burning thurible, there are offerings laid upon the altar-rich, tasteful, elaborate, simple, magnificent or humble. Every kind may be had, and will be had from those who minister to the wants of the Valentinans, as of old did the sellers of doves in the temple provide the means of sacrifice to the unprepared devotee. St. Valentine's day then is becoming, nay, it has become, a national holyday-one that brings smiles of pleasure to the young of both sexes, and the joy of recollected pleasure to the old. It is a festival in which the feelings need no stimulant, and in which it asks no boisterous expression. Beautiful is the anticipation of such a season. Some hearts beat quickly in the thought of what may be sent, and who will send it. Some hopes will be excited by the manner of reception-all will be joyful in preparing to give; all will be gratified in examining the gift. Not all-one at least will go to the shrine where af fection has deposited the gift-and as she drops a tear upon the cherished memorial, will send her thoughts far, far upward to the home of the giver-or backward to the hour in which it was given. Yet this is joy-this sanctified Sabbath of the young heart seems doubly hallowed when its light is reflected from the memorial of affection, an affection made sure in one by the icy hand of death; fixed undyingly in the other, by a consecration which no change can divert from its hallowing purpose. THE PAST. BY MISS CAROLINE E. SUTTON. WHEN the young bird goes from her early home, The wanderer far, far from kindred and friends, He views the clear stream where the willow tree bends, He views the dark wood and the green sloping hill, And before him appear, as distinct as of yore, His mother's soft eye, and his sire's furrowed brow; His Mary's light form, as when last on the shore He bade her remember her vow; His sister's long hair, with its sunshiny gleam, Though surrounded with blessings, and favored with all We revert to the pleasures we ne'er can recall, Creator and Father! Oh! teach me to live That, when this lithe form is decrepit and bent, A SONG. BY RICHARD WILKE. DARK clouds are hovering round me Then why should cares alarm me, It throws its sunshine over them, A RECOLLECTION OF MENDELSSOHN. BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR. of a more purely intellectual character than that of any modern composer, and his greatest works are those which but few thoroughly appreciate. While, in his "Songs without Words," and the simple grandeur of his sacred melodies, he comes nearer to the general sympathy, his "Walpurgisnacht," and "Fingal's Cave," creations of startling power and sublimity, which stand alone in the character of their expression, are rarely produced, except in those German cities where the taste for music has not been led away from the standard set up by the schools of Bach and Hayden, by the voluptuous melodies of the modern Italian opera. Frankfort is one of these cities, and I was fortunate enough to hear the Walpurgisnacht performed by the Cæcilien - Verein, or Society of St. Cecilia. The poetry of Goethe and the music of Mendelssohn!—it was a sublime marriage of genius. The works of the latter are as full of wild and stormy pictures as those of the former, and he has described in music the crags and breakers of the bleak Hebrides, with as much power as Goethe exhibits, in painting the savage scenery of the Brocken. SCARCELY a year has elapsed since the musical | me exceedingly to explain. Mendelsshon's music is world has been painfully moved by the death of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. No loss, which the divine art has sustained since that of Von Weber, will be so difficult to replace, and probably no man of genius was ever more sincerely mourned, as a man. He not only possessed that universal sympathy with humanity, which is so noble a characteristic of the highest genius, but, unlike many great men, whose very isolation of intellect creates an atmosphere about them which the world is awed from seeking to penetrate, the familiar scope of his warm nature descended to an equality with all he met, and though all who named him as a composer, may not have understood or appreciated him, all who knew him as a man, could not choose but love him. The career of genius, unhappily, is not often surrounded at the onset with the wordly advantages, nor watched and cherished with the fostering care, which fell to his lot. His nature was never embittered by early struggles with an unrecognizing world, nor was his natural faith in man shaken by a keen encounter with selfishness and persecution. The development of his moral nature thus calmly ripened in harmony with his mind, each sustaining and ennobling the other. The contemplation of such a character is in itself exalting, and seems to give his memory a more than ordinary consecration. At this time, when we are still constantly reminded of his loss-when those to whom his works have a voice and a power never mention his name but with the unconscious sadness of a reverent heart, all which may help to recall his living image possesses a universal interest. I trust, therefore, that the relation of an interview, the recollection of which is among those hours, for whose bestowal I am most grateful to the past, will need no apology. On the contrary, it is rather the discharge of that duty which we owe to art, as all her worshipers will acknowledge. Mendelssohn was living in Frankfort during the winter I spent there, and I was naturally anxious to see the face of a great man, whom there was no probability of my ever being near again, in the course of my wanderings. One sunny day in March, when all the population of Frankfort seemed to have turned out upon the budding promenades which belt the city, and the broad quays along the Main, to enjoy the first premonition of spring, I went on my usual afternoon stroll with my friend and countryman, W, whose glowing talk upon the musical art was quite as refreshing to me after the day's study in the gloomy Marktplotz, as were the blue mountains of Epessart, which are visible from the bridge over the Main. There had been a great inundation the week previous, and the cold, wintry storms which accompanied it, had just given place to sunshine and milder air. The boatmen upon the flat, clumsy barges which come down from Würzburg and the upper Main, were loosening their lashings and preparing to trust themselves upon the swollen waters. The music of Savoyards and bands of mountain singers was heard in every open space, and brave, ruddy-looking Tyrolese, wild-eyed Bohemians in their quaint, national costume, and the men of Suabia and the Black Forest, A winter's residence in Frankfort, which of late years is somewhat distinguished for the excellence of its opera, and the high degree of culture attained by its various musical unions, sufficed to make me familiar with many of the great works of the German composers. Fortunately, it was not until after I had learned to feel the all-pervading soul of beauty which inspired Mozart, and paused in awe on the borders of Beethoven's vast and solemn realm, that I heard the music of Mendelssohn. Thus prepared, in part, the simple and severe grandeur of his style impress-mingled with the crowd, till it seemed like a holyday ed me with a consciousness of its power, though I could not always grasp the spirit of the sound, and follow it back to the sublime conception-as, when a schoolboy, I first opened the pages of Milton, and read with wonder and delight what it would have puzzled assemblage made up from all the German provinces. We threaded the motley multitude, finding a pleasant pastime in reading their faces and costumes, turning rapidly, as it were, the leaves of a historical picture book. My eye was finally caught by a man who came toward us on the quay, and whose face and air were in such striking contrast to those about him, that my whole attention was at once fixed upon him. He was simply and rather negligently dressed in dark cloth, with a cravat tied loosely about his neck. His beard had evidently not been touched for two or three days, and his black hair was long and frowzed by the wind. His eyes, which were large, dark and kindling, were directed forward and slightly lifted, in the abstraction of some absorbing thought, and as he passed, I heard him singing to himself in a voice deep but not loud, and yet with a far different tone from that of one who hums a careless air as he walks. But a few notes caught my ear, yet I remember their sound, elevated and with that scarcely perceptible vibration which betrays a feeling below the soul's surface, as distinctly now as at the time. Wgrasped my arm quickly and said in a low voice, "Mendelssohn!" I turned hastily, and looked after him, as he went down the quay, apparently but half conscious of the stirring scenes around him. I could easily imagine how the balmy, indolent sensation in the air, so like a soothing and tranquilizing strain of music, should have led him into the serene and majestic realm of his own creations. It was something to have seen a man of genius thus alone, and in communion with his inspired thoughts, and I could not repress a feeling of pleasure at the idea of having unconsciously acknowledged the influences around him, before I knew his name. After this passing glimpse, this flash of him, however, came the natural desire to see his features in repose, and obtain some impression of his personal character. An opportunity soon occurred. The performance of his "Walpurgisnacht," by the Cæcilien-Verein, a day or two thereafter, increased the enthusiasm I had before felt for his works, and full of the recollection of its sublime Druid chorusses, I wrote a few lines to him, expressive of the delight they had given me, and of my wish to possess his name in autograph, that I might take to America some token connected with their remembrance. The next day I received a very kind note in reply, enclosing a manuscript score of a chorus from the "Walpurgisnacht." Summoning up my courage the next morning, I decided on calling upon him in person, feeling certain, from the character of his note, that he would understand the motive which prompted me to take such a liberty. I had no difficulty in finding his residence in the Bockenheimer Gasse, in the western part of the city. The servant ushered me into a handsomely furnished room, with a carpet, an unusual thing in German houses; a grand piano occcupied one side of the apartment. These struck my eye on entering, but my observation was cut short by the appearance of Mendelssohn. A few words of introduction served to remove any embarrassment I might have felt on account of my unceremonious call, and I was soon set entirely at ease by his frank and friendly manner. As he sat opposite to me, beside a small table, covered with articles of vertù, I was much struck with the high intellectual beauty of his countenance. His forehead was white, unwrinkled, and expanding above, in the region of the ideal faculties. His eyes were large, very dark and lambent with a light that seemed to come through them-like the phosphorescent gleam on the ocean at midnight. I have observed this peculiar character of the eye only in men of the highest genius-the sculptor Powers is another instance in which it has been frequently remarked. None of the engravings of Mendelssohn which have yet been made give any idea of the kindling effect which is thus given to his face. His nose was slightly prominent, and the traces of his Jewish blood were seen in this, as well as the thin but delicate curve of the upper lip, and the high cheek-bones. Yet it was the Jewish face softened and spiritualized, retaining none of its coarser characteristics. The faces of Jewish youth are of a rare and remarkable beauty, but this is scarcely ever retained beyond the first period of manhood. In Mendelssohn, the perpetual youth of spirit, which is the gift of genius alone, seemed to have kept his features moulded to its expression, while the approach of maturer years but heightened and strengthened its character. He spoke of German music, and told me I should hear it best performed in Vienna and Berlin. Some remarks on America led him to speak of a grand Musical Festival, which was then in the course of preparation in New York. He had received a letter inviting him to assist in it, and said he would have gladly attended it, but his duty to his family would not permit of his leaving. He appeared to be much gratified by the invitation, not only for the personal appreciation which it implied, but as a cheering sign of progress in the musical art. My friend W, who had met with Mendelssohn the summer previous, at the baths of Kronthal, said that he had expressed much curiosity respecting the native negro melodies— which, after all, form the only peculiarly national music we possess-and that he considered some of them exceedingly beautiful and original. I did not feel at liberty to intrude long upon the morning hours of a composer, and took my leave after a short interview. Mendelssohn, at parting, expressed his warm interest in our country's progress, especially in the refined arts, and gave me a kind invitation to call upon him in whatever German city I should find him. I left Frankfort in two or three weeks after this, and although I was never afterward enabled to fulfill my promise and desire, I was often forcibly reminded of his person and his genius-and never more gratefully than when I stood beside the marble monument to Sebastian Bach, in the promenades of Leipzic-raised to the memory of that patriarch of harmony, by the generosity of Mendelssohn. JASPER LEECH. THE MAN WHO NEVER HAD ENOUGH. THE hero of my sketch, Jasper Leech, was, to use the stereotyped expression, born of poor but honest parents; his infancy exhibited no remarkable diagnostics, by which to illustrate or establish any peculiarity of character, saving, perhaps, the simple fact, that with him the process of weaning was protracted to a curious extent, any attempt to cut off or diminish the maternal supply being met with obstinate resistance, in spite of all the ingenious artifices usually resorted to on such occasions to induce a distaste, still he sucked and sucked, until the female visiters, one and all, noted it; shameful in a great fellow like that. At school, young Jasper was famous for the steady snail-pace at which he crawled through the rudiments, and also for the extraordinary penchant he evinced for any thing in his proximity which was, or appeared to be, unattainable at the moment; say that one of his school-mates was in possession of a new toy, Jasper would first envy him, then covet it, cunningly waiting the moment when, the novelty being past, the boy was open to negotiation, then would he chaffer and diplomatize, almost invariably gaining his desired end. Thus he went on steadily accumulating, until what with a natural appetite for trading, and a calculating eye to the profitable side of a bargain, he managed to shut up the market altogether by exhaustion. The very springtime of life, which generally passes by in gleesome sport, was to him a period of anxiety and care; for while his mates were rioting in boisterous play, he would sit apart, his whole brain wrapped in the maze of speculation—a swop is in progression, and he must have the advantage. Thus passed his boyhood; his schooling over, with his strong common sense undulled by too much book-lore, he was duly inducted into the mystery of shoe-craft. He served out his time with exemplary diligence, working leisurely of days that he might keep reserve of strength to spend the nights for his own profit, thereby saving a considerable sum from the employment of his over-hours. Once his own master, he deliberated long what road he should travel in the pursuit of the blind goddess, invisible as well as blind-that intangible phantasma which men wear out life and energy in the seeking, only when found to confess with tears of bitterness how misspent was time in the attain ment. At last our ambitious friend ventured humbly into trade on his own account, declaring that should any thing approaching to success crown his efforts, and that at the end of five or six years he could command a thousand dollars, he would be the most contented, the happiest fellow on earth. He was lucky, curiously lucky; it seemed as though, Midas-like, all he touched turned to gold; money swept in, so that before he had been three years in business, instead of the limited one thousand, he was master of five. "Now," said he to himself, "if I could but make that five ten, I might not only be enabled to enlarge my stock, and thereby increase my returns, but I think I might even venture to look about for a helpmate with an equal sum;" for Jasper would just as soon have thought of investing the best part of his capital in the establishment of a lunatic asylum, as of marrying a portionless woman. The sun shone on-in less time than he could possibly have anticipated-ten thousand was at his command. Very good, thought he; this, with ten or fifteen thousand more, as a premium for encumbering myself with a comforter of the snarling sex-for the ungallant Jasper had a thoroughly mercantile business man's opinion of the angelic species-will be sufficient. I must investigate. So he set out on a tour of the watering-places, and such like wife-markets, where Cupid, the most wide-awake of auctioneers-it's a libel to say he's blind-knocks the little darlings down to the highest bidder. Of course, Jasper stopped at the first-class hotels, where he scrutinized the habitués of the ladies ordinary with uncommon interest. There's no use in disguising the fact, he sought not a wife, but a fortune; in extenuation, allow me to say, he was not at all singular, there are plenty of those individuals extant, young, tolerably good-looking fellows, bien gante, and redolent of whisker, who linger about the ladies' drawing-room, in the faint hope of fascinating something available, (prudent maternity avoids this class with pious horror,) middle aged beaux, who dress sedulously, and toady chaperons, carry fans, are always so attentive and so obliging, dine regularly, and affect a Burgundy decanter, which looks easy circumstanced, but which the poor waiter is tired of carrying backward and forward, ticketed some hundred and something. These animals are generally great scandal-mongers, and always dangerous, sweet-voiced but addertongued, their modus operandi is to poison the ear of the person addressed, against any other individual, hoping thereby to elevate their own characters upon the slaughtered heap. Let no woman suffer such pestilent breath to be a second time breathed within her hearing. Jasper, though indefatigable as you may well suppose, met with strange adventure during his wifehunt. Pretty women, after short experience, he avoided utterly, for he found that they were usually too extravagant in their expectations with regard to personnel, and as Jasper could not, by any stretch of his imagination, fancy that he ranked in the category of Fredericks and Augustuses, he endeavored to make up the deficiency by a liberal display of wealthprefiguring ornament, a kind of strong-box index, kind, and having, during a life of assiduous saving and scraping, accumulated a very large sum, now flung himself with extraordinary abandon upon the full stream of gentility-and, to say the truth, most uncomfortable he found it; for many a time would he acknowledge to his wife that "This flying about from steam-car to steamboat, was far more fatiguing, and not quite so profitable as quietly serving out lump sugar." Then would Mrs. B. indignantly check such compromising thoughts, for she was a person of great pretension, had had a slight acquaintance with Mrs. Judge Pinning, and once visited by accident Mrs. General Jollikins, so felt herself bound to talk of "society." "They don't do this in our set;" or, "it's not the etiquette in society;" and such like sidewinded hints of her position, formed the staple of her conversations. As for the heiress to the wealthy grocer's store, there was an indescribable something in her air and manner which plainly indicated, “I am worth looking after!" She talked loudly, stared mutely through a magnificent Parisian double-glass, and in fact broke through all the recognized rules of which he shrewdly suspected might tempt some ambitious innocent to investigate the contents thereof. Perhaps it would be as well, at this period, as our hero is gotten up at no small expense, to give a rough pen-and-ink outline of his appearance. In the first place, he was twenty-eight years old, by his own account; as he could scarcely be expected to know exactly himself, it's not to be wondered at that he and the parish register differed a few years; but that was of little consequence, for he had an accommodating peasant-colored complexion, which, as it made him look at least forty, will no doubt return the compliment by making him look no more at sixty; his hair was about as indefinite, being a factitious auburn, a dry, wiry red, something like the end of a fox's brush in hot weather, crisp and tangible, like fine copper-shavings; one could not help fancying that if he shook his head, each individual hair would jar audibly against the other. The whole arrangement gave one an idea of intense heat, and an involuntary hope that the poor fellow had but a sprinkle of hydrocephalus, he was of undecided height also, varying from five feet four-and-a-half to five feet four-and-good breeding with that insolent familiarity which three-quarters, at the option of his boot-maker; but the most remarkable features, if we may use the expression, in his conformation, were his hands, which were gaunt and bony, of a tanned-leathery consistence, and of a streaky, mottled, castile-soap color, covered with a straggling crop of light, sandy hair, and ornamented with several wedding-rings-deer took the precaution to investigate realities beevidences of broken-hearts, which some men are fond of displaying as certificates of gallantry. Dressed in irreproachable black, and capped and jeweled in the most orthodox style, it may be imagined that Jasper was an object of no small solicitude to the anxious mothers of slenderly-portioned daughters;" he certainly had an air bien riche, if not distingué -and that's the marketable materiel after all. Months were unprofitably spent, and Jasper was beginning to think the time irretrievably lost, when an occurrence of some little interest varied the cateraceous-drinkability of hotel monotony. The Blodgerses arrived, en route to the fashionable ruralities. Now the Blodgerses were extensive people in their way. They were originated somewhere in Pennsylvania, and affected the tone of the far south; traveled with huge trunks, two lap-dogs, a parrot, and a liveried African. The head of the family was a pursy, important, chairman-of-an-election-committee-looking man, with a superabundance of excessively white shirt-frill, and a great deal too much watch-chain; the latter appendage he invariably swung round as he conversed, its momentum indicating the state of his temper during an argument; let him speak upon uninteresting topics-literature, for instance, or any of the useless arts-you notice but a gentle apathetic oscillation, but let him get upon the tariff; let him hurl denunciations against his political enemies, or eulogize his particular presidential candidate, and round it goes with astonishing velocity. but poorly imitates the nonchalant ease of the really distingué. No description of deportment could have made so great an impression on Jasper. She looked ingots, she spoke specie, and her prestige was altogether redolent of roleaux. He was struck, but the stricken fore he advanced a step toward acquaintanceship. Now, thought he, if she but happen to have some ten or fifteen thousand, she'd be just the wife for The result was satisfactory. He discovered that a larger sum was settled to be her marriageportion-and so laid vigorous siege instanter. me. Now Araminta Blodgers, although decidedly unqualified to grace the pages of the book of beauty, had a strange predilection for "nice young men;" so that at first Jasper met with decided, and not over. delicately expressed, opposition. But he was not a man to retire from the first repulse; he persevered, and finally so deceived the sympathetic Araminta into the belief of his ardent affection, that, one fine summer evening, she sighed forth an avowal that she and her expectations were at his disposal. Fresh from this successful attack upon the heiress' susceptibilities, with a feathery heart, Jasper snapped his fingers at love, and danced down the corridor of the hotel, to the infinite wonderment of the waiters. Either from force of habit, or as a means of tempering the exuberance of his spirits, he plunged into the mysteries of the guest-book, where, alas! for Araminta Blodgers, and for true love! the first name he saw was that of Mrs. Skinnington, the rich widow from his own immediate neighborhood; she whom he had sedulously church-ogled from the opposite pew every Sunday, astonished at the vast ness of his presumption; she, the bona fide and sole possessor of nearly half his native town. Here was the shadow of a shade of opportunity. She was alone. Jasper hesitated. Araminta's fortune was ample, Blodgers had been a grocer, or something of the but when there was a chance of more, it was n't |