Soldiers' record, 1869-04-17

              f ^
r>eiVote<i to tHe Interieists ot the S<i>l<iieir« a<»L<l Sallofet oi*tHe lato War,
YOL. I. HARTFORD, CONJT., SATtlJRPAY, APRIL 17, 1869.
—_____— • • - - ' • " ••• ' • —f-—^—^ —'—^—-—
NO. 41.
i o t t v s at fomc.
T H E L A T E S T WALL K E W S .
O palo, palo face! O helpless hands!
Sweet eyes by fruitless watching vrrongod j
Yet turninc: over toward the landj
Where War's red hosts are thronged|
She shudders when they toll the talo
Of some great battle fought and won;
Her sweet child face grows old and palo,
Her heart falls like a stone.
She sees no conquering flag unfurled,
She hears no victory's brazen roar;
But a dear face wliich was her world.
Perchance sho'll kiss no more!
Ever there comes between her sight
And tiie glory that tliey rave about,
A boyish brow and eyes whose light
Of splendor hath gone out.
Tho midnight glory of his hair,
Where late her fingers like a flood
Of moonlight, wandered—lingering the-e—
Is stiff and dank, with blood 1
She must not shriek she must not moan,
She must not svring her quivering hands.
But, sitting dumb, and white, alone.
Bo bound with viewless bands*
Because her suflferinq; life enfolds
Another dearer, feel)lor life,
In death's strong grasp her hep,rt she holds.
And stills its torturing strife.
Last eve, they say, a field was won.
Her eyes ask tidings of tho fight;
But tell her of tiie dead alone
Who lay out in the night.
In mercy tell her that his name
Was not upon the fatal list j
That not among the heaps oiF slain
Dumb are tlie lips she kisse'd!
O poor, pale child 1 0 woman heart!
Its \<reakness triumpheil o'er by strength!
Love teaching discipline's stern art.
And conquering at length.
HOW WOMEi^ LOYE.
PART SEiDOND.
"Then we arranged it all. Wo had
learned that they were going to Ballscou
in a few days, and we arranged to go on
to the Sans Souci and meet them. The
meeting was to be accidental, and we ac-complished
it precisely as we had intend-ed.
'^Glare led her tlie first evening from
the crowd in the saloon and on the piazzas
to the darkest corner of the colonnade,
and here, for the first time, I approached
her.''
"Phillip, I can not tell you of that in-terview.
It is recorded somewhere in the
book that is sacred to the record of those
hours in man's life which more than all
others stamp him for immortality. It was
an hour that you may see written here in
my forehead, here on my gray hair. I
was an old man then, for she told me my
hopes were vain—I must forbid them
thenceforth forever."
"Men talk of love as they talk of mon-ey.
Men write of lovo as they write of
travels, of pleasures, of pains. Some men
even laugh at love; but such men, in their
inmost hearts, abhor and curse themselves
for the words they utter, and lie in lone-some
places among the beautiful things of
existence, and perish of thirst on the
banks of the purest fountain that flows in-
1^0 the River of Life.
"The memory of that beautiful woman,
as she stood before me, with her white
hand laid on my shoulder, and her blue,
deep eyes fixed in mine, for their light
was in my brain and soul, that memory
will not perish so long as I have eyes or
soul here or hereafter. I bowed my head
and wept, and she never shed one tear.
I implored, and she was calm. 'No, no,
110!' that terrible word was reiterated
again, and again, and again."
" 'Anvl wh-it shall I do—whither shall
I go for hope on earth V said I.
"And she came close so me, Phillip, as
I stood with my head bent forward, and
she lifted her beloved face close up to
mine, and she put her arm, her small
white arm, around my neck, and whisper-ed,
'Love Clare, Stephen !' and her lips
were on mine one instant, one thrilling
instant—yet, Phillip, one eternity of emo-tion—
and she was gone."
"And Clare stood ten paces from me,
with her head bovVred over the rail;
and when it was all over and I st igger-cd
towards her, she took my hands in
hers and held them in a close clasp, and^
said but one word,
" 'Stephen!'
" 'My sister Clare I'
"And then, she wept. I never saw her
%veep before, and now it was but for a
moment, and she drew me away, and I
obeyed her."
"More than a year passed with the
swiftness of thought, and I had never left
tho seclusion of my country home. My
own house and the rectory, these were
the two places between which my path
now lay, and beyond which it did not
reach. Clare left home iu the early au-tumn
to pass the winter in the city
During the year after my parting from
Lily it would be vain to deny that I often
recurred to her last words, sealed as they
were with that last thrilling kiss, and
when I looked into the face of beautiful
Clare it did not seem so very difficult to
obey. One can worship a star well enough
if one has not already bowed the knee to
another, but the devotion of boyhood and
youth can not easily give place to another
object of adoration. Yes, call it adora-tion,
if laborare est orare, surely it is
more true that amare est adbrare. But
the reverse is far from true. To worship
is not to love. I worshipped Glare. I
bowed before her royal beauty, her clear
intellect, her noble soul. In the year
that passed so darkly over me she was a
constant light, companion, comforter.
She made the rectory bright with her
presence, and her father's heart full of
delight all the day long with her cheer-fulness
and love. To me she was al ways
the same sister—gentle, faithful, and con-stant;
and when she went away I felt the
blank more than I could have believed
possible, and the autumn was long and
desolate. In the middle of December I
was called to the city by peremptory busi-ness,
and went, leaving my home with re-luctance,
and.intending to return within
a week."
"I found my business more perplexing
than I hud anticipated, and after a few
days 1 determined to look up Clare. Re-lying
on my intimacy to pardon an even-ing
call, 1 went at a late hour on Christ-mas
Eve, and found myself^Jn crowded
rooms, having, as I now found, slumbled
on an evening party. 1 did .not retreat,
for the home of my sister's friend was one
of my own homes in old times, and I was
not disappointed in my reception."
"Clare was the centre of a brilliant cir-cle,
and at home as a queen among her
subjects. I believe that a thrill of mo-mentary
jealousy passed over me as I saw
her—a so i t of regret that she who had
seemed always to belong to me should
now be, in some sense, the property of
the world, and I looked swiftly over the
circle to see if there was any one there
on whom she would be likely to waste
one of her royal smiles. But she sprang
towards me with such manifest joy in
every feature, and gave me such a wel-come
that my foolish jealousy, if it exis-ted,
was gone on tho instant, and I was
the envied man of the night by all the
hangers-on in the saloons of tho fascina-ting
Mrs. Whitney.'
"The hours sped swiftly with dance
and song. It was near midnight when I
stQod with Clare in the library room at
the roar of the saloons, while all tlie par-ty
were down in the supper-rooms. A
"They are not my tears, Phillip. They
are Clare's."
"!^Gla»re, Clare, come to me before I
die! David will bring you. Do you
knoW, Clare, where 8tephe:h is? Send
him word to come, to Conie quick, quick,
Clare, for I fear—I hope—yes, I hope I
shdll not see the New Year! But come
t6*nigkt, Clare, if you would see me, for
God knows whether I shall see the Christ-mas
morning. LILY.'
"We were wrapped in cloaks,- and at
the front door in an instant."-
" 'You here, David ?'
"*Yes, Sir I have never left Miss
Lily since you told me to stay with her.'
led u-i up one street and down an-other
until we came to an obscure street,
running west from Broadway to the North
Riiver, and a house half way down thi?,
at which he paused and knocked."
" ' Who's there V
" ^The doctor and a nurse.'
I'lThe door opened and we entered."
" I did not know then, as I have since
known, the appearance of the splendid
room into which we passed. It was a
hell. You know what that is. The up-per
portion of the house was devoted to
the private rooms of Mr. Ray and his
family. The lower p irt was arranged in
gambling-rooms, gorgeously furnished, in
which we heard the sounds of the money
on the boards, and the quick, sharp com-mands
of the banker, succeeded by the si-lence
that waits the turn of the card.
Passing through the hall and a sort of
reception-room, we ascended a broad
flight of stairs and entered a room that
was dark and gloomy, and unmistakably
the abode of sickness."
" 'Have 3''0u comwi dear Clare ?'''
' " ' I have, and have brought Stephen
with me.'
"There was a strange half cry, half sob
from the bed, and I advanced towards
i t !"
"Phillip, in that dim light I saw the
radiance of heaven again, and over it
was the very light of God, into the outer
circles of which she was already passed,
and into the central glory of which she
was soon to be gone."
"Shall I tell you all the horrible story
she now told us. How she had been com-pelled
to preside at the foul feasts that
her father gave; how she had been forced
to admit the presence of gamblers anc,
harlots; how night after night she had
striven with indescribable agony to induce
her parent to abandon this terrible liie,
and how all in vain. You will ask
why she clung to it ? why she did not
abnndon him forever ? I will tell you
Phillip." ;
"I will tell you of a love high as^heaven
deeper and broader than the sea t^at rolls
around all the world.
"She sent Clare out for a moment, anc
then she told me aH.
"Philip, she loved me with unutterable
love. Y'es, I knew that before. But once
once in the last spring-time of our happy
home in the rectory, one holy evening
when Clare had been moved by her gentle
cousin's loveliness to speak as never before
of her own soul, she had learned that
Clare, my noble sister Clare, loved me
servant entered with a note, saying that
it had been brought by a man, now at the
street-door, with urgent haste. Stop, 1
will get the note,"
Wilson crossed the room, opened a
desk and private drawer, and returned,
bringing in his hand a small yellow note,
stained with that ineffaceable stain—in-effaceable
from paper, cheek, or heart of
man—the traces of tears,
great flood of I6ve, pure, holy love, d^oa
had forbidden to flow over the gardens of
my life, but had commanded into the chan-nels
that make glad the etei-nal city. She
was going to heaveii with all that love
that might have been mine, and I could
but hope that siunetimes in starry nights
~ might bare my forehead to the sky, and
feel the fdr-off spray, some blessed drops
out of that deep, strong flood.
"And then Clare came back, and we
sat down side by sid6, and held her hands
in ours, and the swift niomeits of her lii"©
ran out.
"She never told Clare her love ; mark
that, my friend. That glorious creature
never told Glare one word ; never hinted
to her of what we had spokein in the hour
that she had been absent ; and she never
knew that Lily loved me. ,
"The doctor came in toward morning,
and was startled at the change he found
in Jiis patient. He told her she was dying
and she heard him calmly, and looked a
me with One long, longing gaze, and clos
ed her eyes on ns for a moment, and open
ed them again with the soft radiance^pf ,
the land of angels in their light.
"Once, only orice, she t66k my hand in
lers and drew me down to her, and
whispered, in a low, soft whisper, 'I lovp
you, Stephen Patid alight, as if of the
great glory of triumphant love, flashed on ,
her counteuance ; and then, a little later,
she took my hand, and placing Glare's in
it, she said to each of us.
" 'Kiss me, Clare ; kiss me, Stephen !'
"And Clare kissed her, and I touched my
earthly lips to her saintly lips, and with
the last kiss, the last bresith of life, she
whispered.
"'Love Clare, Stephetf
"And hbr life, that she had laid down
for her friend, God took and made im-mortal
lite thereof in the gardens of His
land.
"Philip Philips,for fourteen years after
that time Clare lay upon my breast, my
faithful, loviiig, aiid beloved wife; and then
I laid her glorious head Jow in the valley
dust down yonder. The sriow to-night
lies deep on both their graves, and I am,
here. What am I that such woruen should
have loved me ? What am I that God
should have permitted such treasures to
be poured out on me ? What are these
lips that kisses of such afiection should
have f^een pressed on them ? these arms
that they should have been permitted to
enfold such forms of beauty ?
"Sometimes when I ask myself these
questions I begin to doubt the past, and to
think that the old rectory and its beloved
inhabitants are all a dream. But at such
times 1 come into this room and draw that
curtain yonder, and theii I know that I
am a man, and that the years have not
deceived me. No, I am no dreamer now.''
As he finished he drew the curtain from
a picture that hung before us on the wall.
It was a picture of two faces ; I saw only
the faces, and if I live a thousand years
I shall not again see two so beautiful on
canvas or on earth.
with more than sister's love. Yes, she
told her all, and she thenceforth abut up
the fountain of her soul, and laid a stone
on the mouth, a heavy stone, to keep back
the flood forever.
"This was why she consented to go with
her father, and in this resolution slie gave
herself up, soul and body, to a hope that
she might make her mission on earth the
reform of her father, and the reunion of
all of us iu later years iusoqie happy home
that she dreamed of as distant but sure.
But now the end came, and hope was gone,
and love, human love, was triumphant.
She could not die without seeing nie once
more ; and spite of her father's commands,
spite of all her agony, spite of all hec wo-man's
shame, she told me all, and iu the
moment of our parting I know what a
"I say boy, is there anything to shoot
about here ?" inquired a sportsman of a
boy he met. "Well," was the reply,
"nothing just about here ; but the school-master
is down the hill yonder—^you can
pop him over."
The fashion of parting hair in the mid-dle,
by gentlemen, is coming in vogue a-gain,
the introduction of veloeipvdes hav-ing
rendered such a stylp imperative, as
two hairs oq the wrong side would run
away with tho rider's equilibrium.
A line in one of Moore's songs reads
thus ; "Our couch shall be roses bespan
gled with dew," To which a sensible girl
replied : "'Twould give me the rheuma-tic,
and so it would you."
"WHERE shall I put this paper so as to
be sure of seeing it to-morrow?" inquired
Mury Jane of her brother Charles. "On
the looking-glass,"was her brother's reply.