ome souls there are that seem close linked with the great heart of Nature by cords most delicate and sensitive. The glory of day, the glamour of night, the witchery of wind and wave, the wooing sense of tone and color, the gladness of spring and the glow of autumn, take hold upon them irresistibly, master them, control them, possess them. They are true poets, even though they never attempt poetic expression. They have a more perfect communion with the soul of poetry than lips can syllable or pen depict. Here and there may be found one who unites to this marvelous sympathy a marvelous art — the art of perfect description, of vivid portrayal, in which every tint is preserved, every symbol interpreted, every thought vivified and made clear. Pre-eminent among these is the author of

A FOUR-O'CLOCK. Ah, happy day, refuse to go! Hang in the heavens forever so! Forever in mid afternoon, Ah, happy day of happy June! Pour out thy sunshine on the hill, The piny woods with perfume fill, And breathe across the singing sea Land-scented breezes that shall be Sweet as the gardens that they pass, Where children tumble in the grass! Ah, happy day, refuse to go! Hang in the heavens forever so! And long not for thy blushing rest In the soft bosom of the West, But bid gray evening get her hack With all the stars upon her track! Forget the dark, forget the dew. The mystery of the midnight blue, And only spread thy wide warm wings While summer her enchantment flings! Ah, happy day, refuse to go! Hang in the heavens forever so! Forever let thy tender mist Lie like dissolving amethyst Deep in the distant dales, and shed Thy mellow glory overhead! Yet wilt thou wander — call the thrush, And have the wilds and waters hush To hear his passion-broken tune, Ah, happy day of happy June!

       Among the early contributors to The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine, the name of Harriet Prescott was often seen, and it speedily became associated, in the minds of appreciative readers, with a powerful imagination, rare grace of fancy, and lavish wealth of diction. The descriptive sketches and stories with which it was connected had a character, an individuality, peculiarly their own, and gave promise of exceptional literary performance later on. They all testified, with more or less emphasis, that here was a strongly poetic nature, expressing itself through the ordinary forms of prose. Critics found some fault with the writer's art — it was too prodigal of pigments, they thought, too extravagant, too like a very spendthrift of riches. But they were generous. They offered the common excuse of youth in behalf of her who, we suspect, would not have offered any excuse for herself; and they waited patiently for the better art, or what they were pleased to believe would be the better art, in work of maturer years.

Gaslight note: actually Sir Rohan's ghost (1860)

       Meanwhile the stories crystallized into books, and multiplied their friends. The first volume was "Sir Roland's Ghost," published in 1860, and succeeded by "The Amber Gods and Other Stories," which received wider perusal, and was followed in turn by "Azarian." "Azrian, An Episode," the author calls it, in hall humility. "Azarian, A Life," would be truer as a title, so much of richly endowed being is embodied in it. It is altogether unique. It has no rival; it can have none. In color it is a genuine Raphael; the tone is that of Beethoven, with all his exquisite possibilities. The "Moonlight Sonata" is more than hinted of in one touch:

       "He leaned over his boatside — miles away from any shore, a star looked down from far above, a star looked up from far below, the glint passed as instantly, and left him the sole spirit between immense concaves of void and fullness, shut in like the flaw in a diamond."

       "Azarian"is more than a story, although a very readable story it is: — it is a beautiful bouquet, of hues the most brilliant, and heavy with perfume. Another tribute to bud and bloom, so free, so unstinted, yet so choice, can not anywhere be shown. Its entire atmosphere is charged with the flavor and sweetness of flowers, and none who read it will be surprised at chancing upon some dainty "Flower Songs" from the same pen, one of which is breathed by

THE ROSE. I am the one rich thing that morn   Leaves for the ardent noon to win; Grasp me not, I have a thorn,   But bend and take my fragrance in. The dew drop on my bosom gives   The whole of heaven to searching eyes: Only he who sees it, lives,   And only he who slights it dies. Ah! what bewildering warmth and wealth   Gather within my central fold! Love-lorn airs of happy health   Hive with the honey that I hold. This dazzling ruddiness divine   Shrouds spicy savors deep and dear; Passion's sign and countersign,   The inmost meaning of the sphere. Petal on petal opening wide,   My being into beauty flows — Hundred-leaved and damask-dyed —   Yet nothing, nothing but a rose.

       Not alone does color hide in the heart of the rose and the veins of the violet. There is crimson in the sun set, azure in the sea. A hundred dyes lurk in the world around — in forest, wave and sky — seen of the few only, it is quite possible, unheeded by the many, but veritable existences, and part of the universal beauty. The white glow of sunlight begins and ends in color. There is more glory and gladness than men commonly observe in

DAYBREAK. Through rosy dawns of June I go,   Again the deepening sweetness part, While all their raptures round me flow   And bubble freshly in my heart. The broad blue mountains lift their brows   Barely to bathe them in the blaze; The bobolinks from silence rouse   And flash along melodious ways! And hid beneath the grasses, wet   With long carouse, a honeyed crew, Anemone and violet,   Yet rollicking, are drunk with dew. How soil the wind that blows my hair —   That steals the song off from my lip, And mounts in gladder tumult where   The numerous branches bend and dip! How proudly smiling on his love   The sun rides up the central blue, While like the wing of summer's dove   She changes to his changing view. All loveliness in every light,   Voluptuous beauty o'er her strewn, A thing to lap the soul's delight   While morning widens into noon.

       Harriet E. Prescott was born in Calais, Me., April 3, 1835, and educated in Deny, N. H., and Newburyport, Mass. After she had acquired a wide reputation, through the magazines and the books we have referred to, she was married to Mr. Richard S. Spofford at Newburyport, where her only child was born, and where she still resides a large part of the time. It would seem as if her home must have been always by the sea, so familiar is she with its lights and shades, the weather-wisdom of its followers, their superstitions and their whims. Coastlife, its solitudes, its companionships, its contrasts and its tragic possibilities, are to her ever as a lesson learned. She is equally certain of herself in calm and storm. She delights as much in the raging, roaring gale, as in tranquil swells and gently rippling waves.

       "The South Breaker" would justify any extravagant words we might use in this connection. Very wisely did Rossiter Johnson include that sketch in his admirable "Little Classics" series, for in th» field of contemporaneous Romance it has become classic. In its way, it is so perfect as to challenge criticism. Beyond its descriptive excellence literary art can not hope to go. And yet its description is not more graphic than much Mrs. Spofford has given us beside. In this respect her pen is almost dangerously facile. It overflows with verbiage, yet every word has the merit of fitness, and the reader would never have it more selfish of wealth. Indeed, Mrs. Spofford is one of the few writers whom it is a genuine pleasure to read for the words' sake simply, without regard to any meaning of the text. Her very sentences charm by their beauty, as well as fascinate often by their force. She is never sparing, yet never redundant. All that can be said, for the effect's sake, she says, but there she stays her hand.

       Yet one of the secrets of her marvelous art is the fact that she never seems to be saying anything for effect. No feature of any scene is introduced for an apparent descriptive purpose, to heighten the general view. It was all there, you feel, before she began. She is merely telling of what is. Like a true artist, she leaves nothing out, but she is pre-Raphaelistic. She is intensely real; so real that you see what she sees, feel what she feels. If her heart be passion-swept for an instant, so is yours. If she is gazing into the clear depths of heaven, your eyes behold the same stars. If fog and darkness chill her through and through, you shiver even as does she.

       This strongly realistic power is rare. It pre-supposes not only the most powerful imagination, but the keenest observation, and the most subtle sentiment — a sentiment that runs from heart to heart, from life to life, and of which we get a glimpse in the following

SONG. It was nothing but a rose I gave her,     Nothing but a rose Any wind might rob of half its savor,     Any wind that blows. When she took it from my trembling fingers,     With a hand as chill — Ah, the flying touch upon them lingers,     Stays and thrills them still! Withered, faded, pressed between these pages,     Crumpled, fold on fold — Once it lay upon her breast, and ages     Can not make it old!

       These three stanzas were first published in Harper's Bazar, to which Mrs. Spofford has been a frequent contributor, as were the three entitled

APRIL. A gush of bird-song, a patter of dew,   A cloud, and a rainbow's warning, Suddenly sunshine and perfect blue —   An April day in the morning! Magical, autumn hazes are,   And sweet is your summer weather With its purple midnight's throbbing star   Over lovers clasped together. But dearer to me these daring flowers   The passionate noontide scorning, This gladsome slipping of silver showers,   This April day in the morning!

       It is in the dear resurrection time of the year that a nameless longing fills every breast, mute, it may be, perhaps never striving for articulation, yet happily voiced in this apostrophe, likewise from the Bazar:

O, SOFT SPRING AIRS. Come up, come up, O, soft spring airs,   Come from your silver shining seas, Where all day long you toss the waves   About the low and palm-plumed keys! Forsake the spicy lemon groves,   The balms and blisses of the South, And blow across the longing land   The breath of your delicious mouth. Come from the almond bough you stir,   The myrtle thicket where you sigh — Oh, leave the nightingale, for here   The robin whistles far and nigh! For here the violet in the wood   Thrills with the sweetness you shall take, And wrapped away from life and love   The wild rose dreams, and fain would wake. For here is reed and rush and grass,   And tiptoe in the dark and dew, Each sod of the brown earth aspires   To meet the sun, the sun and you! Then come, O fresh spring airs, once more   Create the old delightful things, And woo the frozen world again   With hints of heaven upon your wings!

       But before the spring's gladness and promise there is ever a winter of weariness and regret, unless one remembers, as did Mrs. Spofford in Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, that there is something more than frost and death

UNDER THE SNOWDRIFT. Under the snowdrift the blossoms are sleeping, Dreaming their dreams of sunshine and June, Down in the hush of their quiet they're keeping Thrills from the throstle's wild summer-swung tune. Under the snowdrifts what blossoms are sleeping Never to waken with sunshine or June! Do they dream dreams of the eyes that are weeping — Under the snowdrift — by midnight and noon?

       Mrs. Spofford is a strange product of New England culture and life, if we are to measure these by accepted popular standards. That Puritanism could beget such fervidness of fancy, such fragrance of feeling, such exuberance of imagination and such warmth of passion as she embodies, who would believe? From thought in Quaker garb she takes us as by magic to thought robed in purple and scarlet. With her there are no neutral tints. Her colors are pronounced, distinct, glowing. Is it be cause she seems to stand forever so near to the tragic side of things? She does seem to stand there — to see the unwritten tragedies that none may ever read — to take at times a morbid pleasure in the pains and griefs that vex so many, and make sad the world. Yet when any of her characters are tragically overcome, one can not resist the fancy, or haply the feeling, that she grieves over it even to the bitterness of tears.

       Mrs. Spofford's later books are "New England Legends," and "A Thief in the Night." Her work is chiefly for the magazines, and consists mainly of short stories, so full of popular interest, albeit so admirable as to art, that they are generally copied by the newspapers, and extensively read. She writes comparatively little verse, but what she does put forth meets commonly the same wide perusal. If it be never so strong, so intense, as her prose, there is small wonder. Such power never expresses itself to the fullest extent in two ways.

       We have alluded to Mrs. Spofford's intense sympathy with Nature. In the following it is plainly apparent, and as we read the wish will rise that we might be where it is always

AFTERNOON. The boat is rocking on the river;   The river life is all awake;     The tide is coming in; A thousand ripples run and shiver;   Oars flash; and where the waters break     Flashes a silver fin. Oars flash and dip; as if on wings   We sweep above the sweeping stream.     While like a fount of light Into the sun the sturgeon springs,   And blue the arrowy swallows gleam     Above us in their flight. Beyond the breakers and the bar   The great ships with their swelling sails     Are tossing out to sea; They slide through night and distance far   For gulfs where brood the unknown gales     To tempt the mystery. But we, between the blossoming shores,   Wilt pluck the boughs, will mark the rills,     Tumbling their foam along, Will wait, in resting on our oars,   Some message from the mighty hills,     Or catch some plowboy's song. Or, happier we than they whose choice   Pursues the dark and awful swells,     Thus, till the stars, to roam, And turn when, like a mother's voice,   We hear the tender evening bells     Chiding us sweetly home!

       Something of Mrs. Spofford's philosophy — aye something of her faith, that sweeter, better thing — shines out in a poem on "Sorrow," which personifies the goddess of grief, and questions if, finally, there be any hope in death.

Then Sorrow, pale and statuesque,   Lifts heavenward her blind blue eyes, While, gorgeous as an arabesque,   The bloom of summer round her lies. Though she nor blossom sees nor star,   The murmur of the wind she hears, And answering, smiles more awful far   Because forlorn of any tears "In God's great music I   Am the unfailing minor, And every sigh, spreading from heart to eye,   Throbs on the chord diviner. "My fate is Him I trust,   To whom alone I hearken; My Lord and King, my Merciful and Just,   More bright as shadows darken! "I grasp hearts till they bleed,   I strengthen bitterly, I sow a seed which saints indeed,   Reap for me utterly. "On cheerless roads no smile   Breaking to echoing laughter; His patience I accept a little while,   And find His joy hereafter. "O dreary, dreary stay!   Yet on great faith relying, Blind to the gay, fleet pageant of to-day,   What splendor comes through dying!"

       Then comes another question, re-echoing in so many hearts even now:

"What is that last dread breath — to die?"

and we cannot better close this chapter and our book than by giving Sorrow's sweet and beautiful answer:

"To feel God's glory breaking through   Heaven after heaven, and streaming down To gather off the cold death-dew   And wipe my forehead in its crown; "To hear a voice unheard before.   Or in a dream but dimly guessed, Whose fall more sweet than sea to shore,   Whose burden — 'Child, come to thy rest!' *    *    *     *    *    * "To wake on light at dead of night,   To float on seas most clear and broad, To read the scroll of life aright,   To die — and find Thee, Lord!"

 
[THE END]