lands, of Naples, of Lombardy, and proud | Inn. But all else is still as a midnight chief of the golden Western World? sleep, except indeed when the eagles of Yes, Charles, thou art reading a stern lesson by that fitful torch-light; but thy strong will is yet unbent, and thy stern nature yet unsoftened. And who is the swift "avenger of blood" who is following close as a sleuth-hound on thy track? It is Maurice of Saxony, the unscrupulous but intrepid leader of the Pro-" Shall we begin?" Silence ! It is a testant cause a match for thee in boldness of daring and in strength of will. But Charles wins the midnight race; and yet, instead of bowing before Him whose "long-suffering would lead to repentance," he ascribes his escape to the "star of Austria," ever in the ascendant, and mutters his favorite saying: "Myself, and the lucky moment." THE RUIN. One more scene: it is the year 1809. Bonaparte has decreed in the secret council-chamber, where his own will is his sole adviser, that the Tyrol shall be cleared of its troublesome nest of warrior-hunters. 10,000 French and Bavarian soldiers have penetrated as far as the upper Junthal, and are pushing boldly on towards Prutz. But the mountain-walls of this profound valley are closing gloomily together, as if they would forbid even the indignant river to force its wild way betwixt them. Is there a path through the frowning gorge other than that rocky way which is fiercely held by the torrent? Yes; there is a narrow road, painfully grooved by the hand of man out of the mountain side, now running along like a gallery, now dropping down to the brink of the stream. But the glittering array winds on. There is the heavy tread of the foot soldiers, the trampling of horse, the dull rumble of the guns, the waving and flapping of the colors, and the angry remonstrance of the the crag, startled from their eyries, raise their shrill cry as they spread their living wing above the gilded eagles of France. Suddenly a voice was heard far up amidst the mists of the heights-not the eagles' cry this time-not the freak of a wayward echo-but human words, which say, host that holds its breath and listens. Was it a spirit of the upper air parleying with its kind? If so, it has its answer countersigned across the dark gulf: "Noch nicht !"-not yet! The whole invading army pause; there is a wavering and writhing in the glittering serpent-length of that mighty force which is helplessly uncoiled along the base of the mountain. But, hark! the voice of the hills is heard again, and it says, "Now!" Now then descends the wild avalanche of destruction, and all its tumult, dismay, and death. The very crags of the mountain-side, loosened in preparation, come bounding, thundering down. Trunks and roots of pine trees, gathering speed on their headlong way, are launched down upon the powerless foe, mingled with the deadly hail from the Tyrolese rifles. And this fearful storm descends along the whole line at once. No marvel that two thirds of all that brilliant invading army are crushed to death along the grooved pathway, or are tumbled, horse and man, into the choked and swollen river. Enough of horrors! Who would willingly linger on the hideous details of such a scene? Sorrowful that man should come, with his evil ambitions and his flerce revenges, to stain and to spoil such wonders of beauty as the hand of the Creator has here moulded! Sorrowful that man, in league with the Serpent, should writhe into such scenes as these, and poison them with the virus of sin! From Chambers's Journal. A WOMAN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN. FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS. "AND what is friendship but a name, A charm that lulls to sleep, A shade that follows wealth and fame, And leaves the wretch to weep?" THIS remark, expressed too tersely and intelligibly to be considered "poetry" nowadays, must apply to the nobler sex. Few observant persons will allege against ours, that even in its lowest form our friendship is deceitful. Fickle it may be, weak, exaggerated, sentimental the mere lath-and-plaster imitation of a palace great enough for a demigod to dwell inbut it is rarely false, parasitical, or diplomatic. The countless secondary motives which many men are mean enough to have -nay, to own-are all but impossible to us; impossible from the very faults of our nature-our frivolity, irrationality, and incapacity to seize on more than one idea at the same time. In truth, a sad proportion of us are too empty-headed to be double-minded, too shallow to be insincere. Nay, even the worst of us being more direct and simple of character than men are, our lightest friendship - the merest passing liking that we decorate with that name-is, while it lasts, more true than the generality of the so-called "friendships" of mankind. But-and this "but" will, I am aware, raise a whole nest of hornets-from their very peculiarities of temperament, women's friendships are rarely or never so firm, so just, or so enduring, as those of men-when you can find them. Damon and Pythias, Orestes and Pylades, Brutus and Cassius-last and loveliest, David and Jonathan, are pictures unmatched by any from our sex, including the far-famed ladies of Llangollen. When such a bond really does exist, from its exception to general masculine idiosyncrasies-especially the enormous absorption in and devotion to number one-from its total absence of sentimentalities, its undemonstrative ness, depth, and power, a friendship between two men is a higher thing than between any two women-nay, one of the highest and noblest sights in the whole world. Precisely as, were comparisons not as foolish as they are odious, a truly good man, from the larger capacities of male nature both for virtue and vice, is, in one sense, more good than any good woman. But this question I leave to controversialists who enjoy breaking their own heads, or one another's, over a bone of contention which is usually not worth picking, after all. Yet, though dissenting from much of the romance talked about female friendships, believing that two thirds of them spring from mere idleness, or from that besoin d'aimer which, for want of natural domestic ties, makes this one a temporary substitute, Heaven forbid I should so malign my sex as to say they are incapable of an emotion which, in its right form and place, constitutes the strength, help, and sweetness of many, many lives; and the more so, because it is one of the first sweetnesses we know. Probably there are few women who have not had some first friendship, as delicious and almost as passionate as first love. It may not last-it seldom does; but at the time, it is one of the purest, most self-forgetful, and self-denying attachments that the human heart can experience; with many, the nearest approximation to that feeling called love-I mean love in its highest form, apart from all selfishnesses and sensuousnesses-which in all their after-life they will ever know. This girlish friendship, however fleeting in its character, and romantic, even silly, in its manifestations, let us take heed how we make light of, lest we be mocking at things more sacred than we are aware. And yet, it is not the real thing-not friendship, but rather a kind of foreshadowing of love; as jealous, as exact ing, as unreasoning-as wildly happy and supremely miserable; ridiculously so to a looker-on, but to the parties concerned, as vivid and sincere as any after-passion into which the girl may fall; for the time being, perhaps long after, coloring all her world. Yet it is but a dream, to melt away like a dream when love appears; or if it then wishes to keep up its vitality at all, it must change its character, temper its exactions, resign its rights; in short, be buried and come to life again in a totally different form. Afterward, should Laura and Matilda, with a house to mind and a husband to fuss over, find themselves actually kissing the babies instead of one another-and managing to exist for a year without meeting, or a month without letter-writing, yet feel life no blank, and affection a reality still-then their attachment has taken its true shape, as friendship, shown itself capable of friendship's distinguishing feature-namely, tenderness without appropriation; and the women, young or old, will love one another to the end of their lives. and so is friendship; when, be it ever so infinitesimal in quantity, its quality is unadulterated; springing, as I repeat, women's friendship almost always does spring, out of that one-idea'd impulsiveness, of ten wrong-headed, but rarely evil-hearted, which makes us at once so charming and so troublesome, and which, I fear, never will be got out of us till we cease to be women, and become what men sometimes call us and they well know they give us but too much need to be-angels. Yes, with all our folly, we are not Perhaps this, which is the test of the false: not even when Lavinia Smith sentiment, explains why we thus seldom adores with all her innocent soul the conattain to it, in its highest phase, because descending Celestina Jones, though, meetnature has made us in all our feelings so ing twenty years after as fat Mrs. Brown intensely personal. We have instincts, and vulgar Mrs. Green, they may with passions, domestic affections, but friend- difficulty remember one another's Christship is, strictly speaking, none of the ian names: not when Bessy Thompson, three. It is to borrow the phrase so blessed with three particularly nice bromisused by that arch im-moralist, that thers, owns likewise three times three high-priest of intellectual self-worship," dearest" friends, who honestly persuade Goethe-an elective affinity, based upon themselves and her that they come only the spiritual consanguinity which, though frequently coexistent with, is different from any tie of instinct or of blood relationship. Therefore, neither the sanctities nor weaknesses of these rightly appertain to it; its duties, immunities, benefits, and pains belong to a distinct sphere, of which the vital atmosphere is perfect liberty. A bond, not of nature but of choice, it should exist and be maintained calm, free, and clear, having neither rights nor jealousies; at once the firmest and most independent of all human ties. to see dear Bessy: nevertheless, the fondness is real enough to out-last many bothers caused by said brothers, or even a cantankerous sister-in-law to end with. Nay, when Miss Hopkins, that middleaged and strong-minded "young lady" of blighted affections, and Mrs. Jenkins, that woman of sublime aspirations, who has unluckily "mated with a clown," coalesce against the opposite sex, fall into one another's arms and vow eternal friendship for a year; after which, for five more, they make all their acquaintances uncomfortable by their eternal enmity-even in this lamentable phase of the sentiment, it is certainly more respectable than the time-serving, place-hunting, dinner-seeking devotion which Messrs. Tape and Tadpole choose to denominate "friendship." Men may laugh at us, and we deserve it: we are often egregious fools, but we are honest fools; and our folly, at least in this matter, usually ends when theirs begins with middle life, or marriage. After marriage, for either party to have or to desire a dearer or closer friend than the other, is a state of things so inconceivably deplorable-the more erring, the more deplorable-that it will not bear discussion. Such cases there are; but He who in the mystery of marriage prefigured a greater mystery still, alone can judge them, for He only knows their miseries, their temptations, and their wrongs. While allowing that a treaty of friendship "pure and simple," can exist between a man and woman-under peculiar circumstances, even between a young man and a young woman, it must also be allowed that the experiment is difficult, often dangerous; so dangerous, that the believe in it at all. Parents and guardians very naturally object to a gentleman's "hanging up his hat" in their houses, or taking sentimental twilight rambles with their fair young daughters. They insist, and justly, that he ought to "Come with a good will, or come not at all;" It is the unmarried, the solitary, who are most prone to that sort of "sentimental" friendship with their own or the opposite sex, which, though often most noble, unselfish, and true, is in some form ludicrous, in others dangerous. For two women, past earliest girlhood, to be completely absorbed in one another, and make public demonstration of the fact, by caresses or quarrels, is so repugnant to common-sense, that where it ceases to be silly, it becomes actually wrong. But to see two women, whom Providence has denied nearer ties, by a wise substitution making the best of fate, loving, sustaining, and comforting one another, with a ten-matter-of-fact half of the world will not derness often closer than that of sisters, because it has all the novelty of election which belongs to the conjugal tie itself this, I say, is an honorable and lovely sight. Not less so the friendship-rare, I grant, yet quite possible-which subsists between a man and woman whom circumstances or their own idiosyncrasies, preclude from the slightest chance of ever "falling in love." That such friendships can exist, especially between persons of a certain temperament and order of mind, and remain for a lifetime, utterly pure, interfering with no rights, and transgressing no law of morals or society, most people's observation of life will testify; and he must take a very low view of human nature who dares to say that these attachments, satirically termed "Platonic," are impossible. But, at the same time, common-sense must allow that they are rare to find, and not the happiest always, when found; because in some degree they are contrary to nature. Nature's law undoubtedly is, that our nearest ties should be those of blood-father or brother, sister or mother-until comes the closer one of marriage; and it is always, if not wrong, rather pitiful, when any extraneous bond comes in between to forestall the entire affection that a young man ought to bring to his future wife, a young woman to her husband. I say oughtGod knows if they ever do! But, however fate, or folly, or wickedness may interfere to prevent it, not the less true is the undoubted fact, that happy above all must be that marriage where neither husband nor wife ever had a friend so dear as one another. namely, as a mere acquaintance, a pleasant friend of the family the whole family, or as a declared suitor. And though this may fall rather hard upon the young man, who has just a hundred a year, and with every disposition towards flirting, a strong horror of matrimony— still, it is wisest and best. It may save both parties from frittering away in a score of false sentimental likings the love that ought to belong but to one; or, still worse, from committing or suffering what, beginning blamelessly on either side, frequently ends in incurable pain, irremediable wrong. Therefore, it is, generally speaking, those further on in life, with whom the love-phase is past, or for whom it never existed, who may best use the right which every pure and independent heart undoubtedly has, of saying: "I take this man or woman for my friend: only a friend-never either more or less-whom as such I mean to keep to the end of my days." And if more of these, who really know what friendship is, would have the moral courage to assert its dignity against the sneers of society, which is loth to believe in any thing higher and purer than itself-I think it would be all the better for the world. Women's friendships with one another are of course free from all these perils, and yet they have their own. The wonderful law of sex-which exists spiritually as well as materially, and often independent of matter altogether-since we see many a man who is much more of a woman, and many a woman who would certainly be the "better-half" of any man who cared for her-this law can rarely be withstood with impunity. In most friends whose attachment is specially deep and lasting, we can usually trace a difference -of strong or weak, gay or grave, brilliant or solid-answering in some measure to the difference of sex. Otherwise, a close, all-engrossing friendship between two women would seldom last long; or if it did, by their mutual feminine weaknesses acting and reäcting upon one another, would most likely narrow the sympathies and deteriorate the character of both. Herein lies the distinction-marked and unalienable-between friendship and love. The latter, being a natural necessity, requires but the one, whom it absorbs and assimilates till the two diverse and often opposite characters, become a safe unity -according to divine ordinance, "one flesh." But friendship, to be friendship at all, must have an independent self-existence, capable of gradations and varieties; for though we all can have but one dearest friend, it would argue small power of either appreciating or loving, to have only one friend. On the other hand, the "hare with many friends" has passed into a proverb. Such a condition is manifestly impossible. The gentleman who, in answer to his servant's request to be allowed to go and "see a friend," cries: "Fetch me my coat, John! Though the night be raw, I'll see him too-the first I ever saw:" this cynic, poor wretch, speaks wiser than he is aware of. One simple fact explains and limits the whole question-that those only can find true friends who have in themselves the will and capacity to be such. A friend. Not perhaps until later life, until the follies, passions, and selfishnesses of youth have died out, do we-I mean especially we women-recognize the inestimable blessing, the responsibility, awful as sweet, of possessing or of being a friend. And though, not willing to run counter to the world's kindly custom, we may give that solemn title to many who do not exactly own it; though year by year the fierce experience of life, through death, circumstance, or change, narrows the circle of those that do own it; still that man or woman must have been very unfortunate-perhaps as there can be no result without a cause, worse than unfortunate-who, looking back on thirty, forty, or fifty years of existence, can not say from the heart: "I thank God for my friends." People rarely long keep what they do not deserve. If you find any who, in the decline of life, have few "auld acquaintance," and those few "never brought to mind," but in their stead a lengthy list of friends who are such no more, who have "ill-treated" them, or with whom they had a "slight coolness;" if they are always finding fault with the friends they now have, and accusing them of ingratitude or neglect; if they tell you these friends' secrets, and expect you in return to tell them all your friends' secrets, and your own - beware of these people! They may have many good qualities; you may like them very much, and keep them as most pleasant society; but as for resting your heart upon them, you might as well rest it upon a burning rock or a broken reed. But if you find people who through all life's vicissitudes and pangs have preserved a handful of real "friends"-exclusive of you, for it takes years to judge the value of friendship towards ourselves-if on the whole they complain little either of these friends or of the world, which rarely misuses a good man or woman forever; if they bestow no extravagant devotion on you, nor expect from you one whit more than you freely give; if they never, under any excuse, however personally flattering, talk to you about a third party as you would shrink from their talking to any third party about you—then, be satisfied: |