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<h1 class='c001'><span class='xxlarge'><em class='gesperrt'>REVERIES</em></span> <em class='gesperrt'><i>of</i><br/><span class='xxlarge'>A BACHELOR</span></em></h1></div>
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<div><em class='gesperrt'><span class='xxlarge'>REVERIES <i>of</i></span></em></div>
<div><em class='gesperrt'><span class='xxlarge'>A BACHELOR</span></em></div>
<div class='c004'>OR</div>
<div><span class='large'>A BOOK <i>of</i> THE HEART</span></div>
<div class='c004'><i>By</i> IK MARVEL</div>
<div class='c004'><i>With Illustrations & Decorations by</i></div>
<div><span class='large'>E. M. ASHE</span></div>
<div class='c004'>INDIANAPOLIS</div>
<div>THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY</div>
<div>PUBLISHERS</div>
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<div><span class='sc'>Copyright 1906</span></div>
<div><span class='sc'>The Bobbs-Merrill Company</span></div>
<div>—————</div>
<div><span class='sc'>October</span></div>
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<div>PRESS OF</div>
<div>BRAUNWORTH & CO.</div>
<div>BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS</div>
<div>BROOKLYN. N.Y.</div>
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<div><i>To</i></div>
<div><i>Mrs. E. L. Dixon</i></div>
<div><i>of Hartford, Connecticut</i></div>
<div><i>This book is respectfully inscribed;</i></div>
<div><i>by her friend</i></div>
<div class='c000'> <span class='sc'>The Author</span></div>
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<h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2></div>
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<div><i>FIRST REVERIE</i></div>
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<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'> </td>
<td class='c008'>PAGE</td>
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<tr>
<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>Over a Wood Fire</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch01'>3</SPAN></td>
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<tr>
<td class='c006'>I</td>
<td class='c007'>Smoke, Signifying Doubt</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch01-1'>9</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>II</td>
<td class='c007'>Blaze, Signifying Cheer</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch01-2'>21</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>III</td>
<td class='c007'>Ashes, Signifying Desolation</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch01-3'>29</SPAN></td>
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<div><i>SECOND REVERIE</i></div>
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<td class='c007'>By a City Grate</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch02'>47</SPAN></td>
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<tr>
<td class='c006'>I</td>
<td class='c007'>Sea-Coal</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch02-1'>57</SPAN></td>
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<td class='c006'>II</td>
<td class='c007'>Anthracite</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch02-2'>77</SPAN></td>
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<div><i>THIRD REVERIE</i></div>
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<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>Over His Cigar</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch03'>99</SPAN></td>
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<tr>
<td class='c006'>I</td>
<td class='c007'>Lighted With a Coal</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch03-1'>105</SPAN></td>
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<td class='c006'>II</td>
<td class='c007'>With a Wisp of Paper</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch03-2'>121</SPAN></td>
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<td class='c006'>III</td>
<td class='c007'>Lighted With a Match</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch03-3'>137</SPAN></td>
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<div><i>FOURTH REVERIE</i></div>
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<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>Morning, Noon and Evening</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch04'>155</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>I</td>
<td class='c007'>Morning—Which Is the Past</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch04-1'>165</SPAN></td>
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<tr>
<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>School Days</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch04-2'>177</SPAN></td>
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<tr>
<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>The Sea</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch04-3'>191</SPAN></td>
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<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>The Father-Lan</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch04-4'>201</SPAN></td>
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<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>A Roman Girl</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch04-5'>213</SPAN></td>
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<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>The Appenines</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch04-6'>225</SPAN></td>
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<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>Enrica</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch04-7'>235</SPAN></td>
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<tr><td> </td></tr>
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<td class='c006'>II</td>
<td class='c007'>Noon—Which Is the Present</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch05'>245</SPAN></td>
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<tr>
<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>Early Friends</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch05-1'>249</SPAN></td>
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<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>School Revisited</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch05-2'>259</SPAN></td>
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<tr>
<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>College</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch05-3'>267</SPAN></td>
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<tr>
<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>The Packet of Bella</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch05-4'>275</SPAN></td>
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<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td class='c006'>III</td>
<td class='c007'>Evening—Which Is the Future</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch06'>287</SPAN></td>
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<tr>
<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>Carry</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch06-1'>293</SPAN></td>
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<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>The Letter</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch06-2'>303</SPAN></td>
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<tr>
<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>New Travel</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch06-3'>311</SPAN></td>
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<td class='c006'> </td>
<td class='c007'>Home</td>
<td class='c008'><SPAN href='#ch06-4'>327</SPAN></td>
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<h2 class='c005'>PREFACE</h2></div>
<p class='c009'>This book is neither more nor less than it
pretends to be; it is a collection of those
floating reveries which have, from time to
time, drifted across my brain. I never yet
met with a bachelor who had not his share
of just such floating visions; and the only
difference between us lies in the fact that
I have tossed them from me in the shape of
a book.</p>
<p class='c010'>If they had been worked over with more
unity of design I dare say I might have
made a respectable novel; as it is, I have
chosen the honester way of setting them
down as they came seething from my
thought, with all their crudities and contrasts,
uncovered.</p>
<p class='c010'>As for the truth that is in them, the world
may believe what it likes; for, having written
to humor the world, it would be hard
if I should curtail any of its privileges of
judgment. I should think there was as
much truth in them as in most Reveries.</p>
<p class='c010'>The first story of the book has already
had some publicity; and the criticisms upon
it have amused and pleased me. One honest
journalist avows that it could never have
been written by a bachelor. I thank him
for thinking so well of me, and heartily
wish that his thought were as true as it is
kind.</p>
<p class='c010'>Yet I am inclined to think that bachelors
are the only safe and secure observers of all
the phases of married life. The rest of
the world have their hobbies; and by law,
as well as by immemorial custom, are reckoned
unfair witnesses in everything relating
to their matrimonial affairs.</p>
<p class='c010'>Perhaps I ought, however, to make an
exception in favor of spinsters, who, like
us, are independent spectators, and possess
just that kind of indifference to the marital
state, which makes them intrepid in their
observations, and very desirable for—authorities.</p>
<p class='c010'>As for the style of the book I have nothing
to say for it except to refer to my title.
These are not sermons, nor essays, nor criticisms;
they are only Reveries. And if the
reader should stumble upon occasional magniloquence,
or be worried with a little too
much of sentiment, pray let him remember—that
I am dreaming.</p>
<p class='c010'>But while I say this, in the hope of nicking
off the wiry edge of my reader’s judgment,
I shall yet stand up boldly for the
general tone and character of the book. If
there is bad feeling in it, or insincerity, or
shallow sentiment, or any foolish depth of
affection betrayed—I am responsible; and
the critics may expose it to their hearts’
content.</p>
<p class='c010'>I have, moreover, a kindly feeling for
these Reveries, from their very private
character; they consist mainly of just such
whimseys and reflections as a great many
brother bachelors are apt to indulge in, but
which they are too cautious, or too prudent
to lay before the world. As I have in this
matter shown a frankness and <i>naïveté</i> which
are unusual, I shall ask a corresponding
frankness in my reader; and I can assure
him safely that this is eminently one of those
books which were “never intended for publication.”</p>
<p class='c010'>In the hope that this plain avowal may
quicken the reader’s charity, and screen me
from cruel judgment,</p>
<p class='c010'>I remain, with sincere good wishes,</p>
<div class='c011'><span class='sc'>Ik Marvel</span>.</div>
<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>New York</span>, November, 1850.</p>
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<h2 id='ch01' class='c005'>OVER A WOOD FIRE</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>I have</span> got a quiet farmhouse in the
country, a very humble place to be sure,
tenanted by a worthy enough man, of the
old New England stamp, where I sometimes
go for a day or two in the winter, to look
over the farm accounts, and to see how the
stock is thriving on the winter’s keep.</p>
<p class='c010'>One side the door, as you enter from the
porch, is a little parlor, scarce twelve feet
by ten, with a cozy-looking fireplace—a
heavy oak floor—a couple of armchairs and
a brown table with carved lions’ feet. Out
of this room opens a little cabinet, only
big enough for a broad bachelor bedstead,
where I sleep upon feathers, and wake in
the morning, with my eye upon a saucy
colored, lithographic print of some fancy
“Bessy.”</p>
<p class='c010'>It happens to be the only house in the
world, of which I am <i>bona fide</i> owner; and
I take a vast deal of comfort in treating it
just as I choose. I manage to break some
article of furniture almost every time I pay
it a visit; and if I can not open the window
readily of a morning, to breathe the fresh
air, I knock out a pane or two of glass with
my boot. I lean against the walls in a very
old armchair there is on the premises, and
scarce ever fail to worry such a hole in the
plastering as would set me down for a
round charge for damages in town, or make
a prim housewife fret herself into a raging
fever. I laugh out loud with myself, in
my big armchair, when I think that I am
neither afraid of one nor the other.</p>
<p class='c010'>As for the fire, I keep the little hearth so
hot as to warm half the cellar below, and
the whole space between the jambs roars
for hours together with white flame. To be
sure the windows are not very tight, between
broken panes and bad joints, so that
the fire, large as it is, is by no means an extravagant
comfort.</p>
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<p class='c009'>As night approaches, I have a huge pile
of oak and hickory placed beside the hearth;
I put out the tallow candle on the mantel
(using the family snuffers, with one leg
broken) then, drawing my chair directly
in front of the blazing wood, and setting
one foot on each of the old iron fire-dogs
(until they grow too warm), I dispose myself
for an evening of such sober and
thoughtful quietude, as I believe, on my
soul, that very few of my fellow men have
the good fortune to enjoy.</p>
<p class='c010'>My tenant, meantime, in the other room
I can hear now and then—though there is
a thick stone chimney and broad entry between—multiplying
contrivances with his
wife to put two babies to sleep. This occupies
them, I should say, usually an hour;
though my only measure of time (for I
never carry a watch into the country), is
the blaze of my fire. By ten, or thereabouts,
my stock of wood is nearly exhausted;
I pile upon the hot coals what remains,
and sit watching how it kindles, and
blazes, and goes out—even like our joys!
and then slip by the light of the embers
into my bed, where I luxuriate in such
sound and healthful slumber as only such
rattling window frames and country air can
supply.</p>
<p class='c010'>But to return: the other evening—it happened
to be on my last visit to my farmhouse—when
I had exhausted all the ordinary
rural topics of thought, had formed
all sorts of conjectures as to the income of
the year; had planned a new wall around
one lot, and the clearing up of another, now
covered with patriarchal wood, and wondered
if the little rickety house would not
be, after all, a snug enough box to live and
to die in—I fell on a sudden into such an
unprecedented line of thought, which took
such a deep hold of my sympathies—sometimes
even starting tears—that I determined,
the next day, to set as much of it
as I could recall on paper.</p>
<p class='c010'>Something—it may have been the home-looking
blaze (I am a bachelor of—say six
and twenty), or possibly a plaintive cry of
the baby in my tenant’s room had suggested
to me the thought of—Marriage.</p>
<p class='c010'>I piled upon the heated fire-dogs, the last
armful of my wood; and now, said I, bracing
myself courageously between the arms
of my chair—I’ll not flinch; I’ll pursue the
thought wherever it leads, though it lead me
to the d—— (I am apt to be hasty) at least—continued
I, softening—until my fire is out.</p>
<p class='c010'>The wood was green, and at first showed
no disposition to blaze. It smoked furiously.
Smoke, thought I, always goes before
blaze; and so does doubt go before decision:
and my reverie, from that very starting
point, slipped into this shape:</p>
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<h2 id='ch01-1' class='c005'>SMOKE—SIGNIFYING DOUBT</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>A wife</span>? thought I; yes, a wife! And
why?</p>
<p class='c010'>And pray, my dear sir, why not—why?
Why not doubt; why not hesitate; why not
tremble?</p>
<p class='c010'>Does a man buy a ticket in a lottery—a
poor man, whose whole earnings go in to
secure the ticket—without trembling, hesitating,
and doubting?</p>
<p class='c010'>Can a man stake his bachelor respectability,
his independence, and comfort, upon
the die of absorbing, unchanging, relentless
marriage, without trembling at the venture?</p>
<p class='c010'>Shall a man who has been free to chase
his fancies over the wide world, without let
or hindrance, shut himself up to marriageship,
within four walls called home, that
are to claim him, his time, his trouble,
and his tears, thenceforward forever more,
without doubts thick and thick-coming as
smoke?</p>
<p class='c010'>Shall he who has been hitherto a mere
observer of other men’s cares and business,
moving off where they made him sick of
heart, approaching whenever and wherever
they made him gleeful—shall he now undertake
administration of just such cares
and business without qualms? Shall he,
whose whole life has been but a nimble succession
of escapes from trifling difficulties,
now broach, without doubtings, that matrimony,
where if difficulty beset him there is
no escape? Shall this brain of mine, careless-working,
never tired with idleness,
feeding on long vagaries, and high, gigantic
castles, dreaming out beatitudes hour by
hour—turn itself at length to such dull
task-work, as thinking out a livelihood for
wife and children?</p>
<p class='c010'>Where thenceforward will be those sunny
dreams, in which I have warmed my fancies,
and my heart, and lighted my eye with
crystal? This very marriage, which a brilliant
working imagination has invested time
and again with brightness and delight, can
serve no longer as a mine for teeming
fancy: all, alas, will be gone—reduced to
the dull standard of the actual! No more
room for intrepid forays of imagination—no
more gorgeous realm-making—all will
be over!</p>
<p class='c010'>Why not, I thought, go on dreaming?</p>
<p class='c010'>Can any wife be prettier than an after-dinner
fancy, idle and yet vivid, can paint
for you? Can any children make less noise
than the little rosy-cheeked ones, who have
no existence, except in the <i>omnium gatherum</i>
of your own brain? Can any housewife
be more unexceptionable than she who
goes sweeping daintily the cobwebs that
gather in your dreams? Can any domestic
larder be better stocked than the private
larder of your head dozing on a cushioned
chair-back at Delmonico’s? Can any family
purse be better filled than the exceeding
plump one you dream of after reading such
pleasant books as <i>Münchausen</i> or <i>Typee</i>?</p>
<p class='c010'>But if, after all, it must be—duty, or
what-not, making provocation—what then?
And I clapped my feet hard against the fire-dogs,
and leaned back, and turned my face
to the ceiling, as much as to say: And
where on earth, then, shall a poor devil look
for a wife?</p>
<p class='c010'>Somebody says, Lyttleton or Shaftesbury,
I think, that, “marriages would be
happier if they were all arranged by the
lord chancellor.” Unfortunately, we have
no lord chancellor to make this commutation
of our misery.</p>
<p class='c010'>Shall a man, then, scour the country on
a mule’s back, like Honest Gil Blas, of
Santillane; or shall he make application to
some such intervening providence as Madame
St. Marc, who, as I see by the <i>Presse</i>,
manages these matters to one’s hand, for
some five per cent. on the fortunes of the
parties?</p>
<p class='c010'>I have trouted when the brook was so
low and the sky so hot that I might as well
have thrown my fly upon the turnpike; and
I have hunted hare at noon, and woodcock
in snow-time—never despairing, scarce
doubting; but for a poor hunter of his
kind, without traps or snares, or any aid
of police or constabulary, to traverse the
world, where are swarming, on a moderate
computation, some three hundred and odd
millions of unmarried women, for a single
capture—irremediable, unchangeable—and
yet a captive which, by strange metonymy
not laid down in the books, is very apt to
turn captor into captive, and make game
of hunter—all this, surely, surely may make
a man shrug with doubt!</p>
<p class='c010'>Then—again—there are the plaguy
wife’s relations. Who knows how many
third, fourth, or fifth cousins will appear at
careless, complimentary intervals long after
you had settled into the placid belief that
all congratulatory visits were at an end?
How many twisted-headed brothers will be
putting in their advice, as a friend to
Peggy?</p>
<p class='c010'>How many maiden aunts will come to
spend a month or two with their “dear
Peggy,” and want to know every tea-time
“if she isn’t a dear love of a wife?” Then
dear father-in-law will beg (taking dear
Peggy’s hand in his) to give a little wholesome
counsel; and will be very sure to
advise just the contrary of what you had determined
to undertake. And dear mamma-in-law
must set her nose into Peggy’s cupboard,
and insist upon having the key to
your own private locker in the wainscot.</p>
<p class='c010'>Then, perhaps, there is a little bevy of
dirty-nosed nephews, who come to spend
the holidays, and eat up your East India
sweetmeats, and who are forever tramping
over your head or raising the old Harry
below, while you are busy with your clients.
Last, and worst, is some fidgety old uncle,
forever too cold or too hot, who vexes you
with his patronizing airs, and impudently
kisses his little Peggy!</p>
<p class='c010'>—That could be borne, however, for perhaps
he has promised his fortune to Peggy.
Peggy, then, will be rich (and the thought
made me rub my shins, which were now
getting comfortably warm upon the fire-dogs).
Then, she will be forever talking of
<i>her</i> fortune; and pleasantly reminding you
on occasion of a favorite purchase—how
lucky that <i>she</i> had the means; and dropping
hints about economy; and buying very extravagant
Paisleys.</p>
<p class='c010'>She will annoy you by looking over the
stock list at breakfast time; and mention
quite carelessly to your clients, that she is
interested in <i>such</i>, or such a speculation.</p>
<p class='c010'>She will be provokingly silent when you
hint to a tradesman that you have not the
money by you for his small bill—in short,
she will tear the life out of you, making you
pay in righteous retribution of annoyance,
grief, vexation, shame and sickness of
heart, for the superlative folly of “marrying
rich.”</p>
<p class='c010'>—But if not rich, then poor. Bah! the
thought made me stir the coals; but there
was still no blaze. The paltry earnings you
are able to wring out of clients by the sweat
of your brow, will now be all <i>our</i> income;
you will be pestered for pin-money, and pestered
with your poor wife’s relations. Ten
to one she will stickle about taste—“Sir
Visto’s”—and want to make this so pretty,
and that so charming, if she <i>only</i> had the
means; and is sure Paul (a kiss) can’t deny
his little Peggy such a trifling sum, and all
for the common benefit.</p>
<p class='c010'>Then she, for one, means that <i>her</i> children
shan’t go a-begging for clothes—and
another pull at the purse. Trust a poor
mother to dress her children in finery!</p>
<p class='c010'>Perhaps she is ugly—not noticeable at
first, but growing on her, and (what is
worse) growing faster on you. You wonder
why you didn’t see that vulgar nose long
ago: and that lip—it is very strange, you
think, that you ever thought it pretty. And
then—to come to breakfast, with her hair
looking as it does, and you not so much
as daring to say—“Peggy, <i>do</i> brush your
hair!” Her foot, too—not very bad when
decently <i>chaussée</i>—but now, since she’s
married, she does wear such infernal slippers!
And yet, for all this, to be prigging
up for an hour, when any of my old chums
come to dine with me!</p>
<p class='c010'>“Bless your kind hearts! my dear fellows,”
said I, thrusting the tongs into the
coals, and speaking out loud, as if my voice
could reach from Virginia to Paris—“not
married yet!”</p>
<p class='c010'>Perhaps Peggy is pretty enough—only
shrewish.</p>
<p class='c010'>—No matter for cold coffee; you should
have been up before.</p>
<p class='c010'>What sad, thin, poorly-cooked chops, to
eat with your rolls!</p>
<p class='c010'>—She thinks they are very good, and
wonders how you can set such an example
to your children.</p>
<p class='c010'>The butter is nauseating.</p>
<p class='c010'>—She has no other, and hopes you’ll not
raise a storm about butter a little turned. I
think I see myself—ruminated I—sitting
meekly at table, scarce daring to lift up my
eyes, utterly fagged out with some quarrel
of yesterday, choking down detestably sour
muffins that my wife thinks are “delicious”—slipping
in dried mouthfuls of burned
ham off the side of my fork tines—slipping
off my chair sideways at the end, and slipping
out with my hat between my knees, to
business, and never feeling myself a competent,
sound-minded man till the oak door is
between me and Peggy!</p>
<p class='c010'>—“Ha, ha—not yet!” said I; and in so
earnest a tone that my dog started to his
feet—cocked his eye to have a good look
into my face—met my smile of triumph
with an amiable wag of the tail, and curled
up again in the corner.</p>
<p class='c010'>Again, Peggy is rich enough, well
enough, mild enough, only she doesn’t care
a fig for you. She has married you because
father, or grandfather thought the
match eligible, and because she didn’t wish
to disoblige them. Besides, she didn’t positively
hate you, and thought you were a respectable
enough young person; she has
told you so repeatedly at dinner. She wonders
you like to read poetry; she wishes
you would buy her a good cookbook; and
insists upon you making your will at the
birth of the first baby.</p>
<p class='c010'>She thinks Captain So-and-So a splendid-looking
fellow, and wishes you would trim
up a little, were it only for appearance’s
sake.</p>
<p class='c010'>You need not hurry up from the office so
early at night: she, bless her dear heart!
does not feel lonely. You read to her a
love tale; she interrupts the pathetic parts
with directions to her seamstress. You
read of marriages: she sighs, and asks if
Captain So-and-So has left town! She
hates to be mewed up in a cottage, or between
brick walls; she does <i>so</i> love the
Springs!</p>
<p class='c010'>But, again, Peggy loves you; at least she
swears it, with her hand on the <i>Sorrows of
Werther</i>. She has pin-money which she
spends for the <i>Literary World</i> and the
<i>Friends in Council</i>. She is not bad looking,
save a bit too much of forehead; nor is she
sluttish, unless a <i>négligé</i> till three o’clock,
and an ink stain on the forefinger be sluttish;
but then she is such a sad blue!</p>
<p class='c010'>You never fancied, when you saw her
buried in a three-volumed novel, that it was
anything more than a girlish vagary; and
when she quoted Latin you thought, innocently,
that she had a capital memory for
her samplers.</p>
<div class='figcenter id006'>
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<p class='c009'>But to be bored eternally about Divine
Dante and funny Goldoni, is too bad. Your
copy of Tasso, a treasure print of 1680, is
all bethumbed and dog’s-eared, and spotted
with baby gruel. Even your Seneca—an
Elzevir—is all sweaty with handling. She
adores La Fontaine, reads Balzac with a
kind of artist-scowl, and will not let Greek
alone.</p>
<p class='c010'>You hint at broken rest and an aching
head at breakfast, and she will fling you a
scrap of anthology—in lieu of the camphor
bottle—or chant the aἰaĩ aἰaĩ, of tragic chorus.</p>
<p class='c010'>—The nurse is getting dinner; you are
holding the baby; Peggy is reading
Bruyère.</p>
<p class='c010'>The fire smoked thick as pitch, and puffed
out little clouds over the chimney place. I
gave the fore-stick a kick, at the thought of
Peggy, baby and Bruyère.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Suddenly the flame flickered bluely
athwart the smoke—caught at a twig below—rolled
round the mossy oak-stick—twined
among the crackling tree-limbs—mounted—lit
up the whole body of smoke,
and blazed out cheerily and bright. Doubt
vanished with Smoke, and Hope began with
Flame.</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch01-2' class='c012'>II<br/>BLAZE—SIGNIFYING CHEER</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>I pushed</span> my chair back, drew up another,
stretched out my feet cozily upon it,
rested my elbows on the chair arms, leaned
my head on one hand, and looked straight
into the leaping and dancing flame.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Love is a flame—ruminated I; and
(glancing round the room) how a flame
brightens up a man’s habitation.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Carlo,” said I, calling up my dog into
the light, “good fellow, Carlo!” and I
patted him kindly, and he wagged his tail,
and laid his nose across my knee, and
looked wistfully up in my face; then strode
away—turned to look again, and lay down
to sleep.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Pho, the brute!” said I, “it is not enough,
after all, to like a dog.”</p>
<p class='c010'>—If now in that chair yonder, not the
one your feet lie upon, but the other, beside
you—closer yet—were seated a sweet-faced
girl, with a pretty little foot lying out upon
the hearth—a bit of lace running round the
swelling throat—the hair parted to a charm
over a forehead fair as any of your dreams;
and if you could reach an arm around that
chair back, without fear of giving offense,
and suffer your fingers to play idly with
those curls that escape down the neck; and
if you could clasp with your other hand
those little white, taper fingers of hers,
which lie so temptingly within reach—and
so, talk softly and low in presence of the
blaze, while the hours slip without knowledge,
and the winter winds whistle uncared
for; if, in short, you were no bachelor, but
the husband of some such sweet image
(dream, call it rather), would it not be far
pleasanter than this cold single night-sitting—counting
the sticks—reckoning the length
of the blaze, and the height of the falling
snow?</p>
<p class='c010'>And if, some or all of those wild vagaries
that grow on your fancy at such an hour,
you could whisper into listening, because
loving ears—ears not tired with listening,
because it is you who whisper—ears ever
indulgent because eager to praise; and if
your darkest fancies were lit up, not merely
with bright wood fire, but with a ringing
laugh of that sweet face turned up in fond
rebuke—how far better than to be waxing
black and sour over pestilential humors—alone—your
very dog asleep.</p>
<p class='c010'>And if, when a glowing thought comes
into your brain, quick and sudden, you
could tell it over as to a second self, to that
sweet creature, who is not away, because
she loves to be there; and if you could watch
the thought catching that girlish mind, illuming
that fair brow, sparkling in those
pleasantest of eyes—how far better than to
feel it slumbering, and going out, heavy,
lifeless, and dead, in your own selfish fancy.
And if a generous emotion steals over you—coming,
you know not whither, would there
not be a richer charm in lavishing it in
caress, or endearing word, upon that fondest,
and most dear one, than in patting your
glossy-coated dog, or sinking lonely to smiling
slumbers?</p>
<p class='c010'>How would not benevolence ripen with
such monitor to task it! How would not
selfishness grow faint and dull, leaning ever
to that second self, which is the loved one!
How would not guile shiver, and grow
weak, before that girl-brow and eye of innocence!
How would not all that boyhood
prized of enthusiasm, and quick blood, and
life, renew itself in such presence!</p>
<p class='c010'>The fire was getting hotter, and I moved
into the middle of the room. The shadows
the flames made were playing like fairy
forms over floor, and wall, and ceiling.</p>
<p class='c010'>My fancy would surely quicken, thought
I, if such being were in attendance. Surely
imagination would be stronger and purer if
it could have the playful fancies of dawning
womanhood to delight it. All toil would
be torn from mind-labor, if but another
heart grew into this present soul, quickening
it, warming it, cheering it, bidding it
ever—God speed!</p>
<p class='c010'><i>Her</i> face would make a halo, rich as a
rainbow, atop of all such noisome things,
as we lonely souls call trouble. Her smile
would illumine the blackest of crowding
cares; and darkness that now seats you despondent,
in your solitary chair for days together,
weaving bitter fancies, dreaming bitter
dreams, would grow light and thin, and
spread, and float away—chased by that beloved
smile.</p>
<p class='c010'>Your friend—poor fellow! dies: never
mind, that gentle clasp of <i>her</i> fingers, as she
steals behind you, telling you not to weep—it
is worth ten friends!</p>
<p class='c010'>Your sister, sweet one, is dead—buried.
The worms are busy with all her fairness.
How it makes you think earth nothing but
a spot to dig graves upon!</p>
<p class='c010'>—It is more: <i>she</i>, she says, will be a sister;
and the waving curls as she leans upon
your shoulder, touch your cheek, and your
wet eyes turn to meet those other eyes—God
has sent his angel, surely!</p>
<p class='c010'>Your mother, alas for it, she is gone! Is
there any bitterness to a youth, alone, and
homeless, like this!</p>
<p class='c010'>But you are not homeless; you are not
alone; <i>she</i> is there—her tears softening
yours, her smile lighting yours, her grief
killing yours; and you live again, to assuage
that kind sorrow of hers.</p>
<p class='c010'>Then—those children, rosy, fair-haired;
no, they do not disturb you with their prattle
now—they are yours! Toss away there
on the greensward—never mind the hyacinths,
the snowdrops, the violets, if so be
any are there; the perfume of their healthful
lips is worth all the flowers of the world.
No need now to gather wild bouquets to
love and cherish: flower, tree, gun, are all
dead things; things livelier hold your soul.</p>
<p class='c010'>And she, the mother, sweetest and fairest
of all, watching, tending, caressing, loving,
till your own heart grows pained with tenderest
jealousy, and cures itself with loving.</p>
<p class='c010'>You have no need now of any cold lecture
to teach thankfulness; your heart is
full of it. No need now, as once, of bursting
blossoms of trees taking leaf and greenness,
to turn thought kindly and thankfully;
for, ever beside you, there is bloom,
and ever beside you there is fruit—for
which eye, heart and soul are full of unknown,
and unspoken, because unspeakable
thank-offering.</p>
<p class='c010'>And if sickness catches you, binds you,
lays you down—no lonely moanings and
wicked curses at careless-stepping nurses.
<i>The</i> step is noiseless, and yet distinct beside
you. The white curtains are drawn, or
withdrawn by the magic of that other presence;
and the soft, cool hand is upon your
brow.</p>
<p class='c010'>No cold comfortings of friend-watchers,
merely come in to steal a word away from
that outer world, which is pulling at their
skirts; but, ever the sad, shaded brow of
her, whose lightest sorrow for your sake is
your greatest grief—if it were not a greater
joy.</p>
<p class='c010'>The blaze was leaping light and high, and
the wood falling under the growing heat.</p>
<p class='c010'>—So, continued I, this heart would be
at length itself—striving with everything
gross, even now as it clings to grossness.
Love would make its strength native and
progressive. Earth’s cares would fly. Joys
would double. Susceptibilities be quickened;
love master self; and having made
the mastery, stretch onward, and upward
toward infinitude.</p>
<p class='c010'>And if the end came, and sickness
brought that follower—Great Follower—which
sooner or later is sure to come after,
then the heart, and the hand of love, ever
near, are giving to your tired soul, daily
and hourly, lessons of that love which consoles,
which triumphs, which circleth all
and centereth in all—love infinite and divine!</p>
<p class='c010'>Kind hands—none but <i>hers</i>—will smooth
the hair upon your brow as the chill grows
damp and heavy on it; and her fingers—none
but hers—will lie in yours as the
wasted flesh stiffens and hardens for the
ground. <i>Her</i> tears—you could feel no
others, if oceans fell—will warm your
drooping features once more to life; once
more your eye, lighted in joyous triumph,
kindles in her smile, and then—</p>
<p class='c010'>The fire fell upon the hearth; the blaze
gave a last leap—a flicker—then another—caught
a little remaining twig—blazed up—wavered—went
out.</p>
<p class='c010'>There was nothing but a bed of glowing
embers, over which the white ashes gathered
fast. I was alone, with only my dog
for company.</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch01-3' class='c005'>III<br/>ASHES—SIGNIFYING DESOLATION</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>After</span> all, thought I, ashes follow blaze
inevitably as death follows life. Misery
treads on the heels of joy; anguish rides
swift after pleasure.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Come to me again, Carlo,” said I to my
dog; and I patted him fondly once more,
but now only by the light of the dying embers.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is very little pleasure one takes in
fondling brute favorites; but it is a pleasure
that when it passes, leaves no void. It is
only a little alleviating redundance in your
solitary heart-life which, if lost, another can
be supplied.</p>
<p class='c010'>But if your heart, not solitary—not quieting
its humors with mere love of chase, or
dog—not repressing, year after year, its
earnest yearnings after something better
and more spiritual—has fairly linked itself
by bonds strong as life, to another
heart—is the casting off easy then?</p>
<p class='c010'>Is it then only a little heart-redundancy
cut off, which the next bright sunset will
fill up?</p>
<p class='c010'>And my fancy, as it had painted doubt
under the smoke, and cheer under warmth
of the blaze, so now it began under the faint
light of the smoldering embers, to picture
heart-desolation.</p>
<p class='c010'>What kind, congratulatory letters, hosts
of them, coming from old and half-forgotten
friends, now that your happiness is a
year, or two years old!</p>
<p class='c010'>“Beautiful.”</p>
<p class='c010'>—Ay, to be sure, beautiful!</p>
<p class='c010'>“Rich.”</p>
<p class='c010'>—Pho, the dawdler! how little he knows
of heart-treasure, who speaks of wealth to
a man who loves his wife as a wife only
should be loved!</p>
<p class='c010'>“Young.”</p>
<p class='c010'>—Young indeed; guileless as infancy;
charming as the morning.</p>
<p class='c010'>Ah, these letters bear a sting: they bring
to mind, with new and newer freshness, if
it be possible, the value of that which you
tremble lest you lose.</p>
<p class='c010'>How anxiously you watch that step—if
it lose not its buoyancy. How you study the
color on that cheek, if it grow not fainter.
How you tremble at the luster in those eyes,
if it be not the luster of death. How you
totter under the weight of that muslin sleeve—a
phantom weight! How you fear to do
it, and yet press forward, to note if that
breathing be quickened, as you ascend the
home-heights, to look off on the sunset
lighting the plain.</p>
<p class='c010'>Is your sleep, quiet sleep, after that she
has whispered to you her fears, and in the
same breath—soft as a sigh, sharp as an
arrow—bid you bear it bravely?</p>
<p class='c010'>Perhaps—the embers were now glowing
fresher, a little kindling, before the ashes—she
triumphs over disease.</p>
<p class='c010'>But Poverty, the world’s almoner, has
come to you with ready, spare hand.</p>
<p class='c010'>Alone, with your dog living on bones,
and you on hope—kindling each morning,
dying slowly each night—this could be
borne. Philosophy would bring home its
stores to the lone man. Money is not in his
hand, but knowledge is in his brain! and
from that brain he draws out faster, as he
draws slower from his pocket. He remembers;
and on remembrance he can live for
days and weeks. The garret, if a garret
covers him, is rich in fancies. The rain, if
it pelts, pelts only him used to rain-peltings.
And his dog crouches not in dread, but in
companionship. His crust he divides with
him, and laughs. He crowns himself with
glorious memories of Cervantes, though he
begs; if he nights it under the stars, he
dreams heaven-sent dreams of the prisoned
and homeless Galileo.</p>
<p class='c010'>He hums old sonnets, and snatches of
poor Jonson’s plays. He chants Dryden’s
odes, and dwells on Otway’s rhyme. He
reasons with Bolingbroke or Diogenes as
the humor takes him, and laughs at the
world, for the world, thank Heaven, has
left him alone!</p>
<p class='c010'>Keep your money, old misers, and your
palaces, old princes—the world is mine!</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>I care not, fortune, what you me deny.</div>
<div class='line in2'>You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace,</div>
<div class='line'>You cannot shut the windows of the sky;</div>
<div class='line in2'>You cannot bar my constant feet to trace</div>
<div class='line'>The woods and lawns, by living streams, at eve,</div>
<div class='line in2'>Let health, my nerves and finer fibers brace,</div>
<div class='line'>And I, their toys, to the great children, leave.</div>
<div class='line in2'>Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can we bereave!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'>But—if not alone?</p>
<p class='c010'>If <i>she</i> is clinging to you for support, for
consolation, for home, for life—she, reared
in luxury, perhaps, is faint for bread?</p>
<p class='c010'>Then the iron enters the soul; then the
nights darken under any skylight. Then
the days grow long, even in the solstice of
winter.</p>
<p class='c010'>She may not complain; what then?</p>
<p class='c010'>Will your heart grow strong, if the
strength of her love can dam up the fountains
of tears, and the tied tongue not tell
of bereavement? Will it solace you to find
her parting the poor treasure of food you
have stolen for her, with begging, foodless
children?</p>
<p class='c010'>But this ill, strong hands and Heaven’s
help will put down. Wealth again; flowers
again; patrimonial acres again; brightness
again. But your little Bessie, your favorite
child, is pining.</p>
<p class='c010'>Would to God! you say in agony, that
wealth could bring fullness again into that
blanched cheek, or round those little thin
lips once more; but it can not. Thinner
and thinner they grow; plaintive and more
plaintive her sweet voice.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Dear Bessie”—and your tones tremble;
you feel that she is on the edge of the
grave? Can you pluck her back? Can endearments
stay her? Business is heavy,
away from the loved child; home, you go,
to fondle while yet time is left—but <i>this</i>
time you are too late. She is gone. She
can not hear you; she can not thank you for
the violets you put within her stiff white
hand.</p>
<p class='c010'>And then—the grassy mound—the cold
shadow of head-stone!</p>
<p class='c010'>The wind, growing with the night, is rattling
at the window panes, and whistles dismally.
I wipe a tear, and in the interval of
my reverie, thank God, that I am no such
mourner.</p>
<p class='c010'>But gaiety, snail-footed, creeps back to
the household. All is bright again:</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line in8'>The violet bed’s not sweeter</div>
<div class='line'>Than the delicious breath marriage sends forth.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'><i>Her</i> lip is rich and full; her cheek delicate
as a flower. Her frailty doubles your
love.</p>
<p class='c010'>And the little one she clasps—frail too—too
frail: the boy you had set your hopes
and heart on. You have watched him growing,
ever prettier, ever winning more and
more upon your soul. The love you bore to
him when he first lisped names—your name
and hers—has doubled in strength now that
he asks innocently to be taught of this, of
that, and promises you by that quick curiosity
that flashes in his eye, a mind full of
intelligence.</p>
<p class='c010'>And some hair-breadth escape by sea, or
flood, that he perhaps may have had—which
unstrung your soul to such tears as you pray
God may be spared you again—has endeared
the little fellow to your heart a thousandfold.</p>
<p class='c010'>And, now with his pale sister in the
grave, all <i>that</i> love has come away from the
mound, where worms feast, and centers on
the boy.</p>
<p class='c010'>How you watch the storms lest they harm
him! How often you steal to his bed late
at night and lay your hand lightly upon the
brow, where the curls cluster thick, rising
and falling with the throbbing temples, and
watch, for minutes together, the little lips
half-parted, and listen—your ear close to
them—if the breathing be regular and
sweet!</p>
<p class='c010'>But the day comes—the night rather—when
you can catch no breathing.</p>
<p class='c010'>Aye, put your hair away—compose yourself—listen
again.</p>
<p class='c010'>No, there is nothing!</p>
<p class='c010'>Put your hand now to his brow—damp
indeed—but not with healthful night sleep:
it is not your hand, no, do not deceive yourself—it
is your loved boy’s forehead that is
so cold; and your loved boy will never
speak to you again—never play again—he is
dead!</p>
<p class='c010'>Oh, the tears—the tears: what blessed
things are tears! Never fear now to let
them fall on his forehead, or his lip, lest
you waken him! Clasp him—clasp him
harder—you can not hurt, you can not
waken him! Lay him down, gently or not,
it is the same; he is stiff; he is stark and
cold.</p>
<hr class='c015' />
<p class='c010'>But courage and patience, faith and hope
recovers itself easier, thought I, than these
embers will get into blaze again.</p>
<p class='c010'>But courage, and patience, faith, and hope
have their limit. Blessed be the man who
escapes such trial as will determine limit!</p>
<p class='c010'>To a lone man it comes not near; for how
can trial take hold where there is nothing
by which to try?</p>
<p class='c010'>A funeral? You reason with philosophy.
A graveyard? You read Hervey and muse
upon the wall. A friend dies? You sigh,
you pat your dog—it is over. Losses? You
retrench—you light your pipe—it is forgotten.
Calumny? You laugh—you sleep.</p>
<p class='c010'>But with that childless wife clinging to
you in love and sorrow—what then?</p>
<p class='c010'>Can you take down Seneca now, and
coolly blow the dust from the leaf-tops?
Can you crimp your lip with Voltaire? Can
you smoke idly, your feet dangling with
the ivies, your thoughts all waving fancies
upon a church-yard wall—a wall that borders
the grave of your boy?</p>
<p class='c010'>Can you amuse yourself by turning stinging
Martial into rhyme? Can you pat your
dog, and seeing him wakeful and kind, say,
“It is enough?” Can you sneer at calumny,
and sit by your fire dozing?</p>
<p class='c010'>Blessed, thought I again, is the man who
escapes such trial as will measure the limit
of patience and the limit of courage!</p>
<p class='c010'>But the trial comes—colder and colder
were growing the embers.</p>
<p class='c010'>That wife, over whom your love broods,
is fading. Not beauty fading—that, now
that your heart is wrapped in her being,
would be nothing.</p>
<p class='c010'>She sees with quick eye your dawning
apprehension, and she tries hard to make
that step of hers elastic.</p>
<p class='c010'>Your trials and your loves together have
centered your affections. They are not now
as when you were a lone man, wide-spread
and superficial. They have caught from
domestic attachments a finer tone and touch.
They cannot shoot out tendrils into barren
world-soil and suck up thence strengthening
nutriment. They have grown under
the forcing-glass of home-roof, they will
not now bear exposure.</p>
<p class='c010'>You do not now look men in the face as
if a heart-bond was linking you—as if a
community of feeling lay between. There
is a heart-bond that absorbs all others;
there is a community that monopolizes your
feeling. When the heart lay wide open, before
it had grown upon, and closed around
particular objects, it could take strength
and cheer from a hundred connections that
now seem colder than ice.</p>
<p class='c010'>And now those particular objects—alas
for you!—are failing.</p>
<p class='c010'>What anxiety pursues you! How you
struggle to fancy—there is no danger; how
she struggles to persuade you—there is no
danger!</p>
<p class='c010'>How it grates now on your ear—the toil
and turmoil of the city! It was music when
you were alone; it was pleasant even, when
from the din you were elaborating comforts
for the cherished objects—when you had
such sweet escape as evening drew on.</p>
<p class='c010'>Now it maddens you to see the world
careless while you are steeped in care.
They hustle you in the street; they smile
at you across the table; they bow carelessly
over the way; they do not know what canker
is at your heart.</p>
<p class='c010'>The undertaker comes with his bill for the
dead boy’s funeral. He knows your grief;
he is respectful. You bless him in your
soul. You wish the laughing street-goers
were all undertakers.</p>
<p class='c010'>Your eye follows the physician as he
leaves your house: is he wise, you ask yourself;
is he prudent? Is he the best? Did he
never fail—is he never forgetful?</p>
<p class='c010'>And now the hand that touches yours, is
it no thinner—no whiter than yesterday?
Sunny days come when she revives; color
comes back; she breathes freer; she picks
flowers; she meets you with a smile. Hope
lives again.</p>
<p class='c010'>But the next day of storm she is fallen.
She cannot talk even; she presses your
hand.</p>
<p class='c010'>You hurry away from business before
your time. What matter for clients—who
is to reap the rewards? What matter for
fame—whose eye will it brighten? What
matter for riches—whose is the inheritance?</p>
<p class='c010'>You find her propped with pillows; she
is looking over a little picture-book be-thumbed
by the dear boy she has lost. She
hides it in her chair; she has pity on you.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Another day of revival, when the
spring sun shines, and flowers open out of
doors; she leans on your arm, and strolls
into the garden where the first birds are
singing. Listen to them with her—what
memories are in bird-songs! You need not
shudder at her tears—they are tears of
thanksgiving. Press the hand that lies light
upon your arm, and you, too, thank God,
while yet you may!</p>
<hr class='c015' />
<p class='c010'>You are early home—mid-afternoon.
Your step is not light; it is heavy, terrible.</p>
<p class='c010'>They have sent for you.</p>
<p class='c010'>She is lying down; her eyes half closed;
her breathing long and interrupted.</p>
<p class='c010'>She hears you; her eye opens; you put
your hand in hers; yours trembles—hers
does not. Her lips move; it is your name.</p>
<div class='figcenter id007'>
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<p class='c009'>“Be strong,” she says, “God will help
you!”</p>
<p class='c010'>She presses harder your hand: “Adieu!”</p>
<p class='c010'>A long breath—another; you are alone
again. No tears now; poor man! You
cannot find them!</p>
<hr class='c015' />
<p class='c010'>—Again home early. There is a smell
of varnish in your house. A coffin is there;
they have clothed the body in decent grave
clothes, and the undertaker is screwing
down the lid, slipping round on tip-toe.
Does he fear to waken her?</p>
<p class='c010'>He asks you a simple question about the
inscription upon the plate, rubbing it with
his coat cuff. You look him straight in the
eye; you motion to the door; you dare not
speak.</p>
<p class='c010'>He takes up his hat and glides out stealthful
as a cat.</p>
<p class='c010'>The man has done his work well for all.
It is a nice coffin—a very nice coffin! Pass
your hand over it—how smooth!</p>
<p class='c010'>Some sprigs of mignonette are lying
carelessly in a little gilt-edged saucer. She
loved mignonette.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is a good stanch table the coffin rests
on; it is your table; you are a housekeeper—a
man of family!</p>
<p class='c010'>Ay, of family! keep down outcry, or the
nurse will be in. Look over at the pinched
features; is this all that is left of her? And
where is your heart now? No, don’t thrust
your nails into your hands, nor mangle your
lip, nor grate your teeth together. If you
could only weep!</p>
<p class='c010'>—Another day. The coffin is gone out.
The stupid mourners have wept—what idle
tears! She with your crushed heart, has
gone out!</p>
<p class='c010'>Will you have pleasant evenings at your
home now?</p>
<p class='c010'>Go into your parlor that your prim housekeeper
has made comfortable with clean
hearth and blaze of sticks.</p>
<p class='c010'>Sit down in your chair; there is another
velvet cushioned one, over against yours—empty.
You press your fingers on your
eye-balls, as if you would press out something
that hurt the brain; but you cannot.
Your head leans upon your hand; your eye
rests upon the flashing blaze.</p>
<p class='c010'>Ashes always come after blaze.</p>
<p class='c010'>Go now into the room where she was
sick—softly, lest the prim housekeeper come
after.</p>
<p class='c010'>They have put new dimity upon her
chair; they have hung new curtains over
the bed. They have removed from the
stand its vials, and silver bell; they have
put a little vase of flowers in their place; the
perfume will not offend the sick sense now.
They have half opened the window, that
the room so long closed may have air. It
will not be too cold.</p>
<p class='c010'>She is not there.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Oh, God! thou who dost temper the
wind to the shorn lamb—be kind!</p>
<p class='c010'>The embers were dark; I stirred them;
there was no sign of life. My dog was
asleep. The clock in my tenant’s chamber
had struck one.</p>
<p class='c010'>I dashed a tear or two from my eyes;
how they came there I know not. I half
ejaculated a prayer of thanks, that such
desolation had not yet come nigh me; and
a prayer of hope—that it might never come.</p>
<p class='c010'>In a half hour more, I was sleeping
soundly. My reverie was ended.</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch02' class='c005'>BY A CITY GRATE</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Blessed</span> be letters—they are the monitors,
they are also the comforters, and they
are the only true heart-talkers! Your
speech, and their speeches, are conventional;
they are molded by circumstance; they are
suggested by the observation, remark, and
influence of the parties to whom the speaking
is addressed, or by whom it may be
overheard.</p>
<p class='c010'>Your truest thought is modified half
through its utterance by a look, a sign, a
smile, or a sneer. It is not individual; it is
not integral: it is social and mixed—half
of you, and half of others. It bends, it
sways, it multiplies, it retires, and it advances,
as the talk of others presses, relaxes,
or quickens.</p>
<p class='c010'>But it is not so of letters—there you
are, with only the soulless pen, and the
snow-white, virgin paper. Your soul is measuring
itself by itself, and saying its own
sayings; there are no sneers to modify its
utterance—no scowl to scare—nothing is
present but you, and your thought.</p>
<p class='c010'>Utter it then freely—write it down—stamp
it—burn it in the ink!—There it is, a
true soul-print!</p>
<p class='c010'>Oh, the glory, the freedom, the passion
of a letter! It is worth all the lip-talk in the
world. Do you say, it is studied, made up,
acted, rehearsed, contrived, artistic?</p>
<p class='c010'>Let me see it, then; let me run it over;
tell me age, sex, circumstance, and I will
tell you if it be studied or real—if it be
the merest lip-slang put into words, or
heart-talk blazing on the paper.</p>
<div class='figcenter id009'>
<ANTIMG src='images/i048fp.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></div>
<p class='c009'>I have a little packet, not very large, tied
up with narrow, crimson ribbon, now
soiled with frequent handling, which far
into some winter’s night, I take down from
its nook upon my shelf, and untie, and open,
and run over, with such sorrow, and such
joy—such tears and such smiles, as I am
sure make me for weeks after, a kinder and
holier man.</p>
<p class='c010'>There are in this little packet, letters in
the familiar hand of a mother—what gentle
admonition—what tender affection!—God
have mercy on him who outlives the
tears that such admonitions, and such affection
call up to the eye! There are others
in the budget, in the delicate, and unformed
hand of a loved, and lost sister—written
when she, and you were full of glee, and the
best mirth of youthfulness; does it harm
you to recall that mirthfulness? or to trace
again, for the hundredth time, that scrawling
postscript at the bottom, with its <i>i’s</i> so
carefully dotted, and its gigantic <i>t’s</i> so carefully
crossed, by the childish hand of a little
brother?</p>
<p class='c010'>I have added latterly to that packet of
letters; I almost need a new and longer ribbon;
the old one is getting too short. Not
a few of these new and cherished letters, a
former reverie<SPAN name='r1' /><SPAN href='#f1' class='c016'><sup>[1]</sup></SPAN> has brought to me; not letters
of cold praise, saying it was well done,
artfully executed, prettily imagined—no
such thing: but letters of sympathy—of
sympathy which means sympathy—the
παθημί and the συν.</p>
<div class='footnote c017' id='f1'>
<p class='c018'><span class='label'><SPAN href='#r1'>1</SPAN>. </span>The first reverie—<i>Smoke, Flame and Ashes</i>—was
published some months previous to this, in the
<i>Southern Literary Messenger</i>.</p>
</div>
<p class='c010'>It would be cold and dastardly work to
copy them; I am too selfish for that. It is
enough to say that they, the kind writers,
have seen a heart in the reverie—have felt
that it was real, true. They know it; a secret
influence has told it. What matters it,
pray, if, literally, there was no wife, and no
dead child, and no coffin in the house? Is
not feeling, feeling; and heart, heart? Are
not these fancies thronging on my brain,
bringing tears to my eyes, bringing joy to
my soul, as living, as anything human can
be living? What if they have no material
type—no objective form? All that is crude—a
mere reduction of ideality to sense—a
transformation of the spiritual to the earthy—a
leveling of soul to matter.</p>
<p class='c010'>Are we not creatures of thought and passion?
Is anything about us more earnest
than that same thought and passion? Is
there anything more real—more characteristic
of that great and dim destiny to which
we are born, and which may be written
down in that terrible word—Forever?</p>
<p class='c010'>Let those who will then, sneer at what in
their wisdom they call untruth—at what is
false, because it has no material presence:
this does not create falsity; would to
Heaven that it did!</p>
<p class='c010'>And yet if there was actual, material
truth, superadded to reverie, would such
objectors sympathize the more? No! a
thousand times, no; the heart that has no
sympathy with thoughts and feelings that
scorch the soul, is dead also—whatever its
mocking tears, and gestures may say—to
a coffin or a grave!</p>
<p class='c010'>Let them pass, and we will come back to
these cherished letters.</p>
<p class='c010'>A mother, who has lost a child, has, she
says, shed a tear—not one, but many—over
the dead boy’s coldness. And another, who
has not lost, but who trembles lest she lose,
has found the words failing as she read, and
a dim, sorrow-borne mist spreading over the
page.</p>
<p class='c010'>Another, yet rejoicing in all those family
ties, that make life a charm, has listened
nervously to careful reading, until the husband
is called home, and the coffin is in
the house—“Stop!”—she says; and a gush
of tears tells the rest.</p>
<p class='c010'>Yet the cold critic will say—“It was artfully
done.” A curse on him!—it was not
art: it was nature.</p>
<p class='c010'>Another, a young, fresh, healthful girl-mind,
has seen something in the love-picture—albeit
so weak—of truth; and has
kindly believed that it must be earnest. Ay,
indeed is it, fair, and generous one—earnest
as life and hope! Who, indeed, with a
heart at all, that has not yet slipped away
irreparably and forever from the shores of
youth—from that fairyland which young
enthusiasm creates, and over which bright
dreams hover—but knows it to be real?
And so such things will be read, till hopes
are dashed, and death is come.</p>
<p class='c010'>Another, a father, has laid down the
book in tears.</p>
<p class='c010'>—God bless them all! How far better
this, than the cold praise of newspaper paragraphs,
or the critically contrived approval
of colder friends!</p>
<p class='c010'>Let me gather up these letters, carefully—to
be read when the heart is faint, and
sick of all that there is unreal, and selfish
in the world. Let me tie them together,
with a new and longer bit of ribbon—not
by a love-knot, that is too hard—but by an
easy-slipping knot, that so I may get at
them the better. And now, they are all together,
a snug packet, and we will label
them, not sentimentally (I pity the one who
thinks it!), but earnestly, and in the best
meaning of the term—<span class='sc'>Souvenirs du Coeur</span>.</p>
<p class='c010'>Thanks to my first reverie, which has
added to such a treasure!</p>
<p class='c010'>And now to my <span class='sc'>Second Reverie</span>.</p>
<p class='c010'>I am no longer in the country. The fields,
the trees, the brooks are far away from me,
and yet they are very present. A letter from
my tenant—how different from those other
letters!—lies upon my table, telling me what
fields he has broken up for the autumn
grain, and how many beeves he is fattening,
and how the potatoes are turning out.</p>
<p class='c010'>But I am in a garret of the city. From
my window I look over a mass of crowded
house-tops—moralizing often upon the
scene, but in a strain too long and somber
to be set down here. In place of the wide
country chimney, with its iron fire-dogs, is
a snug grate, where the maid makes me a
fire in the morning, and rekindles it in the
afternoon.</p>
<p class='c010'>I am usually fairly seated in my chair—a
cozily stuffed office chair—by five or six
o’clock of the evening. The fire has been
newly made, perhaps an hour before: first,
the maid drops a withe of paper in the bottom
of the grate, then a stick or two of
pine-wood, and after it a hod of Liverpool
coal; so that by the time I am seated for
the evening, the sea-coal is fairly in a blaze.</p>
<p class='c010'>When this has sunk to a level with the
second bar of the grate, the maid replenishes
it with a hod of anthracite; and I sit
musing and reading, while the new coal
warms and kindles—not leaving my place,
until it has sunk to the third bar of the
grate, which marks my bedtime.</p>
<p class='c010'>I love these accidental measures of the
hours, which belong to you, and your life,
and not to the world. A watch is no more
the measure of your time, than of the time
of your neighbors; a church clock is as public
and vulgar as a church-warden. I
would as soon think of hiring the parish
sexton to make my bed, as to regulate my
time by the parish clock.</p>
<p class='c010'>A shadow that the sun casts upon your
carpet, or a streak of light on the slated
roof yonder, or the burning of your fire,
are pleasant time-keepers full of presence,
full of companionship, and full of the warning—time
is passing!</p>
<p class='c010'>In the summer season I have even measured
my reading, and my night-watch, by
the burning of a taper; and I have scratched
upon the handle to the little bronze taper-holder,
that meaning passage of the New
Testament—Νυξ γαρ ερχεται—the night cometh!</p>
<p class='c010'>But I must get upon my reverie; it was a
drizzly evening; I had worked hard during
the day, and had drawn my boots—thrust
my feet into slippers—thrown on a Turkish
loose dress, and Greek cap—souvenirs to
me of other times, and other places, and sat
watching the lively, uncertain yellow play
of the bituminous flame.</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch02-1' class='c005'>I<br/>SEA-COAL</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>It</span> is like a flirt—mused I; lively, uncertain,
bright-colored, waving here and there,
melting the coal into black shapeless mass,
making foul, sooty smoke, and pasty,
trashy residuum! Yet withal—pleasantly
sparkling, dancing, prettily waving, and
leaping like a roebuck from point to point.</p>
<p class='c010'>How like a flirt! And yet is not this
tossing caprice of girlhood, to which I
liken my sea-coal flame, a native play of
life, and belonging by nature to the playtime
of life? Is it not a sort of essential
fire-kindling to the weightier and truer passions—even
as Jenny puts the soft coal
first, the better to kindle the anthracite?
Is it not a sort of necessary consumption
of young vapors, which float in the soul,
and which is left thereafter the purer? Is
there not a stage somewhere in every man’s
youth, for just such waving, idle, heart-blaze,
which means nothing, yet which must
be got over?</p>
<p class='c010'>Lamartine says, somewhere, very prettily,
that there is more of quick running
sap, and floating shade in a young tree; but
more of fire in the heart of a sturdy oak—<i>Il
y a plus de sève folle et d’ombre flottante
dans les jeunes plants de la forêt; il y a
plus de feu dans le vieux cœur du chêne</i>.</p>
<p class='c010'>Is Lamartine playing off his prettiness of
expression, dressing up with his poetry—making
a good conscience against the ghost
of some accusing Graziella, or is there truth
in the matter?</p>
<p class='c010'>A man who has seen sixty years, whether
widower or bachelor, may well put such
sentiment into words: it feeds his wasted
heart with hope; it renews the exultation
of youth by the pleasantest of equivocation,
and the most charming of self-confidence.
But after all, is it not true? Is not the
heart like new blossoming field-plants,
whose first flowers are half-formed, one-sided
perhaps, but by and by, in maturity of
season, putting out wholesome, well-formed
blossoms that will hold their leaves long and
bravely?</p>
<p class='c010'>Bulwer in his story of <i>The Caxtons</i>, has
counted first heart-flights mere fancy-passages—a
dalliance with the breezes of love,
which pass, and leave healthful heart appetite.
Half the reading world has read the
story of Trevanion and Pisistratus. But
Bulwer is—past; his heart-life is used up—<i>épuisé</i>.
Such a man can very safely rant
about the cool judgment of after years.</p>
<p class='c010'>Where does Shakespeare put the unripe
heart-age? All of it before the ambition,
that alone makes the hero-soul. The
Shakespeare man “sighs like a furnace,”
before he stretches his arm to achieve the
“bauble, reputation.”</p>
<p class='c010'>Yet Shakespeare has meted a soul-love,
mature and ripe, without any young furnace
sighs to Desdemona and Othello. Cordelia,
the sweetest of his play creations, loves
without any of the mawkish matter, which
makes the whining love of a Juliet. And
Florizel in the <i>Winter’s Tale</i>, says to Perdita
in the true spirit of a most sound heart:</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line in26'>My desires</div>
<div class='line'>Run not before mine honor, nor my wishes</div>
<div class='line'>Burn hotter than my faith.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'>How is it with Hector and Andromache?
no sea-coal blaze, but one that is constant,
enduring, pervading: a pair of hearts full
of esteem, and best love—good, honest, and
sound.</p>
<p class='c010'>Look now at Adam and Eve, in God’s
presence, with Milton for showman. Shall
we quote by this sparkling blaze, a gem
from the <i>Paradise Lost</i>? We will hum it
to ourselves—what Raphael sings to Adam—a
classic song.</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line in6'>——Him, serve and fear!</div>
<div class='line'>Of other creatures, as Him pleases best</div>
<div class='line'>Wherever placed, let Him dispose; joy thou</div>
<div class='line'>In what he gives to thee, this Paradise</div>
<div class='line'>And thy fair Eve!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'>And again:</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line in14'>——Love refines</div>
<div class='line'>The thoughts, and heart enlarges; hath his seat</div>
<div class='line'>In reason, and is judicious: is the scale</div>
<div class='line'>By which to Heavenly love thou may’st ascend!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'>None of the playing sparkle in this love,
which belongs to the flame of my sea-coal
fire that is now dancing, lively as a cricket.
But on looking about my garret chamber, I
can see nothing that resembles the archangel
Raphael, or “thy fair Eve.”</p>
<p class='c010'>There is a degree of moisture about the
sea-coal flame, which with the most earnest
of my musing, I find it impossible to attach
to that idea of a waving sparkling
heart which my fire suggests. A damp
heart must be a foul thing to be sure. But
whoever heard of one?</p>
<p class='c010'>Wordsworth somewhere in the <i>Excursion</i>
says:</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line in14'>The good die first,</div>
<div class='line'>And they whose hearts are <i>dry</i> as summer dust</div>
<div class='line'>Burn to the socket!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'>What, in the name of Rydal Mount, is a
dry heart? A dusty one, I can conceive of:
a bachelor’s heart must be somewhat dusty,
as he nears the sixtieth summer of his pilgrimage—and
hung over with cobwebs, in
which sit such watchful gray old spiders
as avarice, and selfishness, forever on the
lookout for such bottle-green flies as lust.</p>
<p class='c010'>“I will never”—said I—gripping at the
elbows of my chair—“live a bachelor till
sixty—never, so surely as there is hope in
man, or charity in woman, or faith in both!”</p>
<p class='c010'>And with that thought my heart leaped
about in playful coruscations, even like the
flame of the sea-coal—rising, and wrapping
round old and tender memories and images
that were present to me—trying to cling,
and yet no sooner fastened than off—dancing
again, riotous in its exultation—a succession
of heart-sparkles, blazing, and going
out!</p>
<p class='c010'>—And is there not—mused I—a portion
of this world forever blazing in just such
lively sparkles, waving here and there as
the air-currents fan them?</p>
<p class='c010'>Take, for instance, your heart of sentiment,
and quick sensibility, a weak, warm-working
heart, flying off in tangents of
unhappy influence, unguided by prudence,
and perhaps virtue. There is a paper by
Mackenzie, in the <i>Mirror</i> for April, 1780,
which sets this untoward sensibility in a
strong light.</p>
<p class='c010'>And the more it is indulged, the more
strong and binding such a habit of sensibility
becomes. Poor Mackenzie himself must
have suffered thus; you can not read his
books without feeling it; your eye, in spite
of you, runs over with his sensitive griefs,
while you are half-ashamed of his success
at picture-making. It is a terrible inheritance;
and one that a strong man or woman
will study to subdue: it is a vain sea-coal
sparkling, which will count no good. The
world is made of much hard, flinty substance,
against which your better and holier
thoughts will be striking fire—see to it that
the sparks do not burn you!</p>
<p class='c010'>But what a happy, careless life belongs
to this bachelorhood in which you may
strike out boldly right and left! Your
heart is not bound to another which may
be full of only sickly vapors of feeling; nor
is it frozen to a cold, man’s heart under a
silk bodice—knowing nothing of tenderness
but the name, to prate of; and nothing
of soul-confidence but clumsy confession.
And if in your careless outgoings of feeling
you get here only a little lip vapidity
in return, be sure that you will find, elsewhere,
a true heart utterance. This last you
will cherish in your inner soul—a nucleus
for a new group of affections; and the other
will pass with a whiff of your cigar.</p>
<p class='c010'>Or if your feelings are touched, struck,
hurt, who is the wiser, or the worse, but
you only? And have you not the whole
skein of your heart-life in your own fingers
to wind, or unwind, in what shape you
please? Shake it, or twine it, or tangle it,
by the light of your fire, as you fancy best.
He is a weak man who can not twist and
weave the threads of his feeling—however
fine, however tangled, however strained, or
however strong—into the great cable of
purpose, by which he lies moored to his life
of action.</p>
<p class='c010'>Reading is a great and happy disentangler
of all those knotted snarls—those extravagant
vagaries, which belong to a heart
sparkling with sensibility; but the reading
must be cautiously directed. There is old,
placid Burton, when your soul is weak, and
its digestion of life’s humors is bad; there is
Cowper, when your spirit runs into kindly,
half-sad, religious musing; there is Crabbe,
when you would shake off vagary, by a
little handling of sharp actualities. There
is Voltaire, a homeopathic doctor, whom
you can read when you want to make a play
of life, and crack jokes at nature, and be
witty with destiny; there is Rousseau, when
you want to lose yourself in a mental dreamland,
and be beguiled by the harmony of
soul-music and soul-culture.</p>
<p class='c010'>And when you would shake off this, and
be sturdiest among the battlers for hard,
world-success, and be forewarned of rocks
against which you must surely smite—read
Bolingbroke—run over the letters of Lyttleton;
read, and think of what you read, in
the cracking lines of Rochefoucauld. How
he sums us up in his stinging words!—how
he puts the scalpel between the nerves—yet
he never hurts; for he is dissecting dead
matter.</p>
<p class='c010'>If you are in a genial, careless mood, who
is better than such extemporizers of feeling
and nature—good-hearted fellows—as
Sterne and Fielding?</p>
<p class='c010'>And then, again, there are Milton and
Isaiah, to lift up one’s soul until it touches
cloud-land, and you wander with their
guidance, on swift feet, to the very gates
of heaven.</p>
<p class='c010'>But this sparkling sensibility to one
struggling under infirmity, or with grief
or poverty, is very dreadful. The soul is
too nicely and keenly hinged to be wrenched
without mischief. How it shrinks, like a
hurt child, from all that is vulgar, harsh
and crude! Alas, for such a man!—he will
be buffeted, from beginning to end; his life
will be a sea of troubles. The poor victim
of his own quick spirit he wanders with a
great shield of doubt hung before him, so
that none, not even friends, can see the
goodness of such kindly qualities as belong
to him. Poverty, if it comes upon him, he
wrestles with in secret, with strong, frenzied
struggles. He wraps his scant clothes
about him to keep him from the cold; and
eyes the world, as if every creature in it
was breathing chill blasts at him, from every
opened mouth. He threads the crowded
ways of the city, proud in his griefs, vain
in his weakness, not stopping to do good.
Bulwer, in the <i>New Timon</i>, has painted in
a pair of stinging Pope-like lines, this feeling
in a woman:</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>Her vengeful pride, a kind of madness grown,</div>
<div class='line'>She hugged her wrongs, her sorrow was her throne!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'>Cold picture! yet the heart was sparkling
under it, like my sea-coal fire; lifting and
blazing, and lighting and falling—but with
no object; and only such little heat as begins
and ends within.</p>
<p class='c010'>Those fine sensibilities, ever active, are
chasing and observing all; they catch a hue
from what the dull and callous pass by unnoticed—because
unknown. They blunder
at the great variety of the world’s opinions;
they see tokens of belief where others see
none. That delicate organization is a curse
to a man: and yet, poor fool, he does not
see where his cure lies; he wonders at his
griefs, and has never reckoned with himself
their source. He studies others, without
studying himself. He eats the leaves
that sicken, and never plucks up the root
that will cure.</p>
<p class='c010'>With a woman it is worse; with her, this
delicate susceptibility is like a frail flower,
that quivers at every rough blast of heaven;
her own delicacy wounds her; her highest
charm is perverted to a curse.</p>
<p class='c010'>She listens with fear; she reads with
trembling; she looks with dread. Her sympathies
give a tone, like the harp of Æolus,
to the slightest breath. Her sensibility
lights up, and quivers and falls like the
flame of a sea-coal fire.</p>
<p class='c010'>If she loves (and may not a bachelor reason
on this daintiest of topics), her love is
a gushing, wavy flame, lit up with hope
that has only a little kindling matter to light
it; and this soon burns out. Yet intense
sensibility will persuade her that the flame
still scorches. She will mistake the annoyance
of affection unrequited for the sting of
a passion that she fancies still burns. She
does not look deep enough to see that the
passion is gone, and the shocked sensitiveness
emits only faint, yellowish sparkles in
its place; her high-wrought organization
makes those sparks seem a veritable flame.</p>
<p class='c010'>With her, judgment, prudence and discretion
are cold measured terms, which
have no meaning, except as they attach to
the actions of others. Of her own acts she
never predicates them; feeling is much too
high to allow her to submit to any such
obtrusive guides of conduct. She needs disappointment
to teach her truth; to teach
that all is not gold that glitters—to teach
that all warmth does not blaze. But let her
beware how she sinks under any fancied
disappointments: she who sinks under real
disappointment, lacks philosophy; but she
who sinks under a fancied one, lacks purpose.
Let her flee as the plague such brooding
thoughts as she will love to cherish; let
her spurn dark fancies as visitants of hell;
let the soul rise with the blaze of new-kindled,
active and world-wide emotions,
and so brighten into steady and constant
flame. Let her abjure such poets as Cowper,
or Byron, or even Wordsworth; and if
she must poetize, let her lay her mind to
such manly verse as Pope’s, or to such
sound and ringing organry as <i>Comus</i>.</p>
<p class='c010'>My fire was getting dull, and I thrust in
the poker: it started up on the instant into
a hundred little angry tongues of flame.</p>
<div class='figcenter id010'>
<ANTIMG src='images/i068fp.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></div>
<p class='c009'>—Just so—thought I—the oversensitive
heart once cruelly disturbed, will fling out
a score of flaming passions, darting here
and darting there—half-smoke, half-flame—love
and hate—canker and joy—wild in
its madness, not knowing whither its sparks
are flying. Once break roughly upon the
affections, or even the fancied affections of
such a soul, and you breed a tornado of
maddened action—a whirlwind of fire that
hisses and sends out jets of wild, impulsive
combustion that make the bystanders—even
those most friendly—stand aloof until the
storm is past.</p>
<p class='c010'>But this is not all the dashing flame of
my sea-coal suggests.</p>
<p class='c010'>—How like a flirt! mused I again, recurring
to my first thought—so lively, yet uncertain;
so bright yet so flickering! Your
true flirt plays with sparkles; her heart,
much as there is of it, spends itself in
sparkles; she measures it to sparkle, and
habit grows into nature, so that anon, it can
only sparkle. How carefully she cramps it,
if the flames show too great a heat; how
dexterously she flings its blaze here and
there; how coyly she subdues it; how winningly
she lights it!</p>
<p class='c010'>All this is the entire reverse of the unpremeditated
dartings of the soul at which
I have been looking; sensibility scorns
heart-curbings and heart-teachings; sensibility
inquires not—how much! but only—where?</p>
<p class='c010'>Your true flirt has a coarse-grained soul;
well modulated and well tutored, but there
is no fineness in it. All its native fineness
is made coarse by coarse efforts of the will.
True feeling is a rustic vulgarity, the flirt
does not tolerate; she counts its healthiest
and most honest manifestation, all sentiment.
Yet she will play you off a pretty
string of sentiment, which she has gathered
from the poets; she adjusts it prettily as a
Gobelin weaver adjusts the colors in his
<i>tapis</i>. She shades it off delightfully; there
are no bold contrasts, but a most artistic
mellowing of <i>nuances</i>.</p>
<p class='c010'>She smiles like a wizard, and jingles it
with a laugh, such as tolled the poor home-bound
Ulysses to the Circean bower. She
has a cast of the head, apt and artful as the
most dexterous cast of the best trout-killing
rod. Her words sparkle and flow hurriedly,
and with the prettiest doubleness of
meaning. Naturalness she copies and she
scorns. She accuses herself of a single expression
or regard, which nature prompts.
She prides herself on her schooling. She
measures her wit by the triumphs of her
art; she chuckles over her own falsity to
herself. And if by chance her soul—such
germ as is left of it—betrays her into untoward
confidence, she condemns herself, as
if she had committed crime.</p>
<p class='c010'>She is always gay, because she has no
depth of feeling to be stirred. The brook
that runs shallow over hard pebbly bottom
always rustles. She is light-hearted, because
her heart floats in sparkles—like my
sea-coal fire. She counts on marriage, not
as the great absorbent of a heart’s love and
life, but as a happy, feasible, and orderly
conventionality, to be played with, and kept
at distance, and finally to be accepted as a
cover for the faint and tawdry sparkles of
an old and cherished heartlessness.</p>
<p class='c010'>She will not pine under any regrets, because
she has no appreciation of any loss:
she will not chafe at indifference, because
it is her art; she will not be worried with
jealousies, because she is ignorant of love.
With no conception of the soul in its
strength and fullness, she sees no lack of its
demands. A thrill, she does not know; a
passion, she can not imagine; joy is a name;
grief is another; and life, with its crowding
scenes of love and bitterness, is a play upon
the stage.</p>
<p class='c010'>I think it is Madame Dudevant who says,
in something like the same connection: <i>Les
hiboux ne connaissent pas le chemin par où
les aigles vont au soleil</i>.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Poor Ned! mused I, looking at the
play of the fire—was a victim and a conqueror.
He was a man of a full, strong
nature—not a little impulsive—with action
too full of earnestness for most of men to see
its drift. He had known little of what is
called the world; he was fresh in feeling and
high of hope; he had been encircled always
by friends who loved him, and who, maybe,
flattered him. Scarce had he entered upon
the tangled life of the city before he met
with a sparkling face and an airy step that
stirred something in poor Ned that he had
never felt before. With him, to feel was to
act. He was not one to be despised; for,
notwithstanding he wore a country air, and
the awkwardness of a man who has yet the
<i>bienséance</i> of social life before him, he had
the soul, the courage, and the talent of a
strong man. Little gifted in the knowledge
of face-play, he easily mistook those coy
manœuvers of a sparkling heart for something
kindred to his own true emotions.</p>
<p class='c010'>She was proud of the attentions of a man
who carried a mind in his brain; and flattered
poor Ned almost into servility. Ned
had no friends to counsel him; or, if he had
them, his impulses would have blinded him.
Never was dodger more artful at the Olympic
Games than the Peggy of Ned’s heart-affection.
He was charmed, beguiled, entranced.</p>
<p class='c010'>When Ned spoke of love, she staved it
off with the prettiest of sly looks that only
bewildered him the more. A charming
creature to be sure; coy as a dove!</p>
<p class='c010'>So he went on, poor fool, until one day—he
told me of it with the blood mounting
to his temples, and his eye shooting flame—he
suffered his feelings to run out in passionate
avowal—entreaty—everything. She
gave a pleasant, noisy laugh, and manifested—such
pretty surprise!</p>
<p class='c010'>He was looking for the intense glow of
passion; and lo, there was nothing but the
shifting sparkle of a sea-coal flame.</p>
<p class='c010'>I wrote him a letter of condolence—for I
was his senior by a year; “My dear fellow,”
said I, “diet yourself; you can find greens
at the uptown market; eat a little fish with
your dinner; abstain from heating drinks;
don’t put too much butter to your cauliflower;
read one of Jeremy Taylor’s sermons,
and translate all the quotations at
sight; run carefully over that exquisite picture
of George Dandin in your Molière, and
my word for it, in a week you will be a
sound man.”</p>
<p class='c010'>He was too angry to reply; but eighteen
months thereafter I got a thick, three-sheeted
letter, with a dove upon the seal,
telling me that he was as happy as a king:
he said he had married a good-hearted, domestic,
loving wife, who was as lovely as a
June day, and that their baby, not three
months old, was as bright as a spot of June
day sunshine on the grass.</p>
<p class='c010'>—What a tender, delicate, loving wife—mused
I—such flashing, flaming flirt must
in the end make; the prostitute of fashion;
the bauble of fifty hearts idle as hers; the
shifting make-piece of a stage scene; the
actress, now in peasant, and now in princely
petticoats! How it would cheer an honest
soul to call her—his! What a culmination
of his heart-life; what a rich dreamland to
be realized!</p>
<p class='c010'>—Bah! and I thrust the poker into the
clotted mass of fading coal—just such, and
so worthless is the used heart of a city flirt;
just so the incessant sparkle of her life, and
frittering passions, fuses all that is sound
and combustible into black, sooty, shapeless
residuum.</p>
<p class='c010'>When I marry a flirt, I will buy second-hand
clothes of the Jews.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Still—mused I—as the flame danced
again—there is a distinction between coquetry
and flirtation.</p>
<p class='c010'>A coquette sparkles, but it is more the
sparkle of a harmless and pretty vanity
than of calculation. It is the play of humors
in the blood, and not the play of
purpose at the heart. It will flicker around
a true soul like the blaze around an <i>omelette
au rhum</i>, leaving the kernel sounder and
warmer.</p>
<p class='c010'>Coquetry, with all its pranks and teasings,
makes the spice to your dinner—the
mulled wine to your supper. It will drive
you to desperation, only to bring you back
hotter to the fray. Who would boast a victory
that cost no strategy, and no careful
disposition of the forces? Who would bulletin
such success as my Uncle Toby’s, in
the back garden, with only the Corporal
Trim for assailant? But let a man be very
sure that the city is worth the siege!</p>
<p class='c010'>Coquetry whets the appetite; flirtation depraves
it. Coquetry is the thorn that guards
the rose—easily trimmed off when once
plucked. Flirtation is like the slime on
water plants, making them hard to handle,
and when caught, only to be cherished in
slimy waters.</p>
<p class='c010'>And so, with my eye clinging to the flickering
blaze, I see in my reverie, a bright
one dancing before me, with sparkling, coquettish
smile, teasing me with the prettiest
graces in the world—and I grow maddened
between hope and fear, and still watch with
my whole soul in my eyes; and see her features
by and by relax to pity, as a gleam of
sensibility comes stealing over her spirit—and
then to a kindly, feeling regard: presently
she approaches—a coy and doubtful
approach—and throws back the ringlets
that lie over her cheek, and lays her hand—a
little bit of white hand—timidly upon my
strong fingers—and turns her head daintily
to one side—and looks up in my eyes as
they rest on the playing blaze; and my fingers
close fast and passionately over that
little hand like a swift night-cloud shrouding
the pale tips of Dian—and my eyes
draw nearer and nearer to those blue, laughing,
pitying, teasing eyes, and my arm clasps
round that shadowy form—and my lips
feel a warm breath—growing warmer and
warmer—</p>
<p class='c010'>Just here the maid comes in, throws upon
the fire a panful of anthracite, and my
sparkling sea-coal reverie is ended.</p>
<div class='pbb'>
<hr class='pb c003' /></div>
<div class='figcenter id003'>
<ANTIMG src='images/i077.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></div>
<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch02-2' class='c005'>II<br/>ANTHRACITE</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>It does</span> not burn freely, so I put on the
blower. Quaint and good-natured Xavier
de Maistre<SPAN name='r2' /><SPAN href='#f2' class='c016'><sup>[2]</sup></SPAN> would have made, I dare say, a
pretty epilogue about a sheet-iron blower;
but I can not.</p>
<div class='footnote c017' id='f2'>
<p class='c018'><span class='label'><SPAN href='#r2'>2</SPAN>. </span><i>Voyage autour de Ma Chambre.</i></p>
</div>
<p class='c010'>I try to bring back the image that belonged
to the lingering bituminous flame,
but with my eyes on that dark blower—how
can I?</p>
<p class='c010'>It is the black curtain of destiny which
drops down before our brightest dreams.
How often the phantoms of joy regale us,
and dance before us—golden-winged, angel-faced,
heart-warming, and make an Elysium
in which the dreaming soul bathes and
feels translated to another existence; and
then—sudden as night, or a cloud—a word,
a step, a thought, a memory will chase them
away like scared deer vanishing over a gray
horizon of moor-land!</p>
<p class='c010'>I know not justly, if it be a weakness or
a sin to create these phantoms that we love,
and to group them into a paradise—soul-created.
But if it is a sin, it is a sweet and
enchanting sin; and if it is a weakness, it
is a strong and stirring weakness. If this
heart is sick of the falsities that meet it at
every hand, and is eager to spend that
power which nature has ribbed it with, on
some object worthy of its fullness and
depth—shall it not feel a rich relief—nay
more, an exercise in keeping with its end,
if it flow out—strong as a tempest, wild as
a rushing river, upon those ideal creations,
which imagination invents, and which are
tempered by our best sense of beauty, purity
and grace?</p>
<p class='c010'>—Useless, do you say? Ay, it is as useless
as the pleasure of looking, hour upon
hour, over bright landscapes; it is as useless
as the rapt enjoyment of listening with
heart full and eyes brimming, to such music
as the Miserere, at Rome; it is as useless as
the ecstasy of kindling your soul into fervor
and love, and madness, over pages that reek
with genius.</p>
<p class='c010'>There are, indeed, base-molded souls who
know nothing of this; they laugh; they
sneer; they even affect to pity. Just so the
Huns, under the avenging Attila, who had
been used to foul cookery and steaks stewed
under their saddles, laughed brutally at the
spiced banquets of an Apicius!</p>
<p class='c010'>—No, this phantom-making is no sin; or
if it be, it is sinning with a soul so full, so
earnest, that it can cry to Heaven cheerily,
and sure of a gracious hearing—<i>peccavi</i>—<i>misericorde</i>!</p>
<p class='c010'>But my fire is in a glow, a pleasant glow,
throwing a tranquil, steady light to the
farthest corner of my garret. How unlike it
is to the flashing play of the sea-coal!—unlike
as an unsteady, uncertain-working heart
to the true and earnest constancy of one
cheerful and right.</p>
<p class='c010'>After all, thought I, give me such a heart;
not bent on vanities, not blazing too sharp
with sensibilities, not throwing out coquettish
jets of flame, not wavering, and meaningless
with pretended warmth, but open,
glowing and strong. Its dark shades and
angles it may have; for what is a soul worth
that does not take a slaty tinge from those
griefs that chill the blood. Yet still the fire
is gleaming; you see it in the crevices; and
anon it will give radiance to the whole
mass.</p>
<p class='c010'>—It hurts the eyes, this fire; and I draw
up a screen painted over with rough but
graceful figures.</p>
<p class='c010'>The true heart wears always the veil of
modesty (not of prudery, which is a dingy,
iron, repulsive screen). It will not allow
itself to be looked on too near—it might
scorch; but through the veil you feel the
warmth; and through the pretty figures that
modesty will robe itself in, you can see all
the while the golden outlines, and by that
token, you <i>know</i> that it is glowing and
burning with a pure and steady flame.</p>
<p class='c010'>With such a heart the mind fuses naturally—a
holy and heated fusion; they work
together like twins-born. With such a
heart, as Raphael says to Adam:</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line in4'>Love hath his seat</div>
<div class='line'>In reason, and is judicious.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'>But let me distinguish this heart from
your clay-cold, lukewarm, half-hearted soul;
considerate, because ignorant; judicious, because
possessed of no latent fires that need
a curb; prudish, because with no warm
blood to tempt. This sort of soul may pass
scatheless through the fiery furnace of life;
strong, only in its weakness; pure, because
of its failings; and good, only by negation.
It may triumph over love, and sin, and
death; but it will be a triumph of the beast,
which has neither passions to subdue, or
energy to attack, or hope to quench.</p>
<p class='c010'>Let us come back to the steady and earnest
heart, glowing like my anthracite coal.</p>
<p class='c010'>I fancy I see such a one now; the eye is
deep and reaches back to the spirit; it is not
the trading eye, weighing your purse; it is
not the worldly eye, weighing position; it is
not the beastly eye, weighing your appearance;
it is the heart’s eye weighing your
soul!</p>
<p class='c010'>It is full of deep, tender, and earnest feeling.
It is an eye, which looked on once,
you long to look on again; it is an eye
which will haunt your dreams—an eye
which will give a color, in spite of you, to
all your reveries. It is an eye which lies
before you in your future, like a star in the
mariner’s heaven; by it, unconsciously, and
from force of deep soul habit, you take all
your observations. It is meek and quiet;
but it is full as a spring that gushes in
flood; an Aphrodite and a Mercury—a Vaucluse
and a Clitumnus.</p>
<p class='c010'>The face is an angel face; no matter for
curious lines of beauty; no matter for popular
talk of prettiness; no matter for its
angles, or its proportions; no matter for its
color or its form—the soul is there, illuminating
every feature, burnishing every
point, hallowing every surface. It tells of
honesty, sincerity and worth; it tells of
truth and virtue—and you clasp the image
to your heart as the received ideal of your
fondest dreams.</p>
<p class='c010'>The figure may be this or that, it may be
tall or short, it matters nothing—the heart
is there. The talk may be soft or low, serious
or piquant—a free and honest soul is
warming and softening it all. As you
speak, it speaks back again; as you think, it
thinks again (not in conjunction, but in the
same sign of the Zodiac); as you love, it
loves in return.</p>
<p class='c010'>—It is the heart for a sister, and happy
is the man who can claim such! The
warmth that lies in it is not only generous,
but religious, genial, devotional, tender,
self-sacrificing, and looking heavenward.</p>
<p class='c010'>A man without some sort of religion is,
at best, a poor reprobate, the football of
destiny, with no tie linking him to infinity,
and the wondrous eternity that is begun
with him; but a woman without it is even
worse—a flame without heat, a rainbow
without color, a flower without perfume!</p>
<p class='c010'>A man may, in some sort, tie his frail
hopes and honors with weak, shifting
ground-tackle to business, or to the world;
but a woman without that anchor which
they call faith is adrift and a-wreck! A
man may clumsily contrive a kind of moral
responsibility out of his relations to mankind,
but a woman in her comparatively isolated
sphere, where affection and not purpose
is the controlling motive, can find no
basis for any system of right action, but
that of spiritual faith.</p>
<p class='c010'>A man may craze his thought and his
brain, to trustfulness in such poor harborage
as fame and reputation may stretch before
him; but a woman—where can she
put her hope in storms, if not in Heaven?</p>
<p class='c010'>And that sweet trustfulness—that abiding
love—that enduring hope, mellowing
every page and scene of life, lighting them
with pleasantest radiance, when the world-storms
break like an army with smoking
cannon—what can bestow it all, but a holy
soul-tie to what is above the storms, and to
what is stronger than an army with cannon?
Who that has enjoyed the counsel
and the love of a Christian mother, but will
echo the thought with energy, and hallow
it with a tear?—<i>et moi, je pleurs!</i></p>
<p class='c010'>My fire is now a mass of red-hot coal.
The whole atmosphere of my room is warm.
The heat that with its glow can light up,
and warm a garret with loose casements
and shattered roof, is capable of the best
love—domestic love. I draw farther off,
and the images upon the screen change.
The warmth, the hour, the quiet, create a
home feeling; and that feeling, quick as
lightning, has stolen from the world of
fancy (a Promethean theft), a home object,
about which my musings go on to
drape themselves in luxurious reverie.</p>
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<p class='c009'>—There she sits, by the corner of the
fire, in a neat home dress, of sober, yet
most adorning color. A little bit of lace
ruffle is gathered about the neck, by a blue
ribbon; and the ends of the ribbon are
crossed under the dimpling chin, and are
fastened neatly by a simple, unpretending
brooch—your gift. The arm, a pretty taper
arm, lies over the carved elbow of the oaken
chair; the hand, white and delicate, sustains
a little home volume that hangs from
her fingers. The forefinger is between the
leaves, and the others lie in relief upon the
dark embossed cover. She repeats in a
silver voice a line that has attracted her
fancy; and you listen—or, at any rate, you
seem to listen—with your eyes now on the
lips, now on the forehead, and now on the
finger, where glitters like a star, the marriage
ring—little gold band, at which she
does not chafe, that tells you—she is yours!</p>
<p class='c010'>—Weak testimonial, if that were all that
told it! The eye, the voice, the look, the
heart, tells you stronger and better, that
she is yours. And a feeling within, where
it lies you know not, and whence it comes
you know not, but sweeping over heart and
brain, like a fire-flood, tells you, too, that
you are hers! Irremediably bound as Massinger’s
Hortensio:</p>
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<div class='group'>
<div class='line in4'>I am subject to another’s will and can</div>
<div class='line'>Nor speak, nor do, without permission from her!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'>The fire is warm as ever; what length of
heat in this hard burning anthracite! It
has scarce sunk yet to the second bar of the
grate, though the clock upon the churchtower
has tolled eleven.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Aye—mused I, gayly—such a heart
does not grow faint, it does not spend itself
in idle puffs of blaze, it does not become
chilly with the passing years; but it gains
and grows in strength and heat until the
fire of life is covered over with the ashes of
death. Strong or hot as it may be at the
first, it loses nothing. It may not, indeed, as
time advances, throw out, like the coal fire,
when new-lit, jets of blue sparkling flame;
it may not continue to bubble and gush like
a fountain at its source, but it will become
a strong river of flowing charities.</p>
<p class='c010'>Clitumnus breaks from under the Tuscan
mountains, almost a flood; on a glorious
spring day I leaned down and tasted the
water, as it boiled from its sources; the little
temple of white marble—the mountain sides
gray with olive orchards—the white streak
of road—the tall poplars of the river margin
were glistening in the bright Italian sunlight
around me. Later, I saw it when it
had become a river—still clear and strong,
flowing serenely between its prairie banks,
on which the white cattle of the valley
browsed; and still farther down I welcomed
it, where it joins the Arno—flowing slowly
under wooded shores, skirting the fair
Florence and the bounteous fields of the
bright Cascino; gathering strength and volume,
till between Pisa and Leghorn—in
sight of the wondrous Leaning Tower and
the ship-masts of the Tuscan port—it gave
its waters to its life’s grave—the sea.</p>
<p class='c010'>The recollection blended sweetly now
with my musings, over my garret grate, and
offered a flowing image to bear along upon
its bosom the affections that were grouping
in my reverie.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is a strange force of the mind and of
the fancy that can set the objects which are
closest to the heart far down the lapse of
time. Even now, as the fire fades slightly,
and sinks slowly toward the bar, which is
the dial of my hours, I seem to see that
image of love which has played about the
fire-glow of my grate—years hence. It still
covers the same warm, trustful, religious
heart. Trials have tried it; afflictions have
weighed upon it; danger has scared it; and
death is coming near to subdue it; but still
it is the same.</p>
<p class='c010'>The fingers are thinner; the face has lines
of care and sorrow crossing each other in a
web-work that makes the golden tissue of
humanity. But the heart is fond and
steady; it is the same dear heart, the same
self-sacrificing heart, warming, like a fire,
all around it. Affliction has tempered joy;
and joy adorned affliction. Life and all its
troubles have become distilled into an holy
incense, rising ever from your fireside—an
offering to your household gods.</p>
<p class='c010'>Your dreams of reputation, your swift
determination, your impulsive pride, your
deep uttered vows to win a name, have all
sobered into affection—have all blended into
that glow of feeling which finds its center,
and hope, and joy in <span class='sc'>Home</span>. From my soul
I pity him whose soul does not leap at the
mere utterance of that name.</p>
<p class='c010'>A home!—it is the bright, blessed, adorable
phantom which sits highest on the
sunny horizon that girdeth life! When
shall it be reached? When shall it cease to
be a glittering day-dream, and become fully
and fairly yours?</p>
<p class='c010'>It is not the house, though that may have
its charms; nor the fields carefully tilled,
and streaked with your own footpaths—nor
the trees, though their shadow be to you like
that of a great rock in a weary land—nor
yet is it the fireside, with its sweet blaze-play—nor
the pictures which tell of loved
ones, nor the cherished books—but more far
than all these—it is the <span class='sc'>Presence</span>. The
Lares of your worship are there; the altar
of your confidence there; the end of your
worldly faith is there; and adorning it all,
and sending your blood in passionate flow,
is the ecstasy of the conviction, that <i>there</i>
at least you are beloved; that there you
are understood; that there your errors will
meet ever with gentlest forgiveness; that
there your troubles will be smiled away;
that there you may unburden your soul,
fearless of harsh, unsympathizing ears; and
that there you may be entirely and joyfully—yourself!</p>
<p class='c010'>There may be those of coarse mold—and
I have seen such even in the disguise of
women—who will reckon these feelings puling
sentiment. God pity them!—as they
have need of pity.</p>
<p class='c010'>—That image by the fireside, calm, loving,
joyful, is there still; it goes not, however
my spirit tosses, because my wish, and
every will, keep it there, unerring.</p>
<p class='c010'>The fire shows through the screen, yellow
and warm as a harvest sun. It is in its
best age, and that age is ripeness.</p>
<p class='c010'>A ripe heart!—now I know what Wordsworth
meant when he said:</p>
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<div class='group'>
<div class='line in14'>The good die first,</div>
<div class='line'>And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust</div>
<div class='line'>Burn to the socket!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'>The town clock is striking midnight. The
cold of the night-wind is urging its way in
at the door and window-crevice; the fire has
sunk almost to the third bar of the grate.
Still my dream tires not, but wraps fondly
round that image—now in the far-off, chilling
mists of age, growing sainted. Love
has blended into reverence; passion has subsided
into joyous content.</p>
<p class='c010'>—And what if age comes, said I, in a
new flush of excitation—what else proves
the wine? What else gives inner strength,
and knowledge, and a steady pilot-hand, to
steer your boat out boldly upon that shoreless
sea, where the river of life is running?
Let the white ashes gather; let the silver
hair lie where lay the auburn; let the eye
gleam farther back, and dimmer; it is but
retreating toward the pure sky-depths, an
usher to the land where you will follow
after.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is quite cold, and I take away the
screen altogether; there is a little glow yet,
but presently the coal slips down below the
third bar, with a rumbling sound—like that
of coarse gravel falling into a new-dug
grave.</p>
<p class='c010'>—She is gone!</p>
<p class='c010'>Well, the heart has burned fairly, evenly,
generously, while there was mortality to
kindle it; eternity will surely kindle it better.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Tears indeed; but they are tears of
thanksgiving, of resignation, and of hope!</p>
<p class='c010'>And the eyes, full of those tears which
ministering angels bestow, climb with quick
vision upon the angelic ladder, and open
upon the futurity where she has entered,
and upon the country which she enjoys.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is midnight, and the sounds of life are
dead.</p>
<p class='c010'>You are in the death chamber of life;
but you are also in the death chamber of
care. The world seems sliding backward;
and hope and you are sliding forward. The
clouds, the agonies, the vain expectancies,
the braggart noise, and fears, now vanish
behind the curtain of the past, and of the
night. They roll from your soul like a
load.</p>
<p class='c010'>In the dimness of what seems the ending
present, you reach out your prayerful hands
toward that boundless future, where God’s
eye lifts over the horizon, like sunrise on the
ocean. Do you recognize it as an earnest
of something better? Aye, if the heart has
been pure and steady—burning like my fire—it
has learned it without seeming to learn.
Faith has grown upon it, as the blossom
grows upon the bud, or the flower upon the
slow-lifting stalk.</p>
<p class='c010'>Cares can not come into the dreamland
where I live. They sink with the dying
street noise, and vanish with the embers of
my fire. Even ambition, with its hot and
shifting flame, is all gone out. The heart
in the dimness of the fading fire-glow is
all itself. The memory of what good things
have come over it in the troubled youthlife,
bear it up; and hope and faith bear it
on. There is no extravagant pulse-glow;
there is no mad fever of the brain; but
only the soul, forgetting—for once—all,
save its destinies and its capacities for good.
And it mounts higher and higher on these
wings of thought; and hope burns stronger
and stronger out of the ashes of decaying
life, until the sharp edge of the grave seems
but a foot-scraper at the wicket of Elysium!</p>
<p class='c010'>But what is paper; and what are words?
Vain things! The soul leaves them behind;
the pen staggers like a starveling cripple;
and your heart is leaving it, a whole length
of the life-course behind. The soul’s mortal
longings—its poor baffled hopes, are dim
now in the light of those infinite longings,
which spread over it soft and holy as daydawn.
Eternity has stretched a corner of
its mantle toward you, and the breath of its
waving fringe is like a gale of Araby.</p>
<p class='c010'>A little rumbling, and a last plunge of
the cinders within my grate, startled me,
and dragged back my fancy from my flower
chase, beyond the Phlegethon, to the white
ashes that were now thick all over the darkened
coals.</p>
<p class='c010'>—And this—mused I—is only a bachelor-dream
about a pure and loving heart!
And to-morrow comes cankerous life again—is
it wished for? Or if not wished for, is
the not wishing wicked?</p>
<p class='c010'>Will dreams satisfy, reach high as they
can? Are we not, after all, poor groveling
mortals, tied to earth, and to each other;
are there not sympathies, and hopes, and
affections which can only find their issue
and blessing in fellow absorption? Does
not the heart, steady and pure, as it may be,
and mounting on soul flights often as it
dare, want a human sympathy, perfectly indulged,
to make it healthful? Is there not
a fount of love for this world as there is a
fount of love for the other? Is there not a
certain store of tenderness cooped in this
heart, which must, and <i>will</i> be lavished, before
the end comes? Does it not plead with
the judgment, and make issue with prudence,
year after year? Does it not dog
your steps all through your social pilgrimage,
setting up its claims in forms fresh
and odorous as new-blown heath bells, saying—come
away from the heartless, the factitious,
the vain, and measure your heart
not by its constraints, but by its fullness,
and by its depth! Let it run, and be joyous!</p>
<p class='c010'>Is there no demon that comes to your
harsh night-dreams, like a taunting fiend,
whispering—be satisfied; keep your heart
from running over; bridle those affections;
there is nothing worth loving?</p>
<p class='c010'>Does not some sweet being hover over
your spirit of reverie like a beckoning angel,
crowned with halo, saying—hope on, hope
ever; the heart and I are kindred; our mission
will be fulfilled; nature shall accomplish
its purpose; the soul shall have its
paradise?</p>
<p class='c010'>—I threw myself upon my bed: and as
my thoughts ran over the definite, sharp
business of the morrow, my reverie, and its
glowing images, that made my heart bound,
swept away like those fleecy rain clouds of
August, on which the sun paints rainbows-—driving
southward, by the cool, rising
wind from the north.</p>
<p class='c010'>—I wonder—thought I, as I dropped
asleep—if a married man with his sentiment
made actual is, after all, as happy as
we poor fellows, in our dreams?</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch03' class='c005'>OVER HIS CIGAR</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>I do</span> not believe that there was ever an
Aunt Tabithy who could abide cigars. My
Aunt Tabithy hated them with a peculiar
hatred. She was not only insensible to the
rich flavor of a fresh rolling volume of
smoke, but she could not so much as tolerate
the sight of the rich russet color of an
Havana-labeled box. It put her out of
all conceit with Guava jelly, to find it advertised
in the same tongue, and with the
same Cuban coarseness of design.</p>
<p class='c010'>She could see no good in a cigar.</p>
<p class='c010'>“But by your leave, my aunt,” said I to
her the other morning—“there is very much
that is good in a cigar.”</p>
<p class='c010'>My aunt, who was sweeping, tossed her
head, and with it, her curls—done up in
paper.</p>
<p class='c010'>“It is a very excellent matter,” continued
I, puffing.</p>
<p class='c010'>“It is dirty,” said my aunt.</p>
<p class='c010'>“It is clean and sweet,” said I; “and a
most pleasant soother of disturbed feelings;
and a capital companion; and a comforter—”
and I stopped to puff.</p>
<p class='c010'>“You know it is a filthy abomination,”
said my aunt—“and you ought to be—”
and she stopped to put up one of her curls,
which, with the energy of her gesticulation,
had fallen out of its place.</p>
<p class='c010'>“It suggests quiet thoughts”—continued
I—“and makes a man meditative; and gives
a current to his habits of contemplation—as
I can show you,” said I, warming with
the theme.</p>
<p class='c010'>My aunt, still fingering her papers—with
the pin in her mouth—gave a most incredulous
shrug.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Aunt Tabithy”—said I, and gave two
or three violent, consecutive puffs—“Aunt
Tabithy, I can make up such a series of reflections
out of my cigar as would do your
heart good to listen to!”</p>
<div class='figcenter id013'>
<ANTIMG src='images/i100fp.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></div>
<p class='c009'>“About what, pray?” said my aunt, contemptuously.</p>
<p class='c010'>“About love,” said I, “which is easy
enough lighted, but wants constancy to
keep it in a glow—or about matrimony,
which has a great deal of fire in the beginning,
but it is a fire that consumes all that
feeds the blaze—or about life,” continued
I, earnestly—“which at the first is fresh
and odorous, but ends shortly in a withered
cinder that is fit only for the ground.”</p>
<p class='c010'>My aunt, who was forty and unmarried,
finished her curl with a flip of the fingers—resumed
her hold of the broom, and leaned
her chin upon one end of it with an expression
of some wonder, some curiosity,
and a great deal of expectation.</p>
<p class='c010'>I could have wished my aunt had been a
little less curious, or that I had been a little
less communicative; for, though it was all
honestly said on my part, yet my contemplations
bore that vague, shadowy, and delicious
sweetness that it seemed impossible
to put them into words—least of all, at the
bidding of an old lady leaning on a broomhandle.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Give me time, Aunt Tabithy,” said I—“a
good dinner, and after it a good cigar,
and I will serve you such a sunshiny sheet
of reverie, all twisted out of the smoke, as
will make your kind old heart ache!”</p>
<p class='c010'>Aunt Tabithy, in utter contempt, either
of my mention of the dinner, or of the
smoke, or of the old heart, commenced
sweeping furiously.</p>
<p class='c010'>“If I do not,”—continued I, anxious to
appease her—“if I do not, Aunt Tabithy, it
shall be my last cigar (Aunt Tabithy
stopped sweeping); and all my tobacco
money (Aunt Tabithy drew near me), shall
go to buy ribbons for my most respectable
and worthy Aunt Tabithy; and a kinder
person could not have them; or one,” continued
I, with a generous puff, “whom they
would more adorn.”</p>
<p class='c010'>My Aunt Tabithy gave me a half-playful—half-thankful
nudge.</p>
<p class='c010'>It was in this way that our bargain was
struck; my part of it is already stated. On
her part, Aunt Tabithy was to allow me, in
case of my success, an evening cigar unmolested,
upon the front porch, underneath her
favorite rose-tree. It was concluded, I say,
as I sat; the smoke of my cigar rising
gracefully around my Aunt Tabithy’s curls;
our right hands joined; my left was holding
my cigar, while in hers, was tightly grasped—her
broom-stick.</p>
<p class='c010'>And this reverie, to make the matter
short, is what came of the contract.</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch03-1' class='c005'>I<br/>LIGHTED WITH A COAL</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>I take</span> up a coal with the tongs, and setting
the end of my cigar against it, puff—and
puff again; but there is no smoke.
There is very little hope of lighting from
a dead coal—no more hope, thought I,
than of kindling one’s heart into flame by
contact with a dead heart.</p>
<p class='c010'>To kindle, there must be warmth and life;
and I sat for a moment, thinking—even before
I lit my cigar—on the vanity and folly
of those poor, purblind fellows, who go on
puffing for half a lifetime, against dead
coals. It is to be hoped that Heaven, in its
mercy, has made their senses so obtuse that
they know not when their souls are in a
flame, or when they are dead. I can imagine
none but the most moderate satisfaction,
in continuing to love what has got no
ember of love within it. The Italians have
a very sensible sort of proverb—<i>amare, e
non essere amato, é tempo perduto</i>—to love,
and not be loved, is time lost.</p>
<p class='c010'>I take a kind of rude pleasure in flinging
down a coal that has no life in it. And it
seemed to me—and may Heaven pardon the
ill-nature that belongs to the thought—that
there would be much of the same kind of
satisfaction in dashing from you a lukewarm
creature covered over with the yellow
ashes of old combustion that, with ever so
much attention, and the nearest approach of
the lips, never shows signs of fire. May
Heaven forgive me again, but I should long
to break away, though the marriage bonds
held me, and see what liveliness was to be
found elsewhere.</p>
<p class='c010'>I have seen before now a creeping vine
try to grow up against a marble wall; it
shoots out its tendrils in all directions, seeking
for some crevice by which to fasten and
to climb—looking now above and now below—twining
upon itself—reaching farther
up, but, after all, finding no good foothold,
and falling away as if in despair. But nature
is not unkind; twining things were
made to twine. The longing tendrils take
new strength in the sunshine, and in the
showers, and shoot out toward some hospitable
trunk. They fasten easily to the
kindly roughness of the bark, and stretch
up, dragging after them the vine, which, by
and by, from the topmost bough, will nod
its blossoms over at the marble wall, that
refused it succor, as if it said—stand there
in your pride, cold, white wall! we, the tree
and I, are kindred, it the helper, and I the
helped! and bound fast together, we riot in
the sunshine and in gladness.</p>
<p class='c010'>The thought of this image made me
search for a new coal that should have some
brightness in it. There may be a white ash
over it indeed; as you will find tender feelings
covered with the mask of courtesy, or
with the veil of fear; but with a breath it
all flies off, and exposes the heat and the
glow that you are seeking.</p>
<p class='c010'>At the first touch the delicate edges of
the cigar crimple, a thin line of smoke rises—doubtfully
for a while, and with a coy delay;
but after a hearty respiration or two it
grows strong, and my cigar is fairly lighted.</p>
<p class='c010'>That first taste of the new smoke, and of
the fragrant leaf is very grateful; it has a
bloom about it that you wish might last.
It is like your first love—fresh, genial and
rapturous. Like that, it fills up all the craving
of your soul; and the light, blue wreaths
of smoke, like the roseate clouds that hang
around the morning of your heart-life, cut
you off from the chill atmosphere of mere
worldly companionship, and make a gorgeous
firmament for your fancy to riot in.</p>
<p class='c010'>I do not speak now of those later and
manlier passions, into which judgment must
be thrusting its cold tones, and when all the
sweet tumult of your heart has mellowed
into the sober ripeness of affection. But I
mean that boyish burning, which belongs
to every poor mortal’s lifetime, and which
bewilders him with the thought that he has
reached the highest point of human joy before
he has tasted any of that bitterness
from which alone our highest human joys
have sprung. I mean the time when you
cut initials with your jack-knife on the
smooth bark of beech trees; and went moping
under the long shadows at sunset; and
thought Louise the prettiest name in the
wide world; and picked flowers to leave at
her door; and stole out at night to watch the
light in her window; and read such novels
as those about Helen Mar, or Charlotte,
to give some adequate expression to your
agonized feelings.</p>
<p class='c010'>At such a stage you are quite certain that
you are deeply and madly in love; you persist
in the face of heaven and earth. You
would like to meet the individual who dared
to doubt it.</p>
<p class='c010'>You think she has got the tidiest and
jauntiest little figure that ever was seen.
You think back upon some time when, in
your games of forfeit, you gained a kiss
from those lips; and it seems as if the kiss
was hanging on you yet and warming you
all over. And then, again, it seems so
strange that your lips did really touch hers!
You half question if it could have been
actually so—and how you could have
dared—and you wonder if you would have
courage to do the same thing again?—and
upon second thought are quite sure you
would—and snap your fingers at the
thought of it.</p>
<p class='c010'>What sweet little hats she does wear;
and in the schoolroom, when the hat is
hung up—what curls—golden curls, worth
a hundred Golcondas! How bravely you
study the top lines of the spelling-book that
your eyes may run over the edge of the
cover, without the schoolmaster’s notice,
and feast upon her!</p>
<p class='c010'>You half wish that somebody would run
away with her, as they did with Amanda,
in the <i>Children of the Abbey</i>—and then
you might ride up on a splendid black horse
and draw a pistol, or blunderbuss, and shoot
the villains, and carry her back, all in tears,
fainting and languishing upon your shoulder—and
have her father (who is judge of
the county court) take your hand in both
of his and make some eloquent remarks.
A great many such recaptures you run over
in your mind and think how delightful it
would be to peril your life, either by flood,
or fire—to cut off your arm, or your head,
or any such trifle—for your dear Louise.</p>
<p class='c010'>You can hardly think of anything more
joyous in life than to live with her in some
old castle, very far away from steamboats
and post-offices, and pick wild geraniums
for her hair, and read poetry with her under
the shade of very dark ivy vines. And
you would have such a charming boudoir
in some corner of the old ruin, with a harp
in it, and books bound in gilt, with Cupids
on the cover, and such a fairy couch, with
curtains hung—as you have seen them hung
in some illustrated Arabian stories—upon a
pair of carved doves.</p>
<p class='c010'>And when they laugh at you about it, you
turn it off, perhaps, with saying—“It isn’t
so;” but afterward, in your chamber, or under
the tree where you have cut her name,
you take Heaven to witness that it is so;
and think—what a cold world it is, to be so
careless about such holy emotions! You perfectly
hate a certain stout boy in a green
jacket, who is forever twitting you, and
calling her names; but when some old
maiden aunt teases you in her kind, gentle
way, you bear it very proudly; and with a
feeling as if you could bear a great deal
more for <i>her</i> sake. And when the minister
reads off marriage announcements in the
church, you think how it will sound one of
these days, to have your name, and hers,
read from the pulpit—and how the people
will look at you, and how prettily she will
blush; and how poor little Dick, who you
know loves her, but is afraid to say so, will
squirm upon his bench.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Heigho! mused I—as the blue smoke
rolled up around my head—these first kindlings
of the love that is in one, are very
pleasant! but will they last?</p>
<p class='c010'>You love to listen to the rustle of her
dress, as she stirs about the room. It is better
music than grown-up ladies will make
upon all their harpischords in the years that
are to come. But this, thank Heaven, you
do not know.</p>
<p class='c010'>You think you can trace her foot-mark,
on your way to the school; and what a dear
little foot-mark it is! And from that single
point, if she be out of your sight for days,
you conjure up the whole image—the elastic
lithe little figure—the springy step—the
dotted muslin so light and flowing—the silk
kerchief, with its most tempting fringe
playing upon the clear white of her throat—how
you envy that fringe! And her chin
is as round as a peach—and the lips—such
lips! and you sigh, and hang your head,
and wonder when you <i>shall</i> see her again!</p>
<p class='c010'>You would like to write her a letter; but
then people would talk so coldly about it;
and besides you are not quite sure you
could write such billets as Thaddeus of
Warsaw used to write; and anything less
warm or elegant would not do at all. You
talk about this one, or that one, whom they
call pretty, in the coolest way in the world;
you see very little of their prettiness; they
are good girls to be sure; and you hope
they will get good husbands some day or
other; but it is not a matter that concerns
you very much. They do not live in your
world of romance; they are not the angels
of that sky which your heart makes rosy,
and to which I have likened the blue waves
of this rolling smoke.</p>
<p class='c010'>You can even joke as you talk of others;
you can smile—as you think—very graciously;
you can say laughingly that you
are deeply in love with them, and think it a
most capital joke; you can touch their
hands, or steal a kiss from them in your
games, most imperturbably—they are very
dead coals.</p>
<p class='c010'>But the live one is very lively. When
you take the name on your lip, it seems
somehow, to be made of different materials
from the rest; you cannot half so easily separate
it into letters; write it, indeed you
can; for you have had practice—very much
private practice—on odd scraps of paper,
and on the fly-leaves of geographies, and
of your natural philosophy. You know
perfectly well how it looks; it seems to be
written, indeed, somewhere behind your
eyes; and in such happy position with respect
to the optic nerve, that you see it all
the time, though you are looking in an opposite
direction; and so distinctly, that you
have great fears lest people looking into
your eyes should see it too!</p>
<p class='c010'>For all this, it is a far more delicate name
to handle than most that you know of.
Though it is very cool, and pleasant on the
brain, it is very hot, and difficult to manage
on the lip. It is not, as your schoolmaster
would say—a name, so much as it is an
idea—not a noun, but a verb—an active,
and transitive verb; and yet a most irregular
verb, wanting the passive voice.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is something against your schoolmaster’s
doctrine, to find warmth in the moonlight;
but with that soft hand—it is very
soft—lying within your arm, there is a
great deal of warmth, whatever the philosophers
may say, even in pale moonlight.
The beams, too, breed sympathies, very
close-running sympathies—not talked about
in the chapters on optics, and altogether too
fine for language. And under their influence,
you retain the little hand, that you
had not dared retain so long before; and
her struggle to recover it—if indeed it be
a struggle—is infinitely less than it was—nay,
it is a kind of struggle, not so much
against you, as between gladness and modesty.
It makes you as bold as a lion; and
the feeble hand, like a poor lamb in the
lion’s clutch, is powerless, and very meek—and
failing of escape, it will sue for gentle
treatment; and will meet your warm
promise, with a kind of grateful pressure,
that is but half acknowledged, by the hand
that makes it.</p>
<p class='c010'>My cigar is burning with wondrous freeness;
and from the smoke flash forth images
bright and quick as lightning—with
no thunder, but the thunder of the pulse.
But will it all last? Damp will deaden the
fire of a cigar; and there are hellish damps—alas,
too many—that will deaden the early
blazing of the heart.</p>
<p class='c010'>She is pretty—growing prettier to your
eye, the more you look upon her, and prettier
to your ear, the more you listen to her.
But you wonder who the tall boy was, whom
you saw walking with her, two days ago?
He was not a bad-looking boy; on the contrary
you think (with a grit of your teeth)
that he was infernally handsome! You
look at him very shyly, and very closely,
when you pass him; and turn to see how
he walks, and how to measure his shoulders,
and are quite disgusted with the very
modest and gentlemanly way, with which
he carries himself. You think you would
like to have a fisticuff with him, if you were
only sure of having the best of it. You
sound the neighborhood coyly, to find out
who the strange boy is: and are half
ashamed of yourself for doing it.</p>
<p class='c010'>You gather a magnificent bouquet to send
her and tie it with a green ribbon, and love
knot—and get a little rose-bud in acknowledgment.
<i>That</i> day, you pass the tall boy
with a very patronizing look; and wonder
if he would not like to have a sail in <i>your</i>
boat?</p>
<p class='c010'>But by and by you find the tall boy walking
with her again; and she looks sideways
at him, and with a kind of grown-up air,
that makes you feel very boylike, and humble
and furious. And you look daggers at
him when you pass; and touch your cap to
her, with quite uncommon dignity; and
wonder if he is not sorry, and does not
feel very badly, to have got such a look
from you?</p>
<div class='figcenter id014'>
<ANTIMG src='images/i116fp.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></div>
<p class='c009'>On some other day, however, you meet
her alone; and the sight of her makes your
face wear a genial, sunny air; and you talk
a little sadly about your fears and your
jealousies; she seems a little sad, and a little
glad, together; and is sorry she has made
you feel badly—and you are sorry too. And
with this pleasant twin sorrow, you are
knit together again—closer than ever. That
one little tear of hers has been worth more
to you than a thousand smiles. Now you
love her madly; you could swear it—swear
it to her, or swear it to the universe. You
even say as much to some kind old friend
at nightfall; but your mention of her is
tremulous and joyful—with a kind of bound
in your speech, as if the heart worked too
quick for the tongue; and as if the lips
were ashamed to be passing over such secrets
of the soul, to the mere sense of hearing.
At this stage you can not trust yourself
to speak her praises or if you venture,
the expletives fly away with your thought
before you can chain it into language; and
your speech, at your best endeavor, is but
a succession of broken superlatives that you
are ashamed of. You strain for language
that will scald the thought of her; but hot
as you can make it, it falls back upon your
heated fancy like a cold shower.</p>
<p class='c010'>Heat so intense as this consumes very
fast; and the matter it feeds fastest on is—judgment;
and with judgment gone, there
is room for jealousy to creep in. You grow
petulant at another sight of that tall boy;
and the one tear, which cured your first
petulance, will not cure it now. You let a
little of your fever break out in speech—a
speech which you go home to mourn over.
But she knows nothing of the mourning,
while she knows very much of the anger.
Vain tears are very apt to breed pride; and
when you go again with your petulance,
you will find your rosy-lipped girl taking
her first studies in dignity.</p>
<p class='c010'>You will stay away, you say—poor fool,
you are feeding on what your disease loves
best! You wonder if she is not sighing for
your return—and if your name is not running
in her thought—and if tears of regret
are not moistening those sweet eyes.</p>
<p class='c010'>—And wondering thus, you stroll moodily
and hopefully toward her father’s home;
you pass the door once—twice; you loiter
under the shade of an old tree, where you
have sometimes bid her adieu; your old
fondness is struggling with your pride, and
has almost made the mastery; but in the
very moment of victory, you see yonder
your hated rival, and beside him, looking
very gleeful and happy—your perfidious
Louise.</p>
<p class='c010'>How quickly you throw off the marks of
your struggle, and put on the boldest air of
boyhood; and what a dextrous handling to
your knife, and what a wonderful keenness
to the edge, as you cut away from the bark
of the beech tree all trace of her name! Still
there is a little silent relenting, and a few
tears at night, and a little tremor of the
hand, as you tear out—the next day—every
fly-leaf that bears her name. But at sight of
your rival—looking so jaunty, and in such
capital spirits—you put on the proud man
again. You may meet her, but you say nothing
of your struggles—oh, no, not one word
of that!—but you talk with amazing rapidity
about your games, or what not; and you
never—never give her another peep into
your boyish heart!</p>
<p class='c010'>For a week you do not see her—nor for a
month—nor two months—nor three.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Puff—puff once more; there is only a
little nauseous smoke; and now—my cigar
is gone out altogether. I must light again.</p>
<div class='pbb'>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch03-2' class='c005'>II<br/>WITH A WISP OF PAPER</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>There</span> are those who throw away a cigar,
when once gone out; they must needs have
plenty more. But nobody that I ever heard
of keeps a cedar box of hearts, labeled at
Havana. Alas, there is but one to light!</p>
<p class='c010'>But can a heart once lit be lighted again?
Authority on this point is worth something;
yet it should be impartial authority. I should
be loth to take in evidence, for the fact—however
it might tally with my hope—the
affidavit of some rakish old widower, who
had cast his weeds before the grass had
started on the mound of his affliction; and
I should be as slow to take, in way of rebutting
testimony, the oath of any sweet
young girl, just becoming conscious of her
heart’s existence—by its loss.</p>
<p class='c010'>Very much, it seems to me, depends upon
the quality of the fire: and I can easily conceive
of one so pure, so constant, so exhausting,
that if it were once gone out, whether
in the chills of death or under the blasts of
pitiless fortune, there would be no rekindling,
simply because there would be nothing
left to kindle. And I can imagine, too, a
fire so earnest and so true that, whatever
malice might urge, or a devilish ingenuity
devise, there could be no other found, high
or low, far or near, which should not so
contrast with the first as to make it seem
cold as ice.</p>
<p class='c010'>I remember in an old play of Davenport’s,
the hero is led to doubt his mistress; he is
worked upon by slanders to quit her altogether—though
he has loved and does still
love passionately. She bids him adieu, with
large tears dropping from her eyes (and I
lay down my cigar to recite it aloud, fancying
all the while, with a varlet impudence,
that some Abstemia is repeating it to me):</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line in6'>—Farewell, Lorenzo,</div>
<div class='line'>Whom my soul doth love; if you ever marry</div>
<div class='line'>May you meet a good wife; so good, that you</div>
<div class='line'>May not suspect her, nor may she be worthy</div>
<div class='line'>Of your suspicion; and if you hear hereafter</div>
<div class='line'>That I am dead, inquire but my last words,</div>
<div class='line'>And you shall know that to the last I loved you.</div>
<div class='line'>And when you walk forth with your second choice,</div>
<div class='line'>Into the pleasant fields, and by chance talk of me</div>
<div class='line'>Imagine that you see me thin, and pale,</div>
<div class='line'>Strewing your path with flowers!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'>—Poor Abstemia! Lorenzo never could
find such another—there never could be such
another, for such Lorenzo.</p>
<p class='c010'>To blaze anew, it is essential that the old
fire be utterly gone; and can any truly-lighted
soul ever grow cold, except the grave
cover it? The poets all say no: Othello, had
he lived a thousand years, would not have
loved again—nor Desdemona—nor Andromache—nor
Medea—nor Ulysses—nor
Hamlet. But in the cool wreaths of the
pleasant smoke let us see what truth is in the
poets.</p>
<p class='c010'>—What is love—mused I—at the first,
but a mere fancy? There is a prettiness that
your soul cleaves to, as your eye to a pleasant
flower, or your ear to a soft melody.
Presently admiration comes in, as a sort of
balance wheel for the eccentric revolutions
of your fancy; and your admiration is
touched off with such neat quality as respect.
Too much of this, indeed, they say, deadens
the fancy, and so retards the action of the
heart machinery. But with a proper modicum
to serve as a stock, devotion is grafted
in; and then, by an agreeable and confused
mingling, all these qualities, and affections
of the soul, become transfused into that
vital feeling called love.</p>
<p class='c010'>Your heart seems to have gone over to
another and better counterpart of your humanity;
what is left of you seems the mere
husk of some kernel that has been stolen. It
is not an emotion of yours, which is making
very easy voyages toward another soul—that
may be shortened or lengthened at will,
but it is a passion that is only yours, because
it is <i>there</i>; the more it lodges there the more
keenly you feel it to be yours.</p>
<p class='c010'>The qualities that feed this passion may
indeed belong to you; but they never gave
birth to such an one before, simply because
there was no place in which it could grow.
Nature is very provident in these matters.
The chrysalis does not burst until there is a
wing to help the gauze-fly upward. The
shell does not break until the bird can
breathe; nor does the swallow quit its nest
until its wings are tipped with the airy oars.</p>
<p class='c010'>This passion of love is strong just in proportion
as the atmosphere it finds is tender
of its life. Let that atmosphere change into
too great coldness, and the passion becomes
a wreck—not yours, because it is not worth
your having—nor vital, because it has lost
the soil where it grew. But is it not laying
the reproach in a high quarter to say that
those qualities of the heart which begot this
passion are exhausted and will not thenceforth
germinate through all of your lifetime?</p>
<p class='c010'>—Take away the worm-eaten frame from
your arbor plant, and the wrenched arms of
the despoiled climber will not at the first
touch any new trellis; they can not in a day
change the habit of a year. But let the new
support stand firmly, and the needy tendrils
will presently lay hold upon the stranger!
and your plant will regain its pride and
pomp, cherishing, perhaps, in its bent figure,
a memento of the old, but in its more earnest
and abounding life mindful only of its sweet
dependence on the new.</p>
<p class='c010'>Let the poets say what they will; these
affections of ours are not blind, stupid creatures,
to starve under polar snows when the
very breezes of heaven are the appointed
messengers to guide them toward warmth
and sunshine!</p>
<p class='c010'>—And with a little suddenness of manner
I tear off a wisp of paper, and, holding it in
the blaze of my lamp, relight my cigar. It
does not burn so easily, perhaps, as at first:
it wants warming before it will catch; but
presently it is in a broad, full glow that
throws light into the corners of my room.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Just so—thought I—the love of youth,
which succeeds the crackling blaze of boyhood,
makes a broader flame, though it may
not be so easily kindled. A mere dainty step,
or a curling lock, or a soft blue eye are not
enough; but in her, who has quickened the
new blaze, there is a blending of all these,
with a certain sweetness of soul that finds
expression in whatever feature or motion
you look upon. Her charms steal over you
gently and almost imperceptibly. You think
that she is a pleasant companion—nothing
more: and you find the opinion strongly confirmed,
day by day; so well confirmed, indeed,
that you begin to wonder why it is
that she is such a delightful companion? It
can not be her eye, for you have seen eyes
almost as pretty as Nelly’s; nor can it be her
mouth, though Nelly’s mouth is certainly
very sweet. And you keep studying what on
earth it can be that makes you so earnest to
be near her, or to listen to her voice. The
study is pleasant. You do not know any
study that is more so, or which you accomplish
with less mental fatigue.</p>
<p class='c010'>Upon a sudden, some fine day, when the
air is balmy, and the recollection of Nelly’s
voice and manner more balmy still, you wonder—if
you are in love? When a man has
such a wonder, he is either very near love
or he is very far away from it; it is a wonder
that is either suggested by his hope or by
that entanglement of feeling which blunts
all his perceptions.</p>
<p class='c010'>But if not in love, you have at least a
strong fancy—so strong that you tell your
friends carelessly that she is a nice girl—nay,
a beautiful girl; and if your education
has been bad, you strengthen the epithet on
your own tongue with a very wicked expletive,
of which the mildest form would be
“deuced fine girl!” Presently, however, you
get beyond this, and your companionship
and your wonder relapse into a constant,
quiet habit of unmistakable love—not impulsive,
quick and fiery, like the first, but
mature and calm. It is as if it were born
with your soul, and the recognition of it
was rather an old remembrance than a fresh
passion. It does not seek to gratify its exuberance
and force with such relief as night
serenades, or any Jacques-like meditations
in the forest; but it is a quiet, still joy,
that floats on your hope into the years to
come—making the prospect all sunny and
joyful.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is a kind of oil and balm for whatever
was stormy or harmful: it gives a permanence
to the smile of existence. It does not
make the sea of your life turbulent with high
emotions, as if a strong wind were blowing,
but it is as if an Aphrodite had broken on
the surface, and the ripples were spreading
with a sweet, low sound, and widening far
out to the very shores of time.</p>
<p class='c010'>There is no need now, as with the boy, to
bolster up your feelings with extravagant
vows; even should you try this in her presence,
the words are lacking to put such vows
in. So soon as you reach them they fail you,
and the oath only quivers on the lip, or tells
its story by a pressure of the fingers. You
wear a brusque, pleasant air with your acquaintances,
and hint—with a sly look—at
possible changes in your circumstances. Of
an evening you are kind to the most unattractive
of the wall-flowers—if only your
Nelly is away; and you have a sudden charity
for street beggars with pale children.
You catch yourself taking a step in one of
the new polkas upon a country walk, and
wonder immensely at the number of bright
days which succeed each other, without
leaving a single stormy gap for your old
melancholy moods. Even the chambermaids
at your hotel never did their duty one-half
so well; and as for your man Tom, he is become
a perfect pattern of a fellow.</p>
<p class='c010'>My cigar is in a fine glow; but it has gone
out once, and it may go out again.</p>
<p class='c010'>—You begin to talk of marriage; but
some obstinate papa or guardian uncle
thinks that it will never do—that it is quite
too soon, or that Nelly is a mere girl. Or
some of your wild oats—quite forgotten by
yourself—shoot up on the vision of a staid
mamma and throw a very damp shadow on
your character. Or the old lady has an ambition
of another sort, which you, a simple,
earnest, plodding bachelor, can never gratify—being
of only passable appearance, and
unschooled in the fashions of the world, you
will be eternally rubbing the elbows of the
old lady’s pride.</p>
<p class='c010'>All this will be strangely afflicting to one
who has been living for quite a number of
weeks, or months, in a pleasant dreamland,
where there were no five per cents. or reputations,
but only a very full and delirious
flow of feeling. What care you for any position
except a position near the being that
you love? What wealth do you prize, except
a wealth of heart that shall never know
diminution; or for reputation, except that of
truth and of honor? How hard it would
break upon these pleasant idealities to have
a weazen-faced old guardian set his arm in
yours and tell you how tenderly he has at
heart the happiness of his niece, and reason
with you about your very small and sparse
dividends and your limited business, and
caution you—for he has a lively regard for
your interests—about continuing your addresses?</p>
<p class='c010'>—The kind old curmudgeon!</p>
<p class='c010'>Your man Tom has grown suddenly a
very stupid fellow, and all your charity for
withered wall-flowers is gone. Perhaps in
your wrath the suspicion comes over you
that she too wishes you were something
higher, or more famous, or richer, or anything
but what you are!—a very dangerous
suspicion: for no man with any true nobility
of soul can ever make his heart the slave of
another’s condescension.</p>
<p class='c010'>But no—you will not, you can not believe
this of Nelly; that face of hers is too mild
and gracious; and her manner, as she takes
your hand, after your heart is made sad, and
turns away those rich blue eyes—shadowed
more deeply than ever by the long and moistened
fringe; and the exquisite softness and
meaning of the pressure of those little fingers;
and the low, half sob, and the heaving
of that bosom in its struggles between love
and duty—all forbid. Nelly, you could
swear, is tenderly indulgent, like the fond
creature that she is, toward all your short-comings,
and would not barter your strong
love and your honest heart for the greatest
magnate in the land.</p>
<p class='c010'>What a spur to effort is the confiding love
of a true-hearted woman! That last fond
look of hers, hopeful and encouraging, has
more power within it to nerve your soul to
high deeds than all the admonitions of all
your tutors. Your heart, beating large with
hope, quickens the flow upon the brain, and
you make wild vows to win greatness. But
alas, this is a great world—very full, and
very rough:</p>
<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
<div class='linegroup'>
<div class='group'>
<div class='line'>——all up-hill work when we would do;</div>
<div class='line'>All down-hill, when we suffer.<SPAN name='r3' /><SPAN href='#f3' class='c016'><sup>[3]</sup></SPAN></div>
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</div>
<div class='footnote c019' id='f3'>
<p class='c018'><span class='label'><SPAN href='#r3'>3</SPAN>. </span><i>Festus.</i></p>
</div>
<p class='c010'>Hard, withering toil only can achieve a
name; and long days, and months, and years,
must be passed in the chase of that bubble—reputation,
which, when once grasped,
breaks in your eager clutch into a hundred
lesser bubbles that soar above you still!</p>
<p class='c010'>A clandestine meeting from time to time,
and a note or two tenderly written, keep up
the blaze in your heart. But presently the
lynx-eyed old guardian—so tender of your
interests and hers—forbids even this irregular
and unsatisfying correspondence. Now
you can feed yourself only on stray glimpses
of her figure—as full of sprightliness and
grace as ever; and that beaming face, you
are half sorry to see from time to time—still
beautiful. You struggle with your moods of
melancholy, and wear bright looks yourself—bright
to her, and very bright to the eye
of the old curmudgeon who has snatched
your heart away. It will never do to show
your weakness to a man.</p>
<p class='c010'>At length, on some pleasant morning, you
learn that she is gone—too far away to be
seen, too closely guarded to be reached. For
awhile you throw down your books and
abandon your toil in despair—thinking very
bitter thoughts, and making very helpless resolves.</p>
<p class='c010'>My cigar is still burning, but it will require
constant and strong respiration to keep
it in a glow.</p>
<p class='c010'>A letter or two dispatched at random relieve
the excess of your fever, until, with
practice, these random letters have even less
heat in them than the heat of your study or
of your business. Grief—thank God!—is not
so progressive or so cumulative as joy. For
a time there is a pleasure in the mood with
which you recall your broken hopes, and
with which you selfishly link hers to the
shattered wreck; but absence and ignorance
tame the point of your woe. You call up the
image of Nelly adorning other and distant
scenes. You see the tearful smile give place
to a blithesome cheer, and the thought of
you that shaded her fair face so long fades
under the sunshine of gayety, or, at best, it
only seems to cross that white forehead like
a playful shadow that a fleecy cloud-remnant
will fling upon a sunny lawn.</p>
<p class='c010'>As for you, the world, with its whirl and
roar, is deafening the sweet, distant notes
that come up through old choked channels
of the affections. Life is calling for earnestness,
and not for regrets. So the months
and the years slip by; your bachelor habit
grows easy and light with wearing; you
have mourned enough to smile at the violent
mourning of others, and you have enjoyed
enough to sigh over their little eddies
of delight. Dark shades and delicious
streaks of crimson and gold color lie upon
your life. Your heart, with all its weight of
ashes, can yet sparkle at the sound of a fairy
step, and your face can yet open into a
round of joyous smiles that are almost hopes—in
the presence of some bright-eyed girl.</p>
<p class='c010'>But amid this there will float over you
from time to time a midnight trance, in
which you will hear again with a thirsty ear
the witching melody of the days that are
gone, and you will wake from it with a
shudder into the cold resolves of your lonely
and manly life. But the shudder passes as
easy as night from morning. Tearful regrets
and memories that touch to the quick
are dull weapons to break through the panoply
of your seared, eager and ambitious
manhood. They only venture out like timid,
white-winged flies when night is come, and
at the first glimpse of the dawn they shrivel
up and lie without a flutter in some corner
of your soul.</p>
<div class='figcenter id015'>
<ANTIMG src='images/i134fp.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></div>
<p class='c009'>And when, years after, you learn that she
has returned—a woman—there is a slight
glow, but no tumultuous bound of the heart.
Life and time have worried you down like
a spent hound. The world has given you a
habit of easy and unmeaning smiles. You
half accuse yourself of ingratitude and forgetfulness;
but the accusation does not oppress
you. It does not even distract your
attention from the morning journal. You
can not work yourself into a respectable degree
of indignation against the old gentleman—her
guardian.</p>
<p class='c010'>You sigh—poor thing! and in a very
flashy waistcoat you venture a morning call.</p>
<p class='c010'>She meets you kindly—a comely, matronly
dame in gingham, with her curls all gathered
under a high-topped comb; and she
presents to you two little boys in smart
crimson jackets dressed up with braid. And
you dine with madam—a family party; and
the weazen-faced old gentleman meets you
with a most pleasant shake of the hand—hints
that you were among his niece’s earliest
friends, and hopes that you are getting
on well?</p>
<p class='c010'>—Capitally well!</p>
<p class='c010'>And the boys toddle in at dessert—Dick
to get a plum from your own dish, Tom to
be kissed by his rosy-faced papa. In short,
you are made perfectly at home; and you
sit over your wine for an hour, in a cozy
smoke with the gentlemanly uncle and with
the very courteous husband of your second
flame.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is all very jovial at the table, for good
wine is, I find, a great strengthener of the
bachelor heart. But afterward, when night
has fairly set in and the blaze of your fire
goes flickering over your lonely quarters,
you heave a deep sigh. And as your thought
runs back to the perfidious Louise, and calls
up the married and matronly Nelly, you sob
over that poor dumb heart within you, which
craves so madly a free and joyous utterance!
And as you lean over with your forehead
in your hands, and your eyes fall upon
the old hound slumbering on the rug—the
tears start, and you wish—that you had
married years ago, and that you too had
your pair of prattling boys to drive away
the loneliness of your solitary hearthstone.</p>
<p class='c010'>—My cigar would not go; it was fairly
out. But, with true bachelor obstinacy, I
vowed that I would light again.</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch03-3' class='c005'>III<br/>LIGHTED<br/>WITH A<br/>MATCH</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>I hate</span> a match. I feel sure that brimstone
matches were never made in heaven;
and it is sad to think that, with few exceptions,
matches are all of them tipped with
brimstone.</p>
<p class='c010'>But my taper having burned out, and the
coals being all dead upon the hearth, a
match is all that is left to me.</p>
<p class='c010'>All matches will not blaze on the first
trial, and there are those that with the most
indefatigable coaxings never show a spark.
They may indeed leave in their trail phosphorescent
streaks; but you can no more
light your cigar at them than you can kindle
your heart at the covered wife-trails which
the infernal gossiping old match-makers will
lay in your path.</p>
<p class='c010'>Was there ever a bachelor of seven and
twenty, I wonder, who has not been haunted
by pleasant old ladies and trim, excellent,
good-natured married friends, who talk to
him about nice matches—“very nice matches,”
matches which never go off? And who,
pray, has not had some kind old uncle to fill
two sheets for him (perhaps in the time of
heavy postages) about some most eligible
connection—“of highly respectable parentage!”</p>
<p class='c010'>What a delightful thing, surely, for a
withered bachelor to bloom forth in the dignity
of an ancestral tree! What a precious
surprise for him, who has all his life worshiped
the wing-heeled Mercury, to find on
a sudden a great stock of preserved and
most respectable Penates!</p>
<p class='c010'>—In God’s name—thought I, puffing vehemently—what
is a man’s heart given him
for, if not to choose, where his heart’s blood,
every drop of it is flowing? Who is going
to dam these billowy tides of the soul, whose
roll is ordered by a planet greater than the
moon—and that planet—Venus? Who is
going to shift this vane of my desires, when
every breeze that passes in my heaven is
keeping it all the more strongly, to its fixed
bearings?</p>
<p class='c010'>Besides this, there are the money matches,
urged upon you by disinterested bachelor
friends, who would be very proud to see
you at the head of an establishment. And I
must confess that this kind of talk has a
pleasant jingle about it; and is one of the
cleverest aids to a bachelor’s day-dreams,
that can well be imagined. And let not the
pouting lady condemn me, without a hearing.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is certainly cheerful to think—for a
contemplative bachelor—that the pretty ermine
which so sets off the transparent hue
of your imaginary wife, or the lace which
lies so bewitchingly upon the superb roundness
of her form—or the graceful bodice,
trimmed to a line, which is of such exquisite
adaptation to her lithe figure, will be always
at her command—nay, that these are
only units among the chameleon hues, under
which you shall feed upon her beauty! I
want to know if it is not a pretty cabinet picture
for fancy to luxuriate upon—that of a
sweet wife, who is cheating hosts of friends
into love, sympathy and admiration, by the
modest munificence of her wealth? Is it not
rather agreeable, to feed your hopeful soul
upon that abundance which, while it supplies
her need, will give a range to her loving
charities—which will keep from her
brow the shadows of anxiety, and will sublime
her gentle nature by adding to it the
grace of an angel of mercy?</p>
<p class='c010'>Is it not rich, in those days when the pestilent
humors of bachelorhood hang heavy on
you, to foresee in that shadowy realm,
where hope is a native, the quiet of a home,
made splendid with attractions; and made
real by the presence of her who bestows
them? Upon my word—thought I, as I continued
puffing—such a match must make a
very grateful lighting of one’s inner sympathies;
nor am I prepared to say that such
associations would not add force to the most
abstract love imaginable.</p>
<p class='c010'>Think of it for a moment—what is it that
we poor fellows love? We love, if one may
judge for himself, over his cigar—gentleness,
beauty, refinement, generosity and intelligence—and
far above these, a returning
love, made up of all these qualities, and
gaining upon your love, day by day, and
month by month, like a sunny morning
gaining upon the frosts of night.</p>
<p class='c010'>But wealth is a great means of refinement;
and it is a security for gentleness,
since it removes disturbing anxieties; and
it is a pretty promoter of intelligence, since
it multiplies the avenues for its reception;
and it is a good basis for a generous habit
of life; it even equips beauty, neither hardening
its hand with toil, nor tempting the
wrinkles to come early. But whether it provokes
greatly that returning passion—that
abnegation of soul—that sweet trustfulness,
and abiding affection, which are to clothe
your heart with joy, is far more doubtful.
Wealth, while it gives so much, asks much
in return; and the soul that is grateful to
mammon, is not over ready to be grateful
for intensity of love. It is hard to gratify
those who have nothing left to gratify.</p>
<p class='c010'>Heaven help the man who having wearied
his soul with delays and doubts, or exhausted
the freshness and exuberance of his
youth—by a hundred little dallyings with
love—consigns himself at length to the issues
of what people call a nice match—whether
of money, or of a family!</p>
<p class='c010'>Heaven help you (I brush the ashes from
my cigar) when you begin to regard marriage
as only a respectable institution, and
under the advices of staid old friends, begin
to look about you for some very respectable
wife. You may admire her figure, and her
family; and bear pleasantly in mind the very
casual mention which has been made by
some of your penetrating friends—that she
has large expectations. You think that she
would make a very capital appearance at
the head of your table; nor, in the event of
your coming to any public honor, would she
make you blush for her breeding. She talks
well, exceedingly well; and her face has its
charms; especially under a little excitement.
Her dress is elegant, and tasteful, and she
is constantly remarked upon by all your
friends, as a “nice person.” Some good old
lady, in whose pew she occasionally sits on
a Sunday, or to whom she has sometime
sent a papier maché card-case, for the
show-box of some Dorcas benevolent society,
thinks—with a sly wink—that she
would make a fine wife for—somebody.</p>
<p class='c010'>She certainly <i>has</i> an elegant figure; and
the marriage of some half dozen of your
old flames warns you that time is slipping
and your chances failing. And in the pleasant
warmth of some after-dinner mood, you
resolve—with her image in her prettiest
pelisses drifting across your brain—that
you will marry. Now comes the pleasant
excitement of the chase; and whatever family
dignity may surround her only adds to
the pleasurable glow of the pursuit. You
give an hour more to your toilette, and a
hundred or two more, a year, to your
tailor. All is orderly, dignified, and gracious.
Charlotte is a sensible woman, everybody
says; and you believe it yourself.
You agree in your talk about books, and
churches, and flowers. Of course she has
good taste—for she accepts you. The acceptance
is dignified, elegant, and even
courteous.</p>
<p class='c010'>You receive numerous congratulations;
and your old friend Tom writes you—that
he hears you are going to marry a splendid
woman; and all the old ladies say—what a
capital match! And your business partner,
who is a married man, and something of a
wag—“sympathizes sincerely.” Upon the
whole, you feel a little proud of your arrangement.
You write to an old friend in
the country, that you are to marry presently
Miss Charlotte of such a street,
whose father was something very fine, in
his way; and whose father before him was
very distinguished; you add, in a postscript,
that she is easily situated, and has “expectations.”
Your friend, who has a wife that
he loves, and that loves him, writes back
kindly—“hoping you may be happy;” and
hoping so yourself, you light your cigar—one
of your last bachelor cigars—with the
margin of his letter.</p>
<p class='c010'>The match goes off with a brilliant marriage;
at which you receive a very elegant
welcome from your wife’s spinster cousins—and
drink a great deal of champagne
with her bachelor uncles. And as you take
the dainty hand of your bride—very magnificent
under that bridal wreath, and with
her face lit up by a brilliant glow—your
eye, and your soul, for the first time, grow
full. And as your arm circles that elegant
figure, and you draw her toward you, feeling
that she is yours—there is a bound at
your heart, that makes you think your soul-life
is now whole, and earnest. All your
early dreams, and imaginations, come flowing
on your thought, like bewildering music;
and as you gaze upon her—the admiration
of that crowd—it seems to you, that
all that your heart prizes is made good by
the accident of marriage.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Ah—thought I, brushing off the ashes
again—bridal pictures are not home pictures;
and the hour at the altar is but a
poor type of the waste of years!</p>
<p class='c010'>Your household is elegantly ordered;
Charlotte has secured the best of housekeepers,
and she meets the compliments of
your old friends who come to dine with
you with a suavity that is never at fault.
And they tell you—after the cloth is removed,
and you sit quietly smoking in
memory of the olden times—that she is a
splendid woman. Even the old ladies who
come for occasional charities, think madame
a pattern of a lady; and so think her old
admirers, whom she receives still with an
easy grace, that half puzzles you. And as
you stand by the ball-room door, at two of
the morning, with your Charlotte’s shawl
upon your arm, some little panting fellow
will confirm the general opinion, by telling
you that madame is a magnificent dancer;
and Monsieur le Comte will praise extravagantly
her French. You are grateful for
all this; but you have an uncommonly serious
way of expressing your gratitude.</p>
<p class='c010'>You think you ought to be a very happy
fellow; and yet long shadows do steal over
your thought; and you wonder that the
sight of your Charlotte in the dress you
used to admire so much, does not scatter
them to the winds; but it does not. You
feel coy about putting your arm around that
delicately-robed figure—you might derange
the plaiting of her dress. She is civil toward
you; and tender toward your bachelor
friends. She talks with dignity—adjusts
her lace cap—and hopes you will make a
figure in the world, for the sake of the family.
Her cheek is never soiled with a tear;
and her smiles are frequent, especially when
you have some spruce young fellows at your
table.</p>
<p class='c010'>You catch sight of occasional notes, perhaps,
whose superscription you do not
know; and some of her admirers’ attentions
become so pointed, and constant, that your
pride is stirred. It would be silly to show
jealousy; but you suggest to your “dear”—as
you sip your tea—the slight impropriety
of her action.</p>
<p class='c010'>Perhaps you fondly long for some little
scene, as a proof of wounded confidence;
but no—nothing of that; she trusts (calling
you “my dear”), that she knows how to
sustain the dignity of her position.</p>
<p class='c010'>You are too sick at heart for comment,
or for reply.</p>
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<p class='c009'>—And is this the intertwining of soul of
which you had dreamed in the days that are
gone? Is this the blending of sympathies
that was to steal from life its bitterness;
and spread over care and suffering, the
sweet, ministering hand of kindness, and of
love? Ay, you may well wander back to
your bachelor club, and make the hours
long at the journals, or at play—killing the
flagging lapse of your life! Talk sprightly
with your old friends—and mimic the joy
you have not; or you will wear a bad name
upon your hearth and head. Never suffer
your Charlotte to catch sight of the tears
which in bitter hours may start from your
eye; or to hear the sighs which in your
times of solitary musings may break forth
sudden and heavy. Go on counterfeiting
your life, as you have begun. It was a nice
match; and you are a nice husband!</p>
<p class='c010'>But you have a little boy, thank God, toward
whom your heart runs out freely; and
you love to catch him in his respite from
your well-ordered nursery, and the tasks of
his teachers—alone; and to spend upon him
a little of that depth of feeling, which
through so many years has scarce been
stirred. You play with him at his games;
you fondle him; you take him to your
bosom.</p>
<p class='c010'>But papa—he says—see how you have
tumbled my collar. What shall I tell
mamma?</p>
<p class='c010'>—Tell her, my boy, that I love you!</p>
<p class='c010'>Ah, thought I—my cigar was getting
dull, and nauseous—is there not a spot in
your heart that the gloved hand of your elegant
wife has never reached: that you wish
it might reach?</p>
<p class='c010'>You go to see a far-away friend: his was
not a “nice match;” he was married years
before you; and yet the beaming looks of
his wife and his lively smile are as fresh and
honest as they were years ago; and they
make you ashamed of your disconsolate humor.
Your stay is lengthened, but the home
letters are not urgent for your return; yet
they are marvelously proper letters, and
rounded with a French <i>adieu</i>. You could
have wished a little scrawl from your boy
at the bottom, in the place of the postscript,
which gives you the names of a new opera
troupe; and you hint as much—a very bold
stroke for you.</p>
<p class='c010'>Ben—she says—writes too shamefully.</p>
<p class='c010'>And at your return there is no great anticipation
of delight; in contrast with the
old dreams, that a pleasant summer’s journey
has called up, your parlor as you enter
it—so elegant, so still—so modish—seems
the charnel-house of your heart.</p>
<p class='c010'>By and by you fall into weary days of
sickness; you have capital nurses—nurses
highly recommended—nurses who never
make mistakes—nurses who have served
long in the family. But alas for that heart
of sympathy, and for that sweet face, shaded
with your pain—like a soft landscape
with flying clouds—you have none of them!
Your pattern wife may come in, from time
to time, to look after your nurse, or to ask
after your sleep, and glide out—her silk
dress rustling upon the door—like dead
leaves in the cool night breezes of winter.
Or, perhaps, after putting this chair in its
place, and adjusting to a more tasteful fold
that curtain—she will ask you, with a tone
that might mean sympathy, if it were not a
stranger to you—if she can do anything
more.</p>
<p class='c010'>Thank her—as kindly as you can, and
close your eyes, and dream—or rouse up,
to lay your hand upon the head of your little
boy—to drink in health and happiness from
his earnest look as he gazes strangely upon
your pale and shrunken forehead. Your
smile even, ghastly with long suffering, disturbs
him; there is no interpreter, save the
heart, between you.</p>
<p class='c010'>Your parched lips feel strangely to his
flushed, healthful face; and he steps about
on tip-toe, at a motion from the nurse, to
look at all those rosy-colored medicines upon
the table—and he takes your cane from
the corner, and passes his hand over the
smooth ivory head; and he runs his eye
along the wall from picture to picture, till
it rests on one he knows—a figure in bridal
dress—beautiful, almost fond—and he forgets
himself, and says aloud—“There’s
mamma!”</p>
<p class='c010'>The nurse puts her finger to her lip; you
waken from your doze to see where your
eager boy is looking; and your eyes, too,
take in much as they can of that figure—now
shadowy to your fainting vision—doubly
shadowy to your fainting heart!</p>
<p class='c010'>From day to day you sink from life: the
physician says the end is not far off; why
should it be? There is very little elastic
force within you to keep the end away.
Madame is called, and your little boy. Your
sight is dim, but they whisper that she is
beside your bed; and you reach out your
hand—both hands. You fancy you hear a
sob—a strange sound! It seems as if it
came from distant years—a confused,
broken, sigh, sweeping over the long
stretch of your life: and a sigh from your
heart—not audible—answers it.</p>
<p class='c010'>Your trembling fingers clutch the hand
of your little boy, and you drag him toward
you, and move your lips, as if you would
speak to him; and they place his head near
you, so that you feel his fine hair brushing
your cheek—“My boy, you must love—your
mother!”</p>
<p class='c010'>Your other hand feels a quick, convulsive
grasp, and something like a tear drops upon
your face. Good God! Can it be indeed a
tear?</p>
<p class='c010'>You strain your vision, and a feeble smile
flits over your features as you seem to see
her figure—the figure of the painting—bending
over you; and you feel a bound at
your heart—the same bound that you felt
on your bridal morning; the same bound
which you used to feel in the springtime of
your life.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Only one—rich, full bound of the
heart—that is all!</p>
<p class='c010'>—My cigar is out. I could not have lit it
again if I would. It was wholly burned.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Aunt Tabithy”—said I, as I finished
reading—“may I smoke now under your
rose tree?”</p>
<p class='c010'>Aunt Tabithy, who had laid down her
knitting to hear me—smiled—brushed a
tear from her old eyes, said—“Yes—Isaac,”
and having scratched the back of her head
with the disengaged needle, resumed her
knitting.</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch04' class='c005'>FOURTH REVERIE<br/>MORNING, NOON AND EVENING</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>It</span> is a spring day under the oaks—the
loved oaks of a once cherished home—now,
alas, mine no longer!</p>
<p class='c010'>I had sold the old farmhouse, and the
groves, and the cool springs, where I had
bathed my head in the heats of summer;
and with the first warm days of May, they
were to pass from me forever. Seventy
years they had been in the possession of my
mother’s family; for seventy years they had
borne the same name of proprietorship; for
seventy years, the Lares of our country
home, often neglected, almost forgotten—yet
brightened from time to time by gleams
of heart-worship, had held their place in the
sweet valley of Elmgrove.</p>
<p class='c010'>And in this changeful, bustling, American
life of ours seventy years is no child’s holiday.
The hurry of action, and progress
may pass over it with quick step; but the
footprints are many and deep. You surely
will not wonder that it made me sad and
thoughtful to break the chain of years that
bound to my heart the oaks, the hills, the
springs, the valley—and such a valley!</p>
<p class='c010'>A wild stream runs through it—large
enough to make a river for English landscape—winding
between rich banks where,
in summer time, the swallows build their
nests and brood by myriads.</p>
<p class='c010'>Tall elms rise here and there along the
margin, and with their uplifted arms and
leafy spray throw great patches of shade
upon the meadow. Old lion-like oaks, too,
where the meadow-soil hardens into rolling
upland, fasten to the ground with their
ridgy roots; and with their gray, scraggy
limbs make delicious shelter for the panting
workers, or for the herds of August.</p>
<div class='figcenter id018'>
<ANTIMG src='images/i156fp.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></div>
<p class='c009'>Westward of the stream, where I am lying,
the banks roll up swiftly into sloping
hills, covered with groves of oaks and green
pasture lands dotted with mossy rocks.
And farther on, where some wood has been
swept down, some ten years gone, by the
ax, the new growth, heavy with the luxuriant
foliage of spring, covers wide spots of
the slanting land; while some dead tree in
the midst still stretches out its bare arms to
the blast—a solitary mourner over the wreck
of its forest brothers.</p>
<p class='c010'>Eastward the ridgy bank passes into
wavy meadows, upon whose farther edge
you see the roofs of an old mansion, with
tall chimneys and taller elm-trees shading
it. Beyond, the hills rise gently, and sweep
away into wood-crowned heights that are
blue with distance. At the upper end of the
valley the stream is lost to the eye in a wide
swamp-wood, which in the autumn time is
covered with a scarlet sheet, blotched here
and there by the dark crimson stains of the
ash-tops. Farther on the hills crowd close
to the brook, and come down with granite
boulders, and scattered birch-trees, and
beeches—under which, upon the smoky
mornings of May, I have time and again
loitered, and thrown my line into the pools
which curl dark and still under their tangled
roots.</p>
<p class='c010'>Below, and looking southward, through
the openings of the oaks that shade me, I
see a broad stretch of meadow, with
glimpses of the silver surface of the stream,
and of the giant solitary elms, and of some
old maple that has yielded to the spring
tides, and now dips its lower boughs in the
insidious current—and of clumps of alders,
and willow tufts—above which, even now,
the black-and-white coated Bob-o’-Lincoln
is wheeling his musical flight, while his
quieter mate sits swaying on the topmost
twigs.</p>
<p class='c010'>A quiet road passes within a short distance
of me, and crosses the brook by a rude
timber bridge; beside the bridge is a broad
glassy pool, shaded by old maples and
hickories, where the cattle drink each morning
on their way to the hill pastures. A step
or two beyond the stream a lane branches
across the meadows to the mansion with the
tall chimneys. I can just remember now,
the stout, broad-shouldered old gentleman,
with his white hat, his long white hair, and
his white-headed cane, who built the house,
and who farmed the whole valley around
me. He is gone, long since; and lies in a
graveyard looking upon the sea! The elms
that he planted shake their weird arms over
the mouldering roofs; and his fruit garden
shows only a battered phalanx of mossy
limbs, which will scarce tempt the July marauders.</p>
<p class='c010'>In the other direction, upon this side the
brook, the road is lost to view among the
trees; but if I were to follow the windings
upon the hillside, it would bring me shortly
upon the old home of my grandfather;
there is no pleasure in wandering there
now. The woods that sheltered it from the
northern winds are cut down; the tall cherries
that made the yard one leafy bower are
dead. The cornice is straggling from the
eaves; the porch has fallen; the stone chimney
is yawning with wide gaps. Within,
it is even worse; the floors sway upon the
mouldering beams; the doors all sag from
their hinges; the rude frescos upon the parlor
wall are peeling off; all is going to decay—And
my grandfather sleeps in a little
graveyard by the garden wall.</p>
<p class='c010'>A lane branches from the country road,
within a few yards of me, and leads back,
along the edge of the meadow, to the homely
cottage, which has been my special care.
Its gray porch and chimney are thrown into
rich relief by a grove of oaks that skirts the
hill behind it; and the doves are flying uneasily
about the open doors of the granary
and barns. The morning sun shines pleasantly
on the gray group of buildings; and
the lowing of the cows, not yet driven afield,
adds to the charming homeliness of the
scene. But alas for the poor azaleas, and
laurels, and vines that I had put out upon
the little knoll before the cottage door—they
are all of them trodden down: only
one poor creeper hangs its loose tresses to
the lattice, all disheveled and forlorn!</p>
<p class='c010'>This by-lane which opens upon my farmhouse,
leaves the road in the middle of a
grove of oaks; the brown gate swings upon
an oak tree—the brown gate closes upon an
oak tree. There is a rustic seat, built between
two veteran trees that rise from a
little hillock near by. Half a century ago
there was a rustic seat on the same hillock—between
the same veteran trees. I can
trace marks of the old blotches upon the
bark, and the scars of the nails upon the
scathed trunks. Time and time again it
has been renewed. This, the last, was built
by my own hands—a cheerful and a holy
duty.</p>
<p class='c010'>Sixty years ago, they tell me, my grandfather
used to loiter here with his gun,
while his hounds lay around under the scattered
oaks. Now he sleeps, as I said, in
the little graveyard yonder, where I can
see one or two white tablets glimmering
through the foliage. I never knew him; he
died, as the brown stone table says, aged
twenty-six. Yesterday I climbed the wall
that skirts the yard, and plucked a flower
from his tomb. I take out now from my
pocket-book that flower—a frail, first-blooming
violet—and write upon the slip
of paper, into which I have thrust its delicate
stem—“From my grandfather’s tomb—1850.”</p>
<p class='c010'>But other feet have trod upon this knoll—far
more dear to me. The old neighbors
have sometimes told me how they have seen,
forty years ago, two rosy-faced girls idling
on this spot, under the shade, and gathering
acorns, and making oak-leaved garlands for
their foreheads—Alas, alas, the garlands
they wear now are not earthly garlands!</p>
<p class='c010'>Upon that spot, and upon that rustic seat,
I am lying this May morning. I have
placed my gun against a tree; my shot-pouch
I have hung upon a broken limb. I
have thrown my feet upon the bench, and
lean against one of the gnarled oaks, between
which the seat is built. My hat is
off; my book and paper are beside me; and
my pencil trembles in my fingers as I catch
sight of those white marble tablets gleaming
through the trees, from the height above
me, like beckoning angel faces. If they
were alive! two more near and dear friends,
in a world where we count friends by units.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is morning—a bright spring morning
under the oaks—these loved oaks of a once
cherished home. Last night I slept in yonder
mansion, under the elms. The cattle
going to the pasture are drinking in the pool
by the bridge; the boy who drives them is
making his shrill halloo echo against the
hills. The sun has risen fairly over the eastern
heights, and shines brightly upon the
meadow-land and brightly upon a bend of
the brook below me. The birds—the blue-birds
sweetest and noisiest of all—are singing
over me in the branches. A woodpecker
is hammering at a dry limb aloft; and Carlo
pricks up his ears, and looks at me—then
stretches out his head upon his paws in a
warm bit of the sunshine—and sleeps.</p>
<p class='c010'>Morning brings back to me the past; and
the past brings up not only its actualities,
not only its events and memories, but—stranger
still—what might have been.
Every little circumstance which dawns on
the awakened memory is traced not only to
its actual, but to its possible issues.</p>
<p class='c010'>What a wide world that makes of the
past! a great and gorgeous—a rich and holy
world! Your fancy fills it up artist-like;
the darkness is mellowed off into soft
shades; the bright spots are veiled in the
sweet atmosphere of distance; and fancy
and memory together make up a rich
dreamland of the past.</p>
<p class='c010'>And now, as I go on to trace upon paper
some of the visions that float across that
dreamland of the morning—I will not—I
can not say how much comes fancywise,
and how much from this vaulting memory.
Of this, the kind reader shall himself be
judge.</p>
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<h2 id='ch04-1' class='c005'>I<br/>THE MORNING</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Isabel and I</span>—she is my cousin, and is
seven years old, and I am ten—are sitting
together on the bank of the stream, under
an oak tree that leans half way over to the
water. I am much stronger than she, and
taller by a head. I hold in my hands a little
alder rod, with which I am fishing for the
roach and minnows that play in the pool below
us.</p>
<p class='c010'>She is watching the cork tossing on the
water, or playing with the captured fish
that lie upon the bank. She has auburn
ringlets that fall down upon her shoulders;
and her straw hat lies back upon them, held
only by the strip of ribbon that passes under
her chin. But the sun does not shine
upon her head; for the oak tree above us is
full of leaves; and only here and there a
dimple of the sunlight plays upon the pool,
where I am fishing.</p>
<p class='c010'>Her eye is hazel and bright; and now
and then she turns it on me with a look of
girlish curiosity, as I lift up my rod—and
again in playful menace, as she grasps in
her little fingers one of the dead fish and
threatens to throw it back upon the stream.
Her little feet hang over the edge of the
bank; and from time to time she reaches
down to dip her toe in the water; and
laughs a girlish laugh of defiance, as I
scold her for frightening away the fishes.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Bella,” I say, “what if you should tumble
in the river?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“But I won’t.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“Yes, but if you should?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“Why then you would pull me out.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“But if I wouldn’t pull you out?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“But I know you would; wouldn’t you,
Paul?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“What makes you think so, Bella?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“Because you love Bella.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“How do you know I love Bella?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“Because once you told me so; and because
you pick flowers for me that I can not
reach; and because you let me take your
rod, when you have a fish upon it.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“But that’s no reason, Bella.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“Then what is, Paul?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“I’m sure I don’t know, Bella.”</p>
<p class='c010'>A little fish has been nibbling for a long
time at the bait; the cork has been bobbing
up and down—and now he is fairly hooked,
and pulls away toward the bank, and you
can not see the cork.</p>
<p class='c010'>—“Here, Bella, quick!”—and she springs
eagerly to clasp her little hands around the
rod. But the fish has dragged it away on
the other side of me; and as she reaches
farther, and farther, she slips, cries—“Oh,
Paul!” and falls into the water.</p>
<p class='c010'>The stream they told us, when we came,
was over a man’s head—it is surely over
little Isabel’s. I fling down the rod, and
thrusting one hand into the roots that support
the overhanging bank, I grasp at her
hat, as she comes up; but the ribbons give
way, and I see the terribly earnest look
upon her face as she goes down again. Oh,
my mother—thought I—if you were only
here!</p>
<p class='c010'>But she rises again; this time I thrust
my hand into her dress, and struggling
hard, keep her at the top until I can place
my foot down upon a projecting root; and,
so bracing myself, I drag her to the bank,
and having climbed up, take hold of her
belt firmly with both hands, and drag her
out; and poor Isabel, choked, chilled, and
wet, is lying upon the grass.</p>
<p class='c010'>I commence crying aloud. The workmen
in the fields hear me, and come down. One
takes Isabel in his arms, and I follow on
foot to our uncle’s home upon the hill.</p>
<p class='c010'>—“Oh, my dear children!” says my
mother; and she takes Isabel in her arms;
and presently, with dry clothes and blazing
wood fire, little Bella smiles again. I am
at my mother’s knee.</p>
<p class='c010'>“I told you so, Paul,” says Isabel—“aunty,
doesn’t Paul love me?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“I hope so, Bella,” said my mother.</p>
<p class='c010'>“I know so,” said I; and kissed her
cheek.</p>
<p class='c010'>And how did I know it? The boy does
not ask; the man does. Oh, the freshness,
the honesty, the vigor of a boy’s heart! how
the memory of it refreshes like the first
gush of spring, or the break of an April
shower!</p>
<p class='c010'>But boyhood has its <span class='sc'>Pride</span> as well as its
<span class='sc'>Loves</span>.</p>
<p class='c010'>My uncle is a tall, hard-faced man; I fear
him when he calls me—“child;” I love him
when he calls me—“Paul.” He is almost
always busy with his books; and when I
steal into the library door, as I sometimes
do, with a string of fish, or a heaping basket
of nuts to show him—he looks for a moment
curiously at them, sometimes takes
them in his fingers—gives them back to me,
and turns over the leaves of his book. You
are afraid to ask him if you have not
worked bravely; yet you want to do so.</p>
<p class='c010'>You sidle out softly, and go to your
mother; she scarce looks at your little
stores; but she draws you to her with her
arm, and prints a kiss upon your forehead.
Now your tongue is unloosened; that kiss
and that action have done it; you will tell
what capital luck you have had; and you
hold up your tempting trophies; “are they
not great, mother?” But she is looking in
your face, and not at your prize.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Take them, mother,” and you lay the
basket upon her lap.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Thank you Paul, I do not wish them:
but you must give some to Bella.”</p>
<p class='c010'>And away you go to find laughing, playful,
cousin Isabel. And we sit down together
on the grass, and I pour out my
stores between us. “You shall take, Bella,
what you wish in your apron, and then
when study hours are over, we will have
such a time down by the big rock in the
meadow!”</p>
<p class='c010'>“But I do not know if papa will let me,”
says Isabel.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Bella,” I say, “do you love your papa?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“Yes,” says Bella, “why not?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“Because he is so cold; he does not kiss
you, Bella, so often as my mother does;
and, besides, when he forbids your going
away, he does not say, as mother does—my
little girl will be tired, she had better not
go—but he says only—Isabel must not go.
I wonder what makes him talk so?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“Why, Paul, he is a man, and doesn’t—at
any rate, I love him, Paul. Besides, my
mother is sick, you know.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“But Isabel, my mother will be your
mother, too. Come, Bella, we will go ask
her if we may go.”</p>
<p class='c010'>And there I am, the happiest of boys,
pleading with the kindest of mothers. And
the young heart leans into that mother’s
heart—none of the void now that will overtake
it like an opening Korah gulf, in the
years that are to come. It is joyous, full,
and running over!</p>
<p class='c010'>“You may go,” she says, “if your uncle is
willing.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“But mamma, I am afraid to ask him, I
do not believe he loves me.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“Don’t say so, Paul,” and she draws you
to her side, as if she would supply by her
own love the lacking love of a universe.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Go, with your cousin Isabel, and ask
him kindly; and if he says no—make no
reply.”</p>
<p class='c010'>And with courage, we go hand in hand,
and steal in at the library door. There he
sits—I seem to see him now—in the old
wainscoted room, covered over with books
and pictures; and he wears his heavy-rimmed
spectacles, and is poring over some
big volume, full of hard words, that are not
in any spelling-book. We step up softly;
and Isabel lays her little hand upon his arm;
and he turns, and says—“Well, my little
daughter?”</p>
<p class='c010'>I ask if we may go down to the big rock
in the meadow?</p>
<p class='c010'>He looks at Isabel, and says he is afraid—“we
can not go.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“But why, uncle? It is only a little way,
and we will be very careful.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“I am afraid, my children; do not say any
more: you can have the pony, and Tray, and
play at home.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“But, uncle—”</p>
<p class='c010'>“You need say no more, my child.”</p>
<p class='c010'>I pinch the hand of little Isabel, and look
in her eye—my own half-filling with tears.
I feel that my forehead is flushed, and I hide
it behind Bella’s tresses—whispering to her
at the same time—“Let us go.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“What, sir,” says my uncle, mistaking my
meaning—“do you persuade her to disobey?”</p>
<p class='c010'>Now I am angry, and say blindly—“No,
sir, I didn’t!” And then my rising pride
will not let me say that I wished only Isabel
should go out with me.</p>
<p class='c010'>Bella cries; and I shrink out; and am not
easy until I have run to bury my head in my
mother’s bosom. Alas! pride can not always
find such covert! There will be times
when it will harass you strangely; when it
will peril friendships—will sever old, standing
intimacy; and then—no resource but to
feed on its own bitterness. Hateful pride!—to
be conquered, as a man would conquer
an enemy, or it will make whirlpools in the
current of your affections—nay, turn the
whole tide of the heart into rough, and unaccustomed
channels.</p>
<p class='c010'>But boyhood has its <span class='sc'>Grief</span>, too, apart
from <span class='sc'>Pride</span>.</p>
<p class='c010'>You love the old dog, Tray; and Bella
loves him as well as you. He is a noble old
fellow, with shaggy hair, and long ears, and
big paws, that he will put up into your hand,
if you ask him. And he never gets angry
when you play with him, and tumble him
over in the long grass, and pull his silken
ears. Sometimes, to be sure, he will open
his mouth, as if he would bite, but when he
gets your hand fairly in his jaws he will
scarce leave the print of his teeth upon it.
He will swim, too, bravely, and bring ashore
all the sticks you throw upon the water; and
when you fling a stone to tease him, he
swims round and round, and whines, and
looks sorry that he can not find it.</p>
<p class='c010'>He will carry a heaping basket full of
nuts, too, in his mouth, and never spill one
of them; and when you come out to your
uncle’s home in the spring, after staying a
whole winter in the town, he knows you—old
Tray does! And he leaps upon you,
and lays his paws on your shoulder, and
licks your face; and is almost as glad to
see you as cousin Bella herself. And when
you put Bella on his back for a ride, he only
pretends to bite her little feet—but he
wouldn’t do it for the world. Ay, Tray is
a noble old dog!</p>
<p class='c010'>But one summer, the farmers say that
some of their sheep are killed, and that the
dogs have worried them; and one of them
comes to talk with my uncle about it.</p>
<p class='c010'>But Tray never worried sheep; you know
he never did; and so does nurse; and so
does Bella; for in the spring, she had a pet
lamb, and Tray never worried little Fidele.</p>
<p class='c010'>And one or two of the dogs that belong
to the neighbors are shot; though nobody
knows who shot them; and you have great
fears about poor Tray; and try to keep him
at home, and fondle him more than ever.
But Tray will sometimes wander off; till
finally, one afternoon, he comes back whining
piteously, and with his shoulder all
bloody.</p>
<p class='c010'>Little Bella cries loud; and you almost
cry, as nurse dresses the wound; and poor
old Tray whines very sadly. You pat his
head, and Bella pats him; and you sit down
together by him on the floor of the porch,
and bring a rug for him to lie upon; and
try and tempt him with a little milk, and
Bella brings a piece of cake for him—but
he will eat nothing. You sit up till very
late, long after Bella has gone to bed, patting
his head, and wishing you could do
something for poor Tray; but he only licks
your hand, and whines more piteously than
ever.</p>
<p class='c010'>In the morning you dress early and hurry
downstairs; but Tray is not lying on the
rug; and you run through the house to find
him, and whistle, and call—Tray—Tray!
At length you see him lying in his old place,
out by the cherry tree, and you run to him;
but he does not start; and you lean down to
pat him—but he is cold, and the dew is wet
upon him—poor Tray is dead!</p>
<p class='c010'>You take his head upon your knees, and
pat again those glossy ears, and cry; but
you can not bring him to life. And Bella
comes, and cries with you. You can hardly
bear to have him put in the ground; but
uncle says he must be buried. So one of
the workmen digs a grave under the cherry
tree, where he died—a deep grave, and they
round it over with earth, and smooth the
sods upon it—even now I can trace Tray’s
grave.</p>
<p class='c010'>You and Bella together put up a little
slab for a tombstone; and she hangs flowers
upon it, and ties them there with a bit of
ribbon. You can scarce play all that day;
and afterward, many weeks later, when you
are rambling over the fields, or lingering
by the brook, throwing off sticks into the
eddies, you think of old Tray’s shaggy coat,
and of his big paw, and of his honest eye;
and the memory of your boyish grief comes
upon you; and you say with tears, “Poor
Tray!” And Bella, too, in her sad sweet
tones, says—“Poor old Tray—he is dead!”</p>
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<h2 id='ch04-2' class='c005'>SCHOOL DAYS</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The</span> morning was cloudy and threatened
rain; besides, it was autumn weather, and
the winds were getting harsh, and rustling
among the tree-tops that shaded the house
most dismally. I did not dare to listen. If,
indeed, I were to stay by the bright fires of
home, and gather the nuts as they fell, and
pile up the falling leaves to make great bonfires,
with Ben and the rest of the boys, I
should have liked to listen, and would have
braved the dismal morning with the cheerfullest
of them all. For it would have been
a capital time to light a fire in the little oven
we had built under the wall; it would have
been so pleasant to warm our fingers at it,
and to roast the great russets on the flat
stones that made the top.</p>
<p class='c010'>But this was not in store for me. I had
bid the town boys good-by the day before;
my trunk was all packed; I was to go away—to
school. The little oven would go to
ruin—I knew it would. I was to leave my
home. I was to bid my mother good-by,
and Lilly, and Isabel, and all the rest; and
was to go away from them so far that I
should only know what they were all doing—in
letters. It <i>was</i> sad. And then to have
the clouds come over on that morning, and
the winds sigh so dismally; oh, it was too
bad, I thought!</p>
<p class='c010'>It comes back to me as I lie here this
bright spring morning as if it were only
yesterday. I remember that the pigeons
skulked under the eaves of the carriage-house,
and did not sit, as they used to do in
summer, upon the ridge; and the chickens
huddled together about the stable doors,
as if they were afraid of the cold autumn.
And in the garden the white hollyhocks
stood shivering, and bowed to the wind, as
if their time had come. The yellow musk-melons
showed plain among the frost-bitten
vines, and looked cold and uncomfortable.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Then they were all so kind, indoors!
The cook made such nice things for my
breakfast, because little master was going;
Lilly <i>would</i> give me her seat by the fire, and
would put her lump of sugar in my cup;
and my mother looked so smiling, and so
tenderly, that I thought I loved her more
than I ever did before. Little Ben was so
gay, too; and wanted me to take his jackknife,
if I wished it—though he knew that
I had a brand new one in my trunk. The
old nurse slipped a little purse into my hand,
tied up with a green ribbon—with money
in it—and told me not to show it to Ben or
Lilly.</p>
<p class='c010'>And cousin Isabel, who was there on a
visit, would come to stand by my chair,
when my mother was talking to me; and
put her hand in mine, and look up into my
face; but she did not say a word. I thought
it was very odd; and yet it did not seem
odd to me that I could say nothing to her.
I dare say we felt alike.</p>
<p class='c010'>At length Ben came running in, and said
the coach had come; and there, sure enough,
out of the window, we saw it—a bright yellow
coach, with four white horses, and
band-boxes all over the top, with a great
pile of trunks behind. Ben said it was a
grand coach, and that he should like a ride
in it; and the old nurse came to the door,
and said I should have a capital time; but,
somehow, I doubted if the nurse was talking
honestly. I believe she gave me an
honest kiss though—and such a hug!</p>
<p class='c010'>But it was nothing to my mother’s. Tom
told me to be a man, and study like a Trojan;
but I was not thinking about study
then. There was a tall boy in the coach,
and I was ashamed to have him see me cry;
so I didn’t, at first. But I remember, as I
looked back and saw little Isabel run out
into the middle of the street to see the
coach go off, and the curls floating behind
her, as the wind freshened, I felt my heart
leaping into my throat, and the water coming
into my eyes, and how just then I
caught sight of the tall boy glancing at me—and
how I tried to turn it off by looking
to see if I could button up my greatcoat
a great deal lower down than the buttonholes
went.</p>
<p class='c010'>But it was of no use; I put my head out
of the coach window, and looked back, as
the little figure of Isabel faded, and then
the house, and the trees; and the tears did
come; and I smuggled my handkerchief
outside without turning; so that I could
wipe my eyes before the tall boy should see
me. They say that these shadows of morning
fade, as the sun brightens into noonday;
but they are very dark shadows for
all that!</p>
<p class='c010'>Let the father or the mother think long
before they send away their boy—before
they break the home-ties that make a web
of infinite fineness and soft silken meshes
around his heart, and toss him aloof into
the boy-world, where he must struggle up
amid bickerings and quarrels, into his age
of youth! There are boys, indeed, with
little fineness in the texture of their hearts,
and with little delicacy of soul; to whom
the school in a distant village is but a vacation
from home; and with whom a return
revives all those grosser affections which
alone existed before; just as there are plants
which will bear all exposure without the
wilting of a leaf, and will return to the hot-house
life as strong and as hopeful as ever.
But there are others to whom the severance
from the prattle of sisters, the indulgent
fondness of a mother, and the unseen influences
of the home altar, gives a shock that
lasts forever; it is wrenching with cruel
hand what will bear but little roughness;
and the sobs with which the adieux are said
are sobs that may come back in the after
years, strong, and steady, and terrible.</p>
<p class='c010'>God have mercy on the boy who learns
to sob early! Condemn it as sentiment, if
you will; talk as you will of the fearlessness,
and strength of the boy’s heart—yet
there belong to many, tenderly strung
chords of affection which give forth low
and gentle music that consoles and ripens
the ear for all the harmonies of life. These
chords a little rude and unnatural tension
will break, and break forever. Watch your
boy then, if so be he will bear the strain; try
his nature, if it be rude or delicate; and, if
delicate, in God’s name, do not, as you value
your peace and his, breed a harsh youth
spirit in him that shall take pride in subjugating
and forgetting the delicacy and
richness of his finer affections!</p>
<p class='c010'>—I see now, looking into the past, the
troops of boys who were scattered in the
great play-ground, as the coach drove up
at night. The school was in a tall, stately
building, with a high cupola on the top,
where I thought I would like to go up.
The schoolmaster, they told me at home,
was kind; he said he hoped I would be a
good boy, and patted me on the head; but
he did not pat me as my mother used to do.
Then there was a woman, whom they called
the matron; who had a great many ribbons
in her cap, and who shook my hand—but
so stiffly that I didn’t dare to look up in her
face.</p>
<p class='c010'>One boy took me down to see the school-room,
which was in the basement, and the
walls were all moldly, I remember; and
when we passed a certain door, he said:
there was the dungeon; how I felt! I hated
that boy; but I believe he is dead now.
Then the matron took me up to my room—a
little corner room, with two beds, and
two windows, and a red table, and closet;
and my chum was about my size, and wore
a queer roundabout jacket with big bell
buttons; and he called the schoolmaster
“Old Crikey”—and kept me awake half the
night, telling me how he whipped the
scholars, and how they played tricks upon
him. I thought my chum was a very uncommon
boy.</p>
<p class='c010'>For a day or two, the lessons were easy,
and it was sport to play with so many “fellows.”
But soon I began to feel lonely at
night after I had gone to bed. I used to
wish I could have my mother come and kiss
me; after school, too, I wished I could step
in and tell Isabel how bravely I had got my
lessons. When I told my chum this, he
laughed at me, and said that was no place
for “homesick, white-livered chaps.” I
wondered if my chum had any mother.</p>
<p class='c010'>We had spending money once a week,
with which we used to go down to the village
store, and club our funds together, to
make great pitchers of lemonade. Some boys
would have money besides; though it was
against the rules; and one, I recollect,
showed us a five-dollar bill in his wallet—and
we all thought he must be very rich.</p>
<p class='c010'>We marched in procession to the village
church on Sundays. There were two long
benches in the galleries, reaching down the
sides of the meeting-house; and on these we
sat. At the first, I was among the smallest
boys, and took a place close to the wall,
against the pulpit; but afterward, as I grew
bigger, I was promoted to the lower end of
the first bench. This I never liked, because
it was close by one of the ushers, and because
it brought me next to some country
women, who wore stiff bonnets, and eat
fennel, and sung with the choir. But there
was a little black-eyed girl, who sat over
behind the choir, that I thought handsome;
I used to look at her very often; but was
careful she should never catch my eye.</p>
<p class='c010'>There was another down below, in a corner
pew, who was pretty; and who wore a
hat in the winter trimmed with fur. Half
the boys in the school said they would
marry her some day or other. One’s name
was Jane, and that of the other, Sophia;
which we thought pretty names, and cut
them on the ice, in skating time. But I
didn’t think either of them so pretty as
Isabel.</p>
<p class='c010'>Once a teacher whipped me: I bore it
bravely in the school: but afterward, at
night, when my chum was asleep, I sobbed
bitterly as I thought of Isabel, and Ben, and
my mother, and how much they loved me:
and laying my face in my hands, I sobbed
myself to sleep. In the morning I was calm
enough: it was another of the heart-ties
broken, though I did not know it then. It
lessened the old attachment to home, because
that home could neither protect me
nor soothe me with its sympathies. Memory,
indeed, freshened and grew strong;
but strong in bitterness, and in regrets.
The boy whose love you can not feed by
daily nourishment will find pride, self-indulgence,
and an iron purpose coming in to
furnish other supply for the soul that is in
him. If he can not shoot his branches into
the sunshine, he will become acclimated to
the shadow, and indifferent to such stray
gleams of sunshine as his fortune may
vouchsafe.</p>
<p class='c010'>Hostilities would sometimes threaten between
the school and the village boys; but
they usually passed off with such loud and
harmless explosions as belong to the wars
of our small politicians. The village champions
were a hatter’s apprentice, and a
thickset fellow who worked in a tannery.
We prided ourselves especially on one stout
boy, who wore a sailor’s monkey jacket. I
can not but think how jaunty that stout boy
looked in that jacket; and what an Ajax
cast there was to his countenance! It certainly
did occur to me to compare him with
William Wallace (Miss Porter’s William
Wallace) and I thought how I would have
liked to have seen a tussle between them.
Of course, we who were small boys, limited
ourselves to indignant remark, and thought
“we should like to see them do it;” and
prepared clubs from the wood-shed, after a
model suggested by a New York boy, who
had seen the clubs of the policemen.</p>
<p class='c010'>There was one scholar, poor Leslie, who
had friends in some foreign country, and
who occasionally received letters bearing a
foreign post-mark: what an extraordinary
boy that was—what astonishing letters,
what extraordinary parents! I wondered
if I should ever receive a letter from “foreign
parts?” I wondered if I should ever
write one; but this was too much—too absurd!
As if I, Paul, wearing a blue jacket
with gilt buttons, and number four boots,
should ever visit those countries spoken of
in the geographies, and by learned travelers!
No, no; this was too extravagant;
but I knew what I would do, if I lived to
come of age; and I vowed that I would—I
would go to New York!</p>
<p class='c010'>Number seven was the hospital, and forbidden
ground; we had all of us a sort of
horror of number seven. A boy died there
once, and oh, how he moaned; and what a
time there was when the father came!</p>
<p class='c010'>A scholar by the name of Tom Belton,
who wore linsey gray, made a dam across
a little brook by the school, and whittled
out a saw-mill that actually sawed; he had
genius. I expected to see him before now
at the head of American mechanics; but I
learn with pain that he is keeping a grocery
store.</p>
<p class='c010'>At the close of all the terms we had exhibitions,
to which all the townspeople came,
and among them the black-eyed Jane, and
the pretty Sophia with fur around her hat.
My great triumph was when I had the part
of one of Pizarro’s chieftains, the evening
before I left the school. How I did look!</p>
<p class='c010'>I had a mustache put on with burned
cork, and whiskers very bushy indeed; and
I had the militia coat of an ensign in the
town company, with the skirts pinned up,
and a short sword very dull, and crooked,
which belonged to an old gentleman who
was said to have got it from some privateer,
who was said to have taken it from some
great British admiral in the old wars; and
the way I carried that sword upon the platform
and the way I jerked it out when it
came to my turn to say—“Battle! battle!
then death to the armed, and chains for the
defenseless!”—was tremendous!</p>
<p class='c010'>The morning after, in our dramatic hats—black
felt, with turkey feathers—we took
our place upon the top of the coach to leave
the school. The head master, in green
spectacles, came out to shake hands with us—a
very awful shaking of hands.</p>
<p class='c010'>Poor gentleman!—he is in his grave now.</p>
<p class='c010'>We gave three loud hurrahs “for the old
school,” as the coach started; and upon the
top of the hill that overlooks the village, we
gave another round—and still another for
the crabbed old fellow whose apples we had
so often stolen. I wonder if old Bulkeley
is living yet?</p>
<p class='c010'>As we got on under the pine trees, I recalled
the image of the black-eyed Jane,
and of the other little girl in the corner pew—and
thought how I would come back
after the college days were over—a man,
with a beaver hat, and a cane, and with a
splendid barouche, and how I would take
the best chamber at the inn, and astonish
the old schoolmaster by giving him a familiar
tap on the shoulder; and how I would
be the admiration, and the wonder of the
pretty girl in the fur-trimmed hat! Alas,
how our thoughts outrun our deeds!</p>
<p class='c010'>For long—long years, I saw no more of
my old school; and when at length the
view came, great changes—crashing tornadoes—had
swept over my path! I
thought no more of startling the villagers,
or astonishing the black-eyed girl. No, no!
I was content to slip quietly through the
little town, with only a tear or two, as I recalled
the dead ones, and mused upon the
emptiness of life!</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch04-3' class='c005'>THE SEA</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>As</span> I look back, boyhood with its griefs
and cares vanishes into the proud stateliness
of youth. The ambition and the rivalries
of the college life—its first boastful
importance as knowledge begins to dawn
on the wakened mind, and the ripe, and enviable
complacency of its senior dignity—all
scud over my memory like this morning
breeze along the meadows; and like that,
too, bear upon their wing a chillness—as of
distant ice-banks.</p>
<p class='c010'>Ben has grown almost to manhood; Lilly
is living in a distant home; and Isabel is
just blooming into that sweet age where
womanly dignity waits her beauty; an age
that sorely puzzles one who has grown up
beside her—making him slow of tongue,
but very quick of heart.</p>
<p class='c010'>As for the rest—let us pass on.</p>
<p class='c010'>The sea is around me. The last head-lands
have gone down under the horizon,
like the city steeples, as you lose yourself
in the calm of the country, or like
the great thoughts of genius, as you slip
from the pages of poets into your own quiet
reverie.</p>
<p class='c010'>The waters skirt me right and left; there
is nothing but water before, and only water
behind. Above me are sailing clouds, or
the blue vault, which we call, with childish
license—heaven. The sails, white and full,
like helping friends are pushing me on: and
night and day are distant with the winds
which come and go—none know whence,
and none know whither. A land bird flutters
aloft, weary with long flying; and
lost in a world where are no forests but
the careening masts, and no foliage but
the drifts of spray. It cleaves awhile to the
smooth spars, till urged by some homeward
yearning, it bears off in the face of the
wind, and sinks, and rises over the angry
waters, until its strength is gone, and the
blue waves gather the poor flutterer to their
cold and glassy bosom.</p>
<p class='c010'>All the morning I see nothing beyond me
but the waters, or a tossing company of
dolphins; all the noon, unless some white
sail—like a ghost, stalks the horizon, there
is still nothing but the rolling seas; all the
evening, after the sun has grown big and
sunk under the water line, and the moon
risen, white and cold, to glimmer across the
tops of the surging ocean—there is nothing
but the sea and the sky to lead off thought,
or to crush it with their greatness.</p>
<p class='c010'>Hour after hour, as I sit in the moonlight
upon the taffrail, the great waves gather far
back, and break—and gather nearer, and
break louder—and gather again, and roll
down swift and terrible under the creaking
ship, and heave it up lightly upon their
swelling surge, and drop it gently to their
seething and yeasty cradle—like an infant
in the swaying arms of a mother—or like
a shadowy memory upon the billows of
manly thought.</p>
<p class='c010'>Conscience wakes in the silent nights of
ocean; life lies open like a book, and spreads
out as level as the sea. Regrets and broken
resolutions chase over the soul like swift-winged
night-birds, and all the unsteady
heights and the wastes of action lift up distinct
and clear from the uneasy but limpid
depths of memory.</p>
<p class='c010'>Yet within this floating world I am upon,
sympathies are narrowed down; they can
not range, as upon the land, over a thousand
objects. You are strangely attracted toward
some frail girl, whose pallor has now
given place to the rich bloom of the sea life.
You listen eagerly to the chance snatches of
a song from below, in the long morning
watch. You love to see her small feet tottering
on the unsteady deck; and you love
greatly to aid her steps, and feel her weight
upon your arm, as the ship lurches to a
heavy sea.</p>
<p class='c010'>Hopes and fears knit together pleasantly
upon the ocean. Each day seems to revive
them; your morning salutation is like a
welcome, after absence, upon the shore;
and each “good-night” has the depth and
fullness of a land “farewell.” And beauty
grows upon the ocean; you can not certainly
say that the face of the fair girl-voyager
is prettier than that of Isabel; oh,
no! but you are certain that you cast innocent
and honest glances upon her as you
steady her walk upon the deck, far oftener
than at the first; and ocean life and sympathy
makes her kind; she does not resent
your rudeness one-half so stoutly as she
might upon the shore.</p>
<p class='c010'>She will even linger of an evening—pleading
first with the mother, and standing
beside you—her white hand not very far
from yours upon the rail—look down where
the black ship flings off with each plunge
whole garlands of emeralds; or she will look
up (thinking perhaps you are looking the
same way) into the skies, in search of some
stars—which were her neighbors at home.
And bits of old tales will come up, as if
they rode upon the ocean quietude; and
fragments of half-forgotten poems, tremulously
uttered—either by reason of the rolling
of the ship, or some accidental touch of
that white hand.</p>
<p class='c010'>But ocean has its storms when fear will
make strange and holy companionship; and
even here my memory shifts swiftly and
suddenly.</p>
<p class='c010'>—It is a dreadful night. The passengers
are clustered, trembling, below. Every
plank shakes; and the oak ribs groan as if
they suffered with their toil. The hands
are all aloft; the captain is forward shouting
to the mate in the cross-trees, and I am
clinging to one of the stanchions by the
binnacle. The ship is pitching madly, and
the waves are toppling up, sometimes as
high as the yard-arm, and then dipping
away with a whirl under our keel that
makes every timber in the vessel quiver.
The thunder is roaring like a thousand cannons;
and at the moment the sky is cleft
with a stream of fire that glares over the
tops of the waves, and glistens on the wet
decks and the spars—lighting up all so
plain that I can see the men’s faces in the
main-top, and catch glimpses of the reefers
on the yard-arm, clinging like death; then
all is horrible darkness.</p>
<p class='c010'>The spray spits angrily against the canvas;
the waves crash against the weather-bow
like mountains, the wind howls through
the rigging; or, as a gasket gives way, the
sail bellying to leeward, splits like the
crack of a musket. I hear the captain in
the lulls, screaming out orders; and the
mate in the rigging, screaming them over,
until the lightning comes, and the thunder,
deadening their voices, as if they were
chirping sparrows.</p>
<p class='c010'>In one of the flashes I see a hand upon
the yard-arm lose his foothold, as the ship
gives a plunge, but his arms are clinched
around the spar. Before I can see any
more, the blackness comes, and the thunder,
with a crash that half-deafens me. I think
I hear a low cry, as the mutterings die
away in the distance; and the next flash of
lightning, which comes in an instant, I see
upon the top of one of the waves alongside,
the poor reefer who has fallen. The lightning
glares upon his face.</p>
<p class='c010'>But he has caught at a loose bit of running
rigging as he fell, and I see it slipping
off the coil upon the deck. I shout madly—man
overboard!—and—catch the rope,
when I can see nothing again. The sea is
too high, and the man too heavy for me. I
shout, and shout, and shout, and feel the
perspiration starting in great beads from
my forehead as the line slips through my
fingers.</p>
<p class='c010'>Presently the captain feels his way aft,
and takes hold with me; and the cook
comes, as the coil is nearly spent, and we
pull together upon him. It is desperate
work for the sailor, for the ship is drifting
at a prodigious rate, but he clings like a dying
man.</p>
<p class='c010'>By and by at a flash, we see him on a
crest, two oars’ length away from the vessel.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Hold on, my man!” shouts the captain.</p>
<p class='c010'>“For God’s sake, be quick!” says the poor
fellow; and he goes down in a trough of
the sea. We pull the harder, and the captain
keeps calling to him to keep up courage,
and hold strong. But in the hush we
hear him say—“I can’t hold out much
longer—I’m most gone!”</p>
<p class='c010'>Presently we have brought the man
where we can lay hold of him, and are only
waiting for a good lift of the sea to bring
him up, when the poor fellow groans out—“It’s
of no use—I can’t—good-by!” And
a wave tosses the end of the rope, clean
upon the bulwarks.</p>
<p class='c010'>At the next flash I see him going down
under the water.</p>
<p class='c010'>I grope my way below, sick and faint at
heart; and wedging myself into my narrow
berth, I try to sleep. But the thunder and
the tossing of the ship, and the face of the
drowning man, as he said good-by—peering
at me from every corner will not let me
sleep.</p>
<p class='c010'>Afterward, come quiet seas, over which
we boom along, leaving in our track, at
night, a broad path of phosphorescent
splendor. The sailors bustle around the
decks as if they had lost no comrade; and
the voyagers losing the pallor of fear, look
out earnestly for the land.</p>
<p class='c010'>At length my eyes rest upon the coveted
fields of Britain; and in a day more, the
bright face, looking out beside me, sparkles
at sight of the sweet cottages, which lie
along the green Essex shores. Broad-sailed
yachts, looking strangely, yet beautifully,
glide upon the waters of the Thames,
like swans; black, square-rigged colliers
from the Tyne, lie grouped in sooty cohorts;
and heavy, three-decked Indiamen—of
which I had read in story books—drift
slowly down with the tide. Dingy steamers,
with white pipes, and with red pipes,
whiz past us to the sea, and now my
eye rests on the great palace of Greenwich;
I see the wooden-legged pensioners smoking
under the palace walls; and above them
upon the hill—as Heaven is true—that old,
fabulous Greenwich, the great center of
schoolboy longitude.</p>
<p class='c010'>Presently, from under a cloud of murky
smoke heaves up the vast dome of St.
Paul’s, and the tall column of the fire, and
the white turrets of London Tower. Our
ship glides through the massive dock gates,
and is moored, amid the forest of masts
which bears golden fruit for Britons.</p>
<p class='c010'>That night, I sleep far away from “the
old school,” and far away from the valley
of Hillfarm; long, and late, I toss upon my
bed, with sweet visions in my mind, of London
Bridge, and Temple Bar, and Jane
Shore, and Falstaff, and Prince Hal, and
King Jamie. And when at length I fall
asleep my dreams are very pleasant, but
they carry me across the ocean, away from
the ship—away from London—away even
from the fair voyager—to the old oaks, and
to the brooks, and—to thy side—sweet
Isabel!</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch04-4' class='c005'>THE FATHERLAND</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>There</span> is a great contrast between the
easy deshabille of the ocean life, and
the prim attire, and conventional spirit of
the land. In the first, there are but few to
please, and these few are known, and they
know us; upon the shore, there is a world
to humor, and a world of strangers. In a
brilliant drawing-room looking out upon
the site of old Charing-Cross, and upon the
one-armed Nelson, standing aloft at his coil
of rope, I take leave of the fair voyager of
the sea. Her white negligé has given place
to silks; and the simple careless coiffe of
the ocean, is replaced by the rich dressing
of a modiste. Yet her face has the same
bloom upon it; and her eye sparkles, as it
seems to me, with a higher pride; and her
little hand has I think a tremulous quiver
in it (I am sure my own has)—as I bid her
adieu, and take up the trail of my wanderings
into the heart of England.</p>
<p class='c010'>Abuse her, as we will—pity her starving
peasantry, as we may—smile at her court
pageantry, as much as we like—old England
is dear old England still. Her cottage
homes, her green fields, her castles, her
blazing firesides, her church spires are as
old as songs; and by song and story, we inherit
them in our hearts. This joyous boast,
was, I remember, upon my lip, as I first
trod upon the rich meadow of Runnymede;
and recalled that <span class='sc'>Great Charter</span>: wrested
from the king, which made the first stepping
stone toward the bounties of our western
freedom.</p>
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<p class='c009'>It is a strange feeling that comes over
the Western Saxon, as he strolls first along
the green by-lanes of England, and scents
the hawthorn in its April bloom, and lingers
at some quaint stile to watch the rooks
wheeling and cawing around some lofty
elm-tops, and traces the carved gables of
some old country mansion that lies in their
shadow, and hums some fragment of charming
English poesy, that seems made for the
scene. This is not sight-seeing, nor travel;
it is dreaming sweet dreams, that are fed
with the old life of Books.</p>
<p class='c010'>I wander on, fearing to break the dream,
by a swift step; and winding and rising between
the blooming hedgerows, I come
presently to the sight of some sweet valley
below me, where a thatched hamlet lies
sleeping in the April sun, as quietly as the
dead lie in history; no sound reaches me
save the occasional clink of the smith’s hammer,
or the hedgeman’s bill-hook, or the
plowman’s “ho-tup,” from the hills. At
evening, listening to the nightingale, I
stroll wearily into some close-nestled village,
that I had seen long ago from a rolling
height. It is far away from the great
lines of travel—and the children stop their
play to have a look at me, and the rosy-faced
girls peep from behind half opened
doors.</p>
<p class='c010'>Standing apart, and with a bench on
either side of the entrance, is the inn of the
Eagle and the Falcon—which guardian
birds, some native Dick Tinto has pictured
upon the swinging signboard at the corner.
The hostess is half ready to embrace me,
and treats me like a prince in disguise. She
shows me through the tap-room into a little
parlor, with white curtains, and with neatly
framed prints of the old patriarchs. Here,
alone beside a brisk fire, kindled with furze,
I watch the white flame leaping playfully
through the black lumps of coal, and enjoy
the best fare of the Eagle and the Falcon.
If too late, or too early for her garden stock,
the hostess bethinks herself of some small
pot of jelly in an out-of-the-way cupboard
of the house, and setting it temptingly in
her prettiest dish, she coyly slips it upon the
white cloth, with a modest regret that it is
no better; and a little evident satisfaction—that
it is so good.</p>
<p class='c010'>I muse for an hour before the glowing
fire, as quiet as the cat that has come in, to
bear me company; and at bedtime, I find
sheets, as fresh as the air of the mountains.</p>
<p class='c010'>At another time, and many months later,
I am walking under a wood of Scottish firs.
It is near nightfall, and the fir tops are
swaying, and sighing hoarsely, in the cool
wind of the Northern Highlands. There is
none of the smiling landscape of England
about me; and the crags of Edinburgh and
Castle Stirling, and sweet Perth, in its silver
valley, are far to the southward. The
larches of Athol and Bruar Water, and that
highland gem—Dunkeld, are passed. I am
tired with a morning’s tramp over Culloden
Moor; and from the edge of the wood there
stretches before me, in the cool gray twilight,
broad fields of heather. In the middle,
there rise against the night-sky, the turrets
of a castle; it is Castle Cawdor, where King
Duncan was murdered by Macbeth.</p>
<p class='c010'>The sight of it lends a spur to my weary
step; and emerging from the wood, I bound
over the springy heather. In an hour, I
clamber a broken wall, and come under the
frowning shadows of the castle. The ivy
clambers up here and there, and shakes its
uncropped branches, and its dried berries
over the heavy portal. I cross the moat,
and my step makes the chains of the drawbridge
rattle. All is kept in the old state;
only in lieu of the warder’s horn, I pull at
the warder’s bell. The echoes ring, and die
in the stone courts; but there is no one astir,
nor is there a light at any of the castle windows.
I ring again, and the echoes come,
and blend with the rising night wind that
sighs around the turrets, as they sighed that
night of murder. I fancy—it must be a
fancy—that I hear an owl scream; I am
sure that I hear the crickets cry.</p>
<p class='c010'>I sit down upon the green bank of the
moat; a little dark water lies in the bottom.
The walls rise from it gray and stern in
the deepening shadows. I hum chance passages
of Macbeth, listening for the echoes—echoes
from the wall; and echoes from
that far-away time, when I stole the first
reading of the tragic story.</p>
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<div class='group'>
<div class='line in2'>“Did’st thou not hear a noise?</div>
<div class='line'>I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry.</div>
<div class='line'>Did you not speak?</div>
<div class='line in4'>When?</div>
<div class='line in6'>Now.</div>
<div class='line in8'>As I descended?</div>
<div class='line in2'>Ay.</div>
<div class='line in2'>——Hark!”</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class='c014'>And the sharp echo comes back—“Hark!”
And at dead of night, in the
thatched cottage under the castle walls,
where a dark-faced, Gaelic woman, in plaid
turban, is my hostess, I wake, startled by
the wind, and my trembling lips say involuntarily—“hark!”</p>
<p class='c010'>Again, three months later, I am in the
sweet county of Devon. Its valleys are like
emerald; its threads of waters stretched over
the fields, by their provident husbandry,
glisten in the broad glow of summer, like
skeins of silk. A bland old farmer, of the
true British stamp, is my host. On market
days he rides over to the old town of
Totness, in a trim, black farmer’s cart; and
he wears glossy-topped boots, and a broad-brimmed
white hat. I take a vast deal of
pleasure in listening to his honest, straight-forward
talk about the improvements of the
day and the state of the nation. I sometimes
get upon one of his nags, and ride off
with him over his fields, or visit the homes
of the laborers, which show their gray roofs,
in every charming nook of the landscape.
At the parish church I doze against the
high pew backs, as I listen to the see-saw
tones of the drawling curate; and in my
half wakeful moments, the withered holly
sprigs (not removed since Easter) grow
upon my vision, into Christmas boughs, and
preach sermons to me—of the days of old.</p>
<p class='c010'>Sometimes, I wander far over the hills
into a neighboring park; and spend hours
on hours under the sturdy oaks, watching
the sleek fallow deer gazing at me with
their soft liquid eyes. The squirrels, too,
play above me, with their daring leaps, utterly
careless of my presence, and the pheasants
whir away from my very feet.</p>
<p class='c010'>On one of these random strolls—I remember
it very well—when I was idling
along, thinking of the broad reach of water
that lay between me and that old forest
home—and beating off the daisy heads with
my cane—I heard the tramp of horses coming
up one of the forest avenues. The
sound was unusual, for the family, I had
been told, was still in town, and no right of
way lay through the park. There they were,
however: I was sure it must be the family,
from the careless way in which they came
sauntering up.</p>
<p class='c010'>First, there was a noble hound that came
bounding toward me—gazed a moment, and
turned to watch the approach of the little
cavalcade. Next was an elderly gentleman
mounted upon a spirited hunter, attended
by a boy of some dozen years, who managed
his pony with a grace, that is a part of the
English boy’s education. Then followed
two older lads, and a traveling phaëton in
which sat a couple of elderly ladies. But
what most drew my attention was a girlish
figure, that rode beyond the carriage, upon
a sleek-limbed gray. There was something
in the easy grace of her attitude, and the
rich glow that lit up her face—heightened
as it was, by the little black riding cap, relieved
with a single flowing plume—that
kept my eye. It was strange, but I thought
that I had seen such a figure before, and
such a face, and such an eye; and as I made
the ordinary salutation of a stranger, and
caught her smile, I could have sworn that it
was she—my fair companion of the ocean.
The truth flashed upon me in a moment.
She was to visit, she had told me, a friend
in the south of England; and this was the
friend’s home; and one of the ladies of the
carriage was her mother; and one of the
lads, the schoolboy brother, who had teased
her on the sea.</p>
<p class='c010'>I recall now perfectly her frank manner,
as she ungloved her hand to bid me welcome.
I strolled beside them to the steps.
Old Devon had suddenly renewed its beauties
for me. I had much to tell her, of the
little outlying nooks, which my wayward
feet had led me to: and she—as much to
ask. My stay with the bland old farmer
lengthened; and two days’ hospitalities at
the Park ran over into three, and four.
There was hard galloping down those avenues;
and new strolls, not at all lonely, under
the sturdy oaks. The long summer twilight
of England used to find a very happy
fellow lingering on the garden terrace—looking,
now at the rookery, where the belated
birds quarreled for a resting place,
and now down the long forest vista, gray
with distance, and closed with the white
spire of Madbury church.</p>
<p class='c010'>English country life gains fast upon one—very
fast; and it is not so easy, as in the
drawing-room of Charing Cross, to say—adieu!
But it is said—very sadly said; for
God only knows how long it is to last. And
as I rode slowly down toward the lodge
after my leave-taking, I turned back again,
and again, and again. I thought I saw her
standing still upon the terrace, though it
was almost dark; and I thought—it could
hardly have been an illusion—that I saw
something white waving from her hand.</p>
<p class='c010'>Her name—as if I could forget it—was
Caroline; her mother called her—Carry. I
wondered how it would seem for me to call
her—Carry! I tried it—it sounded well.
I tried it—over and over—until I came too
near the lodge. There I threw a half crown
to the woman who opened the gate for me.
She courtesied low, and said—“God bless
you, sir!”</p>
<p class='c010'>I liked her for it; I would have given a
guinea for it: and that night—whether it
was the old woman’s benediction, or the
waving scarf upon the terrace, I do not
know—but there was a charm upon my
thought, and my hope, as if an angel had
been near me.</p>
<p class='c010'>It passed away though in my dreams; for
I dreamed that I saw the sweet face of Bella
in an English park, and that she wore a
black-velvet riding cap, with a plume; and
I came up to her and murmured, very
sweetly, I thought—“Carry, dear Carry!”
and she started, looked sadly at me, and
turned away. I ran after her, to kiss her as
I did when she sat upon my mother’s lap,
on the day when she came near drowning:
I longed to tell her, as I did then—I <i>do</i> love
you. But she turned her tearful face upon
me, I dreamed; and then—I saw no more.</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch04-5' class='c005'>A<br/>ROMAN<br/>GIRL</h2></div>
<p class='c009'>—<span class='sc'>I remember</span> the very words—“<i>non
parlo Francese, Signore</i>—I do not speak
French, Signor”—said the stout lady—“but
my daughter, perhaps, will understand
you.”</p>
<p class='c010'>And she called out—“<i>Enrica!—Enrica!
venite, subito! c’ è un forestiere.</i>”</p>
<p class='c010'>And the daughter came, her light-brown
hair falling carelessly over her shoulders,
her rich, hazel eye twinkling and full of
life, the color coming and going upon her
transparent cheek, and her bosom heaving
with her quick step. With one hand she
put back the scattered locks that had fallen
over her forehead, while she laid the other
gently upon the arm of her mother, and
asked in that sweet music of the south—“<i>cosa
volete, mamma?</i>”</p>
<p class='c010'>It was the prettiest picture I had seen in
many a day; and this, notwithstanding I
was in Rome, and had come that very morning
from the Palace of Borghese.</p>
<p class='c010'>The stout lady was my hostess, and Enrica—so
fair, so young, so unlike in her
beauty, to other Italian beauties, was my
landlady’s daughter. The house was one of
those tall houses—very, very old which
stand along the eastern side of the Corso,
looking out upon the Piazzo di Colonna.
The staircases were very tall and dirty, and
they were narrow and dark. Four flights
of stone steps led up to the corridor where
they lived. A little trap was in the door;
and there was a bell-rope, at the least touch
of which, I was almost sure to hear tripping
feet run along the stone floor within, and
then to see the trap thrown slyly back, and
those deep hazel eyes looking out upon me;
and then the door would open, and along
the corridor, under the daughter’s guidance
(until I had learned the way), I passed to
my Roman home. I was a long time learning
the way.</p>
<p class='c010'>My chamber looked out upon the Corso,
and I could catch from it a glimpse of the
top of the tall column of Antoninus, and of
a fragment of the palace of the governor.
My parlor, which was separated from the
apartments of the family by a narrow corridor,
looked upon a small court, hung
around with balconies. From the upper
one a couple of black-eyed girls are occasionally
looking out, and they can almost
read the title of my book, when I sit by the
window. Below are three or four blooming
<i>ragazze</i>, who are dark-eyed, and have Roman
luxuriance of hair. The youngest is a
friend of our Enrica, and is of course frequently
looking up with all the innocence
in the world, to see if Enrica may be looking
out.</p>
<p class='c010'>Night after night a bright blaze glows
upon my hearth, of the alder faggots which
they bring from the Albanian hills. Night
after night, too, the family come in to aid
my blundering speech and to enjoy the rich
sparkling of my faggot fire. Little Cesare,
a dark-faced Italian boy, takes up his position
with pencil and slate, and draws by the
light of the blaze genii and castles. The old
one-eyed teacher of Enrica lays his snuff
box upon the table, and his handkerchief
across his lap, and with his spectacles upon
his nose, and his big fingers on the lesson,
runs through the French tenses of the verb
<i>amare</i>. The father, a sallow-faced, keen-eyed
man, with true Italian visage, sits with
his arms upon the elbows of his chair, and
talks of the pope, or of the weather. A
spruce count from the Marches of Ancona,
wears a heavy watch seal, and reads Dante
with <i>furore</i>. The mother, with arms
akimbo, looks proudly upon her daughter,
and counts her, as well she may, a gem
among the Roman beauties.</p>
<p class='c010'>The table was round, with the fire blazing
on one side; there was scarce room for but
three upon the other. Signor <i>il maestro</i>
was one—then Enrica, and next—how well
I remember it—came myself. For I could
sometimes help Enrica to a word of French;
and far oftener she could help me to a word
of Italian. Her face was rich, and full of
feeling; I used greatly to love to watch the
puzzled expressions that passed over her
forehead, as the sense of some hard phrase
escaped her; and better still, to see the
happy smile, as she caught at a glance, the
thought of some old scholastic Frenchman,
and transferred it into the liquid melody of
her speech.</p>
<p class='c010'>She had seen just sixteen summers, and
only that very autumn was escaped from
the thraldom of a convent, upon the skirts
of Rome. She knew nothing of life, but the
life of feeling; and all thoughts of happiness
lay as yet in her childish hopes. It was
pleasant to look upon her face; and it was
still more pleasant to listen to that sweet
Roman voice. What a rich flow of superlatives,
and endearing diminutives, from those
vermilion lips! Who would not have loved
the study, and who would not have loved—without
meaning it—the teacher?</p>
<p class='c010'>In those days I did not linger long at the
tables of lame Pietro in the Via Condotti:
but would hurry back to my little Roman
parlor—the fire was so pleasant! And it
was so pleasant to greet Enrica with her
mother, even before the one-eyed <i>maestro</i>
had come in; and it was pleasant to unfold
the book between us, and to lay my hand
upon the page—a small page—where hers
lay already. And when she pointed wrong,
it was pleasant to correct her—over and
over; insisting that her hand should be
here, and not there, and lifting those little
fingers from one page, and putting them
down upon the other. And sometimes, half
provoked with my fault-finding she would
pat my hand smartly with hers; but when I
looked in her face to know what <i>that</i> could
mean, she would meet my eye with such a
kind submission, and half earnest regret, as
made me not only pardon the offense—but
tempt me to provoke it again.</p>
<p class='c010'>Through all the days of Carnival, when I
rode pelted with <i>confetti</i>, and pelting back,
my eyes used to wander up, from a long
way off, to that tall house upon the Corso,
where I was sure to meet, again and again,
those forgiving eyes and that soft brown
hair, all gathered under the little brown
sombrero, set off with one pure white
plume. And her hand full of bon-bons, she
would shake at me threateningly; and
laugh—a musical laugh—as I bowed my
head to the assault, and recovering from
the shower of missiles, would turn to throw
my stoutest bouquet at her balcony. At
night I would bear home to the Roman parlor
my best trophy of the day, as a guerdon
for Enrica; and Enrica would be sure to
render in acknowledgment, some carefully
hidden flowers, the prettiest that her beauty
had won.</p>
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<p class='c009'>Sometimes upon those Carnival nights,
she arrays herself in the costume of the Albanian
water-carriers; and nothing, one
would think, could be prettier than the
laced crimson jacket, and the strange headgear
with its trinkets, and the short skirts
leaving to view as delicate an ankle as could
be found in Rome. Upon another night,
she glides into my little parlor, as we sit by
the blaze, in a close velvet bodice, and with
a Swiss hat caught up by a looplet of silver,
and adorned with a full-blown rose—nothing
you think could be prettier than this.
Again, in one of her girlish freaks, she
robes herself like a nun; and with the heavy
black serge, for dress, and the funereal veil—relieved
only by the plain white ruffle of
her cap—you wish she were always a nun.
But the wish vanishes, when you see her in
a pure white muslin, with a wreath of orange
blossoms about her forehead, and a
single white rose-bud in her bosom.</p>
<p class='c010'>Upon the little balcony Enrica keeps a
pot or two of flowers, which bloom all winter
long; and each morning I find upon my
table a fresh rosebud; each night, I bear
back for thank-offering the prettiest bouquet
that can be found in the Via Conditti.
The quiet fireside evenings come back; in
which my hand seeks its wonted place upon
her book; and my other <i>will</i> creep around
upon the back of Enrica’s chair, and Enrica
<i>will</i> look indignant—and then all forgiveness.</p>
<p class='c010'>One day I received a large packet of letters—ah,
what luxury to lie back in my big
armchair, there before the crackling faggots,
with the pleasant rustle of that silken dress
beside me, and run over a second, and a
third time, those mute paper missives, which
bore to me over so many miles of water, the
words of greeting, and of love. It would
be worth traveling to the shores of the
Ægean, to find one’s heart quickened into
such life as the ocean letters will make.
Enrica threw down her book, and wondered
what could be in them—and snatched one
from my hand, and looked with sad, but
vain intensity over that strange scrawl.
What can it be? said she; and she laid her
finger upon the little half line—“Dear
Paul.”</p>
<p class='c010'>I told her it was—“<i>Caro mio</i>.”</p>
<p class='c010'>Enrica laid it upon her lap and looked
in my face; “It is from your mother?” said
she.</p>
<p class='c010'>“No,” said I.</p>
<p class='c010'>“From your sister?” said she.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Alas, no!”</p>
<p class='c010'>“<i>Il vostro fratello, dunque?</i>”</p>
<p class='c010'>“<i>Nemmeno</i>”—said I, “not from a brother
either.”</p>
<p class='c010'>She handed me the letter, and took up
her book; and presently she laid the book
down again; and looked at the letter, and
then at me—and went out.</p>
<p class='c010'>She did not come in again that evening;
in the morning, there was no rose-bud on
my table. And when I came at night, with
a bouquet from Pietro’s at the corner, she
asked me—“who had written my letter?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“A very dear friend,” said I.</p>
<p class='c010'>“A lady?” continued she.</p>
<p class='c010'>“A lady,” said I.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Keep this bouquet for her,” said she, and
put it in my hands.</p>
<p class='c010'>“But, Enrica, she has plenty of flowers;
she lives among them, and each morning
her children gather them by scores to make
garlands of.”</p>
<p class='c010'>Enrica put her fingers within my hand to
take again the bouquet; and for a moment I
held both fingers and flowers.</p>
<p class='c010'>The flowers slipped out first.</p>
<p class='c010'>I had a friend at Rome in that time, who
afterward died between Ancona and Corinth;
we were sitting one day upon a block
of tufa in the middle of the Coliseum, looking
up at the shadows which the waving
shrubs upon the southern wall cast upon the
ruined arcades within, and listening to the
chirping sparrows that lived upon the wreck—when
he said to me suddenly—“Paul, you
love the Italian girl.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“She is very beautiful,” said I.</p>
<p class='c010'>“I think she is beginning to love you,”
said he soberly.</p>
<p class='c010'>“She has a very warm heart, I believe,”
said I.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Ay,” said he.</p>
<p class='c010'>“But her feelings are those of a girl,”
continued I.</p>
<p class='c010'>“They are not,” said my friend; and he
laid his hand upon my knee, and left off
drawing diagrams with his cane; “I have
seen, Paul, more than you of this southern
nature. The Italian girl of fifteen is a
woman; an impassioned, sensitive, tender
creature—yet still a woman; you are loving—if
you love—a full-grown heart; she is
loving—if she loves—as a ripe heart
should.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“But I do not think that either is wholly
true,” said I.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Try it,” said he, setting his cane down
firmly, and looking in my face.</p>
<p class='c010'>“How?” returned I.</p>
<p class='c010'>“I have three weeks upon my hands,”
continued he. “Go with me into the Appenines;
leave your home in the Corso, and
see if you can forget in the air of the mountains,
your bright-eyed Roman girl.”</p>
<p class='c010'>I was pondering for an answer, when he
went on: “It is better so; love as you
might, that southern nature with all its passion,
is not the material to build domestic
happiness upon; nor is your northern habit—whatever
you may think at your time of
life, the one to cherish always those passionate
sympathies which are bred by this
atmosphere, and their scenes.”</p>
<p class='c010'>One moment my thought ran to my little
parlor, and to that fairy figure, and to that
sweet angel face; and then, like lightning
it traversed oceans, and fed upon the old
ideal of home, and brought images to my
eye of lost—dead ones, who seemed to be
stirring on heavenly wings, in that soft Roman
atmosphere, with greeting, and with
beckoning.</p>
<p class='c010'>—“I will go with you,” said I.</p>
<p class='c010'>The father shrugged his shoulders, when
I told him I was going to the mountains,
and wanted a guide. His wife said it would
be cold upon the hills, for the winter was
not ended. Enrica said it would be warm
in the valleys, for the spring was coming.
The old man drummed with his fingers on
the table, and shrugged his shoulders again,
but said nothing.</p>
<p class='c010'>My landlady said I could not ride. Cesare
said it would be hard walking. Enrica
asked papa, if there would be any danger.
And again the old man shrugged his shoulders.
Again I asked him, if he knew a
man who would serve us as a guide among
the Appenines; and finding me determined,
he shrugged his shoulders, and said he
would find one the next day.</p>
<p class='c010'>As I passed out at evening, on my way
to the Piazzo near the Monte Citorio, where
stand the carriages that go out to Tivoli,
Enrica glided up to me, and whispered—“<i>Ah,
mi dispiace tanto—tanto, Signor!</i>”</p>
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<h2 id='ch04-6' class='c005'>THE APPENINES</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>I shook</span> her hand, and in an hour afterward
was passing, with my friend, by the
Trajan forum, toward the deep shadow of
San Maggiore, which lay in our way to the
mountains. At sunset we were wandering
over the ruin of Adrian’s villa, which lies
upon the first step of the Appenines. Behind
us, the vesper bells of Tivoli were
sounding, and their echoes floating sweetly
under the broken arches; before us, stretching
all the way to the horizon, lay the broad
Campagna; while in the middle of its great
waves, turned violet-colored by the hues of
twilight, rose the grouped towers of the
Eternal City; and lording it among them
all, like a giant, stood the black dome of St.
Peter’s.</p>
<p class='c010'>Day after day we stretched on over the
mountains, leaving the Campagna far behind
us. Rocks and stones, huge and
ragged, lie strewn over the surface right
and left; deep yawning valleys lie in the
shadows of mountains, that loom up thousands
of feet, bearing, perhaps, upon their
tops old castellated towns, perched like
birds’ nests. But mountain and valley are
blasted and scarred; the forests even are
not continuous, but struggle for a livelihood;
as if the brimstone fire that consumed
Nineveh, had withered their energies.
Sometimes our eyes rest on a great white
scar of the broken calcareous rock, on which
the moss cannot grow, and the lizards dare
not creep. Then we see a cliff beetling far
aloft, with the shining walls of some monastery
of holy men glistening at its base.
The wayside brooks do not seem to be the
gentle offspring of bountiful hills, but the
remnants of something greater, whose
greatness has expired—they are turbid rills,
rolling in the bottom of yawning chasms.
Even the shrubs have a look, as if the Volscian
war-horse had trampled them down to
death; and the primroses and the violets by
the mountain path alone look modestly
beautiful amid the ruin.</p>
<p class='c010'>Sometimes we loiter in a valley, above
which the goats are browsing on the cliffs,
and listen to the sweet pastoral pipes of the
Appenines. We see the shepherds in their
rough skin coats, high over our heads.
Their herds are feeding, as it seems, on
ledges of a hand’s breadth. The sweet
sound floats and lingers in the soft atmosphere,
without a breath of wind to bear it
away, or a noise to disturb its melody. The
shadows slant more and more as we linger;
and the kids begin to group together. And
as we wander on, through the stunted vineyard
in the bottom of the valley, the sweet
sound flows after us, like a river of song—nor
leaves us, till the kids have vanished in
the distance, and the cliffs themselves, become
one dark wall of shadow.</p>
<p class='c010'>At night, in some little meager mountain
town, we stroll about in the narrow passways,
or wander under the heavy arches of
the mountain churches. Shuffling old women
grope in and out; dim lamps glimmer
faintly at the side altars, shedding horrid
light upon painted images of the dying
Christ. Or, perhaps, to make the old pile
more solemn, there stands some bier in the
middle, with a figure or two kneeling at the
foot, and ragged boys move stealthily under
the shadows of the columns. Presently
comes a young priest, in black robes, and
lights a taper at the foot, and another at the
head—for there is a dead man on the bier;
and the parched, thin features look awfully
under the yellow light of the tapers, in the
gloom of the great building. It is very,
very damp in the church, and the body of
the dead man seems to make the air heavy,
so we go out into the starlight again.</p>
<p class='c010'>In the morning, the western slopes wear
broad shadows, and the frosts crumple, on
the herbage, to our tread: across the valley,
it is like summer; and the birds—for there
are songsters in the Appenines—make summer
music. Their notes blend softly with
the faint sounds of some far-off convent
bell, tolling for morning mass, and strike
the frosted and shaded mountain side, with
a sweet echo. As we toil on, and the shaded
hills begin to glow in the sunshine, we pass
a train of mules, loaded with wine. We
have seen them an hour before—little black
dots twining along the white streak of footway
upon the mountain above us. We lost
them as we began to ascend, until a wild
snatch of an Appenine song turned our eyes
up, and there, straggling through the brush,
they appeared again; a foot slip would have
brought the mules and wine casks rolling
upon us. We keep still, holding by the
brushwood, to let them pass. An hour more,
and we see them toiling slowly—mule and
muleteer—big dots and little dots—far
down where we have been before. The sun
is hot and smoking on them in the bare valleys;
the sun is hot and smoking on the
hill side, where we are toiling over the
broken stones. I thought of little Enrica,
when she said: “the spring was coming!”</p>
<p class='c010'>Time and again we sit down together—my
friend and I—upon some fragment of
rock, under the broad-armed chestnuts, that
fringe the lower skirts of the mountains,
and talk through the hottest of the noon, of
the warriors of Sylla, and of the Sabine
woman—but oftener—of the pretty peasantry,
and of the sweet-faced Roman girl.
He, too, tells me of his life and loves, and of
the hopes that lie misty and grand before
him: little did we think that in so few years,
his hopes would be gone, and his body lying
low in the Adriatic, or tossed with the drift
upon the Dalmatian shores! Little did I
think that here under the ancestral wood—still
a wishful and blundering mortal, I
should be gathering up the shreds that
memory can catch of our Appenine wandering,
and be weaving them into my bachelor
dreams.</p>
<p class='c010'>Away again upon the quick wing of
thought, I follow our steps, as after weeks
of wandering, we gained once more a height
that overlooked the Campagna—and saw
the sun setting on its edge, throwing into
relief the dome of St. Peter’s, and blazing in
a red stripe upon the waters of the Tiber.</p>
<p class='c010'>Below us was Palestrina—the Præneste
of the poets and philosophers; the dwelling
place of—I know not how many—emperors.
We went straggling through the dirty
streets, searching for some tidy-looking osteria.
At length we found an old lady who
could give us a bed, but no dinner. My
friend dropped in a chair disheartened. A
snub-looking priest came out to condole
with us.</p>
<p class='c010'>And could Palestrina—the <i>frigidum Præneste</i>
of Horace, which had entertained over
and over, the noblest of the Colonna, and
the most noble Adrian—could Palestrina
not furnish a dinner to a tired traveler?</p>
<p class='c010'>“<i>Si, Signore</i>,” said the snub-looking
priest.</p>
<p class='c010'>“<i>Si, Signorino</i>,” said the neat old lady;
and away we went upon a new search. And
we found bright and happy faces; especially
the little girl of twelve years, who came
close by me as I ate, and afterward strung
a garland of marigolds, and put it on my
head. Then there was a bright-eyed boy of
fourteen, who wrote his name, and those of
the whole family, upon a fly-leaf of my
book; and a pretty, saucy-looking girl of
sixteen, who peeped a long time from behind
the kitchen door, but before the evening
was gone, she was in the chair beside
me, and had written her name—Carlotta—upon
the first leaf of my journal.</p>
<p class='c010'>When I woke, the sun was up. From my
bed I could see over the town, the thin, lazy
mists lying on the old camp-ground of
Pyrrhus; beyond it were the mountains,
which hide Frascati, and Monte-Cavi.
There was old Colonna, too, that—</p>
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<p class='c014'>As the mist lifted, and the sun brightened
the plain, I could see the road, along
which Sylla came fuming and maddened
after the Mithridaten war. I could see, as
I half dreamed and half slept, the frightened
peasantry whooping to their long-horned
cattle, as they drove them on tumultuously
up through the gateways of the
town; and women with babies in their arms,
and children scowling with fear and hate—all
trooping fast and madly, to escape the
hand of the Avenger; alas! ineffectually, for
Sylla murdered them, and pulled down the
walls of their town—the proud Palestrina.</p>
<p class='c010'>I had a queer fancy of seeing the nobles
of Rome, led on by Stefano Colonna, grouping
along the plain, their corslets flashing
out of the mists—their pennants dashing
above it—coming up fast, and still as the
wind, to make the Mural Præneste, their
stronghold against the Last of the Tribunes.
And strangely mingling fiction with fact, I
saw the brother of Walter de Montreal, with
his noisy and bristling army, crowd over the
Campagna, and put up his white tents, and
hang out his showy banners, on the grassy
knolls that lay nearest my eye.</p>
<p class='c010'>—But the knolls were all quiet; there
was not so much as a strolling <i>contadino</i> on
them, to whistle a mimic fife-note. A little
boy from the inn went with me upon the
hill, to look out upon the town and the wide
sea of land below; and whether it was the
soft, warm April sun, or the gray ruins below
me, or whether the wonderful silence of
the scene, or some wild gush of memory, I
do not know, but something made me sad.</p>
<p class='c010'>“<i>Perché cosi penseroso!</i>—why so sad”
said the quick-eyed boy. “The air is beautiful,
the scene is beautiful; Signore is
young, why is he sad?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“And is Giovanni never sad?” said I.</p>
<p class='c010'>“<i>Quasi mai</i>,” said the boy, “and if I could
travel as Signore, and see other countries,
I would be always gay.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“May you be always that!” said I.</p>
<p class='c010'>The good wish touched him; he took me
by the arms, and said—“Go home with me,
Signore; you were happy at the inn last
night; go back, and we will make you gay
again!”</p>
<p class='c010'>—If we could be always boys!</p>
<p class='c010'>I thanked him in a way that saddened
him. We passed out shortly after from the
city gates, and strode on over the rolling
plain. Once or twice we turned back to look
at the rocky heights beneath which lay the
ruined town of Palestrina—a city that defied
Rome—that had a king before a plowshare
had touched the Capitoline, or the Janiculan
hill! The ivy was covering up richly the
Etruscan foundations, and there was a quiet
over the whole place. The smoke was rising
straight into the sky from the chimney tops;
a peasant or two were going along the road
with donkeys; beside this, the city was, to
all appearance, a dead city. And it seemed
to me that an old monk, whom I could see
with my glass, near the little chapel above
the town, might be going to say mass for
the soul of the dead city.</p>
<p class='c010'>And afterward, when we came near to
Rome, and passed under the temple tomb of
Metella—my friend said—“And will you go
back now to your home? or will you set off
with me to-morrow for Ancona?”</p>
<p class='c010'>“At least, I must say adieu,” returned I.</p>
<p class='c010'>“God speed you!” said he, and we parted
upon the Piazza di Venezia—he for his last
mass at St. Peter’s, and I for the tall house
upon the Corso.</p>
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<h2 id='ch04-7' class='c005'>ENRICA</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>I hear</span> her glancing feet the moment I
have tinkled the bell; and there she is, with
her brown hair gathered into braids, and her
eyes full of joy and greeting. And as I walk
with the mother to the window to look at
some pageant that is passing, she steals up
behind and passes her arm around me, with
a quick electric motion and a gentle pressure
of welcome that tells more than a thousand
words.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is a pageant of death that is passing
below. Far down the street we see heads
thrust out of the windows and standing in
bold relief against the red torchlight of the
moving train. Below dim figures are gathering
on the narrow side ways to look at the
solemn spectacle. A hoarse chant rises
louder and louder, and half dies in the night
air, and breaks out again with new and deep
bitterness.</p>
<p class='c010'>Now the first torchlight under us shines
plainly on faces in the windows and on the
kneeling women in the street. First come
old retainers of the dead one, bearing long
blazing flambeaux. Then comes a company
of priests, two by two, bareheaded, and
every second one with a lighted torch, and
all are chanting.</p>
<p class='c010'>Next is a brotherhood of friars in brown
cloaks, with sandaled feet, and the red light
streams full upon their grizzled heads. They
add their heavy guttural voices to the chant
and pass slowly on.</p>
<p class='c010'>Then comes a company of priests in white
muslin capes and black robes and black caps,
bearing books in their hands, wide open, and
lit up plainly by the torches of churchly
servitors, who march beside them; and from
the books the priests chant loud and solemnly.
Now the music is loudest, and the
friars take up the dismal notes from the
white-capped priests, and the priests before
catch them from the brown-robed friars,
and mournfully the sound rises up between
the tall buildings, into the blue night sky
that lies between Heaven and Rome.</p>
<p class='c010'>—“<i>Vede—Vede!</i>” says Cesare; and in a
blaze of the red torch fire comes the bier,
borne on the necks of stout friars; and on
the bier is the body of a dead man, habited
like a priest. Heavy plumes of black wave
at each corner.</p>
<p class='c010'>—“Hist,” says my landlady.</p>
<p class='c010'>The body is just under us. Enrica crosses
herself; her smile is for the moment gone.
Cesare’s boy-face is grown suddenly earnest.
We could see the pale youthful features of
the dead man. The glaring flambeaux sent
their flaunting streams of unearthly light
over the wan visage of the sleeper. A thousand
eyes were looking on him, but his face,
careless of them all, was turned up, straight
toward the stars.</p>
<p class='c010'>Still the chant rises, and companies of
priests follow the bier, like those who had
gone before. Friars, in brown cloaks, and
prelates and Carmelites come after—all with
torches. Two by two—their voices growing
hoarse—they tramp and chant.</p>
<p class='c010'>For a while the voices cease, and you can
hear the rustling of their robes, and their
footfalls, as if your ear was to the earth.
Then the chant rises again, as they glide on
in a wavy shining line, and rolls back over
the death-train, like the howling of a wind
in winter.</p>
<p class='c010'>As they pass the faces vanish from the
windows. The kneeling women upon the
pavement rise up, mindful of the paroxysm
of Life once more. The groups in the door-ways
scatter. But their low voices do not
drown the voices of the host of mourners
and their ghost-like music.</p>
<p class='c010'>I look long upon the blazing bier, trailing
under the deep shadows of the Roman palaces,
and at the stream of torches, winding
like a glittering, scaled serpent. It is a priest—say
I to my landlady as she closes the
window.</p>
<p class='c010'>“No, signor—a young man never married,
and so, by virtue of his condition, they put
on him the priest-robes.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“So I,” says the pretty Enrica—“if I
should die, would be robed in white, as you
saw me on a carnival night, and be followed
by nuns for sisters.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“A long way off may it be, Enrica.”</p>
<p class='c010'>She took my hand in hers and pressed it.
An Italian girl does not fear to talk of
death, and we were talking of it still as we
walked back to my little parlor—my hand all
the time in hers—and sat down by the blaze
of my fire.</p>
<p class='c010'>It was holy week; never had Enrica
looked more sweetly than in that black dress—under
that long, dark veil of the days of
Lent. Upon the broad pavement of St.
Peter’s—where the people, flocking by thousands,
made only side groups about the altars
of the vast temple—I have watched her
kneeling beside her mother, her eyes bent
down, her lips moving earnestly, and her
whole figure tremulous with deep emotion.
Wandering around among the halberdiers
of the pope, and the court coats of Austria,
and the barefooted pilgrims with sandal,
shell and staff, I would sidle back again to
look upon that kneeling figure, and, leaning
against the huge columns of the church,
would dream—even as I am dreaming now.</p>
<p class='c010'>At nightfall I urged my way into the
Sistine Chapel; Enrica is beside me—looking
with me upon the gaunt figures of the
Judgment of Angelo. They are chanting
the <i>Miserere</i>. The twelve candlesticks by
the altar are put out one by one as the service
continues. The sun has gone down, and
only the red glow of twilight steals through
the dusky windows. There is a pause, and
a brief reading from a red-cloaked cardinal,
and all kneel down. <i>She</i> kneels beside me,
and the sweet, mournful flow of the <i>Miserere</i>
begins again, growing in force and
depth, till the whole chapel rings and the
balcony of the choir trembles; then it subsides
again into the low, soft wail of a single
voice, so prolonged, so tremulous and so
real that the heart aches and the tears start—for
Christ is dead!</p>
<p class='c010'>—Lingering yet, the wail dies not wholly,
but just as it seemed expiring it is caught
up by another and stronger voice that carries
it on, plaintive as ever; nor does it stop
with this, for just as you looked for silence
three voices more begin the lament—sweet,
touching, mournful voices—and bear it up
to a full cry, when the whole choir catch its
burden and make the lament change into the
wailing of a multitude—wild, shrill, hoarse—with
swift chants intervening, as if agony
had given force to anguish. Then, sweetly,
slowly, voice by voice, note by note, the
wailings sink into the low, tender moan of a
single singer—faltering, tremulous, as if
tears checked the utterance, and swelling
out, as if despair sustained it.</p>
<p class='c010'>It was dark in the chapel when we went
out; voices were low. Enrica said nothing—I
could say nothing.</p>
<p class='c010'>I was to leave Rome after Easter; I did
not love to speak of it—nor to think of it.
Rome—that old city, with all its misery, and
its fallen state, and its broken palaces of the
empire—grows upon one’s heart. The fringing
shrubs of the coliseum, flaunting their
blossoms at the tall beggar-men in cloaks
who grub below—the sun glimmering over
the mossy pile of the House of Nero—the
sweet sunsets from the Pincian, that make
the broad pine-tops of the Janiculan stand
sharp and dark against a sky of gold, can
not easily be left behind. And Enrica, with
her silver-brown hair, and the silken fillet
that bound it, and her deep hazel eyes, and
her white, delicate fingers, and the blue
veins chasing over her fair temples—ah,
Easter is too near!</p>
<p class='c010'>But it comes, and passes with the glory of
St. Peter’s—lighted from top to bottom.
With Enrica, I saw it from the Ripetta, as it
loomed up in the distance, like a city on fire.</p>
<p class='c010'>The next day I bring home my last bunch
of flowers, and with it a little richly-chased
Roman ring. No fire blazes on the hearth,
but they are all there. Warm days have
come, and the summer air, even now, hangs
heavy with fever in the hollows of the plain.</p>
<p class='c010'>I heard them stirring early on the morning
of which I was to go away. I do not
think I slept very well myself—nor very
late. Never did Enrica look more beautiful—never.
All her carnival robes and the sad
drapery of the <span class='sc'>Friday of Crucifixion</span>
could not so adorn her beauty as that neat
morning dress and that simple rosebud she
wore upon her bosom. She gave it to me—the
last—with a trembling hand. I did not,
for I could not, thank her. She knew it; and
her eyes were full.</p>
<p class='c010'>The old man kissed my cheek—it was the
Roman custom, but the custom did not extend
to the Roman girls; at least not often.
As I passed down the Corso I looked back
at the balcony, where she stood in the time
of Carnival in the brown sombrero with the
white plume. I knew she would be there
now; and there she was. My eyes dwelt
upon the vision, very loth to leave it; and
after my eyes had lost it, my heart clung to
it—there, where my memory clings now.</p>
<p class='c010'>At noon the carriage stopped upon the
hills, toward Soracte, that overlooked Rome.
There was a stunted pine tree grew a little
way from the road, and I sat down under it—for
I wished no dinner—and I looked
back with strange tumult of feeling upon
the sleeping city, with the gray, billowy sea
of the Campagna lying around it.</p>
<p class='c010'>I seemed to see Enrica, the Roman girl,
in that morning dress, with her brown hair
in its silken fillet; but the rosebud that was
in her bosom was now in mine. Her silvery
voice, too, seemed to float past me, bearing
snatches of Roman songs; but the songs
were sad and broken.</p>
<p class='c010'>—After all, this is sad vanity! thought I;
and yet if I had espied then some returning
carriage going down toward Rome, I will
not say—but that I should have hailed it,
and taken a place, and gone back, and to this
day, perhaps, have lived at Rome.</p>
<p class='c010'>But the vetturino called me; the coach
was ready; I gave one more look toward
the dome that guarded the sleeping city, and
then we galloped down the mountain, on
the road that lay toward Perugia and Lake
Thrasimene.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Sweet Enrica! art thou living yet? Or
hast thou passed away to that Silent Land
where the good sleep, and the beautiful?</p>
<p class='c010'>The visions of the past fade. The morning
breeze has died upon the meadow; the
Bob-o’-Lincoln sits swaying on the willow
tufts—singing no longer. The trees lean to
the brook; but the shadows fall straight and
dense upon the silver stream.</p>
<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>Noon</span> has broken into the middle sky, and
<span class='sc'>Morning</span> is gone.</p>
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<h2 id='ch05' class='c005'>II<br/>NOON</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The</span> noon is short; the sun never loiters
on the meridian, nor does the shadow on the
old dial by the garden stay long at XII.
The present, like the noon, is only a point,
and a point so fine that it is not measurable
by the grossness of action. Thought alone
is delicate enough to tell the breadth of the
present.</p>
<p class='c010'>The past belongs to God; the present only
is ours. And, short as it is, there is more in
it, and of it, than we can well manage. That
man who can grapple it, and measure it, and
fill it with his purpose, is doing a man’s
work; none can do more; but there are thousands
who do less.</p>
<p class='c010'>Short as it is, the present is great and
strong—as much stronger than the past as
fire than ashes, or as death than the grave.
The noon sun will quicken vegetable life
that in the morning was dead. It is hot and
scorching; I feel it now upon my head; but
it does not scorch and heat like the bewildering
present. There are no oak leaves to interrupt
the rays of the burning now. Its
shadows do not fall east or west—like the
noon, the shade it makes falls straight from
sky to earth—straight from heaven to hell!</p>
<p class='c010'>Memory presides over the past; Action
presides over the present. The first lives in a
rich temple hung with glorious trophies and
lined with tombs; the other has no shrine
but Duty, and it walks the earth like a
spirit.</p>
<p class='c010'>—I called my dog to me, and we shared
together the meal that I had brought away
at sunrise from the mansion under the elms;
and now Carlo is gnawing at the bone that
I have thrown to him, and I stroll dreamily
in the quiet noon atmosphere upon that
grassy knoll under the oaks.</p>
<p class='c010'>Noon in the country is very still; the
birds do not sing; the workmen are not in
the field; the sheep lay their noses to the
ground, and the herds stand in pools under
shady trees, lashing their sides, but otherwise
motionless. The mills upon the brook,
far above, have ceased for an hour their
labor; and the stream softens its rustle and
sinks away from the sedgy banks. The heat
plays upon the meadow in noiseless waves,
and the beech leaves do not stir.</p>
<p class='c010'>Thought, I said, was the only measure of
the present; and the stillness of noon breeds
thought; and my thought brings up the old
companions and stations them in the domain
of now. Thought ranges over the world,
and brings up hopes, and fears, and resolves,
to measure the burning now. Joy, and
grief, and purpose, blending in my thought,
give breadth to the Present.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Where—thought I—is little Isabel
now? Where is Lilly—where is Ben?
Where is Leslie—where is my old teacher?
Where is my chum, who played such rare
tricks—where is the black-eyed Jane?
Where is that sweet-faced girl whom I
parted with upon that terrace looking down
upon the old spire of Modbury church?
Where are my hopes—where my purposes—where
my sorrows?</p>
<p class='c010'>I care not who you are—but if you bring
such thought to measure the present, the
present will seem broad; and it will be sultry
at noon—and make a fever of Now.</p>
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<h2 id='ch05-1' class='c005'>EARLY FRIENDS<br/>Where are they?</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Where</span> are they?
I can not sit now, as once, upon the edge
of the brook hour after hour, flinging off my
line and hook to the nibbling roach, and
reckon it great sport. There is no girl with
auburn ringlets to sit beside me and to play
upon the bank. The hours are shorter than
they were then; and the little joys that furnished
boyhood till the heart was full can
fill it no longer. Poor Tray is dead long
ago, and he can not swim into the pools for
the floating sticks; nor can I sport with him
hour after hour and think it happiness. The
mound that covers his grave is sunken, and
the trees that shaded it are broken and
mossy.</p>
<p class='c010'>Little Lilly is grown into a woman, and
is married; and she has another little Lilly,
with flaxen hair, she says—looking as <i>she</i>
used to look. I dare say the child is pretty;
but it is not my Lilly. She has a little boy,
too, that she calls Paul—a chubby rogue,
she writes, and as mischievous as ever I
was. God bless the boy!</p>
<p class='c010'>Ben—who would have liked to ride in the
coach that carried me away to school—has
had a great many rides since then—rough
rides, and hard ones, over the road of life.
He does not rake up the falling leaves for
bonfires, as he did once; he is grown a man,
and is fighting his way somewhere in our
western world, to the short-lived honors of
time. He was married not long ago; his
wife I remembered as one of my playmates
at my first school; she was beautiful, but
fragile as a leaf. She died within a year of
their marriage. Ben was but four years my
senior; but this grief has made him ten
years older. He does not say it, but his eye
and his figure tell it.</p>
<p class='c010'>The nurse who put the purse in my hand
that dismal morning is grown a feeble old
woman. She was over fifty then; she may
well be seventy now. She did not know my
voice when I went to see her the other day,
nor did she know my face at all. She repeated
the name when I told it to her—Paul,
Paul—she did not remember any Paul,
except a little boy, a long while ago.</p>
<p class='c010'>—“To whom you gave a purse when he
went away, and told him to say nothing to
Lilly or to Ben?”</p>
<p class='c010'>—“Yes, that Paul”—says the old woman
exultingly—“do you know him?”</p>
<p class='c010'>And when I told her—“She would not
have believed it!” But she did, and took
hold of my hand again (for she was blind),
and then smoothed down the plaits of her
apron, and jogged her cap strings, to look
tidy in the presence of “the gentleman.”
And she told me long stories about the old
house and how other people came in afterward;
and she called me “sir” sometimes,
and sometimes “Paul.” But I asked her to
say only Paul; she seemed glad for this, and
talked easier, and went on to tell of my old
playmates, and how we used to ride the pony—poor
Jacko!—and how we gathered nuts—such
heaping piles; and how we used to
play at fox and geese through the long winter
evenings; and how my poor mother
would smile—but here I asked her to stop.
She could not have gone on much longer,
for I believe she loved our house and people
better than she loved her own.</p>
<p class='c010'>As for my uncle, the cold, silent man, who
lived with his books in the house upon the
hill, and who used to frighten me sometimes
with his look, he grew very feeble after I
had left, and almost crazed. The country
people said that he was mad; and Isabel,
with her sweet heart, clung to him, and
would lead him out, when his step tottered,
to the seat in the garden, and read to him
out of the books he loved to hear. And
sometimes, they told me, she would read
to him some letters that I had written to
Lilly or to Ben, and ask him if he remembered
Paul, who saved her from drowning
under the tree in the meadow? But he
could only shake his head and mutter something
about how old and feeble he had
grown.</p>
<p class='c010'>They wrote me afterward that he died,
and was buried in a far-away place, where
his wife once lived, and where he now sleeps
beside her. Isabel was sick with grief, and
came to live for a time with Lilly; but when
they wrote me last she had gone back to her
old home—where Tray was buried—where
we had played together so often through the
long days of summer.</p>
<p class='c010'>I was glad I should find her there when I
came back. Lilly and Ben were both living
nearer to the city when I landed from my
long journey over the seas; but still I went
to find Isabel first. Perhaps I had heard so
much oftener from the others that I felt less
eager to see them; or perhaps I wanted to
save my best visits to the last; or perhaps
(I did think it), perhaps I loved Isabel better
than them all.</p>
<p class='c010'>So I went into the country, thinking all
the way how she must have changed since
I left. She must be now nineteen or twenty;
and then her grief must have saddened her
face somewhat; but I thought I should like
her all the better for that. Then perhaps
she would not laugh and tease me, but would
be quieter, and wear a sweet smile—so calm
and beautiful, I thought. Her figure, too,
must have grown more elegant, and she
would have more dignity in her air.</p>
<p class='c010'>I shuddered a little at this, for, I thought,
she will hardly think so much of me then;
perhaps she will have seen those whom she
likes a great deal better. Perhaps she will
not like me at all; yet I knew very well that
I should like her.</p>
<p class='c010'>I had gone up almost to the house; I had
passed the stream where we fished on that
day, many years before; and I thought that
now, since she was grown to womanhood, I
should never sit with her there again, and
surely never drag her as I did out of the
water, and never chafe her little hands, and
never, perhaps, kiss her, as I did when she
sat upon my mother’s lap—oh, no—no—no!</p>
<p class='c010'>I saw where we buried Tray, but the old
slab was gone; there was no ribbon there
now. I thought that at least Isabel would
have replaced the slab, but it was a wrong
thought. I trembled when I went up to the
door, for it flashed upon me that perhaps
Isabel was married. I could not tell why she
should not; but I knew it would make me
uncomfortable to hear that she had.</p>
<p class='c010'>There was a tall woman who opened the
door; she did not know me, but I recognized
her as one of the old servants. I asked after
the housekeeper first, thinking I would surprise
Isabel. My heart fluttered somewhat,
thinking that she might step in suddenly
herself—or perhaps that she might have
seen me coming up the hill. But even then
I thought she would hardly know me.</p>
<p class='c010'>Presently the housekeeper came in, looking
very grave; she asked if the gentleman
wished to see her.</p>
<p class='c010'>The gentleman did wish it, and she sat
down on one side of the fire—for it was
autumn, and the leaves were falling, and the
November winds were very chilly.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Shall I tell her—thought I—who I am,
or ask at once for Isabel? I tried to ask, but
it was hard for me to call her name; it was
very strange, but I could not pronounce it
at all.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Who, sir?” said the housekeeper, in a
tone so earnest that I rose at once and
crossed over and took her hand. “You know
me,” said I—“you surely remember Paul?”</p>
<p class='c010'>She started with surprise, but recovered
herself and resumed the same grave manner.
I thought I had committed some mistake, or
been in some way cause of offense. I called
her madame, and asked for—Isabel.</p>
<p class='c010'>She turned pale, terribly pale. “Bella?”
said she.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Yes. Bella.”</p>
<p class='c010'>“Sir—Bella is dead!”</p>
<p class='c010'>I dropped into my chair. I said nothing.
The housekeeper—bless her kind heart!—slipped
noiselessly out. My hands were over
my eyes. The winds were sighing outside,
and the clock ticking mournfully within.</p>
<p class='c010'>I did not sob, nor weep, nor utter any cry.</p>
<p class='c010'>The clock ticked mournfully, and the
winds were sighing; but I did not hear them
any longer; there was a tempest raging
within me that would have drowned the
voice of thunder.</p>
<p class='c010'>It broke at length in a long, deep sigh—“Oh,
God!”—said I. It may have been a
prayer—it was not an imprecation.</p>
<p class='c010'>Bella—sweet Bella, was dead! It seemed
as if with her half the world were dead—every
bright face darkened—every sunshine
blotted out—every flower withered—every
hope extinguished!</p>
<p class='c010'>I walked out into the air and stood under
the trees where we had played together with
poor Tray—where Tray lay buried. But it
was not Tray I thought of, as I stood there,
with the cold wind playing through my hair
and my eyes filling with tears. How could
she die? Why <i>was</i> she gone? Was it really
true? Was Isabel indeed dead—in her coffin—buried?
Then why should anybody live?
What was there to live for, now that Bella
was gone?</p>
<p class='c010'>Ah, what a gap in the world is made by
the death of those we love! It is no longer
whole, but a poor half-world, that swings
uneasy on its axis and makes you dizzy with
the clatter of its wreck!</p>
<p class='c010'>The housekeeper told me all—little by
little, as I found calmness to listen. She had
been dead a month; Lilly was with her
through it all; she died sweetly, without
pain, and without fear—what can angels
fear? She had spoken often of “Cousin
Paul;” she had left a little packet for him,
but it was not there; she had given it into
Lilly’s keeping.</p>
<p class='c010'>Her grave, the housekeeper told me, was
only a little way off from her home—beside
the grave of a brother who died long years
before. I went there that evening. The
mound was high and fresh. The sods had
not closed together, and the dry leaves
caught in the crevices and gave a ragged
and a terrible look to the grave. The next
day I laid them all smooth—as we had once
laid them on the grave of Tray; I clipped
the long grass, and set a tuft of blue violets
at the foot, and watered it all with—tears.
The homestead, the trees, the fields, the
meadows, in the windy November, looked
dismally. I could not like them again—I
liked nothing but the little mound that I had
dressed over Bella’s grave. There she sleeps
now—the sleep of death!</p>
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<h2 id='ch05-2' class='c005'>SCHOOL REVISITED</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The</span> old school was there still—with the
high cupola upon it, and the long galleries,
with the sleeping rooms opening out on
either side, and the corner one, where I
slept. But the boys are not there, nor the
old teachers. They have plowed up the
play-ground to plant corn, and the apple tree
with the low limb, that made our gymnasium,
is cut down.</p>
<p class='c010'>I was there only a little time ago. It was
on a Sunday. One of the old houses of the
village had been fashioned into a tavern, and
it was there I stopped. But I strolled by the
old one, and looked into the bar-room, where
I used to gaze with wonder upon the enormous
pictures of wild animals which heralded
some coming menagerie. There was
just such a picture hanging still, and two or
three advertisements of sheriffs, and a little
bill of a “horse stolen,” and—as I thought—the
same brown pitcher on the edge of the
bar. I was sure it was the same great wood-box
that stood by the fireplace, and the same
whip and greatcoat hung in the corner.</p>
<p class='c010'>I was not in so gay costume as I once
thought I would be wearing when a man; I
had nothing better than a rusty shooting
jacket; but even with this I was determined
to have a look about the church, and see if
I could trace any of the faces of the old
times. They had sadly altered the building;
they had cut out its long galleries and its
old-fashioned square pews, and filled it with
narrow boxes, as they do in the city. The
pulpit was not so high or grand, and it was
covered over with the work of the cabinet-makers.</p>
<p class='c010'>I missed, too, the old preacher, whom we
all feared so much, and in place of him was
a jaunty-looking man, whom I thought I
would not be at all afraid to speak to, or, if
need be, to slap on the shoulder. And when
I did meet him after church, I looked him
in the eye as boldly as a lion—what a change
was that from the school days!</p>
<p class='c010'>Here and there I could detect about the
church some old farmer by the stoop in his
shoulders, or by a particular twist in his
nose, and one or two young fellows who
used to storm into the gallery in my school
days in very gay jackets, dressed off with
ribbons—which we thought was astonishing
heroism, and admired accordingly—were
now settled away into fathers of families,
and looked as demure and peaceable
at the head of their pews, with a white-headed
boy or two between them and their
wives, as if they had been married all their
days.</p>
<p class='c010'>There was a stout man, too, with a slight
limp in his gait, who used to work on harnesses,
and strap our skates, and who I always
thought would have made a capital
Vulcan—he stalked up the aisle past me, as
if I had my skates strapped at his shop only
yesterday.</p>
<p class='c010'>The bald-pated shoemaker, who never
kept his word, and who worked in the brick
shop, and who had a son called Theodore—which
we all thought a very pretty name for
a shoemaker’s son—I could not find. I
feared he might be dead. I hoped, if he was,
that his broken promises about patching
boots would not come up against him.</p>
<p class='c010'>The old factor of tamarinds and sugar
crackers who used to drive his covered
wagon every Saturday evening into the
play-ground, I observed, still holding his
place in the village choir, and singing—though
with a tooth or two gone—as serenely
and obstreperously as ever.</p>
<p class='c010'>I looked around the church to find the
black-eyed girl who always sat behind the
choir—the one I loved to look at so much.
I knew she must be grown up; but I could
fix upon no face positively; once, as a stout
woman with a pair of boys, and who wore a
big red shawl, turned half around, I thought
I recognized her nose. If it was she, it had
grown red though, and I felt cured of my
old fondness. As for the other, who wore
the hat trimmed with fur—she was nowhere
to be seen, among either maids or matrons;
and when I asked the tavern-keeper, and
described her, and her father, as they were
in my school days, he told me that she had
married, too, and lived some five miles from
the village; and, said he—“I guess she leads
her husband a devil of a life!”</p>
<p class='c010'>I felt cured of her, too, but I pitied the
husband.</p>
<p class='c010'>One of my old teachers was in the church;
I could have sworn to his face; he was a
precise man; and now I thought he looked
rather roughly at my old shooting jacket.
But I let him look, and scowled at him a
little, for I remembered that he had feruled
me once. I thought it was not probable that
he would ever do it again.</p>
<p class='c010'>There was a bustling little lawyer in the
village who lived in a large house, and who
was the great man of that town and country—he
had scarce changed at all; and he
stepped into the church as briskly and
promptly as he did ten years ago. But what
struck me most was the change in a couple
of pretty little white-haired girls that at the
time I left were of that uncertain age when
the mother lifts them on a Sunday and
pounces them down one after the other upon
the seat of the pew; these were now grown
into blooming young ladies. And they swept
by me in the vestibule of the church, with a
flutter of robes and a grace of motion that
fairly made my heart twitter in my bosom.
I know nothing that brings home upon a
man so quick the consciousness of increasing
years as to find the little prattling girls, that
were almost babies in his boyhood, become
dashing ladies, and to find those whom he
used to look on patronizingly and compassionately,
thinking they were little girls,
grown to such maturity that the mere rustle
of their silk dresses will give him a twinge,
and their eyes, if he looks at them, make him
unaccountably shy.</p>
<p class='c010'>After service I strolled up by the school
buildings; I traced the names that we had
cut upon the fence; but the fence had grown
brown with age, and was nearly rotted away.
Upon the beech tree in the hollow behind
the school the carvings were all overgrown.
It must have been vacation, if indeed
there was any school at all; for I could
see only one old woman about the premises,
and she was hanging out a dishcloth to dry
in the sun. I passed on up the hill, beyond
the buildings, where in the boy-days we built
stone forts with bastions and turrets; but
the farmers had put the bastions and turrets
into their cobblestone walls. At the orchard
fence I stopped and looked—from force, I
believe, of old habit—to see if any one were
watching—and then leaped over, and found
my way to the early-apple tree; but the fruit
had gone by. It seemed very daring in me,
even then, to walk so boldly in the forbidden
ground.</p>
<p class='c010'>But the old head-master who forbade it
was dead, and Russell and Burgess, and I
know not how many others, who in other
times were culprits with me, were dead, too.
When I passed back by the school I lingered
to look up at the windows of that corner
room, where I had slept the sound, healthful
sleep of boyhood—and where, too, I had
passed many, many wakeful hours, thinking
of the absent Bella, and of my home.</p>
<p class='c010'>—How small, seemed now, the great
griefs of boyhood! Light floating clouds
will obscure the sun that is but half risen;
but let him be up—mid-heaven, and the
cloud that then darkens the land must be
thick and heavy indeed.</p>
<p class='c010'>—The tears started from my eyes—was
not such a cloud over me now?</p>
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<h2 id='ch05-3' class='c012'>COLLEGE</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Schoolmates</span> slip out of sight and knowledge,
and are forgotten; or if you meet them
they bear another character; the boy is not
there. It is a new acquaintance that you
make, with nothing of your fellow upon the
benches but the name. Though the eye and
face cleave to your memory, and you meet
them afterward, and think you have met a
friend—the voice or the action will break
down the charm, and you find only—another
man.</p>
<p class='c010'>But with your classmates in that later
school, where form and character were both
nearer ripeness, and where knowledge, labored
for together, bred the first manly
sympathies—it is different. And as you
meet them, or hear of them, the thought of
their advance makes a measure of your own—it
makes a measure of the <span class='fss'>NOW</span>.</p>
<p class='c010'>You judge of your happiness by theirs—of
your progress by theirs, and of your prospects
by theirs. If one is happy, you seek to
trace out the way by which he has wrought
his happiness; you consider how it differs
from your own; and you think with sighs
how you might possibly have wrought the
same; but <i>now</i> it has escaped. If another
has won some honorable distinction, you fall
to thinking how the man—your old equal, as
you thought, upon the college benches—has
outrun you. It pricks to effort, and teaches
the difference between now and then. Life,
with all its duties and hopes, gathers upon
your present like a great weight, or like a
storm ready to burst. It is met anew; it
pleads more strongly; and action that has
been neglected rises before you—a giant of
remorse.</p>
<p class='c010'>Stop not, loiter not, look not backward, if
you would be among the foremost! The
great Now, so quick, so broad, so fleeting, is
yours—in an hour it will belong to the eternity
of the past. The temper of life is to be
made good by big, honest blows; stop striking,
and you will do nothing; strike feebly,
and you will do almost as little. Success
rides on every hour; grapple it, and you
may win; but without a grapple it will never
go with you. Work is the weapon of honor,
and who lacks the weapon will never triumph.</p>
<p class='c010'>There were some seventy of us—all scattered
now. I meet one here and there at
wide distances apart; and we talk together
of old days, and of our present work and
life—and separate. Just so ships at sea, in
murky weather, will shift their course to
come within hailing distance, and compare
their longitude, and—part. One I have met
wandering in southern Italy, dreaming—as
I was dreaming—over the tomb of Virgil,
by the dark grotto of Pausilippo. It seemed
strange to talk of our old readings in
Tacitus there upon classic ground; but we
did; and ran on to talk of our lives; and,
sitting down upon the promontory of Baie,
looking off upon that blue sea, as clear as
the classics, we told each other our respective
stories. And two nights after, upon the
quay, in sight of Vesuvius, which shed a
lurid glow upon the sky that was reflected
from the white walls of the Hotel de Russie,
and from the broad lava pavements, we
parted—he to wander among the isles of the
Ægean, and I to turn northward.</p>
<p class='c010'>Another time, as I was wandering among
those mysterious figures that crowd the
foyer of the French opera upon a night of
the Masked Ball, I saw a familiar face; I
followed it with my eye until I became convinced.
He did not know me until I named
his old seat upon the bench of the division
rooms, and the hard-faced Tutor G——.
Then we talked of the old rivalries, and
Christmas jollities, and of this and that one,
whom we had come upon in our wayward
tracks; while the black-robed grisettes
stared through their velvet masks; nor did
we tire of comparing the old memories with
the unearthly gayety of the scene about us
until daylight broke.</p>
<p class='c010'>In a quiet mountain town of New England
I came not long since upon another; he
was hale and hearty, and pushing his lawyer
work with just the same nervous energy
with which he used to recite a theorem of
Euclid. He was father, too, of a couple of
stout, curly-pated boys; and his good woman,
as he called her, appeared a sensible,
honest, good-natured lady. I must say that
I envied him his wife much more than I had
envied my companion of the opera his
Domine.</p>
<p class='c010'>I happened only a little while ago to drop
into the college chapel of a Sunday. There
were the same hard oak benches below, and
the lucky fellows who enjoyed a corner seat
were leaning back upon the rail, after the
old fashion. The tutors were perched up in
their side boxes, looking as prim and serious
and important as ever. The same stout doctor
read the hymn in the same rhythmical
way; and he prayed the same prayer for (I
thought) the same old sort of sinners. As I
shut my eyes to listen, it seemed as if the
intermediate years had all gone out, and
that I was on my own pew bench, and thinking
out those little schemes for excuses, or
for effort, which were to relieve me, or to
advance me, in my college world.</p>
<p class='c010'>There was a pleasure, like the pleasure of
dreaming about forgotten joys, in listening
to the doctor’s sermon; he began in the same
half embarrassed, half awkward way, and
fumbled at his Bible leaves, and the poor
pinched cushion, as he did long before. But
as he went on with his rusty and polemic
vigor, the poetry within him would now and
then warm his soul into a burst of fervid
eloquence, and his face would glow and his
hand tremble, and the cushion and the Bible
leaves be all forgot, in the glow of his
thought, until, with a half cough and a pinch
at the cushion, he fell back into his strong
but tread-mill argumentation.</p>
<p class='c010'>In the corner above was the stately, white-haired
professor, wearing the old dignity of
carriage, and a smile as bland as if the years
had all been playthings; and had I seen him
in his lecture-room, I daresay I should have
found the same suavity of address, the same
marvelous currency of talk, and the same infinite
composure over the exploding retorts.</p>
<p class='c010'>Near him was the silver-haired old gentleman—with
a very astute expression—who
used to have an odd habit of tightening his
cloak about his nether limbs. I could not
see that his eye was any the less bright; nor
did he seem less eager to catch at the handle
of some witticism or bit of satire—to the
poor student’s cost. I remembered my old
awe of him, I must say, with something of a
grudge; but I had got fairly over it now.
There are sharper griefs in life than a professor’s
talk.</p>
<p class='c010'>Farther on, I saw the long-faced, dark-haired
man who looked as if he were always
near some explosive, electric battery, or
upon an insulated stool. He was, I believe,
a man of fine feelings; but he had a way of
reducing all action to dry, hard, mathematical
system, with very little poetry about it.
I know there was not much poetry in his
problems in physics, and still less in his half-yearly
examinations. But I do not dread
them now.</p>
<p class='c010'>Over opposite, I was glad to see still the
aged head of the kind and generous old man
who in my day presided over the college,
and who carried with him the affections of
each succeeding class—added to their respect
for his learning. This seems a higher
triumph to me now than it seemed then. A
strong mind, or a cultivated mind, may
challenge respect; but there is needed a
noble one to win affection.</p>
<p class='c010'>A new man now filled his place in the
president’s seat, but he was one whom I had
known and been proud to know. His figure
was bent and thin—the very figure that an
old Flemish master would have chosen for
a scholar. His eye had a kind of piercing
luster, as if it had long been fixed on books;
and his expression—when unrelieved by his
affable smile—was that of hard midnight
toil. With all his polish of mind, he was a
gentleman at heart, and treated us always
with a manly courtesy that is not forgotten.</p>
<p class='c010'>But of all the faces that used to be ranged
below—four hundred men and boys—there
was not one with whom to join hands and
live back again. Their griefs, joy and toil
were chaining them to their labor of life.
Each one in his thought coursing over a
world as wide as my own—how many thousand
worlds of thought upon this one world
of ours!</p>
<p class='c010'>I stepped dreamily through the corridors
of the old Atheneum, thinking of that first
fearful step, when the faces were new and
the stern tutor was strange, and the prolix
Livy <i>so</i> hard. I went up at night, and
skulked around the buildings when the
lights were blazing from all the windows,
and they were busy with their tasks—plain
tasks, and easy tasks—because they are
certain tasks. Happy fellows—thought I—who
have only to do what is set before you
to be done. But the time is coming, and very
fast, when you must not only do, but know
what to do. The time is coming when, in
place of your one master, you will have a
thousand masters—masters of duty, of business,
of pleasure, and of grief—giving you
harder lessons, each one of them, than any
of your Fluxions.</p>
<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>Morning</span> will pass, and the <span class='sc'>Noon</span> will
come—hot and scorching.</p>
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<h2 id='ch05-4' class='c005'>THE PACKET OF BELLA</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>I have</span> not forgotten that packet of Bella;
I did not once forget it. And when I saw
Lilly—now the grown-up Lilly, happy in
her household, and blithe as when she was a
maiden—she gave it to me. She told me,
too, of Bella’s illness, and of her suffering,
and of her manner when she put the little
packet in her hand “for Cousin Paul.” But
this I will not repeat—I can not.</p>
<p class='c010'>I know not why it was, but I shuddered
at the mention of her name. There are some
who will talk, at table and in their gossip, of
dead friends; I wonder how they do it? For
myself, when the grave has closed its gates
on the faces of those I love—however busy
my mournful thought may be—the tongue
is silent. I can not name their names; it
shocks me to hear them named. It seems
like tearing open half-healed wounds, and
disturbing with harsh, worldly noise the
sweet sleep of death.</p>
<p class='c010'>I loved Bella. I know not how I loved
her—whether as a lover, or as a husband
loves a wife; I only know this—I always
loved her. She was so gentle—so beautiful—so
confiding, that I never once thought
but that the whole world loved her as well
as I. There was only one thing I never told
to Bella; I would tell her of all my grief,
and of all my joys; I would tell her my
hopes, my ambitious dreams, my disappointments,
my anger, and my dislikes; but I
never told her how much I loved her.</p>
<p class='c010'>I do not know why, unless I knew that it
was needless. But I should as soon have
thought of telling Bella on some winter’s
day—Bella, it is winter—or of whispering
to her on some balmy day of August—Bella,
it is summer—as of telling her, after she had
grown to girlhood—Bella, I love you!</p>
<p class='c010'>I had received one letter from her in the
old countries; it was a sweet letter, in which
she told me all that she had been doing, and
how she had thought of me, when she rambled
over the woods where we had rambled
together. She had written two or three
other letters, Lilly told me, but they had
never reached me. I had told her, too, of all
that made my happiness; I wrote her about
the sweet girl I had seen on shipboard, and
how I met her afterward, and what a happy
time we passed down in Devon. I even told
her of the strange dream I had, in which
Isabel seemed to be in England, and to turn
away from me sadly because I called—Carry.</p>
<p class='c010'>I also told her of all I saw in that great
world of Paris—writing as I would write to
a sister; and I told her, too, of the sweet
Roman girl, Enrica—of her brown hair, and
of her rich eyes, and of her pretty Carnival
dresses. And when I missed letter after letter
I told her that she must still write her
letters, or some little journal, and read it to
me when I came back. I thought how
pleasant it would be to sit under the trees by
her father’s house and listen to her tender
voice going through that record of her
thoughts and fears. Alas, how our hopes
betray us!</p>
<p class='c010'>It began almost like a diary, about the
time her father fell sick. “It is”—said she
to Lilly, when she gave it to her, “what I
would have said to Cousin Paul if he had
been here.”</p>
<p class='c010'>It begins:“—I have come back now to
father’s house; I could not leave him alone,
for they told me he was sick. I found him
not well; he was very glad to see me, and
kissed me so tenderly that I am sure, Cousin
Paul, you would not have said, as you used
to say, that he was a cold man! I sometimes
read to him, sitting in the deep library window
(you remember it), where we used to
nestle out of his sight at dusk. He can not
read any more.</p>
<p class='c010'>“I would give anything to see the little
Carry you speak of; but do you know you
did not describe her to me at all; will you
not tell me if she has dark hair, or light, or
if her eyes are blue, or dark, like mine? Is
she good; did she not make ugly speeches,
or grow peevish, in those long days upon
the ocean? How I would have liked to have
been with you, on those clear starlit nights,
looking off upon the water! But then I
think that you would not have wished me
there, and that you did not once think of me
even. This makes me sad; yet I know not
why it should; for I always liked you best,
when you were happy; and I am sure you
must have been happy then. You say you
shall never see her after you have left the
ship; you must not think so, cousin Paul; if
she is so beautiful, and fond, as you tell me,
your own heart will lead you in her way
some time again; I feel almost sure of it.</p>
<p class='c010'>* * * “Father is getting more and
more feeble, and wandering in his mind;
this is very dreadful; he calls me sometimes
by my mother’s name; and when I say—it is
Isabel—he says—what Isabel! and treats me
as if I was a stranger. The physician shakes
his head when I ask him of father; oh, Paul,
if he should die—what could I do? I should
die, too—I know I should. Who would
there be to care for me? Lilly is married,
and Ben is far off, and you, Paul, whom I
love better than either, are a long way from
me. But God is good, and He will spare my
father.</p>
<p class='c010'>* * * “So you have seen again your
little Carry. I told you it would be so. You
tell me how accidental it was; ah, Paul,
Paul, you rogue, honest as you are, I half
doubt you there! I like your description of
her, too—dark eyes like mine, you say—’almost
as pretty;’ well, Paul, I will forgive
you that; it is only a white lie. You know
they must be a great deal prettier than mine,
or you would never have stayed a whole
fortnight in an old farmer’s house far down
in Devon! I wish I could see her; I wish
she was here with you now; for it is midsummer,
and the trees and flowers were
never prettier. But I am all alone; father is
too ill to go out at all. I fear now very much
that he will never go out again. Lilly was
here yesterday, but he did not know her.
She read me your last letter; it was not so
long as mine. You are very—very good to
me, Paul.</p>
<p class='c010'>* * * “For a long time I have written
nothing; my father has been very ill, and the
old housekeeper has been sick, too, and
father would have no one but me near him.
He can not live long. I feel sadly—miserably;
you will not know me when you come
home; your ‘pretty Bella’—as you used to
call me—will have lost all her beauty. But
perhaps you will not care for that, for you
tell me you have found one prettier than
ever. I do not know, Cousin Paul, but it is
because I am so sad and selfish—for sorrow
is selfish—but I do not like your raptures
about the Roman girl. Be careful, Paul; I
know your heart; it is quick and sensitive;
and I dare say she is pretty and has beautiful
eyes; for they tell me all the Italian
girls have soft eyes.</p>
<p class='c010'>“But Italy is far away, Paul; I can never
see Enrica; she will never come here. No—no,
remember Devon. I feel as if Carry was
a sister now. I can not feel so of the Roman
girl; I do not want to feel so. You will say
this is harsh, and I am afraid you will not
like me so well for it; but I can not help
saying it. I love you too well, Cousin Paul,
not to say it.</p>
<p class='c010'>* * * “It is all over! Indeed, Paul, I
am very desolate! ‘The golden bowl is
broken’—my poor father has gone to his last
home. I was expecting it; but how can we
expect that fearful comer—death? He had
been for a long time so feeble that he could
scarce speak at all; he sat for hours in his
chair, looking upon the fire or looking out at
the window. He would hardly notice me
when I came to change his pillows or to
smooth them for his head. But before he
died he knew me as well as ever. ‘Isabel,’ he
said, ‘you have been a good daughter. God
will reward you!’ and he kissed me so tenderly,
and looked after me so anxiously,
with such intelligence in his look that I
thought perhaps he would revive again. In
the evening he asked me for one of his books
that he loved very much. ‘Father,’ said I,
‘you can not read; it is almost dark.’</p>
<p class='c010'>“‘Oh, yes,’ said he, ‘Isabel, I can read
now.’ And I brought it; he kept my hand a
long while; then he opened the book—it was
a book about death.</p>
<p class='c010'>“I brought a candle, for I knew he could
not read without.</p>
<p class='c010'>“‘Isabel, dear,’ said he, ‘put the candle a
little nearer.’ But it was close beside him
even then.</p>
<p class='c010'>“‘A little nearer, Isabel,’ repeated he, and
his voice was very faint, and he grasped my
hand hard.</p>
<p class='c010'>—“‘Nearer, Isabel!—nearer!’</p>
<p class='c010'>“There was no need to do it, for my poor
father was dead! Oh! Paul, Paul!—pity
me. I do not know but I am crazed. It does
not seem the same world it was. And the
house, and the trees, oh, they are very dismal!</p>
<p class='c010'>“I wish you would come home, Cousin
Paul; life would not be so very, very blank
as it is now. Lilly is kind—I thank her from
my heart. But it is not <i>her</i> father who is
dead!</p>
<p class='c010'>* * * “I am calmer now; I am staying
with Lilly. The world seems smaller
than it did; but heaven seems a great deal
larger; there is a place for us all there, Paul—if
we only seek it! They tell me you are
coming home. I am glad. You will not like,
perhaps, to come away from that pretty
Enrica you speak of; but do so, Paul. It
seems to me that I see clearer than I did,
and I talk bolder. The girlish Isabel you
will not find, for I am much older, and my
air is more grave, and this suffering has
made me feeble—very feeble.</p>
<p class='c010'>* * * “It is not easy for me to write,
but I must tell you that I have just found
out who your Carry is. Years ago, when
you were away from home, I was at school
with her. We were always together. I wonder
I could not have found her out from
your description; but I did not even suspect
it. She is a dear girl, and is worthy of all
your love. I have seen her once since you
have met her; we talked of you. She spoke
kindly—very kindly; more than this I can
not tell you, for I do not know more. Ah,
Paul, may you be happy! I feel as if I had
but a little while to live.</p>
<p class='c010'>* * * “It is even so, my dear Cousin
Paul—I shall write but little more; my hand
trembles now. But I am ready. It is a glorious
world beyond this—I know it is! And
there we shall meet. I did hope to see you
once again, and to hear your voice speaking
to me as you used to speak. But I shall not.
Life is too frail with me. I seem to live
wholly now in the world where I am going—<i>there</i>
is my mother, and my father, and
my little brother—we shall meet—I know
we shall meet!</p>
<p class='c010'>* * * “The last—Paul. Never again
in this world! I am happy—very happy.
You will come to me. I can write no more.
May good angels guard you, and bring you
to Heaven!”</p>
<p class='c010'>—Shall I go on?</p>
<p class='c010'>But the toils of life are upon me. Private
griefs do not break the force and the weight
of the great—present. A life—at best the
half of it, is before me. It is to be wrought
out with nerve and work. And—blessed be
God! there are gleams of sunlight upon it.
That sweet Carry, doubly dear to me now
that she is joined with my sorrow for the
lost Isabel—shall be sought for!</p>
<p class='c010'>And with her sweet image floating before
me, the <span class='sc'>Noon</span> wanes, and the shadows of
<span class='sc'>Evening</span> lengthen upon the land.</p>
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<h2 id='ch06' class='c005'>III<br/>EVENING</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>The</span> future is a great land; how the
lights and the shadows throng over it—bright
and dark, slow and swift! Pride and
ambition build up great castles on its plains—great
monuments on the mountains, that
reach heavenward, and dip their tops in the
blue of Eternity! Then comes an earthquake—the
earthquake of disappointment,
of distrust, or of inaction, and lays them
low. Gaping desolation widens its breaches
everywhere; the eye is full of them, and can
see nothing beside. By and by the sun peeps
forth—as now from behind yonder cloud—and
reanimates the soul.</p>
<p class='c010'>Fame beckons, sitting high in the heavens;
and joy lends a halo to the vision. A
thousand resolves stir your heart; your hand
is hot and feverish for action; your brain
works madly, and you snatch here and you
snatch there, in the convulsive throes of
your delirium. Perhaps you see some earnest,
careful plodder, once far behind you,
now toiling slowly but surely over the plain
of life, until he seems near to grasping
those brilliant phantoms which dance along
the horizon of the future; and the sight
stirs your soul to frenzy, and you bound on
after him with the madness of a fever in
your veins. But it was by no such action
that the fortunate toiler has won his progress.
His hand is steady, his brain is cool;
his eye is fixed and sure.</p>
<p class='c010'>The Future is a great land; a man can not
go round it in a day; he can not measure it
with a bound; he can not bind its harvests
into a single sheaf. It is wider than the
vision, and has no end.</p>
<p class='c010'>Yet always, day by day, hour by hour,
second by second, the hard present is elbowing
us off into that great land of the future.
Our souls, indeed, wander to it, as to a
home-land; they run beyond time and space,
beyond planets and suns, beyond far-off
suns and comets, until, like blind flies, they
are lost in the blaze of immensity, and can
only grope their way back to our earth, and
our time, by the cunning of instinct.</p>
<p class='c010'>Cut out the future—even that little future
which is the <span class='sc'>Evening</span> of our life—and what
a fall into vacuity. Forbid those earnest
forays over the borders of Now, and on
what spoils would the soul live?</p>
<p class='c010'>For myself, I delight to wander there,
and to weave every day the passing life into
the coming life—so closely that I may be
unconscious of the joining. And if so be
that I am able, I would make the whole
piece bear fair proportions and just figures—like
those tapestries on which nuns work
by inches and finish with their lives, or like
those grand frescos which poet artists have
wrought on the vaults of old cathedrals,
gaunt and colossal—appearing mere daubs
of carmine and azure, as they lay upon their
backs, working out a hand’s breadth at a
time—but when complete, showing symmetrical
and glorious.</p>
<p class='c010'>But not alone does the soul wander to
those glittering heights where fame sits, with
plumes waving in zephyrs of applause; there
belong to it other appetities, which range
wide and constantly over the broad future-land.
We are not merely working, intellectual
machines, but social puzzles, whose
solution is the work of a life. Much as hope
may mean toward the intoxicating joy of
distinction, there is another leaning in the
soul, deeper and stronger, toward those
pleasures which the heart pants for, and in
whose atmosphere the affections bloom and
ripen.</p>
<p class='c010'>The first may indeed be uppermost; it
may be noisiest; it may drown with the
clamor of midday the nicer sympathies. But
all our day is not midday, and all our life is
not noise. Silence is as strong as the soul;
and there is no tempest so wild with blasts
but has a wilder lull. There lies in the depth
of every man’s soul a mine of affection,
which from time to time will burn with the
seething heat of a volcano and heave up
lava-like monuments, through all the cold
strata of his commoner nature.</p>
<p class='c010'>One may hide his warmer feelings—he
may paint them dimly—he may crowd them
out of his sailing chart, where he only sets
down the harbors for traffic; yet in his secret
heart he will map out upon the great
country of the Future fairy islands of love
and of joy. There he will be sure to wander
when his soul is lost in those quiet and hallowed
hopes which take hold on heaven.</p>
<p class='c010'>Love, only, unlocks the door upon that
futurity where the isles of the blessed lie
like stars. Affection is the stepping-stone to
God. The heart is our only measure of infinitude.
The mind tires with greatness; the
heart—never. Thought is worried and
weakened in its flight through the immensity
of space; but love soars around the
throne of the Highest, with added blessing
and strength.</p>
<p class='c010'>I know not how it may be with others,
but with me the heart is a readier and quicker
builder of those fabrics which strew the
great country of the Future than the mind.
They may not indeed rise so high as the
dizzy pinnacles that ambition loves to rear;
but they lie like fragrant islands in a sea
whose ripple is a continuous melody.</p>
<p class='c010'>And as I muse now, looking toward the
<span class='sc'>Evening</span>, which is already begun—tossed as
I am with the toils of the past, and bewildered
with the vexations of the present, my
affections are the architect that build up the
future refuge. And, in fancy at least, I will
build it boldly—saddened, it may be, by the
chance shadows of evening; but through all
I will hope for a sunset, when the day ends,
glorious with crimson and gold.</p>
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<h2 id='ch06-1' class='c005'>CARRY</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>I said</span> that harsh and hot as was the
present, there were joyous gleams of light
playing over the future. How else could it
be, when that fair being whom I met first
upon the wastes of ocean, and whose name,
even, is hallowed by the dying words of
Isabel, is living in the same world with me?
Amid all the perplexities that haunt me, as
I wander from the present to the future, the
thought of her image, of her smile, of her
last kind adieu, throws a dash of sunlight
upon my path.</p>
<p class='c010'>And yet why? Is it not very idle? Years
have passed since I have seen her; I do not
even know where she may be. What is she
to me?</p>
<p class='c010'>My heart whispers—very much! but I do
not listen to that in my prouder moods. She
is a woman, a beautiful woman indeed,
whom I have known once—pleasantly
known: she is living, but she will die, or she
will marry; I shall hear of it by and by, and
sigh, perhaps—nothing more. Life is earnest
around me; there is no time to delve
in the past for bright things to shed radiance
on the future.</p>
<p class='c010'>I will forget the sweet girl who was with
me upon the ocean, and think she is dead.
This manly soul is strong, if we would but
think so; it can make a puppet of griefs,
and take down and set up at will the symbols
of its hope.</p>
<p class='c010'>—But no, I can not; the more I think
thus, the less I really think thus. A single
smile of that frail girl, when I recall it,
mocks all my proud purposes, as if, without
her, my purposes were nothing.</p>
<p class='c010'>—Pshaw! I say—it is idle! and I bury my
thought in books, and in long hours of toil;
but as the hours lengthen, and my head
sinks with fatigue, and the shadows of evening
play around me, there comes again that
sweet vision, saying with tender mockery—is
it idle? And I am helpless, and am led
away hopefully and joyfully toward the
golden gates which open on the Future.</p>
<p class='c010'>But this is only in those silent hours when
the man is alone and away from his working
thoughts. At midday, or in the rush of the
world, he puts hard armor on that reflects
all the light of such joyous fancies. He is
cold and careless, and ready for suffering,
and for fight.</p>
<p class='c010'>One day I am traveling; I am absorbed
in some present cares—thinking out some
plan which is to make easier or more successful
the voyage of life. I glance upon the
passing scenery, and upon new faces, with
that careless indifference which grows upon
a man with years, and, above all, with travel.
There is no wife to enlist your sympathies—no
children to sport with; my friends are
few and scattered, and are working out fairly
what is before them to do. Lilly is living
here, and Ben is living there; their letters
are cheerful, contented letters; and they
wish me well. Griefs even have grown light
with wearing, and I am just in that careless
humor—as if I said—jog on, old world—jog
on! And the end will come along soon,
and we shall get—poor devils that we are—just
what we deserve!</p>
<p class='c010'>But on a sudden my eyes rest on a figure
that I think I know. Now the indifference
flies like mist, and my heart throbs, and the
old visions come up. I watch her, as if there
were nothing else to be seen. The form is
hers; the grace is hers; the simple dress—so
neat, so tasteful—that is hers, too. She half
turns her head—it is the face that I saw under
the velvet cap in the park of Devon.</p>
<p class='c010'>I do not rush forward; I sit as if I were
in a trance. I watch her every action—the
kind attentions to her mother who sits beside
her—her naïve exclamations as we pass
some point of surpassing beauty. It seems
as if a new world were opening to me; yet
I can not tell why. I keep my place, and
think, and gaze. I tear the paper I hold in
my hand into shreds. I play with my watch
chain, and twist the seal until it is near
breaking. I take out my watch, look at it,
and put it back—yet I can not tell the hour.</p>
<p class='c010'>—It is she—I murmur—I know it is
Carry!</p>
<p class='c010'>But when they rise to leave, my lethargy
is broken; yet it is with a trembling hesitation—a
faltering, as it were, between the
present life and the future—that I approach.
She knows me on the instant, and greets me
kindly—as Bella wrote—very kindly, yet
she shows a slight embarrassment, a sweet
embarrassment, that I treasure in my heart
more closely even than the greeting. I
change my course and travel with them;
now we talk of the old scenes, and two hours
seem to have made with me the difference of
half a lifetime.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is five years since I parted with her,
never hoping to meet again. She was then
a frail girl; she is now just rounding into
womanhood. Her eyes are as dark and deep
as ever; the lashes that fringe them seem to
me even longer than they were. Her color
is as rich, her forehead as fair, her smile as
sweet as they were before—only a little
tinge of sadness floats upon her eye, like the
haze upon a summer landscape. I grow bold
to look upon her, and timid with looking.
We talk of Bella; she speaks in a soft, low
voice, and the shade of sadness on her face
gathers—as when a summer mist obscures
the sun. I talk in monosyllables; I can command
no other. And there is a look of sympathy
in her eye when I speak thus that
binds my soul to her as no smiles could do.
What can draw the heart into the fulness of
love so quick as sympathy?</p>
<p class='c010'>But this passes; we must part, she for her
home, and I for that broad home that has
been mine so long—the world. It seems
broader to me than ever, and colder than
ever, and less to be wished for than ever. A
new book of hope is sprung wide open in my
life: a hope of home!</p>
<p class='c010'>We are to meet at some time not far off
in the city where I am living. I look forward
to that time as at school I used to look
for vacation; it is a <i>point d’appui</i> for hope,
for thought, and for countless journeyings
into the opening future. Never did I keep
the dates better, never count the days more
carefully, whether for bonds to be paid or
for dividends to fall due.</p>
<p class='c010'>I welcome the time, and it passes like a
dream. I am near her, often as I dare; the
hours are very short with her, and very long
away. She receives me kindly—always very
kindly; she could not be otherwise than
kind. But is it anything more? This is a
greedy nature of ours, and when sweet kindness
flows upon us we want more. I know
she is kind; and yet, in place of being grateful,
I am only covetous of an excess of kindness.</p>
<p class='c010'>She does not mistake my feelings, surely;
ah, no—trust a woman for that! But what
have I or what am I to ask a return? She
is pure and gentle as an angel, and I—alas—only
a poor soldier in our world-fight
against the devil! Sometimes, in moods of
vanity, I call up what I fondly reckon my
excellencies or deserts—a sorry, pitiful array
that makes me shame-faced when I
meet her. And in an instant I banish them
all. And I think that if I were called upon
in some high court of justice to say why I
should claim her indulgence or her love, I
would say nothing of my sturdy effort to
beat down the roughness of toil—nothing of
such manliness as wears a calm front amid
the frowns of the world—nothing of little
triumphs in the every-day fight of life, but
only I would enter the simple plea—this
heart is hers!</p>
<p class='c010'>She leaves; and I have said nothing of
what was seething within me; how I curse
my folly! She is gone, and never perhaps
will return. I recall in despair her last kind
glance. The world seems blank to me. She
does not know; perhaps she does not care if
I love her. Well, I will bear it. But I can
not bear it. Business is broken; books are
blurred; something remains undone that
fate declares must be done. Not a place can
I find but her sweet smile gives to it either
a tinge of gladness or a black shade of desolation.</p>
<p class='c010'>I sit down at my table with pleasant
books; the fire is burning cheerfully; my
dog looks up earnestly when I speak to him;
but it will never do! Her image sweeps
away all these comforts in a flood. I fling
down my book; I turn my back upon my
dog; the fire hisses and sparkles in mockery
of me.</p>
<p class='c010'>Suddenly a thought flashes on my brain—I
will write to her—I say. And a smile floats
over my face—a smile of hope, ending in
doubt. I catch up my pen—my trusty pen,
and the clean sheet lies before me. The
paper could not be better, nor the pen. I
have written hundreds of letters; it is easy
to write letters. But now, it is not easy.</p>
<p class='c010'>I begin, and cross it out. I begin again,
and get on a little farther—then cross it out.
I try again, but can write nothing. I fling
down my pen in despair, and burn the sheet,
and go to my library for some old sour
treatise of Shaftesbury or Lyttleton, and
say—talking to myself all the while—let her
go! She is beautiful, but I am strong; the
world is short; we—I and my dog, and my
books, and my pen, will battle it through
bravely, and leave enough for a tombstone.</p>
<p class='c010'>But even as I say it the tears start—it is
all false saying! And I throw Shaftesbury
across the room, and take up my pen again.
It glides on and on as my hope glows, and
I tell her of our first meeting, and of our
hours in the ocean twilight, and of our unsteady
stepping on the heaving deck, and of
that parting in the noise of London, and of
my joy at seeing her in the pleasant country,
and of my grief afterward. And then I
mention Bella—her friend and mine—and
the tears flow; and then I speak of our last
meeting, and of my doubts, and of this very
evening—and how I could not write, and
abandoned it—and then felt something
within me that made me write and tell her—all!—“That
my heart was not my own, but
was wholly hers; and that if she would be
mine—I would cherish her and love her
always!”</p>
<p class='c010'>Then I feel a kind of happiness—a
strange, tumultuous happiness, into which
doubt is creeping from time to time, bringing
with it a cold shudder. I seal the letter,
and carry it—a great weight—for the mail.
It seemed as if there could be no other letter
that day, and as if all the coaches and
horses and cars and boats were specially detailed
to bear that single sheet. It is a great
letter for me; my destiny lies in it.</p>
<p class='c010'>I do not sleep well that night—it is a tossing
sleep; one time joy—sweet and holy joy,
comes to my dreams, and an angel is by me;
another time the angel fades—the brightness
fades, and I wake, struggling with fear.
For many nights it is so, until the day comes
on which I am looking for a reply.</p>
<p class='c010'>The postman has little suspicion that the
letter which he gives me—although it contains
no promissory notes, nor money, nor
deeds, nor articles of trade—is yet to have a
greater influence upon my life and upon my
future, than all the letters he has ever
brought to me before. But I do not show
him this; nor do I let him see the clutch
with which I grasp it. I bear it as if it were
a great and fearful burden to my room. I
lock the door, and, having broken the seal
with a quivering hand—read:</p>
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<h2 id='ch06-2' class='c005'>THE LETTER</h2></div>
<p class='c020'>“Paul—for I think I may call you so now—I
know not how to answer you. Your letter
gave me great joy; but it gave me
pain, too. I can not—will not doubt what
you say; I believe that you love me better
than I deserve to be loved, and I know that
I am not worthy of all your kind praises.
But it is not this that pains me; for I know
that you have a generous heart, and would
forgive, as you always have forgiven, any
weakness of mine. I am proud, too, very
proud, to have won your love; but it pains
me—more, perhaps, than you will believe—to
think that I can not write back to you as
I would wish to write—alas, never.”</p>
<p class='c014'>Here I dash the letter upon the floor, and
with my hand upon my forehead sit gazing
upon the glowing coals, and breathing quick
and loud. The dream, then, is broken!</p>
<p class='c010'>Presently I read again:</p>
<p class='c021'>—“You know that my father died before
we had ever met. He had an old friend, who
had come from England, and who in early
life had done him some great service which
made him seem like a brother. This old gentleman
was my god-father, and called me
daughter. When my father died he drew me
to his side and said: ‘Carry, I shall leave
you, but my old friend will be your father,’
and he put my hand in his and said: ‘I give
you my daughter.’</p>
<p class='c022'>“This old gentleman had a son, older than
myself; but we were much together, and
grew up as brother and sister. I was proud
of him, for he was tall and strong, and every
one called him handsome. He was as kind,
too, as a brother could be, and his father
was like my own father. Every one said,
and believed, that we would one day be
married, and my mother and my new father
spoke of it openly. So did Laurence, for
that is my friend’s name.</p>
<p class='c022'>“I do not need to tell you any more, Paul;
for when I was still a girl we had promised
that we would one day be man and wife.
Laurence has been much in England, and I
believe he is there now. The old gentleman
treats me still as a daughter, and talks of
the time when I shall come and live with
him. The letters of Laurence are very kind,
and though he does not talk so much of our
marriage as he did, it is only, I think, because
he regards it as so certain.</p>
<p class='c022'>“I have wished to tell you all this before,
but I have feared to tell you; I am afraid I
have been too selfish to tell you. And now,
what can I say? Laurence seems most to me
like a brother—and you, Paul—but I must
not go on. For if I marry Laurence, as fate
seems to have decided, I will try and love
him better than all the world.</p>
<p class='c022'>“But will you not be a brother, and love
me, as you once loved Bella—you say my
eyes are like hers, and that my forehead is
like hers—will you not believe that my heart
is like hers, too?</p>
<p class='c022'>“Paul, if you shed tears over this letter—I
have shed them as well as you. I can
write no more now.</p>
<div class='c023'>“Adieu.”</div>
<p class='c014'>I sit long, looking upon the blaze, and
when I rouse myself it is to say wicked
things against destiny. Again all the future
seems very blank. I can not love Carry as I
loved Bella; she can not be a sister to me;
she must be more or nothing! Again I seem
to float singly on the tide of life, and see all
around me in cheerful groups. Everywhere
the sun shines, except upon my own cold
forehead. There seems no mercy in heaven,
and no goodness for me upon earth.</p>
<p class='c010'>I write, after some days, an answer to the
letter. But it is a bitter answer, in which I
forget myself, in the whirl of my misfortunes—to
the utterance of reproaches.</p>
<p class='c010'>Her reply, which comes speedily, is sweet
and gentle. She is hurt by my reproaches,
deeply hurt. But with a touching kindness,
of which I am not worthy, she credits all my
petulance to my wounded feeling; she
soothes me, but in soothing only wounds the
more. I try to believe her when she speaks
of her unworthiness—but I can not.</p>
<p class='c010'>Business, and the pursuits of ambition or
of interest, pass on like dull, grating machinery.
Tasks are met, and performed
with strength indeed, but with no cheer.
Courage is high, as I meet the shocks and
trials of the world; but it is a brute, careless
courage, that glories in opposition. I laugh
at any dangers, or any insidious pitfalls;
what are they to me? What do I possess,
which it will be hard to lose? My dog keeps
by me; my toils are present; my food is
ready; my limbs are strong; what need for
more?</p>
<p class='c010'>The months slip by; and the cloud that
floated over my evening sun passes.</p>
<p class='c010'>Laurence wandering abroad, and writing
to Caroline, as to a sister—writes more than
his father could have wished. He has met
new faces, very sweet faces; and one which
shows through the ink of his later letters,
very gorgeously. The old gentleman does
not like to lose thus his little Carry! and he
writes back rebuke. But Laurence, with
the letters of Caroline before him for data,
throws himself upon his sister’s kindness
and charity. It astonishes not a little the old
gentleman, to find his daughter pleading in
such strange way for the son. “And what
will you do then, my Carry?”—the old man
says.</p>
<p class='c010'>—“Wear weeds, if you wish, sir; and
love you and Laurence more than ever!”</p>
<p class='c010'>And he takes her to his bosom, and says—“Carry—Carry,
you are too good for that
wild fellow Laurence!”</p>
<p class='c010'>Now, the letters are different! Now they
are full of hope—dawning all over the future
sky. Business, and care, and toil glide,
as if a spirit animated them all; it is no
longer cold machine work, but intelligent
and hopeful activity. The sky hangs upon
you lovingly, and the birds make music that
startles you with its fineness. Men wear
cheerful faces; the storms have a kind pity,
gleaming through all their wrath.</p>
<p class='c010'>The days approach, when you can call her
yours. For she has said it, and her mother
has said it; and the kind old gentleman, who
says he will still be her father, has said it,
too; and they have all welcomed you—won
by her story—with a cordiality that has
made your cup full to running over. Only
one thought comes up to obscure your joy—is
it real? or if real, are you worthy to enjoy?
Will you cherish and love always, as
you have promised, that angel who accepts
your word and rests her happiness on your
faith? Are there not harsh qualities in your
nature which you fear may sometime make
her regret that she gave herself to your love
and charity? And those friends who watch
over her, as the apple of their eye, can you
always meet their tenderness and approval,
for your guardianship of their treasure? Is
it not a treasure that makes you fearful, as
well as joyful.</p>
<p class='c010'>But you forget this in her smile; her
kindness, her goodness, her modesty, will
not let you remember it. She <i>forbids</i> such
thoughts; and you yield such obedience as
you never yielded even to the commands of
a mother. And if your business and your
labor slip by, partially neglected—what matters
it? What is interest or what is reputation
compared with that fullness of your
heart, which is now ripe with joy?</p>
<p class='c010'>The day for your marriage comes; and
you live as if you were in a dream. You
think well, and hope well, for all the world.
A flood of charity seems to radiate from all
around you. And as you sit beside her in
the twilight, on the evening before the day
when you will call her yours, and talk of the
coming hopes, and of the soft shadows of
the past, and whisper of Bella’s love, and
of that sweet sister’s death, and of Laurence,
a new brother, coming home joyful with his
bride—and lay your cheek to hers—life
seems as if it were all day, and as if there
could be no night!</p>
<p class='c010'>The marriage passes; and she is yours—yours
forever.</p>
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<h2 id='ch06-3' class='c005'>NEW TRAVEL</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Again</span> I am upon the sea; but not alone.
She whom I first met upon the wastes of
ocean is there beside me. Again I steady
her tottering step upon the deck; once it
was a drifting, careless pleasure; now the
pleasure is holy.</p>
<p class='c010'>Once the fear I felt, as the storms gathered,
and night came, and the ship tossed
madly, and great waves gathering swift and
high, came down like slipping mountains,
and spent their force upon the quivering
vessel, was a selfish fear. But it is so no
longer. Indeed, I hardly know fear; for
how can the tempests harm <i>her</i>? Is she not
too good to suffer any of the wrath of
heaven?</p>
<p class='c010'>And in nights of calm—holy nights, we
lean over the ship’s side, looking down, as
once before, into the dark depths, and murmur
again snatches of ocean song, and talk
of those we love; and we peer among the
stars, which seem neighborly, and as if they
were the homes of friends. And as the
great ocean swells come rocking under us,
and carry us up and down along the valleys
and the hills of water, they seem like deep
pulsations of the great heart of nature, heaving
us forward toward the goal of life, and
to the gates of heaven.</p>
<p class='c010'>We watch the ships as they come upon
the horizon, and sweep toward us, like false
friends, with the sun glittering on their
sails; and then shift their course, and bear
away—with their bright sails, turned to
spots of shadow. We watch the long-winged
birds skimming the waves hour
after hour—like pleasant thoughts—now
dashing before our bows, and then sweeping
behind, until they are lost in the hollows
of the water.</p>
<p class='c010'>Again life lies open, as it did once before;
but the regrets, disappointments, and fruitless
resolves do not come to trouble me now.
It is the future, which has become as level as
the sea; and <i>she</i> is beside me—the sharer in
that future—to look out with me upon the
joyous sparkle of water, and to count with
me the dazzling ripples that lie between us
and the shore. A thousand pleasant plans
come up, and are abandoned, like the waves
we leave behind us; a thousand other joyous
plans dawn upon our fancy, like the
waves that glitter before us. We talk of
Laurence and his bride, whom we are to
meet; we talk of her mother, who is even
now watching the winds that waft her child
over the ocean; we talk of the kindly old
man, her god-father, who gave her a father’s
blessing; we talk low, and in the twilight
hours, of Isabel—who sleeps.</p>
<p class='c010'>At length, as the sun goes down upon a
fair night, over the western waters which
we have passed, we see before us the low
blue line of the shores of Cornwall and
Devon. In the night shadowy ships glide
past us with gleaming lanterns; and in the
morning we see the yellow cliffs of the
Isle of Wight; and standing out from the
land is the dingy sail of our pilot. London
with its fog, roar, and crowds, has not the
same charms that it once had; that roar and
crowd is good to make a man forget his
griefs—forget himself, and stupefy him
with amazement. We are in no need of such
forgetfulness.</p>
<p class='c010'>We roll along the banks of the sylvan
river that glides by Hampton Court; and
we toil up Richmond Hill, to look together
upon that scene of water and meadow—of
leafy copses and glistening villas, of brown
cottages and clustered hamlets—of solitary
oaks and loitering herds—all spread like a
veil of beauty upon the bosom of the
Thames. But we can not linger here, nor
even under the glorious old boles of Windsor
Forest; but we hurry on to that sweet
county of Devon, made green with its white
skeins of water.</p>
<p class='c010'>Again we loiter under the oaks, where we
have loitered before; and the sleek deer gaze
on us with their liquid eyes as they gazed
before. The squirrels sport among the
boughs as fearless as ever; and some wandering
puss pricks her long ears at our steps
and bounds off along the hedgerows to her
burrow. Again I see Carry in her velvet
riding-cap, with the white plume; and I
meet, as I met her before, under the princely
trees that skirt the northern avenue. I recall
the evening when I sauntered out at
the park gates, and gained a blessing from
the porter’s wife, and dreamed that strange
dream—now, the dream seems more real
than my life. “God bless you!” said the
woman again.</p>
<p class='c010'>—“Ay, old lady, God has blessed me!”—and
I fling her a guinea, not as a gift, but
as a debt.</p>
<p class='c010'>The bland farmer lives yet; he scarce
knows me, until I tell him of my bout around
his oat field at the tail of his long stilted
plow. I find the old pew in the parish
church. Other holly sprigs are hung now;
and I do not doze, for Carry is beside me.
The curate drawls the service; but it is
pleasant to listen; and I make the responses
with an emphasis that tells more, I fear, for
my joy than for my religion. The old groom
at the mansion in the park has not forgotten
the hard riding of other days, and tells
long stories (to which I love to listen) of
the old visit of Mistress Carry, when she
followed the hounds with the best of the
English lasses.</p>
<p class='c010'>—“Yer honor may well be proud; for
not a prettier face, or a kinder heart, has
been in Devon since Mistress Carry left us.”</p>
<p class='c010'>But pleasant as are the old woods, full
of memories, and pleasant as are the twilight
evenings upon the terrace—we must
pass over to the mountains of Switzerland.
There we are to meet Laurence.</p>
<p class='c010'>Carry has never seen the magnificence of
the Juras; and as we journey over the hills
between Dole and the border line, looking
upon the rolling heights shrouded with pine
trees, and down thousands of feet, at the
very roadside, upon the cottage roofs and
emerald valleys, where the dun herds are
feeding quietly, she is lost in admiration.
At length we come to that point above the
little town of Gex, from which you see
spread out before you the meadows that
skirt Geneva, the placid surface of Lake Leman,
and the rough, shaggy mountains of
Savoy—and far behind them, breaking the
horizon with snowy cap, and with dark pinnacles—Mont
Blanc, and the Needles of
Chamouni.</p>
<p class='c010'>I point out to her in the valley below the
little town of Ferney, where stands the deserted
château of Voltaire; and beyond,
upon the shores of the lake, the old home of
De Staël; and across, with its white walls
reflected upon the bosom of the water, the
house where Byron wrote <i>The Prisoner of
Chillon</i>. Among the grouping roofs of
Geneva we trace the dark cathedral and
the tall hotels shining on the edge of the
lake. And I tell of the time when I tramped
down through yonder valley, with my future
all visionary and broken, and drank the
splendor of the scene, only as a quick relief
to the monotony of my solitary life.</p>
<p class='c010'>—“And now, Carry, with your hand
locked in mine, and your heart mine—yonder
lake sleeping in the sun, and the snowy
mountains with their rosy hue seem like the
smile of nature, bidding us be glad!”</p>
<p class='c010'>Laurence is at Geneva; he welcomes
Carry, as he would welcome a sister. He is
a noble fellow, and tells me much of his
sweet Italian wife; and presents me to the
smiling, blushing—Enrica! She has learned
English now; she has found, she says, a better
teacher, than ever I was. Yet she welcomes
me warmly, as a sister might; and we
talk of those old evenings by the blazing fire,
and of the one-eyed <i>maestro</i>, as children
long separated might talk of their school
tasks and of their teachers. She can not tell
me enough of her praises of Laurence, and
of his noble heart. “You were good,” she
says, “but Laurence is better.”</p>
<p class='c010'>Carry admires her soft brown hair, and
her deep liquid eye, and wonders how I
could ever have left Rome?</p>
<p class='c010'>—Do you indeed wonder—Carry?</p>
<p class='c010'>And together we go down into Savoy, to
that marvelous valley, which lies under the
shoulder of Mont Blanc; and we wander
over the <i>Mer De Glace</i>, and pick alpine roses
from the edge of the frowning glacier. We
toil at nightfall up to the monastery of the
Great St. Bernard, where the new forming
ice crackles in the narrow foot-way, and the
cold moon glistens over wastes of snow, and
upon the windows of the dark Hospice.
Again, we are among the granite heights,
whose ledges are filled with ice, upon the
Grimsel. The pond is dark and cold; the
paths are slippery; the great glacier of the
Aar sends down icy breezes, and the echoes
ring from rock to rock, as if the ice-god
answered. And yet we neither suffer nor
fear.</p>
<p class='c010'>In the sweet valley of Meyringen, we part
from Laurence: he goes northward, by
Grindenwald, and Thun—thence to journey
westward, and to make for the Roman girl
a home beyond the ocean. Enrica bids me
go on to Rome: she knows that Carry will
love its soft warm air, its ruins, its pictures
and temples, better than these cold valleys
of Switzerland. And she gives me kind messages
for her mother, and for Cesare; and
should we be in Rome at the Easter season,
she bids us remember her, when we listen to
the <i>Miserere</i>, and when we see the great
<i>Chiesa</i> on fire, and when we saunter upon
the Pincian hill—and remember, that it is
her home.</p>
<p class='c010'>We follow them with our eyes, as they
go up the steep height over which falls the
white foam of the clattering Reichenbach;
and they wave their hands toward us and
disappear upon the little plateau which
stretches toward the crystal Rosenlaui and
the tall, still Engel-Horner.</p>
<p class='c010'>May the mountain angels guard them.</p>
<p class='c010'>As we journey on toward that wonderful
pass of Splugen I recall, by the way, upon
the heights and in the valleys, the spots
where I lingered years before—here, I
plucked a flower; there, I drank from that
cold, yellow, glacier water; and here, upon
some rock overlooking a stretch of broken
mountains, hoary with their eternal frosts, I
sat musing upon that very Future, which is
with me now. But never, even when the
ice-genii were most prodigal of their fancies
to the wanderer, did I look for more joy, or
a better angel.</p>
<p class='c010'>Afterward, when all our trembling upon
the Alpine paths has gone by, we are rolling
along under the chestnuts and lindens that
skirt the banks of Como. We recall that
sweet story of Manzoni, and I point out, as
well as I may, the loitering place of the
<i>bravi</i>, and the track of poor Don Abbondio.
We follow in the path of the discomfited
Rienzi, to where the dainty spire, and pinnacles
of the Duomo of Milan, glisten
against the violet sky.</p>
<p class='c010'>Carry longs to see Venice; its water-streets,
and palaces have long floated in her
visions. In the bustling activity of our own
country, and in the quiet fields of England,
that strange, half-deserted capital lying in
the Adriatic, has taken the strongest hold
upon her fancy.</p>
<p class='c010'>So we leave Padua and Verona behind us,
and find ourselves, upon a soft spring noon,
upon the end of the iron road which
stretches across the lagoon toward Venice.
With the hissing of steam in the ear it is
hard to think of the wonderful city we are
approaching. But as we escape from the
carriage, and set our feet down into one of
those strange, hearse-like, ancient boats,
with its sharp iron prow, and listen to the
melodious rolling tongue of the Venetian
gondolier; as we see rising over the watery
plain before us, all glittering in the sun, tall
square towers with pyramidal tops, and
clustered domes, and minarets; and sparkling
roofs lifting from marble walls—all so
like the old paintings—and as we glide
nearer and nearer to the floating wonder,
under the silent working oar of our now
silent gondolier—as we ride up swiftly under
the deep, broad shadows of palaces and
see plainly the play of the sea water in the
crevices of the masonry—and turn into narrow
rivers shaded darkly by overhanging
walls, hearing no sound, but of voices, or
the swaying of the water against the houses—we
feel the presence of the place. And
the mistic fingers of the Past, grappling our
spirits, lead them away—willing and rejoicing
captives, through the long vista of the
ages that are gone.</p>
<p class='c010'>Carry is in a trance—rapt by the witchery
of the scene, into dream. This is her Venice,
nor have all the visions that played upon her
fancy been equal to the enchanting presence
of this hour of approach.</p>
<p class='c010'>Afterward it becomes a living thing—stealing
upon the affections, and upon the
imagination by a thousand coy advances.
We wander under the warm Italian sunlight
to the steps from which rolled the white
head of poor Marino Faliero. The gentle
Carry can now thrust her ungloved hand
into the terrible lion’s mouth. We enter
the salon of the fearful Ten, and peep
through the half-opened door into the cabinet
of the more fearful Three. We go
through the deep dungeons of Carmagnola
and of Carrara; and we instruct the willing
gondolier to push his dark boat under the
Bridge of Sighs; and with Rogers’ poem in
our hand, glide up to the prison door and
read of—</p>
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<div class='line in4'>——that fearful closet at the foot</div>
<div class='line'>Lurking for prey, which, when a victim came,</div>
<div class='line'>Grew less and less; contracting to a span</div>
<div class='line'>An iron door, urged onward by a screw,</div>
<div class='line'>Forcing out life!</div>
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<p class='c009'>I sail, listening to nothing but the dip of
the gondolier’s oar, or to <i>her</i> gentle words,
fast under the palace door, which closed that
fearful morning on the guilt and shame of
Bianca Capello. Or, with souls lit up by
the scene, into a buoyancy that can scarce
distinguish between what is real and what is
merely written—we chase the anxious step
of the forsaken Corinna; or seek among the
veteran palaces the casement of the old Brabantio—the
chamber of Desdemona—the
house of Jessica, and trace among the
strange Jew money-changers, who yet haunt
the Rialto, the likeness of the bearded Shylock.
We wander into stately churches,
brushing over grass, or tell-tale flowers that
grow in the court, and find them damp and
cheerless; the incense rises murkily and
rests in a thick cloud over the altars, and
over the paintings; the music, if so be that
the organ notes are swelling under the roof,
is mournfully plaintive.</p>
<p class='c010'>Of an afternoon we sail over to the Lido,
to gladden our eyes with a sight of land and
green things, and we pass none upon the
way, save silent oarsmen, with barges piled
high with the produce of their gardens—pushing
their way down toward the floating
city. And upon the narrow island, we find
Jewish graves, half covered by drifted sand;
and from among them, watch the sunset
glimmering over a desolate level of water.
As we glide back, lights lift over the lagoon,
and double along the Guideca and the
Grand Canal. The little neighbor isles will
have their company of lights dancing in the
water; and from among them will rise up
against the mellow evening sky of Italy
gaunt, unlighted houses.</p>
<p class='c010'>After the nightfall, which brings no harmful
dew with it, I stroll, with her hand within
my arm—as once upon the sea, and in the
English park, and in the home-land—over
that great square which lies before the palace
of St. Marks. The white moon is riding
in the middle heaven, like a globe of
silver; the gondoliers stride over the echoing
stones; and their long black shadows,
stretching over the pavement, or shaking
upon the moving water, seem like great funereal
plumes, waving over the bier of Venice.</p>
<p class='c010'>Carrying thence whole treasures of
thought and fancy, to feed upon in the after
years, we wander to Rome.</p>
<p class='c010'>I find the old one-eyed <i>maestro</i>, and am
met with cordial welcome by the mother of
the pretty Enrica. The count has gone to
the marshes of Ancona. Lame Pietro still
shuffles around the boards at the Leprè, and
the flower sellers at the corner bind me a
more brilliant bouquet than ever for a new
beauty at Rome. As we ramble under the
broken arches of the great aqueduct stretching
toward Frascati, I tell Carry the story
of my trip in the Appenines, and we search
for the pretty Carlotta. But she is married,
they tell us, to a Neapolitan guardsman. In
the spring twilight we wander upon those
heights which lie between Frascati and Albano,
and looking westward, see that glorious
view of the Campagna, which can
never be forgotten. But beyond the Campagna,
and beyond the huge hulk of St.
Peter’s, heaving into the sky from the middle
waste, we see, or fancy we see, a glimpse
of the sea, which stretches out and on to the
land we love, better than Rome. And in
fancy we build up that home, which shall
belong to us on the return—a home that has
slumbered long in the future, and which,
now that the future has come, lies fairly before
me.</p>
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<div class='chapter'>
<h2 id='ch06-4' class='c005'>HOME</h2></div>
<p class='c009'><span class='sc'>Years</span> seem to have passed. They have
mellowed life into ripeness. The start, and
change, and hot ambition of youth seem to
have gone by. A calm and joyful quietude
has succeeded. That future which still lies
before me seems like a roseate twilight,
sinking into a peaceful and silent night.</p>
<p class='c010'>My home is a cottage, near that where
Isabel once lived. The same valley is around
me; the same brook rustles and loiters under
the gnarled roots of the overhanging trees.
The cottage is no mock cottage, but a substantial,
wide-spreading cottage, with clustering
gables and ample shade, such a cottage
as they build upon the slopes of Devon.
Vines clamber over it, and the stones show
mossy through the interlacing climbers.
There are low porches, with cozy armchairs,
and generous oriels, fragrant with mignonette,
and the blue blossoming violets.</p>
<p class='c010'>The chimney stacks rise high and show
clear against the heavy pine trees, that ward
off the blasts of winter. The dovecote is a
habited dovecote, and the purple-necked
pigeons swoop around the roofs in great
companies. The hawthorn is budding into
its June fragrance along all the lines of
fence, and the paths are trim and clean. The
shrubs—our neglected azaleas and rhododendrons
chiefest among them—stand in
picturesque groups upon the close-shaven
lawn.</p>
<p class='c010'>The gateway in the thicket below is between
two mossy old posts of stone; and
there is a tall hemlock flanked by a sturdy
pine for sentinel. Within the cottage the
library is wainscoted with native oak, and
my trusty gun hangs upon a branching pair
of antlers. My rod and nets are disposed
above the generous bookshelves; and a stout
eagle, once a tenant of the native woods, sits
perched over the central alcove. An old-fashioned
mantel is above the brown stone
jambs of the country fireplace, and along it
are distributed records of travel, little bronze
temples from Rome, the <i>pietro duro</i> of
Florence, the porcelain busts of Dresden,
the rich iron of Berlin, and a cup fashioned
from a stag’s horn, from the Black Forest
by the Rhine.</p>
<p class='c010'>Massive chairs stand here and there, in
tempting attitude; strewed over an oaken
table in the middle are the uncut papers and
volumes of the day, and upon a lion’s skin,
stretched before the hearth, is lying another
Tray.</p>
<p class='c010'>But this is not all. There are children in
the cottage. There is Jamie—we think him
handsome—for he has the dark hair of
his mother—and the same black eye, with its
long, heavy fringe. There is Carry—little
Carry I must call her now—with a face full
of glee and rosy with health; then there is a
little rogue some two years old, whom we
call Paul—a very bad boy—as we tell him.</p>
<p class='c010'>The mother is as beautiful as ever, and
far more dear to me, for gratitude has been
adding, year by year, to love. There have
been times when a harsh word of mine,
uttered in the fatigues of business, has
touched her, and I have seen that soft eye
fill with tears, and I have upbraided myself
for causing her one pang. But such things
she does not remember, or remembers only
to cover with her gentle forgiveness.</p>
<p class='c010'>Laurence and Enrica are living near us.
And the old gentleman, who was Carry’s
god-father, sits with me, on sunny days
upon the porch, and takes little Paul upon
his knee, and wonders if two such daughters
as Enrica and Carry are to be found in the
world. At twilight we ride over to see Laurence;
Jamie mounts with the coachman,
little Carry puts on her wide-rimmed Leghorn
for the evening visit, and the old gentleman’s
plea for Paul can not be denied.
The mother, too, is with us, and old Tray
comes whisking along, now frolicking before
the horses’ heads, and then bounding
off after the flight of some belated bird.</p>
<p class='c010'>Away from that cottage home I seem
away from life. Within it, that broad and
shadowy future, which lay before me in boyhood
and in youth, is garnered—like a fine
mist, gathered into drops of crystal.</p>
<p class='c010'>And when away—those long letters, dating
from the cottage home, are what tie me
to life. That cherished wife, far dearer to
me now than when she wrote that first letter,
which seemed a dark veil between me
and the future—writes me now as tenderly
as then. She narrates in her delicate way
all the incidents of the home life; she tells
me of their rides, and of their games, and of
the new planted trees—of all their sunny
days, and of their frolics on the lawn; she
tells me how Jamie is studying, and of little
Carry’s beauty growing every day, and
of roguish Paul—so like his father. And
she sends such a kiss from each of them,
and bids me such adieu and such “God’s
blessing” that it seems as if an angel guarded
me.</p>
<p class='c010'>But this is not all; for Jamie has written
a postscript:</p>
<p class='c021'>——“Dear father,” he says, “mother wishes me
to tell you how I am studying. What would you
think, father, to have me talk in French to you,
when you come back? I wish you would come
back, though; the hawthorns are coming out, and
the apricot under my window is all full of blossoms.
If you should bring me a present, as you almost
always do, I would like a fishing rod. Your
affectionate son,</p>
<div class='c023'><span class='sc'>Jamie</span>.”</div>
<p class='c014'>And little Carry has her fine, rambling
characters running into a second postscript:</p>
<p class='c021'>“Why don’t you come, papa; you stay too long;
I have ridden the pony twice; once he most threw
me off. This is all from</p>
<div class='c023'><span class='sc'>Carry</span>.”</div>
<p class='c014'>And Paul has taken the pen, too, and in
his extraordinary effort to make a big P, has
made a very big blot. And Jamie writes
under it—“This is Paul’s work, pa; but he
says it’s a love blot, only he loves you ten
hundred times more.”</p>
<p class='c010'>And after your return Jamie will insist
that you should go with him to the brook,
and sit down with him upon a tuft of the
brake, to fling off a line into the eddies,
though only the nibbling roach are sporting
below. You have instructed the workmen
to spare the clumps of bank-willows, that
the wood-duck may have a covert in winter,
and that the Bob-o’-Lincolns may have a
quiet nesting place in the spring.</p>
<p class='c010'>Sometimes your wife—too kind to deny
such favor—will stroll with you along the
meadow banks, and you pick meadow daisies
in memory of the old time. Little Carry
weaves them into rude chaplets, to dress the
forehead of Paul, and they dance along the
greensward, and switch off the daffodils,
and blow away the dandelion seeds, to see
if their wishes are to come true. Jamie holds
a buttercup under Carry’s chin, to find if she
loves gold; and Paul, the rogue, teases them
by sticking a thistle into sister’s curls.</p>
<p class='c010'>The pony has hard work to do under
Carry’s swift riding—but he is fed by her
own hand, with the cold breakfast rolls.
The nuts are gathered in time, and stored
for long winter evenings, when the fire is
burning bright and cheerily—a true, hickory
blaze—which sends its waving gleams over
eager, smiling faces, and over well-stored
book shelves, and portraits of dear, lost
ones. While from time to time, that wife,
who is the soul of the scene, will break upon
the children’s prattle, with the silver melody
of her voice, running softly and sweetly
through the couplets of Crabbe’s stories, or
the witchery of the Flodden tale.</p>
<p class='c010'>Then the boys will guess conundrums,
and play at fox and geese; and Tray, cherished
in his age, and old Milo petted in his
dotage, lie side by side upon the lion’s skin
before the blazing hearth. Little Tomtit the
goldfinch sits sleeping on his perch, or cocks
his eye at a sudden crackling of the fire for
a familiar squint upon our family group.</p>
<p class='c010'>But there is no future without its straggling
clouds. Even now a shadow is trailing
along the landscape.</p>
<p class='c010'>It is a soft and mild day of summer. The
leaves are at their fullest. A southern
breeze has been blowing up the valley all the
morning, and the light, smoky haze hangs
in the distant mountain gaps, like a veil on
beauty. Jamie has been busy with his lessons,
and afterward playing with Milo upon
the lawn. Little Carry has come in from a
long ride—her face blooming, and her eyes
all smiles and joy. The mother has busied
herself with those flowers she loves so well.
Little Paul, they say, has been playing in the
meadow, and old Tray has gone with him.</p>
<p class='c010'>But at dinner time Paul has not come
back.</p>
<p class='c010'>“Paul ought not to ramble off so far,” I
say.</p>
<p class='c010'>The mother says nothing, but there is a
look of anxiety upon her face that disturbs
me. Jamie wonders where Paul can be, and
he saves for him whatever he knows Paul
will like—a heaping plateful. But the dinner
hour passes and Paul does not come. Old
Tray lies in the sunshine by the porch.</p>
<p class='c010'>Now the mother is indeed anxious. And
I, though I conceal this from her, find my
fears strangely active. Something like instinct
guides me to the meadow; I wander
down the brook-side, calling—Paul—Paul!
But there is no answer.</p>
<p class='c010'>All the afternoon we search, and the
neighbors search; but it is a fruitless toil.
There is no joy that evening; the meal
passes in silence; only little Carry, with
tears in her eyes, asks—if Paul will soon
come back? All the night we search and
call—the mother even braving the night air,
and running here and there, until the morning
finds us sad and despairing.</p>
<p class='c010'>That day—the next—cleared up the mystery,
but cleared it up with darkness. Poor
little Paul!—he has sunk under the murderous
eddies of the brook! His boyish prattle,
his rosy smiles, his artless talk, are lost to us
forever!</p>
<p class='c010'>I will not tell how nor when we found
him, nor will I tell of our desolate home,
and of <i>her</i> grief—the first crushing grief of
her life.</p>
<hr class='c015' />
<p class='c010'>The cottage is still. The servants glide
noiseless, as if they might startle the poor
little sleeper. The house seems cold—very
cold. Yet it is summer weather; and the
south breeze plays softly along the meadow
and softly over the murderous eddies of the
brook.</p>
<hr class='c015' />
<p class='c010'>Then comes the hush of burial. The kind
mourners are there; it is easy for them to
mourn! The good clergyman prays by the
bier: “Oh, Thou, who didst take upon Thyself
human woe, and drank deep of every
pang in life, let Thy spirit come and heal
this grief, and guide toward that better
Land, where justice and love shall reign,
and hearts laden with anguish shall rest for
evermore!”</p>
<p class='c010'>Weeks roll on, and a smile of resignation
lights up the saddened features of the
mother. Those dark mourning robes speak
to the heart deeper and more tenderly than
ever the bridal costume. She lightens the
weight of your grief by her sweet words of
resignation: “Paul,” she says, “God has
taken our boy!”</p>
<p class='c010'>Other weeks roll on. Joys are still left—great
and ripe joys. The cottage smiling in
the autumn sunshine is there; the birds are
in the forest boughs; Jamie and little Carry
are there; and she, who is more than them
all, is cheerful and content. Heaven has
taught us that the brightest future has its
clouds—that this life is a motley of lights
and shadows. And as we look upon the
world around us, and upon the thousand
forms of human misery, there is a gladness
in our deep thanksgiving.</p>
<p class='c010'>A year goes by, but it leaves no added
shadow on our hearthstone. The vines
clamber and flourish; the oaks are winning
age and grandeur; little Carry is blooming
into the pretty coyness of girlhood, and
Jamie, with his dark hair and flashing eyes,
is the pride of his mother.</p>
<p class='c010'>There is no alloy to pleasure, but the remembrance
of poor little Paul. And even
that, chastened as it is with years, is rather a
grateful memorial that our life is not all
here than a grief that weighs upon our
hearts.</p>
<p class='c010'>Sometimes, leaving little Carrie and Jamie
to their play, we wander at twilight to the
willow tree beneath which our drowned boy
sleeps calmly for the great Awaking. It is
a Sunday, in the week-day of our life, to
linger by the little grave—to hang flowers
upon the head-stone, and to breathe a prayer
that our little Paul may sleep well in the
arms of Him who loveth children.</p>
<p class='c010'>And her heart, and my heart, knit together
by sorrow, as they had been knit by
joy—a silver thread mingled with the gold—follow
the dead one to the land that is before
us, until at last we come to reckon the
boy as living in the new home which, when
this is old, shall be ours also. And my spirit,
speaking to his spirit, in the evening
watches, seems to say joyfully—so joyfully
that the tears half choke the utterance—“Paul,
my boy, we will be <i>there</i>!”</p>
<p class='c010'>And the mother, turning her face to mine,
so that I see the moisture in her eye, and
catch its heavenly look, whispers softly—so
softly that an angel might have said it—“Yes,
dear, we will be <span class='c024'>THERE</span>!”</p>
<hr class='c015' />
<p class='c010'>The night had now come, and my day under
the oaks was ended. But a crimson belt
yet lingered over the horizon, though the
stars were out.</p>
<p class='c010'>A line of shaggy mist lay along the surface
of the brook. I took my gun from beside
the tree, and my shot-pouch from its
limb, and, whistling for Carlo—as if it had
been Tray—I strolled over the bridge, and
down the lane, to the old house under the
elms.</p>
<p class='c010'>I dreamed pleasant dreams that night—for
I dreamed that my reverie was real.</p>
<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center c002'></div>
</div>
<div class='pbb'>
<hr class='pb c003' /></div>
<p class='c010'> </p>
<div class='tnbox'>
<ul class='ul_1 c003'>
<li>Transcriber’s Note:
<ul class='ul_2'>
<li>Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
</li>
<li>Typographical errors were silently corrected.
</li>
<li>Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant
form was found in this book.
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul></div>
<p class='c010'> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<hr class="pgx" />
<SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN>
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