There is a tenderness and delicacy about a serious man, at times, the beauty of which affects us even more than when we see them in a woman. This is partly from the contrast. They are in agreement with a woman's person and general character, and are habitual to her. And it may be that when the man is under their in- fluences, he has a more exquisite sense of them— may we say a finer touch for them ? Though Paul always showed the greatest fondness for Esther, except at moments when hunted by some fearful passion or thought, there was now such a kind regard, such a delicate propriety of the affections in his manner towards her, that she almost thought some new and higher sense of his love had been given her— it moved her to tears. Paul was happy that it did ; it made her the nearer to him. He knew that the tender affections have more or less of melan- choly in them, and that all his own were tinged by it.— „ Let me fasten on these bracelets," said he, taking out a pair he had just purchased, " for there is a charm in their circles to bind you to me." „Nay, nay, Paul, no manacles, though to bind me to you even," she said, unclasping one of them and whirling it round her finger.—" Don't look so serious about it," she added, holding her wrist up to him. " There, clasp it again, and you shall be the first to take it off, though thou wouldst have me spell-bound, thou wizard man. I wish it had been something else, though." " And what would you have had it, Esther ?" „ This," said she, passing her hand playfully over his face. " What, a face like mine, and ' in little,' and set round with gold and diamonds ! And where would you have worn it ? Why, it would have made your heart beat with fear to have such a looking thing so near it. And to have made love to it, Esther," he said, half smiling, " that's past all faith." " Then there is no truth in my love, Paul." „ Yes, but there is," he answered rapidly, „ it's all truth. And yet," he added half to himself, and as if pondering upon it, " 'tis very strange." „ What is strange ?" „ That Esther should ever look on me, and after, love me. And yet you will vow it to-mor- row, will you not?“ " If you question it so, it may be better for us both that I should not. For when I have done it, should Paul doubt, he had better be in his grave than live." " Nor should I deserve to see the light, nor feel this blessed sun upon me. I was moody, Esther. Do not lay to heart what I say at such times. My joy was too much for me, and made me play with misery. Did'st never in grief have a wild and horrid mirth fork by you like lightning ? I have, that my eyes have been blenched at it. I shall be used to this joy soon, and then my spirit will be as quiet before you as that cloud which rests above us in the light. O, you shall be my sun and all else that is good and cheering to me ; and when I hold you to me so, to-morrow, I'll not call you Esther, but my wife." The next day they were married, and Paul took Esther to their new home, not quite a mile from the village. The building was plain and well proportioned ; set down in the middle of a level grass plat, which was broken only by the gravel way winding up to the door, and a clump of young trees a little on one side. The whole was open to the sun ; and about it was an air of perfect simplicity and quiet. All along the even road to the village lay a beautiful prospect ; and there was a row of elms and sycamores, stretch- ing the whole length of the route. So that, though they had but one near neighbour, Mr. Ridgley, they had quite as much company as if in the midst of the village. Their house terminated these pleasant views ; for a little back of it ran a ridge of steep rocks ; and beyond that the country was desolate, stretching out into wide sand tracts, broken by patches of scant, short, yellowish grass, and half round the whole, swept a forest of low, ragged pines. The place was difficult of access, and appeared to be a land accursed; neither the foot-print of man nor beast was to be seen there. It was one of those good for nothing tracts of country, which are sure to lead their proprietors into law suits. A farmer in the neighbourhood had put a couple of men on it to cut down the wood ; and this business he carried on for many years, till falling into a dispute with a neighbour- ing farmer, notice of the trespass reached the owner, who would not have remembered that the estate was his, had it not been for his tax-bills. A suit was instituted, the farmer at last driven off from what was not worth having, and the true proprietor ruined. A story was current thereabouts that the land was good enough be- fore the owner gained his cause ; but that he was a hard man, and that the Devil had a hand in the suit, helped him gain it, and then danced over the land where the sand was now seen, and singed the grass as he went off in fire and smoke. The men said they did not know why they should go where there was nothing to be got; and a foolhardy boy who had once been a birds-nesting there, was ever afterwards looked on with suspicion, as, in some way or other, be- longing to the Evil One. When Paul now looked back, and remembered that till a little while before the world had been bare of joy to him ; that the soul, living without sympathy, had been a prey to itself, and that a solitude, more dreadful than if he had stood the only living thing upon the earth, had surrounded him— the solitude and void which estrangement from others makes about us,— it was as if he had past into another state of being ; and a new nature and new delights filled him with sensa- tions of which before he had no thought. He looked upon Esther and his mind was one rap- ture. Neglected and passed by, as he had been, she had stopped and spoken comfort to him and taken him by the hand, and he followed her like a child. " Thou hast been my good angel to me, Esther, and brought me out of the darkness into the comfortable light. The spring of my feelings was sealed up, but you have opened it, and they run on now taking the hues and forms of all the beautiful and blessed things with which God has filled this earth for us. My heart is fuller of joy than I well know how to bear— it aches to speak it to you ; and yet its throbbings can tell you better than words can." This was the over contentment of a mind by nature melancholy and not knowing how to measure its joys when they came. The happi- ness of such minds is always in excess; then it seems strange to them ; they question its truth ; it does not belong to them ; they fear it cannot last. They look back upon their misery as their true condition, as one which they are bound to by some fatality ; and in their hopelessness they rash into it further than before. Paul's state was so opposite to what he had been wonted to, that it seemed to produce some indistinctness of the thoughts and senses, and be could hardly have a clear persuasion of the reali- ty of his happiness. It partook of the visionary ; and he began to fear that his hopes and imagi- nation had cheated him into it. In his saner moments, when he could not question its truth, he doubted its stability ; and a vague notion that this was to pass away, and something, he knew not what, to take its place, unsettled the rest of his mind and disturbed its full content. A feel- ing, like those ill-forebodings which sometimes come over us and then go off again, was gaining possession of him, bringing back his old melan- choly, troubling his reason, and distorting all he saw. There is a strange infatuation in gloomy minds which makes all that they are concerned in minister to their melancholy, and they seek out causes of depression with an industry more eager and unrelaxed than that with which cheerful souls hunt after pleasure. It is the craving of a diseased appetite, which is never sated. Paul found his melancholy returning at inter- vals. At first he shrunk from it with the horror that the lunatic would fly from his fits of coming madness ; but at last, as dark thoughts began. to gather round him, he no longer tried to scatter them ; the fate that he imagined himself born to was oftener in his mind, and his former distrust of himself ; and with this came his doubts of others.— "It cannot be," he said to himself, " that I was made to be loved of one so beauti- ful and of so light a heart. The gloom that shadowed me about was a mystery to her, and she was curious to know it. She saw that I was depressed and miserable, and that moved her heart to pity me ; she found that her kind- ness touched me and made me happy, and this stirred an innocent pride within her, and she mistook it all for love. And, fool ! fool ! so did I. Ay, and there was no one near to place this uncomely form by ; and no gay, accomplished and ready mind, to play round the sluggish, unchanging movements of mine. Poor girl, she knew not me, nor herself then ; but the knowl- edge will one day be revealed to her, and with a curse as heavy as fell on man in paradise." Though Paul passed many such hours when alone, and was restless and impatient in com- pany, yet the thought that Esther was his wife was still a healing to his heart He loved her with all that intenseness his nature was made to feel ; and it was with a kind of joyous adoration that he looked on her in his undisturbed moments. He yet could feel the reality of her fondness for him ; and he thought of it as more than an earthly blessing. It was about this time that Frank Ridgley re- turned home after an absence of two years. He had been an early and ardent lover of Esther's. She had a great regard and liking for Frank, but not a particle of love for him. His case was a more hopeless one than if he had been her aver- sion ; for opposite passions run so into each other, particularly in women, that it is oftentimes hard to tell which is which. Perhaps Frank felt the truth of this (though he was not much in the way of philosophizing) when Esther refused him, telling him at the same time that she had a great esteem for him. For the matter of that, thought Frank, though he dared not say it, you might profess as much to my grandmother. He was angry, and mortified, and in despair ; and confounded, and not knowing what feeling he was suffering under, swore most solemnly that he would never survive his disappointment— " That's an unwise resolution in you, Frank“ said Esther. " Only allow yourself time to think about it till you are a little older, and you'll live to see the folly of it —Forgive me, Frank ; I do not mean to make sport of your feelings ; but, for the life of me, I can't help thinking how bright and well you will look a twelvemonth hence." The truth was, Frank was one of those whose feelings spend themselves on the outer man, and whose passions, violently as they seem moved, are but healthful excitement, compared with what those feel who look clayey and hard when they are agitated most Esther knew very well that he was sincerely and warmly attached to her at the time, and that, would she consent to have him, he would make a fond husband, and wear black for her a full year after she was gone ; but that his mind was not one of those abiding places in which we find decayed, gray trees, and young shoots, running vines, and mosses, and all those close and binding growths which look so lasting, faithful and affectionate. She pitied him as we do one who has a twinge of the toothach — which nobody dies of. How- ever bent we may be upon dying of crossed love, it is no easy matter ; next to starving one's self to death, there is nothing which requires more resolution and perseverance. Accordingly, Frank returned in due time, glad to see his friends, with his head full of novelties, with much use- ful information, and a ready, lively way of show- ing it. It was a damp, uncomfortable evening ; and Paul and Esther were round the fire. Paul was sitting a little on one side, in the shade, now and then making some short, serious remark, after his usual manner, with his eyes resting on Esther's countenance, as she sat looking into the fire, pondering on what he said, and the many things it led the mind to. Her face appeared all thought, and her features had a beautiful distinct- ness, as their deep, silent shadows fell in strong outline against the warm fire-light that shone on her. At no time had love seemed to him so quiet and domestic. He thought that he had never before been conscious how lovely and dear to us humanity may be.
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Richard Henry Dana: Paul Felton (1822) 3
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