 | This, that and the other |  |
HUSH!
Hush! she is dying! The sunlight streams through the plate-glass
windows, the room is fragrant with the sweet breath of
southern flowers, — large, milk-white African lilies, roses a nightingale
might stoop to worship, cape jasmines, and camellias
with their large, glossy leaves.
Through the open casement steals the faint, musical tinkle of
playing fountains; and the light, tempered pleasantly by rose-curtains,
kindles up gorgeous old paintings with a halo bright as
a rainbow. It is as if fresher sunshine was falling earthward on
the bower of beauty.
The canary sings in his gilded cage, — her canary, — and the
mocking-bird raises his clear note higher and higher on the perfumed
air.
Why do you clench your hand till the nails draw the rich
rosy blood through the quivering skin? Why do you grind
your teeth together, and hiss between, that one word, hush? It 's
a beautiful home, I 'm sure; and that lady, with her head upon
your bosom, is fair as any dream-vision of the painter.
Surely nothing could be purer than that broad, high brow;
nothing brighter than those sunny curls!
And she loves you, too! Ah, yes, any one could read that, in
the deep violet eyes raised so tenderly to your own. Ah! that
is it, — your young wife loves you!
She linked to yours the existence of an angel, when she knelt
beside you at the marriage altar.
For twelve long, golden months, an angel has walked or sat
by your side, or slept in your bosom.
You knew it! No mortal woman ever made your heart bow
before a purity so divine!
No earthly embrace ever so filled your soul with the glory
from beyond the stars; no earthly smile ever shone so unchangingly
above all such noisome things as you earth-worms call care
and trouble. She is an angel, and other angels have been singing
to her in the long days of this pleasant June-time.
“Hush!” you say, but you cannot shut out the anthem-notes
of heaven from those unsealed ears! Louder, higher swell the
hymns of the seraphs, — brighter grows the smile round your
young wife's lips.
“Charles,” she whispers, “dearest, I 'm almost home; you
will come by and by, and I am going to ask God to bless you!”
But you cannot bear it; you turn away, and the big tears
gather in the violet eyes.
You have held her there on your bosom all day — all night;
are you tired? — but you don't answer. Closer, closer you clasp
the slight, fair figure; painfully you press your lips to the cold
brow; — Carrie is dead!
What is it to you that the sunshine is bright? what that its
rays fall on broad lands — your lands? what is it, now that she
can walk on them no more? And what is death — her death?
Few people knew her; no nation will raise a monument to her
memory! But she was yours, — your all!
No, — yours and God's; and your year of joy is over, and she
rests on His bosom now, in heaven.
They have dug a grave for her; spring-flowers brighten over
it, and the green grass smiles with daisies and violets. You go
there and sigh and pray, and ask God if you, too, may go
home; and, when no answer comes, your proud heart rises up in
bitterness, and, with the bold, wicked words upon your tongue,
you pause, — for your guardian angel looks down from heaven,
and whispers, “Hush!”
Hush! she is praying! There is no carpet upon the floor, no
fragrance of flowers in the comfortless room, and the sun's
broad glare falls all untempered upon the rough boards and the
heap of straw in the corner.
She is beautiful, that young girl who kneels there. Her face
would have been a glorious study for one of Greutze's pale, spiritual
Madonnas. Her attitude — the upraised face, the clasped
hands, the long, black hair streaming backward — might have
been a model for Praxiteles, as she kneels there, in that glaring,
uncomfortable room, by the pallet of straw in the comfortless
corner.
“Hush!” You should hear her prayer; it is not a model
prayer; it is not so much the giving thanks for the blessings
showered upon her lot; not a petition put up half-falteringly for
friend or lover; — no, it is the near approach to a great and
mighty Spirit!
“Father,” it pleads, “O, Father, save me from myself!”
There is a crushing agony in the tone, and the big tears roll
glittering diamonds. Not always had she been thus desolate.
Her father — a proud, sensitive, dreamy man, better fitted for
a poet than a merchant — had been unfortunate in his speculations,
and his creditors had turned him beggared from the fair
home he had built for his dead wife's child!
“Brutes, fiends!” do you say? Hush! They were safe men,
— their notes were good on Wall-street; true men, — they carried
all their threats into execution; pious men, — they went to
church every Sunday, and carried prayer-books clasped with gold
and bound in velvet; just men, — Daniels come to judgment, —
they only took their own. What was it to them whether Paul
Clifford starved, or his daughter sank to a ruin worse than death?
They did n't see why people would get into such scrapes, and
then look to honest people to help them out; they never got
into any, — not they! O, they were good men, were Paul Clifford's
creditors!
Dreadfully shocked they were, when the proud, sensitive poet-merchant
put an end to an existence misfortune had rendered
torture. They would n't let Blanche Clifford teach music in their
families, — not they! Why, she might turn out as bad as her
father.
This very day Blanche had been to the chief of them, and
pleaded for work, in vain, with the tears streaming from her beautiful
eyes. This day his son, who had been her own betrothed,
had whispered to her of flight with him, — of a bridal where
their own hearts should be the priests; and Blanche, loving him
still, as woman loves but once, had felt all her soul thrill to the
strange power of his brilliant words, as he whispered of a fair
southern flowers and crimsoning rich clusters of southern
fruit; and then, remembering that she could not be his wife, had
put her fingers in her ears, and ran for more than life, — for the
hope of heaven!
This day, as she knelt, her soul passed forth from the weary
scene of misery and starvation, and her fair form was left
stark, and stiff, and cold, in the hot glare of the June sunshine.
Truly, you say, are God's judgments in this world unequal!
Be silent.
There will be a judgment at the day of judgment; and mortal
eyes can poorly read the counsels of the Infinite and Unchangeable.
— HUSH!
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