A Bachelor's Reverie [pp. 601-609]

604 A Bachelor'
7 has married you because father, or grandfather
thought the match eligible, and because she did'nt
wish to d(lisoblige them. Besides, she did'nt pos itively hate you, and thought you were a respect able enough person-she has told you so repeat edly at dinner. She wonders you like to read
poetry; she wishes you would buy her a good
cook-book; and insists upon your making your
w-vill at the birth of the first baby.
She thinks Captain So and So a splendid look ing fellow, and wishes you would trim up a little
were it only for appearance' sake.
You need not hurry up firom the office so early
at night:-she, bless her dear heart!-does not
feel lonely. You read to her a love tale; she in terrupts the pathetic parts with directions to her
seamstress. You read of marriages: she sighs,
and asks if Captain So and So has left town?
She hates to be mewed up in a cottage, or be tween brick walls; she does so love the Springs!
But, again, Peggy loves you;-at least she
swears it, with her hand on the Sorrows of Werter. She has pin-money which she spends for
the Literary World and the Friends in Council.
She is not bad-looking, saving a bit too much of
forehead; nor is she sluttish, unless a neglig6 till
3 o'clock, and an ink stain on the fore finger be
sluttish;-but then she is such a sad blue!
You never fancied when you saw her buried
in a three volume novel, that it was anything
more than a girlish vagary; and when she quoted Latin, you thought innocently, that she had
a capital memory for her samplers.
But to be bored eternally about Divine Dant6
and funny Goldoni, is too bad. Your copy of
Tasso, a treasure print of 1680, is all bethumbed
and dog's-eared, and spotted with baby gruel.
Even your Seneca-an Elzevir-is all sweaty
with handling. *She adores La Fontaine, reads
Balzac with a kind of artist-scowl, and will not
let Greek alone.
You hint at broken rest and an aching head at
breakfast, and she will fling you a scrap of Anthology-in lieu of camphor bottle-or chantthe
ats! at,- of tragic chorus.
-The nurse is getting dinner; you are holding the baby; Peggy is reading Bruyere.
The fire smoked thick as pitch, and puffed out
little clouds over the chimney piece. I gave the
fore-stick a kick, at thought of Peggy, baby, and
Bruyere.
-Suddenly the flame flickered bluely athwart
the smoke-caught at a twig below-rolled round
the mossy oak-stick-twined among the crackling tree-limbs —mounted —lit up the whole body
of smoke, and blazed out cheerily and bright.
Doubt vanished with Smoke, and hIope began
with Flame.
Is Reverie.
[SEPTEMBER,
II.
BLAZE-SIGNIFYING CHEER.
I pushed my chair back; drew up another;
stretched out my feet cozily upon it, rested my
elbows on the chair arms, leaned my head on
one hand, and looked straight into the leaping,
and dancing flame.
-Love is a flamne-ruminated I; and (glancing
round the room) how a flame brightens up a
man's habitation.
"Carlo," said I. calling up my dog into the
light, "good fellow, Carlo:" and I patted him
kindly, and he wagged his tail, and laid his nose
across my knee, and looked wistfully up in nmy
face, then strode awray, -turned to look again,
and( lay down to sleep.
"Pho, the brute!" said I, "it is not enough
after all to like a dog."
-If now in that chair yonder, not the one
your feet lie upon, but the other, beside you closer yet-were seated a sweet-faced girl, with
a pretty little foot lying out upon the hearth a bit of lace running round the swelling throatthe hair parted to a charm over a forehead fair
as any of your dreams,-and if you could reach
an arm around that chair back, without fear of
giving offence, and suffer your fingers to play idly
with those curls that escape down the neck, and
if you could clasp with your other hand those
little white, taper fingers of hers, which lie so
temptingly within reach,-and so, talk softly and
low in presence of the blaze, while the hours slip
without knowledge, and the winter winds whistle
uncared for;-if, in short, you were no bachelor,
but the husband of some such sweet image(dream, call it, rather,) would it not be far pleasanter than this cold single night-sitting-counting the sticks-reckoning the length of the blaze,
and the height of the falling snow?
And if, some or all of those wild vagaries that
grow on your fancy at such an hourI, you could
whisper into listening, because loving ears-ears
not tired with listening, because it is you who
whisper-ears ever indulgent because eager to
praise;-and if your darkest fancies were lit ulp,
not merely with bright wood fire, but wvith ringing laugh of that sweet face turned up in fond
rebuke-how far better, than to be waxing black,
and sour, over pestilential humours-alone your
very dog asleep!
And if when a glowing thought comes into
your brain, quick and sudden, you could tell it
over as to a second self, to that sweet creature,
who is not away, because slue loves to be there;
and if you could watch the thought catching that
girlish mind, illuming that fair brow, sparkling in
those pleasantest of eyes-how far better than
to feel it slumbering, and going out, heavy, life