Part 6 (2/2)
”I can't. The action of the Board is an insult to my intelligence.
What are you smiling about?”
”About you, dear.”
”Mary, why, Mary! I--”
But Mary only smiled the more. ”You love my irrelevance and inconsistency, you say,--”
”I love any weakness that is yours, Mary. What are you keeping back from me?”
”The weakness that is mine, dear.” Again Mary laughed outright. ”It would be useless to tell you--or to try to explain. I love you, isn't that enough?”
Bertrand thought it ought to be, but was not sure, and said so. Then Mary laughed again, and he kissed her, shaking his head dubiously, and took up his violin for solace. Thus an hour pa.s.sed; then Betty set the table for supper, and the long evening followed like many another evening, filled with the companions.h.i.+p only comfortably married people know, while Bertrand read from the poets.
Since, with a man's helplessness in such matters, he could not do the family mending, or knit for the soldiers, or remodel old garments into new, it behooved him to render such tasks pleasant for the busy hand and brain that must devise and create and make much out of little for economy's sake; and this Bertrand did to Mary's complete satisfaction.
Evenings like these were Betty's school, and they seemed all the schooling she was likely to get, for the family funds were barely sufficient to cover the expenses of one child at a time. But, as Mary said, ”It's not so bad for Betty to be kept at home, for she will read and study, anyway, because she likes it, and it won't hurt her to learn to be practical as well;” and no doubt Mary was right.
Bertrand was himself a poet in his appreciation and fineness of choice, and he read for Mary with all the effectiveness and warmth of color that he would put into a recitation for a large audience, carried on solely by his one sympathetic listener and his love for what he read; while Betty, in her corner close to the lamp behind her father's chair, listened unnoticed, with eager soul, rapt and uplifted.
As Bertrand read he commented. ”These men who are writing like this are doing for this country what the Lake Poets did for England. They are making true literature for the nation, and saving it from ba.n.a.lity. They are going to live. They will be cla.s.sed some day with Wordsworth and all the rest of the best. Hear this from James Russell Lowell. It's about a violin, and is called 'In the Twilight.' It's worthy of Sh.e.l.ley.” And Bertrand read the poem through, while Mary let her knitting fall in her lap and listened. He loved to see her listen in that way.
”Read again the verse that begins: 'O my life.' I seem to like it best.” And he read it over:--
”O my life, have we not had seasons That only said, Live and rejoice?
That asked not for causes and reasons, But made us all feeling and voice?
When we went with the winds in their blowing, When Nature and we were peers, And we seemed to share in the flowing Of the inexhaustible years?
Have we not from the earth drawn juices Too fine for earth's sordid uses?
Have I heard, have I seen All I feel, all I know?
Doth my heart overween?
Or could it have been Long ago?”
”And the next, Bertrand. I love to hear them over again.” And he read:--
”Sometimes a breath floats by me, An odor from Dreamland sent, That makes the ghost seem nigh me Of a splendor that came and went, Of a life lived somewhere, I know not In what diviner sphere, Of memories that stay not and go not, Like music heard once by an ear That cannot forget or reclaim it, A something so shy, it would shame it To make it a show, A something too vague, could I name it, For others to know, As if I had lived it or dreamed it, As if I had acted or schemed it, Long ago!”
”And the last verse, father. I like the last best,” cried Betty, suddenly.
”Why, my deary. I thought you were gone to bed.”
”No, mother lets me sit up a little while longer when you're reading.
I like to hear you.” And he read for her the last verse:--
”And yet, could I live it over, This life that stirs my brain, Could I be both maiden and lover, Moon and tide, bee and clover, As I seem to have been, once again, Could I but speak it and show it, This pleasure more sharp than pain, That baffles and lures me so, The world should once more have a poet, Such as it had In the ages glad, Long ago!”
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