HOME. BY MRS. H. MARION WARD. "Home, sweet home!" How many holy and beautiful memories are crowded into those three little words. How does the absent one, when weary with the cold world's strife, return, like the dove of the deluge, to that bright spot amid the troubled waters of life. "Home, sweet home!" The one household plant that blooms on and on, amid the withering heart-flowers, that brightens up amidst tempests and storms, and gives its sweetest fragrance when all else is gloom and desolation. We never know how deeply its roots are entwined with our heart-strings, till bitter lessons of wasted affection have taught us to appreciate that love which remains the same through years of estrangement. What exile from the spot of his birth but remembers, perhaps with bitterness, the time when falsehood and deceit first broke up the beautiful dreams of his soul, when he learned to see the world in its true colors. How his heart ached for his father's look of kind ie:s-his mother's voice of sympathy-a sister's or brother's hand to clasp in the warm embrace of kindred affection. Poor, homesick wanderer! I can feel for your loneliness; for my heart often weeps tears of bitterness over the memories of a far-off home, and in sympathy with a gray-haired father, who, when he calls his little band around the hearth-stone, misses full many a link in the chain of social affection. I can feel for your loneliness, for perhaps you have a father, too, whose eyes have grown dim by long looking into the tomb of love. Perhaps you, too, have a mother, sleeping in some distant grave-yard, beneath the flowers your hands have planted; and as life's path grows still more rugged before you, you wonder, as I have done, when your time will come to lie down and sleep quietly with her. An incident occurred on board of one of the western steamers, some years since, which strongly impressed me with its truthfulness in proving how wildly the heart clings to home reminiscences when absent from that spot. A party of emigrants had taken passage, amongst whom was a young Swiss girl, accompanied by a small brother. Not even the outre admixture of Swiss, German, and English costume, which composed her dress, could conceal the fact that she was supremely beautiful; and as the emigrants were separated from what is termed the first-class passengers only by a slight railing, I had an opportunity of inspecting her appearance without giving offence by marked observation. Amongst the crowd there happened to be a set of German musicians, who, by amusing the ennuied passengers, reaped quite a harvest of silver for their exertions. I have always heard that the Germans were extremely fond of music, and was surprised that none of the party, not even the beautiful Swiss girl, gave the slightest indication of pleasure, or once removed from the position they had occupied the whole way. Indeed, I was becoming quite indignant, that the soul-stirring Marseilles Hymn of France, the God Save the Queen of England, and last, not least in its impressive melody, the Hail Columbia of our own nation, should have pealed its music out upon the great waters, almost hushing their mighty swell with its enchantment, and yet not waken an echo in the hearts of those homeless wanderers. The musicians paused to rest for a moment, and then suddenly, as if by magic, the glorious Rans des Vache of Switzerland stole over the water, with its touching pathos swelling into grand sublimity, its home-music melting away in love, and then bursting forth in the free, glad strains of revelry, till every breath was hushed as by the presence of visible beauty. Having never before heard this beautiful melody, in my surprise and admiration I had quite forgotten my emigrant friends, when a low sob attracted my attention, and turning round, I saw the Swiss girl, with her head buried in the lap of an old woman, trying to stifle the tears that would force their way or break the heart that held them. I had but a slight knowledge of the Swiss dialect, and "my home, my beautiful home!" was the only words intelligible to me. She wept long and bitterly after the cadence of the song was lost amongst the waves, while the old woman, blessings on her for the act, sought by every endearment within her power to soothe and encourage the home-sick girl. There was little enow of refinement in her rough sympathy, but it was a heart-tribute--and I could almost love her for the unselfishness with which she drew the shrinking form closer to her bosom. I would have given the world to have learned that girl's previous history. I am sure accident must have thrown her amongst her present associates, as I have seen a lily broken from its stem by a sudden gust of wind, and flung to wither and die amid rude and hardy weeds. In a few hours the party left the boat, and I never saw either her or them again; but, till this day, whenever any incident of a domestic nature wakens old-time dreams, pleasant memories of that beautiful exile, weeping over the music of her lost Eden, and of the kind old woman caressing her, and kissing off the falling tears, creep together, and form a lovely picture of home and heavenborn love. MARGINALIA. BY EDGAR A. POE. THAT punctuation is important all agree; but how it to remain, and merely put a dash between it and few comprehend the extent of its importance! The the phrase "an emendation." The dash gives the writer who neglects punctuation, or mis-punctuates, reader a choice between two, or among three or is liable to be misunderstood-this, according to the more expressions, one of which may be more forcible popular idea, is the sum of the evils arising from than another, but all of which help out the idea. It heedlessness or ignorance. It does not seem to be stands, in general, for these words-"or, to make my known that, even where the sense is perfectly clear, meaning more distinct." This force it has-and a sentence may be deprived of half its force-its this force no other point can have; since all other spirit-its point-by improper punctuation. For points have well-understood uses quite differen the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an from this. Therefore, the dash cannot be dispensed axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is con- with. verted into a sermonoid. There is no treatise on the topic-and there is no topic on which a treatise is more needed. There seems to exist a vulgar notion that the subject is one of pure conventionality, and cannot be brought within the limits of intelligible and consistent rule. And yet, if fairly looked in the face, the whole matter is so plain that its rationale may be read as we run. If not anticipated, I shall, hereafter, make an attempt at a magazine paper on "The Philosophy | of Point." In the meantime let me say a word or two of the dash. Every writer for the press, who has any sense of the accurate, must have been frequently mortified and vexed at the distortion of his sentences by the printer's now general substitution of a semicolon, or comma, for the dash of the MS. The total or nearly total disuse of the latter point, has been brought about by the revulsion consequent upon its excessive employment about twenty years ago. The Byronic poets were all dash. John Neal, in his earlier novels, exaggerated its use into the grossest abuse-although his very error arose from the philosophical and self-dependent spirit which has always distinguished him, and which will even yet lead him, if I am not greatly mistaken in the man, to do something for the literature of the country which the country "will not willingly," and cannot possibly, "let die." Without entering now into the why, let me observe that the printer may always ascertain when the dash of the MS. is properly and when improperly employed, by bearing in mind that this point represents a second thought—an emendation. In using it just above I have exemplified its use. The words " an emendation" are, speaking with reference to grammatical construction, put in apposition with the words "a second thought." Having written these latter words, I reflected whether it would not be possible to render their meaning more distinct by certain other words. Now, instead of erasing the phrase "a second thought," which is of some usewhich partially conveys the idea intended-which advances me a step toward my full purpose-I suffer It has its phases-its variation of the force described; but the one principle-that of second thought or emendation-will be found at the bottom of all. In a reply to a letter signed "Outis," and defending Mr. Longfellow from certain charges supposed to have been made against him by myself, I took occasion to assert that "of the class of willful plagiarists nine out of ten are authors of established reputation who plunder recondite, neglected, or forgotten books." I came to this conclusion à priori: but experience has confirmed me in it. Here is a plagiarism from Channing; and as it is perpetrated by an anonymous writer in a Monthly Magazine. the theft seems at war with my assertion-until it is seen that the Magazine in question is Campbell's New Monthly for August, 1828. Channing, at that time, was comparatively unknown; and, besides. the plagiarism appeared in a foreign country, where there was little probability of detection. Channing, in his essay on Bonaparte, says: the highest order, is far from holding the first place Still to remove physical obstructions-to avail himself of physical aids and advantages-to act on matter -to overcome rivers, ramparts, mountains, and human muscles; and these are not the highest objects of mind, nor do they demand intelligence of the highest order: and accordingly nothing is more common than to find men, eminent in this depart energies of the soul-in imagination and taste-in the ment, who are almost wholly wanting in the noblest capacity of enjoying works of genius-in large views of human nature-in the moral sciences-in the apmind and to society, and in original conceptions on plication of analysis and generalization to the human the great subjects which have absorbed the most glorious understandings." The thief in "The New Monthly," says: "Military talent, even of the highest grade, is very far from holding the first place among intellectual endowments. It is one of the lower forms, of genius, for it is never made conversant with the more delicate and abstruse of mental operations. |