 | MORNING, NOON, AND EVENING. Reveries of a bachelor, or, A book of the heart |  |
2. II.
Noon.
THE 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.
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.
Short as it is, the Present is great and strong;—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!
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!
—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.
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
sedgy banks. The heat plays upon the meadow in
noiseless waves, and the beech leaves do not stir.
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.
—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?
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 as noon—and make
a fever of Now.
Early Friends.
Where are they?
I cannot 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 cannot 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.
Little Lilly is grown into a woman, and is married;
and she has another little Lilly, with flaxen hair, she
says,—looking as she 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!
Ben,—who would have liked a ride in the coach
that carried me away to school—has had a great
many rides since then—rough rides, and hard ones,
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 honours 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.
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.
—“To whom you gave a purse when he went
away, and told him to say nothing to Lilly or to
Ben?”
—“Yes, that Paul”—says the old woman exultingly—“do
you know him?”
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I shuddered a little at this; for I thought,—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.
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!
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.
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
would hardly know me.
Presently the housekeeper came in, looking very
grave; she asked if the gentleman wished to see her?
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.
—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.
“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?”
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 offence. I called her—Madame, and asked
for—Isabel?
She turned pale, terribly pale—“Bella?” said she.
“Yes, Bella.”
“Sir—Bella is dead!”
I dropped into my chair. I said nothing. The
housekeeper—bless her kind heart!—slipped noiselessly
out. My hands were over my eyes. The
mournfully within.
I did not sob, nor weep, nor utter any cry.
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.
It broke at length in a long, deep sigh,—“oh God!”
—said I. It may have been a prayer;—it was not
an imprecation.
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!
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 was 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?
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!
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 pacquet for him, but it was not
there; she had given it into Lilly's keeping.
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!
School Revisited.
The old school is there still,—with the high cupola
upon it, and the long galleries, with the sleeping
where I slept. But the boys are not there, nor the
old teachers. They have ploughed up the play-ground
to plant corn, and the apple tree with the low limb,
that made our gymnasium, is cut down.
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 fire place, and the same
whip, and great coat hung in the corner.
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
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!
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.
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.
The bald-pated shoemaker, who never kept his
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.
The old factor of tamarinds and sugar crackers,
who used to drive his covered waggon 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 obstreporously
as ever.
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!”
I felt cured of her too; but I pitied the husband.
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.
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
that the mere rustle of their silk dress will give him
a twinge; and their eyes, if he looks at them—make
him unaccountably shy.
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
bastions, and turrets, into their cobble-stone 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.
But the old head-master who forbade it, was dead;
and Russel 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,
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.
—How small, seem 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.
—The tears started from my eyes:—was not
such a cloud over me now?
College.
School-mates 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 the charm, and you
find only—another man.
But with your classmates, in that later school,
where form and character were both nearer ripeness,
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 NOW.
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 now 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.
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
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.
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 Persilipo. 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.
Another time, as I was wandering among those
mysterious figures that crowd the foyer of the French
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 Room,
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 gaiety of the
scene about us, until day-light broke.
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 Domino.
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,
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.
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 vigour, 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.
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
composure over the exploding retorts.
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.
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.
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
but there is needed a noble one, to win affection.
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
lustre, 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.
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, joys, 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!
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 so 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—
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.
Morning will pass, and the Noon will come—hot,
and scorching.
The Pacquet of Bella.
I HAVE not forgotten that pacquet 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 pacquet in her
hand `for Cousin Paul.' But this I will not repeat;
—I cannot.
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
hear them named. It seems like tearing open half-healed
wounds, and disturbing with harsh worldly
noise, the sweet sleep of death.
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.
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!
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
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 her—Carry.
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!
It began almost like a diary, about the time that
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.”
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,
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 cannot read any more.
“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.
* * * “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
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.
* * * “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 mid-summer,
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.
* * * “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 cannot 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.
“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
cannot 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 cannot help
saying it. I love you too well, Cousin Paul, not to
say it.
* * * “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
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 cannot read; it is almost
dark.'
“ `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.
“I brought a candle, for I knew he could not read
without.
“ `Isabel, dear,' said he, `put the candle a little
nearer.' But it was close beside him even then.
“ `A little nearer, Isabel,'—repeated he, and his
voice was very faint; and he grasped my hand hard.
“ `—Nearer, Isabel!—nearer!'
“There was no need to do it, for my poor father was
but I am crazed. It does not seem the same world
it was. And the house, and the trees, oh, they are
very dismal!
“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 her father who is dead!
“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.
“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
her once since you have met her: we talked of you.
She spoke kindly—very kindly: more than this, I
cannot 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.
“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:—
there is my mother, and my father, and my little
brother—we shall meet—I know we shall meet!
“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!”
—Shall I go on?
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.
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!
And with her sweet image floating before me, the
Noon wanes, and the shadows of Evening lengthen
upon the land.
| MORNING, NOON, AND EVENING. Reveries of a bachelor, or, A book of the heart | |