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SPRING-TIME OF THE HEART.
Soft and warm on hedge-rows and dingles sleep the shine and
shade of the sweet spring-time.
Young flowers look up to heaven with their wishful, tear-wet
blue eyes; gay, laughing streams dash onward, rippling and
dimpling into eddies; and over the graves of long ago green
grass grows, and spring-buds bloom and brighten. Little birds
sing their Gloria Patri, in a pleasant cadence, to the grand symphonies
of the organ of the air; and, with the refrain, back to
our hearts steal low, pleasant voices, from the soul's own spring-time.
The stream seems less fair to our tear-dimmed eyes than when
our little brown fingers were building dams across it. The grass
springs not so greenly as when we lay upon it in the sunshine,
stringing garlands of dandelions and cowslips, and holding yellow
butter-cups under round, dimpled chins, to see if little folks
loved butter.
Never a cloud that flecks the sky seems half as bright as
when the clearer vision of our childhood could see the seraphfaces
peering through.
Not an anthem-note of bird or breeze but is jarred by discords
in our own heart.
We gaze forth into the glad earth, and hear the delicate singing
the earth arises from her winter swound, and blushes that the
eyes of moon and stars have gazed upon her bare, unconscious
bosom, and grown sick with love. Nature is our mother;
mighty, glorious shape, we welcome her, with her pale hair floating
backward in the gray of dawning, or the one bright star of
eve resting, like the crown jewel in a diadem, upon her regal
brow; — but we turn away, and remember that white hats are
getting dear, and we must hasten and buy our blue velvet mantilla,
before all that cheap piece is sold out, at Stewart's. The
very breeze that fans our flushed cheeks, and sends the young
blood back again heartward with a rejoicing tide, reminds us
only of that new style of Spanish fans, — very dear they are, to
be sure, — and sets us wondering how much pa did make in his
last speculation.
There was only one whom all these pomps and vanities had
never power to change — Our Nettie!
But, then, Nettie “was only another name for nature.” She
was a strangely-sweet little thing, with her long golden curls,
and her clear, spiritual blue eyes, — sweet and gentle as the June
sky is bright, or the song of the spring-birds pleasant.
Old people shook their heads when they looked at her, and
said she was one of those children whose names are always
written on grave-stones.
I believe that even then Nettie had a kind of strange longing
for death and heaven; for, sitting at my feet, one day, weaving
flowers, and raising her large, thoughtful eyes, she whispered,
“Nettie Neil! will they put it so on my grave-stone, Nellie?”
And when I had answered, “Yes, darling,” she rejoined, “Nellie,
but why?” “O, 'cause it says he holds little children on
his bosom; and he 's got so many, he 'd let me fall, if he was n't
pretty big!” Then, pausing for a few moments, she looked upward
with a holy faith, at once very strange and very beautiful
in one so young, and whispered, “No, Nellie, he will not let me
fall — something tells me so, in here,” and she placed her baby
hand upon her baby heart.
I am not superstitious! I can look a ghost in the face with
exemplary composure; I can go down cellar dark nights without
a candle, and to spiritual knockings I have always been enabled
to turn a deaf ear; but I must acknowledge I never looked at
Nettie Neil without a strange feeling that she was linked in some
mysterious manner with the spirit-world — a vague expectation
that I should see her melt away before my eyes!
But mortal hearts read poorly the counsels of the All-Glorious.
Perhaps it is designed there should be always some angels on
earth, guides to teach our earthlier natures the infinite glory
of our lost heritage.
Nettie Neil lived: she is a wife now, — a rich man's wife, —
and her small feet sink half buried in gorgeous velvet carpets,
her fair form looks out from massive mirrors in heavy golden
frames, and her clear eyes grow dim with tears as they rest on
the pictured spiritual faces of saints and madonnas, or the meek,
faint smile which hovers round the sculptured lips of the young
Christ-child, wrought out by artists who have dreamed of heaven.
But she is very simple still, amid all this grandeur. The
harshness and worldliness of her husband's spirit are exorcised,
as he gazes in the clear eyes of his fair wife; and to her pure
THE CHILD'S FAITH.
[Description: 655EAF. Illustration page. Image of a young girl sitting on a cushion at the feet of a woman who is sitting on a sofa.]
lingers the glorious sunshine of the spring.
But there are very few such hearts on earth; very few from
whom the glory of the child-life passes not away; very few
where the cool pleasantness of spring-time grows not hot and
sultry in the fierce breath of summer.
Some — alas for it! — some there are, who have no child-life,
nor any spring-time; hearts which never leap to the sound
of a kindly word, never hear the faintest whisper of that Great
Heart of God, where weary ones may rest! O, Heaven help
them, those weary ones, for whom earth's life and light can never
dawn; and Heaven help us to keep our hearts fresh and green,
that we may not blush, as we go forth in the light and heavenly
glory of the spring-time of earth, for a wasted heritage — the
better, happier spring-time of the heart!
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