119. CXIX.
IN WHICH MAY BEVERLEY PASSES AWAY FROM
THIS HISTORY.
Have you never observed the fact, my dear reader, that there
is nothing more stupid, in books or life, than happiness? It is
the trials and sufferings of the characters which interest us in
romances—the dear, delightful misfortunes of our friends which
render real life so cheerful and attractive.
Observe, as a proof of this latter statement, that as long as
Lieutenant-Colonel Surry pined away for love of a young lady
who was affianced to another, his ill fortune excited the sympathy
of his friends; and the young ladies everywhere, who
knew his sad predicament, exclaimed with tender voices, “What
a pity!” But just as soon as every cloud passed away, and he
became engaged to Miss Beverley with the full consent of her
parents, all this sympathy disappeared: no more interest was
taken in him, and his friends gushed out in tender commiseration
of the woes of some other ill-starred lover.
So it would be with those unseen friends who will read their
humble servant's memoirs. They would not be amused by the
picture of tranquil happiness: the blushes and murmured words
would appear insipid—the stream, no longer broken into silver
ripples by the obstacles in its bed, would glide on tamely and
without a particle of “the picturesque.”
So to horse! and back across the border! Other events await
us. Hooker is about to advance—Stuart is in the saddle—and
perhaps, as we cross the Rappahannock again, we shall know
where Mordaunt has been journeying.
Yet ere you shake your bridle-rein, and bid farewell to the
good old Oaks, gentle reader—see, standing there in the April
sunshine, that slender form, as graceful as a flower of the gay
spring forest: that girl with the waving chestnut hair, which the
sunlight turns to gold; the violet eyes of a blue as deep and
tender as the glad sky overhead; with the lips half parted and
as rosy as carnations; the cheeks full of blushes, the bosom
heaving—look at May Beverley, and tell me whether this little
Virginian flower was not worth the trouble which it cost a friend
of yours to place her in his bosom?
I thought so then, when she was the little blossom of “The
Oaks”—I think so still, when she is the queenly rose of “Eagle's
Nest,” with a young flower-garden blooming all around her.
