In April, 1850, Mr. and Mrs. Shindler removed to Upper Marlboro’, Maryland, near to his native place, which was Shephardstown, Virginia.
In August, 1851, they removed to Shelbyville, Kentucky, Mr. Shindler having accepted a Professorship in Shelby College.
A DAY IN NEW YORK.
Here I am in New York—the great, busy, bustling world of New York; and after my year’s rustication in a quiet Southern village, you may be sure that my poor little head is almost turned! Even now, while I am writing, there is a diabolical hand-organ, grinding under the window its mechanical music, with a disgusting little monkey—a caricature upon poor humanity—playing its “fantastic tricks before high heaven!” Do not, I entreat you, suppose me in a pet, for after all, I acknowledge that hand-organs, and even monkeys, have their uses, as well as their abuses, and may, by a serious philosophizing mind, be turned to very good account; but, just at this moment, I may perhaps be pardoned for wishing them somewhere else.
Ah! now comes a band of music—real music! breathed through various instruments by the breath of human beings, playing in accordance, keeping mutual time, obeying the same harmonious impulses, now delighting the ear and affecting the heart by a soft and plaintive strain, and now stirring the spirit by a burst of martial melody; yes, that is music; there is mind, there is soul, there is impulse, there is character in what I now hear, and you must excuse me while I hasten to the open window, and linger there till I catch the faintest echo of the rapidly-retreating harmony. There! It is gone—like so many of life’s pleasures—only to linger in the memory. Well! God be praised for that!
Day before yesterday I visited Greenwood, your beautiful cemetery. Oh, I wish I could reveal to you all the secret and varied workings of the mind within, as I wandered with a chosen friend—a kindred spirit—through that beautiful and consecrated ground. Thoughts too big for utterance—too spiritual and mysterious to be clothed in words—came crowding thick and fast upon me, till at length I could contain myself no longer, and the tide of softened
