"See, Bessie, see! you wear for once The bridal veil, forsworn for years!" She saw my face,--her laugh was hushed, Her happy eyes were filled with tears.
With kindly haste and trembling hand She drew away the gauzy mist; "Forgive, dear heart!"--her sweet voice said; Her loving lips my forehead kissed.
We passed from out the searching light; The summer night was calm and fair: I did not see her pitying eyes, I felt her soft hand smooth my hair.
Her tender love unlocked my heart; 'Mid falling tears, at last I said, "Forsworn indeed to me that veil, Because I only love the dead!"
She stood one moment statue-still, And, musing, spake in under-tone, "The living love may colder grow; The dead is safe with God alone!"
_The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies_. By ARTHUR HELPS. Vols. I. and II. London, 1855. Vol. III. London, 1857.
This work has a double claim to attention in America;--first, on account of its great intrinsic merit as a narrative of the beginnings of the European settlement of this continent; secondly, as containing a thorough and exceedingly able account of the planting of Slavery in America, and the origin of that system which has been and is the great blight of the civilization of the New World.
Mr. Helps is endowed in large measure with the qualities of an historian of the highest order. A clear and comprehensive vision, a wide knowledge and careful study of human nature, free and generous sympathies are united in him with a penetrative imagination which vivifies the life of past times, with a reverence for truth which excludes prejudice and prepossession, and with a profoundly religious spirit. The tone of his thought is manly and vigorous, and his style, with the beauty of which the readers of his essays have long been familiar, is marked by quiet grace and unpretending strength. There are many passages in these volumes of wise reflection and of pleasant humor. In the drawing of character and in the narration of events Mr. Helps is equally happy. The pages of his book are full of lifelike portraits of the great soldiers and great priests of the time, and of animated pictures of the scenes in which they were engaged.
