Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures Part 6

"Do not look so serious," remarked Clara, as she bent forward and gazed affectionately into the young man's face. "To err is human. No one here is perfect. How often, for hours, have I mourned over errors; yet grief was of no avail, except to make my future more guarded."

"And that was much gained," said Florence, breathing deeply with a sense of relief. "If we cannot recall and correct the past, we can at least be more guarded in the future. This is the effect of my own experience. Ah! if we properly considered the action of our present upon the future, how guarded would we be. All actions are in the present, and the moment they are done the present becomes the past, over which Memory presides. What is past is fixed. Nothing can change it. The record is in marble, to be seen in all future time."

The serious character of the interview soon changed, and the young lovers forgot every thing in the joy of their reconciliation.

Nothing arose to mar their intercourse until the appointed time for the nuptial ceremonies arrived, when they were united in holy wedlock. But, Edwin Florence did not pa.s.s on to this time without another visit from the rebuking Angel of the past. He was not permitted to take the hand of Clara in his, and utter the words that bound him to her forever, without a visit from the one whose heart he had broken years before. She came to him in the dark and silent midnight, as he tossed sleeplessly upon his bed, and stood and looked at him with her pale face and despairing eyes, until he was driven almost to madness. She was with him when the light of morning dawned; she moved by his side as he went forth to meet and claim his betrothed; and was near him, invisible to all eyes but his own, when he stood at the altar ready to give utterance to the solemn words that bound him to his bride. And not until these words were said, did the vision fade away.

No wonder the face of the bridegroom wore a solemn aspect as he presented himself to the minister, and breathed the vows of eternal fidelity to the living, while before him, as distinct as if in bodily form, was the presence of one long since sleeping ill her grave, who had gone down to her shadowy resting place through his infidelity.

From this time there was a thicker veil drawn over the past. The memory of that one event grew less and less distinct; though it was not obliterated, for nothing that is written in the Book of Life is ever blotted out. There were reasons, even in long years after his marriage, when the record stood suddenly before him, as if written in words of light; and he would turn from it with a feeling of pain.

Thus it is that our present blesses or curses our future. Every act of our lives affects the coming time for good or evil. We make our own destiny, and make it always in the present. The past is gone, the future is yet to come. The present only is ours, and, according to what we do in the present, will be the records of the past and its influence on the future. They are only wise who wisely regard their actions in the present.

THE BRILLIANT AND THE COMMONPLACE.

DAY after day I worked at my life-task, and worked in an earnest spirit. Not much did I seem to accomplish; yet the little that was done had on it the impress of good. Still, I was dissatisfied, because my gifts were less dazzling than those of which many around me could boast. When I thought of the brilliant ones sparkling in the firmament of literature, and filling the eyes of admiring thousands, something like the evil spirit of envy came into my heart and threw a shadow upon my feelings. I was troubled because I had not their gifts. I wished to shine with a stronger light. To dazzle, as well as to warm and vivify.

Not long ago, there came among us one whom nature had richly endowed. His mind possessed exceeding brilliancy. Flashes of thought, like lightning from summer cloud, were ever filling the air around him. There was a stateliness in the movement of his intellect, and an evidence of power, that oppressed you at times with wonder.

Around him gathered the lesser lights in the hemisphere of thought, and veiled their feeble rays beneath his excessive brightness. He seemed conscious of his superior gifts and displayed them more like a giant beating the air to excite wonder, than putting forth his strength to accomplish a good and n.o.ble work. Still, I was oppressed and paralyzed by the sphere of his presence. I felt puny and weak beside him, and unhappy because I was not gifted with equal power.

It so happened that a work of mine, upon which the maker's name was not stamped--work done with a purpose of good--was spoken of and praised by one who did not know me as the handicraftsman.

"It is tame, dull, and commonplace," said the brilliant one, in a tone of contempt; and there were many present to agree with him.

Like the strokes of a hammer upon my heart, came these words of condemnation. "Tame, dull, and commonplace!" And was it, indeed, so?

Yes; I felt that what he uttered was true. That my powers were exceedingly limited, and my gifts few. Oh, what would I not have then given for brilliant endowments like those possessed by him from whom had fallen the words of condemnation?

"You will admit," said one--I thought it strange at the time that there should be even one to speak a word in favor of my poor performance--"that it will do good?"

"Good!" was answered, in a tone slightly touched by contempt. "Oh, yes; it will do good!" and the brilliant one tossed his head.

"Anybody can do good!"

I went home with a perturbed spirit. I had work to do; but I could not do it. I sat down and tried to forget what I had heard. I tried to think about the tasks that were before me. "Tame, dull, and commonplace!" Into no other form would my thoughts come.

Exhausted, at last, by this inward struggle, I threw myself upon my bed, and soon pa.s.sed into the land of dreams.

Dream-land! Thou art thought by many to be _only_ a land of fantasy and of shadows. But it is not so. Dreams, for the most part, _are_ fantastic; but all are not so. Nearer are we to the world of spirits, in sleep; and, at times, angels come to us with lessons of wisdom, darkly veiled under similitude, or written in characters of light.

I pa.s.sed into dream-land; but my thoughts went on in the same current. "Tame, dull, and commonplace!" I felt the condemnation more strongly than before.

I was out in the open air, and around me were mountains, trees, green fields, and running waters; and above all bent the sky in its azure beauty. The sun was just unveiling his face in the east, and his rays were lighting up the dew-gems on a thousand blades of gra.s.s, and making the leaves glitter as if studded with diamonds.

"How calm and beautiful!" said a voice near me. I turned, and one whose days were in the "sear and yellow leaf," stood by my side.

"But all is tame and commonplace," I answered. "We have this over and over again, day after day, month after month, and year after year. Give me something brilliant and startling, if it be in the fiery comet or the rushing storm. I am sick of the commonplace!"

"And yet to the commonplace the world is indebted for every great work and great blessing. For everything good, and true, and beautiful!"

I looked earnestly into the face of the old man. He went on.

"The truly good and great is the useful; for in that is the Divine image. Softly and un.o.btrusively has the dew fallen, as it falls night after night. Silently it distilled, while the vagrant meteors threw their lines of dazzling light across the sky, and men looked up at them in wonder and admiration. And now the soft gra.s.s, the green leaves, and the sweet flowers, that drooped beneath the fervent heat of yesterday, are fresh again and full of beauty, ready to receive the light and warmth of the risen sun, and expand with, a new vigor. All this may be tame, and commonplace; but is it not a great and a good work that has been going on?

"The tiller of the soil is going forth again to his work. Do not turn your eyes from him, and let a feeling of impatience stir in your heart because he is not a soldier rushing to battle, or a brilliant orator holding thousands enchained by the power of a fervid eloquence that is born not so much of good desires for his fellow-men as from the heat of his own self-love. Day after day, as now, patient, and hopeful, the husbandman enters upon the work that lies before him, and, hand in hand with G.o.d's blessed sunshine, dews, and rain, a loving and earnest co-laborer, brings forth from earth's treasure-house of blessings good gifts for his fellow-men.

Is all this commonplace? How great and good is the commonplace!"

I turned to answer the old man, but he was gone. I was standing on a high mountain, and beneath me, as far as the eye could reach, were stretched broad and richly cultivated fields; and from a hundred farm-houses went up the curling smoke from the fires of industry.

Fields were waving with golden grain, and trees bending with their treasures of fruit. Suddenly, the bright sun was veiled in clouds, that came whirling up from the horizon in dark and broken ma.s.ses, and throwing a deep shadow over the landscape just before bathed in light. Calmly had I surveyed the peaceful scene spread out before me. I was charmed with its quiet beauty. But now, stronger emotions stirred within me.

"Oh, this is sublime!" I murmured, as I gazed upon the cloudy hosts moving across the heavens in battle array.

A gleam of lightning sprang forth from a dark cavern in the sky, and then, far off, rattled and jarred the echoing thunder. Next came the rushing and roaring wind, bending the giant-limbed oaks as if they were but wands of willow, and tearing up lesser trees as a child tears up from its roots a weed or flower.

In this war of elements I stood, with my head bared, and clinging to a rock, mad with a strange and wild delight.

"Brilliant! Sublime! Grand beyond the power of descriptions," I said, as the storm deepened in intensity.

"An hour like this is worth all the commonplace, dull events of a lifetime."

There came a stunning crash in the midst of a dazzling glare. For some moments I was blinded. When sight was restored, I saw, below me, the flames curling upward from a dwelling upon which the fierce lightning had fallen.

"What majesty! what awful sublimity!" said I, aloud. I thought not of the pain, and terror, and death that reigned in the human habitation upon which the bolt of destruction had fallen, but of the sublime power displayed in the strife of the elements.

There was another change. I no longer stood on the mountain, with the lightning and tempest around me; but was in the valley below, down upon which the storm had swept with devastating fury. Fields of grain were level with the earth; houses destroyed; and the trophies of industry marred in a hundred ways.

"How sublime are the works of the tempest!" said a voice near me. I turned, and the old man was again at my side.

But I did not respond to his words.

"What majesty! What awful sublimity and power!" continued the old man. "But," he added, in a changed voice, "there is a higher power in the gentle rain than lies in the rushing tempest. The power to destroy is an evil power, and has bounds beyond which it cannot go.

But the gentle rain that falls noiselessly to the earth, is the power of restoration and recreation. See!"

I looked, and a mall lay upon the ground apparently lifeless. He had been struck down by the lightning. His pale face was upturned to the sky, and the rain shaken free from the cloudy skirts of the retiring storm, was falling upon it. I continued to gaze upon the force of the prostrate man, until there came into it a flush of life. Then his limbs quivered; he threw his arms about. A groan issued from his constricted chest. In a little while, he arose.

"Which is best? Which is most to be loved and admired?" said the old Man. "The wild, fierce, brilliant tempest, or the quiet rain that restores the image of life and beauty which the tempest has destroyed? See! The gentle breezes are beginning to move over the fields, and, hand in hand with the uplifting sunlight, to raise the rain that has been trodden beneath the crushing heel of the tempest, whose false sublimity you so much admired. There is nothing startling and brilliant in this work; but it is a good and a great work, and it will go on silently and efficiently until not a trace of the desolating storm can be found. In the still atmosphere, unseen, but all-potent, lies a power ever busy in the work of creating and restoring; or, in other words, in the commonplace work of doing good. Which office would you like best to a.s.sume--which is the most n.o.ble--the office of the destroyer or the restorer?"

I lifted my eyes again, and saw men busily engaged in blotting out the traces of the storm, and in restoring all to its former use and beauty.

Builders were at work upon the house which had been struck by lightning, and men engaged in repairing fences, barns, and other objects upon which had been spent the fury of the excited elements.

Soon every vestige of the destroyer was gone.

"Commonplace work, that of nailing on boards and shingles," said the old man; "of repairing broken fences; of filling up the deep foot-prints of the pa.s.sing storm; but is it not a n.o.ble work? Yes; for it is enn.o.bled by its end. Far n.o.bler than the work of the brilliant tempest, which moved but to destroy."

The scene changed once more. I was back again from the land of dreams and similitudes. It was midnight, and the moon was shining in a cloudless sky. I arose, and going to the window, sat and looked forth, musing upon my dream. All was hushed as if I were out in the fields, instead of in the heart of a populous city. Soon came the sound of footsteps, heavy and measured, and the watchman pa.s.sed on his round of duty. An humble man was he, forced by necessity into his position, and rarely thought of and little regarded by the many.

There was nothing brilliant about him to attract the eye and extort admiration. The man and his calling were commonplace. He pa.s.sed on; and, as his form left my eye, the thought of him pa.s.sed from my mind. Not long after, unheralded by the sound of footsteps, came one with a stealthy, crouching air; pausing now, and listening; and now looking warily from side to side. It was plain that he was on no errand of good to his fellowmen. He, too, pa.s.sed on, and was lost to my vision.