Complete Prose Works
brothers--his elder by eight or ten years--pacing to and fro with rapid
and uneven steps. As the man turn'd in his walk, and the glare of the
street lamp fell upon his face, the youth, half-benumb'd as his senses
were, was somewhat startled at its paleness and evident perturbation.
"Come with me!" said the elder brother, hurriedly, "the illness of our
little Jane is worse, and I have been sent for you."
"Poh!" answered the young drunkard, very composedly, "is that all? I
shall be home by-and-by," and he turn'd back again.
"But, brother, she is worse than ever before. Perhaps when you arrive
she may be dead."
The tipsy one paus'd in his retreat, perhaps alarm'd at the utterance
of that dread word, which seldom fails to shoot a chill to the hearts of
mortals. But he soon calm'd himself, and waving his hand to the other:
"Why, see," said he, "a score of times at least, have I been call'd away
to the last sickness of our good little sister; and each time it proves
to be nothing worse than some whim of the nurse or physician. Three
years has the girl been able to live very heartily under her disease;
and I'll be bound she'll stay on earth three years longer."
And as he concluded this wicked and most brutal reply, the speaker
open'd the door and went into the bar-room. But in his intoxication,
during the hour that follow'd, Mike was far from being at ease. At
the end of that hour, the words, "perhaps when you arrive she may be
_dead_?" were not effaced from his hearing yet, and he started for home.
The elder brother had wended his way back in sorrow.
Let me go before the younger one, awhile, to a room in that home. A
little girl lay there dying. She had been ill a long time; so it was no
sudden thing for her parents, and her brethren and sisters, to be called
for the witness of the death agony. The girl was not what might be
called beautiful. And yet, there is a solemn kind of loveliness that
always surrounds a sick child. The sympathy for the weak and helpless
sufferer, perhaps, increases it in our own ideas. The ashiness and the
moisture on the brow, and the film over the eyeballs--what man can look
upon the sight, and not feel his heart awed within him? Children, I have
sometimes fancied too, increase in beauty as their illness deepens.
Besides the nearest relatives of little Jane, standing round her
bedside, was the family doctor. He had just laid her wrist down upon the
coverlet, and the look he gave the mother, was a look in which there was
no hope. "My child!" she cried, in uncontrollable agony, "O! my child!"
And the father, and the sons and daughters, were bowed down in grief,
and thick tears rippled between the fingers held before their eyes.
Then there was silence awhile. During the hour just by-gone, Jane had,
in her childish way, bestow'd a little gift upon each of her kindred,
as a remembrancer when she should be dead and buried in the grave.
And there was one of these simple tokens which had not reach'd
its destination. She held it in her hand now. It was a very small
much-thumbed book--a religious story for infants, given her by her
mother when she had first learn'd to read.
While they were all keeping this solemn stillness-broken only by the
suppress'd sobs of those who stood and watch'd for the passing away of
the girl's soul--a confusion of some one entering rudely, and speaking
in a turbulent voice, was heard in an adjoining apartment. Again the
voice roughly sounded out; it was the voice of the drunkard Mike, and
the father bade one of his sons go and quiet the intruder "If nought
else will do," said he sternly, "put him forth by strength. We want no
tipsy brawlers here, to disturb such a scene as this." For what moved
the sick girl uneasily on her pillow, and raised her neck, and motion'd
to her mother? She would that Mike should be brought to her side. And
it was enjoin'd on him whom the father had bade to eject the noisy one,
that he should tell Mike his sister's request, and beg him to come to
her.
He came. The inebriate--his mind sober'd by the deep solemnity of the
scene--stood there, and leaned over to catch the last accounts of one
who soon was to be with the spirits of heaven. All was the silence of
the deepest night. The dying child held the young man's hand in one of
hers; with the other she slowly lifted the trifling memorial she had
assigned especially for him, aloft in the air. Her arm shook--her eyes,
now becoming glassy with the death-damps, were cast toward her brother's
face. She smiled pleasantly, and as an indistinct gurgle came from
her throat, the uplifted hand fell suddenly into the open palm of her
brother's, depositing the tiny volume there. Little Jane was dead.
From that night, the young man stepped no more in his wild courses, but
was reform'd.
DUMB KATE
Not many years since--and yet long enough to have been before the
abundance of railroads, and similar speedy modes of conveyance--the
travelers from Amboy village to the metropolis of our republic were
permitted to refresh themselves, and the horses of the stage had a
breathing spell, at a certain old-fashion'd tavern, about half way
between the two places. It was a quaint, comfortable, ancient house,
that tavern. Huge buttonwood trees embower'd it round about, and there
was a long porch in front, the trellis'd work whereof, though old and
moulder'd, had been, and promised still to be for years, held together
by the tangled folds of a grape vine wreath'd about it like a tremendous
serpent.
How clean and fragrant everything was there! How bright the pewter
tankards wherefrom cider or ale went into the parch'd throat of the
thirsty man! How pleasing to look into the expressive eyes of Kate, the
land-lord's lovely daughter, who kept everything so clean and bright!
Now the reason why Kate's eyes had become so expressive was, that,
besides their proper and natural office, they stood to the poor girl in
the place of tongue and ears also. Kate had been dumb from her birth.
Everybody loved the helpless creature when she was a child. Gentle,
timid, and affectionate was she, and beautiful as the lilies of which
she loved to cultivate so many every summer in her garden. Her light
hair, and the like-color'd lashes, so long and silky, that droop'd over
her blue eyes of such uncommon size and softness--her rounded shape,
well set off by a little modest art of dress--her smile--the graceful
ease of her motions, always attracted the admiration of the strangers
who stopped there, and were quite a pride to her parents and friends.
How could it happen that so beautiful and inoffensive a being should
taste, even to its dregs, the bitterest unhappiness? Oh, there
must indeed be a mysterious, unfathomable meaning in the decrees of
Providence which is beyond the comprehension of man; for no one on earth
less deserved or needed "the uses of adversity" than Dumb Kate. Love,
the mighty and lawless passion, came into the sanctuary of the maid's
pure breast, and the dove of peace fled away forever.
One of the persons who had occasion to stop most frequently at the
tavern kept by Dumb Kate's parents was a young man, the son of a wealthy
farmer, who own'd an estate in the neighborhood. He saw Kate, and
was struck with her natural elegance. Though not of thoroughly wicked
propensities, the fascination of so fine a prize made this youth
determine to gain her love, and, if possible, to win her to himself.
At first he hardly dared, even amid the depths of his own soul, to
entertain thoughts of vileness against one so confiding and childlike.
But in a short time such feelings wore away, and he made up his mind to
become the betrayer of poor Kate. He was a good-looking fellow, and made
but too sure of his victim. Kate was lost!
The villain came to New York soon after, and engaged in a business which
prosper'd well, and which has no doubt by this time made him what is
call'd a man of fortune.
Not long did sickness of the heart wear into the life and happiness of
Dumb Kate. One pleasant spring day, the neighbors having been called by
a notice the previous morning, the old churchyard was thrown open, and
a coffin was borne over the early grass that seem'd so delicate with its
light green hue. There was a new made grave, and by its side the bier
was rested--while they paused a moment until holy words had been said.
An idle boy, call'd there by curiosity, saw something lying on the fresh
earth thrown out from the grave, which attracted his attention. A little
blossom, the only one to be seen around, had grown exactly on the spot
where the sexton chose to dig poor Kate's last resting-place. It was a
weak but lovely flower, and now lay where it had been carelessly toss'd
amid the coarse gravel. The boy twirl'd it a moment in his fingers--the
bruis'd fragments gave out a momentary perfume, and then fell to the
edge of the pit, over which the child at that moment lean'd and gazed in
his inquisitiveness. As they dropp'd, they were wafted to the bottom of
the grave. The last look was bestow'd on the dead girl's face by those
who loved her so well in life, and then she was softly laid away to her
sleep beneath that green grass covering.
Yet in the churchyard on the hill is Kate's grave. There stands a little
white stone at the head, and verdure grows richly there; and gossips,
some-times of a Sabbath afternoon, rambling over that gathering-place of
the gone from earth, stop a while, and con over the dumb girl's hapless
story.
TALK TO AN ART-UNION
_A Brooklyn fragment_
It is a beautiful truth that all men contain something of the artist in
them. And perhaps it is the case that the greatest artists live and die,
the world and themselves alike ignorant what they possess. Who would
not mourn that an ample palace, of surpassingly graceful architecture,
fill'd with luxuries, and embellish'd with fine pictures and sculpture,
should stand cold and still and vacant, and never be known or enjoy'd
by its owner? Would such a fact as this cause your sadness? Then be sad.
For there is a palace, to which the courts of the most sumptuous kings
are but a frivolous patch, and, though it is always waiting for them,
not one of its owners ever enters there with any genuine sense of its
grandeur and glory.
I think of few heroic actions, which cannot be traced to the
artistical impulse. He who does great deeds, does them from his innate
sensitiveness to moral beauty. Such men are not merely artists, they are
also artistic material. Washington in some great crisis, Lawrence on
the bloody deck of the Chesapeake, Mary Stuart at the block, Kossuth
in captivity, and Mazzini in exile--all great rebels and innovators,
exhibit the highest phases of the artist spirit. The painter, the
sculptor, the poet, express heroic beauty better in description; but the
others _are_ heroic beauty, the best belov'd of art.
Talk not so much, then, young artist, of the great old masters, who
but painted and chisell'd. Study not only their productions. There is a
still higher school for him who would kindle his fire with coal from
the altar of the loftiest and purest art. It is the school of all grand
actions and grand virtues, of heroism, of the death of patriots and
martyrs--of all the mighty deeds written in the pages of history--deeds
of daring, and enthusiasm, devotion, and fortitude.
BLOOD-MONEY
"_Guilty of the body and the blood of Christ_."
I.
Of olden time, when it came to pass
That the beautiful god, Jesus, should finish his work on earth,
Then went Judas, and sold the divine youth,
And took pay for his body.
Curs'd was the deed, even before the sweat of the clutching hand
grew dry;
And darkness frown'd upon the seller of the like of God,