The Deformed Girl

Memory - mysterious meraory! - holy and blessed as a dreara of Heaven to the pure in spirit - haunter and accuser of the eruilty! - unescapable presence! Lingering through every vicisitude, and calling us back to the past - back to the dim and sepulchral images of departed time - opening anew the deep fountdn of early passion - the thrilling aspirations of after yeurs! While the preaent ie dark with anguish, and the future gladdened by the sun-bow of anlicipation, I invoke thy spell of power. Unroll bèfore me the chartof vanished hours; let rae gaze once more on their sunlight and shadow. I am an old man; the friends of my youth are gone A-om me. Some have perished on the great dcep; others on the battle field, afar off in the land of strangers; - and niany very many, have been gathered quietly to the old ehurch-yard of our native village. They have left me alone - even as the last survivor of a fallen forest - the hoary representative ofuepaneu gcneralions. The chaina which bound me to existence have been broken Ambition, Avarice, Pridc; even all that avvakes into power the intolerable íhirst of mind.- But there are eome milder thoughte - some brighter passages in the dream of my being, yet living at the fountain of Memory - tho'ts, pure, and angelicoromunion; Hnked by a thousand associations to the paradise of love. There was one - a creature of exalted intellect-a being whose thoughts went upward like the incensé of flowers upon God's natural altars- they ware so unlike to earth. Yet she was not proud of her high gift.- With the highest capacities of an unboundedspint, tbere was something more than woman's meekness in her demeanor. It was the condescension of seraph intellect-the forgiveness and teais of conscious purily, extended to the erring and paesionate of earth.She wu not a being to love with an earthly affection. Her person had no hormon with her mind. It was not like the bright realities of being, the wcalth of beauty which is sometimes concentrated in the matchless form of wotnan. ft was defortni ty - stranre, peculiar defonnity, relieved on!y by the intellectual glcry of á dork, soul like eye. Yet 6trange as it may seem, I loved her, deeply, passionately, as the young heart can love when it pours itself put as an oblation to its idol. There were gentle ones around me - creatures of smiles and blushee, soft tones and melting glances, but their beauty made no lasling impressions on my heart. Mine was intellectual love - yearning after sometbing invisible and holy- something above the ordinary 6tandard of human desire, eet apart and sanctified as it vere by the mysteries of the mind. Mine was not to be revealed in the thronged circle of gaiety and fashien, it was avowed underneath the bending heaven; when the perfect stars were alone gazing upon us. It was rejected; but not in Bcorn, in pride nor anger, by that high-thoughted girl. She would ask my friendship - mysympathy! but she besought me- ave, with tears she besought me, to speak no more of Love. 1 obeyed her. I fled from her presence. Irningled once more in the busy tide of being. and ambition entered my soul. Wealth came upon me unexpectedly; and the voice of praise became a familiar sound. I returned at last wilh the impress of manhood upon my brovv, and sought ogain the being of my dreams. She was dying - Consumption - pale, ghastly Consumption was taking hold on her existence. The deformed and unfitting lenement waa yielding to the impulse of the soul. Clasping her wasted hand I bent over her in speechlesa agony. She raised her eyes to mine, and in those beautiful emblema of the soul, I readthe hoarded affection of years - the long smothered emotion of a sraothered heart. 'Henry,' she Eaid, I bent lower to catch the faliering tones of her voice - 'I have loved long and fervenlly. I feel thal I am dying. l rejoice at t. Earth will cover this wasted and unseemly form, but the soul will return to that promised and better land, where no chance or circumstances can mar the communication of Spirit. O, Henry, had it been permitted! but I will not murnmr. You were created with more than manhood's beauty, and I deformed- wretcbed as I am I have dared to [ove yon. I knelt down and kissed the po.le brow of the suffèrer. A smile of moie than earthly tendemess stole over her features, and fixedthere like an omen of the spirits hsppiness. She was dead. And they buried her on the spot which she herself had selected- adelightful place oí slumber, curtained by green young villows. I hnvestood there a thousand times in quiet moonligbt, and fancied tliat I heard in every breeze that whispered among the branches the voico of he beloved sluinberer. Devoted giül tby beautiful spirit hath never abandoned me in my weary pilgrimawe.- Gently and eoothingly thou comest to watch over my sleeping pillo w-tO cheer midst the trials o'f humanity - to roingle thy heavenly sympathies with my joys and sorrovvs, and to make thy mild reprovinga known and feit in the darker moments of existence; in the tempest of passion, in the bitternees of crime. Even now, in the awful calm which precedes the last change in my being, in the cold shadow which now strefcffes from the grave to the presence of the living, I feel that thou art near lo me- "Thyself a pure and sainted one, Watch iug the frairand lovedof earth."