That day, and the night which followed it, was a long period with
me. I had to see many acquaintances, and attend to a thousand small
matters. I was on my feet the whole day, and even when the night
came I had no rest. I was in the city till near eleven o'clock. When
I got home I found that my wife had done her share of the tasks.
She had completed her preparations. Our luggage was all ready for
removal. To her I had assigned the labor of packing up her pictures,
her materials for painting, her clothes, and such other matters as
she desired to carry with us, to our new place of abode. The rest
was to be sold by a friend after our departure, and the proceeds
remitted. I knew I should need them all. Most of our baggage
was to be sent by water. We travelled in a private carriage, and
consequently, could take little. Julia, unlike most women, was
willing to believe with me that impediments are the true name for
much luggage; and, with a most unfeminine habit, she could limit
herself without reluctance to the merest necessities. We had no
bandboxes, baskets, or extra bundles, to be stuffed here and there,
filling holes and corners, and crowding every space, which should
be yielded entirely to the limbs of the traveller. Though sensitive
and delicate in a great degree, she had yet that masculine sense
which teaches that, in the fewness of our wants lies our truest
source of independence; and she could make herself ready for taking
stage or steamboat in quite as short a time as myself.
Her day's work had exhausted her. She retired, and when I went up
to the chamber, she already seemed to sleep. I could not. Fatigue,
which had produced exhaustion, had baffled sleep. Extreme
weariness becomes too much like a pain to yield readily to repose.
The moment that exercise benumbs the frame, makes the limbs ache,
the difficulty increases of securing slumber. I felt weary, but
I was restless also. I felt that it would be vain for me to go to
bed. Accordingly, I placed myself beside the window, and looked
out meditatingly upon the broad lake which lay before our dwelling.
The night was very calm and beautiful. The waters from the lake were
falling. Tide was going out, and the murmuring clack of a distant
sawmill added a strange sweetness to the hour, and mingled
harmoniously with the mysterious goings on of midnight. The starlight,
not brilliant, was yet very soft and touching. Isolated and small
clouds, like dismembered ravens' wings, flitted lightly along
the edge of the western horizon, shooting out at intervals brief,
brilliant flashes of lightning. There was a flickering breeze that
played with the shrubbery beneath my window, making a slight stir
that did not break the quiet of the scene, and gave a graceful
movement to the slender stems as they waved to and fro beneath its
pressure. A noble pride of India [Footnote: China tree: the melia
azedaracha of botanists. A tree peculiar to the south, of singular
beauty, and held in high esteem as a shade-tree.] rose directly
before my eyes to the south--its branches stretching almost from
within touch of the dwelling, over the fence of a neighbor. The
whole scene was fairy-like. I should find it indescribable. It
soothed my feelings. I had been the victim of a long and painful
moral conflict. At length I had a glimmering of repose. Events,
in the last few days--small events which, in themselves denoted
nothing--had yet spoken peace to my feelings. My heart was in that
dreamy state of languor, such as the body enjoys under the gradually
growing power of the anodyne, in which the breath of the summer
wind brings a language of luxury, and the most emperiest sights
and sounds in nature minister to a capacity of enjoyment, which is
not the less intoxicating and sweet because it is subdued. I mused
upon my own heart, upon the heart which I so much loved and had so
much distrusted--upon life, its strange visions, delusive hopes,
and the sweet efficacy of mere shadows in promoting one's happiness
et last. Then came, by natural degrees, the thought of that strange
mysterious union of light and darkness--life and death--the shadows
that we are; the substances that we are yet to be. The future!--still
it rose before me--but the darkness upon it alone showed me it was
there. It did not offend me, however, for my heart was glowing in
a present starlight. It was the hour of hopes rather than of fears;
and in the mere prospect of transition to the new--such is the
elastic nature of youth--I had agreed to forget every pang whether
of idea or fact, which had vexed and tortured me in the perished
past. My musings were all tender yet joyful--they partook of that
"joy of grief" of which the bard of Fingal tells us. I felt a big
tear gathering in my eye, I knew not wherefore. I felt my heart
growing feeble, with the same delight which one would feel at
suddenly recovering a great treasure which had been supposed for
ever lost. I fancied that I had recovered my treasure, and I rose
quietly, went to the bed where Julia lay sleeping peacefully,
and kissed her pale but lovely cheeks. She started, but did not
waken--a gentle sigh escaped her lips, and they murmured with some
indistinct syllables which I failed to distinguish. At that moment
the notes of a flute rose softly from the grove without.