Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford

“ Then after going back up the height for the rest, they piled into the sleigh with the children, and Uncle Billy took the reins and drove down the hill, as Will said, as if a comet were after them, while all of them sang at the top of their sweet shrill voices, “When shepherds watched their flocks by night.”
“Oh! do you suppose,” said Janet, when they had finished singing, “that what the shepherds saw was more beautiful than that tree full of jewels?”
“Of course it was,” said Essie; “angels are more beautiful than anything—up in the dark sky—angels that the glory shone round!” ”

“ Aunt Rose took Ally and Essie by either hand, and swept off with them, their little feet close together, so that they really thought they were skating!
“It’s most like flying,” said Essie, delight in her eyes, her cheeks like red apples, while Ally, looking straight ahead, was silent with joy, her yellow hair streaming out behind her.
Janet went blundering about alone a long time, somehow, anyhow, and all at once finding herself firm on her feet, and making a stroke. Then the dinner-bell rang, and the skates had to come off. ”

“ Mental agony ever remains agony; for it is the body that perishes and the affections of the body. Still, with most men the past is an illuminated region, forever throwing the present into the shade. In the Zend Avesta, a farsang is defined to be the space within which a long-sighted man can see a camel and distinguish whether it be white or black; but the milestones of the memory are even less arbitrary than this: no matter how far the glance flies, in those distances every man's camel is white. ”

“ To-morrow—well, to-morrow the roses might be in bloom. And Nancy stayed half happy in the thought of her lover, and trusting to time for her mother, a shade of sadness clouding the happiness and giving her a pathetic sweetness that moved the heart of every one but her mother—her mother who adored her, but would not have let her know it for anything under heaven. ”

“ This light of other days is unfailingly, by its owners, carried over to every child they meet. As if the caterpillar were in better estate than the butterfly, each boy is seeing his best days. Yet there is not a child in the world but is pursued by cares. His desk-mate's marbles oppress him more than will forcemeat-balls and turtle-soup when he becomes an alderman; there are lessons to learn, terrible threats of telling the teacher to brave, and many a smart to suffer. Childhood is beautiful in truth, but not therefore blest,—that is, for the little bodiless cherubs of the canvas. ”

“ Essie had skated straight into the hole Charlie had cut. There was a wild cry from Essie, as she plunged, a wilder one from all the others.
But on the instant Uncle Billy had flung himself across the hole, and with both arms down in the still cold water had caught hold of her. Then crawling away, with Charlie’s help he lifted her to the top and out upon the ice, quite conscious, but terribly scared, and as wet as any seal.
Accidents never come alone, says an old proverb; and it was not to be expected that Ally should not have her share in any dangers going. ”

“ Yet, in a far inferior way, every man is a poet to himself. In the microcosm of his own small round, every one has the power to vivify old incident, every one raises bawbles of the desk and drawer, not only into life, but into life they never had. With the flower whose leaves are shed about the box, we can bring back the brilliant morning of its blossoming, desire and hope and joyous youth once more ”

“ Janet was a little older than the twins, and she was not quite sure that they had understood correctly what Aunt Rose had said one day after Aunt Susan had come home from a long walk, trying to hide that she had been crying—Aunt Rose had whispered that Aunt Susan had been up to the Children of the Hill. Yes, plainly, to Janet’s mind, Ally had taken it into her own hands to discover if they were right or wrong. For it was brave little Ally who, if there was anything to adventure about, always adventured. It was Ally to whom things were always happening. ”

“ As if the world had wings!—
And gardens that T mean to make
In the time of pleasant things.
When I think of summer,
Comes sweetness on the air,
With roses, roses, roses,
Blowing everywhere! ”

“ Once, through a gap of crowding trees she saw the red flame of the sunset repeated and flashing in Aleck Manley's eyes; and once, that once, his arms were about her, and his lips were on hers, and in that moment she comprehended all the sweetness, all the honeyed richness, of life—and in the next she broke away and ran; she had half plighted faith with John Dacre, and John Dacre was a comfortable man. She always hated the sight of that wood ”

“ And though we are to inherit eternity, yet have authority now only over the period that we have passed, with what wealth then are the aged furnished! Sweet must it be to sit with folded hands and dream life over once again. How rich we are, how happy! How dear is the old hand in ours! Years have added up the sum of all the felicity that we have known together, and carried it over to to-day. Those that have left our arms and gone out into other homes are still our own ”

“ Uncle Billy had caught trout, and Aunt Rose had broiled them, while they picked the berries. After dinner they had burned the remnant, and washed the dishes together.
They had gone up the hills, too, on so many picnics, and seen what had looked so blue and so far turn into woods and fields and lonely farms that they had left off expecting to see a big bear reach over their shoulders for their bread and honey. In fact, by this time they almost wished they might see one, and Essie and Ally had many a delightful bear-talk with Pincher. ”

“ With such firm feet we have walked in the lighted way that we gaze back upon, how can we fear the Valley of the Shadow? Ah! none but they, indeed, who have threescore years and ten hived away in the past, can see the high design of Heaven in their lives, and from the wrong side of the pattern picture out the right. ”

“ The freshness of upturned furrows came on the breath of the south wind blowing up rain, and the fragrance of the apple blossoms streamed round them in long wafts as they stood there hidden by the mists of the kindly night; and full of the invincible spirit of youth that feels its immortality, the earth was beautiful and life was sweet even in their trouble. ”

“ When Uncle Billy and Pincher came round a bend of the tangled path, an hour or two later, cutting their way through the thicket here, and lifting the low boughs there, they stopped short at the sight of the lost Ally sitting on a log with Sally, whose feet could take her no farther. Ally, whose rosy face was a picture of delight, sympathy, and anxiety, was holding a tiny sleeping baby in her arms, and looking at it with eyes of unbounded love. ”

“ Though too often with its aerial distances and borrowed hues it is a mere pleasure region, instead of that great reservoir from which we might draw fountains of inexhaustible treasure, yet, if we cultivated our present from our past, homage to it might be as much to the purpose at least as the Gheber's worship of the sun. The past is an atmosphere weighing over each man's life. The skilful farmer with his subsoil-plough lets down the wealthy air of the actual atmosphere into his furrows, deeper than it ever went before ”

“ The ice lay glittering. In less than no time Will had his skates on, and was out careering over the crystal glare, doing his fancy tricks, and speeding away from reach to reach among the islands with which the great lake was sprinkled.
It was daylight much longer out on the open ice than in the woody places. And exhilarated with the glow of his swift motion, Will did not think anything about time until he saw large snow-flakes dancing about him. ”

“ As if there wa'n't nothin' else in the world but keepin' company! Your heart ain't so brittle. He loves himself. That's who! And it 'd be a great lift to him to git into our fam'bly. My brick's gittin' cold, Nancy. My feet are like the clods of the valley. Marry! How can you marry anybody, 'ith me on your han's!"
"He'd help. He'd be a reel son to you," sobbed Nancy, as she bent to find the brick.
"I've got a daughter. I don't want no sons of the Manley sort—always nine o'clock with them till it's ten! And I ain't one o' them that whiffles about, Nancy. ”

“ The ring upon the finger is crusted thick with memories, and, looking at it, far more than in the present do you live in the past. Perhaps it is for this that we are so jealous of events: we fear to have our memories impinged upon by pain. The woman whose lover has deserted her mourns not the man she must despise, but the love that has dropped out of her past, proving hollow and worthless. ”

“ One day Ally and Essie were out by themselves gathering autumn leaves, which had come as a great surprise to their southern eyes; first making them think the woods afire, and then that the world would not be a green world any more. ”

“ Are we any the more or less men? But certainly he is the more a man, he comes nearer to God's meaning in a man, who conquers matter, circumstance, time, and space. That one who sees the universe move round him understandingly, and fathoms in some degree the wonder and the beauty of the eternal laws, must be a pleasanter object to his Creator than any other who, merely employing pleasure, makes a fetich of his luxuries, his Aldines and Elzevirs, and, dying, goes into the unknown world no wiser concerning the ends and aims of this one than when he entered it. ”

“ All at once he recollected that catamount tolling the men out with a child’s cry, and his heart stood still. If that sound were a catamount! [58] He began to run—tripping, stumbling, hitting outstretched boughs and fetching down on himself plunges of snow. Finally he brought up against a moss-covered giant of the wood, his lungs a furnace, his throat like burning brass.
He sat down on a fallen log. The snow was floating and eddying and falling round him. ”

“ Yet, since the future is no possession of our own, but a dole and pittance, we know that the earth does not endure for us, but that when we shall have submitted to the conditions of eternal spirit, yesterday, to-morrow, and to-day must alike have ceased to exist, must have vanished like illusions; for eternity can be no mere duration of time, but rather some state of being past all our power of cognition. ”

“ The twins watched as long as they could see her. Then Essie began to cry. “I wanted to keep him,” she said, “I—I loved him so.”
“So did I,” said Ally, with her arms round Essie. “But I guess, Essie, we’ll have to get along with Bobbo. I wonder how Pincher knew his name was Bruin. Some day we’ll go into the woods, and call ‘Bruin, Bruin,’ and perhaps he will remember us. His mother loved him, you know, Essie. I suppose she was so sorry when she found him gone. Mothers must have their babies, you know, Essie; why, they belong to them!” ”