Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/352

. with his hands in vain, he cast himself in the bottom of the boat and groveled like a worm, whose ghastly form was still before him.

On, on rolled the stream, and with it came the bark that was carrying the murderer to destruction. It was now within a few yards of the rapids. He perceived the imminent danger of his situation without the power to avoid it. His shrieks for aid were heard on either shore, and struck terror into every heart. Cold drops of agony collected upon his forehead, and they chased each other down his pale checks. "Oh, God!" he cried. "If succor could arrive, how willingly would I yield up life upon the scaffold?" Once more, his energies appeared to revive. He sprang up in the boat and, with a maddened effort, seized and tore the only seat from its place and used every endeavor to stem the current that was carrying him to his death. But how vain was the effort? All hope had now fled; he was in the rapids and whirling on with the velocity of lightning. Another breathless pause, and he is on the brink of a fall. One moment more, and the murderer stands in the presence of his God.

About a week after the day upon which the above events transpired, the lifeless remains of a man were taken from the river several miles below the falls. The remains were large in stature, and from the proportions of the body, they were supposed, when possessed with life, to have been endowed with almost superhuman strength. No one could be found to recognize the body, the features being so mutilated. But by more than one, it was supposed to be all that was left of one who had escaped death in one form, only to meet him in another more terrible. T. S.

The sonnets of Milton are not the least remarkable of his productions but fully evince the genius of the author of Paradise Lost. Who has read, without feeling all the fervent indignation of Milton, the sonnet entitled "On the Late Massacre in Piemont?"

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, when all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, Forget not: in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their groans redoubled to the hills, and they to heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred fold, who, having learned thy way, early may fly the Babylonian wo.

TRUE LOVE.

BY ELLEN ASHTON

"And so you believe in love!" said Edgar Thurston, knocking the ashes from his cigar and looking calmly into his friend George Burton's face. "I really thought better of you." "I am sorry that I have lost your good opinion, but I congratulate myself that it has been lost for a good cause. I am not ashamed to acknowledge that I believe in love and, even more, that every young man ought to rejoice at the existence of a passion that is his salvation. You smile, but shew me the young man who is truly in love, and I will shew you a person whose views of life are brightened, whose heart is softened as by the dews of heaven, and whose thoughts are purer and holier than they ever were before. Women are all akin to the skies and never grow debased until either a husband or lover makes them so—when we love them, therefore, we insensibly imbibe a portion of their purity, which remains with us until our own brutish nature drags us down again to earth, too often, alas, bringing our wives with us. But, while the first romance of the passion endures, we are different beings from what we have been, or ever will be. The very sky seems brighter; the wind is more musical than old; the voice of the commonest rivulet fills us with strange delight; and we look on all men with kindlier feelings, out of regard to her whom we love. A young man who is truly in love cannot be guilty of criminal or dishonorable conduct. How many have been led to pause in some base act? How many have been saved from the first step in crime—how many have been rescued from the lowest depths of vice by the influence of some pure-hearted girl, whose love had become to the erring individual the jewel of great price,' and who, he knew, would shrink back in her heavenly-mindedness from contamination with such a wretch as they either were or contemplated becoming! No-no-love is the dearest gift to man! Without it, the earth would be a Golgotha, and life a den of torment." "Heigho ! how eloquently you have grown. One would think you were reciting a popular lecture or making some sentimental Miss in her teens agree. With you, love is the great panacea for all human ills, just like the celebrated pills, which cure everything from corn to consumption. Really, my dear fellow, I am shocked that a man who ought to know so much of the world should talk in this strain about a passion, in which not two sensible men out of a hundred believe. I don't mean to say that there is not a certain feeling that every lover entertains for his mistress or his husband for his wife, but then this feeling is no more what you call love than women are angels or wives one's'household god.' To give you an idea of what I mean, you