—Shall I go on?
But the toils of life are upon me. Private griefs do not break the force and the weight of the great—present. A life—at best the half of it, is before me. It is to be wrought out with nerve and work. And—blessed be God! there are gleams of sunlight upon it. That sweet Carry, doubly dear to me now that she is joined with my sorrow for the lost Isabel—shall be sought for!
And with her sweet image floating before me, the Noon wanes, and the shadows of Evening lengthen upon the land.
III
EVENING
The future is a great land; how the lights and the shadows throng over it—bright and dark, slow and swift! Pride and ambition build up great castles on its plains—great monuments on the mountains, that reach heavenward, and dip their tops in the blue of Eternity! Then comes an earthquake—the earthquake of disappointment, of distrust, or of inaction, and lays them low. Gaping desolation widens its breaches everywhere; the eye is full of them, and can see nothing beside. By and by the sun peeps forth—as now from behind yonder cloud—and reanimates the soul.