All Air and Fire, which made his Verses clear;
For that fierce Madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a Poet’s Brain.”
THE QUIET HEART.
PART THE LAST.—CHAPTER XXXI.
Courage, Menie Laurie! Heaven does not send this breeze upon your cheek for nought—does not raise about you these glorious limits of hill and cloud in vain. Look through the distance—look steadily. Yes, it is the white gable of Crofthill looking down upon the countryside. Well, never veil your eyes—are you not at peace with them as with all the world?
Little Jessie here wearies where you have left her waiting, and trembles to move a finger lest she spoil the mysterious picture at which she glances furtively with awe and wonder. “The lady just looks at me,” says little Jessie; “no a thing mair. Just looks, and puts it a’ doun like writing on a sclate.” And Jessie cannot understand the magic which by-and-by brings out her own little bright sun-burnt face, from that dull canvass which had not a line upon it when Jessie saw it first.
Come to your work, Menie Laurie; they make your heart faint these wistful looks and sighs. No one doubts it is very heavy—very heavy—this poor heart; no one doubts it is full of yearnings—full of anxious thought and fears, and solitude. What then!—must we leave it to brood upon its trouble? Come to little Jessie here, and her picture—find out the very soul in these surprised sweet eyes—paint the loveliest little heart upon your canvass, fresh and fair out of the hands of God—such a face as will warm cold hearts, and teach them histories of joyous sacrifice—of love that knows no evil—of life that remembers self last and least of all. You said it first in bitterness and sore distress; but, nevertheless, it is true. You can do it, Menie. It is “the trade” to which you were born.
And with a long sigh of weariness Menie comes back. No, it is not a very fine picture; the execution is a woman’s execution, very likely no great thing in the way your critics judge; but one can see how very like it is, looking at these little simple features—one could see it was still more like, looking in to the child’s sweet generous heart.
“What were you crying for this morning, Jessie?”