Various

“ But it was a painful and unnatural conflict between an ingenuous character and a taunting pride—a war between thought and tenderness. Wo to the heart that dares such a struggle! Aspiration may bring a temporary solace, excitement a momentary balm; but never yet, in all the tear-chronicled records of genius, has woman found peace in praise, or compensation in applause. It is enough for her to obtain, in the dangerous arena of competition, a brief refuge, a transient forgetfulness; love once branded with those words—in vain, may win nothing more enduring this side of heaven. ”

“ In the meantime Amy had grown into girlhood, and was, in truth, as beautiful as a poet's dream. She was timid, gentle, and silent; no strength of mind was enshrined in that faultless casket; and her transparent, maidenly brow, was never shadowed by the conflict of thought. Her words were few and commonplace, but they were spoken by a voice exquisitely musical, and her surpassing personal loveliness disarmed mental criticism. Theresa would regard her in unutterable admiration, blending a sister's tenderness with all an artist's ecstasy. ”

“ It was the first time that Theresa had felt the fickleness of popular favor; and who does not know the morbid sensitiveness with which the poet shrinks from censure? To have her fair imaginings thus degraded, her glowing theories prostrated, the golden pinions of her fancy dragged to the dust—were these things the compensation for thought, and toil, and sacrifice? It was a dark wisdom to learn, one that would cast a shade over all future effort—and disappointed and mortified, Theresa threw down the paper, and wept those bitter tears which failure teaches youth to shed. ”

“ Friendship seems to me too holy and enduring to be lightly bestowed, and yet I desire with inexpressible earnestness, to find some one of my own age who would love and comprehend me—some mind in whose mirror I could trace an image of my own. I have gained something like a fulfillment of this wish in Gerald; but he is naturally less enthusiastic than I am, and of course cannot enter into the fervor of my expectations. He thinks them vain an idle—and so, in truth, they may be; but only their irrevocable disappointment will ever convince me of their folly. ”

“ Agnes Howell was a beautiful girl—there was so much purity in her appearance. The gentle beam of her blue eye was angelic, and her auburn ringlets hung over her clear fair brow and soft cheek as if caressing that lovely face. Then she was such a contrast to her family—an only daughter among a troop of strong, stout clever brothers—merry healthy-minded boys were they, but the gentle Madonna sister in their midst seemed an "angel unawares." Agnes' mother was an excellent woman, strong-minded, pains-taking, but a little hard and obtuse in feeling. ”

“ Who setteth his whole soul upon a flower, and findeth its fragrance at last [245] to be a deadly poison, if he escape from its contact, placeth no more flowers in his bosom. In vain they woo him with their beauteous eyes and breath of perfume. He heeds them not, or, at best, plucks them disdainfully, to gaze upon in listless indifference for a moment, and then cast them behind him, to be crushed beneath the stranger's heel.
Clara's heart smote her to the quick as she caught that wild glance of her lover, and saw the haggard ghost that looked out from those hollow eyes. ”

“ It was a trying effort for Theresa to bury the conflict of her impetuous emotions in the stillness of her own bosom—the more trying because she had never before known cause for reserve; but the power of endurance in womanhood is mighty, and she did conceal even from my watchful eyes, the triumph of certainty over hope. I knew not then that the silver chord was already severed, and the veil lifted from the pale face of grief, never again in mercy to lend its secrecy. ”

“ I can almost imagine I have stepped back into my childhood. Yet, loving this place as I do, I am still anxious to leave it; home, and especially a quiet one, is no place for great successes. Too much of the childish past hangs over it, and discourages exertion, and those who have loved us best and earliest, know least of what we are capable. Every day intercourse fetters judgment, and thought lives in the domestic circle with sealed lips. My kind friends do not comprehend my wishes or emotions; my mother deems them folly, and Gerald, instead of sympathy, tenders me only doubts and fears. ”

“ Amy's affections were not impulsive, and she shared nothing of her sister's spontaneous, effervescing warmth. She was, however, kind and graceful, with that charm of manner common even in childhood to those on whom the gods have smiled, and who, from the consciousness of beauty, possess the certainty of pleasing. Like all visionaries, Theresa had many fancies, and strongest among them was her boundless admiration for loveliness. Living as she did in perpetual study of the beautiful, it appealed to her with that enchantment it only wears for the painter and the poet ”

“ Never had Pauline looked so beautiful. The emotions called up by the occasion softened without dimming the brilliancy of her usual beauty. The veil of finest lace, the wreath of fresh and rare exotics, the jeweled arms, all lent their aid to render her surpassingly lovely.
"Pray God it turn out better than we can hope!" was all Mr. Grey could say, to which his wife replied by a sigh, which seemed the fitting response to a prayer uttered with so little hope. ”

“ Our eyes and our ears must be always open. We must be always up and doing, or, in the language of the day, wide awake. We must have our wits about us. We must learn to use, not our eyes and our ears only, but our understandings—our thinkers.
There is a diviner alchemy wanted, and there is room for a bolder and a more patient spirit of investigation, amid the drudgery and bustle of common life, than was ever yet employed, or ever needed, in ransacking the earth for gems and gold, or the deep sea for pearls. ”

“ The brown and knotted fences, the dingy out-buildings, were all covered with dazzling drapery; and the leafless trees were bowed beneath the weight of a fantastic foliage that glittered in the clear beams of the rising sun with a splendor that was almost painful to behold.
"It wont last long with this sun," said the deacon, as he tied a 'comforter' about his throat; "but perhaps you'll have time to give Mary and the children a ride before the roads are bare again. Mary must do all her sleighing this winter, for she won't have much time if she goes to the factory, poor child!" ”

“ The lamp-light shone full upon that young, faultless face, brightening almost like life those smiling lips, and the white brow gleaming beneath childhood's coronet of golden hair.
The young artist was seated now in silent and profound abstraction—for twilight is the time the past claims from the present, and memory is summoned by silence. Theresa's feet rested on a low footstool, her hands were clasped lightly together on her lap, and she leaned back in the cushioned chair, in an attitude of perfect and unstudied grace she would have delightedly sketched in another. ”

“ I sometimes looked on the two with that involuntary wish for the power of prophecy which so often rises upon us, and which in great mercy we are denied, and would frequently strive to shadow forth the destiny of beings who were now reveling in the brief, bright interval between childhood and the world. Beautiful era! time of star and flower, when the "young moon is on the horizon's verge," and the young heart, lovelier still, seems on the brink of rapture, and hallows existence with its own unshadowed and seraphic light. ”

“ I have lived to see all that fade away, and to feel grateful when the dust was laid on the brow I had kissed so often in an old man's fondness—but let that pass. I must write calmly, or tears will blind me; and I have undertaken the task of recording Theresa's experience, not to tell how well we loved her, but to strive, however feebly and imperfectly, to lay bare some of the peculiarities of genius, when found in sad combination with a woman's lot. ”

“ There are, without doubt, solitary hours in human experience which do the work of years, forcing suspicion to dawn, and tempting despondency to deepen. Life should be measured by such hours, and they who feel most keenly are the ones who, in truth, live longest.
Certain it is that Theresa passed in those few moments to a new existence—to a being wholly different from her former self. ”

“ Mary could scarce believe it possible that she had, indeed, arrived in the great city, until the confused tumult that rose everywhere around—the endless lines of glittering lamps that stretched far away in the darkness, and the rough jolting of the coach over the hard pavements, told too plainly that she was in a new world, surrounded by a new order of things. As they drove rapidly through the crowded streets, she caught a glance at the brilliantly lighted stores, and the many gayly-dressed people that thronged them. ”

“ The heroine is neither a saint nor a fool, but a living woman; her sufferings spring from her errors, and are redeemed by her repentance: all is natural, beautiful, refreshing and noble. We rise from the perusal of such a fiction chastened and improved.
Instead of rendering its readers dissatisfied with themselves, with their lot in life, with society, with every thing, this novel makes them feel that life is a battle, yet that victory is sure to reward all who combat aright—that after the dust and heat of the struggle comes the repose of satisfied duty. ”

“ Two years more had gone by since we glanced at Theresa last—years fraught to her with the fulfillment of ambition, and golden with the gifts of praise. Her name had become a familiar one to the lovers of art, and her society was eagerly sought for by the most intellectual men in one of our most refined cities. In the home of her artist friend she had been as a daughter, and cordially welcomed into the circles of talent and acquirement. ”

“ Mary and Sue were no loiterers, and by the time their mother had swept the hearth, and arranged the displaced furniture, cups and plates were shining on the dresser, as the red fire-light gleamed upon them. The deacon sat gazing intently upon the glowing embers—apparently in deep meditation, though it is to be questioned whether he thought at all. Mrs. Gordon had resumed her knitting, while Sue and Ned, after disputing some time whose turn it was to hold the yarn, were busily employed in winding a skein of worsted into birds-nest balls. ”

“ Love is selfish, and in the egotism of his own feelings, Gerald heeded not that his companion's voice faltered; and they parted without a suspicion in his mind of the suffering he had occasioned. Alas! such brief tragedies are acting every day in our household circles, and we note them not; bright eyes become tranquil, glowing cheeks look pale, and young hearts, once high with hope and energy, grow weary and listless; and we talk of illness, and call in science to name the disease, which is nothing but sorrow. ”

“ I felt somewhat provoked at his querulous words, for in my partial eyes Theresa seldom erred, and I knew this solicitude for mental progress, though as yet vague and undirected, was inseparable from her active and energetic intellect. But Gerald's opinions were common ones with his sex, and he coldly censured when away from their attractions, the very traits of character which, when present, involuntarily fascinated his imagination. And this is an ingratitude which almost inevitably falls to the share of a gifted woman. ”

“ I have been endeavoring to determine which is the most desirable, the celebrity of a poet or a painter. Perhaps the distinction an artist obtains satisfies the mind more wholly, and it must be a more universal thing, than that of a writer. He appeals to the senses; his work is the visible presence of what is immaterial, the palpable creation of a thought. He gazes on his production, until his being revels in the witchery of his own reality ”

“ Go to the window, if you are troubled in spirit; if the wind is the wrong way; if you have been jilted or hen-pecked—no matter which—or if you find yourself growing poorer every hour, and all your wisest plans, and best-considered projects for getting rich in a hurry turned topsy-turvy by a change in the market-value of bubbles warranted never to burst; or if you have a note to pay for a man you never saw but once in your life, and hope never to see again—to the window with you! ”

“ Love is proverbially credulous; and although neither promise nor protestation had been spoken, Theresa never doubled what she hoped, and, perhaps, in her girlish faith, believed his feelings the deeper from their silence.
Thus the days wended on, and I had woven in my lonely simplicity many a bright tissue for future years to wear, when already the "cloud no bigger than a man's hand" had gathered on my favorite's horizon. Gerald and herself had walked one evening to the parsonage, and were seated on one of the shaded seats in the old-fashioned garden attached to my home. ”

“ It is too late to retrieve the past—the fatal vows have been spoken—those frowning walls are impassable—and the dark folds of that solemn veil are evermore between the penitents and human sympathy. Never may their footsteps tread the free earth again, save within those still and mocking limits; never will the bright, rewarding world of social ties dawn upon their languid gaze, though, alas! its beauty will flash upon their thoughts, through the loneliness of the silent cell, perhaps even amid penance and prayer. ”

“ My visions seem to have lost their substantiality; and even when they do revisit me, they are thin and transparent, and no longer hide the real world from my sight—yet they hold strange power over me; and when they come upon my soul, although they do not all conceal the real, yet they concentrate upon some casual object there, and impart to it a spirituality of aspect and quality which straightway embalms it in my heart. Thus do I invest the faces of friends with a holiness and fervor of devotion which belongs not to them ”

“ Poets may sing of love, and romantic youths may dream they realize the soft delusion; strong hearts may swear they break and wither away with unrequited passion, and keen brains may be turned by the maddening glances of woman's eyes; but all these to me seem weak and common emotions when compared with the intenseness of man's friendship—that pure, devoted identification with each other which two congenial souls experience when the alloy of no sexual or animal passion mingles with the devotion of the spirit. ”

“ The glance that once dwelt on her returned to her face instinctively—so much of thought and feeling, of womanhood in its faculty to love and hope, of affection in its power to endure and triumph, so much of genius in the glory of its untested youth, lay written in lines of light on that pale, maidenly brow. ”

“ But the poet, he who from the well of thought hath drawn forth such golden truths; who heareth within his heart the echo of whatever is beautiful around him; he who is the interpreter of nature, and translateth into burning words whatsoever things are pure and lovely, ah! he liveth alone with his glorious images, and from his brilliant world of dream and vision, he walks abroad uncomprehended, a solitary being. Yet he, too, has his reward, though seldom the present one of popular approval; time is requisite for the appreciation of his imaginings ”