Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1850-10-17

Been married! Bless you, sir, Mr.. Bridges
was her fourth husband
Poor, deluded mortal! How was the briom
mirror Of love, which so long had charmed the
wanderers moral vision, dashed into thousand
fragments! How was his lifelong devotion
rewarded! The charm was broken-his dream
OF love was ended he could not wish to see
the widow Of four husbands, and call her Ma
ry! He returned by the way he came, and no
one knew that he ever beheld his native land
again
This is my belief respecting the mysterious
affair. and nothing except stubborn facts can
ever convince me that my impressions are in
correct.
remember the time when Mrs. Bridges ap-
peared in black, on the occasion of the death Of
her third husband; and as my memory saws
that her mourning was a little faded, wonde.
II 1t was ever worn before! And if so. on
what occasiont A strange thought flashes
across my mind. The late Mrs. Bridges was
an economical woman, and cannot drive the
fancy from my brain, that the same monrninp
apparel was made to serve on more than one
occasion. Little, imagine, did DR.. Calcraft
know that the weeds he prevailed upon the
young widow Wing to lay aside, would be
brought to light again at his own f;,neral,-
What strange circumstance, if the same an
parel was put on to express grief for four diff.
ferent husbands, and slightly altered to suit
the fashion Of the times, What must have
been the sensations of the late Mrs. Bridges,
when she brought forth her mourning for the
fourth time, remembering that it had already
served as the outward expression Of three griefs
each as heavy as the present, which might be
forgotten as easily as its dark predecessors,
in our church-yard, writes my friend, in
conclusion, there are FIVE mounds, built side
by side. and facing the same way. The old
est of these, marks the resting-place of the
consumptive attorney, and the newest, that of
his widow. The three intervening stones were
erected to the memory of Messrs. Calcraft,
Harwood, and Bridges
What lesson! Who can boast Of length
of years. The glory Of this world passes.-
There is nothing certain but death There is
no truth so important and impressives as that
read upon the white slabs of church-y yard
But those five mounds-for my Imagination
transports me to them-and their five, silent,
mouldering tenants. Once they were all full
Of life on1 hono Thox, boJ a.
they felt, they had their individual sorrows and
individual joys. Friends, they had, who loved
them in life, and grieved for them in death
enemies, too, no doubt, who hated them living,
and forgave them dead They fought the bat
tie of life, and after many defeats and many
triumphs, here they lie conquered, as all of US
must be at last. One after the other faded out
of the dream of earthly existence, and vanish
ed. Here sleep they side BY side What
matter it which fitted from the vision first l.
The world moves on as ifthey had never lived.
Those who mourned for them, mngle gaily
again in the dance of life, as if they never had
known sorrow. In hundred years, nobody
would know that they had ever existed, were
it not that have seen fit to commemorate them
in paper written for posterity!
But those FIVE mounds, and their FIVE, silent,
mouldering tenants! What relations do they
bear to each other! l wonder, now, what
were the sensations of the late Mrs Bridges,
as she saw the mounds accumulate, and pur-
chased tombstones for them in succession -
When there was but one mound, her grief was
great. When there were two, was it doubledl
Was it threefold, when she wept over three
husbands beneath the sodt Was it fourfold,
when she buried the lamented Bridges1 Or,
in her grief for the last, were all his predeces-
sors forgotten. Did she pass by the old graves
without sigh, when she went to weep over
the new one, Or, with the fickleness of
more worldly heart, did she grieve less and less
on each occasion, when she was called to grieve,
and shed fewer tears on the four mounds to-
gether, than on the first alone, But why do |
speculate thusi What are the tenants of those
five mounds to me, What did they do for me,
Nothing-only they have furnished a subject
for an excellent article, and have rewarded
them therefor with Immortality
have been dreaming. There is nothing
beneath those mounds nothing but clay. Clay
1 venerate not. l lack respect for corpses.-
Why, then, mediate over a tombstone! Here
lies, means He is not here Death, something
tells me, is the beginning of life. The last
sleep is an eternal awaking. To die, is to
pass from dream into real existence These
FIVE mounds, therefore, tell US that there are
five spirits more in another world. Then l
will not say-'Peace be to their ashes,' for /
hold ashes to be Of no account; but / will say,
may their souls rest in happier sphere, and
may there be no jealousy between the life COM
panions and the late Mrs. Bridges.