The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1853-02-23
From Dickens Household Words.
My Fortune.

A great many years ago-two and
twenty years tonight well remem
Der what a cold, wet night it was, with
thick sleet driving against the windows
and melancholy. moaning wind creep
ing through the leafless branches. 1t
had been quite sad winter.time to us
at home-the only sad one | had ever
known, for it was just two or three weeks
after the accident had happened that
first laid me on my couch, and only a
few days before my father had told me
that should never be able to rise from
it any more 1t had been heavy blow
to us all
We sat together in the drawing room
all the long evening my father. and my
mother, ahd | my sister Kate had
gone the day before to some friends of
ours in the country One gets so soon
used to msfortunes and disappointments
when just little time has passed but
at the first, they are often so hard to
bear, and | think that never, at any
time, did | feel such sorrow at the
thought that | must be an invalid my
whole life. as l did that night
was only a girl-not fifteen yet
and, at that aye. we are 81 full of bright
dreams about the future, looking for
ward with such clear joyous hopefulness
to the world that is just beginning t.
open before us stretchl g out our hands
50 eagerly to the golden light that We
think we see in the far distance 1t
was 50 hard to have the bright view shut
ont forever, to have the bright dreams
fade away. to have all the hopes that to
me had made the thought Of life
beautiful torn from me forever ia on,
moment
had borne the knowledge of it all
quite calmly at first it was only t.
know that thought | really felt and
knew all that | was losing But thank
God my life has not been what in my
taithlessness thought, that night, il
would be thank God that the whole
bitterness Of those few hours, thought
has never come to me. as it did then
again.
Early in the evening my father had
been reading to us aloud but since he
ceased, no word had been spoken in III,
room. He had been writing for tn,
last two hours my mother, sitting by
the fire was reading The whole hous,
was silent and. from without, the only
sounds that came to us were the wine
bowling through the trees, and the cole
rain dashing on the windows - boil
cheerless and dismal sounds enough t,
hear 1t was, indeed. . night for mel
ancholy thoughts and to one ill anC
weak as was then, perhaps it was t.
be forgiven that, thinking of the futur
and the past, looking back upon the hap
py days that were gone, and forward t
where the sunless clouds hung so heavi
ly, should scarcely be able to pres
back the tears that tried to blind me.
For when we are very young, W
shrink SO from feeling prison bound
we pray so earnestly that, if sorro
must come to us, it may rather burst i
sudden storm upon us, and, passing
way, leave the blue sky clear again, tha
our whole life should be wrapped up
a cold, gray shroud, through which \
deep sorrow can ever pierce into OF
hearts-no deep joy ever come TO gla'
den us
And in that gray shroud I thougl
T that my life was to lie hidden and wit
cred and now, while as yet il was on
closing over melville with passiona
resistance | would still have struggle
/ to tear it back, | felt that my ban,
, ware bound