Part 5 (1/2)
”You might speak a little more kindly!” murmured Pandora, wiping her eyes.
”Ah, naughty boy!” cried the little voice within the box, in an arch and laughing tone. ”He knows he is longing to see me. Come, my dear Pandora, lift up the lid. I am in a great hurry to comfort you. Only let me have some fresh air, and you shall soon see that matters are not quite so dismal as you think them!”
”Epimetheus,” exclaimed Pandora, ”come what may, I am resolved to open the box!”
”And, as the lid seems very heavy,” cried Epimetheus, running across the room, ”I will help you!”
So, with one consent, the two children again lifted the lid. Out flew a sunny and smiling little personage, and hovered about the room, throwing a light wherever she went. Have you never made the suns.h.i.+ne dance into dark corners by reflecting it from a bit of looking-gla.s.s?
Well, so looked the winged cheerfulness of this fairy-like stranger amid the gloom of the cottage. She flew to Epimetheus, and laid the least touch of her finger on the inflamed spot where the Trouble had stung him, and immediately the anguish of it was gone. Then she kissed Pandora on the forehead, and her hurt was cured likewise.
After performing these good offices, the bright stranger fluttered sportively over the children's heads, and looked so sweetly at them that they both began to think it not so very much amiss to have opened the box, since, otherwise, their cheery guest must have been kept a prisoner among those naughty imps with stings in their tails.
”Pray, who are you, beautiful creature?” inquired Pandora.
”I am to be called Hope!” answered the suns.h.i.+ny figure. ”And because I am such a cheery little body, I was packed into the box to make amends to the human race for that swarm of ugly Troubles, which was destined to be let loose among them. Never fear! we shall do pretty well in spite of them all.”
”Your wings are colored like the rainbow!” exclaimed Pandora. ”How very beautiful!”
”Yes, they are like the rainbow,” said Hope, ”because, glad as my nature is, I am partly made of tears as well as smiles.”
”And you will stay with us,” asked Epimetheus, ”for ever and ever?”
”As long as you need me,” said Hope, with her pleasant smile, ”and that will be as long as you live in the world--I promise never to desert you. There may be times and seasons, now and then, when you will think that I have utterly vanished. But again, and again, and again, when perhaps you least dream of it, you shall see the glimmer of my wings on the ceiling of your cottage. Yes, my dear children, and I know something very good and beautiful that is to be given you, hereafter!”
”Oh, tell us,” they exclaimed; ”tell us what it is!”
”Do not ask me,” replied Hope, putting her finger on her rosy mouth.
”But do not despair, even if it should never happen while you live on this earth. Trust in my promise, for it is true.”
”We do trust you!” cried Epimetheus and Pandora, both in one breath.
And so they did; and not only they, but so has everybody trusted Hope, that has since been alive. And, to tell you the truth, I cannot help being glad (though, to be sure, it was an uncommonly naughty thing for her to do)--but I cannot help being glad that our foolish Pandora peeped into the box. No doubt--no doubt--the Troubles are still flying about the world, and have increased in mult.i.tude, rather than lessened, and are a very ugly set of imps, and carry most venomous stings in their tails. I have felt them already, and expect to feel them more as I grow older. But then that lovely and lightsome figure of Hope! What in the world could we do without her? Hope spiritualizes the earth; Hope makes it always new; and, even in the earth's best and brightest aspect, Hope shows it to be only the shadow of an infinite bliss hereafter.
EUROPA AND THE G.o.d-BULL
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix, the three sons of King Agenor, and their little sister Europa (who was a very beautiful child), were at play together near the sea-sh.o.r.e in their father's kingdom of Phoenicia.
They had rambled to some distance from the palace where their parents dwelt, and were now in a verdant meadow, on one side of which lay the sea, all sparkling and dimpling in the suns.h.i.+ne, and murmuring gently against the beach. The three boys were very happy gathering flowers and twining them into garlands, with which they adorned the little Europa. Seated on the gra.s.s, the child was almost hidden under an abundance of buds and blossoms, whence her rosy face peeped merrily out, and, as Cadmus said, was the prettiest of all the flowers.
Just then there came a splendid b.u.t.terfly fluttering along the meadow, and Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix set off in pursuit of it, crying out that it was a flower with wings. Europa, who was a little wearied with playing all day long, did not chase the b.u.t.terfly with her brothers, but sat still where they had left her, and closed her eyes. For a while she listened to the pleasant murmur of the sea, which was like a voice saying ”Hus.h.!.+” and bidding her go to sleep. But the pretty child, if she slept at all, could not have slept more than a moment, when she heard something trample on the gra.s.s not far from her, and peeping out from the heap of flowers, beheld a snow-white bull.
And whence could this bull have come? Europa and her brothers had been a long time playing in the meadow, and had seen no cattle, nor other living thing, either there or on the neighboring hills.
”Brother Cadmus!” cried Europa, starting up out of the midst of the roses and lilies. ”Phoenix! Cilix! Where are you all? Help! Help! Come and drive away this bull!”