It was sunset. The day had been one of the sultriest of August. It would
seem as if the fierce alembic of the last twenty-four hours had melted it
like the pearl in the golden cup of Cleopatra, and it lay in the West a
fused mass of transparent brightness. The reflection from the edges of a
hundred clouds wandered hither and thither, over rock and tree and flower,
giving a strange, unearthly brilliancy to the most familiar things.
A group of children had gathered about their mother in the summer-house of
a garden which faced the sunset sky. The house was one of those square,
stately, wooden structures, white, with green blinds, in which of old times
the better classes of New England delighted, and which remain to us as
memorials of a respectable past. It stood under the arches of two gigantic
elms, and was flanked on either side with gardens and grounds which seemed
designed on purpose for hospitality and family freedom.
The evening light colored huge bosquets of petunias, which stood with
their white or crimson faces looking westward, as if they were thinking
creatures. It illumined flame-colored verbenas, and tall columns of pink
and snowy phloxes, and hedges of August roses, making them radiant as the
flowers of a dream.
The group in the summer-house requires more particular attention. The
father and mother, whom we shall call Albert and Olivia, were of the
wealthiest class of the neighbouring city, and had been induced by the
facility of railroad travelling, and a sensible way of viewing things, to
fix their permanent residence in the quiet little village of Q----. Albert
had nothing in him different from multitudes of hearty, joyous, healthily
constituted men, who subsist upon daily newspapers, and find the world a
most comfortable place to live in. As to Olivia, she was in the warm noon
of life, and a picture of vitality and enjoyment. A plump, firm cheek, a
dark eye, a motherly fulness of form, spoke the being made to receive and
enjoy the things of earth, the warm-hearted wife, the indulgent mother,
the hospitable mistress of the mansion. It is true that the smile on the
lip had something of earthly pride blended with womanly sweetness,--the
pride of one who has as yet known only prosperity and success, to whom no
mischance has yet shown the frail basis on which human hopes are built. Her
foot had as yet trod only the high places of life, but she walked there
with a natural grace and nobleness that made every one feel that she was
made for them and they for her.
Around the parents were gathered at this moment a charming group of
children, who with much merriment were proceeding to undo a bundle the
father had just brought from the city.
"Here, Rose," said little Amy, a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired pet, who seemed
to be a privileged character, "let _me_ come; don't be all night with your
orderly ways; let me cut that string." A sharp flash of the scissors, a
quick report of the bursting string, and the package lay opened to the
little marauder. Rose drew back, smiled, and gave an indulgent look at
her eager younger sister and the two little ones who immediately gathered
around. She was one of those calm, thoughtful, womanly young girls, that
seem born for pattern elder sisters, and for the stay and support of
mothers' hearts. She watched with a gentle, quiet curiosity the quick and
eager fingers that soon were busy in exposing the mysteries of the parcel.
"There's a dress for Rose," said Amy, triumphantly drawing out a delicate
muslin; "I can always tell what's for her."
"How?" put in the father, who stood regarding the proceeding with that air
of amused superiority with which the wearers of broadcloth look down on the
mysteries of muslin and barége.
"How?" said Amy, "why, because they look just like her. If I were to see
that lilac muslin in China, I should say it was meant for Rose. Now this is
mine, I know,--this bright pink; isn't it, mamma? No half shades about me!"
"No, indeed," said her mother; "that is your greatest fault, Amy."
"Oh, well, mamma, Rose has enough for both; you must rub us together, as
they do light red and Prussian blue, to make a neutral tint. But oh, what
a ribbon! oh, mother, what a love of a ribbon! Rose! Rose! look at this
ribbon! And oh, those buttons! Fred, I do believe they are for your new
coat! Oh, and those studs, father, where did you get them? What's in that
box? a bracelet for Rose, I know! oh, how beautiful! perfectly exquisite!
And here--oh!"
Here something happened to check the volubility of the little speaker; for
as she hastily, and with the license of a petted child, pulled the articles
from the parcel, she was startled to find lying among the numerous colored
things a black crape veil. Sombre, dark, and ill-omened enough it looked
there, with pink, and lilac, and blue, and glittering _bijouterie_ around
it!
Amy dropped it with instinctive repugnance, and there was a general
exclamation, "Mamma, what's this? how came it here? what did you get this
for?"
"Strange!" said Olivia; "it is a _mourning veil_. Of course I did not order
it. How it came in here nobody knows; it must have been a mistake of the
clerk."
"Certainly it is a mistake," said Amy; "we have nothing to do with
mourning, have we?"
"No, to be sure; what should we mourn for?" chimed in little Fred and Mary.
"What a dark, ugly thing it is!" said Amy, unfolding and throwing it over
her head; "how dismal it must be to see the world through such a veil as
this!"
"And yet till one has seen the world through a veil like that, one has
never truly lived," said another voice, joining in the conversation.
"Ah, Father Payson, are you there?" said two or three voices at once.
Father Payson was the minister of the village, and their nearest neighbor;
and not only their nearest neighbor, but their nearest friend. In the
afternoon of his years, life's day with him now stood at that hour when,
though the shadows fall eastward, yet the colors are warmer, and the songs
of the birds sweeter, than even in its jubilant morning.
God sometimes gives to good men a guileless and holy second childhood, in
which the soul becomes childlike, not childish, and the faculties in full
fruit and ripeness are mellow without sign of decay. This is that songful
land of Beulah, where they who have travelled manfully the Christian way
abide awhile to show the world a perfected manhood. Life, with its battles
and its sorrows, lies far behind them; the soul has thrown off its armor,
and sits in an evening undress of calm and holy leisure. Thrice blessed the
family or neighborhood that numbers among it one of these not yet ascended
saints! Gentle are they and tolerant, apt to play with little children,
easy to be pleased with simple pleasures, and with a pitying wisdom guiding
those who err. New England has been blessed in numbering many such among
her country pastors; and a spontaneous, instinctive deference honors them
with the title of Father.
Father Payson was the welcome inmate of every family in the village,
the chosen friend even of the young and thoughtless. He had stories for
children, jokes for the young, and wisdom for all. He "talked good," as the
phrase goes,--not because he was the minister, but because, being good,
he could not help it; yet his words, unconsciously to himself, were often
parables, because life to him had become all spiritualized, and he saw
sacred meanings under worldly things.
The children seized him lovingly by either hand and seated him in the
arbor.
"Isn't it strange," said Amy, "to see this ugly black thing among all these
bright colors? such a strange mistake in the clerk!"
"If one were inclined to be superstitious," said Albert, "he might call
this an omen."
"What did you mean, sir," asked Rose, quietly seating herself at his feet,
"by 'seeing life through this veil'?"
"It was a parable, my daughter," he said, laying his hand on her head.
"I never have had any deep sorrow," said Olivia, musingly; "we have been
favored ones hitherto. But why did you say one must see the world through
such a medium as this?"
"Sorrow is God's school," said the old man. "Even God's own Son was not
made perfect without it; though a son, yet learned he obedience by the
things that he suffered. Many of the brightest virtues are like stars;
there must be night or they cannot shine. Without suffering, there could be
no fortitude, no patience, no compassion, no sympathy. Take all sorrow out
of life, and you take away all richness and depth and tenderness. Sorrow is
the furnace that melts selfish hearts together in love. Many are hard and
inconsiderate, not because they lack capability of feeling, but because the
vase that holds the sweet waters has never been broken."
"Is it, then, an imperfection and misfortune never to have suffered?" said
Olivia.
Father Payson looked down. Rose was looking into his face. There was a
bright, eager, yet subdued expression in her eyes that struck him; it had
often struck him before in the village church. It was as if his words had
awakened an internal angel, that looked fluttering out behind them. Rose
had been from childhood one of those thoughtful, listening children with
whom one seems to commune without words. We spend hours talking with them,
and fancy they have said many things to us, which, on reflection, we find
have been said only with their silent answering eyes. Those who talk much
often reply to you less than those who silently and thoughtfully listen.
And so it came to pass, that, on account of this quietly absorbent nature,
Rose had grown to her parents' hearts with a peculiar nearness. Eighteen
summers had perfected her beauty. The miracle of the growth and perfection
of a human body and soul never waxes old; parents marvel at it in every
household as if a child had never grown before; and so Olivia and Albert
looked on their fair Rose daily with a restful and trusting pride.
At this moment she laid her hand on Father Payson's knee, and said
earnestly,--"Ought we to pray for sorrow, then?"
"Oh, no, no, no!" interrupted Olivia, with an instinctive shudder,--such a
shudder as a warm, earnest, prosperous heart always gives as the shadow of
the grave falls across it,--"don't say yes!"
"I do not say we should pray for it," said Father Payson; "yet the Master
says, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' not 'Blessed are they that prosper.'
So heaven and earth differ in their judgments."
"Ah, me!" said Olivia, "I am afraid I have not courage to wish to be among
the blessed."
"Well," said Albert, whom the gravity of the discussion somewhat disturbed.
"let us not borrow trouble; time enough to think of it when it happens.
Come, the dew is falling, let us go in. I want to show Father Payson some
peaches that will tempt his Christian graces to envy. Come, Rose, gather up
here."
Rose, in a few moments, gathered the parcel together, and quietly flitted
before them into the house.
"Now," said Albert, "you'll see that girl will have everything quietly
tucked away in just the right place; not a word said. She is a born
housewife; it's in her, as much as it is in a pointer to show game."
"Rose is my right hand," said Olivia; "I should be lost without her."
Whence comes it, that, just on the verge of the great crises and
afflictions of life, words are often spoken, that, to after view, seem to
have had a prophetic meaning? So often do we hear people saying, "Ah, the
very day before I heard of this or that, we were saying so and so!" It
would seem sometimes as if the soul felt itself being drawn within the dark
sphere of a coming evil, of which as yet nothing outward tells. Then the
thoughts and conversation flow in an almost prophetic channel, which a
coming future too well interprets.
The evening passed cheerfully with our friends, notwithstanding the grave
conversation in the arbor. The mourning veil was laid away in a drawer
along with many of its brilliant companions, and with it the thoughts it
had suggested; and the merry laugh ringing from the half-open parlor-door
showed that Father Payson was no despiser of the command to rejoice with
them that do rejoice.
Rose played and sung, the children danced, and the mirth was prolonged till
a late hour in the evening.
Olivia and Albert were lingering in the parlor after the departure of the
family, busy in shutting windows, setting back chairs, and attending to all
the last duties of orderly householders.
A sudden shriek startled them; such a shriek as, once heard, is never
forgotten. With an answering cry of horror, they rushed up the stairs. The
hall lamp had been extinguished, but the passage and staircase were red
with a broad glare from the open door of the nursery.
A moment more showed them the drapery of the bed in which their youngest
child was sleeping all in flames; then they saw a light form tearing down
the blazing curtains.
"Oh, Rose! Rose! take care, for God's sake! your dress! you'll kill
yourself! oh, God help us!"
There were a few moments--awful moments of struggle--when none knew or
remembered what they did; a moment more and Rose lay panting in her
father's arms, enveloped in a thick blanket which he had thrown around her
burning night-dress. The fire was extinguished, the babe lay unawakened,
and only the dark flecks of tinder scattered over the bed, and the trampled
mass on the floor, told what had been. But Rose had breathed the hot breath
of the flame, deadly to human life, and no water could quench that inward
fire.
A word serves to explain all. The child's nurse had carelessly set a lamp
too near the curtains, and the night breeze had wafted them into the flame.
The apartment of Rose opened into the nursery, and as she stood in her
night-dress before her mirror, arranging her hair, she saw the flashing of
the flame, and, in the one idea of saving her little sister, forgot every
other. That act of self-forgetfulness was her last earthly act; a few short
hours of patient suffering were all that remained to her. Peacefully as she
had lived, she died, looking tenderly on her parents out of her large blue
eyes, and only intent to soothe their pain.
"Yes, I suffer," she said, "but only a short pain. We must all suffer
something. My Father thinks a very little enough for me. I have had such a
happy life, I _might_ bear just a little pain at the last."
A little later her mind seemed to wander. "Mamma, mamma," she said,
hurriedly, "I put the things all away; the lilac muslin and the barége.
Mamma, that veil, the mourning veil, is in the drawer. Oh, mamma, that
veil was for you; don't refuse it; our Father sends it, and he knows best.
Perhaps you will see heaven through that veil."
It is appalling to think how near to the happiest and most prosperous
scene of life stands the saddest despair. All homes are haunted with awful
possibilities, for whose realization no array of threatening agents is
required,--no lightning, or tempest, or battle; a peaceful household lamp,
a gust of perfumed evening air, a false step in a moment of gayety, a
draught taken by mistake, a match overlooked or mislaid, a moment's
oversight in handling a deadly weapon,--and the whole scene of life is
irretrievably changed!
It was but a day after the scene in the arbor, and all was mourning in the
so lately happy, hospitable house; everybody looked through tears. There
were subdued breathings, a low murmur, as of many listeners, a voice of
prayer, and the wail of a funeral hymn,--and then the heavy tread of
bearers, as, beneath the black pall, _she_ was carried over the threshold
of her home, never to return.
And Olivia and Albert came forth behind their dead. The folds of the dark
veil seemed a refuge for the mother's sorrow. But how did the flowers of
home, the familiar elms, the distant smiling prospect look through its
gloomy folds,--emblem of the shadow which had fallen between her heart and
life? When she looked at the dark moving hearse, she wondered that the sun
still shone, that birds could sing, and that even her own flowers could be
so bright.
Ah, mother! the world had been just as full of sorrow the day before;
the air as full of "farewells to the dying and mournings for the dead";
but thou knewest it not! Now the outer world comes to thee through the
_mourning veil_!
But after the funeral comes life again,--hard, cold, inexorable life,
knocking with business-like sound at the mourner's door, obtruding its
common-place pertinacity on the dull ear of sorrow. The world cannot wait
for us; the world knows no leisure for tears; it moves onward, and drags
along with its motion the weary and heavy-laden who would fain rest.
Olivia would have buried herself in her sorrows. There are those who refuse
to be comforted. The condolence of friends seems only a mockery; and truly,
nothing so shows the emptiness and poverty of human nature as its efforts
at condolence.
Father Payson, however, was a visitor who would not be denied; there
was something of gentle authority in his white hairs that might not be
resisted. Old, and long schooled in sorrow, his heart many times broken
in past years, he knew all the ways of mourning. His was no official
common-place about "afflictive dispensations." He came first with that
tender and reverent silence with which the man acquainted with grief
approaches the divine mysteries of sorrow; and from time to time he
cast on the troubled waters words, dropped like seeds, not for present
fruitfulness, but to germinate after the floods had subsided.
He watched beside a soul in affliction as a mother waits on the crisis of a
fever whose turning is to be for life or for death; for he well knew that
great sorrows never leave us as they find us; that the broken spirit, ill
set, grows callous and distorted ever after.
He had wise patience with every stage of sorrow; he knew that at first
the soul is blind, and deaf, and dumb. He was not alarmed when returning
vitality showed itself only in moral spasms and convulsions; for in
all great griefs come hours of conflict, when the soul is tempted, and
complaining, murmuring, dark, skeptical thoughts are whirled like withered
leaves through all its desolate chambers.
"What have I learned by looking through this veil?" said Olivia to him,
bitterly, one day when they were coming out of a house where they had been
visiting a mourning family. "I was trusting in God as an indulgent Father;
life seemed beautiful to me in the light of his goodness; now I see only
his inflexible severity. I never knew before how much mourning and sorrow
there had been even in this little village. There is scarcely a house where
something dreadful has not at some time happened. How many families here
have been called to mourning since we have! I have not taken up a paper in
which I have not seen a record of two or three accidental deaths; some of
them even more bitter and cruel than what has befallen us. I read this
morning of a poor washerwoman, whose house was burned, and all her children
consumed, while she was away working for her bread. I read the other day of
a blind man whose only son was drowned in his very presence, while he could
do nothing to help him. I was visiting yesterday that poor dress-maker whom
you know. She has by toil and pains been educating a fine and dutiful son.
He is smitten down with hopeless disease, while her idiot child, who can
do nobody any good, is spared. Ah, this mourning veil has indeed opened my
eyes; but it has taught me to add all the sorrows of the world to my own;
and can I believe in God's love?"
"Daughter," said the old man, "I am not ignorant of these things. I have
buried seven children; I have buried my wife; and God has laid on me in my
time reproach, and controversy, and contempt. Each cross seemed, at the
time, heavier than the others. Each in its day seemed to be what I least
could bear; and I would have cried, '_Anything but this!_' And yet, now
when I look back, I cannot see one of these sorrows that has not been made
a joy to me. With every one some perversity or sin has been subdued, some
chain unbound, some good purpose perfected. God has taken my loved ones,
but he has given me love. He has given me the power of submission and of
consolation; and I have blessed him many times in my ministry for all I
have suffered, for by it I have stayed up many that were ready to perish."
"Ah," said Olivia, "you indeed have reason to be comforted, because you can
see in yourself the fruit of your sorrows; but I am not improving; I am
only crushed and darkened,--not amended."
"Have patience with thyself, child; weeping must endure for a night;
all comes not at once. 'No trial _for the present_ seemeth joyous'; but
'_afterwards_ it yieldeth the peaceable fruit';--have faith in this
_afterwards_. Some one says that it is not in the tempest one walks the
beach to look for the treasures of wrecked ships; but when the storm is
past we find pearls and precious stones washed ashore. Are there not even
now some of these in your path? Is not the love between you and your
husband deeper and more intimate since this affliction? Do you not love
your other children more tenderly? Did you not tell me that you had thought
on the sorrows of every house in this village? Courage, my child! that is a
good sign. Once, as you read the papers, you thought nothing of those who
lost friends; now you notice and feel. Take the sorrows of others to your
heart; they shall widen and deepen it. Ours is a religion of sorrow. The
Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering; our Father is
the God of all consolation; our Teacher is named the Comforter; and all
other mysteries are swallowed up in the mystery of the Divine sorrow. 'In
all our afflictions He is afflicted.' God refuseth not to suffer;--shall
we?"
There is no grave so desolate that flowers will not at last spring on it.
Time passed with Albert and Olivia with healing in its wings. The secret
place of tears became first a temple of prayer, and afterwards of praise;
and the heavy cloud was remembered by the flowers that sprung up after the
rain. The vacant chair in the household circle had grown to be a tender
influence, not a harrowing one; and the virtues of the lost one seemed to
sow themselves like the scattered seeds of a fallen flower, and to spring
up in the hearts of the surviving ones. More tender and more blessed is
often the brooding influence of the sacred dead than the words of the
living.
Olivia became known in the abodes of sorrow, and a deep power seemed given
her to console the suffering and distressed. A deeper power of love sprung
up within her; and love, though born of sorrow, ever brings peace with
it. Many were the hearts that reposed on her; many the wandering that she
reclaimed, the wavering that she upheld, the desolate that she comforted.
As a soul in heaven may look back on earth, and smile at its past sorrows,
so, even here, it may rise to a sphere where it may look down on the storm
that once threatened to overwhelm it.
It was on the afternoon of just such another summer day as we have
described at the opening of our story, that Olivia was in her apartment,
directing the folding and laying away of mourning garments. She took up the
dark veil and looked on it kindly, as on a faithful friend. How much had
she seen and learned behind the refuge of its sheltering folds! She turned
her thoughts within herself. She was calm once more, and happy,--happy with
a wider and steadier basis than ever before. A new world seemed opened
within her; and with a heart raised in thankfulness she placed the veil
among her most sacred treasures.
Yes, there by the smiling image of the lost one,--by the curls of her
glossy hair,--by the faded flowers taken from her bier, was laid in solemn
thankfulness the Mourning Veil.