SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
285 
C03IiNG AROUND. 
The May number of the Atlantic Mo'/iikly, whose 
pages are generally filled with the incubations of Aboli- 
tion writers or by their allies, has a concession somewhat 
remarkable, in the article entitled a “Trip to Cuba.” 
The writer is said to be a poetess, and the wife of a noted 
abolitionist. The Boston party were landing at Nassau, 
of which the writer says : 
“ There were many negroes, together with whites of 
every grade; and some of our number, leaning over the 
side, saw, for the first time, the raw material out o£ which 
Northern humanitarians have spun so fine a skein of 
compassion and sympathy. Now, we who write, and 
they for whom we write, are all othordox upon this 
mighty question ; we have all made our confession of 
faith in private and in public; we all on suitable occa- 
sions walk up and apply the match to the keg of gun- 
powder which is to blow up the Union ; but which, 
somehow, at the critical moment fails to ignite. But you 
must allow us one heretical whisper — very small and low. 
The negro of the North is an ideal negro ; it is.the negro 
refined by white culture, elevated by white blood, in- 
structed even by white iniquity — the negro among ne- 
groes is a coarse, grinning, flat-footed, thick-skulled crea- 
ture — ugly as Caliban, lazy as the laziest of brutes, 
chiefly ambitious to be of no use to anyone in the world. 
View him as you will, his stock in trade is small ; he has 
but the tangible instincts of all creatures, love of life, 
ease, and of offspring. For all else, he must go to school 
to the white races and his discipline must be long and 
laborious. Nassau, and all we saw of it, suggested to us 
the unwelcome question, whether compulsory labor is not 
better than none. But as a question, I gladly leave it, 
and return to the simple narratim of— what befel.” 
DOVE OF NATURE. 
How is it that a scene of quiet beauty makes so much 
deeper an impression than a startling one 'I The glorious 
sunset I had witnessed on that sweet lake — the curving 
and forest- mantled shores — the g*een islands— the mellow 
mountains— all combined to make a scene of surpassing 
loveliness ; and now as I lay and watched the stars com- 
ing out one after another, and twinkling on me through 
the tree tops, all that beauty came back on me with 
strange power. The gloomy gorge and savage precipice, 
or the sudden storm, seem to excite the surface only qf 
one’s feelings ;• while the sweet vale, with its cottages, 
and herds, and evening bells, blends itself with our very 
thoughts and emotions, forming a part of our after exis- 
tence. Such a scene sinks away into the heart like a 
gentle rain into the earth, while a rougher, nay sublimer 
one, comes and goes like a sudden shower. I do not 
knew how it is that the gentler, influence should be the 
deeper and more lasting,-but so it is. The still small voice 
of nature is more impressive than her loudest thunder. 
Of all the scenery in the Alps — and there is no richer 
on the earth — nothing is so plainly daguerreotyped on my 
heart as two or three lovely valleys I saw. Those 
heaven- piercing summits, and precipicies of ice, and aw- 
fully savage gorges, and fearful passes, lie like a grand 
but indistinct vision on my memory ; while those vales, 
with their carpets of green sward, and gentle rivulets, and 
perfect repose, have become a part of my life. In mo- 
ments of high excitement or turbulent grief, they rise be- 
fore me with their gentle aspect and quiet beauty, hushing 
the storm into repose, and subduing the spirit like a sen- 
sible presence. 0, how I love nature ! She has ten thou- 
sand voices even in her .silence, and in all her changes 
goes only from beauty to beauty. And then when she 
speaks aloud, and the music of running waters — the j 
organ-note of the wind amid the pine-tree tops — the rip- 
pling of waves — the song of words — and the hum of in- 
sects — fall on the ear; soul and sense are ravished. How 
is it that even good men have come to think so little of na- 
ture, as if to love her and seek her haunts and compan- 
ionship were a waste of time'? I have been astonished 
at the remarks sometimes made to me on my long jaunts 
in the woods, as if it were almost wicked to cast off the 
gravity of one’s profession, and wander like a child amid 
the beauty vvhich God has spread out with a lavish hand 
over the earth. Why I should as soon think of feeling 
reproved for gazing on the midnight heavens, gorgeous 
with stars, and fearlul with its mysterious floating worlds . 
I believe that every man degenerates without frequent 
communion with nature. It is one of the open books of 
God, and more replete with instruction than anything 
ever penned by man. A single tree standing alone, and 
waving all day long its green crown in the summer wind, 
is to me lu’.ler of meaning and instruction than the crowd- 
ed mart or gorge’ously built city. — Headley. 
AN ITEI^I FOR DRINKERS OF FOREIGN WINES. 
An American physician has lately announced that 
having been called upon to analyze some samples of 
wines, he found that not one of sixteen different kinds 
contained so much as the single drop of the juice of the 
grape. The port exhibited a complicated superstructure 
of eldberry juice, alum, sugar and spirits, upon a basis 
of diluted sulphuric acid. The sherry was formed of a 
pale decoction of malt, flavored with bitter almonds, acid- 
ulated with sulphuric acid, and slightly brandied. The 
Madeira was simulated by means of hop, tea, rum, sul- 
phuric acid, and honey. In tea, drugs, pepper, and other 
spices, fish sauces, oil, cheese, milk, and even flour and 
bread, foreign and often noxious ingredients are intro- 
duced — while to obtain pure alcoholic drinks is .next to 
impossible, whiskey often being impregnated with strych- 
nine, and genuine brandy only surpassed in its scarcity 
by the nectar of the gods. The French Government has 
enacted severe laws against all poisoners of wines, li- 
quors, and other articles of human food or beverage. 
Yet, in despite of all the legislative care that has been 
taken to prevent adulterations, it is a notorious fact that 
mock wines are the chief source of profit in the city of 
Cette on the Mediterranean. Very inferior French wines 
are there perfumed with various essences, to produce the 
peculiar aroma derived from the vintages of the Rhine, of 
Hungary, of Spain, and of Portugal, and the Madeira 
islands . — Richmond Dispatch. 
5^^ Of all the agonies of life, that which is the most 
poignant and harrowing — that which for the time annihil- 
ates reason and Idaves our whole organization one lacer- 
ated, mangted heart — is the conviction that we have been 
deceived where we placed all the trust of life. 
Bulwer Lytton. 
Lightning !— A writer on lightning-rods urges the ne- 
cessity of closing the windows of a house after the out- 
side has become wet with a shower. The outside is then 
a good conductor, and the dry air of the inferior a non- 
conductor, and the chances are small that the electricity 
will enter the house. 
^^“Money will be a blessing or a curse, according to 
the discretion or indiscretion of its possessoi. 
^^“Religion and medicine are not responsible for the 
faults and mista’ttes of their doctors. 
To speak harshly to a person of sensibility is like 
striking a harpsichord with your fists. 
