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THE 
 
 PICTURES FROM LIFE. 
 
 TOM WASH. SMITH, 
 
 HAKOLi 
 
 Who lives should early learn to sadly prize 
 The fleeting phantoms of the daily maze, 
 And greet the storm which lowers in the skies — 
 Howe'er so fierce its dismal echo plays. 
 
 Vt 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 J. NICHOLAS, PRINTER, NO. 310 CHESTNUT ST. 
 
 1860. 
 

 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1860, by TOM. WASH. SMITH, 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
TO MY COUNTRYMEN 
 ■WHO PREFER A LAUDABLE 
 INNOVATION TO THE GROVELLING 
 TRAMMELS OF ANCIENT USAGES — WHO 
 WITH US WILL CONJOINTLY WAGE AN IN- 
 CESSANT WARFARE AGAINST AN ENORMOUS, YET 
 TIME-HONORED PRECEDENT — AND WHO DESIRE TO BEQUEATH 
 THIS PURCHASED HERITAGE AS A WORTHY BLESSING 
 TO THEIR POSTERITY AND THE OPPRESSED 
 EXILES OF ALL NATIONS, THIS WORK IS 
 MOST RESPECTFULLY AND AFFEC- 
 TIONATELY DEDICATED BY ITS 
 AUTHOR. 
 
 (V) 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Matrimony, the most ancient of all Institutions, comes home to the affec- 
 tions of every heart. The callous bachelor and sere spinstress, may 
 affect to deny their concern for the holy ties of wedlock, but they must 
 dissuade our trust in the confidence of an all-wise Governor, and annihilate 
 the instinctive incentives of those very emotions which attest the divinity 
 of His primeval precedent, before we can attach credence to the dissembling 
 avowal. 
 
 From the veriest outlaw who contems God and wars on the weal of his 
 race— to the highest arch-angel who tunes his harp to the anthems of Hea- 
 ven's rapture, this organic law of laws claims a devotional deference and 
 soul-inspiring awe. 
 
 And if we need extenuation for this intrusion on an intelligent public, 
 it lies in our humanitarian yearnings for a fellow brother, for whose 
 destiny we dare essay a task, from which abler pens might seek to be ex- 
 cused. 
 
 It is because we have viewed with pity, sorrow, and indignation 
 the dam which caste has built across the rivulets of the treple fountains 
 of the soul's affections, rolling back their receding waters, drowning the 
 violets, and wasting the foliage of the evergreens, that we venture to 
 offer our protest to the people of this utilitarian, poetic, yet run-mad age. 
 And if we attempt an overture, to reason that common sense may not be 
 eschewed, we are conscious the opprobrium will be all the more bitter 
 from those whose rank folly we assail. 
 
 We have never offered to vend our thoughts before, and we know not 
 to what extent this faltering effort will find favor in our market, over- 
 supplied with literature, ancient and modern, home and foreign, classic, 
 scientific, prosaic, poetic, and trashy ; nor do we look to it for a remune- 
 rative resource, still, we can but wish it should be read by every citizen 
 of our crumbling republic, and form on the retina of mind an imagery of 
 beauty and love. 
 
 We have not consulted the opinion of any one as to the propriety of 
 this production ; our own generous impulses prompted us to write, and 
 we obey that guidance independent of the bigotry of schools, or the sa- 
 tirical system of the learned, or the repulsive criticism of the pedantic. 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 We throw this hasty thesis on the waves of public opinion, and in claim- 
 ing a hearing, we trust our knowledge of the pulses of freemen's hearts 
 for a final and responsive approval. 
 
 For though not aged, we make some pretensions to experience. 
 
 For ten years we have been rambling, during which tmie our chief aim 
 has been to study and know the will of our common brotherhood. 
 Whether in the mart or wilderness, the cabin or palace, on the ocean or 
 shore, our supreme delight has been to understand the affiliated inter- 
 relations which actuate and control us ; and, if we produce nothing new, 
 if we say nothing but what has often been repeated before, we shall have 
 profited ourselves, and edified our readers, if we but induce them to 
 soberly ponder what they know. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Who that will read the title of this book, but will consider 
 the name chosen as inappropriate and vulgar, when taken in 
 consonance with those sentimental emotions, which designate 
 man from the lower order of animals ! 
 
 And yet we claim to know what we have experienced, and we 
 must be pardoned for believing and asserting, that what comes 
 home to our understanding daily, corroborated by the substantial 
 testimony of every grade and class of society, which makes us an 
 intelligent people, to feel this home of boasted liberty a land 
 of social oppression, and which causes statesmen and patriots to 
 stand aghast with hope overtaken by despair, when contempla- 
 ting the certain prospective ultimatum of those evils which 
 foreshadow the eventful period when our nation shall be ap- 
 pareled in the weeds of widowhood — ^when the mourners shall go 
 about the streets, and the fatherless, pitiless orphans shall sit 
 upon the ground. 
 
 We maintain that with all our exulting claims to Christianity, 
 we are positively in a more deplorable condition than the wild 
 savage who roams the forest, governed only by brute force, or 
 an animal instinct. And with the progress of refinement we 
 have discarded the prowess which belongs to the hardihood of 
 a ruder stage of civilization, accepted a delicate and effeminate 
 helplessness as a substitute, defeated the end and intent of our 
 creation, and rendered this blooming and beautiful world, con- 
 structed for our comfort and happiness, a desolate vade mecum, 
 where the bramble and thistle are cultivated ; and the true 
 gems of the heart are trodden down and destroyed. 
 
 And, for this we charge the parent of our moral interest, by 
 her tacit sanction and individual overt concurrence, with all 
 the responsibility, for those grievances and ills with which our 
 race is burdened; because she can wield an influence before 
 which all earth is ready to pay a willing obeisance, and for this 
 omission to use the gift of power, for the preservation of those 
 
 (9) 
 
10 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 interests entrusted to her care, she, the Church, is indirectly, yet 
 most palpably guilty of remissness and gross malfeasance. 
 
 To her mild influence we despondingly yet imploringly look 
 for succor from the social and political perils which threaten 
 us ; and if the history of Christendom afforded an example of 
 relief in like danger, we should not hope with mistrust — nor 
 criminate with such indecorous allegations. 
 
 In this staid and quiet city, with her laws of order and well 
 behaved citizens, who is there, from the beggar to the banker, 
 that does not suffer from the onerous burthens of the laws of 
 caste ; and, of the tens of thousands who live in celibacy, be- 
 cause they must compromise their social status to wed those 
 they could afford to sustain, and also, from the large share 
 of her whole population, whose nuptial life is a burlesque 
 on the name of matrimony, because antagonistic to every prin- 
 ciple of organic law? And when we adduce this goodly city as 
 an instance in question, it is with no design of disparagement 
 to its general standing in contrast with other large cities of 
 equal density and greatness. On the contrary, we have illus- 
 trated by an example even far less exceptionable than other rival 
 marts of the country. But, in thus referring to the class who 
 shrink from the ordeals of wedlock — for such in truth it has be- 
 come — we do not, as a general rule, include the mechanic and 
 day-laborer. Somehow, they are a more philosophical people 
 than those who strive to kee^ up a dignity of more significant 
 import. Nor are we confining ourselves to cities ; the evil is as 
 prevalent in the rural districts as here ; the same gross abomi- 
 nation predominates to a great extent upon the frontier borders, 
 rendered as they are, contiguous to the universal world by the 
 modern inventions to annihilate space and distance. 
 
 And, if it be argued by those who urge extenuation in behalf 
 of the prevailing habits of the age, that there cannot be found 
 an instance where a union could not be consummated by a con- 
 cession to circumstances, we must offer as an offset to such a 
 cavil, the evident impossibility to assimilate incongruities, and 
 the actual expediency of harmonizing by congenial association 
 those individuals whose very existence will flow into a united 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 11 
 
 sameness of individuality, as the confluence of rivers into one 
 stream. 
 
 To bring this about, we must have a due respect to that edu- 
 cational bias which has been engrafted on the mind, and on 
 account of which it has attained to certain likes and dislikes, the 
 securement of which is as essential to promote happiness and 
 domestic comfort, as are sunshine and rain for the vigorous and 
 hearty growth of plants and shrubs. And the absence of such 
 affinity is as certainly bound to prove deleterious to the well-being 
 of any one thus begirt by ill-timed circumstances, whose mental 
 susceptibilities have been cultivated by a refined and studied 
 training. As a people, we are disposed to " look aloft, " to 
 aspire to points hopelessly beyond our reach, — which may be 
 gained by a few, because like success has attended others, but 
 which must rarely happen, because the wealth of our country is 
 limited, and its exalted places of preferment but few. 
 
 And yet, in the face of these facts, our women are almost uni- 
 versally educated to habits of extravagance, which not one man 
 in a thousand can afford, whilst their domestic and physical 
 education are totally neglected. 
 
 Our young men are raised to consider themselves the embodi- 
 ment of superior excellence, and, instead of the wonted deference 
 of the real accomplished gentleman, we have the bluster of the 
 braggadocio, or the swaggering bravado of the upstart. 
 
 Hence we notice decrepitude purchasing with ingots the maiden 
 of fickle insincerity ; and the venerable madame wooing a boyish 
 suitor, who sells himself for an exchange price, for the privilege 
 of a passport to the banquet of "vanity fair;" where, with in- 
 flated pomp, he receives the cajolery of intolerable duplicity. 
 
 Let us inquire the cause of those countless loungers about the 
 corners of the streets, whose badged hat and dyed moustache 
 betoken a regardlessness for the claims of social order — who sup- 
 port the gaming saloons, and make life a profession of idleness, 
 and all its sacred compacts a theme for obscene jest. Do you 
 imagine they have no ambition for more lofty pursuits ? Can 
 any one believe they are not heartily disgusted with their own 
 utter insignificance ? 
 
J2 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 In criticising their folly, let us remember that with a training 
 for the acme in life's great arena, which an over-fond parent in- 
 stilled into their thoughts, has also been linked a despisable re- 
 gard for plodding industry. They see no enviable award recom- 
 pensing the son of humble toil — and their proud spirits will not 
 brook an unmerited disgrace. 
 
 The time was when the wise man's model of ar lady could be 
 found in every home, when brawny hands and stout thews could 
 expect her willing smiles, provided they wore the evidences of ho- 
 nest and well disposed aspirations. It was not then, as now, 
 when the rifle and the Bible, the sword and the plow, formed the 
 chief essentials of a settlement — when necessities huddled neigh- 
 bors, and made those inmates of rough tenements, and severe 
 privations, mutual neighbors and fast friends. 
 
 When the buxom lassie needed not the influence of crinoline to 
 get up a shadow, and when she could speak of the washing-day 
 as a soiree entertainment, and exhibit her woven web or home- 
 made raiment, when her highest expectation for flirtation was 
 the taffy party or sugar camp, to which she would go with her 
 rustic lover across grain-fields and through girdled forests, tote 
 her shoes until nearing the party, and then sit down upon the 
 trunk of the fallen tree by the road-side, and put them on again. 
 
 Now it is we have our countless boarding schools, where misses 
 go to get a smattering of classical knowledge ; where they are 
 taught to despise the occupation of their forefathers, and edu- 
 cated to an ideal estimate of life which only exists in the» chime- 
 rical brain of a dreamei*, but which once inculcated, disdains the 
 sphere and duties of a sober reality. 
 
 And we have, too, countless strange summer resorts and water- 
 ing-places, where people go to bolster old age in youth — and 
 carry home the coy blandishments of coquettish flirts with bosoms 
 as hollow as their own. 
 
 Instead of linsey plaid, we must have some ten thousand dollars 
 worth of changeable apparel, with a travelling trunk big enough 
 for a warehouse — and in lieu of the rudely-squared cabin, with 
 its health and contentment, the villa of blended architecture and 
 the midnight hop, and the early demise. 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 13 
 
 It will be considered by not a few, that these declarations are 
 induced by an envious jealousy, wholly unbecoming the dignity 
 and spirit which should characterize the magnanimous feelings 
 of a subject of liberty. Such is not the case. 
 
 We woo no storm-cloud with its bursting desolation ; but if th6 
 elements of discord are in our social atmosphere, sooner or latet 
 they must break forth, and no intervention can oppose their 
 gathering wrath. 
 
 Aside from the domestic alliance, there cannot be permanence 
 to a people whose interests are not cemeuted by the strong ties 
 of consanguinity, whose cable strength has been welded by an 
 immutable power, and for which the device of all earth cannot 
 offer a substitute. 
 
 But how common the expression, " Is she rich ?" — how stereo- 
 typed the provincialism, "He is too poor." Therefore, since 
 wealth is the only trinity that we as a nation recognize, who shall 
 be regarded as unwise for adoration to the god ? — or who dare 
 eschew the recipient of his smiles ? 
 
 Hence the commonly accepted cant saying, "he is sharp," 
 who bartered away the sentiments of his constituents for a bribe ; 
 and they are considered too honest for self-preservation who 
 would refuse "to fail full handed." 
 
 We claim that wealth does not occasion envy when not used 
 for oppressive purposes, and indigence does not chafe the serf 
 of circumstances, unless with it comes absolute ostracism. Such^ 
 we lament to admit, is but the general vogue of the day ; and to 
 freemen it is all the more galling, because their sensitiveness has 
 become intensified by teachings of equality. 
 
 The war-chief of a savage tribe cannot be gilded into great- 
 ness by mere fortuitous circumstances, unless he possess merit 
 entitling him to a superior position. And the pagan, who knows 
 no Great First Cause, is not culpable for devotion to an idolatrous 
 image, because he can appeal to no higher deity. 
 
 It is self-evident that all men love that social escutcheon which 
 elates their vanity. And for the laudations of the excited multi- 
 tude who strew branches in the triumphal pathway to-day, and 
 exclaim " away with him " on the morrow, ambition ever has^ 
 
li THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 been and ever will be ready to offer life. We care not what im- 
 pediments may forbid the motive, the vociferations of the crowd 
 are more precious than ten thousand times ten thousand warriors ; 
 and the green wreath which crowns the conqueror will atone for 
 the habiliments of woe which darken the land. Give us the cluv- 
 racter of a people's escutcheon, and we will engage to write their 
 history. 
 
 Our Moloch is Mammon, it is our altar and our god ; and our 
 sacrilegious love for private wealth is rapidly rushing us on to chaos, 
 and soon will destroy 4he vitality of the government. The emo- 
 tions of youthful bosoms are as natural as the quiet dews, or leap- 
 ing brooks, or blushing vintage, or ripened harvest. When dead- 
 ened by the searing iron of caste, they become as hard as granite, 
 cold as winter, and unfeeling as the grave. 
 
 There is no hope for the continuance of a government which 
 rests on the governed but in that concentrated regard which 
 hovers at the fireside as a guardian spirit forfending ill, oversha- 
 dowing for good. 
 
 But if the certificate of nuptial concord is but the parchment 
 title for the conveyance of estates or bills of exchange, whose par 
 value is estimated by the scale of Troy, then has a high premium 
 been awarded to the basest outrage on human organization which 
 can be waged on the rights of man, and before which all high re- 
 gard for the domestic obligations shall wane, and from which must 
 follow the terrors of revolution, and the final restoration to order 
 beneath the shadow of bayonets and sceptre of kings. Deny to 
 men the rights of political equality, and they will not seek for what 
 they cannot obtain. Force this alternative upon them by the edicts 
 of the invincibles, and they must be quiet when clamor is useless. 
 
 But so long as the throb of liberty pulsates in the bosom of the 
 sovereign, will he feel degraded by the inconsistency which marks 
 and discards him as a felon for the crime of poverty. His pledge 
 of fealty to the state as an American citizen, is the covenant of 
 submission to social disparity, social excommunication, in many 
 instances, to that very grade of society accessible to both parties 
 prior to a relationship of commendable love. This is a crying sin^ 
 and calls loudly for a remedy. Persons dread to form those alii- 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 15 
 
 ances which destroy their social standing, no odds how sycophan- 
 tic and unreal it may be. 
 
 And, as we have insisted, with the spread of celibacy will follow 
 social disintegration and segregation, with a moral malaria for 
 which there will be found no sanative save the consternation of in- 
 ternecine strife, and that essential eradication and purification, 
 which follows the wasting havoc of war. 
 
 Nor do we consider this an evil to be averted at a sacrifice of 
 all the more ennobling dignities of manhood. He who watches 
 the motives of the heart thinks not less of the embryo-slaughter 
 of the race than the strewn field of combat, and she who could 
 hush the wail of her first-born has petrified every fine fibre in 
 the bosom of affection, whose moral putrefactions rise to offend 
 the nostrils of the Almighty, who will remove by the scourge of 
 His wrath those who refuse to recognize the highest injunctions 
 of His pleasure. 
 
 We remember an interview with two gentlemen from North 
 Carolina, who with us were stopping at the same hotel in Peters- 
 burg, Va. During our stay, an intimacy grew up between us 
 which made us mutually regret the hour of our separation. Their 
 conviviality was truly Southern ; and their frank and noble bear- 
 ing, such as yeoman alone can manifest : who gain a support direct 
 from the earth. And without any scientific erudition appertain- 
 ing to phrenology or physiology, we ventured to describe to them 
 not only their own individual characters, but also that of their 
 wives at home. 
 
 To their great surprise, our description was precisely correct. 
 And in answer how we could depict character distant hundreds of 
 miles away, we assured them it was not by any aid of clairvoyance 
 or mesmerism, or spiritualism, but by the laws of organic life 
 which ever sought to equilibriumize and harmonize its own. We 
 know you,, gentlemen, to be men of full grown stature, not iden- 
 tified with the modern code of respectability, exceptions to an 
 almost universal practice of the age, and residents of a region 
 of country unknown to the tyrant rule of the paramount goddess, 
 Fashion. We know, when no ulterior purposes thwart the deci- 
 sions of innate instinct, the sexes will as naturally choose oppo- 
 
16 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 sites by the same governing law of instinct that induces the little 
 girl to nurse her doll, and the brother to incline to some bolder 
 habits of amusement. 
 
 To this same intuitive law for which we contend, even at the 
 risk of sentimental censure, the mother awakes by the slightest 
 movement indicative of the uncomfortable repose of the infant 
 sleeper, whilst the paternal guardian sleeps on as deep as though 
 he were a seven sleeper. 
 
 Show us the bans of union prompted by lofty incentives, and 
 there will be seen loving results as a natural law following such a 
 consecration, which will live amidst the trying ordeals of persecu- 
 tion, whose radiating light will inspire admiration, and constrain 
 the conviction to every beholder, that united hearts, unmolested 
 by the coercive guidance of scheming matchmakers, form a pano- 
 rama of supernatural design, whose inimitable loveliness bear the 
 reflex of divinity, and give out the exhalations of Eden's incense 
 of aromatic joy. 
 
 We were once promenading the Fifth Avenue, New York, in 
 company with a lady whose father had risen to an enviable po- 
 sition in his profession. Growing abstracted as we mused over 
 the burnished catacombs of that fashionable boulevard, whose 
 brown-stone blocks are but numerical indices that tally the 
 wreck of hopes by which their structure was completed, and the 
 yet countless demands of " give, give" expedient to their con- 
 tinued support ; sombre as was this meditation, it grew still 
 more so when we looked to the distance whither these sign- 
 boards are pointing, the time when the leaven of society itself 
 shall have become corrupted, and Pandemonium with its Egyp- 
 tian darkness mantles the land. 
 
 Our soliloquizing just here was disturbed by the fair one, who 
 V no doubt had grown weary with our silence, and breaking the 
 monotony, exclaimed, " What a magnificent house ! If you but 
 owned it, I would come and live with you!" 
 
 Yes ! we mentally answered, whatever might have been our 
 other response ; and there is not one per cent, of all your great 
 mammoth mart but would do the same, notwithstanding she 
 might not be so persuaded by the first particle of worthy sentiment. 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 17 
 
 The bridle on the heart is written everywhere over this reel- 
 ing planet, by the serpent's trail, and the widow's tears, and 
 paternal sighs, and broken hearts. From the sepulchral breasts, 
 whose altars were hung in emblems of sadness, the hour-love sur- 
 rendered to ostentation all the solemn hopes of the future. And 
 morbid desire fed upon the human sacrifice, to glut her cannibal 
 appetite from then till now ; the dead have dwelt with the dead, 
 seeking in the voluptuous rounds of artificial excitement for 
 some antidote for the poisoned fountain of the affections of life. 
 
 We know of numerous instances of choice growing out of pre- 
 ference to fortune, when in reality the affections were trailing 
 elsewhere. And such has ever produced an irretrievable grief — 
 the more poignant because self-inflicted ; and the older the more 
 sad, because, with the winter's frost the leafless trees showed the 
 gnarled spots where the trunk had been wounded ; and because 
 nude chastity ever stands in the recess of the hall-way of a vacant 
 bosom, and by her dejected looks chides the ofi'ering to her wily 
 and subtle persecutrix. The seed-time has in such instances 
 ever been the sowing of the thistle whose productive harvest has 
 overrun the garden, choked out every fragile flower, and con- 
 verted the once lovely plat into an abode for reptiles and creep- 
 ing things. 
 
 They who thus offer to an ungainly pride shall create a thirst 
 for the waters of bitterness which nought will slake but the 
 oblivion of death. It is an unwilling martyrdom to a false god ; 
 who, though worshipped, is despised — compared to which the 
 offering to Juggernaut is enviable, even preferable and laudable, 
 and far more worthy of Christian emulation ; because those thus 
 acting entertain the faithful belief that such sacrifices are essen- 
 tial to their spiritual hope. 
 
18 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 It will be asked, for what do we contend ? We answer, for 
 the removal of those laws which exact tribute against reason, 
 and which coerce an education to defy reason. 
 
 We demand the repeal of those usages which bridle the heart 
 by the order of caste ; who drives with an unsparing lash, who 
 gathers taxes without the consent of the assessed ; and not satis- 
 fied by the absorption of all our resources, draws on our health, 
 peace, happiness, and life. 
 
 We ask not to curb the gentle inclinations of the soul's best 
 impulses, but rather the ambition and vain glory of life, which is 
 now so manifestly culminating in misery and wickedness and dis- 
 order and ruin. 
 
 But we are told if we hedge in the ambition of man, there 
 will be no incentive to spur him on to action. What stripes the 
 country over with iron bars, and weaves a spider's web of wires, 
 and sends out the sea gulls to offer their white wings to the 
 storm, and demolishes forests, and tunnels mountains, builds 
 cities and supplies desolate wastes with emigrants, and even re- 
 quires of the little mechanics of the sea a new continent for the 
 abiding place of swarming millions who must yet go out from 
 their exiled homes ? Ambition, we are told, by the promise of 
 its rewards, gives incentive-wheels to the machinery of life's bust- 
 ling chariot car — that the glory is but the result of labor, and 
 the reward but the entitled merit of those who have contended 
 for the prize. This is in part true, but not all true. 
 
 We must have a respect for the cost of an enterprise, however 
 grand the project and needful its, requirements. So, if we would 
 be latitudinarians, we must also be utilitarians, and even concede 
 to accept the proposal that offers the greatest good to the great- 
 est number, though not entirely in accordance with the wishes 
 of our own. 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 19 
 
 A potentate may build a city of fabulous grandeur, but if he 
 thereby saps the wealth of his whole realm, the subjects are op- 
 pressed, even though they admire the splendor with which their 
 ruler has surrounded himself. Yet they cannot but dread the 
 lien upon their homes, which denies them the subsistence of life, 
 though perhaps too proud and loyal to admit it. 
 
 How to define that indefinable demarkation line which bounds 
 a judicious policy, is remarkably difficult — an insoluble theory. 
 For we could not offer agrarianism to those who do not appre- 
 ciate it. To compel the people to submit to it against their will, 
 would produce greater anarchy than even the present order of 
 caste ; whilst that devouring ambition which characterizes this 
 age is but "the poor oppressing the poor," from which destruc- 
 tion must follow. Here we call for the balance-wheel, or more 
 properly the governor, by which to regulate the movements of 
 man's propelling power. There is to be found a solution of this 
 vexed problem in the study of universal amelioration. A will to 
 appreciate wealth and wealth's influences as mere loosa robes, or 
 cast-off raiment, of little worth, since it is but the gilding of the 
 temple ; not its externals that are to be worshipped, whilst there 
 is an altar for the offering of oblations. 
 
 To this we will be met with the objection, man cannot go back- 
 ward in the pursuit of happiness, and from your own arguments 
 you must respect his educational bias. This we too well know j 
 and from this we dread what lies ahead. If Christianity were 
 only true to her mission, in less than fifty years she would evan- 
 gelize the world to her mild and benign mandates of love. But 
 in the absence of consistency, where there is wanting a practical 
 elucidation of her tenets, the heralders of truth become abhor- 
 rent, and the house of prayer is shunned as a place of cant and 
 mockery. True we know this avowal will cause us to share 
 largely in the anathemas of the clergy ; but it will not jostle 
 public opinion from that settled conclusion to which it has but all 
 too justly come. From Adam till now, we find no precedent by 
 which to hope for a restraint upon the far-reaching grasp of 
 proud ambition. 
 
 In every man's thoughts there exists a willingness for power. 
 
20 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 The prince and slave are qualities of the man, only differing as 
 the force of circumstances occasions their development, or supe- 
 rior natural talents lift them out into positions of exalted place. 
 
 Liberty is an unnatural feeling, unless guarded by the peculiar 
 influences of a bare mediocrity of talent or a stinted abundance 
 of monied power. Excelsior is the word by which nearly ail are 
 governed. We are all controlled by policy rather than principle, 
 and the line of our actions is ever below the standard of scrutiny. 
 To establish this, we adduce the history of the world. In our 
 own country the enslavement of the negro, the will to annihilate 
 the aborigine, and the ungallant practice of exacting from frail 
 woman toil beyond her strength, for which she receives not a 
 recompense equal to her positive expenses and expedient for a 
 decent support, are but telling facts to establish the proof of what 
 man is. Therefore, we insist that the restraints of moral influ- 
 ence engraven upon the heart will alone keep him within the 
 bounds of a proper sphere of conscientious duty ; and that re- 
 moved, he is beyond the hope of any influences but such as will 
 administer to his desires ; and they are but the fuel to the fire, 
 which burns all the more brightly the more it consumes. In this 
 view of a stubborn metaphysical question, we infer that man can- 
 not help to battle for the might ; for it is all that makes the 
 right, before which principle must succumb, and every worthy 
 trait of character be overpowered and driven to wreck as the 
 shallop before the gale. 
 
 In this review of our book thus condensed into this chapter, 
 we are interweaving ourselves with a theological interest which 
 would indeed be impardonable but for the indissoluble intimacy 
 which, by natural laws, couples the status of moral and social 
 law : and because it is becoming we should explain the denun- 
 ciations of the preceding chapter. And although we can set up 
 no claims to moral rectitude for overt action, yet withal, if we 
 should shake the drowsy watchmen from their shameless inatten- 
 tion to the banging against the battering buttresses by the foe- 
 men attacking the outer gates, and induce them to give the alarm 
 from their silent watch-towers, and with sabre gleaming in the 
 midnight light, arouse their cohorts, and lead on their van legions 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 21 
 
 to the imperious warfare, then indeed shall our criticism have 
 been for good. 
 
 To our moral ethics we owe our existence ; therefore let none 
 suppose we entertain or propagate skepticism. The instilled in- 
 fluences of the maternal teachings of youth are with us as the 
 beauties on the petal. And though trodden in the dust, the rose 
 leaf still the ruby color yet retains. 
 
 Returning from our seeming retrogression, we trail hard on 
 the errors of the age : and ask the reader to rest his patience 
 and energies, and deign to follow us. 
 
22 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 We present to the gaze of our readers the abode of unscrupu- 
 lous poverty in the shadowy nooks of a mountain's recess, whose 
 impertinent mock-modest inmates wore the guile of the heart 
 upon their countenances, despite their artful efforts to disguise 
 their real characters. Disjointed fences, uncultivated thistle cov- 
 ering fields, gardens usurped by weeds, broken windows, half- 
 hinged doors, tattered curtains, nnchinked logs, a leaky roof 
 partially decayed floor, a half-thatched topling chimney, with a 
 few crude articles for household and culinary use, will give an 
 outline sketch of the miserable abode of a lowly family, dubious 
 in everything, reliable in nothing. And if you approach that 
 pretext for a domicil, that scant twelve by fourteen one and a half- 
 story hut, your advent will be heralded by a trio of dandy whiffets, 
 pampered for the purpose of sentry vigils ; whilst near by the 
 portal way some lazy, half-starved, mangy pet pigs ; and sitting 
 on the steps, playing in the dirt, or obstructing the door-way, a 
 half-dozen dirty, uncombed, unwashed, ragged, barefoot, natural 
 children, will give you a sufficient prelude by which to know the 
 matrons who do the honors of that vestibule of wretchedness, 
 from which the actress and spectators, once initiated, never return. 
 A year later we pass that way, but they are not — of them no one 
 can account ; they have gone, whither or where no one cares or 
 wishes to know. Their old temporary home is desolate ; but in 
 the still whispers of its silent solitudes there is the seal of the 
 edict of an immutable mandate old as time, firmer than the hea- 
 vens, and infallible as its author, God. Before us we have the 
 sequence, but where, oh where is the cause ? Think not the 
 whirls of voice have extinguished the spark of divinity in the 
 atom of dust we so unhesitatingly spurn and despise. No ! oh 
 no ! the gem may be sloughed by the casket, but the master artist 
 who set it there has valued it by the scope of eternity, and no 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. ^3 
 
 despoiler will make Mm disparage the worth of those endowments 
 which he will husband and gather with unspeakable care. Deep 
 down in those rocky wells of emotion there lies the slumbering 
 fountains whose crystal outgushings shall never be allowed to play 
 in the sunbeams of an iris light. For though the record-angel 
 of the appellate court should expunge with the caught-up tears 
 of a contrite penitent the wayward wanderings of a child of error, 
 still will the etiquette of social law forever debar the maltreated 
 and perverted daughters of an unrequited love a return to the 
 lost path of rectitude and honor. 
 
 Chastity once mildewed cannot reappear in its original gauze 
 of purity, even though rinsed by the propitiatory atonements of a 
 Redeemer. We have asked why were they thus ? A pious ma- 
 tron rocked their infantile slumbers, and practical precepts led 
 -them early to the temple of truth. 
 
 A few days journey further on across the mountains, on the 
 fertile plains where an excessive plethora of normal richness re- 
 turns the teeming reward to slothful industry, beyond the influ- 
 ence of the local atmosphere where we have been stopping, live 
 the relatives of these outcast creatures we have so informally pre- 
 sented to your attention. 
 
 Broad and fertile fields, costly edifices, rare and well-chosen 
 shrubbery, trained tendrils, pebbled avenues, magnificent dia- 
 grams, living pools, fac simile statuary, frescoed and perfumed 
 by the exotics of every clime where the tinted blush doth grow, 
 but plainly tells us we are being ushered into the fastidious cir- 
 cles of republican royalty, and that too in a land where an osten- 
 sible pageantry affects to hallow the memory of Washington ; 
 but whose mercenary and heartless potentates buy their pre- 
 eminence with bullion, and gild their homes and altars and hearts 
 with ingots gained by treachery to every living principle com- 
 mendable to God and worthy of perpetuation. 
 
 Bland hospitality welcomed us to the home of luxury — the pa- 
 lace of the silvered grandpa and his tripping bride of sweet 
 twenty-three. The Colonel entertained us with rallied spirits, 
 for evidently he was in a moody, dumb soliloquy of mind, pro- 
 duced by some interesting topic of unusual solicitude. Nor was 
 
24 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 he tardy in ordering his choice hock, the nectar which makes 
 the valet and his commander equal, that gladdens the spirit and 
 solaces care, and unlocks the vault to the hidden mysteries of 
 skeleton secrecy. 
 
 Our own enthusiasm grew with astonishment as we responded 
 to the electric toasts of the " grey eagle " whose eyes flashed with 
 the vivacity of youth when the gladdening bowl had evidently 
 drowned his sorrow, and in an extempore speech we expressed 
 the gratifying results of the beverage on our feelings to enable 
 us to discover the grandeur of the sea-side home and the poetry 
 of the ocean's zephyr that fanned the toying yacht sailing within 
 the headlands of the shore, as if seemingly such dally winds were 
 purposely invented to caress the ringlets of a sylph. 
 
 He replied : "Ah ! my young friend, you know but little of life. 
 And less I trust of the gnawing grief which feeds upon the im- 
 material, which knows no annihilation, and accepts no concilia- 
 tion, and cannot even hope for a cessation from its agony, or an 
 armistice to the training in arms against itself. Ambition heeds 
 no counsel, nor has it a regard to consequences, nor spares the 
 hopeless sueing for relief. Behold 1 all about you are evidences 
 of sublimity, plenty and peace. My name is emblazoned in his- 
 tory, and known by a lineage of valor and glory, and my position 
 is envied by countless associates, who assemble in these halls, 
 graced by legacies of heraldry which refer you to Palestine, Wa- 
 terloo, and Yorktown. Amongst my moth-eaten relics are price- 
 less reminiscences of the deeds of a gallant ancestry. I can show 
 you the cross and the crescent, the lion and pine-top, that belong 
 to either side of my family, and which by them were won with 
 worthy emulation on many a hard-matched field. 
 
 "But, sir, these are less to me than the shells piled on yon surf- 
 rufiied beach ; and most gladly would I give them all, could I 
 but be transmuted into one of those happy songsters which now 
 carolls so sweetly in those moss-covered myrtle-terraced bowers 
 that give bounds to the surges at its feet." "Why, Colonel, you 
 certainly do not regret having served in the wars ? Does your 
 mind fret with remorse when you retrospect the lifeless visages 
 after the battle ?" 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 25 
 
 " No I oh no ! no sir, nothing of the sort. Expediency knows 
 no such retrospect : there is no need for ablution when duty 
 makes a will by the very laws of constraint. The foe of my flag 
 is a set target for the missiles of death, and I would strike down 
 the craven who would blench to meet him, or dread to give him 
 the unerring aim. The warrior is by profession inured to all its 
 sequences. But there is a feeling in himself that carnage cannot 
 stifle. It is the altar of his divinity, the pride of intuitive love, 
 the pall of woe on his own heart. 
 
 " Young man, listen. Three years ago, I married a child of 
 twenty. At the time of our acquaintance, she was engaged to 
 as noble a fellow as ever deployed in cavalcade, — one, too, who 
 never faltered before the iron hail, nor parleyed for lots when 
 making up a forlorn hope. Young, generous, gay, high-minded, 
 chivalrous and worthy. But unfortunately he was poor — the 
 gravest sin a man can be chargeable with in this brazen world. 
 I broke in upon his covenant with his betrothed, and gained her 
 for my bride. But she never wed me, and every vow she made 
 at the altar was an insult to common sense and a perjury before 
 high heaven. And I, dotard and fool that I was, could not see 
 the rank madness of my folly. One moment's thought should 
 have convinced me there is no law to wed the frost and flowers ; 
 there is no principle by which the roseate beauty of June can be 
 acclimated to the rigor of midwinter. 
 
 "But in exoneration for Oleta let me here explain : she would 
 not have broken her pledged faith with Harry but for the scheming 
 machinations of an artful mother. Talk to me of the shambles 
 of Turkey I What boots it if the veiled Circassian goes an unwil- 
 ling captive to do the servile biddings of her purchaser against 
 her will and affection ? Submission to a slave market is none 
 other than a necessity, and timidity may awake a thoughtless 
 care, and unexpected concern call out a reciprocal regard. But 
 why do we, a Christian people, look with such horror on the 
 practice of a semi-barbarous people who barter for a pittance 
 the maidens in their market, whilst we almost imiversally copy 
 after them, with no extenuating apologies for such an inhuman 
 infatuation ? 
 
26 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 "Oleta's mother was u member of high standing in a Christian 
 church. Invocations were daily offered to the Most High in her 
 domestic circle. But the pride of her natural instructress knew 
 no bounds. Her trinity was the golden ore — her idol the image 
 calf. And now, the links which join my wife to me are the same 
 as these which link this locket to my watch, and the artizan who 
 forged them was that same said Christian mother. But she has 
 gone to receive the booty of an outlaw's reward, and, for aught I 
 know, the practical proof of the adage in her text-book, ' You 
 cannot serve God and Mammon.' She sleeps a quiet sleep, and 
 so let her repose. Ten years before our bans she broke off a 
 match between both of her two elder daughters for the same rea- 
 son she would discard my rival. The jilted lovers joined the 
 army, went to war, courted death, and in accordance with their 
 wishes, left their bones on a foreign soil. The news came home 
 that they could not return, for the stars and stripes had draped 
 them. And Mary and Clara, conscious that they had signed 
 their lovers' death-warrant, in a paroxysm of despair, rushed for- 
 ward to a fate of iniquity, to retaliate on a mother who estimated 
 happiness by the worldly standard of respectability. This should 
 have been a sufficient lesson to teach her common-sense propriety ; 
 but instead of that, it only intensified her predetermination for 
 error. She desired all the more the officer of rank to cover the 
 blotch on the family record, and hence was ever ready to sacrifice 
 by a further inroad on the rights of purity. 
 
 "The day Oleta and I were married, or more properly, the day 
 she ostensibly married me, she spent the whole day within an hour 
 of the ceremony, in her own room, weeping. To her it was a 
 funeral — to all the promptings of a wooing love. And on the 
 wedding apparel should have been most appropriately hung the 
 sable sash, indicative of a writhing spirit. But to go on. I owed 
 Hai'ry, my martial son, a debt of gratitude — I owed him my life : he 
 warded a thrust whilst in the campaign service, which would have 
 caused my death, and it was done at the well known jeopardy of 
 his own life. Had he called me to the field of honor before 
 he left his native land, it would have given me some consolation 
 to know we parted in the honors of war. But no I he meekly 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 27 
 
 left as his farewell password, " Colonel, you know me from what 
 I hare encountered. You will not ask me for a proof of my man- 
 liness, nor doubt the motives which restrain me from asking it of 
 you. I thought I knew you until this hour. More especially, I 
 thought I knew how to confide in her whose destiny was my goal, 
 my hope, my life. I surrender what is clearly lost, and if, in the 
 keeping of a treacherous heart, you find a treasure worthy of 
 your venerable love, with my very best good wishes for the future, 
 T bid you be happy." 
 
 " Poor fellow, he has gone to the Indie's, and from thence to a 
 home where money does not shut out the good nor instal the bad. 
 My pride was stung at his letter, but I could not retort ; I pock- 
 eted the insult, for it was too palpable, too true to be gainsayed. 
 And yet, if it had come from any other quarter it would not 
 have been passed over in silence. The sail is returning, the eve- 
 ning is deepening into twilight ; they will scarcely reach here 
 before nightfall. When they arrive, you will see her to whom, 
 by formal law, I am wed ; but to say in truth we are man and 
 wife, is to utter a positive falsehood. And remorse daily up- 
 braids me for an impious zeal ; an unholy passion, at variance 
 with all the dictates of a better judgment, in the commission of 
 this fatal and irreparable error. But Oleta is not to blame. 
 Young, gay, handsome, accomplished, fond of admiration, in love 
 with herself, and a perfect nurtured pet of fashion, how else 
 could she have decided, when with all her natural fondness for 
 ostentation she had the powerful persuasions of a coy and sinis- 
 ter-minded parent to urge her on to the onslaught of that lovely 
 instinct which is the only genuine test of love. Here in this 
 home is enough to make any young girl's head giddy. And who 
 of all her sex would not confiscate their honor for similar in- 
 ducements ? 
 
 " I am almost persuaded women are our greatest ill. When 
 in the camp we can quarter an army in perfect harmony, and the 
 man who takes care of the chief's war horse is a stranger to the 
 onerous title of rank. How different the rules of society to suit 
 the fastidious whims of pretentious girls and manoeuvering 
 mammas ? The returned volunteer finds the perils of the war- 
 
28 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 fare have been to deck the brows of a few staff officers, whilst 
 the rank and file are reckoned as mere appurtenances, the same 
 as horses and ordnance. I grant reception parties give the 
 maimed and languid a hearty welcome to their homes ; but after 
 the feasting, and toasting, and buncombe speeches are over with, 
 the evanescence of glory to the ranks subside. And ten years 
 after they may find it difficult to get from government their 
 claims for service which has disabled them, since their penury 
 precludes the chance of a congressional fee. Men are very self- 
 important, and think themselves all powerful to control. But 
 in this they are very much mistaken. Man ever has been the 
 slave of woman, and ever will be. How often have I wondered, 
 whilst contemplating the fall, that Adam did not pause to con- 
 sider the serious necessity he was under as a primeval ruler, and 
 with destiny pointing to the long avenue of time, and his multi- 
 tudinous descendants, how he could have given way to the fine- 
 spun story of the fallen one is more than I can account for. He 
 had no excuse save that he could not spare the only woman 
 known to earth : but such a loss could not have intercepted his 
 purpose, for his cognizant knowledge of the supernatural power 
 should have taught him another Eve could stand before him 
 after another deep sleep. But no, she had woven her silken 
 meshes about his heart, and he was as helpless to her prey as 
 though he had not seen creation's earlier dawn and held consul- 
 tation with Him who deals in mystery as a shadow of his will. 
 Or could it have been the ignorant innocence of his uncon- 
 trasted felicity that thought not of barren fields and prickly 
 thorns beyond his Eden ? Surely he was in love ; and who that 
 loves can see but ideal bliss to which fickle fancy directs the rap- 
 turous vision, and dazzles judgment by her gorgeous show. If 
 the experience of the proverb-writer found not one woman in a 
 thousand, what use is it for us to hope that a further pressing 
 inquiry would lead to more favorable results ? Eve was what 
 her daughters are ; and the dramatic author was not amiss when 
 he proscribed the sex." 
 
 " Why, Colonel, we are surprised at such expressions from a 
 gentleman of your renowned good sense. The wine has certainly 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 29 
 
 warped your judgment ; your denunciations are too broad and 
 very erroneous. You argue against yourself. In your specula- 
 tions about tlie original transgression you do not take into con- 
 sideration that the word obey was not a womanly duty. In the 
 superior experience of Adam, he is entitled to greater censure 
 for a rebellion to law, provided he could understand the import 
 of that injunction, and if punished without such knowledge, the 
 penalty would seem very unjust. Besides, the inquiry of mind 
 to know what we do not comprehend must have afforded the log- 
 ical tempter— known to strategem by the practice of it against 
 the Head of Power, and adroit in it by the gift of reason— a 
 fine field for the display of all his sweeping chicanery, before 
 which Adam was scarce a pigmy in contrast with that greater 
 arena where in other times it had thundered. Moreover, he 
 could not have decided against woman without an appeal to Him 
 who gave her. For she was then a peer, and if he reasoned at 
 all he could find no reason to justify the use of a prerogative 
 which he did not possess. Since then, woman's sphere has been 
 to concede ; and the law is mitigated in its sentence to her by 
 the very fact that she loves the admiration of men. If we love 
 what she does, it must also be remembered she only esteems what 
 will advance her in the regards of men. And she is ever ready 
 and willing to sacrifice every comfort and forego every hope to 
 advance the weal of those she loves. We have seen her not 
 only in the chamber of the sick, succoring the fainting, calming 
 the dying, and, after the spirit has fled, administering kind of&ces 
 to the dead, but in the rudest hovel, or mounted on dragoon- 
 saddle, crossing the western wilds, or cooking the supper of a 
 train-party who had camped by a brook in the open air and in- 
 clement weather, even there the frail attendant of her sovereign 
 showed the faithful keeping of her trust ; and by her will all 
 were cheered, and with her exuberant spirits trouble forsook the 
 band. And she may often, most often, thus be found when her 
 gentle structure would much forbid the will to so over task her 
 strength for endurance. When living facts like these attest the 
 proof of woman's worth, why argue so when statute claims de- 
 mur the allegation and bar the charge for naught ? Ask for ro- 
 
30 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 mance and we offer you her history ; require of us constancy in 
 its sublimest feats, demand heroic valor which pangs the brain 
 and winces thought with the recital, for love inquire, before 
 which the noontide glow of Sol's most torrid heat would wane, 
 which none could think was other than a monstrous fabrication 
 of weird shape ; but that woman has been all this and more to 
 us, and all to whom her minstrel love hath come. True, we know 
 her love for social position, but we also know the disdain in 
 which she is held If not fortunate in society. And if she is 
 guilty of an idolatrous love to fashion, it is because we, the men, 
 have taught her thus to be. And if we would admire her own 
 home-made fabric before the flashy imported silk, she would in- 
 variably go thus attired. And if she is to be seen in the market 
 offering herself as a commodity, against her sentiment for a for- 
 tune, she can also as often be seen heaping a fortune on a worth- 
 less suitor who quarters himself on her bounty for her gold. 
 Give her wealth to her utmost wish, and she will no longer bar- 
 ter herself for money. Why censure her, then, for preferring a 
 protector whose means will enable her to live above the con- 
 tumely of the curling lip .of unjustifiable scorn ? Woman's love, 
 by caste the harlot jade, is daily strangled. Amend your code 
 or be not plaintive at the wanton ingress of its gross demands. 
 Out, not on woman, but they who make her servile and then op- 
 press her for her helplessness ! Away with croaking men who 
 prate about the sex, and reflect not that as she is debased so is 
 society lowered, and as the tendency downward increases the will 
 to amend but lessens ! 
 
 " We verily believe you censure yourself in this instance too 
 severely. Age, after all, is but a nominal thing to note the dis- 
 tance we have come, it metres not the future. Nor are persons 
 to be graded by age so much as their physical contrast for lon- 
 gevity. That your lady loves you must be a self-evident fact ; 
 for how else could she but love, since you it is who have brought 
 her to this eminence in society from the home of obscure neces- 
 sity. Like Othello, we fear you have nursed an ideal image in the 
 brain till every thought is panic-struck at some jealous trick of 
 duplicity. It is sure to produce what most you dread. Woman 
 
PICTURES FEOM LIFE. 31 
 
 will not be proof against a suspicious allegation not founded 
 well in fact. E'en though she be as spotless as the dew upon an 
 envoy's wing, if she but learns mistrust lurks in the feelings of 
 her lord, the fires of constancy in her bosom are extinguished 
 the ashes of former love are on her heart's bright altar, and her 
 mission thenceforth is to bribe the Vandal to despoil." 
 
 " To bribe the Yandal to despoil 1 An appropos not meant, 
 but all the more meaning since comes it does with omen signal 
 of his intent. This glass, and that boat ! Take this glass and 
 watch how they fondle in the warm embrace of love, e'en whilst 
 the spray doth splash the very topmast, and the reefed sail bends 
 full before the wind with which they cross the waves, and for 
 aught they know by which they whelm and die as they have lived, 
 a loving sameness, sweet in its perils, thus tutored to despoil." 
 
 " Why, Colonel, I am surprised at you, to thus work yourself 
 into fury over a vague and truly mistaken idea. Danger will 
 huddle enemies into a friendly circle. I fear the dangers of the 
 sea to the craft and not their dark intent. How could you thus 
 suspect, seeing there are four on board ?" 
 
 " How could I thus suspect ? If danger harmonizes foes, ills 
 weaken woes : and those bent on like designs may well go on ; 
 of each the other nothing knows. But most gladly would I pay 
 the divers to disgorge them of the sea, if this fresh storm would 
 hug them with its strong breath, and give to the weeds o'er which 
 they swim the aquatic windings of a briny shroud. But 'tis 
 meaningless thus to talk. The barbed fish most wildly flounces 
 when the deep dart is drinking out his life, and the force with^ 
 which he pulls more duickly makes him motionless. In that en- 
 tire party flows kindred blood of mine, and mooted suspicion 
 would cause these rusty blades of mouldered sires to cancel 
 thought neath these green plateau groves, for generations the 
 home of martial scenes, and for ages used to the tread of chief- 
 tain's strides. The escutcheon would here find a mimic end, and 
 I, the dwarfish retinue, a most unpitied tomb. A pretext for a 
 war will do for kings whose courts mould vassals to their will ; 
 but we whose conduct others will decide, must wear the image 
 of the meaning on the plate, else every act will be a mouth-piece 
 with which to torture out a living condemnation. 
 
32 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 " Let us go to the shadows of the grove. "We may not longer 
 trace them on the beating track. To the treasures of the sea I 
 would new riches add by this most eager contribution — but no it 
 will not be. Fate fosters well the nurslings of her pride, most 
 oft she finds a ready counterpart when dotards choose a gewgaw 
 for a bride. I importune you to go on your way a mute specta- 
 tor of these scenes. Sometime you may be tempted to give 
 them publicity ; but be sure you do not do so until I am no more. 
 You remember the traveller who suppressed his curiosity when 
 witnessing the wine drank from the skull, and by that you can 
 profit. When you narrate them, if ever, do so with proper def- 
 erence and all will be well." 
 
 We wandered arm in arm over those shelled avenues, regaled 
 by the odor of fruits and flowers, sheltered by the perennial 
 boughs of the stately magnolia, the majestic pine and towering 
 oak. The fountains played their spattering jets as if in feeble 
 answer to the hoarse moan of the waves, and the sighing wind 
 swept its ceaseless way through the dense foliage to chime a 
 sympathetic measuie with the mental storm which raged in the 
 mind of as frank and honorable a man as ever honored friend or 
 dealt invective hate to foe. He continued : 
 
 " You are a traveller and must know something of men by 
 their exterior appearance. You observe my organization is one 
 of feeling. Often do I envy the phlegmatic man, whose nerves 
 are too far from the surface— beneath muscular grossness — to 
 ever wince. Such persons never have a great deal of pleasure ; 
 but if they arc strangers to joy, they are likewise so to pain. It 
 is not desirable that we should be too susceptible. But it may 
 be, the counterbalance of extremes are equal ; the opposites may 
 average Who knows ? 
 
 " The ordeals we mortals pass seem greater to ourselves than 
 others ; and yet, we may not judge from symbols seen, since 
 other's secrets, kept housed in the mind, may far outstrip our 
 own ; and if arrived at, would cause us, over lots we now repine 
 at, to grow most thankful. Withal, I sometimes think ' there is 
 nothing new under the sun.' The unknown antediluvian whose 
 dust may lie buried here — whose oblivious existence on the scroll 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 33 
 
 of time has long since been laid away in the dusty archives of 
 the chronological history of what to us is faded — ^may have felt 
 just as we do ; his burthens may have been our own. Ages 
 hence, we shall be as they ; and some moody child of disaster may 
 here wander, and wonder as we now do, and find like us no answer 
 to his interrogations. How strange we reasoning creatures are so 
 unreal. The fleeting phantoms of the hour decoy us into a life 
 of misery, and those who most upbraid our rashness, do act 
 with least becoming cause of praise. There are none who care 
 for us, however mindful of their opinions we are, but as we for 
 principle care, 
 
 " The proud man's hate is not an index of his thoughts. His 
 esteem may be the mask which, worn to suit the courtly sem- 
 blance of the hour, dissembles hideousness seething in the grim 
 vortex underneath, which, when thrown off, more manifestly speaks 
 the reason prompting a disguise. Could we transfer by some 
 unknown agency the beating pulse of souls to dumb inertia, the 
 shock would rend to ruins fragmentary, waste the sphere so tran- 
 quil now. The ills of life are frequent ours as we do seek them ; 
 there is an intoxication in the stolen pleasures, and the greater 
 the interdiction the stronger is our wish to breach the code. 
 
 " Reason wears no flippery. Truth is cold ; and her mother 
 Justice stern, unfeeling, and impartially severe. Who know 
 their counsels and shrug not their will ? But pride is coquetish ; 
 vanity a fawning sycophant, and all men servile subjects of their 
 ephemeral smiles. The tortures which now hiss within are sought 
 after, though well known the market value of the gift : once 
 owned, are ours, and we to them are wed by bonds of appetite 
 which few can well disown. And though you see what I do feel 
 but could only appreciate, by knowing it will not teach the per- 
 verse mind to dread the ills it craves to revel in. We struggle 
 hard to obtain what makes us most unhappy ; and though avoid- 
 ing error, forever shun those paths that are unknown to pain- 
 What odds to us the experience of the race about us ? Living 
 biographies are living blunders, which fools, not we, will make. 
 But avoiding their mistakes will make a thousand other. With 
 what I have said would you exchange our place in life, since 
 3 
 
34 THE BRIDLE OX THE HEART ; OR 
 
 more equal ages would make the comrades more equal sui- 
 tors ?" 
 
 "Who do you mean, us ?■' 
 
 " Yes, you 1 We know not. Why do you not know ? Because 
 satisfaction is too unsatisfactory. To live is destiny, and it is 
 law. Law is God, which heeded, knows not error. Law moral, 
 domestic, social, political, are one ; one in rie:ht, and also one in 
 wrong. To ask then — would you be what few would excuse us 
 for not becoming, and what we could not excuse ourself to be, is 
 asking what answers itself. How do you mean ? we like others 
 would choose what most we did doat on. Whose God is chosen, 
 such is worshipped. And who most can sacrifice outdo the most. 
 Error gives great award to war on right. But if it does, who- 
 ever consents to wage the strife, gains an ungainly prize. To 
 look on ills is all that we desire ; we would not know what we 
 could wish we had not known. And once knowing, we have no 
 power to bid the noisy child be still." 
 
 " Ah, sir ! you reason well ; yet who that cannot theorize ? But 
 who will put in force superior judgments, just commands ? Di- 
 gression from a given way, always leads further off from the de- 
 fined path, which once taken, may lead further still than ever 
 others went before, if possible, such could be. Adherence lends 
 content, though never much disturbed by tumultuous undoings, 
 nor never wild with an unnatural potion. If from men's words 
 you judge them, then all are wise ; if from their acts, scarce none 
 who seem not fools. But sir, this storm grows with fierceness, 
 and now do I relent the curse of end I laid upon them. That 
 her bright eye this might all dim, should shrink not from the 
 feeding monster's ravenous touch, is more than I would think of. 
 Death mantles follies. Even now with hope mixed in with doubt 
 would contemplation see only virtue in the history of the past, 
 and all the bitter feelings of my soul to her, would turn to venom, 
 engendering poison in itself. I may mistake her love ; or per- 
 chance, I do ray own. Who that loves so fervid but by times, 
 will grow most jealous, — and yet withal when love reciprocates, 
 we nothing chide : surely she knows the language of herself, and 
 answers suiting her demands, must ever satisfaction give. What 
 think you ? " 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 35 
 
 "We think as you do ; the cup of joy brim-full has no such 
 emptiness wherewith to harbor jealousy. And love is lewdness, 
 and base inconstancy, when seeking bliss in stranger's smiles. 
 But list 1 Colo's bow wow denotes he spies the light, watchful 
 friend ! he knows the angry waves now challenge stout the yacht, 
 — its gleam must signal great distress, for it alone could speak 
 them in the dark. Thanks, they are safe ; but to steer the point 
 of rocks which run out from the bayou's mouth, requires a skill- 
 ful helmsman ; but Fuqua's arm is strong, and his fortitude and 
 judgment without a rival. What if the billows should engulf 
 them, e'en whilst their cries are heard from off this shore, ming- 
 ling with the wild wind's requiem dirge !" 
 
 " Pity could not rescue. But let's watch their progress ; 
 their beacon will our forebodings answer. They pass in safety. 
 They owe their safety to the full flood, which gave them leaward 
 sea-way. How terrific the swell on which they toss ! watch the 
 rising and climbing signal, how plainly it manifests the terribly 
 sublime surgings of the ocean invading the inlet 1 But let us go 
 'to the house, the carriage awaits them at the landing, and it will 
 be a full hour or more before they can possibly reach home 1" 
 
 We return from the beach, and ascend the verandah steps that 
 look out towards the ocean ; the air and sound tell us we are 
 snuffing the breath of Neptune ; but the lungs of the forest soften 
 the music of the muttering echo, and modify its moistened va- 
 pors. The Col. resumed. "Ah, sir, how sincerely do I wish for 
 the stirring scenes of the camp 1 Perhaps in all this country, 
 there is not a more inviting home, to every outward appearance, 
 than this ; and highly likely there is no hearth more vacant than 
 mine own. Music and revelry, with their voluptuous strains of 
 delightful reverberation, forever keep a jocund round of mirth, 
 and gallant men delight to toast my honors with an envious eclat ; 
 but beneath it all they laugh to know they own the jewel, whilst 
 I but wear the signet of its worth. Cnpid, sir, is a notorious re- 
 cruiting officer. There is no sanative for a disappointed lover, 
 equal to the rough hardihood of war ; and no breastwork so for- 
 midable as the callous bosoms of men beyond the reach of care. 
 How despicable the avaricious craving for the procurement of an 
 
36 THE BEIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 alloyed wealth 1 How sacrilig-ious the habit of causing every 
 motive to be secondary to material property I And we as a peo- 
 ple, are less excusable for such remissness, than any other nation 
 under the sun. Ostensibly a republic— but practically so only iu 
 name. And sir. it is this barbarous thirst for gold, which is so 
 rapidly eating out the vitality of the country. For which there 
 is neither hope or redress. I have witnessed sights on the plains, 
 which make my blood run cold to think of. The pent field after 
 an eugagement, is a matter-of-course-scene of horror. But the 
 neglected sick, forsaken by their own companions, left to the 
 mercy of chance by their own sworn friends, helplessly dying by 
 the roadside — and the desperate, hungry, and starving outcast 
 feeding on his fellow, when companies with an over-ladened su- 
 perabundance, were quartered in sight, are stubborn incidents to 
 prove the insane influence of the yellow fever, over the soul. But 
 why cite such instances ? The rules of settlements are not dis- 
 similar. But to go on with my narrative : the wilds between the 
 borders and California, are fertilized with the bleaching bones of 
 trains-men. Our men frequently used a skull for a mallet to drive 
 down a picket pin when ranching out the horses for the night, 
 and svithout any more repugnance than if it were a timber mawl. 
 This we could endure, did not the analysis call up the Incentives 
 producing such results. The widow and orphans were made so 
 by this idol love of money, and the premature and unburied end 
 is the sequel to the chapter of casualties, to which the harassed 
 victim was subjected, previous to the final close of life's drama. 
 And the pitiless storms and glad sun, fall upon the unhoused re- 
 mains which teach a lesson of impartial love, that the wanderer 
 never knew whilst living. But sir, what sent them out to leave 
 their families, to run the hazard of a luckless chance ? With a 
 hope most hopeless to the final result, why did they neglect the 
 duties of plodding pursuits ? The answer is to be found in nearly 
 every hamlet of this country. Who does not know a score of 
 California widows, abandoned by the gold hunter to become a 
 prey to the prowling cormorants, who like the jackalls of the 
 camp, keep their stealthy, argus-watch about every unprotected 
 fireside ? And too, who does not know the history of those who 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. Si 
 
 went out to Ophir, to seek for a social position which only bullion 
 can buy ? The sabbath revel — the bacchanalian song is but sadly 
 present to my grated ear, and the votaries of the maze, not un- 
 frequently were made up of the messengers of " good will to men." 
 Why, oh why, this sacrifice of every blood-link ; tell me if you 
 can, why men run away from those they so recently vowed to 
 honor and protect ? 
 
 The twain one is inseparable. If proper motives joined theni 
 in the treple bonds of love, they could not so readily be dissolved, 
 they would not so carelessly be separated. It must be the mu- 
 tual will was not stimulated by proper innate principle, or some 
 secret undivulged until after wedlock, that gave the clue to im- 
 position, and rent the woven chords which bleed the more freely, 
 because they haye naught well worthy of their ^rief. Love will 
 not quit its shrine, whilst for the altar of divine regard, it owns 
 an object worthy of its keeping. Or can it be, there is such an 
 inordinate love for vain-glorious show ; a scheming plot for in- 
 sidious pomp, to which the heart must go astray, when guided by 
 the master-check of caste ? Sir, we claim for this age, progres- 
 sion. To this we must demur. Rather let us name it, retrogres- 
 sion. What recompense is offered here for the red man's extinc- 
 tion ? What have we that he had not ? and too, what did h6 
 enjoy, that we do not possess ? Study this when at your leisure 
 and solve the query, is civilization a stigma on its name ? He 
 did not cultivate, and for that we claimed the right to wrest. We 
 cultivate, and exhaust, and cater not to dire want, but to some 
 whim, which he would honestly despise. At his customs we won- 
 der and admire ; at ours, he laughs and scorns. And if he gave 
 place to tribes whose numbers and muscles made them superior, 
 he did not yield his spirit, nor lose the will to wage another ef- 
 fort. Look to your blank faces in your teeming, crowded, com- 
 mercial cities, who chafe beneath the goading chains of social 
 grade. Where are their homes, who their task-masters ? what the 
 demands of monied capitalists, and incorporated companies ? what 
 their hopes, and what their inevitable end ? The sewing-girl who 
 sews her life into the slouch shop-garment, may be a scion of a 
 brave, whose bare-foot march left the crimson foot-prints on the 
 
38 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART ; OR 
 
 frozen ground as he followed the drooping continental flag ; or, 
 by his privations gave prowess to the disconsolate quarters of 
 Yalley Forge ; or perchance in later years fortified the hero's 
 breastworks at New Orleans. 
 
 The old society of '76 is now obsolete. Our modern exquisites 
 thought it an unfair and inconsistent order for a free people to 
 keep up ; and as our love for a golden aristocracy grew, so the 
 inclination to give up the old honors of the revolution increased. 
 Marion and his potatoes, Andre and the three old faithful spies, 
 and such like scenes of the days of our infantile struggle, are re- 
 moved to the garret or cellar, or sent off to auction, ^o make 
 room for the imported pictures of foreign courts. An American 
 artizan cannot dispose of his goods so readily until he has coun- 
 terfeited a European brand, with which to stamp and enhance 
 the merchantable article on sale. Such we have become — what 
 we will be, is more than I can foresee ; and yet the history of the 
 future must be discernable to any one of ordinary perception. 
 
 Some writer in a recent number of Harper's Magazine attemp- 
 ted to admonish the single how to prevent their affections from 
 withering ; and essayed to prove that celibacy was regulated by 
 the standard price of bread — just as though he could tinker up 
 the works of the Almighty, or induce a consternation foreshadow- 
 ing a famine 1 
 
 During the winter of the panic of 1857, when insurer and in- 
 sured, debtor and creditor, looked pale and inquiringly into each 
 other's faces — when hope forsook the stoutest — when every one 
 was dubious of his neighbors, and many publicly proclaimed their 
 dread of starvation ; in the very height of that dismal reign of 
 commercial terror, there was to be found in the goodly city of 
 Brotherly Love a leading commercial paper wantonly yet trium- 
 phantly boasting the time had come when the kitchen help could 
 no more be precise about the duties of her contract for service. 
 
 Labor was not counted a menial duty forty years ago — and 
 the peculated fortune would not at that day have bought up the 
 esteem of the first rank of society. Industry was favored and 
 fostered, honesty was encouraged, and the will to do was not 
 thwarted by the pretentious nabob. Marriage was honored, and 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 39 
 
 the maiden a helpmeet rather than a burden. The pine-table 
 and wooden spoons made the clean cottage a home of happiness ; 
 for love, not fused metal, was the consideration of the indenture 
 of alliance. Then the wife's thoughts were occupied with other 
 topics than floating gossip, and if she wore flounces, her indus- 
 try aided to procure them. She preferred the sickle and the 
 gleaned sheaves to the fantastic nonsense of the masquerade, and 
 the olive branches about her table effectually shut out those mis- 
 givings which make a libel for divorce the last alternative of an 
 outraged husband. " 
 
 "Colonel, we insist you are incensed against mankind. You 
 should have the thistle for your coat of arms. For, after all this 
 change of which you speak, people in reality have not changed. 
 Men are the same always everywhere, differing just as circum- 
 stances make them. Men's feelings are brought out by the times. 
 Besides, you are a warrior. If you would keep us behind the 
 world, the world would keep us under them. If you will rear 
 men to be as innocent as doves, they would not care to fight. 
 Where, under such circumstances, would your soldiers come 
 from ? From where Washington got his. Our present fast men 
 are less than a shadow, but few of whom would care to encounter 
 peril for principle ; and three nights on guard in midwinter would 
 give the most of them a fatal attack of bronchitis. You much 
 mistake if you think innocent men would not fight bravely ; on 
 the contrary, when men have homes to defend, their stout arms 
 find a ready and stout will in the contest, and right is a mighty 
 spur in the engagement. But if he has no home, no group about 
 the fireside, nor hope of any worthy of an honorable, high-minded 
 son of liberty ; if he must feel, though born a sovereign citizen 
 of liberty, he must be crushed for the gratification of the ambi- 
 tious, or bartered as consols by speculative sharks, then indeed 
 he must be fond of fighting, he must be anxious to add to the 
 power of those who abuse it to his social degradation, to be wil- 
 ling to enter the service for fifteen dollars per month and a few 
 acres of an uninhabited waste. " 
 
 "And when you allege I am misanthropic, sir, you should first 
 disprove my premises. What have I said that is not correct ?" 
 
40 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 " Well, Colonel, we'll agree it is all correct ; but your testi- 
 mony bears upon shadows ; to give us a perfect painting, give us 
 light as well as dark ground. Sir, the shadows form in this pic- 
 ture the main body of the painting, with scarcely a relieving ray. 
 The exceptions do not alter a rule, nor will the relief to the back- 
 ground remove the mountain-chains which piles against the 
 vaulted blue." In this we must agree to disagree with you. We 
 can sympathize with you in your domestic suffering, but we are 
 loth to think there are not many happy families, and equally as 
 unwilling to think men are destitute of principle, and we are 
 quite as ready to accord to women disinterested motives. Men 
 are mostly by preference adherents to principle, and digression 
 from it is the force of surroundings, and not the will of choice." 
 
 " Well, sii'. It boots not the causes ; we are most concerned 
 about the effect. Many roads radiate from this, and any of them 
 are sure to bring you here, though some are more circuitous than 
 others." 
 
 " It is no difference what brings about the result. It is the 
 effect for which I contend. 
 
 " And if circumstances make us err, which shall we regard as 
 debtors for the end, the eiror or the cause that instigates it ? 
 Your logic, sir, won't hold good. The peculiarities of the case are 
 tantamount, look at them as you please. If my farm is over- 
 run with destructive weeds, it matters not whether they are of 
 spontaneous growth, or were blown here by the wind from slug- 
 gish plantations adjacent, or leagues away. If a malaria arises 
 from a morass, it must be reclaimed ; we must subdue it, or re- 
 move from its influence, or die by inhaling the effluvia. So if so- 
 ciety is out of order, we must restore it to peace, or suffer the en- 
 tailed evil, which disjointed circles and clashing interests super- 
 induce. And, as I said before there is no remedy. You say the 
 same. You bid us remove the oanse which makes woman decide 
 against her promptings of intuitive love, or else not censure for 
 her raid or instinct. Here, sir, is the pivot of the question. We 
 have a level', but no fulcrum. Or if you choose, we have both, 
 but they are inoperative. To bring reason to the plummet, is to 
 ask man to disown his love of self. To confiscate self on the al- 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 41 
 
 tar for the benefit of the race. And who will step forth from the 
 ranks in answer to such a call ? who will declare he has no pride ? 
 wJio act out such an unnatural declaration ? But Col. where is 
 your proposed remedy ? you spoke of one? It lies in moral force, 
 moral suasion, moral precept, moral example. It rests there, or 
 nowhere. But, sir, it rests and has, and from it we hope for no-' 
 thing, for it is worse than nothing. Because it could, but will 
 not, is heresy. What would you think of me, if I had the power 
 to save a wrecked mariner on this coast, and did not attempt to 
 rescue him from perishing ?" 
 
 "We should think you a merciless, heartless man, sir." 
 
 " And that is what I think. The matron of the world is soul- 
 less, by her inconsistency and inactivity. But 1 hear them com- 
 ing, we will walk down to the gate and meet them, and welcome 
 friends whose friendship gives us much uneasiness." 
 
 Quick as a bearer of despatches, we sped the shelled path o'er- 
 hung with dewy arches. Patient Joe was just unlatching the 
 gate as we reached it. And Col. with true gallantry welcomed 
 the party in a glowing strain of gratulations on their deliverance 
 and safe arrival. 
 
 Never shall we forget the wild hoh ! hoh ! of the phlegmatic 
 Oleta, or the jocose taunt of Mr. Fuqua, and the stirring retort 
 of Fitzwater, and the happy expletives of Laura. 
 
 "But come ! come ! you are wet ; let us hurry home, that you 
 may get on dry apparel. Joe, drive on, boy, we will walk up!" 
 The Col. continued. " do you observe the gang with whom I have 
 to parry ? An open outbreak would do me good, but to smother 
 fire, and still fan it into fierceness, will consume the mettle of the 
 spirit, and disarm us of the inclination to resist." Once more 
 we returned to the spacious halls of Ludwick Loe. 
 
 Chandeliers fill the apartments with floods of light, and seem- 
 ing life-like bronze look out from niched walls, and vivid paint- 
 ings watch your movements as if their gaze was an artist's scru- 
 tiny ; the velvet carpet a perfect miniature floral photograph, 
 exquisitely gay in its adaptation to the muffled touch of the em- 
 broidered slipper; and the imported furniture, with the trade- 
 mark of Parisian artizans, make up an invoice of sumptuous ele- 
 gance and opulent leisure. 
 
42 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 The party make their appearance, and we are formally intro- 
 duced. We dislike minutiae; it really forms no part of our sub- 
 ject, and if to write details is the ordeal of a successful writer, 
 we have no aspiration for such a monotonous undertaking. Yet 
 some description is due this company, and we ask the indulgence 
 of the reader to the task. The tall, slender, symmetrical. Col. 
 with locks white as the sea-foam, and features the personification 
 of a Grecian model, was a ludicrous partner for the stout, athletic 
 Oleta, whose black curls, in luxuriant grace, fell cozily over her 
 broad, rounding shoulders, and entangled with the motion of the 
 tossing head, about the bared bust. Eyes, black as the wing of 
 a raven, and bright as the spangled jewels which sparkled on her 
 heaving bosom, or shone with brilliant lustre from the gem-stud- 
 ded bracelets. Features coarse, with an earnest, expressive coun- 
 tenance, which bespoke a temperament, cold and gross. Her 
 complexion, dark ; a natural brunette, rendered sallow by expo- 
 sure and excess. When animation enlivened her, the fierce glare 
 of her countenance was terrible, but stupid and morose when quiet, 
 
 A fit subject to head a band of desperadoes, and to all outward 
 appearances, as destitute of innocence, as light of darkness. How 
 a refined man could ever have fancied such a woman, was more 
 than we could understand. Laura was modest, good disposed, 
 sprightly, friendly, and rather loquacious ; a real fairy, effeminate, 
 womanly, enchantress ; with blue eyes, auburn hair, nose, slightly 
 acquiline, chin prominent, forehead full, mouth small, dimple 
 cheeks with vigorous, nervous temperament, which should index 
 strength of character and inflexible will. But such was not the 
 case. For if she possessed native determination, her concessions 
 to wealth made her the mere instrument of Oleta. And the cold- 
 heartedness of the one, with the plausibility and gentle sweetness 
 of the other, would make them a match for stratagem not easily 
 outdone. 
 
 Mr. Fuqua was a jaunty, dry jester ; off-handed, piquant, care- 
 less, and rather slovenly. A rugged, robust, fellow, with full, 
 round, face ; medium height ; large black eyes ; dark hair, and 
 full whiskers. Evidently a man of selfishness, and blunt suscep- 
 tibilities. Fitzwater, stern and haughty, though endowed with 
 
PICTURES FROil LIFE. 43 
 
 true, noble gifts of mind, which culture had burnished, and trav- 
 elling enlarged, should have commanded our admiration, but that 
 we could discover the nobleness of mind was alloyed by grovell- 
 ing sentiments, unbecoming a true, gentle man ; we could con- 
 ceive, beneath the matted, sandy hair, which partially hid the 
 prominent intellectual citadel of acumen, the manifest evidences 
 of systematised villany, lurking within the adroit and calculating 
 mind. 
 
 The many narrow incidents of the sailing trip, were over and 
 again repeated. Toasting bumpers refilled the silver goblets, 
 and the merry heart, and beaming countenance, and pealing 
 laughter, intermingling with the swift intonations of the speaking 
 music, and tripping feet, made the ancient arches of Ludwick's 
 frescoed halls, resound with a happy home jubilee, to which the 
 fleeting hours were all unknown. Ah 1 we dread the glee of the 
 maze, and never do we attend the giddy, whirling youth, so ut- 
 terly unconscious of the morrow, but before us is present with all 
 its original force and freshness, John's decapitated head, and 
 Byron's fearful Ardennes. The entertaining host, with graceful 
 gesture and becoming dignity, did his higli-born honors well sus- 
 tain. We could not discern a moving muscle out of primp, to 
 speak the choking lies within, which pretentious smiles, with bor- 
 rowed grace did screen from sight, save when the talk had calmed 
 and straying thought grew vacant, in its beating rounds in quest 
 of something new. Just then, we could think the conversation 
 of the evening with its grim conjectures, were confronting him, 
 but glances thrown askant were buried by the breaking muteness. 
 But we must hurry through this chapter. Too much already, has 
 this narrative engrossed this thesis of life's shades and lights, and 
 mutations. We left the home of opulence early on the succeed- 
 ing day, with many good wishes, and kind solicitudes attending 
 the farewell separation. And as we rode for miles along the 
 growing cotton and tasselled con;, through the rich domains of 
 our kind friend we had quitted, the recollection of his mistrust, 
 his greatness and sorrow, his honor, heartfelt barrenness, and our 
 own cosmopolitan hopelessness, the contrast revived us for fresh 
 struggles. The unknown perspective grew resplendent with sunny 
 
44 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 smiles, and pearly hopes and gentle faith. And in onvself we 
 resolved to fear not the furious storm, so long as the flukes of the 
 anchor were cleaving hard hold on the solid bottom below. Since 
 the visit spoken of, the Col. has expired ; the attending physician 
 says of disease of the heart, but Joe thinks raastur's death ware 
 brought about by the unruly ways of missis, who someshow, neber 
 did as she oughto, and ware so wery different from old missis, dat 
 'twan't any wondur mastur dies wid a broken heart. Likes sich 
 people kill anybody got any feelings : 'twere the greatest pity in 
 de world dat any sich match eber come 'bout." The widow be- 
 gan a splash shortly after the Col's, death, and was caught by a 
 professional gentleman, who proved to be a true cavalier, until 
 her fortune was squandered, and Ludwick Loe changed hands 
 under the red flag. After that, he maltreated and forsook her. 
 Her last alternative was to go home to her aged father's meagre 
 homestead, where shortly afterwards she died, more from pride 
 of hate to fortune, than grief or age. Her old pa still lives on 
 his little farm, and in his slow decline, finds solace in his depth 
 of piety. He lingers as a forlorn Jew about the old homestead, 
 consoled by the assurance his opinions were always disobeyed, 
 and his judgment set aside. 
 
 A short time since, we visited Blackwell's Island, and found 
 among the outcast incorrigible convict women sentenced there 
 for inexorable, intolerable, and incurable vice, to serve a term of 
 banished punishment, in that vile abode of graduated wretched- 
 ness. Those same two senior daughters referred to in the out- 
 start of this chapter, who, at the time they were first presented 
 to the attention of the reader, were residing in the secluded moun- 
 tain hut. 
 
 Depravity had become ingrained on their bloated features, and 
 the horror and settled despair on their demoniac though some- 
 what subdued wild glare terrified us. They recognized us, and 
 quite touchingly inquired for their friends in the South. We in- 
 formed them of the facts in the past history of their family, to 
 which they responded only by sighs. The tears started not from 
 their soul's portals, and we concluded long since their tears had 
 dried up, and the more convenient feelings of the stoic's charm 
 had made them stubborn to the force of fate. 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. ' 45 
 
 But when we inquired for their children, they appeared more 
 moved, and we doubted no longer the existence of wonted life in 
 the numbed affections. Soon, however, they quieted themselves, 
 and assured us neither knew of their offsprings' whereabouts. 
 But they further remarked, the elder speaking and her sister as- 
 senting, " If we have reared children who do not wish to own 
 their parents, we have not been guilty of Oleta's crime. Had she 
 been as honest as we, she would still be living to-day." Fitzwa- 
 ter resides in San Francisco, and is doing a prosperous trading 
 business ; Fuqua and Laura were married, and have gone to 
 Rio. What their fortunes are, we have not learned ; their 
 finances were certainly low when they left home, and rumor sayS 
 that in part took them away. 
 
 We cannot close this dark chapter without giving a quotation 
 from Byron's Darkness. In our opinion, it forms a perfect pic- 
 ture of this deteriorated age — and no doubt we are indebted to 
 the author for this incomprehensible mystification of the meaning 
 of this poem because of his domestic troubles after marriage ; or 
 it may be on account of a jilted love which no good grounds of 
 reason could ever have intercepted. It is an old adage, we can 
 only see truth when we have lost sight of everything else. How- 
 ever much we may dislike the hyperbole, and painfully dismal wail 
 and repining, it does not exceed the third chapter of the pro- 
 phetic writings of Isaiah, where he depicts the errors of life, and 
 prefigures the howling future. The two in conjunction we offer 
 as a prototype and exemplification of the enactments of the pre- 
 sent day. But to the quotation : — 
 
 "The crowd was famished by degrees; but two 
 
 Of an enormous cUy did survive, 
 
 And they were enemies ; they met beside 
 
 The dying embers of an altar place 
 
 Where had been heaped a mass of holy things 
 
 For an unholy usage ; they raked up, 
 
 And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands 
 
 The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath 
 
 Blew for a little life ; and made a flame 
 
 Which was a mockery : then they lifted up 
 
 Their eyes as it greAV brighter, and beheld 
 
 Each other's aspects — saw and shrieked and died— 
 
 Even of their mutual hideousness they died, 
 
 Unknowing who he was, upon whose brow 
 
 Famine had written Fiend." 
 
46 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 Thirty years ago, between day-dawn and sun-up, might have 
 been seen a tall, middle-aged, erratic man, of marked features and 
 nervous gesticulation, clad in a suit of homespun, holding a par- 
 ley on the corner of Gay and Baltimore streets, with one of the 
 wealthiest merchants \known on the monumental change at that 
 period. With him were his stripling sons, attired in like garb as 
 the father ; their round jackets, and roll over collars with a sim- 
 ple black ribband tie, chip hat and coarse brogans, gave them 
 the appearance of country rustics. The personal appearance of 
 the party, demons1;;'ated the industry of the wife and daughters at 
 home, who by turns, were tailoress, wash-women, and kitchen 
 companions. Over the right shoulder of the eldest lad, rested an 
 adze, on which was strung three planes^ whilst in his left hand, 
 he held a broad-axe ; the younger brother carried a hatchet, nail 
 box, square, dividers, and plumb-line. 
 
 The neat, little pocket by the side of the old gentleman's thigh, 
 stitched so tastefully about the edges, at once declared the ladies 
 knew how to work, and the father was not ashamed of a trade by 
 which with rigid economy and united effort, " a growing family," 
 was sustained in that comfortable and creditable position, which 
 the heads had equally inherited from a worthy and respectable 
 parentage. 
 
 The builder was an early riser, and on his way to work this 
 morning, had fortunately fallen in with the wealthy merchant, who 
 knowing the sterling habits of the persevering and deserving me- 
 chanic, resolved to give him a contract for building several ware- 
 houses, he purposed erecting that season. 
 
 The morning's consultation resulted in a partial contract, which 
 a few days afterward was confirmed by articles, binding the par- 
 ties to a faithful and full compliance of the specifications noted 
 in the negotiation. The family heard the news that evening, with 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 47 
 
 much joy ; they all regarded it as a lucky hit, and indeed it was, 
 for Mr. Linden came into notice from that time, as a first class 
 contractor. 
 
 At the close of the season, the buildings were all under roof, 
 and by Christmas ready for occupancy. From that period, a 
 new feeling came over the ambition of the master builder. He 
 set his mark on riches, and to that one all-absorbing motive, every 
 other purpose had to give way. Less fond of amusement, more 
 exacting of his men, closer in driving a bargain, reluctant to pay 
 indebtedness, and eager to buy up responsible paper at two per 
 cent a month : these with sundry other noticeable changes in char- 
 acter, were the result of that acquisitiveness which grows by the 
 increase of wealth, and unlike every other passion, knows not 
 abatement by gratification, nor diminishes with the weight of 
 years. 
 
 Old associates, less fortunate than himself, were lopped ofi", new 
 circles formed, and with those new acquaintances, new ideas and 
 manners. Ten years have elapsed, and the family prosperous, 
 happy, maturing and matured, find new influence in the world, 
 by the marriage of two of the daughters to men of wealth and 
 stamina, who were each carrying on business on a large whole- 
 sale scale. 
 
 Now opens an epoch in their history, which goes to show the 
 inflatable condition of the immaterial, when allowed the full ex- 
 ercise of those inborn sentiments, which slumber in the bosom of 
 all men, and if not manifested, it is more for the want of oppor- 
 tunity to develope them, than an inclination of the will to put 
 them in force. 
 
 Gertrude, the third daughter, was addressed by a young car- 
 penter. 
 
 George Riley was all that a young man well could be. Thorough 
 in his trade, upright in business, moral, economical, well educa- 
 ted in the English branches ; a self-taught sober thinking, indus- 
 trious, striving fellow, whose unblemished antecedents, matured 
 judgment, and enviable solidity of character, should have made 
 any father anxious to recognize him as an adopted member of his 
 family. 
 
48 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 But he was poor. In vain he sought the father's consent for 
 their marriage. In urging his suit, George asked that he might 
 know the objections to a laudable love. Mr. Linden thought 
 his means were not sufficient to guarantee such a step. " Tou 
 know, George, you are only a journeyman. Your wages are 
 small, and there is no prospect of your doing better very soon — 
 what you now make will not support my daughter in that com- 
 fort she is now accustomed to ; and what, if you were to get sick 
 or thrown out of employ, or your wife should become feeble in 
 health, where are your resources for such a contingency, to which 
 all families are liable ?" In answer to this, George declared he 
 was young and strong, efficient and willing ; his health was un- 
 exceptionable ; and if he did earn but forty dollars a-month, it, 
 with economy, ought to keep a family. •' Besides, Mr. Joshua has 
 promised to advance my pay, and there can be no doubt but 
 something better will offer before long by which more can be 
 made than what I am now getting. Besides, Mr. Linden, if 
 you were to say no one should get married but the rich, where 
 would we who are not wealthy find wives ? Why not let us 
 begin as you did, and struggle up together ? Gertrude says she 
 is willing to do her part. She knows how to work, and will not 
 think it hard to do her own housework, for she has been used to 
 it from girlhood. There is no man in all this city who would 
 love to honor his wife with every comfort sooner than myself — 
 and I have the will, too, to try to better my fortune, and I have 
 always heard that where there is a will there is a way." Mr. 
 Linden did not relish this reference to his days of humble life, 
 and felt vexed at "the young scamp," as he afterwards styled 
 him when narrating the interview to his wife, " that he should 
 presume to win my child's affections all unbeknown to me, and 
 then try to dissuade me from my protest to such a hair-brained 
 intention." George left the stoical old man with a heavy heart. 
 He hesitated whether to drown troubld in the bowl, or endure it 
 with manly fortitude. Judgment poised, resolution faltered — 
 hope was well nigh gone, and what to him was earth bereft of 
 every hope 1 In the darkness one ray of light came to cheer 
 him with strength to endure and decide the conflict. Gertrude 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 49 
 
 may i^ot be governed by an arbitrary interposition ; ber love may 
 break through the cobweb meshes of an unreasonable injunction, 
 and have me yet, despite the fallacious interception of a merce- 
 nary and unfeeling father. 'Twere treason not to hope ; 'twould 
 impugn a heart untried, and prejudge a will that had not had the 
 chance to confront it for defence. I will wait and see." 
 
 Happy resolve. The lips, innocent of alcoholic drinks, re- 
 mained unstained ; the heart, pure in its solemn purposes, begirt 
 itself for renewed determination, and the swaying youth pressed 
 homeward. 
 
 A week later he met Gertrude at his Aunt's. When did Oupid 
 fail to suggest ways and means to notify his subjects where and 
 how to meet to talk of love ? In hours of absence the winds tell 
 the story of a longing wish — the floating clouds wreathe an image 
 of the heart's affection, and each murmuring brook sings a plain- 
 tive song of her we love. 
 
 Solitude hath its spirit voice, and in the inaudible speech there 
 Is welcome language to the contemplative understanding. Love I 
 love ! love ! 
 
 Did we not know there was a God, the very attributes of His 
 divinity would rise before our sight whilst thrilling with the agi- 
 tations of a care for the invisible in shape and form, and whisper 
 so near, even present before us. 
 
 The worst was known to Gertrude. She had heard a savage 
 lecture from her parents the evening following the refusal ; but 
 she remained unchanged to her lover. He asked if she would 
 marry him without her parents consent ? Like a dutiful daugh- 
 ter she would prefer not to disobey them ; " but, George, if ray 
 parents refuse, I will not consider their refusal sufficient to pre- 
 vent the union. We love, and we will trust each other. Mar- 
 riage is a Divine command, and the Bible, which my mother 
 taught me, bids me leave her and cleave to you. I know I love 
 her, but you do I prefer before her. And if she drive me off and 
 refuse to own me as her child, I shall welcome the banishment ; 
 if with the sorrow which that disowning act shall bring, I but 
 have thy love to console my sadness, and thy support to protect 
 &nd, supply the common necessities of life." 
 4 
 
50 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART ; OR 
 
 George could scarcely believe his own ears : he had not expec- 
 ted such a decisive declaration ; young and inexperienced, he 
 had never known the rebound of woman's will. Gertrude's speech 
 fired and chilled him : he felt nerved for life's future with a manly 
 firmness he had never felt before ; and reckoned difficulty as if 
 the world was a small balance-weight, which he could carry off 
 in his right hand. The impediments on the road of life — 
 which had seemed like mountains in the distance — were now 
 really smooth and graded, although the ascent seemed steep, 
 the ability to reach the summit unquestionable. Looking up to 
 Gertrude, he exclaimed : " My love, thou art my life ; my own^ 
 my dear, sweet wife. You have never kissed me in your life ; 
 kiss me now, and be that kiss the seal that I am thy own, thy 
 wedded husband." And as she kissed the lover as her own, he 
 caught her in his loved embrace, and swooning in a palsied gust 
 of speechless love, bathed her pallid features with the streaming 
 fountains of a fervid soul. When recovered, he rejoined : " Ger- 
 trude, I could not further bear this earnestness of my inmost 
 spirit, leaping into wild delight." 
 
 "Life would dissolve and joy would be my death, if greater 
 ecstacy could more entrance my soul. My will is yours, and with 
 you to nerve me from recoiling. Labor will be amusement, pri- 
 vation a pleasure, difficulty a gain, and disappofntment a double 
 incentive spur to fresher action ; for thy smile will attend me 
 amidst it all, and an anxious concern for your comfort will make 
 me a stranger to defeat." 
 
 Again and again they passed the assurances of fidelity and con- 
 stancy. The certainty of incurring paternal displeasure was only 
 a secondary consideration, and the pressure of such anticipations 
 but bound them in a firmer brace of love. Their anxiety peered 
 beyond the bridal hour to the sober realities of the future. Pat- 
 rimonial hopes they had none. Their resources were within them- 
 selves, and they must prepare to encounter trials which might 
 and most likely would arise. Pride and disobedience would pre- 
 vent them seeking succor from those who could and by rights 
 should assist them. 
 
 And if the predictions of Mr. Linden should come about, what 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 51 
 
 imiendoes and taunts and recriminations would bo heaped upon 
 them by the very people who most should pity them! But to 
 go on. They were married in accordance with the statute code 
 of the commonwealth of Md., three months after their deliberate 
 determination to go into open violation of the proud will of Gr.'s 
 parents. And the Revd. Jimmy Sewell could aid us in this sketch 
 if the proper names of the parties were given. 
 
 K'ot one of their families knew of their purposes until con- 
 summated ; the wedding was divested of the formula and feasting 
 of late contemptible diamond exhibitions, so much the boast of 
 empty heads and lascivious nuptials. A week had expired since 
 the union ; nothing had transpired of an official character to re- 
 mind interested parties of the state of home-feeling entertained 
 for the elopers. 
 
 Gertrude could endure suspense no longer. Mustering cou- 
 rage for the effort, she addressed her mother in the following 
 language : — 
 
 Deae Mother: — I am sure yon know of our marriage, and you are not 
 a stranger to the whereabouts of our abode. Your solicitude for our hap- 
 piness, I thought, dear mother, would have made you call to see us before 
 this. We cannot be assured you hold a kind feeling for us so long as you 
 refrain from coming to see us. We would love to see you all so much. 
 By your keeping away from us, we know you are not kindly disposed. 
 Indeed, George is so kind to me, I should feel a perfect elysium of bliss in 
 my relations of wife (how strange the name seems I) if I could but be per- 
 suaded you were reconciled to our wedding. And if you knew the genu- 
 ine love which I feel for my husband, you could not be so cruel and unkind 
 as not to be conciliated at my conduct, for your unnatural stiffness towards 
 us causes me much anxious distress, which you must know would grow 
 out of such harshness from a mother who has always treated me with so 
 much affection. 
 
 Mother, this is so unlike you, and to me it is a source of deepest sorrow. 
 How can you but think of your own early love for father : and would you 
 not have done as I have, had your parents forbidden you to marry the 
 choice of your affections ? Do come and see us. We would not hesitate 
 to visit you, but we cannot go to see even our own dear loved kindred un- 
 less they wished us to. Tell Lizzie and Kate to come see us. I cannot 
 believe my own sisters have forsaken me. 
 
 Your own dear daughter 
 
 Geetrude Riley. 
 
52 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART ; OR 
 
 Here was an appeal to the tenderest feelings known to earth : 
 the breathings of an unexceptional)ly kind child imploring her 
 mother to not abjure the oflfspring of her love. 
 
 But no answer came to break the aching suspense ; the inex- 
 orable Lindens had cut the incorrigible G-ertrude ; they consid- 
 ered she had disgraced the family by her clandestine marriage to 
 a poor mechanic, from whom she could expect nothing but drudgery 
 the balance of life. 
 
 Perhaps the parents would not have been so uncompromising, 
 had not the young bride thrown the glove to a wealthy banker of 
 fifty-five, to give preference to the man of her choice. 
 
 But now the golden prize was lost, and in the contemplation 
 of the odds of caste, which so clearly attended the mortifying ul- 
 timatum, the family knew no epithet of meaning severity by 
 which to opprobriumize Gertrude. We know enough, alienation 
 reigned, and the sisters, and mother, and father would pass Mrs. 
 Riley in the max'ket, and on the streets, and at church, without 
 so much as a word of recognition. How consistent this inequality 
 in the temple of love ? To the credit of the brothers, be it re- 
 corded, they pursued a different course. They loved their sister ; 
 they knew she was the flower of the family ; they knew her 
 influence over a kindred feeling, and could not be controlled by 
 the wishes and actions of the rest of the family. 
 
 We have hinted at house-keeping. The young pair left the 
 boarding-house, where they were quartered, just after the wed- 
 ding, and removed to a small house on the remote outskirts of 
 the city. 
 
 People did not relish the segregated medley crowds which now 
 sojourn in mixed companies at boarding-houses. We were not 
 so refined then as now. The shield of domestic society was more 
 valued than now, and the prize set on privacy of greater esti- 
 mate than recent calculations of convenience could admit of 
 
 But let us walk up West Baltimore street, and visit the Riley's 
 in their new home. 
 
 A little two story brick, Mnth. two small rooms above and be- 
 low ; the windows of which were hung mth ordinary blue paper ; 
 and the front door, accessable by a pair of Carolina board steps, 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 53 
 
 opened directly into the parlor, of too contracted space to ad- 
 mit of a hall ; the adjacent or back room answered the purpose 
 of kitchen, sitting, and dining-room. The parlor contained three 
 chairs, a centre-table, on which lay a choice collection of books, 
 a dining-table and hat-rack, the mechanism of the carpenter. 
 
 A homespun carpet, woven by mother Riley and her girls, 
 covered the floor, and a vase of alabaster, the relic of George's 
 father's sea-faring, ornamented the mantle, filled with pretty arti- 
 ficial flowers, the artistic work of Gertrude. Their cupboard 
 contained a sett of the commonest queensware ; a few pewter 
 spoons, a rough lot of knives and forks, a close molasses-cup, a 
 couple of salt-cellars, and a handsome china tea-pot, a token of 
 friendship from an old schoolmate, whose unabated attach- 
 ment had followed the young bride to her welcomed home 
 of poverty. The sleeping apartment was snugly comfortable, 
 and it alone of the second story was furnished ; but the ward- 
 robe of the fair wife was rather limited ; in her hurry to slip away 
 from home to enjoy the evening stroll of a beautiful October 
 evening, to seal the pending negotiation of love, she dared not 
 think of trunks or band-boxes ; and she had chosen not to go 
 back, for Mr. Linden had dealt invectives to her husband the first 
 time they had met after the marriage — the conciliatory concess- 
 ions of George were repaid by the blunt insult, " I expect, sir, to 
 have both of you to keep.^l 
 
 This biting sarcasm sunk deep into the hearts of the young 
 folks, and they determined to keep aloof from the irreconcilable 
 family until they would show a willingness to come over to a com- 
 promise. The outlay for the meagre lot of goods quoted ex- 
 hausted the capital of the young beginners, but they were cheer- 
 fully agreed to wait the income of industry to furnish their home 
 more comfortably. The evenings were spent in calling on friends 
 and entertaining welcomed visitors, or by conversation at home 
 or reading from some standard work, of which, next to mechani- 
 cal tools, George was abundantly supplied. For 'a year, things 
 went on swimmingly — work was easily obtained at fair wages, 
 and the surplus weekly earnings, after procuring groceries and 
 raiment, were laid out for home comforts. This was a great mis- 
 
54 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 take, as further circumstances will explain : but if it brought 
 subsequent want, it also taught a lesson which shaped the after 
 events of life and repaid the sufferers for the ordeal to which they 
 were subjected. 
 
 Au exception to general precedent. Persons seldom learn an 
 economy not the gift of native will. 
 
 The winter of which we have to speak was one of great rigor 
 and business prostration. The best workmen were thrown out 
 of employ, and Riley amongst the number. The merchants with 
 whom he had dealt did not hesitate to credit him for family sup- 
 plies for the first three months after he was unemployed ; but 
 seeing he did not resume work as soon as they thought he should, 
 they very politely declined a further extension of credit to 
 him. 
 
 This unexpected financial mistrust seriously inconvenienced 
 and humiliated George, who had entertained the opinion of un- 
 limited confidence with those traders whose cajolery had induced 
 him to believe they would sell him their stores on credit without 
 the slightest hesitation. What was to be done ? Out of work, 
 money, and credit — with no monied friends of whom to seek aid 
 or comfort. To add to this disconcertment, Gertrude required 
 more than the ordinary comforts of life ; the anticipation of ma- 
 tronly cares is perhaps the period of greatest solicitude which a 
 young wife ever has or will undergo. The partner of this blessed 
 woman was not a dull student of a husband's duty. He had 
 evinced that consideration for her comfort which can only be 
 suggested by the anxious interest of a burthened affection. 
 Until now wa,nt had been unknown. But when most it was to 
 be dreaded it came as the gaunt wolf, to lurk about the door. 
 The. spare furniture was sent to auction ; the appendages of lux- 
 ury found their way to the pawnbrokers ; the sale should have re- 
 turned an equivalent to their requirements, had they brought 
 half their value. But so far from relieving their wants, it but 
 added to their discomfort — it tended to put the creditors on the 
 alert and dun after dun came daily to their home of necessity, to 
 grow by denial into more annoying importunity. In the midst 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 55 
 
 of this disquietude, George wished lie had not married. Do not 
 mistake his love. 
 
 The proud feelings of his manly nature were upbraiding him 
 for that helplessness, which made him unable to give the gentle 
 wife the protection of a comfortable home. She knew his tacit 
 will, and did her utmost to dispel his anxiety by her cheerfulness. 
 Perhaps he could have born the anguish quite as well, had 
 Gertrude complained. No, that could not be. Keen trouble 
 must not be further tortured. For nothing short of a God could 
 be thus upbraided without desperation. 
 
 There is too often the cause of drunkards from home brawls. 
 And their existence is a proof of animalism, but a total lack of 
 holy affection. But to our subject. We least can ask for assis- 
 tance, when most in need of it. Between the alms-house and the 
 pitiful plea of poverty in overtures for relief, the former is by far 
 the most preferable. 
 
 To the former we can go by the law of right, and the absolute 
 necessity that constrains it, has smothered the agony of pride 
 with the departure of hope from other sources of succor. But the 
 wreck of greatness is frequently degenerate in the fall. The 
 combat with self-esteem is a struggle which causes thousands the 
 tenfold agony of death, before they will unveil their wants to 
 friends who would rush to their relief. Such in this instance was 
 the case. But for the intervention of his wife and adviser, George 
 would have attempted a loan. But Gertrude dreaded the disclo- 
 sure to her family, and preferred to bear up under trouble pri- 
 vately, in preference to the divulgement of their wants. 
 
 Repeatedly had mother Riley requested to be allowed to con- 
 duce to the comfort of her children, but as often Gertrude would 
 intercept some reasons, why she should not, when really she was 
 actuated to demur, either from fear of causing privation, or exci- 
 ting traducive gossip. 
 
 We can imagine the surprise of the old lady, on reaching the 
 home of her son and loved daughter: for she was used to say 
 between her own girls and Gertrude, she really knew no difference 
 of attachment: to find the parlor so stripped and destitute of that 
 air of thrift, which characterized it a month before. 
 
56 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 She feared lest her son had fallen into habits of dissipation, 
 and forgetting the necessity of her attendance on the critical 
 mother, whose precarious health had caused the physician to give 
 rigid orders to regulations for treating " those premonitory symp- 
 toms of complicated doubt, from which it would require great 
 caution and untiring watchfulness to recover the patient." Mo- 
 ther Riley had been very unwell for some time, and her family 
 overtasked in their own domestic duties, on which account the 
 mother and family had been necessarily absent from their usual 
 visits to the young folks ; for six weeks she had not been to see 
 them ; even now she was scarcely able to be out, but the call of 
 duty made her forget the dangers of a relapse to herself. 
 
 And now that she had come with no forebodings of the con- 
 dition of things, it is not to be wondered that the unlooked for 
 change, caused her to institute a scrutinizing insight into the 
 causes of the dilemma. Without waiting to take off her bonnet 
 or shawl, she commenced a cross-examinatien of her son. " George 
 what means all this ? Where is that mahogany side-board, and 
 those fine slat-bottom chairs, and that handsome mirror, besides 
 the other adornments which were in this room, when I was last 
 here ? Can it be possible you are entrapped by gamblers, or 
 taken to drink, or been led off by strange women ? What under 
 the sun has come over you, boy, that such a change should be 
 exhibited here in such a brief space of time." Woman's investi- 
 gation is beyond evasion. Her instinctive perception is greater 
 than man's logical deduction. The latter may be perfect in theory, 
 and still ill-shaped in practice : the former never errs, and is never 
 in need of a summons to bring it to the trial of reason and de- 
 fence. She is judge, jury, and attorney. An expert in tactics 
 which constitute her fortress for offence and defence. She may 
 not be outwitted in the understanding of the minutiae of all that 
 subterfuge, which an equivocal cause requires of the manceuvering 
 adept. George knew no ruse would baffle the queries of his 
 mother's anxiety, and therefore frankly naiTated the cause of their 
 pecuniary embarrassment. 
 
 " My son, I am more glad than if I had heard of some great 
 fortune left you. But why did you not make known your straight- 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 57 
 
 ened circumstances ? Your Uncle William would have helped 
 you with pleasure. But I am glad to know it is no worse." 
 
 "Mother, you know your own proud spirit; you very well 
 understand your own unwillingness to trouble your relations. 
 ' Advice is easier to give than to follow, and if your helpless family 
 cannot claim the voluntary assistance of Uncle William, who of 
 his great wealth could make you above want without missing it, 
 how shall I, a young and gigantic man, in the very bloom of man* 
 hood, go to him for aid ? But mother, let us not debate this 
 now. You see I have done what I thought was for the best, and 
 I have tried everywhere I could think of, for work. But to-morrow, 
 I'll find some employment, some job or other, no odds how menial 
 the employment. As long as I have strength to work, my family ■ 
 shall not sufi'er through my reluctance to do anything which may 
 turn up. There is no sort of business I will not do, for a subsis- 
 tence for myself and family. But do let us break off this dialogue. 
 
 " Gertrude is dangerously ill ; she may not have proper atten- 
 tion ; do go give directions for the best, I am painfully uneasy 
 about her." 
 
 " You are right, my son. I love your care for your excellent 
 wife, she is one woman in a thousand ; in all my experience, there 
 is not a match for her amongst her sex. And I am not at all 
 uneasy about your prosperity so long as your present good under- 
 standings continue, and if your love for her does not hold out 
 true after what she has sacrificed for you, your pwn mother would 
 almost despise you. But I do not fear for your constancy ; no 
 doubt but all will yet go well. Cheer up, George, you are a father 
 as well as a husband ; you must have courage, for others must 
 now look to you for protection. Why falter ? " 
 
 " Mother, I grant all you say, but why will you persist in pro- 
 longing this lecture, when you must know I comprehend it afore- 
 hand ; why not be anxious for Gertrude ? she needs your care 
 more than I do ! " 
 
 "Well, well! here take this purse, you can't get on without 
 money ; there is twenty-five dollars, I lend it to you, and you may 
 pay me back, when times get good again." The profi'er could 
 not be rejected. The loan was accepted with a ready reluctance, 
 
68 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 but the query was turned over aud over in the son's mind, how 
 could that surplus be had in such flat times? Some great priva- 
 tion must have gleaned that pittance, especially so, when more 
 than customary demands had called for the expenditure of money 
 in his mother's family. 
 
 But when afterwards he learned they had drawn all their de- 
 posits from the Bank, the solution of the secret gave a suggestion 
 which he resolved should be adopted by himself, as an insurance 
 against future contingencies. Throughout that night, George 
 kept up a tedious watch. "Well he might, for there were no beds 
 in the house for his repose. 
 
 Retrospection aud anticipation made up the subject of his 
 sombre, dumb, soliloquy. And as he viewed and allotted the 
 future, it was not without reproaches for past improvidence, the 
 thoughts of which produced a remorse for acts beyond recovery. 
 
 He saw wherein, through an overheated zeal, he had fallen into 
 error, and discovered the admonitory lessons of prudence, which 
 are even rarely learned in the trying school of experience. 
 
 Gertrude passed the night in a feverish slumber, an artificial 
 drowsiness produced by medicinal cordials. And as she would 
 rouse with frantic bursts of frightful discomposure from a flitting 
 doze, the accents of " Mother " could audibly be detected, amongst 
 the incoherent articulations of her random mutterings. Ah ! who 
 that has felt the scorching fever in a foreign home, as he lay in 
 awful suspense, with anxious dread that the very next step of his 
 palsied tread, would dip his pilgrim feet into the cold floods of 
 Jordan's dark waters, but has with a reminis§ent eye, longed for 
 the gentle touches of a mother's calming love. And too, who that 
 has felt the earth a barren desert, and o'ercome with grief and 
 bending under the weight of disaster, and craving the long nap 
 of the chilly sleep, the wakeless slumber where the honest mother 
 quietly swaddles her own, but with the most earnest pantings of 
 his breaking heart, has sighed for the soothing accents of an old 
 familiar voice, to offer balmy words of comfort in the hours of 
 darkest lamentation to the soul ? It was plainly evident the pa- 
 tient's mind was disquieted by a long-continued thought of her 
 mother's angry and cold ostracism, which must at once be relieved, 
 or it would jeopardize her life. 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 59 
 
 Accordingly, early in the morning, a message was sent to Mrs. 
 Linden of the precarious illness of her daughter, the causes, and 
 consequences, if she did not repair to her, and remove the irrita- 
 ble grief so long nursed in health, that it had assumed a nervous 
 chronic shape, and would occasion her death, if she did not go at 
 once to see her, and calm her uneasiness, and silence the causes 
 of her agitation. 
 
 Mrs. Linden heard this story unmoved. 
 
 And in answer calmly replied, " When she nursed her first-born, 
 her attention was too much taken up with her treasure, to be 
 allowed time to send notices about the country, for friends to 
 come see her. She had lost all care for Gertrude ; there were 
 other young children growing up, and it behoved her to manifest" 
 by a discipline of unrelenting justice, that disdain for disobedience 
 which should inculcate a moral lesson, and deter others from im- 
 itating the example of this insubordinate girl, when they know 
 the penalty of their course, when they understand, a conciliation 
 cannot be had by trouble, and repentance and tears. I think 
 too, I can see a trick of the Riley's, in this notice of my impor- 
 tant presence ; I rather expect it is a well-devised plot to unloose 
 our purse-strings, and I will not go a step. I will not even my- 
 self go to the Riley's, if Gertrude is dangerously ill, let her remain 
 so ; it would be joyful news for me to hear of her death. I'd 
 rather have buried her a hundred to one, sooner than had her 
 elope with that scurvy vagabond. 
 
 "Mrs. Novice, you can go back and inform those who sent you, 
 for me, that I am engaged preparing for the reception of com- 
 pany, who have sent word over from Talbot ; they will be on to- 
 morrow, to spend a week with me, and I have no time to leave 
 home. I am busy in preparations for the entertainment." 
 
 She knew the answer would make the Riley's understand the 
 Wingards were the expected guests. 
 
 There was a double meaning in the old woman's peremptory 
 surliness. The Ws were looked upon as enviable quality, whose 
 company was regarded the tip of the ton, besides, they were 
 closely related to Gertrude's old lover the Banker, and by Mrs. 
 Linden's reply, she meant the Riley's should know there was a 
 
60 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 great gap between them, which never could be bridged over, and 
 also that Gertrude should be reminded of the false step she had 
 taken, in her hasty and premature marriage. 
 
 We have stood on the summit of lofty mountain ranges and 
 watched the terrific play of the thunderbolts which threatened to 
 uncap the hoary peaks with their surcharged batteries. When 
 descending through the enveloped cloud, lit up by forked flashes, 
 we admired the emblem bird darting down amidst the fierce peals 
 of the cradled hurricane, giving back his shrill shriek to the 
 mountain's storm : hastening home to his newly-fledged young in 
 the craggy cliffs of his inaccessible citadel ; and as he floated by 
 us, nearing the home of his constancy, the companion of early and 
 older years, his eyes sparkled with brilliant delight as he caught 
 the sound of the nursling young, pouring forth their tender greet- 
 ings to his welcomed return. But here, in the image of the Eter- 
 nal, we find the instinct of a parent turned to animosity for the 
 strange reason that her child would not confiscate her own pre- 
 cious affections on the altar of gold. And who that will read this 
 book but will know a parallel coincident in his own history that 
 comes nigh home to his own hearth-stone, or at last will tell on 
 some of his more remote chords of consanguinity ? Why turn we 
 with abductive hate to the remembrance of the treacherous kiss 
 of the traitor Judas ? when every moment of the day we may 
 witness the disposal of sentiment as sheep in the shambles — the 
 quid pro quo rendition of the quaint essence of loveliness, for 
 the fabulous exchange of a necromancer's toy. 
 
 The message of the termagant, however, was not deliv- 
 ered to Gertrude. She was left to linger in suspense — to hope, 
 and expect each successive day would bring the glad sound of 
 a mother's footfall — the enlivening inklings of her cheering for- 
 giveness and congratulation. But she did not come — and when 
 the attendants would leave the room to make ready the chosen 
 nourishment, the hour of absence was one of weeping, when the 
 cherub child would be clasped closely to her bosom and watered 
 with his mother's tears. Happy for us the sufferings of woe will 
 flow away with the floods of grief which their own welling foun- 
 tains bring, else the subject of their trials would be suffused in its 
 
PICTURES FEOM LIFE. 61 
 
 own submerging waters. Time wrought its change. As affinity 
 loosened its hold on the old home, they grew with more entwin- 
 ing endearment around the home of later love. Recuperation 
 had dispelled the fears of dissolution ; resuming strength was re- 
 storing vivacity to the wan mother, and wonted life began to 
 sparkle in those eyes so recently heavy with the poignant pulse 
 of life just trembling on the verge of time. 
 
 Meanwhile George had discovered a new enterprize, which 
 promised to realize a princely fortune. He went out from home 
 a fortnight following his wrenched confession to his mother, a 
 wiser and a better man. Pride was expelled from his prejudices ; 
 the inflexible will was subdued to a calmer discretion ; he was 
 ready to be found in any position, however humble ; any job was 
 to be preferred to idleness — -for the scoffers who would hoot at him 
 to-day would he missing in a few years ; they would be sioept away 
 from the circles of extremes, and in turn he despised hy those same 
 persons who in auspicious hours they had once shunned. He must 
 live for the weal of a wife and a boy — their opinion was all in 
 the world worthy of his solicitude, and he would not stop to think 
 of the opinion of others outside of that little company. Thus he 
 mused, as he sauntered down Baltimore street, when unexpectedly 
 he met Mr. Joshua, at the intersection of Charles ; they mutually 
 hailed each other. George, in a few words, told the story of his 
 necessities, and asked to be put on wages at some in-door work, 
 which should promote the interests of both parties. Mr. Joshua 
 did not see how it was he had run through all his last years earn- 
 ings ;. " you young people are too fast by a great deal, and it 
 would do you all good to be stinted for a time ; you would then 
 be better able to appreciate the worth of money after some such 
 hard experience." 
 
 To this George retorted, "Mr. Joshua, I did not seek you for 
 abuse, but employment; we can least bear reflections, when 
 others are most ready to shower them upon us ; the unfeeling 
 coward who presumes to insult the finer feelings of a man under 
 the pressure of necessity, is no friend of mine, and is unworthy 
 the confidence of any one ; since you have no work to offer me, 
 you shall not offer.me contumely. I wish you good morning sir." 
 
62 
 
 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 This last interview had no tendency to allay his resolute will to 
 go further and try again for work; he could never return self- 
 satisfied, without the discovery of some scheme of success. Pass- 
 ing on down Baltimore street, he scarcely knew whither, to his great 
 surprise he met with an old school-mate but just returned from 
 
 sea. 
 
 They met exactly where Mr. Linden and the merchant of fortune 
 had met, nearly twelve years before. Harry Musgrove and Riley 
 had been warm friends in school-boy days. The hours of sunny 
 youth, when friendship knits close and grows into more enduring 
 firmness than any association of riper years. No sinister motives 
 make friends of juvenile comrades, they mingle with a zest of fel- 
 lowship unknown to mistrust. There is no cold calculation in the 
 gambols of truant lads ; they know they love, but have no defi- 
 nitions to tell you why. Harry and George had grown up to- 
 gether, maintaining the intimacy contracted when school-mates, 
 long after the former had entered those ephemeral rounds of an 
 artificial circle, to which wealth by the social code entitled him. 
 
 liarry's pa did not admire the democratic proclivities of his 
 son, and had induced him to go on a tour to Europe, hoping the 
 formula of a court etiquette might instill into his mind a distaste 
 for the vulgar company he seemed attracted with at home. For 
 three years he had wandered over the Continent, to return a 
 stronger lover of the simplicity of unafi"ected modesty, than when 
 he set out on his travels. He was a genuine nobleman of nature's 
 superior design, and the superlative parade which begirts and 
 sustains regal power, only tended to nauseate rather than interest 
 the discriminating judgment of the tourist. During his absence 
 his father had gone to his fathers, and young Musgrove, the sole 
 heir of a large estate, was free to follow the inclinations of his 
 own will. 
 
 After their enthusiastic salutation, the first inquiry of Harry 
 was for George's mother and sisters ; after that topic was fol- 
 lowed in hurried succession, the relative changes amongst old 
 comrades, for the past three years, who had married ? who re- 
 moved ? who died ? 
 
 His old comrade strove to post him in the many strange muta- 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 63 
 
 tions since his absence, foremost among whom was his own familiar 
 family affairs, his pleasant and disagreeable experience. 
 
 We may speculate about the surprise of George, when Harry 
 proposed they should go into copartnership and buy a lot of 
 vacant property on the western outskirts, the sale of which he 
 had noticed in the papers that morning, as he came on in the 
 cars. George told his friend such a speculation was preposterous 
 for him to think of, totally penniless, without monied friends, or 
 credit ; such a move on his part, could only be regarded as the 
 extreme mania of stupendous folly. He could not entertain such 
 an idea for a moment. 
 
 Happily his rallied spirits were disconcerted, and drawn into 
 an unintentional, but full disclosure of his finances. Riley forgot 
 himself in his frank speech, for he felt vexed at Harry for offering 
 a proposition of such magnitude in the face of his known indi- 
 gence, and concluded it was a new style of excellence Harry had 
 learned in Europe, to silently boast over his riches. But Harry 
 did not deport himself so, therefore how to think was a quan^ry. 
 But such cogitations were mysterious only a short while. With 
 scarce time elapsed for thought to con these last paragraphs, 
 Harry had his hand thrust into his inside vest-pocket ; drawing 
 therefrom his pocket-book, he unrolled it, and handed over to his 
 fellow a $ 100 bill, and apologised for offering the present on the 
 grounds it was a fee for George's judgment of opinion in the land 
 case now on the tapis, in this wise. 
 
 " You know, George, when we were at school together, I was 
 always ahead of you in essays, but you forever beat me out in 
 mathematics. I could always contrive how to get us both into 
 scrapes, but it took those round bumps of your cranium to get us 
 both out again." 
 
 " Really, Harry, I did not expect to ask aid from you, and I 
 protest against receiving it; the exact state of my troubles should 
 not have been revealed, but the offer on your part, to speculate 
 with me where so much capital was requisite, nettled me a little, 
 for I was half ready to think you did it as a vaunt." 
 
 " Come, George, I will not hear of a refusal. I am not offering 
 you alms, but a retainer's fee, as the lawyers call it, for which I 
 
64 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART ; OR 
 
 know I receive an equivalent ; I have been three years away from 
 home, and am entirely unacquainted with the market ; if I should 
 consult Real Estate Brokers over this business, they would shave 
 me out of thousands, either before or at the sale, and then have a 
 wine party and life-time laugh over the round sum they sliced me 
 out of; we pay all professions for their experienced opinion, then 
 why not yours ? " 
 
 To this well-timed logic, George conceded, and accepted the 
 note. His home was up before him, to which his pride gave way, 
 but he accepted it with the proposition he should not take it, 
 unless Harry would give it as a loan, and not a gift. 
 
 To this Harry consented, provided George was not subsequently 
 convinced his influence in the proposed purchase was greater 
 than the bill. " But George put up your money, do not let us 
 get ceremonious over that, we have business on hands to which 
 that note is a mere cypher. I will take you in with me as a part- 
 ner ; I will find the money, and you shall invest it to my advan- 
 tage I will charge you the usual interest on your share of the 
 capital, but if the scheme proves a failure, I will bear the loss ; I 
 have none to bear it with me, and I would not give a groat for a 
 man who professes to be a friend, unless he would endorse him to the 
 last dollar. Oome, old fellow, we will sink or swim together ; 
 notch that down." 
 
 To this "unlooked for tender, George could find no language 
 adequate to a reply — the confidence of credence was incredible — 
 the lavish proposal too magnificent for reality. For a few mo- 
 ments, no words were spoken ; in George's eyes were tears of 
 gratitude ; in his bosom, thoughts he had not education where- 
 with to clothe in speech. No doubt he saw fancy's dazzling 
 future with its ideal goal, brighter than the orbed splendor of an 
 oriental prince ; we will not disbelieve his retrospect with exuber- 
 ant, overpowering joy, went back to the thraldom of his trying 
 hours of penury, and noting the varyings of a living dream, won- 
 dered and doubted if it could be true. Most surely faith was con- 
 templating the avenue of futurity, hid by the vista foliage which 
 only autumn's late retrospect can properly scan, but which was 
 now seen by mental eyes, redolent with lucent smiles, and golden 
 fruits, awaiting the coming of adventurous hope. 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 65 
 
 Why does man so easily doubt? We have clambered otter 
 more than once to hold converse with her silent minstrels, whose 
 twin peaks in concert with vast ranges, to which these observa- 
 tories give eastern finitimes, and with them encore each hailing 
 dawn, and signal a farewell to the fading beams of day. 
 
 In the autumn of '59 " alone " we waited on that dizzy lookout 
 to witness the sinking simset. As Sol was gathering the gussets 
 of the evening, and the shades of their folds were glooming the 
 valleys with the cool damps of deepening night, a thick cloud 
 heavy with its blackness came rolling up from the horizon of the 
 south, and hung in stubborn stillness directly over his face. The 
 annoyance was only temporary. In a few minutes, a hazy jet or 
 vapor hose, was let down from the cloud, and to us from our 
 vision's stand-point, seemed resting on the " fat valleys," but in 
 truth we knew it was drinking from the exhaustless deep, and had 
 thus come nigh to light and heat, as if conscious of the hydraulic 
 laws of vacuum and absorption. 
 
 In a very short while, the partially prismatic spout had disap- 
 peared. The thirst was slaked. Aquarius was quenched. A 
 swift current blew the aquatic messenger to the east, leaving the 
 golden disc unveiled : wafting him off on his serial errand of vigi- 
 lant love, to filter the waters of the sea, with which to nourish 
 the germing plants even where man has not an abiding place — 
 that the young hinds might be fed, and the untamed beasts be 
 blessed with nourishment and an abundant store. They have no 
 written law, and yet they never husband ; but we who are provi- 
 dent and abounding in plenty, unwisely crave for more. 
 
 Let us return. Harry noticed the embarrassed feelings of his 
 comrade, and relieved him by stopping suddenly at Eutaw street, 
 where on Baltimore their homeward perambulations had by this 
 time led them. 
 
 " George, you must excuse me to-day, unless you will stop at 
 the Eutaw and dine with me. I have some readiness to make for 
 a party at my uncle's this evening, and could not give you all the 
 attention an old friend is entitled to ; but since we know each 
 other, I trust we will never resort to buckram etiquette to alien- 
 5 
 
66 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART ; OR 
 
 ate our affections, which are too heartfelt to require affectation and 
 too much appreciated to be dispensed with." 
 
 " Why, HaiTy, you must excuse me from going with you. I was 
 just intending to invite you home to dhie with me, though I could 
 only offer you a cold snack. Still, I knew you would not look 
 for more than the best I could offer you, and I hoped old times 
 would do for desert ; for you know we could have a fine chance 
 to talk over every prank we cut in our school-boy days ; and 
 that to me would be more desirable than a feast of good things." 
 
 " Well, George, that is very true. I'd rather have the whole- 
 souled company of a ' clever fellow,'' with a plain 'pot-luck' din- 
 ner, than all the delicacies of the zones with the disgusting society 
 of a fashionable circle, whose stale rigamarole continually re- 
 minds you the appreciation of your company is exactly in keeping 
 with your bank account, and whose smiles always turn with the 
 capricious wheel of fortune. I must pass just such an ordeal this 
 evening. Monied snobs — thread-bare aristocracy — lineal dig- 
 nity, supported by the sacrifice of honor and virtue — slaves to 
 caste, repudiators of principle, a moral lazaretto for which I en- 
 tertain a shrinking contempt, but under which I must be patient, 
 to please my relatives, for whose opinions I cannot at the same 
 time be respectful and yet unmindful. Cousin Amelia tells me of 
 some five young reigning beauties, who intend setting their caps 
 for me this evening, but you may just set it down for certain, I'll 
 never make a string to their bow. 
 
 "Ladies reared to fashion exhaust their love on fashion : they 
 love a husband just in proportion as he can gratify their vanity ; 
 but under reverses, no sarcasm is half so stinging as the vitupera- 
 tion of a taunting wife and moping daughter, whose greatest re- 
 gret over their downfall consists in the reflection that their career 
 of pomp is run. 
 
 " Their sympathy for the husband and father in such cases is 
 like that the crocodile feels for the tears of the child whose 
 bones he gnashes." 
 
 " Harry, you are severe on the ' upper tens ' but I am persua- 
 ded your opinion is sound logic. Some of these days I will give 
 you a little of my experience in that direction, but I am keeping 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 67 
 
 you from your preparatory engagements; since you will not go 
 home with me, let us part for the present, but set some time to 
 come see me. 
 
 " Gerty will be so glad to welcome your return on my account, 
 and mother will be in ecstacies to know you have come back, and 
 the girls will be delighted to see you. Say, what time will it best 
 suit you to come and see us ? " 
 
 "Now, George, you wish to narrow me down to rules ; just let 
 me call on you as an old country neighbor ; let us keep up our 
 old-fashioned friendship. I shall be glad to come just as soon as 
 I can, and I know your folks will always be glad to see me, so 
 give my love to all, every one of them ; your little Riley too, and 
 tell them I will visit them before long, in a day or two at most, " 
 "Well, well, Harry, all is well when meant well, and we can 
 understand and love the meaning of a friend ; his language means 
 nothing, or less or more than implied first, as we feel he means it, 
 therefore I am agreed you shall have it your own way." 
 "Then good-bye, my old chummy." 
 
 "Good-bye, my old and new friend, and generous benefactor; 
 look well to your heart when the flying artillery of the first regi- 
 ment deploys around you, to-night." 
 
 " Never fear for that, George, to be forewarned is to be fore- 
 armed ; I pledge you, I'll be proof against the fawning of artistic 
 maidens." 
 
 Thus they separated ; Riley hurried to his home of caresses, 
 and Harry to his select lodgings at the Eutaw. Both joyously 
 happy; the former from realizing a boon, which so soon would 
 cause the heart of his dear wife, to beat with new-born pleasure, 
 the latter in the priceless contemplation, he had sent the electric 
 thrill of waking morn into the home of want and touching dis- 
 quietude. 
 
 Who envies the miser who in death hugs his bullion, and for- 
 gets the compt to which he goes, in the struggle to separate from. 
 that superior love his withered soul did worship here ! 
 
 One swell of bounding bliss that lives in the gracious bosom 
 of the generous giver, is worth the heaped ore of earth's hoarded 
 treasures, for it stirs the living God within the clay casement, and 
 
68 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 gives to the archives of the higher record, a plus mark to deeds 
 of human kiuduess, which shall live iu conspicuous tinsels of gold 
 on the scroll of eternity. When Riley had come into the pres- 
 ence of his wife, redolent with sunshine and surcharged delight, 
 the meaning face foretold the tidings of the hour, and Gertrude 
 welcomed him with — "my dear, what good news has overtaken 
 you to-day; you remind me of those wooing times of courtship, 
 when we talked of future happiness, and conned the cares of 
 household duty, long before we understood the full import of what 
 we discussed. Do, pray, tell me what has taken place to light 
 up your recent care-wore face with such an expression of 
 ecstacy." 
 
 " Iiideed you may well say what has taken place, for in all the 
 books of romance and fabled legends, I verily believe there is no 
 fairy story, equal to the incidents of our own peculiar history. 
 Here is a prelude to the recital of our fortune. He handed her 
 the $100 bill, saying, take that note as a present from an old 
 friend, whose love is true in need, whose friendship is tried and 
 holds firmer than the grappling-hooks of iron." 
 
 " Why, George, how did you come by this ?'' 
 
 " Harry Musgrove has returned ; he is an old school-mate and 
 confident.— I met him this morning altogether unexpected ; and, 
 quite forgetting myself, unbosomed my feelings to him, without 
 the remotest idea of the results which have transpired." 
 
 Gertrude gave attentive ear to all the particulars herein before 
 recited as a dialogue between the old chums. And the stealing 
 tears would attest the pleasure of the winning conversation. 
 
 Had Harry seen that trio group, he would have thought the 
 $100 a cheap ticket to that scene of gratulation, over which 
 swift-winged seraphs might pause to love and doat on. 
 
 Listen to the ejaculations of Gertrude. " Gracious God 1 Be- 
 neath thy guidance and will, I have been led and upheld, and in 
 this, thy special interposition, is manifested the surety of thy 
 gentle providence and overruling care. 
 
 " To-day hope seemed fading away, and under the burthen of 
 despondency, I was ready to sink into death. Oh 1 how earnestly 
 could I have borne the struggle of transition, had not my afifec- 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 60 
 
 tions clung to you and this dear innocent child. To feel the ostra- 
 cism of friends holding themselves aloof from me, as if my charac- 
 ter was infamous and my company contamination. To know 
 your sorrows for our fate, and your helpless desire to alleviate 
 our wants, so sickened my heart, that I prayed for resignation to 
 the trial, or a happy exit out of trouble — and then reminded of 
 what I should live for, made me shudder at the presumptive har- 
 dihood which dared desire an escape from the duties of covert 
 cares. My nervousness may have produced this great depression, 
 or it may have been my great wickedness. But just think, in the 
 very height of this brooding melancholy, a poor chirping bird lit 
 upon the snow at the window, as if it sought an asylum from the 
 winter in my warm room. I raised the window, and brushed 
 away the snow from the sill, and spread out crumbs, that the 
 merry little creature could partake of the hospitalities of our 
 home. It soon flew back, and ate most cheerfully, and hopped 
 and fluttered as though its movements were the thank-offerings 
 of praise for the thoughtful kindness of the giver. How I pitied 
 its homeless and cheerless situation ; my concern really became 
 sympathetic — so much so, that I entirely forgot myself. But then 
 I thought it does not act as though it felt cheerless, and why 
 should I feel so for it ? More especially, why repine so over my 
 own lot ? 
 
 "And on top of this came forcibly to mind the strong figure 
 of the lilies and the sparrows, their promised protection, and also, 
 the greater value in which our Father regards his trusting chil- 
 dren whose faith confides in His deliverance, and to whom he has 
 pledged deliverance and support. Then I did chide myself for a 
 lack of constancy, and resolved to be unhappy no more. Here 
 we have the reality of all that was prefigured in that moral les- 
 son ; and I am sure its impressions will never be worn from my 
 memory. It would be improper for me to regret the channel 
 through which this has reached us ; it is honestly ours, and time 
 - and circumstances may amply reimburse the generosity which 
 prompted its bestowal. I will be content to live and trust." 
 
 " Gertrude, your voice and speech charms me by its meekness 
 and serenity and gentle sweetness. I can now discern why you 
 
 .■■Js^^W 
 
70 
 
 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 have been so patient and calm during our countless vicissitudes 
 and vexations. The excellence of Christian character never 
 struck me with so much force before ; it was that which made you 
 choose me for a husband in preference to other beaux of wealth 
 and position, and makes your meek and borrowed light to shim- 
 mer peace on our harmonious love, and made me, a stranger to 
 its requisitions, the unconscious recipient of its blessed per- 
 fection." 
 
 " I am too glad, George, you hold sacred duties in such an 
 elevated regard. Often have I been inclined to speak my feelin-s 
 on that subject to you, but deferred it with the belief that prac- 
 tical persuasion would do more to win you over than theorizing 
 lectures." 
 
 "It is easy to preach a moral code, but entirely another to 
 practice it. 
 
 "And my own experience adomishes me of the danger of 
 counselling others when we are very far from being exemplary 
 ourselves. Such ma,y gratify the wisdom of the self-righteous 
 but It never advances the interests of those appealed to ; world- 
 Imgs despise the instructions of the Pharisee ; but the concessions 
 to the just are as the melting ice to the warming suns of April 
 
 "Boreas cannot unbind the rills, nor cant win the affections 
 Theory may be good, but it is wanting in force without practice 
 and the individual who tries to serve two masters, will gain the " 
 tacit displeasure of both ; but he cannot uproot the natural bit- ^ 
 terness of our normal existence-he cannot remove the trammels 
 from the proud, preverse heart. 
 
 " I know I am strangely deficient in duty ; but if you will join 
 me in the resolve to become more consistent, we will strengthen 
 each other by the effort." 
 
 " I will try, Gertrude ; but you must be my teacher; I I^iiow 
 you are always right, and I will agree to whatever you say.» 
 
 " I thank you, George, for the compliment. I will do the best 
 I can ; moreover I will try to always merit your high appreciation 
 and affection." 
 
 " Then, George, let us have family prayer every night and 
 
 / 
 
 L 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 71 
 
 morning. If possible, I would love my husband more on account 
 or his piety." 
 
 "I really believe that would be so ; for I am certain I love 
 my wife more on account of her meekness and piety. Like you 
 I have no faith in that self-righteousness which chaunts p^ans on 
 bunday, and grinds the poor all the week. 
 
 "I loathe those magnificent temples, whose portals the poor 
 dare not enter - whose worshippers make the Sabbath a day of 
 exhibition for the display of equipage and costly apparel : more 
 properly, I loathe the churches : not so much that they are ex 
 pensive temples, but I despise that offering to Baal, under the 
 leigned name of worship to Almighty God. 
 
 "I will agree to your proposition, and am certain it will be 
 tried m good faith; no doubt but we will be profited by the 
 result." ^ 
 
72 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Let us take a short leave of absence from the " west end," for 
 a visit to the " elegant^^ home of the T.'s, up north Charles. 
 
 Mr. T was known in the commercial circles as A 1. Some 
 
 private talk had been cautiously bruited about of his ships strand- 
 ing when they might have kept off the breakers ; but the blame, 
 of course, all fell on the captain, and the underwriters cancelled 
 
 the insurance. 
 
 No one ever dared to openly hint at his complicity in a mat- 
 ter entirely out of his jurisdiction. 
 
 The horticulturist, and confectioner, and the artizans, knew he 
 resided amongst them ; for all shared largely of his patronage. 
 We need not mention the failures of certain contractors, who had 
 attempted to build at his offers, nor of the meagre wages paid 
 to those employees in his immediate business — such would mar 
 the attractions of his home. 
 
 No one gave more liberally, to beneficient purposes, than he : 
 and none appeared more the soul of honor, when mixing with 
 business conferees. 
 
 To the casual observer, a more upright man could not be found. 
 AVe will not for the credit of the family, presume to suppose he 
 held silent stock in a Faro bank, or that his means ever launched 
 a slaver, or abetted the procuress in abducting the innocent 
 child of penury and unrequited toil from her abject, fatherless 
 home to the' banquet of license, where country-traders are enter- 
 tained and bewildered with fascinations that their credulous cus- 
 tomers would ultimately have to pay. 
 
 Such inueudoes would indeed be cruel and outrageous, and 
 could not for a moment be tolerated except by the vulgar. 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 73 
 
 Music is heard without I What would a fashionable party be 
 without it ? Before we enter the palace, let us here inform the 
 
 reader that we will not pursue the history of the T 's. Space 
 
 will not allow it ; and their sequel is fraught with ills too terrible 
 for description. We have no disposition to cull only such inci- 
 dents as are totally misanthropic. 
 
 Life has much that is noble, and all are awake to its beauties, 
 though too often misguided by a hallucination which binds with 
 a spell whoever comes under its mesmeric influence. Harry is at 
 the banquet, and we must go there too, though uninvited, to see 
 how he can deport himself. 
 
 Of the forty couple who have been honored with perfumed 
 hillet doux, at least one-half of that number have come with high 
 hopes of winning the fancy of the tourist, whose name in the more 
 select circles has been a common by-word ever since his return 
 from the continent. 
 
 The independent grace of a complacent gentleman cannot be 
 copied. It must be nurtured as a delicate vine ; and even then, 
 nothing spared in training, it will not move with ease and self- 
 possession when frowned upon by superior position essaying to 
 berate a studied attitude of disputed respectability. 
 
 There must be a consciousness of allotted peer ship to he at home 
 in company. It must be a self-existing power to which deference 
 is not reluctantly paid — for even the magnanimous grade, that 
 silent concession votes to worth or goodness, must be truly heart- 
 felt and sincere and spontaneous, or it is but one degree better 
 than exclusiveness. Nothing arouses the gratitude of the man 
 more than hearty approbation of companionship from superior 
 position, which possesses the power to crush you, but rather loves 
 your unalloyed happiness, for it conduces to his own. 
 
 The chieftain who referred to the Pyramids of centuries just 
 before the engagement, owed in a great measure the success of 
 his apparently Quixotic campaigns to the promotion of merit 
 wherever it was to be found. 
 
 The man of the ranks knew he would wear the marshal's plume 
 so soon as his worth made him, in the opinion of his commander, 
 eligible for the position. So a shrewd politician never can afford 
 
74 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART ; OR 
 
 to neglect his constituents, not even after the highest ambition 
 has been gratified. 
 
 Ingratitude woukl then wither his laurels, and turn his honor 
 to shame. But this must be natural to be appreciated. And it 
 can only be so with the genuine democrat. Harry was all this ; 
 and although familiar with the cause of his preferment and popu- 
 larity, he did not al)use it to the detriment of others or himself. 
 The sincere effort to be pleasing to all, irrespective of their 
 financial standing, disarmed envy of its acrimonious censure, and 
 compelled the otherwise disconcerted suitors to be tolerably com- 
 posed under the smartings and humiliations of a slighted love. 
 Why ask us to photograph the party ? 
 
 Our sympathies are only with the lowly.. We cannot disown 
 our admiration for speculative adornments, if we did not know 
 the regard in which they are held, and the cost at loMch they are 
 obtained. 
 
 We turn away from the gaudy entertainment, for we think of 
 the sufferings which has afforded it, and the deluded effort to 
 imitate, on the part of those who cannot hope to be less than ri- 
 diculous by such an attempt, but who will choose the short- 
 lived career of the butterfly, to the more homely appearance of 
 the bee. 
 
 Our love is for the image of a common Father, and whenever 
 we see oppression, our sympathies are enlisted for its ameliora- 
 tion, though conscious of the ingratitude which attends the un- 
 dertaking. 
 
 Our hero never grew impatient under the cross-examination to 
 which his auditors subjected him. But answered this one respect- 
 ing St. Helena, and that concerning the Holy Land, and another 
 about the Glaciers, of the simple, but unconquerable Swiss, until 
 the peculiar iuquisitiveness of each, by turns, would find the op- 
 portunity to engage in an instructive dialogue with the ^' truly 
 elegant traveller. " 
 
 " Let us quiz Harry for a while, whilst the refreshments are 
 going round, and set pairs are encountering a promiscuous inter- 
 change of reciprocal generalities. What do you think of Miss 
 J., over there in the recess, just now in conversation with Wil- 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 75 
 
 lard? I do not admire her by any means." "Why, she is 
 counted the handsomest lady in Old Town, and her father is 
 'princely rich.' She has refused twenty offers at least, and most 
 likely will throw the glove to as many more before this time next 
 year. " " Well, what of all that ?» " No doubt a hundred would 
 marry her for her money, but who know no more of the true prin- 
 ciples of love than the simple ostrich. She wears rather low- 
 necked dresses for a modest woman, and is rather anxious to 
 domineer over other girls much her superior; besides, though her 
 father was once an apprentice, she is forever speaking in a jeer- 
 ing way about mechanics. It is my opinion she is a perfect snob 
 and her impudent boldness, with her money to endorse it, will 
 furnish her with a man, but never a real loving husband. What 
 accomplishments she has is much like a polish of blacking over a 
 muddy buskin — the undercoating will show out." 
 
 " Well then, there is Miss Hardy. What do you say for her ? 
 I am sure she is the very personification of excellence — of good 
 family, modest, learned and unpretending." 
 
 "Her modesty is simply affectation, and her erudition confined 
 to the meanest class of exceptionable literature. Her mother 
 was a noble woman, but unfortunately for her daughter, she died 
 when her attention was most needed to model the child I notice 
 a hectic flush on her faded cheeks. Had she taken healthy ex- 
 ercise, instead of devoting such a large share of time to yellow- 
 covered nonsense, music, and the ball-room, no doubt she would 
 have grown much more robust, and been better suited for a house- 
 keeper. She would become sullen in six weeks by looking after 
 roast-beef and pastry, and would rather be a sloven than take 
 the pams to dress in a neat attire. In truth, she would be ex- 
 cusable for it, for she is destitute of sufficient physical strength to 
 remain m an animated conversation five minutes at a time." 
 
 " Well, really, Harry, you are a hard man to please. You will 
 remain a bachelor all your life," 
 
 " I am agreed to that_if marrying is meant to associate your- 
 self with a misnomer, I would prefer to be single. It is better 
 to endure single misery than double pluperfect wretchedness " 
 " Then how do you like Miss Drummond ? I know you cannot 
 
76 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 fail to be pleased with her. She is called our model woman, and 
 is envied by all the ladies of the city. Pious, industrious, inde- 
 pendently well off, yet kind to every one, and always most pleased 
 when making others happy. She is an active member of our home 
 hoard of missio7is, and a great almoner amongst the poor ; very 
 frequently her name appears in the papers as the mover of some 
 benevolent enterprise — and what is more, she always heads the 
 list with her own liberal contribution. In short, she is regarded 
 as a perfect paragon by all who know her ; and I am sure you 
 will never wish to cut her acquaintance. And besides, all I have 
 said in her favor, she is the prettiest woman in all the town, to 
 my notion. An artist could personate old mother Eve with such 
 a subject to aid his imagination," 
 
 "I can only say, in answer to your eulogy, I wish I had not 
 made her acquaintance. Her piety is evidently her own self- 
 laudation, and her industry a busying hurry over nothing. As 
 for her riches, I know nothing about them, and I will never be- 
 come a client to a confidential counsellor, for the purpose of 
 knowing her father's assets. It may be she is an efficient member 
 of home missions, but such ladies, by the force of their example, 
 cause more distress than an hundred such could alleviate. The 
 acknowledged perfection of her conduct but makes it the more 
 dangerous ; for it is not a whit better, in the effect of a cause, 
 than the most degraded woman in the streets. To society she is 
 a greater bane; for the latter is shunned, but she is imitated — 
 and the end of error justfiies the means to reach it. Meekness 
 and humility are the test-proofs of Christian character. She is 
 utterly deficient in either. And if she may frequently be found 
 visiting the hovels of the poor, it is with that restrained dignity 
 which asks them to admit it a great condescension on her part ; 
 and when she donates those generous sums to relieve want, 
 I am sure it is done for the sake of worldly emcomiums rather 
 than a considerate charity. The very fact that the journals trum- 
 pet such gifts is evidence beyond a doubt the gallant but koow- 
 ing reporters do it on purpose to cater to her superior regard for 
 her own superlative importance. You need not ask me to give 
 you an oral autobiography of this multitudinous flippery. 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 77 
 
 " If a man thonght only of gew-gawa and comely features, 
 there is an abundance of gayety here to satisfy the greatest am- 
 bition. But I am not inclined to be captivated with brocade 
 and tapestry, fine cambrics, and high-priced laces. They are all 
 well enough for an evening party ; but they offer no guarantee 
 for domestic happiness. 
 
 And the painted cheeks and pomaded hair, and delicate ex- 
 tracts, serve well to magnify the importance of those when flushed 
 with wine and the excitement of the cotillion. But the diamonds 
 on the bust of the coquette are like the roses on the thorn tree : 
 very handsome for the spring time ; but the summer's fruit is too 
 often the hornet's nest, and the yield of autumn the worthless 
 berries, which only serve to propagate the evil species.'' 
 
 " A person would judge from your conversation, Harry, that 
 you were one of those cruel men who delight to enslave woman, 
 and think her alloted sphere around the cooking-stove, preparing 
 spiced viands, or drudging over monotonous household affairs." 
 
 " In that you misjudge me, and do me a grievous wrong. I 
 am not one of those of whom you speak. On the contrary, I 
 think no man would love to see his wife a drudge — certainly no 
 woman can be an economical house-keeper who is ignorant of 
 the duties over which she is called to provide — no lady can enjoy 
 health and vigor without exercise ; and if she turns from them as 
 of disreputable propriety, there must exist a cause for such a 
 feeling, which gives allegiance to that swaying etiquette which 
 ever thinks of the elite first, and home afterwards. Besides, the 
 feeling infused into mind can never be eradicated. Circumstances 
 may call for a dismissal of an old familiar style, but once known, 
 it is engrafted into the very existence, and no one can get away 
 from self. In contrast to this the law of labor, though given in 
 denunciation, is one of love ; and whoever turns from it, must 
 forfeit the blessings that follow the exercise of it — the penalty of 
 which tells in a threefold sense on the moral, mental and physical 
 condition of those who incur such consequences with defiant and 
 injudicious forethought. 
 
 " Ladies greatly mistake when they presume a sensible man 
 will be misled by the fickle show of dress and coquetry. Those 
 
<o THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 so easily taken are infatuated by fancy, without judgment, and 
 are seldom worthy of affection ; for it cannot be won from a flirt. 
 She is incapable of love; and only a thoughtless fop will be 
 smitten with such facinations. 
 
 " Their courtship and honeymoon may afford poetic entertain- 
 ment to themselves and spectators, but the residue of their com- 
 panionship is a farcical afterpiece to the first act in the persona- 
 tion of an unstable reality." 
 
 "Harry, do you wish to have us think the great mass of man- 
 kind are dupes to their own fancy ?" 
 
 " Most assuredly they are. No one can doubt it who reviews 
 character impartially. The difficulty is, those who are deluded 
 never discover it until too late to avert the calamity it has en- 
 tailed—and then, though an amend would soften the evil, but few 
 think it prudent to revolutionize themselves." 
 
 " It is quite unreasonable, Harry, to think woman should not 
 be gay when young and vivacious ; and if they are a little giddy 
 withal, it is merely to parade those charms which would be lost 
 to their benefit if they remained secluded or taciturn. After 
 marriage they always change for the better." 
 
 "My dear sir, do not mistake me. Vivacity is one thing, but 
 irrational ostentation quite another. The aroma of a pietty 
 flower will be valued, though obscured from view by the thick 
 foliage which overshadows it— and woman's excellence will be 
 discerned, however modest and retiring. The gem is to be 
 sought— it may not easily be found—and, when discovered, may 
 be mistaken for a tufling stone, until the artist's eye attests its 
 value. JS-ot so with woman. Her worth is self-evident com- 
 mendation; and no one, of the dullest perception, need be told 
 what instinct quietly teaches. Woman's excellence will speak 
 for itself. The presence of a lady here would awe this whole 
 company; and whilst these upstarts would be subdued by her 
 modest influence, they would not, they could not, berate her— for 
 she would not be entitled to the name of lady if they could." 
 
 "You certainly do not intend to insinuate that these ladies 
 are not ladies ?" 
 
 "1^0, in its broadest meaning, I would not; but, in its strictest 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 79 
 
 signification, they would not be allowed to rank as unexception- 
 able ladies." 
 
 "Harry, will you say what, in your opinion, constitutes a 
 lady ?" 
 
 "I have no objection to giving you my opinion in a brief 
 way — of course not. A true lady stands as high in the opinion 
 of the subordinates in the kitchen as the lover in the drawing- 
 room. Her worth is esteemed by all as a priceless treasure ; 
 and her presence a precious delight to all who can enjoy her 
 society^and she is willing all should — for she feels a conscious- 
 ness of irreproachable purity in her own, as also the minds of 
 others — nor would she dread the social status being lowered to 
 her, by recognizing even the lower order of her sex ; and though 
 she could not make them a companion, she would not add hard- 
 ness to their bitter hearts by manifest contempt. Her prefe- 
 rences are to genuine merit, no odds how humble the surround- 
 ings, and the will of her heart is to dispense sunshine, not for 
 the sake of encomiums, but because the weal of another is bliss 
 to herself. One who never courts flattery, nor becomes intoxi- 
 cated by it ; one who loves the duty of her sphere, and who feels 
 complimented, rather than disgraced, when called on by her 
 lover, when in the very midst of her busiest work — even if it 
 should be a washing day." 
 
 " Harry, your standard is too nigh perfection to find any one 
 to come up to it. If no one felt any pride for the false opinion 
 of other people, I am sure your theory would loorh beautifully. 
 But, so long as caste sits on her regal throne, just so long must it 
 he a nullity ; for she holds her sway hy the chosen will of those 
 whom she oppresses^ 
 
 "Your speech defines my sentiments. You will now understand 
 me : I contend against the unjust and absurd standard, and go 
 for that, which cannot be gaiusayed. To dislodge the tyrant, is 
 a duty ; and if every one who feel oppression would protest 
 against it, we would soon find the followers of madman-fashion 
 leaving off their chase after butterflies : for there xoould he none 
 found ready to contribute their alms of applause to the contest- 
 ants in a bootless race." 
 
80 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART ; OR 
 
 " Do you not see, if all are pleasure-seekers, who shall provide 
 the feast after the chase ? And if it is disreputable to remain at 
 home whilst others are abroad in pursuit of folly, who will remain 
 at home, if they can borrow a steed for the sport ? And if all the 
 horses are engaged, they will try it on foot, and take cross-cuts 
 and by-ways, so they may come in at the heels of the hunt?" 
 
 The music calls parties to the dance, and we take leave of the 
 quick-step labyrinth of the maze, with the best good wishes for 
 the company now in the enjoyment of their exceptionable revels. 
 To-morrow will show the tide of this nocturnal array of events. 
 Aching heads and jealous and critical reflections, will make us 
 query whether the drooping figures who make out to get down to 
 breakfast by ten A. M. are the same amiable, angelic creatures 
 who gave to last evening's party its irresistible charms and 
 stormy applause. 
 
 We leave them, for the world understands them. We cannot 
 acquaint persons with what they already comprehend. But our 
 subject would be less complicated to us, if some prompter, better 
 versed in the logic of human frailties than we profess to be, would 
 inform us why the effort is so universal to imitate the code of so- 
 cial incongruities, at antipodes with reason, aud incompatible 
 with the sober dictates af common sense. 
 
 A week later and we meet the convened friends of George 
 Riley at his domesticated home. 
 
 His mother and two sisters are there, and Harry, and several 
 others, whose friendly fellowship dates back to the palmy days 
 of childhood ; and although, like others, they have shared the 
 vicissitude of fate and fortune, they live to love, as was their 
 custom. They still sustain those early kindly relationships of 
 youth ; and cheer and administer to each other's comfort, with 
 sympathy and affinity and reciprocal, congenial, grateful aid. An 
 industrious, plain, unsophiscated people, who haver never studied 
 worldly wisdom, to appear what they are not, and hy such seeming 
 appropriate the rights of others to themselves. Therefore they are 
 a despised people, though constituting the standard-rule of good- 
 ness, by which we understand the distance of the multitude astray 
 
 Musgrave, the only legatee of wealth in that little circle, is 
 
PICTURES FEOM LIFE. 81 
 
 entirely at home, and the company in his society are unrestrained, 
 For there is a sameness of sentiment and a oneness of feeling 
 which speaks by the statutes of the affections, and embraces by 
 those assimilating affinities of the spirit of each for all, the offer- 
 ings of friendship to which ulterior motives are unknown, and 
 which money cannot buy, nor sordid gain discolor, or craving 
 avarice alloy. The cherry parson is there, and names by baptism 
 the rosy-cheeked child Harry M — . The ladies are not dressed 
 in costly attire, nor do their nude shoulders protrude above the 
 scolloped dresses ; und the coming and going color on their faces 
 is not the pencillings of death's forerunner, nor the cosmetic tin- 
 sels of laboratories or the mantled crimson of shame. The con- 
 versation is earnest, and easy to be understood ; not couched in 
 ambiguity such as implies more or less than is spoken. Double 
 entendre puns are not recited to catch the drift of an under-cur- 
 rent, and compliments are not paid to realize rejoinders potential 
 with silly contraband witticism. 
 
 There are no trinkets on the braided hair, nor studied plea- 
 santries on the artificial countenance, or imjiorted laces on super- 
 fluous and indelicate chemisettes, becoming only for unmention- 
 able shame. The hands are not of lily-whiteness and delicate 
 tapering, such as Powers would fancy for his chained slave. But 
 there is modesty in the bright eye and expression on the frank 
 features, and moral force in the calm repose of dignity, without 
 art, and composure which proffers not overtures to the social 
 quack who practices on a distempered, conventional affection. 
 
 And if the punctilious lady would scowl, with the smile of in- 
 uendo scorn, this picture of penury and innocence, she inwardly 
 laments her own happiness by the comparison ; and the bar of her 
 own just judgment envies what she does not possess, and deeply 
 deplores in herself what she dares not consent to overcome. Ger- 
 trude did her utmost to make pleasant the visit of the company. 
 But it needed no skilful insight into character to detect the 
 brooding melancholy which at intervals would displace her smiles. 
 Her own kin were not present, though invited; and she knew 
 they could have come, but preferred to continue in their obstinate 
 coolness. 
 6 
 
82 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART ; OR 
 
 The brothers of late had been too much taken up with their 
 own amusements to find time to visit the sister ; besides, the 
 mooted necessities of her family had abated their former affec- 
 tion, and they, too, with the parents and sisters, now stood aloof 
 from "poor, helpless Gerty." 
 
 The evening allowed George and Harry a favorable time to 
 decide on future plans concerning the purchase of vacant pro- 
 perty, now near the day of sale. They chose out those tracts 
 they thought would be soonest enhanced by suiTounding im- 
 provements, and fixed the highest figure they would bid for them. 
 In their conversistion there would be at times abstractedness 
 of quick successive intervals, which George may have supposed 
 was attributable to the mental estimate of an investment of so 
 large a sum, involving the entire outlay of Harry's fortune. 
 
 Mother Riley did not think so, for she could read the passing 
 signals, telegraphed from Harry to Julia, that were answered by 
 blushes and assenting smiles, which Harry repeatedly would time 
 and again call out. 
 
 Love has great volumes in the flashing eyes, whose silent 
 language cannot be mistaken. 
 
 Essays may burthen the mail-coach with their professional ver- 
 biage, but in the speech of thought there is an omen of solid in- 
 spiration whose index plainly tells you what in vain it would 
 struggle to conceal. 
 
 Julia had celebrated her twentieth birthday, for she did not 
 fear being styled a prude — she did not dread the idea of majo- 
 rity. Twenty years, by numerical figures, the third of an allotted 
 life-time, is really the substance of the three-score ; for but com- 
 paratively few correct the malformation of habits then matured. 
 Our party are moving a readiness to disperse. The clock has 
 struck ten, and all are agreed to a motion for home. But in the 
 separation no one treasured misgivings or animosities towards 
 ilie successful Julia ; for all concurred, if she suited Harry, he 
 was a prize of himself and with himself; — and though she was 
 poor, her superior charms and matchless principles were an equi- 
 valent for his riches ; and if they should consent to make a 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 83 
 
 match, all will congratulate them, and that, too, without envy or 
 sullen good-will. 
 
 Notwithstanding the Miss Rileys endeavored to be up to the 
 exactness of their scrupulous mother, they did not receive her 
 approbation ; for no sooner had Henry left their house, than she 
 gave them a real good-humored lecture on their conduct "I 
 never love to see young ladies romping at a mixed party; your 
 frivolity was bad enough for anything, in the bounds of reason. 
 I am only too glad you are home, and you shall stay here until 
 you learn to behave yourselves. You do not deserve a husband, 
 and no man worth having will look at you until you learn to be 
 more like ladies." This satire was badly affected; for the old 
 lady secretly thought the time might soon come when she could 
 prove her Christian character, by heaping coals of fire on the 
 heads of the Lindens. "For if it ever lay in her power, she 
 meant to repay them for their ill-treatment, by acts of humble 
 kindness." The girls knew the old lady was in one of her pleasant 
 lecturing moods, and could very well take it home with good- 
 natured repartee — they knew she really felt as much delighted as 
 they, and only resorted to this piece of diplomacy to conceal from 
 them her own ecstacies. 
 
 In a month after the convivalities at "the west end," the sale 
 before named came off. As pre-arranged, George was the bidder ; 
 Harry thinking it good policy to keep distant from the crowd, 
 lest his attendance would apprize speculators of their precon- 
 certed designs. 
 
 Mr. Linden was in the concourse, but took true pains to not 
 recognize his son-in-law. 
 
 When, however, he heard George bidding, and the auctioneer 
 crying out his offer away, up in the thousands, the old man 
 opened his eyes with astonishment, and very laconically remarked, 
 " How does that young scamp ever expect to pay for so much 
 property ?" 
 
 " Sixty-five, once — sixty-five, twice. Are you all done, gen- 
 tlemen ?" Owners and bidders attend the sale. " Going — and 
 gone — sixty-five once — sixty-five twice — sixty-five thre-e-e times. 
 What's the name ?" 
 
84 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 "George Riley." 
 
 "George Riley." The legal officials and George, with the 
 iuterested friends, gathered in consultation whilst the outbid 
 witnesses held a parley over the likelihoods of getting another 
 chance to bid on the property just knocked down to that fellow ; 
 for he could not pay for it, and it would be bought for less the 
 next time it would be put up. In this opinion they were con- 
 firmed by the wise father-in-law, who " very well knew George 
 had no available means with which to pay for it." 
 
 On Mr. L's return, he called out the marvel of the whole 
 family with the news of "the young scamp's purchase of a great 
 town property, on which he could not possibly have one dollar 
 to pay." 
 
 Hereupon Mrs. L. started up with a gust of gesticulations. 
 
 "And now I see the purport of all of this — George is en- 
 dorsed by Harry Musgrove, and this is the purport of their 
 intimacy. George will yet be a great man, and will repay us 
 savagely for our treatment to hira and our poor dear lamb of a 
 child. 
 
 " My dear, my conscience has been terribly discomposed for the 
 past month. I have been thinking how I could possibly go into 
 the presence of my God with this child unforgiven. Only the 
 other day — I was reading her letter addressed to me from her 
 boarding house so soon after marriage — and then only, for the 
 first time, I saw the strong appeal to me for leniency to her in 
 this act of conscious duty. 
 
 " Last week, you remember, Mr. Baker, her old lover, whom we 
 all deferred to, on account of his money, failed for more, by far, 
 than he is worth. It came home to me with such irresistible 
 power — what would poor Gerty have done with a helpless old 
 man, she had married solely for money, when all his wealth had 
 taken wings and flown away ? 
 
 " My dear, I fear we are losing the good opinion of the better 
 thinking class of the community in holding out against our child. 
 George makes her a kind husband ; — they both love each other 
 with a love akin to idolatry. 
 
 " Some of us should have gone to that party, they invited us so 
 affectionately. 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 85 
 
 " Harry Musgrove was there ; and I hear from one who heard 
 from them, through her sister, who is intimate with the Rileys^ 
 that Harry was the very life of the company : and to crown all, 
 he went home with Jule Riley. Mary, you and Nelly have missed 
 the very first chance of a beau by our stiffness. 
 
 " Husband, how shall we make up with the children ? You 
 have such a happy way of doing whatever you set yourself about, 
 we will now appoint you a committee to bring this compromise 
 around." 
 
 " Indeed, madam, you need not, for I met George to-day at 
 the sale, and intentionally evaded him. I know he wished to 
 speak to me, but I did all I could to throw him off. I'd rather 
 have his ill wishes than a constant wigwam war — and I would 
 not be friendly with the fellow without inviting him home with 
 me, and that would only add " fuel to fire." In the face of such 
 knotty facts as these, it would not be advisable to propose a 
 compromise. They could not but understand why we did it. 
 They are the youngest and should make the advance for a com- 
 promise." 
 
 "But, my dear, you just said you cut George's willingness to 
 speak this morning. Surely, husband, you ain't given to contra- 
 diction ? "Well, I will go and see Gerty. They have tried so 
 often to reconcile us, they must be outdone in the attempt. We 
 really owe them a manifestation of forgiveness. 
 
 " I will go over and see Mrs. Ready to-morrow ; I am certain 
 she will go with me to see Gert, for I am anxious to have a peep 
 into their cozy home, and a sight of that little cub of theirs." 
 
 So it always is with the corps of policy. To wealth, fashion 
 can bow as the penitent to the crucifix, and be " all things by 
 turns and nothing longer" than the times assent a paying tribute. 
 Why go with the shameless mother on her errand of mercenary 
 love ? We well could foreknow she smoothed over the past. 
 How could a christian child be other than forgiveness ? And, 
 too, how could her heart be else than sad, in measuring the pur- 
 pose of this resuscitated love ? 
 
 When pondering on these ills. of life — ills not ours by right of 
 title, but conjured up to harrow life with smartings, and lace- 
 
86 THE BRIDLE ON TUE HEART; OR 
 
 rated, and weeping wounds of spirit, we ask the question, what 
 is it that it might not be — but being so, what is it worthy of this 
 treadmill care ? 
 
 Reconciliation sends her coach and dashing greys to welcome 
 the aliens to a father's home. And following fast on this special 
 reception, a party is given, and extra pains taken to have Harry 
 invited — the will of his desire was almost constrained. He went, 
 to be sure, but not from any good feelings for the Lindens. 
 
 The Rileys were all invited, therefore Harry could not allow 
 Miss Julia to accept of gallantry so uncalled for, whilst it was 
 so convenient for him to be her escort. 
 
 When Mrs L found the " impudent mink" coming in lean- 
 ing on the arm of Harry, as fluent and affable as if they had beec 
 life-time friends, she began to fear it was too late to attempt to 
 divert the lover from the wife of his choice. 
 
 Seeing the desperate state of things, she betook herself to the 
 study of ways and means by which she could supplant the " sly 
 jade" with one of " her own lovely daughters." But her shallow 
 tactics were too bunglesome for a man like the one with whom 
 she had to cope. 
 
 For a time Harry appeared so pleased, she really hoped his 
 pliant manners indicated an impression, until a manoeuvre on the 
 part of Julia threw the old lady into consternation ; for she knew 
 the intention of the pardonable, jealous sallie, and the result was 
 too palpable to allow a moment's doubt. The madam could 
 scarcely restrain her angry mortification in the defeat of the even- 
 ing ; and its apparent influence could be slightly traced on her 
 amiable features, which could not now settle into placidity, until 
 a storm had given vent to the turbulent passion — discomposing 
 her thwarted feelings, and thereby marring the enjoyment of the 
 guests. 
 
 And when the hours of entertainment were over, the girls were 
 compelled to listen to a lecture, delivered in no very mild terms, 
 for their unsuccessful efforts to vie with "that comely upstart."' 
 Piqued by disappointment, and chagrined with the ungenerous 
 reprimand for an ill-fortune which tortured them to the utmost 
 pitch of desperation, they in their turn blamed the mother for 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 87 
 
 their slighted favors —her treatment to Gertrude — and the mis- 
 chief " she had diffused into their feelings had caused them to be 
 cut on every side, and neither of them could name a beau who 
 cared a tuppence for them — excepting some worthless mechanics, 
 with whom any girl in town, of any respectability, would be 
 ashamed to be seen parading the streets in their company." To 
 this broadside, the mother gave a retort at once withering and 
 silencing. She saw her own folly in raising children to disdain 
 the vocation of their father, and for the moment tried to counter- 
 act her own instructions. But it was too late. The daughters 
 referred to the councils she had dictated, and the practice estab- 
 lished as a precedent. 
 
 Submitting where cavil could not allay, nor passion overcome, 
 she ordered the "old maids" to bed, with the declaration : " They 
 should, thereafter, be taught lessons of home duty, from which 
 prosperity had released them. Those qualifications married your 
 sisters ; and I shall, even at this late day, teach them to you. 
 Men are not looking after doll-babies when they go in search of 
 a wife. The polka and quadrille will do well enough for the 
 hurly-burley of the hour, but sensible men do not select a woman 
 because she is an actress ; they rather prefer common sense and 
 domestic economy, without accomplishments, than accomplish- 
 ments aside from home comforts, to which they will forever be 
 mere slaves." We did not describe the ' tete-a-tete' of the would- 
 be exquisites. The extended folio counsels brevity ; we retrench 
 upon a restricted space already far overrun. 
 
 The reader will know, by their knowledge of character, from 
 what has been said, why Grertrude's sisters were not like her. 
 They had grown up under a new order of things, and the causes 
 are known which control destiny, and fi'equently extenuate for 
 character, that theoretic philosophy can easily demonstrate ; but 
 the allowance, if conceded by the understanding, cannot be al- 
 lowed by the beatings of the heart. 
 
 We will not select disagreeable company — nay, we cannot 
 tolerate it — unless compulsion makes of it a virtue. Let us hurry 
 through. 
 
 It will not astonish the reader to say, that in the coming 
 
B6 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR 
 
 autumn they took nuptial vows at the home of the bride's mother. 
 The company was handsome, yet not brilliant — gay, but not lavish 
 in superlative equipage or dress. Nothing was wanting to make 
 the entire programme complete, and in ordinary keeping with the 
 wealth of the groom. Save the Lindens, there were none present 
 to bite the finger-ends off white kids as they choked down the 
 rising envy, or gave utterance to compliments not authorized by 
 an honest sentiment. 
 
 A wedding is the most interesting scene known to earth, save 
 the calm demise of the hoary Christian. The transmution of 
 water to wine, a beverage which its Author would not partake of, 
 is manifest evidence of the high regard in which the Son of Man 
 held the hymenial ceremony. 
 
 We should love to devote pages to this scene, did not this 
 whole chapter constitute simply an elucidation of our text, the 
 condensed application of which is yet deferred. 
 
 Harry has lived to bring up a fine family of children, some of 
 whom, we are sorry to &a,j, are rather "fast." He is .truly "the 
 one man amongst men," and his wife exalted in amiability above 
 the average of women ; but they are not the gold refined in the 
 crucible ; they have not been chastened by the ordeal of adver- 
 sity. Four months ago, we reached a country inn, having rode 
 the greater portion of the night through a slimly inhabited desert 
 wilderness. In the morning, after breakfast, we called on old kins- 
 men, residents of the neighborhood. To our surprise, Gertrude 
 and her distinguished husband were visiting their friends in that 
 section of the country. Riley's face is young, though verging 
 life's winter ; his lady-wife retains the relics of her maidenly 
 beauty ; the lovely spirit has not written indentations of care oa 
 features that wear the stamp of Christian composure and philo- 
 sophical sweetness. 
 
 They have reared a goodly number of children, but they have 
 not "rebelled against them." The father of Gertrude has paid 
 the final debt the living owe, and by his side the consort with him 
 slumbers. Riley is a man of riches. Every enterprise turned to 
 gold, after the morning's sale, of which you have been posted. 
 
• PICTURES FROM LIFE. 89 
 
 And not once only did he save Mr, Linden, during his lifetime, 
 from severe pecuniary loss, by his timely assistance. 
 
 The younger sisters are unmarried, but more recently learn- 
 ing the true realities of life in contradistinction from its bewilder- 
 ing phantasies. We finish this chapter, which we never begun 
 with the consent of our own fancy. 
 
 We conceded our taste for the reason that we could make the 
 question more plainly intelligible to every one. We have no pre- 
 dilections for romance — on the contrary, we despise them as the 
 bane of the age ; and could relish an almanac fifty years old, 
 sooner than yellow-covered trash. 
 
 In this chapter, we have tried to stand out from lascivious love, 
 but are fully conscious of the crumpled efforts to make the chap- 
 ter readable. 
 
 As before stated, we wrote against our own inclinations, and 
 now that we are through, we really feel relieved, and make no 
 doubt the reader rejoices likewise. 
 
 The sum total of this chapter may be summed up in the an- 
 nexed stanzas ; and if the reader likes, he can advise his friends 
 to omit the chapter and read the verse : 
 
 I would not pine in the valley of woe, 
 No sense in this brooding o'er sorrow ; 
 What Love bids me do, there Duty says go, 
 And Faith will send Hope on the morrow. 
 
90 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART ; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 There are three great national pictures of which every Ameri- 
 can can be proud, whose counterpart is beyond the hour of pros- 
 pective hope : 
 
 The Continental Congress signing the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence within sight of the gibbet ; Washington disbanding tiie 
 army, laying by the sword and disdaining the diadem ; and Henry 
 Clay in his great final pleadings before the august bar of a majestic 
 Senate, with that gallant earnestness which only the anxious 
 patriot can display. 
 
 Grone, are the heroes in those scenes of martial daring and 
 high-souled pride ! 
 
 Grone, the principles which breast the storm 1 and with them 
 gone that invincible, steady, unwavering valor, with which honor 
 is intrenched, and by which, victory, and unsullied glory, and last- 
 ing adoration are ever won. 
 
 Why speak of things as they are, or why be blind to facts that 
 glare with open evidence, yet startle not ? Bribed legislators, 
 mercantile defaulters, official peculators, stuffed ballot boxes, 
 fraudulent voters, ward bullies, vigilant committees, territorial 
 wars, and urban centralization, and overshadowing and absorbing 
 and controlling power. All ! all I are potent omens, pregnant 
 with the destiny of the critical hour. We maintain our social 
 laws are wrong, and the moral will which gives them tone is im- 
 potent to restore order — for it is destitute of vigorous life — and 
 hence, without the strength to sway for good. 
 
 No cause, or code, or vogue, will stand the test of public opinion 
 unless it has the concurrence of a great bulk of the influential 
 mass. And they, the great bulk, will not indorse what the moral 
 or Christian world simultaneously and unhesitatingly frown down. 
 In this land of Ghristian theory these premises cannot be doubted. 
 And if the argument holds good, there must rest a censure some- 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 'f 1 
 
 where ; and it cannot be anywhere unless with organic or con- 
 trolling power. 
 
 Men study the effect of the sequence, the principle of policy, 
 and if they see policy without integrity is more creditable to so- 
 cial position than probity with humble surroundings, destitute 
 of the wielding dignity of success ; then we ask, how shall purity be 
 cultivated ; and how can we hope to preserve even the final court 
 of public opinion from the corrosive taint of a canker corruption ? 
 
 They who settled this new world came here for the privilege of 
 principle ; and they — the embodiment of principle — nursed the 
 swaddlings, who rallied to the enthusiastic watch-cry of liberty. 
 
 But, strange to say, we, the heirs of their patrimonial bequest, 
 are, in the majesty of strength, in the incipiency of decay — though 
 strangers to fear from abroad — have become slaves to our own 
 oppressive burdens at home, and by the laws of our own social 
 enactments, subject ourselves to a self-willed degradation and 
 welcomed debauchery. 
 
 We dare hazard the allegation, that this land, with its innume- 
 rable advantages and political glory, is by far worse off than 
 when the pioneersman felled the first forest tree in its newly-dis- 
 covered and densely-matted wild woods. 
 
 It is of no consequence to the insolvent debtor that his revenue 
 exceeds the income of a dozen others together ; the chances for 
 extripation consist in the excess of his resources over his expendi- 
 tures. If the income be a hundred thousand, and the outlay greater 
 than such annuity, the individual is poor in the receipt of his exu- 
 berance, and if we have all the blessings the world can furnish, if 
 we have less than supplies the common expenditures of life, then 
 are we paupers to the ills of circumstance, no odds, what the boast 
 of our heraldry and condition. Are our arguments understood ? 
 And will our motives be misjudged ? We know the common inclina- 
 tion to barter in sentiment, and the traductive disposition of those 
 who cannot oppose argument with argument. We have counseled 
 well the obloquy cf the calumniator, and foreknowing it, have 
 prepared our feelings for its unmeasured fullness. We come be- 
 fore the public to elicit not pity, nor skulk from contempt. We 
 stand as the advocate, not that we are purchased for the issue, 
 
92 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR, 
 
 but we adjure man for the sake of men, and in our imploring sup- 
 plications forget self, in our warm love and deep-rooted desire to 
 untrammel the race. 
 
 What is the bridle on the heart ? The shame which attaches to 
 labor, and the sinister homage to fortuitous circumstances. A 
 will to spam the poor, a readiness to overlook the outrages of 
 gilded strength, a love for pomp grown from the blood, and spirit, 
 and ashes of the fragile and helpless. 
 
 The pride of the man from which emanates ambition, the ambition 
 which creates a greedy insatiable appetite to devour. It will not be 
 denied that caste does all this. And yet men suffer it, because 
 opinion awards praise to the successful ; and all hope for success. 
 
 But we are thinking not of the few who may clamber above 
 expediency ; even they, are not above casuality, and their own 
 children, or at furthest their grand-children, will have to come in 
 contact with the cold exaction of society, and to their tender sen- 
 sibilities will the merciless world be as the cold winds of wintet 
 to the sheep shorn of its wool. In this country of mutation, 
 where property is as uncertain as an avalanche, all are interested 
 in our theory, for but the fewest few of the rich can expect theit 
 children to begin where they left off. In view of this we ask for 
 two items in our petition. Will the public grant it ? Dignity 
 to labor, and honor to merit, and that too without regard to the 
 Bettings of the gem. We do not value a diamond more before 
 "than after the burnish, when we know its intrinsic worth. Then 
 why the individual ? Is it inquired, why is this asked ? Because 
 God so intended it, and /7).e "Hgr^teo/ man, "under his ordinance, 
 demand it ; and disorder, and oppression, and chaos follow the re- 
 fusal of the claims of the law. Look about, and inquire, why 
 has marriage become comparatively obsolete, and is daily growing 
 more so ; and, too, inquire, why are married people guilty of practices 
 which the Mormons would not countenance ? The sympathizing 
 Briton advised the unsuccessful Envoy, representing these Colo- 
 nies, before the unbearable tyrant, to return home, and counsel 
 the Americans to raise children to rebel against oppression. 
 The old typographical philosopher indorsed the admonition by 
 estimating one vice as expensive as the rearing of two children 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 93 
 
 -—were he living to-day, he might safely say a whole genera- 
 tion. Show, ostentation, display, a love for the fastidious, a 
 punctilious bowing down to fashion, a spurning hatred for 
 lowly worth, and then back of this political peership, goading the 
 individual, for the want of social position, because he is poor. 
 
 Here lies the cause of our evils. There exist our social and 
 political ills, from which we must be removed, or, with them, we 
 will soon pass into national nonentity. Can any one wonder at 
 the individual's unscrupulous clutchings at money, whilst he is 
 conscious he will be trodden as a toad without it ? 
 
 And if legal fraud is the high road to social honor, who shall 
 fill the posts of trust, and who be enabled to exist amidst the 
 buffetings of the gale and the current, hurrying them on to the 
 maelstrom of Algerine destruction ? The early settlers wanted 
 only shelter, raiment, and food — a man with them was graded, 
 not for what he had, but was. 
 
 With them marriage was a duty, and children a blessing ; work 
 was honorable and commanded its recompense ; civility was gen- 
 tility, and none were without it ; hospitality was a virtue, and all 
 practiced it. Now we must have a home for town and country, 
 and wardrobes without number ; delicacies suiting to make the 
 well sick, and hasten the feeble to die. And position, in propor- 
 tion to the filched gain of sharp trading, just outside the finger 
 ends of the law. Celibacy is honorable, and, with the married, 
 children a nuisance— r-work degrading and resorted to, solely by 
 the financially impotent, whom it would be sheer nonsense to re- 
 gard or reward, commensurate with their labor and necessities ; 
 boorish vulgarity is respectability — exclusiveness importance, and 
 rudeness the mark of a gentleman. 
 
 Physicians are kept busy to tell us of new diseases, and 
 lawyers tax their brains to fortify against the ruse dodge of legal 
 innovations. Seminaries multiply to instruct misses to be popu- 
 lar with their frailties. Shylock speculators "trim the midnight 
 lamp" in concocting schemes, whereby the witty shall be out- 
 witted, and bold rascality return large fortunes for nothing. 
 
 Availability without merit, is far rather to be desired than simplicity 
 aud steadfastness without gain, Look on these pictures and a,ns wer 
 
94 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR, 
 
 whether the primitive or modern times were preferable. Here is 
 '76 and "Young America." Look, and laugh 1 We would not 
 restrain it. But answer I Is the picture life ? Is not the asser- 
 tion literally and practically true ? 
 
 To protest against these facts, with us, is a moral duty To in- 
 cur ridicule of those who will not think, who love to be led blindly 
 on by the usages of past ages, is a consolation. For the time 
 comes, when the theory of this thesis will be in date ; and the 
 wonder will not be that it is so, but why it was so long delayed. 
 
 When the poor sailor will not be sent out to contend with the 
 angry ocean, and leeched of his pittance as soon as he returns to 
 greet his native shore ; whilst the commander and owner regale 
 themselves with wines and Havaunas in the seclusive star chamber, 
 enriched by the sweat and hazard of those meanly paid tars who 
 did the work, and bore the perils and hardships of the voyage. 
 The poor consumptive orphan girl will not be forced to stitch the 
 costly mantilla, at starvation wages, in the damp cellar or cheer- 
 less garret, wasting, as the midnight taper, by which dim glimmer 
 she threads and sews the rustling garment, dewy with her drip- 
 ping tears, and plaited by her frittered life. 
 
 The soldier will not bid adieu to friends, nor brazen battle- 
 ments present the " bristling front of war." Ships will rot in the 
 docks, selfish cities be destroyed, parchments and prothonotaries 
 be antiquated and unknown, the sable Congo give back to his sultry 
 home its lost blossoms to the Son, the tempest-tossed Ishmaelite 
 cease from his pilgrimations, to abide 'neath the olive trees of his 
 New Hilled city, the wandering and wasting aborigines dwell in 
 the Alabama of their fathers ; and peace, content and home-dwelling 
 happiness beneath the spreading boughs of native arbors, will 
 make man what he was, and what wisdom's forethought meant he 
 only should become. 
 
 Then shall the golden bit be lifted from the bleeding heart ; and 
 man, free as the fleet courser on the unbounded desert plains, and 
 loving as the noiseless dew, which designs, in quiet night, its 
 crayon sketches on the unfolding petal ; that morn should paint 
 its rosy blushes on the blowing flower — shall stand erect, glowing, 
 in the unrefracted image of his God. What care we that we are 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 95 
 
 far oflF from this Elysium, where selfishness blooms not, nor want 
 or care curves haggard lines on the index of the living soul. Men 
 are but as forest leaves in the coarse whispers of autumn, who will 
 be scattered by the whirlwind of their own creation. But law, as 
 the sturdy forest will bear the peltings of the storm and grow 
 afresh in new-robed verdure, when the winter's howl is passed, 
 and the soft spring, with its rollicksome music and glad smile, in- 
 vites it forth to newborn joy. The sombre prelude of this chap- 
 ter chronicles the time of night in the social world, but conjunc- 
 tive events may signal them as the harbingers of day. The ebbed 
 tide may flood again, — the quivering and vibrating needle finds its 
 natural point — the inborn court of conscience, whose portals 
 avarice dreads to enter, be reconciled to grant the suit of jus- 
 tice wrangling for the right. 
 
 The orange streaks are visible on the orient, — and soon may the 
 wings of light and love pencil them with tints of gold. 
 
 The French Emperor receives the tacit hisses of the world, to 
 discommode the imperial glory of his usurpation — and make the 
 insignia of dynasty the ci'own of thorns. Whilst Walker dies 
 without a throb of pity for his fate — the amaranth unsuited.for his 
 bier, and the tear of sorrow unwilling to sprout the cypress on his 
 tomb. Here is where we have hope ! The pride of man di- 
 rected in the current of amelioration. To do this we must make 
 men think. The love of wealth is not for its comfort but influ- 
 ence. The desire to own it is a longing for preeminent distinction. 
 
 Men are but grown children — who, like the juveniles, must be 
 diverted from error and encouraged in the right : and if a com- 
 mon, systematized move is made by those whose influence will legal- 
 ize the enterprise, then will it have become disreputable to op- 
 press ; and fashionable, and honorable, and creditable, and obli- 
 gatory, to deal justly and gallantly toward all mankind. 
 
 The ambition of man need not be destroyed ; it cannot; for it 
 is a stream of kinship with divinity, and owes its struggling 
 melody to the caput fons of life. Amelioration does not dam 
 it, nor run it off into subterranean channels ; but gives it a 
 natural winding course, to fructify the vales of its wanderings, and 
 cherish the bay trees on its banks. Here is a pledge against 
 
96 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR, 
 
 social discord — here are the forks of the road ; the one directing 
 to the tower and strength, the other to revolution and blood ; 
 where social slavery will be exchanged for military rulers ; and 
 where discontent must find a quietus from the howitzer or coronet. 
 
 We now proceed to take up the most difficult part of the sub- 
 ject. Let the reader abate his inculcated prejudices, and come 
 with us to the supreme bar of reason ; and if convinced, let him 
 be candid enough to own it ; but if persuaded we are absurd, 
 then unhesitatingly denounce us. 
 
 No man has a right to monopolize this world to the engross- 
 ment of others^ pro-rata share. 
 
 We cannot admit the right of property to any one further than 
 is essential to the supply of their positive necessities. Any thing 
 more is greediness — nay it is actual robbery ; inasmuch as it 
 withholds from many these blessings for which they were created ; 
 grows a pride of selfishness ; promotes unbecoming graduation 
 in classes, and institutes a sinister will to resort to any thing for 
 the securement of an unusual share of property, that the holder 
 can be entitled to an extra share of importance. We need not 
 stop to consider the characters of that respect which whines and 
 cajoles and wheedles in sycophantic adoration to wealth. 
 
 The spirit is moved more by manifest action than a presumed 
 but unspoken consideration, and the nature of the emotions of 
 the man crave overt concern as a test proof of deference. 
 
 This bugbear of penury — this slough of indigent despair,— 
 is one into which all are liable to tumble. Then, in order to 
 have an insurance against the dangers of the quagmire, let us 
 drain it dry with the delving-irons of human kindness, and flow 
 off the stagnant seepage into the oblivion below. Or else, pile 
 in the rocks of solid reason until we level it with the hill tops on 
 either side. How shall we do it ? And why? We must not 
 resort to stringent measures. Revolution will do no good. The 
 world has experimented on that for sixty centuries. And the 
 change of rulers too often exiles a complacent sovereign for one 
 of less reasonable demands. 
 
 It is better, says history and experience to endure the rnles of 
 a king, whose training and education has adapted him to the 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 97 
 
 manners of the court and feelings of the people, than be sub- 
 jected to the requirements of the intolerable usurper. In either 
 case, partiality and not merit will receive preferment, and the 
 many be oppressed to give fame to the few. This is might but 
 not justice. Or it is right by the law of might. The only 
 quality valuable in man is the immaterial : as a proof of it we 
 pay instinctive homage to talents and goodness. 
 
 We do so because we love to : and we love to do so, for mind is 
 the endowment of the Creator— hence it is the normal endear- 
 ment of divinity to the divine ; the worship of his affinity by 
 kindred affection, in the triple existence of the party, paying 
 the tribute to whom it is due. 
 
 This is natural respect ; and only such should be required. In 
 short, any thing else is slavery. And slavery and liberty are at 
 antipodes : they will not, cannot, exist together. 
 
 Social law cannot be forced : for those who would coerce it 
 are unfit to concede what they claim, unless dispossessed of every 
 lust of aggrandizement, and only imbued with the noble spirit of 
 universal kinship and common fraternity. 
 
 But if the conqueror and not his fellows in arms were so actu- 
 ated by amelioration, the effort would only be spasmodic and 
 would relapse after his demise. 
 
 . Compulsion is not opinion, and the will tied down by a thong 
 will rebound when the cord is removed. But in mind the simile 
 is in part unlike, for it chafes by coercion. 
 
 To obviate this diflSculty,— mind must be educated to will the 
 rule of love, and pride will then feed ambition, and amelioration 
 rejoice the emotions on account of voluntary acts of kind offices 
 administered to a less lucky or less fortunate brother. 
 
 Under this rule drones would pluck up fortitude for duty ; mi- 
 sers and spendthrifts learn that "man lives not for himself;" 
 and hawks lose the inclination to use their talons; labor 
 be distributed ; and rest, and comfort, equilibriumized. To su- 
 perinduce this equality, man must be induced to remember benevo- 
 lence is riches which enriches the bosom, and enlarges the stature 
 of the understanding ; whilst avarice intensifies want, personal 
 and relative and dries up the fountains of affection. The former 
 
98 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR, 
 
 makes him truly and manifestly lovable and godlike — the latter 
 self-despised and despicable ; — if not by overt dissemblance, for 
 fear of his power ; at least so, in the estimate of intuitive reason. 
 
 Thus, the magnanimous act of Brown in the redemption of 
 the Philadelphia City scrip — held by Ladies whose privations and 
 talents and toil entitle them to a cash compensation, but whose 
 probable want of money might have made them a prey to the 
 heartless shaving sharks of the market — has won for himself 
 trophies of lasting glory which in our opinion are incomparably 
 superior to all the laurels of the Cassars. 
 
 But, says one, what do you expect by equality of property ? Do 
 you suppose a jubilee to-day would remain so for a single week ? 
 Distribution would only be followed by a rapid return to ine- 
 quality. Not if persons were controlled by the will to fraternize. 
 The law of love would continue to restore the equilibrium — just 
 as the sea pays back to the heavens the borrowed rain ; just as 
 the forest compensate the ground for its clothing ; or the dead 
 plant of the fall, by the matured germ, returns the lost beauty to 
 the fields. 
 
 You may call it absurdity to so theorize, — but in extenuation 
 for our premises, let us here be understood as looking to the sup- 
 port of the Government ; the perpetuity of the nation which 
 cannot be continued — so long as proffered peership is promised 
 on one side, and all the concomitant evils of social and political 
 disparity allotted on the other, in the absence of money to buy a 
 coat of arms. 
 
 England's primogeniture law looks well to this issue. They 
 know, also, to give title without endowment to support it, 
 would be an inconsistency that would forever keep the different 
 classes at war. 
 
 Therefore when they pronounce a man a lord, they give him 
 means to support his heraldry. 
 
 Here we know the difference. We are presumed to be gentle- 
 men by the institutions of government. But whilst the law has 
 been changed in its relationships to the subject, the subject on the 
 other hand has not been modified in feeling, to become adapted to 
 the law. For the law cannot mould the comity of the social citi- 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. . 99 
 
 zen, and the statues of the social code will supplant law, civil and 
 moral, if at variance with it. A seeming incongruity to our pre- 
 mises, but not so when analyzed. The moral law, if instructing 
 in error, is raising children to rebellion. In establishing our pre- 
 sent question, we adduce the duello as illustrative of our position. 
 It is never resorted to by gentlemen because they love martyrdom, 
 but because they love social esteem more than life. And if dignity 
 must be sustained at the cost of integrity, as caste now dictates, 
 history shows dignity to be paramount to integrity. It is said, a 
 man will not go against his bread and butter. And every day 
 proves the value men set on their respectability, when they prefer 
 the paraphernalia of the age to an honest compound with credi- 
 tors. And why ? The banquet halls will not be shut against the 
 money of the man, notwithstanding the integrity of conscience 
 abhors him. This position is not only tenable, but self-evident 
 and reasonable, but without acceptance from those who admit it. 
 Only the other day we were talking with a highly worthy lady, a 
 member of a Christian church, who was arduously engaged in 
 Sabbath-school teaching, — and yet, strange to say, as ardently 
 engaged in defending fashion. Compassing land and sea to 
 proselyte the children to precept, but inculcating a love for pa- 
 geantry which had occasioned the expediency to reform the young 
 heathens. Are we ambiguous ? Let us be plainer. If inference 
 will not speak, plain English shall. 
 
 The lady spoken of was single from the influence of that os- 
 tentation she so warmly defended. Accomplished, talented, but in 
 moderate circumstances, and in trying to keep up a fair standing 
 with the punctilious, the embarrassments of life had no offer of 
 abatement. And her case is the very experience of countless 
 others, whom men admire but dread to marry. Why ? They know 
 this growing, slavish love for the sublime ridiculous has no outside 
 limit. They know gratification leads to further desire, and if the 
 display is not ahead, it labors in the race to be ahead ; and if 
 ahead, it fears it may be outdone. The slave of this artificial ex- 
 citement thinks of nothing, delights in nothing, but display. Dis- 
 gusted, yet pursuing the disgust ; unhappy in it, but craving fur- 
 ther dissatisfaction. The husband must foot the bills, or submit to 
 
100 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR, 
 
 "curtain lectures ;" or constant croaking. His business may not 
 afiford it, but he must resort to dishonesty to lieep up a retinue 
 and routine of mock pleasure ; finally fail, and in the smash up, 
 gather as many fragments from the wreck as possible. Now if 
 we are all forced to this marauding on each other, by a disdain 
 for labor and contempt for humble honesty, when we all become 
 rogues together, at what discount will morals be quoted ? A 
 young bachelor said to us the other day in answer to " Why he did 
 not marry ?" 
 
 "My dear sir it is impossible — I cannot afiford it : the family 
 expenses of those whom I visit are not less than $3,000 a year. 
 Such extravagance would soon break me ; my business could not 
 sustain it." 
 
 " Then why do you not choose some lady of domestic habits, 
 whose good sense would not wish such butterfly nonsense ?" 
 
 " Sir, I could not find a lady whose education would suit me for 
 a partner — who would be content with any such economy as I can 
 afford ; and I am resolved not to marry for the mere sake of mar- 
 rying. Notwithstanding I shudder at the forethought of ad- 
 vanced celibacy. To marry fortuitous circumstances, is to become 
 a pensioner on a woman's bounty; to seek for less than conge- 
 niality is to compromise the dignity of man\s nobler sentiment ; 
 and to toed foolish fashion is to go into torment, from which death 
 would be a happy release. A fine sentiment would feel mor- 
 tified by the first, degraded by the second, and harassed by all the 
 corrosive ills of a spirit-cankered torture by the third. 
 
 "And if, by merest chance, I could discover such a lady as 
 Goldsmith describes in his 'Vicar of Wakefield,' I would not al- 
 low her to undergo that social exile which would most certainly 
 be dealt out to us by my present circle of most loving friends." 
 
 These complaints meet us constantly ; they certainly must mean 
 something. And they are not confined to the single, — the mar- 
 ried admonish us to keep single. Old cronies tell us of cares in 
 wedlock, and frankly own if they were out of bonds, they would 
 remain so. 
 
 Some wish to say this pride of life is stimulated by the influx 
 of Europeans, whose pliant manners degrade labor, and humor 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 101 
 
 the snobbishness of the country. This is an error. The greater 
 never assimilate to the minority. Adopted citizes incorporate 
 their ideas with oar own, and early learn to be what we would 
 have them. The better class of emigration will vie with our own 
 best citizens ; and the laborer from other shores is subject to our 
 will. 
 
 Pocahontas did not retain her savage dress ; when she came 
 into the pale of civilization. The painting in the capitol rotunda 
 at Washington represents her, clad in the best style of raiment 
 known to the pale face. Republicanism is imperfect if it cannot 
 embrace and leaven the world. 
 
 About a year ago we were quartered at a " very clever fellow's " 
 hotel in the Monumental. Whilst there, a young man from the 
 East arrived in search of business. He came freighted down 
 with moral commendations, — letters to " Christian dignitaries." 
 We thought him a prodigy, and began to have an almost super- 
 stitious veneration for him. 
 
 During his stay, the Hotel became unusually crowded, the land- 
 lord, noticing the familiarity which had grown up between us, 
 changed the stranger into our room ; which, by the way, was ample 
 in its accommodations for several lodgers. At once we began to 
 sift his character, found he was married, and professedly doated 
 on his wife, but was no stickler for continency. Had been mar- 
 ried several years, and had no children, for the reason " they did 
 not wish any ; they were troublesome and expensive, and they 
 could not afford to take care of them." 
 
 He remained there until he found an engagement to go home 
 with a Bay captain, largely engaged in cutting timber somewhere 
 down on the Peninsula. He did not hesitate to say "he would 
 engage a housekeeper for a second wife " — and we did not hesitate 
 to denounce him as more beastly than a Mormon. We cut his 
 acquaintance, and will take good care it shall not be renewed. 
 We can respect and extenuate an open reprobate, who is so by the 
 force of fate, and bears it with Roman firmness ; but for masked 
 villainy we have no commiseration. 
 
 An apology is due, for the recital of this Incident. We inserted it, 
 
102 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR, 
 
 for it is the most delicate illustration we could think of, to deline- 
 ate the subject now discussed. 
 
 That young man would not have abandoned his wife, nor she 
 consented to his absence, had toil been in fair repute, even in 
 New England. And the loving ties which should have bound 
 them, would not have been wanting, but that broadcloth is es- 
 sential for a gentleman, aud watered flounces indispensable for a 
 lady of ordinarily accredited decency. Here " Ihe bridle on the 
 heart " made the wife to remain at home, to listen to stranger^s ad- 
 vances sooner than compromise position by residing with her hus- 
 handin the plain home of his adventure, to make his adversity 
 eo7nfortable, and Jill his bosom with the full measure of af- 
 fection, rather than give up to a strumpet those divine emotions 
 she had vowed to honor and love. Affectation will hoot at this 
 broad description of evil ; we should be equally fastidious, did we 
 not know the body politic was being devoured by its cancered 
 contact, which, we therefore dare assail — and which calls for 
 the amputating knife of the surgeon to save the whole body from 
 decomposition. How shall we do it ? Wealth must be despoiled 
 of its power. Republicanism and simplicity must go hand in 
 hand together, or together die and be buried in one common 
 sepulchre. Monopolies must be checked by the intervention of the 
 law : and law must be aided by public opinion. We grant char- 
 tered privileges to companies who absorb money, and wield it to 
 serious disadvantage to every one but themselves. For example : 
 If we have a right to say, in the charter of any street railroad, 
 they shall not charge over so much fare, we have a better right to 
 say they shall not pay less than a specific compensation for labor 
 to their employees. Why ? The public can walk, or go in their 
 own conveyance, but the laborer must have work, for he must have 
 bread. And if he is poor he must accept an unfair offer, or steal, 
 or starve, or go to the alms-house. But you say he can do 
 something else ! What will he do ? Where will he go, but he 
 finds capital ready to masticate him — to extract his spirit and 
 life, for its own glory and emolument ? What company is less 
 rigid or more just? Ah I and are not rules systematized by these 
 very corporate powers to hedge him about with company law, 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 103 
 
 dfgainst which it is out of the power of the indigent to wage a 
 momentary contest. There is no alternative for outrage and ex- 
 tortion, there is no protest to circumbound the oligarchy. 
 
 Now we have laws saying, — an apprentice shall have consider- 
 ate treatment. And why ? Because he is a minor and an or- 
 phan without protection, and he shall not be imposed on. We 
 have law- forbidding the excess of interest. For what reason ? 
 Money can crush, and the moneyless shall not be without a 
 remedy. And if the law is a dead letter, — it is because public 
 opinion is dead to its virtue. In Pennsylvania you have an ex- 
 emption law. Why was it enacted ? That the poor should not 
 be turned out of doors, that the heartless should have a check 
 on their demands. 
 
 You have a school law, forcing the rich to educate the poor ; 
 that society may be intelligent, and the public weal advanced. 
 Also a law defining certain kinds of labor ; for strength must not 
 be overtasked. The several branches of mechanism have laws 
 within themselves, which afford but a poor shield against the en- 
 croachment of capital. In great strikes the operator eventually 
 has to succumb. Those who need protection most are least able 
 to contend for it. Where is the chivalry of the 19th century, 
 which allows a necessitated man to be compelled to labor eighteen 
 hours in the day ; for $7 per week ; and a woman, because she 
 requires food and shelter, to receive barely $2 per week for her 
 wages, even though the compensation will scarcely pay her board ? 
 
 To this we answer : The poor have the power, and they must 
 use it not to allow this high piracy on human rights — not to suf- 
 fer this outlawry to go free of punishment. Let there be a 
 law to rank the man who oppresses by unjust wages with the 
 counterfeiter and burglar; let the penalty he the Stole Prison. 
 The willing tyrant would be restrained by this method ; and the 
 more honorable would be found ready to subscribe to a custom 
 from which they had been relucantly driven by reckless rivals, 
 who paid from choice what their more feeling competitors were 
 constrained to come down to, in order to contend with such op- 
 position as was unknown to consequences, and foremost in oppres- 
 sion. 
 
104 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART ; OR, 
 
 If men of benevolence would underwrite this move by their 
 moral and individual sanction, and the criminal and voracious 
 cannibal be made to respect it by legal compulsion, society would 
 soon regain its lost tone, and the chafing chains of social degra- 
 dation be unloosed from the poor. We would not take away 
 property at once, but qualify the use to which its owners should 
 apportion it. The man of business, after realizing 6 per cent on 
 its investment, should share the residue of profits with the em- 
 ployees carrying on the business. And should the profits exceed 
 a certain amount it should be disbursed for benevolent purposes. 
 We hear it objected — that would not be equality. We very well 
 know it. It would be unkind to dispossess the rich, at once, 
 but give his children to understand they would not inherit it in 
 toto ; and let them be educated accordingly. At the parent's 
 death it should go into lands for the relief of the poor, who 
 should be quartered upon it, reserving only a bare sufficiency for 
 the subsistence of the heirs with strict economy We suggest 
 this as most feasible, for it is the most legitimate and final plan 
 of restoration. 
 
 The satiated politician, or superannuated merchant, indeed al- 
 most every class of men, love the retired country home, when 
 ambition wanes, — at the sight of the lengthened shadows of 
 evening. The day must arrive when the earth will support none 
 but husbandmen, — when every acre will sustain four souls, and 
 every scrap of iron be made use of to perfect its tillage. The 
 richest and happiest people in these United States are the Lan- 
 caster county farmers. Their farms are small ; they love to work ; 
 practice economy ; and realize health and content within their 
 own homes, on their meagre allowance. 
 
 They enjoy themselves more than any class of people we know 
 of, and their happiness consists in being primitive. Their customs 
 approximate to the old dispensation, where 40 acres was an allot- 
 ted heritage. We maintain the earth is for use ; and also that 
 no one of the common family shall be allowed more than his share, 
 and it should be only equal to his actual wants. To appropriate 
 it for Parks, or hunting grounds, should not be allowed ; nor 
 ought it to remain in extensive tracts in the hands of any one 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 105 
 
 owner. The law which sanctions the permission to such allot- 
 ment, is the same principle, a little more extended, that sets up 
 the plea of " The Divine Rights of Kings." By national law we 
 exonerate our robbery of the Indians, inasmuch as they did not 
 cultivate, they should not hold possession. And on the same 
 principle property is not rightfully the estate of another, after it 
 has ceased with him to be an expediency. 
 
 In other words he shall not be allowed to heap up wealth to 
 cater to his vanity, when, by that accumulation, others are left to 
 misery and want and mortification and desperation and despair. 
 For if crime follows a cause, which society has made law, the 
 criminality of the act lies, not so much in the error committed by 
 the individual, as the culpability of those who made error legal. 
 Let us explain. The young lady who finds she is esteemed as on 
 a par with the vilest woman in the country — simply because she 
 works — that she is as much debarred from society as though no- 
 toriously wicked, and yet conscious of purity of life and purpose ; 
 and if with the coercion to labor, there is not only a social degra- 
 dation attached to the toil, but also a social or general combina- 
 tion on the part of the employees to pay less for that work, 
 than can subsist the laborer ; if, we say, with these stubborn facts, 
 staring her in the face — with troubles such as these crushing her 
 in the dust, she rends the lily from her brow ; is she to censure or 
 those who drove her to despair ? 
 
 Is there any one fool-hardy enough to fly in the face of these 
 facts ? Will any one say labor is respectable ? Would any one 
 believe him if he would say the Billingsgate epithets, applied to 
 working people, are not practiced by the daily conduct of aU or 
 almost all those who have moneyed position allowing such pre- 
 sumable audacity ? Here is a little item — what politicians call a 
 straw — clipped from the local columns of the Philadelphia North 
 American of August 3d, 1860 : — 
 
 "Strange, but True. — A man, named John Ryan, apparently 
 fell dead at Baldwin's locomotive works, on Wednesday. The 
 coroner was sent for, and on his arrival the man had come to and 
 was alive. The coroner left, but in the course of the day was 
 
106 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR, 
 
 again sent for, the man having died in good earnest in the second 
 instance." 
 
 Would that influential, commercial paper have spoken so of a 
 wealthy shipper, or an inflnential merchant, or leading broker ? 
 We know it will be said this is only a city local. So it is ; but 
 it shows the force and direction of the popular tide of opinion, for 
 all, quite as much so as though taking place among the leaders of 
 its columns. We have here another article, to show the direc- 
 tion of public opinion, which we copied from " The Examiner 
 and Herald of Lancaster, Pa., of August 1st, 1860 : — 
 
 " I have not been taking much part in politics of late years, 
 but for the last few weeks I could not avoid being struck with the 
 activity and interest displayed by the employees of the Pennsyl- 
 vania Railroad in regard to the nominations about to be made by 
 the Repul)lican party. I am not hostile to this company — in fact 
 I have always been a warm friend — but this organized interference 
 of its servants in the primary elections of our party has naturally 
 aroused some feeling of indignation in ray mind, as it would in 
 the mind of every independent thinker. I hope the time is far 
 distant when our good old Commonwealth is to become the mere 
 tool and chattel of a corporation, as is the case with our neigh- 
 boring State of " Camden and Amboy." Can you tell me the 
 cause of this particular excitement among the railroad men ? 
 
 A CALM OBSERVER." 
 
 Without reference to the political complexion of the above ex- 
 tract, we inquire, — Why the free use of the term " sermnte" ? 
 And why question the right, the privileges of men to assemble for 
 common consultation ? Have men thus far removed from cotton 
 fields — in the democratic, plain, industrious, honest district of Lan- 
 caster — lost the rights of freemen. In either instance the argu- 
 ment is on our side. For if " they have become the mere tool and 
 chattel of a corporation'^ — there is power in some cause making 
 the result ; against which both cause and result we have and do 
 protest. We object to the usage to enslave and the power to forge 
 the shackles. Remove the cause and the effect will disappear. 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 107 
 
 But here is still another scrap touching on our discussion 
 copied from the Philadelphia " Public Ledger" of August 23rd, 
 1860. 
 
 Let the reader read studiously, we wish the article carefully no- 
 ticed: 
 
 " The Salaries or Clerks, — Messrs. Editors :—I desire to 
 call your attention to a subject that is at the present time excit- 
 ing some attention in the city of JSTew York, viz : — The salaries 
 of clerks. The clerks in our large cities (mostly young men and 
 youths) are the hardest-worked and poorest-paid class of persons 
 in the community. It is a business that requires a good penman, 
 and a person of intelligence and education. Isow, sir — while the 
 cost of house rent, provisions, etc, has doubled within the last 
 fifty years, the salaries of clerks are the same now as then ; sala- 
 ries on which it is impossible to live decently. How many young 
 men are there, who, after a successful course of four years' hard 
 study at our High School, are obliged, from absolute necessity, to 
 take a clerkship in some store or office, at a salary of $50 per 
 year ? Young men are expected to board, clothe and otherwise 
 provide for themselves on salaries from this amount to $150 a year, 
 and married men from $300 to $500. Now, sir, this may do 
 where the young man has his parents to provide a home and to 
 clothe him ; but where the young man is obliged to strike out for 
 himself, it is impossible to live on such a salary. I think that our 
 business men should consider this subject in its proper light. 
 They would find themselves the gainers in the end, by giving better 
 salaries. Clerks would then protect their employers' interest more, 
 and it would encourage these young men in the path of duty. 
 We would, then, perhaps not hear of as many robberies of em- 
 ployers by their clerks as we now do. A YICTIM." 
 
 What volumes in that little article ! What distress and suffer- 
 ing it unvails : and with what meekness does it supplicate for suc- 
 cor ! Why are these men not better paid? What right have 
 men to work for less than a living ? Our heart was pained within 
 us when we read that article. A Yictim I To what ? To pecu- 
 
108 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR, 
 
 lation ? Where at leisure he repents from behind the heavy cross- 
 bars of a dungeon ? Or does the ghost of despair gather about 
 his hearth ? Has he a family in want ; a sick wife withering and 
 dying for lack of food adapted to her shriveled form and dainty 
 appetite ? 
 
 Or does he wander, the wreck of misfortune, from foul incon- 
 stancy and buried hope ; that turned faith aghast, and gave to the 
 subtle tongue with sordid power the influence by which to beckon 
 his idol from his conjugal arms ? 
 
 Go ! traitor ! You who have made him what he is ; seek out 
 his comfortless home in the cheerless court — and ransom what 
 you can. 
 
 "When life has reached this ebb, it is no longer worthy of con- 
 cern, if reform cannot conciliate ; if pity will not commute, or 
 sympathy relax the iron grasp — nor law stimulate to a restoration 
 of wrested honor, 'twere better to sleep in the cold arms of death, 
 on the " pent field" of protest — than thus to live despoiled of all 
 the manhood of a man. 
 
 Here again we will be met with that old extenuating plea for 
 poverty, so quaintly used by the prosperous ; i. e. " the road to 
 distinction, is open to all, if they will but use the efforts placed 
 within their reach." 
 
 This is a delusive hyperbole invented to instruct the hopeless 
 in an illusive hope. 
 
 Look at the pro rata relations of property and political place 
 in contrast to population. Decimate the representative of dol- 
 lars and how much per share would it allow to the individual ? 
 
 How many offices are there to supply applicants, and, too, how 
 many successful business men over the whole country ? Are not 
 the unprincipled and unfeeling, selfish, sordid, grovelling men, the 
 owners of the world — and of all others are they not the least en- 
 titled to the filchings by which they overpower the less favored 
 though mostly the more worthy and honorable ? 
 
 Let us for the sake of argument, admit the destruction of all 
 principle, and a general grab for spoils, monetary and political ; 
 where, save in a revolution, has the married clerk at $300 per 
 year ; or the wan saleswoman at $50 per annum, any possible 
 hope of a mere chance of advancement ? 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. 109 
 
 Who will promote the condition of the masses ? Who that 
 will not override and degrade, and demolish them for the sake of 
 their own personal, short-lived greatness and preferment. 
 
 But, says one, you cut off the goal of ambition 1 No ! we 
 would not ; we could not. We change the idea from a perverted 
 to a primeval channel. We ask to exalt all, and debase none ; 
 to ameliorate, and not oppress ; to honor, and not mortify, to 
 teach lessons of love, and not envy ; to grow the olive tree — and 
 exchange the sword for the sickle. 
 
 And if we could destroy ambition, we would not lose by the in- 
 novation. If we sought only the supply of want for existence, 
 and with it had content and peace, and happiness, would not that 
 be better than the flummery of poetic exaction, and artificial 
 beauty, and sublime, and exquisite glory, at the expense of suf- 
 fering to the many, and an unsatisfying disquiet to the few ? It 
 is no use to say the remedy is not to be found. It will not, if not 
 attempted. " Let us try." And as theory suits practice, we can 
 go on to wiser perfection. We will not improve, if we do not 
 aaake the effort. And the effort will be abortive unless moral 
 stamina is its prime mover and governor. 
 
 The politician is the instrument but must not be the originator. 
 The sick can know their ailment, but science must afford the re- 
 lief. 
 
 So the social world may deplore its anguish — but it must look 
 to the moral for the remedy. 
 
 Our subject takes this turn from the deductions of logical rela-* 
 tions — but when it goes into moral ethics, we eannot follow it. It 
 belongs to the theologian ; whilst we may speak of his duty, it 
 would be inconsistent for immorality to instruct him in it. To 
 him alone belongs the ability to prohibit uprising lowliness from 
 exercising that animosity from which it has but recently escaped. 
 
 But says one you are troubling yourself over a Utopian theory 
 altogether out of reason, and revolting to the pride of the distin- 
 guished, which can never be reduced to practical purpose. Be- 
 sides you are interfering with what is none of your business. 
 
 We would be sorry to waste our time and labor over a theory, 
 not grounded well in principle. We should be sorry to weep at 
 
110 THE BRIDLE ON THE HEART; OR, 
 
 the grave beyond the promise of a resarrection. We wonld not 
 trust — bat that the Immutable Eternal is the Toucher, before 
 whom men are as wax to the flame and with whom time is " an even- 
 tual now." 
 
 The brazen heavens of to-day may break into weeping on the 
 morrow ; and the crisp earth yield again its vintage. The heart 
 springs of the proud will then fly open to the bolt hammers of 
 truth, and their glad sentiment come bounding to the smoking altar 
 ladened with surrendered and once worshiped offerings, as the 
 willing tribute of a living spirit paid over to the cause of a suf- 
 fering humanity. 
 
 It is our business that we cry shame ! shame I when the cruel 
 driver maltreats his horse — and the court would not exonerate his 
 brutality. It is our business that the working people of this age 
 in our great cities are driven into an illicit existence of which the 
 bear in his mountain grotto would be ashamed. It is our con- 
 cern, that the revels of the poor are the single amours of debau- 
 chery — for the air grows thick with their moral taint — and the 
 miasma may soon affect the chastity of a wife or daughter. The 
 whirl of misery, and depravity which you now notice with silent 
 contempt may soon engulf your jewels ; and the prized promise 
 of your hopes become the drugged portion of mourning and bitter- 
 ness. 
 
 The cause we advocate is ours by the gift of a God whose un- 
 heard plaudits will fortify us to meet that public scowl which these 
 declarations may engender ; whose sunshine will make us pros- 
 per, though bending before the breeze of an indignant and howl- 
 ing contempt, set in motion to overpower the dissenter. The 
 rocking wind will cause us to strike deeper for strength and nu- 
 triment ; and the extended growth of the roots will nourish the 
 dark green on the foliage of the shadowing branches. We have 
 the consolation of a self-sustaining satisfaction in the production 
 of this fragmentary effort. Though the difiSculties which have 
 surrounded us whilst trying to write, have prevented even the 
 proper exercise of that moiety of talent we may possess. We 
 dismiss it from our inspection to send it forth to the garbled 
 scrutiny of the critical observer. And if by chance some humble 
 
PICTURES FROM LIFE. Ill 
 
 mountain lad sbould take it up to while the heavy hours of idle- 
 ness as he watches the floating cork of his playing line from the 
 banks of his highland brook, whose eye, clear as the fretting ripple 
 — and heart ungrafted by fashion — and thought pure as the har- 
 monious cadences of the JEolian wind that stirs the cedars of his 
 green hills — he drinks in and treasures this sparkling sentiment of 
 amelioration ; it may grow with him in his maturing strength into 
 the manliness of gigantic proportions. 
 
 And coming from his obscure home in the rocky gorges, break 
 as a wild billow of destruction, over the set parapets of stoical 
 caste, obliterate the citadel of fashion ; and set in motion a moral 
 kneading revolution, that shall find neither check nor restraint ; 
 until the crusade gives out, over the smouldering fires of the last 
 conquest risen to oppose its march. 
 
 RALLY FOR THE RIGHT. 
 
 Who lives for truth will strive for equal laws. 
 
 Nor count the cost, nor weary in the cause ; 
 
 He courts not ti'iumph for its vain applause. 
 
 But strives 'gainst hope which hope the foeman awes. 
 
 The banner flaunting in the mid-day light, 
 With countless braves to give its wavings might, 
 By sun may fall to find a lasting night, 
 By chieftain rent, triumphant in the fight. 
 
 Not so with right, whose throne is in the brain, 
 Which grows afresh with every new felt pain. 
 Which reckons realms made up by subjects slain, 
 And wakes to life when light once gilds the chain. 
 
 The fretting rage aroused to claim its own. 
 Breaks off the link which bind him to the throne ; 
 Hence then the regal laws he dares disown, 
 And reaps the harvest which his sires have sown. 
 
THE ADVERTISEMENTS. 
 
 Let none suppose the persons advertising in tlie appended pages, are 
 adjrocates of the doctrines held forth by this cursorary production. On 
 the contrary, they may be, and most likely are, tenaciously opposed to 
 them. 
 
 Most of the gentlemen have known us for years, and in all probability 
 they gave their cards from motives of personal friendship, independent 
 of any advantages which may accrue from the notices that are herewith 
 printed — not as a speculation, but a reimbursing fund, by which we have 
 felt a willingnass to contract for the material essential for the production 
 of this work. 
 
 The several parties are especially commended to our circle of friends 
 and the general public, of whom it becomes us to speak in brief detail. 
 
 C. M. Jackson & Co., appear on the fourth page of the cover. Their 
 Tonic is sold over the States, and is received with universal favor. 
 
 From all the evidences of prosperity that appertain to their magnificent 
 Depot on Arch Street, we are led to the self-evident conclusion, their 
 efforts are worthy of that patronage which a discerning public is daily 
 rendering to their balm of health. 
 
 James Barber, succeeds the main body of the text. Mr. Barber's his- 
 tory affords a striking illustration of perseverance and industry, blended 
 with tact, probity and economy, rising to affluence over apparently in- 
 surmountable obstacles. With allowable pride he frequently narrates 
 the history of his adversity, when a sick family leaned on an insolvent 
 bankrupt, and a hopeless debt overhung him; and from his present 
 stand-point, he looks down on the vale of surmounted difficulty, joyously, 
 though not egotistically elated, by the successful receipts of solid wealth. 
 
 Richard G-. Stotesburt, keeps a full variety of Furnishing Goods for 
 Coach and Harness makers. Mr. Stotesbury is a gentleman of honorable 
 ■and courteous bearing, and comprehensive business attainments. His 
 stock is equal to that of any market, and a purchaser can order from him 
 on as good terms as though selecting in person. 
 
114 THE ADVERTISEMENTS. 
 
 D. W. C. Baxter is a first class Designer and Engraver. The Ruins of 
 the Church where Pocahontas was married, is one of his average efforts. 
 
 The cut took precedence of place, because it calls up the recollection of 
 eventful ages — when men selected wives and not estates — by marriage. 
 The best blood of the Old Dominion claim kinship with the preserver of 
 the early colony. And not without just right. The Indian blood is 
 never lost, however the complexion may fade. Baxter's genius deserves 
 a fortune. Were he less talented, he would be more wealthy — the two 
 are at variance, and but seldom embodied in the same individual. 
 
 E. C. Walbokne & Co., offer gentlemen an outfit in Underclothing, 
 Handkerchiefs, Cravats, &c. They cut a shirt by Euclid, and can suit 
 the taste of the most fastidious bachelor or spruce dandy. 
 
 Robert Shoemaker & Co., Wholesale Dealers in Drugs, are too well 
 known to require notice or comment. Their goods are genuine, cheap, 
 and well chosen. Their dealings are high toned and above suspicion, 
 and their conviviality worthy the character of a pastorial patrician. To 
 know them is a guarantee of grappled esteem. 
 
 William Griffith has recently invented a Smoke Conductor to im- 
 prove the current of air through smoky chimneys, also to ventilate Ships 
 and Public Buildings. 
 
 The Ventilator is worthy of concern. Should any one find it difficult to 
 read through this sentence, because his eyes are weeping-blind with 
 smoke, from the whiffle of the veering wind, he may console himself that 
 the Archimedean is a relief, and if he will not try the experiment, he is 
 not entitled to a particle of sympathy. 
 
 Mr. Griffith will send Catalogues, and furnish proof of their capacity. 
 
 Wm C. Murphy is "a man of letters.'^ He can get up as showy a sign 
 as any person in Philadelphia, and at the shortest notice, with any design 
 required, from the sublime to the grotesque, or the fanciful ridiculous. 
 
 By all means try him. 
 
 T. W. & J. A. Yost, have every variety of Miniature Carriages "to 
 please the children." 
 
 They have been manufacturing for several years, and are in possession 
 of facilities to supply the heaviest orders. The Messrs. Yost's are clever 
 gentlemen, and we may attribute their amiability, in part, to their pro- 
 fession, upon the same principles that Horticulturists have greatest 
 longevity. 
 
 Clert & Stockdale, offer a new brand of " Burnside's Monongahela 
 Whiskey." Of all stimulants. Whiskey is said to be the healthiest spirit 
 for persons in health. 
 
THE ADVEKTISEMENTS. 115 
 
 The Firm are offering an article which, they attest by chemical analysis 
 — their consoientous efforts should be appreciated. An attempt to sup- 
 plant the adulterated spirits by a genuine article, is a measure of laudable 
 reform. 
 
 William Conway, is extensively engaged in manufacturing the various 
 kinds of Rosin and Fancy Soap. 
 
 His establishment is remarkable for neatness, system and order. 
 Factories are too often scenes of filth. Mr. Conway's is an enviable ex- 
 ception. The Packing floor of his Factory is as clean as the deck of a 
 No. 1 Steamer, and the operatives are restricted to rigid rules of cle?in- 
 liness. >■ The capacity of Mr. Conway's machinery is equal to several mil- 
 lion pounds annually, and the quality and price on a par with other 
 sea-board cities. 
 
 James Caemichael, is extensively engaged in manufacturing Oil Cloth. 
 He employs some hundred hands, and makes up over $200,000 worth of 
 goods annually, which are shipped to various parts of the United States 
 and Europe. Mr. Carmichael is a Scotchman of the real Hialt predilec- 
 tion, and his word has a meaning significance, synonymous with truth. 
 His goods are of his own make, and warranted. 
 
 Wm. Mann, offers to the trade every variety of Stationery Goods known 
 to the market. With him are associated some three or four sons, and 
 sons-in-law ; this in business circles, is a link of past usages, and for that 
 alone we claim he deserves pre-eminent preferment over competitors in 
 the market. Mr. Mann's prices are fair, his material and Blank Books 
 of fine quality, and with the commercial world of the Quaker City, he 
 is a general favorite. 
 
 Joseph H. Fostek, has a half page card. Fostet is a noble fellow. A 
 graduate of Neptune, and can supply "The Ocean's Bride" with a "Tri- 
 color," a Conestoga Wagon with a *^para linter,'^ or a Merchant's Front 
 with a ' ' Sun Shade. " He is worthy of patronage, and entitled to the 
 "Anchor and Star." 
 
 Samuel M. Mecutcheon & Son, make "French Burr Mill Stones." Their's 
 is a particular business, requiring accuracy. 
 
 Mr. Mecutcheon could not let a Burr go away from his premises unless 
 it was properly finished. He is one of those very particular men who 
 could not rest satisfied until everything was properly adjusted. 
 
 H. S. BoARDMAN, manufactures every variety of Brittannia Ware. 
 Mr. Boardman's old established house commands a lucky custom, and is 
 known at home as cheap amongst the cheapest and best. Buyers over- 
 look themselves when they pass him by. 
 
116 THE ADVERTISEMENTS. 
 
 Fakrell, Herring & Co., are "household words" amongst commercial 
 men. Their Salamanders are part and parcel of a Counting House, even 
 as indispensable as the Ledger and Cash Book. Their Fire Proofs answer 
 affirmatively to the flames ; "Are you Insured?" and the young firm is 
 not ready to start business without one. 
 
 Mr. Fisk makes all kinds and assortments of Stencil Plates. A Stencil 
 mark is a mute salesman. An imprint of one Stencil, is worth a thousand 
 pocket cards, for it sets up the merchant's sign board all over the country. 
 
 Out midst the silent symphony and pleasing harmony of rippling waters 
 and warbUng birds, and sighing winds by the banks of the sleepy song- 
 honored Wissahickon, is situated the Carpet Mills of James Lorb, Jr. 
 It will be seen by the Advertisement, he is making some half dozen 
 varieties. 
 
 The Dutch — an article of solid texture, is offered with others, and it is 
 authenticatedly reported, Mr. Lord is the only manufacturer of that 
 article in the Philadelphia Market. 
 
 R. D. Clifton, Second and Dock streets, keeps on store and gets up to 
 order, every variety of Men and Boys Clothing. Mr. Clifton superintends 
 his own business with assiduous attention. He sells low and deals honor- 
 able. It will be seen he protests against Clap- Traps in his circular. And 
 the humane can buy of him without dread of incurring the conscientious 
 censure of aiding to support a system of oppression. 
 
 EDMU^•D Draper's Advertisement will be seen on the second page of the 
 Cover. We consider his card an ornament to the book. We refrain 
 from laudation, for the reason the Old Staff know the name of Draper as 
 familiar as their Logaristhms. Young Surveyors will bear in mind Mr. 
 Draper has no superior in this country for producing a perfect Field 
 Instrument. 
 
 "And last, not least," we refer to the card of A. Hawley, Perfumer. 
 Mr. Hawley makes an excellent article of Perfumes. His name is not so 
 familiar as some of his rivals, because he has a more modest way of doing 
 business than the trade generally, and refrains from forcing the merits of 
 his goods before the public. Perfumery is poetry in bottles The person 
 who dislikes it must necessarily be gross. We can imagine the revels of 
 the poet when he exclaimed, "Awake, north wind, and come thou 
 south ; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out." In 
 addition to the delicate extracts named in Mr. Hawley's list, the Dentri- 
 fice which he makes and sells, is commented on at great length — we have 
 used it, and think it would be cheap at four times its cost. 
 
JAMES BARBER'S 
 
 tDl)ok0aU anlr Ketatl 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT, 
 
 S.E.Gor. Second & Chestnut Sts., 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 AGENCY FOR THE 
 
 PmNT [OUmillHG THIRTY-DIIY CLOCKS, 
 
 A VERY DESIEABLE ARTICLE FOR 
 
 CHURCHES, HOTELS, BANKS, COUNTING 
 HOUSES, PARLORS, &c. 
 
 ALSO, 
 
 MllFlCTEER OF FIl GOLD PINS. 
 
 CLOCK TRII!II?II]¥GS of every clei^criptiou. 
 
JAMES CARMICHAEL, 
 
 MANUFACTURER OF 
 
 AND 
 
 WHOLESALE DEALER IN 
 
 FOR 
 
 %, 
 
 Carriages, Floors, Tables, &c., 
 WAREHOUSE, Ho. 156 NORTH 3d ST, 
 
 {Fifth Mouse below Race, West Side,) 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 
 Merchants are respectfully informed that I manufacture these Goods 
 at my FACTORY, FRANKLIN VILLE, 2d STREET, BETWEEN 
 VENANGO STREET AND ERIE AVENUE, and they will be 
 sold at the lowest prices, and warranted of the best material. 
 
 I give below an Invoice of the various kinds of Goods manufactured, 
 and to which I solicit the inspection of the dealers. 
 
 CARRIAGE OIL CLOTH 
 
 ON DUCK, LINEN, AND HEAVY MUSLIN, FROM 28 TO 
 56 INCHES WIDE. 
 
 FLOOR OIL CLOTH 
 
 FROM f TO 8 YDS. WIDE. 
 
 TABLE OIL CLOTH 
 
 VARIOUS WIDTHS AND STYLES, NEW AND HAND- 
 SOME PATTERNS. 
 
 OIL CLOTHS FOR FIREMEN'S CAPES, 
 HORSE COVERS, &C. 
 
JAMES LOR 
 
 Carpet Manufacturer, 
 
 WISSAHICKON MILLS, 
 
 Warehouse, No. 17 Strawberry Street, 
 
 MANUFACTUEING BOTH BY 
 
 POWER AMD HAND LOOfVIS, 
 
 HAVINa ON HAND AN EXTENSIVE 
 
 OF MY OWN MAKE, 
 
 CONSISTING OF 
 
 THREE-PLYS, SUPERFINES, EX. FINES, COM- 
 MON, DUTCH, COTTAGE, AND 
 VENETIAN CARPETINGS, 
 
 To which I invite the attention of 
 
 WESTERN AND SOUTHERN BUYERS. 
 
"WILLIAM CONWAY, 
 
 IflAIVlJFACTlJRER, 
 
 No. 316 SOUTH SECOND STREET, 
 
 BELOW SPRUCE, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 Respectfully calls the attention of MERCHANTS to his large stock of 
 STAPLE and FANCY SOAPS, comprising— 
 
 H 
 
 CQ brf .^ 
 
 o 
 
 9 
 
 \» 
 
 gp 
 
 o 
 
 ' Kl 
 Ul Q 
 > > 
 
 O 
 
 !?d 
 
 CANDLES 
 
 PREPARED EXPRESSLY FOR SOUTHERN MARKETS, 
 
 Thankful for liberal patronage heretofore, lie will endeavor by strict 
 attention to merit a continuance. 
 
JOSEPH H. FOSTER, 
 
 443 N. THIRD STREET, East Side, 
 
 Above Willow, Railroad Depot, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 Sails for Soats, American and Business Flags of all Nations, 
 Awnings, Tents, Wagon and Canal Boat Covers. 
 
 SACKING BOTTOMS, HAMMOCKS, BAGS, &c., 
 CAN BE HAD AT SHORT NOTICE. 
 N. B.— FALL Airo WHEEL ROPES SPLICED. OLD AWNINGS EEPAIEED. 
 Residence, 340 South Front Street, above Pine. 
 
 L. H. FISK, 
 
 AND 
 
 No. 13 SOUTH 6th Street, cor. Minor. 
 
 EVERY DESCRIPTION OF 
 
 CANVAS LETTERING 
 
 Promptly and Neatly Executed. 
 
 STENCILS CUT ON THE BEST MATERIALS, 
 AND or SUPERIOR FINISH. 
 
 No. 13 South l^Bxfh .StrccI, Phil.-idclpliin. 
 
J^. HA.AV^LEY & CO., 
 PRACTICAL PEI 
 
 117 IVorth Fourth St., Philadelphia. 
 
 The Proprietors of this Establishment feel contiJent that their preparations 
 will compare favorably with any in the world, either foreign or domestic. 
 EXTRACTS for the Handkerchief, of the most exquisite odors. POMADES 
 and OILS for the Hair, of the finest texture and the sweetest perfumes. 
 
 SHAVING CREAMS and TOILET SOAPS of the finest and most 
 delicate formation. 
 
 Ako, IXAWLEY'S LIQUID HAIR DYE, is decidedly superior to any 
 now in use. 
 
 A. HAWLEY'S OLEATE OF COCOA.— This preparation is the article 
 above all others for Dressing the Hair. It is exceedingly fine and delicate and 
 renders the Hair Dark, Soft and Glossy. The Odor is delightful. No one should 
 be without it. 
 
 POWDERS, BANDOLINE, ROUGE, &c., and every variety of Fine 
 and Choice Perfumery. 
 
 HAWLEY'S FRUIT EXTRACTS, for flavoring Pies, Puddings, Jellies, 
 Confectionary, and Mineral Water Si/nips. All of which rival the best, and are 
 surpassed by none. 
 
 SOLIDIFIED DENTAL CREAM, 
 
 FOB 
 
 CLEAN&ING, WHITENING, AND PRESERVING THE TEETH. 
 
 This article is prepared on scientific principles, and warranted not to contain 
 any thing in the slightest degree deleterious to the Teeth or Gums. 
 
 Some of ourmo^st eminent Dental Surgeons have given their sanction to, and 
 cheerfully recommended it as a preparation of superior qualities for Cleansing, 
 Whitening, and Preserving the Teeth. It cleans thera readily, rendering tliem 
 beautifully ivhite and pearly, without the slightest injury to the enamel. It is 
 healing to the Gums where they are ulcerated and sore. It is also an excellent 
 Disinfeetor for old decayed Teeth, which are often exceedingly offensive. It gives 
 a rich and creamy taste to the mouth, cleansing it thoroughly and imparting a 
 delightful fragrance to the breath. In short, it does all that could reasonably bo 
 expected of any article of this kind to do. A fair trial is all that is necessary to 
 convince the most fastidious or skeptical that it is an article of superior merit. 
 
 Prepared only by A. HAWLEY & CO., 117 N. 4th St., Philad'a. 
 
 Mr. a. Hawley, Philadelphia, Sept. 25, 1860. 
 
 Dear Sir : — I do hereby certify that I have used Hawley's Solidified Dental 
 Cream in my practice, and find it combines more properties in cleaning, whiten- 
 ing the teeth than any thing I have ever met with. It is also pleasant to the 
 taste and in no way injurious. I therefore take great pleasure in recommending 
 this prep.aration to the public generally. 
 
 THOS. INGRAM, M.D., Dentist, 491 N. 4th St. 
 Mr. a. Hawlet, Philadelphia, Sept. 29, 1860. 
 
 Dear Sir : — Having tested your Solidified Dental Cream, I take great pleasure 
 in recommending it as a good article. And being made acquainted with the in- 
 gredients, I can certify to its containing nothing hurtful to the teeth. 
 
 Tours respectfull}', 
 E, VANDERSLICE, Surgeon Dentist, 425 Arch St. 
 
WILLIAM GRIFFITHS, 
 
 Assignee & Manufacturer of 
 
 "Wm. Chad-wicli's lioyal I*ateiit 
 
 DOMIILI tISLIF-AOTDIM© ^ 
 
 ARCHIMEDEAN VENTILATORS, 
 
 SPiEK ARRESTERS, 
 
 AND 
 
 SMOKE CONDUCTORS, 
 
 305 Race St., PhUa. 
 
 HIT" Book with reference and description forwarded free. 
 
 Ventilator for places 
 
 where pure air is 
 
 required. 
 
 Terra Cotta Chimney 
 with Smote Conduc- 
 tor attached. 
 
 Ventilator to Cure 
 Smoky Chimneys 
 and back draughts 
 
 Ventilator for 
 Ships and Rail- 
 road Cars. 
 
 The Patentee's Invention consists of a Screw, sus- 
 pended within a conical tube, centred upon an impe- 
 rishable substance, moving without noise, and sur 
 mounted by a wind vane, which is hung so delicately 
 that the least breath of air will cause it to rotate. By 
 this contrivance, draught is a necessary efl'ect. Applied 
 to chimneys, the smoke must ascend . applied to the 
 airing of rooms, ventilation is ineviiablb. The 
 principle of the '-Archimedan Ventilator" can be 
 adapted to any description of Ornamental, Terra cotta, 
 Earthenvrare, or carved stone Chimneys, without de- 
 forming the edifice. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that, although wind vanes 
 are affixed, the screw works by the upward current of 
 warm air, altogether independent of the breeze outside. When the wind is strong and 
 down draughts are to be apprehended, the advantages of the ro ary vane are at once per- 
 ceptible. Not only are down drafts impossible, but increased draught is given to the 
 Chimney, which effectually prevents contrary currents of air exercising any effect on 
 the fire. 
 
 Bottom View of the 
 
 ARCHIMEDEAN ScREW. 
 
R. C. WALBORS\I, ^ CO., 
 
 WHOLESALE AND IIETAIL 
 
 MANUFACTURER OF SHIRTS, 
 WRAPPERS AND DRESS STOCKS, 
 
 And Dealers in everything relating to 
 
 Grentleineii's 
 
 FURNISHING GOODS, 
 
 NOS' 5 & 7 NORTH SIXTH STREET, 
 WRAPPERS, & DRESS STOCKS 
 
 Made to Order by Measurement, and Warranted to Give 
 Satisfaction. 
 
 Merchants are requested to call and examine 
 our Stock before purchasing elsewhere. 
 
HOBBKT fflOlMlKlH, & CO., 
 WHOLESALE DRUGGISTS, 
 
 M 201, 203, 205i 207 NORTH FOURTH ST. 
 
 FHIIuAJDELFHIA, 
 
 Invite the attention of Southern Merchants to their large 
 and well assorted stock of 
 
 DRUGS, 
 CHEMICALS, 
 
 PAINTS, 
 
 FRENCH PUTE AND WINDOW mil, 
 
 We manufacture, at our Steam Paint Mills, White Lead, and 
 Zinc Paints, as well as Colors in all their variety, of unsurpassed 
 purity, and at the lowest market prices. 
 
 Our French Glass is of our own Importation, and of tlie most 
 approved Brands. 
 
 OUR STOCK OP 
 
 POLISHED SILVERED AND ROUGH PLATE GLASS, 
 
 Is large, and the prices as low as in New York, 
 
STRANGERS ARE INVITED 
 
 ?T8lDf. 
 
 TO CAL.L AND EXAMINE ONE OF THE LARGEST ASSORTMENTS OP 
 
 ACCOUNT BOOKS AIB STATIONERY, 
 CHECKS, DRAFTS, NOTES, 
 GOFYINO BOOKS AND FRES2ES, 
 ., - ENVELOPES, 
 '^ LETTER AND NOTE PAPERS, 
 
 To be found in any establishment in the U. States. 
 Sold Wholesale and Retail, at low and umform prices, 
 
 JD"Tiie I*rices marked in xjlain. Figures on eq,ah. Article* 
 
 a u i^ ^ ix . 
 
 •WILlil^aJM MANN, 
 43 South Fourth St. above Chestnut, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
A UNIVERSAL BENEFIT. 
 
 It is a lamentable fact that we, above all other nations, 
 have a tendency to become prostrated in body and mind 
 while yet possessing the attributes of youth, and when the 
 body should possess its greatest vigor. The causes of this 
 are manifold, one of the most prominent of which is the 
 practice, when we feel the lassitude and general prostration 
 to which humanity is subject, of taking as a medicine the 
 various drugs, whose 'effect in this instance is to weaken 
 before strengthening the system, and by the exaction of 
 low diet weaken the appetite, the medium of health. Under 
 these circumstances it must be a blessing if there be a spe- 
 cific for these harrowing complaints. Such a blessing is 
 embodied in an article known as 
 
 " BURNSIOE'S" OLD RYE WHISKEY, 
 
 MANUFACTURED AT PITTSBUEG, OF THE PUREST AND 
 
 PLUMPEST RYE, AND DISTILLED WITH THE 
 
 PUREST SPRING WATER. 
 
 With these pure attributes it must be devoid of those 
 qualities which, in ordinary whiskey, produce those bad 
 effects represented by severe headache and bleared eyes. 
 The SOLE AGENTS for this invaluable article are 
 
 iMessrs. CLERY & STOCKDALE, 
 
 IN "WHOSE STOEB, 
 
 328 "Walnut Street, 
 
 May be found this Whiskey, matured by an existence of 
 twenty years, while none is offered for sale which has not 
 an, age of three years. 
 
 TO PRIVATE GENTLEMEN, OR PROPRIETORS OF HOTELS, 
 
 We would recommend this Whiskey as an article which 
 would at once establish their reputation of keeping excel- 
 lent liquor ; while to the invalid we would especially urge 
 the benefit which must follow the use of this splendid 
 Whiskey. 
 
H. S. BOARDMAN, 
 Nos. 243 & 245 Arch Street, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 MANUFACTURER OF 
 
 BRITANNIA WARE 
 
 IIV AI.I. ITS BRAJV€H£8. 
 
 CONSTANTLY ON HAND, 
 
 Tea Sets. Coffee Pots. Tea Pots. Cream Cups. 
 Sugar Bowls. Slop Bowls. Molasses Cups. Chil- 
 dren's Cups. Pitchers. Beer Mugs. Castors. Ladles. 
 Table Spoons. Tea Spoons. Spittoons. Decanter 
 Stoppers. Candlesticks. Fluid Lamps. Oil and Lard 
 Lamps. Communion Sets. 
 
 PATENT DOUBLE ICE PITCHERS. 
 
 
 |iia;i!l!!illlli[lllllli!l(Sill!llli 
 
 MILL-WRIGHT,MACHINIST & BURR MILL STONE 
 
 , V ::.:,,■ MANUFACTURER. ■..,:.'. .- 
 
 SCLE PROPRIETOR Of JDHNSDNS IMPROVED SMUT& SCREENING MACHiNE. 
 
 IMPROVED WROUCHTIRON COMCAVE BRAN DUSTER&c- 
 
 • NP. 34 Haydoch St. belo.w-Ptoiit. ; 
 
 RESIDENCE NO. 2?l QUEEN GT. .' ST H . V,' A RD . 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 IMPROVED OLD ANCHgR BOLTING GLOTH, . - 
 
 S. M. MECUTCHEN'S 
 
 liUPROTEB 
 
 BUCKWHEAT RUEBEE & SMUT MACHINE. 
 
RICHARD G. STOTESBURY, 
 
 Importer and Manufacturer of 
 
 AND 
 
 COACH FURNITURE, 
 
 Nos. 54 & 56 H. Third St., 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 Has on hand a large assortment of the above Goods, comprising, 
 
 BRIDLE BITS. THREADS. CLOTHS. 
 
 STIRRUPS. CHAMOIS. RATINETTS. 
 
 SPURS, SADDLE TREES. DAMASKS. 
 
 HARNESS BUCKLES. OIL CLOTHS (Floor) SILKS. 
 HARNESS RINGS, " (Carriage). MOSS. 
 
 HALTER CHAINS. SPRINGS. HAIR. 
 
 TRACE CHAINS. AXLES. CARVED PARTS. 
 ORNAMENTS. LACES, WOOD SCREWS. 
 
 SADDLERS' TOOLS. FRINGES. MALLEABLE CASTINGS 
 DEER'S HAIR. ENAM'D LEATHER. of all kinds. 
 
 HAMES. PATENT " FELLOES. 
 
 SEWING SILK. FANCY COL. " SPOKES. 
 
 SHAFTS & POLES. HUBS. BOWS. 
 
 BANDS. KNOBS. CARRIAGE BOLTS. 
 
 STUMP JOINTS. SHACKLES. GLASS FRAMES. 
 
 TURNED STICKS. DASHERS. &c., &c., &c. 
 
 And the whole variety of articles used by Saddlers and Coach Makers, 
 whose orders are respectfully soUcited, which will be sold at the very 
 lowest prices for Cash, or a credit of 6 months for approved paper. 
 
& 
 
 T 
 
 E 
 
 A 
 
 D 
 
 HOUSE, SIGN, 
 
 B 
 L 
 
 G 
 K 
 
 L 
 E 
 T 
 T 
 E 
 R 
 S 
 
 ORNAMENTAL PAINTING, 
 
 GRAINING, GILDING, &c., &c.. 
 No. 48 South Third St., Philadelphia. 
 
REMOVAL. 
 
 To those who wish to Economise. 
 
 ROBERT CUFTON & SON'S 
 BAZAAR OF FASHION, 
 
 NOW AT 
 
 N. E. cor. of Second and Dock Streets. 
 
 The tricks of trade have never been more clearly displayed than in 
 the clap-trap advertisements of the day ; but if the public desire first- 
 class garments, 20 per cent, less than Chestnut Street Houses, and no 
 humbug, they should call at 
 
 Clifton's Bazaar of Fashion. 
 
 It has often been asked why cheap goods, and as fashionably made 
 up as those sold on Chestnut Street, cannot be procured on Second Street. 
 It can be done at this house, as their expenses are at least 20 per cent: 
 less than heretofore, and the public will reap the benefits. The present 
 location is as handy to the business public as formerly. The new 
 
 Are ready for examination, i^ Call and see for yourselves, 
 
 OF ALL STYLES AND PATTERNS. 
 REMEMBER, N. E. COR. OF SECOND & DOCK. 
 
T. W. & J. A. YOST, 
 
 214 DOCK STREET, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 Manufacturers of all kinds of 
 
 OHILDREN'S CARRIAGES, 
 
 Velocipedes, "Wheelbarro^vs, 
 
 Hobby Horses, Sleighs, Sleds, Carts, &c. 
 
 WHOLESALE AND RETAIL, 
 
 ALSO, FINE STEEL SKATES. 
 
 FACTORY, 
 
 Cor. of 3d Street 
 
 AND 
 
 GIRARD AVENUE. 
 

 y:^^*'**-^ 
 
EDMUND DRAPER, 
 
 MANUFACTURER OP 
 
 Theodolites, Engineers' Levels 
 and Transits, 
 
 SURVEYORS' COMPASSES, 
 
 LBVELifi-RODS AND TARGETS, 
 
 CHAINS, &C. 
 No. 226 PEAR STREET, 
 
JOHN FAEREL. S. F. HERRING. W. S. CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 FARREL, HERRING & CO., 
 629 CHESTNUT Street, 
 
 (JAYNE'S HALL,) 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 Sole manufactiireris in this State of 
 
 HERRING'S FIRE-PROOF SAFES, 
 
 WHICH RECEIVED THE MEDAL AT THE WORLD'S 
 FAIR, LONDON AND NEW YORK. 
 
 1^ These Safes are warranted free from dampness. 
 
 Also, Manufacturers of Hall's Patent Powder-Proof Lock, like- 
 ivise awarded a Medal at World's Fair; Chilled Iron Burglar- 
 Proof Safes, Bank Vaults, Bank Locks, Steel Chests, &c. 
 
 ALSO, 
 
 DWELLING HOUSE SAFES, 
 
 Sideboard and Parlor Safes, for Silver Plate, Valuable Papers, 
 Jewelry, &c., elaborately and handsomely finished, in imitation of 
 useful pieces of furniture. These Safes are fitted with Patent Powder- 
 Proof Locks, and afford the best security from thieves and fire. 
 
 F^RREE, HERRIJTG St CO., 
 
 No. 629 Chestnut Street, Jayne's Hall. 
 
HOOFLAND'S 
 
 GERMAN MEDICINES, 
 
 The Great Standard Remedies 
 
 Of the present age, have acquired their great popularity only through 
 
 years of trial. Unbounded satisfaction is 
 
 rendered by them in all cases. 
 
 HOOFLAND'S GERMAN BITTERS 
 
 WILL POSITIVELY CURK 
 
 Liver Complaint, Dyspepsia, Jaundice, Nervous Debility, 
 Diseases of the Kidneys, 
 
 And all diseases arising from a Disordered Liver, or Weakness of the 
 Stomach and Digestive Organs, and will positively prevent 
 
 YELLOW FEVER, BILIOUS FEVER, AND FEVER & AGUE. 
 
 See our Almanac for proof. Price 75 cents^per Bottle. 
 
 HOOFLAND'S BALSAMIC CORDIAL 
 
 WILL POSITIVKLY CURE 
 
 Coughs, Colds, or Hoarseness, Bronchitis, Influenza, Croup 
 Pneumonia, Incipient Consumption, 
 
 And has performed the most Astonishing Cures ever known of 
 COWFIRIWED CO]\SlJ]»IPTIOJ¥. 
 
 As a Diarrhoea Cordial it is unequaled. Price 75 Cents per Bottle. 
 
 HOOFLAND'S GERNM PILL, 
 
 Being well known throughout Europe and America, need so commen- 
 dation here. They are purely Vegetable, are prepared with great exact- 
 ness, and are Sugar-Ooated. "^ No better Cathartic Pill can be found. 
 Price 25 cents per Box. 
 
 These Medicines are prepared Dr. C. M. Jackson & Co., Philadel- 
 phia, Pa., and are sold by Druggists and Dealers in Medicines every- 
 where. The signature of C. M. Jackson will be on the outside of 
 each bottle or box. 
 
 In our ^^Everybody's Almanac" published annually, you will find 
 testimony and commendatory notices iVom all parts of the country 
 These Almanacs are given away by all our Agents. 
 

 
 
 
 
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 A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 
 
 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724) 779-2111 
 

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