PHILOSOPHICAL.
We left our friend Verty slowly going onward toward the western hills,
under the golden autumn sunset, with drooping head and listless arms,
thinking of Redbud and the events of the day, which now was going to
its death in royal purple over the far horizon.
One thought, one image only dwelt in the young man's mind, and what
that thought was, his tell-tale lips clearly revealed:--"Redbud!
Redbud!" they murmured; and the dreamer seemed to be wholly dead to
that splendid scene around him, dreaming of his love.
There are those who speak slightingly of boyhood and its feelings,
scoffing at the early yearnings of the heart, and finding only food
for jest in those innocent and childish raptures and regrets. We do
not envy such. That man's heart must be made of doubtful stuff, who
jeers at the fresh dreams of youth; or rather, he must have no heart
at all--above all, no sweet and affecting recollections. There is
something touching in the very idea of this pure and unselfish
emotion, which the hardened nature of the grown-up man can never feel
again. Men often dream about their childhood, and shed unavailing
tears as they gaze in fancy on their own youthful faces, and with the
pencil of imagination slowly trace the old forms and images.
Said a writer of our acquaintance, no matter who, since no one read or
thought of him:--"The writer of these idle lines finds no difficulty
in painting for himself a Titian picture, in which, as in his
life-picture, his own figure lies on the canvas. Long ago--a long,
long time ago--in fact, when he was a boy, and loved dearly a child
like himself, a child who is now a fair and beautiful-browed woman,
and who smiles with a dreamy, thoughtful expression, when his face
comes to her--long ago, flowers were very bright in the bright May
day, by a country brookside. The butter-cups were over all the hills,
for children to put under their chins, and pea-blossoms, very much
like lady-slippers, swayed prettily in the wind. Beneath the feet of
the boy and girl--she was a merry, bright-eyed child! how I love her
still!--broke crocuses and violets, and a thousand wild flowers, fresh
and full of fairy beauty. The grass was green and soft, and the birds
rose through the air on fluttering wings, singing and rejoicing, and
the clouds floated over them as only clouds in May can float, quickly,
hopefully, with a dash of changeful April in them--not like those of
August: for the May cloud is a maiden, a child, full of life and joy,
running and playing, and looking playfully back at the winds as they
rustle on--not August-like--a thoughtful ripened beauty, large, lazy,
and contemplative, whose spring of youth has passed, whose summer has
arrived, in all its wealth, and power, and languid splendor. Well,
they wandered--the boy and girl--on the bright May day, pleasantly
across the hills, and along the brook, which ran merrily over the
pebbles as bright as diamonds. That boy has now become a man, and he
has vainly sought, in all the glittering pursuits of life, an adequate
recompense for the death of those soft hours. Having gone, as all
things must go, they left no equivalent in the future. But not,
therefore, in sadness does he write this: rather in deep joy, and as
though he had said--
'Give me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heaped-up flowers--'
"So wholly flooded is his heart with the memory of that young, frank
face. She wore a pink dress, he recollects--all children should wear
either pink or white--and her hair was in long, bright curls, and her
eyes were diamonds, full of light. He thought the birds were envious
of her singing, when she carolled clearly in the bright May morning.
He wove her a garland of flowers for her hair, and she blushed as
she took it from his hands. She had on a small gold ring, and a red
bracelet; and since that time he has loved red bracelets more than all
barbaric pearls and gold. In those times, the trees were greener than
at present, the birds sang more sweetly, and the streams ran far more
merrily. They thought so at least, as they sat under a large oak, and
he read to her, with shadowy, loving eyes, nearly full of happy tears,
old songs, that 'dallied with the innocence of love, like the old
age.' And so the evening went into the west, and they returned,
and all the night and long days afterward her smile shone on him,
brightening his life as it does now."
Who laughs? Is it at Verty going along with drooping forehead, and
deep sighs; or at the unappreciated great poet, whose prose-strains we
have recorded? Well, friends, perhaps you have reason. Therefore,
let us unite our voices in one great burst of "inextinguishable
laughter"--as of the gods on Mount Olympus--raised very high above the
world!
Let us rejoice that we have become more rational, and discarded
all that folly, and are busying ourselves with rational
affairs--Wall-street, and cent per cent. and dividends. Having
become men, we have put away childish things, and among them, the
encumbrances of a heart. Who would have one? It makes you dream on
autumn days, when the fair sunlight streams upon the sails which waft
the argosies of commerce to your warehouse;--it almost leads you to
believe that stocks are not the one thing to be thought of on this
earth--that all the hurrying bustle of existence is of doubtful
weight, compared with the treasures of that memory which leads us back
to boyhood and its innocent illusions. Let us part with it, if any
indeed remains, and so press on, unfettered, in the glorious race for
cash. The "golden age" of Arcady is gone so long--the new has
come! The crooks wreathed round with flowers are changed into
telegraph-posts, and Corydon is on a three-legged stool, busy with
ledgers--knitting his brow as he adds up figures. Let us be thankful.
Therefore, as we have arrived at this rational conclusion, and come to
regard Verty and his feelings in their proper light, we will not speak
further of the foolish words which escaped from his lips, as he
went on, in the crimson sunset slowly fading. In time, perhaps, his
education will be completed in the school of Rational Philosophy,
under that distinguished lady-professor, Miss Sallianna. At present
we shall allow him to proceed upon his way toward his lodge in the
wilderness, where the old Indian woman awaits him with her deep love
and anxious tenderness.