Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
Religion
Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
dreaded atmosphere, and his slumbers have become broken and uneasy, with
a heavy heart she has crept silently back again. Charley has waited
until the thin hand of the sick child has relaxed its clasp on his own,
then, moved by a loving impulse, noiselessly busies himself in removing
a littered mass of vials, cups, and glasses, which have accumulated on
the stand near the bed, to a table just at hand, and taxes his childish
ingenuity in arranging thereon, in the prettiest possible form, a
multitude of toys and trinkets, gifts sent by the servants of the house
to his brother, putting the new ones in front, so that his eye may fall
on them first when he wakes again. This done, he creeps back to his seat
by the bedside, and silently watches his slumbers as before.
A ray of sunlight, bright and warm, creeps through the lattice and falls
on the veined lids; the eyes open, and instinctively moving from the too
dazzling light, rest placidly on a fragment of blue sky just visible
through the half-closed window. With eyes fixed intently on that hazy
distance, moment after moment, silent and motionless he lies, and the
blue orbs grow lustrous as he gazes with the mystic beauty of eyes whose
inner vision rests on unutterable things, and gradually there comes upon
the little face the look that never comes on any face but once. Oh,
mystic change! Oh, strange solemnity of death! The little watcher by the
bedside, face to face with its mysterious presence for the first time,
ignorant of its processes, feels a dread, half-defined idea of what it
may be, and, with a piteous effort to recall his dying brother back to
his old look and seeming, tremulously falters:
'See all the nice things they've sent you, Harry, all the pretty toys
you've got! Here they are, spread out upon the table. Look, brother,
look!'
The eyes are bright and clear, the shadow of death has not yet dimmed
their light. They turn slowly, very slowly, and, just glancing at the
toy-strewn table, rest upon his brother's face. Oh! what is that look
within them that chills the warm life-current, and makes him cold and
shivering in the heat of that summer day, as the sick child feebly says:
'You may have them all, _all_, Charley; I sha'n't never want them any
more.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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