The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 | Page 4

human progress.

AN ANGEL ON EARTH.
Die when you may, you will not wear At heaven's court a form more
fair Than beauty at your birth has given; Keep but the lips, the eyes we
see, The voice we hear, and you will be An angel ready-made for
heaven.

THE MOLLY O'MOLLY PAPERS.
VIII
Better than wealth, better than hosts of friends, better than genius, is a
mind that finds enjoyment in little things--that sucks honey from the
blossom of the weed as well as from the rose--that is not too dainty to
enjoy coarse, everyday fare. I am thankful that, though not born under a
lucky star, I wasn't born under a melancholy one; that, though there
were at my christening no kind fairies to bestow on me all the blessings

of life--there was no malignant elf to 'mingle a curse with every
blessing.' I'd rather have a few drops of pure sweet than an overflowing
cup tinctured with bitterness.
Not that sorrow has never blown her chill breath on my spirit--yet it has
never been so iced over that it would not here and there bubble forth
with a song of gladness.... There are depths of woe that I have never
fathomed, or rather, to which I have never sunken--for there are no line
and plummet to sound the dreary depths--yet the waves have
overwhelmed me, as every human being, but I soon rose above them.
'One by one thy griefs shall meet thee, Do not fear an armed band; One
shall fade as others greet thee-- Shadows passing through the land.'
I have found this true--I know there are some to whom it is not
true--that, though sorrows come not to them 'in battalions,' the shadow
of the one huge Grief is ever on their path, or on their heart; that at their
down-sittings and their up-risings it is with them, even darkening to
them the night, and making them almost curse the sunshine; for it is
ever between them and it--not a mere shadow, nor yet a substance, but
a vacuum of light, casting also a shadow. Neither substance nor shadow,
it must be a phantom--it may be of a dead sin--and against such,
exorcism avails. I opine this exorcism lies in no cabalistic words, no
crossing of the forehead, no holy name, in nothing that one can do unto
or for himself, but in entire self-forgetfulness--in doing for, in
sympathizing with, others. So shall this Grief step aside from your path,
get away from between you and the sunshine, till finally it shall have
vanished.
I know--not, however, by experience--that a great sorrow-berg, with
base planted in the under-current of a man's being, has been borne at a
fearful rate, right up against all his nobly-built hopes and projects,
making a complete wreck of them. May God help him then! But must
his being ever after be like the lonely Polar Sea on which no bark was
ever launched?
But surely we have troubles enough without borrowing from the future
or the past, as we constantly do. It is often said, it is a good thing that

we can't look into the future. One would think that that mysterious
future, on which we are the next moment to enter, in which we are to
live our everyday life--one would think it a store-house of evils. Do
you expect no good--are there for you no treasures there?
How often life has been likened to a journey, a pilgrimage, with its
deserts to cross, its mountains to climb!... The road to---- Lake, distant
from my home some eight or ten miles, partly lies through a mountain
pass. You drive a few miles--and a beautiful drive it is, with its pines
and hemlocks, their dark foliage contrasting with the blue sky--on
either hand high mountains; now at your left, then at your right, and
again at your left runs now swiftly over stones, now lingering in
hollows, making good fishing-places, a creek, that has come many glad
miles on its way to the river. But how are you to get over that mountain
just before you? Your horse can't draw you up its rocky, perpendicular
front! Never mind, drive along--there, the mountain is behind you--the
road has wound around it. Thus it is with many a mountain difficulty in
our way, we never have it to climb. There is now and then one, though,
that we do have to climb, and we can't be drawn or carried up by a
faithful nag, but our weary feet must toil up its steep and rugged side.
But many a pilgrim before us has climbed it, and we will not faint on
the way. 'What man has done, man may do.' ... Yet, till I have found out
to a certainty,