Eda

“ When he came nearer, he perceived Dudley and Eda following those who had gone on into the court; and he called loudly to them, for they had not remarked his approach. Dudley instantly turned, said a word or two to Eda, and then hurried forward to meet her cousin.
"The fire is extinguished, Edgar," he said, in a grave tone, as they met. "It is only the second floor and part of the first that are destroyed. Come with me, and you shall see."
"Is every one safe?" demanded Edgar, gazing in Dudley's face; and before the other could answer, he added, "My father! Where is my father?" ”

“ I know no more delightful sensation upon earth, than when a being whom we love, acting beneath our eyes, but unconscious that we are watching, fulfils to the utmost the bright expectations that we have formed; while in the deed, and the tone, and the manner we see the confirmation of all that we had supposed, or dreamed, or divined of excellence in heart and mind. Charles Dudley loved Eda Brandon, and all she did or said was of course a matter of deep interest to him ”

“ But remember, Eda, not one word of Dudley's return nor of his pardon. There is much to be done and thought of."
Eda would fain have had some explanations regarding the wreck of the vessel which brought her cousin over, but Edgar answered gaily, "I will tell all that to the assembled multitude in the drawing-room;" and then he, in turn, asked questions about Clive Grange, and its inhabitants; but Eda replied in the same tone in which he had spoken, "I will tell you all that to-morrow, Edgar. You cannot see Helen to-night, nor, indeed, to-morrow either, for she and Mr. ”

“ As long as he thought fit to demean himself as a gentleman and a man of honour, there seemed to be nothing degrading in the position that I held. Now, however, the case is different."
Other persons coming up prevented their farther conversation; and when the guests had taken their leave, Eda retired, not to rest, but to think over events which were the cause of no slight anxiety. Slowly undressing, she dismissed her maid, and sitting down before the table, wrapped in her dressing-gown, meditated painfully over the probable result. The moments often fly fast in thought as well as in activity ”

“ The emphasis was so strong upon the word "you," that it brought the colour into Eda Brandon's cheek; for she found that woman's eyes had seen at once into woman's heart. Still she shrunk from owning the love that was between Dudley and herself; and she replied, "I had better ask my cousin Edgar to speak to Mr. Dudley about it."
"Speak to him yourself, Eda," replied Helen, with a faint smile; "your voice will be more powerful. But let me proceed, for I must be home without delay. When you have Mr. ”

“ Mr. Filmer loves him not: of that I am quite sure. We must seek other counsel, Edgar, and find means to prove Dudley's innocence. There is one, I think, who can supply it, if she will, and you must go to her and seek it; for, if I am not mistaken," and Eda smiled as she fixed her eyes upon him, "your voice will be more powerful with her than that of any other human being."
"You mean dear Helen Clive," replied Edgar. "Eda, you have made your confession ”

“ His purposes and ends are always right, I do believe: too right and honest to be sought by crooked means. I must talk with Eda; she is candour and truth itself, and yet has wit enough to put all Filmer's arts at fault. I will talk with her;" and with his usual hasty action, he was going at once to put his purpose in execution, when he heard his father come out of the library, go up the stairs, and knock at his cousin's door.
Sir Arthur remained long with his niece; and Edgar, who remained in the room below for some time, thought he heard his father's voice sometimes raised higher than usual. ”

“ As they did so, they rested upon a human figure passing rapidly from the mansion to the shade of the beech trees; and Dudley instantly recognised Edgar Adelon, the son of his host. There was nothing very extraordinary in the sight; but Dudley was a meditative man by habit, and while he reaped the sturdy harvest of his chin, he went on thinking of Edgar Adelon, his appearance, his character, his conversation; and then his mind turned from the youth to another subject, near which it had been fluttering a great deal both that morning and the night before, and settled upon Eda Brandon. ”

“ Edas, son of Atli, was a finely built man, six feet and more in height, broad of chest and stout of limb, and standing thus, with no garment save a covering of wolf-skin about his loins, the beautiful proportions of his frame stood out with the clearness of a statue. His long hair hung loose about his shoulders, shining golden in the sunlight, and truly was it said of him that no hero of the old time was more glorious to look upon.
For a moment the Roman paused. Then at length he spake.
“Why battle with the legions? Why fight against fate? Why not live as free men? ”

“ Is there any fresh development in this unrest movement?”
It was Edala who spoke. Elvesdon had been contemplating her with a furtive but admiring satisfaction, as she sat there in her low chair, the gold aureole of her head resting back against her clasped hands. There was something in her every movement—her every pose—that fascinated him; yet not an atom of self-consciousness or posing was there about her. And her very attire. The well-fitting blouse of light blue, set off the blue of her eyes, the gold of her hair ”

“ The Edda is the Bible of the ancient Scandinavians. A saga is a book of instruction, generally, but not always, in the form of a tale, like a Welsh “mabinogi.” In the Edda there are numerous sagas. As our Bible contains the history of the Jews, religious songs, moral proverbs, and religious stories, so the Edda contained the history of Norway, religious songs, a book of proverbs, and numerous stories. The original Edda was compiled and edited by Sæmund Sigfusson, an Icelandic priest and scald, in the eleventh century. It contains twenty-eight parts or books, all of which are in verse. ”

“ You cannot know! Live elsewhere? My mother and I? Sooner a thousand times would we drown in Edera!"
The water was golden under the reflections of the sun as he spoke; the great net was swaying in it, clear of the sword rush and iris; a kingfisher like a jewel was threading its shallows; there was the fresh smell of the heather and the wild tulips on the air.
"You do not know what it is to love a thing! — how should you? — you, a priest!" said Adone.
Don Silverio did not reply. He went on down the course of the stream. ”

“ The long neglect of these precious records of our heathen ancestors is not the fault of the material in which all that survives of their religious belifes is enshrined, for it may safely be asserted that the Edda is as rich in the essentials of national romance and race-imagination, rugged though it be, as the more graceful and idyllic mythology of the South. ”

“ When we inquire whom Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday are named after, and press questions in reference to Tyr, Odin, Thor and Freyja, we get at best but a wise and knowing look. Are we, then, as a nation, like the ancient Jews, and do we bend the knee before the gods of foreign nations and forsake the altars of our own gods? What if we then should suffer the fate of that unhappy people—be scattered over all the world and lose our fatherland? In these Eddas our fathers have bequeathed unto us all their profoundest, all their sublimest, all their best thought. ”

“ He did not want the grandeur, he did not envy the power which they had possessed; but he wished that, like them, he could own the Edera from its rise in the hills to its fall into the sea.
"Oh, dear river!" he sang to it tenderly, "I love you. I love you as the dragon-flies do, as the wagtails do, as the water voles do; I am you and you are me. When I lean over you and smile, you smile back to me. You are beautiful in the night and the morning, when you mirror the moon and play with the sunbeams, when you are angry under the wind, and when you are at peace in the heat of the noon. ”

“ The Younger Edda once calls him Allfather, for he is to the new world what Odin was to the old. He was before the beginning of time, and at the end of time he enters upon his eternal reign.
The reward is eternal. Is the punishment also eternal? When light and darkness (Balder and Hoder) can live peaceably together,—when darkness can resolve itself into light,—cannot then the evil be dissolved in the good; cannot the eternal streams of goodness wash away the evil? We think so, and the Edda seems to justify us in this thought; at least the Elder Edda seems to 435take this view of the subject. ”

“ The religion of the Scandinavians is contained in the Eddas, which are two,—the poetic, or elder Edda, consisting of thirty-seven poems, first collected and published at the end of the eleventh century; and the younger, or prose Edda, ascribed to the celebrated Snorro Sturleson, born of a distinguished Icelandic family in the twelfth century, who, after leading a turbulent and ambitious life, and being twice chosen supreme magistrate, was killed A.D. 1241. The principal part of the prose Edda is a complete synopsis of Scandinavian mythology. ”

“ A tremor shook his frame from head to foot.
"I knew it was some deviltry," he muttered. "Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! would that I had made the oxen trample them into thousand pieces! They ought never to have left my field alive!"
"Hush, hush!" said the priest sternly. "I cannot have such language in my house. Compose yourself."
Adone raised his head; his eyes were alight as with fire; his face was darkly red.
"What, sir! You tell me the river is to be taken away from us, and you ask me to be calm! It is not in human nature to bear such a wrong in peace. Take away the Edera! ”

“ Over the field flew the Prussians, whole companies taking flight as if children. Horses, freed from their riders, dashed where they would, galloping over the dead, crushing with their hoofs the dying; swords flashed against sabres; men fled as if mad; gunners deserted cannon; and still, through all the havoc and confusion, steadily, unswervingly, the cannon of Napoleon roared on. Towards late afternoon the Prussians were turning their backs in all directions, crossing each other's paths, blockading, hampering, as they struggled to escape to Erfurt, to Kolleda, to Sommerda. ”

“ But strangest of all, this American mythology of the North, which has been the very last to become known to American readers, is literally so nearly like the Edda itself that as this work fully proves, there is hardly a song in the Norse collection which does not contain an incident found in the Indian poem-legends, while in several there are many such coincidences. Thus, in the Edda we are told that the first birth on earth was that of a giant girl and boy, begotten by the feet of a giant and born from his armpit. ”

“ I have never seen a stranger in my life by the Edera. Were they anglers?"
"No."
"Or sportsmen?"
"They had no guns."
"How many were they?"
"Three. They went away up the river talking."
"Did they cross the bridge?"
"No. They were not shepherds, or labourers, or priests," said Nerina. To these classes of men her own acquaintance was confined.
"Painters, perhaps?" said Adone; but no artists were ever seen there; the existence even of the valley was scarcely known, except to topographers.
"What are painters?" said Nerina.
"Men who sit and stare and then make splashes of colour." ”

“ They concern only myself."
"None of our rights concern only ourselves. What are those which you claim in special on the Edera water?"
Adone was silent for a few moments; he was astonished and embarrassed; he had never reflected on the legal side of his claim to the river; he had grown up in love and union with it; such affections, born with us at birth, are not analysed until they are assailed.
"You are strangers," he replied. "But what right do you question me? I was born here. What is your errand?"
"You must be Adone Alba?" said the person, as if spokesman for the others. ”

“ He dared not tell his friend of the passionate propaganda which he had begun up and down the course of the Edera, striving to make these stocks and stones stir, striving to make the blind see, the deaf hear, the infirm rise and leap.
"Let us go and make music," said the priest at last. "That will not harm any one, and will do our own souls good. It is long since I heard your voice."
"It will be longer," thought Adone, as he answered: "Excuse me, sir; I cannot think of any other thing than this great evil which hangs over us. ”

“ Then while he followed his magic path through the darkness of the forest we seized and bound him, knowing well that if he could not come to thee, thou wouldst come to him. And thou hast come.”
“I understand. What now, Eddo?”
“This, Inkosazana: Thou hast been named Mother of the Trees by the people of the Dwarfs; be pleased to come with us that we may instal thee in thy great office.”
“This lord here,” said Rachel, “is my promised husband. What of him?”
Eddo bowed and smiled, a fearful smile, and answered:
“The Mother of the Trees has no husband. Wisdom is her husband. ”

“ You, who deem yourself so wholly without hope, may find solace if you choose to take it. You are young, you are free, all the tenderest ties of life can be yours if you choose; if this home be destroyed you may make another where you will. But I am bound here. I must obey; I must submit. I cannot move; I cannot alter or renew my fate; and to me the destruction of the beauty of the Edera valley will be the loss of the only pleasure of my existence. Try and see with my eyes, Adone; it may help you to bear your burden. ”