Seaboard Parish, vol 3 | Page 3

their time. They are but pins, to be sure--not daggers."
"But you have wandered, Harry, into the narrowest underground, musty ways, and have forgotten all about 'the cubicalness of nature.'"
"You are right, my love, as you generally are," I answered, laughing. "Look at that great antlered elk, or moose--fit quarry for Diana of the silver bow. Look how it glides solemnly away into the unpastured depths of the aerial deserts. Look again at that reclining giant, half raised upon his arm, with his face turned towards the wilderness. What eyes they must be under those huge brows! On what message to the nations is he borne as by the slow sweep of ages, on towards his mysterious goal?"
"Stop, stop, Harry," said my wife. "It makes me unhappy to hear grand words clothing only cloudy fancies. Such words ought to be used about the truth, and the truth only."
"If I could carry it no further, my dear, then it would indeed be a degrading of words. But there never was a vagary that uplifted the soul, or made the grand words flow from the gates of speech, that had not its counterpart in truth itself. Man can imagine nothing, even in the clouds of the air, that God has not done, or is not doing. Even as that cloudy giant yields, and is 'shepherded by the slow unwilling wind,' so is each of us borne onward to an unseen destiny--a glorious one if we will but yield to the Spirit of God that bloweth where it listeth--with a grand listing-- coming whence we know not, and going whither we know not. The very clouds of the air are hung up as dim pictures of the thoughts and history of man."
"I do not mind how long you talk like that, husband, even if you take the clouds for your text. But it did make me miserable to think that what you were saying had no more basis than the fantastic forms which the clouds assume. I see I was wrong, though."
"The clouds themselves, in such a solemn stately march as this, used to make me sad for the very same reason. I used to think, What is it all for? They are but vapours blown by the wind. They come nowhence, and they go nowhither. But now I see them and all things as ever moving symbols of the motions of man's spirit and destiny."
A pause followed, during which we sat and watched the marvellous depth of the heavens, deep as I do not think I ever saw them before or since, covered with a stately procession of ever-appearing and ever-vanishing forms--great sculpturesque blocks of a shattered storm--the icebergs of the upper sea. These were not far off against a blue background, but floating near us in the heart of a blue-black space, gloriously lighted by a golden rather than silvery moon. At length my wife spoke.
"I hope Mr. Percivale is out to-night," she said. "How he must be enjoying it if he is!"
"I wonder the young man is not returning to his professional labours," I said. "Few artists can afford such long holidays as he is taking."
"He is laying in stock, though, I suppose," answered my wife.
"I doubt that, my dear. He said not, on one occasion, you may remember."
"Yes, I remember. But still he must paint better the more familiar he gets with the things God cares to fashion."
"Doubtless. But I am afraid the work of God he is chiefly studying at present is our Wynnie."
"Well, is she not a worthy object of his study?" returned Ethelwyn, looking up in my face with an arch expression.
"Doubtless again, Ethel; but I hope she is not studying him quite so much in her turn. I have seen her eyes following him about."
My wife made no answer for a moment. Then she said,
"Don't you like him, Harry?"
"Yes. I like him very much."
"Then why should you not like Wynnie to like him?"
"I should like to be surer of his principles, for one thing."
"I should like to be surer of Wynnie's."
I was silent. Ethelwyn resumed.
"Don't you think they might do each other good?"
Still I could not reply.
"They both love the truth, I am sure; only they don't perhaps know what it is yet. I think if they were to fall in love with each other, it would very likely make them both more desirous of finding it still."
"Perhaps," I said at last. "But you are talking about awfully serious things, Ethelwyn."
"Yes, as serious as life," she answered.
"You make me very anxious," I said. "The young man has not, I fear, any means of gaining a livelihood for more than himself."
"Why should he before he wanted it? I like to see a man who can be content with an art and a living by it."
"I hope I