William Douglas O'Connor

“ What music of speech, though Cicero’s own—what scarlet and gold superlatives could adorn or dignify this simple antique trait of private heroism?—I recall his love for little children, for the young, and for very old persons, as if the dawn and the evening twilight of life awakened his deepest tenderness. I recall the affection for him of numbers of young men, and invariably of all good women. Who, knowing him, does not regard him as a man of the highest spiritual culture? I have never known one of greater and deeper religious feeling. To call one like him good, seems an impertinence. ”

“ He felt that his cruel words had entered that humble home, to make desperate poverty more desperate, to sicken sickness, and to sadden sorrow. Before him was the dram-shop, let and licensed to nourish the worst and most brutal appetites and instincts of human natures, at the sacrifice of all their highest and holiest tendencies. The throng of tipplers and drunkards was swarming through its hopeless door, to gulp the fiery liquor whose fumes give all shames, vices, miseries, and crimes, a lawless strength and life, and change the man into the pig or tiger. ”

“ Squatting on his stool in the corner of the room, the horrified Tugmutton glared at them, with his white eyes bulging from his blobber face under his great shocks of wool, like some lubber imp of darkness risen to work them bane.
In a few moments Harrington’s hands fell heavily from his face, and agile as lightning, Muriel flashed into his arms, and clung to him, with a smile brilliant and tender as the morning on her impassioned features.
“Oh, my beloved!” she cried, “do not sink from yourself into despair—do not lose the immortal in the mortal! ”

“ Open this other book of his, William Shakespeare, a book with only one grave fault, the omission of the words “A Poem” from the title-page; a book which is the courageous arch, the comprehending sky of criticism, but which no American publisher will dare to issue, or, if he does, will expurgate. Out with Hugo, of course!—Here is Juvenal, terrible and splendid fountain of all satire; inspiration of all just censure; exemplar of all noble rage at baseness; satirist and moralist sublimed into the poet; the scowl of the unclouded noon above the low streets of folly and of sin. ”

“ The most degraded slaveholder is white beside such a wretch as you. Never let me hear again of Southern infamy. You, a Northern merchant, kidnapping your brother—kidnapping a man whose right it is to say with you, in his prayers to Heaven, ‘Our Father’—not respecting even the miserable forms of pirate law in your infernal zeal for wickedness—what wretch is there, however black, that does not whiten into virtue beside you! Lafitte himself sees in you a depth of mean vice to which his self-respect will not permit him to descend. ”

“ In the name of the Saviour, I charge you, be true and tender to mankind! Come out from Babylon into manhood, and live and labor for the fallen, the neglected, the suffering, and the poor. Lover of arts, customs, laws, institutions, and forms of society, love these things only as they help mankind! With stern love, overturn them, or help to overturn them, when they become cruel to a single—the humblest—human being. ”

“ She sleeps, my noble-hearted Muriel—she who, misled by my proud, spleenful folly, thinks I have given my heart to Harrington. And he! oh, how can he forgive me when I tell him—but he will—that noble nature cannot scorn me; he will understand and pity and pardon. Let me only tell him frankly—let me atone for all my wrong by humbling myself before him; let me crave his compassion and forgiveness, and so be fitter to go from earth to my Savior’s rest. To-morrow I will depart from hence, and before I go I will see Harrington and Muriel, and make my peace with them. ”

“ Looking up into that beautiful, wan face—so tranquil—so radiant; watching, with a child-like awe, the star-fire in those shadowy eyes; smiling faintly, with a great, unutterable love thrilling slowly through his frame, in answer to the smile of light that shone upon the phantom countenance; so he passed a space of time which seemed a calm eternity, till, at last, the communion of spirit with spirit—of mortal love with love immortal—was perfected, and the shining hands were laid on his forehead, as with a touch of air. ”

“ I swear to you, Harrington, never, when you are gone, shall one pulse of sorrow stir within me—never shall one tear stain the lustre of my soul’s pride in you! You die—die?—no!—it is not death, but life! It is the life of life to die for man!”
“Ay!” he exclaimed, with rapturous fervor, “I feel it so. It is life to live for man. It is the life of life to die for him. It is sweet to die for one’s country, and to-night I die for [500] mine. Far in the future I see it—my own dear land, my America, the land where all shall be free and equal, the land of lovers and of friends. ”

“ Her breath had breathed upon his sense, her lips had met his cheek, and therefore, all thought that she loved another, all evidence that her soul was not in secret, firm alliance with his own, had vanished in the flash of rapture which filled his being. And more—the phantoms which surrounded him had vanished too. Born servant and soldier of mankind, he was often made to feel how powerless he was in the great social war of the many against the one; and at such times, to his spirit, as to that of many a lover of men, came gloomy spectres from the world of complicated wo and wrong. ”

“ Could he have dreamed? The ghost, invisible, still watched him. Yes—a dream—only a dream; but, how vivid—how strange! With a slow thrill creeping through his veins—the blood curdling at his heart—a cold sweat starting on his forehead, he stared through the dimness of the room. All was vacancy.
With a strong shudder, he strode forward, and turned up the flames of the chandelier. A flood of garish light filled the apartment. In a moment, remembering the letter to which the phantom of his dream had pointed, he turned and took it from the table. ”

“ The next instant, she leaped from the couch and clasped him in her arms.
There was a long pause of awful silence, in which he stood with head uplifted and his eyes covered with his hands, while she clung to him, her face still between its thick length of waven tresses, and gazed with dilated eyes into his half-hid features.
“My beloved! My own beloved, what is this? Was it a dream? Be calm—be strong. I am with you. I hold you in my arms. No evil thing can come to you when I am near. Love clasps you, my dear and gentle lover, and nothing can harm you.” ”

“ One hailed the carriage—probably some passing hack—the other decoyed the boy away to prevent his outcries—and the rest we know. O Boston, Boston! I loved you once—every stone in your pavement was dear to me; but I sicken of you now, and I shall never walk your streets with joy again! A poor, helpless, harmless man—a fugitive from the worst tyranny that deforms the world—and in the streets of this free city, in open daylight, on the Sabbath, with a crowd standing around, he can be stolen, as a horse could not be stolen, and not one person lifts a hand to prevent it, or asks why! ”

“ It was first agreed that Harrington should permit himself a vacation, free from the toil of study, in this the golden crescent of their eternal honeymoon. It was next resolved that Harrington should keep his house in Chambers street, and live there when he so chose. Both he and Muriel thought that married people are too intimate with each other, see too much of each other, push too far and frequently into the sacred privacy which Nature sets around the individual soul, and so lose the charm of freshness which is at once the crowning delight and most potent safeguard of love. ”

“ Away, Antony! The bitter term of your bondage is over, and there is nothing now but Liberty or Death for you! Death? Ay, Death in the land of Liberty for the man who repays long years of outrage with one brave grip on the throttle of his oppressor! Death, when the savage planters muster to avenge their fellow, and drag you down to yon bayou, to shriek and scorch your life away among the sappy fagots of the slow fire! Death like this, or else by gnawing famine, or the beasts and reptiles of the swamp whose beckoning horrors soon must close around you! ”

“ It did not rise again, but ran sombrely swarming on, as Harrington reached in his long arm in a quick and quiet lunge, which was deftly parried with only a faint clink of the foils, and then, with another splendid flash of glitter and color, Muriel sprang, lunging nimbly home, and clash on clash, with a rapturous clamor of steel, came pass and parry on either side, while the hurrying music rose and rang in whirling riot, like a wild, tumultuous race of Mænads, with heavy bars of thunderous sound striking through the loud, triumphant swarming fury of the melody. ”

“ Recalled to herself by the shutting of the street door, Muriel started from her trance, and flew upstairs into her chamber. Falling on her knees by her bedside, she covered her eyes with her hands, and buried her face in the coverlet, floods of dazzling light pouring upon her brain.
“I see it all!” she cried, springing to her feet, and throwing up her hands, her face radiant, and a smile breaking upon it like March splendors from the wild clouds; “I see it all now! Wentworth and she are lovers. Oh, let me not die with joy!” ”

“ In that instant, as in a magic dream, he saw the boat far down the beach, rise with a peal of cries and a silent lift of oars, and shoot in silence to the shore—he saw the great sea sink and swell in vast and weltering lustrous shadow—he saw the seven assassins standing crouched with gleaming knives around him—he saw the deep heavens open up in rosy light to God. The next instant the darkness fell like the shutting of an eye; a surge of strength rushed like the blood of the whole race to his heart—and with a terrific bound he fell upon his foes. ”

“ Dear rose, she murmured, memorial of hours when life was ecstasy, and heaven itself seemed cold and far—you are all that is left me now! I will keep you, I will love you, while life lasts, and when I die, they shall put you in my bosom, under the shroud, and lay us together in the grave. Gift of him I loved—of him I love forever—oh, Richard, Richard, you have wronged me, but I do not scorn you—you have killed me, but I do not hate you; I love you now; I love you, I forgive you, I bless you—with my last breath I shall forgive, and love and bless you! ”

“ Once I have saved you—twice I will not. Go in peace—but come here again on such an errand, and I will slay you with my own hand, for, by the Eternal God, never while I live, shall you nor any one make Boston a hunting-ground for men!”
Lafitte, with his ghastly visage bowed, shook like a leaf while Harrington, with a white face and flaming eyes, and with stem determination in every tone, uttered an admonition which rose to the dignity of the great issue between Liberty and Slavery. ”

“ She rose from the couch on which she had sat, half reclining. The sunset light lay within the library, and rested on the luxuriant symmetry of her figure, as she stood with her hands crossed upon her bosom and her exalted face upturned.
“You were right, my Emily,” she fervently murmured, “life is indeed life in the greatness and sweetness of love, but life is truliest life in loving and being beloved. And yet had I asked love, could I have felt this stainless flame of joy! Sweet, sweet when the two souls give the mutual undemanding love—sweet, sweet as the sweetness of Paradise! ”

“ Muriel. She must clothe her muscularities with beauty, as Harmodius wreathed his sword with myrtle. So she gilded her foils and masks, and fashioned her garb in fairy magnificence. The dress was a cymar of vivid crimson silk, loosely belted at the waist, and adorned with broidered arabesques of gold. The bodice, cut loose to the form, with large sleeves, ruffled with lace at the wrists, had a frilled ruffle of lace emerging from the bosom, and rising in a sort of fraise around the neck, in exquisite keeping with the refined beauty of the countenance which bloomed above it. ”

“ Alone he did it—alone he took your victim from his captors—alone and naked-handed he crushed the seven assassins who dared to front him in his manhood—and with that red star of honor on his breast he came home here to die in my exulting arms. There he lies—dead in the noblest death a man can suffer—death in the service of the weak and poor. Dead—and on all his life the splendor of that heroic devotion; dead—and on his breast that red blazon of glory immortal; and I could rifle earth of its roses to deck this hour, and break up heaven for the music of my joy! ”

“ Muriel glided near her dead lover, and stood with the soft summershine of June tenderly splendid on her golden hair and noble features, her soul rapt in exultant joy and peace, and her thoughts sweeping through Eternity. And as she mused, Emily, with the color in her face and her eyes like stars, went to the organ, and the deep surge of music fit for the burial of champions, rose and rolled in ravishing triumphal grandeur, and swelled in a burning dream of joy immortal, and endless glory for the brave. ”

“ Oh image, why should you stand there when the shamed land has lost her breed of noble blood, and civilization sleeps, and tyranny darkens back upon the world! Well may you lie shattered, for all that is human and holy is shattered too. Why should I keep you in this base city, where all that is noble rests in the grave, or lives a dying life in the forlorn grapple with hell! Fade, fade, large memories of saints and martyrs—drop, statues of heroes—melt, phantoms of old honor from the pictured wall—away, and yield your places to the forms of clowns and knaves! ”

“ Far up the blue zenith, the sky was bannered with floating clouds of gold and purple and crimson, and burst on burst of splendor streamed through them from the dazzling orb which filled the broad day with haughty and majestic glory.
“Is this a day for grief?” said Muriel. “Behold, it throbs with victory—it trembles with immortality! See how its colors and its splendors deck the sky! They glow and burn in beauty and in triumph for the return of a conqueror. Dead soldier of Democracy, the beautiful and bannered sky is for you! ”