“Good God! What, another?” and then, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, he burst into a loud, unnatural laugh. “This is patience for you! By heaven! she dies game to the last! Well! let’s see what now, for I am beginning to be charmed with the progress of this thing. There’s an absolute fascination in such daring.”
He snatched up the note, and opening it, read it sotto voce, with an indescribable intonation of contempt:—
Friend—Ah, glorious soul, that I might call thee so indeed! I have just read your poem in the Journal. Read it, did I say? My soul has devoured it! Again and again have I returned to the feast unsated. Ah me, that mighty rhythm! It has filled me with new strength and light! On its harmonious flow the universe of beauty, love and life has been brought closer to me—has been revealed in splendor and unutterable music, until I have sobbed for joy thereof, and prayed and wrestled for thee, with my Father above, that thou mightest be saved. It is terrible to think that a soul so god-like as thine should be unregenerate. I bless thee! I bless thee, my son! I pray for thee! I am praying for thee! I shall pray for thee always, until thou art saved!
Marie.
“Good! I am in a fair way for salvation now, one would think! This seems a strange character—such a mixture of fanaticism, cant, and, withal, appreciation! That poem of mine was certainly an extraordinary one. I hardly expected to find any one that would appreciate it at first. But see! she has already caught its subtle reach and meaning. Pooh! what a fool I am! This is perfectly on a par with all the other hysterical cant which I have received from this person. The probability is, if the lines had been written by Mr. Julian Augustus Maximilian Dieaway, upon whose soft sconce she desired to make an impression (in the way of speculation), the same extravagant tropes and metaphors would have found their way to the snowy surface of this gilt-edged paper, through the delicately-handled crow-quill! Curse it! I shall order the chambermaid to stop the nuisance of these missives!”
This letter was impatiently tossed into the drawer with the others, and Manton threw himself into his chair; when, after sitting with his head leaning on his hands, moody and motionless, for some time, he suddenly straightened himself, and drew from the heap of magazines and books before him a fresh-looking copy of the —— Journal. Turning over its leaves eagerly to that which contained his new poem, he perused it and re-perused it over and over again, with an expression of restlessness and intense inquiry in his manner during the time. At last he drew a long breath, and threw the book back upon the table, exclaiming in a firm voice, “No! I am satisfied. This is no namby-pamby die-away rhyming—there is genuine stuff there; that is true poetry, or I have it not in my nature to produce it. That cursed meddlesome woman has made me distrust myself for the moment; by her extravagant praises, has made me doubt the genuineness of my own inspiration. Her letter is so evidently disjointed ranting, that it has shaken my self-reliance to have even read it. Curse her silly and impertinent legends, I shall read no more of them!”
Poor Manton was evidently troubled now, at length; and can the reader conjecture why this last letter had so excited him? Had a subtle arrow found its mark? Was there any thing in the poem really to justify the high-flown and ecstatic panegyrics of missive No. 3, in the snow-white envelope? You shall see—you shall judge. Here is a true copy of the poem:—
NO REST.
O soul, dream not of rest on earth!
On! forth on! It is thy doom!