The moon was waning from the sky, when Ariadne woke, "My Theseus! love!" He answer'd not. Where now the god-like face, That still, like young Apollo's, glowed at the touch of her embrace? "My love, my lord, where art thou? Speak!" But all around was still, Save the breaking surge upon the shore, and the wolf upon the hill. She rush'd in terror from the tent, she stood beside the sea- Up to the cliffs she sped, and there, on the purple ocean's verge, Low down upon the rock she sank, and her long black locks she tore, And the tears fell from her eyes like rain, till she might weep no more. Where now that dipping sail? 'Tis gone! and she has rush'd away, And with bare and bleeding feet she stands amid the dashing spray. "Was it for this, false Theseus, that ye lured me from my home? "And could no gentle thought of me, no thought of all the pain That's bursting here-here at my heart, thy purpose fell restrain? Woe, woe, and were thy promises of destiny like this? Are these thy festive spousals-these our hymeneal bliss? "Thou, too, whose very life was mine, by me to life restored, "I might not be thy wife, perchance, if such thy sire's decree; "Oh, would, Almighty Jove! the fleet had never touch'd the shore, "Lost, lost where shall I turn me? Oh ye pleasant hills of home, How meet my father's gaze-a thing so doubly steeped in guilt, "Yes, lover then! but now, just gods! alone he cleaves the deep, No hope, no succour, no escape-none, none to hear my pray'r, "Yet, ere these sad and streaming eyes on earth have look'd their last, 66 Come, then, ye that avenge on man his guilty passions dire, Ye maids, whose snake-wreath'd brows bespeak your bosoms' vengeful ire! Come ye, and hearken to the curse, which I, of sense forlorn, Hurl from the ruins of a heart with mighty anguish torn! 66 Though there be fury in my words, and madness in my brain, She sank upon the stormy beach, like one whose life is spent, MARIE VON THE merit of bringing prose works of fiction to bear on the general knowledge and welfare of society, may fairly be awarded to Goldsmith, Maria Edgeworth, and Sir Walter Scott; but between Goldsmith and Miss Edgeworth, on the one hand, and Scott on the other, there is this remarkable difference, that the latter, with a more extended poetic feeling, availed himself of descriptions of nature, of great truth and power, and brought them artistically to bear on the general object of his work. But how difficult is it to find one in the crowd of modern writers imbued with the spirit of the immortal novelist, with his exalted motives, poet mind, and painter's eye. True, we have a servile herd of imitators, pouring out their crudities and crammed knowledge in the three-volume romances; we have the depictors of fashionable frivolity and vulgarity in abundancethe disappointed egotist, venting his misanthropy, under the guise of a morbid sentimentalism-the political novelist, shooting his small, though pungent satire, at living characters_ and the Dutch painters of ignorance and low life, of vice and of infamy, in their deepest dens. One entry more, and our list is nearly complete-we have the religious novelists, now divided into the low and high-church schools, most of whose works are but trading speculations to meet an existing market. But in none of these classes can the work now before us be placed. Though a work of fiction, it is not a novel, as the word is commonly used; and, though inculcating the priceless value of religion, it has no character in common with the weak and vapid productions of religious novel-writers. With a slender plot, and unartificial design, its motive, execution, and extraordinary beauty, claim for it a place among those works of imagina ARNHEIM.* tion that seek, by artistic methods, to teach, refine, and elevate us. It is The elucidation of the doctrine, that a natural religion, or a pantheistic philosophy, even when assisted by the most favouring circumstances, is no safeguard against the commission of the deepest crime, has been already attempted by religious novelists. But the story of Marie von Arnheim stands alone in its freedom from the glaring objection of class writing. If it is a religious novel, it is the first of its kind. a Christian novel, adapted equally to the Calvinistical or the high-church reader to the churchman, Dissenter, or Roman Catholic. It shows that, under circumstances the best adapted to expand the moral feelings, to improve the heart by the purest affections, and to make young life happy in the enjoyment of home, and the abounding love of father, mother, sister, brother, and lover-while all these blessed influences acted on a noble nature-yet, from ignorance of God's law, a terrible calamity followed. That law, too, not as we may educe itnot as it is given in this or that section of Christian belief-but as it is taught to her infant child by every Christian mother, in all lands, and under every dispensation-the law of his love, his will, and his vengeancethe simple, the written, the unmistakable law. But the interest and beauty of the story urge us to commence its analysis, while we commend to all who read the work, the concluding words of the introduction: "Reader! I would ask your pity and your prayers, but that ere this reaches your hand, the soul which guides mine will be where human pity can no longer soothe, nor prayers avail. Thither must thou one day follow,-remember this, and be merciful!" Marie von Arnheim was the second "Memoirs of Marie von Arnheim," written by herself. Translated from the original manuscript. Small 8vo. London, 1848. VOL. XXXI.-NO. CLXXXV. 2 x daughter of a nobleman residing in one of the German principalities. Her elder sister, who is ten years her se. nior, she had never seen; and the circumstance of her residing at a great distance with a relative, by whom she had been adopted in infancy, deprived Marie of a knowledge even of her character. When the story opens, the family consisted of her parents, herself, and a brother three years her junior; and the life, the love, and the death of this brother have a fearful influence upon her fate: "At length the nurse appeared, and, with a radiant countenance, exclaimed, 'You have a brother, Fraulein Marie!— get up quickly and come to kiss him.' "You have a brother!'--how did the words echo through my childish heart! How, even at this moment, can I recall the delicious, entrancing sensations with which I sprang up, and, without waiting to be dressed, bounded into my mother's room? She lay there, pale but happylooking, and by her side, so rolled up as scarcely to allow a glimpse of the tiny face, my brother! Who can say that a child does not feel? As I was held up, and bent forward with a mixed and indefinable sensation of awe and longing to kiss the sleeping babe, a love sprang up in my soul, which through life has been-in death will remainunchanged." With the growth of the child, this holy and instinctive affection increased. Every amiable quality was developed in him; his mind was precocious, his beauty exquisite, while a delicate and sensitive nature excited the love and interest of all around him. This was the happy time of Marie's life. One influence excepted, everything which could exalt and refine was shed around her. She lived in an atmosphere of happiness, which she felt and returned to all. A sister was born, and, to complete her felicity, she had a young, generous, and noble lover, who was as a brother to her young brother, and a son to her parents. Life was to her one springday of fresh and genuine joy. She visited the poor with her father. The children flocked around her, the old people blessed her, and her heart exulted in the happiness which she felt she could bestow. "Our house was situated upon a slope commanding a splendid prospect of the pine-clad mountains of the Black Forest. At the foot of the garden flowed a clear and rapid river, and my father had taken advantage of a sudden winding in its course to form a little bay or basin for the convenience of the family in bathing. A magnificent weeping willow overshadowed this spot, and here we used to sit and read.during the long summer days; and our happiest hours being spent under its shade, Eugene had long since named the friendly tree our Paradise.' One day, about a year after the death of the Count von Ehrenstein, as I pushed aside the branches to enter, I saw Alfred standing upon the seat, and busily occupied in carving something upon the bark. 'Don't look yet, Marie!-don't look till I tell you to do so,' he cried, hearing my step. "I stood watching the swan as it glided over the water in the sunshine, until he said, 'Now, Marie, now look!' "I did so, but only saw his name and my own, inclosed within a rude imitation of a wreathed serpent. I smiled, and looked inquiringly at him. "I was sitting here alone, Marie,' he said, and thinking over our happy life, and wondering what might be before us, and whether we could ever feel otherwise towards each other.than we do at present; it seemed to me impos sible that we should become changed, and I felt that our love and our life are inseparable. Then as I thought of all the hours spent under this tree, every thing pleasant and everything sorrowful that ever happened rose up like living For a moment it things around me. appeared to me as if they were real; and then all passed away, and a sense of desolation came over me, such as I had never experienced before. the first time I knew what the words "the past" mean, and that a time must come when everything would be "the past." I became very sad, and the idea occurred to me that our tree would live when we were no more, and that I would like to carve our names upon it, and wreathe them with what papa told me yesterday was the emblem of eternity; and then I was so happy.' For "And forgot me!' said a voice behind us. We turned and met a reproachful glance from Eugene. "No, dearest Eugene, we did not; indeed we did not forget you, nor never shall,' I said. "He made no answer, but taking out a penknife, began working on the tree, and in a few moments his name appeared carved within the charmed circle, itself forming an inner one around our names, Now,' he said, with triumph sparkling in his dark eyes, now you cannot forget me!'" During this period, the education of Marie was conducted according to her father's peculiar opinions; and as his character furnishes the key to the entire story of Marie, we will extract it, and her own reflections upon it : "He was a truly noble being, rich in the nobility of both head and heart. Truth was his idol-not in a limited sense, but that eternal truth which is the essence of all that is good and beautiful in art and nature. He had an extraordinary power of extracting what was best from all things. His fine imagination could revel in the dreamy mysticism of German metaphysics, no less than in the refined wit and seductive sentimentalism of the French school of philosophy, charmed by the talent and ingenuity there displayed, and yet untainted by-nay, it appeared nearly unconscious of the contaminating influences which they almost invariably exercise over hearts less pure and minds constructed of less simple elements. Alas! he forgot that from the same flower whence the bee innocuously sips honey, rank poison may be distilled. He dreamed not that the studies which to him were only sources of elevating thought and ennobling sentiment, could exert any injurious influence on his child! "He knew little of the world, for his own abstracted and ideal nature had preserved him from its evil influences; nor was he practically aware of the temptations to which each and all, according to their various characters, are exposed in their journey through life. He became a father whilst still himself a mere child in real knowledge of man's strange and inconsistent nature. Truth appeared to him so distinct in all its graceful loveliness, that he knew not how any could fail to see, to love, and to choose it. Why,' said he, 'fetter a child with dogmas of theology and wordy principles, when Nature speaks to him of the glory of its great Creator, and the intuitive perception of the exquisite harmony of all things teaches the lesson of universal love? No, my children shall be untrammelled; never will I say to them, this or that you must believe; never shall my poor and meagre language dare to interpret the voice of God to their souls.'" "My education at this time, and always, was conducted according to my father's peculiar opinions. The greater part of each day was spent with him in the study of Latin and Greek, and he gave me also a thorough knowledge of my own and of the Italian and French languages. I was in the constant habit of reading history with him, and as to general literature was left entirely to my own fancy, untrammelled by restrictions of any kind. "Whether any other plan than that adopted by my father might have wrought out, so far as I was concerned, a different result, I can only conjecture; yet surely, O my father! you knew not what you did, when, without one word of caution, without a fixed principle, ignorant of man's nature in general, and still more ignorant of all which peculiarly marked my own, you left me to drift among the perilous shoals of metaphysical speculation, bewildered by the mists of a vague though fascinating scepticism. The false and dreamy, but often poetical forms of a merely sentimental religion, enchanted and lured me from those simple truths which might have guided and saved me, and then left me to sink, and rise no more! Yet wherefore, my beloved father, do I blame you? You did but leave me as you yourself had once been left. Your simple, true, and beautiful nature found its way through all in safety; how then should you have feared that from the same fountain whence you drank a pure and life-giving stream, your childyour Marie could imbibe poison?" But a dark cloud soon overshadowed this livelong summer-day. It became necessary that her elder sister, Barbara, totally a stranger to all within the house, should return, and become longing, Marie and her brother set one of the family. With love and out to wait for and meet her at Dresden, only to experience a crushing disappointment. Barbara was, in every respect, the opposite to what their loving hearts hoped for. Coarse, selfish, deceitful, cruel, without taste, and without principle, she soon destroyed their paradise, and turned their happy home into a continued scene of shame and heart-burning. The catastrophe was now approaching. The happiness of home had vanished. Her brother's heart was broken, his health was impaired, and there was no hope for him but in flight from his father's roof, a houseless wanderer. Her parents were bowed down by the conflict between their love of the good, and their duty to the bad; and all this evil was ren |