more celestial sympathy, growing out of the earthly and lasting for aye? Nothing would make me doubt so much whether this friend were fitted to succeed him in her affections, as his appreciating no better the holiest and tenderest feelings of a woman's nature than to thrust himself thus early between them." 66 Zoë," continued Hilda," says she cannot bear to think of second marriages at all, especially for a woman. She seems to consider it an unpardonable sin in her to contract one. Now there may be cases when it would be very natural and proper in my opinion. For instance, Indiana, who married an old, disagreeable husband, not because she loved him, but because her parents made the marriage for her, I think if he had died, and she and her lover wished to marry very much, they might do so, rather than for her to remain a forlorn widow all her days. Or, I will say, even if her husband were kind and she had loved him ever so much, if he chose to leave her and go to heaven, where, as everybody says he would be a thousand times happier than she can be here, marry again or not, I don't think he would be so selfish as to wish her to remain weeping till old age over his grave, while he, perhaps, was careering through the universe, seeing all the beautiful sights and hearing the delightful music with, perhaps, some fair young lady-angel, who knows? Now confess the truth, Mrs. Liebenhoff, could you not possibly be induced to marry the dear friend, and give the excuse, if you chose, that you were so lonesome, as they all do? Say, please." "My dear," said Mrs. Liebenhoff, "we will drop the subject where it is. It is one upon which I am accustomed to shun all personal reference. I am satisfied with my present destiny, and I have no wish to make any future. reckoning upon this point." Hilda looked crest-fallen and Zoë disappointed, but after a pause the latter insisted with more confidence than was usual to her: "You said the other day, dear Mrs. Lieben hoff, that you were accustomed to live through many scenes to which we are liable in life, by imagination and sympathy, and that thus you had often prepared yourself for great emergencies. Why not this for our benefit?" "Well then," said she, with a rapid utterance, "who am I, to say that I would surely do or not do this or that in the future of a world in which God notes 'the sparrow's fall' and numbers the hairs of our heads? I have long since learned that such presumption is rebuked, by having done exactly contrary to what, in my impetuous youth, I avowed I would, and yet at the time, it seemed God's will. It might be the same in such a case. But of this, I may venture to be sure, that I never would link my life with another, divided as it would ever be to me, unless he had a nature broad enough, and a culture elevated enough to share with me each high and holy feeling, awakened by the changing experiences of life. Unless he would say in spirit, if not in words: 'I ask you to cover up for me no precious memory, or crush no natural wish to blend the name, and spirit, and deeds of him on high in meet and loving harmony with our own most consecrated acts. Together will we stand by his grave, and as I see your faithful remembrance of him, I gather fresh surety that you will be true to me, and as you have done your full duty to the deceased, so no shadow shall be cast from his tomb, and no lament come sighing from over it to darken our marriage-day, or blend its discord with the sweet music of our bridal fête.' For when nature, religion, and love combine to weave themselves into a flower-garland and crown the brow of the true woman, there need be no fear that the different spheres of her earthly life will jostle against each other in rude and painful collision, but her heart will be more than broad and generous enough, and her soul too full of melting tenderness for him to fail of finding in its smile the heaven he pines for." She looked up as she finished and saw Theresa Ingalls standing a few steps from her. She had heard her last remarks. "A fresh breeze from the west!" said she. “Welcome! and brush away some of the cobwebs which are sticking about these little girls' brains this afternoon. They really are too much for me with their astonishing surprises and unexpected questionings. I should think you had been dealing with them. At any rate, I will pass them over to the strong-minded young American, for they quite upset my equilibrium," and her face assumed an anxious expression unusual to it. "You don't pretend to say that you find any man, living or dead, worthy of all that sentiment, do you? I think less of the German and Danish gentlemen, if possible, than I do of ours. Indeed I think I shall be ready to fall quite in love with them in toto when I go back; they seem to me so much more chivalrous and truly wise and refined, and in advance of yours in their judgment of us. To decide by what I have seen of a woman's life in Europe, it seems to be considered that, in general, she fulfills her mission when she cooks, sews, keeps the house, and tends the children; or if there is especial magnanimity and great desire to award her her full rights, she is to have a privilege commensurate with the whole length and breadth of her capacity, viz.: to make herself as pretty and agreeable as possible for his supreme and selfish pleasure, or if he happens to get into trouble (of course she never does) he gives her full liberty to devote her life to his comfort and solace. What wonderful condescension!" "I know it is very much so among the majority; but the time will come when it will be seen that a woman's clear insight and quick moral sense are to serve as a barometer to warn society against corruption and sin; that her veneration and trust are to be the weather-vanes to keep the proud, speculative intellects of men in the direction of clear and starry skies; her charity and love are to enfold and keep warm the heart of the world, which otherwise would be forever imbittered, estranged, enraged, crusted over with selfishness, or blackened by tyranny and wrongthose dragon's teeth from which horrible seeds spring up the armed demons which ravage the earth-and her artistic genius is to be the element which is to beautify, enrich, and glorify life. This is to be done first through her own ascendency of soul, and then by its natural action within the sphere designed for it by its Maker. In accomplishing this, her legitimate work, she will indeed include in it. every proper and needful household duty, but above and beyond these, there will be spheres for her occupancy, which will save her from a weak and degrading dependence upon man, whose love, and protection, and sense of her value to him are not up to the requirements of her nature or the commandments of God. Thus she will become the queen of realms never dreamed of by poets or foretold by seers, where she will reign in the true spirit of all dominion; even in that which giveth glory to the Almighty through her every developed and purified faculty, that he may be all in all. But there is the auspicious queen of night, the evening star; the dew is falling, let us go in." 18 CHAPTER XVIII. "In climes beyond the solar road, Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, To cheer the shivering native's dull abode."-Gray. "Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep."-MILTON. THE island of Iceland, of which Mrs. Liebenhoff was a native, was discovered by Naddod, a famous Norwegian pirate, who was driven hither by a tempest about the year A. D. 860. Just before this period, Harold, the Fairhaired, had extended his dominion over all the petty kingdoms of Norway, and deprived the inhabitants of that líberty and independence which they had previously enjoyed. The consequence was that multitudes of their best and bravest emigrated to the various islands in the neighborhood, but to none so much as to the more distant and larger one of Iceland. Here they hoped to be in security from the rule of the oppressor; nor were their hopes disappointed.* In little more than half a century the Icelanders formed themselves into a regular republic on principles of the most perfect liberty, making a wise distribution of the different powers of government, enacting laws admirably adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the nation, and by their natural genius and love of liberty combined their interests * For these facts, see Henderson's Iceland. |