Thus days and weeks flew rapidly on unmarked; each day adding to their deep devotion, and lessening the time to that day which was to separate them forever in this world. It came at last.
The morning had been unusually overcast. Not an air stirred, and the atmosphere was sultry and oppressive. They had felt a vague sensation, such as is experienced previous to some unknown calamity, all the morning, which prevented them following their usual occupations. Adeline looked unusually well; there was a flush upon her lovely cheek, and her eye beamed with unwonted brightness. They had drawn the sofa to the window, which looked upon a charming lawn, and was thrown open as a relief to the sultriness of the weather. They sat there, his one hand holding her waist, the other clasping her slender hands. Her cheek rested upon his shoulder, and oh! as he gazed upon that cheek, what a gush of tenderness filled his heart! He thought what a scene of misery his life had been until she rose upon his sight, an angel of light, dispelling all grief and sorrow. He thought of what they had suffered for each other; her deep devotion; her unswerving love; her pure and classic mind; her virtuous principles; her beauty, whose spell was now upon his heart; the scenes of dreamy bliss they had passed together, and the whole intensity of his love filled his heart almost to bursting. All that the mind can imagine of the extremest joy, thankfulness, hope and love, was concentrated in that one fond look. She seemed to understand the thoughts that were passing in his mind, and as he stooped to kiss those murmuring lips she pressed his hand to her throbbing heart, and a tear, the offspring of feelings too deep for expression, stole slowly and silently down her glowing cheek. At that moment the sun shone suddenly forth, and brightened again the face of nature. Till then they had not spoken. “Dear Adeline,” he said, “let this be an omen of the future, as the preceding gloom was of the past. There are, believe me, many happy years in store for us. The bloom of health is mantling upon your cheeks, and there is new vigor in the sparkling of your eyes; and though this little and transparent hand, be but the shadow of its former self, will not the summer’s genial warmth, and the tranquillity that waits upon reciprocated love, and unclouded prosperity, soon, very soon restore it? I have a strange sensation at my heart, which your altered appearance translates into a precursor of happiness. My spirit seems to have burst from the trammels of earth, and to revel in an atmosphere where love and hope are fadeless. You do not smile, love! Does not your heart echo my joy? Does not the same happy presentiment pervade your heart, and gild the future in brilliant colors?”
“I have the same presentiment, but my heart refuses to give to it the flattering meaning with which your hopes have invested it. I always feared that our love was doomed never to meet with happy consummation. Even in the first hours of our passion, when not one thought of grief should have intruded, there was a fear that would not leave me, of future sorrow. Our love was never meant for happiness on earth; it was too exclusive—too perfect. The future would hold out no attraction or hope, did death rudely destroy the state of present perfect bliss. But to the weary and heavy-hearted, death opens a path to peace, and even to the happy and joyful, a home of more blissful and lasting happiness. I look on death as a kind and tender friend, who releases my soul from its weak material companion, which, with its decay and rottenness, clogs that immortal part. That it separates me from thee is my only grief; my poor heart rebels against it, and clings to thee with a tenacity which nothing can relax. But oh! my beloved, if, as we are told, the infinite space is peopled with disembodied spirits, who wander round those spots where centers all they loved—all that life has rendered dear, shall I not be with you ever? Sleeping or waking, I will hover round you, and as you wander over those spots sacred to our young hearts’ deep devotion, I will be upon your heart as I am now; my spirit shall be upon your memory, and awaken it to thoughts of those passionate hours. I will throw a charmed halo round the Past, will sweeten the Present, and will gild the Future with visions of fadeless bliss in heaven with our God. Death cannot separate our souls! It shrinks the body into dust, but there is an immortal link which binds soul unto soul, that death can never break.”
As she uttered these words, her cheek became flushed, her eyes brightened, and her whole air partook of a spiritual grace, and a deep and holy enthusiasm. There was something unearthly in her look and manner that chilled the heart of Ernest. At length with a voice faltering with emotion, he replied, “Whatever be the end of these forebodings, dear Ada, my heart is unchangeably yours. You are my first love, the chosen of my heart, and living or in the grave, I dedicate that heart to you alone. No other being shall have a vow of mine—this hand shall clasp no other hand in love—no other lip shall join to mine with passion’s kiss—no other form shall rest within these arms, or find a pillow on my troubled breast; this I swear to you, by all my hopes of our eternal joy hereafter. I will live and die your own in heart and thought. And let this fond and holy kiss seal my vow of eternal constancy.” He imprinted a long and ardent kiss upon her paling lips. The tears coursed each other rapidly down her pale cheeks, for the false hectic bloom had fled, and the ravages of the fell disease were now terribly visible in her sunken cheeks—her heart beat convulsively at intervals—she pressed him closer to her, and gazing up into his face with a look in which the whole intensity of her mighty and absorbing love was centered, in a voice scarcely audible from emotion, she murmured out—“I could die now.” Again his lips sought hers, and clung there as though they had been incorporate—her head drooped upon his breast—her hand relaxed its grasp—she had died then! . . . . . . . . .
How he died, I have before related.
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
Past and Present, and Chartism. By Thomas Carlyle. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 2 parts, 12mo.
In these works Carlyle states his views regarding the source and character of the evils afflicting the British nation, and the means by which they may be mitigated and removed. “Past and Present” is the most splendidly written and carefully meditated of the two. It contains many sentences of remarkable force and beauty, with numerous touches of that savage humor peculiar to Carlyle. The tone of the work, however, is one of perfect discontent. The style bristles with the author’s usual extravagance about society and government, declaring both to be shams and unveracities, and sneering at all plans for improvement which the ingenuity or benevolence of others have framed. If we understand Carlyle aright, he considers that the constitutional government of England is a humbug; that William the Conqueror, and Oliver Cromwell were the best governors that England has ever had; that since Cromwell’s time the country has been governed by Sir Jahesh Windbag, strong in no faith but that “paragraphs and plausibilities will bring votes;” and that everybody is a fool or a flunkey except Thomas Carlyle. He hates every form of government which it is possible to establish in this world—democracy among the rest. If his work may be said to have any practical bearing on politics, it is this—that a governor is wanted with force enough to assume arbitrary power, and exercise it according to the dreams of mystics and sentimentalists. His system is a compound of anarchy and despotism. His ideal of a governor is of a man, with an incapacity or indisposition to explain himself, who rises up some day and cries—“the government of this country is a lie, the people cannot make it a reality, but I can and will.” His notion of the wretched condition of society is disheartening enough. Man, he tells us, has lost all the soul out of him. “This is verily the plague-spot—centre of the universal social gangrene, threatening all modern things with frightful death. You touch the focal-centre of all our disease, of our frightful nosology of diseases, when you lay your hand on this. There is no religion; there is no God; man has lost his soul, and vainly seeks antiseptic salt. Vainly: in killing kings, in passing Reform Bills, in French Revolutions, Manchester Insurrections, is found no remedy. The foul elephantine leprosy reappears in new force and desperateness next hour.” Sad condition of poor depraved humanity! A whole generation, except one man, without souls, and that one exception without his senses! It is curious to notice the illusions of an understanding so powerful when governed by a sensibility so tempestuous. It would be unjust, however, to deny the depth of many detached thoughts, and truth of some of his speculations in this volume.