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tions which to me are the most delicious of all the many our country produces, that charmed me. She moved about among the several cases of exhibits, arranging an old costume in one and propping up in another a miniature of some Revolutionary worthy in yellow waistcoat and blue coat, with hair in a cue, her thin fingers touching them as reverently as a devotee would the bones of a saint.

But that voice of hers!

It may be because of the associations of my own early life. I can still remember the broad arms and capacious lullaby rest of the old black mammy who brought me through from babyhood to boyhood-or it may be because those and succeeding days accustomed my ears to the cadence of the liquid voices of the South, but certain it is that to-day there is no sound that escapes human lips so grateful as are the soft tones of a Southern woman.

so plain, and so many of her sisters have trod the wine-press, too, and still do. Yet nothing has ever embittered the sweetness of their natures or cramped their generous hospitality. What they had they gave gave cheerfully and graciously—and so they do to-day.

Another impressive feature of this Exposition is the modern progressive spirit which the young and virile Tennesseeans have shown who, in connection with many other Southerners are making what is pop

An Early Settler's Cabin.

This sweet soul, with her velvet tread and touch, had doubtless a sad history of her own a shattered past—nothing left but a few graves, the whereabouts of some, perhaps, unknown to her.

Since those cruel days there had come privation and bitter poverty, and that dread loneliness which sometimes takes possession of the helpless. And yet nothing had disturbed her exquisite patience or robbed her of the marvellous restfulness of manner and refinement which distinguishes the Southern woman of to-day. If this gentle lady had suffered none of these things, I am all the more glad, for her sake. And yet, all the same, I think I have read her signs aright-the indications are always

ularly called "The New South." It is not to be wondered at that these young men admire the restless energy of the West and North, and turn their backs upon the old home life of their fathers. Many of them were too young to appreciate its comfort and luxury, and some of the older ones were born outside its sacred circle. These last never knew it at all.

They saw, perhaps, the old

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coach go lumbering by with some "Daddy Billy" on the box, but they were never invited to ride inside. Caste was omnipotent in those days. Their antipathy is, therefore, natural. Slavery made these old social conditions possible. With its abolition came the slow but sure processes of that social and financial evolution which finally evolved the trolley-car out of the family coach.

I do not question the time-saving features of the result. I only ask whether any of us are any happier by reason of the change - whether men are any nobler, women any purer; poverty, crime, any the less prevalent; or life any sweeter-because the new fashion has supplanted the old.

"We are going to pull down that old

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rookery on the corner," said a Southern man to me a few months ago," and put up a first-class New York parlor hotel."

The old rookery" was built of brick, with the most delightful wrought-iron work ornamenting its rail and porch. It was built in the last century, and is the purest type of Colonial architecture. It has to-day a wide yard and plenty of fruit - trees, and lots of green grass, and an arbor smothered in honeysuckle. Inside are some of the most exquisite mantels and doors to be found south of the James River. If the combined intelligence and skill of the distinguished architects of our day were to be concentrated upon a design for a perfect Colonial house, they could provide nothing better than this. And yet this new Southerner would replace it with a Mansard horror, fitted with a steam furnace in the cel

lar, a patent revolving clothes-drier on the roof, and dumb - waiters on every floor. Then the factory covering a city block will soon follow, and the suburban cottage with gas-log fires, electric lights and water, and the trolley and cable car.

There may be something in this New South of which we hear so much. There may be material wealth and enlarged opportunities for labor and education, and there may be increased bank accounts laid away in the vaults of modern marble banks. But I know all the same that with its coming there will fade from American civilization the last of the wood-fire and old mahogany life, the Colonial life-the most restful, the most wholesome, the most simple-found nowhere now but in our small Southern cities-a life which once extinguished will never be revived.

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IF Spring, of tender flush and promise fair,
That out of swarthy mould evolves fresh greens,
Would metamorphose black, forbidding dreams,
And tune them to the sough of quickening air;
If Summer, luscious-lipped, with pigments rare
Deep-stained, and full illumined by the beams
Of ardent light, could be the certain means
To tint with splendid hues our dull despair;
If Autumn's rods of gold brought golden thought,
Or Winter's icy rack with bale imbued

The soul then Life a symphony would be!

But nay; our errant fancies overwrought

Their backgrounds make. The gay gild reaches rude : The sad would tarnish Eden's radiancy.

LORD BYRON IN THE GREEK REVOLUTION

T

By F. B. Sanborn

HE revival of interest in Byron as an author, testified by the publication of two editions of his letters, poems, and miscellaneous writings, will bring into notice again that part of his life which did him the most credit-his connection with the Greek revolution of 1821. He had for a dozen years, or ever since his first visit to Greece, predicted and urged on such a revolt against the dignified, unspeakable Turk; and his poems had given a great impulse to the natural enthusiasm of Young Europe for a cause which appealed to so many memories and so much that is romantic in human nature. With characteristic waywardness, he sometimes denied, in conversation, that he had any enthusiasm for the restoration of Greece to independence; but his deeds spoke louder than his variable words. He impressed those with whom he came most in contact in Greece-George Finlay, the historian, Colonel Stanhope (afterward Earl of Harrington), Dr. Millingen, and even the fickle, unveracious Trelawny-with the earnest ness of his purpose and the practical good sense of his conduct, in that malarious and fated town where he died and in whose defence so many Greek heroes fell.

George Finlay, then a young man fresh from law studies in a German university, and ready to engage heartily in the Greek cause, as his American friend, Dr. S. G. Howe, did, has left on record much concerning Byron which is not generally known. To Aubrey de Vere, Tennyson's friend, who visited Finlay at his estate in Oropos, between Attica and Boeotia, long * See also “Odysseus and Trelawny, A Sequel to Byron's Grecian Career," by the same author in the April number of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE.

VOL. XXII.-39

after Byron's death, Finlay expressed the highest respect for his noble comrade's "powers as a man of action and of business" that character so dear to the Briton. "Byron's temper and his shrewdness," said Finlay, "were equally admirable; and whenever a quarrel arose between two of the Greek chieftains at Missolonghi, the matter was at once referred to Byron as arbitrator. He had always tact enough to allay their heart-burnings, and his energy was of a nature so eminently practical that not a few of the men who were vaporing around him found themselves hard at work under his direction when they had only thought of a little agreeable excitement."

Finlay and Aubrey de Vere talked of Byron as they sat by the Greek historian's fire of pine-cones in his farm-house at Oropos, or galloped through the gorges, or plodded over the mountain-sides between Finlay's picturesque retreat and Marathon-that world-famous battle-field, which recalls memories of Byron hardly less than of Miltiades, who commanded, and Æschylus, who fought there. when I spent hours, some years ago, in Finlay's Athenian house, among his books and manuscripts, I found ample evidence of his high regard for Byron. Not blind to Byron's faults, he well appreciated his character, both as a poet and man of action; and his memoranda of Byron's aspect and conversation are valuable.

And

I met Lord Byron for the first time at Metaxata, in Cephalonia, in October, 1823, soon after he arrived there with Trelawny and Count Gamba, from Genoa. On calling, I found he had ridden out with Gam

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ba, and resolved to wait for his return. I was shown into his only public room, which was small and scantily furnished in the plainest manner. One table was covered for dinner; another table and a chair were strewed with books; and many books were ranged in order on the floor. Among them I found the greater part of Scott's novels, Mitford's History of Greece,' Sismondi's Italian Republics,' and an English translation of Pausanias. After some time his Lordship returned, and, on entering the room, regarded me with a fixed and, I thought, an anxious stare. I presented a letter of introduction, and he sat down upon the sofa to read it --still examining me. I felt this reception more poetic than agreeable; but he afterward explained himself. He told me he had been struck at first with my resemblance to Shelley-I thought you were Shelley's ghost.' This resemblance (though it soon wore off) had likewise struck one of his Italian servants, who had called me the Signor who is so like Signor Shelley.' I said I knew little of Shelley, but had been delighted with his translations from Faust.' He told me that Shelley often translated German works to him; he knew nothing of the language himself, but was well acquainted with Goethe, and with every passage in Faust.' (I have heard him say that he paid for translations of some German poems.) Lord Byron added: Shelley was really a most extraordinary genius; but those who know him only from his works know but half his merits. He was romance itself in his manners and his style of thinking; quite mad, however, with his metaphysics, and a bigot in the least pardonable way. was from his thoughts and his conversation that poor Shelley ought to be judged.' "After glancing at my letter, Byron immediately commenced his fascinating conversation. We naturally conversed almost entirely about Greece, yet chiefly on the manners of the people, their character, the difficulties of travelling, and the antiquities. I thought he seemed to regard my visit too much in the light of a tour, and so I asked for information on the state of (Greek) parties in the Morea. He gave it instantly, and in the conversation remarked that I was far too enthusiastic and fresh from Germany. He exclaimed, laughing,

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'You have too much Schwärmerei!" I replied that I expected to find the Greeks were the same canaille that existed in the days of Themistocles. Lord Byron smiled and said: 'My opinion of the Greeks remains unchanged; I did not, indeed, with their character, think they would achieve what they have done so soon; yet I always thought they deserved liberty-and they have proved it. The Turks, however, are far better fellows, far more gentlemanly; and I used to like them better when among them.' He uttered this in an unemphatical and rather affectedly monotonous tone; and I afterward observed that he adopted this tone not unfrequently, when he uttered anything which diverged from the commonest style of conversation."

In illustration of Byron's comparison of the Greek manners to their disparagement in contrast with the "gentlemanly " Turks, he afterward told Finlay this anecdote of what happened at Aigion, on the Gulf of Corinth, when he was there, a guest of some of the Greek "primates," in December, 1809: "Andreas Londos, of Aigion, then a young rake, after supper sprang upon the table, which was rather rickety-so much so, indeed, that we expected to see him come to the floor with it—and began singing through his nose the ' Hymn to Liberty' of Rigas Pheraios.* The new cadi of the village, passing near the house, inquired of a resident Turk the cause of the noise. He answered: "O, it is only the young primate, Londos, who is drunk, and is singing hymns to their new Virgin, whom they call Eleutheria' (Liberty). Londos had the exact face and figure of a chimpanzee."

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Continuing to remark on Byron's affectations, which many noticed, Finlay says:

“Whenever he commenced a sentence which showed that the subject had engaged his mind, and that his thoughts were sublime, he checked himself, and finished a broken sentence either with an indifferent smile, or with this annoying affected tone. I thought he had adopted it to conceal his feelings, when he feared to trust his tongue with the sentiments of his heart; often, it was evident, he did it to

*Londos was then active in the revolution, but soon died. There is a good biography of Rigas, whose verses were cited by Byron in Childe Harold, recently published in London by Mrs. E. M. Edmonds.

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