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University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875[X]
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1Author:  Evans Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) 1835-1909Add
 Title:  St. Elmo  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: HE stood and measured the earth: and the ever lasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow.” “Madam: In reply to your very extraordinary request I have the honor to inform you, that my time is so entirely consumed by necessary and important claims, that I find no leisure at my command for the examination of the embryonic chapter of a contemplated book. I am, madam, “Miss Earl: I return your MS., not because it is devoid of merit, but from the conviction that were I to accept it, the day would inevitably come when you would regret its premature publication. While it contains irrefragable evidence of extraordinary ability, and abounds in descriptions of great beauty, your style is characterized by more strength than polish, and is marred by crudities which a dainty public would never tolerate. The subject you have undertaken is beyond your capacity—no woman could successfully handle it—and the sooner you realize your over-estimate of your powers, the sooner your aspirations find their proper level, the sooner you will succeed in your treatment of some theme better suited to your feminine ability. Burn the inclosed MS., whose erudition and archaisms would fatally nauseate the intellectual dyspeptics who read my `Maga,' and write sketches of home-life—descriptions of places and things that you understand better than recondite analogies of ethical creeds and mythologic systems, or the subtle lore of Coptic priests. Remember that women never write histories nor epics; never compose oratorios that go sounding down the centuries; never paint `Last Suppers' and `Judgment Days;' though now and then one gives to the world a pretty ballad that sounds sweet and soothing when sung over a cradle, or another paints a pleasant little genre sketch which will hang appropriately in some quiet corner, and rest and refresh eyes that are weary with gazing at the sublime spiritualism of Fra Bartolomeo, or the gloomy grandeur of Salvator Rosa. If you have any short articles which you desire to see in print, you may forward them, and I will select any for publication, which I think you will not blush to acknowledge in future years. “My Dear Edna: I could not sleep last night in consequence of your unfortunate resolution, and I write to beg you, for my sake if not for your own, to reconsider the matter. I will gladly pay you the same salary that you expect to receive as governess, if you will remain as my companion and assistant at Le Bocage. I can not consent to give you up; I love you too well, my child, to see you quit my house. I shall soon be an old woman, and then what would I do without my little orphan girl? Stay with me always, and you shall never know what want and toil and hardship mean. As soon as you are awake, come and kiss me good-morning, and I shall know that you are my own dear, little Edna. “Edna: I send for your examination the contents of the little tomb, which you guarded so faithfully. Read the letters written before I was betrayed. The locket attached to a ribbon was always worn over my heart, and the miniatures which it contains, are those of Agnes Hunt and Murray Hammond. Read all the record, and then judge me, as you hope to be judged. I sit alone, amid the mouldering, blackened ruins of my youth; will you not listen to the prayer of my heart, and the half-smothered pleadings of your own, and come to me in my desolation, and help me to build up a new and noble life? O my darling! you can make me what you will. While you read and ponder, I am praying! Aye, praying for the first time in twenty years! praying that if God ever hears prayer, He will influence your decision, and bring you to me. Edna, my dar ling! I wait for you. “To the mercy of God, and the love of Christ, and the judgment of your own conscience, I commit you. Henceforth we walk different paths, and after to-night, it is my wish that we meet no more on earth. Mr. Murray, I can not lift up your darkened soul; and you would only drag mine down. For your final salvation, I shall never cease to pray, till we stand face to face, before the Bar of God. “My Darling: Will you not permit me to see you before you leave the parsonage? Knowing the peculiar circumstances that brought you back, I can not take advantage of them and thrust myself into your presence without your consent. I have left home to-day, because I felt assured that, much as you might desire to see `Le Bocage,' you would never come here while there was a possibility of meeting me. You, who know something of my wayward, sinful, impatient character, can perhaps imagine what I suffer, when I am told that your health is wrecked, that you are in the next room, and yet, that I must not, shall not see you—my own Edna! Do you wonder that I almost grow desperate at the thought that only a wall—a door—separates me from you, whom I love better than my life? O my darling! Allow me one more interview! Do not make my punishment heavier than I can bear. It is hard—it is bitter enough to know that you can not, or will not trust me; at least let me see your dear face again. Grant me one hour—it may be the last we shall ever spend together in this world.
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