The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1873-04-26

safe for all errors, and to admit him t.
prove after death (which, according to th,
Rabbs, redeems from all evil, that to hav,
once loved something for its own sake
though it be but a piece of green glass, anc
to have sacrificed what he loved, was not
after all, to have lived altogether IN vain
! | wish, for my part, to think that this mis-
cradle piece of man-who had somehow
to crawl or struggle even SO far upwards
as, though through no merit of his OWE
and though but in fancy, just to touch the
outer hem of the garment of beauty, and
| to achieve, though but in intention, hard
er piece of self-sacriiice than even so many
as few are capable of achieving; who,
though from mixed motives enough, had
brought himself to give up what, to him,
was more than life for the sake of one who
could never be anything to him but pass
ing smile-was somehow, after all, gain
er, although in fact his dreams were but
Illusions and his sacrifice barren of result
But, as | have said, all this is beyond my
province; and on this matter, therefore,
every one must think as he will Or can
Certainly, the Transformation that should
develop winged soul out of such a chrys-
ais as the body of Nathan Levi must be
great indeed but then, on the other hand,
what is impossible?
But it is not beyond my province to deal
with those who were still living. wish it
were. 1t is, unfortunately, anything but
difficult to speculate as to what will hap
pen when tive impractical people marry for
love, live extravagantly and then take to
indulging in expensive illnesses. The
morning after her midnight visitation,
Felicia awoke-no, not awoke, for to awake
one must have slept, and she had not slept
but emerged apprshensively from her
fortress to find that the ghosts had depart
ed, only TO leave behind them the presence
of what, under the circumstances, was
worse than legion Of ghosts-that is to
say, nothing. The day had come at last
when the cupboard was left so bare that
even Poverty herself had to make way for
the shadow of a more terrible tenant still.
1t makes one angry to have to speak SO
often of bodily starvation as if it were the
greatest of all human ills; but so long as
men and women have bodies more conspic-
uously and more imperatively than souls,
so it must be; and perhaps it had been this
hideous demon who had entered under the
appropriate guise of Nathan Levi.
Arthur was sound asleep when she pull
ed away her barricade, and not knowing
what would be revealed to her eyes, gath
cred her unfinished work together, and crept
on tiptoe into the naked sitting room,
through whose uncurtained and blankly
staring window the dull light of a cold and
rainy morning was finding its way. 1t was
indeed fortunate, she felt, that he was
sleeping and unconscious; it would be well
if he could remain SO during, at least, the
first of their foodless days. 1t is almost
strange that she did not feel that it would
be better still if he, or she, or both, could
remain sleeping and unconscious for ever.
But even now, though according to all
right, she ought to have despaired, she did
not sit down in despair. Not dun spero,
but dam amo, rico-Love will cling to bare
life, even when hope is gone. She finished
and throbbed and her head felt as though
it were on the point of bursting in pieces;
and then, when it was finished, set out to
carry it the Madame Cornet, who gave her,
not money-for, indeed, the debt, by reason
of advances, lay the other way-but cup
Of coffee and slice of bread as her share
of the household breakfast. The former
she took, simply because, from its nature,
she could not carry it away; the latter she
secretly slipped into her pocket. Then she
returned, and found Arthur awake. He
had passed through the crisis of the fever,
and was calm and conscious, though weak
as child.
Then, for the first time during many
months, she burst into tears-yes, into
tears of joy! She welcomed him back to
starvation as though to a kingdom.
He was too weak to talk much himself,
but not too weak to listen: indeed for
that matter, he insisted ON hearing from
her lips on the spot the whole endless story
of how he had been ill., and he refused to
let himself rest until she had pacitied him
by letting him hear it all. OF the part
that she had played, of her own toll and
of her own privations he was left to
great extent uniformed: not so much
because she consciously tried to conceal
from him what she had borne for him as
because, in her absurd joy and relief,
she had honestly forgotten all her own
sufferings. But he could not help seeing
how changed she was, and ascribed the
change to its true cause, which, in his eyes,
rendered her only a thousand times more
beautiful than she had been before. And
so, in truth, she was, though not to COM
mon or unsympathetic eyes. In spite of
romance, no woman, not even a heroine,
can pass through many weeks of extreme
and wearing toll, fearful anxiety, want of
hdIulai lCSt3 SlSSpiCoS, "dlSHIilS
and fearless grief, and yet retain the beau
ty that belongs to health and youth and
happiness. But Felicia's beauty, never SO
very wonderful even at the best of times,
had always been of the spiritual sort rather
than of the material: and it is notorious
that the spiritual sort of beauty not seldom
finds food in that wherein material beauty
finds poison. To eyes like those of her
father she would seem to have grown old
and plain, her eyes to have lost their bright
ness, her tints their purity, and her out
lines their grace: but to those of Arthur
her beauty had become transformed from
that of a girl into that of an angel of help
ing and suffering. 1t may be remembered
that he had always been a cultivator of
the ideals of those early Christian painters
who seemed to regard the attributes of
earthly beauty as sullying their conceptions
of saints and angels. And now the Pearl
of pearls, which he, through love, had al
ways known to be lying in the deep sea of
her heart, had by unseen hands, been
broupbt nm from, itS dentbs and SiSnl,yad