Pin-pointer. I believe it.

ONE night, sitting over a cup of tea, which I had allowed to get cold, and in the light of a taper which I had not topped for at least an hour, I was meditating on my own personal concerns, which stood in the highest degree of criticalness. I had not heard from New York for a considerable time, and the first communication that should arrive, I was certain must embrace either or both of two topics, the dearest to my heart, the state of my father's health, which, by my last communication, was very precarious, or the increasing or waning affection in the tender heart of a New York dame, whom I had left in the pride and pleasure of conscious beauty and merited admiration. All men may be poets pro tempore, in certain circumstances; and the young and tender spirit, who, from a dry, moral expediency, has torn asunder the vital part which he forins of the happy constitution of a virtuous, loving family, left a weeping beauty to lament his absence, and, by her very tears, to conjure up, from the teem,ing soil of New York fashion, a New York dandy to supply his place, may well be allowed to be a poet quoad these considerations, (vide, a calf in a slaughter-house, with the tears running down his cheeks,) at a time when he sits by the fire of another land, by a taper, flaming cubes of melancholy from a two-inch wick, and with the distance from his natal soil, trebled by a sullen wind, which (Lord help him!) twirls into ill-humour the old wife on the chimney top.

I am always fond of the query, What is such a one doing just now (looking my watch) in the lands of the sun's repose, my birth-place? In this way, I fix both situations

VOL. XVIII.

New Old Play.

before me, his and my own; and as my fancy calls up old habitudes, and places, and persons, the idea acquires à definiteness which gives it an im pression it would not otherwise possess. Now, methought old Jean is clattering the tea-cups, (for the kit chen is still to me one of the most important parts of the house,) breaking one now and then, and sending for answer to the querulous-bell, that puss is misbehaving. (Puss, my old black friend, what would I not give to see you this moment! How curious the idea sits in my brain, shooting forth three thousand miles through storms and billows, streets, alleys, squares, and balustrades, to a small piece of green carpet, striped with red, at the side of the kitchen-fire, under the saltholder, in a white house, in the corner, No. 16, of Square, on which reclines a black cat! How exquisite an old fellow! I used to hate him mordicus, and have beaten him a thousand times.) I remember puss broke many a dish while lying on his own private cushion, but that is between Jean and her conscience, with which here, in Great Britain, I have no concern. The tea is taken up stairs to the red parlour; and now, having given the black cat and Jean their respective places, it be comes me to assign to my father and mother theirs. They must be by the side of the tea-table. Yet I fear my father was ill; but I will hope the best. And the china teapot, with the beautiful Esquimaux hunting the otter, it must be in my mother's hands. Now, I look my watch, and, making a due allowance for the sun's journey, I am certain my mother is just now lifting her cup, and it behoves me also to lift mine. I accordingly take it 40

up; "Ah! mother," says I, "how exquisite the idea of putting my lips to my cup at the same time with thee, though we are three thousand miles distant from each other!" I now wax horribly pathetic, and the tears drop into my cup as I hold it to my mouth. I sob, and, like a blubbering child, inhale a plentiful gulp of my tea, which, by this time, was spring-water cold. But my mother's tea in America was warm. I was certain it was genial and warm, for I had made it so in my brain. pan; my fanciful fabric shivered, my mother and the black cat,-my father and Jean,-the otter and the Esquimaux, perished in a cup of cold tea. I looked sour and blue at this mishap; and however wonderful it may seem to those unacquainted with the whimsical nature of the workings of a poet's brain, that sin gle draught of cold tea, bringing with it, as it did, the contrast of a cold reality, with the warm fermentation of poetic images in my pregnant fancy, overthrew my castles, and my cottages, and brought me to the portico of the dungeon of Melancholy. A friend of mine, a great stickler for materialism, and a lover of strong liquors, would here add, (for the pineal gland is very near the mouth, as is distinctly proved by the fact, that though a man's soul may be dead quoad every other sense, he is always alive to the exquisite nip of a cinder, that is, a glass of whisky-alcohol,) stult.

I jam jam felt myself waxing into a very atrabilarious degree of melancholy. The mind, in its occupations, is like a man walking in a hilly country. The quality by which it affects the characters of objects contemplated increases, by a re-action, through the ideas of these objects, upon itself; and thus, to the smallest beginnings we may often attribute the brightest happiness, and the darkest melancholy; and thus, our moods of pleasure and displeasure have their existences and durations, though, in the interval, many ideas, tending to induce moods directly opposite, arise in the mind, passing through it trackless as the shadow or the sunbeam. The cold tea, and the destruction of the images,

made me discontented. I looked up to the candle; the wick was old and grey-headed, and the snuffers were not to be found. A long wick, and the want of snuffers, is a circumstance, with an inherent quality, of an unfavourable nature to every one, but to me, in my state of mind,—it was-it was-very-very bad, and I recollect I said so aloud, though there was not a living thing in the room save the candle and myself, peradventure a few fleas andbut that's indelicate. I sat ruminating a little whether I would submit to the gloom of the aged wick, or brighten up my eyes, and fancy with a clear light. I felt almost inclined to sit still, for there was a sombre unison of gloom within and without, which all true mopers know is gravely pleasant. But I had something about me which is vulgarly called" pluck," not courage. "Did I say courage, Geoffrey?— God forbid that I should say courage." I merely and humbly mean, that, like the worm, I felt some inclination to turn my tail when trod upon. Now, it occurred to me that my landlady had taken away the snuffers, in order that I might thus be forced to go to bed more early than I might otherwise do, as I have a very innocent practice of falling asleep in my chair, on which occasion the candle generally seizes the opportunity to commit devastation upon the resistless wood or bed-curtains, or any other harmless thing that cannot boast of being so enlightened. (Education requires management, or it may become dangerous,-fudge.) So, amidst all my gloom, I had spirit enough to mutter, "Astutus astu non capitur,”— "old sparrows," and so forth, and my resentment against my officious landlady roused me to action; in a moment my hand was raised, and the head of the gloamer lay at my feet

vulgo, I snuffed the candle with my thumb and finger: light followed, and so did pain; for, fool that I was, I had wet my fingers before the act, and the fire stuck to me like a vindictive wasp whose nest has been destroyed. A burnt finger (1 opine) has something in it intrinsi cally bad, independently of the state of mind; but to me, at present, it was,

it was, I say, very-very-very bad, and I recollect I said so aloud, although there was no living thing present save those aforesaid. My thumb was so severely scorched, that you might have put a sixpence edgeways not into the wound-between my closed eye-brows, where it would have stuck till the pain had subsided, or I had taken it out, and put it into my own pocket, no doubt, with the benevolent intention of smoothing therewith the brow of poverty or disease, after it had measured to me the furrow of pain of a scorched finger.

The pain subsided; but, like the retiring of troubled waters, it left its sediment of melancholy on my already gloomy mind. I was now in a progressive state to the nearest in timacy, or the sternnest hostility, (I can't tell which,) with those atramental fiends, which, from an ignorance of their true nature and colour, some imperfect mopers have called Cerulian, or Blue Devils; merely, I suppose, because, as these mopers only looked a little blue, they became cerulific, and made the atramental fiends look blue also. On the same principle, Shakespeare's green and yellow melancholy" should produce green and yellow devils. But they are all atramental. I know they are atramental; for I have been hand in glove with them, or hand in hilt with them, (I said before, I could not tell which,) for many a weary day. My fancy thus threw a shade over every subject of my contemplation; and, suiting the viand to the palate, crowded my mind with all those ideas which, but to entertain for one moment, was to ensure gloom for the whole night. Fears became black certain ties, hopes vanished, and decided evils took a blacker aspect. I had, indeed, heard that my father was ill; but that very mind which now trembled under an apprehension of death, classed him but a little ago in the same idea with a black cat, and set him to drink tea in a happy circle. I could see the discrepancy; but before, I was wrong in treating the subject so lightly. Now I saw him on his death-bed, with a sunken eye, and a sallow cheek. My mother was plying all her little assiduities,

and looking all the kindness of her heart through a tear, that told of grief, and pity, and fearful solicitude. A stillness, like the awful precursor of Heaven's dread artillery, reigned throughout those courts, which have rung with the echo of the joys of my young heart; and the whisper and deep-drawn sigh, the slight gliding step, and deafened bell, spoke of Nature's exhaustion, and pain and suffering, and a sympathy deep and general throughout. I saw my mother step gently from the bed of death, and approach the casement which faced these envious waters which now rolled between her and me. Through a glistening tear, in her sleepless eye, she looked abroad upon the wide expanse; and as one who is pained takes a mur muring pleasure in examining the wound, she thought of her far distant son, who was soon to be fatherless, of my grief and her own, when we should meet in our headless house, and shake hands the closer for our sorrow; and all this was going forward, while I was sitting three thousand miles off, inoped in a cloud of melancholy, black as night, wishing myself transported, in my chair, over the distance, or the equally dear, and ever-called for, and ever ready, and never-used alternative of true mopers-death,-I say death.

66

My Maria, too--she must be untrue. I had not heard from her for a month-a whole month-and she in America-and the wind in the west. 'Sdeath!" yellowness," Shakespeare's "yellowness," seized on my atramental melancholy; and, according to the law of colours and Shakespeare, I was green-eyed." But I cared not for Shakespeare in these moments: the spotted handkerchief, and an Iago's tongue, were nothing to the west wind. I had not a doubt that Maria was false, "false as." But how long had the wind been in the west? three weeks ago it was in the east,—a fortnight ago it was in the east, a week ago it was in the east,-three days ago it was in the west. Well, after all, I was too hard on Maria. She may be true, says I, notwithstanding the wind's being three days in the west.

I looked up. It was now late, and the candle was hesitating most dubiously whether or not it would burn longer. At one time flickering a bright determination to see it out, and anon dying away into the womb of night and a socket. I turned my eyes a little to the left, and the quick flitting glance of the taper danced gaily off something white. I stretched out my hand, and, lo! it was a letter, no doubt placed there by my landlady when I had been deep in my American dream. The candle at this time retired into the socket, and gave no more light than sufficed to show that the letter was white, if that had required showing. What are the dreams of a whimsical fancy, to the firm vibration of the sensory, by the touch or look of a letter? Matters of fact and imagination are deadly foes; but the one is a most egregious coward. A letter is an awful thing; and the man that would attempt to build a castle or dig a grave (imaginative) with a letter in his hand, deserves a castle of stone and lime for his philosophy, or a grave of earth for his unworldliness. I will not say I now thought of my father dying or dead, or alive and healthy. My mother→→ my Maria-her love, light or leal, it was sacrilege to think at all, when the very materia definita was in my hands. My mind, indeed, was a pure blank, like a fair sheet of paper under the letter-press, ready to re ceive, with avidity, every line, word, letter, dash, point, every thing, to the mark of an American thumb. I thought, by the fading light, it was from America, and that was enough, for one brief moment, and another and another passed away, ere a thought of opening it entered my mind. I felt as the tiger seems to do, when, after much hunger and hunting, he seizes upon a fair hind, kills her, hugs her, and licks her all over, and growls out his joy of possession, though all the while hunger is gnawing his entrails. I thought I observed, by the still living light, the soiliness of a ship carriage, and a far journey." Ah!" says I," how much stains, and dirt, and rough handling, and all manner of bad usage, improve the appearance of a letter! What a contrast does the

white, milky-faced thing of a town note, with its soft slimy wafer, and its vile penny-mark, make with the sun-burnt, way-worn, staunch foreigner, bespeaking knowledge and experience of many nations, and bearing signs of their arts and manners, their kindness and rough usage! The one is often nothing but a rascally dun, or a pen-and-ink constipation of compliments, and teas, and dinners, or requirements of satisfaction, and pistols, and duels, and apologies; the latter is, for the most part, an emanation from a kind and kindred heart, that, separated for a period of years by wide waters and dangers, beats its longings in silence in the land of strangers; and ever as the feeling of friendship rises high, charges with the cordial electricity to the fulness the long brittle capillary conductor to the land of his nativity, and friend of his heart, and waits in anxious expectation the arrival of the precious message, exposed as it is to so many dangers. It speaks, too, of the strange things of other lands. It is a shake of the handa throb of the heart-a newspaper of biography, and more, according to circumstances."

I was not just all this time in coming to the conclusion that the letter was meant to be opened and read. I arrived at that and another at the same time, viz. that it was impossible to read it; and this conclusion arose, logically and luminous ly, from the circumstance that it was impossible to read the address. The candle, which had been such a bore to me this evening, now glimmered in the socket, and mocked my strained eyes by its vascillations. Again and again I tried the address, coxing the fickle luminary for a steady smile, by feeding it with all the remnant bits of viands I could find. Supple Fortune, by greasing her wheel," Pugh!" says I, and fidgeted about for a considerable time, catching every glimpse as it came, and losing it before I could ascertain even the form of the bandwriting. My landlady had long ago gone to bed, as, by groping for the hands of my watch, I supposed it approached to one o'clock. What was to be done? To disturb the sybil at the "silent solemn hour," for

light to read a letter, which could lie very safely on the table all night, seemed to myself somewhat strange, eager as I was to see the contents; and I knew by experience, that it was more than probable that all I should get for my pains would be a few dark maledictions for disturbing an old woman's rest.

I started. A thought struck me. Might I not," says I, with great simplicity, "light a piece of paper, and thereby be enabled to read the address?" This was indeed a simple idea; but so was the moving of Sir Isaac Newton's chair. Quickly, though with a trembling hand, I applied the paper to the dying flame, and-put it out.

I sallied to the kitchen, and, with the paper still in my hand, I ran for ward with great rapidity; and just when in the act of thrusting the paper into the shining eyes of a black cat, I fell all my length over a threefooted stool; and when I looked up, the eyes were gone, and the old woman was murmuring displeasure. But I was too much excited to heed her gloom, eager as I was in search of light; so bestowing upon my leg a hasty rub, and on my landlady a gentle oath, suited to a woman, I groped for the paper, and in another moment I brought down upon the head of the old woman a "haik" of dried fish, whose phosphoric rays had tempted me to reach across her small uncurtained couch. The woman screamed, and uttered the most ill-disposed maledictions that any lodging-keeper in Edinburgh ever threw out against her lodger who was nothing in her debt, and to a person who could have observed this dark scene, the falling fish would have seemed a divine emanation, the old woman the inspired, and her oaths the effects of her inspiration. 1, her gloomy worshipper, groped my way out to my own apartment, utterly at a loss for light to read my letter.

The moon, I recollected, was of a favourable age, and immediately I opened the casement; but the false queen was behind the curtains of a sombre cloud; there was, however, a twilight abroad, and I tried its effect upon my letter. It would not do; I could not yet even come to

a determination as to the handwriting; sometimes it appeared like my father's, at which time my heart beat hard against my side; I again thought it was Maria's, and the palpitation was not diminished; and sometimes a doubt sprung up as to its being either. Once, indeed, I was so sceptical as to doubt its being from America; that, however, was soon settled, by a long stride upon the floor, a small oath, and the word "impossible" three times emphatically repeated. It was then an American letter-Q. E. D., all the rest was in the dark, or twilight.

As I stood thus, with the letter in my hand, looking alternately at it and the curtained-moon, no doubt wishing the connection between those white substances increased, I thought myself, for the first time in my life, abundantly stupid-I waxed angry, and in a moment I was stripped to the shirt, "peel'd," not to fight the moon, but to go soberly to bed, by which I mean, at present, in a very angry humour, though, for the sake of appearances, (there was nobody present; but the studier of human nature will think it sufficient that I was present to myself,) I chose to hum a tune, which the said studier of human nature will know was merely a gentle way of groaning: so to bed I went. I don't recollect ever to have said any thing aloud to myself in my bed in all my lifetime, prayers always excepted, when it was a double bed-room, and on one solitary occasion, when a rat having seized me by the nose, I roared aloud, “ Vade pone me, Sathanas", and at that very moment the little devil flew off with a piece of that beautiful organ, and, according to my instructions, "vade pone me, Sathanas", seized me by the breech. However, on this occasion I continued my song, i. e. my modified groans, for at least half an hour after I lay down; but I came to think of the folly of painting my cheeks to be reflected to myself alone from my own mirror; so I gave up the song, and rather endeavoured, by a little of the oil of calm reflection, to lay the troubled billows of hope, fear, curiosity, and disappointment, which that cursed sweet letter had lashed up within me. Just when