The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-01-23

memory is fraught with sorrow and trouble. My
| memory is as the memory IF other men, but other
men have not this choice. Yes, WILL forget my
sorrow, wrong and trouble,''
''Say,'' gaid the Spectre, SIS it done?''
| cit is"
s'lT u.s. And take this with you, man whom |
here renounce, The gift that have given, you
| shall give again, 90 where YOU will Without re-
| covering yourself the power that you have yielded
up, you shall henceforh destroy its like in all whom
| you approach. Your wisdom has discovered that
the memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble is the
| lot of all mankind, and that mankind would be the
happier, In its other memories, without 1t. Go. be
its henefactor! Freed from such remembrance, from
| this hour, carry voluntarily the blessing of such
freedom with you. Its diffusion is inseparable and
inalienable from you Go! Be happy in the good
You have won, and in the good YOU do,
| The Phantom, which had held its bloOdless hand
| above him while it spoke, if in some unhoiy in
vocation, some ban and which had gradually
advanced its eyes close to his, that he could see
how they did not participate in the terrible smile
upon its face but were fixed, BILE, steady
horror; melted from before him. and was gone.
As he stood rooted to the spot possessed by fear
and wonder, and imagining he heard repeated in
melancholy echoes dying away fainter and fainter,
the words g Destroy its like in all whom you ap-
preach - shrill cry reached his ears. 1t came,
not from the passages beyond the door, but from
another part of the old building and sounded like
the cry Of some one in the dark who had lost the
| way.
He looked confusedly upon his hands and limbs,
if to be assured of his identity, and then shouted
in reply, loudly and wildly: for there strange
ness of terror upon him, as if he too were lost
The cry responding, and being nearer, he caught
up the lamp, and raised heavy curtain in the wall,
by which he was accustomed to pass into and out
| of the theatre where he iecturad, which adJolned
his room. Associated with youth and animation,
| and high amphtheatre of faces, which his en-
| trance charmed to interest in moment it was
ghosty place when all this life was faded out of it,
and stared upon him like an emblem of Death;
g Haloa 20 he cried. g Halloa This wayl Come
| to the light" When. as he held the curtain with
one hand, and with the other raised the lamp and
tried to pierce the gloom that filled the place, some
thing rushed past him into the room like wildcat,
| and crouched down in a corner.
| "What is it 20 he said hastily
He might have asked $. What is it," even had he
seen it well, as presently he did, when he stood
| looking at it, gathered up in its corner.
| A bundle of tatters, held together by hand, in
size and form almost infants, but, in its greedy,
| desperate little clutch, bad old mans. A face
rounded and smoothed by some half dozen years,
but pinched and twisted by the experiences of life.
Bright eyes, but not youthful. Naked feet, beaut-
full in their childish delicacy-ugy in the blood and
| dirt which cracked upon them. baby savage a
| young monster, child who had never been
| child, a creature who might live to take the out
! ward form of man, but who, Within would live
| and perish mere beast
| Used, already, to be worried and hunted like
|
and looked back again, and interposed his arm to
| ward off the expected blow.
| ''1'll bite, - he said, if you hit me-"
The time had been, and not many minutes since,
| when such sight as this would have wrung the
| Chemists heart. He looked upon il now. coldly:
but with a heavy effort to remember something-he
| did not know what-he asked the boy what he did
| there. and whence he came.
| "Where IS the woman - he replied. 6" want
| to find the woman
| Nbo
| 'The Her that brought me here, and
set me by the large fire. She was so long gone
that went to look for her, and lost myself don't
| want you. | want the woman
| He made spring suddenly to get away, that
the dull sound of his naked feet upon the floor
| near the curtain when RedlaW caught him by his
| rags.
| ''Come you let me go!' muttered the boy,
struggling and clenching his teeth. 81 we done
nothing to you. Let he go, will you, to the wo-
MANI
| "That is not the way. There is a nearer one"
| said Redaw, OBTAINING him, in the same blank eff
| fort TO remember association that ought, of
| right, to bear upon this monstrous object What
| Is your name =
| " Got none"
| "Where do you live 20
| Live, What s that 20
The boy shook his hair from his eyes to look at
him for moment, and then, twisting round his legs
and wrestling with him. broke again into his repe-
| the woman
| The Chemist led him to the door "This wav,"
he said, looking at him still conusedly but with re-
| pugnance and avoidance, growing out of his cold
ness. II take you to herr
The sharp eyes in the child's head, wandering
round the room, lighted on the table where the rem
| nants of the dinner were.
Give me some of that ~ he said, covetously
= Has she not fed you!''
8 l shall be hungry again tomorrow, sh'a'nt :!
Amt HUNGRY taV ~
Finding himself released, he bounded at the table
like some small animal of prey, and hugging to his
breast bread and meat, and his rags, all toge-
| Their, said,
"There. Now take me to the woman!''
As the Chemist with new-b born dislike to touch
him, sternly mooned him to follow, and was going
out of the door, he trembled and stopped.
'The gift that have given, you shallgve again,
go where you will,'
The Phantoms words were blowing in the wind, |
and the wind blew chill upon him.
"Ell not go there, tonight, he murmured, faint
ly. iii go nowhere tonight. Boy straight |
down this ong-arched passage, and past the great
dark door into the yard-you will see the fire shin
ing on window there"
The womans fire 20 inquired the boy.
He nodded, and the naked feet had sprung away |
He came back with his lamp, locked the door hast
w. and sat down in his chair covering his face like
one VINO frightened at himself.
For now he was, indeed, alone. Alone, alone.
CHAPTER H.. THE GIFT DIFFUsED
small man sat in small parIour partitioned
off from small shop by small screen, pasted all
with small scraps of newspapers. In company
with the small man almost any amount of
small children you may please to nalne-at least
it seemed so they made in that very limited |
sphere of action, such imposing effect in point
of numbers.
OF these small fry, two had, by some strong ma
chinery, been got into bed in corner where they
might have reposed snugy enough in the sleep of
innocence, but for constitutional propensity TO
keep awake, and also to scuffle in and out Of bed
The immediate occasion of these predatory dashes |
at the waking world was the construction of an !
oyster shell wall in corner, by other youths
of tender age; on which fortification the two in |
bed made harassing descents like those accursed |