Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1864-12-01
ed, and sickly win YOU be INV wife


= VIII love you all my life long I''
! That was all they said-but IL was eDoiicb.
But, Frank, tell me how it all happened ~
- It was your uncle's plot, love / was "
ing IN the h0spital-sick, wounded. diving. as
: thought-when this letter came, teiiiug me
OF your remoTse at what you fancied was
your unkindnesS. 1t was written without
your knowledge; but, Jessie, it was ike a
/ draught of immortality, an elixir of life to
NE. l grew better under the very ewes of
| the surgeon, who had told me was doomed
man. And here l am, On sick leave, to hear
my happiness again from your own lips"
The sweet lips confirmed his hope-but it
was not in words.
Il declaIem said Hezekiah, rubbing his
hands gleefully, 1t seems just Ike Story
in printed books! But there was the time 1
thought l should let the cat out of the bag
when you sat cryin' by the window last night,
Jessie. But I'm glad l didn't tell. Frank
wanted to surprise you, and I guess he's done
itp
Frank Steele, sitting before the merry
Thanksgiving blaze, with Jessie's hand in his,
te-t that the great reward of all those mid
night watches and perilous battles had come
at last. May every gallant soldier in the
land reap the same sweet harvest.
Browning AND TENNYsoN.-How marked
are the differences between the new volume
of the Laureate and the "Dramatis Persona"
of Mr.. Browning! They show why the for
mer draws his pipe of wine, or the commuta-
ton thereof, from the British Treasury; while
the other still sup plies himself at the vint-
ners. Simplicity and level sentiment, fine
and noble vein, characterize the Laureate.
Mr.. Browning is not less fine and noble but
he has subtilty which loves to set forth ex-
ceptional moods and characters. He does
truly set them forth, notwithstanding that his
style is so chary of words, his sentences so
clipped of explosives and the ordinary con-
junctive helps to the reader. Tennyson gives
you his plain roast and boiled. 4 baron of
beef always heads his board. Browning puts
up MS pemmican, and you sometimes find it
troublesome TO force the can But an ounce
of it nourishes the brain all day. You can
travel on it like Peruvian Indians on their
cocoa. He does not involve or swathe his
thought, so that, after undoing furlongs of
wrappers, you find a mummy, very well kept
and entirely superfluOus. But he breads lest
his thought should be concealed in dilution
of words, so that the reader would have to
swim to take it in, with mouth wide Open as
a whale swims league to get his lunch of
squids. Neither does Mr.. Tennyson dilute
his rare and gentle feeling, but it is detached
from him in equable pulsations, and does not
leap in concentrated sparks. Mr.. Browning's
emotion accumulates till the act of expression
is like the return of electric fluid to an equi-
Gbrium. SMILES of half page CLOSELY
packed, flash to their period. Nervous lines
are the boiling down of an ordinary paragraph.
And when this subtle action does not move,
as it often disdains to do, upUu the ordinary
meridians of the earth's surface, but follows
aerial currents, both painting time and
readers toll after him in vain. Is it that
there is too little time, or not enough of the
reader? The insinuation is excusable. since
Mr.. Browning has written things that are
cherished by great and ever increasing au
dience that loves his manliness sincerity and
power.
In reading Mr.. Browning, one often misses
precious thought, or very delicate and sub
tie fancy, because the attention flags from its
last effort. In climbing the steep face of
cliff, one does not notice the first time all the
flowers. In reading Mr.. Tennyson rare places
are slipped over by accident, their style is so
smooth and so unobtrusiye. A watt of some
thing sweet and healthy just makes YOU turn
back, and the violet couches in the grass, not
hid nor unwilling to be gathered. "Enoch
Arden" end "Aylmer's Field" are full of these
meadow glories. They have so little trouble
and make so little parade in growing, that the
reader does not always think to sto0p IF he
goes striding on, as the fashion is in modern
books, he misses star-shaped and lightly
tinted petals that nod on slender stems
Christian EE0Da1ser.