"Good-bye, Louise," said Rose, beside her at the gate, and offering his

hand, somewhat later. "I'm going away to-morrow, if it's fine."

"Going?" with involuntary surprise.

"To camp out in Maine."

"Oh! I hope you will enjoy it."

"Would you stay long, Louise?"

"If the sketching-grounds are good."

"When I come back, you'll sing my songs? Shake hands."

She just laid a cold touch on his.

"Louise, are you offended with me?"

She looked up with so much simplicity. "Offended, Rose, with you?"

"Not offended, but frozen," I could have said. Lu is like that little

sensitive-plant, shrinking into herself with stiff unconsciousness at a

certain touch. But I don't think he noticed the sad tone in her voice,

as she said good-night; I didn't, till, the others being gone, I saw her

turn after his disappearing figure, with a look that would have been

despairing, but for its supplication.

The only thing Lu ever said to me about this was,--

"Don't you think Rose a little altered, Yone, since he came home?"

"Altered?"

"I have noticed it ever since you showed him your beads, that day."

"Oh! it's the amber," I said. "They are amulets, and have bound him in a

thrall. You must wear them, and dissolve the charm. He's in a dream."

"What is it to be in a dream?" she asked.

"To lose thought of past or future."

She repeated my words,--"Yes, he's in a dream," she said, musingly.

II.

Rose didn't come near us for a fortnight; but he had not camped at all,

as he said. It was the first stone thrown into Lu's life, and I never

saw any one keep the ripples under so; but her suspicions were aroused.

Finally he came in again, all as before, and I thought things might have

been different, if in that fortnight Mr. Dudley had not been so

assiduous; and now, to the latter's happiness, there were several ragged

children and infirm old women in whom, Lu having taken them in charge,

he chose to be especially interested. Lu always was housekeeper, both

because it had fallen to her while mamma and I were away, and because

she had an administrative faculty equal to General Jackson's; and Rose,

who had frequently gone about with her, inspecting jellies and cordials

and adding up her accounts, now unexpectedly found Mr. Dudley so near

his former place that he disdained to resume it himself;--not entirely,

because the man of course couldn't be as familiar as an old playmate;

but just enough to put Rose aside. He never would compete with any one;

and Lu did not know how to repulse the other.

If the amulets had ravished Rose from himself, they did it at a

distance, for I had not worn them since that day.--You needn't look.

Thales imagined amber had a spirit; and Pliny says it is a counter-charm

for sorceries. There are a great many mysterious things in the world.

Aren't there any hidden relations between us and certain substances?

Will you tell me something impossible?--But he came and went about

Louise, and she sung his songs, and all was going finely again, when we

gave our midsummer party.

Everybody was there, of course, and we had enrapturing music. Louise

wore--no matter--something of twilight purple, and begged for the amber,

since it was too much for my toilette,--a double India muslin, whose

snowy sheen scintillated with festoons of gorgeous green beetles' wings

flaming like fiery emeralds.--A family dress, my dear, and worn by my

aunt before me,--only that individual must have been frightened out of

her wits by it. A cruel, savage dress, very like, but ineffably

gorgeous.--So I wore her aquamarina, though the other would have been

better; and when I sailed in, with all the airy folds in a hoar-frost

mistiness fluttering round me and the glitter of Lu's jewels,--

"Why!" said Rose, "you look like the moon in a halo."

But Lu disliked a hostess out-dressing her guests.

It was dull enough till quite late, and then I stepped out with Mr.

Parti, and walked up and down a garden-path. Others were outside as

well, and the last time I passed a little arbor I caught a yellow gleam

of amber. Lu, of course. Who was with her? A gentleman, bending low to

catch her words, holding her hand in an irresistible pressure. Not Rose,

for he was flitting in beyond. Mr. Dudley. And I saw then that Lu's

kindness was too great to allow her to repel him angrily; her gentle

conscience let her wound no one. Had Rose seen the pantomime? Without

doubt. He had been seeking her, and he found her, he thought, in Mr.

Dudley's arms. After a while we went in, and, finding all smooth

enough, I slipped through the balcony-window and hung over the

balustrade, glad to be alone a moment. The wind, blowing in, carried the

gay sounds away from me, even the music came richly muffled through the

heavy curtains, and I wished to breathe balm and calm. The moon, round

and full, was just rising, making the gloom below more sweet. A full

moon is poison to some; they shut it out at every crevice, and do not

suffer a ray to cross them; it has a chemical or magnetic effect; it

sickens them. But I am never more free and royal than when the subtile

celerity of its magic combinations, whatever they are, is at work. Never

had I known the mere joy of being so intimately as to-night. The river

slept soft and mystic below the woods, the sky was full of light, the

air ripe with summer. Out of the yellow honeysuckles that climbed

around, clouds of delicious fragrance stole and swathed me; long wafts

of faint harmony gently thrilled me. Dewy and dark and uncertain was all

beyond. I, possessed with a joyousness so deep through its contented

languor as to counterfeit serenity, forgot all my wealth of nature, my

pomp of beauty, abandoned myself to the hour.

A strain of melancholy dance-music pierced the air and fell. I half

turned my head, and my eyes met Rose. He had been there before me,

perhaps. His face, white and shining in the light, shining with a

strange sweet smile of relief, of satisfaction, of delight, his lips

quivering with unspoken words, his eyes dusky with depth after depth of

passion. How long did my eyes swim on his? I cannot tell. He never

stirred; still leaned there against the pillar, still looked down on me

like a marble god. The sudden tears dazzled my gaze, fell down my hot

cheek, and still I knelt fascinated by that smile. In that moment I felt

that he was more beautiful than the night, than the music, than I. Then

I knew that all this time, all summer, all past summers, all my life

long, I had loved him.

Some one was waiting to make his adieux; I heard my father seeking me; I

parted the curtains, and went in. One after one those tedious people

left, the lights grew dim, and still he stayed without. I ran to the

window, and, lifting the curtain, bent forward, crying,--

"Mr. Rose! do you spend the night on the balcony?"

Then he moved, stepped down, murmured something to my father, bowed

loftily to Louise, passed me without a sign, and went out. In a moment,

Lu's voice, a quick, sharp exclamation, touched him; he turned, came

back. She, wondering at him, had stood toying with the amber, and at

last crushing the miracle of the whole, a bell-wort wrought most

delicately with all the dusty pollen grained upon its anthers, crushing

it between her fingers, breaking the thread, and scattering the beads

upon the carpet. He stooped with her to gather them again, he took from

her hand and restored to her afterward the shattered fragments of the

bell-wort, he helped her disentangle the aromatic string from her

falling braids,--for I kept apart,--he breathed the penetrating incense

of each separate amulet, and I saw that from that hour, when every atom

of his sensation was tense and vibrating, she would be associated with

the loathed amber in his undefined consciousness, would be surrounded

with an atmosphere of its perfume, that Lu was truly sealed from him in

it, sealed into herself. Then again, saying no word, he went out.

Louise stood like one lost,--took aimlessly a few steps,--retraced

them,--approached a table,--touched something,--left it.

"I am so sorry about your beads!" she said, apologetically, when she

looked up and saw me astonished, putting the broken pieces into my hand.

"Goodness! Is that what you are fluttering about so for?"

"They can't be mended," she continued, "but I will thread them again."

"I don't care about them, I'm sick of amber," I answered, consolingly.

"You may have them, if you will."

"No. I must pay too great a price for them," she replied.

"Nonsense! when they break again, I'll pay you back," I said, without in

the least knowing what she meant. "I didn't know you were too proud for

a 'thank you!'"

She came up and put both her arms round my neck, laid her cheek beside

mine a minute, kissed me, and went up-stairs. Lu always rather

worshipped me.

Dressing my hair that night, Carmine, my maid, begged for the remnants

of the bell-wort to "make a scent-bag with, Miss."

Next day, no Rose; it rained. But at night he came and took possession

of the room, with a strange, airy gayety never seen in him before. It

was so chilly, that I had heaped the wood-boughs, used in the

yesterday's decorations, on the hearth, and lighted a fragrant crackling

flame that danced up wildly at my touch,--for I have the faculty of

fire. I sat at one side, Lu at the other, papa was holding a skein of

silk for her to wind, the amber beads were twinkling in the

firelight,--and when she slipped them slowly on the thread, bead after

bead, warmed through and through by the real blaze, they crowded the

room afresh with their pungent spiciness. Papa had called Rose to take

his place at the other end of the silk, and had gone out; and when Lu

finished, she fastened the ends, cut the thread, Rose likening her to

Atropos, and put them back into her basket. Still playing with the

scissors, following down the lines of her hand, a little snap was heard.

"Oh!" said Louise, "I have broken my ring!"

"Can't it be repaired?" I asked.

"No," she returned briefly, but pleasantly, and threw the pieces into

the fire.

"The hand must not be ringless," said Rose; and slipping off the ring of

hers that he wore, he dropped it upon the amber, then got up and threw

an armful of fresh boughs upon the blaze.

So that was all done. Then Rose was gayer than before. He is one of

those people to whom you must allow moods,--when their sun shines,

dance, and when their vapors rise, sit in the shadow. Every variation of

the atmosphere affects him, though by no means uniformly; and so

sensitive is he, that, when connected with you by any intimate

_rapport_, even if but momentary, he almost divines your thoughts. He is

full of perpetual surprises. I am sure he was a nightingale before he

was Rose. An iridescence like sea-foam sparkled in him that evening, he

laughed as lightly as the little tinkling mass-bells at every moment,

and seemed to diffuse a rosy glow wherever he went in the room. Yet

gayety was not his peculiar specialty, and at length he sat before the

fire, and, taking Lu's scissors, commenced cutting bits of paper in

profiles. Somehow they all looked strangely like and unlike Mr. Dudley.

I pointed one out to Lu, and, if he had needed confirmation, her

changing color gave it. He only glanced at her askance, and then broke

into the merriest description of his life in Rome, of which he declared

he had not spoken to us yet, talking fast and laughing as gleefully as a

child, and illustrating people and localities with scissors and paper as

he went on, a couple of careless snips putting a whole scene before us.

The floor was well-strewn with such chips,--fountains, statues, baths,

and all the persons of his little drama,--when papa came in. He held an

open letter, and, sitting down, read it over again. Rose fell into

silence, clipping the scissors daintily in and out the white sheet

through twinkling intricacies. As the design dropped out, I caught

it,--a long wreath of honeysuckle-blossoms. Lu was humming a little

tune. Rose joined, and hummed the last bars, then bade us good-night.

"Yone," said papa, "your Aunt Willoughby is very ill,--will not recover.

She is my elder brother's widow; you are her heir. You must go and stay

with her."

Now it was very likely that just at this time I was going away to nurse

Aunt Willoughby! Moreover, illness is my very antipodes,--its nearness

is invasion,--we are utterly antipathetic,--it disgusts and repels me.

What sympathy can there be between my florid health, my rank, redundant

life, and any wasting disease of death? What more hostile than focal

concentration and obscure decomposition? You see, we cannot breathe the

same atmosphere. I banish the thought of such a thing from my feeling,

from my memory. So I said,--

"It's impossible. I'm not going an inch to Aunt Willoughby's. Why, papa,

it's more than a hundred miles, and in this weather!"

"Oh, the wind has changed."

"Then it will be too warm for such a journey."

"A new idea, Yone! Too warm for the mountains?"

"Yes, papa. I'm not going a step."

"Why, Yone, you astonish me! Your sick aunt!"

"That's the very thing. If she were well, I might,--perhaps. Sick! What

can I do for her? I never go into a sick-room. I hate it. I don't know

how to do a thing there. Don't say another word, papa. I can't go."

"It is out of the question to let it pass so, my dear. Here you are

nursing all the invalids in town, yet"----

"Indeed, I'm not, papa. I don't know and don't care whether they're dead

or alive."

"Well, then, it's Lu."

"Oh, yes, she's hospital-agent for half the country."

"Then it is time that you also got a little experience."

"Don't, papa! I don't want it. I never saw anybody die, and I never mean

to."

"Can't I do as well, uncle?" asked Lu.

"You, darling? Yes; but it isn't your duty."

"I thought, perhaps," she said, "you would rather Yone went."

"So I would."

"Dear papa, don't vex me! Ask anything else!"

"It is so unpleasant to Yone," Lu murmured, "that maybe I had better go.

And if you've no objection, Sir, I'll take the early train to-morrow."

Wasn't she an angel?

* * * * *

Lu was away a month. Rose came in, expressing his surprise. I said,

"Othello's occupation's gone?"

"And left him room for pleasure now," he retorted.

"Which means seclusion from the world, in the society of lakes and

chromes."

"Miss Willoughby," said he, turning and looking directly past me, "may I

paint you?"

"Me? Oh, you can't."

"No; but may I try?"

"I cannot go to you."

"I will come to you."

"Do you suppose it will be like?"

"Not at all, of course. It is to be, then?"

"Oh, I've no more right than any other piece of Nature to refuse an

artist a study in color."

He faced about, half pouting, as if he would go out, then returned and

fixed the time.

So he painted. He generally put me into a broad beam that slanted from

the top of the veiled window, and day after day he worked. Ah, what

glorious days they were! how gay! how full of life! I almost feared to

let him image me on canvas, do you know? I had a fancy it would lay my

soul so bare to his inspection. What secrets might be searched, what

depths fathomed, at such times, if men knew! I feared lest he should see

me as I am, in those great masses of warm light lying before him, as I

feared he saw when he said amber harmonized with me,--all being things

not polarized, not organized, without centre, so to speak. But it

escaped him, and he wrought on. Did he succeed? Bless you! he might as

well have painted the sun; and who could do that? No; but shades and

combinations that he had hardly touched or known, before, he had to

lavish now; he learned more than some years might have taught him; he,

who worshipped beauty, saw how thoroughly I possessed it; he has told

me that through me he learned the sacredness of color. "Since he loves

beauty so, why does he not love me?" I asked myself; and perhaps the

feverish hope and suspense only lit up that beauty and fed it with fresh

fires. Ah, the July days! Did you ever wander over barren, parched

stubble-fields, and suddenly front a knot of red Turk's-cap lilies,

flaring as if they had drawn all the heat and brilliance from the land

into their tissues? Such were they. And if I were to grow old and gray,

they would light down all my life, and I could be willing to lead a

dull, grave age, looking back and remembering them, warming myself

forever in their constant youth. If I had nothing to hope, they would

become my whole existence. Think, then, what it will be to have all days

like those!

He never satisfied himself, as he might have done, had he known me

better,--and he never _shall_ know me!--and used to look at me for the

secret of his failure, till I laughed; then the look grew wistful, grew

enamored. By-and-by we left the pictures. We went into the woods, warm,

dry woods; we stayed there from morning till night. In the burning

noons, we hung suspended between two heavens, in our boat on glassy

forest-pools, where now and then a shoal of white lilies rose and

crowded out the under-sky. Sunsets burst like bubbles over us. When the

hidden thrushes were breaking one's heart with music, and the sweet fern

sent up a tropical fragrance beneath our crushing steps, we came home to

rooms full of guests and my father's genial warmth. What a month it was!

One day papa went up into New Hampshire; Aunt Willoughby was dead; and

one day Lu came home.

She was very pale and thin. Her eyes were hollow and purple.

"There is some mistake, Lu," I said. "It is you who are dead, instead of

Aunt Willoughby."

"Do I look so wretchedly?" she asked, glancing at the mirror.

"Dreadfully! Is it all watching and grief?"

"Watching and grief," said Lu.

How melancholy her smile was! She would have crazed me in a little

while, if I had minded her.

"Did you care so much for fretful, crabbed Aunt Willoughby?"

"She was very kind to me," Lu replied.

There was an odd air with her that day. She didn't go at once and get

off her travelling-dress, but trifled about in a kind of expectancy, a

little fever going and coming in her cheeks, and turning at any noise.

Will you believe it?--though I know Lu had refused him,--who met her at

the half-way junction, saw about her luggage, and drove home with her,

but Mr. Dudley, and was with us, a half-hour afterward, when Rose came

in? Lu didn't turn at his step, but the little fever in her face

prevented his seeing her as I had done. He shook hands with her and

asked after her health, and shook hands with Mr. Dudley, (who hadn't

been near us during her absence,) and seemed to wish she should feel

that he recognized without pain a connection between herself and that

personage. But when he came back to me, I was perplexed again at that

bewitched look in his face,--as if Lu's presence made him feel that he

was in a dream, I the enchantress of that dream. It did not last long,

though. And soon she saw Mr. Dudley out, and went up-stairs.

When Lu came down to tea, she had my beads in her hand again.

"I went into your room and got them, dear Yone," she said, "because I

have found something to replace the broken bell-wort"; and she showed us

a little amber bee, black and golden. "Not so lovely as the bell-wort,"

she resumed, "and I must pierce it for the thread; but it will fill the

number. Was I not fortunate to find it?"

But when at a flame she heated a long, slender needle to pierce it, the

little winged wonder shivered between her fingers, and under the hot

steel filled the room with the honeyed smell of its dusted substance.

"Never mind," said I again. "It's a shame, though,--it was so much

prettier than the bell-wort! We might have known it was too brittle.

It's just as well, Lu."

The room smelt like a chancel at vespers. Rose sauntered to the window,

and so down the garden, and then home.

"Yes. It cannot be helped," she said, with a smile. "But I really

counted upon seeing it on the string. I'm not lucky at amber. You know

little Asian said it would bring bane to the bearer."

"Dear! dear! I had quite forgotten!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Lu, keep it, or

give it away, or something! I don't want it any longer."

"You're very vehement," she said, laughing now. "I am not afraid of your

gods. Shall I wear them?"

So the rest of the summer Lu twined them round her throat,--amulets of

sorcery, orbs of separation; but one night she brought them back to me.

That was last night. There they lie.

The next day, in the high golden noon, Rose came. I was on the lounge in

the alcove parlor, my hair half streaming out of Lu's net; but he didn't

mind. The light was toned and mellow, the air soft and cool. He came and

sat on the opposite side, so that he faced the wall table with its dish

of white, stiflingly sweet lilies, while I looked down the drawing-room.

He had brought a book, and by-and-by opened at the part commencing, "Do

not die, Phene." He read it through,--all that perfect, perfect scene.

From the moment when he said,

"I overlean

This length of hair and lustrous front,--they turn

Like an entire flower upward,"--

his voice low, sustained, clear,--till he reached the line,

"Look at the woman here with the new soul,"--

till he turned the leaf and murmured,

"Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff

Be art,--and, further, to evoke a soul

From form be nothing? This new soul is mine!"--

till then, he never glanced up. Now, with a proud grace, he raised his

head,--not to look at me, but across me, at the lilies, to satiate

himself with their odorous snowiness. When he again pronounced words,

his voice was husky and vibrant; but what music dwelt in it and seemed

to prolong rather than break the silver silence, as he echoed,

"Some unsuspected isle in the far seas"!

How many read to descend to a prosaic life! how few to meet one as rich

and full beside them! The tone grew ever lower; he looked up slowly,

fastening his glance on mine.

"And you are ever by me while I gaze,--

Are in my arms, as now,--as now,--as now!"

he said. He swayed forward with those wild questioning eyes,--his breath

blew over my cheek; I was drawn,--I bent; the full passion of his soul

broke to being, wrapped me with a blinding light, a glowing kiss on

lingering lips, a clasp strong and tender as heaven. All my hair fell

down like a shining cloud and veiled us, the great rolling folds in wave

after wave of crisp splendor. I drew back from that long, silent kiss, I

gathered up each gold thread of the straying tresses, blushing, defiant.

He also, he drew back. But I knew all then. I had no need to wait

longer; I had achieved. Rose loved me. Rose had loved me from that first

day.--You scarcely hear what I say, I talk so low and fast? Well, no

matter, dear, you wouldn't care.--For a moment that gaze continued, then

the lids fell, the face grew utterly white. He rose, flung the book,

crushed and torn, upon the floor, went out, speaking no word to me, nor

greeting Louise in the next room. Could he have seen her? No. I, only,

had that. For, as I drew from his arm, a meteoric crimson, shooting

across the pale face bent over work there, flashed upon me, and then a

few great tears, like sudden thunder-drops, falling slowly and wetting

the heavy fingers. The long mirror opposite her reflected the interior

of the alcove parlor. No,--he could not have seen, he must have felt

her.

I wonder whether I should have cared, if I had never met him any

more,--happy in this new consciousness. But in the afternoon he

returned, bright and eager.

"Are you so very busy, dear Yone," he said, without noticing Lu, "that

you cannot drive with me to-day?"

Busy! In five minutes I whirled down the avenue beside him. I had not

been Yone to him before. How quiet we were! he driving on, bent forward,

seeing out and away; I leaning back, my eyes closed, and, whenever a

remembrance of that instant at noon thrilled me, a stinging blush

staining my cheek. I, who had believed myself incapable of love, till

that night on the balcony, felt its floods welling from my spirit,--who

had believed myself so completely cold, was warm to my heart's core.

Again that breath fanned me, those lips touched mine, lightly, quickly.

"Yone, my Yone!" he said. "Is it true? No dream within dream? Do you

love me?"

Wistful, longing, tender eyes.

"Do I love you? I would die for you!"

* * * * *

Ah, me! If the July days were such, how perfect were the August and

September nights! their young moon's lingering twilight, their full

broad bays of silver, their interlunar season! The winds were warm about

us, the whole earth seemed the wealthier for our love. We almost lived

upon the river, he and I alone,--floating seaward, swimming slowly up

with late tides, reaching home drenched with dew, parting in passionate

silence. Once he said to me,--

"Is it because it is so much larger, more strange and beautiful, than

any other love could be, that I feel guilty, Yone,--feel as if I sinned

in loving you so, my great white flower?"

I ought to tell you how splendid papa was, never seemed to consider that

Rose had only his art, said I had enough from Aunt Willoughby for both,

we should live up there among the mountains, and set off at once to make

arrangements. Lu has a wonderful tact, too,--seeing at once where her

path lay. She is always so well oriented! How full of peace and bliss

these two months have been! Last night Lu came in here. She brought back

my amber gods, saying she had not intended to keep them, and yet

loitering.

"Yone," she said at last, "I want you to tell me if you love him."

Now, as if that were any affair of hers! I looked what I thought.

"Don't be angry," she pleaded. "You and I have been sisters, have we

not? and always shall be. I love you very much, dear,--more than you may

believe; I only want to know if you will make him happy."

"That's according," said I, with a yawn.

She still stood before me. Her eyes said, "I have a right,--I have a

right to know."

"You want me to say how much I love Vaughan Rose?" I asked, finally.

"Well, listen, Lu,--so much, that, when he forgets me,--and he will, Lu,

one day,--I shall die."

"Prevent his forgetting you, Yone!" she returned. "Make your soul white

and clear, like his."

"No! no!" I answered. "He loves me as I am. I will never change."

Then somehow tears began to come. I didn't want to cry; I had to crowd

them back behind my fingers and shut lids.

"Oh, Lu!" I said, "I cannot think what it would be to live, and he not a

part of me! not for either of us to be in the world without the other!"

Then Lu's tears fell with mine, as she drew her fingers over my hair.

She said she was happy, too; and to-day has been down and gathered every

one, so that, when you see her, her white array will be wreathed with

purple hearts-ease. But I didn't tell Lu quite the truth, you must

know. I don't think I should die, except to my former self, if Rose

ceased to love me. I should change. Oh, I should hate him! Hate is as

intense as love.

Bless me! What time can it be? There are papa and Rose walking in the

garden. I turned out my maid to find chance for all this talk; I must

ring for her. There, there's my hair! silken coil after coil, full of

broken lights, rippling below the knees, fine and fragrant. Who could

have such hair but I? I am the last of the Willoughbys, a decayed race,

and from such strong decay what blossom less gorgeous should spring?

October now. All the world swings at the top of its beauty; and those

hills where we shall live, what robes of color fold them! Tawny filemot

gilding the valleys, each seam and rut a scroll or arabesque, and all

the year pouring out her heart's blood to flush the maples, the great

impurpled granites warm with the sunshine they have drunk all summer! So

I am to be married to-day, at noon. I like it best so; it is my hour.

There is my veil, that regal Venice point. Fling it round you. No, you

would look like a ghost in one,--Lu like a corpse. Dear me! That's the

second time I've rung for Carmine. I dare say the hussy is trying on my

gown. You think it strange I don't delay? Why, child, why tempt

Providence? Once mine, always mine. He might wake up. No, no, I couldn't

have meant that! It is not possible that I have merely led him into a

region of richer dyes, lapped him in this vision of color, kindled his

heart to such a flame, that it may light him towards further effort. Can

you believe that he will slip from me and return to one in better

harmony with him? Is any one? Will he ever find himself with that love

lost, this love exhausted, only his art left him? Never! _I_ am his

crown. See me! how singularly, gloriously beautiful! For him only! all

for him! I love him! I cannot, I will not lose him! I defy all! My

heart's proud pulse assures me! I defy Fate! Hush! One,--two,--twelve

o'clock. Carmine!

III.

_Astra castra, numen lumen._

The click of her needles and the soft singing of the night-lamp are the

only sounds breaking the stillness, the awful stillness, of this room.

How the wind blows without! it must be whirling white gusty drifts

through the split hills. If I were as free! Whistling round the gray

gable, tearing the bleak boughs, crying faint, hoarse moans down the

chimneys! A wild, sad gale! There is a lull, a long breathless lull,

before it soughs up again. Oh, it is like a pain! Pain! Why do I think

the word? Must I suffer any more? Am I crazed with opiates? or am I

dying? They are in that drawer,--laudanum, morphine, hyoscyamus, and all

the drowsy sirups,--little drops, but soaring like a fog, and wrapping

the whole world in a dull ache, with no salient sting to catch a groan

on. They are so small, they might be lost in this long, dark room; why

not the pain too, the point of pain, I? A long, dark room; I at one end,

she at the other; the curtains drawn away from me that I may breathe.

Ah, I have been stifled so long! They look down on me, all those old

dead and gone faces, those portraits on the wall,--look all from their

frames at me, the last term of the race, the vanishing summit of their

design. A fierce weapon thrust into the world for evil has that race

been,--from the great gray Willoughby, threatening with his iron eyes

there, to me, the sharp apex of its suffering. A fierce, glittering

blade! Why I alone singled for this curse? Rank blossom, rank decay,

they answer, but falsely. I lie here, through no fault of mine, blasted

by disease, the dread with no relief. A hundred ancestors look from my

walls, and see in me the centre of their lives, of all their little

splendor, of their sins and follies; what slept in them wakes in me. Oh,

let me sleep too!

How long could I live and lose nothing? I saw my face in the hand-glass

this morning,--more lovely than health fashioned it;--transparent skin,

bounding blood, with its fire burning behind the eye, on cheek, on

lip,--a beauty that every pang has aggravated, heightened, sharpened, to

a superb intensity, flushing, rapid, unearthly,--a brilliancy to be

dreamed of. Like a great autumn-leaf I fall, for I am dying,--dying!

Yes, death finds me more beautiful than life made me; but have I lost

nothing? Great Heaven, I have lost all!

A fancy comes to me, that to-day was my birthday. I have forgotten to

mark time; but if it was, I am thirty-two years old. I remember

birthdays of a child,--loving, cordial days. No one remembers to-day.

Why should they? But I ache for a little love. Thirty-two,--that is

young to die! I am too fair, too rich, for death!--not his fit spoil! Is

there no one to save me? no help? can I not escape? Ah, what a vain

eagerness! what an idle hope! Fall back again, heart! Escape? I do not

desire to. Come, come, kind rest! I am tired.

That cap-string has loosened now, and all this golden cataract of hair

has rushed out over the piled pillows. It oppresses and terrifies me. If

I could speak, it seems to me that I would ask Louise to come and bind

it up. Won't she turn and see?

Have I been asleep? What is this in my hands? The amber gods? Oh, yes! I

asked to see them again; I like their smell, I think. It is ten years I

have had them. They enchant; but the charm will not last; nothing will.

I rubbed a little yellow smoke out of them,--a cloud that hung between

him and the world, so that he saw only me,--at least----What am I

dreaming of? All manner of illusions haunt me. Who said anything about

ten years? I have been married ten years. Happy, then, ten years? Oh,

no! One day he woke.--How close the room is! I want some air. Why don't

they do something----

Once, in the pride of a fool, I fear having made some confidence, some

recital of my joy to ears that never had any. Did I say I would not lose

him? Did I say I could live just on the memory of that summer? I lash

myself that I must remember it! that I ever loved him! When he stirred,

when the mist left him, when he found a mere passion had blinded him,

when he spread his easel, when he abandoned love,--was I wretched? I,

too, abandoned love!--more,--I hated! All who hate are wretched. But he

was bound to me! Yes, he might move restlessly,--it only clanked his

chains. Did he wound me? I was cruel. He never spoke. He became

artist,--ceased to be man,--was more indifferent than the cloud. He

could paint me then,--and, revealed and bare, all our histories written

in me, he hung me up beside my ancestors. There I hang. Come from thy

frame, thou substance, and let this troubled phantom go! Come! for he

gave my life to thee. In thee he shut and sealed it all, and left me as

the empty husk. Did she come then? No! I sent for her. I meant to teach

him that he was yet a man,--to open before him a gulf of anguish; but

_I_ slipped down it. Then I dogged them; they never spoke alone; I

intercepted the eye's language; I withered their wintry smiles to

frowns; I stifled their sighs; I checked their breath, their motion.

Idle words passed our lips; we three lived in a real world of silence,

agonized mutes. She went. Summer by summer my father brought her to us.

Always memory was kindled afresh, always sorrow kept smouldering. Once

she came; I lay here; she has not left me since. He,--he also comes; he

has soothed pain with that loveless eye, carried me in untender arms,

watched calmly beside my delirious nights. He who loved beauty has

learned disgust. Why should I care? I, from the slave of bald form,

enlarged him to the master of gorgeous color; his blaze is my ashes. He

studies me. I owe him nothing.

Is it near morning? Have I dozed again? Night is long. The great

hall-clock is striking,--throb after throb on the darkness. I remember,

when I was a child, watching its lengthened pendulum swing as if time

were its own, and it measured the thread slowly, loath to

part,--remember streaking its great ebony case with a little finger,

misting it with a warm breath. Throb after throb,--is it going to peal

forever? Stop, solemn clangor! hearts, stop! Midnight.

The nurses have gone down; she sits there alone. Her bent side-face is

full of pity. Now and then her head turns; the great brown eyes lift

heavily, and lie on me,--heavily, as if the sight of me pained her. Ah,

in me perishes her youth! death enters her world! Besides, she loves me.

I do not want her love,--I would fling it off; but I am faint,--I am

impotent,--I am so cold! Not that she lives, and I die,--not that she

has peace, and I tumult,--not for her voice's music,--not for her eye's

lustre,--not for any charm of her womanly presence,--neither for her

clear, fair soul,--nor that, when the storm and winter pass, and I am

stiff and frozen, she smiles in the sun, and leads new life,--not for

all this I hate her; but because my going gives her what I

lost,--because, I stepped aside, the light falls on her,--because from

my despair springs her happiness. Poor fool! let her be happy, if she

can! Her mother was a Willoughby! And what is a flower that blows on a

grave?

Why do I remember so distinctly one night alone of all my life,--one

night, when we dance in the low room of a seaside cottage,--dance to

Lu's singing? He leads me to her, when the dance is through, brushing

with his head the festooned nets that swing from the rafters,--and in at

the open casement is blown a butterfly, a dead butterfly, from off the

sea. She holds it compassionately till I pin it on my dress,--the wings,

twin magnificences, freckled and barred and dusty with gold, fluttering

at my breath. Some one speaks with me; she strays to the window, he

follows, and they are silent. He looks far away over the gray loneliness

stretching beyond. At length he murmurs: "A brief madness makes my long

misery. Louise, if the earth were dazzled aside from her constant

pole-star to worship some bewildering comet, would she be more forlorn

than I?"

"Dear Rose! your art remains," I hear her say.

He bends lower, that his breath may scorch her brow. "Was I wrong? Am I

right?" he whispers, hurriedly. "You loved me once; you love me now,

Louise, if I were free?"

"But you are not free."

She does not recoil, yet her very atmosphere repels him, while looking

up with those woful eyes blanching her cheek by their gathering

darkness. "And, Rose,"----she sighs, then ceases abruptly, while a

quiver of sudden scorn writhes spurningly down eyelid and nostril and

pains the whole face.

He erects himself, then reaches his hand for the rose in her belt,

glances at me,--the dead thing in my bosom rising and falling with my

turbulent heart,--holds the rose to his lips, leaves her. How keen are

my ears! how flushed my cheek! how eager and fierce my eyes! He

approaches; I snatch the rose and tear its petals in an angry shower,

and then a dim east-wind pours in and scatters my dream like flakes of

foam. All dreams go; youth and hope desert me; the dark claims me. O

room, surrender me! O sickness and sorrow, loose your weary hold!

It maddens me to know that the sun will shine again, the tender grass

grow green, the veery sing, the crocus come. She will walk in the light

and re-gather youth, and I moulder, a forgotten heap. Oh, why not all

things crash to ruin with me?

Pain, pain, pain! Where is my father? Why is he away, when they know I

die? He used to hold me once; he ought to hear me when I call. He would

rest me, and stroke the grief aside,--he is so strong. Where is he?

These amulets stumbling round again? Amber, amber gods, you did mischief

in your day! If I clutched you hard, as Lu did once, all your spells

would be broken.--It is colder than it was. I think I will go to sleep.

What was that? How loud and resonant! It stuns me. It is too sonorous.

Does sound flash? Ah! the hour. Another? How long the silver toll swims

on the silent air! It is one o'clock,--a passing bell, a knell. If I

were at home by the river, the tide would be turning down, down, and out

to the broad, broad sea. Is it worth while to have lived?

Have I spoken? She looks at me, rises, and touches that bell-rope that

always brings him. How softly he opens the door! Waiting, perhaps. Well.

Ten years have not altered him much. The face is brighter,

finer,--shines with the eternal youth of genius. They pause a moment; I

suppose they are coming to me; but their eyes are on each other.

Why must the long, silent look with which he met her the day I got my

amber strike back on me now so vindictively? I remember three looks:

that, and this, and one other,--one fervid noon, a look that drank my

soul, that culminated my existence. Oh, I remember! I lost it a little

while ago. I have it now. You are coming? Can't you hear me? See! these

costly _liqueurs_, these precious perfumes beside me here, if I can

reach them, I will drench the coverlet in them; it shall be white and

sweet as a little child's. I wish they were the great rich lilies of

that day; it is too late for the baby May-flowers. You do not like

amber? There the thread breaks again! the little cruel gods go tumbling

down the floor! Come, lay my head on your breast! kiss my life off my

lips! I am your Yone! I forgot a little while,--but I love you, Rose!

Rose!

* * * * *

Why! I thought arms held me. How clear the space is! The wind from

out-doors, rising again, must have rushed in. There is the quarter

striking. How free I am! No one here? No swarm of souls about me? Oh,

those two faces looked from a great mist, a moment since; I scarcely see

them now. Drop, mask! I will not pick you up! Out, out into the gale!

back to my elements!

So I passed out of the room, down the staircase. The servants below did

not see me, but the hounds crouched and whined. I paused before the

great ebony clock; again the fountain broke, and it chimed the

half-hour; it was half-past one; another quarter, and the next time its

ponderous silver hammers woke the house it would be two. Half-past one?

Why, then, did not the hands move? Why cling fixed on a point five

minutes before the first quarter struck? To and fro, soundless and

purposeless, swung the long pendulum. And, ah! what was this thing I had

become? I had done with time. Not for me the hands moved on their

recurrent circle any more.

I must have died at ten minutes past one.

THE POET'S FRIENDS.

The Robin sings in the elm;

The cattle stand beneath,

Sedate and grave, with great brown eyes,

And fragrant meadow-breath.

They listen to the flattered bird,

The wise-looking, stupid things!

And they never understand a word

Of all the Robin sings.

THE MEMORIAL OF A. B., OR MATILDA MUFFIN.

THE MEMORIAL OF A. B.

_Humbly Showeth_:--

Ladies and gentlemen,--enlightened public,--kind audience,--dear

readers,--or whatever else you may be styled,--whose eyes, from remote

regions of east, west, or next door, solace themselves between the brown

covers of this magazine, making of themselves flowers to its lunar

brilliancy,--I wish to state, with all humility and self-disgust, that I

am what is popularly called a literary woman.

In the present state of society, I should feel less shame in declaring

myself the elect lady of Dunderhed Van Nudel, Esquire, that wealthy

Dutch gentleman, aged seventy, whom we all know. It is true, that, as I

am young and gay and intelligent, while he is old and stupid and very

low Dutch indeed, such an announcement would be equivalent to saying

that I was bought by Mr. Van Nudel for half a million of dollars; but

then that is customary, and you would all congratulate me.

Also, I should stand a better chance of finding favor in your eyes, if I

declared myself to be an indigent tailoress; for no woman should use her

head who can use her hands,--a maxim older than Confucius.

Or even if I were a school-ma'am! (blessed be the man who has brought

them into fashion and the long path!) In that case, you might say, "Poor

thing! isn't she interesting? quite like _the_ school-mistress!"--And I

am not averse to pity, since it is love's poor cousin, nor to belonging

to a class mentioned in Boston literary society. I really am not!

But the plain truth is, I earn my living by writing. Sewing does not

pay. I have no "faculty" at school-keeping; for I invariably spoil all

the good children, and pet all the pretty ones,--a process not

conducive, as I am told, to the development of manners or morals;--so I

write: just as Mr. Jones makes shoes, Mr. Peters harangues the jury, Mr.

Smith sells calico, or Mr. Robinson rolls pills.

For, strange as it may seem, when it is so easy to read, it is hard work

to write,--_bonâ fide_, undeniable hard work. Suppose my head cracks and

rings and reels with a great ache that stupefies me? In comes Biddy with

a letter.

"The editor of the 'Monthly Signpost' would be much obliged to

Miss Matilda Muffin for a tale of four pages, to make up the

June number, before the end of next week.

"Very respectfully, etc., etc."

Miss Muffin's head looks her in the face, (metaphorically,) and says,

"You can't!"--but her last year's bonnet creaks and rustles from the

bandbox, finally lifts the lid and peeps out. Gracious! the ghost in

Hamlet was not more of an "airy nothing" than that ragged, faded,

dilapidated old structure of crape and blonde. The bonnet retires to the

sound of slow music; the head slinks back and holds its tongue; Miss

Muffin sits down at her table; scratch, scratch, scratch, goes the old

pen, and the ideas catch up with it, it is so shaky; and the words go

tumbling over it, till the _t_s go out without any hats on, and the

eyes--no, the _i_s (_is_ that the way to pluralize them?)--get no dots

at all; and every now and then the head says, softly, "Oh, dear!" Miss

Muffin goes to something called by novel-writers "repose," toward one

o'clock that night, and the next night, and the next; she obliges the

"Monthly Signpost" with a comic story at a low price, and buys herself a

decent little bonnet for Sundays, replenishing her wardrobe generally by

the same process; and the head considers it work, I assure you.

But this is not the special grievance to which I direct this Memorial. I

like to work; it suits me much better to obtain my money by steady,

honest effort than it would to depend on anybody else for one round

cent. If I had a thousand dollars unexpectedly left me by some unknown

benefactor, I don't think it would be worth five cents on the dollar,

compared with what I earn; there is a healthy, trustworthy pleasure in

that, never yet attained by gifted or inherited specie. Neither is it

the publicity of the occupation that I here object to. I knew that,

before I began to write; and many an hour have I cried over the thought

of being known, and talked about, and commented on,--having my dear

name, that my mother called me by, printed on the cover of a magazine,

seeing it in newspapers, hearing it in whispers, when Miss Brown says to

Miss Black under her breath,--"That girl in the straw bonnet is Matilda

Muffin, who writes for the 'Snapdragon' and the 'Signpost.'"

I knew all this, as I say. I dreaded and hated it. I hate it now. But I

had to work, and this was the only way open to me; so I tried to be

brave, and to do what I ought, and let the rest go. I cannot say I am

very brave yet, or that I don't feel all this; but I do not memorialize

against it, because it is necessary to be borne, and I must bear it.

When I go to the dentist's to have a tooth out, I sit down, and hold the

chair tight, and open my mouth as wide as it will open, but I always

say, "Oh! don't, doctor! I can't! I can't possibly!" till the iron

what-d'you-call-it enters my soul and stops my tongue.

Yes, when I began to write, I knew I should some day see my name in

print. I knew people would wonder who and what I was, and how I

looked;--I had done it myself. I knew that I should be delivered over to

be the prey of tongues and the spoil of eyes. I was aware, I think, I am

aware now, of every possible "disagreeable" that can befall the state. I

am accustomed to hear people say, if I venture a modest opinion about a

dinner, "Dear me! as if a literary woman knew anything about

cooking!"--I endure that meekly, sustained by the inner consciousness

that I _can_ cook much better than any artist in that line I ever yet

encountered. Likewise I am used to hear people say, "I suppose you don't

waste your valuable time in sewing?" when a look at my left forefinger

would insure me a fraternal grip from any member of the Seamstress's

Friends Society anywhere. I do not either scold or cry when accidentally

some visitor discovers me fitting my dress or making my bonnet, and

looks at me with a "fearful joy," as if I were on a tight-rope. I even

smile when people lay my ugly shawl or _passé_ bonnet, that I bought

because they were cheap, and wear for the same reason, at the door of

the "eccentricities of genius." And I am case-hardened to the

instantaneous scattering and dodging of young men that ensue the moment

I enter a little party, because "gentlemen are so afraid of literary

women." I don't think gentlemen are; I know two or three who never

conceal a revolver in the breast of their coat when they talk to me, and

who sometimes even offer to go home with me from a tea-party all alone,

and after dark too. It is true, one or two of these are "literary"

themselves; the others I knew before I was dyed blue; which may account

for it. Also I am impervious to anonymous letters, exhorting me to all

kinds of mental and moral improvement, or indulging in idle

impertinences about my private affairs, the result of a knowledge about

me and the aforesaid affairs drawn solely from my "Pieces in Prose and

Verse."

Then as to the matter of the romantic stories that are afloat concerning

me, I am rather amused than otherwise by them. I have a sentimental

name, by the religious and customary ordinance of baptism, legally my

own; and at first, being rather loath to enter the great alliterative

ranks of female writers by my lawful title of Matilda Muffin, I signed

my writings "A. B."

Two reprobatory poems addressed to those initials came to me through

the medium of the "Snapdragon," immediately after my having printed in

that spicy paper a pensive little poem called "The Rooster's Cry": one,

in Spenserian measure, rebuking me for alluding lightly to serious

subjects,--a thing I never do, I am sure, and I can't imagine what "J.

H. P." meant; and another, in hexameter, calling upon me to "arouse,"

and "smile," and "struggle on," and, in short, to stop crying and behave

myself,--only it was said in figures. I'm much obliged to "Quintius" for

the advice; but I should like to explain, that I am subject to the

toothache, and when it is bad I cannot possibly write comic poetry. I

must be miserable, but it's only toothache, thank you!

Then I have heard several times, in the strictest confidence, the whole

history of "A. B., who writes for the 'Snapdragon.'" Somebody told me

she was a lady living on the North River, very wealthy, very haughty,

and very unhappy in her domestic relations. Another said she was a young

widow in Alabama, whose mother was extremely tyrannical, and opposed her

second marriage. A third person declared to me that A. B. was a

physician in the navy,--a highly educated man, but reduced in

circumstances. I think that was a great compliment,--to be actually

taken for a man! I felt it to be "the proudest moment of my life," as

ship-captains say, when they return thanks for the silver teapot richly

chased with nautical emblems, presented by the passengers saved from the

wreck, as a token of gratitude for the hencoops thrown overboard by the

manly commander. However, I called myself a woman in the very next

contribution, for fear of the united wrath of the stronger sex, should I

ever be discovered to have so imposed upon the public; although I know

several old women who remain undiscovered to this day, simply because

they avail themselves of a masculine signature.

There were other romances, too tedious to mention, depicting me

sometimes as a lovely blonde, writing graceful tales beneath a bower of

roses in the warm light of June; sometimes as a respectable old maid,

rather sharp, fierce, and snuffy; sometimes as a tall, delicate,

aristocratic, poetic looking creature, with liquid dark eyes and heavy

tresses of raven hair; sometimes as a languishing, heart-broken woman in

the prime of life, with auburn curls and a slow consumption.

Perhaps it may be as well to silence all conjecture at once, by stating

that I am a woman of----no, I won't say how old, because everybody will

date me from this time forward, and I shall not always be willing to

tell how old I am! I am not very young now, it is true; I am more than

sixteen and less than forty; so when our clergyman requested all between

those ages to remain after service for the purpose of forming a week-day

Bible-class, I sat still, and so did everybody else except Mrs. Van

Doren, whose great-grandchild was christened in the morning;--our church

is a new one.

However, this is digressing. I am not very tall, nor very short; I am

rather odd-looking, but decidedly plain. I have brown hair and eyes, a

pale light complexion, a commonplace figure, pretty good taste in dress,

and a quick sense of the ludicrous, that makes me laugh a great deal,

and have a good time generally.

I live at home, in the town of Blank, in a quiet by-street. My parents

are both living, and we keep one Irish girl. I go to church on Sundays,

and follow my trade week-days.

I write everything I do write in my own room, which is not so pleasant

as a bower of roses in some respects, but is preferable in regard to

earwigs and caterpillars, which are troublesome in bowers. I have a

small pine table to write on, as much elderly furniture as supplies me

places for sleep and my books, a small stove in winter, (which is

another advantage over bowers,) and my "flowing draperies" are blue

chintz, which I bought at a bargain; some quaint old engravings of

Bartolozzi's in black and gilt frames; a few books, among which are

prominently set forth a volume of "The Doctor,"--Nicolò de' Lapi, in

delightful bindings of white parchment,--Thomas à Kempis,--a Bible, of

English type and paper,--and Emerson's Poems, bound in Russia leather.

Not that I have no other books,--grammars, and novels, and cook-books,

in gorgeous array,--but these are within reach from my pillow, when I

want to read myself asleep; and a plaster cast of Minerva's owl mounts

guard above them, curious fowl that it is.

The neighbors think I am a pretty nice girl, and my papa secretly exults

over me as a genius, but he don't say much about it. And there, dear

public, you have Matilda Muffin as she is, which I hope will quash the

romances, amusing though they be.

But when, after much editorial correspondence, and persevering whispers

of kind friends who had been told the facts in confidence, A. B. became

only the pretext of a mystery, and I signed myself by my full name, the

question naturally arose,--"Who _is_ Matilda Muffin?"

Now, for the first time in my life, do I experience the benefits of a

sentimental name, which has rather troubled me before, as belonging to a

quite unsentimental and commonplace person, and thereby raising

expectations, through hearsay, which actual vision dispelled with

painful suddenness. But now I find its advantage, for nobody believes it

is my own, but confidently expects that Ann Tubbs or Susan Bucket will

appear from a long suppression, like a Jack-in-a-box, and startle the

public as she throws back the cover.

Indeed, I am told that not long since a circle of literary

experimentalists, discussing a recent number of a certain magazine, and

displaying great knowledge of _noms-de-plume_, ran aground all at once

upon "Who is Matilda Muffin?"--even as, in the innocent faith of

childhood, I pondered ten minutes upon "Who was the father of Zebedee's

children?" and at last "gave up." But these professional gentlemen,

nowise daunted by the practical difficulties of the subject, held on,

till at last one, wiser in his generation than the rest, confidently

announced that he knew Matilda Muffin's real name, but was not at

liberty to disclose it. Should this little confidence ever reach the

eyes of those friends, I wish to indorse that statement in every

particular; that gentleman does know my name; and know all men, by these

presents, I give him full leave to disclose it,--or rather, to save him

the trouble, I disclose it myself. My name, my own, that would have been

printed in the marriage-list of the "Snapdragon" before now, if it had

not appeared in the list of contributors, and which will appear in its

list of deaths some day to come,--my name, that is called to breakfast,

marked on my pocket-handkerchiefs, written in my books, and done in

yellow paint on my trunk, _is_--Matilda Muffin. "Only that, and nothing

more!" And "A. B.," which I adopted once as a species of veil to the

aforesaid alliterative title, did not mean, as was supposed, "A Beauty,"

or "Any Body," or "Another Barrett," or "Anti Bedott," or "After

Breakfast," but only "A. B.," the first two letters of the alphabet.

Peace to their ashes!--let them rest!

But, dear me! I forgot the Memorial! As I have said, all these

enumerated troubles do not much move me, nor yet the world-old cry of

all literary women's being, in virtue of their calling, unfeminine. I

don't think anybody who knows me can say that about me; in fact, I am

generally regarded by my male cousins as a "little goose," and a

"foolish child," and "a perfectly absurd little thing,"--epithets that

forbid the supposition of their object being strong-minded or having

Women's Rights;--and as for people who don't know me, I care very little

what they think. If I want them to like me, I can generally make

them,--having a knack that way.

But there is one thing against which I do solemnly protest and uplift

my voice, as a piece of ridiculous injustice and supererogation,--and

that is, that every new poem or fresh story I write and print should be

supposed and declared to be part and parcel of my autobiography. Good

gracious! Goethe himself, "many-sided" as the old stone Colossus might

have been, would have retreated in dismay from such a host of characters

as I have appeared in, according to the announcement of admiring

friends.

My dear creatures, do just look at the common sense of the thing! Can I

have been, by any dexterity known to man, of mind or body, such a

various creature, such a polycorporate animal, as you make me to be?

Because I write the anguish and suffering of an elderly widow with a

drunken husband, am I therefore meek and of middle age, the slave of a

rum-jug? I have heard of myself successively as figuring in the

character of a strong-minded, self-denying Yankee girl,--a

broken-hearted Georgia beauty,--a fairy princess,--a consumptive

school-mistress,--a young woman dying of the perfidy of her lover,--a

mysterious widow; and I daily expect to hear that a caterpillar which

figured as hero in one of my tales was an allegory of myself, and that a

cat mentioned in "The New Tobias" is a travesty of my heart-experience.

Now this is rather more than "human natur" can stand. It is true that in

my day and generation I have suffered as everybody does, more or less.

It is likewise true that I have suffered from the same causes that other

people do. I am happy to state that in the allotments of this life

authoresses are not looked upon as "literary," but simply as women, and

have the same general dispensations with the just and the unjust;

therefore, in attempting to excite other people's sympathies, I have

certainly touched and told many stories that were not strange to my own

consciousness; I do not know very well how I could do otherwise. And in

trying to draw the common joys and sorrows of life, I certainly have

availed myself of experience as well as observation; but I should seem

to myself singularly wanting in many traits which I believe I possess,

were I to obtrude the details of my own personal and private affairs

upon the public. And I offer to those who have so interpreted me a

declaration which I trust may relieve them from all responsibility of

this kind in future; I hereby declare, asseverate, affirm, and whatever

else means to swear, that I never have offered and never intend to offer

any history whatever of my personal experience, social, literary, or

emotional, to the readers of any magazine, newspaper, novel, or

correspondence whatever. Nor is there any one human being who has ever

heard or ever will hear the whole of that experience,--no, not even

Dunderhed Van Nudel, Esquire, should he buy me to-morrow!

Also, I wish to relieve the minds of many friendly readers, who, hearing

and believing these reports, bestow upon me a vast amount of sympathy

that is worthy of a better fate. My dear friends, as I said before, it

is principally toothache; poetry is next best to clove-oil, and less

injurious to the enamel. I beg of you not to suppose that every poet who

howls audibly in the anguish of his soul is really afflicted in the said

soul; but one must have respect for the dignity of High Art. Answer me

now with frankness, what should you think of a poem that ran in this

style?--

"The sunset's gorgeous wonder

Flashes and fades away;

But my back-tooth aches like thunder,

And I cannot now be gay!"

Now just see how affecting it is, when you "change the venue," as

lawyers say:--

"The sunset's gorgeous wonder

Flashes and fades away;

But I hear the muttering thunder,

And my sad heart dies like the day."

I leave it to any candid mind, what would be the result to literature,

if such a course were pursued?

Besides, look at the facts in the case. You read the most tearful

strains of the most melancholy poet you know; if you took them

_verbatim_, you would expect him to be found by the printer's-boy, sent

for copy, "by starlight on the north side of a tombstone," as Dr.

Bellamy said, enjoying a northeaster without any umbrella, and soaking

the ground with tears, unwittingly antiseptic, in fact, as Mr. Mantalini

expressed himself, "a damp, moist, unpleasant body." But where, I ask,

does that imp find the aforesaid poet, when he goes to get the seventh

stanza of the "Lonely Heart"? Why, in the gentlemen's parlor of a

first-class hotel, his feet tilted up in the window, his apparel

perfectly dry and shiny with various ornamental articles appended, his

eyes half open over a daily paper, his parted lips clinging to a cigar,

his whole aspect well-to-do and comfortable. And aren't you glad of it?

I am; there is so much real misery in the world, that don't know how to

write for the papers, and has to have its toothache all by itself, when

a simple application of bread and milk or bread and meat would cure it,

that I am glad to have the apparent sum of human misery diminished, even

at the expense of being a traitor in the camp.

And still further, for your sakes, dear tender-hearted friends, who may

suppose that I am wearing this mask of joy for the sake of deluding you

into a grim and respectful sympathy,--you, who will pity me whether or

no,--I confess that I have some material sorrows for which I will gladly

accept your tears. My best bonnet is very unbecoming. I even heard it

said the other day, striking horror to my soul, that it looked literary!

And I'm afraid it does! Moreover, my only silk dress that is presentable

begins to show awful symptoms of decline and fall; and though you may

suppose literature to be a lucrative business, between ourselves it is

not so at all, (very likely the "Atlantic" gentlemen will omit that

sentence, for fear of a libel-suit from the trade,--but it's all the

same a fact, unless you write for the "Dodger,")--and, I'm likely to

mend and patch and court-plaster the holes in that old black silk,

another year at least: but this is my solitary real anguish at present.

I do assure all and sundry my reporters, my sympathizers, and my

readers, that all that I have stated in this present Memorial is

unvarnished fact, whatever they may say, read, or feel to the

contrary,--and that, although I am a literary woman, and labor under all

the liabilities and disabilities contingent thereto, I am yet sound in

mind and body, (except for the toothache,) and a very amusing person to

know, with no quarrel against life in general or anybody in particular.

Indeed, I find one advantage in the very credulous and inquisitive

gossip against which I memorialize; for I think I may expect fact to be

believed, when fiction is swallowed whole; and I feel sure of seeing,

directly on the publication of this document, a notice in the

"Snapdragon," the "Badger," or the "Coon," (whichever paper gets that

number of the magazine first,) running in this wise:--

"MATILDA MUFFIN.--We welcome in the last number of the

'Atlantic Monthly' a brief and spirited autobiography of this

lady, whose birth, parentage, and home have so long been wrapt

in mystery. The hand of genius has rent asunder the veil of

reserve, and we welcome the fair writer to her proper position

in the Blank City Directory, and post-office list of boxes."

After which, I shall resign myself tranquilly to my fate as a unit, and

glide down the stream of life under whatever skies shine or scowl above,

always and forever nobody but

MATILDA MUFFIN.

BLANK, _67 Smith Street_.

SOME ACCOUNT OF A VISIONARY.

"Dear old Visionary!" It was the epithet usually applied to Everett Gray

by his friends and neighbors. It expresses very well the estimation in

which he was held by nineteen-twentieths of his world. People couldn't

help feeling affection for him, considerably leavened by a half-pitying,

half-wondering appreciation of his character. He was so good, so kind,

so gifted, too. Pity he was so dreamy and romantic, _et cetera, et

cetera_.

Now, from his youth up, nay, from very childhood, Everett had borne the

character thus implied. A verdict was early pronounced on him by an

eminent phrenologist who happened to be visiting the family. "A

beautiful mind, a comprehensive intellect, but marvellously

unpractical,--singularly unfitted to cope with the difficulties of

every-day life." And Everett's mother, hanging on the words of the man

of science, breathless and tearful, murmured to herself, while stroking

her unconscious little son's bright curls,--"I always feared he was too

good for this wicked world."

The child began to justify the professor's _dictum_ with his very first

entry into active life. He entertained ideas for improving the social

condition of rabbits, some time before he could conveniently raise

himself to a level with the hutch in which three of them, jointly

belonging to himself and his brother, abode. His theory was consummate;

in practice, however, it proved imperfect,--and great wrath on the part

of Richard Gray, and much confusion and disappointment to Everett, were

the result.

Richard, two years younger than Everett by the calendar, was at least

three older than he in size, appearance, habits, and self-assertion. He

was what is understood by "a regular boy": a fine, manly little fellow,

practical, unsensitive, hard-headed, and overflowing with life and

vigor. He had little patience with his brother's quiet ways; and his

unsuccessful attempts at working out theories met with no sympathy at

his hands.

After the affair of the rabbits, his experiments, however certain of

success he deemed them, were always made on or with regard to his own

belongings. The little plot of garden-ground which he held in absolute

possession was continually being dug up and refashioned, in his eager

efforts to convert it successively into a vineyard, a Portuguese

_quinta_, (to effect which he diligently planted orange-pips and manured

the earth with the peel,) or, favorite scheme of all, a

wheat-field,--dimensions, eighteen feet by twelve,--the harvest of which

was to provide all the poor children of the village with bread, in those

hard seasons when their pinched faces and shrill, complaining cries

appealed so mightily to little Everett's heart.

Nevertheless, and in spite of all his care and watching, it is to be

feared that very few of the big loaves which found their way from the

hall to the village, that winter, were composed of the produce of his

corn-field. More experienced farmers than this youthful agriculturist

might not have been surprised at the failure of his crop. He was.

Indeed, it was a valiant characteristic of him, throughout his life,

that he never grew accustomed to failure, however serenely he took it,

when it came. He grieved and perplexed himself about it, silently, but

not hopelessly. New ideas dawned on his mind, fresh designs of relief

were soon entertained, and essayed to be put in practice. These were

many, and of various degrees of feasibility,--ranging from the

rigorously pursued plan of setting aside a portion of his daily bread

and butter in a bag, and of his milk in a can, and bestowing the little

store on the nearest eligible object, up to the often pondered one of

obtaining possession of the large barn in the cow-field, furnishing the

same, and establishing therein all the numerous houseless wanderers who

used to come and ask for aid at the hands of Everett's worthy and

magisterial father.

That father's judicial functions caused his eldest son considerable

trouble and bewilderment of mind. He asked searching questions

sometimes, when, of an evening, perched on Mr. Gray's knee, and looking

with his wondering, steadfast eyes into the face of that erewhile stern

and impassible magistrate. The large justice-room, where the prisoners

were examined, had an awful fascination to him; and so had the little

"strong-room," in which sometimes they were locked up before being

conveyed away to the county jail. Often, he wandered restlessly near it,

looking at the door with strange, mournful eyes; and if by chance the

culprit passed out before him, under the guardianship of the terrible,

red-faced constable,--Everett's earliest and latest conception of the

Devil,--how wistfully he would gaze at him, and what a world of thought

and puzzled speculation would float through his childish mind!

Once, he had a somewhat serious adventure connected with that dreadful

strong-room.

There had been a man brought up before Mr. Gray, charged with

poultry-stealing; and he had been remanded for further examination.

Meanwhile, he was placed in the strong-room, under lock-and-key,--Roger

Manby, as usual, standing sentinel in the passage. Now Roger's red face

betokened a lively appreciation of the sublunary and substantial

attractions of beef and beer; and it seems probable that the servants'

dinner, going on below-stairs, was too great a temptation for even that

inflexible constable to resist. Howbeit, when the prisoner should have

been produced before the waiting bench, he was nowhere to be found. He

had vanished, as by magic, from the strong-room, without bolt being

wrenched, or lock forced, or bar broken. The door was unfastened, and

the prisoner gone. Great was the consternation, profound the

mystification of all parties. Roger was severely reprimanded, and

officers were sent off in various directions to recapture the offender.

Mr. Gray seldom alluded to his public affairs when among his children;

but that evening he broke through the rule. At dessert, with little

Everett, as usual, beside him, he mentioned the mysterious incident of

the morning to some friends who were dining with him, adding his own

conjectures as to the cause of the strange disappearance.

"It is certain he was _let out_. He could not have released himself.

Circumstances are suspicious against Manby, too; and he will probably

lose his office. Like Cæsar's wife, a constable should be beyond

suspicion, and he must be dismissed, if"----

"Oh, papa!"--and Everett's orange fell to the floor, and Everett's face

was lifted to his father's, all-aglow with eager, painful feeling.

"You don't like old Roger," said Mr. Gray, patting his cheek. "Well, it

is likely you won't be troubled by him any more."

"Oh, papa! oh, papa! Roger is an ugly, cross man. But he didn't,--he

didn't"----

"Didn't what, my boy?"

"Let the man out. He was in the kitchen all the time. I heard him

laughing."

"_You_ heard him? How?"

"I--I--oh, papa!"

The curly head sunk on the inquisitor's shoulder.

"Go on, Everett. What do you mean? Tell me the whole truth. You are not

afraid to do that?"

"No, papa."

He looked up, with steady eyes, but cheeks on which the color flickered

most agitatedly.

"I only wanted to look at the man; and the men had left a ladder against

the wall by the little grated window; and I climbed up, and looked in.

And, oh! he had such a miserable face, papa! And I couldn't help

speaking to him."

"Well, go on."

The tone was not so peremptory as the words; and the child, too ignorant

to be really frightened at what he had done, went on with his

confession, quite heedless of the numerous eyes fixed upon him with

various expressions of tenderness, amusement, and dismay. And very soon

all came out. Everett had deliberately and intentionally done the deed.

He had been unable to withstand the misery and entreaties of the man,

and he had slipped down the ladder, run round to the unguarded strong

door, and with much toil forced back the great bolt, unfastened the

chain, and set the prisoner free.

"And do you know, Everett, what it is you have done?--how wrong you have

been?"

"I was afraid it was a little wrong,"--he hesitated; "but,"--and his

courage seemed to rise again at the recollection,--"it would have been

so dreadful for the poor man to go to prison! He said he should be quite

ruined,--quite ruined, papa; and his wife and the little children would

starve. You are not _very_ angry, are you? Oh, papa!"

For Everett could hardly believe the stern gaze with which the

magistrate forced himself to regard his little son; and sternly uttered

were the few words that followed, by which he endeavored to make clear

to the childish comprehension the gravity of the fault he had committed.

Everett was utterly subdued. The tone of displeasure smote on his heart

and crushed it for the time. Only once he brightened up, as with a

sudden hope of complete justification, when Mr. Gray adverted to the

crime of the man, which had made it right and necessary that he should

be punished.

"But, papa," eagerly broke in the boy, "he hadn't stolen the things. He

told me so. He wasn't a thief."

"One case was proved beyond doubt."

"Indeed, indeed, papa, you must be mistaken," cried Everett, with

tearful vehemence; "he couldn't have done it; I know he couldn't. He

said, _upon his word_, he hadn't."

It was impossible to persuade him that such an asseveration could be

false. And when the little offender had left the room, various remarks

and interjections were indulged in,--all breathing the same spirit.

"What a jolly little muff Everett is!" was his brother Dick's

contingent.

"Innocent little fellow!" said one.

"Happy little visionary!" sighed another.

And Everett grew in years and stature, and still unconsciously

maintained the same character. It is true that he was a quiet, sensitive

boy, with an almost feminine affectionateness and tenderness of

heart,--and that keen, exquisite appreciation both of the joyful and the

painful, which is a feminine characteristic, too. Yet he was far enough

from being effeminate. He was thoughtful, naturally, yet he could be

active and take pleasure in action. He was always ready to work, and

feared neither hardship nor fatigue. When the great flood came and

caused such terror and distress in the village, no one, not even Dick,

home from Sandhurst for the midsummer holidays, was more energetic or

worked harder or more effectually than Everett. And the boys (his

brother's chums at Hazlewood) never forgot the day when Everett found

them ill-treating a little dog; how he rescued it from them,

single-handed, and knocked down young Brooke, who attacked him both with

insults and blows. Dick, not ill-pleased, was looking on. He never

called his brother a "sop" from that day, but praised him and patronized

him considerably for a good while after, and began, as he said, "to have

hopes of him."

But the two brothers never had much in common, and were, indeed, little

thrown together. Everett was educated at home; he was not strong, and

was naturally his mother's darling, and she persuaded his father and

herself that a public school would be harmful to him. So he studied the

classics with the clergyman of the parish, and the lighter details of

learning with his sister. Between that sister and himself there was a

strong attachment, though she, too, was of widely differing temperament

and disposition. Agnes was two years older than he,--and overflowing

with saucy life, energy, and activity. She liked to run wild about the

woods near their house, or to gallop over the country on her pony,--to

go scrambling in the hedges for blackberries, or among the copses for

nuts. The still contentment that Everett found in reading,--his

thoughtful enjoyment of landscape, or sunset, or flower,--all this might

have been incomprehensible to her, only that she loved her dreamy

brother so well. Love lends faith, and faith makes many things clear;

and Agnes learned to understand, and would wait patiently beside him on

such occasions, only tapping her feet, or swinging her bonnet by its

strings, as a relief for the superabundant vitality thus held in check.

And she was Everett's _confidante_ in all his schemes, wishes, and

anticipations. To her he would unfold the various plans he was

continually cogitating. Agnes would listen, sympathizingly sometimes,

but reverently always. _She_ never called or thought him a Visionary. If

his plans for the regeneration of the world were Utopian and

impracticable, it was the world that was in fault, not he. To her he was

the dearest of brothers, who would one day be acknowledged the greatest

of men.

And thus Everett grew to early manhood, till the time arrived when he

was to leave home for Cambridge. It was his first advent in the world.

Hitherto, his world had been one of books and thought. He imagined

college to be a place wherein a studious life, such as he loved, would

be most natural, most easy to be pursued. He should find a

brother-enthusiast in every student; he should meet with sympathy and

help in all his dearest aspirations, on every side. Perhaps it is

needless to say that this young Visionary was disappointed, and that his

collegiate career was, in fact, the beginning of that crusade, active

and passive, which it appeared to be his destiny to wage against what is

generally termed Real Life.

He was considerably laughed at, of course, by the majority of those

about him. Some few choice spirits tried to get up a lofty contempt of

his quiet ways and simple earnestness,--but they failed,--it not being

in human nature, even the most scampish, to entertain scorn for that

which is innately true and noble. So, finally, the worst that befell him

was ridicule,--which, even when he was aware of it, hurt him little.

Often, indeed, he would receive their jests and artful civilities with

implicit good faith; acknowledging apparent attentions with a gentle,

kindly courtesy, indescribably mystifying to those excellent young men

who expended so much needless pains on the easy work of "selling Old

Gray."

However, from out the very ranks of the enemy, before he left college at

the end of his first term, he had one intimate. It would, perhaps, be

difficult to understand how two-thirds of the friendships in the world

have their birth and maintain their existence. The connection between

Everett and Charles Barclay appeared to be of this enigmatical order.

One would have said the two could possess no single taste or sentiment

in common. Charles was a handsome, athletic fellow, warm-hearted,

impassioned, generous, and thoughtless to cruelty. He had splendid

gifts, but no application,--plenty of power, but no perseverance.

Supposed to be one of the most brilliant men of his years, he had just

been "plucked," to the dismay of his college and the immense wrath of

his friends. Everybody knew that Barclay was an orphan, left with a very

slender patrimony, who had gained a scholarship at the grammar-school.

He was of no family,--he was poor, and had his own way to make in life.

It was doubly necessary to _him_ that he should succeed in his

collegiate career. It was probably while under the temporary shadow of

the disgrace and disappointment of defeat, that the young man suddenly

turned to Everett Gray, fastened upon him with an affection most

enthusiastic, a devotion that everybody found unaccountable. He had

energy enough for what he willed to do. He willed to have Everett's

friendship, and he would not be denied. The incongruous pair became

friends. Whereupon, the rollicking comrades, who had gladly welcomed

Barclay into their set, for his fun and his wit and his convivial

qualities, turned sharp round, and marvelled at young Gray, who came of

a high family, for choosing as his intimate a fellow of no birth, no

position. Not but that it was just like the Old Visionary to do it; he'd

no idea of life,--not he; and so forth.

During the next term, the friendship grew and strengthened. Everett's

influence was working for good, and Barclay was in earnest addressing

himself to study. He accompanied Everett to his home at the long

vacation. And it ought to have surprised nobody who was acquainted with

the _rationale_ of such affairs, that the principal event of that golden

holiday-summer was the falling in love with each other of Everett's

sister and Everett's friend. Agnes was the only daughter and special

pride of a rich and well-born man. Barclay was of plebeian birth, with

nothing in the world to depend on but his own talents, which he had

abused, and the before-named patrimony, which was already nearly

exhausted. It will at once be seen that there could hardly be a more

felicitous conjunction of circumstances to make everybody miserable by

one easy, natural step; and the step was duly taken. Of course, the

young people fell in love immediately,--Everett, the Dreamer, looking on

with a sort of reverent interest that was almost awe; for the very

thought of love thrilled him with a sense of new and strange

life,--unknown, unguessed of, as heaven itself, but as certain, and

hardly less beautiful. So he watched the gradual progress of these two,

who were passing through that which was so untrodden a mystery to him.

If he ever thought about their love in a more definite way, it was--oh,

the Visionary!--to congratulate himself and everybody concerned. He saw

nothing but what was most happy and desirable in it all. He knew no one

so worthy of Agnes as Barclay, whom, in spite of all his faults, he

believed to be one of the noblest and greatest of men; and he felt sure

that all that was wanting to complete and solidify his character was

just this love for a good, high-souled woman, which would arouse him to

energy and action, sustain and encourage him through all difficulties,

and make life at once more precious and more sacred.

Unfortunately, other members of the family, who were rational beings,

and looked on life in a practical and sensible manner, were very

differently affected by the discovery of this attachment. In brief,

there ensued upon the _éclaircissement_ much storm on one side, much

grief on the other, and keen pain to all,--to none more than to Everett.

Our Visionary's heart swelled hotly with alternate indignation and

tenderness, as he knew his friend was forbidden the house, heard his

father's wrathful comments upon him, and saw his bright sister Agnes

broken down by all the heaviness of a first despair. You may imagine his

passionate denunciation of the spirit of worldliness, which would, for

its own mean ends, separate those whom the divine sacrament of Love had

joined together. No less easily may be pictured the angry, yet

half-compassionate reception of his vehemence, the contemptuous wave of

the hand with which the stern old banker deprecated discussion with one

so ignorant of the world, so utterly incapable of forming a judgment on

such a question, as his son. His mother sat by, during these scenes,

trembling and grieved. It was not in her meek nature to take part

_against_ either husband or son. She strove to soothe, to soften each in

turn,--with but little effect, it may be added. For all he was so gentle

and so loving, Everett was not to be persuaded or influenced in this

matter. He took up his friend's cause and withstood all antagonism,

resisted all entreaties to turn him from his fealty thereto.

Ay, and he bore up against what was harder yet to encounter than all

these. Charles Barclay's was one of those natures which, being

miserable, are apt to become desperate. To such men, affliction seems to

be torture, but no discipline. But our humanity perceives from a level,

and therefore a short-sighted point of view. We may well be thankful

that the Great Ruler sees above and around and on all sides the

creatures to be governed, the events to be disposed.

Charles Barclay went to London. One or two brief and most miserable

letters Everett received from him,--then _all_ a blank silence.

Everett's repeated appeals were unanswered, unnoticed. It might have

been as if Death had come between and separated these lovers and

friends, except that by indirect means they learned that he was alive

and still in London. At length came more definite tidings, and the

brother and sister knew that this Charles Barclay, whom they loved so

well, had plunged into a reckless life, as into a whirlpool of

destruction,--that he was among those associates, of high rank socially,

of nearly the lowest morally, whom he had formerly known at college.

Here was triumph for the prudent father,--desolation to the loving

woman,--and to Everett, what? Pain, keen pain, and bitter anxiety,--but

no quailing of the heart. He had too much faith in his friend for that.