In a Floral Lexicon I find it stated that the Ash tree signifies
'grandeur.' _E ben trovato_--it is not badly imagined--but its real
meaning is _life_, and that not mere existence, but fresh, vigorous,
exuberant life, the life of action and of enjoyment. The shaft of the
Greek spear, which healed the wound given by the point, was, I doubt
not, made of Ash, even as was that which slew Achilles. Thus the Ash, it
will be seen, was an important letter in the ancient alphabet of the
mysteries. May I hope that when you next sit beneath its graceful
boughs, you will recall some of the lore which hallows it, and makes it
a strange, living antique, not less curious than coin, weapon, or gem.
Read it in all the significance, all the strange spirit of the old
mythology, and then think what Nature must have been--or what it may yet
be--to men finding as deep a symbol as even the Ash in every high place
above the valleys, in every stream, cave, and rivulet, and in every
green tree.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: 'On an island of the river Nerbudda, twelve miles beyond
Broach, in the presidency of Bombay, stands the Banyan-tree, long since
mentioned by MILTON, and more recently described by HEBER. It is called
KUREOR BUR, after the Hindu saint who planted it.'

<sc>Dierbach, _Flora Mythologica_, page 22.]

THE DRUM.

[RUeCKERT.]

'On, the drum--it rattles so loud!
There's no such stirring sound
Is heard the wide world round,
As the drum----.'

AN ENGLISHMAN IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

DECEMBER, 1860, AND JULY, 1862.

CHAPTER FIRST.

'The happiest people on the face of the earth, sir!'

I had heard the assertion in almost all of the slave States, and knew
something of the institution on which it was based: I was now listening
to the familiar sentence at an epoch that has become historical. I sat
in Charleston, South Carolina, during Secession time, December, 1860.

'They are better fed and better treated than any peasantry in the
civilized world. I've travelled in Europe and seen for myself, sir. What
do you think of women--white women--working in the fields and living on
nothing better than thin soup and vegetables, as they do in France, all
the year round? And a man, with a family of nine children to support,
breaking stones on the high road, in winter, for eight English shillings
a week? Such a thing couldn't happen in South Carolina--in all the
South, sir!'

'Perhaps not!' I didn't add that w