LITMIR.BIZ

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We went down to the Battery; the aquatic Vauxhall was lighted up very gaily, and they were sending up rockets every few minutes, which, shooting athwart the sky, threw a bright stream of light over the water, and, falling back in showers of red stars, seemed to sink away before the steadfast shining of the moon, who held high supremacy in heaven. The bay lay like molten silver under her light, and every now and then a tiny skiff, emerging from the shade, crossed the bright waters, its dark hull and white sails relieved between the shining sea and radiant sky. Came home at nine, tea'd and sat embroidering till twelve o'clock, industrious little me.

Tuesday, 11th.

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      This day week we landed in New York; and this day was its prototype, rainy, dull, and dreary; with occasional fits of sunshine, and light delicious air, as capricious as a fine lady. After breakfast, Colonel—— called. Wrote journal, and practised till one o'clock. My father then set off with Colonel—— for Hoboken, a place across the water, famous once for duelling, but now the favourite resort of a turtle-eating club, who go there every Tuesday to cook and swallow turtle. The day was as bad as a party of pleasure could expect, (and when were their expectations of bad weather disappointed?) nathless, my father, at the Colonel's instigation, persevered, and went forth, leaving me his card of invitation, which made me scream for half an hour; the wording as follows:—"Sir, the Hoboken Turtle Club will meet at the grove, for spoon exercise, on Tuesday, the 11th inst., by order of the President." Mr. ——and the Doctor paid us a visit of some length.

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      When they were gone, read a canto in Dante, and sketched till four o'clock. I wish I could make myself draw. I want to do every thing in the world that can be done, and, by the by, that reminds me of my German, which I must persecute. At four o'clock sent for a hair-dresser, that I might in good time see that I am not made an object on my first night. He was a Frenchman, and after listening profoundly to my description of the head-dress I wanted, replied, as none but a Frenchman could, "Madame, la difficulté n'est pas d'exécuter votre coiffure, mais de la bien concevoir." However, he conceived and executed sundry very smooth-looking bows, and, upon the whole, dressed my hair very nicely, but charged a dollar for so doing; O nefarious! D—— and I dined tête-à-tête; the evening was sulky—I was in miserable spirits.

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      Sat working till my father came home, which he did at about half past six. His account of his dinner was any thing but delightful; to be sure he has no taste for rainy ruralities, and his feeling description of the damp ground, damp trees, damp clothes, and damp atmosphere, gave me the rheumatiz, letting alone that they had nothing to eat but turtle, and that out of iron spoons.—"Ah, you vill go a pleasuring."

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      He had a cold before, and I fear this will make him very ill. He went like wisdom to take a vapour bath directly. ——came, and sat with us till he returned. Had tea at eight, and embroidered till midnight. The wind is rioting over the earth. I should like to see the Hudson now. The black clouds, like masses of dark hair, are driven over the moon's pale face; the red lights and fire engines are dancing up and down; the streets, the church bells are all tolling—'tis sad and strange.

      'Tis all in vain, it may not last,

      The sickly sunlight dies away,

      And the thick clouds that veil the past

      Roll darkly o'er my present day.

      Have I not flung them off, and striven

      To seek some dawning hope in vain?

      Have I not been for ever driven

      Back to the bitter past again?

      What though a brighter sky bends o'er

      Scenes where no former image greets me?

      Though lost in paths untrod before,

      Here, even here, pale Memory meets me.

      Oh life—oh blighted bloomless tree!

      Why cling thy fibres to the earth?

      Summer can bring no flower to thee,

      Autumn no bearing, spring no birth.

      Bid me not strive, I'll strive no more,

      To win from pain my joyless breast;

      Sorrow has plough'd too deeply o'er

      Life's Eden—let it take the rest!

Wednesday, 12th.

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      Rose at eight. After breakfast, heard my father say Hamlet. How beautiful his whole conception of that part is! and yet it is but an actor's conception too.

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      I am surprised at any body's ever questioning the real madness of Hamlet: I know but one passage in the play which tells against it, and there are a thousand that go to prove it. But leaving all isolated parts out of the question, the entire colour of the character is the proper ground from which to draw the right deduction. Gloomy, desponding, ambitious, and disappointed in his ambition, full of sorrow for a dead father, of shame for a living mother, of indignation for his ill-filled inheritance, of impatience at his own dependent position; of a thoughtful, doubtful, questioning spirit, looking with timid boldness from the riddles of earth and life, to those of death and the mysterious land beyond it; weary of existence upon its very threshold, and withheld alone from self-destruction by religious awe, and that pervading uncertainty of mind which stands on the brink, brooding over the unseen may-be of another world; in love, moreover, and sad and dreamy in his affection, as in every other sentiment; for there is not enough of absolute passion in his love to make it a powerful and engrossing interest; had it been such, the entireness and truth of Hamlet's character would have been destroyed. 'Tis love indeed, but a pulseless powerless love; gentle, refined, and tender, but without ardour or energy; such are the various elements of Hamlet's character, at the very beginning of the play: then see what follows. A frightful and unnatural visitation from the dead; a horrible and sudden revelation of the murder of the father for whom his soul is in mourning; thence burning hatred and thirst of vengeance against his uncle; double loathing of his mother's frailty; above all, that heaviest burden that a human creature can have put upon him, an imperative duty calling for fulfilment, and a want of resolution and activity to meet the demand; thence an unceasing struggle between the sluggish nature and the upbraiding soul; an eternal self-spurring and self-accusing: from which mental conflict, alone sufficient to unseat a stronger mind, he finds relief in fits of desponding musing, the exhaustion of overwrought powers. Then comes the vigilant and circumspect guard he is forced to keep upon every word, look, and action, lest they reveal his terrible secret; the suspicion and mistrust of all that surround him, authorised by his knowledge of his uncle's nature: his constant watchfulness over the spies that are set to watch him; then come, in the course of events, Polonius's death, the unintentional work of his own sword, the second apparition of his father's ghost, his banishment to England, still haunted by his treacherous friends, the miserable death of poor Ophelia, together with the unexpected manner of his first hearing of it—if all these—the man's own nature, sad and desponding—his educated nature (at a German university), reasoning and metaphysical—and the nature he acquires from the tutelage of events, bitter, dark, amazed, and uncertain; if these do not make up as complete a madman as ever walked between heaven and earth, I know not what does.[11] Wrote journal, and began to practise; while doing so—— called; he said that he was accompanied by some friends who wished to see me, and were at the door. I've heard of men's shutting the door in the face of a dun, and going out the back way to escape a bailiff—but how to get rid of such an attack

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