"'What of Flora?' I demanded.
"'I telegraphed, but she wouldn't go; she has come back; she is here!'
"I was sinking back into the stupor from which I had been roused, when I heard a rustling which seemed afar off, yet was in my chamber; then a vision appeared to my sickened sight,a face which I dimly thought I had seen before,a flood of curls and a rain of kisses showering upon me,sobs and devouring caresses,Flora's voice calling me passionate names; and I lying so passive, faintly struggling to remember, until my soul sank whirling in darkness, and I knew no more.
"One morning, I cannot tell you how long after, I awoke and found myself in a strange-looking room, filled with strange objects, not the least strange of which was the thing that seemed myself. At first I looked with vague and motionless curiosity out of the Lethe from which my mind slowly emerged; painless, and at peace; listlessly questioning whether I was alive or dead,whether the limp weight lying in bed there was my body,the meaning of the silence and the closed curtains. Then, with a succession of painful flashes, as if the pole of an electrical battery had been applied to my brain, memory returned,Margaret, Flora, Paris, delirium. I next remember hearing myself groan aloud,then seeing Joseph at my side. I tried to speak, but could not. Upon my pillow was a glove, and he placed it against my cheek. An indescribable, excruciating thrill shot through me; still I could not speak. After that, came a relapse. Like Mrs. Browning's poet, I lay
''Twixt gloom and gleam,
With Death and Life at each extreme.'
"But one morning I was better. I could talk. Joseph bent over me, weeping for joy.
"'The danger is past!' he said. 'The doctors say you will get well!'
"'Have I been so ill, then?'
"'Ill?' echoed Joseph. 'Nobody thought you could live. We all gave you up, except her;and she'
"'She!' I said,'is she here?'
"'From the moment of her arrival,' replied Joseph, 'she has never left you. Oh, if you don't thank God for her,'he lowered his voice,'and live all the rest of your life just to reward her, you are the most ungrateful wretch! You would certainly have died but for her. She has scarcely slept, till this morning, when they said you would recover.'
"Joseph paused. Every word he spoke went down like a weight of lead into my soul. I had, indeed, been conscious of a tender hand soothing my pillow, of a lovely form flitting through my dreams, of a breath and magnetic touch of love infusing warm, sweet life into me,but it had always seemed Margaret, never Flora.
"'The glove?' I asked.
"'Here it is,' said Joseph. 'In your delirium you demanded it; you would not be without it; you caressed it, and addressed to it the tenderest apostrophes.'
"'And Flora,she heard?'
"'Flora?' repeated Joseph. 'Don't you knowhaven't you any ideawhat has happened? It has been terrible!'
"'Tell me at once!' I said. 'Keep nothing back!'
"'Immediately on her return from Marseilles,you remember that?'
"'Yes, yes! go on!'
"'She established herself here. Nobody could come between her and you; and a brave, true girl she proved herself. Oh, but she was wild about you! She offered the doctors extravagant sumsshe would have bribed Heaven itself, if she couldnot to let you die. But there came a time,one night, when you were raving about Margaret,I tell you, it was terrible! She would have the truth, and so I told her,everything, from the beginning. It makes me shudder now to think of it,it struck her so like death!'
"'What did she say?what did she do?'
"'She didn't say much,"Oh, my God! my God!"something like that. The next morning she showed me a letter which she had written to Margaret.'
"'To Margaret?' I started up, but fell back again, helpless, with a groan.
"'Yes,' said Joseph,'and it was a letter worthy of the noblest woman. I wrote another, for I thought Margaret ought to know everything. It might save her life, and yours, too. In the mean time, I had got worse news from her still,that her health continued to decline, and that her physician saw no hope for her except in a voyage to Italy. But that she resolutely refused to undertake, until she got those letters. You know the rest.'
"'The rest?' I said, as a horrible suspicion flashed upon me. 'You told me something terrible had happened.'
"'Yes,to Flora. But you have heard the worst. She is gone; she is by this time in Rome.'
"'Flora gone? But you said she was here.'
"'She? So she is! But did you think I meant Flora? I supposed you knew. Not Flora,but Margaret! Margaret!'
"I shrieked out, 'Margaret?' That's the last I remember,at least, the last I can tell. She was there,I was in her arms;she had crossed the sea, not to save her own life, but mine. And Flora had gone, and my dreams were true; and the breath and magnetic touch of love, which infused warm, sweet life into me, and seemed not Flora's, but Margaret's, were no illusion, andwhat more can I tell?
"From the moment of receiving those letters, Margaret's energies were roused, and she had begun to regain her health. There is no such potent medicine as hope and love. It had saved her, and it saved me. My recovery was sure and speedy. The happiness which had seemed too great, too dear to be ever possible, was now mine. She was with me again, all my own! Only the convalescent, who feels the glow of love quicken the pure pulses of returning health, knows what perfect bliss is.
"As soon as I was strong enough to travel, we set out for Italy, the faithful Joseph accompanying us. We enjoyed Florence, its palaces and galleries of art, the quaint old churches, about which the religious sentiment of ages seems to hang like an atmosphere, the morning and evening clamor of musical bells, the Arno, and the olive-crowned Tuscan hills,all so delightful to the senses and the soul. After Florence, Naples, with its beautiful, dangerous, volcanic environs, where the ancients aptly located their heaven and hell, and where a luxurious, passionate people absorbs into its blood the spirit of the soil, and the fire and languor of the clime. From Naples to Rome, where we saw St Peter's, that bubble on the surface of the globe, which the next earthquake may burst, the Vatican, with its marvels of statuary, the ruined temples of the old gods and heroes, the Campagna, the Pope, andFlora. We had but a glimpse of her. It was one night, at the Colosseum. We had been musing about that vast and solemn pile by the moonlight, which silvered it over with indescribable beauty, and at last, accompanied by our guides, bearing torches, we ascended through dark and broken passages to the upper benches of the amphitheatre. As we were passing along one side, we saw picturesquely moving through the shadows of the opposite walls, with the immense arena between, the red-flaring torches and half-illuminated figures of another party of visitors. I don't know whether it was instinct, or acuteness of vision, that suggested Flora; but, with a sudden leap of the heart, I felt that she was there. We descended, and passed out under the dark arches of the stupendous ruin. The other visitors walked a little in advance of us,two of the number lingering behind their companions; and certain words of tenderness and passion we heard, which strangely brought to my mind those nights on the ocean-steamer.
"'What is the matter with you?' said Margaret, looking in my face.
"'Hush!' I whispered,'therethat womanis Flora!'
"She clung to me,I drew her closer, as we paused; and the happy couple went on, over the ancient Forum, by the silent columns of the ruined temples, and disappeared from sight upon the summit of the Capitoline Hill.
"A few months later, we heard of the marriage of Flora to an English baronet; she is now my Lady, and I must do her the justice to say that I never knew a woman better fitted to bear that title. As for Margaret,if you will return with me to my home on the Hudson, after we have finished our hunt after those Western lands, you shall see her, together with the loveliest pair of children that ever made two proud parents happy.
"And here," added Westwood, "we have arrived at the end of our day's journey; we have had the Romance of the Glove, and nowlet's have some supper."
TO
ON RECEIVING HIS"FEW VERSES FOR A FEW FRIENDS.""(PRINTED, NOT PUBLISHED.)"Well thought! Who would not rather hear
The songs to Love and Friendship sung,
Than those which move the stranger's tongue
And feed his unselected ear?
Our social joys are more than fame;
Life withers in the public look:
Why mount the pillory of a book,
Or barter comfort for a name?
Who in a house of glass would dwell,
With curious eyes at every pane?
To ring him in and out again
Who wants the public crier's bell?
To see the angel in one's way,
Who wants to play the ass's part,
Bear on his back the wizard Art,
And in his service speak or bray?
And who his manly locks would shave
And quench the eyes of common sense,
To share the noisy recompense
That mocked the shorn and blinded slave?
The heart has needs beyond the head,
And, starving in the plenitude
Of strange gifts, craves its common food,
Our human nature's daily bread.
We are but men: no gods are we
To sit in mid-heaven, cold and bleak,
Each separate, on his painful peak,
Thin-cloaked in self-complacency!
Better his lot whose axe is swung
In Wartburg woods, or that poor girl's
Who by the Ilm her spindle whirls
And sings the songs that Luther sung,
Than his, who, old and cold and vain,
At Weimar sat, a demigod,
And bowed with Jove's imperial nod
His votaries in and out again!
Ply, Vanity, thy wingèd feet!
Ambition, hew thy rocky stair!
Who envies him who feeds on air
The icy splendors of his seat?
I see your Alps above me cut
The dark, cold sky,and dim and lone
I see ye sitting, stone on stone,
With human senses dulled and shut.
I could not reach you, if I would,
Nor sit among your cloudy shapes;
And (spare the fable of the Grapes
And Fox) I would not, if I could.
Keep to your lofty pedestals!
The safer plain below I choose:
Who never wins can rarely lose,
Who never climbs as rarely falls.
Let such as love the eagle's scream
Divide with him his home of ice:
For me shall gentler notes suffice,
The valley-song of bird and stream,
The pastoral bleat, the drone of bees,
The flail-beat chiming far away,
The cattle-low at shut of day,
The voice of God in leaf and breeze!
Then lend thy hand, my wiser friend,
And help me to the vales below,
(In truth, I have not far to go,)
Where sweet with flowers the fields extend.
THE SINGING-BIRDS AND THEIR SONGS
Those persons enjoy the most happiness, if possessed of a benevolent heart and favored by ordinary circumstances of fortune, who have acquired by habit and education the power of deriving pleasure from objects that lie immediately around them. But these common sources of happiness are opened to those only who are endowed with genius, or who have received a certain kind of intellectual training. The more ordinary the mental and moral organization and culture of the individual, the more far-fetched and dear-bought must be his enjoyments. Nature has given us in full development only those appetites which are necessary to our physical well-being. She has left our moral appetites and capacities in the germ, to be developed by education and circumstances. Hence those agreeable sensations that come chiefly from the exercise of the imagination, which may be called the pleasures of sentiment, are available only to persons of a peculiar refinement of mind. The ignorant and rude may be dazzled and delighted by physical beauty, and charmed by loud and stirring sounds; but those more simple melodies and less attractive colors and forms that appeal to the mind for their principal effect act more powerfully upon individuals of superior culture.
In proportion as we have been trained to be agreeably affected by the outward forms of Nature, and the sounds that proceed from the animate and inanimate world, are we capable of being made happy without resorting to expensive and vulgar recreations. It ought, therefore, to be one of the chief points in the education of youth, while teaching them the still more important offices of humanity, to cultivate and enliven their susceptibility to the charms of natural objects. Then would the aspects of Nature, continually changing with the progress of the seasons and the sounds that enliven their march, satisfy, in a great measure, that craving for agreeable sensations which leads mankind away from humble and healthful pursuits to those of a more artificial and exciting life. The value of such pleasures consists not so much in their cheapness as in their favorable moral influences, which improve the heart, while they lead the mind to observations that pleasantly exercise and develope, without tasking its powers. The quiet emotions, half musical and half poetical, which are awakened by listening to the songs of birds, belong to this class of refined enjoyments.
But the music of birds, though agreeable to all, conveys positive and durable pleasure only to those who have learned to associate with their notes, in connection with the scenes of Nature, a thousand interesting and romantic images. To many persons of this character it affords more delight than the most brilliant music of the opera or the concert. In vain, therefore, will it be said, as an objection, that the notes of birds have no charm, save that which is derived from association, and that, considered as music, they do not equal that of the most simple reed or flageolet. It is sufficient to remark, that the most delightful influences of Nature proceed from those sights and sounds that appeal to the imagination and affections through the medium of slight and almost insensible impressions made upon the eye and the ear. At the moment when these physical impressions exceed a certain mean, the spell is broken, and the enjoyment becomes sensual, not intellectual. How soon, indeed, would the songs of birds lose their effect, if they were loud and brilliant, like a band of instruments! It is their simplicity that gives them their charm.
As a further illustration of this point, it may be remarked that simple melodies have among all people exercised a greater power over the imagination than louder and more complicated music. Nature employs a very small amount of physical sensation to create an intellectual passion, and when an excess is used a diminished effect is produced. I am persuaded that the effect of a great part of our sacred music is lost by an excess of harmony and a too great volume of sound. On the same principle, a loud crash of thunder deafens and terrifies; but its low and distant rumbling produces an agreeable emotion of sublimity.
The songs of birds are as intimately allied with poetry as with music. The lark has been aptly denominated a "feathered lyric" by one of the English poets; and the analogy becomes apparent when we consider how much the song of a bird resembles a lyrical ballad in its influence on the mind. Though it utters no words, how plainly it suggests a long train of agreeable images of love, beauty, friendship, and home! When a young person has suffered any severe wound of the affections, he seldom fails, if endowed with a sensitive mind, to listen to the birds as sharers in his affliction. Through them the deities of the groves seem to offer him their consolation. By indulging this habit of making companionship with the objects of Nature, all pleasing sights and sounds gradually become certain anodynes for his sorrow; and those who have this mental alembic for turning grief into a poetic melancholy can seldom be reduced to a state of absolute despondency. Poetry, or rather the poetic sentiment, exalts all our pleasures and soothes all our afflictions by some illusive charm, whether it be turned into the channel of religion or romance. Without this reflection of light from the imagination, what is the passion of love? and what is our love of beauty and of sweet sounds, but a mere gravitation?