HAWTHORNE'S NOTE BOOK 
It is not for what people do, or are, or trv to 
be, according to their mean* and advantages, that 
we bless them, but for what we receive of them 
when we can’t get it any other way, that we 
thank them, aud it is not every one that remem¬ 
bers his indebtedness to that extent for five 
minutes. And so love and charity freeze to 
death. We women are quite likely to estimate 
men too highly for our own good or theirs 
either, to overlook their faults too freely, and 
accept them too readily when “ below par,” for 
the reason, I suppose, hat without them we are 
60 like a kite without a—ahem—a narrative , all 
flutter and but little advancement; but on the 
other hand too many papers a ttached in the form 
of little responsibilities make it all balance and 
no go. There is one in the seat in front of us. 
Only one and never lias been. Every line of her 
face and every motion says it. If I could get a 
plaster east ol her lace and have it “sculped,” 
I’d make myself famous for the statue of an 
“old maid.” Bite’s trying to rest now, lying on 
the seat, with her hat and veil on. May-bc we 
we ought to pity her. May-bc her head aches 
aud no shoulder to lean it against. Her hair is 
rumpled and no hand to smooth it. Humph! 
just tw well. Such applications may relieve au 
imaginary heart-ache for the time being; head¬ 
ache won’t be cured by them, unless magnetism 
is abroad, which is worse;— 1 tried them once, 
and 1 know. 
Out of the depot on the Southern train. A 
glimpse of masts and Bails on the river and a 
ship building on the shore, and a memory of 
” in an old 
attmenf 
Some of the passages from Hawthorne's Note- 
Book, which are appearing in the Atlantic 
Monthly, arc curious enough. Many of them 
are the first suggestions of stories to be wrought 
out by the author’s rare and fertile imagination. 
We take a few from the November number. 
“ Concord, 184?..—To sit at the gate of heaven, 
and watch persons as thy apply for admittance, 
some gaining it, others being thrust away,” 
“ To point out the moral slavery of one who 
deems himself a free man.” 
“A young girl inhabits a family graveyard, 
that being all that remains of rich hereditary 
possessions.” 
“To write a dream, with all its inconsistencies, 
its strange transformations, which are' all taken 
as n matter of course, its eccentricities and aim¬ 
lessness, with nevertheless a leading idea running 
through the whole. Up to thi6 old age of the 
world, uo such thing ever lias been written.” 
“The history of an almshouse in a country 
village, from the era of its foundation down¬ 
ward,— a record of the remarkable occupants of 
it, and extracts from interesting portions of it? 
annals. The rich of one generation might, in 
the next, seek for a house there, either In their 
own persons or in those of their representatives. 
Perhaps the son and heir of the founder might 
have no hotter refuge. There should be occasional 
sunshine let into the story; for instance, the 
good fortune of some nameless infant, educated 
there, and discovered finally to be the child of 
wealthy parents.” - 
“The conversation of the steeples of a city, 
when their bells are ringing on Sunday—Calvin¬ 
ist, Episcopalian, Unitarian, etc.” 
“ To consider a piece of gold as a sort of talis¬ 
man, or as containing within itself all the forms 
of enjoyment that it can purchase, so that they 
might appear, by some fantastical chemical pro¬ 
cess, as visions.” 
“The magic ray of sunshine for a child’s story 
—the sunshine circling round through a prison¬ 
er’s cell, from his high and narrow window. He 
keeps liis soul alive and cheerful by means of it, 
it typifying cheerfulness; and when he is re¬ 
leased, he takes up the ray of sunshine, and car¬ 
ries it away with him, and it enables him to 
discover treasures all over the world, in places 
where nobody else would think of looking for 
them.” 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorke: 
VINA -DEL- MAR. * 
ALL’S WELL 
THE UNWISE CHOICE 
The day is ended. Ere I sink to sleep 
My weary spirit seeks repose in thine; 
Father! forgive my trespasses, and keep 
This little life of mine. 
With loving kindness Curtain Thou my bed; 
And cool in rest tny burning pilgrim feet; 
Thy pardon be the pillow for my bead— 
So shall my sleep ho sweet. 
At peace with ail the world, dear Lord, and Thee, 
No fears my soul’s unwavering faith can shake; 
All’s well! whichever side the grave for me 
The morning light may break! 
BY ALICE CARY 
The lowland is fragrant, with clover, 
And sunset just tinges the spray 
Where the breakers roll over and over 
The coral reefs out in the bay; 
And np through the valley forever, 
Softly it seems from afar, 
Floats the song of the sea and the river 
That mingle at Vina-del-Mar. 
The streamlets wind down from their fountains 
Like silver threads woven In green. 
And snowdrifts lay white on the mountains 
With vineyards and blossoms between: 
And homeward when vespers are ringing, 
Amt purple and gold fill the skies, 
The olive cheeked maidens come singing 
With laughter and love In their eyes. 
But sweeter than I mil ads or vespers, 
Or even the sound of the sea. 
Art; the magical eeholess whispers 
That, twilight, brings hither to me; 
Low voices, care-soothing and winning, 
Like those of the dear ones at home, 
That tenderly chasten for sinning 
And cheer me wherever I roam, 
I sit by tlie palm tree and wonder 
When Vina-del-Mar and I part 
If winters or oceans will sunder 
Those beautiful hours from my heart— 
If dreaming of life’s early pleasures 
In the coming years I shall not find 
Those sunsets, and fair, golden treasures 
With unfading memories enshrined. 
I think when my extie Is ended 
And wanderings from those I love cease, 
The best of the past will be blended 
With dreams of this Valley of Peace: 
The days that arc gone will seem nearer 
When counted through vistas so clear, 
And country aud kindred be dearer, 
For visions 1 had of them pore. 
Santiago-de-C'hili, 8. A., Oct., 1800. s. m. c. 
* Vina-del-Mar Is a bennttful little valley on the sea 
shore near Valparaiso, Chill, South America. It Is a great 
resort for pleasure parties, picnics, etc. 
Two young men, when I was poor. 
Came and stood at my open door; 
One said to me, “ I have gold to give 
And one, “1 will love you while T live!” 
My sight was dazzled; woe’s the day! 
And I sent the poor young mau away; 
Sent him away, I know not where, 
And my heart went with him unaware. 
He did not give me any sighs. 
But he left his picture in my eyes; 
And in my eyes it, has always been; 
I have no heart to keep it in! 
Beside the lane with hedges sweet, 
"Where we parted, never more to inoet, 
He pulled a flower of love’s own hue, 
And where it had been came out two! 
Aud in the grass where he atood, lor years 
The dews of the morning looked like tears, 
Still smiles the house where I was born 
Among it - fields of wheat and corn. 
Wheat ami corn that strangers bind— 
I reap as I sowed, and 1 sowed to the wind. 
As one who feel* the truth break through 
His dream, and knows his dream untrue, 
I live where splendors shine, and sigh 
For the peace that splendor cannot buy;; 
Sigh for the day I was rich, though poor, 
And saw the two young men at my door! 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
OHS BUSIED TREASURES. 
There arc many graves iu this world of ours, 
many hillocks of consecrated ground where 
rank grass draws nourishment from sacred 
dust. Many mourners there are in this same 
strange world, — an endless train of sorrow- 
stricken ones, hearts bruised and sabie-clad, 
inner sanctuaries forever tenanted by the unfor- 
gotten dead. There arc few hearts that have not 
a veiled recess, w herein Is treasured up and hid¬ 
den away lrotn profane eyes the record of a 
sacred grief. Few arc the mortals who cherish 
not in their bosoms the remembrance of some¬ 
thing that has been and is not,—who w eep not 
over the grave of a departed joy. For there arc 
other graves than those containing human forms; 
not all are heaped up and turfed over by the sex¬ 
ton’s spade. Bright hopes fade and die, cher¬ 
ished projects fail, dearest purposes arc rudely 
uprooted, whole, life-plans overthrown; and ail 
these lie buried in the human heart. But, wheth¬ 
er enclosed In grassy church-yards, arrayed side 
by side, with gloaming marble at the head, and 
rosebushes, may be, at the foot — or, unmarked 
by marble slab, all unseqn by mortal vision, hid¬ 
den in the innermost recesses of one’s own soul, 
they arc still graves, and mourners have bent 
above them. 
Thus It. is ordered. To some, sorrow may seem 
an heritage, while to others are vouchsafed pleas¬ 
ant pathways under propitious skies; yet-rarely 
shall one complete his life-journey without, at 
some time, the heavens he overcast and the storm 
of affliction burst with fury upon him. Black¬ 
ness surrounds him, the pleasant pathway has 
become a slippery steep, the trees In whose 
lriendly shade he had rejoiced afford him now no 
shelter, the music of birds and laughter ol chil¬ 
dren give place to the roaring of the tempest, 
the fierce raging of the winds and the hoarse 
thunders of au offended God. There is uo es¬ 
cape from the pitiless outpouring ol the angry 
clouds; alone aud defenceless, he is at the mercy 
Of the atom. Anon, the clouds break away, 
and, drenched and shivering, he pursues bis Jour¬ 
ney. No longer does he view a sunny path, 
Biuiling with flowers, and leading, lar as the eye 
can reach, through fairest regions; but a gray 
mist closes around him, chilling winds sweep 
o\ or him and whistle in the tree-tops which send 
down their showers of tears upon the miry path¬ 
way. No gleam of sun appears; the future is 
shrouded In impenetrable gloom. The be¬ 
numbed and weary traveler longs to be at his 
journey’s end. 
And thus it is wisely ordered. Were this lile 
all sunshine, who would take thought for the 
life to come? Did this world afford us continu¬ 
ous pleasures, even mixed, as they are, with 
some alloy, who would seek for higher Y Oh! 
these graves have strange efficacy to bring us to 
our senses. Tempted by evil Influences, lured by 
ambition, beckoned on by pleasure, there comes 
up before us, oftentimes, one ol" these little grass- 
grown mounds, and while we stop to weep, the 
tempting vision fades, and our souls are rescued 
from the threatened dunger. There is no safe¬ 
guard against the thousand allurements which 
surround us, nothing to soften the heart and 
open it to good impressions, nothing to bring us 
near to God, like the memory of a buried treas¬ 
ure. It comes to us in the hour of temptation, 
aud the seductive voice of the tempter loses its 
charmB; in the hour of mirth, and cheeks our 
extravagance; it interposes itself between us 
and the dazzling prize Ambition holds up to our 
view; It seeks us out when elated with success, 
and humbles us. Iu the silent watches of the 
night, when the soul holds communion with the 
past, aud we live over the happy hours gone by, 
the memory of our loss returns, not In all its 
first bitterness, but with a subdued and quiet 
sadness befitting the silence and the darkness. 
’Tis then that the heart of the strong mau be¬ 
comes as the heart of the child. We breathe 
softly to ourselves the names that our lips never 
pronounce,— we recall the features that once 
glowed with life and with love,— wo hear again 
the voice that once thrilled us with pleasure,— 
nvc meet once more the eager uplifting of the 
earnest eyes,—aud then, as we think oi the eyes 
closed, the voice hushed, the features stifl’ened 
and white, and the name, that sacred name, care¬ 
lessly read by the indifferent stranger from off 
the white marble—Tls then that nvc forget our 
pride, onr ambition, our engrossing cares,—’tis 
then that distinctions of rank, of education and 
of wealth, vanish, and we become as children at 
the grave of a parent. 
There is no perfect development of the heart 
of man without such a memory. He who has 
never been bereaved bus never tasted thesweotest 
consolations of Divine Grace, possesses not the 
key to the heart of his fellows, is shut offlrom sym- 
paty with the vast majority of the human race. 
He lives iu a if unreal world, aud sees not life iu 
its true colors. 
Hannah F, Gould's “ Mary Dow 
school reader. Oh! childhood days. Childhood’s; 
school-days, bitterest, sweetest of all. Bitter in < 
the taking, but growing sweet on the tongue as | 
the Ups touch cup after cup of gall in later years, j 
What rich fruit grows on the tree whose seed is 
the dull, wearying A, B, G,— if only the little 
ones could realize it. And if we, learning one 
6tern alphabet whose Y, 7., & Is the grave, could 
Bee as our Sovereign and Teacher sees, would we 
Struggle so rebelliously and leave so slowly. 
Ionia Co., Mich., Dec.. 1866. Grace Glenn, 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
WOMAN’S DRIFTING-No. I 
WEAVING AND EMBROIDERING, 
Written from Moore’s Rural New-Yorker 
POSTHUMOUS PRAISE. 
The opening stanzas of the ninth Canto of 
Byron’s “Don Juan” are very severe on the 
Duke of Wellington. His Grace was then iu 
the zenith of military fame, and multitudes were 
ready to do him honor. The subsequent politi¬ 
cal career of the “Iron Duke” justified the 
truthful sarcasms of the noble poet. Many mil¬ 
lions of men afterwards discovered that they had 
no rights that the military hero left bound to 
respect. And yet only a few years ago the gov¬ 
erning classes of Great Britain decreed him a 
public funeral, aud lie was consigned to kindred 
dust with all the pomp aud circumstance that 
ecclesiastical, military and royal pomp could 
bestow. Many sensible people think his fame 
•infamous, and pertinently inquire: 
“And I shall be delighted to learn who, 
Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo.” 
Let us take some examples of a different nature. 
Oue is tersely contained iu the well-known coup¬ 
let: 
“ Seven cities claimed the illustrious Homer, dead, 
Tlirough which the living Homer begged his bread.” 
John Milton was blind, poor, and in contem¬ 
porary times was almost unnoticed and unknown. 
Posterity Has done justice to these great names; 
competent critics have pronounced the illiad and 
Paradise Lost, the most perfect heroic poems 
that have been penned up to the present time. 
Tlie inquiry of tne little girl, on reading the 
inscriptions ou the tomb-stones Of a cemetery, 
“ Where are all the bud people buried Y” is sug¬ 
gestive. Why is it that the social and personal 
worth of so many arc unknown, until they 
sleep “ the sleep that knows no wakening Y” It 
is becoming to throw a veil of charity over the 
errors of the dead—to “judge not, lest we be 
Judged." Let us, both to the living aud the 
dead, 
“Be to their faults a little blind, 
And to their virtues very kind.” 
This cud is uot. always gained by avoiding 
indiscriminate praise. There is a “ vaulting 
ambition that o’erleaps itself,” and many honor¬ 
able records are kuowu to be a mockery and dc- 
lusiou. The poet Burns said : 
“Even ministers, they hae been kenn’d 
In holy rapture, 
A rousing wiiid at times to vend. 
And uailt v.i’ Scripture.” 
Does it never happen, in our day, that the 
characters of some of the wealthy dead are made 
to appear better thau we knew them to be ? Is 
not the funeral sermon sometimes highly col¬ 
ored? Does not the officiating clergyman, on 
“improving tin occasion,” occasionally give 
credit for virtues not possessed? Let us be 
pure in heart; lot us abound in that charity 
which thinketk no evil; but oh! let us beware, 
that no BO-callcc Christianity takes this method 
of doing homagi at the shrine of mammon. 
Penfield, N. Y , Dec-, 1866. F. 
THE NEWSPAPER APPRECIATED 
Without my newspaper, lile would narrow 
itself to the small limits of my personal experi¬ 
ences, und humanity be compressed into the ten 
or fifteen people I mix with. Now, 1 refuse to 
accept this. I have not a sixpence in consols, 
but I want to know bow they stand. I was nev¬ 
er—I never in all likelihood shall be — in Japan; 
but I have an intense curiosity to know what 
our troops did at Yokohama. I deplore the 
people who suffered by that railroad smash; and 
I sympathize with the newly-married couple so 
beautifully depicted In the Illustrated^ as they 
drove off in a chaise, und our old gent at the 
hull door waving them a last adieu. I like the 
letters of correspondents, with their little griev¬ 
ances about their unpunctual trains, or some 
unwarrantable omissions in the liturgy. I even 
like the people who chronicle the rainfall, and 
record little facts about the mildness of the sea¬ 
son. As for the advertisements, I regard them 
as the glass and mirror of the age. Show me 
but one page of the “Wants" of any country, 
and I engage to give you a sketch of tlie current 
civilization of the period. What glimpses of 
mre interiors do we gain by these brief para¬ 
graphs ! How full of suggesti veness'aud of story 
are they!— Blackwood 1 8 Magazine. 
NATURAL ELOQUENCE 
Daniel Webster once said, when speaking 
of the source of eloquence, that “It must exist 
in the man aud in the occasion.” An illustra¬ 
tion of this is furnished in an incident that 
occurred at a meeting in a neighboring city a 
few nights ago. The meeting was called appa¬ 
rently for the purpose of raising money to aid 
the men now being tried In Canada on account 
of the Fenian Invasion. There was an old man 
present who subscribed fi ve dollars, aud said that 
it was all the money he had; that he gave it 
freely, and that he would give besides a Spring- 
field musket and lib ow n body. This was all the 
wealth he had. As the 6cenc is described, it was 
not so much these few words as It was the up¬ 
lifted hand, the earnest, fervid tone and the 
flashing eye, which accompanied them, that sent 
a thrill through the audience, aud caused the 
entire gathering to rise to their feet as one man, 
and the building fairly shook with their applause. 
This eloquence was in the man and the occasion. 
THE ELDEST DAUGHTER AT HOME 
Agreeable Qualities.—T he most agreeable 
of all companions is a simple, frank roan, without 
any high pretensions to an oppressive greatness 
— one who loves life, and understands the use of 
it; obliging alike at all hours; above all, of a 
golden temper, and steadfast as an anchor. For 
such a one we gladly exchange the greatest 
genius, the most brilliant wit, the profoundest 
thinker. 
Overwork and Underwork.—" While over¬ 
work,” says a medical writer, “is a great evil 
from which oik I class of society suffers, another 
class sutlers stld more from underwork, or idle¬ 
ness. Better wojir out than rust out, if it is done 
in a good cause j for then some good will he ac¬ 
complished, ant humanity will be the better for 
it. But the tnn course is to avoid both extremi¬ 
ties and purs ill the even tenor of a happy 
medium. By so doing, a lar greater amount of 
labor cau be aaeompllsked, at less expense of 
health, strength aud vitality.” 
If anything had 
Passionate Men Honest. —He who b pas¬ 
sionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your 
old, dissembling hypocrite of whom you should 
beware. There’s no deception in a bull-dog; it 
is only the cur that sneaks up aud bites you when 
your back is turned. 
Enjoyment of Memory. —It is often debated 
which is the most enjoyable, the anticipation ot 
a pleasure or its realization; but the power of 
recalling, mellowed and hallowed by the lapse ol 
time, is more potent thau either. 
Blessings.—R un not after blessings; only walk 
in the commandments of God, aud blessings shall 
run after you, pursue and overtake you. 
Art is the revelation of man ; and not merely 
that, but likewise the revelation of uature speak¬ 
ing through mau. 
Short and laise pleasures deceive us, aud, like 
drimkennesB aud revenge, are the madness of one 
hour for the sad repentance of a lifetime. 
