Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures

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Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures

The Project Gutenberg Etext of Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures
by T. S. Arthur (#10 in our series by T. S. Arthur)
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Title: Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures
Author: T. S. Arthur
Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext #4595] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 12, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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HEART-HISTORIES AND LIFE-PICTURES.
BY T. S. ARTHUR.
NEW YORK:
1853.

INTRODUCTION.

So interested are we all in our every-day pursuits; so given up, body and mind, to the attainment of our own ends; so absorbed by our own hopes, joys, fears and disappointments, that we think rarely, if at all, of the heart-histories of others--of the bright and sombre life-pictures their eyes may look upon. And yet, every heart has its history: how sad and painful many of these histories are, let the dreamy eyes, the sober faces, the subdued, often mournful tones, of many that daily cross our paths, testify. An occasional remembrance of these things will cause a more kindly feeling towards others; and this will do us good, in withdrawing our minds from too exclusive thoughts of self.
Whatever tends to awaken our sympathies towards others, to interest us in humanity, is, therefore, an individual benefit as well as a common good. In all that we have written, we have endeavored to create this sympathy and awaken this interest; and so direct has ever been our purpose, that we have given less thought to those elegancies of style on which a literary reputation is often founded, than to the truthfulness of our many life-pictures. In the preparation of this volume, the same end has been kept in view, and its chief merit will be found, we trust, in its power to do good.
T. S. A.
PHILADELPHIA, December, 1852.

CONTENTS.

THE BOOK OF MEMORY, THE BRILLIANT AND THE COMMON-PLACE, JENNY LAWSON, SHADOWS, THE THANKLESS OFFICE, GOING TO THE SPRINGS, THE WIFE, NOT GREAT BUT HAPPY, THE MARRIED SISTERS, GOOD-HEARTED PEOPLE, SLOW AND SURE, THE SCHOOL GIRL, UNREDEEMED PLEDGES, DON'T MENTION IT, THE HEIRESS,

THE BOOK OF MEMORY.
CHAPTER I.

"THERE is a book of record in your mind, Edwin," said an old man to his young friend, "a book of record, in which every act of your life is noted down. Each morning a blank page is turned, on which the day's history is written in lines that cannot be effaced. This book of record is your memory; and, according to what it bears, will your future life be happy or miserable. An act done, is done forever; for, the time in which it is done, in passing, passes to return no more. The history is written and sealed up. Nothing can ever blot it out. You may repent of evil, and put away the purpose of evil from your heart; but you cannot, by any repentance, bring back the time that is gone, nor alter the writing on the page of memory. Ah! my young friend, if I could only erase some pages in the book of my memory, that almost daily open