Ernest Linwood | Page 6

in elegance and
splendor. I inherited from her the most fastidious tastes, without the
means of gratifying them. I felt that I had a right to be wealthy, and that
misfortune alone had made my mother poor, had made her an alien
from her kindred and the scenes of her nativity. I felt a strange pride in
this conviction. Indeed there was a singular union of pride and
diffidence in my character, that kept me aloof from my young
companions, and closed up the avenues to the social joys of childhood.

My mother thought a school life would counteract the influence of her
own solitary habits and example. She did not wish me to be a hermit
child, and for this reason accepted the offer Mr. Regulus made through
the minister to become a pupil in the academy. She might have sent me
to the free schools in the neighborhood, but she did not wish me to
form associations incompatible with the refinement she had so
carefully cultivated in me. She might have continued to teach me at
home, for she was mistress of every accomplishment, but she thought
the discipline of an institution like this would give tone and firmness to
my poetic and dreaming mind. She wanted me to become
practical,--she wanted to see the bark growing and hardening over the
exposed and delicate fibres. She anticipated for me the cold winds and
beating rains of an adverse destiny. I knew she did, though she had
never told me so in words. I read it in the anxious, wistful, prophetic
expression of her soft, deep black eyes, whenever they rested on me.
Those beautiful, mysterious eyes!
There was a mystery about her that gave power to her excellence and
beauty. Through the twilight shades of her sorrowful loneliness, I could
trace only the dim outline of her past life. I was fatherless,--and
annihilation, as well as death, seemed the doom of him who had given
me being. I was forbidden to mention his name. No similitude of his
features, no token of his existence, cherished by love and hallowed by
reverence, invested him with the immortality of memory. It was as if he
had never been.
Thus mantled in mystery, his image assumed a sublimity and grandeur
in my imagination, dark and oppressive as night. I would sit and ponder
over his mystic attributes, till he seemed like those gods of mythology,
who, veiling their divinity in clouds, came down and wooed the
daughters of men. A being so lovely and good as my mother would
never have loved a common mortal. Perhaps he was some royal exile,
who had found her in his wanderings a beauteous flower, but dared not
transplant her to the garden of kings.
My mother little thought, when I sat in my simple calico dress, my
school-book open on my knees, conning my daily lessons, or seeming

so to do, what wild, absurd ideas were revelling in my brain. She little
thought how high the "aspiring blood" of mine mounted in that lowly,
woodland cottage.
I told her the history of my humiliation, passion, and flight,--of Richard
Clyde's brave defence and undaunted resolution,--of my sorrow on his
account,--of my shame and indignation on my own.
"My poor Gabriella!"
"You are not angry with me, my mother?"
"Angry! No, my child, it was a hard trial,--very hard for one so young. I
did not think Mr. Regulus capable of so much unkindness. He has
cancelled this day a debt of gratitude."
"My poor Gabriella," she again repeated, laying her delicate hand
gently on my head. "I fear you have a great deal to contend with in this
rough world. The flowers of poesy are sweet, but poverty is a barren
soil, my child. The dew that moistens it, is tears."
I felt a tear on my hand as she spoke. Child as I was, I thought that tear
more holy and precious than the dew of heaven. Flowers nurtured by
such moisture must be sweet.
"I will never write any more," I exclaimed, with desperate resolution. "I
will never more expose myself to ridicule and contempt."
"Write as you have hitherto done, for my gratification and your own.
Your simple strains have beguiled my lonely hours. But had I known
your purpose, I would have warned you of the consequences. The child
who attempts to soar above its companions is sure to be dragged down
by the hand of envy. Your teacher saw in your effusion an
unpardonable effort to rise above himself,--to diverge from the beaten
track. You may have indulged too much in the dreams of imagination.
You may have neglected your duties as a pupil. Lay your hand on your
heart and ask it to reply."

She spoke so calmly, so soothingly, so rationally,