Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 4, April 1852Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 4, April 1852
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
That night a new train of thoughts engaged me. Poor Roderick’s story
returned, and the memory of his grief with all its thrilling intensity.
_Had I seen Ella?_ It must be. That pale, thoughtful, _hiding_
countenance could be only hers. Poor Roderick! I feel for you deeply! I
wonder if your sorrow feels any alleviation in your new country! I fear
not.
The next day I made sufficient inquiry to certify me that I had seen
Count Reisach, and with him, Ella. I saw them once again, it was for a
moment, and she seemed paler still; as I gazed, again she turned her
face away. Poor Ella! how she shrank from the eyes of men! There was a
deep remorse preying upon that wasting beauty; a secret sorrow and shame
blighting every bud of pleasure and of hope. How bitter will thy end
soon be, poor trusting, fragile daughter of Eve!
I saw them no more. I walked every day with Miss Thornton to show her
the lady that she so closely resembled; but we did not see them. They
were probably seeking new scenes to beguile her short life of its
fleeting days.
A few weeks after, we were in Havre, awaiting the sailing of the first
packet ship for New York. We had determined to “go together,” as Mrs. F.
had desired, and our rooms were taken in the Zurich, one of the fleetest
of the line. At that time, a line of French government steamships was
plying between Havre and New York; and one, which was advertised to sail
on the day we arrived, was to be detained some ten days, to undergo a
repairing of machinery. Havre is the great port of emigration for the
French, German, and Swiss emigrants; and the French steamships, offering
low fares and speedy passage, generally sailed with their between-decks
well filled with emigrant passengers. On this occasion, some two hundred
poor creatures had engaged passage upon the detained vessel, and few had
the means to await in Havre her postponed day of departure; consequently
there was a rush upon the office of the sailing packets. We went aboard
about 3 o’clock, P. M. The lower deck was crowded with
steerage-passengers; and a single glance sufficed to show that they were
three-fourths Germans. I could not help wondering how many of the two
hundred poor emigrants below me, I might have seen before, as I
journeyed through their country a few months ago. Many a one, I thought,
I might have seen before his cottage door, or through the window of his
work-shop, ere poverty had _at last_ decreed, that he _must_ go to the
land beyond the seas, far from his fatherland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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