Augusta J. Evans

“ Ah, there is a touching beauty in the radiant up-look of a girl just crossing the limits of youth, and commencing her journey through the checkered sphere of womanhood! It is all dew-sparkle and morning glory to her ardent, buoyant spirit, as she presses forward exulting in blissful anticipations. But the withering heat of the conflict of life creeps on; the dewdrops exhale, the garlands of hope, shattered and dead, strew the path, and too often, ere noontide, the clear brow and sweet smile are exchanged for the weary look of one longing for the evening rest, the twilight, the night. ”

“ Her sands of life seamed ebbing fast,—the end might not be distant; who could tell? Why not go back—give up the chase for the empty shadow of a name—gather her baby to her bosom, and die, finding under an humble cenotaph the peace that this world denied her?
An intolerable yearning for the sight of her child, for the sound of her voice, broke over her like some irresistible wave bearing away the vehement protests of policy, the sterner barriers of vindictive purpose, and with a long shivering moan she clasped her hands and shut her eyes. ”

“ In the material, physical Universe, the divine rhythm flows on, majestic, serene as when the "morning stars sing together" in the choral of praise to Him, unto whom "all seemed good"; but in the moral and spiritual realm evolved by humanity, what hideous pandemonium of discords drowns the heavenly harmony? What grim havoc marks the swath, when the dripping scythe of human sin and crime swings madly, where the lilies of eternal "Peace on earth, good will to man," should lift their silver chalices to meet the smile of God? ”

“ Gowned in a fur-trimmed cloth of hunter's green, Eglah wore a velvet toque of same hue, that failed to conceal the mass of golden-brown hair burnished by sunshine into the similitude of a white-oak leaf dyed in autumn. Under delicate, level brows, her large dark eyes—chataigne in some lights, almost black at times—were set rather far apart in an oval face whose exquisitely clear, pure pallor was stained only by the healthy rich red of slender lips, that had a treacherous trick of quivering when any strong emotion stirred the deeps of her heart. ”

“ Mary, I have watched for one loved form, and listened for that calm, proud step. I have loved, and trusted, and believed that we should meet again. Deluded Florence! a period is put to thy hopes and fears! Mary, he is married! All is over for me. The dull, heavy weight resting upon my heart will soon crush out the life spark, and lay low my proud head. Ah! I my cousin, you weep. I wish that I could; but tears have been too often scornfully repulsed; they come not now at my call. Oh, Mary, I am weary, weary! I long for rest, even the rest of the dark, still tomb! ”

“ Grey, is the shattered idol of my girlish adoration,—such the divinity of dust upon which I spent the treasures of my love and trust. Gray-haired, gray-hearted, mocked, and maddened in the dawn of my confiding womanhood, nominally a wife, but in reality a nameless waif, shut out from happiness, and pitied as a maniac,—such, is that most desolate and isolated woman, whom, as Agla Gerome, you have known as the mistress of this lonely place. ”

“ Gentlemen of the jury, is there any sacrifice so tremendous, any anguish so keen, any shame so dreadful, any fate so overwhelmingly terrible as to transcend the endurance, or crush the power of a woman's love? Under this invincible inspiration, when danger threatens her idol, she knows no self; disgrace, death affright her not; she extends her arms to arrest every approach, offers her own breast as a shield against darts, bullets, sword thrusts, and counts it a privilege to lay down life in defence of that idol. ”

“ Life, with its grim realities, seemed but a flying mist. The orphan hovered on the confines of eternity's ocean, and its silent waves almost laved the feet of the weary child. The room was darkened, and the summer wind stole through the blinds stealthily, as if awed by the solitude of the sick-chamber. Dr. Hartwell sat by the low French bedstead, holding one emaciated hand in his, counting the pulse which bounded so fiercely in the blue veins. A fold of white linen containing crushed ice lay on her forehead, and the hollow cheeks and thin lips were flushed to vermilion hue. ”

“ Irene, you are young, and singularly beautiful, and I am a grey-haired man, much, much older than yourself; but, if you live a thousand years, you will never find such affection as I offer you now. There is nothing on earth which would make me so happy as the possession of your love. You are the only woman I have ever seen whom I even wish to call my wife—the only woman who, I felt, could lend new charm to life, and make my quiet hearth happier by her presence. ”

“ Ah! how impetuously youth springs to the battlefield of life! Hope exorcises the gaunt spectre of defeat, and fancy fingers unwon trophies and fadeless bays; but slow-stepping experience, pallid, blood-stained, spent with toil, lays her icy hand on the rosy veil that floats before bright, brave, young eyes, and lo' the hideous wreck, the bleaching bones, the grinning, ghastly horrors that strew the scene of combat! No burnished eagles nor streaming banners, neither spoils of victory nor paeans of triumph, only silence and gloom and death—slow-sailing vultures—and a voiceless desolation! ”

“ An ashy paleness overspread the cheek and brow of his companion as he spoke, and the small hands clutched each other tightly, yet no words passed the quivering lips.
"Good-by, Inez! my kind and valued friend, good-by!" He held out his hand. She raised her head, and gazed into the sad yet noble face of the man she had loved so long. She clasped his hand between both hers, and a moan of bitter anguish escaped the lips.
"My love will follow you forever! A woman of my nature cannot forget. I shall sink to eternal rest with your name on my lips—your image in my heart. ”

“ Ah, my darling! is it not hard that your beauty should sting like a serpent the mother whose blood filled your veins? The very tones of your voice, the carriage of your head, even the peculiar shape of your fingers and nails, are his—all his! Oh, my baby! my white lamb! my precious little one, if I had not fed you from my bosom—cradled you in my arms—realized that you were indeed flesh of my flesh—my own unfortunate, unprotected disowned baby, I believe I should hate you! ”

“ Grey, eight miserable years have gone wearily over my head since then, but now, in the dead of night, if I shut my eyes, I see staring at me, like the rayless, glazed orbs of the dead, that silver-edged wedding card, bearing in silver letters—Maurice Carlyle, Evelyn Flewellyn. Oh, 403 blacker than ten thousand death-warrants! for all the hopes of a lifetime went down before it. Every ray of earthly light was extinguished in a night of woe that can have no dawn, until the day-star of eternity shimmers on its gloom. ”

“ Memory comes, sometimes, in the guise of an angel, wearing fragrant chaplets, singing us the perfect harmonies of a hallowed past; but oftener still, as a fury scourging with serpents; and always over her shoulder peers the wan face and pitying eyes of a divine Regret.
The sun had gone down behind the dense pine forest stretching beyond the prison, but the sky was a vast shifting flame of waning rose and deepening scarlet, and the glow from the West still defied the shadows gathering in the cell. Beryl was so still, that Mr. Dunbar feared she had fainted from exhaustion. ”

“ Thundering waves sweep over and bear away the frail palaces that decked the strand, and even while the shell symphony still charms the ear, the child's rosy feet are washed from their sandy resting-place; she is borne on howling billows far out to a lashed and maddened main, strewn with human drift; and numb with horror she sinks swiftly to a long and final rest among purple algae! Even so, Edna, you stop your ears with shells, and my warning falls like snow-flakes that melt and vanish on the bosom of a stream. ”

“ Mary replied.
"Miss Irving, without the benign and elevating influence of Hope, that great actuating principle from the opening to the close of life, what a dreary blank our existence would prove. In childhood it gorgeously gilds the future; the tints fade as maturity gains that future, and then it gently brightens the evening of life, while memory flings her mantle of witchery over the past, recalling, in hours of sadness, all of joy to cheer the heart, and banishing forever the phantoms of terror—the seasons of gloom that once haunted us." ”

“ Palma, it is my mother. No other face ever looked like that, no other eyes except those in the Mater Dolorosa resemble these beautiful sad brown eyes, that rained their tears upon my head. Do you think a child ever mistook another for her own mother? Can the face I first learned to know and to love, the lovely—oh! how lovely—face that bent over my cradle ever—ever be forgotten? If I never saw her again in this world, could I fail to recognise her in heaven? ”

“ This keen appreciation of beauty had been fostered by travel and study. Over the vast studio of nature he had eagerly roamed; midnight had seen him gazing enraptured on the loveliness of Italian scenery, and found him watching the march of constellations from the lonely heights of the Hartz; while the thunder tones of awful Niagara had often hushed the tumults of his passionate heart, and bowed his proud head in humble adoration. He had searched the storehouses of art, and collected treasures that kindled divine aspirations in his soul, and wooed him for a time from the cemetery of memory. ”

“ When the clock in the tower struck four, he felt a slight quiver in the fingers lying within his palm, and Beryl's face turned on the pillow, bringing her head against his shoulder. Was it the magnet of his touch drawing her unconsciously toward him, or merely the renewal of strength, attested already by the quickened throb of the pulse that beat under his clasp? By degrees her breathing became audible to his strained ear, and once a sigh, such as escapes a tired child, told that nature was rallying her physical forces, and that the tide was turning. ”

“ Even at mid-day the grounds around “Solitude” were sombre and chill, for across the sky the winds had woven a thin, vapory veil, whose cloud-meshes seemed fine as lacework; and through this gilded netting the sun looked hazy, the light wan and yellow, and rifled of its customary noon glitter.
Following one of the serpentine walks, the governess was approaching the house, when her attention was attracted by the gleaming surface of a tomb, and she turned towards the pyramidal deodars that were swaying slowly in the breeze,—
and photographing fringy images on the shining marble. ”

“ To me, widowhood would be indeed a blessing, Sir, I thought I had learned composure, self-control, but the sight of this room,—of your countenance,—even the strong breath of the violets and heliotrope there on the mantle, in the same blood-coloured Bohemian vase where they bloomed that day,—that May day,—all these bring back so overpoweringly the time that is for ever dead to me,—that I feel as if I should suffocate. ”

“ No light, childish feet had ever pattered down the long rows of shining tiles; no gushing, mirthful laughter had ever echoed through those lofty windows; everything pointed to the past—a classic, storied past, but dead as the mummies of Karnac, and treacherously, repulsively lustrous as the waves that break in silver circles over the buried battlements, and rustling palms and defiled altars of the proud cities of the plain. No rosy memories of early, happy manhood lingered here; no dewy gleam of the merry morning of life, when hope painted and peopled a smiling world ”

“ One evening Mary stood leaning against the window, looking earnestly, wistfully upon the beautiful tints which ever linger in the western sky. She stretched her arms toward the dim outline, murmuring slowly:
"Oh! that my life may fade away as gently as those tints, and that I may at last rest on the bosom of my God."
Darkness closed around—the soft hues melted into the deep blue of the zenith as she stood communing with her own heart, and she started when a shawl was wrapped about her, and the window closed. ”

“ This resurrection was springtime, beckoning dormant beauty from the icy arms of winter; how long must the children wait for the uprising of the morning star of eternity? From childhood these unvoiced queries had perplexed her mind, and, strengthening with her growth, now cried out peremptorily for answers. With shuddering dread she strove to stifle the spirit which, once thoroughly awakened, threatened to explore every nook and cranny of mystery. She longed to talk freely with her guardian regarding many of the suggestions which puzzled her, but shrank instinctively from broaching such topics. ”