The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 308 pages of information about The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 308 pages of information about The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860.
a woman is never to be a woman again, whatever she may come to as an unsexed angel,—­and that she should die unloved!  Why does not somebody come and carry off this noble woman, waiting here all ready to make a man happy?  Philip, do you know the pathos there is in the eyes of unsought women, oppressed with the burden of an inner life unshared?  I can see into them now as I could not in those earlier days.  I sometimes think their pupils dilate on purpose to let my consciousness glide through them; indeed, I dread them, I come so close to the nerve of the soul itself in these momentary intimacies.  You used to tell me I was a Turk,—­that my heart was full of pigeon-holes, with accommodations inside for a whole flock of doves.  I don’t know but I am still as Youngish as ever in my ways,—­Brigham-Youngish, I mean; at any rate, I always want to give a little love to all the poor things that cannot have a whole man to themselves.  If they would only be contented with a little!

Here now are two girls in this school where I am teaching.  One of them, Rosa M., is not more than sixteen years old, I think they say; but Nature has forced her into a tropical luxuriance of beauty, as if it were July with her, instead of May.  I suppose it is all natural enough that this girl should like a young man’s attention, even if he were a grave schoolmaster; but the eloquence of this young thing’s look is unmistakable,—­and yet she does not know the language it is talking,—­they none of them do; and there is where a good many poor creatures of our good-for-nothing sex are mistaken.  There is no danger of my being rash, but I think this girl will cost somebody his life yet.  She is one of those women men make a quarrel about and fight to the death for,—­the old feral instinct, you know.

Pray, don’t think I am lost in conceit, but there is another girl here that I begin to think looks with a certain kindness on me.  Her name is Elsie V., and she is the only daughter and heiress of an old family in this place.  She is a portentous and mysterious creature.  If I should tell you all I know and half of what I fancy about her, you would tell me to get my life insured at once.  Yet she is the most painfully interesting being,—­so handsome! so lonely!—­for she has no friends among the girls, and sits apart from them,—­with black hair like the flow of a mountain-brook after a thaw, with a low-browed, scowling beauty of face, and such eyes as were never seen before, I really believe, in any human creature.

Philip, I don’t know what to say about this Elsie.  There is a mystery around her I have not fathomed.  I have conjectures about her which I could not utter to any living soul.  I dare not even hint the possibilities which have suggested themselves to me.  This I will say,—­that I do take the most intense interest in this young person, an interest much more like pity than love in its common sense.  If what I guess at is true, of all the tragedies of existence I ever knew this is the saddest, and yet so full of meaning!  Do not ask me any questions,—­I have said more than I meant to already; but I am involved in strange doubts and perplexities,—­in dangers too, very possibly,—­and it is a relief just to speak ever so guardedly of them to an early and faithful friend.

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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.