BELLA FRENCH SWISHER.

ELLA FRENCH SWISHER was born at Tren

years ago; on her mother's side she is related to Generals Jacob Brown and Henry Lee, of Revolutionary fame. Her grandfather, Capt. William Lee, commanded the first passenger boat that made the tour of the Great Lakes. Her father was an architect and inventor, of considerable renown, who was unfortunately stripped of quite a fortune by the great overflow of the Mississippi river in 1851; and three years later he started for England to recover some portion of his mother's estate, but was lost at sea, or supposed to have been, as he was never heard of thereafter. Then came, for the family, weary years of battle with want. Before Bella was fourteen, she sewed from early morn till lights grew dim, at shirt making, to keep herself and loved ones from starvation. Being obliged to leave school, she pursued her studies at night, with her books before her while she worked. Finally she went north with relatives. A sister died, then a brother in the first flush of manhood fell in the war, fighting for the Union, and a few months later the mother followed him. Bella taught a little school, and by economy saved enough money to enable her to attend a course at the Iowa University, which, in a measure, fitted her for her destined work. She was born a poet. It is said "she made rhymes before she could speak plain, and played at writing stories before she could form a letter."

In 1867, Brick Pomeroy, recognizing her genius, in a short story sent him, employed her on the Daily LaCrosse Democrat. Two years later she started The Western Progress, a weekly newspaper at Brownsville, Minnesota, which she owned, and edited for two years, and then sold to take a position on the editorial staff of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. She was editor of the first literary magazine in Minnesota, The Busy West, also editor of the St. Paul Chronotype. In 1874 she started the American Sketch Book, an eighty-page historical magazine, at LaCrosse, Wisconsin, which, on account of ill health, she removed to Texas in 1877. During the same year, 1877, she was associate editor of the Texas New Yorker published at Galveston. In October, 1878, she was married to Col. Jno. M. Swisher of Austin, Texas. In 1882, on account of family cares and sickness, she was obliged to suspend the Sketch Book.

She has studied painting under some of the best American artists, and paints landscapes and portraits that command admiration. A sort of universal genius,—she cooks a dinner, makes a dress, nails up a broken fence, harnesses her horses for a drive, edits a paper, writes a story, and then entertains with her verses in the afternoon.

She

Out in the busy world, perhaps no more to meet them,

Their paths and mine, I know, must be apart; No wonder, then, that my weak soul should sicken,

And that a dreary pain should pierce my heart. Forevermore, perhaps, beside home's altar

At morn and eve, a vacant place will be; And when upon the path of life I falter,

O, who will cheer and guide and strengthen me! Sad, sad I am to-night. My soul is weeping Such tears as those we shed above the dead, When, one by one, the sods fall on the coffin, And we turn from the spot with hopeless tread. O, there are sadder things for us than dying!

Yes, sadder things than clossing glassy eyes, When some loved one in death's embrace is lying;'Tis when we put aside what most we prize.

Farewell, dear ones. May God's sweet angel guide you

To blooming paths, where skies are always clear! O, if a prayer of mine had power to bless you, Then what a world of joy would crown each

year!

Farewell! Farewell! This world is full of sadness, And of wrecked hopes, and joys, and wasted

lives;

O, happy he who keeps its faith and gladness, And all its bitter, blighting storms survives.

RECONCILIATION.

HAIL to the North! hail to the South!
Our starry banner hail!
United now, in bonds of love,
Forever hush the tale,

How brothers fought in days gone by;

For both were leal and trueColumbia's sons who wore the grey And they who wore the blue.

Unthinking, rash, both went to war, For what each deemed was just, And fair Columbia bowed her head Down to the very dust.

Speak softly, ye who wore the grey,

As loving brothers do,

Of those, who lost their precious lives, While wearing of the blue.

In union there is ever strength-
The Union cause was blest,

And brother clasped a brother's hand,
And wept on brother's breast.
But, ye whose prayers were for the blue,
Let fall a tear to-day,

For those brave, noble men who fell
While wearing of the grey.

So hail the South! so hail the North!
It is with mother's pride,
Columbia sees her darling sons,
Now peaceful, side by side.
Hail to our star be-spangled flag!
It waves to bless alway
Columbia's sons, who wore the blue
And they, who wore the grey.

LOSS.

The sunshine falls-a bounteous shower of gold,
Touching my face with such a warm caress!
Hers, in its beaming, grows so strangely cold
And wears no light of quiet thankfulness.

I wonder, had I walked her path adown,
And she this one, if it had been as well-
If one or both of us would wear a crown
Of hidden thorns to-day! O, who can tell!
-An Old Maid's Christmas.
TRUTH.

I worship Truth. He sits high on a throne
Invisible to some as spirits are-

A presence that to many is unknown,

To others gleaming like a distant star. All powerful and infinite is He;

All conquering, as well, we oft are told. He is the beauty of the universe to me,

I search for him as misers do for gold, And see Him, as a mirage, seen in desert lands, Receding from my longing gaze and reaching hands. -Truth.

SINGLE POEMS.

A WOMAN'S CONCLUSIONS.

I SAID, if I might go back again

To the very hour and place of my birth; Might have my life whatever I choose, And live it in any part of the earth;

Put perfect sunshine into my sky,
Banish the shadow of sorrow and doubt;
Have all my happiness multiplied,
And all my sorrow stricken out;

If I could have known in the years now gone, The best that a woman comes to know; Could have had what will make her blest,

Or whatever she thinks will make her so;

Have found the highest and purest bliss

That the bridal-wreath and ring inclose; And gained the one out of all the world,

That my heart as well as my reason chose:

And if this had been, and I stood to-night

By my children, lying asleep in their beds And could count in my prayers, for a rosary, The shining row of their golden heads;

Yea! I said, if a miracle such as this
Could be wrought for me, at my bidding, still
I would choose to have my past as it is,
And to let my future come as it will!

I would not make the path I have trod
More pleasant or even, more straight or wide;
Nor change my course the breadth of a hair,
This way or that way, to either side.

My past is mine, and I take it all;

Its weakness-its folly, if you please; Nay, even my sins, if you come to that, May have been my helps, not hindrances!

If I saved my body from the flames
Because that once I had burned my hand;
Or kept myself from a greater sin
By doing a less-you will understand;

It was better I suffered a little pain,
Better I sinned for a little time,

If the smarting warned me back from death,
And the sting of sin withheld from crime.