The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, November 1, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, November 1, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
Harley L'Estrange was a man whom all things that belong to the romantic and
poetic side of our human life deeply impressed. When he came to learn the
tie between these two children of nature, standing side by side, alone
amidst the storms of fate, his heart was more deeply moved than it had been
for many years. In those dreary attics, overshadowed by the smoke and reek
of the humble suburb--the workday world in its harshest and tritest forms
below and around them--he recognized that divine poem which comes out from
all union between the mind and the heart. Here, on the rough deal table,
(the ink scarcely dry,) lay the writings of the young wrestler for fame and
bread; there, on the other side the partition, on that mean pallet, lay the
boy's sole comforter--the all that warmed his heart with living mortal
affection. On one side the wall, the world of imagination; on the other
this world of grief and of love. And in both, a spirit equally
sublime--unselfish Devotion--"the something afar from the sphere of our
sorrow."
He looked round the room into which he had followed Leonard, on quitting
Helen's bedside. He noted the MSS. on the table, and, pointing to them,
said gently, "And these are the labors by which you supported the soldier's
orphan?--soldier yourself, in a hard battle!"
"The battle was lost--I could not support her," replied Leonard mournfully.
"But you did not desert her. When Pandora's box was opened, they say Hope
lingered last----"
"False, false," said Leonard; "a heathen's notion. There are deities that
linger behind Hope;--Gratitude, Love, and Duty."
"Yours is no common nature," exclaimed Harley, admiringly, "but I must
sound it more deeply hereafter; at present I hasten for the physician; I
shall return with him. We must move that poor child from this low close air
as soon as possible. Meanwhile, let me qualify your rejection of the old
fable. Wherever Gratitude, Love, and Duty remain to man, believe me that
Hope is there too, though she may be oft invisible, hidden behind the
sheltering wings of the nobler deities."
Harley said this with that wondrous smile of his, which cast a brightness
over the whole room--and went away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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