Life in the Iron-Mills; Or, The Korl Woman — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Life in the Iron-Mills; Or, The Korl Woman
John Stuart Mill · en
The deep of the night is passing while I write. The gas-light wakens
from the shadows here and there the objects which lie scattered through
the room: only faintly, though; for they belong to the open sunlight. As
I glance at them, they each recall some task or pleasure of the coming
day. A half-moulded child's head; Aphrodite; a bough of forest-leaves;
music; work; homely fragments, in which lie the secrets of all eternal
truth and beauty. Prophetic all! Only this dumb, woful face seems to
belong to and end with the night. I turn to look at it. Has the power
of its desperate need commanded the darkness away? While the room is yet
steeped in heavy shadow, a cool, gray light suddenly touches its head
like a blessing hand, and its groping arm points through the broken
cloud to the far East, where, in the flickering, nebulous crimson, God
has set the promise of the Dawn.
End of Project Gutenberg's Life in the Iron-Mills, by Rebecca Harding Davis