Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-08-11
IN THE NIGHT SEASON.
Written expressly for the Gazette.


of pleasure-seeking and heard in the
quietude of your room the distant music
to which merry dancers kept time?
Heard the softer monotone of the waves
as they came and went upon the beach?
Seen the glimmering lights of earth and
the bright gemmIng of the heayensf,
scarce knowing sight or sound inahe
dreamy visions that haunted brain and
bewildered sense?
Then you have been in sympathy with
me, but lest you be beguiled into pictur-
ing an ideal wholly unlike the original,
let me introduce my unromantic self.
To begin. 1 am thirty three; yes, 1
suppose l must say blase, and yet that
night, when embarrassing breezes
kissed me, when the gentle
over me, there was boyish
tenderness, I had almost said innocence,
nesting in my heart that brought to mind
other days, sweet memories, dreams that
had had no fulfillment, but dreams that
never made manhood worse.
Not long before had been one of the
merry dancers, 1 had mingled in that
throng: the voluptuous music, fair
women, odors of flowers and Araby s
perfumes, cleaning lights, rich viands
and seductive wines, had ali mingled rs
a Lethean cup that not only drowns&
memory of sorrow, but caught the senses
in q delicious whirl of rare intoXicatlon.
Blase I said l was, but in this hour
forgot the role and flung myself in happy
abandon into the mad round.
Laugh, reader, if you can, when L tell
you that when l was in the very
art of folly, when as the divine
strains of Strauss waltz ravished my
ear, when only knew that a fair cheek
was close to mine, that in my arms l
held as much of female loneliness as
could be clothed in radiant human form,
then softer than music strain, sweeter
than whispered love note, pure as
angels call from o er the battlements of
heaven heard voice, nay, twas so.
"Papa.
My partner in the dance saw the
chagrined expression.
''What is it Roy? Are you i'll? Come
into the conservatory and we will rest. -
"Papa u saw the little boy, saw
his out-stretched arms, l saw the tangled
curls, and the little white robe in which
he knelt to say his evening prayer. (For
his mother had ideas of devotion. )
AS l stared into that which to my
companion was vacancy, she grew
alarmed.
Troy, let me call some one; surely
you are i'll.
Her agitation, for I felt her trembling :,
recalled me. brushed my hand across
my forehead, and spoke as firmly as 1
could.
ono, no, will take you
to your party and ask
then that you excuse me.
Indeed believe had a passing faint
ness; l viii go to my room, and in the
morning wen have our ride. -
And now in quietude 1 had been
thinking strange thoughts. The moon
just rising through the clouds cast wierd
shadows on sea and shore, the music of
the waters was lullaby, and the luxury
of good cigar all acted as calmeuts to
a distracted mind.
l had spent many years in Germany
and there had grown metaphysical: oTdi-
narily ] would have dissected the brain
action in my case with the GOODNESS of a
practiced surgeon who removes the quiv-
ering limb; but tonight this was impOs-
sible; memory held me in iron clasp, the
call was retrospective and look over the
past l must, whether l would or not.
Twelve months ago l with my own
hands had lain little curly head upon
its last bed, and in bitterness of spirit
had placed in the keeping of her who
called herself my wife, and was my
boy s mother, the key that closed
the door of the house that shut him. III I.
Then I turned from her and became a
wanderer, seeking forgetfulness in pleas
ure S maddest form, lightly jesting at
hisfOrioC
uring no love save for fond mother who
would still lay her hand upon my head
and say Poor Rov;'' that was the one
tender memory.
It was during the last years of my stay
IN Germany that l met a fair young
countrywoman She had spent nine
years in conventual school, and was
now having holiday on the continent
before entering social life IN America.
Satiated with the coQuetries ofsthe fair
enslavers that haunted drawing rooms
and bathrooms, tired of the glare and the
tinsel, her purity and freshness won my
admiration, and l gained consent to wed
her before the bloom had been touched,
or the dew brushed from the petals.
Yes, like some unlearned gardener, I
transported the delicate plant toSa worn
soil, and dared to dream that its fresh
ness would be perennial-doting idiot
that I wasl
A short time sufTiced to dispel all
illusions, to her simple nature my ways
were ways of wickedness, my thoughts
were abhorrent, my Opinions heterodox,
and I soon found though her touch was
velvety and her tone soft there was be-
meath ali q spirit as ,uncompromising as
death.
We had no vulgar q1Grrels, and now
looking at Ii as a dead past I make no
charges; she was my wife and the mother
of my boy, what she endured for me 1
can never know, she never complained;
she was of that stuff which makes
martyrs, but l thank God l had enough
of manliness to spare her further
sacrifice.
The boy in his helplessness bound us
for two years and then he went home,
spirit too pure for such parental
guardianship. The last link broken, by
common consent we fell apart, and thus
closed the history.
Tonight, the voice had called;
"papa'' came clear TO my ear Was 1t
true our angles do always behold His
face, and these little ones come to earth
stained souls to warn and to save? l
know NOT I know mt