Those who have floated along on a smooth, tranquil tide, clear of the breakers and whirlpools and rocks, or whose bark has lain on stagnant waters, on which a green and murky shade is beginning to gather, with no breeze to fan them or to curl the dull and lifeless pool, will accuse me of exaggeration, and say such scenes never occurred in the actual experience of wedded life; that I am writing a romance, instead of a reality.
I answer them, that I am drawing the sketch as faithfully as the artist, who transfers the living form to the canvas; that as it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the dying agonies of the malefactor transfixed by the dagger, and writhing in protracted tortures, that the painter may immortalize himself by the death-throes on which he is gazing; so the agonies of him,
"Who doubts, yet does, suspects, yet fondly loves,"
cannot be described in colors too deep and strong. Prometheus bound to the rock, with the beak of the vulture in his bleeding breast, suffering daily renewing pangs, his wounds healed only to be torn open afresh, is an emblem of the victim of that vulture passion, which the word of God declares to be cruel and insatiable as the grave.
No; my pen is too weak to describe either the terrors of the storm or the halcyon peace, the heavenly joy that succeeded. I yielded to the exquisite bliss of reconciliation, without daring to give one glance to the future. I had chosen my destiny. I had said, "Let me be loved,—I ask no more!"
I was loved, even to the madness of idolatry. My prayer was granted. Then let me "lay my hand upon my mouth, and my mouth in the dust." I had rather be the stormy petrel, whose wings dip into ocean's foaming brine, than the swallow nestling under the barn-eaves of the farmer, or in the chimney of the country homestead,—
"Better to stand the lightning's shock,
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock."
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
It was fortunate for me that Margaret was absent during this exciting scene. When she returned, she was too much occupied with relating the pleasures she had enjoyed to think of what might have occurred in her absence.