"I remember, I remember
How my childhood fleeted by--
The mirth of its December,
And the warmth of its July."
In a former volume I have recounted the varied scenes of an eventful
childhood, whose auroral dawn was tinted with the rose-hue and perfumed
with the breath of light-winged moments; even as the Goddess of the
Morning ushers in the new-born day with her flower-laden chariot, and the
bright Morning Star lends its light ere it sinks under the horizon.
Having my birth on the rich soil of a Southern land, and cradled under its
tropical skies and sunny smiles, I was early transplanted to colder climes
and ruder blasts, yet through the nurture of a mother's gentle hand, and
the ministrations of a loving band of sisters and brothers, whose
talismanic touch toned every note, softened every sorrow and heightened
every hope, I could but bloom like an Alpine flower in its bed of snow.
But in the golden chain there came to be, in time, a "missing link;" the
mother's life went out, and from the darkened fireside vanished the little
flock, scattered through various ways to various destinies.
My own was a slippery path to tread, and ofttimes led my weary feet into
the shadow, and gloom, and darkness. Through sickness, neglect and
maltreatment came all too soon "sorrow's crown of sorrow;" when over the
young life fell a dark pall, and eyes so used to light no longer held the
prisoned sunbeams, and passed forever under the relentless bond and cruel
curse of blindness. Then indeed my soul grew dark! And could my restless
eyes wait in thraldom for the dawn of an eternal day, and must my
wandering feet pass through the "valley of the shadow," ere I could see
the light "around the Great White Throne?"
Through a singular complication of circumstances I was led to the home of
a sister in Chicago, from whom I had long been separated; and by equally
singular ways I was also there reunited to three of my brothers (Charles,
William and Howard). Then my veiled vision could not shut out the loved
lineaments living in the pictured halls of memory--the vision of a
love-hallowed home, and a mother's face crowning all. Scenes and faces
gone, passed like a panorama before my mind's eye, and
"So the blessed train passed by me,
But the vision was sealed upon my soul."
Through the agency of family friends I returned to my birth-place, and
with strange and mingled emotions was welcomed back to Baltimore, with
kind greetings from relatives and friends. Some had passed beyond the
portal of earthly existence, and others unexpectedly reappeared, among
whom was my father, whose face I could not see, but whose emotion
betokened great anguish at the sight of his blind daughter. Oh how many
memories must have passed through his mind, as he clasped to his heart his
chastened, motherless child, and, while other loves and other ties were
his, "the shades of friends departed" as told by Longfellow must have
entered a weird train, and amid other angel footsteps must have come--
"That being beauteous
Who unto his youth was given;
More than all things else to love him,
And is now a saint in Heaven."
Notwithstanding so many former attempts at the restoration of my sight,
another effort was made, involving a trip to New York, where a most
painful operation was undergone. But, alas! although a brief period was
accorded me, in which I saw with rapture objects around me, it was only to
be shut out into utter and hopeless sightlessness. As the wounded hare
seeks some cover remote from the human ken, so did my sinking soul seek
the solace of solitude, where for twenty-four hours I searched my nature
to its depths, and made resolves for my future course, known only to God
and pitying angels. They alone comforted me then, and they have sustained
and soothed through every succeeding trial!