Nobody

Автор

Susan Warner

Жанр

Зарубежная классика

Год написания книги

2017

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"O, you are getting very gloomy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lenox.

"Not we," said Lois merrily laughing, "but your poets."

"Mend your cause, Julia," said her husband.

"I haven't got the poets in my head," said the lady. "They are not alllike that. I am very fond of Elizabeth Barrett Browning."

"The 'Cry of the Children'?" said Mrs. Barclay.

"O no, indeed! She's not all like that."

"She is not all like that. There is 'Hector in the Garden.'"

"O, that is pretty!" said Lois. "But do you remember how it runs? —

'Nine years old! The first of any
Seem the happiest years that come – '"

"Go on, Lois," said her friend. And the request being seconded, Loisgave the whole, ending with —

'Oh the birds, the tree, the ruddy
And white blossoms, sleek with rain!
Oh my garden, rich with pansies!
Oh my childhood's bright romances!
All revive, like Hector's body,
And I see them stir again!

'And despite life's changes – chances,
And despite the deathbell's toll,
They press on me in full seeming!
Help, some angel! stay this dreaming!
As the birds sang in the branches,
Sing God's patience through my soul!

'That no dreamer, no neglecter
Of the present work unsped,
I may wake up and be doing,
Life's heroic ends pursuing,
Though my past is dead as Hector,
And though Hector is twice dead.'"

"Well," said Mrs. Lenox slowly, "of course that is all true."

"From her standpoint," said Lois. "That is according to my charge, which you disallowed."

"From her standpoint?" repeated Mr. Lenox. "May I ask for anexplanation?"

"I mean, that as she saw things, —

'The first of any

Seem the happiest years that come.'"

"Well, of course!" said Mrs. Lenox. "Does not everybody say so?"

Nobody answered.

"Does not everybody agree in that judgment, Miss Lothrop?" urged thegentleman.

"I dare say – everybody looking from that standpoint," said Lois. "Andthe poets write accordingly. They are all of them seeing shadows."

"How can they help seeing shadows?" returned Mrs. Lenox impatiently.

"The shadows are there!"

"Yes," said Lois, "the shadows are there." But there was a reservationin her voice.

"Do not you, then, reckon the years of childhood the happiest?" Mr.

Lenox inquired.

"No."

"But you cannot have had much experience of life," said Mrs. Lenox, "tosay so. I don't see how they can help being the happiest, to any one."

"I believe," Lois answered, lowering her voice a little, "that if wecould see all, we should see that the oldest person in our company isthe happiest here."

The eyes of the strangers glanced towards the old lady in her low chairat the front of the ox cart. In her wrinkled face there was not a lineof beauty, perhaps never had been; in spite of its sense and characterunmistakeable; it was grave, she was thinking her own thoughts; it wasweather-beaten, so to say, with the storms of life; and yet there wasan expression of unruffled repose upon it, as calm as the glint ofstars in a still lake. Mrs. Lenox's look was curiously incredulous, scornful, and wistful, together; it touched Lois.

"One's young years ought not to be one's best," she said.

"How are you going to help it?" came almost querulously. Lois thought,if she were Mr. Lenox, she would not feel flattered.

"When one is young, one does not know disappointment," the other wenton.

"And when one is old, one may get the better of disappointment."

"When one is young, everything is fresh."

"I think things grow fresher to me with every year," said Lois, laughing. "Mrs. Lenox, it is possible to keep one's youth."

"Then you have found the philosopher's stone?" said Mr. Lenox.

Lois's smile was brilliant, but she said nothing to that. She wasbeginning to feel that she had talked more than her share, and wasinclined to draw back. Then there came a voice from the arm-chair, itcame upon a pause of stillness, with its quiet, firm tones:

'He satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewedlike the eagle's.'"

The voice came like an oracle, and was listened to with somewhat of thesame silent reverence. But after that pause Mr. Lenox remarked that henever understood that comparison. What was it about an eagle's youth?