"
He sank back exhausted by the violence of his emotions, and silence
reigned through the apartment for a few moments, its two occupants
seemingly absorbed in painful thought.
To Arthur the reflection of the almost certain destiny that had befallen
her who had, unconsciously to himself, shared so large a portion of his
affections, was indeed fraught with anguish; the void she had left he
felt, day by day, could never be replaced, and in reference to a passion
at once so absorbing and constant, he might well have adopted, as
embodying his own experience, the language of the poet:--
"It was life's whole emotion, a storm in its might,
'Twas deep as the ocean, and silent as night;
It swept down life's flowers, the fragile and fair,
The heart had no powers from passion to spare."
It is time, from her loss, he had learned lessons of purest wisdom; he
had sought and found the grace which he so truly exemplified in life and
conduct; nor had the oil and joy of heavenly consolation been denied
him, in the period of his sorest need; and though he could not, he dared
not, dwell on the billows that swept above that once beautiful form, yet
he delighted, in fancy, to visit those regions of bliss, now, as he
deemed, her habitation, and to conjecture what the occupation, and what
the enjoyment of its thrice-blessed inhabitants:--
But, "Earth's children cling to earth; the frail companion, the body,
weighs down the soul, and draws it back from the contemplation of high
and holy realities;" and thus there were seasons in Arthur Bernard's
experience, when his very heart seemed to die within him, exhausted by
its vain yearnings for her who, like an angel of light, had shone upon
his path, and then suddenly disappeared; and as he looked forward into
the probable future, and beheld life stretching out before him,
monotonous and solitary, what wonder that Courage sometimes faltered,
and Faith drooped, and Hope almost ceased to cheer the stricken
pilgrim.
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