Shirley
timidly, or if one undecided line had marked his countenance, she would
have rebelled, and the lesson had ended there and then; but he was only
awaiting her compliance--as calm as marble, and as cool. She threw the
veil of tresses behind her ear. It was well her face owned an agreeable
outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of
early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might
have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society?
Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor.
She began to read. The language had become strange to her tongue; it
faltered; the lecture flowed unevenly, impeded by hurried breath, broken
by Anglicized tones. She stopped.
"I can't do it. Read me a paragraph, if you please, Mr. Moore."
What _he_ read _she_ repeated. She caught his accent in three minutes.
"Très bien," was the approving comment at the close of the piece.
"C'est presque le Français rattrapé, n'est-ce pas?"
"You could not write French as you once could, I dare say?"
"Oh no! I should make strange work of my concords now."
"You could not compose the _devoir_ of 'La Première Femme Savante'?"
"Do you still remember that rubbish?"
"Every line."
"I doubt you."
"I will engage to repeat it word for word."
"You would stop short at the first line."
"Challenge me to the experiment."
"I challenge you."
He proceeded to recite the following. He gave it in French, but we must
translate, on pain of being unintelligible to some readers.
* * * * *
"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of
the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons
of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they
took them wives of all which they chose."
This was in the dawn of time, before the morning stars were set, and
while they yet sang together.
The epoch is so remote, the mists and dewy gray of matin twilight veil
it with so vague an obscurity, that all distinct feature of custom, all
clear line of locality, evade perception and baffle research. It must
suffice to know that the world then existed; that men peopled it; that
man's nature, with its passions, sympathies, pains, and pleasures,
informed the planet and gave it soul.
A certain tribe colonized a certain spot on the globe; of what race this
tribe--unknown; in what region that spot--untold. We usually think of
the East when we refer to transactions of that date; but who shall
declare that there was no life in the West, the South, the North? What
is to disprove that this tribe, instead of camping under palm groves in
Asia, wandered beneath island oak woods rooted in our own seas of
Europe?
It is no sandy plain, nor any circumscribed and scant oasis I seem to
realize. A forest valley, with rocky sides and brown profundity of
shade, formed by tree crowding on tree, descends deep before me. Here,
indeed, dwell human beings, but so few, and in alleys so thick branched
and overarched, they are neither heard nor seen. Are they savage?
Doubtless. They live by the crook and the bow; half shepherds, half
hunters, their flocks wander wild as their prey. Are they happy? No, not
more happy than we are at this day. Are they good? No, not better than
ourselves. Their nature is our nature--human both. There is one in this
tribe too often miserable--a child bereaved of both parents. None cares
for this child. She is fed sometimes, but oftener forgotten. A hut
rarely receives her; the hollow tree and chill cavern are her home.
Forsaken, lost, and wandering, she lives more with the wild beast and
bird than with her own kind. Hunger and cold are her comrades; sadness
hovers over, and solitude besets her round. Unheeded and unvalued, she
should die; but she both lives and grows. The green wilderness nurses
her, and becomes to her a mother; feeds her on juicy berry, on
saccharine root and nut.
There is something in the air of this clime which fosters life kindly.
There must be something, too, in its dews which heals with sovereign
balm. Its gentle seasons exaggerate no passion, no sense; its
temperature tends to harmony; its breezes, you would say, bring down
from heaven the germ of pure thought and purer feeling. Not grotesquely
fantastic are the forms of cliff and foliage, not violently vivid the
colouring of flower and bird. In all the grandeur of these forests
there is repose; in all their freshness there is tenderness.
The gentle charm vouchsafed to flower and tree, bestowed on deer and
dove, has not been denied to the human nursling. All solitary, she has
sprung up straight and graceful. Nature cast her features in a fine
mould; they have matured in their pure, accurate first lines, unaltered
by the shocks of disease. No fierce dry blast has dealt rudely with the
surface of her frame; no burning sun has crisped or withered her
tresses. Her form gleams ivory-white through the trees; her hair flows
plenteous, long, and glossy; her eyes, not dazzled by vertical fires,
beam in the shade large and open, and full and dewy. Above those eyes,
when the breeze bares her forehead, shines an expanse fair and ample--a
clear, candid page, whereon knowledge, should knowledge ever come, might
write a golden record. You see in the desolate young savage nothing
vicious or vacant. She haunts the wood harmless and thoughtful, though
of what one so untaught can think it is not easy to divine.
On the evening of one summer day, before the Flood, being utterly
alone--for she had lost all trace of her tribe, who had wandered leagues
away, she knew not where--she went up from the vale, to watch Day take
leave and Night arrive. A crag overspread by a tree was her station. The
oak roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat; the oak boughs, thick-leaved,
wove a canopy.
Slow and grand the Day withdrew, passing in purple fire, and parting to
the farewell of a wild, low chorus from the woodlands. Then Night
entered, quiet as death. The wind fell, the birds ceased singing. Now
every nest held happy mates, and hart and hind slumbered blissfully safe
in their lair.
The girl sat, her body still, her soul astir; occupied, however, rather
in feeling than in thinking, in wishing than hoping, in imagining than
projecting. She felt the world, the sky, the night, boundlessly mighty.
Of all things herself seemed to herself the centre--a small, forgotten
atom of life, a spark of soul, emitted inadvertent from the great
creative source, and now burning unmarked to waste in the heart of a
black hollow. She asked, was she thus to burn out and perish, her living
light doing no good, never seen, never needed--a star in an else
starless firmament, which nor shepherd, nor wanderer, nor sage, nor
priest tracked as a guide or read as a prophecy? Could this be, she
demanded, when the flame of her intelligence burned so vivid; when her
life beat so true, and real, and potent; when something within her
stirred disquieted, and restlessly asserted a God-given strength, for
which it insisted she should find exercise?
She gazed abroad on Heaven and Evening. Heaven and Evening gazed back on
her. She bent down, searching bank, hill, river, spread dim below. All
she questioned responded by oracles. She heard--she was impressed; but
she could not understand. Above her head she raised her hands joined
together.
"Guidance--help--comfort--come!" was her cry.
There was no voice, nor any that answered.
She waited, kneeling, steadfastly looking up. Yonder sky was sealed; the
solemn stars shone alien and remote.
At last one overstretched chord of her agony slacked; she thought
Something above relented; she felt as if Something far round drew
nigher; she heard as if Silence spoke. There was no language, no word,
only a tone.
Again--a fine, full, lofty tone, a deep, soft sound, like a storm
whispering, made twilight undulate.
Once more, profounder, nearer, clearer, it rolled harmonious.
Yet again--a distinct voice passed between Heaven and Earth.
"Eva!"
If Eva were not this woman's name, she had none. She rose. "Here am I."
"Eva!"
"O Night (it can be but Night that speaks), I am here!"
The voice, descending, reached Earth.
"Eva!"
"Lord," she cried, "behold thine handmaid!"
She had her religion--all tribes held some creed.
"I come--a Comforter!"
"Lord, come quickly!"
The Evening flushed full of hope; the Air panted; the Moon--rising
before--ascended large, but her light showed no shape.
"Lean towards me, Eva. Enter my arms; repose thus."
"Thus I lean, O Invisible but felt! And what art thou?"
"Eva, I have brought a living draught from heaven. Daughter of Man,
drink of my cup!"
"I drink: it is as if sweetest dew visited my lips in a full current. My
arid heart revives; my affliction is lightened; my strait and struggle
are gone. And the night changes! the wood, the hill, the moon, the wide
sky--all change!"
"All change, and for ever. I take from thy vision darkness; I loosen
from thy faculties fetters! I level in thy path obstacles; I with my
presence fill vacancy. I claim as mine the lost atom of life. I take to
myself the spark of soul--burning heretofore forgotten!"
"O take me! O claim me! This is a god."
"This is a son of God--one who feels himself in the portion of life that
stirs you. He is suffered to reclaim his own, and so to foster and aid
that it shall not perish hopeless."
"A son of God! Am I indeed chosen?"
"Thou only in this land. I saw thee that thou wert fair; I knew thee
that thou wert mine. To me it is given to rescue, to sustain, to cherish
mine own. Acknowledge in me that Seraph on earth named Genius."
"My glorious Bridegroom! true Dayspring from on high! All I would have
at last I possess. I receive a revelation. The dark hint, the obscure
whisper, which have haunted me from childhood, are interpreted. Thou art
He I sought. Godborn, take me, thy bride!"
"Unhumbled, I can take what is mine. Did I not give from the altar the
very flame which lit Eva's being? Come again into the heaven whence thou
wert sent."
That Presence, invisible but mighty, gathered her in like a lamb to the
fold; that voice, soft but all-pervading, vibrated through her heart
like music. Her eye received no image; and yet a sense visited her
vision and her brain as of the serenity of stainless air, the power of
sovereign seas, the majesty of marching stars, the energy of colliding
elements, the rooted endurance of hills wide based, and, above all, as
of the lustre of heroic beauty rushing victorious on the Night,
vanquishing its shadows like a diviner sun.
Such was the bridal hour of Genius and Humanity. Who shall rehearse the
tale of their after-union? Who shall depict its bliss and bale? Who
shall tell how He between whom and the Woman God put enmity forged
deadly plots to break the bond or defile its purity? Who shall record
the long strife between Serpent and Seraph:--How still the Father of
Lies insinuated evil into good, pride into wisdom, grossness into glory,
pain into bliss, poison into passion? How the "dreadless Angel" defied,
resisted, and repelled? How again and again he refined the polluted cup,
exalted the debased emotion, rectified the perverted impulse, detected
the lurking venom, baffled the frontless temptation--purified,
justified, watched, and withstood? How, by his patience, by his
strength, by that unutterable excellence he held from God--his
Origin--this faithful Seraph fought for Humanity a good fight through
time; and, when Time's course closed, and Death was encountered at the
end, barring with fleshless arm the portals of Eternity, how Genius
still held close his dying bride, sustained her through the agony of the