The Portland daily press., 1877-08-27
THE PRESS.
From Lippincott's for september.l
A Summer Evenings
Dream.
BY EDWARD BELLAMY.
(C0ncluded.)

(Concluded)
So he came in and sat in his special arm
chair, and they chatted about miscellaneous
village topics for an hour. The stan dpoint
from which they canvassed Plainfield
people and things was peculiarly outside
one. Their circle OF two was like a separate
planet from which they observed the world.
Their tone WIS like, and yet quite unlike,
that III which long married couple discuss
tnelr acqualntances; for, while their intel
ectuai intimacy was perfect, their air ex-
pressed constant mutual Difference and
solcltude OF appreciation not to be con-
founded with the terrible familiarity of
matrimony; and at tine same time they con-
stituted selfsufficient circle apart from the
society around them, as man and wife can
not. Man and wife are so far merged as to
feel themselves unit over against society,
They are too much identified to find in each
other that sense of support and countenance
which requires feeling of the exteriority of
our friends life to our own. If these two
should marry They would shortly find them
selves impelled to seek refuge in convent ional
relations with that society of which now
they were calmly independent.
At length Mr.. Morgan rose and threw
open the blinds. The radiance of the full
harvestmoon SO flooded the room that Miss
Isoou was lam 10 dow out Inc poor lamp Tor
compassion.
'sLet US take walk" he said.
The streets were empty and still, and thew
walked in silence, spelled by the perfect
beauty of the evening. The dense shadows
OF the elms lent peculiarly rich effect to the
occasional bars and patches of moonlight on
the street floor; the white house cleaned
among their orchards; and here and there,
between the dark tree-stems, there were
glimpses OF the shining surface of the broad
outlying meadows, which looked like a
surrounding sea.
Miss Rood was startled to see how the
witcnery OF the scene possessed her compan-
ION. His face took on set, halEsmiling ex-
preston, and he dropped her arm as if they
had arrived at the place of entertainment to
which he had been escorting her. He no
longer walked with measured pace, but glided
along with certain stealthiness, peering on
this side and that down moony vistas, and
into shadow.bowers, as if half expecting, if he
might step lightly enough to catch glimpse
OF some sort Of dream-people basking there.
Nor could Miss Rood herself resist the i'm
preston the moony landscape gave of teem-
ingi with subtle forms of life, escaping the
grosser senses of human beings, but percepti-
pie by their finer parts. Each cozy nook of
light and shadow was yet warm from some
presence that had just left it. The landscape
fairly stirred with ETHEREAL forms of being be-
meath the fertilizing moon-rays, as the earth
mold wakes into physical life under the SUMS
heat. The yellow moonlight looked warm as
spirits might count warmth. The air was
electrlc with the thrill of circumambient ex-
lstence. There was the sense of pressure, of
throng. 1t would have been impossible to
feel lonely. The pulsating sounds of the in
sect world seemed the rhythm to which the
voluptuous beauty of the night had sponta-
neously set itself. The common air of dav
had been transmitted into the atmosphere of
revery and dreamland. In that magic medium
the distinction between imagination and real
lty fast dissolved. Even Miss Rood was con.
sclous OF a delightful excitement, vague ex-
pectancy. Mr.. Morgan, she saw, was moved
quite beyond even his exaggerated habit of
Imaginative excitement. His wet, shining.
wide. opened eyes and ecstatic expression in.
dlcated complete abandonment to the Illusion
of the scene.
Ihey had seated themselves, as the concen-
tration OF the brain upon imaginative activity
maze the nerves or motion sluggish, upon a
rude bench formed by wedging plank be-
tween two elm trees. They were within the
shadow of the trees, but close up to their feet
rippled lake OF moonlight. The landscape
shimmerlng before them had been the theatre
OF their fifty years of life. Their history was
written In its trees and lawns and baths. The
very air OF the place had acquired for them
oense' warm, sentieDt feeling, to which that
OF all other places was thin and raw. 1t had
become tinctured bv their own spiritual ema-
Datlons by the thoughts, looks, words and
moods OF which it had long received the i'm
preston. 1t had become such vitalized air.
surcharged with sense and thought as might
be taken to make souls for men out of it,
Over yonder. upon the playground yet linered
the faint violet fragrance of their childhood.
Beneath that elm kiss had once touched the
air with fire that still warmed their cheeks
In passing. Yonder the look of face was
cut on the viewless air as on marble. Surely
death does but touch the living, for the dead
ever keep their power over us; it is only we
who lose ours over them. Each vista of leafy
arch and distant meadow framed in some
scene OF their youth-time, painted in the i'm
perishable hues of memory that borrowed
from time an ever richer and more glowing
Slnt. It was no wonder that to these two old
people sitting on the bench between the elms
the atmosphere before them saturated with
associatiods, dense with memories should
seem fairly quivering into material forms like
distant mist turning to rain.
At length Miss Rood heard her companion
say in whisper of tremulous exultation:
=, DO you know Mary, think shall see
them very soon"
See whom?" she asked, frightened at his
strange tone.
"Why, see us, of course as was telling
you," he whispered-Nyou and me as we were
young-see them as see you now. Don't
you remember it was just along here that we
used to walk on spring evenings? We walk
mere no more, but they do eVermore, beauti-
ful children. I come here often to lie in
wait for them. can feel them nov; can
almost, almost see them. I can feel them
now" His whisper became scarcely audible,
and the words dropped slowly. 81 know the
signt Is coming, TOR every day they grow more
vivid. 1t can't be very long before I quite
see them. 1t may come at any moment.''
Miss Rood was thoroughly frighte ned at
the intensity of his excitement, and terribly
perplexed as to what she should do.
ut may come at any time; can almost
see them now" he murmured. "A-h!
look?' With parted lips and unspeakably
intense eyes, as If his life were flowing out at
them, he was storing across the moonlit path
before them to the point where the path de-
bouched from the shadow.
Following his eyes. she saw what for a
moment made her head SWIM with the
thought that she too was going mad. Just
issuing from the shadows as if in answer to
his words, were young man and a girl, his
arm upon her waist, his eyes uponsher face.
~~s sAS Ahoo 6iohSO 4t4iS5 4sOUu WAS Impressed
with resemblance to her own features in
those OF the girl, which her excitement ex-
aggerated to perfect reproduction of them.
For an instant the conviction possessed her
that by some impossible, :ndescribable, in.
conceivable miracle she was looking upon the
resurrected figures of her girlish self and her
lover.
AT first Mr.. Morgan had half started from
bis seat, and was between rising and sitting.
Then he rose with slow, involuntary move
ment, while his face worked terribly between
bewilderment and abandonment to illusion,
He tottered forward few steps to the edge
OF the moonlight and stood peering at the
approaching couple with a hand raised to
shade his eyes and dazed, unearthly smile
on his face. The girl saw him first, for she
had been gazing demurely before her, while
her lover looked only at her. At sight of the
gray-haired man suddenly confronting them
with a look of bedlam, she shrieked and
started back in terror. Miss Rood, recalled
to her senses, sprang forward, and catching
Mr.. Morgan's arm endeavored with gentle
force to draw him away.
But it was too late for that. The young
man, at first as much startled as his compan-
ion at the uncanny apparition, naturally ex-
perlenced revulsion of indignation at such
an extraordinary infarrunfiop ~ b;c toto