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- 5685
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-28T02:27:23.049Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5607
- text
- youthful mind look forward to some anticipated scene of festivity!
Imagination is busy sketching rose-tinted pictures of joy. In fancy, the
voluptuous votary of fashion sees herself amid the festive throng, ‘the
observed of all observers.’ Her graceful form, arrayed in snowy robes,
is whirling through the mazes of the joyous dance; her eye is brightest,
her step is lightest in the gay assembly.
“In such delicious fancies time quickly glides by, and the welcome hour
arrives for her entrance into the Elysian world, of which she has
had such bright dreams. How fairy-like does everything appear to her
enchanted vision! Each new scene is more charming than the last. But
after a while she finds that beneath this goodly exterior, all is
vanity, the flattery which once charmed her soul, now grates harshly
upon her ear; the ballroom has lost its charms; and with wasted health
and imbittered heart, she turns away with the conviction that earthly
pleasures cannot satisfy the longings of the soul!”
And so forth and so on. There was a buzz of gratification from time to
time during the reading, accompanied by whispered ejaculations of “How
sweet!” “How eloquent!” “So true!” etc., and after the thing had closed
with a peculiarly afflicting sermon the applause was enthusiastic.
Then arose a slim, melancholy girl, whose face had the “interesting”
paleness that comes of pills and indigestion, and read a “poem.” Two
stanzas of it will do:
“A MISSOURI MAIDEN’S FAREWELL TO ALABAMA
“Alabama, goodbye! I love thee well!
But yet for a while do I leave thee now!
Sad, yes, sad thoughts of thee my heart doth swell,
And burning recollections throng my brow!
For I have wandered through thy flowery woods;
Have roamed and read near Tallapoosa’s stream;
Have listened to Tallassee’s warring floods,
And wooed on Coosa’s side Aurora’s beam.
“Yet shame I not to bear an o’erfull heart,
Nor blush to turn behind my tearful eyes;
’Tis from no stranger land I now must part,
’Tis to no strangers left I yield these sighs.
Welcome and home were mine within this State,
Whose vales I leave—whose spires fade fast from me
And cold must be mine eyes, and heart, and tête,
When, dear Alabama! they turn cold on thee!”
There were very few there who knew what “_tête_” meant, but the poem
was very satisfactory, nevertheless.
Next appeared a dark-complexioned, black-eyed, black-haired young lady,
who paused an impressive moment, assumed a tragic expression, and began
to read in a measured, solemn tone:
A VISION
Dark and tempestuous was night. Around the throne on high not a single
star quivered; but the deep intonations of the heavy thunder constantly
vibrated upon the ear; whilst the terrific lightning revelled in angry
mood through the cloudy chambers of heaven, seeming to scorn the power
exerted over its terror by the illustrious Franklin! Even the boisterous
winds unanimously came forth from their mystic homes, and blustered
about as if to enhance by their aid the wildness of the scene.
At such a time, so dark, so dreary, for human sympathy my very spirit
sighed; but instead thereof,
‘My dearest friend, my counsellor, my comforter and guide—
My joy in grief, my second bliss in joy,’ came to my side.
She moved like one of those bright beings pictured in the sunny walks
of fancy’s Eden by the romantic and young, a queen of beauty unadorned
save by her own transcendent loveliness. So soft was her step, it
failed to make even a sound, and but for the magical thrill imparted by
her genial touch, as other unobtrusive beauties, she would have glided
away unperceived—unsought. A strange sadness rested upon her features,
like icy tears upon the robe of December, as she pointed to the
contending elements without, and bade me contemplate the two beings
presented.
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