On a laughing morning in spring I quitted school for home, with all my buoyant feelings of filial and fraternal love chastised into wretchedness by the curse of Pilton.
Even the pine forests in which he rambled in boyhood, are still hallowed in his recollection.--_Farmer's Register_.
There is a bright and glowing loveliness in the climate of Virginia. Its sudden vicissitudes, like the smiles of the coquette, bring with them all the excitements of pleasing variety, and we half forget its momentary frowns in the constancy of its brightness. Spring dallies away all its freshness and gentleness among the hills, the flowers and the forests of Virginia; at this season of the year the cloudless sky, the exhilarating luxury of the noontide sun, the dark yet bright green of her woods and meadows, and the busy hum of animated nature, steal over the heart with a holy and impassioned sympathy. Habit, with all its deadening attritions, cannot wear off that admiration and rapture with which we revel in the softness of a Virginian day. Italy's burning sky awakens into ecstacy the sluggish native of England, and he breathes in polished verse the brilliancy of that clime which stands in bold relief against the gloomy fogs of his own sea-girt isle. We catch the delusive truth which poetry whispers, and forget that the climate of Italy is saddened, even in its brightness, by a tedious monotony which falls on the sated appetite. It is a spirit without animation, and burns on with the steadiness and glare of a sepulchral lamp. In Virginia it is diversified by endless and varied blushes of gentleness and beauty. The laziest cloud seems to roll away in voluptuous ether. The breeze murmurs through the forest, and lingers there to gather all its swelling fragrance. Every thing is redolent of that freshness of nature which fancy would invoke for the bridal of the earth and sky.
"And all the scene in short, sky, earth and sea Breathes like a bright-eyed face--that laughs out openly."
It was in this beautiful season of the year that, on turning an angle of the forest, the Chalgrave plantation with its stately mansion, extensive champaign and numerous cottages, broke upon our anxious view. The last rays of the setting sun poured their struggling light over the broad bosom of the Chesapeake, which reflected in trembling obscurity the shadowy outline of the forest, hill and plain. One bound from the chariot, placed me in my mother's arms. She was dignified even in her tenderness; and disengaging herself from me with a kiss, she left me to the affectionate salutation of Lucy, the warm greeting of Frederick, and the smiles of my uncle. A scuffle now ensued among the negroes who should be the first to grasp my extended hand; for in the fulness of my joy, I had offered this simple politeness with more of feeling than generally characterizes this striking indication of the well-bred Virginian. My old nurse sobbed, and laughed aloud in the rapture of her pleasure; the ostler commenced a tedious history of the pedigree, form, and swiftness of every colt on the estate; while the dining room servant told me that he was (Je-oh) delighted I had not learned to chew tobacco or wear striped pantaloons. For every salutation I gave, I received a compliment remarkable for its wildness of metaphor and for the affection which accompanied it. "Mass Lionel (said one) is a true Diomed, every inch of him." "He is born like the eagle, (cried another) a gentleman, and a man of spirit." "He is prettier (exclaimed a third) than all Miss Lucy's flowers!" I laughed outright at their odd and curious courtesy, and dismissing them with a promise that I would visit the aged and infirm in the morning, I lingered at the door, listening to their light and frolic laugh, which mingled and lost itself in the murmuring breeze which was now dancing over the Chesapeake.