St. Elmo Part 63

"Mr. Stanyan Bigg, an English poet, whose writings are comparatively unknown in this country. His works I have never seen, but I read a review of them in an English book, which contained many extracts; and that pretty metaphor which you used just now, was among them."

"Is that review in our library?"

"No, I am sure it is not; but you may have seen the lines quoted somewhere else."

"Edna, I am very certain I never heard it before. Do you recollect how it is written in the Englishman's poem? If you can repeat it, I shall know instantly, because my memory is very good."

"I think I can give you one stanza, for I read it when I was in great sorrow, and it made an impression upon me:

'The clouds, like grim black faces, come and go; One tall tree stretches up against the sky; It lets the rain through, like a trembling hand Pressing thin fingers on a watery eye.

The moon came, but shrank back, like a young girl Who has burst in upon funereal sadness; One star came--Cleopatra-like, the Night Swallowed this one pearl in a fit of madness!'

"Well, Felix, you are a truthful boy, and I can trust you!"

"I never heard the poetry before, and I tell you, Edna, the idea is just as much mine as it is Mr. Biggs's!"

"I believe you. Such coincidences are rare, and people are very loath to admit the possibility; but that they do occasionally occur, I have no doubt. Perhaps some day when you write a n.o.ble poem, and become a s.h.i.+ning light in literature, you may tell this circ.u.mstance to the world; and bid it beware how it idly throws the charge of plagiarism against the set teeth of earnest, honest workers."

"Edna, I look at my twisted feet sometimes, and I feel thankful that it is my body, not my mind, that is deformed. If I am ever able to tell the world anything, it will be how much I owe you; for I trace all holy thoughts and pretty ideas to you and your music and your writings."

They sat there awhile in silence, watching heavy ma.s.ses of cloud darken the sea and sky; and then Felix lifted his face from Edna's shoulder, and asked timidly:

"Did you send Sir Roger away?"

"He goes to Europe to-morrow, I believe."

"Poor Sir Roger! I am sorry for him. I told mamma you never thought of him; that you loved nothing but books and flowers and music."

"How do you know that?"

"I have watched you, and when he was with you I never saw that great s.h.i.+ning light in your eyes, or that strange moving of your lower lip, that always shows me when you are really glad; as you were that Sunday when the music was so grand; or that rainy morning when we saw the pictures of the 'Two Marys at the Sepulchre.' I almost hated poor Sir Roger, because I was afraid he might take you to England, and then, what would have become of me? Oh! the world seems so different, so beautiful, so peaceful, as long as I have you with me.

Everybody praises you, and is proud of you, but n.o.body loves you, as I do."

He took her hand, pa.s.sed it over his cheek and forehead, and kissed it tenderly.

"Felix, do you feel at all sleepy?"

"Not at all. Tell me something more about the animalcula that cause the phosph.o.r.escence yonder--making the top of each wave look like a fringe of fire. It is true that they are little round things that look like jelly--so small that it takes one hundred and seventy, all in a row, to make an inch; and that a winegla.s.s can hold millions of them?"

"I do not feel well enough to-night to talk about animalcula. I am afraid I shall have one of those terrible attacks I had last winter.

Felix, please don't go to bed for a while at least; and if you hear me call, come to me quickly. I must write a letter before I sleep.

Sit here, will you, till I come back?"

For the first time in her life she shrank from the thought of suffering alone, and felt the need of a human presence.

"Edna, let me call mamma. I saw this afternoon that you were not well."

"No, it may pa.s.s off; and I want n.o.body about me but you."

Only a narrow pa.s.sage divided her room from his; and leaving the door open, she sat down before her desk to answer Mr. Hammond's appeal.

As the night wore on, the wind became a gale; the fitful, bluish glare of the lightning showed fearful ranks of ravenous waves scowling over each others' shoulders; a roar as of universal thunder shook the sh.o.r.e, and in the coral-columned cathedral of the great deep, wrathful ocean played a wild and weird fugue.

Felix waited patiently, listening amid the dead diapason of wind and wave, for the voice of his governess. But no sound came from the opposite room; and at last, alarmed by the omnious silence, he took up his crutches and crossed the pa.s.sage.

The muslin curtains, blown from their ribbon fastenings, streamed like signals of distress on the breath of the tempest, and the lamplight flickered and leaped to the top of its gla.s.s chimney.

On the desk lay two letters addressed respectively to Mr. Hammond and Mrs. Murray, and beside them were scattered half a dozen notes from unknown correspondents, asking for the autograph and photograph of the young author.

Edna knelt on the floor, hiding her face in the arms which were crossed on the lid of the desk.

The cripple came close to her and hesitated a moment, then touched her lightly:

"Edna, are you ill, or are you only praying?"

She lifted her head instantly, and the blanched, weary face reminded the boy of a picture of Gethsemane, which, having once seen, he could never recall without a shudder.

"Forgive me, Felix! I forgot that you were waiting--forgot that I asked you to sit up."

She rose, took the thin little form in her arms, and whispered:

"I am sorry I kept you up so long. The pain has pa.s.sed away. I think the danger is over now. Go back to your room, and go to sleep as soon as possible. Good-night, my darling."

They kissed each other and separated; but the fury of the tempest forbade all idea of sleep, and thinking of the "Fisher Folk" exposed to its wrath, governess and pupil committed them to Him who calmed the Galilean gale.

"The sea was all a boiling, seething froth, And G.o.d Almighty's guns were going off, And the land trembled."

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

The Greek myth concerning Demophoon embodies a valuable truth, which the literary career of Edna Earl was destined to exemplify. Harsh critics, like disguised Ceres, plunged the young author into the flames; and fortunately for her, as no short-sighted, loving Metanira s.n.a.t.c.hed her from the fiery ordeal, she ultimately obtained the boon of immortality. Her regular contributions to the magazine enhanced her reputation, and broadened the sphere of her influence.

Profoundly impressed by the conviction that she held her talent in trust, she worked steadily, looking neither to the right nor left, but keeping her eyes fixed upon that day when she should be called to render an account to Him who would demand His own with interest.

Instead of becoming flushed with success, she grew daily more cautious, more timid, lest inadvertence or haste should betray her into errors. Consequently as the months rolled away, each magazine article seemed an improvement on the last, and lifted her higher in public favor. The blacksmith's grandchild had become a power in society.

Feeling that a recluse life would give her only partial glimpses of that humanity which she wished to study, she moved in the circle of cultivated friends who now eagerly stretched out their arms to receive her; and "keeping herself unspotted from the world," she earnestly scrutinized social leprosy, and calmly watched the tendency of American thought and feeling.

Among philosophic minds she saw an inclination to ignore the principles of such systems as Sir William Hamilton's, and to embrace the modified and subtle materialism of Buckle and Mill, or the gross atheism of Buchner and Moleschott. Positivism in philosophy and pre- Raphaelitism in art, confronted her in the ranks of the literary,-- lofty idealism seemed trodden down--pawed over by Carlyle's "Monster Utilitaria."

When she turned to the next social stratum she found altars of mammon-groves of Baal, s.h.i.+ning Schoe Dagonset up by business men and women of fas.h.i.+on. Society appeared intent only upon reviving the offering to propitiate evil spirits; and sometimes it seemed thickly sprinkled with very thinly disguised refugee Yezidees, who, in the East, openly wors.h.i.+pped the Devil.

Statesmen were almost extinct in America--a mere corporal's guard remained, battling desperately to save the stabbed const.i.tution from howling demagogues and fanatics, who raved and ranted where Was.h.i.+ngton, Webster, and Calhoun had once swayed a free and happy people. The old venerated barriers and well-guarded outposts, which decorum and true womanly modesty had erected on the frontiers of propriety, were swept away in the creva.s.se of sans souci manners that threatened to inundate the entire land; and lat.i.tudinarianism in dress and conversation was rapidly reducing the s.e.xes to an equality, dangerous to morals and subversive of all chivalric respect for woman.

A double-faced idol, fas.h.i.+on and flirtation, engrossed the homage of the majority of females, while a few misguided ones, weary of the inanity of the ma.s.s of womanhood and desiring to effect a reform, mistook the sources of the evil, and, rus.h.i.+ng to the opposite extreme, demanded power, which as a privilege they already possessed, but as a right could not extort.