THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. O. W. HOLMES. This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is borne Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! crypt, a vault under ground. feign, to pretend. i'rised (rist), having colors like those of the rainbow. main, the ocean. Si' ren, a bewitching sea-nymph. JACKSON AT NEW ORLEANS. CHARLES GAYARRÉ. His very physiognomy prognosticated what soul was encased within the spare but well-ribbed form, which had that "lean and hungry look," described by England's greatest bard as bespeaking little sleep of nights, but much of ambition, self-reliance, and impatience of control. His lip and eye denoted the man of unyielding temper, and his very hair, slightly silvered, stood erect like quills round his wrinkled brow, as if they scorned to bend. Some sneered, it is true, at what they called a military tyro, at the impromptu general who had sprung out of the uncouth lawyer and the unlearned judge, who, in arms, had only the experience of a few months, acquired in a desultory war against wild Indians, and who was not only without any previous training for his new profession, but also without the first rudiments of a liberal education, for he did not even know the orthography of his own native language. Such was the man who, with a handful of raw militia, was to stand in the way of the veteran troops of England, whose boast it was to have triumphed over one of the greatest captains known in history. But those who entertained such distrust had hardly come in contact with General Jackson when they felt that they had to deal with a master spirit. True, he was rough-hewn from the rock, but rock he was, and of that kind of rock which Providence chooses to select as a fit material to use in its structures of human greatness. True, he had not the education of a lieutenant in a European army, but what lieutenant, educated or not, who had the will and the remarkable military adaptation so evident in General Jackson's intellectual and physical organization, ever remained a subaltern? Much less could General Jackson fail to rise to his proper place in a country where there was so much more elbow room and fewer artificial obstacles than in less favored lands. But whatever those obstacles might have been, General Jackson would have overcome them all. His will was of such an extraordinary nature that, like Christian faith, it could almost have accomplished prodigies and removed mountains. It is impossible to study the life of General Jackson without being convinced that this is the most remarkable feature of his character. So intense and incessantly active this peculiar faculty was in him, that one would suppose that his mind was nothing but will-a will so lofty that it towered into sublimity. In him it supplied the place of genius-or, rather, it was almost genius. On many occasions, in the course of his long, eventful life, when his shattered constitution made his physicians despair of preserving him, he seemed to continue to live merely because it was his will; and when his unconquerable spirit departed from his enfeebled and worn-out body, those who knew him well might almost have been tempted to suppose that he had not been vanquished by death, but had at last consented to repose. This man, when he took the command at New Orleans, had made up his mind to beat the English; and, as that mind was so constituted that it was not susceptible of entertaining much doubt as to the results of any of its resolves, he went to work with an innate confidence which transfused itself into the population he had been sent to protect. General Jackson found that the country he had come to defend was in the most defenseless condition. It had a considerable extent of seacoast, connecting with the interior through many water communications, and having hardly any fortified points, it was open on all sides. It had, besides, in its neighborhood the Spanish harbor of Pensacola. It is fortunate that he was equal to the occasion. He did not deplore, in helpless despair, the scarcity of his resources; he did not write to his Government that he could not defend New Orleans with his limited means; he never thought of retreating or abandoning one inch of territory; he saw that he had to create everything for defense, and everything he did create. des'ul to ry, irregular. im promp' tu, made offhand. or thog' ra phy, spelling. phys i og' no my, features of the face. prod'i gy, a wonder. prog nos' ti ca' ted, gave outward sign; foretold. sub al' tern, an inferior officer. sub lim'i ty, grandeur. ty' ro, a beginner. GRANT. EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF THE ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE, OCTOBER 9, 1891, BY HENRY WATTERSON. I know full well that this is neither a time nor place for abstract economies, and I am not going to afflict you with a political dissertation. I came, primarily, to bow my head and to pay my measure of homage to the statue that was unveiled to-day. The career and the name which that statue commemorates belong to me no less than to you. When I followed him to the grave-proud to appear in the obsequies, though as the least of those who bore an official part therein-I felt that I was helping to bury not only a great man but a true friend. From that day to this the story of the life and death of General Grant has more and more impressed and touched me. |