"Let thy abundant blessing rest upon it, O Almighty God! else indeed my
labor will be in vain. 'Paul planted, Apollos watered, but thou only
can give the increase.' It is finished; look down in mercy, and
sanctify it, and accept it."
The night was almost spent when Edna laid down her pen, and raised her
clasped hands over the MS., which she had just completed.
For many weary months she had toiled to render it worthy of its noble
theme, had spared neither time nor severe trains of thought; by day and
by night she had searched and pondered; she had prayed fervently and
ceaselessly, and worked arduously, unflaggingly to accomplish this
darling hope of her heart, to embody successfully this ambitious dream,
and at last the book was finished.
The manuscript was a mental tapestry, into which she had woven
exquisite shades of thought, and curious and quaint devices and rich,
glowing imagery that necked the groundwork with purple and amber and
gold.
But would the design be duly understood and appreciated by the great,
busy, bustling world, for whose amusement and improvement she had
labored so assiduously at the spinning-wheels of fancy--the loom of
thought? Would her fellow-creatures accept it in the earnest, loving
spirit in which it had been manufactured? Would they hang this Gobelin
of her brain along the walls of memory, and turn to it tenderly,
reading reverently its ciphers and its illuminations; or would it be
rent and ridiculed, and trampled under foot? This book was a shrine to
which her purest thoughts, her holiest aspirations travelled like
pilgrims, offering the best of which her nature was capable. Would
those for whom she had patiently chiselled and built it guard and prize
and keep it; or smite and overturn and defile it?
Looking down at the mass of MS. now ready for the printer, a sad,
tender, yearning expression filled the author's eyes; and her little
white hands passed caressingly over its closely-written pages, as a
mother's soft fingers might lovingly stroke the face of a child about
to be thrust out into a hurrying crowd of cold, indifferent strangers,
who perhaps would rudely jeer at and browbeat her darling.
For several days past Edna had worked hard to complete the book, and
now at last she could fold her tired hands, and rest her weary brain.
But outraged nature suddenly swore vengeance, and her overworked nerves
rose in fierce rebellion, refusing to be calm. She had so long
anticipated this hour that its arrival was greeted by emotions beyond
her control. As she contemplated the possible future of that pile of
MS., her heart bounded madly, and then once more a fearful agony seized
her, and darkness and a sense of suffocation came upon her. Rising, she
strained her eyes and groped her way toward the window, but ere she
reached it fell, and lost all consciousness.
The sound of the fall, the crash of a china vase which her hand had
swept from the table, echoed startlingly through the silent house, and
aroused some of its inmates. Mrs. Andrews ran upstairs and into Felix's
room, saw that he was sleeping soundly, and then she hastened up
another flight of steps, to the apartment occupied by the governess.
The gas burned dazzlingly over the table where rested the roll of MS.
and on the floor near the window lay Edna.
Ringing the bell furiously to summon her husband, and the servants,
Mrs. Andrews knelt, raised the girl's head, and rubbing her cold hands,
tried to rouse her. The heart beat faintly, and seemed to stop now and
then, and the white, rigid face was as ghastly as if the dread kiss of
Samael had indeed been pressed upon her still lips.
Finding all her restoratives ineffectual, Mrs. Andrews sent her husband
for the family physician, and with the assistance of the servants, laid
the girl on her bed.
When the doctor arrived and questioned her, she could furnish no clew
to the cause of the attack, save by pointing to the table, where pen
and paper showed that the sufferer had been at work.
Edna opened her eyes at last, and looked around at the group of anxious
faces, but in a moment the spasm of pain returned. Twice she muttered
something, and putting his ear close to her mouth, the doctor heard her
whispering to herself:
"Never mind; it is done at last! Now I can rest."
An hour elapsed before the paroxysms entirely subsided, and then, with
her ivory-like hands clasped and thrown up over her head, the governess
slept heavily, dreamlessly.
For two days she remained in her own apartment, and on the morning of
the third came down to the schoolroom, with a slow, weary step and a
bloodless face, and a feeling of hopeless helplessness.
She dispatched her MS. to the publisher to whom she had resolved to
offer it, and, leaning far back in her chair, took up Felix's Greek
grammar.
Since the days of Dionysius Thrax, it had probably never appeared so
tedious, so intolerably tiresome, as she found it now, and she felt
relieved, almost grateful when Mrs. Andrews sent for her to come to the
library, where Dr. Howell was waiting to see her.
Seating himself beside her, the physician examined her countenance and
pulse, and put his ear close to her heart.
"Miss Earl, have you had many such attacks as the one whose effects
have not yet passed away?"
"This is the second time I have suffered so severely; though very
frequently I find a disagreeable fluttering about my heart, which is
not very painful."
"What mode of treatment have you been following?"
"None, sir. I have never consulted a physician."
"Humph! Is it possible?"
He looked at her with the keen, incisive eye of his profession, and
pressed his ear once more to her heart, listening to the irregular and
rapid pulsations.
"Miss Earl, are you an orphan?"
"Yes, sir."
"Have you any living relatives?"
"None that I ever heard of."
"Did any of your family die suddenly?"
"Yes, I have been told that my mother died while apparently as well as
usual, and engaged in spinning; and my grandfather I found dead,
sitting in his rocking-chair, smoking his pipe."
Dr. Howell cleared his throat, sighed and was silent.
He saw a strange, startled expression leap into the large shadowy eyes,
and the mouth quivered, the wan face grew whiter, and the thin fingers
grasped each other; but she said nothing, and they sat looking at one
another.
The physician had come like Daniel to the banquet of life, and solved
for the Belshazzar of youth the hideous riddle scrawled on the walls.
"Dr. Howell, can you do nothing for me?"
Her voice had sunk to a whisper, and she leaned eagerly forward to
catch his answer.
"Miss Earl, do you know what is meant by hypertrophy of the heart?"
"Yes, yes, I know."
She shivered slightly.
"Whether you inherited your disease, I am not prepared to say, but
certainly in your case there are some grounds for the belief."
Presently she said abstractedly:
"But grandpa lived to be an old man."
The doctor's eyes fell upon the mosaic floor of the library; and then
she knew that he could give her no hope.
When at last he looked up again, he saw that she had dropped her face
in her palms, and he was awed by the deathlike repose of her figure,
the calm fortitude she evinced.
"Miss Earl, I never deceive my patients. It is useless to dose you with
medicine, and drug you into semi-insensibility. You must have rest and
quiet; rest for mind as well as body; there must be no more teaching or
writing. You are overworked, and incessant mental labor has hastened
the approach of a disease which, under other circumstances, might have
encroached very slowly and imperceptibly. If latent (which is barely
possible) it has contributed to a fearfully rapid development. Refrain
from study, avoid all excitement, exercise moderately but regularly in
the open air; and, above all things, do not tax your brain. If you
carefully observe these directions you may live to be as old as your
grandfather. Heart diseases baffle prophecy, and I make no predictions."
He rose and took his hat from the table.
"Miss Earl, I have read your writings with great pleasure, and watched
your brightening career with more interest than I ever felt in any
other female author; and God knows it is exceedingly painful for me to
tear away the veil from your eyes. From the first time you were pointed
out to me in church, I saw that in your countenance which distressed
and alarmed me; for its marble pallor whispered that your days were
numbered. Frequently I have been tempted to come and expostulate with
you, but I knew it would be useless. You have no reader who would more
earnestly deplore the loss of your writings, but, for your own sake, I
beg you to throw away your pen and rest."
She raised her head and a faint smile crept feebly across her face.
"Rest! rest! If my time is so short I can not afford to rest. There is
so much to do, so much that I have planned, and hoped to accomplish. I
am only beginning to learn how to handle my tools, my life-work is as
yet barely begun. When my long rest overtakes me, I must not be found
idly sitting with folded hands. Since I was thirteen years old I have
never once rested; and now I am afraid I never shall. I would rather
die working than live a drone."
"But, my dear Miss Earl, those who love you have claims upon you."
"I am alone in this world. I have no family to love me, and my work is
to me what I suppose dear relatives must be to other women. For six
years I have been studying to fit myself for usefulness, have lived
with and for books; and though I have a few noble and kind friends, do
you suppose I ever forget that I am kinless? It is a mournful thing to
know that you are utterly isolated among millions of human beings; that
not a drop of your blood flows in any other veins. My God only has a
claim upon me. Dr. Howell, I thank you for your candor. It is best that
I should know the truth; and I am glad that, instead of treating me
like a child, you have frankly told me all. More than once I have had a
singular feeling, a shadowy presentiment that I should not live to be
an old woman, but I thought it the relic of childish superstition, and
I did not imagine that--that I might be called away at any instant. I
did not suspect that just as I had arranged my workshop, and sharpened
all my tools, and measured off my work, that my morning sun would set
suddenly in the glowing east, and the long, cold night fall upon me,
'wherein no man can work'--"
Her voice faltered and the physician turned away, and looked out of the
window.
"I am not afraid of death, nor am I so wrapped up in the mere happiness
which this world gives; no, no; but I love my work! Ah! I want to live
long enough to finish something grand and noble, something that will
live when the hands that fashioned it have crumbled back to dust;
something that will follow me across and beyond the dark, silent
valley; something that can not be hushed and straightened and bandaged
and screwed down under my coffin-lid--oh! something that will echo in
eternity! that grandpa and I can hear 'sounding down the ages,' making
music for the people, when I go to my final rest! And, please God! I
shall! I will! Oh, doctor! I have a feeling here which assures me I
shall be spared till I finish my darling scheme. You know Glanville
said, and Poe quoted, 'Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor
unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.'
Mine is strong, invincible; it will sustain me for a longer period than
you seem to believe. The end is not yet. Doctor, do not tell people
what you have told me. I do not want to be watched and pitied, like a
doomed victim who walks about the scaffold with a rope already around
his neck. Let the secret rest between you and me."
He looked wonderingly at the electric white face, and something in its
chill radiance reminded him of the borealis light, that waves its
ghostly banners over a cold midnight sky.
"God grant that I may be in error concerning your disease; and that
threescore years and ten may be alloted you, to embody the airy dreams
you love so well. I repeat, if you wish to prolong your days, give
yourself more rest. I can do you little good; still, if at any time you
fancy that I can aid or relieve you, do not hesitate to send for me. I
shall come to see you as a friend, who reads and loves all that has yet
fallen from your pen. God help and bless you, child!"
As he left the room she locked the door, and walked slowly back to the
low mantelpiece. Resting her arms on the black marble, she laid her
head down upon them, and ambition and death stared face to face, and
held grim parley over the coveted prey.
Taking the probable measure of her remaining days, Edna fearlessly
fronted the future, and pondered the possibility of crowding into two
years the work which she had designed for twenty.
To tell the girl to "rest," was a mockery; the tides of thought ebbed
and flowed as ceaselessly as those of ocean, and work had become a
necessity of her existence. She was far, far beyond the cool, quiet
palms of rest, far out on the burning sands; and the Bahr-Sheitan
rippled and glittered and beckoned, and she panted and pressed on.
One book was finished, but before she had completed it the form and
features of another struggled in her busy brain, and she longed to put
them on paper.
The design of the second book appeared to her partial eyes almost
perfect, and the first seemed insignificant in comparison. Trains of
thought that had charmed her, making her heart throb and her temples
flush; and metaphors that glowed as she wrote them down, ah! how tame
and trite all looked now, in the brighter light of a newer revelation!
The attained, the achieved tarnished in her grasp. All behind was dun;
all beyond clothed with a dazzling glory that lured her on.
Once the fondest hopes of her heart had been to finish the book now in
the publisher's hands; but ere it could be printed, other characters,
other aims, other scenes usurped her attention. If she could only live
long enough to incarnate the new ideal!
Moreover, she knew that memory would spring up and renew its almost
intolerable torture the moment that she gave herself to aimless
reveries; and she felt that her sole hope of peace of mind, her only
rest, was in earnest and unceasing labor. Subtle associations,
merciless as the chains of Bonnivard, bound her to a past which she was
earnestly striving to forget; and she continually paced as far off as
her shackles would permit, sternly refusing to sit down meekly at the
foot of the stake. She worked late at night until her body was
exhausted, because she dreaded to lie awake, tossing helplessly on her
pillow; haunted by precious recollections of days gone by forever.
Her name was known in the world of letters, her reputation was already
enviable; extravagant expectations were entertained concerning her
future; and to maintain her hold on public esteem, to climb higher, had
become necessary for her happiness.
Through Mr. Manning's influence and friendship she was daily making the
acquaintance of leading men in literature, and their letters and
conversation stimulated her to renewed exertion.
Yet she had never stooped to conciliate popular prejudices, had never
written a line which her conscience did not dictate and her religious
convictions sanction; had bravely attacked some of the pet vices and
shameless follies of society, and had never penned a page without a
prayer for guidance from on High.
Now in her path rose God's Reaper, swinging his shining sickle,
threatening to cut off and lay low her budding laurel wreath.
While she stood silent and motionless in the quiet library, the woman's
soul was wrestling with God for permission to toil a little while
longer on earth, to do some good for her race, and to assist in saving
a darkened soul almost as dear to her as her own.
She never knew how long that struggle for life lasted; but when the
prayer ended, and she lifted her face, the shadows and the sorrowful
dread had passed away, and the old calm, the old sweet, patient smile
reigned over pale, worn features.
Early in July, Felix's feeble health forced his mother to abandon her
projected tour to the White Mountains; and in accordance with Dr.
Howell's advice, Mr. Andrews removed his family to a seaside
summer-place, which he had owned for some years, but rarely occupied,
as his wife preferred Newport, Saratoga, and Nahant.
The house at the "Willows" was large and airy, the ceilings were high,
windows wide, and a broad piazza, stretching across the front, was
shaded by two aged and enormous willows, that stood on either side of
the steps, and gave a name to the place.
The fresh matting on the floors, the light cane sofa and chairs, the
white muslin curtains and newly-painted green blinds imparted an
appearance of delicious coolness and repose to the rooms; and while not
one bright-hued painting was visible, the walls were hung with soft,
gray, misty engravings of Landseer's pictures, framed in carved ebony
and rosewood and oak.
The gilded splendor of the Fifth Avenue house was left behind; here
simplicity and quiet comfort held sway. Even the china wore no glitter,
but was enamelled with green wreaths of vine-leaves; and the vases held
only plumy ferns, fresh and dewy.
Low salt meadow-lands extended east and west, waving fields of corn
stretched northward, and the slight knoll on which the building stood
sloped smoothly down to the ever-moaning, foam-fretted bosom of the
blue Atlantic.
To the governess and her pupils the change from New York heat and
bustle to seaside rest, was welcome and delightful; and during the long
July days, when the strong ocean breeze tossed aside the willow boughs,
and swept through the rustling blinds, and lifted the hair on Edna's
hot temples, she felt as if she had indeed taken a new lease on life.
For several weeks her book had been announced as in press, and her
publishers printed most flattering circulars, which heightened
expectation, and paved the way for its favorable reception. Save the
first chapter, rejected by Mr. Manning long before, no one had seen the
MS., and while the reading public was on the qui vive, the author was
rapidly maturing the plot of a second work.
Finally, the book was bound; editors' copies winged their way
throughout the country; the curious eagerly supplied themselves with
the latest publication; and Edna's destiny as an author hung in the
balance.
It was with strange emotions that she handled the copy sent to her, for
it seemed indeed a part of herself. She knew that her own heart was
throbbing in its pages, and wondered whether the great world-pulses
would beat in unison.
Instead of a preface she had quoted on the title-page those pithy lines
in "Aurora Leigh":
"My critic Belfair wants a book Entirely different, which will sell and
live; A striking book, yet not a startling book--The public blames
originalities. You must not pump spring-water unawares Upon a gracious
public full of nerves--Good things, not subtle--new, yet orthodox; As
easy reading as the dog-eared page That's fingered by said public fifty
years, Since first taught spelling by its grandmother, And yet a
revelation in some sort: That's hard, my critic Belfair!"
Now, as Edna nestled her fingers among the pages of her book, a tear
fell and moistened them, and the unvoiced language of her soul was,
"Grandpa! do you keep close enough to me to read my book? Oh! do you
like it? are you satisfied? Are you proud of your poor little Pearl?"
The days were tediously long while she waited in suspense for the
result of the weighing in editors' sanctums, for the awful verdict of
the critical Sanhedrim. A week dragged itself away; and the severity of
the decree might have entitled it to one of those slips of blue paper
upon which Frederick the Great required his courts to inscribe their
sentences of death. Edna learned the full import of the words:
"He that writes, Or makes a feast, more certainly invites His judges
than his friends; there's not a guest But will find something wanting
or ill-drest."
Newspapers pronounced the book a failure. Some sneered in a gentlemanly
manner, employing polite phraseology; others coarsely caricatured it.
Many were insulted by its incomprehensible erudition; a few growled at
its shallowness. To-day there was a hint at plagiarism; to-morrow an
outright, wholesale theft was asserted. Now she was a pedant; and then
a sciolist. Reviews poured in upon her thick and fast; all found
grievous faults, but no two reviewers settled on the same error. What
one seemed disposed to consider almost laudable the other denounced
violently. One eminently shrewd, lynx-eyed editor discovered that two
of her characters were stolen from a book which Edna had never seen;
and another, equally ingenious and penetrating, found her entire plot
in a work of which she had never heard; while a third, shocked at her
pedantry, indignantly assured her readers that they had been imposed
upon, that the learning was all "picked up from encyclopaedias";
whereat the young author could not help laughing heartily, and wondered
why, if her learning had been so easily gleaned, her irate and insulted
critics did not follow her example.
The book was for many days snubbed, buffeted, browbeaten; and the care
fully-woven tapestry was torn into shreds and trampled upon; and it
seemed that the patiently sculptured shrine was overtured and despised
and desecrated.
Edna was astonished. She knew that her work was not perfect, but she
was equally sure that it was not contemptible. She was surprised rather
than mortified, and was convinced, from the universal howling, that she
had wounded more people than she dreamed were vulnerable.
She felt that the impetuosity and savageness of the attacks must
necessitate a recoil; and though it was difficult to be patient under
such circumstances, she waited quietly, undismayed by the clamor.
Meantime the book sold rapidly, the publishers could scarcely supply
the demand; and at last Mr. Manning's Magazine appeared, and the
yelping pack of Dandie Dinmont's pets--Auld Mustard and Little Mustard,
Auld Pepper and Little Pepper, Young Mustard and Young Pepper, stood
silent and listened to the roar of the lion.
The review of Edna's work was headed by that calm retort of Job to his
self-complacent censors, "No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom
shall die with you"; and it contained a withering rebuke to those who
had so flippantly essayed to crush the young writer.
Mr. Manning handled the book with the stern impartiality which gave
such value to his criticisms--treating it as if it had been written by
an utter stranger.
He analyzed it thoroughly; and while pointing out some serious errors
which had escaped all eyes but his, he bestowed upon a few passages
praise which no other American writer had ever received from him, and
predicted that they would live when those who attempted to ridicule
them were utterly forgotten in their graves.
The young author was told that she had not succeeded in her grand aim,
because the subject was too vast for the limits of a novel, and her
acquaintance with the mythologies of the world was not sufficiently
extensive or intimate. But she was encouraged to select other themes
more in accordance with the spirit of the age in which she lived; and
the assurance was given to her, that her writings were destined to
exert a powerful influence on her race. Some faults of style were
gravely reprimanded, some beauties most cordially eulogized and held up
for the admiration of the world.
Edna had as little literary conceit as personal vanity; she saw and
acknowledged the errors pointed out by Mr. Manning, and resolved to
avoid them in future. She felt that some objections urged against her
book were valid, but knew that she was honest and earnest in her work,
and could not justly be accused of trifling.
Gratefully and joyfully she accepted Mr. Manning's verdict, and turned
her undivided attention upon her new manuscript.
While the critics snarled, the mass of readers warmly approved; and
many who did not fully appreciate all her arguments and illustrations,
were at least clear-eyed enough to perceive that it was their
misfortune, not her fault.
Gradually the book took firm hold on the affections of the people; and
a few editors came boldly to the rescue, and ably championed it.
During these days of trial, Edna could not avoid observing one
humiliating fact, that saddened without embittering her nature. She
found that instead of sympathizing with her, she received no mercy from
authors, who, as a class, out-Heroded Herod in their denunciations, and
left her little room to doubt that--
"Envy's a sharper spur than pay, And unprovoked 'twill court the fray;
No author ever spared a brother; Wits are gamecocks to one another."