Miranda

“ Miranda turned upon him swiftly. "Fie! fie!" said she, and the light flashed in her eyes. "I know nothing of this Love, but I dare swear there be things that matter. Take these from life, and what will rest over? Is there not Sorrow, and is there not Pain? Is there not Remorse, and is there not the thing called Sin? I know nothing of these; I am too young to the world. But there they stand, Sir, importuning at our doors with outstretched arms, and one has only to lift the latch to let them in. You would deny the very pulse of human nature when you ignore these evils. ”

“ Miranda gazed round the valley.
"Will that suffice?" she asked softly.
"Ah, no!" he cried; "a thousand noes. There is nothing will suffice save death. But life is laid upon us. What may we do? We take our pains and our pleasures; there is no rest. To rest were death in life. I could not sink into the moral worm that withdraws its blind head and wriggles into cover on the passage of a pain. Nay, I take life with my eyes open, though my back be bowed and my body bent, and though the ice encrust my soul. ”

“ His passion leaped instantly to a climax. It was one of those rare moments when feeling must find pictured expression; when every barrier is down between emotion and its gesture. Miranda stood before him, the reproach of his disloyalty, a perfect figure of the life he must embrace. His hand upon her dress shot instantly into his brain a memory of that mean moment when he had nursed his wrongs upon her homeliness. A fierce contrition flung him without pose or premeditation on his knees beside her. ”

“ He laughed. "My child, 'twould be the veriest folly and bitterly repented. Never yet came true love but by slow years of wont. A face—a face is a shadow that passes. Eyes—eyes flicker and fade. Lips—lips are for food and laughter. The hair decays; the body dwindles and withers; the comely limbs grow shrunken and hollow. If you would hold by these, my dear, you would put your trust in the flying hour."
Miranda's eyes opened large and wide. ”

“ Miranda stood with her eyelids closed, and her ungloved hand pressed over her heart. The blood darkened her cheeks. Charnock saw her whole face soften and sweeten. "I understand," she said in a low voice. "I might appeal and be spared the humiliation of appealing, like the face in your mirror."
"I believe," said he, "that my mirror sent me a message on that night. I have tried to deliver it."
Miranda slowly raised her eyes and they glistened with something other than the starlight. "Thank you," she said; "for the delicacy of the thought I am most grateful. What woman would not be? ”

“ So they lived till the time when Miranda was about sixteen. So beautiful a creature as this young daughter of Prospero had rarely been seen. Bred among the enchantments of this island, her own rich loveliness was nourished by wonders, till she seemed more like a spirit than a mortal. Her father, too, had taught her much strange and curious learning, so that she was wise in things foreign to her sex and years. She had seen no faces which resembled the human, except those of her father, and his servants Ariel and Caliban. ”

“ He followed in amazement the sound of Ariel's voice, till it led him to Prospero and Miranda, who were sitting under the shade of a large tree. Now Miranda had never seen a man before, except her own father.
'Miranda,' said Prospero, 'tell me what you are looking at yonder.'
'O father,' said Miranda, in a strange surprise, 'surely that is a spirit. Lord! how it looks about! Believe me, sir, it is a beautiful creature. Is it not a spirit?'
'No, girl,' answered her father; 'it eats, and sleeps, and has senses such as we have. This young man you see was in the ship. ”

“ The red hung in Miranda's cheeks, and then went out slowly.
"I love life," she answered in low tones, "and I love the loveliness of life, but I know not why I love them."
"Because," said he, smiling, "you yourself are informed with Love. Think you God made a maid so lovely and not for love? No; your arms were designed for a lover's necklace; your bosom was conceived for a lover's pillow; your lips for the sweet resting-place of tired eyes, and you yourself for the delectation of many hapless wooers." ”

“ Suddenly, and with a little gasp of terror, she found the earth slipping from her. She threw herself back and clutched wildly at the grass. She felt the water creeping above her ankles. A cry escaped her, and on the next instant two hands were clasped beneath her arms, and she was swiftly drawn into safety, and lay high upon the grass upon her back. Miranda sat up, and looking round met the bashful eyes of a youth. At once his gaze dropped, and he fumbled his hands together, shifting from foot to foot. ”

“ Look round and see the spring. All things keep serene and quiet holiday. Pluck out distrust; forget these treacherous longings! A happy childhood shall surely preface a comfortable career of ease."
Miranda hesitated; her pretty brows were puckered with doubt. At his bidding she looked around. Nature smiled at her. The face of the world shone with gaiety. Somewhere in the elms a throstle sang of Love and mystery. She turned and gazed into the stranger's face, and his kindly eyes seemed dull and old. ”

“ Ah, Miranda! You are my guardian angel! If there is no other way of accomplishing it, you and I will run away some night—an elopement. We will do as they do in the novels: you shall come on a fiery steed, I will get up behind, and let them overtake us if they can. We will first put Perico and Lucía under lock and key, and leave them there to do penance for their sins, eh? ”

“ He plucked off his hat and asked her pardon, and his hair hung in curls.
"You shall have all the liberty I can give you, fair maid," said he, "if I, too, may pass with you."
"But why?" asked Miranda, smoothing her flowers, with downcast eyes.
He smiled a pretty smile. "Oh," says he, "but you know you are beautiful. The pretty must always have full knowledge of their own prettiness." ”

“ This time, and for the first time since the questions had begun, Miranda did flinch. She had a great difficulty in answering, "It has already been sent off."
"To Gibraltar?" Miranda's difficulty increased. "To whom at Gibraltar? A friend, a man?"
Miranda's face grew very white; she tried to speak and failed; her throat, her lips, refused the answer. "At all events," she managed to whisper hoarsely, "not to a woman," and thereupon she laughed most mirthlessly, till the strange, harsh, strangled noise of it penetrated as something unfamiliar to Charnock's dazed mind. ”

“ Believe me, 'tis not the whim of an hour contrived by the guiles of a spring morning; but a very settled disposition of the mind. I am broad-based upon gaiety."
"Ah! to be gay!" cried Miranda; "to be gay is to live."
"Life is at our feet," said the merry youth. "I take an infinite pleasure in its complexities. Believe me, nothing should matter, save the twinkling of an eye or the dimpling of a cheek."
"You are right," said Miranda, smiling. "How can one have enough of laughter?" ”

“ Miranda's laughter touched the skies and ceased. Her face fell thoughtful; she sighed and shrugged her dainty shoulders.
III. The Philosophy of Love "Is there such a thing as Love?" asked Miranda.
Overhead the larks sung, about her the blackbirds carolled; finch called to finch in the hedgerows. Wrinkled with her thoughts, Miranda walked down the slope into the field of young green corn, and, pausing on the verge of the wheat, looked across the valley.
"Is there such a thing as Love?" she asked.
She shaded her eyes to the East. ”

“ The sun rises and I see it not; the air grows warm and I feel it not; the stars blink down upon me and I regard them not. Day passes after day, and night succeeds to night; yet is my long pain still with me, and I heed not the rolling years."
"'Tis but three months," she suggested.
"Three months are many years," he sighed.
Miranda looked at his misty blue eyes, and a thrill of pity pierced her soul.
"But you will be strong," she said; "you will pluck out the thorns from your heart, and it shall yet blossom again as the rose. You will not bow your head to trouble. ”

“ He spoke uneasily; he looked even more worn and tired than when he first came to Ronda. Miranda understood that here indeed was the real tragedy of the man's life.
"All these years, fifteen years," she said, "you have dreamed of doing sooner or later this one thing. You have played with the dream. You have kept your self-respect by means of it. It has set you apart from your companions. And now, when the opportunity comes, you find that you were only after all on the level of your companions, lower, perhaps a trifle lower, by this trifle of delusion. For you cannot do the work." ”

“ There is less colour in a kind of blue I know than in any honest puddle of mud. And, oh! my pretty sir, to find the petulance of a maid pouting on the lips of a youth! 'Tis so unseemly. Those curling locks, too, I cannot abide. On my soul, they are more lady-like and bewitching than mine own, and no woman would forgive such an affront upon her vanity. Love you, sweet sir! I love not a mannikin, designed by Mother Nature as fit company for the lapdog on my lady's knee. Give me a man," says Miranda, blazing into anger; "give me a man with a soul and body fashioned for manhood." ”

“ Charnock looked back to Miranda, sank upon one knee by her side, and bending his head down began to whisper to her exhortations, gentle reproaches at her lack of courage, and between his words he smiled at her as at a wayward child.
"There is no reason to fear," the uncanny talk went on; "and it hurts us! You don't know how much. ”

“ Miranda, who thought all men had grave faces and gray beards like her father, was delighted with the appearance of this beautiful young prince; and Ferdinand, seeing such a lovely maiden in this desert place, and from the strange sounds he had heard, expecting nothing but wonders, thought he was upon an enchanted island, and that Miranda [356] was the goddess of the place, and as such he began to address her. ”

“ It must surely be a brave world that has such people in it."
The king of Naples was almost as much astonished at the beauty and excellent graces of the young Miranda, as his son had been. "Who is this maid?" said he; "she seems the goddess that has parted us, and brought us thus together." "No, sir," answered Ferdinand, smiling to find his father had fallen into the same mistake that he had done when he first saw Miranda, "she is a mortal but by immortal Providence she is mine; I chose her when I could not ask you, my father, for your consent, not thinking you were alive. ”

“ What a fool is he who would nurse his sorrow and not bury it in the deepest grave!"
"What a fool!" murmured Miranda, dreamily.
"Should one lose a friend, a fig for friendship!" quoth he. "Does one cast a lover, a snap for a hundred lovers! What has been remains, and what is shall be."
Miranda said nothing.
"Subtract love from life," said the young man, "and life remains. I would have the world know that love is a pleasant cipher, an amiable and entertaining mood, and that life is left when love is lost. There is no Love. ”

“ Miranda looked puzzled. She gazed at him inquiringly.
"You will think me absurd," said he; "but I talk out of my knowledge. I speak in sober words, as one upon whose hopes the grave has closed. Sorrow is a fire that refines; pain is a scourge that purifies. You are young, child, and go yet unscathed; but some day maybe—and that in but a little while—you may watch the sky grow black upon you, and feel the foundations of the earth totter, and your whole being will reel and burn and moan aloud to God within you. ”

“ I want no lover!"
"But you have both," returned Charnock. With a hand upon the table he leaned over it towards her. "You have both."
"Ah!" exclaimed Miranda. With extraordinary swiftness she swung round and copied his movement. She leaned her hand upon the table, and bent forward to him. "But to win the one I have had to create the other. To possess the friend I have had to make the lover," and she suddenly threw herself back and stood erect. ”

“ With each fresh week they may start anew into life. Nay, even the hours are the measure of their fortunes. But for me the spring is over and gone; out of the dead heart of the summer shall I snatch aught but withered leaves? And shall I permit my own dead heart to take the dews and sunlight of an unavailing spring? Child, child, you know not, you cannot judge," and he patted softly on the hand he held between his fingers.
Miranda bent her head, and wept gently. He put his arm upon her shoulder, and looked into her eyes. ”

“ Hark! what secret is the young corn breathing to itself? Nay, what is even this poor ignorant heart of mine faltering within me? All around I see witnesses to some greater glory than this ease of which you speak. The strokes of my pulse beat folly, you will say. Well, I will pursue their folly until wisdom comes. Do not let me from my own. I can but follow where myself am leader."
"Nay," he said; "follow rather where I lead—I who have years of wisdom. You are very sweet to me. Your eyes are soft and beautiful."
"Eyes flicker and fade," said Miranda with a smile. ”

“ Time has crept on such tardy legs. I know him well," he remarked with a pitying smile; "as dull a dog as ever kept tame kennel. You are well rid of the fellow with his meek philosophy and his unblinking eyes. Faith, I would not have him trouble the ears of a maid for all the wealth of Prester John. A clucking barn-door cock, with emotions fit to scratch all day upon a dung-heap, and not skill enough to discern the twinkling of a diamond from the sad yellows of a wheat-ear, wherewith to fill his stomach!"
Miranda stared at him, and burst into tinkling laughter. ”