Anna E. Dickinson

“ Is it not wondrous how even the tiniest grain of love will permeate the saddest and sorest recesses of the heart, and instantly cause it to pulsate with thoughts and emotions the sweetest and dearest in life? O Love, thou sweet, thou young and rose lipped cherubim, how does thy smile illuminate the universe! how does thy slightest touch electrify the soul! how gently and tenderly dost thou lead us up to heaven!
With Surrey, to decide was to act. The second letter, full of sweetest yet intensest love,—his heart laid bare to her,—was written; was sent, enclosed in one to his aunt. ”

“ Your own loving
Sallie.
"Wow!" said Jim, as he read, "she's in a good berth there." So she was,—and so she stayed. Frankie got quite well once more, and Sallie began to think of going, but Mr. Ercildoune evidently clung to her and to the sunshine which the bright little fellow cast through the house. Sallie was quite right in her supposition. Francesca had cared for this girl, had been kind to her and helped her,—and his heart went out to everything that reminded him of his dear, dead child. So it happened that autumn passed, and winter, and spring,—and still they stayed. ”

“ Through the sound of falling blows, reviling oaths, and hideous blasphemy, through the crackling of burning fagots and lifting flames, there went out no cry for mercy, no shriek of pain, no wail of despair. But when the torture was almost ended, and nature had yielded to this work of fiends, the dying face was turned towards his mother,—the eyes, dim with the veil that falls between time and eternity, seeking her eyes with their latest glance,—the voice, not weak, but clear and thrilling even in death, cried for her ear, "Be of good cheer, mother! ”

“ A cry which said, "There are wrongs to be redressed already long enough endured,—wrongs against the flag of the nation, against the integrity of the Union, against the life of the republic; wrongs against the cause of order, of law, of good government, against right, and justice, and liberty, against humanity and the world; not merely in the present, but in the great future, its countless ages and its generations yet unborn." ”

“ As soldiers in such a conflict, they did their duty and noble endeavor,—Jim, a nameless private in the ranks,—Surrey, not braver perchance, but so conspicuous with all the elements which fit for splendid command, so fortunate in opportunities for their display, so eminent in seizing them and using them to their fullest extent, regardless of danger and death, as to make his name known and honored by all who watched the progress of the fight, read its record with interest, and knew its heroes and leaders with pride and love. ”

“ By chance, Surrey had his sword at his side, and, tearing this from its scabbard, sprang to the defence,—a gallant intent, but what could one weapon and one arm do against such odds as these? He was speedily beaten down and flung aside by the miscreants who swarmed into the room. It was marvellous they did not kill him outright. Doubtless they would have done so but for the face propped against the pillows, which caught their hungry eyes. Soldier and woman were alike forgotten at sight of this dying boy. ”

“ Surrey sat still, and felt as though he were on fire, filled with an insane desire to seize her in one arm like a knight of old, and hew his way through these beings, and out of this place, into some solitary spot where he could seat her and kneel at her feet, and die there if she refused to take him up; filled with all the sweet, extravagant, delicious pain that thrills the heart, full of passion and purity, of a young man who begins to love the first, overwhelming, only love of a lifetime. ”

“ In our happiest moments, our moments of utmost exaltation, it is always thus:—when earth most nearly approaches the beatitudes of heaven, and the spirit stretches forward with a vain longing for the far off, which seems but a little way beyond; the unattained and dim, which for a space come near.
"Darling!" said Surrey softly, "does it not seem easy now to die?"
"Yes, Willie," she whispered, "I feel as though it would be stepping over a very little stream to some new and beautiful shore." ”

“ When it became evident, from the menacing cries and groans of the multitude, that danger, if not destruction, was meditated to the harmless and inoffensive inmates, a flag of truce appeared, and an appeal was made in their behalf, by the principal, to every sentiment of humanity which these beings might possess,—a vain appeal! Whatever human feeling had ever, if ever, filled these souls was utterly drowned and washed away in the tide of rapine and blood in which they had been steeping themselves. ”

“ Perhaps Robert Ercildoune was a trifle fairer than his father, but there was still perceptible the shade which marked him as effectually an outcast from the freedom of American society, and the rights of American citizenship, as though it had been the badge of crime or the strait jacket of a madman. Something of this was manifested in the conversation in which the two were engaged.
"It is folly, Robert, for you to carry your refinement and culture into the ranks as a common soldier, to fight and to die, without thanks. You are made of too good stuff to serve simply as food for powder." ”

“ They say to another man,—you, or me, or Sam out there in the field,—'There is no bounty for you, not a cent; there is pay for you, twelve dollars a month, the hire of a servant; there is no pension for you, or your family, if you be sent back from the front, wounded or dead; if you are taken prisoner you can be murdered with impunity, or be sold as a slave, without interference on our part. Fight like a lion! do acts of courage and splendor! and you shall never rise above the rank of a private soldier. For you there is neither money nor honor, rights secured, nor fame gained. ”

“ Some stopped in the heat and dust of Washington to be nursed and tended in the great barracks of hospitals,—uncomfortable-looking without, clean and spacious and admirable within; some to their homes, on long-desired and eagerly welcomed furloughs, there to be cured speedily, the body swayed by the mind; some to suffer and die; some to struggle against winds and tides of mortality and conquer,—yet scarred and maimed; some to go out, as giants refreshed with new wine, to take their places once more in the great conflict, and fight there faithfully to the end.
Among these last was Jim ”

“ Evidently a favorite, for, turning off into one of the side streets, coming into his father's huge foundry, faces heated and dusty, tired, stained, and smoke-begrimed, glanced up from their work, from forge and fire and engine, with an expression that invited a look or word,—and look and word were both ready.
"The boss is out, sir," said one of the foremen, "and if you please, and have got the time to spare, I'd like to have a word with you before he comes in."
"All right, Jim! say your say." ”

“ Carry thy burden as others have carried it before thee, and learn what multitudes, in times past and in time present, have learned,—the lesson of endurance when happiness is denied, and of patience and silence when joy has been withheld. Go thou thy way, sorrowful and suffering soul, alone; and if thy own heart bleeds, strive thou to soothe its pangs, by medicining the wounds and healing the hurts of another.
A few days thereafter, when Miss Ercildoune went over to Philadelphia, Sallie and Frank bore her company. ”

“ Stillness everywhere,—the blessed calm that even nature seems to feel on a sunny Sabbath morn. Stillness scarcely broken by the voices, mellowed and softened ere they reached her ear, chanting in the village church, to some sweet and solemn music, words spoken in infinite tenderness long ago, and which, through all the centuries, come with healing balm to many a sore and saddened heart: "Come unto me," the voices sang,—"come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." ”

“ On either side the palace-like houses stood stately and dark, like giant sentinels guarding the magnificent avenue, from whence was banished every sight and sound of the busy life of day; not a noise, not a footfall, not a solitary soul abroad, not a wave nor a vestige of the great restless sea of humanity which a little space before surged through it, and which, in a little while to come, would rise and swell to its full, and then ebb, and fall, and drop away once more into silence and nothingness. ”

“ Over the mantel hung the life-size portrait of an excessively beautiful woman. A fine, spirituelle face, with proud lines around the mouth and delicate nostrils, but with a tender, appealing look in the eyes, that claimed gentle treatment. This face said, "I was made for sunshine and balmy airs, but, if darkness and storm assail, I can walk through them unflinching, though the progress be short; I can die, and give no sign." Willie went hastily up to this, and stood, absorbed, before it. "Francesca is very like her mother," said Ercildoune, coming to his side. ”

“ She pitied Franklin! yes, she pities every one whom she thinks suffering or wronged. Dear little tender heart! of course it was the room,—didn't she say she was ill? it must have been awful; the heat and the closeness got into my head,—that's it. Bad air is as bad as whiskey on a man's brain. What a fool I made of myself! not even answering her questions. What did she think of me? Well."
Surrey in despair pushed away the book over which he had been bending all the afternoon, seeing for every word Francesca, and on every page an image of her face. ”

“ A feeling, pitiful as a mother would have for her suffering baby, took possession of his soul,—a longing to shield and protect her. Tears blinded him; a great sob swelled in his throat; he made a step forward as she came into the room. "Papa," she said, without looking up, "you wanted me?" There was no response. "Papa!" In an instant an arm enfolded her; a presence, tender and strong, bent above her; a voice, husky with crowding emotions, yet sweet with all the sweetness of love, breathed, "My darling! my darling!" ”

“ Among the living is a vast army: black and white,—shattered and maimed, and blind: and these say, "Here we stand, shattered and maimed, that the body politic might be perfect! blind forever, that the glorious sun of liberty might shine abroad throughout the land, for all people, through all coming time."
And the dead speak too. From their crowded graves come voices of thrilling and persistent pathos, whispering, "Finish the work that has fallen from our nerveless hands. Let no weight of tyranny, nor taint of oppression, nor stain of wrong, cumber the soil nor darken the land we died to save." ”

“ Surrey, bewildered and dizzy, had recovered consciousness, and sat gazing vacantly around him, till the cries and yells without, the agonized face within, thrilled every nerve into feeling. Starting up, he rushed to the window, but recoiled at the awful sight. Here, he saw, there was no human power within reach or call that could interfere. The whole block, from street to street, was crowded with men and boys, armed with the armory of the street, and rejoicing like veritable fiends of hell over the pangs of their victim. ”

“ In the winter of '63 Jim's regiment was ordered away to South Carolina; and he who at parting looked with keen regret on the face of the man who had been so faithful and well tried a friend, would have looked upon it with something deeper and sadder, could he at the same time have gazed a little way into the future, and seen what it held in store for him.
Four months after he marched away, Surrey's brigade was in that awful fight and carnage of Chancellorsville, where men fought like gods to counteract the blunders, and retrieve the disaster, induced by a stunned and helpless brain. ”

“ Dying, you fall into a nameless grave: living, you come back to your old estate of insult and wrong. If you refuse these tempting offers, we brand you cowards. If, under these infamous restraints and disadvantages, you fail to equal the white troops by your side, you are written down—inferiors. If you equal them, you are still inferiors. If you perform miracles, and surpass them, you are, in a measure, worthy commendation at last; we consent to see in you human beings, fit for mention and admiration,—not as types of your color and of what you intrinsically are, but as exceptions ”

“ I think they would do the same for papa."
"If he looks like a king, I know somebody who looks like a princess," thought the happy young fellow, gazing down upon the proud, dainty figure by his side; but he smiled as he said, "What a little aristocrat you are, Miss Ercildoune! what a pity you were born a Yankee!"
"I am not a Yankee, Mr. Surrey," replied the little aristocrat, "if to be a Yankee is to be a native of America. I was born on the sea." ”

“ Hundreds of these fell victims to the prejudice fostered by public opinion, incorporated in our statute-books, sanctioned by our laws, which here and thus found legitimate outgrowth and action. The horrors which blanched the face of Christendom were but the bloody harvest of fields sown by society, by cultured men and women, by speech, and book, and press, by professions and politics, nay, by the pulpit itself, and the men who there make God's truth a lie,—garbling or denying the inspired declaration that "He has made of one blood all people to dwell upon the face of the earth" ”

“ Willie Surrey. My! Ain't I glad to see you? How do you do? The sight of you is as good as a month's pay."
"Come, Given, don't stun me with compliments," cried Surrey, laughing and putting out his hand to grasp the big, red paw that came to meet it, and shake it heartily. "If I'd known you were over here, I'd have found you before, though my regiment hasn't been down here long." ”

“ At another time he said, as some emigrants passed them in the street, "What a sense of pride it gives one in one's country, to see her so stretch out her arms to help and embrace the outcast and suffering of the whole world!"
She smiled—bitterly, he thought; and replied, "O just and magnanimous country, to feed and clothe the stranger from without, while she outrages and destroys her children within!"
"You do not love America," he said.
"I do not love America," she responded. ”

“ The book was lying open where it had fallen from his hand, and Surrey, glancing down at the very poem of which he spoke, said gently, "Here is your answer, Franklin, better than any I can make; it ought to comfort you; listen, it is God's truth!
'O power to do! O baffled will!
O prayer and action! ye are one;
Who may not strive may yet fulfil
The harder task of standing still,
And good but wished with God is done!'"
"It is so," said Abram. "You act and I pray, and you act for me and mine. I'd like to be under you when you get the troops you were telling me about; but—God knows best." ”

“ I must wait till this evening, but ah, what an age till evening!"
Fortunately, all ages, even lovers' ages, have an end. The evening came; he was at the Fifth Avenue,—his card sent up,—his feet impatiently travelling to and fro upon the parlor carpet,—his heart beating with happiness and expectancy. A shadow darkened the door; he flew to meet the substance,—not a sweet face and graceful form, but a servant, big and commonplace, bringing him his own card and the announcement, "The ladies is both out, sir." ”