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Editor's Table, May 1852

From: Editor's Table
Creator:  A (author)
Date: May 1852
Publication: The Opal
Source: New York State Library

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24  

And here where the billows so fearfully roll,
And clouds of thick darkness envelope the soul,
All hushed was the tempest, to list to your song,
For the sweetest of numbers to you still belong.

25  

With fingers well s-?-illed, and senses refined,
The pages of God are conveyed to your mind,
And fancy illumes, and has richly supplied
What God in his wisdom to you has denied.

26  

Then light be your hearts, as the soft summer air,
For the angels of glory for you sweetly care,
They watch you by day, and at night in your dreams,
They'll come round your pillows, and fold their bright wings.

27  

And last, among the Sylphs and Nainds, came the Hutchinson Family, whose minstrelsy is so pure and soul-absorbing as to subdue the soul into its symphony, and bear it along the tendernesses of its vale to the perfectnesses to which it conducts.

28  

It was during the administration of Dr. Brigham, that this Family were introduced, when Abbey was with them, charming as if an angel all who heard her sweet tones.

29  

In the sweetness, chasteness and skill of the music of this ever to be admired and cherished group, there is a presence that ensures the respect of all who listen to it.

30  

It elevates, it encourages in the "good time coming," it lures to temperance in "cold water," it points to Heaven in "where shall rest be found," it inspires a respect and confidence in "the domain of our Uncle Samuel," and in imitations of the Crow, and the Scotch Bag Pipes, imagination loses itself in doubt as to the reality.

31  

It were idle to say that the music of the Hutchinson Family was aught else than like dew of Heaven to the wearied and thirsty, refreshing and comforting beyond expression.

32  

For the little books they sent, for us to look upon when they were gone, we are deeply indebted, as initiating us into a knowledge of themselves and their engagements, which their modesty forbids them personally to express. We will remember the children of the Granite State, as we love to cherish her most distinguished Son, and wish that these minstrels might awaken an interest in their travel, for one whose glory is not to be confined to the simple spheres of greatness in great scenes; but is prepared for the retired hamlets of his native hills, and for the palace-built cities and marts, and only needs our enthusiasm of remembrance, to arouse to action for the highest office of the republic the noblest of sympathies for the noblest of men. To one of our ladies' we are indebted for the following:

33  

The wise and the good are entranced by thy lays,
And princes have offered their tribute of praise,
But language is cold, and faintly can tell
How bright was the hour and sunny the spell
When ye came to the home of the weary and sad,
And bid the crushed heart for a moment be glad.
May the Eden you make ne'er from you be riven,
Till ye sing "a new song' in the mansions of heaven.

34  

But as our worthy Chaplain says, "we must hasten on with our subject."

35  

We are not vain enough to item such great works as the English Reviews, and if we have heretofore expressed our opinions of them, and of our own dear country, in frank terms, they were honest.

36  

There is the Westminster Review, the Edinburgh Quarterly and British Reviews, the Whig Review and Democratic Review, Graham's Magazine, Godey's Lady's Book, Littel's Living Age, and Journals of Medicine and Surgery, in all of which the intellect sustains itself, in its orb of saneness, so far as we are able to judge.

37  

The intellect, in the pride of its domain, as it disposes of States and Empires, Kings and People, changes and conditions, scoffs at any departure from its own loftiness, and too often, like the Peacock strutting in the consciousness of its splendid feathers, is abashed on beholding the ill proportion of its understanding.

38  

"The Brain, the material organ by which all the mental faculties are manifested is exceedingly delicate; and but partially developed in childhood," and lunacy, overexcitement of it, is exceedingly hazardous, and we must submit ourselves to the calm, the dispassionate judgment of our patrons, hoping that the ethereal mildness of spring will be welcomed to every heart; that the fruitfulness of these pages. will be enhanced by the promptness through which the public becomes as one person in all that comforts the heart, or encourages the minds, of the errant children, who are afflicted by God's fiat. Spare us, good Lord, from all things evil that our litany deplores. Spare us from the ills of a dependent state, a shrivelled, snivelling age, an ignoble maturity, a reckless youth, and charity that cheats us of years filled out in phantasies, rather than the spurring mementoes of rational existence, impelling to independent action, and to the performance of duties that meet the approbation of our God, and assimilate us to those whose buoyant hearts are palpitating amid the excitements and interests of a world, abounding with absorptions and expansions, and that rushes in its mighty torrent with unconscious travellers destined to the immensities of eternity. I

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