Historical fiction, American; New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories
Hark! an eager knocking st Nurse Toothaker’s door. She starts from her
drowsy reverie, sets aside the empty tumbler and teaspoon, and lights a
lamp at the dim embers of the fire. “Rap, rap, rap!” again, and she
hurries adown the staircase, wondering which of her friends can be at
death’s door now, since there is such an earnest messenger at Nurse
Toothaker’s. Again the peal resounds just as her hand is on the lock.
“Be quick, Nurse Toothaker!” cries a man on the doorstep. “Old General
Fane is taken with the gout in his stomach and has sent for you to
watch by his death-bed. Make haste, for there is no time to
lose.”—“Fane! Edward Fane! And has he sent for me at last? I am ready.
I will get on my cloak and begone. So,” adds the sable-gowned,
ashen-visaged, funereal old figure, “Edward Fane remembers his
Rosebud.”
Our question is answered. There is a germ of bliss within her. Her
long-hoarded constancy, her memory of the bliss that was remaining amid
the gloom of her after-life like a sweet-smelling flower in a coffin,
is a symbol that all may be renewed. In some happier clime the Rosebud
may revive again with all the dewdrops in its bosom.
THE THREEFOLD DESTINY
A FAËRY LEGEND
I have sometimes produced a singular and not unpleasing effect, so far
as my own mind was concerned, by imagining a train of incidents in
which the spirit and mechanism of the faëry legend should be combined
with the characters and manners of familiar life. In the little tale
which follows a subdued tinge of the wild and wonderful is thrown over
a sketch of New England personages and scenery, yet, it is hoped,
without entirely obliterating the sober hues of nature. Rather than a
story of events claiming to be real, it may be considered as an
allegory such as the writers of the last century would have expressed
in the shape of an Eastern tale, but to which I have endeavored to give
a more lifelike warmth than could be infused into those fanciful
productions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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