“Then it’s there—there, behind the book—the paper that he did write on. I must give it to you when you was all alone, he said—my captain. He said, would I ’member? Ha, ha! I did ’member, didn’t I?”
Kate opens the book-case, and finds, as the child said, a folded paper behind one of the encyclopædias. It contains some lines written with pencil, so running together, lines and words, as to be almost unreadable. As she recognizes that handwriting and slowly deciphers it, the tears come at last like rain. Edith, no longer afraid, wipes them away with her little white apron, murmuring, the while, all sorts of baby talk.
About two hundred years ago there lived a blind man who was the author of what many think to be the greatest of poems. But wherever that wonderful work is read and admired, there, too, it is told how his daughters, with one exception, were unkind to him and undutiful, refusing even the task of committing to paper those immortal verses. However, it may be he was a trifle to blame, himself. (For we have seen, as in that other case, how greatness does sometimes build for itself a barrier, a high, impassable wall.) Suppose day after day little eyes looked up wistfully, and he did not see—gazing far off into other worlds and other ages; little voices whispered timidly, and he did not hear—listening to the converse of angels; little hands clung caressingly, but unheeded. Ah, that was asking for bread and getting a stone. Suppose it made some little hearts ache, some little people were “afraid,” finally, like Edith, awhile since. So when they grew up and he grew old and sightless, what came of it all? Paradise Lost, to be marveled at as long as the English language is known and studied, and there in shadowy background, the mighty genius, poor and blind, with his unloving daughters.
And now, girl readers, here is that writing which to her, so sorrowful, is like a consoling message from the Beyond.
FOR MY SWEET SAINT CATHERINE.
There was once a blind, crippled, helpless hulk of humanity who had a sister. And such a sister! All the women who ever wrote books, or painted pictures, or spoke or sang to gaping crowds, weren’t worth her little finger. At least, so he thought—this selfish fellow—and with good reason. For he owed it to her that life was not a burden; rather, he owed it to her that life was a pleasure. Ah, what could she have done that she did not do for him? Like a good fairy she hovered about him, studying and scheming for his comfort and diversion from morning till night. Would he be read to? She would read to him by the hour. Did some rhyme or foolish fancy escape him? She was only too eager to preserve it. She was eyes for him, she was his good right hand, she was everything! Ah, how unmindful of self, how thoughtful of him always! even striving to forget some sorrows of her own, lest her sadness might make him sad! And now that he is gone, and she has nothing to regret—not one impatient word or act—and to remember only unwearied, loving care, ceaseless devotion, let her be comforted. Surely “she hath done what she could.” Oh, my sister, my sister, be comforted! and let us dare hope that of those who watch over thee, unseen, he who writes this may be one.
Daylight slowly fades from the wintry sky, the firelight flickers up and down the wall, and, as night descends, little Edith falls to sleep in Kate’s arms. But are these two alone? For though there is seen no shape among the shadows, nor is heard the sound of any voice, what is that something that like a radiance suddenly overspreads the bowed face? “The peace which passeth all understanding.”