Part 31 (1/2)
”Wait till I go for Edith.”
”Very well,” he would answer, ”if there is nothing in your heart that pleads for a nearer communion than that which we enjoy in the presence of others, a dearer interchange of thought and feeling, let Edith, let the whole world come.”
”It is for her sake, not mine, I speak,--I cannot bear the soft reproach of her loving eye!”
”A sister's affection must not be too exacting,” was the reply. ”All that the fondest brother can bestow, I give to Edith; but there are gifts she may not share,--an inner temple she cannot enter,--reserved alone for you. Come, the flowers are wasting their fragrance, the stars their l.u.s.tre!”
How could I plead for Edith, after being silenced by such arguments? And how could I tell her that I had interceded for her in vain? I never imagined before that a sister's love could be _jealous_; but the same hereditary pa.s.sion which was transmitted to his bosom through a father's blood, reigned in hers, though in a gentler form.
Every one who has studied human nature must have observed predominant family traits, as marked as the attributes of different trees and blossoms,--traits which, descending from parent to children, individualize them from the great family of mankind. In some, pride towers and spreads like the great grove tree of India, the branches taking root and forming trunks which put forth a wealth of foliage, rank and unhealthy. In others, obstinacy plants itself like a rock, which the winds and waves of opinion cannot move. In a few, jealousy coils itself with lengthening fold, which, like the serpent that wrapped itself round Laoc.o.o.n and his sons, makes parents and children its unhappy victims.
And so it is with the virtues, which, thanks be to G.o.d, who setteth the solitary in families, are also hereditary. How often do we hear it said,--”She is lovely, charitable, and pious,--so was her mother before her;” ”He is an upright and honorable man,--he came from a n.o.ble stock.”
”That youth has a sacred love of truth,--it is his best inheritance,--his father's word was equivalent to his bond.”
If this be true, it shows the duty of parents in an awfully commanding manner. Let them rend out the eye that gives dark and distorted views of G.o.d and man. Let them cut off the hand that offends and the foot that errs, rather than entail on others evils, which all eternity cannot remedy. Better transmit to posterity the blinded eye, the maimed and halting foot, that knows the narrow path to eternal life, than the dark pa.s.sions that desolate earth, and unfit the soul for the joys of heaven.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
I have now arrived at a period in my life, at which the novelist would pause,--believing the history of woman ceases to interest as soon as an accepted lover and consenting friends appear ready to usher the heroine into the temple of Hymen. But there is a _life within life_, which is never revealed till it is intertwined with another's. In the depth of the heart there is a lower deep, which is never sounded save by the hand that wears the _wedding-ring_. There is a talisman in its golden circle, more powerful than those worn by the genii of the East.
I love to linger among the beautiful shades of Grandison Place, to wander over its velvet lawn, its gravel walks, its winding avenues, to gaze on the lovely valley its height commanded whether in the intense lights and strong shadows of downward day, or the paler splendor and deeper shadows of moonlit night. I love those girdling mountains,--grand winding stairs of heaven--on which my spirit has so often climbed, then stepping to the clouds, looked through their ”golden vistas” into the mysteries of the upper world.
O thou charming home of my youth what a.s.sociations cl.u.s.ter round thee!
Thy n.o.ble trees rustle their green leaves in the breezes of memory. Thy moonlight walks are trodden by invisible footsteps. Would I had never left thee, Paradise of my heart! Would I had never tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, which, though golden to the eye, turns to ashes on the lips!
When Ernest urged me to appoint a period for our marriage, I was startled--alarmed. I thought not of hastening to my destiny quite so soon. I was too young. I must wait at least two years before a.s.suming the responsibilities of a wife.
”Two years!--two centuries!” he exclaimed. ”Why should we wait? I have wealth, which woos you to enjoy it. I have arrived at the fulness of manhood, and you are in the rosetime of your life. Why should we wait?
For circ.u.mstances to divide,--for time to chill,--or death to destroy?
No, no; when you gave me your heart, you gave me yourself; and I claim you as my own, without formal scruples or unnecessary delay.”
Mrs. Linwood exerted all her eloquence with her son to induce him to defer the union at least one year, till I had seen something of the world,--till I was better acquainted with my own heart.
”Yes! wait till she loses the freshness and simplicity that won me,--the sweetness and ingenuousness that enchained me!” he cried impetuously.
”Wait till she has been flattered and spoiled by a vain and deceiving world; till she learns to prize the admiration of many better than the true love of one; till she becomes that tinsel thing my soul abhors, a false and worldly woman. No! give her to me now,” he added, clasping me to his heart with irresistible tenderness and pa.s.sion. ”Give her to me now, in the bloom of her innocence, the flower of her youth, and I will enshrine her in my heart as in a crystal vase, which they must break to harm her.”
The strong love and the strong will united were not to be opposed. Mrs.
Linwood was forced to yield; and when once her consent was given, mine was supposed to be granted. She wished the wedding to be consummated in the city, in a style consistent with his splendid fortune, and then our rank in society; and therefore proposed the first month in winter, when they usually took possession of their habitation in town.
He objected to this with all the earnestness of which he was master. It was sacrilege, he said, to call in a gazing world, to make a mockery of the holiest feelings of the heart, and to crush under an icy mountain of ceremony the spontaneous flowers of nature and of love. He detested fas.h.i.+onable crowds on any occasion, and most of all on this. Let it be at Grandison Place, the cradle of his love, in the glorious time of the harvest-moon, that mellow, golden season, when the earth wraps herself as the
”Sacred bride of heaven, Worthy the pa.s.sion of a G.o.d.”
So entirely did I harmonize with him in his preference for Grandison Place, that I was willing the time should be antic.i.p.ated, for the sake of the retirement and tranquillity secured.
Madge Wildfire had returned to the city, declaring that lovers were the most selfish and insipid people in the world,--that she was tired of flirting with Ursa Major, as she called Mr. Regulus,--tired of teazing Dr. Harlowe,--tired of the country and of herself.