Subject  | Path | | | | | • | UVA-LIB-Text | [X] | | • | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | [X] |
| | 1 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Add | | | Title: | The brothers  | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It has been a day of storm and darkness—the
morning dawned upon the mustering of the elements—vast
towering clouds rose mass upon
mass, stratum above stratum, till the whole horizon
was over-canopied. Then there was a stern
and breathless pause, as if the tempest-demon
were collecting his energies in silent resolution;
anon its own internal weight appeared to rend the
vaporous shroud asunder, and the big rain poured
down in torrents. At moments, indeed, the sunbeams
have struggled through the driving rack,
and darted down their pensiles of soft light, showing
even more blithely golden than their wont,
from the very contrast of the surrounding gloom.
Still—noon arrived, and there was no cessation of
the strife. At that hour, the blue lightning was
splitting the tortured clouds in twain, and the
thunder roaring and crashing close above our
heads. The melancholy wailing of the winds
among the sculptured pinnacles and ivyed turrets
of our Elizabethan mansion—the sobbing and
creaking of the immemorial oak-trees, their huge
branches wrestling with the gale—the dashing and
pattering of the heavy rain—and, deeper and more
melancholy than all, the gradually increasing moan
of the distant river, have conspired all day long to
cast a gloom alike upon the face of nature and the
heart of man. Yet now evening has brought back
peace, and calm delicious sunshine. “They have prevailed, and we are torn asunder
—when, oh when to meet? They dragged me from
your bleeding body—they bound me on a horse—
they bore me—Oh God! Oh God!—that I should
VOL. I.—Q
not dare to tell you whither!—No, my beloved, I dare
not—such is the sole condition on which the miserable
satisfaction of writing these few lines is granted.
They tell me that your wounds are slight—that you
will have regained your strength ere this shall reach
you; they tell me that you will again be in the
field of glory: but they tell me that I shall never
see you more—they tell me that death—your death,
Harry, shall follow on the slightest effort at my
rescue—and they tell me truly! You know not—
oh! may you never know—the boundless wickedness,
the wellnigh boundless power of my persecutor.
Never have I done aught, planned aught, for my
deliverance, but it has been revealed to him, and
blighted in the very bud, almost before I had conceived
it. And he—this fearful and malignant being—he
has sworn an oath, which I have never
heard him break, or bend from, that you shall not
have well put foot in stirrup to search out my prison,
ere the assassin's knife shall reach your heart! Oh,
my beloved, mine is a hard, a miserable duty—my
heart overflowing with deep unutterable love, I am
compelled to hide myself from him whom to see
were the very acme of imagined happiness. I am
compelled—I am compelled to pray you, as you
value—not life, for what noble spirit ever thinks of
life save as of a loan that must be one day repaid—
but as you value all that is more dear than life—all
that ennobles it, and makes it holy—as you value
your ancestral name—your own untarnished fame
—ay! and—I will write it, though it chokeme—as
you value me, I do beseech you to forget—Oh never!
never! think not I meant to say forget me!—
but to forego me—to be patient—to bear, as I now
bear, in silence—and in hope! Were there a
chance—a possibility, however slight or desperate,
of your success—I would write, Gird yourself up
for the task like a warrior for the battle-field—and
follow me to the very ends of the earth; but now I
know that so to do could not in aught aid our hopes
—aid them, did I say!—aid!—them!it would sever
them for ever by the pitiless steel—it would bury
them in the darkness of an untimely tomb. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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