New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories
There was old Delilah Joyce, who went into a decline for love, and
wasted quite away. She had been one of those tragic fugitives on the
island of being, driven out into the storm of public sympathy to be
beaten and undone; for she was left on her wedding day by her lover, who
vowed he loved her no more. But now Dilly saw her without the pathetic
bravery of her silken gown which was never worn, and knew her for a
woman serene and glad. That very day she had unfolded the gown in the
attic, where it had lain, year upon year, wrapped about by the poignant
sympathy of her kin, a perpetual reminder of the hurts and faithlessness
of life. It had become a relic, set aside from modern use. She felt now
as if she could even wear it herself, though silk was not for her, or
deck some little child in its shot and shimmering gayety. For it came
to her, with a glad rush of acquiescent joy, that all his life, the man,
though blinded by illusion, had been true to her whom he had left; and
that, instead of being poor, she was very rich. It was from that moment
that Dilly began to understand that the soul does not altogether weld
its own bonds, but that they lie in the secret core of things, as the
planet rushes on its appointed way.
There was Annette Joyce, who married a Stackpole, and, to the disgust of
her kin, clung to him through one debauch after another, until the world
found out that Annette "couldn't have much sense of decency herself, or
she wouldn't put up with such things." But on this one night Dilly found
out that Annette's life had been a continual laying hold of Eternal
Being, not for herself, but for the creature she loved; that she had
shown the insolence and audacity of a thousand spirits in one, besieging
high heaven and crying in the ear of God: "I demand of Thee this soul
that Thou hast made." And somehow Dilly knew now that she was of those
who overcome.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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