The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 | Page 6

the Æolian harp.
Then there is care, most often traced on the face of woman, the care of
responsibility or of work, sometimes of both. A man, however hard he
may labor, if he loses a day, does not always find an accumulation of
work; but with poor, over-worked woman, it is, work or be
overwhelmed with work, as in the punishment of prisoners, it is, pump
or drown. I can not understand how women do get along who, with the
family of John Rogers' wife, assisted only by the eldest daughter, a girl
of thirteen, wash, iron, bake, cook, wash dishes, and sew for the family,

coats and pantaloons included, and that too without the help of a
machine. Oh! that pile of sewing always cut out, to be leveled stitch by
stitch; for, unlike water, it never will find its own level, unless its level
be Mont Blanc, for to such a hight it would reach if left to itself. I could
grow eloquent on the subject, but forbear.
Croakers to the contrary notwithstanding, there is in the record of our
past lives, or in the prophecy of our future, another word than grief or
care; it is joy. My friend, could your history be truthfully written, and
printed in the old style, are there not many passages that would shine
beautifully in golden letters? I say truthfully written; for we are so apt
to forget our joys, while we remember our griefs. Perhaps this is
because joy and its effects are so evanescent. Leland talks beautifully
of 'the perfumed depths of the lotus-word, joyousness;' but in this world
we only breathe the perfume. Could we eat the lotus!... The fabled
lotus-eater wished never to leave the isle whence he had plucked it.
Wrapped in dreamy selfishness, unnerved for the toil of reaching the
far-off shore, he grew indifferent to country and friends.... So earth
would be to us an enchanted isle. The stern toil by which we are to
reach that better land, our home, would become irksome to us. It is well
for us that we can only breathe the perfume.
Then, too, the deepest woe we may know--not the highest joy--that is
bliss beyond even our capacity of dreaming. Some one, in regard to the
ladder Jacob saw in his dream, says: 'But alas! he slept at the foot.' That
any ladder should be substantial enough for cumbersome mortality to
climb to heaven, was too great an impossibility even for a dream.
But read for yourself the faces that swirl through the streets of a city.
Now and then there is one on which the results of all evil passions are
traced. Were it not for the brute in it, it might be mistaken for the face
of a fiend. Though such are few, too many bear the impress of at least
one evil passion. Every passion, unbitted and unbridled, hurries the
soul bound to it--as Mazeppa was bound to the wild horse--to certain
destruction.... But I--as all things hasten to the end--will mention one
word more--the finis of the prophecy--the stamp on the seal of the
record--Death.... We will not dwell on it. Who more than glances at the

finis, who studies the plain word stamped on the seal?
Yours, MOLLY O'MOLLY.
X.
I have read of a young Indian girl, disguised as her lover, whom she
had assisted to escape from captivity, fleeing from her pursuers, till she
reached the brink of a deep ravine; before her is a perpendicular wall of
rock; behind, the foe, so near that she can hear the crackling of the dry
branches under their tread; yet nearer they come; she almost feels their
breath on her cheek; it is useless to turn at bay; there is hardly time to
measure with her eye the depth of the ravine, or its width. A step back,
another forward, an almost superhuman leap, and she has cleared the
awful chasm.... 'Look before you leap,' is one of caution's maxims. We
may stand looking till it is too late to leap. There are times when we
must put our 'fate to the touch, to win or lose it all;' there are times
when doubt, hesitation, caution is certain destruction. You are crossing
a frozen pond, firm by the shore, but as you near the centre, the ice
beneath your feet begins to crack; hesitate, attempt to retrace your steps,
and you are gone. Did you ever cross a rapid stream on an unhewn
foot-log? You looked down at the swift current, stopped, turned back,
and over you went. You would climb a steep mountain-side. Half-way
up, look not from the dizzy hight, but press on, grasping every tough
laurel and bare root; but hasten, the laurel may break, and you lose your
footing.