Silent Struggles

A woman's heart, though delicate, is strong, Like virgin-gold it takes the furnace heat. Giving to history and immortal song A glow of heroism pure and sweet.
Great men have sought the battle in their pride, Hewing a path to glory as they fell; But women, braver still, have grandly died In silent struggles—fame may never tell.
DEDICATION. TO MRS. GEORGE H. PENFIELD, OF HARTFORD, CONN. Dear Lady:— One of the sweetest privileges connected with the authorship of a book is, that it can be made the landmark of such love and kindly feeling as have united us from the day that we first met till now. Believe me, it shall not prove my fault if this dedication fails to link the future with the past, in one perfect and life-long friendship. ANN S. STEPHENS. New York, April 8, 1865.
A storm had been lowering all day over the harbor of Boston, heaping the horizon with vast leaden embankments of heavy vapor, and shrouding the hills with dense floating fog that clung around them in waves and masses like draperies sweeping around some old monastic ruin. As the night approached, a sharp wind came up from the east, accompanied by a drifting rain that cut through the fog like a storm of silver shot. The force of the tempest swept this away only to reveal the harbor in wild turmoil, its waters heaving shoreward filled with muttering thunders from the far off ocean, and each hill reverberating hoarsely to their impetuous charge against its foundations.
It was a terrible hour for any unfortunate wayfarer who dared to be abroad. The streets of the town were almost empty, and the wharves utterly deserted save by a half dozen poor fishermen, who struggled to keep their boats from being dashed to pieces against the timbers to which they were chained. But the turbid waves leaped around and over them, tearing the cables from their hold and beating the little crafts to atoms or hurling them away like nutshells in the stormy riot.
As the day wore on, even these poor fishermen retreated in-doors, leaving their little property to the tempest, and both earth and ocean were given up to the storm. But on the heights which look seaward stood two men thrown together even in that tempest into a strange and what seemed an almost unnatural companionship; for in age, character, and appearance each was a direct contrast to the other.