C---- Springs. July.
I am here established, drinking the waters and breathing the mountain
air, but not gaining any marvellous benefit from either of them. When I
repine in Ben's hearing, he sighs deeply, and advises me "to heed the
auld-warld proverb, and 'tak' things by their smooth handle, sin'
there's nae use in grippin' at thorns." Kate, too, reproves me for
hindering my recovery by fretting at its tardiness. She tries to comfort
me, by saying that I ought to be thankful, that, instead of being
obliged to waste my youth in "horrid business," I can lie here observing
and enjoying the beautiful world. Thereupon I overwhelm her with
quotations:--"The horse must be road-worn and world-worn, that he may
thoroughly enjoy his drowsy repose in the sun, where he winks in sleepy
satisfaction";--and Carlyle: "Teufelsdröckh's whole duty and necessity
was, like other men's, to work in the right direction, and no work was
to be had; whereby he became wretched enough";--and, "Blessed is he who
has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness." Then I ask her,
if it is not the utmost wretchedness to have found that work and felt
its blessedness, and then be condemned _not_ to do it. To all this she
replies by singing that old hymn,--I make no apology for writing it down
entire,--perhaps you do not know it,--
"Heart, heart, lie still!
Life is fleeting fast;
Strife will soon be past."
"I cannot lie still;
Beat strong I will."
"Heart, heart, lie still!
Joy's but joy, and pain's but pain;
Either, little loss or gain."
"I cannot lie still;
Beat strong I will."
"Heart, heart, lie still!
Heaven over all
Rules this earthly ball."
"I cannot lie still;
Beat strong I will."
"Heart, heart, lie still!
Heaven's sweet grace alone
Can keep in peace its own."
"Let that me fill,
And I am still."
"Heaven's sweet grace" does not fill my heart; for I am exhausting
myself in longings to walk again,--to be independent. I long to climb
these mountains,--perverse being that I am,--principally to get out of
the way of counsel, sympathy, and tender care. Since I can never so
liberate myself, I am devoured by desire to do so. Kate divines this
new feeling, and respects it; but as this is only another coal of fire
heaped upon my head, of course it does not soothe me.
Sometimes in the visions of the night I am happy. I dream that I am at
the top of Mount Washington. Cold, pure air rushes by me; clouds lie,
like a gray ocean, beneath me. I am alone upon the giant rock, with the
morning star and the measureless heights of sky. I tremble at the awful
silence,--exult fearfully in it. The clouds roll away, and leave the
world revealed, lying motionless and inanimate at my feet. Yet I am as
far from all sight of humanity as before! Should the whole nation be
swarming below the mountain, armies drawn up before armies, with my eyes
resting upon them, I should not see them, but sit here in sublime peace.
Man's puny form were from this height as undistinguishable as the blades
of grass in the meadows below. I know, that, if all the world stood
beneath, and strained their vision to the utmost upon the very spot
where I stand, I should still be in the strict privacy of invisibility.
This isolation I pine for. But I can never, never feel it--out of a
dream.
You guess rightly. I am in a repining mood, and must pour out all my
grievances. I feel my helplessness cruelly.
But I must forget myself a little while, and describe these Springs to
you, with the company here assembled,--only twenty or thirty people. The
house is a good enough one; the country yet very wild. My couch is daily
wheeled to a shady porch which looks down the avenue of trees leading to
the spring, a white marble basin, bubbling over with bright water.
Gay parties, young ladies with lovers, happy mammas with their children,
fathers with their clinging daughters, pass me,--and I, motionless,
follow them with my eyes down the avenue, until they emerge into the
sunlight about the spring. Many of them give me a kindly greeting; some
stop to stare. The look of pity which saddens nearly every face that
approaches me cuts me to the heart. Can I never give joy, or excite
pleasurable emotion? Must I always be a mute and unwilling petitioner
for sympathy in suffering!--always giving pain? never anything but pain
and pity?
Sunday.
There is a summer-house near the spring, and now I lie there, watching
the water-drinkers. Like rain upon the just and unjust, the waters
benefit all,--but surely most those simple souls who take them with
eager hope and bless them with thankful hearts. The first who arrive
are from the hotel, mostly silken sufferers. They stand, glass in hand,
chatting and laughing,--they stoop to dip,--and then they drink. These
persons soon return to the house in groups,--some gayly exchanging
merry words or kindly greetings, but others dragging weary limbs and
discontented spirits back to loneliness.
The fashionable hour is over, and now comes another class of
health-seekers. A rough, white-covered wagon jolts up. The horse is tied
to a post, a curtain unbuttoned and raised, and from a bed upon the
uneasy floor a pale, delicate boy, shrinking from the light, is lifted
by his burly father. The child is carried to the spring, and puts out a
groping hand when his father bids him drink. He cannot find the
glass, and his father must put it to his lips. He is blind, except to
light,--and that only visits those poor sightless eyes to agonize them!
Where the water flows off below the basin in a clear jet, the father
bathes his boy's forehead, and gently, gently touches his eyelids. But
the child reaches out his wasted hands, and dashes the water against his
face with a sad eagerness.
Other country vehicles approach. The people are stopping to drink of
this water, on their way to drink of the waters of life in church. They
are smart and smiling in their Sunday clothes. I observe, that, far from
being the old or diseased, they are mostly young men and pretty girls.
The marble spring is a charming trysting-place!
There are swarms of children here all day long. This is the first time
since I left Kate's apron-string at seven years old, that I have seen
much of children. Boys, to be sure, I was with until I left college;
but the hotel-life I afterwards led kept me quite out of the way of
youngsters. Now, I am much amused at the funny little world that opens
before my notice. They flirt like grown-up people! I heard a little chit
of six say to a youth of five,--
"How dare you ask me to go to the spring with you, when you've been and
asked Ellen already? _I_ don't have to put up with half a gentleman!"
A flashy would-be lady, bustling up to the spring with her little
daughter, burst into a loud laugh at the remark of an acquaintance.
"Mamma!" said Miss, tempering severity with benign dignity,--"you must
not laugh so loud. It's vulgar."
Her mother lowered her tone, and looked subdued. Miss turned to a
companion, and said, gravely,--
"I have to speak to her about that, often. She don't like it,--but I
_must_ correct her!"
A little girl--a charming, old-fashioned, _real_ child--came into the
summer-house a few minutes ago, and I gave up my writing to watch her.
After some coy manoeuvring about the door, she drew nearer and nearer to
me, as if I were a snake fascinating a pretty bird. Her tongue
seemed more bashful than the rest of her frame; for she came within
arm's-length, let me catch her, draw her to me, and hold her close to
my side. A novel sensation of fondness for the little thing made me
venture--not without some timidity, I confess--to lay my hand upon her
head, and pass it caressingly over her soft young cheek, meanwhile
saying encouraging things to her, in hopes of hearing her voice and
making her acquaintance. She would not speak, but played with my
buttons, and hung her head. At last I asked,--
"Don't you want me to tell you a little story?"
Her head flew up, her great black eyes wide open, and she said, eagerly,
"Oh, yes! that's what I came for."
"Did you? Well, what shall it be about?"
"Why, about yourself,--the prince who was half marble, and couldn't get
up. And I want to see your black marble legs, please!"
If I had hugged an electrical eel, I could not have been more shocked! I
don't know how I replied, or what became of the child. I was conscious
only of a kind of bitter horror, and almost affright. But when Kate, a
quarter of an hour afterwards, brought her book and sat down beside me,
I could not tell her about it, for laughing.
The little girl is in sight now. She is standing near the porch, talking
to some other children, gesticulating, and shaking her curls. Probably
she was a deputy from them, to obtain a solution of the mystery of my
motionless limbs. They half believe I am the veritable Prince of the
Black Isles! They alternately listen to her and turn to stare at me; so
I know that I am the subject of their confab.
Some one is passing them now,--a lady. She pauses to listen. She, too,
glances this way with a sad smile. She comes slowly down the avenue. A
graceful, queenly form, and lovely face! She has drunk of the waters,
and is gone.
Mary, do you know that gentle girl has added the last drop of bitterness
to my cup? My lot has become unbearable. I gnash my teeth with impotent
rage and despair.
I _will_ not be the wreck I am! My awakening manhood scorns the thought
of being forever a helpless burden to others. I _demand_ my health, and
all my rights and privileges as a man,--to work,--to support others,--to
bear the burden and heat of the day! Never again can I be content in my
easy couch and my sister's shady grove!
Ah, Dr. G., you have indeed roused me from apathy! I am in torture, and
Heaven only knows whether on this side of the grave I shall ever find
peace again!
Poor Kate reads my heart, and weeps daily in secret. Brave Kate, who
shed so few tears over her own grief!