Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

“ The harbor wore her sweetest face. The summer people, like figures on a gay Japanese fan, moved brightly across the rocks and piers; Bayard and Helen looked out of the windows of the Flying Jib, and watched them with that kindness of the heart for the interests of strangers which belongs to joy alone. A motionless fleet lay in the harbor, opening its silvery wings to dry them in the Sunday sun.
The fishermen had hurried home by scores to witness the dedication. Everybody had a smile for the preacher’s bride,—the boarder on the rocks, the fisherman from the docks. ”

“ Two miserable years are an eternity, at Clo’s age. It is the old story,—a summer boarder; a little flirting; a little dreaming; a little pain; then autumn, and the nuts dropping on the leaves, and he was gone,—and knew not what he did,—and the child waked up. There was the future; to bake and sweep, to go to sewing-circles, and sing in the choir, and bear the moonlight nights,—and she loved him. She has lived through two years of it, and she loves him now. Reason will not reach such a passion in a girl like Clo. ”

“ I see. God doesn't make people live on and on and die, for nothing. One can't be a little girl all one's life, climbing trees and making snowballs," said Gypsy, half dreamily, half impatiently, jumping up and walking on.
So they wandered away and away, deeper into the heart of the forest, through moss and tufted grasses, and tangles of mountain flowers, [Pg 208] chatting as girls will, in their silly, merry way, with now and then a flash of graver thought like this of Gypsy's.
"You're sure you know the way back," said Joy, presently. ”

“ A bonnet is a picture in its way, and grows up under one's fingers with a pretty sense of artistic triumph. Besides, there is always the question: Will it be becoming? So Sharley put her lamp on a cricket, and herself on the floor, and began to sing over her work. A pretty sight it was,—the low, dark room with the heavy shadows in its corners; all the light and color drawn to a focus in the middle of it; Sharley, with her head bent—bits of silk like broken rainbows tossed about her—and that little musing smile, considering gravely, Should the white squares of the plaid turn outward? ”

“ For Loveliness was a little dog; a silver Yorkshire, blue of blood and delicately reared,—a tiny creature, the essence of tenderness; set, soul and body, to one only tune. To love and to be beloved,—that was his life. He knew no other, nor up to this time could he conceive of any other; for he was as devotedly beloved as he was passionately loving. His brain was in his heart. In saying this one does not question the quality of the brain, any more than one does in saying a similar thing of a woman. ”

“ Great God! what did it mean to take upon one’s self that sacred Name in which a Christian preacher stands before his fellow-men? What had common pettiness or envy, narrow fear or little weakness, to do with the soul of a teacher of holiness? How easy to quibble and evade, and fall into rank! How hard to stand apart, to look the cannon in the eye, alone!
It is not easy for men of the world, of ordinary business, pleasure, politics, and those professions whose standards are pliable, to understand the noble civil war between the nature and the position of a man like Bayard ”

“ The forest inclosed us, and made us understand that love was large. The holiness of beauty was the hostess of our delight. Oh, I had won her! She was my wife. She was my own. She loved me.
If I cherished her as my own soul, what could I give her back, who had given herself to me?
I said, "I will make you the happiest woman who was ever beloved by man upon this earth."
"But you have," she whispered, lifting her dear face. "It is worth being alive for, if it came to an end to-morrow."
"Love has no end," I cried. "Happiness is life. It cannot die. It has an immortal soul. ”

“ I see a lively girl in pretty short dresses and very long stockings,—quite a Tom-boy, if I remember rightly. She paddles a raft, she climbs a tree, she skates and tramps and coasts, she is usually very muddy, and a little torn. There is apt to be a pin in her gathers; but there is sure to be a laugh in her eyes. Wherever there is mischief, there is Gypsy. Yet, wherever there is fun, and health, and hope, and happiness,—and I think, wherever there is truthfulness and generosity,—there is Gypsy, too. ”

“ A chorus of angel voices, trained since the time when morning stars sang together with the sons of God, take up the words:
“Holy, holy, HOLY is the Lord.”
. . . . . . . . .
When the oratorio has ended, and we glide out, each hushed as a hidden thought, to his own ways, I stay beneath a linden-tree to gather breath. A fine sound, faint as the music of a dream, strikes my ringing ears, and, looking up, I see that the leaf above my head is singing. Has it, too, been one of the great chorus yonder? Did he command the forces of nature, as he did the seraphs of Heaven, or the powers of earth? ”

“ But one’s self becomes of less importance, which seems to be the point.
It seems very strange to me sometimes, looking back to those desperate winter days, what a change has come over my thoughts of Roy. Not that he is any less—O, never any less to me. But it is almost as if she had raised him from the grave. Why seek ye the living among the dead? Her soft, compassionate eyes shine with the question every hour. And every hour he is helping me,—ah, Roy, we understand one another now.
How he must love Aunt Winifred! How pleasant the days will be when we can talk her over, and thank her together! ”

“ The battle-fields of life lie in ambush. We trip along on our smiling way and they give no sign. We turn sharp corners where they hide in shadow. No drum-beat sounds alarum. It is the music and the dress-parade to-night, the groaning and the blood to-morrow.
Sharley had been little more than a child, in her unreasoning young joy, when she knotted the barbe at her throat on Saturday night. "I am an old woman now," she said to herself on Monday morning. Not that her saying so proved anything,—except, indeed, that it was her first trouble, and that she was very young to have a trouble. ”

“ The professor stood back. He might have entered the lecture room by other doors, but he did not know it; and they were not visible from the spot where he stood. He had happened on the laboratory door, and that refused him. He staggered out to his cab, and sank down weakly.
"Drive me to my lawyer!" he cried. "Do not lose a moment—if you love her!"
It was eleven o'clock of the following morning; a dreamy June day, afloat with color, scent, and warmth, as gentle as the depths of tenderness in the human heart, and as vigorous as its noblest aspirations. ”

“ More incredible things have happened to men and women loving less than we. If I can, I claim you when I can. Oh, wait for me, and trust me! Life is so short; it is not easy. Sometimes madness enters into me, to fling all these cold, these cruel considerations, these things we call honor, unselfishness, chivalry, to the gales.... Then I come to myself. I will not wrong you. Help me to bear to live without you till I see your face again.”
Helen wrote him noble letters; brave, womanly, and as trustful as the swing of the earth in its orbit. ”

“ Just then the door opened and Miss Jane Maythorne, Peace's aunt, came in. She was a tall, thin, sallow-faced woman, with angular shoulders and a sharp chin. She looked like a New England woman who had worked hard all her life and had much trouble, so much that she thought of little else now but work and trouble; who had a heart somewhere, but was apt to forget all about it except on great occasions.
"I've been talking to Peace about not eating more," said Gypsy, when she had introduced Joy, and said good-afternoon. "She'll die if she doesn't eat more than that," pointing to the plate. ”