The Argosy — page 377: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

{ “, THE ARCosY. Vittoria Colonna. 355 narrow-minded recluse. Her fancy was still alive to intellectual plea- sures, and her heart to social sympathies. The end came, at length, to Vittoria, very calmly and very brightly, before age had laid his hand upon her, before the slightest decay had touched the fine powers of her mind. The lamps of soul and of intel- lect burned on clearly and steadily till the last, and then were gently removed by the hand of Almighty Love to shine in a purer atmosphere with a far more perfect brightness. Michel Angelo stood beside her a short time before the end, and this 1s all we ask to know of that scene. Long after, a little while before his own death, he regretted to one of his favourite pupils that in that last farewell he had not pressed his lips upon her brow instead of her hand. The remembrance of so small a fact by the great lonely old man after the lapse of so many years, that had been so fruitful for him in grand works and in grand honours, has to us in it something almost too touching for words to dwell upon. So lived and so died Vittoria Colonna, having done gloriously woman's two chief duties, of making beautiful and of harmonizing the world. We have but to read her story to comprehend the grievous folly of those who speak of high mental cultivation as unnecessary, nay, as almost prejudicial to women, and to feel how much we owe to those who would open to them every branch of learning. The old poets loved to sing of heroines, who now conquered, irresistible in arms, in the field of battle, and now shone with every seductive charm in brilliant halls. In the same way strength of intellect may and ought to exist in woman, with all the softer social graces. ALICE KING. Pi PRwRERI 2 ANOTHER CHANCE. I sTAND on the shore of the swift blue river, And watch the winds and the waves at play ; And still as I watch, the waves for ever Slip from my gaze, and glide away. ‘‘Stay, soft wind, and stand, fair river, And leave me never, thou perfect day ;” And, still as I ask, the hours for ever Slip from my life, and glide away. The waves go by till my eyes are weary, They will not tarry nor turn again ; “ Life, new life,” is their chorus cheery, “That strange new life in the vast blue main.” My days go by till I stand despairing, For those were evil and these are vain ; Yet hope, my heart, for the time ts nearing When I may try my life again. COMIC OOOKS. EO mn _