Idolatry

enetrable, but, so intolerable was its lustre, it overthrew all foes before the lance's point could reach them. Obser

a professed romance. Be there left, he would say, some room for fancy, and even for conjecture. Let the author seem occasionally to consult with his compani

the reader is our confidential counsellor. We will pretend that our means of information are no better than other writers'. We will uniformly revel in specula

h and brisk, for the breeze from Boston harbor-slightly flavored, it is true, by its journey across the northern part of the city-has been blowing into the room all night long. Here are some trunks and carpet-bags, well bepasted with the names of foreign towns and countries, famous and infamous.

a telescope. It would not be worth mentioning, save that our prophetic vision sees it coming into use by and by. Not to analyze too closely, everything in this

n the pillow. The face, feeling the warmth, and conscious, through its closed eyelids, of the light, presently stretches its eyebrows, then blinks, and finally yawns,-Ah-h! Thirty-two even, white teeth, in perfect

e my-Oh! A land-l

fusion. He stares about him with a pair of well-opened dark eyes, which contrast strangely with his fair Northern complexion. Next comes a spasmodic stretching of arms and legs, a wh

eems to me, than ocean, beloved of my Scandinavian forefathers. Hear those birds! look at those divine trees, and the tall moist g

g bondsman he was, and so much like him in many ways (owing, perhaps, to the intimacy always subs

introduction, unheralded, unexplained? Be it at once confessed that Mr. Helwyse travelled unattended, that there was no slave

e desirable. Whether it were also invariable and uncontested, there will be opportunity to find out later. Meantime, this dual condition was productive of not a little harmless entertainment to Mr. Helwyse, at times when persons less happily organized would become victims of ennui. Be the conditions what they might, he was never without a companion, whose ways he knew, and whom

is orders with patrician imperiousness. The obedient menial, then,-to resume the thread,-sprang upon the tub-trunk, whipped off the lid, and discharged th

sir, did

dear. Are you the

modified by a low delighted giggle. Presen

r addressing you from behind a closed door; but circumstances which I can neither explain nor overcome forbid

giggles Hebe, retr

and that the patrician soul had nothing to do with it. The ability to lay the burden of lapses from

airy-headed reflection in the looking-glass, the phantom face of which at once expands in a gen

nd vanity of this transitional phenomenon called the world. Patronize it! be thy acquaintance with it constant and familiar! Remember, my dear Balder, that this slave of thine is the medium thr

every note; his very toes seeming to partake of his appreciation. Music is the mysterious power which makes body and soul-master and man-thrill as one string. The musician played several bars, beautiful in themselves, but unconnect

his hands dreamily through his tangled mane, and shakes it back. If philosophical, he seems also to be romantic and imaginative, and impressionable by other personalities. It is, to be sure, unfair to judge a man from such unconsidered words as he may let fall during the first half-hour after waking up in the morning; were it otherwise, we should infer that, although he migh

o? Ah! the cold water, emblem of truth. Thank you, Hebe; and s

theless, an hour, rightly used, may be ample. If he will continue his habit of thinking aloud, will affect situations tending to bring out his leading traits of character; if we may intrude upon him, note-book in hand, in all his moods and crises,-with all this in addition to discretionary use of the magic mirror,-it will be our own fault if Mr. Helwyse be not turned inside out. Prop

stairs. An odd-looking figure; those stylish clothes become him as little as they would a long-limbed, angular Egyptian statue. Fashion, in some men, is an eccentricity, or rather a violence done to their

rtunity of making his acquaintance. Had he been an hour earlier,-had any one of us, for that matter, ever been an hour earlier or later,