Reveries of a Bachelor; or, A Book of the Heart

by Donald Grant Mitchell

I welcome the time, and it passes like a dream. I am near her, often as I dare; the hours are very short with her, and very long away. She receives me kindly—always very kindly; she could not be otherwise than kind. But is it anything more? This is a greedy nature of ours, and when sweet kindness flows upon us we want more. I know she is kind; and yet, in place of being grateful, I am only covetous of an excess of kindness.

She does not mistake my feelings, surely; ah, no—trust a woman for that! But what have I or what am I to ask a return? She is pure and gentle as an angel, and I—alas—only a poor soldier in our world-fight against the devil! Sometimes, in moods of vanity, I call up what I fondly reckon my excellencies or deserts—a sorry, pitiful array that makes me shame-faced when I meet her. And in an instant I banish them all. And I think that if I were called upon in some high court of justice to say why I should claim her indulgence or her love, I would say nothing of my sturdy effort to beat down the roughness of toil—nothing of such manliness as wears a calm front amid the frowns of the world—nothing of little triumphs in the every-day fight of life, but only I would enter the simple plea—this heart is hers!

She leaves; and I have said nothing of what was seething within me; how I curse my folly! She is gone, and never perhaps will return. I recall in despair her last kind glance. The world seems blank to me. She does not know; perhaps she does not care if I love her. Well, I will bear it. But I can not bear it. Business is broken; books are blurred; something remains undone that fate declares must be done. Not a place can I find but her sweet smile gives to it either a tinge of gladness or a black shade of desolation.

I sit down at my table with pleasant books; the fire is burning cheerfully; my dog looks up earnestly when I speak to him; but it will never do! Her image sweeps away all these comforts in a flood. I fling down my book; I turn my back upon my dog; the fire hisses and sparkles in mockery of me.

Suddenly a thought flashes on my brain—I will write to her—I say. And a smile floats over my face—a smile of hope, ending in doubt. I catch up my pen—my trusty pen, and the clean sheet lies before me. The paper could not be better, nor the pen. I have written hundreds of letters; it is easy to write letters. But now, it is not easy.

I begin, and cross it out. I begin again, and get on a little farther—then cross it out. I try again, but can write nothing. I fling down my pen in despair, and burn the sheet, and go to my library for some old sour treatise of Shaftesbury or Lyttleton, and say—talking to myself all the while—let her go! She is beautiful, but I am strong; the world is short; we—I and my dog, and my books, and my pen, will battle it through bravely, and leave enough for a tombstone.

But even as I say it the tears start—it is all false saying! And I throw Shaftesbury across the room, and take up my pen again. It glides on and on as my hope glows, and I tell her of our first meeting, and of our hours in the ocean twilight, and of our unsteady stepping on the heaving deck, and of that parting in the noise of London, and of my joy at seeing her in the pleasant country, and of my grief afterward. And then I mention Bella—her friend and mine—and the tears flow; and then I speak of our last meeting, and of my doubts, and of this very evening—and how I could not write, and abandoned it—and then felt something within me that made me write and tell her—all!—“That my heart was not my own, but was wholly hers; and that if she would be mine—I would cherish her and love her always!”

Then I feel a kind of happiness—a strange, tumultuous happiness, into which doubt is creeping from time to time, bringing with it a cold shudder. I seal the letter, and carry it—a great weight—for the mail. It seemed as if there could be no other letter that day, and as if all the coaches and horses and cars and boats were specially detailed to bear that single sheet. It is a great letter for me; my destiny lies in it.

I do not sleep well that night—it is a tossing sleep; one time joy—sweet and holy joy, comes to my dreams, and an angel is by me; another time the angel fades—the brightness fades, and I wake, struggling with fear. For many nights it is so, until the day comes on which I am looking for a reply.

The postman has little suspicion that the letter which he gives me—although it contains no promissory notes, nor money, nor deeds, nor articles of trade—is yet to have a greater influence upon my life and upon my future, than all the letters he has ever brought to me before. But I do not show him this; nor do I let him see the clutch with which I grasp it. I bear it as if it were a great and fearful burden to my room. I lock the door, and, having broken the seal with a quivering hand—read: