/ O o THE SUNNY SIDE OF BEREA VEMENT THE SUNNY SIDE OF BEREAVEMENT TTH K SUNNY SIDE OF BEREAVEMENT AS ILLUSTRATED IN TENNYSON'S "IN MEMORIAM" J BY Rev. CHARLES E. COOLEDGE J G. CUPPLES CO., Publishers Efie Back Bag Bookstore 94 BoYLSTON Street \ Copyright, i^'go, By J. G. CuppLEs Company, All rights re seme d. PKHSS OF Hodges & Adams, ?i Knapp St., BOSTON, MASS. ^3(- TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM LEONARD GAGE, D.D., OEi^is Book 13 ^ffectianatdo En^rcribctJ. CONTENTS. PAGE. I. The Bereavement .... 1 II. Grief and Despair . . . .3 III. WiLL-o'-THE-Wisp Lights ... 6 IV. The Lesser Lights . . . .10 V. The Great Lights .... 14 VI. Comfort, Resignation and Peace . 49 PREFACE 'T'HE full significance of In Memoriam^ in its ethical and spiritual teachings, is not perceived at once, but, like gold, must be sought for below the surface. It is not a simple, descriptive poem, like Enoch Arden or the May Queen^ but is metaphysical in its tone, discussing some of the profoundest questions of science, philosophy and theology. The unique method of its composition is another obstacle in the way of its easy interpre- tation. The poem is not a single and continuous one, but a mosaic, made up of one hundred and thirty- one short poems, with a prologue and epilogue, and expressing the varying thoughts and feelings of the Poet during the long interval of seventeen PREFACE. years. These separate poems, it is true, are linked together and unified, so that in the com- pleted poem we find " a beginning, a correlation of parts, a progress and culmination ; " yet this is not apparent without study and meditation, and there is lacking what necessarily must be, under the circumstances, — a clearly stated and specific subject, a definite order, and logical arrangement, which renders the poem to many minds, in this busy and hurrying age, a work of genius, to be greatly praised, perhaps, but practically unappre- ciated and unread. An attempt, then, to connect these pearls of poetic thought upon the thread of a general subject, that their beauty and lustre may be more clearly discernible, may not be deemed altogether a superfluous or presumptuous undertaking. The subject of In Memoriam^ stated in a general way, is the spiritual experience of a soul in bereavement ; or, more definitely, the passing of a bereaved soul from the gloom of anguish and despair into the brightness of resignation, con- tentment and peace. In Memoriani has been PREFACE. XI called the " most distinctively theological poem of the century," and " the finest religious poem of the age ; " and these characterizations are undoubtedly correct ; for it teaches, in the course of the argu- ment, some of the most vital of moral and spirit- ual truths. It affirms the great doctrines and duties of Christianity : the existence of a personal Deity, the immortality of the soul, the providence and love of God, the divinity of Christ, the truth of the Bible, the two great commandments of a supreme love for God and a disinterested affection for man upon which hang all the law and the prophets. It teaches, also, that the great doctrines of God, immortality and freedom are not depend- ent altogether upon outward proof, but are intui- tions of the soul, revealed directly to man through his spiritual consciousness. There is an internal revelation, as well as an external one, and when these voices are listened to and compared, the message they utter is found to be one and the same. For a mind like Tennyson's to place itself so unreservedly on the side of religion is a signifi- cant fact, and indicates that the idea sometimes Xll PREFACE. advanced, that to be a believer in Christianity argues either intellectual incapacity or ignorance, has no foundation in fact. But while In Memoriam is to be highly prized for its theological teachings, yet the inculcation of these ideas is not the motive of the poem, nor is it the great burden of its song. It appeals, pri- marily, not to the intellect or the conscience, but to the heart. Its great mission is to tell the world that in the valley of the shadow of bereave- ment there is comfort and peace. It is the attrac- tiveness of the theme, as well as the profundity of the thought, the beauty of the language and the rhythm of the verse, which has given to the poem its wide and enduring popularity. As bereavement is a universal experience, so the poem revealing the sunny side of bereavement is, naturally, of universal interest. Its influence is intensified from the fact that the consolatory thoughts presented have been experimentally tested. The author proclaims, not what he has discovered by a long and subtle process of reason- ing, not what he has read or heard or observed. PREFACE. xill but what he has himself personally experienced. " Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.'* There have been many illustrations of the fulfilment of this promise, some recorded, many more unrecorded, but of those made known to the world there is none surpassing, in interest and impressiveness, the experience of the Poet Laureate of England. C. E. C. THE SUNNY SIDE OF BEREAVEMENT. THE BEREAVEMENT. TN MEMORTAM is an elegiac poem written in commemoration of Arthur Henry Hallam, an intimate friend of the Poet, his classmate at College, and the betrothed husband of one of his sisters. Hallam, who died when only twenty- two years of age, was the son of the distin- guished Historian, and a young man of fas- cinating personal qualities, brilliant intellect and exalted character. His talents and virtues are portrayed in the poem in lofty and pane- gyric strains : — •• Seraphic intellect and force," ' THE SUNNY SIDE " High nature amorous of the good," * " Thy converse drew us with delight," ' " And thus he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman," * ** A life that all the Muses deck'd With gifts of grace, that might express All-comprehensive tenderness, All-subtilizing intellect," ^ The flower of men," « *' The sweetest soul That ever look'd with human eyes," ' *• The man I held as half divine." ^ Thus richly endowed with the highest qual- ities of body, mind and soul, Hallam was to Tennyson an ideal friend : — " Dear as the mother to the son. More than my brothers are to me"" ' ^ \ This reverence and affection was recipro- cated, and the friendship between the two, like OF BEREAVEMENT. that of Jonathan and David, was " wonderful, passing the love of women." This sweet and inspiring companionship was suddenly and rudely interrupted by the hand of death. Hallam, while on a foreign tour, was attacked by a rush of blood to the head, which resulted in almost instantaneous death : — " In Vienna's fatal walls God's finger touch'd him, and he slept." '° GRIEF AND DESPAIR. The blow fell upon the Poet with crushing, almost paralyzing, power. He had hoped for a long and happy intercourse with his friend, which, by mutual co-operation, sympathy and aid, would have halved the burdens and trials of life and doubled all its joys ; and when death came, he trusted, as companions still, they might pass together into the unseen world : — •• Arrive at last the blessed goal, And He that died in Holy Land THE SUNNY SIDE Would reach us out the shining hand, And take us as a single soul." " The bright dream is now over. His friend is gone. He is left to live and die alone. In the first shock of his great bereavement life seemed divested of all value and charm : — ** And what to me remains of good ? " '' •* For all is dark where thou art not," '^ " And unto me no second friend," '* •• And in my heart, if calm at all, If any calm, a calm despair. " '^ On the approach of Christmas, a day which the friends had been accustomed to celebrate together, his anguish becomes so poignant, that he almost wishes that he too were dead : — •• This year I slept and woke with pain, I almost wish'd no more to wake, And that my hold on life would break Before I heard those bells again." '* OF BEREAVEMENT. His grief seemed to cast a pall over nature, and to veil the brightest and fairest objects with funeral gloom : — " Which sicken'd every living bloom, And blurr'd the splendor of the sun ; " " " That made the rose Pnll sideways, and the daisy close Her crimson fringes to the shower." '^ The grief takes entire possession of his nature, reaching down to the lowest springs of thought and feeling : — " Beneath all fancied hopes and fears Ay me, the sorrow deepens down, Whose muffled motions blindly drown The bases of my life in tears." ^* And this woe and despair, as it appears to the Poet, will be changeless and abiding : — •* Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, One set slow bell will seem to toll The passing of the sweetest soul That ever look'd with human eyes. ^^ THE SUNNY SIDE " I bear it now, and o'er and o'er, Eternal greetings to the dead, And ' Ave, Ave, Ave,' said, ' Adieu, Adieu,' for evermore." ^' WILL-o'-THE-WISP LIGHTS. In Memoriam is in part an elegy, embalm- ing, in exquisite and tender verse, the memory of Hallam and the love and grief of his friend. This is not, however, its only purpose ; it ex- presses also certain consolatory thoughts, ac- cepted as true after much mental struggle, which, in the end, wrought a wondrous change in the feelings of the Poet, expelling sorrow and despair and leading back hope and trust and peace. In Memoriam is a psalm of faith and joy as well as of despondency and gloom, a triumphant ode as well as an elegy, a sweet and comforting anthem as well as a funeral dirge. At the beginning of the poem, certain consolatory thoughts are rejected by the Poet as unsubstantial and unsatisfying : — OF BEREAVEMENT. ♦• I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things." " The educative and enriching power of sorrow is a precious truth ; one which the Poet after- wards actually realized in his own experience ; but when he stood in the chilling presence of his great and irreparable loss, the thought of compensating gain afforded little if any relief. The good was too far away, too indefinite and uncertain. The soul, moreover, in the first shock of its bereavement seems almost to desire no happiness apart from the presence and companionship of the departed; at least the thought of deriving advantage from the absence is too repugnant even to be enter- tained : — '• But who shall so forecast the years And And in loss a gain to match? Or reach a hand thro' time to catch The far-off interest of tears?" " 8 THE SUNNY SIDE The Poet finds no consolation in contact with nature. All the glory and beauty of the material world, looked upon through the dark lenses of sorrow, seem symbols only of blind fate, of spiritual desolation and death : — •''The stars,' she whispers, 'blindly run; A web is wov'n across the sky ; From out waste places comes a cry, And murmurs from the dying sun : ' *^ •"And all the phantom, Nature, stands — With all the music in her tone, A hollow echo of my own — A hollow form with empty hands.' " ^* Letters of condolence are received : — " One writes, that 'Other friends remain/ That 'Loss is common to the race.'" ^ But the Poet finds no comfort in knowing that others are bearing the same evils as him- seK. This does not diminish but rather in- creases the burden of his own grief : — •' That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more."" OF BEREAVEMENT. 9 Such consolation, though well intended, is powerless to help : — "And vacant chaff well meant for grain." "s Nor does the Poet desire any mitigation of his woe, through the benumbing and effacing influence of time. To have the dear face grow more and more dim as the days go by, the sweet music of his voice become fainter and fainter, his words to fade away one by one from mem- ory, — in a word, to escape the pain of bereave- ment by forgetting the friend, — this would be the keenest pang of all : — " Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Let darkness keep her raven gloss : Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground, ^'■^ " Than that the victor Hours should scorn The long result of love, and boast, • Behold the man that loved and lost, But all he was is overworn.' " ^'^ To such voices as these Tennyson cries, as 10 THE SUNNY SIDE Job did of old, " I have heard many such things : miserable comforters are ye all." THE LESSER LIGHTS. We come now to other and genuine sources of consolation. It afforded some relief to know that the body of his friend was near him ; not buried in Vienna where he died, but brought back and laid away in English soil : — " 'Tis well; 'tis something; we may stand Where he in English earth is laid."^' It was indeed something to know that though the spirit of his friend was gone the casket which enshrined it was near, and while never more to be beheld might be approached ; that around its resting place the grass and vines and flowers might be taught to grow; over it the white and sculptured marble erected ; upon it dropped wreaths and floral offerings and teara of love and grief. OF BEREAVEMENT. 11 In engaging in his accustomed avocations, in the exercise of his poetic talent, some respite was obtained : — " But, for fhe unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise. Like dull narcotics, numbing pain." " This relief was perhaps more negative than positive ; no direct consolation was afforded, but occupation secured a diversion of mind, so that for a time and in a degree the pain was dulled and quieted. Happy the person who, in bereavement, either by voluntary effort or com- peUed by circumstances, is able to put into daily exercise the hands or the brain or the heart. Consolation was afforded in the remembrance of past friendship and affection. God has given to man three great sources of blessedness, — antici- pation, realization and retrospection, — of which the last is by no means the least. Happiness that knocks once at our door may knock many 12 THE SUNNY SIDE times again, led back by memory's hand. Tennyson, in his bereavement, found comfort in the use of memory : — " Treasuring the look it cannot find, The words that are not heard again." " " But brooding on the dear one dead. And all he said of things divine, (And dear to me as sacred wine To dying lips is all he said)."^* It may be said such remembrance brings pain as well as pleasure. This is not denied ; only it is denied that the pain equals the pleasure : — " I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all." ^^ Moreover, in remembering the life and character of his friend, there was exerted a strengthening and benign influence upon his own life. He imagines himself dead in the place of Arthur and asks what his friend would OF BEREAVEMENT. 13 have done under the circumstances. The blow, he knows, would have been borne calmly, bravely; m some way transmuted into good : — "His credit thus shall set me free; And influence-rich to soothe and save, Unused example from the grave Reach out dead hands to comfort me." ^ The Poet is comforted hy the thought that his friend, by death, has escaped those ills and woes which are incident to, and a part of, human life. The most successful and happy lives are not altogether unmarked by sorrow. In the web of this mortal life many dark threads are woven in with the golden. Sometimes pain overmatches pleasure; sometimes the anguish is so excruciating and unendurable that exis- tence, humanly speaking, is a curse rather than a blessing. What would have been the fate of those, who, like flowers in the springtime, have been untimely blighted by the frost of death, lies beyond the ken of human vision. 14 THE SUNNY SIDE It is some comfort, surely, to know that if the departed friend has lost the joys of earth, he also has escaped its sorrows. The friends who have passed within the vail are missed, are longed for; yet, if their lives must have been as the lives of some, we would not call them back if we could. By the hand of death they have been led away from the tumult and pain of the earthly life, into that Better Land "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." This thought brought comfort to the Poet : — '• Surely rest is meet: 'They rest,' we said, 'their sleep is sweet.'"'' THE GREAT LIGHTS. Another and higher source of consolation was afforded in his belief in the continued and blessed existence of his friend beyond the grave : — " Our voices took a higher range; Once more we sang : ' They do not die OF BEREAVEMENT. 15 Nor lose their mortal sympathy. Nor chauge to us, although they change.'" ^' The body of Arthur was dead and crumbling into dust ; but the soul, the immortal essence, the power that thinks and feels and wills, whose existence is known by its effects, that had not become extinct, separated from its old com- panion, manifesting itself upon the earth no more, but alive as truly as it ever had been. The Poet's faith in immortality is based upon reason, intuition and revelation. With- out a future life the present life is an inexpli- cable enigma, hopelessly darkened by ignorance, misery and sin : — " My own dim life should teach me this, That life shall live for evermore. Else earth is darkness at the core, And dust and ashes all that is." ^^ Without immortality God is nothing to the soul : — " What then were God to such as I ? 'Twere hardly worth my while to choose 16 THE SUNNY SIDE Of things all mortal, or to use A little patience ere I die." ^^ Love also would lose its sweetness and power, and become but an idle tale : — " And Love would answer with a sigh, ' The sound of that forgetful shore Will change my sweetness more and more, Half-dead to know that I shall die.' " *^ If man is mortal then in perfection and happiness he is below even the brute creation : — " No more ? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime. That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music match'd with him.' " *' Environed with so many evils, physical and moral, without God, without love, without the hope of Heaven, the doctrine of Pessimism would be true and life would not be worth the living; to sink without delay into a dreamless and painless sleep would be the better part of wisdom : — OF BEREAVEMENT. 17 '* 'Twere best at ouce to sink to peace, Like birds the charming serpent draws, To drop head-foremost in the jaws Of vacant darkness and to cease." *^ But this view of human life, reason emphati- cally refuses to accept. Human life cannot be such a sad and stupendous failure. Man's faculties and desires were not made to remain forever undeveloped and unsatisfied. Far su- perior in intellect to the reptile and the brute, he cannot be below them in happiness and worth. Even on the theory of materialistic evolution, immortality is more than probable. For to suppose that nature, having spent cen- turies, ages perhaps, in evolving man, now, when at length the long and toilsome process is finished, and man, endowed with reason, emotion and volition, possessing a conscience and a spiritual nature, has become a living soul, the brightest and costliest jewel of crea- tion; to suppose that this potentially glorious 18 THE SUNNY SIDE being, with his capacities still undeveloped and desires unsatisfied, is to be plunged at death into eternal night, his Godlike powers lost, resolved back into elemental dust, — such a supposition is not only improbable but irra- tional, well-nigh inconceivable. But if this is true on the materialistic, much more is it true on the theistic, view of the universe. Tennyson is a theist. To him the power which lies behind all phenomena is a personal being, all powerful, all wise, all loving : — " Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face. By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove." *'' If faith ever falters he falls back for proof upon his own experience : — '* If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, I heard a voice ' believe no more,' And heard an ever-breaking shore That tumbled in the Godless deep ; *^ OF BEREAVEMENT. 19 ♦* A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason's colder part, And like a man in wrath, the heart Stood up and answer'd 'I have felt.'""*' Believing thus in God he believes also in immortality : — " Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : Thou madest man he knows not why; He thinks he was not made to die : And thou hast made him : thou art just." *' The justice and love of God prove to man the doctrine of immortality. The second source of his faith in the doc- trine of the immortal life is intuition. Herbert Spencer affirms that from the nature of thought it is impossible to conceive matter becoming non-existent. " The annihilation of matter is un- thinkable." And what the philosopher holds is tiue of the material atom, the Poet believes is true of the soul. " But in my spirit will I dwell, And dream my dream, and hold it true; 20 THE SUNNY SIDE For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot tiiink the thing farewell." *^ In other words, the doctrine of immortality is a self-evident truth ; a datum of conscious- ness. If it is objected that all men do not have this immediate knowledge, it may be said that necessary truths often require a certain intellect- ual capacity and development, and for this reason are not always universally recognized. Mathematical axioms, clear and simple to a cultivated mind, to a savage or child are only meaningless terms. "There is," says Spencer, "a growing up to the recognition of certain necessary truths merely by the unfolding of the inherited intellectual forms and faculties. . . Along with the acquirement of more complex faculty and more vivid imagination, there comes the power of perceiving to be necessary truths what were before not recognized as truths at aU." This principle is as true in the spiritual as in the material world. To developed intelli- OF BEREAVEMENT. 21 gences, truths which to other minds are obscure^ perhaps altogether unperceived, stand forth self- reveaied, the direct affirmations of consciousness. The third source of his faith in the doctrine of a future life is the Revelation of Jesua Christ : — "Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, Deep-seated in our mystic frame, We yield all blessing to the name Of Him that made them current coin." *^ That is, the truth of an immortal life, inti- mated and darkly revealed in man's nature, is brought fully to the light and divinely expressed in the Gospel of the Son of God. Christ not only taught the doctrine of im- mortality, but proved its truth by calling back the dead to life : — " When Lazarus left his charnel-cave, And home to Mary's house return'd, Was this demanded — if he yearn'd To hear her weeping by his grave ? ^^ 22 THE SUNNY SIDE •** Where wert thou, brother, those four days?'. There lives no record of reply, Which telling what it is to die Had surely added praise to praise. ^' ** From every house the neighbors met, The streets were fill'd with joyful sound, A solemn gladness even crown'd The purple brows of Olivet. ^^ "Behold a man raised up by Christ I The rest remaineth unreveal'd; He told it not; or something seal'd The lips of that Evangelist." '"^ By thus embodying the truth in his own life and deeds, Christ brought "life and immortality to light," not only to the educated few, but to all classes and conditions of men : " And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought, ^* " Which he may read that binds the sheaf, Or builds the house, or digs *Lie grave, And those wild eyes t^'^c watch the wave In roarings rounc. che coral reef." °* OF BEREAVEMENT. 23 The Poet is not unacquainted with the objection urged against the soul's continued existence after death, or the ground of the alleged opposition of physical science, and states the objection more strongly, perhaps, than he would at the present time ; for science in some respects has changed its attitude toward the doctrine of a future life, and on the theory of evolution teaches not only the possibility, but, in a degree, the probability that death does not end all. Tennyson, however, states the supposed teachings of physical science as they were held fifty years ago : — *• Are God and nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life. ^° ' ' So careful of the type ? ' but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries ' a thousand types are gone : I care for nothing, all shall go.' ^' 24 THE SUNNY SIDE " ' Thou makest thine appeal to rae : I bring to life, I bring to death : The spirit does but mean the breath : I know no more.' " ^' The fact that personal immortality is not proved by physical science, though it gives the Poet a passing chill, does not destroy his faith in the doctrine. He recognizes that physical science is only one source of human knowledge, and by no means the most important one ; that there are other and higher grounds of evidence than that of the senses. The voices of instinct and intuition and reason, and especially the voice of Him who spake as man never spake, are to be heeded, as well as that of physical science, especially when their testimony is so clear and positive, while that of the other is, at the best, only negative ; for science gives no evidence against the doctrine of immortality, it simply says : "It may be true, it may not be. I do not know; I have no means at my command for OF BEREAVEMENT. 25 deciding the question." So strong to the Poet is the evidence of a future life afforded by reason and revelation, that, though affirming no antagonism between them and science, yet, if there were any, this would not disturb in the least his faith. The soul of man and the revela- tion of Jesus Christ are more trustworthy guides than the negative teachings of science, and if the two sources of authority came into collision he would cling unhesitatingly to the former : — ♦'Not only cunning casts in clay: Let Science prove we are, and then What matters Science unto men, At least to me? I would not stay." ^^ Sublime trust in the higher and spiritual sources of knowledge ! How refreshing in these days of materialism, — when the "Gospel of dirt," as Carlyle calls it, is being so earnestly and dogmatically proclaimed ; when the spiritual and supernatural are being ignored or denied or 26 THE SUNNY SIDE made to take subordinate places, — how refresh- ing to hear a voice like Tennyson's affirming their eternal existence and supremacy ; willing indeed to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, but determined also to render unto God the things that are God's. And this life beyond the grave, into which, as the Poet believes, his friend has entered, is a life of unmingled felicity and uninterrupted growth. The mere fact of continued existence has in it nothing especially consolatory, for the question at once arises : What is the nature of this life ? What does it involve ? What give ? What take away ? The Greeks believed in the future existence of the soul, but it was an existence so unsubstantial and joyless that the darkest and saddest life upon the earth was brighter and to be preferred. The Hindoos and other nations believe in the doctrine of immortality, but it is the degrading immortality OF BEREAVEMENT. 27 of transmigration. The Pantheist believes that the soul exists after death, but without individ- uality, absorbed in Deity as the rain drop is lost in the ocean. To the Poet eternal life involves not merely existence, but a conscious, personal and blessed existence : — •* The great Intelligences fair That range above our mortal state, In circle round the blessed gate. Received and gave him welcome there ; ^ •• And led him thro' the blissful climes, And show'd him in the fountain fresh All knowledge that the sons of flesh Shall gather in the cycled times." ^' In the invisible world his friend was enjoy- ing not merely negative happiness, the absence of evil, but positive blessedness, the satisfaction of every innocent desire, the exercise and de- velopment of all his faculties and powers. The noble deeds which the Poet is certain Arthur would have achieved if his life had been spared. 28 THE SUNNY SIDE which would have won him reverence and fame, are now being wrought in Heaven : — " And doubtless, unto thee is given A life that bears immortal fruit In such great offices as suit The full-grown energies of heaven."*' ♦' So here shall silence guard thy fame; But somewhere, out of human view, Whate'er thy hands are set to do Is wrought with tumult of acclaim." ^^ Perhaps, also, there is greater need of him in Heaven, however much he may be needed here : — ♦' So many worlds, so much to do. So little done, such things to be, How know I what had need of thee, For thou wert strong as thou wert true?"^* The continued and ever blessed existence of the spirit after death, freed from all the limita- tions and imperfections of the body, with powers and desires not destroyed but transplanted to the more perfect environment of God's im- OF BEREAVEMENT. 29 mediate presence, — this surely is a belief well fitted to minister to the sorrowing mind and pour balm into the bereaved and aching heart. Consolation is afforded the Poet in the belief that the love as well as the life of his friend has survived, and lives on in Heaven, as pure, warm and changeless as before : — " They do not die Nor lose their mortal sympathy, Nor change to us although they change."" Even though the soul should slumber in the tomb until the Resurrection's morn, — a dreary doctrine which the Poet does not accept, — even then the love would not be lost or weakened : — " And love will last as pure and whole As when he loved me here in Time And at the spiritual prime Rewaken with the dawning soul." ^^ To this beautiful and consolatory thought of the survival and continuance of love arose three objections. 30 THE SUNNY SIDE Is it certain that a memory of the past will accompany the soul into the eternal world? Man, it is said, has no recollection of a pre- existent state or of infant days ; in mature life memory often fails ; why, then, may not the soul awaken in Heaven altogether oblivious of its earthly career? To this the Poet replies, even if this were the case some recollection might flash upon the consciousness and the lost knowl- edge be regained through angelic intelligence : — •♦ And in the long harmonious years (If Death so taste Lethean springs) May sorae dim touch of earthly things Surprise thee ranging with thy peers. ^' '♦ If such a dreamy touch should fall, O turn thee round, resolve the doubt; My guardian angel will speak out In that high place, and tell thee all." ^ But there is no good reason for supposing that memory becomes extinct at death. The experiences of infancy are not remembered OF BEREAVEMENT. 31 because the intellectual powers are not suffi- ciently developed to admit of this : — ' • The baby new to earth and sky, What time his tender palm is prest Against the circle of the breast. Has never thought that 'this is l.'"69 Memory suffers temporary eclipse in later years, either from physical weakness or for the development and perfection of character : — *' We ranging down this lower track, The path we came by, thorn and flower, Is shadow'd by the growing hour, Lest life should fail in looking back." '° But in eternity all reasons for the dimming of memory will be removed : — " There no shade can last In that deep dawn behind the tomb, But clear from marge to marge shall bloom The eternal landscape of the past. " " Another objection to the survival of Arthur's love in Heaven was based upon his intellectual 32 THE SUNNY SIDE superiority, which the Poet fears may cause him, in time, to outgrow his early friendship : — '* Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor An inner trouble I behold, A spectral doubt which makes me cold, That I shall be thy mate no more." " This is a practical and common objection. Who is there who has not at times trembled lest the departed friend — with the ampler oppor- tunities of Heaven — should come at length to regard the former friendship with indifference. To this objection the Poet replies that heart affection is not dependent upon nor propor- tioned to intellectual attainments. No love for Arthur, even if it were of the most impe- rial mind in Heaven, could be greater than his own: — " I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can The soul of Shakspeare love thee more." " But is human love of any value to the glori- OF BEREAVEMENT. 33 fied spirit? Yes, the Poet answers, all love is precious, even the humblest, — too precious ever to be rejected or despised : — " I lull a fancy trouble-tost With ' Love's too precious to be lost, A little grain shall not be spilt.""* The third objection to the continuation of his friend's love in Heaven rested upon his own moral and spiritual unworthiness : — " And if thou cast thine eyes below, How dimly character'd and slight, How dwarf'd a growth of cold and night, How blanch'd with darkness must I grow? '* Do we indeed desire the dead Should still be near us at our side? Is there no baseness we would hide? No inner vileness that we dread? '^ Shall he for whose applause I strove, I had such reverence for his blame, See with clear eyes some hidden shame And I be lessen'd in his love?"" 34 THE SUNNY SIDE To this the Poet replies that true love in Heaven, as upon the earth, though it may grieve over human imperfection, does not on that account grow cold and die; the more the soul becomes like God in character, the more it resembles Him in charity to the erring : — '♦ Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours With larger, other eyes than ours, To make allowance for us all. '^ '• So fret not, like an idle girl, That life is dash'd with flecks of sin. Abide : thy wealth is gather'd in, When Time hath sunder'd shell from pearl. »» 79 Love then, like the soul, is indestructible. Death has no power to annihilate the remem- brance of former friendship; Heaven with all its glory and blessedness can not lessen the value of the earthly affection; even moral and spiritual unworthiness has no power to chill or darken the love which now, in the Divine OF BEREAVEMENT. 35 presence, resembles more than ever before the love of God Himself. Arthur, in Heaven, could not forget or cease to cherish the friend he had left behind any more than the friend could forget or cease to cherish him. With the faith in the continued and blessed existence of his friend is associated, as another source of comfort, a belief in the spiritual presence of Arthur. To enjoy this presence had long been the earnest wish and prayer of the Poet : — "Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sicl?, And all the wheels of Being slow. ^° " Be near me when the sensuous frame Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust; And Time, a maniac scattering dust, And Life, a Fury slinging flame. ®' " Be near me when I fade away, To point the term of human strife, 36 THE sujsTPrr side And on the low dark verge of life The twilight of eternal day." ^^ This prayer, as the Poet believes, is answered, and in a real though spiritual sense his lost friend is near him and with him : — "Far off thou art, but ever nigh: I have thee still, and I rejoice. ^^ ' ' The face will shine Upon me, while I muse alone; And that dear voice, I once have known, Still speak to me of me and mine." ^* At the marriage of his sister he imagines that Arthur, though unseen and silent, may be among the wedding guests : — "Nor count me all to blame if I Conjecture of a stiller guest, Perchance, perchance, among the rest, And, tho' in silence, wishing joy." ^* His faith comes in part, doubtless, from his Christian education ; from Bible intimations of OF BEREAVEMENT. 37 the possibility, perhaps probability, of the pre- sence and ministry of departed friends. The ministry of angels is one of the cardinal teach- ings of the Old Testament dispensation. '' The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them." " He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee uj^ in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." Angelic visitations for counsel, guidance, punishment, deliverance and encouragement, were common occurrences in Old Testament history. All the way down from Genesis to Malachi, "the pious Jew saw the shining foot- steps of these heavenly messengers." Angelic ministration plays an important part in New Testament history. Angels announced to the two Marys the respective births of Jesus and John. Over the plain, near Bethlehem, 38 THE SUNNY SIDE they heralded, with songs of praise, the Saviour's advent. In the vv^ilderness of temptation and in the Garden of Gethsemane they ministered unto their Lord. To the troubled and despairing disciples they brought tidings of the Resurrec- tion of Christ, and after His ascension they appeared again, predicting His second coming in the clouds of Heaven. Unto Cornelius an angel appeared, telling liim his prayers and alms had gone up for a memorial before God, and direct- ing him unto Peter for further enlightenment. By the hand of an angel Peter was twice delivered from prison and restored unto his friends. Unto Paul an angel appeared, bring- ing from God words of encouragement and hope. Angelic visitation by material manifestation passed away with the Apostolic age, but not necessarily angelic ministration. There are intimations and hints in the New Testament OF BEREAVEMENT. which seem to indicate the Divine guardianship through the medium of angels is by no means a thing of the past. " There is joy," we read, *' in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." Angels are acquainted, then, with what is going on upon the earth, and are interested therein. "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" "For I say unto you, that in Heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven." If the Infinite Spirit, unseen, unheard, unap- prehended in any way by the bodily sense, may draw near the human soul, encompass it around and abide with it, there is nothing irrational, certainly, in attributing, in a degree at least, the same power to the finite mind. If this doctrine of the spiritual presence and ministry of angels is true, as reason and revela- 40 THE SUNNY SIDE tion seem to indicate, nothing could be more natural and fitting than that the celestial guar- dianship of bereaved souls should be entrusted to departed friends, who, having known and loved them in the life below, now, with clearer vision and intenser feeling, know and love in Heaven. Tennyson's faith in the presence of his friend was confirmed by an experience in which he seemed to hold direct and personal intercourse with the spirit of Arthur. This communion was spiritual not physical. While desirous of seeing his friend again in bodily form, he has no expectation that this desire will be satisfied. He is most emphatic in denying the possibility of any physical communication with departed friends. There is no materialization of the spirit, no visual appearance, no touch of hand, no material contact of any kind. In respect to any sensory manifestation of his friend he dis- tinctly affirms : — OF BEREAVEMENT. 41 "I shall not see thee." ^ So strong and utter is his disbelief, that, though a vision should reveal the very likeness of Arthur, he would not credit its reality, but : — "Count it vain As but the canker of the brain. "^^ Though it should speak, and make appeal to events common to their past experience, he would only regard the apparent supernatural communication as some murmuring wind of his own memory : — " Yea, tho' it spake and bared to view A fact within the coming year; And tho' the months, revolving near, Should prove the phantom-warning true." ^^ Even this he would not regard as a real prophecy, but only as a presentiment of his own mind : — " And such refraction of events As often rises ere they rise." ^^ 42 THE SUNNY SIDE These emphatic assertions ought to settle decisively the question which is sometimes raised, *' Whether or not Tennyson is a believer in the doctrine of modern spiritism ? " But while thus rejecting altogether the idea of any physical manifestation of his friend, he believes in the possibility of a spiritual inter- communication : — ♦' No visual shade of some one lost, But he, the Spirit himself, may come Where all the nerve of sense is numb; Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost." »° The enjoyment of this communion, how- ever, is not unconditional ; a certain attitude of mind and heart is essential. There must be purity of heart, soundness of mind and love toward God : — ♦' How pure at heart and sound in head, With what divine affections bold Should be the man whose thought would hold An hour's communion with the dead." ^' OF BEREAVEMENT. 43 The spirit must be at peace with all : — " In vain shalt thou, or any, call The spirits from their golden day, Except, like them, thou too canst say, My spirit is at peace with all."^^ The memory must be cloudless and the con- science at rest ; — "They haunt the silence of the breast, Imaginations calm and fair, The memory like a cloudless air. The conscience as a sea at rest." ^^ If these conditions are wanting, if the heart is full of doubt and tumult, spiritual commun- ion is impossible : — " But when the heart is full of din, And doubt beside the portal waits. They can but listen at the gates. And hear the household jar within." ^* Having complied with these conditions, the Poet earnestly invokes the spirit of his friend to descend and enter into communion with his own: — 44 THE SUNNY SIDE *♦ Descend, and touch, and enter: hear The wish too strong for words to name; That in this blindness of the frame My Ghost may feel that thine is near." ^* This prayer, at length, as it seems to him, is answered. At the close of a calm and pleasant summer evening, which had been delightfully- spent with friends in conversation and song, he finds himself at last alone. A hunger seized his heart for the companionship of Arthur. He reads again and again the letters of his friend : — "Those fall'n leaves which kept their green." ''' As thus he perused and pondered, suddenly, the longing of his soul is satisfied ; the spirit of his friend flashes upon his own, and they enter into a real though mystical communion with each other: — " So word by word, and line by line, The dead man touch'd me from the past, And all at once it seem'd at last His living soul was flash'd on mine, ^' OF BEREAVEMENT. 45 *• And mine in his was wound, and whirl'd About empyreal lieights of thought, And came on that which is, and caught The deep pulsations of the world, ^^ "iEonian music measuring out The steps of Time — the shocks of Chance — The blows of Death." »^ This experience, like that of the Apostle Paul, when caught up into the third heaven, was, to a great extent, unspeakable and incommuni- cable : — '* Vague words 1 but ah, how hard to frame In matter-moulded forms of speech, Or ev'n for intellect to reach Thro' memory that which I became." *^ Nor was the Poet altogether convinced of the objective reality of his vision : — "At length my trance Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt." *°* Later on this uncertainty again finds expres- gion : — 46 THE SUNNY SIDE •• Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then, While I rose up against my doom. ^°^ *' If thou wert with me, and the grave Divide us not, be with me now." '°^ But while this experience could not be regarded as incontestably real, and hence afforded no absolute proof of the presence of Arthur, it was, nevertheless, confirmatory evidence, and the Poet's comforting belief in the spiritual pres- ence of his friend was strengthened and con- firmed. Another and final source of consolation was afforded in his belief in a future reunion with Arthur in Heaven. As he was about leaving his old home in Lincolnshire, where he had spent so many happy hours, he had a beautiful and suggestive dream, by which he was greatly comforted. He seemed, in his vision, to be dwelling in a hall in the front of which flowed a river fed by springs from far-off hills. Com- OF BEREAVEMENT. 47 panions played and sang to a veiled statue of his friend which stood in the centre of the hall. A dove flew in, bringing a summons from the sea. They enter a little shallop and glide down the stream, which ever widens as they advance. Vaster becomes the shore and grander roll the floods. The Poet and his companions grow in stature, in strength, in grace, in intellectual and spiritual power. At length they reach the ocean where they see : — ** A great ship lift her shining sides." •"* On deck stands Arthur waiting to welcome his friend, who eagerly climbs the deck and falls in silence on his neck. They all enter the ship and spreading the sails steer : — "Toward a crimson cloud That landlike slept along the deep." ^'^^ This vision was regarded by Tennyson as a symbol or prophecy of the reunion awaiting Arthur and himself in the other world : — 48 THE SUNNY SIDE '• Abiding witli me till I sail To seek thee on the mystic deeps, And the electric force, that keeps A thousand pulses dancing, fail. '^ " And we shall sit at endless feast, Enjoying each the other's good : What vaster dreams can hit the mood Of love on earth?" '"^ Will there be recognition of friends in Heaven ? Yes, the Poet answers : — "Eternal form shall still divide The eternal soul from all beside; And I shall know him when we meet." "* The anticipation of this reunion became, at length, so strong and joyous that it greatly- lessened the pain of his bereavement : — " Yet less of sorrow lives in me For days of happy commune dead; Less yearning for the friendship fled, Than some strong bond which is to be." '°® By their temporary separation the joy of future communion will be greatly increased : — OF BEREAVEMENT. 49 " O days and hours, your work is this, To hold me from my proper place, A little while from his embrace, For fuller gain of after bliss : "® •* That out of distance might ensue Desire of nearness doubly sweet; And unto meeting when we meet, Delight a thousand fold accrue." "* COMFORT, RESIGNATION, AND PEACE. These consolatory thoughts wrought in the feelings of Tennyson a profound and permanent change. The sense of irreparable loss and desolation, which the death of Hallam had occasioned, no longer haunted and oppressed his mind. Though not cognizable by the senses, his friend was as truly alive, and perhaps as near to him, as he had ever been : — "Far off thou art, but ever nigh: I have' thee still, and I rejoice; I prosper, circled with thy voice; I shall not lose thee tho' I die." "* "Known and unknown; human, divine; Sweet human hand and lips and eye; 50 THE SUNNY SIDE Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine." *'^ The fear that his own love for his friend might grow cold and dim has also passed away : — '* My love involves the love before; My love is vaster passion now; Tho' mixed with God and Nature thou, I seem to love thee more and more." ""• He is able to visit the old home of Hallam without depression and gloom, and to celebrate his birthday with social and festal cheer. He determines to abandon his secluded life and return to the companionship and pursuits of his fellow-men : — *' I will not shut me from my kind. And lest I stiffen into stone, I will not eat my heart alone, Nor feed with sighs a passing wind." "^ He even formed another and intimate friend- ship ; not to supplant but to supplement the old OF BEREAVEMENT. 51 one, and which, though not as intense and passionate, was nevertheless affectionate and true. This new friend was received, as he believed, in accordance with the wish of Arthur, whose voice he seemed to hear biddino- him : — o " Arise and get thee forth and seek A friendship for the years to come." ""^ Though no rebellious feeling has ever been expressed, yet now his faith in the providence and love of God is more firmly fixed, and he gives joyful expression to his belief that the supreme Ruler of the universe is Love, and that in some way all things are working together for good : — "Love is and was my King and Lord, And will be, tho' as yet I keep Within his court on earth, and sleep Encompass'd by his faithful guard, "' " And hear at times a sentinel Who moves about from place to place, And whispers in the worlds of space, In the deep night, that all is well. "^ 62 THE SUNNY SIDE " And all is well, tho' faith and form Be sunder'd in the nigiit of fear; AVell roars the storm to tho.se that hear A deeper voice across the storm." "^ In the epilogue of In Mernorknn^ Tennyson describes the marriage of his sister Cecilia to Edmund Law Lushington, a distinguished Pro- fessor of the University at Glasgow. The Poet is present and engages in the festivities of the occasion. The music, the dance, the feasting, the gay marriage bells are symbols of the feel- ings which now pervade his mind. He has not forgotten or ceased to cherish his friend ; at the wedding feast he conjectures : — " Of a stiller guest, Perchance, perchance, among the rest, And, tho' in silence, wishing joy." '-'^ But while still in bereavement he is dwelling now upon the sunny side of it. His life, once 80 cold and dark, has been flooded witli the OF BEREAVEMENT. 53 warm, bright beams of consolation, and the shadow of death has been turned into the morning : — '♦ To-day the grave is bright for me." '" INDEX 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 IG 17 18 19 20 21 22 28 24 25 2fi 27 . . cix, 2 . . cix, o . . ex, 1 . . cxi, G Ixxxv, 12 . xcix, 1 . . Ivii, 3 . . xiv, 3 . . ix, 5 . Ixxxv, 5 Ixxxiv, 11 . . vi, 11 . . viii, 3 . . vi. 11 . . xi, 4 . xxviii, 4 . Ixxii, 2 . Ixxii, 3 xlix, 4 . . Ivii, 3 . . Ivii, 4 . . i, 1 . . i, 2 . . iii, 2 . . iii, 3 . . vi, 1 . . vi, 2 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 30 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 4G 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 . . . VI, . . . i . . . i, . . xviii, . . . V, . xviii, xxxvii, . . xxvii, . Ixxx, . . XXX, XXX, . xxxiv, . xxxiv, . XXX v. . . Ivi . xxxiv, Proloi>-ne, . cxxiv, . cxxiv, Prolo.i^ue. . cxxiii, . xxxvi, . xxxi. . xxxi, . xxxi, . XKXi, . xxxvi, 56 INDEX. xxxvi, 4 . Iv, 2 . Ivi, 1 55 ... . 56 ... . 57 ... . 58 Ivi, 2 59 cxx, 2 CO Ixxxv, G (U Ixxxv, 7 02 xl, 5 03 04 05 GG Ixxv, 5 Ixxiii, 1 XXX, G xliii, 4 07 xliv, 3 08 xliv, 4 09 xlv, 1 70 xlvi, 1 71 xlvi, 2 72 xli, 5 73 ixi, 3 74 Ixv, 1 Ixi, 2 75 . 76 . 77 . 78 . 79 . 80 . 81 . 82 . 83 . 84 . 85,. 86 . 87 . 88 . . . . . li . . . . li . . . . li . . . . lii . . . . 1 . . . . 1 . . . . 1 . . . cxxx . . . cxvi . Epilogue. . . . xciii . . . xcii . . . xcii 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 xcii xciii xciv xciv xciv xciv xciii xcv xcv xcv, xcv, xcv, xcv, cxxii cxxii ciii, ciii, ex XV 107 xlvii 108 xlvii 109 cxvi 110 cxvii 111 cxvii 112 cxxx 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 . . cxx IX . . cxxx . . cviii Ixxxv, . . cxxvi . . cxxvi cxxvii Epilogue, Epilogue, THE END. Important New Book. AN EXPERIMENT IN A NEIV VARIETY OF FICTION. THE CHEVALIER OF PENSiEPJ-VANI ; TOGETHER WITH FRt.QUEMT REFERENCES TO THE PROREGE OF AR- COPIA. By Stanton Page [Henky B. Fuller], Cloth, $i.oo. Paper, 50 cents. An iddallstic travel-fiction, in n series 0/ semi-detached narratives, which have tj do with IHusic, I'aiiititig, Architecture, Bibliography, Diidoiiuicy, Archceology, the I'h atre and other mat ers ivuh which the polite -world cf E7iro/>e inay be imngined as concernivg itself. 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"Will have a great many readers, and create wide discussion." — Ne^uton {Mass. )/ournal. " Broad, manly and progressive."— Boston Satzirday Evening Gazette. ** As a revelation from one inside the lines it indicates that those who stand outside have not erred in their estimate of the nature and extent of the rapidly advancing changes." — Universalist Quarterly. " A breezy, wide-awake and practical layman." — Zioti's Herald. HOW TO AVOID SEA-SICKNESS. SEA-SiCKNESS: A COMPREHENSIVE TREATISE FOR, PRACTICAL USE. By Herman Partsch, M. D., ex-surgeon of the steamship " Alameda," member and prize essayist of the Med. Society of the State of California. i6mo. 19S pp. With Index. Cloth. $1.00. Of great scientific and practical value. " A little treatise which will be found of value to a large proportion of the travelling public." — San Francisco Argonaut. " The defect of Dr. Beard's system is that it demands the filling of the patient with bromine two or three days before the steamer sails, and most other methods are nearly as bad as the malady Dr. Partscli makes a scientific study of causes and effects Then he shows how, without the use of medicine, one may greatly reduce the severity .... of the malady." — San Francisco Chronicle. DAINTY VERSES. IN DIVERS TONES. By Herbert Wolcott Bowen. i6mo. 124pp. Cloth. J1.25. " Trifles light as a feather caught in cunning forms Life to such a poet is meant for love and happiness. Death itself is not a grim dread, but something to be welcomed." — Bostonjoitrnal. " A volume of graceful verses, embodying many dainty conceits and some thoughts of a deeper quality." — Boston Pilot. " Many pleasant verses, especially the sentimental lines." — T/ic Arena. J. G. Cuptfles Co. ^"^^^ Booksellers, BOSTON, ^^ stationers. Important New "Books. A REMARKABLE NOVEL. HIERO-SALEM: THE VISION OF PEACE. By E. L. Mason. I vol. With illustrations. Large square i2rao. Unique cloth binding, bevelled boards. The writer, evidently an earnest believer in the immortality of the spiritual ego, treats in this work of the endeavor made by a man deeply versed in all lore that treats of the universality of the immaterial world, and the possibility in this life of the partial removal of the sensual barriers which separate us from if, to raise the siandard of physical and intellectual man by the establish- ment of a new race founded at the outset by careful selection of two individuals. Many subjects of much interest to many thinkers now, are introduced as an in- tegral part of the narrative, — the doctrine of re-incarnation, the beliefs of Esoteric Buddhism, even the occult knowledge acquired by the Kabbalists. The idea, howrver, that shines through all is that behind these mere glimmer- ings of light, theie is the splendor of the truth itself, of which these are but the reflections vouchsafed to the earnest studies and strivings of man — a aeeper truth which this book endeavors to express. It is a book to be ranked in the same class with ' Consuelo." BY DR. BROWN-SEQUARD. " THE ELIXIR OF LIFE." Dr. Brown-Sequakd's own account of his famous alleged remedy for debility and old age, Dr. Variot's experimenvs, and contemporaneous comments of the profession and the press, with sketch of Dr Brown-Sequard's life, and portrait. Edited by Newell Dunbar, i vol. Square i6mo. Cloth. $1.00 At a time when all reading classes are interested, either through the medical or secular press, in the above subject, it is remarkable to notice the amount uf ignorance and misapprehension that exists regarding what this remedy really is, iis method of applica ion, and the results which have been aitained. While some would claim for it all the virtue suggested by the name by \\-iiich it is popularly known, others, at the other extreme would almost refuse to give credence to the evidence of experiments; this little book has, therefore, been compiled to give the gist of the opinions of all classes, placing within reach of all, in a handy and condensed form, all facts of interest connected with the subject. ECHOES FROM CAPE ANN; a book of Poems and Memorial Tokens, by Maria J. Dodge, i vol. i2mo. Handsomely bound in cloth, bev- elled boards, gilt edges. $r.5o. Charming verses; narrative, descriptive, and devotional, touched here and there with a lighter strain, of especial interest to all who reside in or are acquainted with the home of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Lucy Larcom. A DIRECTORY OF THE CHARITABLE AND BENEFICENT ORGANIZATIONS OF BOSTON, ETC. Prepared for the Asso- ciated Charities. I vol., 196 pp. i6mo. Cloth. $1.00. / G. Cuppks Co. ™SSW.. BOSTON. Stationers, Important New Books. AUNT NABBY: HER RAMBi.£S, HER ADVENTURES, AND HER NOTIONS. With characteristic illustrations and vig- nettes. i2mo. pp. 314, xii. Paper, 50 cents. Cloth, $1.00. Delightful drollery." -Pilot. '•' Highly amusing." ■Boston Herald. ' SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED AND IMPROVED, BRIGHT ORIGINALITY, SPRIGHTLINESS, AND KEEN OBSER VA TION. A BUNDLE OF LETTERS FROM OVER THE SEA. By Louise B. Robinson. i2mo. pp. 320. Cloth, elegant, $2.00. " The authoress of A Bundle of Letters from over the Sea has pro- duced a book ufiiike any oilier. It is original, bright, entertaining, aad shows whjit an open-eyed, independent American woman can see.'' •^Press. Publishers, ], G. CuppleS Co, Booksellers, BOSTON. Printers, P o n f c /