Donald Grant Mitchell

“ How like a flirt! And yet is not this tossing caprice of girlhood, to which I liken my sea-coal flame, a native play of life, and belonging by nature to the playtime of life? Is it not a sort of essential fire-kindling to the weightier and truer passions—even as Jenny puts the soft coal first, the better to kindle the anthracite? Is it not a sort of necessary consumption of young vapors, which float in the soul, and which is left thereafter the purer? Is there not a stage somewhere in every man’s youth, for just such waving, idle, heart-blaze, which means nothing, yet which must be got over? ”

“ Like a thirsty child, you stray in thought to that fountain of cheer, and live again—your vanity crushed, your wild hope broken—in the warm and natural affections of the boyish home.
Clouds weave the Summer into the season of Autumn; and Youth rises from dashed hopes into the stature of a Man.
AUTUMN; OR, THE DREAMS OF MANHOOD. DREAMS OF MANHOOD. Autumn.
There are those who shudder at the approach of Autumn, and who feel a light grief stealing over their spirits, like an October haze, as the evening shadows slant sooner, and longer, over the face of an ending August day. ”

“ In the spring twilight we wander upon those heights which lie between Frascati and Albano, and looking westward, see that glorious view of the Campagna, which can never be forgotten. But beyond the Campagna, and beyond the huge hulk of St. Peter’s, heaving into the sky from the middle waste, we see, or fancy we see, a glimpse of the sea, which stretches out and on to the land we love, better than Rome. And in fancy we build up that home, which shall belong to us on the return—a home that has slumbered long in the future, and which, now that the future has come, lies fairly before me. ”

“ They speak of brother-children,—of boyish glee,—of the flush of young health,—of a mother's devotion,—of the home affections,—of the vanities of life,—of the wasting years,—of the Death that must shroud what friends remain, as it has shrouded what friends have gone,—and of that Great Hope, beaming on your seared manhood dimly from the upper world!
Your wealth suffices for all the luxuries of life; there is no fear of coming want; health beats strong in your veins; you have learned to hold a place in the world with a man's strength, and a man's confidence. ”

“ But this is not all the dashing flame of my sea-coal suggests.
—How like a flirt! mused I again, recurring to my first thought—so lively, yet uncertain; so bright yet so flickering! Your true flirt plays with sparkles; her heart, much as there is of it, spends itself in sparkles; she measures it to sparkle, and habit grows into nature, so that anon, it can only sparkle. How carefully she cramps it, if the flames show too great a heat; how dexterously she flings its blaze here and there; how coyly she subdues it; how winningly she lights it! ”

“ Your home and heart are left; within that home, the old Bible holds its wonted place, which was the monitor of your boyhood; and now, more than ever, it prompts those reverent reaches of the spirit, which go beyond even the track of dreams.
That cherished Madge, the partner of your life and joy, still lingers, though her step is feeble, and her eyes are dimmed;—not as once attracting you by any outward show of beauty; your heart, glowing through the memory of a life of joy, needs no such stimulant to the affections. Your hearts are knit together by a habit of growth, and a unanimity of desire. ”

“ It does not burn so easily, perhaps, as at first: it wants warming before it will catch; but presently it is in a broad, full glow that throws light into the corners of my room.
—Just so—thought I—the love of youth, which succeeds the crackling blaze of boyhood, makes a broader flame, though it may not be so easily kindled. A mere dainty step, or a curling lock, or a soft blue eye are not enough; but in her, who has quickened the new blaze, there is a blending of all these, with a certain sweetness of soul that finds expression in whatever feature or motion you look upon. ”

“ There is young Madge too,—dark-eyed, tall, with a pensive shadow resting on her face,—the very image of refinement and of delicacy. She is thoughtful;—not breaking out, like the hoiden, flax-haired Nelly, into bursts of joy and singing,—but stealing upon your heart with a gentle and quiet tenderness that diffuses itself throughout the household like a soft zephyr of summer.
There are friends too yet left, who come in upon your evening hours, and light up the loitering time with dreamy story of the years that are gone. ”

“ How it makes you think earth nothing but a spot to dig graves upon!
—It is more: she, she says, will be a sister; and the waving curls as she leans upon your shoulder, touch your cheek, and your wet eyes turn to meet those other eyes—God has sent his angel, surely!
Your mother, alas for it, she is gone! Is there any bitterness to a youth, alone, and homeless, like this!
But you are not homeless; you are not alone; she is there—her tears softening yours, her smile lighting yours, her grief killing yours; and you live again, to assuage that kind sorrow of hers. ”

“ Is it love, or is it madness, when you catch her eye as it beams more of eloquence than lies in all your moonlight poetry, and feel an exultant gush of the heart that makes you proud as a man, and yet timid as a boy, beside her?
Has Dalton, with that calm, placid, nonchalant look of his, any inkling of the raptures which his elegant sister is exciting? Has the stout, elderly gentleman, who is so prodigal of his bouquets and attentions, any idea of the formidable rival that he has found? Has Laura herself—you dream—any conception of that intensity of admiration with which you worship? ”

“ Life is calling for earnestness, and not for regrets. So the months and the years slip by; your bachelor habit grows easy and light with wearing; you have mourned enough to smile at the violent mourning of others, and you have enjoyed enough to sigh over their little eddies of delight. Dark shades and delicious streaks of crimson and gold color lie upon your life. Your heart, with all its weight of ashes, can yet sparkle at the sound of a fairy step, and your face can yet open into a round of joyous smiles that are almost hopes—in the presence of some bright-eyed girl. ”

“ The mind feels its birth, and struggles toward the great birth-master. The heart glows; its humanities even yield and crimple under the fierce heat of mental pride. Vows leap upward, and pile rampart upon rampart to scale all the degrees of human power.
Are there not times in every man's life when there flashes on him a feeling—nay, more, an absolute conviction—that this soul is but a spark belonging to some upper fire; and that, by as much as we draw near by effort, by resolve, by intensity of endeavor, to that upper fire, by so much we draw nearer to our home, and mate ourselves with angels? ”

“ You think well, and hope well, for all the world. A flood of charity seems to radiate from all around you. And as you sit beside her in the twilight, on the evening before the day when you will call her yours, and talk of the coming hopes, and of the soft shadows of the past, and whisper of Bella’s love, and of that sweet sister’s death, and of Laurence, a new brother, coming home joyful with his bride—and lay your cheek to hers—life seems as if it were all day, and as if there could be no night! ”

“ As you recall those tones, so full of brilliancy and pride, the quiet virtues fade, like the soft haze upon a spring landscape driven westward by a swift, sea-born storm. The pulse bounds; the eyes flash; the heart trembles with its sharp springs. Hope dilates, like the eye, fed with swift blood leaping to the brain.
Again the image of Miss Dalton, so fine, so noble, so womanly, fills and bounds the Future. The lingering tears of grief drop away from your eye, as the lingering loves of boyhood drop from your scalding passion, or drip into clouds of vapor. ”

“ I try to bring back the image that belonged to the lingering bituminous flame, but with my eyes on that dark blower—how can I?
It is the black curtain of destiny which drops down before our brightest dreams. How often the phantoms of joy regale us, and dance before us—golden-winged, angel-faced, heart-warming, and make an Elysium in which the dreaming soul bathes and feels translated to another existence; and then—sudden as night, or a cloud—a word, a step, a thought, a memory will chase them away like scared deer vanishing over a gray horizon of moor-land! ”

“ You feel calmer as the night deepens. The darkness softens you; it hangs—like the pall that shrouds your mother's corpse—low and heavily to your heart. It helps your inward grief with some outward show. It makes the earth a mourner; it makes the flashing water-drops so many attendant mourners. It makes the Great Fall itself a mourner, and its roar a requiem!
The pleasure of travel is cut short. To one person of the little company of fellow-voyagers you bid adieu with regret; pride, love, and hope point toward her, while all the gentler affections stray back to the broken home. ”

“ ASHES—SIGNIFYING DESOLATION After all, thought I, ashes follow blaze inevitably as death follows life. Misery treads on the heels of joy; anguish rides swift after pleasure.
“Come to me again, Carlo,” said I to my dog; and I patted him fondly once more, but now only by the light of the dying embers.
It is very little pleasure one takes in fondling brute favorites; but it is a pleasure that when it passes, leaves no void. It is only a little alleviating redundance in your solitary heart-life which, if lost, another can be supplied. ”

“ Your home, when it is entered, is just what it should be,—quiet, small,—with everything she wishes, and nothing more than she wishes. The sun strikes it in the happiest possible way; the piano is the sweetest-toned in the world; the library is stocked to a charm;—and Madge, that blessed wife, is there, adorning and giving life to it all. To think even of her possible death is a suffering you class with the infernal tortures of the Inquisition. You grow twin of heart and of purpose. Smiles seem made for marriage; and you wonder how you ever wore them before! ”

“ Bella cries; and I shrink out; and am not easy until I have run to bury my head in my mother’s bosom. Alas! pride can not always find such covert! There will be times when it will harass you strangely; when it will peril friendships—will sever old, standing intimacy; and then—no resource but to feed on its own bitterness. Hateful pride!—to be conquered, as a man would conquer an enemy, or it will make whirlpools in the current of your affections—nay, turn the whole tide of the heart into rough, and unaccustomed channels.
But boyhood has its Grief, too, apart from Pride. ”

“ They may not indeed rise so high as the dizzy pinnacles that ambition loves to rear; but they lie like fragrant islands in a sea whose ripple is a continuous melody.
And as I muse now, looking toward the Evening, which is already begun—tossed as I am with the toils of the past, and bewildered with the vexations of the present, my affections are the architect that build up the future refuge. And, in fancy at least, I will build it boldly—saddened, it may be, by the chance shadows of evening; but through all I will hope for a sunset, when the day ends, glorious with crimson and gold. ”

“ But the years roll on, in the which your extravagant fancies die into the earnest maturity of a father's love. You struggle gayly with the cares that life brings to your door. You feel the strength of three beings in your single arm; and feel your heart warming toward God and man with the added warmth of two other loving and trustful beings.
How eagerly you watch the first tottering step of that boy; how you riot in the joy and pride that swell in that mother's eyes, as they follow his feeble, staggering motions! Can God bless his creatures more than he has blessed that dear Madge and you? ”

“ Does not some sweet being hover over your spirit of reverie like a beckoning angel, crowned with halo, saying—hope on, hope ever; the heart and I are kindred; our mission will be fulfilled; nature shall accomplish its purpose; the soul shall have its paradise?
—I threw myself upon my bed: and as my thoughts ran over the definite, sharp business of the morrow, my reverie, and its glowing images, that made my heart bound, swept away like those fleecy rain clouds of August, on which the sun paints rainbows-—driving southward, by the cool, rising wind from the north. ”

“ And from all the tramp and bustle of the world into which fortune has led me in these latter years of my life, I delight to steal away for days, and for weeks together, and bathe my spirit in the freedom of the old woods; and to grow young again, lying upon the brook-side, and counting the white clouds that sail along the sky softly and tranquilly—even as holy memories go stealing over the vault of life.
I am deeply thankful that I could never find it in my heart so to pervert truth as to call the smart villages with the tricksy shadow of their maple avenues—the Country. ”

“ You draw out Nelly to speak of Madge: Nelly is very prudent. "Madge is a dear girl," she says. Does Nelly even distrust you? It is a sad thing to be too much a man of the world!
You go back again to noisy, ambitious life: you try to drown old memories in its blaze and its vanities. Your lot seems cast beyond all change, and you task yourself with its noisy fulfilment. But amid the silence and the toil of your office-hours, a strange desire broods over your spirit,—a desire for more of manliness,—that manliness which feels itself a protector of loving and trustful innocence. ”