its roof did float and flow, (This — […]

TYPE of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary Of lofty contemplation left to Time By buried centuries of pomp and power! At length – at length – after so many days Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst, (Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,) I kneel, an altered and an humble man, Amid […]

(*1) BY late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high state of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there occurred of a nature so completely unexpected — so entirely novel — so utterly at variance with preconceived opinions — as to leave no doubt on my mind that long ere this all […]

{*1} Es giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit parallel lauft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und zufalle modifieiren gewohulich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie unvollkommen erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen sind. So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das Lutherthum hervor. There are ideal series of events which run parallel […]

ALCMAN. The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags and caves are silent. “LISTEN to me,” said the Demon as he placed his hand upon my head. “The region of which I speak is a dreary region in Libya, by the borders of the river Zaire. And there is no quiet there, nor silence. “The waters of […]

THE chateau into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy […]

[Astounding News by Express, via Norfolk ! – The Atlantic crossed in Three Days ! Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason’s Flying Machine ! – Arrival at Sullivan’s Island, near Charlestown, S.C., of Mr. Mason, Mr. Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and four others, in the Steering Balloon, “Victoria,” after a passage of […]

THE HOMO-CAMELEOPARD Chacun a ses vertus. —Crebillon’s Xerxes. ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES is very generally looked upon as the Gog of the prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly attributable to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious embellishment. His […]

I will bring fire to thee. Euripides – Andromeda EIROS. WHY do you call me Eiros? CHARMION So henceforward will you always be called. You must forget too, my earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion. EIROS. This is indeed no dream! CHARMION. Dreams are with us no more; – but of these mysteries […]

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the Shadow: — Psalm of David. YE who read are still among the living; but I who write shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away, […]

These things are in the future. SOPHOCLES;Antig. Una. “Born again?” Monos. Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, “born again.” These were the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long pondered, rejecting the explanations of the priesthood, until Death himself resolved for me the secret. Una. Death! Monos. How strangely, sweet Una, you echo […]

OINOS. Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with immortality! AGATHOS. You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be demanded. Not even here is knowledge thing of intuition. For wisdom, ask of the angels freely, that it may be given! OINOS. But in this existence, I dreamed that I should […]

PERHAPS no exhibition of the kind has ever elicited so general attention as the Chess-Player of Maelzel. Wherever seen it has been an object of intense curiosity, to all persons who think. Yet the question of its modus operandi is still undetermined. Nothing has been written on this topic which can be considered as decisive–and […]

The garden like a lady fair was cut That lay as if she slumbered in delight, And to the open skies her eyes did shut; The azure fields of heaven were ‘sembled right In a large round set with flow’rs of light: The flowers de luce and the round sparks of dew That hung upon […]

Method is the soul of business. — OLD SAYING. I AM a business man. I am a methodical man. Method is the thing, after all. But there are no people I more heartily despise than your eccentric fools who prate about method without understanding it; attending strictly to its letter, and violating its spirit. These […]

A TALE OF THE LATE BUGABOO AND KICKAPOO CAMPAIGN. Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez vous en eau ! La moitié ; de ma vie a mis l’ autre au tombeau. CORNEILLE. I CANNOT just now remember when or where I first made the acquaintance of that truly fine-looking fellow, Brevet Brigadier General John A. […]

O Breathe not, etc. — Moore’s Melodies THE MOST notorious ill-fortune must in the end yield to the untiring courage of philosophy — as the most stubborn city to the ceaseless vigilance of an enemy. Shalmanezer, as we have it in holy writings, lay three years before Samaria; yet it fell. Sardanapalus — see Diodorus […]

SOME years ago, I engaged passage from Charleston, S. C, to the city of New York, in the fine packet-ship “Independence,” Captain Hardy. We were to sail on the fifteenth of the month (June), weather permitting; and on the fourteenth, I went on board to arrange some matters in my state-room. I found that we […]

And stepped at once into a cooler clime. — Cowper KEATS fell by a criticism. Who was it died of “The Andromache”? {*1} Ignoble souls! — De L’Omelette perished of an ortolan. L’histoire en est breve. Assist me, Spirit of Apicius! A golden cage bore the little winged wanderer, enamored, melting, indolent, to the Chaussee […]

TO THE EDITORS OF THE LADY’S BOOK: I have the honor of sending you, for your magazine, an article which I hope you will be able to comprehend rather more distinctly than I do myself. It is a translation, by my friend, Martin Van Buren Mavis, (sometimes called the “Poughkeepsie Seer”) of an odd-looking MS. […]

Sub conservatione formae specificae salva anima. Raymond Lully . I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence — whether much that is glorious- whether all that is […]

Dicebant mihi sodales, si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum forelevatas. – Ebn Zaiat. MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch – as distinct too, yet as intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the […]

A Pendant to “The Domain of Arnheim” DURING A pedestrian trip last summer, through one or two of the river counties of New York, I found myself, as the day declined, somewhat embarrassed about the road I was pursuing. The land undulated very remarkably; and my path, for the last hour, had wound about and […]

The garden like a lady fair was cut, That lay as if she slumbered in delight, And to the open skies her eyes did shut. The azure fields of Heaven were ‘sembled right In a large round, set with the flowers of light. The flowers de luce, and the round sparks of dew. That hung […]

THOU wast all that to me, love, For which my soul did pine — A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrime, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise But to be overcast! […]

THE ring is on my hand, And the wreath is on my brow; Satins and jewels grand Are all at my command, And I am happy now. And my lord he loves me well; But, when first he breathed his vow, I felt my bosom swell – For the words rang as a knell, And […]

At midnight in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapour, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top. Steals drowsily and musically Into the univeral valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; The lily lolls upon the wave; […]

Lo ! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Wherethe good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by […]

THERE are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction. These the mere romanticist must eschew, if he do not wish to offend or to disgust. They are with propriety handled only when the severity and majesty of Truth sanctify and sustain them. […]

Stay for me there ! I will not fail. To meet thee in that hollow vale. [Exequy on the death of his wife, by Henry King, Bishop of Chichester.] ILL-FATED and mysterious man ! – bewildered in the brilliancy of thine own imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own youth ! Again in […]

Nullus enim locus sine genio est. — Servius. “LA MUSIQUE,” says Marmontel, in those “Contes Moraux” {*1} which in all our translations, we have insisted upon calling “Moral Tales,” as if in mockery of their spirit — “la musique est le seul des talents qui jouissent de lui-meme; tous les autres veulent des temoins.” He […]

MANY years ago, it was the fashion to ridicule the idea of “love at first sight;” but those who think, not less than those who feel deeply, have always advocated its existence. Modern discoveries, indeed, in what may be termed ethical magnetism or magnetoesthetics, render it probable that the most natural, and, consequently, the truest […]

YOU hard-headed, dunder-headed, obstinate, rusty, crusty, musty, fusty, old savage!” said I, in fancy, one afternoon, to my grand uncle Rumgudgeon — shaking my fist at him in imagination. Only in imagination. The fact is, some trivial discrepancy did exist, just then, between what I said and what I had not the courage to say […]

WHATEVER doubt may still envelop the rationale of mesmerism, its startling facts are now almost universally admitted. Of these latter, those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession – an unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There can be no more absolute waste of time than the attempt to prove, at the present day, that man, […]

AFTER THE very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say nothing of the summary in ‘Silliman’s Journal,’ with the detailed statement just published by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be supposed, of course, that in offering a few hurried remarks in reference to Von Kempelen’s discovery, I have any design to look at the […]

The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways ; nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus. Joseph Glanville. . WE had now reached the summit […]

Truth is stranger than fiction. OLD SAYING. HAVING had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsoornot, a work which (like the Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at all, even in Europe; and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any American — if we […]

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning —Of all to whom thine absence is the night —The blotting utterly from out high heavenThe sacred sun — of all who, weeping, bless theeHourly for hope- for life — ah! above all,For the resurrection of deep-buried faithIn Truth — in Virtue — in Humanity —Of […]

——– all people went Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment. — Bishop Hall’s Satires. I AM – that is to say I was – a great man; but I am neither the author of Junius nor the man in the mask; for my name, I believe, is Robert Jones, and I was born somewhere […]

What o’clock is it? — Old Saying. EVERYBODY knows, in a general way, that the finest place in the world is — or, alas, was — the Dutch borough of Vondervotteimittiss. Yet as it lies some distance from any of the main roads, being in a somewhat out-of-the-way situation, there are perhaps very few of […]

IN speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at random, the essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to cite for consideration, some few of those minor English or American poems which best suit my own taste, or which, […]

IT should not be doubted that at least one-third of the affection with which we regard the elder poets of Great Britain should be-attributed to what is, in itself, a thing apart from poetry-we mean to the simple love of the antique-and that, again, a third of even the proper poetic sentiment inspired by their […]

THE symposium of the preceding evening had been a little too much for my nerves. I had a wretched headache, and was desperately drowsy. Instead of going out therefore to spend the evening as I had proposed, it occurred to me that I could not do a wiser thing than just eat a mouthful of […]

Quand un bon vin meuble mon estomac,Je suis plus savant que Balzac –Plus sage que Pibrac;Mon brass seul faisant l’attaqueDe la nation Coseaque,La mettroit au sac;De Charon je passerois le lac,En dormant dans son bac;J’irois au fier Eac,Sans que mon coeur fit tic ni tac,Présenter du tabac.French Vaudeville THAT Pierre Bon-Bon was a restaurateur of […]

IT’S on my visiting cards sure enough (and it’s them that’s all o’ pink satin paper) that inny gintleman that plases may behould the intheristhin words, “Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, 39 Southampton Row, Russell Square, Parrish o’ Bloomsbury.” And shud ye be wantin’ to diskiver who is the pink of purliteness quite, and the laider […]

I WILL now play the Oedipus to the Rattleborough enigma. I will expound to you — as I alone can — the secret of the enginery that effected the Rattleborough miracle — the one, the true, the admitted, the undisputed, the indisputable miracle, which put a definite end to infidelity among the Rattleburghers and converted […]

A Tale With a Moral. “CON tal que las costumbres de un autor,” says Don Thomas de las Torres, in the preface to his “Amatory Poems” “sean puras y castas, importo muy poco que no sean igualmente severas sus obras”— meaning, in plain English, that, provided the morals of an author are pure personally, it […]

AS it is well known that the ‘wise men’ came ‘from the East,’ and as Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head came from the East, it follows that Mr. Bullet-head was a wise man; and if collateral proof of the matter be needed, here we have it — Mr. B. was an editor. Irascibility was his sole foible, […]

CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE EXACT SCIENCES. Hey, diddle diddleThe cat and the fiddle SINCE the world began there have been two Jeremys. The one wrote a Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has been much admired by Mr. John Neal, and was a great man in a small way. The other […]

Slid, if these be your “passados” and “montantes,” I’ll have none o’ them. — NED KNOWLES. THE BARON RITZNER VON JUNG was a noble Hungarian family, every member of which (at least as far back into antiquity as any certain records extend) was more or less remarkable for talent of some description — the majority […]

What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus? –COMUS. IT was a quiet and still afternoon when I strolled forth in the goodly city of Edina. The confusion and bustle in the streets were terrible. Men were talking. Women were screaming. Children were choking. Pigs were whistling. Carts they rattled. Bulls they bellowed. Cows they […]

DURING the autumn of 18–, while on a tour through the extreme southern provinces of France, my route led me within a few miles of a certain Maison de Sante or private mad-house, about which I had heard much in Paris from my medical friends. As I had never visited a place of the kind, […]

Pestis eram vivus – moriens tua mors ero. — Martin Luther HORROR and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why then give a date to this story I have to tell? Let it suffice to say, that at the period of which I speak, there existed, in the interior of Hungary, a settled […]

Intensos rigidarn in frontern ascendere canos Passus erat—- -Lucan–De Catone —a bristly bore. Translation LET us hurry to the walls,” said Abel-Phittim to Buzi-Ben-Levi and Simeon the Pharisee, on the tenth day of the month Thammuz, in the year of the world three thousand nine hundred and fortyone–let us hasten to the ramparts adjoining the […]

In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colours. In France, meliora probant, deteriora sequuntur – the people are too much a race of gadabouts to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate […]