The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-10-28
For the National Fra.
JASP ER: A ROM nee.
BY EDWARD SPENCER.
Hoio Jasper told his Mother.

SECOND CHAPTER CONCLUDED .t-s
And yet, one did not perceive the intensit,
OF this passion for her son making itself mani
fest in any positive or demonstrative way. Il
was in her life, not in her manner. One fell
it by intuition, could not arrive at it's measure
by any process of experiment or observation
She did not watch over him, follow his foot
steps, irquire into his out goings and his in
comings, ncr seem to concern herself "a n
where he was, or what be was doing. now
doubtless he was ever in her thoughts doubt
less she built innumerable castles for him. AZ
all mothers do, the wisest equally with the mos,
foolish, but she did not intrude these structures
upon his notice, nor did she evince any ANXIETY
taknqEMs AZ, Of bis own dreams, his own ways, his
prominent maniestauBffor "Ret TpBsscuuiRhs ssnn
for him was an unlimited, nquestioning conf.
dence in him. He was Jasper, and therefore
right. She knew less about him and his ways
than did any other of those who we're ACC uaint.
ed with him. She knew him not at ALTO
employ slight hyperbole-but only an ideal
Jasper, her son, about whom she had flung the
garment of her stately pride, and whose brow
she had invested with the halo of lofty CON.
ception. Yet one. seeing, occasionally, that
large eye beam out upon him when he did not
suspect it, speaking SO terribly intelligent of her
pride, her faith, her high pitched requirements
for him, could not have RETAINED from shud.
deriDg to think Of the frightful revulsiop, we're
she to find the house of her hopes builded only
upon the unstable sand. And in good truth,
such feeling were not unreasonable in one
who knows how woman, when she finds the
idol upon whom she has lavished the whole
wealth of being of love, thinking it pure gold,
craven, and regsl-crowned, to be the mersst
base, perishable mud, filthy and VILE let's the
wild riot of passion turn in upon herself. scar
her brain, and dry her heart into dust she has
staked her all on the throw, and, having lost,
perishes.
This very intensity of Mrs. Fieming's char.
acter constituted the difference between herself
and Jasper. For, while she was intense, he was
genial; and, take it, the two things are in
measure antagonistic, although not irreconci-
liable. Because, while charity, or, more genera,
ly, consideration and lenienc wards everything
not absolutely vle is the distin point
genial character, the merely intense have no
charity. They hurl themselves forward in right
lines and cry: He that is not With me, 10 against
me- In everything else, Jasper was like his
mother. He had her exalted pride, tempered
and made less obtrusive by his geniality he
had her fondness for the proper, the elegant,
the en- regte, 80 to speak, without making pas.
SION OF 1t; his aesthetic faculties were equally
rehned with hers; and his sensuous enjoyment
OF the agreeable, the pleasing, the suave, wheth.
er OF thought, manner, or object, was fully Is
fresh and we'll cultivated as her own. This
intensity of her character, then--an intensity
partly natural, partly acquired, or rather forced
upon her as an aftergrowth, or circumstsntial
amplihcation of that which was inherent-con.
trasting with the geniality of her sons charac
ter, was the only material point of difference
between the two. But it aoas material point
OF difference, and, as such, something to be
dreaded. BY reason of it, neither fully com
pretended the other Mrs Fleming pictured
Jasper as possessed of that same earnestness
which was her own attribute. Jasper, without
more than half suspecting the intensity of his
mothers passion for him, knew her high re-
quirements of him, and the exalted attributes
with which she invested him, and, not under.
standing the feeling, was perhaps little tiu,id of
1t. de was deterrent to her, loved her, but il was
not the love of the infant prattling upon the knee
that handled it; It was the prideful reverence
AW ny u'os1oas tnc xueou. d0uco, the Two
had no condolences. Her own affairs she man.
aged 70 herself and, as she locked her dssk-id
over the deeds and papers of her estate, 20 she
locked her heart over those interpretations of
herself, written out in the History of the Past,
which it is good every child should know-if
there be nothing in them subversive Of respect
in order that he mayknow his parent, and be able
to appreciate and love her. / take Il, madam,
did your son know the story of that first and
blighted love Of yours, which, spite of thirty
years, comes up every now and then thrillingly
cad TO your widowed soul, he would be able to
explain and tenderly respect many word of
peevishness, many an abstracted mood, which
now only fret him, and make him think you nm.
reasonable.
OH mothers, mothers, if you would have
your grown sons come TO your knees with their
visions, their joys, their loves, their woes, in
loving confidence, as in lisping prastls they erst
told you of little Annie" or in walls and tears
brought you their cut fngers to mend, their
bruises to heal, give them also of your inner
most heart, and open to them the sacred, jealous
stores of your memories. Only let them fee,
that you have suffered from walking over tbs