Books: Heart Histories and Life Pictures
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T. S. Arthur >> Heart Histories and Life Pictures
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Mrs. Hartley looked earnestly into his face. Every muscle was
quivering.
"What of her?" she inquired, in tones quite as low as those in which
the young man had spoken.
"You know the history."
"Well?"
"And, regardless of my suffering and repentance, made known to Clara
the blasting secret."
"No! By my hopes of heaven, no!" quickly exclaimed Mrs. Hartley.
"No?" A quiver ran through the young man's frame.
"No, Mr. Florence! That rested as silently in my own bosom as in
yours."
"Who, then, informed her?"
"No one."
"Has she not heard of it?"
"No."
"Why, then, did she change towards me?"
"You changed, first, towards her."
"Me!"
"Yes. From the day of her arrival in New York, she perceived in you
a certain coldness and reserve, that increased with each repeated
interview."
"Oh, no!"
"It is true. I saw it myself."
Florence clasped his hands together, and bent his eyes in doubt and
wonder upon the floor.
"Did she complain of coldness and change in me?" he inquired.
"Yes, often. And returned, last night, to leave you free, doubting
not that you had ceased to love her."
"Ceased to love her! While this sad work has been going on, I have
loved her with the agony of one who is about losing earth's most
precious thing. Oh! write to her for me, and explain all. How
strange has been my infatuation. Will you write for me?"
"Yes."
"Say that my heart has not turned from her an instant. That her
imagined coldness has made me of all men most wretched."
"I will do so. But why not write yourself?"
"It will be better to come from you. Ask her to return. I would
rather meet her here than in her uncle's house. Urge her to come
back."
Mrs. Hartley promised to do so, according to the wish of Mr.
Florence. Two days passed, and there was no answer. On the morning
of the third day, the young man, in a state of agitation from
suspense called at the house of his friend. After sending up his
name, he sat anxiously awaiting the appearance of Mrs. Hartley. The
door at length opened, and, to his surprise and joy, Clara entered.
She came forward with a smile upon her face, extending her hand as
she did so. Edwin sprang to meet her, and catching her hand, pressed
it eagerly to his lips.
"Strange that we should have so erred in regard to each other," said
Clara, as they sat communing tenderly. "I trust no such error will
come in the future to which I look forward with so many pleasing
hopes."
"Heaven forbid!" replied the young man, seriously.
"But we are in a world of error. Ah! if we could only pass through
life without a mistake. If the heavy weight of repentance did not
lie so often and so long upon our hearts--this would be a far
pleasanter world than it is."
"Do not look so serious," remarked Clara, as she bent forward and
gazed affectionately into the young man's face. "To err is human. No
one here is perfect. How often, for hours, have I mourned over
errors; yet grief was of no avail, except to make my future more
guarded."
"And that was much gained," said Florence, breathing deeply with a
sense of relief. "If we cannot recall and correct the past, we can
at least be more guarded in the future. This is the effect of my own
experience. Ah! if we properly considered the action of our present
upon the future, how guarded would we be. All actions are in the
present, and the moment they are done the present becomes the past,
over which Memory presides. What is past is fixed. Nothing can
change it. The record is in marble, to be seen in all future time."
The serious character of the interview soon changed, and the young
lovers forgot every thing in the joy of their reconciliation.
Nothing arose to mar their intercourse until the appointed time for
the nuptial ceremonies arrived, when they were united in holy
wedlock. But, Edwin Florence did not pass on to this time without
another visit from the rebuking Angel of the past. He was not
permitted to take the hand of Clara in his, and utter the words that
bound him to her forever, without a visit from the one whose heart
he had broken years before. She came to him in the dark and silent
midnight, as he tossed sleeplessly upon his bed, and stood and
looked at him with her pale face and despairing eyes, until he was
driven almost to madness. She was with him when the light of morning
dawned; she moved by his side as he went forth to meet and claim his
betrothed; and was near him, invisible to all eyes but his own, when
he stood at the altar ready to give utterance to the solemn words
that bound him to his bride. And not until these words were said,
did the vision fade away.
No wonder the face of the bridegroom wore a solemn aspect as he
presented himself to the minister, and breathed the vows of eternal
fidelity to the living, while before him, as distinct as if in
bodily form, was the presence of one long since sleeping ill her
grave, who had gone down to her shadowy resting place through his
infidelity.
From this time there was a thicker veil drawn over the past. The
memory of that one event grew less and less distinct; though it was
not obliterated, for nothing that is written in the Book of Life is
ever blotted out. There were reasons, even in long years after his
marriage, when the record stood suddenly before him, as if written
in words of light; and he would turn from it with a feeling of pain.
Thus it is that our present blesses or curses our future. Every act
of our lives affects the coming time for good or evil. We make our
own destiny, and make it always in the present. The past is gone,
the future is yet to come. The present only is ours, and, according
to what we do in the present, will be the records of the past and
its influence on the future. They are only wise who wisely regard
their actions in the present.
THE BRILLIANT AND THE COMMONPLACE.
DAY after day I worked at my life-task, and worked in an earnest
spirit. Not much did I seem to accomplish; yet the little that was
done had on it the impress of good. Still, I was dissatisfied,
because my gifts were less dazzling than those of which many around
me could boast. When I thought of the brilliant ones sparkling in
the firmament of literature, and filling the eyes of admiring
thousands, something like the evil spirit of envy came into my heart
and threw a shadow upon my feelings. I was troubled because I had
not their gifts. I wished to shine with a stronger light. To dazzle,
as well as to warm and vivify.
Not long ago, there came among us one whom nature had richly
endowed. His mind possessed exceeding brilliancy. Flashes of
thought, like lightning from summer cloud, were ever filling the air
around him. There was a stateliness in the movement of his
intellect, and an evidence of power, that oppressed you at times
with wonder.
Around him gathered the lesser lights in the hemisphere of thought,
and veiled their feeble rays beneath his excessive brightness. He
seemed conscious of his superior gifts and displayed them more like
a giant beating the air to excite wonder, than putting forth his
strength to accomplish a good and noble work. Still, I was oppressed
and paralyzed by the sphere of his presence. I felt puny and weak
beside him, and unhappy because I was not gifted with equal power.
It so happened that a work of mine, upon which the maker's name was
not stamped--work done with a purpose of good--was spoken of and
praised by one who did not know me as the handicraftsman.
"It is tame, dull, and commonplace," said the brilliant one, in a
tone of contempt; and there were many present to agree with him.
Like the strokes of a hammer upon my heart, came these words of
condemnation. "Tame, dull, and commonplace!" And was it, indeed, so?
Yes; I felt that what he uttered was true. That my powers were
exceedingly limited, and my gifts few. Oh, what would I not have
then given for brilliant endowments like those possessed by him from
whom had fallen the words of condemnation?
"You will admit," said one--I thought it strange at the time that
there should be even one to speak a word in favor of my poor
performance--"that it will do good?"
"Good!" was answered, in a tone slightly touched by contempt. "Oh,
yes; it will do good!" and the brilliant one tossed his head.
"Anybody can do good!"
I went home with a perturbed spirit. I had work to do; but I could
not do it. I sat down and tried to forget what I had heard. I tried
to think about the tasks that were before me. "Tame, dull, and
commonplace!" Into no other form would my thoughts come.
Exhausted, at last, by this inward struggle, I threw myself upon my
bed, and soon passed into the land of dreams.
Dream-land! Thou art thought by many to be _only_ a land of fantasy
and of shadows. But it is not so. Dreams, for the most part, _are_
fantastic; but all are not so. Nearer are we to the world of
spirits, in sleep; and, at times, angels come to us with lessons of
wisdom, darkly veiled under similitude, or written in characters of
light.
I passed into dream-land; but my thoughts went on in the same
current. "Tame, dull, and commonplace!" I felt the condemnation more
strongly than before.
I was out in the open air, and around me were mountains, trees,
green fields, and running waters; and above all bent the sky in its
azure beauty. The sun was just unveiling his face in the east, and
his rays were lighting up the dew-gems on a thousand blades of
grass, and making the leaves glitter as if studded with diamonds.
"How calm and beautiful!" said a voice near me. I turned, and one
whose days were in the "sear and yellow leaf," stood by my side.
"But all is tame and commonplace," I answered. "We have this over
and over again, day after day, month after month, and year after
year. Give me something brilliant and startling, if it be in the
fiery comet or the rushing storm. I am sick of the commonplace!"
"And yet to the commonplace the world is indebted for every great
work and great blessing. For everything good, and true, and
beautiful!"
I looked earnestly into the face of the old man. He went on.
"The truly good and great is the useful; for in that is the Divine
image. Softly and unobtrusively has the dew fallen, as it falls
night after night. Silently it distilled, while the vagrant meteors
threw their lines of dazzling light across the sky, and men looked
up at them in wonder and admiration. And now the soft grass, the
green leaves, and the sweet flowers, that drooped beneath the
fervent heat of yesterday, are fresh again and full of beauty, ready
to receive the light and warmth of the risen sun, and expand with, a
new vigor. All this may be tame, and commonplace; but is it not a
great and a good work that has been going on?
"The tiller of the soil is going forth again to his work. Do not
turn your eyes from him, and let a feeling of impatience stir in
your heart because he is not a soldier rushing to battle, or a
brilliant orator holding thousands enchained by the power of a
fervid eloquence that is born not so much of good desires for his
fellow-men as from the heat of his own self-love. Day after day, as
now, patient, and hopeful, the husbandman enters upon the work that
lies before him, and, hand in hand with God's blessed sunshine,
dews, and rain, a loving and earnest co-laborer, brings forth from
earth's treasure-house of blessings good gifts for his fellow-men.
Is all this commonplace? How great and good is the commonplace!"
I turned to answer the old man, but he was gone. I was standing on a
high mountain, and beneath me, as far as the eye could reach, were
stretched broad and richly cultivated fields; and from a hundred
farm-houses went up the curling smoke from the fires of industry.
Fields were waving with golden grain, and trees bending with their
treasures of fruit. Suddenly, the bright sun was veiled in clouds,
that came whirling up from the horizon in dark and broken masses,
and throwing a deep shadow over the landscape just before bathed in
light. Calmly had I surveyed the peaceful scene spread out before
me. I was charmed with its quiet beauty. But now, stronger emotions
stirred within me.
"Oh, this is sublime!" I murmured, as I gazed upon the cloudy hosts
moving across the heavens in battle array.
A gleam of lightning sprang forth from a dark cavern in the sky, and
then, far off, rattled and jarred the echoing thunder. Next came the
rushing and roaring wind, bending the giant-limbed oaks as if they
were but wands of willow, and tearing up lesser trees as a child
tears up from its roots a weed or flower.
In this war of elements I stood, with my head bared, and clinging to
a rock, mad with a strange and wild delight.
"Brilliant! Sublime! Grand beyond the power of descriptions" I said,
as the storm deepened in intensity.
"An hour like this is worth all the commonplace, dull events of a
lifetime."
There came a stunning crash in the midst of a dazzling glare. For
some moments I was blinded. When sight was restored, I saw, below
me, the flames curling upward from a dwelling upon which the fierce
lightning had fallen.
"What majesty! what awful sublimity!" said I, aloud. I thought not
of the pain, and terror, and death that reigned in the human
habitation upon which the bolt of destruction had fallen, but of the
sublime power displayed in the strife of the elements.
There was another change. I no longer stood on the mountain, with
the lightning and tempest around me; but was in the valley below,
down upon which the storm had swept with devastating fury. Fields of
grain were level with the earth; houses destroyed; and the trophies
of industry marred in a hundred ways.
"How sublime are the works of the tempest!" said a voice near me. I
turned, and the old man was again at my side.
But I did not respond to his words.
"What majesty! What awful sublimity and power!" continued the old
man. "But," he added, in a changed voice, "there is a higher power
in the gentle rain than lies in the rushing tempest. The power to
destroy is an evil power, and has bounds beyond which it cannot go.
But the gentle rain that falls noiselessly to the earth, is the
power of restoration and recreation. See!"
I looked, and a mall lay upon the ground apparently lifeless. He had
been struck down by the lightning. His pale face was upturned to the
sky, and the rain shaken free from the cloudy skirts of the retiring
storm, was falling upon it. I continued to gaze upon the force of
the prostrate man, until there came into it a flush of life. Then
his limbs quivered; he threw his arms about. A groan issued from his
constricted chest. In a little while, he arose.
"Which is best? Which is most to be loved and admired?" said the old
Man. "The wild, fierce, brilliant tempest, or the quiet rain that
restores the image of life and beauty which the tempest has
destroyed? See! The gentle breezes are beginning to move over the
fields, and, hand in hand with the uplifting sunlight, to raise the
rain that has been trodden beneath the crushing heel of the tempest,
whose false sublimity you so much admired. There is nothing
startling and brilliant in this work; but it is a good and a great
work, and it will go on silently and efficiently until not a trace
of the desolating storm can be found. In the still atmosphere,
unseen, but all-potent, lies a power ever busy in the work of
creating and restoring; or, in other words, in the commonplace work
of doing good. Which office would you like best to assume--which is
the most noble--the office of the destroyer or the restorer?"
I lifted my eyes again, and saw men busily engaged in blotting out
the traces of the storm, and in restoring all to its former use and
beauty.
Builders were at work upon the house which had been struck by
lightning, and men engaged in repairing fences, barns, and other
objects upon which had been spent the fury of the excited elements.
Soon every vestige of the destroyer was gone.
"Commonplace work, that of nailing on boards and shingles," said the
old man; "of repairing broken fences; of filling up the deep
foot-prints of the passing storm; but is it not a noble work? Yes;
for it is ennobled by its end. Far nobler than the work of the
brilliant tempest, which moved but to destroy."
The scene changed once more. I was back again from the land of
dreams and similitudes. It was midnight, and the moon was shining in
a cloudless sky. I arose, and going to the window, sat and looked
forth, musing upon my dream. All was hushed as if I were out in the
fields, instead of in the heart of a populous city. Soon came the
sound of footsteps, heavy and measured, and the watchman passed on
his round of duty. An humble man was he, forced by necessity into
his position, and rarely thought of and little regarded by the many.
There was nothing brilliant about him to attract the eye and extort
admiration. The man and his calling were commonplace. He passed on;
and, as his form left my eye, the thought of him passed from my
mind. Not long after, unheralded by the sound of footsteps, came one
with a stealthy, crouching air; pausing now, and listening; and now
looking warily from side to side. It was plain that he was on no
errand of good to his fellowmen. He, too, passed on, and was lost to
my vision.
Many minutes went by, and I still remained at the window, musing
upon the subject of my dream, when I was startled by a cry of terror
issuing from a house not far away. It was the cry of a woman.
Obeying the instinct of my feelings, I ran into the street and made
my way hurriedly towards the spot from which the cry came.
"Help! help! murder!" shrieked a woman from the open window.
I tried the street door of the house, but it was fastened. I threw
myself against it with all my strength, and it yielded to the
concussion. As I entered the dark passage, I found myself suddenly
grappled by a strong man, who threw me down and held me by the
throat. I struggled to free myself, but in vain. His grip tightened.
In a few moments I would have been lifeless. But, just at the
instant when consciousness was about leaving me, the guardian of the
night appeared. With a single stroke of his heavy mace, he laid the
midnight robber and assassin senseless upon the floor.
How instantly was that humble watchman ennobled in my eyes! How high
and important was his use in society! I looked at him from a new
standpoint, and saw him in a new relation.
"Commonplace!" said I, on regaining my own room in my own house,
panting from the excitement and danger to which I had been
subjected. "Commonplace! Thank God for the commonplace and the
useful!"
Again I passed into the land of dreams, where I found myself walking
in a pleasant way, pondering the theme which had taken such entire
possession of my thoughts. As I moved along, I met the gifted one
who had called my work dull and commonplace; that work was a simple
picture of human life; drawn for the purpose of inspiring the reader
with trust in God and love towards his fellow-man. He addressed me
with the air of one who felt that he was superior, and led off the
conversation by a brilliant display of words that half concealed,
instead of making clear, his ideas. Though I perceived this, I was
yet affected with admiration. My eyes were dazzled as by a glare of
light.
"Yes, yes," I sighed to myself; "I am dull, tame, and commonplace
beside these children of genius. How poor and mean is the work that
comes from my hands!"
"Not so!" said my companion. I turned to look at him; but the gifted
being stood not by my side. In his place was the ancient one who had
before spoken to me in the voice of wisdom.
"Not so!" he continued. "Nothing that is useful is poor and mean.
Look up! In the fruit of our labor is the proof of its quality."
I was in the midst of a small company, and the gifted being whose
powers I had envied was there, the centre of attraction and the
observed of all observers. He read to those assembled from a book;
and what he read flashed with a brightness that was dazzling. All
listened in the most rapt attention, and, by the power of what the
gifted one read, soared now, in thought, among the stars, spread
their wings among the swift-moving tempest, or descended into the
unknown depths of the earth. As for myself, my mind seemed endowed
with new faculties, and to rise almost into the power of the
infinite.
"Glorious! Divine! Godlike!" Such were the admiring words that fell
from the lips of all.
And then the company dispersed. As we went forth from the room in
which we had assembled, we met numbers who were needy, and sick, and
suffering; mourners, who sighed for kind words from the comforter:
little children, who had none to love and care for them; the faint
and weary, who needed kind hands to help them on their toilsome
journey. But no human sympathies were stirring in our hearts. We had
been raised, by the power of the genius we so much admired, far
above the world and its commonplace sympathies. The wings of our
spirits were still beating the air, far away in the upper regions of
transcendant thought.
Another change came. I saw a woman reading from the same book from
which the gifted one had read. Ever and anon she paused, and gave
utterance to words of admiration.
"Beautiful! beautiful!" fell, ever and anon, from her lips; and she
would lift her eyes, and muse upon what she was reading. As she sat
thus, a little child entered the room. He was crying.
"Mother! mother!" said the child, "I want--"
But the mother's thoughts were far above the regions of the
commonplace. Her mind was in a world of ideal beauty. Disturbed by
the interruption, a slight frown contracted on her beautiful brows
as she arose and took her child by the arm to thrust it from the
room.
A slight shudder went through my frame as I marked the touching
distress that overspread the countenance of the child as it looked
up into its mother's face and saw nothing there but an angry frown.
"Every thought is born of affection," said the old man, as this
scene faded away, "and has in it the quality of the life that gave
it birth; and when that thought is reproduced in the mind of
another, it awakens its appropriate affection. If there had been a
true love of his neighbor in the mind of the gifted one when he
wrote the book from which the mother read, and if his purpose had
been to inspire with human emotions--and none but these are
God-like--the souls of men, his work would have filled the heart of
that mother with a deeper love of her child, instead of freezing in
her bosom the surface of love's celestial fountain. To have
hearkened to the grief of that dear child, and to have ministered to
its comfort, would have been a commonplace act, but, how truly noble
and divine! And now, look again, and let what passes before you give
strength to your wavering spirits."
I lifted my eyes, and saw a man reading, and I knew that he read
that work of mine which the gifted one had condemned as dull, and
tame, and commonplace. And, moreover, I knew that he was in trouble
so deep as to be almost hopeless of the future, and just ready to
give up his life-struggle, and let his hands fall listless and
despairing by his side. Around him were gathered his wife and his
little ones, and they were looking to him, but in vain, for the help
they needed.
As the man read, I saw a light come suddenly into his face. He
paused, and seemed musing for a time; and his eyes gleamed quickly
upwards, and as his lips parted, these words came forth: "Yes, yes;
it must be so. God is merciful as he is wise, and will not forsake
his creatures. He tries us in the fires of adversity but to consume
the evil of our hearts. I will trust him, and again go forth, with
my eyes turned confidingly upwards." And the man went forth in the
spirit of confidence in Heaven, inspired by what I had written.
"Look again," said the one by my side.
I looked, and saw the same man in the midst of a smiling family. His
countenance was full of life and happiness, for his trust had not
been in vain. As I had written, so he had found it. God is good, and
lets no one feel the fires of adversity longer than is necessary for
his purification from evil.
"Look again!" came like tones of music to my ear.
I looked, and saw one lying upon a bed. By the lines upon his brow,
and the compression of his lips, it was evident that he was in
bodily suffering. A book lay near him; it was written by the gifted
one, and was full of bright thoughts and beautiful images. He took
it, and tried to forget his pain in these thoughts and images. But
in this he did not succeed, and soon laid it aside with a groan of
anguish. Then there was handed to him my poor and commonplace work;
and he opened the pages and began to read. I soon perceived that an
interest was awakened in his mind. Gradually the contraction of his
brow grew less severe, and, in a little while, he had forgotten his
pain.
"I will be more patient," said he, in a calm voice, after he had
read for a long time with a deep interest. "There are many with pain
worse than mine to bear, who have none of the comforts and blessings
so freely scattered along my way through life."
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