“ Wine works wonders, and now let us fill our glasses to the brim, and have another dulcet cream, and depart for the Metropolis,—and at our nocturnal farewell, let us kneel and swear beneath the universal concave, that we will cling to each other like Damon and Pythias, or Burr and Arnold, until our wormy conquerors begin their happy feast, and grin and dance over our silent and icy forms in the dreary and awful sepulchre. ”

“ While leaning on the railing of the steamer, with our eyes on the beautiful panorama of the bay, Captain Bunker told me that my lot was cast in a vicious city, and that I must resist evil temptation, and always be a good boy, and become a worthy man, and breathed other kind words into my ears, which soothed my lonely and inexperienced heart, made me cry vociferously, and I have always cherished him with the purest affection. ”

“ We pace the streets in excited contemplation, and waggons, and rustics, and butchers, and debauchees, and homeless wanderers pass us in rapid succession, for whose hard and mysterious destiny, our poor heart beats high in tearful sympathy. We pass on, and intoxicated girls, of incomparable beauty, reeled by our side, who had just emerged from dens of infamy, where they had been decoyed, and their virginity forever blighted by incarnate demons. ”

“ Dressel is a great pianist, and came to this country with letters to me from the leading men of Germany, and I have the highest confidence in his integrity, and I permit him to visit my family, and he often passes his leisure in my house, and teaches music to my daughter, and they often sit for hours at the piano, and play duets and sing together like brother and sister; and I think they admire, but do not love each other, as she is betrothed to a southern gentleman of great affluence. Otto I love, and so does my wife, and other children, and we treat him like one of us ”

“ All her purest and most sacred affections are concentrated on another. But Otto will ever be welcome to my house, for I like his delightful music and his modest demeanor, and I cannot and will not believe that he could be guilty of dishonorable stratagem, to rob me of my favorite child. ”

“ The sun and moon and romantic stars performed their wonted evolutions, and Potts and Wainwright had their salaries increased, and rose to Bishoprics and the giddy alpines of the godly avenues, and we went to the setting sun, and almost beyond the world. On our return from the bleak, and shady, and snowy slopes of the Rocky Mountains, in 1849, we dwelt with Mrs. Mitchell, at the corner of Houston and McDougal streets, whose family consisted of [3] her daughter, two nieces, a sister, and Otto Dressel, a teacher of piano music, whose style was soft, pensive, sacred, and bewitching. ”

“ I repeat what I said at our interview, (in reply to your assertion of implicit confidence in your daughter,) that you must not lose sight of the frailties of our nature, with its unreliable and treacherous impulsions, nor of the power of genius, nor the extraordinary fascinations of music (in the hands of a great master) , over the delicate, unsophisticated, and enthusiastic mind of a female, with kindred musical genius; and that even opposing natures often form alliances of friendship and matrimony.
From your friend,
Stephen H. Branch.
To Rev. Dr. George Potts. ”

“ The Reporters of the Common Council have received 200 dollars each for their laborious services, which is a happiness to us beyond expression. We know their generous emotions, and their evening toil in a sickly atmosphere, some of whom have the ability and genius to wield the destinies of a city or nation. ”

“ I cried and screamed lustily, and during the scuffle, two gentlemen came to my relief, when my antagonist soon fled, and I run down Cliff street, like a bloodhound. Better time was never made from the old pump of Saint George’s to the Harpers. ”

“ Albert went to Providence with Captain Bunker, but instead of going to father’s, he proceeded to Boston with the money John Harper gave him, and thence to Eastport, Maine, where the yellow bugs increased so rapidly, that he was compelled to return to Providence, where father had his head shaved, which presented a bloody battle plain, full of teeming entrenchments, and his yellow foes so bewildered him, that the hospital nurses had to watch him closely, for several days, lest he would destroy himself. ”

“ He has, withal, the modesty which is the companion of true merit. His second concert was given at Niblo’s Saloon, on Thursday evening, and it was attended by as full and fashionable an audience as that which welcomed him on Tuesday evening. Mayseder’s grand variations were given for the second time, upon a single string; the second attempt was even more successful than the first, and the young artist gave the highest proof of genius in overcoming difficulties previously regarded as insurmountable. Another gem of the soiree was a duet for violin and piano-forte, by Julien and Richard Hoffman. ”

“ Time rolls! Mr. Perkins, a young lawyer, (formerly of Natchez, but who had removed to New Orleans,) comes North, and marries the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Potts, and they sail for Paris, where he discovers in her trunk the very letters that Dressel wrote her while at Mrs. Mitchell’s, in response to her “drop notes,” and also letters from Dressel that she had just received in Paris, which were enclosed in her mother’s letters from New York. ”

“ Miss Potts remains single, and is a noble ornament of society. One of Mrs. Mitchell’s nieces was seduced by a monster, and had a child, and she soon became a prostitute, and her mother a lunatic. Julia Mitchell married a Southron, who professed great wealth, but proved to be a pauper, and a villain of the deepest calibre. ”

“ Shakespeare, himself, was long a correspondent of Hamlet’s grand-father, and introduced the dance in Hamlet from his respect to his old friend, which Johnson ejected during the very year that Shakespeare died, because he had a quarrel with Hamlet’s grand-father in a ball-room, in Denmark, when Johnson not only got licked, but had his nose broken in five places, besides the horrible and irremediable fracture of its tip end. This is the gist of the whole Astor Place quarrel, and MacCready was familiar with all these historical truths, and hence his introduction of the dance in Hamlet. ”

“ It was a grand “variation” in the form of five one thousand dollar bank notes, a gift to the young musical genius. The following extraordinary letters describe the affair:
New York, April 21, 1854.
Master Paul Julien: I have heard your delightful music in the Concert room, and you have had the kindness to play for myself and friends at my residence. In earlier life I strove to learn the violin, but I abandoned it as too difficult for me. Its intricacies are unconquerable to all save those who are inspired. ”

“ Paine & Phalon in musical, or lottery and policy operations, and buy as many millions of dollars’ worth of land in Williamsburgh and Greenpoint, and own as many licentious houses in Church, and Leonard, and other streets, as you desire, and I will not cull a solitary hair from your beautiful and conscientious skull. What is your response?”
Kingsland.—“Have I not declared that you were my first choice for Chief of Police?”
Matsell.—“Yes. But that was only a verbal declaration. I desire the bird in my own cage. ”

“ Dressel sometimes receiving as many as three letters per week; that a colored boy has sometimes brought the letters; that these letters (at least those Miss Mitchell perused, at Mr. Dressel’s request,) comprised six closely written pages, with the name of your daughter annexed, beginning with: “My dear, dear Otto:” and with “My dearest and very best friend,” &c.; that these letters bear the impress, on the seal, of “Happiness,” “Pain,” “Eye,” &c; that Mr. Dressel has your daughter’s daguerreotype, which has been open on the piano, in the parlor of Mrs. Mitchell, or on the piano or bed in Mr. ”

“ And then we divulged all we have here narrated, when he arose, and, with his hands clasped, he cried in tones of melting tenderness: “What! my daughter! my darling child, who is the hope and solace of my being, to drop notes for Otto Dressel in Houston street! Impossible, sir—impossible—utterly impossible. Mr. ”