(Sister of Agnes Strickland.)
The fire burns low, these winter nights are cold; I'd fain to bed, and take my usual rest, But duty cries, "There's work for thee to do; Stir up the embers, fetch another log, To cheer the empty hearth. This is the hour When fancy calls to life her busy train, And thou must note the vision ere it flies." |
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OR,
Say, who art thou—thou lean and haggard wretch! Thou living satire on the name of man! Thou that hast made a god of sordid gold, And to thine idol offered up thy soul? Oh, how I pity thee thy wasted years: Age without comfort—youth that had no prime. To thy dull gaze the earth was never green; The face of nature wore no cheering smile, For ever groping, groping in the dark; Making the soulless object of thy search The grave of all enjoyment.—S.M. |
Towards the close of the last century, there lived in the extensiveparish of Ashton, in the county of ——, a hard-hearted, eccentric oldman, called Mark Hurdlestone, the lord of the manor, the wealthy ownerof Oak Hall and its wide demesne, the richest commoner in England, thecelebrated miser.
Mark Hurdlestone was the wonder of the place; people were never tired oftalking about him—of describing his strange appearance, his odd waysand penurious habits. He formed a lasting theme of conversation to thegossips of the village, with whom the great man at the Hall enjoyed noenviable notoriety. That Mark Hurdlestone was an object of curiosity,fear, and hatred, to his humble dependents, created no feeling ofsurprise in those who were acquainted with him, and had studied therepulsive features of his singular character.
There was not a drop of the milk of human kindness in his composition.Regardless of his own physical wants, he despised the same wants inothers. Charity sued to him in vain, and the tear of sorrow made noimpression on his stony heart. Passion he had felt—cruel, ungovernablepassion. Tenderness was foreign to his nature—the sweet influences ofthe social virtues he had never known.
Mark Hurdlestone hated society, and never mingled in festive scenes. Tohis neighbors he was a stranger; and he had no friends. With power tocommand, and wealth to purchase enjoyment, he had never travelled ahundred miles beyond the smoke of his own chimneys; and was as much astranger to the world and its usages as a savage, born and brought