James Lane Allen

“ Out in the
yard the lilies of the valley, slipping out of their cool sheaths of
green leaves, were not more white, more fresh. And surely Georgiana's
gayety is the unconquerable gayety of the world, the youthfulness of
youth immortal.
I went over to her with the strange new awe I feel at my union with the
young mother, where hitherto there has but been a union with the woman
I love. She stretched out her hands to me, almost hidden under the
lace of her sleeves, and drew my face down against hers, as she said in
my ear,
"Now you are the old Adam!" ”

“ But surely Georgiana
and I would have to live far past the ages of Abraham and Sarah to fill
it with the requisite wealth of offspring, beginning as we do, and
being without divine assistance. When the name of our eldest-born is
inscribed in this Bible, not far away will be found a scene in the home
of his first parents, Georgiana and I being only the last of these, and
giving, as it were, merely the finishing Kentucky touch to his Jewish
origin.
But I gambol in spirit like a hawk in the air. Let me hood myself with
parental cares: I have been a sire for half a day. ”

“ During the night Georgiana bore a son—not during the night,
but at dawn, and amid such singing of birds that every tree in the yard
became a dew-hung belfry of chimes, ringing a welcome to the heir of
this old house and of these old trees—to the dispenser of seed during
winters to come—to the proprietor of a whole race of seed-scatterers
as long as nature shall be harsh and seasons shall return. ”