Читать книгу Reveries of a Bachelor; or, A Book of the Heart онлайн

21 страница из 62

And she, the mother, sweetest and fairest of all, watching, tending, caressing, loving, till your own heart grows pained with tenderest jealousy, and cures itself with loving.

You have no need now of any cold lecture to teach thankfulness; your heart is full of it. No need now, as once, of bursting blossoms of trees taking leaf and greenness, to turn thought kindly and thankfully; for, ever beside you, there is bloom, and ever beside you there is fruit—for which eye, heart and soul are full of unknown, and unspoken, because unspeakable thank-offering.

And if sickness catches you, binds you, lays you down—no lonely moanings and wicked curses at careless-stepping nurses. The step is noiseless, and yet distinct beside you. The white curtains are drawn, or withdrawn by the magic of that other presence; and the soft, cool hand is upon your brow.

No cold comfortings of friend-watchers, merely come in to steal a word away from that outer world, which is pulling at their skirts; but, ever the sad, shaded brow of her, whose lightest sorrow for your sake is your greatest grief—if it were not a greater joy.