The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886.Various
General
The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886.
Various
Children's literature -- Periodicals
After a while Hazel wanders forward in a dreamy intoxication of delight,
every moment discovering fresh beauties. She finds a beautiful grotto,
where are large rocks and cascades and running streams and fountains.
She enters by a low archway of stone, covered with drooping ferns, and
there, right before her, is a large clear pool at the foot of a huge
rock. She flushes with the prettiest of shy pleasure and frank
admiration at sight of her own reflection.
How beautiful! A girl in a long, white robe, with a sweet, dark-eyed
face, which she knows to be her own. She is leaning slightly forward,
and the eyes--so often heavy and weary--are brimming with happiness, the
lips parted in a smile. Her hair, with its pretty, sunny ripples, is
unbound, and the wind blows it slightly back from her shoulders. And,
most wonderful and striking of all, a circlet of pure gold rests upon
the shapely head, and a second circlet is clasped round the waist. Then
she is a queen? No doubt of it. And then comes, to the joy of admiration
of all she has seen, the added joy of certainty that all is her own.
This is a queen's garden, and she is the happy queen!
More and more dawns gradually upon her. There are those near at hand
dear to her, to whom she is also dear, whose queen she is. Oh the joy of
it all! She clasps her hands in ecstasy, and the pretty reflection in
the pool is more than ever lovely, only she has forgotten it now.
A serious thought must have come into Hazel's mind, for suddenly a
different expression appears in her eyes; a look of perplexity and shade
of sorrow. The consciousness in her new life is growing, and, alas! it
is not unmixed with pain. This garden is not all the world, then? She
puts her hand to her brow, trying to recall something. Slowly it comes
back to her in words, noble words, spoken by one whose face is a
darkness to her. And she listens--
"It is you queens only who can feel the depths of pain, and conceive the
way to its healing."
Ah! that is enough. She has lost her desire to recall more. She would
fain turn back to the former delight and forget the existence of pain.
But the steady voice persists, and will not be quenched.
"Instead of trying to do this, you turn away from it; you shut
yourselves within your park walls and garden gates; and you are content
to know that there is beyond them a whole world in wilderness, a world
of secrets which you dare not penetrate, and of suffering which you dare
not conceive."
Hazel looks round on the garden. How pleasant it is! Why should she
leave it? Why should she concern herself with what may lie outside this
home-kingdom of hers? She tries again to banish the voice, yet she knows
in her heart, if she would only look for its knowledge, that, outside of
that little rose-covered wall, the wild grass, to the horizon, is torn
up by the agony of men, and beat level by the drift of their life-blood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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