GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. VOL. XXXV. AUGUST, 1849. No. 2. Table of Contents Fiction, Literature and Articles The Curtain Lifted Indian Legend of the Star and Lily Jasper St. Aubyn Sketches of Life in Our Village Mary Wilson Olden Times Two Hours of Doom The Captive of York A Memory Wild-Birds of America Editor’s Table Review of New Books Poetry, Music, and Fashion Watouska: A Legend of the Oneidas The Improvisatrice The Eighteenth Sonnet of Petrarca Elim Faith’s Warning Lament of the Gold-Digger To Mary Little Willie Words of Waywardness Translation of a Recently Discovered Fragment of a Poem by Sappho Ermengarde’s Awakening Kubleh This World of Ours My Spirit Le Follet Yes, Let Me Like a Soldier Fall Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook. * * * * * [Illustration: LA SIESTA.] * * * * * GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. VOL. XXXV. PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST, 1849. NO. 2. * * * * * THE CURTAIN LIFTED. OR PROFESSIONS—PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL. BY MRS. CAROLINE H. BUTLER. CHAPTER I. _The Deacon._ Everybody called Mr. Humphreys a good man. To have found any fault with the deacon would have been to impugn the church itself, whose most firm pillar he stood. No one stopped to analyze his goodness—it was enough that in all outward semblance, in the whole putting together of the outward man, there was a conformity of sanctity; that is, he read his Bible—held family prayers night and morning—preached long homilies to the young—gave in the cause of the heathen—and was, moreover, of a grave and solemn aspect, seldom given to the folly of laughter. All this, and more did good Deacon Humphreys; and yet one thing he lacked, viz., the sweet spirit of charity. I mean not that he oppressed the widow, or robbed the orphan of bread; no, not this, it was the cold unforgiving spirit with which he looked upon the errors of his fellow man—the iron hand with which he thrust far from him the offender, which betrayed the want of that charity “_which rejoiceth not in iniquity, suffereth long, and is kind_.”