Thus Ariel mused, and in his walks under the silent moon, watched close,
to catch the notes which rose from every point of earth; and sitting
with his mother, to whom he opened his whole heart, talked of this
wisdom. And thus, one quiet eve, when the star which ushers in and leads
off day’s hours, then called God’s love, now changed to the queen in
Paphos worshiped, was just dipping beneath the western hills, and the
wind slow rising set outward to the sea, these two, the mother and the
son, went forth to drink new draughts of the knowledge he had found, and
kept hidden from all else save her whose soul was like unto his own. She
leaned upon his shoulder as a loved support, and they passed, mingling
in sweet converse, along the wooded paths to the stream which flowed
noiseless, and now dark beneath the forest shades, close by the bank
upon which she had rested from the chase, and with Erix recounted the
endless good with which heaven had blessed the earth.
“This water, so silent, yet speaks.”
“In sadness,” said Zella.
“For the day and for the night it has a several voice.”
“And does the sorrow which comes to us, a heritage of Eden, fall also
here?”
“Mother, the star now hidden behind the western hills, its sister orbs,
this earth, this wood, and water running, all speak to the soul
according to its wisdom. Has sadness no beauty; grief no love? As
darkness follows light, so joy and sorrow interchange, to make life
perfect. This marvel of our God, in which strength and weakness strive
to one end, were incomplete, did not thy tears, like fallen rain
glittering in the sun, give brightness to the smile that hastens to
drive thy tears away. In matter is to be found the sure interpreter of
God’s will, and the purpose for which he made such excellence of earth
and sky, with man, the chiefest excellence of all; and I watch to catch
the secret which unlocks this knowledge, and will give to me, and to
thee, my mother, the fullness of that glory which in the beginning was
breathed into Adam, a living soul!”