"Who?" asked Florence, quickly.
"A young lady from Albany."
"Miss Weldon?"
"The same."
"I was not aware that she was on terms of intimacy with your wife."
"She's an old friend of mine; and, in that sense a friend of Kate's."
"Then they have not met."
"Oh, yes; frequently. And are warmly attached. We look for a pleasant visit. But, of course, we shall not expect to see you. That is understood."
"I rather think you will; that is, if your wife will admit me on friendly terms."
"Why do you say that?" inquired the friend, appearing a little surprised.
"I thought, on the night of your wedding, that she felt my presence as unwelcome to her."
"And is this the reason why you have not called to see us."
"I frankly own that it is."
"Edwin! I am surprised at you. It is all a piece of imagination. What could have put such a thing into your head?"
"It may have been all imagination. But I couldn't help feelings as I did. However, you may expect to see me, and that, too, before Miss Weldon's arrival."
"If you don't present yourself before, I am not so sure that we will let you come afterwards," said the friend, smiling.
On the next evening the young man called. Mrs. Hartley, the bride of his friend, endeavored to forget the past, and to receive him with all the external signs of forgetfulness. But, in this she did not fully succeed, and, of course, the visit of Florence was painfully embarrassing, at least, to himself. From that time until the arrival of Miss Weldon, he felt concerned and unhappy. That Mrs. Hartley would fully communicate or covertly hint to Clara certain events of his former life, he had too much reason to fear; and, were this done, he felt that all his fond hopes would be scattered to the winds. In due time, Miss Weldon arrived. In meeting her, Florence was conscious of a feeling of embarrassment, never before experienced in her presence. He understood clearly why this was so. At each successive visit his embarrassment increased; and, the more so, from the fact that he perceived a change in Clara ere she had been in the city a week. As to the cause of this change, he had no doubts. It was evident that Mrs. Hartley had communicated certain matters touching his previous history.
Thus it went on day after day, for two or three weeks, by which time the lovers met under the influence of a most chilling constraint. Both were exceedingly unhappy.
One day, in calling as usual, Mr. Florence was surprised to learn that Clara had gone back to Albany.
"She said, nothing of this last night," remarked the young man to Mrs. Hartley.
"Her resolution was taken after you went away," was replied.
"And you, no doubt, advised the step," said Mr. Florence, with ill-concealed bitterness.
"Why do you say that?" was quickly asked.
"How can I draw any other inference?" said the young man, looking at her with knit brows.
"Explain yourself, Mr. Florence!"
"Do my words need explanation?"
"Undoubtedly! For, I cannot understand them."
"There are events in my past lifeI will not say how bitterly repentedof which only you could have informed her."
"What events?" calmly asked the lady.
"Why lacerate my feelings by such a question?" said Florence, while a shadow of pain flitted over his face, as Memory presented a record of the past.
"I ask it with no such intention. I only wish to understand you," replied Mrs. Hartley. "You have brought against me a vague accusation. I wish it distinct, that I may affirm or deny it."
"Edith Walter," said Edwin Florence, in a low, unsteady voice, after he had been silent for nearly a minute.
Mrs. Hartley looked earnestly into his face. Every muscle was quivering.
"What of her?" she inquired, in tones quite as low as those in which the young man had spoken.
"You know the history."
"Well?"
"And, regardless of my suffering and repentance, made known to Clara the blasting secret."
"No! By my hopes of heaven, no!" quickly exclaimed Mrs. Hartley.
"No?" A quiver ran through the young man's frame.
"No, Mr. Florence! That rested as silently in my own bosom as in yours."
"Who, then, informed her?"
"No one."
"Has she not heard of it?"
"No."
"Why, then, did she change towards me?"
"You changed, first, towards her."
"Me!"
"Yes. From the day of her arrival in New York, she perceived in you a certain coldness and reserve, that increased with each repeated interview."
"Oh, no!"
"It is true. I saw it myself."
Florence clasped his hands together, and bent his eyes in doubt and wonder upon the floor.
"Did she complain of coldness and change in me?" he inquired.
"Yes, often. And returned, last night, to leave you free, doubting not that you had ceased to love her."
"Ceased to love her! While this sad work has been going on, I have loved her with the agony of one who is about losing earth's most precious thing. Oh! write to her for me, and explain all. How strange has been my infatuation. Will you write for me?"
"Yes."
"Say that my heart has not turned from her an instant. That her imagined coldness has made me of all men most wretched."
"I will do so. But why not write yourself?"
"It will be better to come from you. Ask her to return. I would rather meet her here than in her uncle's house. Urge her to come back."
Mrs. Hartley promised to do so, according to the wish of Mr. Florence. Two days passed, and there was no answer. On the morning of the third day, the young man, in a state of agitation from suspense called at the house of his friend. After sending up his name, he sat anxiously awaiting the appearance of Mrs. Hartley. The door at length opened, and, to his surprise and joy, Clara entered. She came forward with a smile upon her face, extending her hand as she did so. Edwin sprang to meet her, and catching her hand, pressed it eagerly to his lips.
"Strange that we should have so erred in regard to each other," said Clara, as they sat communing tenderly. "I trust no such error will come in the future to which I look forward with so many pleasing hopes."
"Heaven forbid!" replied the young man, seriously.
"But we are in a world of error. Ah! if we could only pass through life without a mistake. If the heavy weight of repentance did not lie so often and so long upon our heartsthis would be a far pleasanter world than it is."
"Do not look so serious," remarked Clara, as she bent forward and gazed affectionately into the young man's face. "To err is human. No one here is perfect. How often, for hours, have I mourned over errors; yet grief was of no avail, except to make my future more guarded."
"And that was much gained," said Florence, breathing deeply with a sense of relief. "If we cannot recall and correct the past, we can at least be more guarded in the future. This is the effect of my own experience. Ah! if we properly considered the action of our present upon the future, how guarded would we be. All actions are in the present, and the moment they are done the present becomes the past, over which Memory presides. What is past is fixed. Nothing can change it. The record is in marble, to be seen in all future time."
The serious character of the interview soon changed, and the young lovers forgot every thing in the joy of their reconciliation. Nothing arose to mar their intercourse until the appointed time for the nuptial ceremonies arrived, when they were united in holy wedlock. But, Edwin Florence did not pass on to this time without another visit from the rebuking Angel of the past. He was not permitted to take the hand of Clara in his, and utter the words that bound him to her forever, without a visit from the one whose heart he had broken years before. She came to him in the dark and silent midnight, as he tossed sleeplessly upon his bed, and stood and looked at him with her pale face and despairing eyes, until he was driven almost to madness. She was with him when the light of morning dawned; she moved by his side as he went forth to meet and claim his betrothed; and was near him, invisible to all eyes but his own, when he stood at the altar ready to give utterance to the solemn words that bound him to his bride. And not until these words were said, did the vision fade away.
No wonder the face of the bridegroom wore a solemn aspect as he presented himself to the minister, and breathed the vows of eternal fidelity to the living, while before him, as distinct as if in bodily form, was the presence of one long since sleeping ill her grave, who had gone down to her shadowy resting place through his infidelity.
From this time there was a thicker veil drawn over the past. The memory of that one event grew less and less distinct; though it was not obliterated, for nothing that is written in the Book of Life is ever blotted out. There were reasons, even in long years after his marriage, when the record stood suddenly before him, as if written in words of light; and he would turn from it with a feeling of pain.
Thus it is that our present blesses or curses our future. Every act of our lives affects the coming time for good or evil. We make our own destiny, and make it always in the present. The past is gone, the future is yet to come. The present only is ours, and, according to what we do in the present, will be the records of the past and its influence on the future. They are only wise who wisely regard their actions in the present.
THE BRILLIANT AND THE COMMONPLACE
DAY after day I worked at my life-task, and worked in an earnest spirit. Not much did I seem to accomplish; yet the little that was done had on it the impress of good. Still, I was dissatisfied, because my gifts were less dazzling than those of which many around me could boast. When I thought of the brilliant ones sparkling in the firmament of literature, and filling the eyes of admiring thousands, something like the evil spirit of envy came into my heart and threw a shadow upon my feelings. I was troubled because I had not their gifts. I wished to shine with a stronger light. To dazzle, as well as to warm and vivify.
Not long ago, there came among us one whom nature had richly endowed. His mind possessed exceeding brilliancy. Flashes of thought, like lightning from summer cloud, were ever filling the air around him. There was a stateliness in the movement of his intellect, and an evidence of power, that oppressed you at times with wonder.
Around him gathered the lesser lights in the hemisphere of thought, and veiled their feeble rays beneath his excessive brightness. He seemed conscious of his superior gifts and displayed them more like a giant beating the air to excite wonder, than putting forth his strength to accomplish a good and noble work. Still, I was oppressed and paralyzed by the sphere of his presence. I felt puny and weak beside him, and unhappy because I was not gifted with equal power.
It so happened that a work of mine, upon which the maker's name was not stampedwork done with a purpose of goodwas spoken of and praised by one who did not know me as the handicraftsman.
"It is tame, dull, and commonplace," said the brilliant one, in a tone of contempt; and there were many present to agree with him.
Like the strokes of a hammer upon my heart, came these words of condemnation. "Tame, dull, and commonplace!" And was it, indeed, so? Yes; I felt that what he uttered was true. That my powers were exceedingly limited, and my gifts few. Oh, what would I not have then given for brilliant endowments like those possessed by him from whom had fallen the words of condemnation?
"You will admit," said oneI thought it strange at the time that there should be even one to speak a word in favor of my poor performance"that it will do good?"
"Good!" was answered, in a tone slightly touched by contempt. "Oh, yes; it will do good!" and the brilliant one tossed his head. "Anybody can do good!"
I went home with a perturbed spirit. I had work to do; but I could not do it. I sat down and tried to forget what I had heard. I tried to think about the tasks that were before me. "Tame, dull, and commonplace!" Into no other form would my thoughts come.
Exhausted, at last, by this inward struggle, I threw myself upon my bed, and soon passed into the land of dreams.
Dream-land! Thou art thought by many to be only a land of fantasy and of shadows. But it is not so. Dreams, for the most part, are fantastic; but all are not so. Nearer are we to the world of spirits, in sleep; and, at times, angels come to us with lessons of wisdom, darkly veiled under similitude, or written in characters of light.
I passed into dream-land; but my thoughts went on in the same current. "Tame, dull, and commonplace!" I felt the condemnation more strongly than before.
I was out in the open air, and around me were mountains, trees, green fields, and running waters; and above all bent the sky in its azure beauty. The sun was just unveiling his face in the east, and his rays were lighting up the dew-gems on a thousand blades of grass, and making the leaves glitter as if studded with diamonds.
"How calm and beautiful!" said a voice near me. I turned, and one whose days were in the "sear and yellow leaf," stood by my side.
"But all is tame and commonplace," I answered. "We have this over and over again, day after day, month after month, and year after year. Give me something brilliant and startling, if it be in the fiery comet or the rushing storm. I am sick of the commonplace!"
"And yet to the commonplace the world is indebted for every great work and great blessing. For everything good, and true, and beautiful!"
I looked earnestly into the face of the old man. He went on.
"The truly good and great is the useful; for in that is the Divine image. Softly and unobtrusively has the dew fallen, as it falls night after night. Silently it distilled, while the vagrant meteors threw their lines of dazzling light across the sky, and men looked up at them in wonder and admiration. And now the soft grass, the green leaves, and the sweet flowers, that drooped beneath the fervent heat of yesterday, are fresh again and full of beauty, ready to receive the light and warmth of the risen sun, and expand with, a new vigor. All this may be tame, and commonplace; but is it not a great and a good work that has been going on?
"The tiller of the soil is going forth again to his work. Do not turn your eyes from him, and let a feeling of impatience stir in your heart because he is not a soldier rushing to battle, or a brilliant orator holding thousands enchained by the power of a fervid eloquence that is born not so much of good desires for his fellow-men as from the heat of his own self-love. Day after day, as now, patient, and hopeful, the husbandman enters upon the work that lies before him, and, hand in hand with God's blessed sunshine, dews, and rain, a loving and earnest co-laborer, brings forth from earth's treasure-house of blessings good gifts for his fellow-men. Is all this commonplace? How great and good is the commonplace!"
I turned to answer the old man, but he was gone. I was standing on a high mountain, and beneath me, as far as the eye could reach, were stretched broad and richly cultivated fields; and from a hundred farm-houses went up the curling smoke from the fires of industry. Fields were waving with golden grain, and trees bending with their treasures of fruit. Suddenly, the bright sun was veiled in clouds, that came whirling up from the horizon in dark and broken masses, and throwing a deep shadow over the landscape just before bathed in light. Calmly had I surveyed the peaceful scene spread out before me. I was charmed with its quiet beauty. But now, stronger emotions stirred within me.
"Oh, this is sublime!" I murmured, as I gazed upon the cloudy hosts moving across the heavens in battle array.
A gleam of lightning sprang forth from a dark cavern in the sky, and then, far off, rattled and jarred the echoing thunder. Next came the rushing and roaring wind, bending the giant-limbed oaks as if they were but wands of willow, and tearing up lesser trees as a child tears up from its roots a weed or flower.