And there they rest in dust and cold obstruction! Oh! that those who walk about in the beauty of the morning, with the greenness of earth around them, and the mysterious vitality which makes the elements in their nostrils, would think of this; considering truly their coming end!'
AMONG our frequent and always welcome early contributors, in prose and verse, was LEWIS W. MANSFIELD, Esq. Our old readers will recal the papers which appeared from his pen, under the signature of 'JULIAN.' His prose was more felicitous than his verse; although in the 'Morning Watch,' and other of his poems, there were many noble passages. The subjoined will afford an example of his humorous prose:
'IT would be amusing, if one could laugh at any thing so sad, to observe the humors of the few who think upon the bearings of this solemn time. In the year to be, there are many to come, many to go, and but few to tarry; yet _all_ have their ambitions of a life-time; those even, to whom the stars have grown dim, and life become almost a mockery under Heaven, dashing into the coming day with something of the old zest; while the many, the _oi polloi_, who have not yet made their grand move, are now ready, and think that therefore the earth is to take a new route in creation: forgetting that the old round must be the round forever. Nights sleepless with joy, nights sleepless with pain, nights long with watching, feverish thought; crime that stings like an adder, and nights short, with perfect rest; days long and weary, days bright and dashing, hot and cold, wet and dry, and days and nights with all of these--as hath been in the time that's past, and will be in the time to come.
'There is something very pitiable in these humors; indeed very laughable, if your mouth is shaped to that effect; but as it happens with me to-night, my mouth refuses to twitch except in one direction. Its corners have the 'downward tendencies.' Perhaps it is because this is with me the anniversary of a day upon the events of which are hanging the movements of all after-life; it may be this, and there may be thereto added the coloring of a winter's day. The wind howls about the house-tops, and the air pierces like needles; even the stars, when they look down in thousands, as the rack goes by, seem to shiver in their high places; yet perhaps there is nothing so personal in all that, considering that just so the wind howled last night, and may for a month to come; but oh! as I am a nervous man, and look back upon the circling months, and feel the sting here and the stab there, in that galvanic battery; and as I look forward with eager eye, and ear open to the faintest whisper of the dim to-morrow, it is not as the stars shiver from excess of light, but with a shudder at the heart from the cooler blood of ---- Good night, my kind EDITOR: that sentence is quite too long already, and there are some things too personal to tell.