University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.

LET thy abundant blessing rest upon it, O Almighty
God! else indeed my labor will be in
vain. `Paul planted, Apollos watered,' but thou
only can give the increase. It is finished: look
down in mercy, and sanctify it, and accept it.”

The night was almost spent when Edna laid down her
pen, and raised her clasped hands over the MS., which she
had just completed.

For many weary months she had toiled to render it worthy
of its noble theme, had spared neither time nor severe
trains of thought; by day and by night she had searched
and pondered; she had prayed fervently and ceaselessly,
and worked arduously, unflaggingly, to accomplish this darling
hope of her heart, to embody successfully this ambitious
dream, and at last the book was finished.

The manuscript was a mental tapestry, into which she
had woven exquisite shades of thought, and curious and
quaint, devices and rich, glowing imagery that flecked
the groundwork with purple and amber and gold.

But would the design be duly understood and appreciated
by the great, busy, bustling world, for whose amusement
and improvement she had labored so assiduously at
the spinning-wheels of fancy — the loom of thought?
Would her fellow-creatures accept it in the earnest, loving
spirit in which it had been manufactured? Would they
hang this Gobelin of her brain along the walls of memory,
and turn to it tenderly, reading reverently its ciphers

and its illuminations; or would it be rent and ridiculed,
and trampled under foot? This book was a shrine to
which her purest thoughts, her holiest aspirations travelled
like pilgrims, offering the best of which her nature was
capable. Would those for whom she had patiently chiselled
and built it guard and prize and keep it; or smite and
overturn and defile it?

Looking down at the mass of MS. now ready for the
printer, a sad, tender, yearning expression filled the author's
eyes; and her little white hands passed caressingly
over its closely-written pages, as a mother's soft fingers
might lovingly stroke the face of a child about to be thrust
out into a hurrying crowd of cold, indifferent strangers,
who perhaps would rudely jeer at and brow-beat her darling.

For several days past Edna had labored assiduously to
complete the book, and now at last she could fold her tired
hands, and rest her weary brain.

But outraged nature suddenly swore vengeance, and her
overworked nerves rose in fierce rebellion, refusing to be
calm. She had so long anticipated this hour that its arrival
was greeted by emotions beyond her control. As she contemplated
the possible future of that pile of MS., her heart
bounded madly, and then once more a fearful agony seized
her, and darkness and a sense of suffocation came upon her.
Rising, she strained her eyes and groped her way toward
the window, but ere she reached it fell, and lost all consciousness.

The sound of the fall, the crash of a china vase which
her hand had swept from the table, echoed startlingly
through the silent house, and aroused some of its inmates.
Mrs. Andrews ran up stairs and into Felix's room, saw that
he was sleeping soundly, and then she hastened up another
flight of steps, to the apartment occupied by the governess.
The gas burned dazzingly over the table where rested the
rolls of MS., and on the floor near the window lay Edna.

Ringing the bell furiously to summon her husband and
the servants, Mrs. Andrews knelt, raised the girl's head,
and rubbing her cold hands, tried to rouse her. The heart
beat faintly, and seemed to stop now and then, and the
white, rigid face was as ghastly as if the dread kiss of Samaël
had indeed been pressed upon her still lips.

Finding all her restoratives ineffectual, Mrs. Andrews sent
her husband for the family physician, and with the assistance
of the servants, laid the girl on her bed.

When the doctor arrived and questioned her, she could
furnish no clew to the cause of the attack, save by pointing
to the table, where pen and paper showed that the sufferer
had been at work.

Edna opened her eyes at last, and looked around at the
group of anxious faces, but in a moment the spasm of pain
returned. Twice she muttered something, and putting his
ear close to her mouth, the doctor heard her whispering to
herself:

“Never mind; it is done at last! Now I can rest.”

An hour elapsed before the paroxysms entirely subsided,
and then, with her ivory-like hands clasped and thrown up
over her head, the governess slept heavily, dreamlessly.

For two days she remained in her own apartment, and
on the morning of the third came down to the school-room,
with a slow, weary step and a bloodless face, and a feeling
of hopeless helplessness.

She dispatched her MS. to the publisher to whom she had
resolved to offer it, and, leaning far back in her chair, took
up Felix's Greek grammar.

Since the days of Dionysius Thrax, it had probably never
appeared so tedious, so intolerably tiresome, as she found
it now, and she felt relieved, almost grateful, when Mrs.
Andrews sent for her to come to the library, where Dr.
Howell was waiting to see her.

Seating himself beside her, the physician examined her
countenance and pulse, and put his ear close to her heart.

“Miss Earl, have you had many such attacks as the one
whose effects have not yet passed away?”

“This is the second time I have suffered so severely;
though very frequently I find a disagreeable fluttering
about my heart, which is not very painful.”

“What mode of treatment have you been following?”

“None, sir. I have never consulted a physician.”

“Humph! Is it possible?”

He looked at her with the keen incisive eye of his profession,
and pressed his ear once more to her heart, listening
to the irregular and rapid pulsations.

“Miss Earl, are you an orphan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you any living relatives?”

“None that I ever heard of.”

“Did any of your family die suddenly?”

“Yes, I have been told that my mother died while apparently
as well as usual, and engaged in spinning; and
my grandfather I found dead, sitting in his rocking-chair,
smoking his pipe.”

Dr. Howell cleared his throat, sighed, and was silent.

He saw a strange, startled expression leap into the large
shadowy eyes, and the mouth quivered, and the wan face
grew whiter, and the thin fingers grasped each other; but
she said nothing, and they sat looking at one another.

The physician had come like Daniel to the banquet of
life, and solved for the Belshazzar of youth the hideous
riddle scrawled on the walls.

“Dr. Howell, can you do nothing for me?”

Her voice had sunk to a whisper, and she leaned eagerly
forward to catch his answer.

“Miss Earl, do you know what is meant by hypertrophy
of the heart?”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

She shivered slightly.

“Whether you inherited your disease, I am not prepared

to say, but certainly in your case there are some grounds
for the belief.”

Presently she said abstractedly:

“But grandpa lived to be an old man.”

The doctor's eyes fell upon the mosaic floor of the library;
and then she knew that he could give her no hope.

When at last he looked up again, he saw that she had
dropped her face in her palms, and he was awed by the
deathlike repose of her figure, the calm fortitude she evinced.

“Miss Earl, I never deceive my patients. It is useless
to dose you with medicine, and drug you into semi-insensibility.
You must have rest and quiet; rest for mind as
well as body; there must be no more teaching or writing.
You are over-worked, and incessant mental labor has hastened
the approach of a disease which, under other circumstances,
might have encroached very slowly and imperceptibly.
If latent (which is barely possible) it has contributed
to a fearfully rapid development. Refrain from study,
avoid all excitement, exercise moderately but regularly in
the open air; and, above all things, do not tax your brain.
If you carefully observe these directions, you may live to
be as old as your grandfather. Heart diseases baffle prophecy,
and I make no predictions.”

He rose and took his hat from the table.

“Miss Earl, I have read your writings with great pleasure,
and watched your brightening career with more interest
than I ever felt in any other female author; and God
knows it is exceedingly painful for me to tear away the
veil from your eyes. From the first time you were pointed
out to me in church, I saw that in your countenance which
distressed and alarmed me; for its marble pallor whispered
that your days were numbered. Frequently I have been
tempted to come and expostulate with you, but I knew it
would be useless. You have no reader who would more
earnestly deplore the loss of your writings, but, for your
own sake, I beg you to throw away your pen and rest.”

She raised her head and a faint smile crept feebly across
her face.

“Rest! rest! If my time is so short I can not afford to
rest. There is so much to do, so much that I have planned
and hoped to accomplish. I am only beginning to learn
how to handle my tools, my life-work is as yet barely begun.
When my long rest overtakes me, I must not be found idle,
sitting with folded hands. Since I was thirteen years old,
I have never once rested; and now I am afraid I never shall.
I would rather die working than live a drone.”

“But, my dear Miss Earl, those who love you have claims
upon you.”

“I am alone in this world. I have no family to love me,
and my work is to me what I suppose dear relatives must
be to other women. For six years I have been studying
to fit myself for usefulness, have lived with and for books;
and though I have a few noble and kind friends, do you
suppose I ever forget that I am kinless? It is a mournful
thing to know that you are utterly isolated among millions
of human beings; that not a drop of your blood flows in
any other veins. My God only has a claim upon me. Dr.
Howell, I thank you for your candor. It is best that I
should know the truth; and I am glad that, instead of treating
me like a child, you have frankly told me all. More
than once I have had a singular feeling, a shadowy presentiment
that I should not live to be an old woman, but I
thought it the relic of childish superstition, and I did not
imagine that—that I might be called away at any instant.
I did not suspect that just as I had arranged my workshop,
and sharpened all my tools, and measured off my work,
that my morning sun would set suddenly in the glowing
east, and the long, cold night fall upon me, `wherein no man
can work'—”

Her voice faltered, and the physician turned away, and
looked out of the window.

“I am not afraid of death, nor am I so wrapped up in

the mere happiness which this world gives; no, no; but I
love my work! Ah! I want to live long enough to finish
something grand and noble, something that will live when
the hands that fashioned it have crumbled back to dust;
something that will follow me across and beyond the dark
silent valley, something that can not be hushed and straightened
and bandaged and screwed down under my coffin-lid,
oh! something that will echo in eternity! that grandpa
and I can hear `sounding down the ages,' making music
for the people, when I go to my final rest! And, please
God! I shall! I will! O doctor! I have a feeling here
which assures me I shall be spared till I finish my darling
scheme. You know Glanville said, and Poe quoted, `Man
doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly,
save only through the weakness of his feeble will.' Mine
is strong, invincible; it will sustain me for a longer period
than you seem to believe. The end is not yet. Doctor, do
not tell people what you have told me. I do not want to
be watched and pitied, like a doomed victim who walks
about the scaffold with a rope already around his neck.
Let the secret rest between you and me.”

He looked wonderingly at the electric white face, and
something in its chill radiance reminded him of the borealis
light, that waves its ghostly banners over a cold midnight
sky.

“God grant that I may be in error concerning your disease;
and that threescore years and ten may be allotted
you, to embody the airy dreams you love so well. I repeat,
if you wish to prolong your days, give yourself more rest.
I can do you little good; still, if at any time you fancy that
I can aid or relieve you, do not hesitate to send for me. I
shall come to see you as a friend, who reads and loves all
that has yet fallen from your pen. God help and bless you,
child!”

As he left the room she locked the door, and walked
slowly back to the low mantel-piece. Resting her arms on

the black marble, she laid her head down upon them, and
ambition and death stared face to face, and held grim parley
over the coveted prey.

Taking the probable measure of her remaining days, Edna
fearlessly fronted the future, and pondered the possibility
of crowding into two years the work which she had designed
for twenty.

To tell the girl to “rest,” was a mockery; the tides of
thought ebbed and flowed as ceaselessly as those of ocean,
and work had become a necessity of her existence. She was
far, far beyond the cool, quiet palms of rest, far out on the
burning sands; and the Bahr-Sheitan rippled and glittered
and beckoned, and she panted and pressed on.

One book was finished, but before she had completed it
the form and features of another struggled in her busy
brain, and she longed to put them on paper.

The design of the second book appeared to her partial
eyes almost perfect, and the first seemed insignificant in
comparison. Trains of thought that had charmed her,
making her heart throb and her temples flush; and metaphors
that glowed as she wrote them down, ah! how tame
and trite all looked now, in the brighter light of a newer
revelation! The attained, the achieved, tarnished in her
grasp. All behind was dun; all beyond clothed with a
dazzling glory that lured her on.

Once the fondest hope of her heart had been to finish the
book now in the publisher's hands; but ere it could be printed,
other characters, other aims, other scenes usurped her
attention. If she could only live long enough to incarnate
the new ideal!

Moreover, she knew that memory would spring up and
renew its almost intolerable torture, the moment that she
gave herself to aimless reveries; and she felt that her sole
hope of peace of mind, her only rest, was in earnest and unceasing
labor. Subtle associations, merciless as the chains
of Bonnivard, bound her to a past which she was earnestly

striving to forget; and she continually paced as far off as
her shackles would permit, sternly refusing to sit down
meekly at the foot of the stake. She worked late at night
until her body was exhausted, because she dreaded to lie
awake, tossing helplessly on her pillow; haunted by precious
recollections of days gone by for ever.

Her name was known in the world of letters, her reputation
was already enviable; extravagant expectations were
entertained concerning her future; and to maintain her hold
on public esteem, to climb higher, had become necessary
for her happiness.

Through Mr. Manning's influence and friendship she was
daily making the acquaintance of the leading men in literature,
and their letters and conversation stimulated her to
renewed exertion

Yet she had never stooped to conciliate popular prejudices,
had never written a line which her conscience did
not dictate, and her religious convictions sanction; had
bravely attacked some of the pet vices and shameless follies
of society, and had never penned a page without a
prayer for guidance from on High.

Now in her path rose God's Reaper, swinging his shining
sickle, threatening to cut off and lay low her budding laurel-wreath.

While she stood silent and motionless in the quiet library,
the woman's soul was wrestling with God for permission
to toil a little while longer on earth, to do some good
for her race, and to assist in saving a darkened soul almost
as dear to her as her own.

She never knew how long that struggle for life lasted;
but when the prayer ended, and she lifted her face, the
shadows and the sorrowful dread had passed away; and
the old calm, the old sweet, patient smile reigned over the
pale, worn features.

Early in July, Felix's feeble health forced his mother to
abandon her projected tour to the White Mountains; and

in accordance with Dr. Howell's advice, Mr. Andrews removed
his family to a sea-side summer-place, which he had
owned for some years, but rarely occupied, as his wife preferred
Newport, Saratoga, and Nahant.

The house at the “Willows” was large and airy, the
ceilings were high, windows wide, and a broad piazza,
stretching across the front, was shaded by two aged and
enormous willows, that stood on either side of the steps,
and gave a name to the place.

The fresh matting on the floors, the light cane sofas and
chairs, the white muslin curtains and newly-painted green
blinds imparted an appearance of delicious coolness and
repose to the rooms; and while not one bright-hued painting
was visible, the walls were hung with soft, gray, misty
engravings of Landseer's pictures, framed in carved ebony
and rosewood and oak.

The gilded splendor of the Fifth Avenue house was left
behind; here simplicity and quiet comfort held sway.
Even the china wore no glitter, but was enamelled with
green wreaths of vine-leaves; and the vases held only
plumy ferns, fresh and dewy.

Low salt meadow-lands extended east and west, waving
fields of corn stretched northward, and the slight knoll on
which the building stood sloped smoothly down to the ever-moaning,
foam-fretted bosom of the blue Atlantic.

To the governess and her pupils the change from New-York
heat and bustle to sea-side rest, was welcome and delightful;
and during the long July days, when the strong
ocean breeze tossed aside the willow boughs, and swept
through the rustling blinds, and lifted the hair on Edna's
hot temples, she felt as if she had indeed taken a new lease
on life.

For several weeks her book had been announced as in
press, and her publishers printed most flattering circulars,
which heightened expectation, and paved the way for its
favorable reception. Save the first chapter, rejected by

Mr. Manning long before, no one had seen the MS.; and
while the reading public was on the qui vive, the author
was rapidly maturing the plot of a second work.

Finally, the book was bound; editors' copies winged their
way throughout the country; the curious eagerly supplied
themselves with the latest publication; and Edna's destiny
as an author hung in the balance.

It was with strange emotions that she handled the copy
sent to her, for it seemed indeed a part of herself. She
knew that her own heart was throbbing in its pages, and
wondered whether the great world-pulses would beat in
unison.

Instead of a preface she had quoted on the title-page
those pithy lines in “Aurora Leigh”:

Now, as Edna nestled her fingers among the pages of her
book, a tear fell and moistened them, and the unvoiced language
of her soul was, “Grandpa! do you keep close
enough to me to read my book? Oh! do you like it? are
you satisfied? Are you proud of your poor little Pearl?”

The days were tediously long while she waited in suspense
for the result of the weighing in editors' sanctums,
for the awful verdict of the critical Sanhedrim. A week
dragged itself away; and the severity of the decree might
have entitled it to one of those slips of blue paper upon

which Frederick the Great required his counts to inscribe
their sentences of death. Edna learned the full import of
the words:

Newspapers pronounced her book a failure. Some sneered
in a gentlemanly manner, employing polite phraseology;
others coarsely caricatured it. Many were insulted by its
incomprehensible erudition; a few growled at its shallowness.
To-day there was a hint at plagiarism; to-morrow
an outright, wholesale theft was asserted. Now she was a
pedant; and then a sciolist. Reviews poured in upon her
thick and fast; all found grievous faults, but no two reviewers
settled on the same error. What one seemed disposed
to consider almost laudable the other denounced violently.
One eminently shrewd, lynx-eyed editor discovered
that two of her characters were stolen from a book which
Edna had never seen; and another, equally ingenious and
penetrating, found her entire plot in a work of which she
had never heard; while a third, shocked at her pedantry,
indignantly assured her readers that they had been imposed
upon, that the learning was all “picked up from encyclopædias;”
whereat the young author could not help
laughing heartily, and wondered why, if her learning had
been so easily gleaned, her irate and insulted critics did not
follow her example.

The book was for many days snubbed, buffeted, browbeaten;
and the carefully-woven tapestry was torn into
shreds and trampled upon; and it seemed that the patiently
sculptured shrine was overturned and despised and desecrated.

Edna was astonished. She knew that her work was not
perfect, but she was equally sure that it was not contemptible.
She was surprised rather than mortified, and was convinced,

from the universal howling, that she had wounded
more people than she dreamed were vulnerable.

She felt that the impetuosity and savageness of the attacks
must necessitate a recoil; and though it was difficult
to be patient under such circumstances, she waited quietly,
undismayed by the clamor.

Meantime the book sold rapidly, the publishers could
scarcely supply the demand; and at last Mr. Manning's
Magazine appeared, and the yelping pack of Dandie Dinmont's
pets—Auld Mustard and Little Mustard, Auld Pepper
and Little Pepper, Young Mustard and Young Pepper,
stood silent and listened to the roar of the lion.

The review of Edna's work was headed by that calm retort
of Job to his self-complacent censors, “No doubt but
ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you;” and it
contained a withering rebuke to those who had so flippantly
essayed to crush the young writer.

Mr. Manning handled the book with the stern impartiality
which gave such value to his criticisms—treating it as
if it had been written by an utter stranger.

He analyzed it thoroughly; and while pointing out some
serious errors which had escaped all eyes but his, he bestowed
upon a few passages praise which no other American
writer had ever received from him, and predicted that
they would live when those who attempted to ridicule them
were utterly forgotten in their graves.

The young author was told that she had not succeeded in
her grand aim, because the subject was too vast for the limits
of a novel, and her acquaintance with the mythologies of
the world was not sufficiently extensive or intimate. But she
was encouraged to select other themes more in accordance
with the spirit of the age in which she lived; and the assurance
was given to her, that her writings were destined
to exert a powerful influence on her race. Some faults of
style were gravely reprimanded, some beauties most cordially
eulogized and held up for the admiration of the
world.

Edna had as little literary conceit as personal vanity;
she saw and acknowledged the errors pointed out by Mr.
Manning, and resolved to avoid them in future. She felt
that some objections urged against her book were valid,
but knew that she was honest and earnest in her work, and
could not justly be accused of trifling.

Gratefully and joyfully she accepted Mr. Manning's verdict,
and turned her undivided attention upon her new
manuscript.

While the critics snarled, the mass of readers warmly approved;
and many who did not fully appreciate all her arguments
and illustrations, were at least clear-eyed enough
to perceive that it was their misfortune, not her fault.

Gradually the book took firm hold on the affections of
the people; and a few editors came boldly to the rescue,
and nobly and ably championed it.

During these days of trial, Edna could not avoid observing
one humiliating fact, that saddened without embittering
her nature. She found that instead of sympathizing
with her, she received no mercy from authors, who, as a
class, out-Heroded Herod in their denunciations, and left
her little room to doubt that—