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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICi. 
 
MORTARA 
 
 Mrs. HELEN ALDEICH De KROYET 
 
 I heard it in the breezes, and my heart shaped it out of the 
 hoarse voices of the winds, — He will come again, he will come 
 again I 
 
 ^.v/Rir^^^r^ , 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 Printed at t^e Bi^jersiUe Prtgd 
 
 1887 
 

 
 Copyright, 1886, 
 Bt Mrs. HELEN ALDRICH De KROYFT. 
 
DEDICA TION 
 
 Looking back through the years to all those loho "in 
 their lives " have been " lovely and pleasant " to me, my 
 heart selects one too great to more than wear as a flower 
 on her bosom the dedication to any work of mine ; still, this 
 is my soul's best, and, eager to do her ever so little rever- 
 ence, here upon its whitest page I inscribe her name, — 
 
 Mrs. E. M. Hardy, of Norfolk, Virginia, 
 pausing the while to set it around with grateful memories ; 
 and so leave it in the world, like a thing of light, shining 
 forever in its own unborrowed lustre. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE lived much that I have not written, 
 but I have written nothing that I have not Hved, 
 and the story of this book is but a plaintive re- 
 frain wrung from the overburdened song of my 
 life ; while the tides of feeling, winding down 
 the lines, had their sources in as many broken 
 upheavals of my own heart. 
 
 The day that I was a bride I was a widow ; 
 and finding me thus weeping and alone, the fates 
 stole away the light from my eyes, leaving me 
 henceon to walk with the angels, one on either 
 hand ; who, themselves guiding, brought me ere 
 long to a rosy glen by the sea, where resided one 
 of lofty mien and of speech and manner courtly. 
 Much learning he had, and many tongues he 
 spoke. The gathered lustre of all lands shone 
 in the grace of his presence, as the charity that 
 comes of knowing all religions lent a charm to 
 his words, and added potency to the magic of his 
 smile. But most he knew to heal a wounded 
 heart, to dry away tears, and bring smiles in their 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 stead. Knew to gild with linings fair the clouds 
 himself could not disperse; nor failed the sub- 
 tlety of his art e'en to rally hope when hope 
 was dead ! 
 
 The name they named him by was goodly, 
 ancient, and renowned. It was the name his 
 Syriac fathers wore ; and straight on down 
 through long ancestral lines of warriors, kings, 
 and princes, flowed the haughty Hebraic tides 
 that crimsoned in his veins. Yet, of all his 
 graces, modesty was the chiefest ; nor ever 
 boasted he of aught save that Honor was to him 
 a ruling star, whose parallax held him ever to 
 God and the right. 
 
 Such was Mortara, noblest of his line ; and, 
 having thus announced him, gentle reader, beg- 
 ging leave, I would fain introduce him to you as 
 the heaven-appointed hero of my foreshadowed 
 way. 
 
MORTARA. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 New York, March 7, 1849. 
 
 MoRTARA, — But for these far-away flowers, 
 still whispering of the orange groves and balmy 
 breezes whence they came, I might mistake your 
 letter for a delio-htful continuation of our last 
 walk among those grand old trees by the Bay, 
 when it seemed that the world itself, by some 
 strange turn, had drifted around on a side that 
 looked away toward heaven, and all of life had 
 purpled into a dream too rich and too beautiful 
 to last ; when time, even, grew prodigal and sped 
 the moments on golden wings as arm in arm we 
 rustled through the falling leaves, rainbow-hued 
 from the Tyrian dyes of autumn. 
 
 Ah ! that morning, who can imagine it ? and 
 that walk, who can recall it? until, returning, 
 we paused a little by the gate and one came 
 running with those long-waited-for letters from 
 your home beyond the sea. 
 
 " One is from my father," you said ; and so, 
 excusing yourself, you went to your room. My 
 quick ear followed your tread, heard you lock 
 the door, and I knew that you were alone with 
 
28 MORTARA. 
 
 the joys and sorrows of far-off loved ones break- 
 ing in saddened sweetness upon your exile heart. 
 
 Hurrying away from lunch that day I did not 
 stop in the drawing-room as usual, wondering if, 
 after having been so long oblivious to all around 
 you, my humble self would ever be sought for 
 or remembered again. Soon, though, a valet 
 came with your card. Meeting me at the foot 
 of the stairs, you said : — 
 
 " Would you like to cluub the big hill this 
 afternoon, or Mount Pisgah, as you call it ? " 
 
 " Providing you will promise to spy out a 
 Canaan for me there," I replied. 
 
 " Or one for myself, — would not that do as 
 well?" was your quick rejoinder. 
 
 So, jocund and lively, we started ; but on the 
 way and after reaching the summit you were 
 taciturn, as I thought, or too reflective, consid- 
 ering that you had invited me to walk with you. 
 I had asked for all your home friends, of whom 
 you seemed inclined to say little ; and then, 
 yielding to your spell, I too grew silent, and 
 leaning my head back against the tree beneath 
 whose shade we were sitting, I sought solace for 
 the gorgeous scenes that lay around me by pic- 
 turing brighter ones in heaven, and wondering if 
 two dear eyes there were looking on me. Un- 
 conscious before how much the last few weeks 
 had done to fade the memory of those two dear 
 eyes from my heart, I Avas just beginning to re- 
 proach myself when very slowly and very sol- 
 emnly you said : — 
 
MORTARA. 29 
 
 " No one has a right to count himself miser- 
 able who has not felt to his heart's core the 
 branding sting of banishment. Then he may 
 indeed pity Cain, and know at least how to sym- 
 pathize with Satan himself. Exiled for the boy- 
 ish offense of refusing to bear arms against the 
 land of my mother, my friends were at first san- 
 guine of procuring my return. Seventeen long 
 years, tliough, have rolled away since that hope 
 died from my soul, and I have since lived with 
 the sole idea oi amassing a fortune sufficient to 
 bring my entire family and all my friends out of 
 the country, and hold jubilee with them for at 
 least six months or a year. But these letters to- 
 day bring me word that my mother has become 
 too feeble and my father too old and infirm even 
 to journey to the line to meet me." Then, paus- 
 ing a moment as if reflecting upon your disap- 
 pointment, you turned full around to me and 
 continued : — 
 
 " Yes, please God, this is henceforth to be my 
 country and my home ; and will you, dearest, 
 can you, be all to me on this side of the world ? 
 I do not know when I began to love you, or how. 
 I seem born to love you, to protect you, to care 
 for you, and call you mine, and next to the pain 
 of beholding my beloved parents no more is the 
 thought of going away from here without you. 
 I came back from New York ostensibly to await 
 these letters, but in truth I returned only to pass 
 a little time more with you, and then, perhaps. 
 
30 MORTAR A. 
 
 take you away with me to Europe, and after 
 meeting my friends, go to see Waltholl of Ger- 
 many, and make him unveil the world again to 
 those dear eyes of yours, — not that for the world 
 I would ever wish myself to be less needful to 
 your happiness than now, while certainly noth- 
 ing in the world could ever make you more pre- 
 cious or more beautiful to me." 
 
 Oh ! how near heaven comes to us sometimes. 
 That peaceful hill, crowned with evergreens and 
 oaks, sung to forever by the breezes and man- 
 tled in sunshine, was Pisgah indeed; and lo ! 
 through the rifted clouds there came to me a 
 very angel, bearing in his Abrahamic bosom the 
 Canaan of rest, of home and peace and love, 
 that my poor tired heart had longed for, ached 
 for, and wept for, but never dared to hope for. 
 
 Ah ! Mortara, I almost wonder now that I did 
 not fall down and worship you outright when, 
 with your voice still faltering from bidding adieu 
 to your long-cherished hope, you pledged to me 
 not only the blessed largess of my soul's other, 
 nobler self, but restored to me again my poor, 
 broken, lost self, all radiant and new-born in the 
 light of your love. Verily, were the past a des- 
 ert and the future a tomb, that one memory 
 were an oasis green and sunny enough to make 
 it all an Eden ; for what mattered it to me then 
 though mine eyes were veiled ? I had won you, 
 than whom none wiser or nobler or more elegant 
 walks the world, and away, too, from the brilliant 
 
MORTARA. 31 
 
 many. It was enough ; and listen to me, Mor- 
 tara, from that moment, from that golden hour 
 that still spreads its autumn radiance through all 
 my being, I have held you and your love only 
 as one holds a solemn trust that may be re- 
 manded at any time. 
 
 All hope of any permanent provision being 
 made for me has passed away. Those who would 
 serve me have not the means, and those who 
 could are robbed of the will, — perhaps by some 
 wise angel who sees it better that I be not over- 
 blessed. Judge, then, how well I know the 
 worth of these words from your far-away cabin, 
 as you call it : — 
 
 " 1 ask only the happiness of bringing you 
 here and living for you and you alone ; " but, 
 dearest Mortara, whatever comes, I can neither 
 be yours nor allow you to befriend me. Indeed, 
 by the very greatness of some blessings, our 
 hearts are made to know that they are not in- 
 tended for us, but sent only that we may look 
 on them and learn self-denial. 
 
 You will be angry, but oh ! chide me gently, 
 for my heart is a bruised thing, and but for 
 your letter to-day my every thought were man- 
 tled with despair. Since it came I have been 
 walking and thinking of you until this whole 
 place has grown warm and beautiful in the light 
 of your loving presence, while in the heavy beat- 
 ino; of the winds I hear ao;ain the roar of the 
 waves and above them the words : — 
 
32 MORTAR A. 
 
 " Cling to me ; I shall save you or die with 
 you ! " 
 
 Oh, thou dearest, bravest, noblest, and best, 
 how can I ever forget that terrible scene ? And 
 when at last the shore was reached and you lay 
 there, your great heart panting for the life you 
 had well-nigh given to save mine, what agony I 
 endured rubbing those cold, dear hands and 
 bathing them with my tears, praying you to 
 live, to awaken and speak to me but once more! 
 
 Alas ! my generous friend, what do I not owe 
 you ? My life and my heart surely. But though 
 I had them and a thousand times more to be- 
 stow, I should still chide you for the doubts you 
 persist in conjuring from that one little incident 
 that so marred our last evenino- too-ether and did 
 me such infinite wrong. Suppose you were about 
 to confide the one great secret of your life to my 
 keeping and ask me again to go with you. I 
 did not know your thoughts, or your intentions, 
 although as if divining and answering them all I 
 was just saying to myself : " It may not, cannot 
 be," and instinctively withdrew my hand from 
 yours and folded my arms across my breast, as if 
 in all the dark w^orld there was left only me. 
 But when you turned and almost commanded 
 me to explain the feeling, or the action, I wept, 
 because it was just so much more than I could 
 bear. My heart was too full, and the jostled 
 tears rained down over my cheeks while vou 
 were cruel enough to neither let me hide them 
 nor wipe them away. 
 
MORTAR A. 33 
 
 Dear, noble Mortara, believe me, it was no 
 tlioiiglit o£ another nor doubt nor fear of you, 
 whom I have tried so much not to love. I do 
 love you, though^ and now that you are so far 
 away and I am writing you with my own hand, 
 I do not blush to tell you so. Indeed, as two 
 streams cannot flow in the same channel but the 
 larger swallows up the lesser, so all the love my 
 heart has ever known now winds and murmurs 
 its music to you ; and while I would be generous 
 enough to judge as I would be judged, a con- 
 scious lack of power to win and hold the love of 
 one who has seen so much of the world and 
 waded through the adoring glances of so many 
 makes me fear lest, in my all-confiding and all- 
 trusting simplicity, you find only solace for the 
 loved and the lost. Is it so, or do I perchance 
 owe all to your large pity that, like the mantle 
 of generous Boaz, expanded and wrapped me in 
 the moment we met ? 
 
 The angels, though, do not hold out their 
 hands to us longer than all day long, and lest I 
 weary and turn away the only real one Heaven 
 has vouchsafed me, I hasten, dearest, noblest 
 Mortara, to say to thee, as ever, Dommus tecum, 
 while I pray thee once more to write soon and 
 come soon to Thy ever more than friend, 
 
 Helen. 
 
 3 
 
34 MORTAR A. 
 
 New York, April 7, 1849. 
 
 MoRTARA, — Madam S read me the thick 
 
 sheet of your letter, and I repHed to it as usual 
 in her room, she often coming to look over my 
 shoulder. But the thin one, designed for my 
 heart alone, I reserved until Benoni came up last 
 evening to take me to the opera and lent me his 
 eyes for its precious perusal ; and then again 
 when we returned, as a kind of encore to my 
 Salva, that his sweet strains might follow me 
 into the dream-land ! 
 
 Some good fairy must have visited your cabin, 
 and, charmed with its occupant, turned it into a 
 castle, since it can afford to set apart two such 
 rooms for an imaginary guest and a dark maid 
 to drape them with flowers in compliment to her 
 fancied coming ! 
 
 Oh ! tell me, Mortara, do you really love me 
 so, and am I indeed so verily with you ? Your 
 great heart, running over with that beautiful 
 benignity that always warms in your words and 
 melts from your eyes, makes your cabin or castle, 
 whatever it be, seem to me nothing less than a 
 little city of refuge from the world. Were I to 
 rise up and fly to it, though, I should doubtless 
 meet on the way, or far down by the gate, some 
 angel of destiny with flaming sword turning 
 
MORTAR A. 35 
 
 every way ; for alas ! Mortara, what you dream 
 of can never, never be. No, like a planet 
 wrapped in the meshes of a distant star, I am 
 forever chained from thee ; and though thy 
 black eyes be windows to love's happy Eden, 
 still I may never look into them ; and though 
 thine arms be indeed belts of gold and thyself a 
 pillar of trust, still thy way is not my way. Ah, 
 no, Mortara, in heaven I were nearer thee than 
 now. As the stars cross paths, so from half a, 
 world away we have met and whispered words of 
 love only for landmarks to our souls, forever 
 seeking each other and God and the true. 
 
 You seem always half glad for the rough 
 ways of life that you may help to bear some one 
 over them. What wonder, then, that my weak 
 soul should be forever longing to flee away and 
 take shelter beneath the wings of thy might ? 
 But oh, Mortara, if there were no other obsta- 
 cle, I could not be selfish enough to sombre all 
 that should bring gladness to thee by linking 
 the clouds of my sky to the sunshine of thine. 
 And yet, when I remember that unlooked-for 
 coming in of the tide when you so nobly risked 
 life and all to save me, and again when you 
 blistered those dear hands to save me from fire, 
 I can only shut mine eyes and weep tears that I 
 have not a hand like Providence to weigh out 
 blessing to thee forever, forever ! 
 
 But wait until you have visited R . Per- 
 haps you will find there that the angels have at 
 
36 MORTAR A. 
 
 least let me turn your steps toward the beautiful 
 and the good. Wait until you have seen my 
 fascinating" friend Elenore ; if herself fails to 
 charm you, her music surely will. Therefore, 
 be sure to see her ; and if you are not less gal- 
 lant than I imagine, like Anthony at the banquet 
 of Cleopatra, you will at least offer your heart 
 for what your eyes do feast on ! 
 
 Madam S is too lynx-eyed and too all-per- 
 vading not to have divined the struggle going 
 on in my soul ; and true to her avowed j^enchant 
 for torture, she deliglits in telling me over and 
 over how perfectly you and Miss Elenore are 
 fitted for each other ; even talks of your wed- 
 ding, and seems to have put it all down in her 
 own mind as a settled thing. Well, Miss Elenore 
 is brilliant and beautiful, surely ; and you, — 
 ah ! what shall I say ? — noble and wise and 
 good enough to have been the prophet seer at 
 the gates of Zuph ; which you were verily to me 
 from the day of my entrance into that rosy glen 
 by the sea, where, whether we walked, rode, or 
 climbed the hills together, followed up the brooks 
 or gathered shells by the sea, rowed our little 
 bark out upon the waves or drifted along the 
 murmuring shore, every day, every hour was to 
 my soul but a fresh anointing from the store- 
 houses of your knowledge. Indeed, hanging 
 upon your eloquent lips I followed you over all 
 lands, lingering now at one court and now at 
 another ; now treading along the art galleries 
 
MORTAR A. 37 
 
 of Wurtemberg, Berlin, Paris, Milan, Rome, and 
 then away across the deserts to the beautiful 
 Orient and the land of your fathers, whose Tem- 
 ple alone filled the world with its sacred gran- 
 deur and emblazoned all time with its holy 
 splendors ; until at last, all unaware, I sat com- 
 muning with you up in the high places and 
 breaking spirit bread with you upon the very 
 house-tops of your love. What God would have 
 He paves the way to ; and I needed just that 
 beautiful overlooking of the world through your 
 eyes, and just this new strength in my soul that 
 loving you has given me, as a kind of renuncia- 
 tory blessing for the cold, isolate life that lies 
 before me. 
 
 Dear, noble Mortara, I have never had cour- 
 age to tell you how I know that our paths are 
 never to be joined ; yet I do know that the lines 
 of my destiny have fallen too dark among the 
 shadows for any one this side of heaven to bear 
 me company through them. 
 
 I must make the journey sad and alone ; and 
 yet, dearest, not all alone, for wherever I go or 
 whatever my lot is thou wilt be to me forever, as 
 now, — though remote, yet never gone ; though 
 distant, yet always near. Alas ! I have come to 
 say my prayers, even, with my soul mantled in 
 your love, and my thoughts commune with the 
 angels in words that I have learned from your 
 lips. Indeed, you are a part of me, my other, 
 dearer, nobler self, and I can never, never, 
 
38 MORTAR A. 
 
 never for one moment separate you from my 
 thoughts, or ever, ever, ever tear your memory 
 from my heart, over which I have set up your 
 promise to be here soon hke a bow of promise, 
 watery with tears and purple with gladness. 
 New York, though, is neither New Orleans nor 
 Havana, both of which Benoni says you are to 
 take in your way, and I fear you will find it 
 dull here as well as cold ; but oh ! I am here, 
 and when you come my heart will be here too, 
 and summer and flowers, love and gladness, all 
 of which follow in thy train, as I pray sweet 
 ccmdida ^;«»; to attend thee, and white-winged 
 angels to stand forever thy watchful guard ! 
 
 Helen. 
 
MORTAR A. 39 
 
 Stone Cottage, July 17, 1849. 
 
 MoRTARA, — While the east is kindling with 
 coming light and the dews are heavy on the 
 mown grass, I have hnrried me from happy 
 dreams to bid you hasten to this sunny vale of 
 meadows and groves where simply to live is bless- 
 ing enough for all the day long, and at eve we 
 will rock away upon the river or follow up its 
 winding way, treading on the soft shadows of 
 nightfall that come to sleep among the bushes 
 and the flowers. 
 
 You entreat me to nevermore freeze you with 
 the word friend ; but oh ! how talk to thee of 
 love while to call thee friend is happiness so 
 great? Yet think not that I doubt you, for, 
 Mortara, I doubt nothing save my ability to 
 make you happy. 
 
 Confidence is a plant of rapid growth when 
 watered by the tears and dews of love. Beside, 
 many moons have come and waned and all the 
 seasons have changed since our friendship be- 
 gan, and by the light of the past we should 
 surely judge something of the future. But oh ! 
 is it in man's nature, is it in his love, to be al- 
 ways thus unselfish and thus devoted? Might 
 there not come days when the heart's dial would 
 turn too slowly and the hours hang too wearily ? 
 
40 MORTARA. 
 
 Tell me, thou dearest, noblest, and best ; thou 
 temple, priest, and oracle, speak and I will trust 
 thee ! Where thou art not, loneliness is in thy 
 place ; no voice like thine, no arm so dear ; and 
 as the day makes us forget the night, so thou 
 drivest all gloom from my thoughts. 
 
 Yet, dearest, loving thee is selfish, and my 
 
 * heart chides the love it cannot help. I could 
 
 leave all for thee, but oh ! leaving all I should 
 
 leave thee too, for they who forsake duty may 
 
 take no good thing with them. 
 
 Alas ! Mortara, even at the risk of your ridi- 
 cule, I must tell you that five summers ago, sit- 
 ting amid the dazzling beams of the sun, and 
 every thought broad awake with the stirring ex- 
 citements of school, a kind of hallucination or 
 momentary vision passed before me, wherein I 
 myself saw myself journeying through what 
 seemed ages upon ages of darkness, — darkness 
 that blotted away everjrthing and then took on a 
 shape of its own that rose up before me like an 
 old time-worn Cheops, only a million times more 
 vast, stretching its top away into the blackness 
 of the sky, while its base rested dark on the 
 earth and filled me with an indescribable fear. 
 Still, impelled by an influence that I could not 
 resist, I steadily approached the forbidding pres- 
 ence and found countless little circles of gold 
 shining through its gloomy surface. Only theii 
 tiny creased edges were visible ; yet moved by 
 the same impelling force that had brought me 
 
MORTARA. 41 
 
 within their reach, very timidly I fell to picking- 
 them out with one hand and dropping them into 
 the other. Slowly, one by one, I was picking 
 them out with the right hand and dropping 
 them into the left, when straightway all sweet 
 plans for the dear ones in this cottage home 
 began to run through my thoughts, and, as it 
 seemed, absorbed the gold, or bore away the 
 shining little pieces from my hands almost faster 
 than I was able to gather them. So on, on, 
 through what seemed weary ages, I myself saw 
 myself patiently gathering, gathering, but never 
 possessing. Always moving, too, or going, going, 
 as it seemed, with the same old overawing, world- 
 like presence forever bent above and around, 
 until all at once the gold ceased on the side of it 
 toward me, and in its stead came quantities of a 
 dark green material in lumps, rolls, or bunches 
 that only possession, or taking in my hands, made 
 golden. Of that, too, I gathered as before, gath- 
 ered, gathered, wandered, toiled, and gathered, 
 until at last the dark green material also disap- 
 peared, the base only whence it rose remaining 
 ofreen — when farther in toward the heart of the 
 gloomy old presence the gold shone out again ; 
 but this time, instead of shining little pieces as 
 at first, it came in squares like tablets or slates, 
 standing on their edges and so tightly wedged 
 together that it seemed impossible ever to move 
 them. Yet I touched them and they came out to 
 me ; myself seemed to draw them as by a kind of 
 
42 MORTAR A. 
 
 right, and whereas all before had merely passed 
 through my hands, now all remained with me ; 
 and when I had folded in my arms as much as I 
 could well carry, with something like the pride 
 of possession warming in my thoughts, I jour- 
 neyed on, on again ; but in a new direction now 
 and faster than before, the old overawing shape 
 the darkness had taken on no longer keeping 
 pace. Finally, reaching a height that seemed to 
 overlook the future as well as the past, I espied 
 far out in the distance a break in the great dome 
 of night, and thence a little wave of soft sweet 
 liofht rollinof toward me. Faster it came and 
 larger it grew, spreading out upon the fleeing 
 clouds until it seemed that heaven itself had 
 opened, and all its glories were beaming above 
 and around me. Then I turned and saw one 
 standing apart with downcast eyes, and of face 
 and mien such as I had never looked on, — one 
 who made no sign, spoke no word, his knowledge 
 of or companionship to the long dark way I had 
 been coming seeming rather self -conveyed, where- 
 at the vision ended and all was the same to me 
 as before. 
 
 Now call it a msio7i, or call it what you will, 
 in the few twinkling seconds of its duration, 
 with every sense barred to the outer world, led 
 by some unknown law of our being, I was away, 
 away, following down the deep-drawn lines to 
 my own destiny. Look ! hardly two years had 
 elapsed when Death robbed my young life deso- 
 
MORTARA. 43 
 
 late, and over the new-made grave by which I 
 stood and mourned a moon rose swift upon my 
 sky that was to watch even itself turned into 
 blackness ; and ere it waned I awoke but to find 
 the sun, moon, and stars indeed gone down for- 
 ever, and the clouds of a relentless night fallen 
 cold and thick around me. 
 
 Thus on the great clock of fate my destiny 
 had been marked, exactly as foreshadowed to me 
 in the vision whose haunting shades I have in- 
 voked until nearly every phase of it has unveiled 
 to my soul its fullest meaning. 
 
 First, the everywhere towering old pillar-like 
 presence, that might have been let down from 
 the clouds or piled up from the ages of the ages, 
 was but a gloomy symbol of the world, or what 
 the world was to be to me in the darkness, — an 
 everywhere towering, forbidding presence, just 
 as I have found it ; and all the more towering 
 and forbidding, too, because of the gold shining 
 so dmily through its gloomy surface. 
 
 In God's own good time, though, those mystic 
 little circles will not only appear, but the means 
 for gathering them also be provided ; and pos- 
 sibly the little book that I wrote you about is 
 to have something to do with it. Do you see ? 
 Although no Aladdin lamp to the world, it may 
 still prove to my hand the coveted, wand-like 
 " Open Sesame ! " At all events, as the dark- 
 ness of the visio7i and the two scenes preceding 
 it have so strangely come to pass, so all that 
 
44 MORTAR A. 
 
 seemed to grow out of them is to be translated 
 in the sternest reality upon the years of my life. 
 I know it, I see it, and when I have explained to 
 you the nature of those plans that ran so mys- 
 tically through my thoughts and absorbed the 
 little golden pieces almost faster than I was able 
 to gather them, you will be convinced that, al- 
 though " a day of no open vision," there must 
 be still those in heaven mighty enough to trail 
 before mortal eyes shadows of the events them- 
 selves are forging. 
 
 But oh ! would that you or some one might 
 turn seer indeed, and divine to my longing soul 
 the closing scene, when the heavens opened and 
 all their pent-up glories broke again upon my 
 enraptured soul. Yes, where, oh, where in all 
 the dark confines of time sleeps that dawn for 
 me ? or must I indeed look for it beyond the sun- 
 set and beyond the shadows ? Alas ! God only 
 knows. 
 
 But, Mortara, thou noblest and best, whatever 
 that visioti was, after having lived it over and 
 over in my thoughts and traced and retraced 
 through it my dark foreshadowed way, I know 
 that the angels have placed this in their books 
 even as they have bottled my tears : in this 
 world we are never to be one ; no, never, never, 
 never. What is to be no hand may stay, and 
 despite the veiled eyes and the helplessness that 
 now girts me around, there is a foreshadowed 
 something in the world for me to do, — a some- 
 
MORTARA. 45 
 
 thing- that will take long, long years, — years of 
 loneliness and weariness and anxiety, and ere my 
 work is done I shall be no more what I am. 
 
 Here, then, waiting to meet thee, I part with 
 thee, as in this life I have parted from all bright 
 things ; parted from them, alas ! only the 
 brighter to bear them on in my thoughts, just 
 as in the soul's beautiful ideal the star of thy 
 love will be forever rising over my heart and 
 shedding its pale light along the lonely future. 
 
 Helen. 
 
PART II. 
 
 New York, December 4, 1849. 
 
 MoRTARA, — Oh, tell me, did I then after all 
 promise to be thine, thine, all thine, forever 
 thine ? Ah ! how memory reproaches while my 
 poor heart coaxes fear to silence. 
 
 But, mine own beautiful and best, you will 
 surely wait for me the two years, or until the 
 love-work foreshadowed in the vision is ended. 
 That lies next to my hope of heaven, and you 
 must surely leave me to accomplish it. Not even 
 if you could furnish the means to effect the same 
 end would it be the same thing to me. No, I 
 must live for it, toil for it, and pray for it, and 
 so do at least a part of what they who watch in 
 heaven have called me to do ; and then, dearest, 
 noblest Mortara, may our Heavenly Father for- 
 give the rest while I go to be happy with love 
 and thee, happy with the one being in the world 
 whose radiant image lies glassed so deep in my 
 soul that, whether dreaming or waking, by the 
 star of love I forever behold him there ! 
 
 It was weakness, I know ; but in that awful 
 moment when you held the world in such fright- 
 ful array on the one hand, and yourself, your 
 love, your devotion, and your dear open arms on 
 the other, it was just as impossible not to fly to 
 
48 MORTARA. 
 
 you as it is always impossible not to love you. 
 The angels witnessed our pledges and wrote them 
 down, mayhap with smiles and mayhap with 
 tears — God only knows. You have two years, 
 though, to take back your part of them in if you 
 choose, and certainly no one in heaven or out of 
 it could have the hardihood to blame you. 
 
 I have received the ring set with a star and 
 covering the words : " Speravi in te ; " and 
 while my heart chides me I wear it, dearest, the 
 rich covenant of thy love, and would I could cir- 
 cle thy life in a sky as starry and as golden ! 
 Would for one hour, even, I might round such 
 brightness upon thy way as thou thyself bringest 
 to me ! Thou art the Sun, with my Venus heart 
 transiting about thee. Thou the star, with my 
 soul empaled upon the shining disc of thy love, 
 the where thy smiles make the morning, and thy 
 whispers and thy kisses dewy evenings, rosy and 
 star-Hghted like visions in love's happy dreams. 
 
 Now I forgive the angels the hiding away of 
 the day since, themselves guiding, they brought 
 me to thee. But alas ! how ever repay the 
 wealth of thy love? What vial add to the 
 stream of thy happiness, what care lift from thy 
 heart, or what burden help thee to bear? Oh ! 
 nothing, nothing ! I am dependence' self, and 
 through life long I can only hang upon thy dear 
 arm, trusting all to thy guidance sweet, as erst 
 I clunof to thee for life amid the waves of the 
 sea. 
 
MORTARA. 49 
 
 When wandering far from Eden's sunny bow- 
 ers, had the love angel called after beautiful Eve 
 and bade her return to Paradise and its streams 
 and its flowers, she had not crept back more tim- 
 idly to its Orient gate than comes my heart to 
 such happiness and thee. Ah ! Mortara, it is 
 bhss to trust thee and it is heaven to love thee. 
 Forgive all, then, and "Thy God shall be my 
 God, and whither thou goest I will go." 
 
 May thy years be many and their seasons all 
 golden autumns, rich in purple clusters and gar- 
 nered delights! The love angels watch thee 
 and bear me word soon that thou art well and 
 happy ! Helen. 
 
60 MORTARA. 
 
 New York, December 27, 1849. 
 
 MoRTARA, — Saturday morning I walked with 
 Minnie to hear your celebrated Rabbi from Eng- 
 land ; and when, toward the close of his elo- 
 quent discourse, he came to dwell with rapture 
 upon Israel's final return to Jerusalem and Ju- 
 dea, and with tears pressed home the trespasses 
 of the people in the lands of their sojourn, I 
 could think of nothing but Ezra mourning be- 
 fore the house of God over " the strange mar- 
 riages." 
 
 Mortara, I never understood it so before, 
 and I came away from the synagogue determined 
 that you should never look on me again. But, 
 dearest, as God sees things, it cannot be so wrong 
 for you to wed a Christian. We both believe in 
 Him and trust in the same blessed Messiah — do 
 we not ? Beside, how be parted from you now, 
 Mortara, and live ? My life is in you, and, like 
 the earth, my heart could do without all the 
 stars save its one true Polar star, whose loving 
 beams my thoughts have learned to go to for 
 jewels to deck themselves in, while my soul puts 
 them on for bracelets and wears them for smiles. 
 
 Thy letter of to-day is a sweet Sychar of hope, 
 and like a devout pilgrim I have encamped by it 
 with the new best song of love warm on my lips. 
 
MORTARA. 51 
 
 Ah ! yes, and would the slow turning moons that 
 lie between had come and waned and I were in- 
 deed with thee in the land of flowers, where, thou 
 sayest, those dark maids wait my coming ; where 
 all the breezes are heavy with perfumes, and, 
 more than all, thy noble self forever near. 
 
 Oh ! if the picture so entrance, the reality may 
 be likened only to thee ; for thyself art bliss, 
 thyself art joy. So I trust thee, and so, dearest, 
 I believe thee ; while loving thee fills the days 
 with gladness, and calling thee mine robs life of 
 all save delight. One doubt were death ; but 
 oh! no, no, thou wilt be true. Thy chivalrous 
 vows hang belted around my heart like rainbows 
 upon a summer sea, forever covenanting anew 
 the sweet springtimes and the glad harvests of 
 thy love. 
 
 But, alas ! how reply to thy chidings, when 
 blame, for lack of care to one's self, is so sweet 
 from lips that we love ? Pray, dearest, have no 
 fears. I rode much when the day was brighter 
 to me than now, and Benoni says that I sit a 
 horse still like a Cossack. Beside, I keep in 
 mind — dost see ? — those ponies and those gal- 
 lopings with thee over the plains, shaking the 
 dews from the drowsino- flowers and hieing- the 
 birds to their matins of the morn. 
 
 Coming for me soon ? Oh, no, no ! What I 
 go to do is scarcely more than commenced, and 
 were I to play deserter to it now, turning to the 
 books they keep, the good angels could do 
 
52 MORTARA. 
 
 naught but weep tears over the page whereon all 
 the foreshadowed should have been writ. Be- 
 side, the moons vowed to your dear mother's 
 memory make a long line upon the calendar yet, 
 and I shall doubtless not only have ample time 
 for all that to my hand has been set, but occa- 
 sion for not a few lessons in waiting ! 
 
 However, spread wide now those great pro- 
 tecting arms of thine, whose shelter a weary an- 
 gel might covet ; while, with prayers for thee 
 all whispered in love, and kisses for thee melting 
 in smiles and dissolving in tears, I come once 
 more to chain thy heart around, as I would fain 
 bind thy soul to mine forever, with love cords, 
 many stranded here, and hawser laid in heaven. 
 
 Helen. 
 
MORTARA. 53 
 
 New York, January 7, 1850. 
 
 MoRTARA, — Benoni has just forwarded your 
 letters by the last steamer, and as there were 
 uone among them bearing your revered father's 
 seal and handwritinor- we fear much lest the 
 places that knew him behold him no more ; and 
 as his days have been so very long upon the 
 earth, it is surely not impossible. Still, dearest 
 Mortara, you are not left without comfort. The 
 name of thy noble father is written with those 
 whom the Lord has called His own ; and instead 
 of mourning any longer here the absence of his 
 beautiful first-born, he will be waiting for you 
 in a life beyond the grave that beatifies and re- 
 stores the loved and the lost. 
 
 But for fear of this new great sorrow to you I 
 should be very, very happy this evening, for like 
 Ossian I see the stars from out the watery clouds 
 and they tell me of thee, dearest, and happiness 
 in the long years to come. Your last letter, too, 
 is lying spread out here before me like a balmy 
 little June all freighted with blossoms and laden 
 with love. Through Minnie's eyes I have been 
 looking down its roseate lines and whispering 
 prayers that the years of thy life be thus all 
 linked with sunshine and flowers. 
 
 Mortara, thyself alone art riches evermore, and 
 
54 MORTAR A. 
 
 thy love " a light at evening time " that covers 
 all my night with stars. Wonder not, then, that 
 I almost fear to call thee mine, lest having so 
 much I make the angels jealous and they come 
 for thee, too. 
 
 Alas ! Heaven's loudest complaint to mortals 
 is ever for lack of love. Even He who sitteth 
 upon the Throne of thrones knoweth what it is 
 to stretch out His arms in the utter desertion of 
 no one to love Him, no one to seek Him, and no 
 one to fear Him, — " no, not one." Then as we 
 may best show our love to Him by loving one 
 another, is it not well, dearest, that thou shouldst 
 begin by loving me just ever so little ? Ah ! 
 yes, and like the ambitious vine do thou reach 
 out all thy tendril thoughts to what is nearest, 
 the while aspiring to the oak or the pine of a 
 loftier trust, even the faith of Abraham that was 
 accounted unto him for righteousness. 
 
 I shall not complain if all my angels go to keep 
 you company so long as they help you to give 
 such encouraging accounts of yourself as this : — 
 
 " I am reading the New Testament, love, for 
 your sake, and I say my prayers sometimes in 
 the little book that you gave me." 
 
 Oh! continue to do so, mine own beautiful 
 and best, and let my prayers be answered : that 
 you come at last to read them both for your own 
 sake. I often wonder how one who has read 
 Moses and the Prophets from his youth up, over- 
 looked Jerusalem from holy Olivet and bleeding 
 
MORTAR A. 55 
 
 Calvary, lingered in Gethsemane and knelt and 
 wept amid the ruins of the Temple^ can still 
 doubt, save it be indeed as Paul says of his 
 countrymen : — 
 
 " God hath given them the spirit of slumber." 
 
 You are thinking that quotation too pertinent, 
 coming from me, and it does seem a little brusque 
 and incongruous, surely ; but you know my 
 thoughts come always linked hands rustling in 
 upon me, the bidden and the unbidden together ; 
 and if sometimes, as now, one perchance strayeth 
 to thy side garmented unfitly, do thou let the 
 trembling little offender find pity in thy sight 
 and come away wrapped close in the fault-cover- 
 insr o-arb of thine own beautiful foroiveness ! 
 
 Dearest, noblest Mortara, the Eunomian hours 
 of this long winter evening seem just made for 
 visiting with you in, and mine hostess soul has 
 been working sweet miracles on the few little 
 love words in your letter until they spread out 
 into a feast that the unloved world might come 
 in and sit down to. This choice bit of a mor- 
 ceau, though, my heart is selfish enough to sit 
 up and feed on all by itself, marveling the while 
 at the sweet healing it hath for wounded pride 
 and blighted hope : — 
 
 " If your dependence, as you term it, be not 
 a new grace, then your angels must surely have 
 lent you their charms wherewith to conceal it." 
 
 How beautiful of you to say that, Mortara ; 
 and I wonder, too, if angel or mortal ever enter- 
 
66 MORTAR A. 
 
 tained thought or smile of love more loftily un- 
 selfish than this : — 
 
 " The landscape of your life has indeed been 
 darkened over with shadows ; but you should be 
 content since Heaven, like a skillful artist, has 
 made yourself not only sunny enough to dispel 
 them from your own heart, but to banish them 
 from the hearts of your friends also. Beside, I 
 have often looked on my resolute lolantha, and 
 wondered if she ever could have been half as en- 
 chanting to me without her privation." 
 
 Oh, strange fatality ! that all the stars in my 
 sky should have been darkened o'er that the 
 heaven-lighted aurora-borealis of thy love might 
 shine the brighter upon my life, and I be crowned 
 with the glory of calling thee mine. But the 
 fates are not wont to give so much more largely 
 than they take ; and oh ! thou more bright than 
 the stars and more dear than the light, tell me, 
 has the world grown Eden again and do the 
 skies rain gladness that my poor heart may drink 
 it as from rivers that never run dry ? Alas ! 
 when love hath most, then most it doubts ; and 
 Mortara, bend now thy beautiful head and 
 tell me once again in whispers that the angels 
 might pause a little on their harps to listen for, 
 art thou indeed mine and I thine, and I to live 
 with thee ever, ever ? I to lean upon thine arm, 
 gather joy from thy lips, and follow down all 
 the sunset paths of life guarded by thy watchful 
 eye and shielded by thy tender hand ? 
 
MORTAR A. bl 
 
 New York, January 17, 1850. 
 
 MoRTARA, — Those letters must have been 
 the bearers of good news instead of unwelcome, 
 as I feared, or they had surely reached you ere 
 this ; for good journey eth to the good on foot, 
 while evil flieth to them. 
 
 So mine own far away begs to know more of 
 myself, more how I pass the days, and almost 
 complains that my pen should be so chary of the 
 progress I am making ; but results are greater 
 apart from the steps that lead to them, and while 
 men praise success they laugh at effort without 
 it. Better then, dearest, you be content to know 
 that all the days are full of toil and all my 
 thoughts full of dreams of thee. 
 
 The little book is really out, though, and flying 
 hither and thither like leaves among the Autumn 
 winds, as the papers ere this must have told you. 
 Fears for the world's reception of one's first work 
 are fearful indeed, while the relief of finding it 
 praised and not criticised is after all but another 
 name for torture, lest the feat of slaying so 
 timid a thing as your one little ewe lamb of a 
 book might not have been deemed Herculean 
 enough for the majesty of their pens ! How- 
 ever, so long as many are pleased, many come to 
 congratulate, and the far and near hasten for- 
 
58 MORTAR A. 
 
 ward their orders, one need not quarrel with 
 the wherefore, I ween. 
 
 A group of new faces, too, are smiling over 
 their desks this morning in a far-away school. 
 A pretty little banking institution — dost see? 
 — for absorbing the tiny gold dollars that come 
 to me now, just as, you remember, the sweet 
 plans that ran through my thoughts in the vis- 
 ion bore away the shining little pieces from my 
 hands almost faster than I was able to gather 
 them. I promised, though, to af&ict you no more 
 with the shades of that " gloomy superstition," 
 as you call it ; but, Mortara, as well go back and 
 convince Belshazzar that the handwriting his 
 eyes saw traced upon the wall was but a freak of 
 his own imagination, as persuade me that my 
 five summers' ago noonday panoramic vision of 
 darkness was not a forecast of the stern events 
 that have since been and are still to be crowded 
 upon the years of my life. Judging by the past, 
 too, mine is to be no flowery way, aAd now pass- 
 ing out these gates ^ I do perchance enter anew 
 the gate of tears. But, Mortara, with love and 
 thee shut up in my heart I can brave all and en- 
 dure all. 
 
 I must go to Washington, though. What I 
 have undertaken can never be accomplished un- 
 less I do. Myself and my little love-work re- 
 ceived and smiled upon there, the wide, wide 
 world will be open before me. 
 
 1 N. Y. B. Institute. 
 
MORTAR A. 59 
 
 Now your black eyes are frowning again, I 
 fear, but alas ! what is to be one has a tendency 
 to ; and in spite of all I can do my thoughts will 
 come and go faced toward the wanderings of 
 that lonely vision or wide-awake, twinkling sec- 
 ond of a dream "that was not all a dream ! " 
 
PART III. 
 
 Washington, D. C, February 8, 1850, 
 
 MoRTARA, — Your letter needed no orange 
 blossom or aught else to atone for the slowness 
 of its coming, since it leaves me nothing to for- 
 give and little to forget save the pain of not 
 hearing from you. Indeed, portraying as it does 
 both the sorrow you are enduring and the efforts 
 you are making for your friends beyond the sea, 
 blame should rather be to me, I fear, for having 
 borne with so little grace this — my first lack of 
 a word from you. 
 
 But alas ! love is ever selfish ; and now, while 
 regretting most sincerely David's call to leave 
 his Almah and go half a world away, I find 
 myself rejoicing that the lot fell not on thee, 
 dear, dear Mortara. Oh ! no, no, the thought 
 is woe, and with tearful thanks I hide it from 
 me. David's noble self-sacrifice, going in Pha- 
 nor's place, is one of those holy things out of 
 heaven which, like Jacob's ladder, lead mortals 
 so near to that blissful abode that we may well 
 charge him to have care for himself lest those 
 who mourn his absence behold him no more. 
 Please press my love in a kiss upon sweet Al- 
 mah's lips and say to her that while Helen lives 
 she shall never lack a sister. 
 
62 MORTARA. 
 
 The little book goes on turning to gold as 
 if all the good genii had touched it ; the 
 papers continue to praise, and my heart would 
 know only joy this morning, Mortara, but for 
 the tears I know sorrow and loneliness are cir- 
 cling around yours. Even if you had not named 
 the great bereavement of your noble father's 
 sudden death, I should have felt it in every line 
 of your precious letter — so softly you take up 
 the words and so tenderly you lay them down, 
 like one folding away hopes to be fostered no 
 more and pressing kisses upon mute lips that may 
 part to whisper blessing and love in return no 
 more, nevermore ! Oh ! mine own beautiful and 
 best, how near it makes heaven seem to hear 
 you say : " He cannot come to me, but I shall 
 go to him," — as though with your own blessed 
 hand you had turned back the clouds and marked 
 the shining way leading up even to the New Je- 
 rusalem with its golden streets and walls of sap- 
 phire. 
 
 Mortara, you must not despair. " God is 
 great, God is good," and for the sake of His cov- 
 enant with your princely fathers, Abraham and 
 Isaac and Jacob, whose blood purples in your 
 veins down through thousands of years. He will 
 never leave nor forsake you ; and more than all, 
 One whom you have not yet learned to love has 
 whispered to every bereaved heart : " Come unto 
 me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and 
 I will give you rest." Even as He stood and 
 
MORTARA. 63 
 
 wept over Jerusalem, so now He waits to cover 
 you with His blessing, fill your heart with His 
 love, and banish every care from your thoughts. 
 
 Oh ! that I could light just one new joy for 
 you, or scatter flowers for just so much as one 
 footprint ! Ah ! that one footprint, so it were 
 faced toward me, how I would fly now to gather 
 it up as though an angel had left it in the world, 
 and fold it to my lonely heart for a thing more 
 dear and more precious than the crown of a 
 king — as I have over and over again these 
 sweet assurances that whatever comes or what- 
 ever betides there is always left to me the sure 
 refuge of thine own loving arms. Blessed words, 
 precious words ! And oh ! thou noblest and 
 best, repeat them, till like lights upon a dark 
 shore they guide me back to thee again. Ah ! 
 yes, dearest, dry thy tears and stay thy sighing, 
 if only the while to write me once again with 
 thine unceasing love winding and cascading 
 adown the lines. 
 
 But forgive me, Mortara, I have asked of thee 
 a song with the streams of Babylon at thy feet, 
 and thy dear far-off home dark with mourning. 
 Oh ! send me tears, then, that I may weep with 
 thee and for thee till the love angel touch again 
 thy heart. Meantime, trusting all to thine un- 
 changing word, I return thy " one tearful kiss " 
 with a thousand little sunny isles of them in a 
 sea of love, and barks on all its waves heavy 
 laden with blessing. Helen. 
 
64 MORTARA. 
 
 Washington, D. C, March 20, 1850. 
 
 MoRTARA, — Hours are long on the dial of a 
 waiting heart to which love turns wicked sprite, 
 lengthening the moments even into cycles of en- 
 durance. Pray, is it because so many are show- 
 ering blessings that thy dear hand must be stayed 
 from writing me ? 
 
 I leave in the morning for Charleston, the city 
 of palmettoes and the home of love and flowers. 
 Washington, dear, noble Washington, has marked 
 the way and set it along with lights and friends. 
 But oh ! how I long to leave all and fly to thee, 
 thou ever first remembered and latest in my 
 thoughts. 
 
 Dearest, noblest Mortara, oh ! fold me in thine 
 arms and let me but one moment hide from the 
 world that I so constantly dread. Alas ! is there 
 no refuge ? Must I go, must I ? I do wrong 
 though, to be thinking of myself when you have 
 perhaps to-day parted from your dear, noble 
 brother forever, and his poor sweet Almah weep- 
 ing tears with no hand but yours to dry them 
 away. I can feel the loneliness that weighs 
 down her desolate heart, and would I could com- 
 fort her. But alas ! this world was made to 
 break hearts in, while love was sent from heaven 
 to heal them. The precious balm, though, is so 
 
MORTAR A. 65 
 
 scarce that many must die for want of it. 
 Woman's heart at least is seldom cordialed, save 
 with her own tears, and they as often drown as 
 cure. 
 
 Mortara, thy love alone should brighten the 
 world, though banished the sun. Why, then, is 
 my heart dark and lonely ? Oh ! thou, my star, 
 art too distant. Thy letters, though, abound in 
 beautiful praise, and this in thy last was precious 
 indeed : — 
 
 " I am proud of my noble Helen." Ah ! had 
 these words been sent to me oracled from the 
 lips of Fame herself I were less pleased and less 
 proud, and love has so engraven them upon my 
 heart's memory that they will brighten there 
 with the last wave of time. You are my world 
 and I have earned your applause. Enough ! and 
 yet I ask for more — courage to persevere. I 
 dread all, everything. I am afraid even of my 
 own thoughts, and every footfall makes my 
 heart start like a sleeping criminal. Mortara, 
 Mortara, will I hear from you in Charleston? 
 Though all the city come out to meet me and 
 the angels themselves walk linked hands, a let- 
 ter from you there will be to my soul a bubbling 
 fountain in a desert, a voice in the wilderness, or 
 a white hand from out the clouds. If no more 
 love to send, then tell me, dearest, whither you 
 go and what you do. Tell me if Almah is in- 
 consolable, and let me share as much as possible 
 what pains and what pleases you. 
 
66 MORTAR A. 
 
 These flowers bring you my tears and my 
 kisses. I received them last night at the good 
 President's levee, who has this evening sent me 
 a letter that bends a golden canopy over all the 
 dark and lonely way. 
 
 Once again, fare thee well, mine own dear, true 
 Mortara. I shall love thee when the stars are 
 old, and come storm and cloud, or come what 
 may, next to our Heavenly Father, my trust is 
 in thee. My heart is wedded forever to thine, 
 and parted from thee I but love thee more and 
 pray for thee oftener. 
 
 One fond embrace from thy dear arm, while I 
 steal a kiss from thy dear lips, a smile from thy 
 black eyes, and a curl from thy jetty locks. 
 
 Ah ! why this shadow upon my heart and this 
 vague consciousness of every day drifting far- 
 ther and farther away from you ! But alas ! I 
 cannot drive it away, nor stop nor turn back. 
 No, no. I must go, I must, I must ! 
 
PART IV. 
 
 New York, May 9, 1850, 
 
 MoRTARA, — It is the deep night-time, — the 
 hour I know not ; but oh ! I cannot sleep when 
 I remember that to-morrow, oh ! to-morrow, I 
 speak with you and go out from your heart to re- 
 turn no more, nevermore ! Already my soul has 
 erucibled its woe beyond the bitterness of tears, 
 and henceforth life is all endurance, — cold, 
 hopeless, loveless endurance. Oh ! to-morrow, 
 to - morrow ! Shall I never meet you again ? 
 Never hear your voice ? Will you never, never, 
 never come to call me yours again ? 
 
 These nig-ht chills do not so freeze me as the 
 loneliness that now, like a cold mist, is falling 
 on my head and sinking down into my heart. 
 
 Seven moons ago I gave you the love of my 
 soul for the wealth of yours ; and now when I 
 cancel your vows and tear myself from you, as 
 well for your good as my own, my heart claims 
 you by a price a thousand times greater and a 
 thousand, thousand times paid. 
 
 Mortara, forgive me ; but vows are on my lips 
 to the dead by which I should never, never have 
 promised to be your wife, — vows which nothing 
 but love for you could ever have made me for- 
 get. Not fear of the world, nor poverty, nor 
 
68 MORTARA. 
 
 pain, nor death ; but oh ! to live with you, to be 
 yours, I would almost have forgotten heaven 
 itself. But to-night, in this desolate hour, I 
 would wring from my soul the last vestige of its 
 idolatry. I know my duty. I see what lies be- 
 fore me, — a sacrifice of not only the two little 
 years that I begged of you, but many years, a 
 lifetime, perhaps ; and God ! help me that I 
 fail not, and keep me that I turn not back ! 
 
 Dearest, noblest Mortara, my love for you be- 
 gan in gratitude ; it has grown in esteem, and 
 though I part from you now, oh ! blame me not, 
 nor darken these pure feelings with words of 
 wrong ; but like gentle rivulets let them run on, 
 that when the day is weary and the water in the 
 bottle is spent, their murmuring memories may 
 be to my fainting heart like the voices of the 
 angels whispering of hope. No, no, Mortara, 
 blame me not. It is no selfishness that moves 
 me to write you as I do. I leave happiness and 
 thee but for toil and danger ; for long years of 
 loneliness, and weariness, and darkness every- 
 where. I bless you for all your love, I bless you 
 for all your devotion ; and could I weigh happi- 
 ness from my life I would gladly crowd yours 
 with length of years and bliss such as mortals 
 never know. 
 
 I have no tears, and beyond the morrow no 
 hope. When you have read this you will write 
 me ; but oh ! say not that you love me, lest I 
 leave all and fly to you ; and oh ! say not that 
 
MORTARA. 69 
 
 you hate me lest it drive me mad. But, Mor- 
 tara, remember me and pity me. Leaving you, 
 I leave all tlie world. You will believe that I 
 love you less and my people more, but oh ! no, 
 no. My duty is to them ; and since I may not 
 live to love you, God be praised that I have a 
 smiling little troop of loved ones, to live for! 
 Striving to weed the garden of their young lives 
 will be the surest way of planting flowers in the 
 desert of my own. So even they and you and 
 everything go to make up the finger of Provi- 
 dence that forever points me away, away to the 
 lonely wanderings of that fated vision which, 
 ere you read this, my feet will have entered upon 
 nevermore to tarry, nevermore to turn back, and 
 nevermore to weary, I hope, until the end is 
 reached and the morning breaks again upon 
 these veiled eyes of mine. 
 
 Forgive me, then, Mortara, and most of all 
 forgive me if I have wronged you. But our 
 spirits divine some things and come to read them 
 all the plainer ere they have reached the form 
 and substance of words ; and I am persuaded 
 that either some untoward event growing out of 
 your noble father's death, or the same great en- 
 terprise that called your brother far, far away, 
 calls also you and you would be free. I know 
 it, I feel it ; and saying these words to you, Mor- 
 tara, I do but give utterance to what has been 
 all along distancing the night of my life from 
 the morning of yours. Is it not so? Oh, go 
 
70 MORTARA. 
 
 then ; and may the God of your fathers send His 
 whitest angels to guard and keep you ! And if 
 in far-off years we meet again, I shall love to 
 give you my hand over the deep grave of the 
 past and feel that, as now, you do at least re- 
 spect me. 
 
 Farewell, Mortara. What I feel is not woe, 
 it is not madness, it is not grief ; words may 
 never, never speak it. Oh ! was desolation ever 
 so drear ? Was loneliness ever so lonely ? And 
 oh ! was duty ever so severe ? 
 
 Alas ! the world is indeed dark before me, 
 while thou, my soul's light, goest from me. 
 And oh ! how make you believe, dearest Mor- 
 tara, that I thus lo'dl to part hands and stay 
 from you only to be the more worthy of loving 
 you and the surer of finding you again? How 
 make you know that but for the certainty of 
 wrong to you, wrong to myself, and wrong to all 
 linked hands with us both, naught this side of 
 heaven could move one thought of mine to the 
 step I am taking so long as you had a smile for 
 me left? 
 
 But oh ! thus it was ever death for me to love, 
 and T linger now as at the gate of Paradise with 
 only this one more word to thee trembling on 
 my lips, — farewell, Mortara, forever and forever 
 fare thee well. Helen. 
 
PART V. 
 
 Bangor, Me., June 27, 1852. 
 
 MoRTARA, — Like the rivers, forever running 
 yet never passed, like the winds, forever going 
 yet never gone, so is my love for thee ; and now, 
 after two long weary years, your welcome letter 
 is as if the angrels had lifted the leaden hand of 
 despair and suddenly turned a thousand rivulets 
 of joy into this desert heart of mine. Your lips 
 have but whispered my name, and lands and 
 seas are widening; between us no more. You 
 reach out your hand to enfold mine in its clasp, 
 — I hear your voice, and all my clouds are 
 beaming with light ; my stars shine again in the 
 heaven of your smile, and my morning new 
 dawns in the paradise of your love. 
 
 Oh ! nothing less than a leaf from the book 
 of life could I prize so much as this, your 
 precious letter. I could live upon its words a 
 thousand years, and feast hope forever upon its 
 dreams of love, — love all high and holy, bind- 
 ing souls as Avith the " sweet influence of the 
 Pleiades " that no power may sever them ; love 
 that came from the skies and in the lute of thy 
 voice awoke my heart to its Elysian advent of 
 song and ambrosial joys. But alas ! dearest 
 Mortara, only in the spirit world mayest thou 
 
72 MORTARA. 
 
 ever be mine and I thine. There, beneath those 
 soft skies, I may at least mark whither thy wings 
 take their flight and watch thy return, as now 
 I do miss thee everywhere and wait for thee and 
 pray for thee. But, though parted from you in 
 this world, I would still forever wear the jew- 
 eled mantle of thy love, and have all thy soul's 
 life to bless mine with. Oh ! a thousand, thou- 
 sand times a day I envy the soul part of me that 
 puts on wings and flies to you, not to your em- 
 brace, but to look on you from afar, envying the 
 while even the shadow that walks by your side 
 and the voices of the winds because they min- 
 gle with yours. Ah ! yes, but for the fear of 
 Heaven, long, long ago, a thousand, thousand 
 times ago, I had left all and followed you into 
 those golden climes. But, Mortara, astray from 
 duty I were farther from you there than here, 
 where, like the compass upon the sea, my heart 
 beats on the truer the farther from the haven, 
 and the firmer for the cloud and the storm. 
 
 It is in the soul that we love. It is my spirit 
 that weeps and is lonely without you ; and from 
 my deep heart I bless you for these dear, dear 
 words of to-day, showing me how manifold 
 richer are they who find again than they who 
 have never lost. Oh ! this precious letter ! I 
 spread it out before me, and it is a vale more 
 sunny and more beautiful than the longing eye 
 of Israel's prophet saw. I wind its lines around 
 my heart and they are rainbows too golden to 
 
MORTARA. 73 
 
 fade away. I press it to my lips ; I wear it over 
 my heart ; I set it up in my thoughts for a tem- 
 ple light that goeth not out. This dear letter, 
 — Heaven bless it, Heaven be praised for it ! 
 although forced to read in it o'er and o'er of 
 Mortara saved by letting Mortara go. Was it 
 not so, thou wayward knight ? But did I blame 
 you then, or do I blame you now ? Oh ! never, 
 neyer. My love robes you in all that is high 
 and holy, and is so like heaven that it asks no 
 return save thy heart ! When asking and ex- 
 pecting least, though, one oft most receives, and 
 lo ! now from half a world away I am wearing a 
 chain again new-forged from your love and new- 
 jeweled with your praises of me, — a chain whose 
 links even I had thought broken and lost, so 
 loosely you wore it away now two summers 
 agone. Verily, an artificer like unto the Tubal- 
 cain of old must have come to your aid, else each 
 loop, rivet, and hook could ne 'er have been re- 
 fastened so fair. No, Mortara, a necromancer 
 thou art, and by the magic of thine own words : 
 " It takes two to break an engagement," the 
 beautiful past is evoked, and all the ties that 
 bound us twain are binding us still. But oh 1 
 thou dearest, noblest, and best, if it does indeed 
 take two to break an engagement, then it must 
 surely take two to keep one ; and henceforth, 
 while I send you in the silvery horn of each 
 waning moon my prayers, my love, and my tears, 
 I pray you to remember that absence and years 
 
74 MORTAR A. 
 
 are cold things to wrap and lay away the heart 
 in. Ah ! yes, and how precious and how beau- 
 tiful of you to say : — 
 
 '" Let silence no longer bar the tomb to our 
 separation, and, please God, some day I shall re- 
 turn." 
 
 Oh ! how surely Heaven hears us when we 
 pray ; and here, even here, my heart has builded 
 an altar and lighted thereon the fires of a 
 brighter faith in the beautiful beyond. 
 
 In some far time, Mortara, far back in a life 
 that we have lived before, our spirits must have 
 met and bowed and sipped together at the same 
 spirit wells of thought and feeling; else why, 
 oh ! why, our strange dreamlike recognition here ? 
 I could not see you, yet your presence lighted 
 all my soul as with the sweet aurora of remem- 
 bered smiles ; while your voice, your words even, 
 broke upon my ear like the echoes of some far- 
 lost, love-betraying Shibboleth ; until, listening 
 entranced, I could almost have named you by 
 a name borne to my lips on a tide of reawak- 
 ened memory. Then, half around that little 
 lake, — dost remember ? — you paused, and ex- 
 claimed : — 
 
 " Why, it seems I have been waiting and look- 
 ing for some one like you all my life, and I am 
 half vexed now with those angels you speak of 
 for not bringing you to me sooner." The next 
 morning, too, by the Cocoa Spring, stooping to 
 fill that tiny cup for me, you said : — 
 
MORTAR A. 75 
 
 " Were this bubbling fountain in my own 
 country I should fancy my parents must have en- 
 camped by it while on some pilgrimage in my 
 infancy, I am always so haunted here with some- 
 thing like forgotten voices and faded memories;" 
 when only the evening before I had said to one 
 of the ladies : — 
 
 " I must have visited this spot some time in 
 the dreamland, the gurgling of the waters and 
 all about it comes back to me so strangely." 
 Thus, like happy children, we grew to be ac- 
 quainted by forgetting that we were strangers, 
 or rather by discovering, as it seemed, that even 
 the shadowy memories and fancies of our souls 
 had some time or other fallen together ; and as 
 we went on, reliving to each other our separate 
 lives, what wonder that we found such new in- 
 terest in each event now that, like a long divided 
 page, the two halves of our one life were joined 
 again ! All too soon, though, the great clock of 
 Fate struck another, sadder hour, and knelled 
 out our paths henceon in opposite directions. 
 A sea of time rolled between, an icy sea mayhap, 
 whose dark waves must needs be crossed and re- 
 crossed many times. But if the destinies of our 
 souls be indeed one, we shall ere long surely 
 meet again. At all events, dearest Mortara, let 
 us be patient and never weary well doing, that 
 although parted in this life we may finally come 
 to rest together in the bosom of our Heavenly 
 Father whose love melteth his sorest bereave- 
 
T6 MORTARA. 
 
 ments into blessing. Oh, no, no ! thou dearest, 
 noblest, and best, weary not, and oh, — may I ask 
 it ? — forget me not. And when nothing brighter 
 in the world comforts you, remember that far, 
 far away one loves you a thousand, thousand 
 times more than her own life, and would gladly 
 give all for you and leave all for you save God 
 and heaven, — and heaven were scarcely heaven 
 save you were in it. 
 
 I love you, Mortara. In my thoughts I love 
 you, in my prayers I love you, and in my grief 
 and in my tears I remember you. Oh ! while 
 one spark of my soul remains, that one spark 
 will be the brighter for its memory of you; 
 while the joy I have in your prosperity is equaled 
 only by the love-lighted castles I build upon the 
 hope of your return. Helen. 
 
MORTAR A. 77 
 
 New York, November 27, 1852. 
 
 MoRTARA, — As the ocean in the distance is 
 joined to the sky, so this hour, half a world away, 
 my spirit is blending its light and its love with 
 thine ; and the angels are listening while I as- 
 sure thee, dearest, that the throbbings of the sea 
 are not more true to the earth, whose bosom she 
 sleeps upon, than is my soul to thee. 
 
 Oh ! come forth and look into the stars to- 
 night, and behold my smile for thee. Listen to 
 the low-breathing waters, and they will tell thee 
 of me, — how I wait for thee, how I watch for 
 thee, and how I think of thee, and how I pray 
 for thee ever, ever ! 
 
 Mortara, I see again, oh ! I see again. The 
 world is growing glad and new ; but this same 
 bright world, Mortara, I would give to gaze one 
 moment on you. The sun, the moon, the rivers, 
 and the green fields and the blue sky are break- 
 ing through the mists. Joy has returned, hope 
 has returned, but oh ! you come not, you come 
 not ; and though I watch for you until the day 
 hangs weary on the world, and though I sleep 
 and dream of you, still you come not, you come 
 not ! Oh ! why, why, with all other bright things, 
 may you not come to smile on me now ? The 
 angels, with love-dews fresh on their dappling 
 
78 MORTARA. 
 
 wings, alone know how my eyes look for thee 
 everywhere, — in every cloud, in every shadow, 
 and in every form that comes and goes ; and 
 how I watch for thy smile in the twinkling stars, 
 in the soft moon, and everything that has light 
 and love in it. 
 
 Oh ! the soul is not a thing to be bridled. 
 We cannot rein our thoughts whither we would ; 
 and mine, alas ! are lingering ever with you. 
 My heart throbs at the very word letter, and 
 every footfall but echoes back the memory of 
 yours ; and wander where I will, as in a happy 
 dream, I am forever with you, — your smiles still 
 warm on my heart and your whispers still dear 
 on my lips. Alas ! no, what one is one cannot 
 help. We cannot tear hence our feelings, and 
 sink them root and branch into the sea of for- 
 getfulness, nor strangle the hopes nor choke 
 away the desires of our souls ; and while this 
 light lasts, dear, dear Mortara, how I do long, 
 long to see you ! See you ? Oh ! that is too 
 much to hope for and too much to pray for. 
 Indeed, the haunting convictions, shaped out of 
 that long ago vision, make me almost know that 
 it may not, cannot be. Alas ! no. Fortune sel- 
 dom gives so largely but to take again, and like 
 the rainbow upon the watery clouds I fear her 
 smile on me brightens but to fade away ; and I 
 must learn to look for the joy of seeing you, or 
 anything beyond this little sunny opening in the 
 wilderness, as I have learned to look for all the 
 
MORTAR A. 79 
 
 joys hope once painted so brightly along my 
 life's horizon. 
 
 Opposite points, though, long pursued, must 
 finally meet ; so some day our paths, like broken 
 circles, may join again. And till then, dearest 
 Mortara, fare thee well, while with all the re- 
 newed promises of thy last dear letter wrapped 
 warm in my heart, blessings be on thee like the 
 rains, love like the dews, and prayers for thee 
 all heavenward like the breath and the odor of 
 the flowers ! Helen. 
 
BO MORTARA. 
 
 New Orleans, January 17, 1853. 
 
 MoRTARA, — Only from the far away land of 
 the blest could one receive tidings more sweet 
 and more beautiful than this, thy letter, brings. 
 Oh! joy beyond words. You coming? Mortara 
 coming ? The thought suffocates ; my breath 
 stops ; I think where to hide me. " I would not 
 see you for the world, and yet for the world I 
 would not miss seeing you ! " 
 
 My thoughts swell, my heart beats, fancy flies, 
 and I tremble as if the grave yawned, when I 
 should be calm in the fullness of joy. 
 
 Three years, so long and weary, seem now but 
 a bridge, a golden span, linking the sunny past 
 to the hoping, fearing present ; but a " Bridge 
 of Sighs " mayhap, for oh ! what lies beyond ? 
 Love cometh only from above, and alas ! I have 
 no Franklin power by which to steal it down 
 upon you, Mortara, as now I would fain woo a 
 smile from those black eyes of thine. Ah ! no, 
 for although lacking little of their lost lustre, 
 these eyes of mine are still hardly the eyes, I 
 ween, for looking love to eyes again. Once 
 more bathed in the enkindling flashes of yours, 
 though, they will be at least clairvoyant enough 
 to miss the palest ray that has ever beamed in a 
 smile of thine. I shall know, too, if so much as 
 
MORTARA. 81 
 
 one thought in all your heart be faced backward, 
 or if one word of your love be found to weigh in 
 its weio-hing even the weight of a shadow less. 
 
 Richer and prouder and haughtier than before ! 
 Pulseless hands will greet you, false lips salute 
 you, and falser hearts seek you. But oh ! would, 
 dearest, I had some Jupiter chariot and horses 
 with hoofs of fire to speed thy coming ; stars to 
 guide thee, and legions to bring thee ! Morn- 
 ino-, open wide thy portals ! Let the world be 
 bright and new ! Mortara comes, Mortara comes ! 
 All life is in that word, all hope is in it and all 
 fear. My Judea regained, my Israel returning ? 
 Those arms still my "belts of gold," and thy 
 heart still a refuge from the world ? Thy love 
 a lio-ht over its wastes, and, more than all, thy 
 noble self forever near ? Oh ! for a thousand 
 hearts to rejoice, and ten thousand lips to speak 
 while mine eyes weep tears that drown words. 
 
 But, dear, noble Mortara, call not all the hap- 
 piness your great heart plans for me a return for 
 the one poor little service once in my power to 
 render you. No, no, say not so ! A grain of 
 sand weighed from your love were more to my 
 heart than the world from your obligation. 
 Love is blessed only with love; and gifts, for- 
 tune, benefits, all were nothing save thine own 
 ever-abiding love were with it. While every 
 word of your precious letter is heavy with prom- 
 ise, this one line at its close makes the gold and 
 the purple of it all : — 
 6 
 
82 MORTAR A. 
 
 " Dearest Helen, all that I ever was to you I 
 am, and all that I am, with God's help, I ever 
 shall be." Yesterday I was poor in spirit, poor 
 in heart, poor in all things ; but to-day this one 
 line makes my heart evermore, 
 
 " A palace rich and purple chambered, 
 
 And the lord himself at home." 
 
 Ah ! yes, dearest, dearest Mortara, I know 
 now that thou art too great and too noble ever, 
 ever to change ; and ere long, if not in this 
 world, far, far up in the flowery fields of God's 
 love, radiant in the light of heaven, I shall walk 
 linked hands with thee, and love thee forever, 
 forever ! 
 
 star of my soul, light of my thoughts, all 
 the angels attend thee ; and our Heavenly Father 
 grant that the slow turning moons, yet to come 
 and wane, be crowded only with all holy thanks, 
 and end only in love's sweet rejoicings^ 
 
 Helen. 
 
PART VI. 
 
 Louisville, Kentucky, June 1, 1853. 
 
 MoRTARA, — I received your dear sad letter 
 in tlie far South, and all the way up the river I 
 have worn it on my heart, now weeping and now 
 rejoicing over its contents : weeping that like 
 the Roman in his prophecy you are sitting alone 
 in that far-off land amidst the smouldering ruins 
 of your fortunes, your hopes, and your toils ; but 
 rejoicing that like the prophet among the deso- 
 lations of Jerusalem, you have the heart to feel 
 that the hand of your God is good upon you, 
 and the courage still "to rise up and build." 
 dearest, dearest, noblest Mortara, pray do so, and 
 never, never despair ! The good angels will be 
 thy watch day and night, while my heart will be 
 making prayers unto our God for thee, even from 
 the rising of the morning till the stars appear. 
 
 Oh, no, no ! be not disheartened, but go 
 strengthen thyself and encamp again over 
 against the world like Israel's two little flocks 
 of kids, trusting in the Lord who is both God 
 of the hills and of the valleys ; and ere many 
 years are past, believe me, you will be saying, 
 like brave Themistocles in his exile : " I had 
 been undone but for my undoing." 
 
 The bitter sweet is after all life's richest sweet, 
 
84 MORTAR A. 
 
 only so we had the taste or the wisdom to relish 
 it, and toiling in a good cause a thousand, thou- 
 sand times better for the soul than sipping from 
 that vapid cup the world calls happiness. 
 
 Men name endurance the mightiest of the vir- 
 tues, but it is far more apportioned to woman's 
 lot than to man's. The glory of action is his ; 
 and, Mortara, even now despite my tears for 
 your losses, I almost envy you the exciting strifes 
 of rebuilding your broken fortunes. Oh ! only 
 to-day do I see how courageous and noble and 
 true you are. As the frosts upon the forest leaves 
 bring out their splendors, so adversities do but 
 reveal your greatness and your goodness. And 
 Mortara, Heaven knows too that you were 
 never, never before half so precious and half so 
 beloved. With your immense wealth and your 
 thousand other nameless advantages, you seemed 
 to me almost some far-off blessed Abraham, with 
 an impassable gulf between ; but to-day, with 
 the ashes of your proud hopes upon your head 
 and your heart bowed with disappointment, my 
 spirit would fain cross the deserts of the universe 
 to rest one hour in the bosom of your sympa- 
 thies and your love. 
 
 Calling you mine, though, seems always like 
 claiming something possibly in the gift of God 
 and possibly not ; and as a proof of your un- 
 abated love, how I bless you for the risk that 
 snatched from the flames my picture and my let- 
 ters ! How I bless you too, brave, noble Mor- 
 
MORTAR A. 85 
 
 tara, that even amid the gloom and the untold 
 ruin around you, you can still forget all to pity 
 my disappointment, and rejoice at the new light 
 in these poor, poor eyes of mine. But, dearest, 
 I know now that it may not, cannot last. Alas ! 
 no ; the closing scene of the vision with the 
 light and the day is not yet. Five more scenes 
 of the long, lonely way still wait to be wandered 
 through, and I find it hard indeed to be con- 
 soled for the disappointment of these words : 
 " God only knows now when I may return." 
 
 Oh ! how like an eternity the long night of 
 your absence breaks upon my heart, as if all time 
 were too short for its setting sun to rise again. 
 Alas ! but for this promise the dove of hope had 
 taken wing from my soul to return no more, 
 nevermore : 
 
 " Memory of you and the past can only cease 
 with death." Thus all that Heaven sends, de- 
 parting bequeaths its comforter ; and dearest, 
 ever dearest Mortara, repeat these words often, 
 often ! Let them be green leaves, assuring me 
 again and again that the heart whence they came 
 is forever fresh and sunny and beautiful, as erst 
 it was. 
 
 So, commending you, dearest, to the love of 
 God and the tender mercies of the blessed Mes- 
 siah, in all love and all tears, as ever and forever 
 I wait for thee and watch for thee and pray for 
 thee. Helen. 
 
PART VII. 
 
 Canaseraga Valley, August 15, 1854. 
 
 MoRTAEA, — thou on whom my soul smiles, 
 and around whom love ever lingers ! Thou em- 
 balmed, preserved, endeared ; thou all beloved ! 
 Thou star remote, yet never gone ; thou always 
 near, yet ever distant, would thou wert with me, 
 would thou wert with me ! Thy coming were as 
 I oft have met thee in the paradise of dreams ; 
 thy embrace the reception of the angels, and thy 
 whispers and thy kisses the joys that my heart 
 knew in the days that are gone, in the days that 
 are gone ! 
 
 By its long waiting my spirit has grown meek 
 and forbearing; but sometimes this heart of 
 mine rebels, and every voice of my soul cries : 
 I must hear from Mortara or die. But death 
 comes not, and days — long, weary days — clus- 
 ter in my memory hke night-blossoms bedewed 
 with darkness. 
 
 I am writing you with your portrait smiling 
 down upon me here, and ever and anon I fancy 
 your bright eyes flashing a look over my page, 
 and your eloquent lips moving to words just 
 ever so Httle too low for the rapture of mine ear. 
 Ah ! I would fain ask of thy shadow even : 
 When will ambition be gratified, those high 
 
88 MORTARA. 
 
 hopes once more builded up, and all that weighs 
 down thy great heart swept away ? 
 
 Oh, could I melt down the pleasures of a life- 
 time into one draught, I would give it for the 
 intoxicating joy of once beholding those black 
 eyes of thine, radiant with the fullness of all 
 their brilliant desires. 
 
 What ! did I then sigh to see thee a Solo- 
 mon with his shining Ophirs to draw from, or a 
 Crcesus with his glittering vaults uncounted ? 
 Ah ! as well give thee wings to touch the stars, 
 and then go sighing evermore for the world's 
 lost Alkahest, wherewith to melt and mould thy 
 heart anew, summon thy thoughts, and evoke 
 thy presence, all radiant and beautiful as thou 
 art. No, no ! Even the dream of thy coming 
 is a thing to break joy upon, and a thousand, 
 thousand times better than mourning thy loss 
 amid the tombs of thy promises gone to decay. 
 Would, though, such were the pity in heaven 
 for beings out of it that, though destined never- 
 more to set my heart around with thy smile, I 
 might at least die for thee ; and, dying, seize the 
 voices of the winds evermore to hymn thy name 
 with the swelling harmonies of the skies, teach 
 it to the breezes o'er the main, and whisper it 
 with the low breathing of the flowers ! 
 
 Mortara, every moon, as I promised, I write 
 you ; but alas ! no moon, however bright, brings 
 me any more aught in return. Either some un- 
 toward fate deprives me of your letters, or in 
 
MORTAR A. 89 
 
 your renewed strifes for fortune you make your- 
 self forget one who, wearing thy name forever 
 on her lips, wears the years away wreathing it 
 o'er and o'er with prayers for thee, all luminous 
 with love and dewy with tears. 
 
 Oh ! the assembled universe in the love I bear 
 it could not balance one throb my heart feels for 
 thee ; and had I but one new whisper from thy 
 love, Mortara, the radiant night-heaven with all 
 its skies and stars could not buy it. Ah ! no ; 
 dark and lonely as the world is, even to know 
 that you live with so much as a prayer for me 
 shut up in your thoughts were a thousand, thou- 
 sand times more to my joy than a crown set with 
 stars plucked from the belts of Orion, while one 
 other fond word of thine were forevermore the 
 sweet Selah to my heart's last dream of love. 
 
 Alas ! language is too poor. It doth but 
 symbol the heart's deep yearnings, and words 
 are weights to my love's white-winged thoughts 
 of thee. 
 
 But, Mortara, fare thee well ! Ere long thou 
 wilt come again, and I shall scream as though 
 existence were spent in that one breath, and my 
 heart will sink with the weight of its very joy. 
 
 Helen. 
 
90 MORTAR A. 
 
 Canaseraga Valley, September 17, 1854, 
 
 MoRTARA, — This is one of those quandary 
 days when one hardly knows what to do with 
 one's self. Indeed, all nature seems in a quan- 
 dary. Glad summer has left us, and this is the 
 coming in of autumn. The sky looks wonder- 
 ing whether to wear her white, her blue, or her 
 smoky veil. The leaves on the trees seem in 
 doubt whether to turn red or yellow or stay 
 green, and the birds appear to be postponing 
 from day to day some long half-desired and half- 
 dreaded journey. Just so my heart coaxes me : 
 Do not go to-day, to-morrow ; but oh ! to-mor- 
 row I must go. 
 
 The fires that kindle my thoughts and the 
 tides that flow in my veins all fountain here ; 
 but had this valley home no other endearment, 
 so long as thy shadow hangs upon its walls it is 
 a Mecca temple, where to journey to and pray 
 and weep. 
 
 Your letter, care of Benoni, was lost ; and, 
 believe me, had I barks on all the seas and 
 they were wrecked, I had regretted them less 
 than that dear letter of thine, with all its pre- 
 cious freightage gone down forever. Love mag- 
 nifieth all things, but mostly that which it hath 
 lost. Thy letter here, it were perchance cold 
 
MORTAR A. 91 
 
 and accusing, but lost 't is a chart of thy love's 
 promised Eden, with thy tears like dews on all 
 the flowers, and thy sighs like lonely winds, 
 moaning ever, ever. Ah ! fancy, thou genii to 
 love, how much I owe thee ! 
 
 Pray, Mortara, how much gold must you have 
 to cancel those " debts of honor," as you call 
 them ? How high must the pile be, and at what 
 rate does it grow ? Oh ! tell me for an estimate 
 whereon to build hope, the while I go on 
 wandering, wandering, toiling as ever with thy 
 name last on my lips, thine image latest in my 
 thoughts, and fond memories of thee forever 
 circling around my heart. 
 
 Oh ! this world is such a chaos of contradic- 
 tions. We do not reach blessings, but forever 
 pendulum betwixt them, always going to possess, 
 but never possessing. I left thee for the world, 
 but leaving thee I left the world, — left thee 
 alas ! at the fated call of the vision ; hence for- 
 ever wandering, wandering, just as now I press 
 hands and part with all who bless and smile on 
 me here, thus garlanding the tomb thine absence 
 forever makes in my soul. 
 
 So, waiting the dawn of the morrow, I send 
 thee once again all holy greeting, with a never 
 failing hin of love and a golden ej^hali of bless- 
 ing. Helen. 
 
PART VIII. 
 
 Montreal, C. E., December 1, 1854. 
 
 MoRTARA, — My spirit has gone back into 
 itself, and my heart has barred its every portal. 
 My lips are sealed. I have no words, and mine 
 eyes swim in unshed tears. Oh ! this is the ex- 
 cess of joy, the grief of pleasure, the muteness 
 of inexpressible delight. Pray, Mortara, is it a 
 dream ? Let me creep to your feet, let me touch 
 your hands, and oh ! tell me if this side of 
 heaven I do indeed greet you again with praise 
 and love even on your lips ! 
 
 You say : " When your angels bring me 
 back." Ah ! me, I would stay from heaven 
 many long weary years, for the light and glad- 
 ness and joy and honor of that one Purim day. 
 But alas ! my cmgels are not the mighty but 
 the gentle ones, and you, dearest, are slow to be 
 coaxed. 
 
 " Sorrow is knowledge," and wisdom as surely 
 blanches the locks as death pales the cheek. 
 What wonder, then, thou dear sage, that thine 
 should be frosting gray even so early ? You 
 always seemed to me a sort of Mejnour, and 
 now with those black curls so silvered o'er you 
 must be looking an ancient indeed ! But oh ! 
 love is immortal ; love is always young. It is 
 
94 MORTAR A. 
 
 the soul's one wilderness garment that waxeth 
 not old. 
 
 Alas ! what enemy have I among the angels 
 or in the world, that so many of thy dear letters 
 have been lost, when their contents had been 
 such precious crumbs to this Lazarus heart of 
 mine? But though lost, I bless you for them 
 all, as I rejoice to know that those little pilgrim- 
 ages are still kept up in honor of the arrival of 
 mine, and offerings for them doubled too when 
 written with my own hand. 
 
 The old alchemist, whose mystic vapors 
 wrought such magic upon my eyes, has gone 
 again to his own land, leaving the day little or 
 no brighter to me than when he came ; and 
 henceon I do but wait the return of my pale 
 Polar star, whose sweet light faded from my 
 sky so long, long ago, oh ! so long, long ago. 
 
 Mortara, I did indeed turn back when the 
 fates began to frown upon your way. My heart, 
 though, was never wronged more than by these 
 words at the close of your letter : " If you loved 
 me as you loved another " — 
 
 Madame De Stael said truly : " Happy are 
 they who meet in early life the one they should 
 love always." She might have added, though : 
 
 But oftener, far oftener, the history of 
 woman's heart is the history of the vine, which 
 first reaches out its tendrils perchance to the 
 stalk ; that outgrown, it descends to the ground 
 and creeps timidly to the pole or the blossoming 
 
MORTAR A. 95 
 
 cherry ; thence to the fence and thence to the 
 elm or the oak, around which it climbs and 
 clings every day closer and closer, until all its 
 strength lies in that one grasp. Perhaps it 
 questions and wonders while it climbs and clings : 
 " Is this eternal ? " and then there comes out, 
 from the deep heart of the oak, a voice : — 
 
 " Forever, forever ! " Years roll on. The 
 oak is gray and old, but the vine with fresh life 
 covers it over, while with unseen and ever multi- 
 plying ties it clings closer and closer. The tree 
 dies, the winds fell it to the ground ; and where 
 now the vine ? Its life was in that one tree, and 
 though bruised and broken it still twines and 
 clings, nor once unclasps its circling arms. 
 
 Oh ! so, dearest, ever dearest Mortara, through 
 all time my soul must cling to you. I would 
 unwind the cords that bind me, but alas ! I 
 cannot. Like the stars in their blue homes my 
 spirit will be watching you, while in the dust of 
 its decayed hopes my heart will be ever writing 
 thy name anew. Oh ! pity me then, dearest, 
 noblest Mortara, while now I look on the dear 
 hand once more so generously held out to me 
 and weep alas ! that it may not, cannot guide 
 me back to thee again. At sight of the words : 
 " I will cross the waves of one ocean and await 
 
 you at A ," sweet Minnie stopped reading, 
 
 and more gasped than exclaimed : — 
 
 " Now, now ! " — while my heart has scarcely 
 had a beat in it since. She has little to bind 
 
96 MORTARA. 
 
 her here, and would gladly go out with me to 
 stand bridesmaid and meet you with "the par- 
 son and his scroll," as you say. But oh ! I am 
 thinking of the two dear heads, now gray and 
 fast growing old, and remember that of the 
 drafts that were to pay for the mill, yet more 
 are to be sent ; while the house, so light and 
 warm and full of cheer, has still always a day of 
 due for the rent. For the eight, too, whose rosy 
 
 faces you saw clustered in M , as yet only 
 
 three weddings have had to be made ; three are 
 still to leave school, and until the last has turned 
 to another for trust and for guidance, your ex- 
 ample of devotion to your own should be rebuke 
 enough to stay me from leaving them. Beside, 
 Mortara, you do not need me. I could do 
 nothing for you but love you, and tell you so the 
 day through. And is it not better, then, that I 
 stay to pluck thorns from their paths rather than 
 go for you to scatter flowers in mine ? 
 
 God's ways are not as ours, and I was fleeing 
 from His way when I followed one down to the 
 grave ; and now the retracing footsteps are in- 
 deed slow and weary, the stars even refusing 
 their light thereon, as the sun deigns but a 
 glimmer of his, while sweet Justice seems to find 
 pleasure lengthening out her once slighted work 
 over the weary years like a fated web that the 
 angels come to unravel by night. 
 
 Alas ! that the little of heaven in us should 
 be so divided against itself that we know not 
 
MORTARA. 97 
 
 what to do. Duty points pleadingly one way, 
 while love is weeping great tears to go the other, 
 and both are love and both are duty. To stay, 
 though, seems more the way of the vision, and 
 hence more the way the angels are likely to 
 smile on. 
 
 But Mortara, you will accomplish what 
 you went away for, and come again sometime, 
 will you not ? You must, you must ! And will 
 I forget you ? Will I know thy voice again ? 
 Were my heart the lost Pleiade, thy lips, thy 
 tread even would call it back. You taught me 
 to love, and the hills will sooner gather back 
 their rivers from the seas than one love-tide from 
 my soul ever cease to flow, or one thought of 
 mine ever lose its memory of thee. Helen. 
 7 
 
PART IX. 
 
 St. Louis, Mo., April 4, 1855. 
 MoRTARA, — Many moons have shimmered 
 their cold light upon the world since the date of 
 thy last; but now, while all things warm with 
 life, may not thy heart also break the frosty fet- 
 ters that have so long bound and locked it away? 
 The soul has its springtime, its summer, and its 
 winter ; but oh ! the winter of thy freezing silence 
 has lasted too long. Speak but one word, and 
 every thought will put on freshness, every feel- 
 ing bud and blossom. Smile, and mine eyes 
 were fountains of tears, sparkling in the light 
 of happy memories. Say thou wilt ever' come 
 ao-ain, and the world were bHssful Eden full of 
 singing birds, with skies raining dews of glad- 
 ness odorous with love. Ah ! count the years, 
 count the days, count the minutes, and call them 
 each a century, and thou wilt have but a poor 
 estimate of what my heart calls the eternity of 
 your absence, and the banishment of this long 
 
 silence. 
 
 Mortara, just the hours of this one gloomy 
 evenino-, enlivened by your words and illumined 
 by your presence, were more to me than an age 
 of millenniums without you. But alas ! thmgs 
 too brig-ht consume themselves, and such was 
 
 ft 
 
100 MORTAR A. 
 
 our last evening together, when, like the stars 
 looking into heaven and smiling back upon the 
 world, your fond eyes were smiling on me. 
 
 Now imagination like a pitiless genii is having 
 it all her own way, smiting my heart with useless 
 wails of the-might-have-been. Oh, the-might- 
 have-been ! What human soul has not sung 
 that dirge ? Verily, the winds come howling it 
 by like an invisible band of mourners from the 
 grave of all things. Alas ! is anything in this 
 life real, or are we indeed shadows, and this 
 world altogether a shadowy land, while the 
 blackened skies above give us only glimpses of 
 a far-off better home, better friends, and better 
 love? 
 
 Oh ! I am so weary to-night, oh ! so weary. 
 Far back, ever so far back, I crossed the path of 
 one whose first word melted over my soul like a 
 touch of fate. We were opposite bound, — his 
 way was not my way. We parted, but like a 
 beautiful avenger he bore away with him my 
 soul, and hence, on, on, forever and forever on, 
 I wander, wander, seeking, hoping, praying, but 
 never, never finding. 
 
 Thou who art set in the throne, that judg- 
 est right, be they not chid in heaven who do us 
 such wrong ; who pluck out our hearts, leaving 
 us just so much of life as serves our feet and 
 hands to move, while all else is forever away, 
 away, away? Or, to Thine all-seeing eye, do 
 they indeed most bless who smite us thus, by 
 
MORTARA. 101 
 
 rendering us henceon insensible to all lighter 
 blows ? thou sweetest bitter, thou dearest 
 wretchedness of heart that we name love, with- 
 out thee what cahn, what blessedness ! 
 
 Alas ! Mortara, brighter charms than the dia- 
 monds in the sands may come to bind thee to 
 those balmy skies. Oh, would I were there with 
 the pearls of the sea to win me back my " belts 
 of gold," and that heart of thine, which our 
 Heavenly Father grant heave never with pain 
 and throb never with but holy desire ; all heav- 
 enly feelings inhabit there, and white-winged 
 thoughts hie thence to noble purposes ! 
 
 The soul knoweth nothino" so freezino- as a 
 frosty look from eyes once dewy with the tears 
 of love ; and better, Mortara, I shut mine eyes 
 and die than that thou shouldst return to look 
 coldly on me. But with these words for memory 
 and hope to break smiles upon, it is folly to 
 chide and weakness to doubt : — 
 
 " Know always that I love you, and believe 
 always that I write you." 
 
 Ah ! yes, I must believe, I will believe ; and 
 what though the days be long — blessings, slow 
 coming, purple by the way, and they are richest 
 in the end who longest wait. Love, too, oft 
 blesses most when most withholding ; and so, 
 dearest Mortara, once more bowing and kissing 
 the hand that denies, true like those who watch 
 in heaven, T wait for thee and pray for thee. 
 
 Helen. 
 
102 MORTARA. 
 
 Frankfort, Ky., May 16, 1855. 
 
 MoRTARA, — Oh, for new thoughts to write 
 thee, — thoughts that fly and words that burn ! 
 All things are stale. The world seems old and 
 weary. The skies wear a dismal gray, and the 
 rains fall heavily. The Mayflowers droop their 
 heads, and my thoughts are heavy with the dews 
 of sorrow. 
 
 You come no more to sit beside me, Mortara, 
 as in the long ago, when hours went gliding by, 
 and we believing but moments had flown ; when, 
 drawing sweet converse from our own hearts, 
 you pictured oft as in the mirror of your love the 
 mansion fair wherein our twained shadows were 
 to fall. One, I mind me, was in the land of 
 palms. It had belonged to the Mortaras of old, 
 and gold now would restore it to the far de- 
 scendant of their house ; a palace, the softened 
 light in whose windows was to ofFend never these 
 veiled eyes of mine, and whose Oriental hang- 
 ings should make only downy collisions with my 
 " snowy brow " moving softly their splendors 
 among ; a palace of sunshine amid shades and 
 perfumes, with its gates standing always ajar 
 waiting, waiting that one halcyon day when wed- 
 ded we two would be, — wedded, Mortara and 
 me ! The angels had us by the hand, though, 
 and now alas ! for all save the dreams of bliss 
 
MORTAR A. 103 
 
 that we conjured then from a Canaan that only 
 our own love-hghted eyes were ever to see — a 
 Canaan whose river between but widens and 
 deepens ; whose trumpet priests make no blast, 
 and whose Joshua to go over and possess it cries 
 never but to halt, and whose pillar of cloud alas ! 
 beckons never but to stay, stay, stay ! 
 
 So, the summer of life wanes, the autumn 
 draws on apace, and then the winter and then 
 the grave. But oh ! beyond is that beautiful 
 springtime where all are young again, where the 
 warm tides of life never fail, and its fresh hues 
 never fade. But, Mortara, even there, methinks, 
 1 were lonely without thee, and far down by 
 those Orient gates I were waiting and thinking 
 about thee. 
 
 A little time ago, I wished thee unhappy like 
 myself ; but no, no ! I have called the reporting 
 angel back, and bade him say in heaven that far, 
 far sooner sorrow come to me than the shadow 
 of ill to thee. I have prayed for thee, too, all 
 prosperity and all joy and peace in love's sweet 
 forgiveness, craving for myself, alas ! naught 
 save thy heart, that were to me ever a Demidoff 
 palace lighted with mine own undying love for 
 thee ; and once more mine, I were rich enough 
 to give queens charity. 
 
 Now the world is still, and Silence, through 
 her weird telephone of the night, is whispering 
 to me ; — whispering from far over the land and 
 the sea chidings, Mortara, that stir all my soul's 
 
104 MORTAR A. 
 
 impassioned longings to rise up and face my 
 steps toward the sunset and thee. But alas ! 
 not till the vows on my lips to the dead are for- 
 gotten in heaven, and time has unrolled the last 
 scene foreshadowed in the vision, can I ever, 
 ever, ever be free. Had the light remained in my 
 eyes, though, I might have compromised with the 
 angels for the rest, and gone out " to meet you 
 half way ; " but wrapped in these clouds I am 
 their slave again, fast chained to the mysterious 
 old pillar of the vision, which even you should 
 be diviner enough by this time to see was but a 
 forecast of what the great, thousand-eyed world 
 would be to me in the darkness. You should 
 see, also, that to the rounded bits of gold it con- 
 tains myself is but the " Open Sesame," and the 
 little books I carry the magic wand by which 
 they are transferred, not to my keeping, but to 
 my hand, the while the same ever-waiting de- 
 mand spirits them away. So I wander, wander, 
 literally picking the shining little circlets from 
 the gloomy old presence that everywhere over- 
 shadows me with dread, — precisely as it was in 
 the vision. Some day, though, in a way and by 
 means now impossible to foresee, the gold will 
 all suddenly disappear, and quantities of a dark 
 green material come in its stead. Of that 
 too, despite the rougher ways it will bring, I am 
 fated to wander and gather the same as of the 
 gold, — wander, toil, and gather, answering ever 
 to the. same unsatisfied call, and with the same 
 
MORTAR A. 105 
 
 indifference to possession. But then, just as 
 suddenly and in a way just as unlooked for, the 
 dark green material will also disappear, fol- 
 lowed ere long by the shining out of the gold 
 again in something like tablets or squares ; and 
 then the end, with its purple dawn from afar. 
 
 But oh ! from the Mount Nebo of this lonely 
 hour how hopeless and endless it all seems, while 
 far back over the past I see only the Galeed that 
 my heart set up where, ages ago, I pressed hands 
 and parted with thee. Have mercy, then, Mor- 
 tara ! Be thy noble self again, and let this freez- 
 ing silence chide me no longer. Oh ! one word 
 of hope and the slow turning hours were but 
 new dials to wait and watch for thee in, with 
 every thought bearing torches of welcome and 
 tiptoe with expectant delight. . . . 
 
 But as Adam and Eve brought Paradise into 
 the world, so my heart forever carries love and 
 thee in its memory, as my thoughts will be bear- 
 ing thy name for a light o'er the way when the 
 night-stars of all time have set. Helen. 
 
PART X. 
 
 New York, January 1, 1856. 
 
 MoRTARA, — Par away in that western Orient, 
 where soft skies rain dews upon the golden sands 
 and drink back odors from the flowers, your heart 
 has become like " the charmed sea," lulling even 
 the winds to sleep upon its bosom ; and what a 
 sin to roil its sunny bays with rivulets from my 
 gloomy feelings ! But another year has counted 
 out its moons and seasons to the world, and 
 marked its gloomy centuries of waiting upon this 
 heart of mine. 
 
 The bells are ringing. The city seems one 
 great organ throbbing with harmonies, and all 
 are merry, merry; while Time with withered 
 hand writes himself older, or perchance, in the 
 eternal circle of things, younger. 
 
 Oh ! would there were a New Year to life, a 
 new birth to love, a fresh waking to the heart, 
 a regeneration to body and soul without the 
 pain and the fear of dying. Would that we 
 children of Eve, by some second eating, might 
 win back that primal youth beneath palms and 
 amaranths, surpassing even Milton's picturing! 
 Or would there were at least some backward way 
 to the end of time, that I might be, as my heart 
 is now, ever journeying adown the sunny slopes 
 
108 MORTAR A. 
 
 of memory, meeting with thee, parting with thee, 
 praying for thee, and loving thee ever, ever, ever ! 
 Ah ! yes, wandering, how sweet it were to find 
 thee thus again, as long, long ago, and be called 
 thine, be called dear ; when, turning whichever 
 way I would, myself seemed winding praises 
 from thy lips that an angel might covet to hear. 
 
 But ill - starred past ! Like the golden 
 beams braiding along thy horizon, thy promises 
 and thy glories have faded away ; and on this 
 glad day, while heaven is prodigal with gifts and 
 the world jubilant with mirth, I am alone, alone, 
 alone ! 
 
 Mortara, it is weakness to love thee so ; but 
 the angels do pity while I myself do chide my- 
 self and blush for the heart that I cannot change. 
 Oh, send me but one word, and with my grateful 
 tears I will dissolve that one word and drink it, 
 as did Egypt's queen the pearl worth a king- 
 dom ; and it shall be to my heart a life elixir, a 
 balm for all ills save the pain and the bliss of 
 loving thee. 
 
 Where God wills that we tread His angels are 
 swift to beckon the way, and following, I go 
 wandering, wandering, a stranger and lonely and 
 weary everywhere, with only light enough shut 
 up in my heart to miss thee by. 
 
 But, lacking all things, love hath yet itself 
 wherewith to bless ; and I pray for thee, Mor- 
 tara, Happy New Years, golden sheaves of them, 
 banded with silver and knotted with good deeds ! 
 
 Heleist. 
 
MORTAR A. 109 
 
 Montgomery, Ala., April 25, 1856. 
 
 MoRTARA, — This is your Sabbath, but I feel 
 it no sin to give its sacred hours to love and 
 thee ; for like David my starving soul would fain 
 seize the purple clusters from off the love-altar 
 at which it comes to worship. 
 
 Alas ! my heart, like a neglected watch, has 
 run down, and stands forever pointing backward 
 to that fated hour since when you have come 
 no more. Long years roll on, and the seasons 
 chano^e as before. The moon comes over the 
 hills and wanes and comes again. Stars rise 
 and set. Old friends and new ones come and 
 pass away. These hands press other hands, and 
 these lips whisper greeting and adieu while my 
 poor heart's beatings are hushed and I am joy- 
 ful no more. But one in heaven hath pity for 
 me, albeit less beloved, and to-day like a green 
 leaf from the sunny past a long-lamented letter 
 of thine comes smiling back to me. In it you 
 sent me the engagement ring, and drew such pic- 
 tures of happiness that one would think your 
 hand had builded temples for Happiness herself 
 to dwell in. Oh ! this precious, precious letter ! 
 It was thy first will and testament of love ; and 
 while I wind anew its sacred lines around my 
 heart, and link again its burning words to my 
 
110 MORTAR A. 
 
 thoughts, the love-angel whispers me : 'T is thy 
 last, last ! 
 
 But, Mortara, this is no chimera that we are 
 living, no dream. We bear in our hands threads 
 of fate, by which our souls are as surely bound 
 as the twin stars that walk the skies, wearing 
 each the other's smiles and swelling each the 
 other's harmonies. The earth may send up clouds 
 to hide her from the moon, but she cannot stay 
 from the moon her attraction. No more, through 
 all time and all distance, can you stay my spirit 
 from drawing after you ; and as from half a 
 world away our paths have crossed and re- 
 crossed, so ere long, if not in this world, in the 
 far-off better land of better love we shall surely 
 meet again. There I shall league with the 
 angels to lend me all charms, and robe me in 
 all the graces. Goodness shall be my girdle, 
 gemmed with shining deeds ; Love, my crown, 
 set with smiles all for thee ; Forgiveness, my 
 sceptre, pearly with tears ; and my kingdom, thy 
 heart, while thou payest me back love an hun- 
 dred-fold. happy queen, happy conqueror ! 
 
 But alas ! while fancy, silvery - winged, can 
 thus outstrip distance, defy time, and make her- 
 self regal with the impossible, the heart is all 
 human ; and to-day, though indeed up among 
 the angels where they give harps of gold, mine 
 would make little music save it should strike 
 some chord like unto my soul's memory of thee. 
 
 But I wrong thee, Mortara, — thou dost not. 
 
MORTAR A. Ill 
 
 canst not, forget. Thou art too noble and too 
 true ; and whatever be the cause of this silence, 
 oft, oft when the world is still and the stars 
 grow pale with watching, the love-angel comes 
 to flit thy thoughts with her white wings until 
 thou dost at least dream of me. Oh, then pray 
 speak ; oh, speak to me once more, Mortara — 
 this silence is death ! My heart is breaking, my 
 soul will leave me ! Have mercy, have mercy, 
 and write me but one word ! No, no, I should 
 hate that one word, and burn it with my very 
 hate save it were that you love me and that you 
 never forget ! Helen. 
 
112 MORTARA. 
 
 Charleston, S. C, April 1, 1857. 
 
 MoRTARA, — This is a dreamy day, and far 
 over land and sea my thoughts are flying lan- 
 guidly to thee. Like unmated birds they carry 
 memories of nests robbed and gone. Like ea- 
 gles, aged and bald, they poise on their wings 
 over places hallowed and old. 
 
 Would I had some new phrase for love, some 
 new figure for hope, and new words for despair ! 
 Oh ! this is no dream, no fiction, but earnest, 
 earnest reality : my heart is forever with you, 
 and you are forever gone, gone. How lonely 
 and weary, then, is life, how tasteless all its joys, 
 and how vacant every scene. But wherefore 
 blame thee ? Never, never ! Rather watch on 
 and wait till loneliness and waiting wrap my 
 heart in the gloomy mould of centuries. My 
 spirit faints and my heart is weary ; I bow my 
 head and weep, and despise the weakness that I 
 cannot help — despise myself, alas ! — but oh ! 
 as well teach the forest birds new songs, give 
 the winds new strains, and the waves yonder new 
 shapes, as woo one thought of mine from its 
 memory of thee. I love thee, Mortara, as the 
 Polar star loves the world its pale eye forever 
 watches ; and sooner the skies fall than I forget 
 thee, all-forgetful as thou art. 
 
MORTARA. 113 
 
 Ah ! whence these weird forebodings to-day, 
 and why this heavy cahu upon the world ? No 
 whisper on the breeze nor the rustling of a wing, 
 as though all the spirits of earth and air stood 
 still with some great pity. Tell me, Mortara, 
 claimeth another thine arm while I would fain 
 wrap myself in it and die ? Oh ! that were wretch- 
 edness to all, and woe indeed to one. 
 
 I made thee free, and my heart was buried — . 
 buried alive, albeit — when the voice of thy let- 
 ters from afar rekindled the fires upon its des- 
 olate hearth and re-illumined the lights adown 
 the halls of memory by whose flickering rays I 
 have been so long; watching- and waitino- for 
 thee. And wouldst thou now teach a brighter 
 smile to fetter thy lips and turn thy thoughts 
 away ? Hark ! Mortara, thy destiny is the 
 counterpart of mine, and thy heart, thy soul, will 
 turn again albe another pale and droop at thy 
 side. 
 
 When by the arts of that old alchemist the 
 light shone on my steps again, I flew to the val- 
 ley that holds thy shadow, and, pressing it close, 
 traced as I had believed in each noble lineament 
 the well-remembered face of him who stood 
 apart from me with downcast eyes in the closing 
 scene of the vision. 
 
 Ah ! that vision, so fleeting and yet so eter- 
 nal ! I was a school-girl then, with the world so 
 bright around me that only heaven itself could 
 have made it brig-hter. But alas ! the to he 
 
114 MORTARA. 
 
 hews its own way, and ere twice twelve moons 
 had come and waned I awoke from a troubled 
 sleep but to find the clouds of a relentless fate 
 fallen cold and thick around me. The vision 
 had lived in my thoughts, and I was not long 
 discovering that my lot and its gloomy scenes 
 were henceforth to be one. I bowed my head, 
 making no murmur ; and so on, on I have \van- 
 dered, reeling off the years so lonely, so weary, 
 and so dark that only God hath light to count 
 them by. 
 
 But then the end and that purple dawn from 
 afar, breaking its rainbow waves at our feet — 
 for thou wast indeed there, Mortara, thy noble 
 self, calm and sad, like one who had suffered 
 much and waited long, as thou wilt be again. 
 
 But for that conviction, so long since verified 
 to a certainty, I might as well be a child, and cry 
 for the stars in the running brooks, or sigh for 
 the ribbons of the rainbow, as longer look for 
 response to word or entreaty of mine. Ah ! no, 
 had I sceptres, many as the rounds in Jacob's 
 ladder, and kingdoms, broad as the worlds it 
 climbed, I could now never hope to win thee 
 back with thy heart and thy love. 
 
 But while we rule ourselves we are over- 
 ruled ; and as the Sun casts not his shadows al- 
 ways the same way, so the shades that have 
 clouded my morning the evening will turn across 
 thy heart, and ere long thy spirit will come again 
 to seek sympathy from mine, even as now my 
 
MORTARA. 115 
 
 thoughts are forever turning for light and for 
 love to thee. 
 
 Thus love maketh the light to our dreams, and 
 planteth hope in the midst of our sorrow. In 
 darkness and in danger, too, love cometh to us 
 ever, ever, now warning, now chiding, now bless- 
 ing, and always safely guarding. Love light- 
 ens labor, shortens distance, and quickens time. 
 Love teaches to forgive, helps to forget, and 
 whitens the memory of all things. Love paints 
 every hope, brightens every scene, and maketh 
 beautiful whatsoe'er it shines on. Love is wis- 
 dom, love is high, love is holy. Love is God. 
 Love gloweth in the hearts of the angels, wreathes 
 the smiles on their brows, and melts the kisses on 
 their lips. Love is the light of the beautiful be- 
 yond, and to meet thee there, Mortara, is more 
 than hope. I shall know thee by the charm of 
 thy spirit, by the name on my lips, by the smile 
 on my heart, and by thy voice, though blent with 
 the harp-notes on the airs of heaven. 
 
 Helen. 
 
PART XI. 
 
 St. Paul, Minn., July 6, 1858. 
 
 MoRTARA, — While these burning words from 
 your pen to-day are but so many golden links in 
 the chain that must forever bind our souls, I 
 can only hold them from me, and bow my head 
 and weep, so relentless seems the hand that 
 after so many years lifts the veil but to reveal 
 the impassable gulf between. 
 
 I never doubted your honor, Mortara, nor 
 feared to trust either you or your love. But 
 honor is not your religion, and you could no 
 more have stricken the law of your people and 
 the dying charge of your noble father from the 
 deep written page of your being than my heart 
 banish from its memory a life-long vow and the 
 command : " That which is gone out of thy lips 
 thou shalt keep and perform." No, and when I 
 discovered your unrest, and saw how plainly the 
 finger of Providence was pointing our paths 
 asunder, I hastened to make you free, free. 
 Sweet Almah said you sat long hours gazing 
 into my letter, as if it had been a leaf from the 
 book of fate ; and then you arose, bade all a 
 long adieu, and went on board the ship. 
 
 Two years dragged themselves slowly by, and 
 then from half a world away came your letter. 
 
118 MORTAR A. 
 
 telling me over and over of your unabated love, 
 and claiming still the guardianship of my heart 
 if not of myself, while with promises of return 
 the tomb of your absence was garlanded anew ; 
 birds of hope sang above it, and though so far 
 away, even to know that you lived lent a charm 
 to life which now, alas ! is gone, gone, forever 
 and forever gone. Ah ! yes, my life's last trust 
 is broken, and all save its one sweet star of faith 
 in the beautiful beyond gone down forever. 
 The past gleams over the ruin but to reveal its 
 desolation and its woe, and cherished memories 
 come back but to smile and turn to scorn. 
 
 Oh ! how live with the cold corse of thy love 
 thus forever shut up in my soul ? How bear it 
 on, far over the waste of years, sad and alone, — 
 a hopeless, nameless sorrow for which the world 
 has no solace and no tears? But the blessing 
 of love is loving, and a thousand, thousand 
 times better thus to lose thee than never to have 
 known thee and never to have loved thee ; and 
 far, far better, too, never to meet thee again than 
 never to have parted. 
 
 To-day, like faded hopes and withered leaves, 
 my returned letters are falling around me, re- 
 vealing alas ! but too sadly the autumn and the 
 searing frosts whence they came. Upon the 
 margins of many of them, though, are dear, hal- 
 lowed words, which, like spirit-rods, move upon 
 the past, bringing back even thyself, Mortara, 
 as long ago, holding out the jeweled mantle of 
 
MORTARA. 119 
 
 thy love to shield me from the world, the cloud, 
 and the storm. 
 
 Alas ! be these letters of ten years the Galeed 
 and Mizpah between us ; and would we stood 
 now like Jacob and Laban beneath those solemn 
 woods that, parting as we are, — to meet upon 
 the same plane of life never, never, nevermore, 
 — I might tell you with my own lips that as I 
 still hope to meet you in heaven I would not dry 
 one tear, turn one shadow, nor lift one footprint 
 from all the lonely, toiling past. No, no ! We 
 might have joined our hands, but our duties 
 and the high interests of our souls, never ! And 
 though this final breaking of the ties and the 
 pledges that bound us robbed my life tenfold 
 more desolate, I should still, Mortara, more than 
 forgive you, while Heaven sees in my heart some- 
 thing akin to pity for her whom the angels have 
 sent to lead you farther and farther from me, 
 that henceforth I may know only duty, and watch 
 only for the white hands that beckon its lonely 
 way. 
 
 With fortunes almost greater than fell to the 
 Prince of Uz in his brightest days, and more 
 than all, with one waiting to be your bride who 
 doubtless loves you for yourself alone, and whose 
 smiles make the promised rose leaves to your, 
 brimming cup — ah ! yes, Mortara, with so much 
 to be glad for it were worse than selfish not to 
 offer vou most heartfelt consfratulations ; and 
 now, from a heart baptized with many tears, I 
 
120 MORTARA. 
 
 pray for you love to light all the shades of life, 
 the honors of this world, and peace with the 
 next to crown its goal. 
 
 But oh ! as God is love, " love wills to be 
 loved ; " and when even now, upon the eve of 
 your great happiness, you still whisper hack to 
 me of sorrow and regret linked with the burn- 
 ing words, " forever, forever," whether these 
 words mock or bless I bless you for them ; and 
 while I wander on, filling up my allotted part of 
 our destiny, they will be sweet vestal-lights far 
 o'er the weary way, inviting prayers for you 
 still ; and though we meet no more till in the 
 closino- scene of the vision or till the records in 
 heaven have grown pale with years, fond memo- 
 ries of you will be still circling around my heart, 
 and thy name still dear on my lips. 
 
 Thus, Mortara, bidding you farewell, I dig 
 and bury my heart again, leaving only the 
 heaven-lighted star of faith in the beautiful be- 
 yond smiling above its lonely tomb ; while to 
 me the past, the future, and life all is but a sea 
 of tears, whose dark shores lie strewn with the 
 wreck of hopes. Helen. 
 
PART XII. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE AUTHOR'S JOURNAL. 
 
 New York, May 17, 1870. — Twenty years 
 have worn their furrows on my brow, and length- 
 ened their shadows o'er my heart. Twenty long- 
 weary years, alas ! have clustered their lonely 
 days in my memory until I had said : Love in 
 me is dead, and learned to smile back upon the 
 weakness of the past with almost pity. But 
 now, when seven scenes of the vision have been 
 unfolded, and all their heavy portent rounded 
 upon the years of my life ; when all that has 
 made the burden of their wandering's liofht and 
 the import of them beautiful is so nearly accom- 
 plished ; when the blessed twain whom Heaven 
 robbed poor, the better to enrich them with love, 
 are worshipping again beneath vine and fig-tree 
 of their own ; when all their nestlings save one 
 have taken wing to build nests and rear nest- 
 lings of their own ; when so little of all that 
 was foreshadowed remains to be waited for and 
 watched for, I come here, and lo ! from half a 
 world away, Mortara's bark lies moored again by 
 this hallowed shore. Indeed, here, — even here, 
 where Ave parted so long, long ago, — amid a 
 bustlino" crowd of all nations and ton2:ues, anofel- 
 
122 MORTARA. 
 
 led, we sat down so near to each other that our 
 hands mioht have touched. 
 
 Ah ! yes, we have met again, met again ! He 
 has been here and sat in this room while we 
 talked our souls regal in the light of the beauti- 
 ful bygone, — talked as though we ourselves had 
 indeed crossed paths in some sf)here remote, save 
 that, in all, our thoughts were still luminous 
 with sweet remembrance. Talked, talked ; and 
 then at last rising to depart, how dear and beau- 
 tiful it was of him to clasp my two hands warm 
 in his once more as of old, not to steal kisses 
 from my pouting, complaining lips again, but to 
 tell me in words that might melt from the lips 
 of one angel to another how precious and how 
 sacred I am to him and have ever been ; how he 
 has cherished me in his heart of hearts as some- 
 thing not altogether of this world, and shall go 
 down to the grave even with my name on his 
 lips. 
 
 faith, thou mightiest gift of God ; thou 
 white-winged trust in Him who doeth all things 
 well ; thou one light over His darkest provi- 
 dences, lingering to cheer when all else has 
 passed away, thy whisper upon the dull ear of 
 the night : He will come again, he will come 
 again, I heard in the breezes, and my heart 
 shaped it out of the hoarse voices of the winds ! 
 I heard it in the echoes of the past. I heard 
 it everywhere, and believed and watched and 
 waited. And now, like a resurrection from de- 
 
MORTAR A. 123 
 
 spair, his voice rings again through all the silent 
 chambers of my soul. 
 
 Oh, this one long Purhn day, whose clawn 
 brought so much to be grateful for, and whose 
 evening leaves nothhig to regret ! Once I would 
 fain have stopped time and basked forever in 
 the rich effulgence of its beams, braided rainbow 
 hopes from them, and fringed every cloud with 
 their light. But alas! what are toils for, sor- 
 rows for, and tears for, if not to temper our feel- 
 ings and fold down the wings to our fancies, 
 unchain our hearts from the world, and put us 
 linked hands with the angels who seem some- 
 times to forsake their sweet guidance, and rush 
 us forward across Rubicons to destinies them- 
 selves even would fain hide from ; just as, 
 through the long weary years, they have been 
 leading me through phase after phase of that 
 dark foreshadowed way whose darker reality 
 turned the morning of my life into a night of 
 years and changed the world to a thing of gloom 
 that everywhere has overawed me with fear, — 
 that fated vision alas ! now so nearly ended, 
 but whose closing scene perchance lapsed itself 
 to within the boundary of the unseen, and the 
 day is no more to dawn for me here ! 
 
 Have mercy then, most merciful God ! Be 
 thou my morning and my soul's beautiful even- 
 ing ! Shine thou in upon my steps, and grant 
 that I keep close rank and file with those who 
 have washed their robes and made them white 
 
124 MORTARA. 
 
 in the blood of the Lamb ; and whose pilgrim 
 feet make haste to touch the chilling waters that 
 forever roll between this and the far-off land of 
 better friends, better light, and better love ! 
 
 May 19, 1870. — Mortara has been to see 
 me once more, and oh ! how good and noble he 
 is ! All up and down the city he has sought 
 out widows and orphans, the old and the young, 
 and poured into their laps the golden fruits of 
 his toils, making rich amends to those who suf- 
 fered by his own losses in Texas a quarter of a 
 century ago. To my poor heart, too, he has 
 given back its wasted years, its broken sighs, 
 and its unanswered voices, covering all with that 
 lofty praise which fans the flame whence springs 
 the light of all true glory — a just pride in one's 
 own soul. 
 
 After counting; over the thousand and one 
 heartaches his friendship has cost me, chiding 
 himself for this and blaming himself for that ; 
 naming each and every disappointment and sor- 
 row, as though he too knew them all by heart, 
 he said : — 
 
 " When Heaven laid in the grave all that you 
 loved and clouded over the sky of your young 
 life, it still left you peace of mind, which I 
 most cruelly destroyed. I wooed you to forget 
 your promise to the dead. I won your heart 
 and sought your hand ; and then, because of a 
 change in my circumstances, I purposely chilled 
 you until, divining my intent, all too nobly you 
 
MORTARA. 125 
 
 made me free. If I had not loved you before 
 I surely loved you then, but a sense of obliga- 
 tion to the members of my bereaved family in 
 Europe triumphed and I went away. Not to be 
 happy, though ; — no, God forbid ! Your image 
 haunted me constantly, and as constantly you 
 were present with me in my thoughts, I knew 
 that I had left you to sacrifice yourself to what 
 I deemed a vague superstition, or at best a mis- 
 taken sense of duty ; and if your angels could 
 speak they would tell you with what solicitude I 
 followed you in your wanderings until the two 
 years I was to wait for you had elapsed, and 
 then I wrote you, claiming you still, — just as 
 though I had never been selfish enough to accept 
 the freedom that you so loftily cast at my feet. 
 
 " But you know the rest. Thrice I amassed 
 a fortune and was on the eve of returning, and 
 thrice I lost it. The unseen hands that led you 
 so gently were against me, and whatever sur- 
 jDrise I planned for you or whatever castles I 
 built, all alike went to the ground. But that 
 was no excuse for my ceasing to write you, nor 
 had I any right to take umbrage at your de- 
 clining to meet me half way. You awaited my 
 return, and knowing that you did I married an- 
 other. You have not gone unavenged, though ; 
 and now, when my head has grown gray with 
 years, I have come far out of my way to ask 
 your forgiveness. Broken pledges make a hard 
 pillow ; but oh ! only say that neither you nor 
 
126 MORTARA. 
 
 your angels have aught laid up in your hearts 
 against me that you do not or cannot forgive, 
 and I shall go away a much happier man than 
 when I came. I say your angels, for I have 
 come to believe in them almost as much as I do 
 in you. And since — by its war — your coun- 
 try has ignored gold, and all its money has be- 
 come so worthless and green, I cannot help 
 having some faith in your vision also. On 
 opening the first package of it that was sent out 
 to us, I exclaimed : — 
 
 " ^ Pray, what dark green stuif is this ? ' when, 
 either by the association of the words or because 
 anything from America always reminded me of 
 you, my thoughts instantly reverted to the 
 * gloomy old pillar,' the disappearance of the 
 gold, and the dark green substitute coming in 
 its stead. And so now, you see, in addition to 
 all the rest I have the doubts I used to entertain 
 of your vision to ask your pardon for also ; for 
 of course you believe in it still, as well as you 
 might after having lived through so many of its 
 scenes, even to the lonely wanderings that I 
 once thought so impossible. 
 
 " Truly, that mysterious agency in human af- 
 fairs that we call Providence has dealt strangely 
 enough with you ; but stranger still has been 
 the wonderful tenacity with which you have 
 clung to its guidance, never doubting, never 
 turning to the right nor to the left, but on, on 
 to the end. 
 
MORTAR A. 127 
 
 " Twenty years ago, when walking among the 
 trees by the Bay and you first told me of the 
 wandering life you were to lead, and that it had 
 all been foreshadowed to you in a vision, I al- 
 most doubted your sanity, for, remember, you 
 had not even written the little book then, nor 
 had you so much as dreamed of ever publish- 
 ing one, as I knew. Not light enough even to 
 walk by yourself ; no friends, no money, young, 
 timid, and unsophisticated as a child, what won- 
 der that I was puzzled to comprehend how such 
 extensive travels or endless wanderings were to 
 be accomplished ? 
 
 " You believed, though, and trusted on all 
 the same, and talked of your eventful past and 
 your yet more eventful future in your own- sweet 
 musical way, until I began to feel that it would 
 not be a very unpleasant thing to travel or wan- 
 der with you, and so proposed to become your 
 escort for life. 
 
 " Your good angels had you in charge, though, 
 and it is only just to say that you have been the 
 noblest and most self-sacrificing woman who has 
 ever lived ; and if I had my way, the world 
 should build a little Mecca around your tomb 
 when you are gone, and make pilgrimages to it 
 to the end of time. 
 
 " But come," he said, looking at his watch, 
 " the time is short, and I do all the talking this 
 morning. Am I not to hear from your lips be- 
 fore I go that you have crowned all by forgiv- 
 
128 MORTAR A. 
 
 ing me everything, and that you still intend to 
 find me away in that beautiful land of souls be- 
 yond the grave that you used to write me so 
 much about, and which you and your letters 
 have done more to make me believe in than even 
 Moses and the prophets? " 
 
 I strove to reply, but ere the words grew au- 
 dible too long pent-up feeling dissolved them to 
 tears that, raining down over the two dear hands 
 holding mine, baptized them with something 
 more than forgiveness. They told plainer than 
 any words could tell, of the love still forever 
 burning in my soul ; and then once, only once, 
 he whispered my name, coupled it with : — 
 
 " God bless you ! " and again I was alone in 
 the world, alone, alone, alone, until the very 
 loneliness frosted my heart pale and blanched 
 the world too desolate to endure. 
 
 May 20, 1870. — Mortara has sailed; gone, 
 gone, forever and forever gone ! Hope is gone. 
 Youth is 2"one. Life is o^one. The sun rises no 
 more. The moon has left the sky, and the stars 
 have forgotten their places. The friends that 
 were have passed away, and there is no more 
 anything left in the world to wait for or to 
 watch for save the closing scene of the vision, in 
 which, wherever it be, in this world or the next, 
 through the radiance beaming above and around 
 me my dazzled eyes will turn to look on him. 
 
 Verily, the to be foreshadows itself ; and how 
 real and how eternal his presence in that mystic 
 
MORTARA. 129 
 
 scene broke over my soul again, even to the 
 downcast eyes, when he said : — 
 
 " The shadows that have so long clouded your 
 morning have begun already to darken my sky, 
 and the day is not so bright to me as it was." 
 
 Oh, thus even our lives are one, our destinies 
 one, our souls one. We are one, and one we 
 shall at last be in God's great home of love, 
 where all bereavements are healed and the jos- 
 tled asunder in this world forever united. Ah ! 
 there how passing sweet 't will be to live and 
 love him and have him thus ever by my side, all 
 blest and holy, no sweeter voice to lure him and 
 no brighter smile to make him forget ; his lips 
 love's rosy fountains, and the glances of his eyes 
 the sunny rivulets of poesy, and his voice like 
 the murmur of the waters, coming to me ever, 
 ever, ever, mingling with my soul's song by 
 day and melting into music the dreams of my 
 thoughts by night ! 
 
 Thus love annihilates death even, blots away 
 all record of time, and creates the world it lives 
 in ; conjures back arms to embrace, lips to kiss, 
 and eyes to smile ; whispers its own praises and 
 breathes its own names of endearment. 
 
 But oh ! the lost are not all lost while in vis- 
 ions of hope and fancy we may thus call them 
 back, and in their shining presence relive each 
 glowing scene, relight each waning glance, and 
 retouch each fading memory. 
 
All communications for the author may 
 he addressed : Mrs. Helen A. De Kroyft, 
 Aldrich Place, Dansville, N. Y. 
 
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