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Without, all was splendor and winter and night;
Within, there was summer and beauty and light;

For sunshine streamed down from the bright lamps, that swung
Like radiant stars, in each silver sconce hung.

Through rich damask curtains, with roseate glow
Like warm crimson clouds, the light flitted through.
Here ruby-lipped roses and red coral-flowers,
With snow-flaked japonicas, blossomed in showers.
And here, well befitting the glory around,
Bloomed Melanie Maxwell, sceptred and crowned
With such sovereign beauty. an eye like a star,
Rare wealth of luxuriant, golden-brown hair,

That rippled like threads of spun gold, when unbound,
Or braided all glossily, circled around

Her well-moulded head: her small pearl-cut ear,
Her rosy-tipped fingers, and cheeks seemed to wear
The softest rose flush of the pink-hearted shell;
Her forehead and throat like a lily's white bell
Were dazzlingly white; her mouth, like a bow,
Well threaded with pearls, in its ripe crimson glow.
And every outline of her well-rounded form
Was curving with loveliness, graceful and warm.

Here would we might pause. Strange that aught should mar
Creation so faultless, so dazzlingly fair.

Woe, woe, that the mandates of fashion should rule!

Let an angel be sent to a French boarding-school,

Its feet placed in stocks, its wings laced in stays,
Its tongue trained to twirr the "Français parlez,"
Trained by Madame at morn, and Monsieur at even,
It cannot but sully the livery of Heaven.

Poor Melanie's mother and she were twin-born,
Both woke into life on the same golden morn;
One baptism of sorrow to each brow was given,
But one grew on earth, and the other in heaven.

For ten pleasant years, the child scarce had known
Which one of the twain had been angel-born,
With a father's fond love, and a beautiful home
Where the world was shut out, no ill dared to come.

She woke with the flowers at earliest dawn,
She sang like the birds, she leaped like a fawn,
She laughed loud and clear, she shed real tears,
She trusted and loved without doubting fears.

Ten years of her girlhood, and then what a sin!
The bars were torn down, the world was let in-
Or she was let out; like a wild mountain-rose
Transplanted and torn from the soil where it grows
To a stifling hot-bed. She was sent off to school,
To breathe, think, and act exactly by rule;
She had the credentials, six towels, a spoon,
A fork of pure metal dug from the moon,
And so could be numbered among the elect,
The few all so fortunate, “very select."

The first year was spent in training her feet-
A step for the parlor, a step for the street,
A step keeping time to waltz, dance, and march,
A step à religeuse, in coming from church.
No step toward the right, no stepping-stone laid
For the temple of truth, in grandeur arrayed.

First her heels, then her head: the bow for a friend,
The nod for acquaintanceship destined to end,
The bow of empressement, when favor would win,
The bow going out, the bow coming in.

No bowing to God, no kneeling in prayer

To Him who had made her young life his fond care.

The heels, and the head and then the poor heart,

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With its pure aspirations, was fashioned by art.

The gushing affections were thoroughly pruned

Those wonderful harp-strings with new music tuned;
All pictures of memory hid from the light,

Love impulses murdered and buried from sight;
And so one by one they wore all away,

And carved out a statue from warm, breathing clay.

Six long, moulding years, and one finishing term,
That crushed from her heart the last child-like germ,
And then she went home: a triumph of art,
Accomplished, and dazzling, but minus a heart.

She could sing cavatinas with opera trill,
Make music to C, and screech higher still,
Burlesquing the skylark who warbles so high,
And turns silvery somersaults up in the sky.

She could dance the Cachuca and waltz the Sylphide,
Italian, French, Spanish could speak, write, and read,

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Could paint and embroider, powder and crochet,
Review the last romance, rehearse the last play,
Match colors and ribbons with exquisite taste,
Tell false lace from real, and diamonds from paste.
She knew the full value of charms when well set,
The key-note of fashion and folly, and yet
Of all the rich teachings that fit us for life,
(To the favored, at best, with weariness rife,)

To that outward-bound heart no word had been given.
That flower of mortality, blooming for heaven,
Had not learned one lesson meet for the sky-
Not taught how to live, nor taught how to die.

And thus she returned to her proud peerless home,
Where many a heart breathed a hearty welcome;
Established herself, in her beauty and pride,
With servants, and horses, and carriage to ride,
With sculpture and painting, and regal-piled rooms,
With jewels and velvets, and snow-waving plumes.
She passed in and out, courted and caressed;

She ne'er thought of blessing, just lived to be blessed;
She seemed like a butterfly gayly to roam;

To all of life's crosses and cares "Not at home."

"Not at home" to the sorrow that needed her aid;

"Not at home" to the stricken, with blood-crosses weighed; "Not at home" to the poor, whose blessings would braid

Fresh stars for her crown in heaven inlaid,

Fresh notes for the harp that each god-child sweeps

In time to the music that leaps from his lips.

"Not at home" to her friends, save she thought it worth while

To curve a fresh dimple, or light a fresh smile;

"Not at home,"
," "not at home," there's no flush on her cheek,
No scar on her red lip at telling a lie; .

For habit makes conscience both careless and weak,
And custom has sanctioned this unblushingly.

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Why barter thy birthright, life's lease of bright hours,
In frittering and marring those godlike soul-powers?
Why turn from the truth, in its sunshine, away,
To worship an idol with feet made of clay-

When, though thorns and roses are pressing our feet,
Each heart-beat is weaving its own winding-sheet ?

Who would not far rather, in careless undress,
Perhaps all awry, and dishevelled tress,

Come forth to the light—ay, brave the whole world—
Than to hear, when in ruins earth's fragments are hurled,
When red flame has wrapped the round earth like a scroll,
And lake, sea, and mountain together are rolled,

The accusing angel read sorrowingly:

"She has bartered her soul for a fashionable lie: Depart, nevermore with the blessed to roam;

I called, but no answer; ye were not at home."

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CARRIE BELL SINCLAIR.

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CHARLESTON journal calls Miss Sinclair "one of the sweetest

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By her many patriotic poems she is best known, although she possesses the qualities requisite for a superior novel-writer.

Miss Sinclair has passed nearly all of her life in Georgia, which is her native State, having been born in Milledgeville, the capital of the State. Her father, the Rev. Elijah Sinclair, a Methodist minister, was a native of South Carolina, as was her mother, and had just entered upon his ministerial labors as a member of the Georgia Conference when Carrie was born. The Rev. Mr. Sinclair was of Scotch descent, his mother being a sister of Robert Fulton, the inventor of the first steamboat. He labored faithfully as a minister of the gospel until within a few years of his death, when failing health compelled him to leave the pulpit. At the time of his death, the Rev. Mr. Sinclair was teaching a school for young ladies in Georgetown, S. C. He left his widow and eight daughters- the eldest only married. Carrie Bell was a child at this time, and felt this great sorrow as only one who is possessed of a poetic temperament can feel. Some three years after the death of her father, a younger sister died, and his grave was opened that the child's dust might mingle with his. It was upon this occasion that Carrie Bell penned her first rhymes, telling her childish sorrow in song. Soon after, her mother removed to Augusta, and then she commenced her literary career, writing because she could not resist the spell that lingered around her, and not that she had any desire to venture upon the road to fame. Her first appearance in print was in a weekly literary paper published in Augusta, "The Georgia Gazette," under signature of "Clara."

In 1860, she published a volume of poems in Augusta, of which says a reviewer: "Here and there the poetical element glitters through like the sunlight between fresh green leaves, and shows that she possesses some of the elements necessary for success.

"If the mind with clear conceptions glow,
The willing words in just expression flow.'

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