Beulah - Page 164/348

"But you have everything to interest you even here," returned

Beulah, glancing around at the numerous paintings and engravings

which were suspended on all sides, while ivory, marble, and bronze

statuettes were scattered in profusion about the room. Cornelia

followed her glance, and asked, with a joyless smile: "Do you suppose those bits of stone and canvas satisfy me?"

"Certainly. 'A thing of beauty should be a joy forever.' With all

these, and your library, surely you are never lonely."

"Pshaw! they tire me immensely. Sometimes the cramped positions and

unwinking eyes of that 'Holy Family' there over the chimneypiece

make me perfectly nervous."

"You must be morbidly sensitive at such times."

"Why? Do you never feel restless and dissatisfied without any

adequate reason?"

"No, never."

"And yet you have few sources of pleasure," said Cornelia, in a

musing tone, as her eyes wandered over her visitor's plain attire.

"No! my sources of enjoyment are as varied and extended as the

universe."

"I should like you to map them. Shut up all day with a parcel of

rude, stupid children, and released only to be caged again in a

small room in a second-rate boarding house. Really, I should fancy

they were limited indeed."

"No; I enjoy my brisk walk to school in the morning; the children

are neither so dull nor so bearish as you seem to imagine. I am

attached to many of them, and do not feel the day to be very long.

At three I hurry home, get my dinner, practice, and draw or sew till

the shadows begin to dim my eyes; then I walk until the lamps are

lighted, find numberless things to interest me, even in a winter's

walk, and go back to my room refreshed and eager to get to my books.

Once seated with them, what portion of the earth is there that I may

not visit, from the crystal Arctic temples of Odin and Thor to the

groves of Abyssinia? In this age of travel and cheap books I can sit

in my room in the third story, and, by my lamplight, see all, and

immeasurably more, than you, who have been traveling for eighteen

months. Wherever I go I find sources of enjoyment; even the pictures

in bookstores give me pleasure and contribute food for thought; and

when, as now, I am surrounded by all that wealth can collect, I

admire, and enjoy the beauty and elegance as much as if I owned it

all. So you see that my enjoyments are as varied as the universe

itself."