Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

“ I may gain wealth and renown, but if my fortune is ill-gotten I cannot fully enjoy it, for knowing that at any time my soul may be snatched from its possessions to the bar of God, and, stained with falsehood and injustice as it is, be hurled thence to perdition. But, on the other hand, if my fortune is founded upon righteousness, and built up with the blessing of God, then I may be as rich and as great as I please, and yet enjoy this world with a surer joy for knowing that it leads to a better and an eternal one. Life, dear Garnet, is a journey to the Judgment Seat. ”

“ It is that which lays my soul open to the entrance of the scornful, jibing spirit that mocks at my holiest instincts.”
“Sit down! Sit down, I say!” vociferated General Garnet, striding toward her.
Suddenly she fell at his feet, and raised her clasped hands, saying:
“I am mad! I am mad! Two spirits possess me—a mad and a sane one. It is the mad spirit that impels me to say now—while your serpent-treachery folds its cold, damp coils about my heart, and not so much stings as chills me to death—to say now, in the face of all reason—while the same spirit keeps before me—to say, only forgive Elsie! ”

“ Yes, there was a man to love through life and unto death; there was a man to repose upon in all weakness, to confide in in all emergencies; whom the combined power of love and ambition, beauty, wealth, and the usages of society that would have justified him, could never move from his uprightness. There was a pillar of strength to cling to in a storm. It was with as much high-born pride and joy as love that Garnet thought of her betrothed.
The month and her preparations drew near their close. She was daily expecting to hear of the arrival of the family of Dr. Hardcastle at Hemlock Hollow. ”

“ Oh, don’t press her to do any such a thing, dear Magnus. Oh, don’t think of leaving father just now, dearest mother,” said Elsie earnestly; then throwing herself in her mother’s arms, whispered anxiously: “Mother, don’t you love father? Oh, mother, tell me, before I go, that you love father.”
“Yes, Elsie, I do love him. No, Magnus, I cannot leave him. I have helped to bereave him of his child for a season—I cannot leave him.”
“But, oh, Alice!” said Magnus, drawing her apart, “think again! think what you will meet. How can you brave his anger?” ”

“ Is it not so, Hugh?” said Elsie, coming forward.
“Yes, true, the starting point. She is worthier than I. The starting point, my boy. And now for a brilliant career. Aim high, Hugh. He who aims at the sun may not bring it down, but his arrow will fly highest. You must be more successful than I have been, Hugh. I am a useful—if you please—an extensively useful member of my profession, and of society. You must be a distinguished honor to the faculty and the world. Oh! I have a grand ambition for you, Hugh, my son!” ”

“ Hutton, you are not going away this morning, are you?”
“No, Miss Seabright!—no, Garnet. I did not rouse a war in your soul to leave you until peace should be restored.”
“I do not know why you should say there is a war,” said Garnet, in a deep voice.
“I can see it. That fiery blood that has left your brow and cheeks and very lips of a gray paleness has mustered somewhere. Besides, I know you, Garnet. You were always very transparent to me. I know that in your soul the powers of good and evil are drawn out in battle array against each other.” ”

“ Her mother laid her gentle hand upon her child’s burning and throbbing head, and raised her tender eyes in silent prayer for her, while this storm raged, and until it passed, and Alice, exhausted, but calm, was able to rise, sit by her side, and while she held her hand, tell her what had happened.
“I will speak to him, Alice,” she then said. “I will tell him how you and Sinclair love each other—as you could not tell him, my child. I will show him how vain—oh, how vain! are wealth, and rank, and honor, and glory, in the hour of grief, by the bed of death, in the presence of God! ”

“ Dear Elsie, you must not speak so. Nothing that your father can do or say to me, or to others, can affect your duty toward him. Elsie, you must speak of your father with respect, or not speak of him at all. That is what your sainted mother would have advised, and, gentle as she was, enforced. There was nothing more admirable in Alice Garnet’s blameless character and conduct than the delicate reserve with which she concealed her own sufferings, and the gentle dignity with which she constrained the respect of all her friends for General Garnet. ”

“ And thus it happened that the heirship of the heavy estate, with all its burden of onerous responsibilities, fell upon the frail shoulders of young Alice Chester—a fair-skinned, golden-haired, blue-eyed girl of seventeen, the fairest, gentlest, and most fragile being that ever owed life to a stern and warlike sire. Alice, living at home with her simple-hearted, domestic mother, had been very little noticed by her father, or even by anyone else, until, by the death of his sons, she became the sole heiress of the vast estate, which was to prove the greatest misfortune of her life. ”

“ In the crowd Ulysses Roebuck, Mrs. Hardcastle, and Ambrosia Wylie got pressed together.
“I declare!” exclaimed Elsie, with her cheerful, ringing tones, “if here are not two of my old, old playmates!” And seizing a hand of each, she shook them heartily; then joining those two hands in hers, she said, “Let me be the mediator. Be friends, as you long to be!” and slipped away, leaving them together.
“Shall we be friends? Shall we be more to each other, Ambrosia?” said Ulysses, pressing her hand.
“Yes; if you can forgive the infidelity caused by ambition, and expiated by whole years of suffering!” ”

“ Deep and silent night hangs over the world. You stand alone with me upon a barren, uninhabited, sea-girt isle. How far off do you suppose the nearest human being is from us? How loud a shriek from this lone spot could raise the distant sleepers of the mainland from their beds?”
Garnet raised her proud head to give some indignant answer, but meeting the gaze of her companion, the burning, scathing anger of her reply froze in horror ere it passed her lips—for never did night lower over a countenance darker, more dreadful with demoniacal malignity of purpose. ”

“ Near her stands a young mulatto hand-maid of about ten years of age.
Lower down upon a step of the terrace sits her daughter Alice, or Elsie, as she was called for distinction’s sake. Elsie is now a very beautiful child, promising to be much more beautiful than her mother had ever been. She strangely united the most beautiful features of both parents. She had the delicate, Grecian features, fair, roseate complexion, golden hair, and blue eyes of her mother, with the passionate, veiled gaze and bewildering smile of her father. ”

“ Oh, my dear mother! you will be left without your child!”
“Never regret me, my own darling. You go without your mother, but you go with your husband, and you are happy. Are you not, my Elsie?”
“Oh, yes, yes, mamma.”
“Well, I am left without my daughter, but I remain with my husband. Think that I am happy also,” said Alice, feeling thankful to Providence from the bottom of her heart, that Elsie was “innocent of the knowledge” of General Garnet’s tyranny over herself. ”

“ You will dwell in lordly mansions, yet their magnificence will oppress you with the consciousness that they belong in justice to another. You will be arrayed in costly garments, yet you will be scarcely able to bear the glare of their splendor, for you will know they cover a woman degraded from her pristine nobility by base ambition, and stained with foul injustice. You will be adorned with priceless gems, yet the diamond tiara on your brow will burn and sear your brain like a diadem of flame; the diamond necklace on your bosom will scorch and eat into your heart like a circlet of fire. ”

“ I do not care for wealth, or rank, or distinction, or for ease or luxury. I only care for the wealth and luxury of your affection, and your constant society. I do not fear to have ‘ideality wounded and saddened.’ No, for the soul creates its own poetry. I do not fear to have every sense shocked. I do not fear to live amid unsightly objects and discordant sounds, and rough contacts; oh, no, for the soul creates its own heaven of beauty and harmony. ”

“ Nettie, my heart’s core! whose thought has power to banish even the image of my young bride from my mind!—to banish it, because fair and lovely and loving as she is—her fantastical and selfish passion, flattering as it is—is a more selfish thing than your sweet affection, my darling child. Yet she is beautiful, this fervid Ambrosia! And once this business settled—this deed that secures wealth and rank to my Nettie, executed and recorded, I shall be free to yield up soul and senses to this dream of passion. ”

“ My heart burns toward that noble girl, and I feel half ashamed that we should benefit by her magnanimity. I feel as if by her giving and our receiving so much that she is more noble than we are.”
“Yes, yes! She is indeed a noble, a wonderful girl!” exclaimed Dr. Hardcastle.
“And this noble, this wonderful girl,” said Hugh, with his cheeks and eyes kindling with pride and joy—“this glorious girl is going to be my wife! Congratulate me, dear friends!” he suddenly exclaimed, impulsively thrusting out a hand to each.
“Going to be your wife? I am so glad,” exclaimed Elsie, pressing his left hand. ”

“ You know that your fortune is nothing—absolutely nothing—to me, and never was. So little do rank and fortune weigh with me against hearts and souls that, had I been a millionaire and had Elsie been the child of a beggar instead of a daughter of General Garnet, and the heiress of Mount Calm, I would have taken her to my bosom in the face of all the world. ”

“ Alice, looking as serenely happy as though her heart had never been broken, her brain never been crazed by calamity, anguish, and despair verging upon madness; as healthful, amiable, and self-possessed as though she had never sworn in her frenzy that she could not survive the severance from Sinclair; that neither moral, intellectual, nor physical nature could stand the test—the misery of a life with Garnet.
But Divine Providence is kind, and nature is full of remedial power. We have all strength given us according to our need. ”

“ Though, Heaven knows, there was nothing around me to foster ambition, unless it were the want of everything, and the study of fairy tales! Oh, Hugh! if the little wild water-witch of the isle was ambitious——”
“‘The woman, gifted with beauty, talent, wealth, and largest liberty, is a hundred times more so,’ you would say,” said Hugh. “But, Garnet, do you know there is an ambition more noble than all others—that of moral greatness! Garnet, you have the opportunity granted to few—the opportunity of moral heroism!” ”

“ Garnet, dear friend, I implore you not to think of going. I will go myself.”
“Magnus, dear, you know that upon some points I can be stubborn. I must go straight to Mount Calm,” said Alice.
And despite all arguments and entreaties, she persisted in her resolution.
“Then, since you will go, I shall attend you to the end of your journey, and—bring you back—perhaps.”
“But, Elsie; you cannot leave her alone and unprotected at home.”
“She will not be alone; Hugh will be with her; and for protection, my brave wife can protect herself, if necessary. Pooh! ”

“ Do not think me ungrateful, dearest Garnet. Very deeply do I feel the blessing of your sweet love; very highly do I estimate the honor of your ambition for me. But listen, dearest. In erecting your edifice of earthly happiness, it would be well to lay the basement sure. You might possess and inhabit a princely palace, luxuriously furnished, yet you would not glory in its splendor, or even enjoy a moment’s repose under its roof, if you knew its foundation to be insecure; that at any instant in the midst of enjoyment it might suddenly fall and crush you under its magnificent ruins. ”

“ Alice was happy with her housekeeping, her garden, her dairy, her country neighbors, her favorite Magnus, and her little daughter. Yet, had the Angel of Destiny whispered to her heart this alternative: “Your daughter! two fates await her—to die in her childhood, or live to be an unwilling bride—choose for her!” Alice would have answered with a shudder and without a moment’s hesitation: “Let her die in her childhood rather. Let her die now, rather!” ”

“ Magnus would make you better and happier, in loving you greatly, in elevating your moral and religious nature, while Lionel would draw you down to the misery and degradation of his own low nature. My child, my one lone child, it is for this consideration that I bar you from wealth, luxury, ease, adulation, and give you to the stern but kindly discipline of poverty, toil, and privation—with love by your side, to lighten all your labors and God above you to reward them. May God love you, my only child! my little Elsie! ”

“ When you shall have come home tired, from your long round—oh, you shall have sweet repose, love—indeed you shall! God bids me to assure you that you shall. Whatever our cabin home may be, I can make it a little haven of repose—a little heaven of bliss for you. Oh, indeed I do not fear; my whole full soul assures me that we shall be happy and victorious over fate. Let me kiss your eyes—you kissed mine just now, so sweetly. God bless those grand eyes! Oh, Magnus, can a cabin or a garb of homespun hide the light, the greatness that is in you? ”

“ Elsie having finished making out her biscuits, brought the tray to the fire to put them on to bake. While kneeling with one knee upon the hearth to arrange her bread in the oven, she looked up at her mother’s pensive face, and said, sympathetically:
“Dear mother, it seems to me you are not happy, though you would have us believe it is so?”
“Elsie, no one is perfectly happy; that is a saying as old as the plucking of the forbidden fruit that first brought suffering into the world, and yet we never believe it. We are ever striving for that perfect happiness which is impossible.” ”