This compact made, my father roused himself from all his
studies--devoted his whole thoughts to me--sought with all his gentle
wisdom to wean me imperceptibly from my own fixed tyrannical idea,
ranged through his wide pharmacy of books for such medicaments as might
alter the system of my thoughts. And little thought he that his very
tenderness and wisdom worked against him, for at each new instance of
either my heart called aloud, "Is it not that thy tenderness may be
repaid, and thy wisdom be known abroad, that I go from thee into the
strange land, O my father?"
And the two months expired, and my father saw that the magnet had
turned unalterably to the loadstone in the great Australasian Bight;
and he said to me, "Go, and comfort your mother. I have told her your
wish, and authorised it by my consent, for I believe now that it _is_
for your good."
I found my mother in the little room which she had appropriated to
herself, next my father's study. And in that room there was a pathos
which I have no words to express; for my mother's meek, gentle, womanly
soul, spoke there, so that it was as the Home of Home. The care with
which she had transplanted from the Brick House, and lovingly arranged,
all the humble memorials of old times, dear to her affections--the
black silhouette of my father's profile cut in paper, in the full pomp
of academics, cap and gown, (how had he ever consented to sit for
it!) framed and glazed in the place of honour over the little hearth;
and boyish sketches of mine at the Hellenic Institute, first essays
in sepia and Indian ink, to animate the walls, and bring her back,
when she sate there in the twilight musing alone, to sunny hours when
Sisty and the young mother threw daisies at each other;--and, covered
with a great glass shade, and dusted each day with her own hand, the
flower-pot Sisty had bought with the proceeds of the domino-box, on
that memorable occasion on which he had learned "how bad deeds are
repaired with good." There, in one corner, stood the little cottage
piano, which I remembered all my life--old-fashioned, and with the
jingling voice of approaching decrepitude, but still associated with
such melodies as, after childhood, we hear never more! And in the
modest hanging shelves which looked so gay with ribbons, and tassels,
and silken cords--my mother's own library, saying more to the heart
than all the cold wise poets whose souls my father invoked in his grand
Heraclea. The Bible over which, with eyes yet untaught to read, I had
hung in vague awe and love, as it lay open on my mother's lap, while
her sweet voice, then only serious, was made the oracle of its truths.
And my first lesson-books were there, all hoarded. And bound in blue
and gold, but elaborately papered up, _Cowper's Poems_--a gift from
my father in the days of courtship--sacred treasure which not even I
had the privilege to touch; and which my mother took out only in the
great crosses and trials of conjugal life, whenever some word less
kind than usual had dropped unawares from her scholar's absent lips.
Ah! all these poor household gods, all seemed to look on me with mild
anger; and from all came a voice to my soul, "Cruel, dost thou forsake
us!" And amongst them sate my mother, desolate as Rachel, and weeping
silently.
"Mother! mother!" I cried, falling on her neck, "forgive me, it is
past, I cannot leave you!"