Lovers and Husbands CHAPTER 2.
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Flora Elton and her friend sat at the same window, and looked out upon the same grassy lawn and deep-bosomed forest on the next morning, engaged, as when first introduced, in close conversation. The air, which had been chilled for a week by an early frost, was again as congenial as spring. A few lingering birds were fluttering about, sending up an occasional song or brief chirp, while the mild south wind gently stirred the branches and colored foliage of the trees.
"Our little world within — our sunny world, so bright with promise, has closed our eyes and ears to the beauty of a delicious autumn day," remarked Flora, looking out upon the pleasant scene. "It is not good to be so much absorbed in either the past or the future, as to lose what the present has to offer. Come, let us go out upon the lawn, and down through that pleasant little grove, to the fields beyond. There is much that we ought to feel on a day like this. Nature has no appearances which does not reflect itself upon the heart, if the heart only turn towards it an undimmed surface. Spring, summer, autumn, winter, are full of instruction, not given didactically — but in pictures, which the eye of all who can look upon and love nature may perceive and enjoy, at the same time that their deeper meanings are whispered in the heart's ear."
Flora arose as she spoke, and drawing her arm within that of Emily, the two maidens passed out into the open air. A slight crackle reached the ear of the former as she stepped from the porch upon the grass, causing her to look down upon a withered leaf that her foot had crushed.
"Poor leaf! fallen to rise no more," she said, half sadly. "And yet," she added, in a more cheerful voice, "When the winter is past the leaf will take to itself new clothing, visible to our natural eyes; the grass will spring up, and the flowers will again gladden us with their presence. Will not the rose be the same, and the leaf the same? Here is a bush that every spring gives us its wealth of buds and blossoms. Its flowers are more fragrant than any in the garden. As the sultry heats of summer begin to burn around, the leaves of these blossoms lose their freshness, their color grows dim, and at last they fall to the ground; but when spring returns, the same sweet flowers come again, and their colors and fragrance are as lovely and delightful as before. They are, in fact, the same flowers; I know them and love them as such."
"A sweet imagination, Flora. How full you always are of such pleasant dreams. You look upon nature with the poet's eye, not with the eye of reason."
"The eye of the true poet sees nothing in nature that the eye of reason may not also perceive. It cannot, I think, require a dreamer of vague dreams to see in a dead leaf merely the form of a leaf, or in the new developments in the spring the same leaves or the same flowers that before clothed the branches or hung upon the stems."
"I cannot look so deep as that, Flora. To me a dead flower that I have loved is dead indeed, and I mourn for it as a friend lost to me forever."
"Autumn is the seasons' rest after the mission of spring and summer is accomplished; the time when, having finished her labor of love in giving bountifully of her fruits to man and those below him in the scale of animate creation, the earth rests peacefully from her toil. The leaves and flowers have not perished; they live still in her bosom, as green, as beautiful, as fragrant as ever, and after her Sabbath of rest has passed — she will give them to us again. Is not there in all this, Emily, a moral of sweet import? Our days will pass on, and we shall arrive at the autumn of life, the season of rest, the Sabbath of our year. Shall it be a cheerful or a mournful rest? When our leaves begin to fade and drop away, one by one, and our branches, stripped of their beautiful foliage, cut sharply the cold, clear sky — shall we feel that the leaves and blossoms are still fresh and green in our bosoms? We may, Emily! We shall live in vain if such be not our experience — if such an autumn rest does not await us — if, in the renewed life we live beyond this region, our leaves do not again put forth with a fresher greenness."
By this time the young friends had passed the grove of tall trees to which Flora had alluded at first, and were in a little island of green, through which went rippling over white pebbles a narrow brook, that farther on widened into a lake, around which, in the summer days, the wild flowers and tall grass had gathered. Now the former had all departed, and the latter bent down until it lay drooping upon the bosom of the water, over which floated many faded leaves. Near this lake was a rustic arbor, and here the maidens rested themselves, hand clasped in hand, and hearts impressed with the scene around them. Nature was mirroring herself in their bosoms; but to each the spectrum was different. To one it was a well-defined image, to the other dim and distorted; to one it was cheerful — to the other sad. One could look at nature with the eye of poetic reason, to the other, its hidden meanings were not revealed.
"See, Flora," said Emily, pointing to the little lake, and speaking in a subdued and saddened voice," how many leaves are floating there! Ah! how many hopes will thus be stripped from us, and fall as those withered leaves have fallen, forever lifeless!"
"Yes, Emily, if our hopes regard nothing more intrinsic than leaves — the graceful, the beautiful, the excellent, the useful in exterior — they will fade and fall when the autumn-time comes, and then shall we be sad indeed; but if, like the tree, our leaves do not exist for themselves alone — but to aid the interior life of our souls, to assist the work of fruit-bearing, we shall not mourn when they are stricken from our branches. Their work will be all done. The fruit will have been gathered, and garnered, and then a sweet Sabbath of rest will be our portion. The tree has produced its fruit, and now is about to rest from its labors. It needs no longer the leaves that before reacted in externals upon the active life within, and assisted in the development, growth, and maturity of fruit. It therefore casts them aside. Let us be glad that it has performed its true use. Let us think of the fruit, and not of the leaves; and, still farther, let us see in this rest, the regathering of its productive energies, that shall again clothe its branches with foliage, and load them with generous fruit."
"Ah, Flora, I wish I could think and feel as you do. I wish I could see a truth concealed, as you do, beneath every object in nature — beneath every change of her varying countenance. To me, the cloud that veils the sky shuts out the thought that far above, the sun still shines in peerless splendor. I live too fully in the present, and feel too absorbingly the influence of the present. In the springtime my heart beats lightly — when autumn comes I am sad. I cannot bid adieu to the summer flowers and summer foliage without a sigh of regret. The seasons' Sabbath rest, to which you have so beautifully alluded, I can think about. I perceive that all you say is true; but my heart is too sad at losing the glories of summer — in missing the birds and blossoms — to feel the sweet confidence in the leaf and flowers' return that you do, and to be content to await their coming after the dreary sleep of winter has passed. But look!" and the whole expression of the maiden's face changed — a light passed over it — "there is Charles Whitney. How kind in him to come all the way from the city to cheer the loneliness of pleasant Rose Hill!"
Flora did not seem so much delighted as her companion; but she welcomed the young man, who soon joined them, with cordiality.
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