Fifteen Days: An Extract from Edward Colvil's JournalPutnam, Mary Lowell
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Fifteen Days: An Extract from Edward Colvil's Journal
Putnam, Mary Lowell
Diary fiction; Slavery -- United States -- Fiction
But now, how can we be at ease to enjoy our own lot, however
pleasantly it may have been cast for us, or to occupy ourselves with
material cares or works, even the most worthy and the most rational?
We are taught to pray, "Thy kingdom come," before we ask for our daily
bread.
To pray for what we do not at the same time strive for, is it not an
impiety?
Dr. Borrow says that Harry is out of place in our time. I should
rather say that it is he himself who is here a century, or perhaps
only a half-century, too soon. Our first need now is of men
clear-sighted to moral truths, and intrepid to announce and maintain
them.
It was through the consciousness, not yet lost, of eternal principles,
that primitive poetry made Themis the mother of the gracious
Hours,--those beneficent guardians, bringers of good gifts, promoters
and rewarders of man's happy labor. When Justice returns to make her
reign on earth, with her come back her lovely daughters, and all the
beautiful attendant train.
When that time arrives, the Doctor will have found his place, and
Harry will not have lost his.
Perhaps I shall not come back until Saturday. According to their plan,
Dr. Borrow and Harry are to leave Omocqua again to-morrow afternoon;
but I shall try to persuade them to remain until the next morning.
While they stay, I shall stay. When they go, Brownie and I take our
homeward road. In any case, I will write to you Friday night, and send
off my budget on Saturday without fail.
To-day has not given me anything to tell of it yet, except that it has
opened as it should, fresh and cloudless. In five hours I shall be on
the road.
My paper is blistered and the writing blurred with wet drops. It is
only that some freshly gathered flowers on my table have let fall
their dew upon the page. You, with the trace of mysticism that lurks
in your man of the world's heart, would be drawing unfavorable
auguries. I am too happy to accept any to-day. If fancy will sport
with this accident, let it feign that these morning tears are of
sympathy, but not of compassion; that they fall, not to dim my hopes,
but to hallow them.
EVENING.
"In five hours I shall be on the road." So I wrote at six o'clock. I
wrote too confidently.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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