Just at that moment a dull dolt of a farmer came along the common, cracking his whip and bellowing most lustily. Seeing me stopped in the road, the girl by my bridle gently pulling it and eyeing me with a beseeching look, he cried out, “Hillo, you Luce! what the d—l are you at there with that gentleman’s bridle? out of the way ye’—using a term I shall not repeat—‘and let me get by, wont ye?” Seeing my cheek burning with an indignation that tempted me to knock the rascal down, he said as he drove by and in a much softer tone, “It’s only Luce Selden, the mad gal—don’t mind her, sir.”
I turned towards her thus designated—poor creature! she had sunk down at my horse’s feet like a young flower which the wind has passed over too roughly, her long hair disheveled in rich masses on the turf, and her hand grasping a few dead flowers she had brought with her. Springing to the ground I lifted her delicate form in my arms, and bearing her to a runnel of water which wimpled near, I cast some of it upon her face and bosom. Slowly opening her eyes she seemed at once to feel my kindness, and wreathing her emaciated arms about my neck, her pent heart poured itself forth into my bosom.
O never tell me of the equal distribution of happiness in this world! Let the mad dreamer preach it if he list to those equally mad, and for his own sad purposes; but let not man, immortal man, man gifted with reason and obedient to the voice in every enlightened one’s soul, herald such a monstrous absurdity! What had this young and faded creature gained—what joy—what blessing—what blissful moments had been hers—what bright dream had she dwelt in—what fond hallucination had enrapt her young being in her few brief days of infancy and childhood, that now just bursting into the pride and prime of woman, such a cloud should come over her fair sky, and with its folds, its thick folds, shut from her gaze every star of hope forever! Dwelt she in a fairy-land—where bright wings glanced hither and thither, touching and retouching its soft airs—its mellow sunsets—its streams and golden fountains with a newer beauty! and had her life like an unshadowed current in Eastern fable, moved on in one unbroken flood of happiness! Had fancy been hers—and imagination—and the dangerous gift of poesy—and the faculty to shape out her own existence unmoved by the realities of life—and her being been lifted up in high revel and communion with the great and good of former days, and the far remote treasures of purer existences! Had such blessings been hers! and in return for them must the wick of the lamp thus early burn to its socket—must society cast this flower from its bosom—must reason lose her dwelling place—and her young life just opening upon her with its flowers, and feelings, and passionate thoughts, and innocent gushes of tenderness, turn out a blank, a dead letter, and at one fell blow be cut off—and she like a useless weed or wreck tossed up by Ocean, be thrown out from her proper sphere—scorned—crushed—slandered—an insulted yet still beautiful thing—a mark for the rabble’s jeers, the clown’s coarse brutality, and the damning pity of a mock-charity close-fisted world! Let her unambitious story give answer.
Luce Selden was a twin child. Her mother died in giving her birth, leaving her and a beautiful boy to their remaining yet now broken hearted father, and a victim to those sad crosses which motherless children must meet with from the very nature of the case—though that father was all in all to them, and though it was his pride to watch over and nourish these beautiful blossoms of a love, as pure as it was imperishable. He had married in New York, and came to P—— while a young man and just starting in life, and by industry and very fine talents had by the time he reached the meridian of life, amassed a splendid fortune. His talents and wealth forced the meed of praise from the rich, and his very uniform disinterested and noble charities won the blessings of the poor, and fortune seemed to have nothing to do but shower down her favors on his head.
But prosperity cannot always last. No! let the prosperous man ever tremble at any long succession of blessings; for it is then that sorrows are nearest, and those sorrows the worst and heaviest. If it is not so in reality—if the reverses which we witness here and there coming upon the rich and the fortunate—if they are not worse than those which overtake other men, they are so at least to all intents and purposes, for the hackneyed adage is a true one despise it who may, ‘prosperity unfits us for adversity.’ The noble scorn with which this or that man learns to look upon a run of ill luck, or the heroism and devotedness of woman, may take a charm when hallowed by the pen of Irving, but they are after all but as the creations of the poet, mere creations having no parallel in real life. That there is philosophy enough in the human soul even this side of stoicism, to enable a man to look unmoved on the changes about him, we do not doubt; but that the philosopher has yet risen who has discovered the treasure, of this we do as unhesitatingly declare a disbelief.
If it is so, Mr. Charles Selden had never learned it, and it was at the demise of his wife that he began to date the commencement of his ill fortunes, which like rising waves seemed heavier and heavier as the shattered bark was less and less able to endure their fury. This was the first blow, the death of his wife—and he bent beneath it. Yet his character seemed to have that elasticity, that springiness in it which recovers itself again; and he once more mingled with men, pursued his profession, and smiled with the same cheerfulness. Yet there were times when his language seemed too light, too rapid, too artificial, so to speak, for a perfectly happy man; and his friends sometimes whispered to their own hearts that all was not as it should be, that there was something wrong within, that that fine and delicate organization, his mind, did not act as formerly; and they sometimes marked a kind of perverse vehemence, which did not tally well with that uniform sound sense and remarkable discrimination which had characterized the efforts of his earlier years. Ah! they guessed well—there was something wrong. There was a fountain in his heart which had been chilled, and which kept bubbling up its cool waters to remind him continually of his wretchedness; and there were moments, when withdrawn from business and the world shut out, he gave himself up to that deadly yet sweet sorrow which sooner or later saps the springs of existence.
Grief should never be alone. It is one of the most selfish of our passions. The man of sorrows should be forced into the world—into the bustle, and roar, and change, and activity of life, where against himself outward and passing events shall catch his eye, and force him off if but for a moment from his wretchedness. It will finally loose the grasp of the disease, and thought by degrees may be turned into other channels, and the heart beat with its accustomed excitation.
But even this did not save the bereaved husband. Perhaps it might had no other ills assailed him; but he had become reckless—had risked much—had entered largely into the excitements and speculations of the day; and every thing working against him, losses succeeding losses, the poor man sank under it and died—a bankrupt.
But the saddest of my story is yet to come.
There are some men in this world from whom nature seems to have withholden the commonest feelings of our race—men who have no humanity about them—men who despise and disclaim every thing like sympathy as troublesome and out of place, and who would as lief dwell in a desert or on an island shut out from the whole world, as any where else—save perhaps that they should not have their fellow creatures to prey on. In short, your cool, calculating, miserly souls, whose feelings all begin in self and end in self, and who can like Judas or Shylock, coolly set off so much suffering and so many ounces of human blood against so much money, with the same callousness that they could barter dog’s flesh.