Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1847-07-29
CHATTER LII
CHAPTER II.
Z" Are we not formed, as notes Of music arc,
For one another, though dissimiar'
Such difference without discord as can make
Those sweetest sounds in which all spirits shak
As trembling lenyes in N continuous mir D--SHy

AS trembling leaves in u continuous air."-sHELLEr
From the time of her mothers death,
Stella dropped and pinned. The world had
grown all dark to the motherless child. Her
wild brother, and her cold, reserved father,
alike strove to soften their natures and show
tenderness to the helpless one but man is
so different to woman, and all their kind
ness atoned not for the love of her who was
gone. Edmund remembered we'll his moth
ers dying Injunction, and many a time he
left the field sports, Of which he was SO pas
sionately fond, to come and talk with his
sister, and lead her into the beautiful forest,
where she could hear the birds songs, and
be made glad with the gladness of nature.
But nothing could altogether remove the
perpetual sadness which now darkened the
face of the blind girl Excluded from the
pleasures of childhood, hers passed away
like sorrowful dream. She drew up, liv-
ing within herself, in a world of her own
imagining, over which death hung, like an
eternal shadow, a mysterious woe which she
could not fathom, and which yet haunted
her like a spectre. The remembered touch
of that icy hand made her shudder in her
dreams it was all she knew of the great
change Her mind, undiverted from the
past by any charms of the present, became
dead to all outward impressions, and alive
only to Imagination, and most of all to men,
DRY.
Thus, in this dreamy state of mind, the
blind girl insensibly passed from childhood
into girlhood. She had attained the age of
which poets write as sweetest of all, when
the bud is just opening into flower, and
life is in its hopeful spring. How little do
these said poets know that this is the saddest
age of all. What woman would ever wish
to be again sweet sixteen = Childhood's
life is never-ending present, contented
dwelling on what is best and pleasantest
nOw, without memory to sharpen the past,
or anxiety to darken the future. But with
youth, soon-ah, how soon comes the
thirst for something more-the bitter, I'M
satisfied yearning after vague happiness,
some glorious ideal of human felicity, the
same in all, yet varied in form, according to
the different minds in which it abides. One
dreams of wealth, another of gaicty, anoth-
er-alas for her of love and so the young
creatures go on restlessly seeking to fathom
their newly-awake thoughts and feelings /;
and, knowing not their own hearts, nor yet
life, they wander about, blindly dazzled or
CROPPING in darkness, until the waking comes
from that troubled dream, and they enter on
the reality, the true life of heart and soul,
for which woman was made.
Stella entered upon girlhood with few or
none of the buoyant hopes of most young
maidens. She saw not beauty, and love was
to her only a name that brought to her the
> memory of her mother-the sole love she
had ever known. Always thoughtful, she
lived more than ever within the dark cham
} beers of her own soul-her only world. But
that world now became peopled with deeper
and wilder fancies; every day new chords
f were touched in her heart the mysterious
harmones of which she could scarcely I'M
derstand. She loved to be alone in winter
|, she listened to the wind until she almost
} fancied it talked with her in summer, she
, sat for hours in the still, silent sunshine, and
, thought of heaven, of the time when she
+ should go thither, and see her mother, with
/ eyes no longer darkened. Then warble-
: perfume would bring back the dreamy CIR
to earth, and she would think how sweet the
t world must be to others, and drop her head
t and weep that she was blind.
l One gift atoned to Stella, in some meas
ure, for the loss of sight, and that was 4
, soul to which music was at its very breath
+ Her voice had those Deep low tones thai
: thrill from the heart to the heart not clear
musical, gladstone MARBLE, but voice that
spoke of mind, of feeling, of passion, such
r as came from no angels lips, but from a
woman's heart. We once heard, and from
r one, too, who spoke and thought well, the
saying" One must always love woman
, who sings sweetly;" and Stella's was voice
not to be admired, perhaps, but to be loved
; as coming from heart as pure and beauti'