Various

“ The fears of the vicious and the hopes of the upright—the profane ribaldry of the profligate, no less than the humble thanksgiving of the morning and evening sacrifice, do homage to the gospel as the religion of the American people. Our eloquence and our poetry—our periodical and popular literature in all their varieties—the novel, the tale, the ballad, the play, all make their appeal to the deep sentiments of religion that pervade the popular bosom. Christianity is our birthright. It is the richest inheritance bequeathed us by our noble fathers. ”

“ Are those times passed forever? dear Rosalie!—will you never let me take you on my knee and call you wife again?"
"When we have done with our girlhood, we have done with our plays," said Rosalie.
"I do not mean in play, dear Rosalie," cried Theodore. "It is not playing at man and wife to walk, as such, out of church. Will you marry me, Rosalie?" ”

“ When I take up my pen to record the impressions of the day, I sometimes turn within myself, and wonder how it is possible, that amid the strife of feelings not all subdued, and the desponding of the heart, the mind should still retain its faculties unobscured, and the imagination all its vivacity, and its susceptibility to pleasure,—like the beautiful sun-bow I saw at the falls of Terni, bending so bright and so calm over the verge of the abyss, which toiled and raged below. ”

“ Theatre Royal met his eye. "Happy is the successful dramatist!" exclaimed Theodore to himself; "at night he is greeted by the applause of admiring thousands, and in the morning they are repeated, and echoed all over the kingdom through the medium of the press! What will Rosalie say when her eye falls upon this!"—And what, indeed, would Rosalie say when she read the utter damnation of her lover's drama, which the critic denounced from the beginning to the end, without presenting his readers with a single quotation to justify the severity of his strictures! ”

“ The mind of the improvvisatore must be exercised to employ every style: the simple—the flowery—the majestic—the pathetic—the sublime—to combine ideas with the rapidity of lightning;—in a word, he must know all the springs of the human heart, in order to move it at his will, as if by enchantment.
Although it may seem paradoxical, it is seldom for want of ideas, that a man fails in being eloquent. Thought is always ready—always instantaneous. ”

“ It is to the watchful care of a mother's love, that those first principles of moral wisdom are implanted in childhood, which ripen into the blossoms and fruit of maturer years; and it is to the reproving virtues and refining tenderness of the sex, through all its mutations, from blooming sixteen to the matronly grace of forty—that man is indebted for all that is soft, and for much that is noble and wise, in his own character. ”

“ Are we to be doomed forever to a kind of vassalage to our northern neighbors—a dependance for our literary food upon our brethren, whose superiority in all the great points of character,—in valor—eloquence and patriotism, we are no wise disposed to admit? Is it not altogether extraordinary that in this extensive commonwealth, containing a white population of upwards of six hundred thousand souls—a vast deal of agricultural wealth, and innumerable persons of both sexes, who enjoy both leisure and affluence—there is not one solitary periodical exclusively literary? ”

“ We are too old, and ought to be too proud to lag behind even some of our younger sisters, in the cultivation of one of the most attractive departments of human knowledge. It is folly to boast of political ascendancy, of moral influence, of professional eminence, or unrivalled oratory, when, in all the Corinthian graces which adorn the structure of mind, we are lamentably deficient. It is worse than folly to talk of this "ancient and unterrified commonwealth"—if we suffer ourselves to be terrified at the idea of supporting one poor periodical, devoted to letters and mental improvement. ”

“ Bishop Ravenscroft fixed on him one of those piercing glances which seemed to read the soul; and then tears, like large rain-drops stood upon his cheeks. Recovering from his emotion, he pronounced, with affectionate dignity, the benediction, "the Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."
The Patriarch, bowing down a head, heavy with the snows of more than fourscore winters, breathed a thanksgiving to God, and turned homeward, followed by all his kindred. ”

“ Switzerland is not Italy—is not the enchanting south. This soft balmy air, these myrtles, orange groves, palm trees; these cloudless skies, this bright blue sea, and sunny hills, all breathe of an enchanted land; 'a land of Faery.'"
At Naples our traveller was fortunate enough to witness a brilliant eruption of Mount Vesuvius—and overcoming the natural timidity of her sex, she resolved to ascend the mountain at midnight attended by chosen guides and companions. Her account of the terrible spectacle is too graphic to withhold from our readers. ”

“ Yet was not Theodore portionless. His education was finished; that term he had completed his collegiate studies. If his father had not left him a fortune, he had provided him with the means of making one himself—at all events, of commanding a competency. He had the credit of being a young man of decided genius, too. "I will not offer Rosalie a beggar's hand!" exclaimed Theodore; "I shall ask her to remain true to me for a year; and I'll go to London, and maintain myself by my pen. It may acquire me fame as well as fortune; and then I may marry Rosalie?" ”

“ For some time indeed, the situation of a voyager, who for the first time crosses the ocean, possesses sufficient novelty to interest him; nor is the scene around and above him, destitute of all that can attract the eye and excite admiration. The ship itself is an object worthy of attention. It is delightful to see
to watch the billows which she spurns from her prow, chafed into foam as if enraged at the impotency of their attempts to resist the superiority which the genius of man asserts over their mighty waters. ”

“ I have seen all I loved, or that loved me, struck down to the earth like dead leaves in autumn, and now I stand like an old tree withering alone in the world, without roots, without branches and without verdure. I have only just enough of sensation to know that I am miserable, and the recollection of the happiness of my youthful days, when careless and full of blissful anticipation, I was a laughing, merry boy, only adds to the miseries I now endure. ”

“ It was the lay-reader, speaking of the hope of the resurrection: "If we believe that Christ died and rose again, even so them also, that sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him."
Full of thought, I pursued my homeward way. I inquired, is Devotion never encumbered, or impeded by the splendor that surrounds her? Amid the lofty cathedral,—the throng of rich-stoled worshippers,—the melody of the solemn organ,—does that incense never spend itself upon the earth, that should rise to heaven? ”

“ He has embellished and vivified the grave experience of age with all the warm enthusiasm of youth, and has taught his countrymen the most severe and self-denying devotion to purposes of good, in lessons of so amiable a tone, as to win many a young champion to virtue by the kindness of his persuasion. His sketches of character are pleasantly graphic, and leave us room to believe that, either, in the drama or in that species of fictitious history which the great enchanter of this age has made so popular a vehicle for profound philosophy, he would have attained to an exalted fame. ”

“ One may easily imagine the state of the young fellow's mind. To be driven with insult and barbarity from the house in which he had been received a thousand times with courtesy and kindness—which he looked upon as his own! Then, what was to be done? Rosalie's uncle, after all, had told him nothing but the truth. His father had died a beggar! Dear as Rosalie was to Theodore, his own pride recoiled at the idea of offering her a hand which was not the master of a shilling! ”

“ Though highly gifted with the powers of imagination, and of course capable of exciting that faculty in others, her object seems to be rather to touch the springs of the heart and awaken the moral feelings of our nature. Her spirit is not only imbued with poetry but religion. In all her productions that we have seen, there is a direct tendency to improve as well as to delight. She is an example altogether worthy of imitation among the professors of literature, in enlisting all its allurements in the great cause of human virtue. ”

“ It is this art which is called nature, and which gives immortality to literary productions. The work which does not awake our sympathy—which is not in harmony with the feelings of our nature—and which is not expressed in words best suited to its subject, can never acquire fame for its author. Hence the importance of the improvvisatore's studying mankind—hence the necessity of learning to imbody his ideas in appropriate language.—As each passion has its peculiar expression and style, the improvvisatore must engrave on his mind, the association of suitable expressions for every feeling ”

“ What are the preliminary acquirements of a good improvvisatore? He must embrace the whole circle of human knowledge. He must know the fundamental principles of nearly all the arts and sciences, (I do not mean by this, that it is necessary he should possess the details connected with them—that is above human strength) —he must be acquainted with all the revolutions in which human genius has been displayed—he must be familiar with all important discoveries, and with the deeds of great men, in all ages and countries. ”

“ With the sublime system of revelation resting ever in his thoughts, the christian law hung like a tablet upon his breast, and duty ever pointed her finger to the sculptured commands that were graven there to serve him as a manual of practice. He loved old forms and old opinions, and, with something like a patriarch's reverence, he headed his little family flock on their Sunday walks to church: morning and evening he gathered them together, and on bended knee, invoked his Father's blessing on his household ”

“ In truth, they have no cause whatsoever, either for unkindness or jealousy. If we only continue to patronize their multitudinous magazines, they will pocket our money and praise us as a very generous and chivalrous race; or if, perchance, some juvenile drama, or poem, or some graver duodecimo of southern manufacture, should find its way to the seats of learning and criticism beyond the Susquehanna, it is an even chance, that in order to preserve the monopoly of the southern market, they will dole out to us a modicum of praise, and render some faint tribute to rising merit. ”

“ Shall it be said that the empire of literature has no geographical boundaries, and that local jealousies ought not to disturb its harmony? To this there is an obvious answer. If we continue to be consumers of northern productions, we shall never ourselves become producers. We may take from them the fabrics of their looms, and give in exchange without loss our agricultural products—but if we depend exclusively upon their literary supplies, it is certain that the spirit of invention among our own sons, will be damped, if not entirely extinguished. ”

“ At the close of the communion service, when about to depart to his home, the white-haired man drew near to the Bishop. Gratitude for the high privileges in which he had participated; reverence for the father in God, whom he had that day for the first time beheld; conviction that his aged eyes could but a little longer look on the things of time; consciousness that he might scarcely expect again to stand amid these his children, to "behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple," overwhelmed his spirit. ”

“ When the sweet tones of a small organ, mingling with the voices of a select choir, gave "glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end," the young children of the forest started from their seats in wondering joy, while the changing color, or quivering lip of the elders, evinced that the hallowed music awoke the cherished echoes of memory. ”

“ It is mingled in our hearts with all the fountains of sentiment and of faith. And are the guardians of public education alone 'halting between two opinions?' Do they think that in fact, and for practical purposes, the truth of christianity is still a debateable question? Is it still a question whether the generations yet to rise up and occupy the wide domains of this great empire—to be the representatives of our name, our freedom and our glory, before the nations of the earth, shall be a christian or an infidel people? ”

“ They are tinged with the deep misanthropy of Byron, and yet have all the flowing smoothness and vivacity of Moore. Shall it be said after reading such poetry, that the muses are altogether neglected in the Ancient Dominion—that there is no genuine ore in our intellectual mines which with a little labor may be refined into pure gold? Shall it be longer contended that we are altogether a nation of talkers, and that politics, summer barbecues and horse-racing are our all engrossing and exclusive recreations. In truth, is not this the very land of poetry! ”

“ The distant, but undimmed impressions of infancy and childhood,—the planting of that once wild waste,—the changes of those years which had sprinkled his temples with gray hairs,—all, with their sorrows and their joys, came back, associated with the lifeless image of his beloved sire. In the bitterness of bereavement, he covered his face, and wept. That iron frame which had borne the hardening of more than half a century, shook, like the breast of an infant, when it sobbed out its sorrows. ”