The Woman Who Dared.

by Epes Sargent.

I.

OVERTURE.

Blest Power that canst transfigure common things, And, like the sun, make the clod burst in bloom,-- Unseal the fount so mute this many a day, And help me sing of Linda! Why of her, Since she would shrink with manifest recoil, Knew she that deeds of hers were made a theme For measured verse? Why leave the garden flowers To fix the eye on one poor violet That on the solitary grove sheds fragrance?

Themes are enough, that court a wide regard, And prompt a strenuous flight; and yet from all, My thoughts come back to Linda. Let me spare, As best I may, her modest privacy, While under Fancy's not inapt disguise I give substantial truth, and deal with no Unreal beings or fantastic facts: Bear witness to it, Linda!

Now while May Keeps me a restive prisoner in the house, For the first time the Spring's unkindness ever Held me aloof from her companionship, However roughly from the east her breath Came as if all the icebergs of Grand Bank Were giving up their forms in that one gust,-- Now while on orchard-trees the struggling blossoms Break from the varnished cerements, and in clouds Of pink and white float round the boughs that hold Their verdure yet in check,--and while the lawn Lures from yon hemlock hedge the robin, plump And copper-breasted, and the west wind brings Mildness and balm,--let me attempt the task That also is a pastime.

What though Spring Brings not of Youth the wonder and the zest; The hopes, the day-dreams, and the exultations?

The animal life whose overflow and waste Would far out-measure now our little h.o.a.rd?

The health that made mere physical existence An ample joy; that on the ocean beach Shared with the leaping waves their breezy glee; That in deep woods, or in forsaken clearings, Where the charred logs were hid by verdure new, And the shy wood-thrush lighted; or on hills Whence counties lay outspread beneath our gaze; Or by some rock-girt lake where sandy margins Sloped to the mirrored tints of waving trees,-- Could feel no burden in the gra.s.shopper, And no unrest in the long summer day?

Would I esteem Youth's fervors fair return For temperate airs that fan sublimer heights Than Youth could scale; heights whence the patient vision May see this life's harsh inequalities, Its rudimental good and full-blown evil, Its crimes and earthquakes and insanities, And all the wrongs and sorrows that perplex us, a.s.sume, beneath the eternal calm, the order Which can come only from a Love Divine?

A love that sees the good beyond the evil, The serial life beyond the eclipsing death,-- That tracks the spirit through eternities, Backward and forward, and in every germ Beholds its past, its present, and its future, At every stage beholds it gravitate Where it belongs, and thence new-born emerge Into new life and opportunity, An outcast never from the a.s.siduous Mercy, Providing for His teeming universe, Divinely perfect not because complete, But because incomplete, advancing ever Beneath the care Supreme?--heights whence the soul, Uplifted from all speculative fog, All darkening doctrine, all confusing fear, Can see the drifted plants, can scent the odors, That surely come from that celestial sh.o.r.e To which we tend; however out of reckoning, Swept wrong by Error's currents, Pa.s.sion's storms, The poor tossed bark may be?

Descend, my thoughts!

Your theme lies lowly as the ground-bird's nest; Why seek, with wings so feeble and unused, To soar above the clouds and front the stars?

Descend from your high venture, and to scenes Of the heart's common history come down!

II.

THE FATHER'S STORY.

The little mansion had its fill of sunshine; The western windows overlooked the Hudson Where the great city's traffic vexed the tide; The front received the Orient's early flush.

Here dwelt three beings, who the neighbors said Were husband, wife, and daughter; and indeed There was no sign that they were otherwise.

Their name was Percival; they lived secluded, Saw no society, except some poor Old pensioner who came for food or help; Though, when fair days invited, they would take The omnibus and go to see the paintings At the Academy; or hear the music At opera or concert; then, in summer, A visit to the seaside or the hills Would oft entice them.

Percival had reached His threescore years and five, but stood erect As if no touch of age had chilled him yet.

Simple in habit, studious how to live In best conformity with laws divine,-- Impulsive, yet by trial taught to question All impulses, affections, appet.i.tes, At Reason's bar,--two objects paramount Seemed steadily before him; one, to find The eternal truth, showing the constant right In politics, in social life, in morals,-- The other, to apply all love and wisdom To education of his child--of Linda.

Yet, if with eye anointed, you could look On that benign and tranquil countenance, You might detect the lines which Pa.s.sion leaves Long after its volcano is extinct And flowers conceal its lava. Percival Was older than his consort, twenty years; Yet were they fitly mated; though, with her, Time had dealt very gently, leaving face And rounded form still youthful, and unmarred By one uncomely outline; hardly mingling A thread of silver in her chestnut hair That affluent needed no deceiving braid.

Framed for maternity the matron seemed: Thrice had she been a mother; but the children, The first six winters of her union brought, A boy and girl, were lost to her at once By a wall's falling on them, as they went, Heedless of danger, hand in hand, to school.

To either parent terrible the blow!

But, three years afterward, when Linda came, With her dark azure eyes and golden hair, It was as if a healing angel touched The parents' wound, and turned their desolation Into a present paradise, revealing Two dear ones, beckoning from the spirit-land, And one, detaining them, with infant grasp, Feeble, yet how resistless! here below.

And so there was great comfort in that household: And those unwhispered longings both had felt At times, that they might pa.s.s to other scenes Where Love would find its own, were felt no more: For Linda grew in beauty every day; Beauty not only of the outward mould, Sparkling in those dear eyes, and on the wind Tossing those locks of gold, but beauty born, In revelations flitting o'er the face, From the soul's inner symmetry; from love Too deep and pure to utter, had she words; From the divine desire to know; to prove All objects brought within her dawning ken; From frolic mirth, not heedless but most apt; From sense of conscience, shown in little things So early; and from infant courtesy Charming and debonair.

The parents said, While the glad tears shone br.i.m.m.i.n.g in their eyes, "Oh! lacking love and best experience Are those who tell us that the purity And innocence of childhood are delusion; Or that, so far as they exist, they show The absence of all mind; no impulses Save those of selfish pa.s.sion moving it!

And that, by nature desperately wicked,[1]

The child learns good through evil; having no Innate ideas, no inborn will, no bias.

Here, in this infant, is our confutation!

O self-sufficing physiologist, Who, grubbing in the earth, hast missed the stars, We ask no other answer to thy creed Than this, the answer heaven and earth supply."

Now sixteen summers had our Linda seen, And grown to be a fair-haired, winsome maid, In shape and aspect promising to be A softened repet.i.tion of her mother; And yet some traits from the paternal side Gave to the head an intellectual grace And to the liquid eyes a power reserved, Brooding awhile in tender gloom, and then Flashing emotion, as some lofty thought, Some sight of pity, or some generous deed, Kindled a ready sympathy whose tears Fell on no barren purpose; for with Linda To feel, to be uplifted, was to act; Her sorest trials being when she found How far the wish to do outran the power.

Often would Percival observe his child, And study to divine if in the future Of that organization, when mature, There should prevail the elements that lead Woman to find the crowning charm of life In the affections of a happy marriage, Or if with satisfactions of the mind And the aesthetic faculty, the aims Of art and letters, the pursuits of trade, Linda might find the fresh activities He craved for her, and which forecasting care Might possibly provide.

His means were small, Merged in a life-annuity which gave All that he held as indispensable To sanative conditions in a home: Good air, good influences, proper food.

By making his old wardrobe do long service He saved the wherewith to get faithful help From the best teachers in instructing Linda; And she was still the object uppermost.

Dawned the day fair, for Linda it was fair, And they all three could ramble in the Park.

If on Broadway the ripe fruit tempted him, Linda was fond of fruit; those grapes will do For Linda. Was the music rich and rare?

Linda must hear it. Were the paintings grand?

Linda must see them. So the important thought Was always Linda; and the mother shared In all this fond parental providence; For in her tender pride in the dear girl There was no room for any selfish thought, For any jealous balancing of dues.

"My child," said Percival, one summer day, As he brought in a bunch of snow-white roses, Ringed with carnations, many-leafed and fragrant, "Take it, an offering for your birthday; this Is June the twelfth, a happy day for me."

"How fresh, how beautiful!" said Linda rising And kissing him on either cheek. "Dear father, You spoil me for all other care, I fear, Since none can be like yours."

"Why speak of that?"

He with a start exclaimed; "my care must be Prolonged till I can see you safely fixed In an a.s.sured and happy womanhood.

Why should it not be so? Though sixty-five, How well am I, and strong! No, Linda, no; Dream not of other tendance yet awhile; My father lived to eighty, and his father To eighty-five; and I am stronger now Than they were, at my age."

"Live long!" cried Linda, "For whom have I to love me, to befriend, You and my mother gone?"

"Your mother, child?

She should outlive me by some twenty years At least. G.o.d grant, her sweet companionship May be your strength and light when I'm not here, My matchless little girl, my precious Linda!"

"Ah! how Love magnifies the thing it loves!"

Smiling she said: "when I look in the gla.s.s, I see a comely Miss; nay, perhaps pretty; That epithet is her superlative, So far as person is concerned, I fear.

Grant her a cheerful temper; that she gets From both her parents. She is dutiful,-- No wonder, for she never is opposed!

Strangely coincident her way is yours; Industrious, but that's her mother's training.

Then if you come to gifts of mind--ah me!

What can she show? We'll not p.r.o.nounce her dull; But she's not apt or quick; and all she gets Is by hard work, by oft-repeated trials, Trials with intermissions of despair.

The languages she takes to not unkindly; But mathematics is her scourge, her kill-joy, Pressing her like a nightmare. Logic, too, Distresses and confuses her poor brain; Oh! ask her not for reasons. As for music-- Music she loves. Would that Love might inspire The genius it reveres so ardently!

Has she no gift for painting? Eye for form And coloring I truly think she has; And one thing she can do, and do it well; She can group flowers and ferns and autumn leaves, Paint their true tints, and render back to nature A not unfaithful copy.

"This the extent Of her achievements! She has labored hard To mould a bust or statue; but the clay Lacked the Pygmalion touch beneath her hands.

She'll never be a female Angelo.

She must come down content to mother Earth, And study out the alphabet which Summer Weaves on the sod in fields or bordering woods.

Such is your paragon, my simple father!

But now, this ordinary little girl, So seeming frank, (whisper it low!) is yet So deep, so crafty, and so full of wiles, That she has quite persuaded both her parents-- In most things sensible, clear-seeing people-- That she is just a prodigy indeed!

Not one of goodness merely, but of wit, Capacity, and general cleverness!"

"There, that will do, spoilt darling! What a tongue!"

Percival said, admiring while he chided.

"O the swift time! Thou'rt seventeen to-day; And yet, except thy parents and thy teachers, Friends and companions thou hast hardly known.

'Tis fit that I should tell thee why our life Has been thus socially estranged and quiet.

Sit down, and let me push the arm-chair up Where I can note the changes in thy face; For 'tis a traitor, that sweet face of thine, And has a sign for every fleeting thought.

"But here's our little mother! Come, my dear, And take a seat by Linda; thou didst help me To graft upon the bitter past a fruit All sweetness, and thy very presence now Can take the sting from a too sad remembrance."

The mother placed her hand upon his brow And said: "The water-lily springs from mud; So springs the future from the past." Then he: "My father's death made me, at twenty-one, Heir to a fortune which in those slow days Was thought sufficient: I had quitted Yale With some slight reputation as a scholar, And, in the first flush of ingenuous youth When brave imagination's rosy hue Tinges all unknown objects, I was launched Into society in this great place;-- Sisterless, motherless, and having seen But little, in my student life, of women.