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Page 37
The professor passed his hand, which trembled a little, over her shining
hair, saying, with a paternal smile, "I shall kiss my daughter in the
way that best pleases me. I am going to be a very strict and exacting
father."
She laughed gleefully, as if it were the best joke in the world, and her
merry "Good-night, dear father," followed him as he went out into the
darkness.
He held Mr. Symington to his engagement to row Rosamond and himself to
the island, but he took with him a large canvas bag and a geological
hammer. And how, pray, could any one talk to, or even stand very near,
him, when he was pounding off bits of rock for specimens with such
energy that fragments flew in all directions? The sound of the hammer
ceased as soon as his companions had disappeared among the trees; they
were going to look for a spring, but, strangely enough, they did not
notice this. No need now for him to school his face, his voice, his
trembling hands. They found the spring.
And did my professor die of a broken heart, and leave a lock of
Rosamond's hair and a thrilling heart-history, in the shape of a
neatly-written journal, to proclaim to the world his sacrifice? No; that
was not his idea of a sacrifice. He burnt that very night each
token--and there were many--which he had so jealously cherished,--each
little, crookedly-written, careless note, and, last, the long bright
curl which, before her heart awoke, she had so freely given him.
It is true that there was a gradual but very perceptible change in him.
He had been indifferent formerly to the members of his class, excepting
from an intellectual stand point. Now he began to take an interest in
that part of their lives which lay outside his jurisdiction, to ask them
to his rooms of an evening, to walk with them and win their confidence.
Not one of them ever regretted that it had been bestowed.
MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.
"WHAT DO I WISH FOR YOU?"
What do I wish for you? Such swift, keen pain
As though all griefs that human hearts have known
Were joined in one to wound and tear your own.
Such joy as though all heaven had come again
Into your earth, and tears that fall like rain,
And all the roses that have ever blown,
The sharpest thorn, the sceptre and the throne,
The truest liberty, the captive's chain.
Cruel, you say? Alas! I've only prayed
Such fate for you as everywhere, above
All others, women wish,--that unafraid
They clasp in eager arms. So, little dove,
I give you to the hawk. Nay, nay, upbraid
Me not. Have you not longed for love?
CARLOTTA PERRY.
LETTERS AND REMINISCENCES OF CHARLES READE.
I knew Charles Reade in England far back in "the days that are no more,"
and dined with him at the Garrick Club on the evening before I left
London for New York in 1860, when he gave me parting words of good
advice and asked me to write to him often. Then he added, "I am very
sorry you are going away, my dear boy; but perhaps you are doing a good
thing for yourself in getting out of this God-forsaken country. If I
were twenty years younger, and enjoyed the sea as you do, I might go
with you; but, if travel puts vitality into some men and kills others, I
should be one of the killed. What is one man's food is another's
poison."
He was my senior by more than twenty years, and no man that I have known
well was more calculated to inspire love and respect among his friends.
To know him personally, after only knowing him through his writings and
his tilts with those with whom he had "a crow to pick," was a
revelation. He had the reputation of being always "spoiling for a
fight," and the most touchy, crusty, and aggressive author of his time,
surpassing in this respect even Walter Savage Landor. But, though his
trenchant pen was sometimes made to do almost savage work, it was
generally in the chivalric exposure of some abuse or in the effort to
redress some grievous wrong. Then indeed he was fired with righteous
indignation. The cause had to be a just one, however, before he did
battle in its behalf, for no bold champion of the right ever had more
sterling honesty and sincerity in his character, or more common sense
and less quixotism.
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