H. S. Armstrong

“ Reed, you certainly are the most old-maidish man I ever saw in my life."
The room did appear old-maidish, as Mademoiselle Milan stood looking in. The balmy breeze fluttered pleasantly past the little French curtains, the glowing sunshine warmed the delicate tracery of the walls and lighted up the flowers on a huge rug spread on the bare floor. A tiny bouquet of Spanish violets, in a wonderful little vase, filled the room with a dreamy perfume, such as one sometimes imagines he would find in those far-off little islands in the South seas. ”

“ Dupleisis sat listening to the dreary history entranced. There was love, and feeling, and fond womanly devotion; there was refined thought, gentle pity, and warm generous charity; and there was a neglected heart, a gloomy, embittered mind, a life lost in utter desolation. The glorious being whom God [Pg 106] had created to cheer and encourage man was a beautiful statue.
Who would teach that heart to feel again? Who turn to quivering flesh that rigid marble? Yet the man of iron sat masking his features, controlling his emotions, with every muscle under his command. ”

“ Lawk; but, I must confess, I never regretted anything more.
The commencement of married life (as many married men will bear me out) is even more consoling than the happiest days of courtship. The smell of varnish on new furniture is as delightfully novel as the odor of the orange-blossoms; the brightness of the new carpets and the crispness of the new curtains both mark an era,—even if the stove is obstinate about drawing or a man is called out of bed to put up the coffee-mill. There was Malinda Jane's night-robe hanging on one side of the bed, and there was my night-robe on the other. ”

“ The day lingers luminously over far mountain-ranges, paling in brilliancy on the hill-side, where the blushing vine, bending with the clusters, is still enlivened by the song of the vintagers; and in the valley, where the grain sheds its gold under the sickle. You are lost in voluptuous reverie. You breathe the sunlight; intellect is thawed and mellowed; emotions take the place of thought; "your senses, sun-tranced, rise into the sphere of soul." You feel the heart of humanity throbbing through all nature, and your own warms into quivering life. ”

“ What am I to think of one who holds all sympathy in contempt?"
"Basta!" he fiercely exclaimed. "I am like a vagrant cur: flying from the sticks and stones of a vile rabble, I fawn with cringing servility on the first hand that throws me a crust."
"Wrong, Marcel; wrong," I earnestly answered. "You are trying to warp your nature, as you tried to force the fruits of summer to bloom and ripen in midwinter. You will be human, and your egg-plants will rot in the earth." ”

“ Man has no power to move him; fate condemned him to be a statue.
Ah! the strongest, after all, are but weak, erring, human beings. The last of a race stands weary and old, trembling on the brink of eternity. Who will close the fading eye? Who will smooth the dying pillow? With all his great wealth, with all his wondrous knowledge, what one deed of charity will that infirm old man take into the presence of his Creator? He looks dreamingly out at the window. The plate-glass and damask are not there now; the sunshine is warm and the air balmy. ”

“ Mountchessington Lawk," I placidly observed, "I have not the remotest idea what you are talking about."
"Moses Butterby, you're a brute."
She rose to her feet. A bundle, which, during the excitement, lay on her lap, broke open; and my mother-in-law, like Cleopatra in her roses, stood knee-deep in baby-clothes. In a moment the truth burst upon me. I was unmanned, limp, and disjointed. The shock was too much! A baby Butterby!
It is needless for me to remark to married men that the era of prospective paternity is an era of sacrifice. ”

“ In my whole life I do not think I ever saw a more beautiful creature. The airiness of the lithe little figure, the playfulness in the nod of the graceful head, the look of joyous innocence on that perfect face, flitted through my mind like a bright ray of sunshine during the entire day. Every morning, for years after, I met that child; and every morning her beaming smile cheered my young life like a glimpse of heaven. ”

“ Malinda Jane, I knew, never indulged in as much as a sip of Cologne: so, convinced that the breach of discipline was the guilty act of a servant, with all the offended dignity I could embody in my deportment, I went straight to the chamber of my wife.
Without being deficient in moral courage, I am not a boisterous man. I do not boast of an eye like Mars, to threaten and command, or glory in producing a shudder with the creaking of my shoes. ”

“ The lithe figure has grown matronly, the childish timidity is gone; the softened face tells of changes,—changes made by much happiness; changes also, alas! by trouble.
The dark eyes beam with a deeper tenderness, with a wealth of maternal devotion, with a world of maternal anxiety. The aurora, with its hazy glow, has disappeared, and now the sun shines brightly on the [Pg 68] early day; yet through all the love, and all the care, and all the joy of her pure life, remains that radiant smile, the glorious creation of a glorious God, that awakens in man one sensation,—tranquillity. ”

“ It's a merry Christmas, this Twenty-fifth of December, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven,—a very merry Christmas; times have scarcely changed at all in the last thirty years. The sun shines down brightly, and the frosty air is fall of gladness; for Santa Claus, with his untold wonders, has come and gone. Ecstasies over dolls and transports over tea-sets, screams of delight at hobby-horses and enthusiastic exclamations at humming-tops, have passed. ”

“ But when terror, turning into rage, changes one of the most attentive and respectful of servants into a madman, it is scarcely safe to suppose anything. As it was, I stared in mute amazement, and he glared at me as though I had struck him. While waiting for a light, I carelessly put my hand into a basket of hot-house vegetables. The small egg-plant I took up certainly did weigh twenty pounds, and when I attempted to lift the basket the handle bent double; but why this should frighten a man like Marcel, or provoke him to anger, is as inexplicable as it is surprising. ”

“ You become kind and considerate. You watch with pity the pinched faces of anxiety that pass before you. You cheer the little beggar, and give him of your abundance. Unhappy wanderer! he has started early on his wretched pilgrimage for bread. "Your heart, enlarged by its new sympathy with one, grows bountiful to all." The fragrant smoke curls in heavier clouds, and is wafted imperceptibly into the darkness. Ah, Arthur Granger! Arthur Granger! you are dreaming impossibilities, as the man athirst dreams of flowing waters. ”

“ At your first waking in the morning, when you lie gazing in drowsy listlessness at the brass ornament on your bed-tester, when the ring of the milkman is like a dream, and the cries of the bread-man and newspaper-boy sound far off in the distance, it peals at you in the laughter and gay greetings of the servants in the yard. Your senses are aroused by a promiscuous discharging of pistols, and you are filled with a vague thought that the whole city has been formed into a line of skirmishers. ”

“ Without in any way obstructing it, her pretty interest seemed to throw a halo around the dull routine of trade; and, if there was any unpleasantness, the arrival of Jean Palliot, coachman and ex-grenadier, with Madame Althie Pontalba, was sure to drive it away.
Why will my heart, like a hungry thing, gloat on the happiness of others? He has gone away—in the midst of the holidays—no one knows whither; and his sweet wife and pleasant home are as dreary as I. There is a mystery about this house which I have not yet unraveled. Marcel left in the morning, and M. Pontalba in the evening. ”

“ What a wonderful time you have at breakfast! There are a half-dozen silver forks for ma, a new napkin-ring for you, and what astonishing hay-wagons and crying dolls for the children! Jane, the house-maid, is beaming with happiness in a new collar and black silk apron; and Bridget will persist in wearing her silver thimble and carrying her new work-basket, though they threaten utter destruction to the beefsteak-plate. ”

“ Mademoiselle Milan did not notice him; but in her heart she felt grateful for his consideration. Gradually the color returned to her face, and, soothed by the sad, sweet strains, she sunk into dreamy reverie.
"When we have reached another sphere, where emotion governs instead of thought, I think that man will speak in splendid music."
Reed looked at her earnestly for a moment, and then said, "Mademoiselle, why did you never write?"
"The public treats authors very much as drill-sergeants do recruits,—drunk the first day, and beaten the rest of their lives."
"Great minds rule the public." ”

“ My domestic career resembled that of a child guilty of an irreparable wrong and tolerated only through dire necessity. Indeed, had Mrs. Mountchessington Lawk been a modern Rachel, and I the ruthless destroyer of her household, her conduct toward me could not have exhibited more injured resignation. I somehow grew to feel guilty, and it was only at rare intervals I mustered courage to look either her or Malinda Jane in the face.
The anticipated addition to the family brought an immediate addition to our furniture. ”

“ Armand Dupleisis, long since become acquainted, stood examining a bouquet of roses and geraniums in the music-room of Mademoiselle Milan, and the lady was seated near him, trifling with the keys of her piano.
"I gaze on beauty, mademoiselle, to accustom my eyes to divinity."
"Really! Were it not for his gigantic proportions, one would suppose man was reared in an atmosphere of compliment." ”

“ You thank your Creator you are the master of that quiet home and the father of those dear children, and go to your rest with a heart full of gratitude. You hope that all the newspaper-boys, and all the milkmen and bread-men's children, and all the little boys and girls who have no fathers or mothers or grandpas, and all the poor, and all the sick, and all the blind, and all the distressed, have had a merry Christmas. ”

“ The morning broke dank and drear, for the December air had chilled the moisture into a fog. The wide verandas that opened on the court-yard in rear were dripping with the rain, and the broad flag-stones covered with a greasy slime. The diminutive grass-plot was brown and soggy, but the withered blades rapidly disappeared under the sturdy plunges of Marcel's spade. I had gone out on the gallery to fill a ewer with water—in his excitement of the previous evening, Marcel had forgotten my morning bath—and saw him distinctly through the jalousies. He must have commenced at daylight ”

“ You hear the wild song of the Spanish fruit-man as he sculls his boat along the broken wharves, and are soothed into utter listlessness by the thousand perfumes that come off with the land-breeze. A taste of the fragrant vapor, you recline in the odorous orange darkness of a dream-land, languidly breathing the smoke from your hookah, and the lustrous leaves moving over you are bathed in the soft and melting sunshine. ”

“ It does generally rain at picnics; but this time it didn't. When shall I ever forget that picnic? I stole a holiday to attend it. It was late when I arrived: the dinner was over, and I had one prepared expressly for me. Would you believe it? my fair attendant was the little Blue Veil. She was so kind and so gentle, and treated me in such a confiding, sisterly way. There was a tenderness in the soft depths of her eyes, a purity in the dazzling loveliness of her face, that my heart yielded to with the blind fervor of a devotee. When shall I ever forget that evening walk under the trees? Oh! ”

“ Mademoiselle Milan listened with an air of indifference that was absolutely freezing.
"You may think it singular, also, that when, shortly afterward, you started for Bordeaux, I went by the same train; and that when you concluded to prolong your journey to Brazil by the French packet, via Lisbon, it was I who assisted with your luggage."
"There is nothing low enough to be singular in M. Dupleisis."
"Mademoiselle Milan, one week ago you and Edgar Fay went into the hall-way of Mr. Reed's house together, and you went out alone. Denial is useless, for I saw you. ”

“ Malinda Jane (I trust I am not violating any matrimonial law in thus familiarly speaking of my respected helpmeet) —Malinda Jane, from the first time I beheld her, up to the present period of a long, and I may say intimate, acquaintance, appears to me a paragon of all the modest and retiring virtues. If among her many attractions she is possessed of a distinguishing trait, it lies in the power of her eyes. ”

“ Nature allows no trifling with her laws; flowers do not bloom in deserts. He has crushed sentiment; he has stifled affection. With a heart by nature kindly, he sits now an image cut in steel. He gazes calmly at his desolate hearth, at his joyless age, and smokes. ”

“ Pray for the woman doomed to a calling she cannot but despise! Pray for the being overflowing with good thoughts toward all mankind, sentenced to "tread the wine-press alone!" God have mercy upon us miserable sinners! ”

“ Alas for the schemes of prosy men and women! [Pg 40] when tender Loveliness goes airing herself through shady lanes, frank young Valor is seldom far off. The Eurydice may be only a school-girl, and Orpheus a brave, manly boy in a blue coat; but there is a world of heart-fluttering, for all that. The flush of conscious beauty blooming on the cheek of one, is generally a shadow of the warm red that mantles the face of the other. While Eurydice Gripstone mused in quiet nooks, it was no fabled youth of magic lyre who sent the rhetoric and botany waltzing through her brain ”

“ Money was a drug; in his abundance, he could never want. He had love, grandeur, [Pg 38] troops of friends; now he would live a monarch. Flushed with victory, his eyes blazed, his voice rang clear and loud in its exultation, and his lank form swelled with defiance. Springing to his feet, and clutching up a decanter, he waved it wildly around his head, and, challenging God or man to mar such peace, shivered it on the floor.
Wonder-stricken at the intensity of his vulgarity, and shocked at the sacrilege, I left; and from that moment Hardy Gripstone became a study. ”

“ Excesses that would have startled the most thoughtless were pursued with restless activity; absurdities that drew forth a shout of ridicule were committed with provoking good humor. No freak seemed exuberant, no folly preposterous, no extremity extravagance. The joy of paternity, sinking deep into his nature, made every peculiarity more glaringly apparent. Money had been his idol, its accumulation the summit of his ambition ”

“ The broad high forehead, the eyes flashing with scornful mirth, and the thin lips curling with such a whimsical mixture of kindliness and sarcasm, bespoke a man of mind. Since reaching Rio, Dupleisis had searched for these three, and he liked this one the best. Reed took out his eye-glass, and, adjusting it carefully on his nose, surveyed Dupleisis deliberately from head to foot. ”