'For a few months, this bookish and solitary life was invaded
by interest in a living, breathing figure. At church, I used
to look around with a feeling of coldness and disdain, which,
though I now well understand its causes, seems to my wiser
mind as odious as it was unnatural. The puny child sought
everywhere for the Roman or Shakspeare figures, and she was
met by the shrewd, honest eye, the homely decency, or the
smartness of a New England village on Sunday. There was
beauty, but I could not see it then; it was not of the kind I
longed for. In the next pew sat a family who were my especial
aversion. There were five daughters, the eldest not above
four-and-twenty,--yet they had the old fairy, knowing
look, hard, dry, dwarfed, strangers to the All-Fair,--were
working-day residents in this beautiful planet. They looked
as if their thoughts had never strayed beyond the jobs of the
day, and they were glad of it. Their mother was one of those
shrunken, faded patterns of woman who have never done anything
to keep smooth the cheek and dignify the brow. The father
had a Scotch look of shrewd narrowness, and entire
self-complacency. I could not endure this family, whose
existence contradicted all my visions; yet I could not forbear
looking at them.
'As my eye one day was ranging about with its accustomed
coldness, and the proudly foolish sense of being in a shroud
of thoughts that were not their thoughts, it was arrested by
a face most fair, and well-known as it seemed at first
glance,--for surely I had met her before and waited for her
long. But soon I saw that she was a new apparition foreign to
that scene, if not to me. Her dress,--the arrangement of
her hair, which had the graceful pliancy of races highly
cultivated for long,--the intelligent and full picture of
her eye, whose reserve was in its self-possession, not in
timidity,--all combined to make up a whole impression, which,
though too young to understand, I was well prepared to feel.
'How wearisome now appears that thorough-bred _millefleur_
beauty, the distilled result of ages of European culture! Give
me rather the wild heath on the lonely hill-side, than such a
rose-tree from the daintily clipped garden. But, then, I had
but tasted the cup, and knew not how little it could satisfy;
more, more, was all my cry; continued through years, till I
had been at the very fountain. Indeed, it was a ruby-red,
a perfumed draught, and I need not abuse the wine because I
prefer water, but merely say I have had enough of it. Then,
the first sight, the first knowledge of such a person was
intoxication.
'She was an English lady, who, by a singular chance, was cast
upon this region for a few months. Elegant and captivating,
her every look and gesture was tuned to a different pitch
from anything I had ever known. She was in various ways
"accomplished," as it is called, though to what degree I
cannot now judge. She painted in oils;--I had never before
seen any one use the brush, and days would not have been too
long for me to watch the pictures growing beneath her hand.
She played the harp; and its tones are still to me the heralds
of the promised land I saw before me then. She rose, she
looked, she spoke; and the gentle swaying motion she made
all through life has gladdened memory, as the stream does the
woods and meadows.
'As she was often at the house of one of our neighbors, and
afterwards at our own, my thoughts were fixed on her with all
the force of my nature. It was my first real interest in my
kind, and it engrossed me wholly. I had seen her,--I should
see her,--and my mind lay steeped in the visions that flowed
from this source. My task-work I went through with, as I have
done on similar occasions all my life, aided by pride that
could not bear to fail, or be questioned. Could I cease from
doing the work of the day, and hear the reason sneeringly
given,--"Her head is so completely taken up with ---- that
she can do nothing"? Impossible.
'Should the first love be blighted, they say, the mind loses
its sense of eternity. All forms of existence seem fragile,
the prison of time real, for a god is dead. Equally true is
this of friendship. I thank Heaven that this first feeling was
permitted its free flow. The years that lay between the woman
and the girl only brought her beauty into perspective, and
enabled me to see her as I did the mountains from my window,
and made her presence to me a gate of Paradise. That which
she was, that which she brought, that which she might have
brought, were mine, and over a whole region of new life I
ruled proprietor of the soil in my own right.
'Her mind was sufficiently unoccupied to delight in my warm
devotion. She could not know what it was to me, but the light
cast by the flame through so delicate a vase cheered and
charmed her. All who saw admired her in their way; but she
would lightly turn her head from their hard or oppressive
looks, and fix a glance of full-eyed sweetness on the child,
who, from a distance, watched all her looks and motions. She
did not say much to me--not much to any one; she spoke in her
whole being rather than by chosen words. Indeed, her proper
speech was dance or song, and what was less expressive did
not greatly interest her. But she saw much, having in its
perfection the woman's delicate sense for sympathies and
attractions. We walked in the fields, alone. Though others
were present, her eyes were gliding over all the field and
plain for the objects of beauty to which she was of kin.
She was not cold to her seeming companions; a sweet courtesy
satisfied them, but it hung about her like her mantle that she
wore without thinking of it; her thoughts were free, for these
civilized beings can really live two lives at the same moment.
With them she seemed to be, but her hand was given to the
child at her side; others did not observe me, but to her I
was the only human presence. Like a guardian spirit she led
me through the fields and groves, and every tree, every bird
greeted me, and said, what I felt, "She is the first angel of
your life."
'One time I had been passing the afternoon with her. She
had been playing to me on the harp, and I sat listening in
happiness almost unbearable. Some guests were announced. She
went into another room to receive them, and I took up her
book. It was Guy Mannering, then lately published, and the
first of Scott's novels I had ever seen. I opened where her
mark lay, and read merely with the feeling of continuing our
mutual existence by passing my eyes over the same page where
hers had been. It was the description of the rocks on the
sea-coast where the little Harry Bertram was lost. I had never
seen such places, and my mind was vividly stirred to
imagine them. The scene rose before me, very unlike reality,
doubtless, but majestic and wild. I was the little Harry
Bertram, and had lost her,--all I had to lose,--and sought her
vainly in long dark caves that had no end, plashing through
the water; while the crags beetled above, threatening to fall
and crush the poor child. Absorbed in the painful vision,
tears rolled down my cheeks. Just then she entered with light
step, and full-beaming eye. When she saw me thus, a soft cloud
stole over her face, and clothed every feature with a lovelier
tenderness than I had seen there before. She did not question,
but fixed on me inquiring looks of beautiful love. I laid my
head against her shoulder and wept,--dimly feeling that I
must lose her and all,--all who spoke to me of the same
things,--that the cold wave must rush over me. She waited till
my tears were spent, then rising, took from a little box a
bunch of golden amaranths or everlasting flowers, and gave
them to me. They were very fragrant. "They came," she said,
"from Madeira." These flowers stayed with me seventeen years.
"Madeira" seemed to me the fortunate isle, apart in the blue
ocean from all of ill or dread. Whenever I saw a sail passing
in the distance,--if it bore itself with fulness of beautiful
certainty,--I felt that it was going to Madeira. Those
thoughts are all gone now. No Madeira exists for me now,--no
fortunate purple isle,--and all these hopes and fancies are
lifted from the sea into the sky. Yet I thank the charms that
fixed them here so long,--fixed them till perfumes like those
of the golden flowers were drawn from the earth, teaching me
to know my birth-place.
'I can tell little else of this time,--indeed, I remember
little, except the state of feeling in which I lived. For I
_lived_, and when this is the case, there is little to tell in
the form of thought. We meet--at least those who are true
to their instincts meet--a succession of persons through our
lives, all of whom have some peculiar errand to us. There is
an outer circle, whose existence we perceive, but with whom we
stand in no real relation. They tell us the news, they act
on us in the offices of society, they show us kindness and
aversion; but their influence does not penetrate; we are
nothing to them, nor they to us, except as a part of the
world's furniture. Another circle, within this, are dear and
near to us. We know them and of what kind they are. They are
to us not mere facts, but intelligible thoughts of the divine
mind. We like to see how they are unfolded; we like to meet
them and part from them: we like their action upon us and the
pause that succeeds and enables us to appreciate its quality.
Often we leave them on our path, and return no more, but we
bear them in our memory, tales which have been told, and whose
meaning has been felt.
'But yet a nearer group there are, beings born under the same
star, and bound with us in a common destiny. These are not
mere acquaintances, mere friends, but, when we meet, are
sharers of our very existence. There is no separation; the
same thought is given at the same moment to both,--indeed,
it is born of the meeting, and would not otherwise have been
called into existence at all. These not only know themselves
more, but _are_ more for having met, and regions of their
being, which would else have laid sealed in cold obstruction,
burst into leaf and bloom and song.
'The times of these meetings are fated, nor will either party
be able ever to meet any other person in the same way. Both
seem to rise at a glance into that part of the heavens where
the word can be spoken, by which they are revealed to one
another and to themselves. The step in being thus gained, can
never be lost, nor can it be re-trod; for neither party will
be again what the other wants. They are no longer fit to
interchange mutual influence, for they do not really need
it, and if they think they do, it is because they weakly pine
after a past pleasure.
'To this inmost circle of relations but few are admitted,
because some prejudice or lack of courage has prevented the
many from listening to their instincts the first time they
manifested themselves. If the voice is once disregarded
it becomes fainter each time, till, at last, it is wholly
silenced, and the man lives in this world, a stranger to its
real life, deluded like the maniac who fancies he has attained
his throne, while in reality he is on a bed of musty straw.
Yet, if the voice finds a listener and servant the first time
of speaking, it is encouraged to more and more clearness. Thus
it was with me,--from no merit of mine, but because I had the
good fortune to be free enough to yield to my impressions.
Common ties had not bound me; there were no traditionary
notions in my mind; I believed in nothing merely because
others believed in it; I had taken no feelings on trust. Thus
my mind was open to their sway.
'This woman came to me, a star from the east, a morning star,
and I worshipped her. She too was elevated by that worship,
and her fairest self called out. To the mind she brought
assurance that there was a region congenial with its
tendencies and tastes, a region of elegant culture and
intercourse, whose object, fulfilled or not, was to gratify
the sense of beauty, not the mere utilities of life. In our
relation she was lifted to the top of her being. She had known
many celebrities, had roused to passionate desire many hearts,
and became afterwards a wife; but I do not believe she ever
more truly realized her best self than towards the lonely
child whose heaven she was, whose eye she met, and whose
possibilities she predicted. "He raised me," said a woman
inspired by love, "upon the pedestal of his own high thoughts,
and wings came at once, but I did not fly away. I stood there
with downcast eyes worthy of his love, for he had made me so."
'Thus we do always for those who inspire us to expect from
them the best. That which they are able to be, they become,
because we demand it of them. "We expect the impossible--and
find it."
'My English friend went across the sea. She passed into her
former life, and into ties that engrossed her days. But she
has never ceased to think of me. Her thoughts turn forcibly
back to the child who was to her all she saw of the really
New World. On the promised coasts she had found only cities,
careful men and women, the aims and habits of ordinary life
in her own land, without that elegant culture which she,
probably, over-estimated, because it was her home. But in the
mind of the child she found the fresh prairie, the untrodden
forests for which she had longed. I saw in her the storied
castles, the fair stately parks and the wind laden with
tones from the past, which I desired to know. We wrote to one
another for many years;--her shallow and delicate epistles did
not disenchant me, nor did she fail to see something of the
old poetry in my rude characters and stammering speech. But we
must never meet again.
'When this friend was withdrawn I fell into a profound
depression. I knew not how to exert myself, but lay bound hand
and foot. Melancholy enfolded me in an atmosphere, as joy had
done. This suffering, too, was out of the gradual and natural
course. Those who are really children could not know such
love, or feel such sorrow. "I am to blame," said my father,
"in keeping her at home so long merely to please myself. She
needs to be with other girls, needs play and variety. She does
not seem to me really sick, but dull rather. She eats nothing,
you say. I see she grows thin. She ought to change the scene."
'I was indeed _dull_. The books, the garden, had lost all
charm. I had the excuse of headache, constantly, for not
attending to my lessons. The light of life was set, and every
leaf was withered. At such an early age there are no back or
side scenes where the mind, weary and sorrowful, may retreat.
Older, we realize the width of the world more, and it is not
easy to despair on any point. The effort at thought to which
we are compelled relieves and affords a dreary retreat, like
hiding in a brick-kiln till the shower be over. But then all
joy seemed to have departed with my friend, and the emptiness
of our house stood revealed. This I had not felt while I every
day expected to see or had seen her, or annoyance and dulness
were unnoticed or swallowed up in the one thought that clothed
my days with beauty. But now she was gone, and I was roused
from habits of reading or reverie to feel the fiery temper of
the soul, and to learn that it must have vent, that it would
not be pacified by shadows, neither meet without consuming
what lay around it. I avoided the table as much as possible,
took long walks and lay in bed, or on the floor of my room.
I complained of my head, and it was not wrong to do so, for
a sense of dulness and suffocation, if not pain, was there
constantly.
'But when it was proposed that I should go to school, that was
a remedy I could not listen to with patience for a moment. The
peculiarity of my education had separated me entirely from
the girls around, except that when they were playing at active
games, I would sometimes go out and join them. I liked violent
bodily exercise, which always relieved my nerves. But I had
no success in associating with them beyond the mere play. Not
only I was not their school-mate, but my book-life and lonely
habits had given a cold aloofness to my whole expression, and
veiled my manner with a hauteur which turned all hearts away.
Yet, as this reserve was superficial, and rather ignorance
than arrogance, it produced no deep dislike. Besides, the
girls supposed me really superior to themselves, and did not
hate me for feeling it, but neither did they like me, nor wish
to have me with them. Indeed, I had gradually given up all
such wishes myself; for they seemed to me rude, tiresome, and
childish, as I did to them dull and strange. This experience
had been earlier, before I was admitted to any real
friendship; but now that I had been lifted into the life of
mature years, and into just that atmosphere of European life
to which I had before been tending, the thought of sending me
to school filled me with disgust.
'Yet what could I tell my father of such feelings? I resisted
all I could, but in vain. He had no faith in medical aid
generally, and justly saw that this was no occasion for its
use. He thought I needed change of scene, and to be roused
to activity by other children. "I have kept you at home," he
said, "because I took such pleasure in teaching you myself,
and besides I knew that you would learn faster with one who
is so desirous to aid you. But you will learn fast enough
wherever you are, and you ought to be more with others of your
own age. I shall soon hear that you are better, I trust."'