"This the extent
Of her achievements! She has labored hard
To mould a bust or statue; but the clay
Lacked the Pygmalion touch beneath her hands.
She'll never be a female Angelo.
She must come down content to mother Earth,
And study out the alphabet which Summer
Weaves on the sod in fields or bordering woods.
Such is your paragon, my simple father!
But now, this ordinary little girl,
So seeming frank, (whisper it low!) is yet
So deep, so crafty, and so full of wiles,
That she has quite persuaded both her parents—
In most things sensible, clear-seeing people—
That she is just a prodigy indeed!
Not one of goodness merely, but of wit,
Capacity, and general cleverness!"
"There, that will do, spoilt darling! What a tongue!"
Percival said, admiring while he chided.
"O the swift time! Thou'rt seventeen to-day;
And yet, except thy parents and thy teachers,
Friends and companions thou hast hardly known.
'Tis fit that I should tell thee why our life
Has been thus socially estranged and quiet.
Sit down, and let me push the arm-chair up
Where I can note the changes in thy face;
For 'tis a traitor, that sweet face of thine,
And has a sign for every fleeting thought.
"But here's our little mother! Come, my dear,
And take a seat by Linda; thou didst help me
To graft upon the bitter past a fruit
All sweetness, and thy very presence now
Can take the sting from a too sad remembrance."
The mother placed her hand upon his brow
And said: "The water-lily springs from mud;
So springs the future from the past." Then he:
"My father's death made me, at twenty-one,
Heir to a fortune which in those slow days
Was thought sufficient: I had quitted Yale
With some slight reputation as a scholar,
And, in the first flush of ingenuous youth
When brave imagination's rosy hue
Tinges all unknown objects, I was launched
Into society in this great place;—
Sisterless, motherless, and having seen
But little, in my student life, of women.
"All matrons who had marriageable girls
Looked on me as their proper prey, and spread
Their nets to catch me; and, poor, verdant youth,
Soon I was caught,—caught in a snare indeed,
Though by no mother's clever management.
Young, beautiful, accomplished, she, my Fate,
Met me with smiles, and doomed me while she smiled
Nimble as light, fluent as molten lead
To take the offered mould,—apt to affect
Each preference of taste or sentiment
That best might flatter,—affable and kind,
Or seeming so,—and generous to a fault,—
But that was when she had a part to play,—
Affectionate—ah! there too she was feigning—
As I look calmly back, to me she seems
The simple incarnation of a mind
Possessed of all the secrets of the heart,
And quick to substitute a counterfeit
For the heart's genuine coin, and make it pass;
But void of feeling as the knife that wounds!
And so the game was in her hands, and she
Played it with confident, remorseless skill
Even to the bitter end.
"Yet do not think
The inner prescience never stirred or spoke:
Veiled though it be from consciousness so strangely,
And its fine voice unheard amid the din
Of outward things, the quest of earthly passion,
There is an under-sense, a faculty
All independent of our mortal organs,
And circumscribed by neither space nor time.
Else whence proceed they, those clairvoyant glimpses,
That vision piercing to the distant future,
Those quick monitions of impending ruin,
If not from depths of soul which consciousness,
Limited as it is in mortal scope,
May not explore? Yet there serenely latent,
Or with a conscious being all their own,
Superior and apart from what we know
In this close keep we call our waking state,
Lie growing with our growth the lofty powers
We reck not of; which some may live a life
And never heed, nor know they have a soul;
Which many a plodding anthropologist,
Philosopher, logician, scientist,
Ignore as moonshine; but which are, no less,
Actual, proven, and, in their dignity
And grasp and space-defying attributes,
Worthy to qualify a deathless spirit
To have the range of an infinity
Through an unending period—at once
A promise and a proof of life immortal.
"One night, one mild, sweet night in early June,
We two had paced the drawing-room together
Till ten o'clock, and then I took my leave
And walked along the street, a square or more,
When suddenly I looked up at a star,
And then, a thought I could not fail to heed,
From the soul's awful region unexplored,
Rushed, crying, 'Back! Go back!' And back I went,
As hastily as if it were a thing
Of life or death. I did not stop to pull
The door-bell, but sprang up alert and still
To the piazza of the open window,
Drew back a blind inaudibly, looked in,
And through the waving muslin curtain, saw—
Well, she was seated in a young man's lap,
Her head upon his shoulder.
"Quick of ear
As the chased hare, she heard me; started up,
Ran to the curtain, eagerly drew me in,
And said, while joy beamed tender in her eyes,
'My brother Ambrose, just arrived from Europe!'
So swift she was, she did not give me time
Even for one jealous pang. I took his hand,
And saying, 'Anna's brother must be mine,'
I bade them both good-night, and went my way:
So was I fooled,—my better angel baffled!
"And yet once more the vivid warning came,
Flashed like quick truth from her own eyes. We stood
Together in a ball-room, when a lady,
To me unknown, came up, regarded me
With strange compassion in her curious glance,
And then, with something less divine than pity,
Looked down on my betrothed, and moved away.
I turned to Anna, but upon her face,
There was a look to startle like a ghost;
Defiance, deadly fear, and murderous hate
Were all so wildly blended! But 'twas gone—
Gone like a flash before I well could mark it;
And in its place there came a luminous smile,
So childlike sweet, such type of heavenly candor,
It would have served for a Madonna's mouth,
To make the pilgrim's adoration easy.
'Who was that lady, Anna?' I inquired.
'A Mrs. Lothian,' was her reply:
'A lovely person, although somewhat haughty.'
We returned home soon after, and no more
Was said of it.
"The rapid weeks flew by,
And Anna plied her powers to charm, but still
Not all the subtle glamour of her presence
Could bind in sleep my pleading monitor.
And so at last I said: 'We both are young:
Let us, as earnest of a mutual wish
To share a perfect love, or none at all,
Absolve each other here, without condition,
From this engagement; and, if three years hence
We both are of one heart, then shall we find
The means to make it known; of that be sure!
Are you in your own loyalty so fixed
As to accept the challenge? Would you prize
The love of any man, who could not bear
A test so simple?'