And the world hath a grief for thee.
The flowers may be bright as they were,
And a fragrance as soft may fling,
But the verdure hath faded from thy life—
And the heart hath but one sweet spring!
I was a transient dweller in a strange land—one distant from my childhood’s home, and far away from those who knew me first and loved me best. Gradually, as the vivid excitements of life had surrounded me, as new ties had sprung up and old hopes faded, I had lost the intimate knowledge of the welfare or the afflictions of many who had formerly been familiar friends, and a lengthened separation had produced that ignorance of the details of their destiny frequently occurring, even where affection still lingers unaltered. But there are periods when, as it were, remembrance irresistibly presses upon us, and we all have seasons when old times and buried associations crowd around us with inexplicable distinctness—when the actual loses for a while its absorbing interest, and the past, with all its radiant dreams, its rainbow illusions, is enchanting reality once more.
I was sitting alone, at the close of a lovely autumn afternoon, before an open window, my fancy busy with the throng of older associations, and inattentive to the beautiful view stretching beneath me, strikingly fair as were its features, now glowing through the crimsoning sunlight. But something—I know not what, for such glimpses are among the spirit’s mysteries—had recalled other times, and my soul communed with itself and was still. The mind has its own restless and concealed creation—its hidden world of active silentness; and to those who have battled with the depression attendant on human experience, there is untold luxury in reveling amid the crowding memories that “longest haunt the heart.” Even as I sat thus idly reflecting, a paper reached me, sent by some friendly hand from my early home, and earnestly as I would have read a loving letter, I pored over the contents of that every-day record. It spoke to me as a messenger from the absent; each well-known name mentioned in its columns, held a thousand clustering reminiscences for me; the trivial local news was like welcome household tidings; and I spoke aloud the old familiar names I had not heard for years, as if a spell lay in their sound. Last of all I turned to the page where, side by side, were chronicled marriages and deaths. The first were those of strangers; among the last was noticed the final departure of one whom I had once loved, as we only love in the purity of youth. The announcement was worded in the usual form with which we herald to the careless world that a soul has gone to the mysterious future. Nothing was there to arrest the contemplation of the reader—to speak of inevitable human destiny to a throbbing human heart—to reveal the agony of mortality, the bitterness of death, or the trials of the wearily burdened and loving ones, perchance well-nigh borne down by that one event. “Died at sea, during her homeward voyage, Mary Vere, aged 24, for three years a resident missionary in Persia.” And this was all! The ending of the saddest life I ever knew, the knell of as pure a spirit as was ever bowed and fettered by earthly cares—this was the cold, brief recording of the history of a warm nature, that had patiently toiled and uncomplainingly suffered—that even in its youth had been old in grief—that had wandered abroad and found no rest, and then, like a wounded bird, had winged its way homeward to die! Ah, Mary! little dreamed we, in our sunny days, that mine eyes should ever trace the chronicle of such a destiny for thee!
We had first met, in childhood, at the country residence of a friend, where we were both spending the summer months. She accompanied her mother—her only surviving parent, then slowly declining in the last stage of consumption. Mary and myself, thrown continually together, without other companions, speedily became warm friends, though her pensive, irresolute disposition, had little in common with my natural impetuous animation. She had been the attendant on suffering from her earliest recollection, for her father had died after a lingering illness, during which he had desired the constant enlivenment of his only child’s society, and her mother had for years been a resigned but hopeless invalid. All who have closely observed children, are aware of the influence such things half-unconsciously exert over minds susceptible to every impression, and it was not strange that one so used to look on sorrow, should have learned at last to doubt the very existence of happiness.
Mary was a strikingly beautiful child, with dark, soul-revealing eyes, bright with the mystical fire of the burning thoughts within. I well remember their rapturous expression when she was excited by some tale of heroism—for she was full of a strange, quiet enthusiasm, that wasted itself in fruitless sympathy with the moral greatness of others, but shrank with painful distrust from reliance on its own impulsive guidance. She was quick of feeling, and easily touched by the most trivial deed of kindness, and her being was too sensitive for her ever to be thoughtlessly happy. Her look and manner were peculiarly winning in their tranquil, subdued gentleness; and when this was, occasionally, though rarely, laid aside for awhile, amid the irrepressible mirth of childish amusement, her laugh had the ringing, silvery melody which seems the musical essence of enjoyment. For two successive summers we met and were inseparably intimate, and then four years elapsed before we were again together. During this interval Mary’s mother died, and she went far from my home, to reside with a distant relation. We had, from our first parting, corresponded regularly, and her letters were, like herself, poetical and visionary. I know not wherefore, for she wrote no murmur, but they left the impression that she was not satisfied with her new home, and my heart yearned to comfort her, to remove from her lot its loneliness, from her soul its dimness. But she shrunk, with what then appeared to me morbid delicacy, from all approach to confidence on this subject, and gradually grew in all things less communicative regarding herself, as if doubting the response of sympathy. There was evidently a constraint placed on her spontaneous emotions—a quiet concealment of her deeper interests, which to me spoke mournfully, and recalled that silent, dejected consciousness of mental and spiritual solitude, which is the saddest portion and the most touching consequence of an orphan’s unshared and melancholy destiny. It was not until long afterward that I learned the domestic trials and annoyances to which she had been subjected, and the dreary, joyless routine in which she dragged on the years that should have been her brightest ones.
It was with many a sweet anticipation of friendly, unreserved intercourse and affectionate solace—such dreams as are borne by loving angels to hearts strong in youth and rich in tenderness, that I looked impatiently forward to my next meeting with my old playmate, for now we had both glided from childhood to womanhood, and the firm bond was between us that links those who remember together. I shall never forget my astonishment when, after our first fond and impetuous greeting, I turned, with tearful eyes, to mark the alteration time had wrought in the appearance of my companion. She was calm and composed, almost to coldness, and there was no visible exhibition of the agitation struggling beneath, or of all the afflicting reminiscences which I knew were recalled by looking on my face again. She had grown from the timid, irresolute girl, to the proud, self-possessed woman, and her manner had the tranquil air of one aware of her own moral strength, and of the existence of impulses and feelings too pure and sacred to be lightly displayed to a world which had nothing in common with them. She was more beautiful than ever, and I have never seen a being whose polished, intellectual tranquillity was so faultlessly graceful. She had acquired the early maturity of mind given in kindness to those who are tried in their youth; for she had evidently “thought too long and darkly;” her feelings were still from their intensity, and hers was the reflective repose which, wearied and desponding, folds its drooping pinions and sleeps on the bosom of darkness.