In the winter of 1853, Mr. Curtis entered the field as a lecturer, and was invited to lecture in different parts of the country. His success was all that his most ardent friends could desire; for, to a most grace ful and finished style, a pure taste and a fine fancy, he adds a gracefulness of delivery that gives to all his public efforts a charm that captivates his audience. In 1854, he delivered a poem before a lite rary society at Brown University, Providence, R. I. In 1856, he took a very active part in the "Fremont campaign," speaking constantly through the summer, with great effect. Those who had the good fe tune to hear any of these addresses will not soon forget them, uLSing, as they did, the soundest argument to a chaste and brillian oratory. In August of that year, he delivered an oration before the literary societies of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., on - The Duty of the American Scholar to Politics and the Times."

In the spring of 1856, Mr. Curtis did what it is never wise for a scholar to do-risked all his means in mercantile business. In November of the same year, he was married to the daughter of Francis G. Shaw, eldest son of the late Robert G. Shaw, of Boston. In the spring of 1857, the house with which he was connected became embar rassed, and he was obliged to take an active part in the management of its affairs. But it was too late-the ship was too leaky, and in August, just at the beginning of the crisis, she went down with all on board. He lost his all-but, like Milton, he

did not bate

One jot of heart or hope,

but is now nobly recovering himself with his pen and living voice.

SOCIETY AT WATERING-PLACES.1

They were just about beginning the waltz again, when the music stopped, and they walked away. But I saw the tears in Caroline's eyes. I don't know whether they were tears of vexation, or of disappointment. The men have the advantage of us, because they can control their emotions so much better. I suppose Caroline blushed and cried, because she found herself blushing and crying, quite as much as because she fancied her partner didn't care for her.

I turned to Kurz Pacha, who stood by my side, smiling, and rubbing his hands.

"A charming evening we have had of it, Miss Minerva,"

From the Summer Diary of Minerva Tattle.

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said he, "an epitome of life-a kind of last-new-novel effect. The things that we have heard and seen here, multiplied and varied by a thousand or so, produce the net result of Newport. Given, a large house, music, piazzas, beaches, cliff, port, griddle-cakes, fast horses, sherry cobblers, ten-pins, dust, artificial flowers, innocence, worn-out hearts, loveliness, blacklegs, bank bills, small men, large coat-sleeves, little boots, jewelry, and polka-redowas ad libitum, to produce August in Newport. For my part, Miss Minerva, I like it. But it is a dizzy and perilous game. I profess to seek and enjoy emotions; so I go to watering-places. Ada Aiguille says she doesn't like it. She declares that she thinks less of her fellow-creatures after she has been here a little while. She goes to the city afterward to refit her faith, probably. Daisy Clover thinks it's heavenly. Darling little Daisy! life is an endless German cotillon to her. She thinks the world is gay but well-meaning, is sure that it goes to church on Sundays, and never tells lies. Cerulea Bass looks at it for a moment with her hard, round, ebony eyes, and calmly wonders that people will make such fools of themselves. And you, Miss Minerva, pardon me, you come because you are in the habit of coming, because you are not happy out of such society, and have a tantalizing sadness in it. Your system craves only the piquant sources of scandal and sarcasm, which can never satisfy it. You wish that you liked tranquil pleasures, and believed in men and women. But you get no nearer than a wish. You remember when you did believe, but you remember with a shudder and a sigh. You pass for a brilliant woman. You go out to dinners and balls; and men are, what is called, 'afraid of you.' You scorn most of us. You are not a favorite, but your pride is flattered by the very fear on the part of others which prevents your being loved. Time and yourself are your only enemies, and they are in league, for you betray yourself to him. You have found youth the most fascinating and fatal of flirts; but he, although your heart and hope clung to him despairingly, has jilted you and thrown you by. Let him go, if you can, and throw after him the white muslin and the baby waist. Give up milk and the pastoral poets. Sail, at least, under your own colors; even pirates hoist a black flag. An old belle who endeavors to retain by sharp wit and spicy scandal the place she held only in virtue of youth and spirited beauty, is, in a new circle of youth and beauty, like an enemy firing at you from the windows of your own house. The difficulty of your position, dear Miss Minerva, is, that you can

never deceive those who alone are worth deceiving. Da'T Clover and Young America, of course, consider you a talented tremendous kind of woman. Daisy Clover wonders ali t men are not in love with you. Young America sniffs ar. shakes its little head, and says disapprovingly, 'Strong-mit d woman! But you fail, you know, notwithstanding. Ya couldn't bring old Potiphar to his knees when he first came home from China, and he must needs plunge in love with M.< Polly, whom you despised, but who has certainly profited her intimacy with Mrs. Gnu, Mrs. Croesus, and Mrs. Settum Downe, as you saw by her conversation with you this evening "Ah! Miss Minerva, I am only a benighted diplomat roa Sennaar; but when I reflect upon all I see around me in yor country; when I take my place with terror in a railroad ear because the certainty of frightful accidents fills all minds w:: the same vague apprehension as if a war were raging in the land; when I see the universal rush and fury-young men who never smile, and who fall victims to paralysis; old men whɔ are tired of life and dread death; young women pretty and incapable; old women listless and useless; and both yourg and old, if women of sense, perishing of ennui, and longing f some kind of a career-why, I don't say that it is better arywhere else, perhaps it isn't, in most ways it certainly is not. I don't say, certainly, that there's a higher tone of life in La don or Paris than in New York, but only that, whatever it may be there, this, at least, is rather a miserable business."

The ball was breaking up. A few desperate dancers st floated upon the floor. The chairs were empty. The worer were shawling, and the men stood attendant with bonquets. I went to a window and looked out. The moon was risinga wan, waning moon. The broad fields lay dark beneath, and as the music ceased, I heard the sullen roar of the sea. If my heart ached with an indefinite longing—if it felt that the ai epicurism of the Pacha was but a sad cynicism, masquerading ir smiles-if I dreaded to ask whether the wisest were not the saddest if the rising moon, and the plunging sea, and the silence of midnight, were mournful-if I envied Daisy Clover her sweet sleep and vigorous waking-why, no one need ever know it, nor suspect that the brilliant Minerva Tattle is a failure.

THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR.1

Do you ask me our duty as scholars? Gentlemen, thought, which the scholar represents, is life and liberty. There is no intellectual or moral life without liberty. Therefore, as a man must breathe and see before he can study, the scholar must have liberty, first of all; and as the American scholar is a man and has a voice in his own government, so his interest in political affairs must precede all others. He must build his house before he can live in it. He must be a perpetual inspiration of freedom in politics. He must recognize that the intelligent exercise of political rights, which is a privilege in a monarchy, is a duty in a republic. If it clash with his ease, his retirement, his taste, his study, let it clash, but let him do his duty. The course of events is incessant, and when the good deed is slighted, the bad deed is done.

Scholars, you would like to loiter in the pleasant paths of study. Every man loves his ease-loves to please his taste. But into how many homes along this lovely valley came the news of Lexington and Bunker Hill, eighty years ago, and young men like us, studious, fond of leisure, young lovers, young husbands, young brothers, and sons, knew that they must forsake the wooded hillside, the river-meadows, golden with harvest, the twilight walk along the river, the summer Sunday in the old church, parents, wife, child, mistress, and go away to uncertain war. Putnam heard the call at his plough, and turned to go, without waiting. Wooster heard it, and obeyed.

Not less lovely in those days was this peaceful valley, not less soft this summer air. Life was dear, and love as beautiful, to those young men as it is to us, who stand upon their graves. But because they were so dear and beautiful, those men went out, bravely to fight for them and fall. Through these very streets they marched, who never returned. They fell, and were buried; but they can never die. Not sweeter are the flowers that make your valley fair, not greener are the pines that give your river its name, than the memory of the brave men who died for freedom. And yet, no victim of those days, sleeping under the green sod of Connecticut, is more truly a martyr of

1 From an oration delivered on Tuesday, August 5, 1856, before the Literary Societies of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.

Liberty than every murdered man whose bones lie bleaching in this summer sun upon the silent plains of Kansas.

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Gentlemen, while we read history, we make history. cause our fathers fought in this great cause, we must not hipe to escape fighting. Because, two thousand years ago, Leonidas stood against Xerxes, we must not suppose that Xerxes was slain, nor, thank God, that Leonidas is not immortal. Every great crisis of human history is a pass of Thermopyle, and there is always a Leonidas and his three hundred to die in it, if they cannot conquer. And so long as Liberty has one martyr, so long as one drop of blood is poured out for her, so lorg from that single drop of bloody sweat of the agony of humanity shall spring hosts as countless as the forest leaves, and mighty as the sea.

Brothers! the call has come to us. I bring it to you in these calm retreats. I summon you to the great fight of Freedom. I call upon you to say, with your voices, whenever the occasion offers, and with your votes, when the day comes, that upon these fertile fields of Kansas, in the very heart of the continent, the upas-tree of slavery, dripping death dews upon national pros perity and upon free labor, shall never be planted. I call upon you to plant there the palm of peace, the vine and the olive of a Christian civilization. I call upon you to determine whether this great experiment of human freedom, which has been the scorn of despotism, shall, by its failure, be also our sin and shame. I call upon you to defend the hope of the world.

The voices of our brothers who are bleeding, no less than of our fathers who bled, summon us to this battle. Shall the children of unborn generations, clustering over that vast western empire, rise up and call us blessed or cursed? Here are our Marathon and Lexington; here are our heroic fields. The hearts of all good men beat with us. The fight is fierce-the issue is with God. But God is good.

THE END.